Top 5 Free iPhone Apps

by Matt Gardner • 07/24/2008 at 12:43 AM

The App Store (along with the iPhone 3G) has been available as part of the iPhone 2.0 software update for about 2 weeks now. With the release of the App Store there has been a surge of new iPhone apps to the point of becoming overwhelming.

Here's a list of my five favorite free apps (no games in this list, but look for the top iPhone game list soon).

1. Remote
2. Twinkle
3. Shazam
4. Pandora Radio
5. PhoneSaber

Remote (Apple) is a simple app that allows you to control iTunes on both Mac and PC. It also allows you to control Apple TV. It allows you to switch between different computers (including Apple TV) and it works flawlessly. The app is extremely responsive and that's why it makes its way to the top of the list.

Twinkle (Tapulous) is a location aware twitter client. Not only does this app look great, but beats out Twitterific (if you like the desktop version of Twitterific, you'll want Twinkle on your iPhone). The only gripe that I have with this app is that every once in a while it'll crash -- nonetheless it's a great app.

Shazam (Shazam Entertainmend Ltd.) could easily be one of the best iPhone apps. If, like me, you've ever wondered what song is currently playing on the radio then this app is for you. Simply click the "Tag Now" button and it listens to what is playing and after a few seconds it detects the song playing and stores it for future reference. It has many more features so I definitely suggest you download this app.

Pandora Radio (Pandora Media, Inc.) is a great app for music lovers. It works flawlessly as long as you have a Pandora account. If you do not it'll prompt you to set one up. Creating an account is easy -- Don't forget to finish the registration form through the third and final step or you'll run into a little trouble when trying to use the app on your iPhone. Once the app is up and running you can listen to music related to what you like and tag it based on a like/dislike basis. Like a song? Bookmarking the song is simple -- or buy it immediately in iTunes. Pandora Radio is a great way to discover new music. Keep your iPhone charged up because this app uses the 3G data network (where available) and we all know how much that sucks the life right out of your battery.

PhoneSaber (TheMacBox) is one of the geekiest apps of them all -- and I love it. Choose a color and it powers on your accelerometer controlled lightsaber that makes noise when swinging your iPhone around. That's all there is to it -- now you can have your epic geek battles with your friends. While this app won't actually burn or cut through anything, it may burn a hole in your pocket if you let go while swinging into oblivion.

The App store seems to have a lot of buggy apps due to the long-standing NDA, which disallowed developers to communicate about methods of doing something thing better. Developers are now able to communicate and we'll start to see better performing apps as well as updates to current buggy ones. That's the top 5. What are your favorite iPhone apps?

Matt Gardner aka 'iWaffles', is just your average geek -- besides the fact that he can crush ice with his bear hands and cook thirty-minute brownies in twenty-minutes. Matt prides himself on having a much, much faster "Ferrari" than another unnamed editor... and a laptop nicknamed "Bender" due to its appearance.

Weekly Wrap, June 16 - 22

by Macteens Magazine Editors • 06/22/2008 at 04:08 PM

Welcome to Macteens’ Weekly Wrap, a weekly column that covers all the important and interesting news for the week. This week on The Weekly Wrap: Firefox 3, Spore Creature Creator, AT&T 3G speeds, PHP debugging with MacGDBp, Visual Voicemail settlement, Media Temple’s Xserve Virtual and Apple sales updates.

The Big Stories

Firefox 3 makes a splash with Firefox Download Day - On Tuesday, Mozilla began its “Firefox Download Day”, designed to smash the record of the most software application downloads in one day, with the organization’s official 3.0 release of Firefox. Over 8 million copies were downloaded on Tuesday.

Firefox 3 brings many changes for Mac users, with a new more “Mac-like” user interface covering a new cocoa code-base. Check out the release at Spread Firefox.

Spore Creature Creator launches - As part of EA’s new game Spore, the company has made available a trial version Spore Creature Creator for both Mac and PC. It allows players to build and customize creatures that can be later used in the full game.

The application is a preview for the full game, which is scheduled to be released on September 7th. It’s available now on Spore’s website and requires an Intel Mac with an ATI X1600, NVidia 7300 GT graphics chipset with 128 MB of RAM or an Intel integrated GMA X3100 graphics card. The trial costs $9.99.

AT&T 3G speeds to ‘average’ 1.4 Mbps - MacNN posted a report earlier this week referencing an AT&T webpage that showed the new iPhone as having download speeds of up to 1.4 Mbps on the company’s cellular network. This was said to be notably slower than other smartphones on the AT&T network, and much slower than other carriers’ 3G networks (which offer speeds as fast at 5 Mbps downstream).

MacNN later updated their post, saying that the 1.4 speed mentioned on the company’s website is an “observed speed” over the cellular network.

PHP Debugging on the fly with MacGDBp - Develop PHP riddled by the occasional bug? Check our MacGDBp, a new tool to squash those bugs quickly. Created by 18 year old Robert Sesek, the app builds upon Xdebug to offer remote debugging of PHP scripts - all one has to do is to connect to the script they’d like test, and they can skip around each instruction to see how a script is working. MacGBp is Leopard only, and launched on Tuesday. Check it out on Blue Static’s website.

Also this week..

Apple settles Visual Voicemail patent lawsuit - Klausner Technology and Apple appear to have settled a patent dispute, according to a Macworld report. The 1994 patent shows similar functionality of visual voicemail as implemented on the iPhone, and with the settlement, allows Apple and AT&T to license the voicemail process. Details of the settlement are not public, but the company was seeking $360 million in damages.

Media Temple announces beta for Leopard VPS offering - Off the heels of Parallel’s integration of Leopard Server with Fusion, Media Temple announced a private beta program for its (xv) Xserve Virtual product. The first-of-its-kind virtual private server offers shared utilization (eight customers per Xserve) of dual 2.8 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon Xserves with 32 GB of RAM and three 300 GB 15,000 RPM drives.

Interested parties can apply for the beta here.

Apple sales updates: opens Sydney retail store, five billion downloads in iTunes sales - Apple opened its first retail store in Australia on Thursday to a large crowd in Sydney. The store features two floors dedicated to Apple’s product lines, while the third floor is dedicated to service, including the world’s largest Genius bar.

“We are thrilled to bring the unique Apple retail experience to Australia,” said Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail. “This breathtaking new store will be the ultimate place for the people of Sydney to shop, learn and be inspired.”

In other Apple sales news, Apple also announced that they passed the five billion download mark on the company’s iTunes store.

Macteens Magazine Editors contributed to this story.

Weekly Wrap, June 9 - 15

by Macteens Magazine Editors • 06/15/2008 at 12:38 PM

Welcome to Macteens’ new Weekly Wrap, a weekly column that covers all the important and interesting news for the week. This week on The Weekly Wrap: the new iPhone 3G, MobileMe, Snow Leopard, iPhone 2.0 software, applications for iPhone 2.0, the raised fee for iPhone data and the Apple Design Awards.

The Big Stories

iPhone 3G - Apple this week announced its 3G version of iPhone at its World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco. The new iPhone, which Apple promotes as “two times faster at half the price” closely matches the previous generation phone in form factor and appearance, adopting a slightly larger case and plastic back (available in black on the 8 GB model, and white on the 16 GB model). The new iPhone offers access to AT&T’s faster cellular data network, HSDPA (3G), in addition to existing support for EDGE cellular data.

iPhone 3G will also include the second version of iPhone’s operating system, which includes increased usability for large enterprises, and allows developers to produce native applications for iPhone. These applications will be distributed by the iTunes Store on Macs & PCs, and the new “App Store” on the iPhone.

“Just one year after launching the iPhone, we’re launching the new iPhone 3G that is twice as fast at half the price,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “ iPhone 3G supports Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync right out of the box, runs the incredible third party apps created with the iPhone SDK, and will be available in more than 70 countries around the world this year.”

The new iPhone will retail for $199 (8 GB, back) and $299 (16 GB, black or white) and will be available at AT&T and Apple Stores on July 11. AT&T executives have seemed to confirm rumors that online ordering and in-home activation (a large part of iPhone’s initial convenience, as touted by Apple) will not be available, so as to likely avoid users from unlocking phones and reselling them.

To go along with the announcement of iPhone 3G, Apple released a new television advertisement for the product.

MobileMe - Apple also announced MobileMe, a new suite of 2.0 web services. Focusing on the idea of distributed information from a cloud, MobileMe syncs email, contacts and calendars to numerous mobile devices, Macs and PCs. The service also offers “desktop quality” web applications at me.com, including Mail, Calendar, Address Book and Photo Galleries.

One of MobileMe’s keystone features is the ability for it to be used as a push service for all of the data it manages. As soon as data is changed at one point (whether from a user’s computer or mobile device, such as iPhone), it will immediately be “pushed” to all of the user’s other devices using MobileMe.

“Think of MobileMe as ‘Exchange for the rest of us,’” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Now users who are not part of an enterprise that runs Exchange can get the same push email, push calendars and push contacts that the big guys get.”

MobileMe replaces .Mac, and will be available on July 11 for a retail price of $99 with 20 GB of storage. Existing .Mac members will be transitioned over to the new service in early July, and will retain previous @mac.com email addresses (in addition to receiving a similar email address @me.com). With the new service, iCards, .Mac slides and Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther) sync and web access to bookmarks are being discontinued.

Snow Leopard - Apple made a passing mention of Mac OS X 10.6, code named “Snow Leopard” during Monday’s WWDC keynote. As much of the details were mentioned exclusively to developers under a non-disclosure agreement, not much is known, but the operating system is to focus on refining Mac OS X, while laying the ground work for enhancements to be made in future releases. Steve Jobs said that the work on this release will “take a pause on new feature development and focus instead on improving performance.” Discovered as part of the developer roll-out, the operating system appears to possibly be losing support for PowerPC, with current development copies shipping with “an Intel processor” as a requirement.

Also this week...

iPhone/Touch SDK and Software 2.0 - Apple announced the final availability for the iPhone 2.0 software, to be released in early July (widely expected to be July 11, the same day as iPhone 3G). As previously announced, it brings support for Exchange (via licensed ActiveSync) and third party applications, among other enhancements. The update will be free for iPhone owners, and $9.99 for iPod Touch owners. Shortly after the keynote, a new version of the developer SDK (version seven) was released.

