Macgasm

We’ve been arguing for months about whether or not this new tablet that Apple may, or may not be announcing is going to be name an iTablet, or an iSlate, but now we have a third option to add to the mix.  The — wait for it — iPad.

Obviously references aside the name is still… terrible.  Sure, it’s a cousin to the iPod, but do we really need people walking around referring to things as their Pad? Really?

So why the iPad you might be asking?  Well apparently some people spend a lot of time looking into Apple patents, and they seem to be pretty damn good at it.  So good in fact that they’re making a lot of us web journalists look bad.  What they turned up was a dummy corporation owned by Apple called Slate computing (go figure), who has apparently applied for a trademark on iPad in 2009 in Canada.  But, the shenanigans don’t end there,  similar companies have also filed trademarks in Europe, Hong Kong, New Zealand, and Australia.  The filings in New Zealand, and Australia were submitted on Friday, January 15, 2010.

Internet sources need to be taken with a giant bag of salt, but there’s a lot of trademarks pointing to the same thing now. I hope that Apple’s just trying to throw us off the scent, because I’m not sure I can stomach all the Pad references over the next 5 years. If you know what I’m saying.

[via MacRumors]

9-to-5 Mac has some speculation that the rumored Apple tablet will be US only. I find myself agreeing with this. I can see it staying only in the US at least for while.

When the Amazon Kindle was first introduced back in 2007 it was US only. Why? Well, it’s all thanks to publishing agreements. Each country has its own rules and regulations for publishers and each can choose how to publish its own books. Take, for instance, the famous Harry Potter books. In the United States they are published by Scholastic. In the UK they are published by Bloomsbury. It’s not just the books themselves that have differing aspects, though. The Harry Potter audiobooks are read by two different people depending on where you purchase them. In the US, they are read by Jim Dale. In the UK they are read by Stephen Fry. This is all heavily dependent on the contracts that are signed in each locality.

Because of the complexity of the world of publishing, it could mean a US only launch of the Apple tablet if it is supposed to be an eReader. Will it always stay that way? Probably not. It will, however, take Apple some time to make deals with the publishers to allow content to be produced and distributed via its iTunes mechanism in different countries.

We will all find out who is right and who is wrong on January 27th, 2010.

Earth Image source is from Woody Wonder Works on flickr.
Tablet image source is from Photo Giddy on Flickr.

I’m in love, and I can’t believe it, but it’s with a “diary” application.
Not only is this application absolutely gorgeous, but it does everything I expect an iPhone application to do — automate stuff.

This modern twist on the traditional diary connects to a couple of your social media networks, much like SocialThing! does, but presents it in a nice little package for you. Momento currently does not connect to “everything”, but they do go out and grab content from Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Last.fm. The funny thing is that those are pretty much all of my major social networks, so I get this sneaky suspicion that this app was created with me in mind.

In addition to parsing that information and pulling it into Momento, the application also lets you manual enter information as well as rate your day. Both super handy for those of us who like to keep a brief log of our life in case we ever make it famous and have a chance to create a biography. Dare to dream.

I can’t get over the simplicity of this application, and the beauty in which they display our daily entries. They’re design team needs a giant hand clap for that.

As if the above wasn’t enough to warrant your 2.99, they’ve also built in some pretty sleek tagging features. You can tag people directly from your address book, which if you can recall integrates with Facebook now. You can tag your place manually, or with the GPS settings. They even let you manually tag an event, and add pictures from your phone. It’s pretty mind blowing, simple, and elegant, all at the same time.

Here’s the kicker. This application lets you export all of this information from your phone, and mails you an XML compliant file. You know what that means? You can easily turn this into a weblog, or store the files on your computer for later use in a text-editor, or biography project.

Absolutely amazing stuff.

A request for the future

Seeing how this is really Diary 2.0 type stuff, Momento would really benefit for some deeper Facebook integration, as well as integrating into Gowalla or FourSquare. These features could be in the pipeline, but I’d love to be able to get more our of my Facebook network, as well as get my location information from Gowalla. The less I have to type in manually the more likely I’ll be using this application as my daily log. Like I said, it might be in the pipeline, and it’s hardly a deal breaker, but that integration would really put Momento over the top for me.

