The sad thing is that they even have to crowd-source this.
This also comes to mind.
Category: Apple
Do People Need an Apple Tablet?
Tablet computers have never really taken off, but if rumors are correct, 2010 will be the Year of the Tablet. Jeff Bertolucci of PC World raises a good question, though: do consumers want these things? Here’s an excerpt:
Conceptually, a tablet device is appealing: An 8- or 10-inch LCD color display with touch input — essentially a netbook screen minus the rest of the computer. A tablet could resolve many of the ergonomic limitations of today’s smartphone, namely the small display that limits its usefulness as a Web browser and media player.
Another Look at the Never-Ending ‘MobileMe vs. Google and Dropbox’ Debate
I’m totally bookmarking this chart.
‘A Game Changer’
Jenna Wortham of the New York Times has written one of the best stories I’ve read about the App Store yet.
I Agree
I want a 3GS with the original aluminum enclosure. Plastic gets slimy.
Mac Pro Gets New CTO Options
Apple has outfitted its Mac Pro desktop machines with a new 3.33GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon upgrade option, at a cost of $1,200, as well as 2TB hard drives for the Mac Pro and Xserve.
The new, faster processor for the Mac Pro is offered in addition to the basic 2.66GHz quad-core, and the 2.93GHz Intel Xeon, which costs an extra $400. The new “Nehalem” Xeon processor-equipped Mac Pros debuted in March. They feature an updated system architecture that delivers twice the performance of the previous model, and start at a price that was $300 lower than its predecessor.
Five Reasons to Jailbreak
Miland Alvares at Smoking Apples:
For the full year that the first gen iPhone was out, the only way to put it to any real use was to jailbreak it. Then the app store came along and changed the game of using third party applications on iPhone OS. ‘Official’ apps were far more refined, polished, and as is evident by the current figures, far more in number. But if the App Store is famous for anything other than its sheer size, is the stringent rules by which Apple allows an application to be sold at the store. In most cases Apple doesn’t even have to reject the apps—the developers of the apps in question know they won’t make it. Yes, they are that cool.
Snow Leopard Server, Address Book Server, the iPhone and a Bucket of Tears
This is from Apple’s Snow Leopard info online:
While most companies store contact information in centralized LDAP directories, IT administrators usually prevent users from modifying or adding their own contacts to the directory. This makes it hard for users to maintain a centralized list of contacts and access those contacts on multiple computers and devices they own.
The new Address Book Server in Snow Leopard Server solves this problem. Not only does it store contacts on the server, but it allows you to access and use those contacts on each of your Mac computers. With Address Book, you can even synchronize contacts to your iPhone for accessing your contacts on the go.
The iPhone as an Uber-Device
More than a few of the items on the list are certainly debatable, especially the last one, but the point remains: in only three years, the iPhone has seen an explosion in functionality that very few people could have predicted when it was first introduced. It’s become the electronic equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife, capable of duplicating or outright replacing many standalone devices and items and rendering others completely obsolete. It seems somewhat counterintuitive that something that costs as much as an iPhone could actually end up saving you money in the long run, but if you can actually manage to replace all 33 items on this list with an iPhone as I have, you’ll end up coming out way ahead.
Ramp Champ Free in App Store
Ramp Champ — the delightful carnival-themed game from the Iconfactory — is free for a limited time in the App Store.
There’s no reason not to get it. Be warned, it requires a wifi connection to download, as it is over 10 MB.
Clarification on OS X Server’s Push Notification Service
Apple support document HT3947:
The Push Notification service in Mac OS X Server v10.6 supports sending Push Notifications to Mac OS X v10.6 (client) iCal and Mail applications. Additionally, the service can be configured to provide Push Notifications to third-party applications which use the ServerNotification framework.
[…]
Currently, iPhone Mail and Calendar apps do not support Push Notifications from Mac OS X Server v10.6.
Getting this working on the iPhone would be a big step forward in getting companies to think about replacing Exchange servers with OS X boxes. That said, everyone I’ve talked to about this thinks going to Snow Leopard Server gives them push mail and calendars. Whoops.
Things Apple Can Learn From Android: Notifications That Don’t Suck
The Need for Notifications
Back in the day, cell phones did one thing — make calls. Since they were so simple, the only time they needed to alert their owners was with a ringtone.
Obviously, phones do a few more things these days. They can send and receive emails, SMS and MMS messages, surf the Internet, give turn-by-turn directions and much, much more. One of the core problems with smart phones is how to handle all of this incoming information and present it to the user in bite-sized chunks.