Software for iPhone 2.0 - To go along with the release of iPhone software 2.0, several developers demonstrated their applications for iPhone during Monday’s keynote address. While a number of general use/productivity applications were previewed, the series of demonstrations seemed to focus strongly on iPhone as a mobile gaming platform, with such games as Super Monkey Ball, Enigmo and Cro-Mag Rally making inroads into the platform. All of these applications are expected to be released when the App Store launches in July.

iPhone 3G data fee - Even while the new $199 and $299 pricing point for iPhone 3G is highly attractive (particularly when compared to the previous price points of $399 and $499), it isn’t without caveats. According to an AT&T press release, iPhone 3G will require a higher priced 3G data plan - priced at $30 a month. This plan bests the current EDGE data plan by $10 a month, or $120 annually.

Apple Design Awards - Also as part of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, the company held its annual Apple Design Awards, which recognize developers for creating world-class applications that represent the best user experience for Mac OS X. A full list of winning applications follow.

Mac

Best Mac OS X Application: ScreenFlow 1.1.1 - Vara Software Limited

Best Max OS X User Experience: Macnification - Orbicule BVBA

Best Mac OS X Game: Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock 1.1 - Aspyr Media

Best Mac OS X Graphics and Media Application: Screenflow 1.1.1 - Vara Software Limited

Best Mac OS X Student Project: Squirrel - Axel Péju

iPhone

Best iPhone Web Application: Remember The Milk for iPhone and iPod Touch 1.0 - Remember the Milk

Best iPhone Game: Enigmo 1.0 - Pangea Software

Best iPhone Healthcare & Fitness Application: MIM 1.0 - MIMVista Corp.

Best iPhone Social Networking Application: Twitterrific 1.0 - The Icon Factory

Best iPhone Entertainment Application: AOL Radio 1.0 - AOL LLC

Best iPhone Productivity Application: Omnifocus 1.0 - The Omni Group

Macteens Magazine Editors contributed to this story.

Live from the WWDC 2008 Keynote

by Aaron Plane • 06/09/2008 at 11:06 AM

Welcome to Macteens’ annual keynote coverage of Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, live from the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Our coverage will begin shortly before 10 AM PST (1 PM EST). Updates are posted in chronological order, with new updates at the end of this page. Our normal site is stil available, and will return after the conclusion of today’s event. In addition, our forums are still open and available.

2:00 AM - Welcome to Macteens’ annual keynote coverage of Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, live from the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Our coverage will begin shortly before 10 AM PST (1 PM EST). Updates are posted in chronological order, with new updates at the end of this page. Our normal site is stil available here, and will return after the conclusion of today’s event. In addition, our forums are still open and available.
8:50 AM - The attendee line for the keynote appears to be several blocks long. Attendees have started to enter the second level the building, for the last span of their waits. Several shrouded banners have been noted, including a large one in a lab area.

9:00 AM - The keynote is expected begin in about an hour. The Apple Store Online is now down, as expected.

9:34 AM - The keynote is expected begin in about half an hour.

9:35 AM - Aaron Tait has several pictures of the line & wait on his flickr page.

9:50 AM - People are pouring into the hall.

9:56 AM - Attendees ar beginning to take their seats.

9:58 AM - Classic rock songs are being played as people continue to pour into the hall. (I wonder if there any Beatles songs being played...)

10:02 AM - Al Gore is being shown on the screens (he’s in the audience).

10:05 AM - Lights have been dimmed. Time for the keynote to begin.

10:06 AM - Steve is on stage.

10:06 AM - Steve has been working on some “great stuff”. 52 000 attendees at WWDC ‘08 (Record numbers).

10:07 AM - 3 parts to Apple - Mac, Music, iPhone.

10:08 AM - Bertrand Serlet will demo 10.6 “Snow Leopard” after lunch (during the keynote?).

10:09 AM - 250 000 people have dowloaded SDK, 4000 in the beta program.

10:10 AM - 3 parts to iPhone 2.0- SDK, users, and enterprise.

10:11 AM - Ecxchange support, previously stated in the March 6th special event.

10:11 AM - 35% of Fortune 500 companies participated in the beta program. (This is going to be huuuge!)

10:12 AM - Higher-Ed has participated, too.

10:14 AM - CTOs of various companies discuss iPhone 2.0.

10:15 AM - Contacts search in real time.

10:16 AM - Video’s done. Scott Forestell is going to do a demo.

10:17 AM - Talks about core APIs: Cocoa Touch, Media, Core Services, Core OS.

10:18 AM - A fast implementation of OpenGL (Hello iPhone/Touch gaming!).

10:20 AM - Cocoa Touch makes UIs a breeze. Hoping they get to the “meaty” stuff soon.

10:20 AM - Demo of a Cocoa Touch application being built.

10:21 AM - Application, Nearby Friends, uses Address Book API to find friends within a 10 mile radius.

10:22 AM - Building an interface is a piece of cake by dragging elements and combining them.

10:24 AM - Inteface Builder automagically knows the orientation of your iPhone.

10:25 AM - Within minutes, created a fully functional app. Showing it off via his iPhone.

10:26 AM - Demo is done. Developers love the awesomeness of the iPhone dev. platform.

10:28 AM - Super Monkey Bal for iPhone is nearly complete.

10:29 AM - Now Sega is up on stage demoing Super Monkey Ball with multiple levels.

10:30 AM - “Available at launch of app store for $9.99”.

10:30 AM - Scott has introduced eBay and their native iPhone app.

10:32 AM - Now bidding on an item live on iPhone.

10:32 AM - Watching a $12.5 million golf course in Mexico.

10:33 AM - eBay app for free when App store launches.

10:34 AM - Location-based API being demoed by Loopt.

10:36 AM - Free on iPhone and app store on launch.

10:36 AM - Next up - Michael from Sixapart talking about Typepad app.

10:36 AM - Now demoing Typepad app.

10:37 AM - Presenter mentions that it is “incredibly easy to post to my blog”.

10:38 AM - Creating posts, viewing pending posts, integrated with Safari mobile. App for free from App Store.

10:39 AM - The Associated Press is now up.

10:39 AM - iPhone “important catalyst”. Demos “Mobile News Network”

10:40 AM - Stay up to date, dynamic caching on iPhone, award-winning photography.

10:40 AM - Watch video on it, too (demoing video).

10:41 AM - Share your news via iPhone.

10:41 AM - Available free from the App Store. More on the way.

10:41 AM - Pangea Software is next up. 2 Games. Brian is presenting.

10:42 AM - 2 games ported from Mac - Enigmo and ....

10:44 AM - Racing game - Cromag Rally. All playable. iPhone itself is a steering wheel.

10:45 AM - “Took no time to do. Steering took 5-10 minutes”.

10:45 AM - $9.99 each.

10:45 AM - Individual developer. Scott is impressed. INSURANCE person, but definitely not an insurance app.

10:46 AM - App is called Band. Sounds cool.

10:47 AM - Demoing various instruments. The crowd is going wild with this one.

10:48 AM - Available in app store in a few weeks.

10:48 AM - MLB.com di next up, new app for fans of baseball.

10:48 AM - Live feeds from games, who’s on base, etc. Real time video highlights, too.

10:50 AM - “Best possible video experience, on edge or wifi”.

10:50 AM - Available in App Store when it launches.

10:51 AM - Next up - Modality.

10:51 AM - Modality shows off medical learning app.

10:52 AM - Hundreds of images, etc. Crowd laughes over some sort of image in demo.

10:52 AM - Students found app beneficial for studying.

10:53 AM - Dozens of apps launching after App Store.

10:54 AM - Next up is MiMvista. More medical stuff.

10:54 AM - Medical imaging app.

10:55 AM - Demonstrating multi-touch use with app.

10:56 AM - 3D reconstruction of medical imaging. New direction for MiMvista. Look for it at launch of App Store.

10:57 AM - Last app from Digital Legends. Amazing game, according to Scott.

10:58 AM - iPhone is very capable game device. Only 4 days to port game, a couple more for iPhone specific features. Full 3D game. Ready by september.

10:59 AM - “We have an incredible SDK”.

11:00 AM - Round of applause for all devs.

11:00 AM - People want something that will send you notices (like Growl?).

11:01 AM - NO background apps. It drains battery and makes iPhone sluggish.

11:01 AM - “this solution: A task manager”.

11:02 AM - Push notification service for all developers.

11:03 AM - Developers can “push” stuff via IP (badges, alert sounds, custom text alerts).

11:03 AM - Scales well. No battery loss. No chopping CPU cycles. Over Wi-fi and network. All done with the SDK.

11:04 AM - Steve back on stage.

11:05 AM - Contact search in 2.0. Full iWork support.

11:05 AM - Microsoft office also, Word, Excel, Powerpoint.

11:06 AM - Bulk delete ame move. New calc (scientific when in landscape mode). Parental controls (some teens, like you, probably won’t like this).

11:07 AM - New language support. 2 types of Japanese, and 2 types of Chinese (draw characters with fingers).

11:07 AM - iPhone 2.0 is gonna be phenomenal! In early July. Free for iPhone. $9.95 for iPod Touch.

11:08 AM - Wirelessly download apps from iPhone. Automatically tells you updates.

11:08 AM - Fairplay will be protecting devs apps.

11:09 AM - Now able to access in 62 countries. If 10MB or less, you can download over cell network.

11:10 AM - Enterprise method to distribute apps over their iPhones only, via Intranet.

11:11 AM - 3rd way to add apps. Called “App-Hoc”. Mostly for universities. Can distribute over 100 iPhones.

11:12 AM - Next: Something new.

11:13 AM - MobileMe.

11:13 AM - What it is? Exchange for the rest of us. “Using ActiveStink ”

11:14 AM - Push email, contacts, and calendars for all Wherever you are.

11:14 AM - Get your info from cloud on multitude of devices. Email gets pushed to MobileMe devices.

11:15 AM - Everything is up to date. Built in with Calendars on iPhone. Works with native apps.

11:16 AM - Works with Outlook.

11:16 AM - Web 2.0 with AJAX tech. Buzz words are “in” with Apple, I guess.

11:17 AM - Taken gallery and built-in with MobileMe.

