Macgasm

[Download] [02.6 MB] [0:04:50]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, we discussed iPhone and iPod Touch Twitter clients. Josh has used Twitterriffic, but he prefers TwitterFon. Grant has tried out everything under the sun, but he likes Tweetsville.

[Download] [02.7 MB] [0:05:50]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, we discuss alternate Webkit-based browsers. Josh talks about the Webkit nightly builds for testing purposes. Grant talks about Stainless, Shiira, and Fluid as ways to use Webkit for different purposes.

The Mophie Juice Pack does exactly what you think it does–provides an extra bit of juice to your iPhone or Touch. The moment you start running out of oomph on your device you can plug in the juice pack and charge that phone of yours up while you’re on the go. It came in really handy on my trip to Europe. Between hopping flights and train rides and the complete lack of power outlets on the trains, this juice pack really saved me a couple of times.

I would like to clear up a couple of issues I had with the device, but before I go on, I would like to reiterate that the mophie juice pack did exactly what I expected it to do, and I’m very happy to recommend it highly to all of you. That being said there are two small quirks about the device that I would like to see addressed.

Either through my own ignorance, or my being completely misled, I originally thought that this device would act as a secondary battery essentially doubling the lifetime of a full charge. While it did that, it did it in a way that I did not expect. I thought that the battery would remain on reserve until it was needed, and then kick in a charge at my greatest moment of need, but to my knowledge this is not what happens at all. I’m not an engineer, so I can’t state definitively how the device works electronically, but over the course of two weeks I noticed a trend big enough to deduce that the mophie juice pack doesn’t remain on reserve at all. Instead, it immediately begins charging the phone. This is both good and extremely bad. The good part about this is that the juice pack doesn’t give the phone the ability to get dangerously low that you run the risk of a power down in the advent of a disconnection between the juice pack and the phone. The downside, the battery pack will run itself dead pretty quickly. Through my amazing powers of deduction, I realized that the juice pack will continue to provide a charge to the phone regardless of whether the phone needs it or not. The juice pack never once lasted the night, and by the morning the device was completely dead. After realizing this was occurring regularly over a couple of uses, my approach to using this device changed drastically.

I started using it in the exact same way I would use a wall outlet, plugging it in just before the phone was about to die, then unplugging it when it was fully charged. Use it to top up your phone when you need it, and not to try double your battery life.

The second major issue I would like to see fixed didn’t reveal itself until I adapted my usage patterns for the device. As I mentioned above I stopped leaving it attached to my phone and started to just plugging it in when I needed it. No big deal. But, after a couple days of having it in my back pack while I tripped around Vienna I started to think about the adapter being completely unprotected in anyway, kicking around my back pack, free to bang and smash into anything else in my bag. The case itself seems sturdy enough to take a pretty brutal beating, but the dock connector plug that it uses to connect to the phone was a completely different story. I would love to see a small insert or cover that would allow me to preserve the integrity of the plug.

On a super cool note, the juice pack recharges with a mini usb power cord. At first I thought that it would be solely used to charge the phone, but, you can also use a USB/mini USB cord to plug the phone into your computer to both charge and access iTunes like you would with the proprietary cord. That’s attention to detail I can get behind. Any time I have to pack less cords I’m a happy man.

As a whole, the device works completely as advertised, and it is by far the best “juice” pack I’ve used to date. The price tag is a bit steep, and being all about the consumers, we’d love to see them come down a bit. But, if your talk time is as important to you as it is to me then you’re more then willing to pay the price to ensure your clients can reach you when they need you the most.

[Download] [02.3 MB] [0:04:50]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

In this episode, we discuss note-taking applications. Josh likes ShoveBox, and Grant likes VoodooPad Pro. However, both of them agree on Evernote. In any case, both of them use their Macs to take notes.

The Internets have been a flutter over the last few days with what may be the next revision to the Mac Mini line.

On Thursday, MacRumors posted an image from their forums that one of their users purported to be the next Mac Mini, the most noticeable revision was the addition of a fifth USB port and the replacement of the DVI connector with a mini-DVI and mini-DisplayPort.

