Macgasm

The first time I saw BumpTop was when they were demoing it with Windows 7′s touch interface. The demo was pretty good.  It definitely peaked my interests.  When I saw that it was only for Windows, but not the Mac, I was pretty disappointed. So, I signed up to be notified when the Mac version would be available. Months had gone by, and I would check in from time to time, but still no Mac version.

Well, last week that all changed. I was excited to see it released on the Mac. I downloaded the free version of BumpTop. I poked around quite a bit, but I found out quickly how the free version lacked certain features.  Plus, to truly take advantage of the gestures, you need to have a MacBook Pro with a MulitTouch trackpad.

In the free version it lacks the following features: multitouch gestures, unlimited sticky notes, flip-through piles, find-as-you-type, and premium support.  For $29.00 you can have all of these features, and you can load it on up to three Macs. Because I signed up to be notified of the Mac version, I received a license for one week’s use of the Pro version.

These features are now unlocked till January 27th.  I think this is something that all software developers need to adopt. It gives you the chance to truly use the software, and figure out if you really like it or not.  In my opinion, when an application is crippled, you can’t truly experience it properly.

Unfortunately, after using this software, I have found it to be much like Apple’s widgets. They were fun to play with at first, but I can’t really see myself using it on a daily basis.  This software really shines with a touch interface. I think that’s what I really liked about it to begin with.  If Apple comes out with a Touch iMac, then perhaps this software would be more enjoyable to use. BumpTop definitely has some potential.

I highly recommend everyone to download the free version and try it out for yourself.  You can get it by clicking here.  Leave a comment with your experiences, your likes or dislikes.  I would like to hear other peoples experiences with this software.

Photo Credit: BumpTop Logo

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Apple made it official. They will be holding an event to show off ‘our latest creation’ to the world in the Yurbo Buena center for the Arts on January 27th, 2010 at 10AM PT. Here’s what I would like and expect to see. Let us start with the most plausible.

iPhone OS 4.0. Rumors have been suggesting iPhone OS 4.0. iPhone OS 4.0 would make sense, since Apple has not done that many revisions in each of the iPhone OS major versions. The last version of 1.X was 1.3. The last version of 2.X was 2.2.1 and the last version of 3.X currently is 3.1.2. This is almost a certainty given that there have been NO beta versions nor releases for iPhone OS since October 8th, 2009. There have been additional leaks with the ‘iPhone Developer Program Renewal agreement that has yet to be updated.

iLife ’10. iLife ’09 was introduced just over a year ago at MacWorld 2009. Now the odd thing is that iLife ’08 was introduced in August of 2007. So this would come back to their ‘yearly’ release schedule. Boy Genius Report published an article back on December 1st stating the iLife 2010 will have an update to iDVD to include iTunes LP publishing. This rumored update would allow many independent publishers to submit their iTunes LP content to iTunes.

iTunes X (10). I have heard nothing about iTunes X. But one would think that a new device would mean a new version of iTunes. It could incorporate Apple’s acquisition of Lala to allow streaming music via the cloud. I highly doubt this, since it will take Apple a bit to negotiate the rights for streaming. Although, this could be possible come September during the next iPod announcement.

And now that the plausible is out of the way, let us take a look into the ‘What was he thinking’ category.

The most radical idea comes from a 2006 Apple patent, which Apple Insider posted in 2008. Imagine the Apple Tablet device being able to be slid into an iMac frame. Which would only be a slight variation on the Lenova U1. Do I expect this? No, but it would be rather cool if I could have essentially two devices in one. A tablet that was a tablet when outside its shell, but a full blown Mac OS X device when plugged in. This, in my own life would be complete nirvana I wouldn’t have to spend extra money on a second laptop. The tablet could run entirely on OpenCL and run everything off of a Snapdragon processor while running in ‘tablet’ mode. When docked it could utilize the full processing power of the iMac’s powerhouse. I’d be willing to pay a good chunk of change, say $750 or $800 for the tablet, plus another $500 to $600 for the iMac chassis. There have been no rumors — excluding my own wishing — that this will be a reality.

Another completely unsubstantiated rumor is that Apple will introduce the iPod Touch with a camera. Giving users six months from the last release date seems like something Apple would do. There are no rumors currently floating out there, except my own.

Here are some other completely unfounded ideas. The ‘One More Thing’ will be that Apple has purchased the rights to ‘Duke Nukem Forever’ and will be distributing it solely on the new Tablet device. It will require an initial brain scan to determine if you’re worthy to accept the perfection of the game.

Another completely false, perhaps, rumor is that there will be a Beatle’s Yellow tablet completely with all of the Videos and songs of everything the Beatles have done. It’ll be called the ‘Yellow Submarine’ tablet because it will sink your credit score and make you Yellow with how much it costs. Retail price: $3500.

Those are all of the rumors / ideas that might, or in most cases, won’t happen. If there’s something you would like to see, let us know in the comments.

