Macgasm

Q. My MacBook died suddenly and went in for repair. I’ve got it back up and running, but iTunes is now saying that I’m using a second of my five authorizations even though this is the same computer. Can I deactivate the other one?

A. Your repair is the reason that iTunes sees your Mac as a new device. Unfortunately, there is no way to deauthorize computers you no longer have access to, and in this case you technically don’t have access to how it was prior to repair. Until you get to the point where all five of your authorizations are in use, you can’t really do anything about this. For users that do have all of their authorizations filled and don’t have access to one or more of those machines to remove the authorization, there is a fix. Apple allows you to deauthorize all machines with a click of a button. There’s a catch though: you can only do this once a year.

To do this, you go into iTunes and click on the store. Under the quick links in the right pane, click on your account. It will ask you for your password. Once you get to your account page, you will see a button next to the computer authorizations section that will allow you to deauthorize all five at once. Remember, you will only see this button if you are up to your limit of five. If something should happen, like two computer failures in one year, and you need this a second time, you can email Apple for a special reset, but know they are pretty strict on this, and it is rarely a speedy process.

Have you had this happen to you? Let us know in the comments. If you have a Mac question that you would like answered, please email ask@macgasm.net

Digitimes sure must be enjoying the traffic boost from iPad and iPhone rumors these days. They’re posting them fast and furious.

Today they’re hot on the trail of Largan Precision, and they believe that the company will be the suppliers for Apple’s upcoming iPad 2 tablet camera lenses. Of course, Largan Precision is refusing to comment on the rumors. Digitimes is basing their article on information provided by Largan Precision in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Also of note, the filing suggests that the camera lenses will be shipping in the first quarter of 2011, according to Digitimes. Hello new iPads! Apparently, Largan Precision also provides Apple with iPhone 4 camera lenses for their phones.

Article Via Digitimes

Apple is wielding its mighty banhammer again. This time it’s a Danish magazine publisher, Mediaprovider, and its little magazine app all about Android phones and operating systems.

Brian Dixen, the managing director for Mediaprovider, received a call from Apple last week informing him that there was a problem with one of the apps they had submitted. “‘So what’s the problem?’ I asked sheepishly,” says Dixen. The Apple employee, identified as Richard, replied, “You know… your magazine… it’s just about Android…. we can’t have that in our App Store.”

Dixen is not surprised by the ban, but does feel Apple has overstepped its bounds. The approval process is a source of a lot of frustration. “We have to get not only our apps but every single copy of our magazines approved and I wonder what will happen if we choose to make the next issue of our magazine about mobile phones in general a theme issue about Android,” he told MediaWatch.

Danish publishers have had run ins with Apple in the past. Earlier this year, Danish tabloid Ekstra Bladet had their app rejected because of the inclusion of the ‘Page Nine Girl’. Other magazines that Mediaprovider publishes include a gear and gadget magazine, as well as an iPhone magazine.

This story is a bit odd, unless there’s some other reason behind the ban. But if the only reason you’re banning the app is because of its focus on a competing product, then where do you stop? Searching the iTunes App store, I found an app called “BlackBerry Hacks” which is presumably “just about” BlackBerry. Based on this logic, it should be pulled from the store too. I think Apple needs to review this one again.

Article Via Gizmodo
Photo Credit: kodomut

It took Apple two years to sell 1 million iPods. In 74 days, Apple sold 1 million original iPhones, back in 2007. It took the company just 28 days to sell 1 million iPads. Just last week, Samsung announced they were over halfway there, selling 600,000 Galaxy Tabs in a month. The race to a million units sold has proven to be a pretty interesting indicator of a product’s success.

Microsoft’s new smartphone platform hasn’t been so lucky. While Microsoft hasn’t announced sales figures, rumors have it that the company has sold 100,000 devices in the month or so they have been available.  With five handsets in the US (three on AT&T, two on T-Mobile; Verizon coming “soon”) and several handsets in Europe, Microsoft’s new devices are available to a lot of customers.