PhotoGallery

One thing that I always liked doing in Ubuntu was making some of my windows transparent, so I could see what was going on behind them. For instance, if I wanted to watch a movie, but still be able to see what’s going on behind the screen I’d turn down the opacity a little. Being able to do that in OS X is something that didn’t exist until now.

I was looking for a plugin that would let you keep a window on top of your workflow, no matter what application I was using at the time, and it turns out that in a round about way I found an application that kills two birds with one stone.  Turns out there’s a SIMBL plugin that lets you do just what I was looking for.

Keeping a particular window in the foreground

Afloat lets you, as the title suggests, keep certain windows floating above all other windows at all times. For instance, if you’re working in Google Docs, and you’re getting annoyed every time you jump into another program because the Google Docs windows gets moved to the background, then Afloat is what you need.

After installation, you’re required to close out the applications you’re using, and upon their relaunch, you’ll notice a couple new menu options in the “Windows” menu of your application.

Lets you make certain windows transparent

Like I mentioned off the top, Afloat also lets you set the transparency of your window. You can use a keyboard shortcut to increase or decrease the opacity for every window you want to mess around with.

The opacity/opaque settings might not be for everyone, but I know a bunch of people who are already using afloat to de-emphasize iTunes, and some other applications around the desktop.

The application is free, so you’re free to try it out at your leisure.

Here’s a rundown of my predictions for January 27th’s “Come see our latest creation” event.  First, I do believe that Apple will be introducing the Tablet.  The title for the event pretty much cinches the deal.  Now some might say how are you getting that from a title?  Well, the rumor mill basically points to the tablet.

My second prediction is, I don’t believe Apple will be announcing the 22” iMac Touchscreen.  I’ll venture to guess that they’ll probably announce the Touchscreen iMac at a later event.  Who knows, this might be Steve Job’s famous “one more thing”, however, I doubt it.

My third prediction is that they will announce a new iLife and iWork suite.  A quick blurb from Gizmodo suggests that Apple has been working on a multi-touch version of iWork.  That would be a nice addition to their new product.

My final prediction is that Apple will not be announcing iPhone OS 4.0.  Historically, this is an event held in March that roadmaps the new features for the OS.  They also demo new applications that will take advantage of the iPhone’s new hardware.

Now remember these are only my predictions.  So, lets see how many of them come to fruition.  January 27th can’t come soon enough.

[via Gizmodo]

Header Photo Credit: Apple ”Let’s Rock”

Photo Credit: Super Bowl Sunday Crystal Ball

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BarMax CA has been released for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is a prep course for the California Bar. Big whoop, right? Californian law-students with iPhones can’t be a huge market. Well, sure, but here is the interesting part: It costs $999.99.

The iPhone has a sordid past involving astoundingly priced apps, but this seems to be a completely legitimate $1000 app. Unlike the “I’m Rich” application from a while back, this actually does something very substantial for you (Provided you’re trying to become a lawyer in the state of California).

If you sincerely would like to use a trial of this application, you can contact the developer, and they’ll set you up with one. That way you’ll be able to make sure this is what you want before dropping a grand. Decent of them, I’d say.

Photo Credit: Jeff Kubina & mrbill

According to the Wall Street Journal, HarperCollins has been in talks with Apple to produce more than just standard e-books for the rumored Apple Tablet.

The standard e-books, being text with an occasional picture, have been going for $9.99 as a standard price. Brian Murray, chief executive of HarperCollins, claims that enhanced e-books, containing video, author interviews, and other features, could fetch price tags between $14.99 and $19.99. The tablet will be a significant competitor for Amazon’s Kindle and it will be interesting to see how its introduction affects the e-book market. I anticipate that in order for people to really accept the idea of e-books, they will need to be accessible on more than one device. However, history shows that Apple typically creates closed systems.

The biggest question, although it seems obvious, is where would the items be sold? Would they be sold only through iTunes or through a brand new store? My guess is that the items will be sold through iTunes with the standard 70/30 split, unless Apple really wants to put the screws to Amazon by negotiating with the publishers more of an 80/20 split.

Image Source Photo Giddy on flickr
Article Source Wall Street Journal