11:18 AM - Is mac.com dead now? Phil is showing MobileMe on his Mac.

11:19 AM - “Sleek and smooth interface”.

11:21 AM - Showing the advanced features of MobileMe.

11:21 AM - iDisk is now much cooler than before.

11:22 AM - Now showing interaction via iPhone.

11:24 AM - MobileMe - going back and forth between “cloud”, iPhone, and Mac.

11:25 AM - Demoing photos from iPhone sent to MobileMe.

11:26 AM - MobileMe will be available for $99/year. 60 day free trial. Available in early July. MobileMe replaces .mac!.

11:28 AM - Crowd goes insane. 90% customer satisfaction.

11:31 AM - More affordable iPhone.

11:31 AM - Today, introducing new iPhone 3G.

11:32 AM - Flush headphone jack, same display, improved audio.

11:33 AM - Why 3G? Obvious.

11:34 AM - Demoing loading website from 3g (21 seconds) vs. 59 seconds on EDGE.

11:35 AM - 3G speeds actually approaching Wifi. “Amazingly zippy”.

11:35 AM - 36% faster than Nokia N95 or Palm Treo.

11:36 AM - Better battery life. Standby time is 300 hours. 3G talking - 5 hours. Browsing 5-6 hours. Video 7 hours. Audio - 24 hours.

11:38 AM - GPS built in - crowd goes WILD.

11:39 AM - Location data from GPS, can use as tracker.

11:39 AM - Done with the intro. Crowd is excited.

11:40 AM - More countries soon.

11:40 AM - Hopefully up from 6 to 25. Countries - going through countries with “A Small World”.

11:42 AM - Everywhere there’s GSM. I’m assuming the crowd made noise because of the neighbours to the north, Canada.
11:45 AM - iPhone 3G will go on sale for $199 at 8GB. $299 for 16GB - also available in white.

11:46 AM - Will be available on July 11, in twenty two countries. New ad announced, now playing.

11:47 AM - “It’s finally here.. the first phone to beat the iPhone ...introducing the new iPhone.”

11:48 AM - Ad appears to spoof Apple’s practice of secrecy, crowd cheers.

11:49 AM - Steve asks for the crowd to give a round of applause for Apple’s development teams.

11:50 AM - Steve concludes the keynote, “I’ll see you this week.” Stay tuned to Macteens for more coverage.

Aaron Plane is trying his absolute best to hold back tears for his beloved 12" PB, who is beginning to develop an acute inferiority complex (Is that a good thing?). Aaron is also partially responsible for our sister site, LinuxTeens, and when not busy, can be found trying to better his Mac (and Linux) experience.

The Impact of a Touch

by Caitlyn Imbimbo • 05/21/2008 at 11:12 AM

Almost every product shipped by Apple seems to be a gem in the eyes of loyal Mac and iPod fans. However, once in a while, Apple creates a product that makes a splash in the entire community. One can see that Apple has hit that target with the innovative iPhone and iPod touch. Both products are very much alike, with the only obvious difference being the cellular phone capabilities offered by AT&T for the iPhone. The intended audience is in some sense the same even though the products are separate.

When a company ships a product so radically different than the norm, as Apple did last year with the original iPhone and later with the iPod touch, there is always risk as to whether the product will be a hit or miss. It seems, however, that Apple has really hit the ball out of the park with this product. One knows they are successful when a product makes a splash in the community that does not include your targeted audience. A targeted audience uses your product in the way it’s intended to be used. A community outside of this finds use or necessity in the product in an unexpected, yet capable way. I believe a product is truly success when it can satisfy both of these kinds of people because therefore, a company never runs out of customers interested in the product.

Roughly two weeks ago, my Trigonometry and Algebra III class was working on polar coordinates. In order to convert polar coordinates to rectangular coordinates on a graph, the student must know a specific formula in which you input the correct numbers into. We were taking a test that basically determined the final few points on our average for that marking period, as the grading quarter was coming to a close that week. So, long story short, this was an important test. Without knowing the formulas, it was safe to assume you were in some trouble.

Memorization comes quickly and easily to me being one who has to learn many scripts throughout the course of a year. Unfortunately, not every one in the class was in the same boat. I don’t fault them for being unprepared as Trigonometry is quite an intense course in my high school. I noticed the guy that sits next to me begin to scramble as he got his test and browsed through the questions. For a moment or two, he gnawed away at the tip of his pen cap, as his mind tried to recall these complicated formulas. I noticed a rush of release come across his face, and his jaw stop annihilating his pen cap. Assuming he had remembered the necessary information, I continued on with my test. But I again was distracted as out of my peripheral vision, I noticed the guy reach into his front left pocket and slyly pull out his iPhone in class. Using his lucky seating position near the window and AT&T’s faint internet connection in the room, I watch in amazement as the boy sitting next to me found another use for the innovative technology Apple created this past year: cheating. After a few taps at the buttonless screen, the boy’s face stretched into a smile as he copied the formulas to his paper.

At the end of class, as we all tediously walked up to our teacher’s desk and dropped off our completed exam papers, I overheard another boy from the class mention to this boy that sat next to me the following: “Was that the iPhone touch? That was good thinking using it to find the formulas.” Regardless of the interesting strategy to use his iPhone to cheat on our test, this uneducated statement also told me something about the impact of this product. The iPhone and iPod touch have created such a splash in not only the technology using community but the current younger generation in general that those completely oblivious to the insanely great nature of Apple, Inc. as a whole know the significance of a touchscreen, music playing, internet seeking device in today’s digital world.

What is the moral of this story? It is not to teach you to cheat on your Algebra III test using your internet capable iPhone or iPod touch in class. The moral of this story is that when a company ships a product so radically different than the norm, as Apple did last year with the original iPhone and later with the iPod touch, there is always risk as to whether the product will be a hit or miss. I believe it is safe to say that regardless of minor complaints from loyal Apple fans wanting wireless connectivity with their Mac or something along those lines, that Apple has definitely created a successful product with the iPhone and iPod touch. The popularity, countless uses and unique design makes this product stand out in the crowd. Even to those who cheat on their tests and refer to products by improper names.

Caitlyn Imbimbo

Why Twitter Is NOT As Hot As Everyone Thinks

by Daniel Hollister • 03/08/2008 at 12:29 PM

Is less always more? Is small always big? If you looked at any of the hot stories over the past few days surrounding Twitter, you might be convinced of it.

Twitter has been getting lots of attention recently, being called the next Facebook, the next big social network, the next big [insert analogy here]. And while I am sure Twitter is growing rapidly, those markets are entirely different. Twitter is not equipped at all to be considered a social network on the scale of Facebook or MySpace, and the notion that it is not only in the big leagues with those guys but might surpass it is laughable.

I thought it was necessary to point out the inherent flaws in that idea preventing Twitter from going big time. While often times less is more in web apps, I don’t think Twitter’s limitations truly prove that theory to the majority of people wishing to stay in touch with friends.

1) You’re limited to 140 characters. The biggest limitation is also the most obvious. 140 characters might be fun for status updates and phone-friendly conversation, but not enough. Direct messages are bound by this limitation as well. I don’t know about you all, but often times if I’m trying to keep in touch with old friends, I occasionally have a lot to say to someone on their wall or in a message. 140 characters is simply laughable as an end-all to online social interaction.

2) Way too much clutter. Twitter’s downfall is actually how popular it is. The front page of the site only alerts you of the 20 most recent updates from your friends. If you have any significant number of friends, or if any of them update frequently, your Twitter home page could only show you the last few minutes, forcing you to either check the website an ungodly number of times per day or subscribe to the text messages. Texting, though, provides the same problem: clutter. How many hundreds of messages are you willing to receive in a day?

3) You can pick between breadth or depth, but not both. If you have too many friends, you get too many messages to deal with. If you want to really get updates often from those you care about the most, you have to sacrifice following, well, most people.

4) He who is most annoying, succeeds the most. Inevitably at some point you will befriend That Guy Who Updates Every Five Minutes. Upon viewing the website or glancing at your cell phone, it will be dominated by a handful of people. And herein lies the problem – everyone will post updates at different frequencies, and those that don’t update as often, or more specifically, those who do not update most recently from when you check your phone or website, get left out in the crowd. And trust me, more text does not mean better quality or higher importance. You’re left to choose between either de-friending someone you are interested in, or simply letting them totally dominate your profile.

5) Archiving sucks. If you happen to miss your friend’s update about that event they were at the other night, your only real option is to go find their profile and scroll through recent updates until you find it. You can’t even search through updates, including your own.

6) Nobody wants to use it. Let’s face it, the only reason we use social networks is to stay in touch with our friends, and if our friends aren’t there, we have no purpose in being there. You could say this about any new social network, but Twitter is different in that most people don’t understand it. Most of my non-geek friends who I’ve gotten to try out Twitter found it too boring and limited (which it is) to really spend any time on it. Generally if you have a better product, the trouble is getting people to try ours out to begin with. Even when people are encouraged (forced) to try out Twitter by their friends, most don’t get it and don’t stay.

7) It doesn’t do anything. Do you honestly think the reason Facebook applications are exploding is because we’re all secretly dying for simplicity? Did I mention the 140 character limit? Twitter does not do anything. If you removed every feature of Facebook except the status update and the RSS feed, you’d have Twitter.
The fact that Twitter is even getting this kind of positive press is mindblogging to me. Keep in mind that I write this as an active (and rather addicted) Twitter user. I like Twitter – there are many things it does well. Twitter is great for getting real-time event highlights, having a short, casual conversation (smalltalk, you mightsay) with a small group of friends, marketing yourself to fans, or following the lives of people who you don’t generally have access to in a way that feels more personal than a blog.

But Twitter is not a Facebook replacement. It is not in that same market of the big social networks, and it certainly cannot hold a candle to any of them when it comes to what we really want: to stay in touch with our friends. We want to post photos, see photos, write a couple paragraphs to someone we haven’t talked to for a while, post a 30-character status when we don’t feel like doing anything else, seeing an feed of not just what our friends type but what they’ve done lately.

So I ask again – why all the attention for something so small?

