Google seems to me to be power hungry, or at least getting there. But, what can I say? I love their products. I hope the trust I put in them won\’t be misused. I love Gmail, Google, Blogger, Picasa, and Chrome. Well add a new one to the list: Google Profiles. Eventually, Google will release its public social networking plans. I keep reiterating the same things I guess, but I do love simplicity and Google Profiles continues Google’s throning style. Check it out. (note: I guess this has , but so what – double triple post for the win)

ORIGINAL POST

Today, I booted into Vista (gasp! no!!! but this is another post that will come shortly, until then see my Win7 post using pictures). My Windows 7 partition is not nearly as big as my Vista partition which is one of the main factors in why I don’t want to move my music to a place that a clean install of iTunes will like. So, I booted into Vista so that I could reorganize my playlists on my iPod, and specifically make a new one, because I didn’t have time to last time I added music to iTunes.

To my surprise, iTunes had an update ready, so I went ahead and installed it (iTunes 8.1). I didn’t notice any change except for one small thing. The list of playlists looked a little “pushed down”. So I pulled my eyes upward in the left navigation panel and saw a new button “iTunes DJ”. Curiously, I clicked on it.

As you can see from the picture, it plays all of your songs randomly (and, just an assumption as I’m back on Windows 7 again, I think if you uncheck some it will not play those). It can show a wide range of upcoming songs as well as previously played songs. The “randomizer” accounts for higher rated songs and can even play them more often. And, Apple must have just released an app or something of the sort (I don’t own an iPod touch/iPhone, can’t check ) because you can use your iPod touch/iPhone as a remote for the DJ. The remote function can, for instance, be used by all of your friends at your party at once to either request songs one by one or even vote on them without needing to have their hands on the keyboard/mouse. Pretty nifty huh?

On a side note, I brought this up because the program my school radio station uses for automation (we have one “automation computer” and another with a different DJ program that I do not think automizes but is very nice for actual DJ-ing) has been having some problems lately. In certain instances, when you try to “Insert” cuts into the line to be played, the program would freeze and so we have pretty much stopped inserting with that computer. I just thought it was interesting that iTunes now has an option for a DJ mode. And it’s free. But then again, our automation computer’s program does have very nice additional features like weather, notes, clocks, and other personalized tidbits that I do not think we could function well without. But, the Radio/TV class is still great and the problem with the program is being looked at and will probably be fixed soon.

original post

While trolling for stylish and useful apps on the App Store this morning, I ran across several different takes on using the iPod Touch or iPhone as a mouse.  Being somewhat skeptical and strapped for cash, I chose to try out the free version of “Snatch” from Hoofien.  Now, the general idea behind any of these applications is using your portable device to control your computer.  In the weeks following the OS 2 update I found myself trying out VNC Mocha Lite-a remote, well, VNC client.  MochaLite, though, tried to display the whole of my MBP desktop on the 3.5 inch iPod Touch screen, which was not what I needed.  What I wanted to do with it was control my MacBook.  I didn’t necessarily want to be in the othe room, just away from it.  There’s really not a good way to display the whole thing on that screen, and if I really wanted to bring it with me, I’d bring it with me.  That’s why it’s called a ‘laptop’.  But I digress.  What SnatchTest and other mouse applications allow me to do is take remote control of my cursor in a touchpad like manner.

Basics

SnatchTest is very rudimentary.  Basically, all I can do is move my cursor around and click.  If I want to right click, I can option-click, but other than that, my only other ability is to hold down the “button” and drag stuff around, like I would on the normal touchpad.  What I would like to do with it is scroll and right click, and I think I would be set.  However, there’s no in between Snatch Test and full out Snatch (link opens iTunes).  According to the App store, Snatch offers the ability to right click, a scroll mode, a complete keyboard, and a customizable set of screens to allow you to set your own shorcuts.  The full version also supports zooming (as in multi-touch).  I would like to see swiping available to it, as it’s a huge part of my Firefox workflow, thanks to Multi-Clutch.