I ran across a twitter post that mentioned iProxy, a proxy for the iPhone. I decided to try it out, and here is what I found.

The application works, compiles and installs all without errors. The process is quite simple and is outlined below:

1. Download the .zip, or .tgz file from the downloads page.
2. Extract the .zip or .tgz file.
3. Build and Run the source with the target as your iPhone.
4. Create a Network on your laptop.
5. Have your iPhone join the network.
6. Set the proxy settings on your laptop to the proxy and port shown on your iPhone.

That’s it. A quick note: You may have to manually assign IP addresses, I did not have to do with with my Mac since both IP addresses ended up in the 169.254.x.x network.

There are a few things you have to keep in mind. The first is that you MUST have a developer account. Without this, the application will not install on your iPhone. Secondly, this is not actual tethering. It’s merely a proxy running on your phone.

It does work, and it works well. It works better than the Netshare application does, only because it does not use as much battery power as the Netshare application. iProxy is free, but does require a iPhone developer account.

It is very tempting to dress up your Mac to the nines. I know that I certainly want to change a Mac to my Mac. It can make your workflow much simpler, but there is much peril in customizing your Mac too much.

I might very well be the only person in the world that uses Mac OS X’s hot corners. I have customized search functions in Safari thanks to SafariStand. Google Quick Search Box and Typinator have both slowly crept into my workflow. These all make my life much better when I am on my own machines, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes I have to use other computers. Stock installs of OS X seem just as foreign to me as Windows is. I’ll incessantly fling my cursor to the corner, and try to search Wikipedia in the URL bar. I can’t stop myself. It is second nature to me to use my customizations all the time, and that really slows me down on other computers.

If you only plan on using your computer with your setup, then by all means tweak away. However, if you plan on using other computers AT ALL you need to curtail yourself before it is too late. Don’t go crazy with the customizations on Friday when you know you’ll have to use the plain ol’ Mac lab at school on Monday.

Photo Credit: Per Ola Wiberg (Powi)

With Wednesday coming a lot quicker than my wallet might like, I thought it’d be fun to pass along a score card for the big event. David Weiss has put together a long list that includes any rumour that has been talked about over the last couple of months. You’ll find everything from a Tablet to iPhone OS 4.0.

If you happen to have an iPhone or Touch you can also fallow along with David Weiss’s iPhone app.  It’s $2.99 on the appstore.  The application does a great job of aggregating the speculation in the rumor mill.

The PDF version of the prediction chart focuses heavily on a Tablet announcement, so if we guess wrong their might be a low scoring affair.  So, if you want to put your money where your mouth is you can toss your predictions into the comments.

Here are my guesses:

Page: 1 (all yes)
Page: 2 (No, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, No, No,No,No, Yes)
Page: 3 (No. No, Yes, No, No, No, No, Yes, No, No, Yes, Yes, No, Yes)
Page: 4 (No, No, No, Yes, No )

Well, you all might remember back around mid 2009 that Google voice was planning on releasing their iPhone app for Google Voice. All was happy in the tech world, right? Google Voice users would no longer have to pay for a 3rd party app. Then all of a sudden all google voice 3rd party apps were yanked from the app store, and Apple REJECTED Googles official app! What?! The battle went on for a while. Google blamed Apple. Apple blamed AT&T, and then AT&T blamed Apple. Google finally announced that they would make a web app that worked just like their native application. That day has finally come.

Today, January 26 2010, google updated their google voice web app with a whole new look. This is a drastic change from their first web app. You can send and receive SMS through the app. When placing a call though, you will input the number you want to call and google will then call you so it can connect the call. It is still a bit of a work around, but now it is in a much prettier package. Sadly this is probably as close as iPhone users will ever get to an actual Google Voice application, unless they jailbreak their phones.

[Image Credit: TampaBay.com]

When Steve Jobs is excited about an upcoming product release we take note. It’s not very often that Jobs displays his excitement for a product so when he does the warning bells go off. Something big must be coming, or is it Jobs signaling the media with his own personal bat signal, I guess we’ll find out on the 27th.

Jobs is quoted as saying, “The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.” It looks like we’re getting something new and exciting, and given the state of the rumors churning around he internet I’d be a fool to suggest that it’s not a Tablet. The speculation has hit such an all time high that my RSS reader has turned into a Tablet discussion board. After a quick count, approximately twenty percent of the news stories in my inbox have a reference to the Tablet announcement in some way. I don’t ever remember there being this much buzz, not even for the iPhone which surely had a moment in the spotlight before that big announcement.

The quote in the release caught my eye not only because of the reference to a new product being released tomorrow, but also because product had an “S”.  That means that this year might be the kind of year that we see a couple new products from Apple, which hasn’t really happened over the last couple of years.  Recently it has been one product refresh over another, but nothing really new.  It should be an exciting year for Apple Inc. and Apple fans alike, hopefully it all starts tomorrow.  Any guesses on what other products might be nearing the end of Apple’s development pipeline and that might be ready for use by the masses?

[Image Via TechCrunch]