Daniel Hollister is the Editor-in-Chief of Macteens, and has been apart of the Macteens community since 2002. He is a filmmaker, designer, entrepreneur, and Mac enthusiast from Santa Cruz, California. When not arguing in the forums and working 18 hour days, Daniel can be found sleeping. That is it, he has no time for anything else. Daniel currently works and resides in Hollywood, California.

The Achilles’ Heel of iPhone Data (And Why It Makes The SDK Lose Value)

by Daniel Hollister • 03/02/2008 at 04:38 PM

The other night, I was sitting in a lovely coffee shop in Westwood, waiting for my friends to either show up and meet me, or for them to call and let me know when they would be doing so. Since I had several minutes to burn either way, I pulled out my trusty iPhone and started to browse Facebook for some time. A few minutes after I finished doing this, I noticed that suddenly I had two voicemails from friends who were rather confused as to why I didn’t pick up. (I almost always pick up my phone.)

I had five bars of service in a major part of Los Angeles. What gives?

Suddenly it hit me. While it has been long known that you cannot use EDGE while receiving phone calls, the iPhone is not smart enough to give priority to the voice connection. Or, at the very least, it cannot do so consistently.

That’s right—my menial browsing of Facebook was enough to stop the mighty iPhone from receiving phone calls.

After some testing in this matter, it would appear that while the results vary, the majority of the time you are on EDGE, the phone will not ring. Period.

Old news for some? Probably. After all, I did know this was an EDGE limitation, but my old phones (a Motorola SLVR and a Sony Z310a) were both smart enough to pause the EDGE connection whenever the phone rang and allow me to answer the call. The fact that the iPhone does not do this is… well, disturbing.

While all of us are sitting here salivating over the imminent SDK, it occurred to me that most of the applications I would really want or expect are data-intensive apps. In this situation, one can therefore assume that if using anything like an AIM app over EDGE could hinder your ability to pick up calls when you need to.

Is that worth it? Is your shiny RSS feed app or Jabber client worth your inability to receive calls? I would have to say no. For many of us, our phones are our lifelines to friends, family, and work. In my situation, I must be reachable via cellphone virtually any time, and a missed call that I don’t notice for fifteen minutes or longer can be a serious problem for me.

And I know there’s others out there that are similar. Most smartphone users are people who have a schedule to keep or a project to run, and communication is key.

The argument, of course, is that you can use these apps just fine over wifi. But how often are most iPhone owners really in hot spots? Most wifi areas besides my house that I go do require me to log in, and I seldom log out—meaning that if I am using an AIM client and then walk out of the coffee shop, either the AIM client needs to be smart and log me off on its own when it determines I am on EDGE, or I have to think about it, and manually log off every time I leave.

Forcing people to think about what they’re doing is never good for an Apple product.

This is a limitation that will be eliminated with a 3G iPhone, but for the rest of us, what will we do? Is the iPhone’s inability to give priority calls something in the chipset or something that can be provided to us with a software update?

Will it be worth it to produce or use applications that are as data-intensive as the ones we’ve been hoping for?

While it is a great thing that the iPhone is revolutionizing internet access on-the-go, sacrificing the phone aspect of your iPhone is far too high a price.

Review: AblePlanet Clear Harmony Headphones

by Jordan Chark • 02/27/2008 at 05:24 PM

Being an audiophile myself, it’s always an experience whenever I put on a new pair of headphones. Lately, I’ve been trying out AblePlanet’s Clear Harmony “Active Noise Canceling with Linx Audio” headphones. While I myself don’t necessarily experience the problem, many people find it uncomfortable to wear in-ear “IEMs” for an extended period of time. That, of course brings us to the over the ear noise-canceling category which the Clear Harmony fits into. The category, largely dominated by Bose, has seen much competition over the years, and now it’s time to see how the AblePlanet’s stack up.

Design/Comfort

The comfort was probably one of the first things I noticed while putting these on. The headphone padding, which feels somewhat leather-like, is very soft and comfortable for extended use. Also, the headband is covered in a similar material, an essential detail some other manufacturers tend to neglect. They come with a hard-shell zippered carrying case with plenty of room for the headphones and various adapters/cables. One gripe, however: the plastic headphone shells feel a bit clunky, but they do have a good amount of weight to them.

An important note: The AblePlanet’s work on 2 standard AAA batteries, but that’s mainly for the noise canceling feature, and can be used without them in case you run out.

Sound/Noise Cancelling

The sound is generally decent, with pretty powerful bass and average mids, but the treble response could definitely be better. I sampled several genres of music with these, and found them to be enjoyable to listen to, albeit not the most enjoyable. However, I did find them to shine while listening to podcasts and TV/Movies in noisy environments such as cars. The noise cancelling almost confines you to your own, personal bubble of sound, and speech is quite clear. Also, the “Linx Audio” feature, highly touted by the manufacturer, allows you to hear all the subtleties in the music without crankin’ up the volume as you’re probably used to.

Conclusion

While the sound isn’t as sharp, nor layered as I have heard elsewhere, the average consumer is not too likely to notice the difference. Also, with their solid noise-canceling added into the mix, they become a viable alternative to Bose’s high-end QC3s in that respect. They’re pretty comfortable and look fairly classy. The price-tag is a bit steep at $350, which may mean you’ll have to sit down and contemplate the purchase. Overall, if you’re looking for over-ear noise canceling ‘phones in this range, I’d recommend them.

Jordan Chark is a staff writer for Macteens.

A Lot of Hot Air

by Seth Hover • 02/07/2008 at 03:44 PM

It wasn’t a surprise to many.

Apple’s announcement of the slim-and-trim MacBook Air had diehards buzzing in Moscone Center, most clamoring to test it after the keynote.

But after we cut out the hype, we found that the MacBook Air really doesn’t have much to offer. Sure, it’s tiny. Apple has wasted no time demonstrating this by hiding it in envelopes, but it’s not like the ultraportable market is a new area. Sony’s VAIO VGN-X505VP was released in 2004, less than an inch thick at it’s bulkiest, and just over a centimeter at it’s thinnest with the lid closed. It’s also a lot lighter than the “AirBook”. Of course, it’s a Windows-centric machine, so it’s either stuck with XP or Vista. It’s obvious where we stand on that issue.
The biggest problem is that there is really no market for such a laptop. It’s far too expensive for a consumer machine, but the features Apple touts are dismally inadequate for any professional use.

The hard drive options seem to be what Apple is proudest of. At the lowest-priced configuration, the Air uses an 80GB 4200RPM PATA drive. This is the same drive that the 80GB-capacity iPod Classic uses, which shows the trust Apple has in it’s technology across the board. Unfortunately, the drive just isn’t up to intensive tasks. Besides it’s relatively low capacity (would it have been so hard to give us the 160GB iPod drive?), the speed is a major bottleneck. 4200RPM combined with a PATA interface (most Apple products, including the MacBook, use the newer, faster SATA interface) irreparably cuts the speed of the Air.

Unless… for a measly $999, Apple is willing to hook users up with a drive with less capacity.

Wait, what?

Okay, the technology is cool; basically, it’s like having a giant SD card in place of a platter-based drive. The speed increase over the 80GB drive is nice, but at a 64GB maximum, though, that will fill up fast. Apple suggests 9GB of hard drive space alone for OS X (http://www.apple.com/macosx/techspecs/), which significantly cuts into what little is available. Fill that up with applications and media, and there isn’t left with much to work with.

Oh, and that’s after you manage to install things. See, the Macbook Air doesn’t have an optical drive. To get around this, you can either (surprise) spend more money on Apple’s new external hard drive (and sacrifice your lone USB port) or ‘hijack’ another computer’s optical drive over WiFi. Not only does is this option slow (it’s limited to the speed of the slowest wireless card involved), it provides users no way to use CDs in a truly portable setting. Some might not need this feature, but we’d argue that CDs and DVDs aren’t as dead as floppy disks (remember the first iMac?).

Another missing feature? Firewire. This effectively cuts out anyone working with video and further limits wired networking options (in fact, with the lack of ethernet, there are NO included wired networking capabilities. You can, however, spend even more money for an ethernet-to-USB adapter).

So who is the Macbook Air for? Well, it’s price leaves out cash-strapped students and many consumers. It isn’t powerful enough for professional use, save for Internet access, word processing and maybe light Photoshop work. Forget using it in most creative fields; there’s too little hard drive space and too little connectivity features for serious photographers and anyone who works with video. Apple really dropped the ball on this one; for the price, they provide too little. A lot of the technology really isn’t ready for primetime (we’re still reeling over the extra grand for the SSD). Save your money; unless you really need the thinness of the Air, you can get a Macbook with a faster processor, more hard drive space and more RAM for the same price.

Seth Hover , Macteens' Senior Editor and forum urchin-at-large, favors sleep and slack to work and productivity. It shows.

The Mac in the Theatre

by Caitlyn Imbimbo • 02/06/2008 at 01:35 PM

The Macintosh platform has for a long time been labeled as the machine for “creative professionals”. What does this really mean? Well, in more common terms, this means that Apple provides the industry with computers that allow for its users to get things done, easily, quickly and effectively. With a Macintosh the possibilities are endless. Recently, however, I was approached by a family friend contemplating making the move from the Windows platform to Mac OS X. They specifically said to me that they are really just looking for a machine that they can do the usual stuff on. We all know what that entails. Email, web browsing, photo management, instant messaging, etc. Looking at the bottom of the line MacBook, this person asked me if it would be worth purchasing such a machine, due to its potential and their lack of a need for such a creative machine. My answer was to him, the story I am about to share with you, which helped him to realize, you never know what area of your life may make you appreciate the fact that you’re a Macintosh user.

Generally, I tend to separate my online presence with my personal life. However, readers of my blog or any sporadic personal content I’ll post on Twitter, etc., may be aware of the fact that I am deeply involved in a community theatre. Every year, we attend the Speech and Theatre Association of New Jersey (STANJ) competition and awards, which just happens to be next weekend, ironically. We also travel to the state Thespian Festival each winter, New York City each spring to work with Broadway stars in workshops, and this summer, we have been selected to compete in the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival in Scotland. So, as you can see, a lot of time and dedication is required to make such a program a success. Many people are surprised to realize how intricate a production can be. You need talented actors and actresses. You need a set design crew. You need a prop crew. You need a lighting crew, a sound production crew, a fund raising crew, a running crew to change sets in between scenes, and a house crew to seat the audience. You need to find people willing to and able to handle each of these jobs as well.

