Macgasm

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In this episode, we talk about what we can expect from Mac OS X 10.7.

[02.3 MB] [00:08:30] [Hosted by: Josh Schnell & Grant Brünner] [Subscribe]

It didn’t take me long to realize that the iPad is a multi-user device, and that Apple needs to take this into account and provide people with the ability to use multiple accounts.

The iPad’s a tweener device. It’s not small enough to replace an iPhone, much like the Touch, and it’s certainly not powerful enough to replace a laptop for some, but it’s the perfect coffee table device.

I have a hard time seeing a family pick up more than one iPad as it stands, but I can certainly see the iPad kicking around kitchen tables, and coffee tables in most homes. This is where the problem begins, and Apple certainly needs to take this into account–more than one user is problematic for most people.

If dad has his work email set up on the device, and mom and the kids enjoy playing a couple of games on it, and the teenager likes it for watching videos and using Facebook, should they all have access to Dad’s email? What if they all want to use the mail client? See the problem? The iPad is more computer than iPod, and it’ll do Apple some good to think about it in these terms.

After spending more than a week with the device, I can see how it would fit naturally into a families eco-system, but I’d be reluctant to leave the device laying around the house without some form of user account. I don’t have kids, and I don’t have teens kicking around, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that a small family could be face with some privacy problems on the device.

Would you want your kids accessing your Twitter account, or Facebook account, how about financial information with applications like Cha-Ching?

The iPod Touch is cheap enough to consider it for a gift for some families, but the iPad is starting to slide out of the traditional families price range as a gift. If Apple get the most people using iPads as possible, they’re going to have to think of a way to make it a little more secure in a multi-user environment. As it is, small and medium businesses might not be comfortable with the level of security the devices currently provides.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the iPad is the next major hurdle in the technology world, and I believe that Apple’s done a great job as getting us there before anyone else. The iPad has changed the way I’ve been using my laptop, and it’s certainly let me re-gain some of my time—it’s just that effective. If you want to do something, you can do it distraction free. No text messages to sidetrack you from answering email, and no twitter to interrupt you while you’re checking RSS feeds. It eliminates sidetracks, and helps you get things done, but if a family wants to use it, you’re limited to having to sign out and back in all the time for applications, or even worse, sharing the mail app with multiple accounts.

Several weeks ago, Macgasm did a preview of the Joule iPad Stand by Element Case.  Today we have a review, and one lucky Macgasm reader will win a black matte Joule stand engraved with the Macgasm logo!

The Giveaway

To enter the giveaway just tweet the following by clicking here (opens the twitter website; must be logged in): “Macgasm.net is giving away a Joule iPad Stand! RT to enter! http://su.pr/2KjTLW” The contest runs from today (May 21, 2010) until next Thursday (May 27, 2010 @ 12:00 midnight EST).  The winner will be announced on Friday, May 28.  Contest is limited to people in the US and Canada who are age 18 and above.

Contestants will be entered into a list, and selected by a random number generator.

The Review

The Joule iPad stand is a gorgeous metal stand.  Made of solid aluminum, it sports a shiny chrome surface ($129), or, if you prefer, a black matte finish ($139).  If you choose the matte finish, you can have your stand engraved with your name or a logo.

Inside the package are the base, the foot, and a carrying case.  You’ll definitely want to keep the stand in its carrying case when it’s not in use, especially if you stick it in a bag with your iPad.  The stand is so heavy you won’t want it bouncing around and coming in contact with your precious gizmo.  While there’s no instruction booklet included, the cardboard label has a photograph that demonstrates the stand’s three positions, and it’s pretty obvious how the Joule works.

The base has a velvet-lined interior that protects your iPad from scratches. On the underside are two rubber feet that keep the base from slipping.

You can insert the iPad either horizontally or vertically into the stand.  When the iPad is vertical, the power button is accessible through the curved opening in the stand.  There is also a cutout that allows sound to come out the iPad’s speakers.  Unfortunately, in the vertical position you can’t insert the iPad’s dock connector, so you can’t use the stand and charge the iPad at the same time.  In the landscape position, all the controls are easily accessible and you can plug the iPad in.

The stand offers three viewing positions.

High

Medium

Low

What’s Macgasmic:  The Joule iPad stand is simply gorgeous.  It’s solid and holds the iPad securely in both vertical and horizontal positions.  The stand is perfect for viewing videos, displaying on a desk, or typing with an external keyboard.

What’s Not:  First, the stand only works with a bare naked iPad.  The opening will not accommodate even the most form-fitting case (though skins should be fine).  For example, my husband has the Griffin FlexGrip case, which is a pretty minimalist case, and his iPad wouldn’t fit in the Joule.  So, in order to use the Joule, you’ll either need to forego a case or remove your iPad from its case each time.

Second, I was hoping that, on the lowest setting, the Joule would angle the iPad correctly for typing.  Unfortunately, the angle is too sharp, forcing your hands upward into an uncomfortable position.  Within just a few minutes, my hands and wrists were aching. Of course, if you use an external keyboard with your iPad, this will not be an issue.