Later that day, a 9t05Mac reader posted an image which was manipulated to show the effects of Photoshop or other editing software. This analysis declared the image fake for a variety of reason.

On Friday afternoon the source of the image posted a video of the device. The video is simply someone’s hand spinning the Mac Mini slowly.

The rumored specifications are to be similar to the Macbook, as is usual with the Mac Mini;

Intel Core 2 Duo

2GHz

3MB L2 Cache

2gb DDR3 RAM

Superdrive with SATA connection

The MacRumors thread is still going strong and I will keep you updated with the outcome. Hopefully we will see this or a similar revision to the line in the next few months; it has been almost two years since the last Mac Mini update and the specs are understandably lagging.

Thanks to AppleInsider and MacRumors.

There have been reports over the last week or so about the decline in Mac desktop sales. I believe there are a few reasons for this trend.

The first of these being just the general trend of consumers to choose laptops over desktops. With the portability of laptops and the smaller physical footprint, many consumers are choosing to go with laptops instead of desktop computers. Most of the laptops on the market are perfectly fine for a vast majority of consumers. The typical user doesn’t need to be transcoding 1080p video, editing 1GB Photoshop files, or even running high end games. They’re just surfing the web, chatting with friends, and doing some minor photo editing and video tinkering. Therefore the need for high-end graphics and large capacity (over 500GB) hard drives isn’t necessary.

The second being the economy. Yes, the economy is in the tank and we all know it, but that doesn’t stop people from buying computers. We know this because Apple had its best quarter from October 2008 to December 2008 with sales of 2.52 million Macs. Which by my opinion is a good number of sales of anything. Most of these were probably laptops, with some desktops sprinkled in there as well. New laptops were announced on October 14th, early within the quarter, providing ample time for holiday sales as well as those who were waiting until the refreshed laptops came out.

The third reason being the lack of up-to-date desktops available from Apple. The Mac Mini, which is positioned to be their ‘switcher’ device, is still running the same hardware from August 2007. While some people are willing to sacrifice newness for cost, the likelihood of people agreeing to purchase equipment that is essentially from May 2007 (the Macbooks from that time have the same specs as the current Mac Minis). This is completely unacceptable in most people’s opinions, and I fully agree. In addition, the price of the Mac minis needs to drop by $200 or more in order to have people buy more of them. A $399 Mac Mini is something people are willing to buy. Particularly if they end up using it as a media center type device.

The iMacs are a bit more up-to-date since the last update to the iMac line was back in April 2008. These will probably get an update within the next few months. They still need the Mini-display port, graphics updates and the like. There have been rumors of these being updated since Apple has told their distribution chain not to expect any more 24″ iMacs.

The fourth thing being that I see desktops becoming more of a niche item. To be used for those specialty things like video compression, RAID, large photo editing and very resource intensive applications. The physical footprint of a desktop is not something people are willing to commit to anymore, plus why wouldn’t you just want to get a laptop for general use?

I didn’t even being to talk about the Mac Pro because most consumers aren’t likely to purchase that. It seems to be enthusiasts or those who really do need the power. If they need the power, then they’re going to do research as to their best options in what to purchase. Suffice it to say that the Mac Pro is WAY too overpriced and needs to come down in price.

Overall, if Apple wants to be able to continue to sell their desktop lines, they will need to keep updated as well as keeping the prices low. Yes, I understand that you want to keep your 33% or higher margins, but if you sacrifice the margins on the desktop lines, at least the MacMini, you will be in a better position in the long run to pull more users over. Those who are resistant to switch might be willing to drop $400 to try out a Mac, but definitely not $600 for a machine that’s fast approaching 2 years old.

[Download] [01.8 MB] [0:03:45]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

Now that Techspansion‘s VisualHub and iSquint are now defunct, we are on the look out for other tools to convert our audio. We suggest using Handbrake and Quicktime Pro currently, but keep an eye on FilmRedux in the future.

[Download] [01.6 MB] [0:03:20]
Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brunner

We discus the benefits of using SafariStand as an add-on for Apple’s Safari web browser.