So, last fall, I co-starred in a production of “The Diary of Anne Frank” as Miep Gies. There were some last minute cast changes made in that cast, as understudies were placed into permanent roles for various reasons. There was a lack of volunteers as well for this show to work on crew. All of these changes took place last minute; the day before the dress rehearsal to be exact. That was two days before we went on. The show required a soundtrack of various sound effects, recorded voice overs from some actors and a few transition tracks for set changes. We had found someone willing to run sounds over the speaker system during the production, but we had yet to find someone capable of putting together a soundtrack on such short notice without any resources being provided by the theatre. I spoke with my director and took a look at what needed to be done to create a soundtrack. As I was reading the sheet of information, the Mac user inside of me began to break out into my personal life. My mind began saying to me, “Oh, that’s a simple process in iTunes.” or “Audio Hijack could handle that.” “Quicktime Pro would have that done in ten minutes, tops.”

I knew immediately, that the production of this soundtrack was something that my MacBook could have produced without a sweat weeks ago. The reason was not because my Macintosh was fast, or because I was an avid, experienced Mac user. The reason I knew that my computer could handle the job was because I already had in mind, the specific applications I needed to use and exactly how I needed to use them. The next day, I brought my Core Duo MacBook to rehearsal and produced the soundtrack in a matter of an hour. I ripped some sound effects in iTunes, recorded some voice overs in Quicktime Pro, removed some cuts or dead air with Audio Hijack and put it all together back in iTunes. The production was saved, the soundtrack worked flawlessly on our speaker system and the play was one of the best I’ve ever been a part of. Not to mention it earned me a few compliments on my great looking computer.

So, what’s the moral of this story? The Macintosh can never fail you, even if you are a basic computer user. Why? The fact is that every Macintosh application is made with that extra bit of tender, love and care. The UI is simple and each program is running within seconds. There’s no need to dig through manuals or Help menus. Applications are made with a distinctive purpose and the menus allow users to run on basic instinct, even if this is the first time they’ve ever opened the application. There isn’t much you can’t do on a Mac these days and you never know when you’ll need something done quickly and easily. That’s what being a Mac user is all about. It’s saving time and being more productive on a system that is a pleasure to work on. I have to honestly say that I have yet to have a time, in my three years of being a Mac user, where I had a task to be completed and I could not find some way to do it in Mac OS X. The process is stress free. In situations like the one I described at my local theatre, you will be grinning as you complete your projects, because you know that the process wouldn’t be as enjoyable if you weren’t using an Apple product. It can make you truly appreciate the operating system. The bottom line is you never know when a random aspect of your life will require your Macintosh, so even if you start out as a basic user, the switch to OS X can only help you in the end. The Mac isn’t meant just for video editors, photographers, or a band’s manager. The Mac is meant to make your entire computing experience, no matter what you do, simpler, easier and more efficient.

Caitlyn Imbimbo

Replay 1 (2/5/08)

by Seth Hover • 02/05/2008 at 01:07 AM

There’s a chance you hate the bands on this list.
Why?
Well, this week I’ve decided to cover some screamo bands.
Why?
Isn’t screamo what those annoying kids that shop at Hot Topic listen to? Don’t all the singers sound like they’re whining?

Well, yeah. But these bands are really good. Just try and get past the vocals, for the most part.

Song: Sleepers
Band: Saosin
Album: Saosin, Capitol Records, 2006
I’m more a fan of Saosin’s original line-up (with Anthony Green on vocals and Pat McGrath as the studio drummer), but their eponymous full-length is solid musically. The singles from Saosin all blew me away; Sleepers is a a great burst of guitar-driven energy with great percussive variation.

Song: Bye Bye Blues (The Whole West Coast Is Ruined)
Band: Drop Dead, Gorgeous
Album: Worse Than A Fairy Tale, Rise/Suretone, 2007
It seems like screamo bands either: don’t have keyboard players, or they have terrible keyboard players. Drop Dead, Gorgeous is neither. Their key section is provided mostly by dark piano sounds, which accents the slightly off-beat horror movie-type quality that many of their songs have. I’m a fan of this song in particular because of the dynamics; it starts with a great sparse sound and moves into wave after wave of different loud, dissonant parts.

Song: The Circus That Has Brought Us Back To These Nights (Yo Chocola!)
Band: The Fall Of Troy
Album: The Fall Of Troy, Lujo Records, 2003
Taking cues from fellow-Pacific-Northwesterners The Blood Brothers, TFOT has a very math-influenced style, combined with a wide range of vocals and guitar dynamics. Filled with odd time signatures and abrupt changes, “The Circus...” is a polished noise experiment from start to finish. Not bad considering the members of the band were 17 when this was recorded.

Song: The Girl Who Was Born Without A Face
Band: Schoolyard Heroes
Album: Fantastic Wounds, The Control Group, 2005
Another Washington band, Schoolyard Heroes add a heaping dose of horror-movie cliche to the mix. Their sophomore album is much more polished than The Funeral Sciences, from Ryann Donnelly’s increased vocal range to the time signatures and innovative guitar techniques. The best part, though, is the last four seconds: an amazing choppy cap at the end of the darkest song on this list.

Song: Line & Sinker
Band: Billy Talent
Album: Billy Talent, Atlantic, 2003
Billy Talent is definitely poppier than the other bands here, but the energy they produce takes them past pop-punk into a power-punk sound combined with screamo vocals. Both melodic and high-pitched singing are met with frantic screaming during the choruses, and the loud, sparkly guitar transforms into a crunchy powerhouse and back again throughout.

Seth Hover , Macteens' Senior Editor and forum urchin-at-large, favors sleep and slack to work and productivity. It shows.

Quick Tip: Keeping Your Mighty Mouse Mighty

by Judson Collier • 02/03/2008 at 10:07 AM

The most difficult part about using the Mighty Mouse is actually keeping it clean. If you A. Own a Mighty Mouse and B. Are not a neat freak, You know what I mean. Just with a little bit of oil and grime from your finger tips, your Mighty Mouse’s scroll ball is totally crippled from the 360 degree scrolling. Luckily there is a fix for this.

Step One: Unplug your Mighty Mouse.
Step Two: Get a damp paper towel. Not too damp, you don’t want any water damage of course.
Step Three: Hold your mouse upside down, and use your finger on the cloth to scroll in all directions using the scroll ball. Go to town with that scroll ball, because you are literally scrubbing the dirt out. You should probably see dirt on the paper towel when your done.

And Voila! If the problem persists later, repeat this, and learn to wash your hands.

Judson Collier is relatively busy, so he doesn't currently have a biography.

Review: Logitech Pure-Fi Anywhere

by Judson Collier • 02/02/2008 at 12:23 PM

I’ve always had loads of trouble finding a good way to blare my music. You know what I mean. When you’re sitting at home, bored out of your mind, and decide to pump some music and just dance like a fool to your favorite band (yes, we know about your undying love for Hannah Montana). And let’s face it, there is no Mac with built-in speakers that scream. You need something that’s light, but still packs enough punch to get the job done.

Introducing the Pure-Fi Anywhere Speaker System.

Upon opening the package you will immediately find a sleek black travel case that holds the speakers, the remote and the charger. (Oddly enough, there’s no room for your iPod after that.) The speakers themselves look fantastic. The unit comes in black and white, with a glossy plastic covering. The system is all-in-one, so the only cord you need are the charger. The form factor overall is smooth and very clean-cut.

The greatest feature of the Pure-Fi is its portability. Not only is the system small but it is also very lightweight, eliminating the boom box factor, and its battery can hold a charge for up to ten hours. It’s a great device for taking around with you to school, to the beach, or wherever. The sound is great on this system for it’s size. It does pack a punch, but it’s not going to power your house party.

The only real negative to the product is the remote that comes with it. It feels cheap and very cluttered, which definitely drags down the experience of the player. They put in four dedicated buttons to navigate the iPod Menu’s, which is totally pointless unless you are less than 3 feet away.

Overall the Pure-Fi is an awesome player for your room, and although it will take $150 out of your pocket, its form factor and function still make this player a great buy.

Judson Collier is relatively busy, so he doesn't currently have a biography.

Macteens Goes Blog Format

by Daniel Hollister • 02/02/2008 at 10:03 AM

As of today, Macteens is now a blog. Over the next few months, we’ll be transforming the whole look and feel of the website to keep it cutting edge, but for now we have reshaped the front page to be more conducive to the publishing style that our readers love the most. We will still produce the in-depth content that Macteens has been known to create, but we will be doing this alongside a very frequently-updated blog. In addition, we will be tailoring our content more towards you—that is, we’re going to put the “teen” back in Macteens with exciting new content focusing on the needs and wants of this growing demographic. We hope you enjoy it. Be sure to check it all out and give us some feedback!

Macteens Live at Macworld 2008: Keynote Coverage [Archived]

by Macteens Magazine Editors • 01/15/2008 at 01:41 PM

Welcome to Macteens Magazine, and we hope you will enjoy our Keynote Coverage. In the meantime, check out our Twitter feed, which we will update frequently throughout the week. We'd also like to thank Verizon Wireless for sponsoring us with the equipment needed to provide our coverage.

10:37am The crowd is raving after Newman's performance. Jobs thanks the crowd for attending, and encourages them to visit the booth to try out the new products. Looks like we're just about done here- stay tuned to Macteens for further coverage of this week's Macworld Conference and Expo.

10:33am Randy Newman talks a bit, and mentions some strenuous relations between the US and other nations. He's come up with a humerous song, that is in defense of the United States.

10:30am Steve recaps all the accomplishments that Apple has made in just the first two weeks in 2008. He mentions that apple still has 52 weeks to go, and they're very excited. Steve Jobs is wrapping up the keynote, and has a special treat for the viewing audience- a performance by Randy Newman (not John Mayer, as greatly anticipated by the multi-year Macteens staff represented this year at Macworld).

10:26am Going forward, Apple will announce environmental details on major product announcements. He notes that the unit is made of 100% recyclable aluminum, and the unit's display and packaging do not contain any hazardous chemicals that many look toward when thinking about a greener Apple.