Third, obviously $129 is pretty expensive for a stand.  If you shot your wad buying your iPad, you might prefer going to your local office supply and purchasing a $3.00 business card holder.  If, however, you desire something both beautiful and extraordinarily well made, the Joule is well worth the price. It is more than just an iPad stand, it is a work of modern art.

The Joule is an elegant, sturdy stand that complements the clean lines and aesthetics of your iPad. It offers three different viewing angles and the option of portrait or landscape orientation.  It can display your iPad on your desk while you work, on your kitchen counter while you prepare dinner, or on your coffee table while you watch a movie.  The only task you can’t do well with the Joule is type directly on your iPad.

Photo Credit:  Two images are courtesy Element Case; all other images are by Susan Pigott.

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Huge thanks go out to:

The Mac Sale

The fine folks at The Mac Sale have decided that they like us enough to advertise, which we’re really happy about, because we love them just as much as they love us! We’re not sure what they have in store, but there’s another software bundle coming, so keep your eyes peeled. We’ll be sure to update you as soon as we get more information from them.

Mac Keeper

A lot of people overlook maintaining their Macs, and Mac Keeper is hoping to change that. They provide a bunch of applications, all bundled together to help you clean, secure, and speed up your applications. They have 24/7 support, a built-in live chat, in addition to a host of excellent maintenance tools. The bundle is currently on sale for 30% off, so you’ll want to head over there and check them out.

Drobo

We’ve been lingering over a review for the Drobo S (because it’s so awesome, we don’t want to stop playing with it long enough to write!), but we can’t say enough about their products. They’re well built, and do exactly as

advertised and that’s a rarity in today’s world. We’ve done an unboxing video showing off the Drobo S and we have a full featured review scheduled for next week. So without stealing the thunder of our upcoming review, we just want to say that this is by far the best backup solution we’ve come across. If you’re in need of a storage solution, you’ll want to buy one of their models. It really does provide peace of mind knowing that your data is safe.

I saw Iron Man 2 last weekend, and I loved every single second of it. That movie is constructed of Pure, Fortified Awesome™ from start to finish (and for the love of Dog, if you haven’t seen it yet, STAY TO THE END OF THE CREDITS). However, the age of mass commercialization we live in means that nothing remotely good is allowed to exist in mainstream media without a metric assload of promo tie-ins designed to milk every last cent of your allowance away in order to line the pockets of some old rich white dude living in Nashville or wherever.

So of course, one of the first things I did after walking out of the movie was separate myself from 49 of my hard-earned Swedish Kronor and downloaded the official Iron Man 2 game from the app store.

I have a few questions for the developers of this game. Namely, couldn’t you even TRY to find a voice actor that sounds REMOTELY like Robert Downey Jr.? The dialogue in this game is horrible: corny 1-liners that sound like they’re read by people from the Keanu Reeves school of acting do not good voice-acting make.

That aside, the actual gameplay left me feeling pretty sour as well. The touch screen controls are awkward at best: you use your left thumb to control an on-screen joystick, your right thumb to activate various weapons and powers, and the… third hand the developers apparently assume you’ve been blessed with (?) to drag an index finger across the screen to change your camera angle. This convoluted control structure makes it impossible to move, shoot, and look around at the same time – a necessity when you’re surrounded by half a dozen robots all shooting at you from different directions. Good thing your energy bar completely replenishes itself after every skirmish. Funny, I don’t remember Iron Man having that ability in the movie. I also don’t remember his only hand-to-hand combat move being doing the splits in mid-air while double-axe-handle-smashing his opponent’s head in, but that’s a staple move in this game.

Iron Man, feeling the effects of yet another laser blast to the torso, courtesy of yet another goddamn offscreen enemy.

And, just when I thought I was done with random running around getting shot at by invisible flying robots, I was given a quest! Three bombs were set in buildings, and I had 3 minutes to find and defuse them! Hot damn, something to do! So, off I went in search of the bombs. I found the first one, only to be greeted with:

Iron Man strikes me as the kind of guy who solves puzzles with missiles. Not sliding tiles.

A puzzle. In which alternate Marvel universe does Iron Man defuse bombs by assembling an Arc Reactor in sliding-tile-puzzle format? Did The Riddler suddenly cross over from DC and bring all of his crappy plotlines with him? Lame. Anyways, I “defused” the first two bombs and went in search of the third. Time was winding down, but I finally found it… or did I?

Was this glowy red chainlink fence in the movie?

A red, glowing, 10 foot high chain link fence stood in my way. Try as I might, I couldn’t find a way around it, time ran down, I failed the quest, was told to start again, and deleted the game.

Aside from the fact that I don’t exactly remember this scene from the movie, I’d like to remind the people who wrote this game that Iron Man can FLY. A 10-foot high fence would halt his progress for precisely 2 seconds while he decided whether to fly over it or melt it into oblivion.

It’s cheap, shoddy, shameless game-lengthening techniques like this that make me never want to play your game again. However, the team that built this already succeeded as far as I was concerned: they already had my money. It’s made even more disappointing by how much I loved the movie. I wanted to love this game, but unfortunately the only real connection I can see between it and the movie is the music.

Final verdict: Pass. Save your money. Watch this instead.