That isn’t exactly a rocketing start. True, the platform isn’t on Verizon or Sprint yet. True, there are rumors of a “massive” WP7 software update coming as soon as January.

When the iPhone was launched, RIM, Microsoft and Palm were the dominant players in the smartphone market. Today, many more consumers carry smartphones, and Apple and Google are leading the way not only in growth, but also in innovation. Many people believe Microsoft has missed the boat here by shipping a new mobile OS too late. As Reuters reported yesterday, many smartphone owners are proving to be quite loyal to their platforms — bad news for Microsoft, who had hoped to woo away Android and iOS customers.

As Apple Insider points out, Microsoft’s platform is also having some issues internally, with app developers and delayed payments as well as a lack of stat reporting on app downloads and usage.

Windows Phone 7 lacks many of the features that the original iPhone OS also lacked. Copy and paste and multi-taking are absent. While consumers didn’t seem to mind too much in 2007 about these features, in 2010, they do. Without these features — no matter how “soon” they may be coming — WP7 devices don’t appear as “smart” as their Apple or Android counterparts. Unlike the original iPhone OS, Windows Phone 7 already has an App Store and a music-purchasing eco-system built-in, as well cloud-powered sync for contacts and calendars. In short, Windows Phone 7 is far ahead of where the iPhone was when it launched, but behind the current iPhone and Android alternatives.

It’s a shame to see Windows Phone 7 struggling in the marketplace. I think WP7 offers a really great alternative to the iPhone and Android devices. Its interface is new and edgy — unlike iOS, Android and WebOS that have extended the desktop metaphor to the smartphone in many ways. It feels less dated than iOS and is less frustrating to use than Android can be. Unlike Android, Microsoft has learned lessons from the platform’s fragmentation, and is controlling not only their partners’ hardware, but also what carriers can do with software updates and third-party apps.

WP7 represents fresh thinking — something Microsoft isn’t very good at, frankly. WP7 is a clean break from previous versions of Windows Mobile. While it has had a rough start, I think it will do well in the future, once Microsoft fixes issues with developers and adds some commonplace features. I think consumers are ready for a decent third choice when it comes to smartphones, and I think Windows Phone 7 can be that choice.

Article Via Apple Insider

Apple’s tablet is getting some new stamps in its passport.

The iPad is now available in the Nordic nations of Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. In Asia, it can be found in South Korea and Taiwan. Apple customers in the Czech Republic, Portugal, Hungary and Poland are also among the lucky this week.

Be sure to check out some international versions of Apple’s website, such as apple.com/kr, apple.com/tw and apple.com/pl.

Article Via 9 to 5 Mac

Do you like listening to the radio? Thanks to TuneIn Radio by Synsion Radio Technologies, you can now do that with any of your iOS devices. It’s a solid app with thousands of radio stations available and lots of features.

The first time I started TuneIn Radio on my iPad, sitting on the couch, it presented me with the local radio station using my GPS location. After selecting the station, it started playing within seconds. A great song was on and I turned up the volume and was surprised to find that the quality was pretty good. Thanks to a top notch integration with iOS, I was able to tap the AirPlay button and select our Apple TV. Within a couple of seconds, the song continued playing on our home entertainment system. I switched to my iPad’s Mail App to check my emails, and all the while the music from TuneIn Radio was still playing on my Apple TV. Using the new iOS background audio controls (double press the home button and swipe right), I was able to redirect audio output back to my iPad.

That’s only a taste of what TuneIn Radio offers. Another really great feature is recording and playback of radio content. Anytime during streaming, you can simply press a record button and TuneIn Radio will start recording. Whenever you feel like listing to the content again, you can select it and enjoy the same iOS integration as if you’d listen to the streaming radio. However, you need to use TuneIn Radio to listen to the content and I couldn’t find a way to export recorded audio.

Another neat feature is the sleep timer, essentially an alarm clock that either streams the radio or plays your recorded content to wake you up. You can sync your bookmarked radio stations across devices with a RadioTime account. Depending on the radio station you get lots of metadata like the logo of the station, playlists, artists/song logos and Twitter streams.