10:25am Apple has a new ad for the MacBook Air, which starts by showing a manila envelope, and a person grabbing the slim machine right out of the envelope, just like a piece of paper.

10:23am 5 hour battery life, .16 to .76 inches, 13.3" display, full size keyboard, multi touch gestures, iSight, 1.6 GHz Core 2 Du, 2GB memory, 80 GB HD and 802.11N networking round out MacBook Air. It'll be available in two weeks for $1799.

10:21am Steve mentions that most users won't miss the optical drive, since a lot of things can be downloaded. A virtual disk technology is available via the Finder, and allows users who have installed special software on other machines to directly access those drives with just one click.

10:20am With Steve back on the stage, he continues by showing off the side of the unit, which includes a 45W Magsafe power connector, and USB/Micro-DVI/Headphone (no Firewire) ports behind a door. An optical drive is not included, but a superdrive will be sold separately (that does match the MacBook Air) for $99.

10:18am So how does this all fit? Steve continues by showing the bottom side of the unit in a slide. An 80 GB 1.8" hard disk (same as the iPod hard disks) along with an optional pricey upgrade to 64GB, a battery and electronics. The unit features an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, shrunken to 60% of its original size, running at full speed. Steve remarks it's an incredible feat of engineering, and invites Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel, to talk about it.

10:16am The new MacBook Air's trackpad enables additional multi-touch functionality. Steve shows the crowd how's this work, and a lot of gestures used on the iPhone hold desktop equivalents.

10:11am He continues by noting the compromises other manufacturers make when bringing these products to the market. The thinnest notebook now, a Sony Viao notebook, is TWICE the size for the MacBook Air. It's so thin, it fits inside of a manila envelope. Steve proceed to show the audience the product- held in non other than a manila envelope. It is EXTREMELY thin, in a full aluminum enclosure. It has a full size keyboard and full size trackpad, and the head-on view seems similar to that of the Titanium PowerBook design- black keys with ambient light sensor backlighting. The unit has a magnetic latch, and a 13.3" LED backlit display. Built in iSight is included.

10:09am Steve says that today is the day Apple introduces another great Mac notebook product- this time MacBook Air. It's gong to be the most slim notebook ever.

10:08am On to the fourth and the last item- "There's something in the air."

10:03am Steve continues by mentioning that the first studio on board with movie rentals was Fox, and introduces Jim Gianopulos on to the stage to talk about Fox's contribution to the movie rentals on iTunes. Jim talks about business models, and gets on to what his research indicated, and says there's a slide that best represents it- a slide of home with earbuds setup just like a silhouette iPod ad. It was simply a the best thing to do for Fox and the studios. Jim appears to slip up- the Simpsons Movie, at least, will be available to download tomorrow. He also notes the Family Guy Blue Harvest DVD, and a lot of the speculation that hit the web recently, and confirms that the content can be brought directly into iTunes.

10:00am "We're very excited by the new AppleTV". This new device is actually just a software upgrade- a free upgrade available of apple.com. AppleTV currently sells for $299, but Steve notes that Apple wants it to be more accessible to everyone, and announces a reduced price of $229.

9:57am Steve emphasize everything can be done without a computer. He shows off browsing .Mac web gallery content, and does it with ease. He also shows Flickr photos, which are just as easy to show off. There appears to be a bite of a bug during this demo, as there's a black screen while the music plays. "I'm afraid Flickr's not serving up the photos on that one."

9:54am Movies are being re-encoded and the database is being updated, and the entire iTunes Store music library will be available. Steve notes that HD content can be streamed right off of the web. The crowd is shown a great demo video of a podcast of a skier descending down an incredible incline, and parachuting at the end of the slope.

9:51am Search is supported on the new AppleTV, and gives users many advanced ways to find what content they're looking for.

9:47am The new UI on AppleTV is very slick, and allows users to easily preview, purchase and download movies and TV shows. The new UI also displays activity from users who bought similar movies. The entire experience is seemless, although it did appear to take few moments for the movie to begin during the demo. Steve shows that skipping by chapter is now supported as well.

9:43am Steve continues with other places you might want to watch your movies, like a widescreen television. Many have tried to perfect a product, but all have failed. Enter AppleTV, take two. This new device allows users to rent movies on AppleTV, in full HD quality in Dolby 5.1 sound. Photos can be downloaded from Flickr and .Mac. Youtube videos can be watched, and you can buy TV shows and music direct from the device, and all of this requires NO COMPUTER connection. The device will sync like last generation AppleTV product if users would like them to. The device is the same form factor, but the UI is all new.

9:40am Movie rentals have two prices: library items are 42.99, while new items are $3.99. Over 1000 movies will be available, and can be watched anywhere. These movies can be watched instantly (as they download), and can be transfered to iPods. You have up to 30 days to begin watching the films, and have 24 hours to complete watching (though you may watch as many times as you want).

9:37am Steve continues on with his third topic, iTunes. Over 4 billion songs sold, 20 million just on Christmas alone. He touches on moves, with 7 million downloads- not quite up to their expectations. Apple today is introducing something new, since people only watch movies a couple times- movie rentals. Five major studios on board, Disney Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal and Sony.

9:34am Mail, Stocks, Notes and Weather are being incorporated into a new version of firmware for the iPhone touch. This is a PAID upgrade available on iTunes, but will be bundled with new units leaving the factory.

9:33am A free updated iPhone firmware package will be available later today that incorporates all the new features outlined below.

9:30am The new home/launch screen works great with Webclip. Icons "jiggle" and can all be moved to up to nine different launch screens.

9:28am Jobs continues demoing all these new features. They all very closely resemble the leaked firmware pictures and videos available on the internet.

9:25am He continues by bringing the upcoming iPhone SDK. Still in development, Apple wants to give iPhone users something today. Maps with location (approximation based upon cell phone tower polling), Webclips (adding webpage icons to your home screen), customized home screens, SMS of multiple people and chapter browsing in movies. Other new features are being rolled out in this update. Many of the features present in the "spy videos" are indeed present in the new version of the iPhone firmware.

9:22am Not wasting anytime, Steve talks about the second thing on his agenda. Second on tap is the iPhone. Over 4 million iPhones have been sold since its release. iPhone captures 19% of the smart phone market. Apple believes that this will hold strong into the future, and will continue to get even better.

9:19am He continues on by noting a big feature in Leopard, Time Machine. Today Apple's adding an accessory to their lineup for Time Machine, "Time Capsule". It combines Airport Extreme Base Station and a Wireless Hard Disk. Two sizes: 500GB at $299, 1TB at $499. Jobs notes it's a very aggressive price for the market, since Apple wants people backing up. He continues by playing the recent Time Machine advertisement.

9:17am Steve starts with Leopard, and its great market success. He's recaping all the positive critical reviews that it received in the press. He notes that Office 2008 is out today, "last big app to be native to Intel."

9:14am: Starting about 15 minutes late, the crowd is greeted by a "Happy New Year" Get a Mac ad. Steve Jobs takes the stage and begins by thanking the crowd for an "amazing 2007". Four things to talk about today.

7:13am: We are sitting inside Moscone West right now, and we probably have another hour and a half before we actually get inside the main room.

2:03am: We're in line waiting for the Keynote, which will start at 9am. Our coverage will officially begin at that time.

Macteens Magazine Editors contributed to this story.

Macteens Holiday Gift Guide 2007

by Daniel Hollister • 12/17/2007 at 01:34 AM

It’s that time of year again. Yes, the holidays—a time to shower yourself… er, your friends and family with some great new tech toys. Here at Macteens, we love tech toys. A lot. Here are our top picks—the best of everything for your wish list. Or, if you’re really nice, these are the things you might buy for the Macteen in your life.

Best MP3 Player - Apple iPod Nano ($149/$199, Link)

It probably comes as no surprise that we’re recommending an iPod, but why the Nano? Truth is, we’ve never seen anything quite as versatile as Apple’s current iteration of this model. The Nano holds a decent amount of music, plays your videos with shocking quality and detail, and is almost as portable as the Shuffle. While you won’t get as much storage out of this as you would a Touch or Classic, 8GB is nothing to sneeze at—especially considering its tiny size. At $199 for the 8GB model and $149 for the 4GB model, this is your best bet for anyone who doesn’t need to have their entire music and video collections at their side at all times.

Best Headphones: Sony Fontopia MDR-EX51LP ($39.99, Link)

Good sound is a necessity these days. For those of us who prefer to venture from the white iPod headphones Apple has delegated to us, finding a great pair can be daunting. Look no further than the Sony MDR-EX51LP’s, a great pair of in-ear headphones. Unlike most in-ear headphones, the Fontopia’s are extremely comfortable and come with three different sizes of ear cushions. Audio is balanced, the quality is great, and bass—the biggest complaint of most inexpensive pairs of headphones—is deep and vibrant. There’s also some sort of magic in the cord. No matter how long you use the headphones; how many times you wrap up the wire; how you stuff it into your bag: the cord remains undamaged and straightens right out. Magic! For the price, there is absolutely nothing better. These guys sound better than most pairs of $100 headphones we’ve tested. Get them.

Best Still Camera - Canon 400D ($529.95, Link) + Canon 50mm lens ($74.95, Link)

Let’s face it, Canon makes the best digital SLR’s and lenses around. The 400D is no different. This camera, referred to generally as the Rebel XTi, sports a self-cleaning 10.1 megapixel CMOS censor, a bright 2.5” LCD screen, 9-point autofocus, and all the features you’d expect from a great SLR. Like the other cameras in the Rebel line, the body is plastic as opposed to magnesium, but it feels sturdy and the 400D has a better shape and grip than its predecessor.

One of the best parts of using a Canon SLR is being able to use Canon glass. We’re recommending the body-only version paired with the Canon 50mm f/1.8 prime lens. At only around $70, this is an absolute steal, as most lenses in this caliber are in the $250-350 range. With the conversion rate, this lens functions as an 80mm lens on the 400D, great for amazing portraits, headshots, close-ups, etc. For the beginner who wants to start taking truly professional-looking pictures with gorgeous depth-of-field, this is the setup to get. In addition, its f/1.8 aperture makes it great for concert photography and other places where light might be scarce. Do yourself a favor and pick up these two items. Your photos (and those who view them) will thank you for it.