Wait long enough and someone’s going to pass you by, it doesn’t matter if you’re better, or if you have a newer concept, the first to market tends to win, and historically it’s been Apple. But this time it was Google making an announcement before there was even rumours about an upcoming Apple product.

Google’s bringing Android to the TV and along with that comes Android apps. Yup, you heard us right, Android application will be able to run natively on your beautiful 1080p television. We’ve heard small rumbling from analysts about Apple turning the AppleTV into a more integrated system in your living room, but it was all speculation. Google’s pretty much made it a reality before Apple’s even tossed us a bone. This is bad for Apple, but excellent for consumers.

Apple and Google have had a long standing feud ongoing, and we’d be willing to bet that Google just lit a fire under Apple’s rear. Steve Jobs doesn’t like being left out on new markets, and if he’s confident that they can release a stronger product, coupled with the AppStore, we may now see it sooner then they had originally planned.

It’s probably not going to be the “one more thing” announced at the upcoming WWDC, but you can bet your last dollar that Steve Jobs will have kicked production up a notch. Or, maybe they’ll just abandon it altogether, who knows.

But let’s hope the user interface isn’t designed by Google engineers. Graphic designers, engineers do not make.

Article Via Techcrunch

On Tuesday Apple quietly updated the Polycarbonite MacBook.  This is the white plastic Macbook.  To give us the 411 on what was updated, Wayne Dixon wrote a piece Tuesday on the MacBooks upgraded hardware entitled, “White MacBooks: New Innards, Same Look”.  What was not known to him or anyone else is that Apple also updated the Mini DisplayPort to support audio and video with the Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter.

Eric Slivka of MacRumors.com writes that Apple has posted a Support Document that illustrates the HDMI functionality.

“Mini DisplayPort (video out): Connect to an external display, projection device, or TV that uses a DVI, HDMI (audio and video) or VGA connector with a separate adapter.

According to a footnote regarding the HDMI compatibility, users should be sure to use a VESA-compliant adapter to enable the full capabilities.”

Basically, now you can use the Mini DisplayPort to HDMI adapter to pass both audio and video through a single cable.  In the previous MacBook you could only pass video through the Mini DisplayPort to HDMI cable.  The only option for passing audio was to use the audio out port on the MacBook.  This is self-defeating since HDMI is fully capable of passing both audio and video.

Image depicts the ports on the new MacBook.

The current iMac and MacBook Pros offer this feature with the Mini DisplayPort, and now the MacBook is equipped with this hardware.  One would think that Apple is blurring the lines between their entry level MacBook and their Macbook Pros.  I would have to disagree with that statement.  Apple is giving the consumer better hardware for less money.  With this new MacBook you’re getting more bang for your buck.

As a side note, I noticed that Apple has not included a FireWire 800 port.  The entry level MacBook has had this port removed for sometime now.  You can only get this port on the MacBook Pro line.  When it was first removed there was a huge uproar in the Mac community, and rightfully so.  A lot of people use FireWire devices for things like FireWire hard drives, or for placing their Mac in Target Disk Mode to transfer data.

As I mentioned earlier, Apple is giving us more for less.  With the exception of the FireWire 800 port we are getting better hardware than what was previously offered.  With this new information in hand you can now connect your MacBook to your HDMI enabled TV and start watching movies and TV shows right from your MacBook.

Photo Credit: MacBook Ports Image & New MacBook

Article Via MacRumors.com

We would have assumed Apple would have filed the AT&T debacle in the lessons learned file down in Cupertino—people don’t like crappy service. No one really blames Apple for signing exclusivity deals with telecommunications companies around the world, it’s how the world turns these days.

The geek in us wishes their phones would have shipped unlocked on day one, but we’re willing to agree that without these exclusivity deals in place, we probably wouldn’t have been able to afford the iPhone anyway. Again, we don’t blame Apple for going down the road.

But, the question remains, is now the time to take the fork in the road for greener pastures? Exclusivity has come to an end in a number of countries. In Canada the phone is available on both the Bell and Rogers networks, and we couldn’t have been happier then we were when that was announced.

Users in both China and the US are still locked to one company if consumers want an iPhone. In the US a lot of people switched to AT&T to get the iPhone, despite their track record for excessive dropped calls, and poor reception areas around the country. Unfortunately the Chinese don’t seem to be doing the same. The iPhone’s key demographic in China isn’t flocking to the device, and it seems like China Unicom is the primary reason. According to Cult of Mac, “Fewer than 10 percent of China residents between the age of 22 and 32 use China Unicom, and of that group, most said they disliked the service.” Out of 2,000 of the mobile phone owners surveyed, “more than 9 out of 10 people questions pointed to rival China Mobile as having better coverage and service.” That’s a lot of hate directed at a company, but it’s an important statistic if you’re Apple looking to sign a deal with a telecommunications company.

Thankfully, the exclusivity era is coming to an end, and with rumors of Verizon getting access to the fourth iPhone generation, these types of problems will quickly be coming to a close in North America. Hopefully, Apple sees fit to do the same thing in China, because the Chinese want access to Apple products just like the rest of us, right?

Article Via Cult of Mac