TuneIn Radio’s user interface is awesome, mainly because it is simple and straightforward. There are lots of standard iOS components, so it’s easy for you to find your way around. Unfortunately, there are also some annoyances, e.g. the record button of the iPhone app is too small, but overall the user interface is great.

If you are a radio person, love your iOS device and want to listen to your favorite station at home on your Wi-Fi or even on the go over 3G, TuneIn Radio is the app you are looking for.

Photo Credit: ThiagoHenrique

SpeedClock By Sten Kaiser is a $0.99 app that will turn your iPhone into a radar gun.

This is an interesting app idea, if you want to know the speed of things. You can measure the speed of cars, boats, footballs, kids, anything really using motion detection. You have to hold up the iPhone, aim it at the moving object, and it will use the camera to detect the motion. One slight flaw is that you have to set the distance to the object that you want to measure, making it not as instant as some would probably like.

Basically, it uses the angle of the iPhone to estimate the distance to a point on the ground. You then hold the iPhone in front of you, align the point in the camera and get a reading of the distance. The distance can then be used in the speed tool. You can also the motion detection feature to start and stop a timer, which looks an interesting use of the app.

Information from their site:

“Employing the device’s three-axis gyro and basic trigonometry establishes distance. Speed and laps are measured using the motion sensing of the video camera, timing the interval between the object entering and leaving the frame. The app is compatible with iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, and iPod Touch 4.”

This app requires iOS4 and because of the use of  a video camera on the device it will need the iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 or iPod touch 4. SpeedClock is available on the App Store.

Article Via Cult of Mac

We’re long overdue in our Chopper 2 review, but I have to say that it’s been a blast so far (hopefully we’ll have a review up shortly). We’re pretty excited to hear that Majic Jungle Software will be bringing their game to the Mac App Store. They sent us a quick email with video footage today, and we’ve attached the video below.

The game has been submitted to Apple for review, and the development team is hoping that it will ship around the same time that the Mac App Store opens for business. That’s awesome for them, but what’s awesome for us is that the Mac version of the game will let you control your Chopper from your iPhone.

I’ve long wanted to have my iPhone as a controller for games on my Mac, and it seems like this might be the first of its kind. Majic Jungle Software also seems to pull it off quite effectively.

Will Chopper 2 have AirPlay soon?

We spoke (over email) with Dave Frampton about the possibility of adding AirPlay capabilities to the iPad and iPhone versions, hoping for a scoop. Turns out we’re a little ahead of our time with the hope. Frampton pointed out that real-time games won’t be AirPlay compatible any time soon because the bandwidth and compression rates required to effectively pull it off are still a little to high for the current hardware in the products.

He did, however, leave us with this: “you can be sure that as soon as it is technically possible to play Chopper 2 on an Apple TV I’ll be all over it :)”

So there you have it. The problem isn’t developers or consumer interest; it’s the lack of hardware capabilities. Hopefully the next couple of iPhones come loaded with enough power to pull this kind of stuff off. Hear that Apple?

Currently you can connect Chopper 2 to your television using an AV Cable for your iPhone.  If you’ve got one kicking around, you’ve got to try it. It’s pretty awesome.

No Universal Apps in the Mac App Store

Some more news you probably didn’t hear elsewhere. Gamers will have to buy both the Mac App Store version and the iPhone version if they’re hoping to use the iPhone as a controller on their Mac.

Currently Apple’s not letting developers create “universal” applications for iOS and Mac OS X. Frampton was quick to point out that had he had the option to submit a universal application, he would have done it.

He’s also planning on releasing a stand-alone free iPhone controller application as well, but it likely won’t be available in time for the initial launch.

The good news is that if you’re already a fan of the game, and have it on your iOS device, you’ll be able to get up and running immediately with the iPhone controller when the game is released on the Mac App Store.

We have to give a huge props to Dave Frampton of Majic Jungle Software for both answering our questions, and caring so much about the community.

You can buy the universal iOS application on the App Store for $4.99.

Game Play Footage