Best Video Camera - Canon HG10 ($799, Link)

Can you tell we like Canon? Seriously though, the HG10 is an amazing new little. Canon kicked off a revolution with the release of the HV20, the first consumer 1080p camera on the market, and now they’ve done it again. The HG10 is smaller than the HV20, yet has virtually the same optics and the same glorious 1080p resolution. The HG10’s main appeal lies in the fact that it does not record onto MiniDV tapes but onto an internal 40gb hard drive in the high-quality AVCHD format. Say goodbye to inferior compression and waiting for tapes to capture. You can record about 5 hours on the internal hard drive at the best quality before needing to offload it. For $799, there’s nothing better. Enter 2008 with a camera that truly represents the cutting-edge of consumer technology.

Best Monitor - Dell UltraSharp 2407WFP-HC ($699, Link)

What? There’s a Dell on the Macteens gift list? Believe it or not, this is the absolute best deal in monitors. Utilizing a comparable panel to that of Apple’s own 23” Cinema Display, this Dell 24” monitor provides users with a great picture for $200 less. While you may not enjoy the design very much, the monitor makes up for it by having multiple inputs, an adjustable stand, picture-in-picture capability, and many other features.

If you want to spend even less money, you can get away with purchasing this monitor’s little brother, the E248WFP, which costs only $469—half of what Apple’s equivalent monitor costs. Beware, though. While this monitor is excellent, it lacks the versatility of the UltraSharp and the panel has viewing angle issues. We’d all love to be using Apple displays, but until Apple ups their game and lowers their prices, go for the Dell.

Best Speakers - Audioengine A2 ($199, Link)

As our Macs inch closer and closer to our living room stereos, the need for high-quality multipurpose speakers is increasing rapidly. The Audioengine A2 is a two-piece speaker system that fits this niche well. They take inputs via RCA or 1/8” mini jack and pack 60W of power. Built with great tweeters and subwoofers, audio quality sounds great, is very balanced, and the bass is great. You can turn these suckers up pretty high without any noticeable loss in quality. As far as design goes, the A2’s are simply gorgeous. You almost want to set them up somewhere other than your desk, just so they get the attention they deserve. While they’re a bit pricey at $199, there is absolutely no two-piece speaker system that looks or sounds this good. The A2’s are for true audiophiles, and are sure to please.

Best Microphone - Blue Snowball ($99, Link)

Whether you’re a novice podcaster, aspiring singer or simply want to chat with your friends, the Blue Snowball has got you covered. Like everything Blue makes, the Snowball is sturdy and very well designed. The microphone’s patterns make it suitable for all sorts of applications, and the quality is incredible for the price. It connects to your Mac using USB, and is supported under OS X for use without any extra software. The Snowball comes with a tiny mic stand for your desk, and several other accessories are available from Blue. This is the best mic for the price, and it’s versatile to boot.

Best Software - Pixelmator ($59, Link) and Final Cut Express ($199, Link)

There’s nothing better than Final Cut Pro for video editing, but as Apple has been showing us lately with many of their products, they’re totally content giving us consumer versions with just as much power—just lacking a few of the extra features none of us really need anyway. Final Cut Express 4 is one such example. FCE4 borrows from its bigger brother some of the best features, including the open timeline and support for the newest HD codecs. You can also import projects from iMovie, making the transition for budding editors that much easier. At $199, Final Cut Express 4 is a true bargain. It’s perfect for your editing needs, whether that you’re cutting up your family’s Christmas morning footage or splicing together your new TV pilot for that pitch meeting at NBC you have next month.

We gave a pretty good review to Pixelmator when we reviewed it a couple of months ago, and now with the 1.1 update, we love it even more. Since it relies on your graphics card for most of the computing, Pixelmator is the fastest image editor you will encounter for some time. The 1.1 update fixes lots of bugs, adds tons of filters, and supports more file formats and graphics tablets. While it won’t be taking over Photoshop’s professional market anytime soon, there’s no better graphics app for quick edits and most consumer purposes.

Best Accessory - Rain Design mStand ($44.91, Link)

The mStand is a gorgeous stand for your precious laptop. It matches the MacBook Pro’s aluminum body and simple, elegant design. Unlike many stands, the mStand is not only solid in construction, but makes your laptop feel safe as well. The stand has rubber feet on the corners as well as a metal lip in the front to stop your poor machine from falling off. Despite it being aimed at MacBook Pro users, the MacBook models look great on it, as well. For anyone looking for a stand, whether it’s for ergonomic reasons or to raise the monitor so you can hook up your own keyboard and mouse, the mStand is a great value and the best stand we’ve seen.

Happy Holidays!
These are our picks for the holiday season. While it’s been suggested that we recommend cold hard cash as our true pick for teenagers who never know exactly what they want, the old adage – that it’s the thought that counts – still stands, and the fun is in the surprise. The above products represent the absolute best of what we have seen this year, and we know that you (or the recipient, if you’re nice like that) will enjoy them.

What the #!%*! is a malcor?

by Dan Pourhadi • 11/20/2007 at 06:49 PM

What the hell’s a “malcor”?

Sounds like a kind of dinosaur. Or the name of some creature in World of Warcraft.

Maybe an alien from Star Trek. “I am Malcor, leader of the Laymonians!”

See what I did there? Snuck in a phonetic “lame.”

Because that’s what ”malcor” is. Lame.

Is it just me, or is there something strangely ironic about some kid going around, attacking websites for being too Mac fanboy-like?

Think about it: He hacked two sites. I’m no uber-l33t hax0r, but I imagine that’s no easy feat. He’s made a name for himself, and people are worried. Imagine all the time during the day he spends on this—not necessarily hacking or whatnot, but just thinking about it.

Isn’t that its own form of obsession?

Besides, what makes the two sites hacked—Wolsey’s and MacApper—fanboyistic? The fact that they focus on a particular topic? I don’t recall either site publishing pieces like, “Why Windows Sucks Azzz and Macs r da Bomb.”

By Malcor The Great’s logic, any site with a specific focus could be considered “fanboy.” PCMag: fanboy. SportsIllustrated: fanboy. GameSpot: fanboy.

The first is a PC site; second is all about sports; third is games. That’s pretty much all they cover. Does that mean they’re “fanboys” of those topics, and thus on principle must be shut down?

Seems kinda stupid.

But hey, what do I know.

I’m not saying I’m surprised by this. I like to look at people’s perception of “Mac fanboyism” the same way many look at the Far Right’s worries of “The War on Christmas.”

Is there a war? Not really. There’s only the perception of war, and that alone gives it a sort of non-real reality. There are people out there who are probably trying to kill the religious components of Christmas and make it intrinsically secular. But not many.

And sure, there are Mac fanboys. Kids who go from message board to message board preaching their love of the Mac and hatred for anything non-Apple, personally attacking others for what brand of computer they bought.

But is that the norm? Is this culture wide-spread? Hell no. The vast majority of content published on Mac websites are written by sensible people who are fans of Apple products, not out of loyalty, but because the products work, and work well.

Mac fanboyism is only rampant in the minds of idiots who see one person behave a certain way, and assume it’s the norm for all. A typical stereotyper—the same kind of person who judged people on race; the same kind of person who thinks all Republicans are war-mongering neo-cons; the same kind of person who thinks all Democrats are tax-raising hippies; the same kind of close-minded, brain-dead fool who thinks all PC users are idiots for using Windows.

On his blog, Malcor The Impotent equates posting pictures of Mac setups with smugness. Why? Obviously because he never took a vocab course. (He likes to write “fanboi” too, which sort of makes me think he’s a 13-year-old girl who likes to hang out on MySpace and PerezHilton.com.)

I’m giving this kid more credit than he deserves. He’s probably some lonely fella’ just looking to get some attention. Given that one of the reasons he gave for attacking MacApper was that it sounded like “Mac Crapper” certainly doesn’t enforce his philosophical, the-Mac-world-would-be-better-without-them arguments for hacking these sites.

Well, congrats, kid. You’re getting your 15 minutes of fame. You’ll probably get a cozy desk job at some security research firm someday, making good money protecting large corporations’ websites. Bet you’re proud.

For now, you’re demonstrating the same kind of obsessive elitism you claim to be fighting against. Bet you’re proud of that, too.

And seriously. What the hell is a “malcor”?

Dan Pourhadi is a freelance technology writer from the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He writes several Mac-focused columns for various publications and has contributed to MacAddict Magazine. Dan is also a contributor to MacUser.

Interview: Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater

by Anthony Cole • 10/23/2007 at 07:12 AM

Daniel Jalkut is the guy behind Red Sweater Software, creator of such apps such as MarsEdit and Clarion. He agreed to sit down with us and do an interview.

MT: So like some of us here at Macteens, you originate from Santa Cruz. How did growing up there or going to UCSC influence your approach to software?

DJ: I didn’t realize some of you are from Santa Cruz. Cool! First of all, some of your readers might not know that the town has a reputation as a free-thinking place. Lots of liberal politics and actions, but also just about every other possible point of view. Growing up in that environment, it’s easy to get in the habit of challenging assumptions. So I consider my creative thinking to be very much inspired by growing up in such a thought-provoking place.

MT: What was it like working for Apple back in the day? Why did you leave to go solo and start Red Sweater?

DJ: I first worked at Apple in 1994 and joined as a permanent employee in 1996. At that time, the company was sort of entering one of its historic low periods, but almost everybody I worked with was brilliant, and the company seemed to be overflowing with brilliant ideas. I looked around and thought there was no way the company could just go out of business. Something big was in store. I had no idea it would be something like the iPod or iPhone (or even iMac!) but my assumptions about the intrinsic innovation power of the company have continued to be proven.

I worked on Mac OS X, in the Core Services group, from before the first public release through 10.2. I knew the operating system had a long way to go, but I felt like it was a good “jumping off” point. The transition from OS 9 to OS X had been a success, as far as I was concerned, and I knew if I stuck around I’d get focused on some new multi-year ambition. I was around 25 at the time and I like to joke that I was going through a mid-20’s crisis. I had enjoyed my computer science training in school, but also wanted to learn more about music. So I quit Apple in 2002 and went back to school for a 2nd BA in Music. While I was working at the degree, I just sort of fell into indie development.

MT: What are the advantages of being an indie developer over working for Apple or a larger company?

DJ: There’s something really powerful about having complete choice over your hours. At a company like Apple you’re liable to have a lot of flexibility in your hours - in exchange of course for working long nights when the pressure is on! But as an indie developer, you literally run the show. It’s all about satisfying clients or customers, and you decide how best to do that. While many companies are flexible with hours on a day-to-day basis, it’s far less common to find a company who will let you pick up and leave town for a few days, if you decide you’d rather work from a cafe in New York, for instance. These aspects of day-to-day freedom are what most separate indie development from working for a larger company.

MT: Indie Software, such as MarsEdit, has been a driving force in the Macintosh community. What is it like being a developer? What is your inspiration?

DJ: Being an indie software developer is rewarding because you’re sort of mainlined to the customer’s reaction. Everything you do either succeeds or fails with your name on it, and you take feedback directly from the people. This sounds cheesy but it’s true that my inspiration comes directly from the positive feedback I get when something I’ve worked hard on totally clicks with customers. When I released MarsEdit 2 the reactions in public and in private were extremely gratifying and rewarding. The inspiration is to keep getting feedback like that with future product releases, and to keep
blowing customers’ minds with amazing products and support.

MT: What’s your opinion of the “Delicious Generation”? Are you planning on doing anything special with Core Animation on any of your projects?

DJ: Delicious Generation is a term my friend Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba came up with, to sort of distill what is an obviously changing trend in software design. For years the prevailing wisdom on the Mac has been to put consistency and simplicity ahead of almost everything else. The standard tools from Apple make it easier to stick with conventions, and a document from Apple even documents how applications should look and behave. This is a great approach from a usability point of view, but sometimes it’s not very sexy. What many so-called Delicious Generation applications are doing is fixating on the lack of flashy appeal in some visual designs, and trying to remedy that. Because it’s a fixation though, I think they sometimes err too far away from usability. In summary what I think will happen in the longer term is great applications will be those that adopt a healthy dose of both the standard UI conventions and the flashy-appeal encouraged by these “delicious” apps.

Core Animation is not particularly on my radar because I’ve been focusing on features for 10.4 users. With 10.5 coming out, I’ll be looking at areas where animation can improve the usability of my applications.

MT: In your opinion, what are the best pieces of software that you can buy on the market today? (Besides anything from Red Sweater, of course).

DJ: It depends so much on what you’re trying to do. There are too many great examples in too many fields. If I’m sounding like a politician who won’t answer the question it’s partly because I’m frustrated by the idea of having to pull a few pieces of software off the top of my head. Let’s just say we’re really sort of spoiled on the Mac. There is a lot of great software and it’s getting better quickly these days, thanks in part to the great technology Apple keeps giving us developers.

MT: Let’s talk about MarsEdit a bit. You have the red sweater blog that’s updated regularly, so your blogging has obviously had an impact on the direction of the software.

DJ:It’s true. I’ve been a MarsEdit user for much longer than I’ve been the MarsEdit developer! So when I got my hands on it there were definitely some things that wanted to start working at immediately. My pet peeves, combined with some vocal feedback from the public, were basically what made the priority list for the first several dot-releases, and the 2.0 upgrade.

MT: Have you used any of the competition such as Journler or Ecto? What do you find the advantages of MarsEdit over those or a web interface to be?

DJ: I haven’t used any of them on a regular basis, but I have taken a look at every comparable desktop product I can find on any platform. I think it’s healthy to look at similar work, just like an artist probably gets inspiration from going to an art museum.

But I don’t think of them so much as competition. Does that sound ridiculous? The reason is that compared to the web interfaces for blogging, all of us desktop blogging clients are just tiny blips on the map. As far as I’m concerned the web interface is the only competition worth tackling. Calling each other competitors would be like describing the people in your town as “competitors for oxygen.” The oxygen is everywhere and free for the taking. The blog systems have no particular incentive to discourage or compete with desktop clients, so they make ideal competitors. They even help us out by improving their remote editor interfaces!

The story is the same for all desktop clients: “How can we get more web interface bloggers to see the value of desktop blogging?” I don’t have any interest in pursuing the thousands of customers who use
desktop “competitors” when there are literally millions of web interface users who can be convinced of the value of MarsEdit.

MT: Where do you see MarsEdit in a year? Are you planning on adding anything big to the application?

DJ: MarsEdit is really taking off as the number of bloggers takes off. Especially as people get more into managing more than one blog at a time, the benefits of desktop blogging are multiplying.

The list of priorities for MarsEdit is always changing, partly because the blogging universe is also changing. But some big things on the horizon are the Atom Publishing Protocol, which was recently ratified as a proposed standard. This is pretty meaningless to most users but what it means is there is an improved interface that many blog systems will start supporting. This interface will make it easier for desktop clients like MarsEdit to achieve better performance and increased features. So I’m excited to get MarsEdit ready to take advantage of that.

Another thing that always looms as a desirable feature is the notion of WYSIWYG editing. Many MarsEdit users would just as soon remove the word “HTML” from their vocabulary, but they still need to stomach at least a little bit of it to add bolding or italics to their posts. I definitely see a “rich editor” in MarsEdit’s future, though my crystal ball is not clear enough yet to see if that’s in a year’s timeframe or not.

MT: Is there anything at all you’d like to tell those of us who are just getting into development? Are they any real pitfalls to developing software full-time?

DJ: There are occupational risks with full-time software development. Sitting in a chair with your eyes glued to a screen for 8-12 hours or more a day is not very healthy. I would recommend that everybody getting into the field try to establish healthy habits while you’re still young. Get up and work a sport into your daily activities. Or run errands throughout the day instead of all at once. Any excuse you can get to move around and diversify your life will help your body and your mind.

MT: You’re in a courtroom. The People of Mars vs. Red Sweater Software. MarsEdit. Copyright infringement. What do you do?

DJ: I ask about the price of renting office space on Mars. I’m sure we could reach an amicable agreement.

Thanks to Daniel Jalkut for allowing us to interview him, and tune in later for a review of Red Sweater Software’s MarsEdit 2.0.

Anthony Cole has been a Macintosh user for 6 years. He currently lives in Silicon Valley, and when not busy writing some crazy article, coding some bizarre application, or crashing the macteens server, finds his forte to be varsity football and doing freelance web design on the side, along with his Junior year of high school (well, only sometimes).

Review: Pixelmator

by Honda Wang • 10/09/2007 at 08:14 AM

First impressions can be misleading, and Pixelmator is not an exception. Granted, it’s one of the best image editors I have ever used, but for those expecting a Photoshop competitor, you may be disappointed.

What’s Great
Now don’t get me wrong, I love Pixelmator for what it’s meant for: basic, yet powerful image manipulation and editing. This light and speedy app does what it does incredibly well, and better than any equal-level competitor on the market.

Pixelmator makes use of Apple’s Core Image to make it the world’s first GPU-powered image editing software. This innovation makes it fast, real fast. Not only did this app boot in less than three seconds, it also applied any filter I chose to a photo at an amazing speed. Photoshop takes, at the very least, two or three times as long to do the exact same thing.

Choices, and More Choices
Pick an image, any image. You’ll probably be able to open it. Pixelmator supports the obvious: JPGs, PNGs, and it also has the ability to open PSD files and many others you’ll most likely never encounter in your lifetime. It offers a great amount of flexibility over almost all of the images that you have on your Mac. The main format that isn’t supported by Pixelmator, but still used by many people, is the RAW/NEF camera format.

Even though it shines as a simple image editor, it also features powerful tools and filters that make the $59 price tag seem almost too modest for this great app. The magic wand tool works perfectly, and the gradient tool has an interesting, innovative method of adjustment and application. Pixelmator also comes with excellent built-in filters that achieve beautifully smooth effects with virtually no render time needed.

Integrated = Powerful
Included with this powerful package is a built-in photo browser that can look through your photos in iPhoto. For me, I don’t have too many photos stored in folders, so being able to run through my iPhoto library with the photo browser is a great feature without having to open up iPhoto to get the picture I want.

Something even better is its Automator integration. There is a plethora of Pixelmator actions in Automator that you can use with one or one hundred photos, it doesn’t really matter. Even though Photoshop already has available Automator actions, it’s the fact that Pixelmator can execute actions in such quick procession that makes it a more powerful tool than Photoshop when using Automator.

Delicious
A cool little feature of Pixelmator that screams “Delicious Generation!” is the use of your Mac’s iSight to immediately add a layer to your image from your iSight. It’s not really useful. It’s just...cool; providing all the excitement of a Japanese photo sticker booth.

What’s Not So Great
There is absolutely no doubt at all that Pixelmator is a great app, but it’s missing those key features that prevent me from completely switching over.

No Shortcuts?
There are those keyboard shortcuts that you learn to love and you love to use in Photoshop. But with Pixelmator, there are none of those familiar shortcuts to use. In order to transform your image, you must use an overcomplicated interface to scale your image or whatever else you’re doing to it. This process could have been simplified by just using something along the lines of Photoshop’s Free-Transform tool activated by “Command + T”.

To make this more counter-productive, you cannot use the “Shift” key to automatically restrain proportions, you have to manually click on a restrain proportions button. There is no “auto snap” feature in Pixelmator, so you must painstakingly move the image manually where you want it to be--or just the general area where you want it to be.

Typography Sucks
There really isn’t any pretty way to say this, but Pixelmator offers no real power over managing text in the interface. Whereas in Photoshop you can adjust the kerning, line height, font size, colour, and more by simply selecting the layer and changing those elements; in Pixelmator, there’s absolutely nothing for text manipulation.

This is a huge downside for people like me, who constantly use type in our graphics, and who need exact and specific changes to the text--whether small or large. Pixelmator’s lack of any useful typography tools just leaves us out in the dust.

Over-hyped?
Some of the hype of Pixelmator is deserved, but not all of it. Pixelmator lacks features that will never make it a true competitor to Photoshop or a Mac killer app. Pixelmator is only unique to any other image editing application because it’s GPU-powered. Otherwise, it’s just a moderately-priced and pretty image editing application.

One of the biggest offenders of over-hyping is CrunchGear. CG is c

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