Fake Physics Get in the Way

One of the biggest problems with the iPhone as a mouse is that it’s not a touchpad.  The screen interacts with a certain amount of “physics” built in.  Especially obnoxious is when I move my finger, then stop, and the cursor keeps on moving-just as if you were scrolling through a list or panning around a picture.  This requires me to course-correct and takes much longer than is practical. Edit: By tapping on the “tracking” section in the lower left hand corner, you have the option to a) relocate the button, b) turn off “intertia”, c) adjust the speed and friction of the cursor.  This ability really makes the app worthwhile: it’s essentially a fully functioning MacBook touchpad (before multi-touch).  Of course, you’re also not going to want to use it as a fine-tuning device, as it is still in essence a touchpad-the novelty comes from the fact that it’s wireless (and has a pretty significant range as it’s Wi-Fi based) and runs on your iPod, which you’re likely to have near your Mac already, perfect if you just need to launch iTunes so you can use your regular Apple Remote, but you don’t want to get off the couch.

Wireless but a Little Sleepy

Snatch uses a server client on the computer proper to interface (much like FileMagnet required a desktop client), which is annoying to some extent (everyone likes zero-config) but it’s not hard to understand, although unpolished.  You set up a server client side then connect to it on your iPhone/iPod Touch much the same as you would to connect to the standard WiFi.  Once connected, if the iPhone goes to sleep, you will have to wait for it to reconnect.  This can be a hassle if you’re looking to use the mouse often.  The menu icon for the desktop app will gray out to let you know that you’re not connected, but only if you enable the icon in the Menu Bar.  Reconnecting doesn’t take too long but just long enough to break the workflow.  You may want to disable the auto-lock feature on your device if you’re looking to use Snatch for extended periods of time (although I don’t think that’s super necessary, if you’re using it, it won’t go to sleep.  If you’re not, you won’t mind reconnecting).  It’d be nice if the app could do this automatically, and then reset when you close out, but I’m not sure what access to the system settings is like when using an app such as this.

You’ll want to watch your battery life though, because the familiar status bar at the top of your iPhone is noticeable absent from the Snatch UI.  Those kind of updates are very important to me, especially to let me know that my WiFi is on (so I’m not yelling at the Snatch server screen) that my battery is charged, and what time it is (unusual but useful information to have on a mouse).  The screen itself uses up most of the space with the touch pad (for good reason) and if you rotate your iPhone/iPod Touch, the touchpad orients along with it, providing a wider area to utilize.  I’d also appreciate scrolling and right click functionality, but they have to turn a profit somehow, I suppose.

You can use Snatch with your home WiFi network or an ad-hoc setup as necessary, and there was no lag for me.  You may want to think twice about ditching your G5 for Snatch, but as a simple remote control and at a tenth the price, it’s worth checking out.

Bonus: you can now move your touchpad around so that you’re not always putting your arm on it while you type.  Then, when you’re ready to use it, it’s back in the game.

Snatch is $5.99 from the Apple App Store.

I have a very stupid phone. At least, it seems that way now-a-days. With iPhones and Blackberry’s running around, each proclaiming themselves to be the epitome of phone excellence, my old fashioned RAZR is pretty out of date. I can’t get any kind of media on it (besides the photos I take) without going through a very difficult process involving a monkey skull and a lot of sheep’s blood. It’s possible that that is a lie. In truth, Verizon offers their VCAST manager for phones, but my phone (an inherited piece) is too archaic even for that: and both the software I can use for my phone (a silver RAZR circa 2007) and the VCAST manager are complex and locked down, so I don’t use my phone for anything other than calls. Of course, I’m not as up to speed with my phone as the rest of the tech community is: most phones are capable of handling images, videos, and music, in addition to their data connections. Anyone who has a phone with those abilities (read: everyone) needs to put content on their phone somehow. There’s at least a manager for each carrier on the market, and in general, they aren’t top priority for phone manufacturers. Also, for anyone who has a lot of these devices, keeping around 16 different programs that are ineffective to start with is not optimal. That’s where doubleTwist comes in.

A Media/Device Browser

doubleTwist is a media manager for our old friend OSX and, of course, Microsoft Windows. Now, it’s fairly obvious that with QuickTime, iTunes, Windows Media Player, VLC, RealPlayer, and the Magical Internet Fairy Player, we have too many media managers and players already. doubleTwist is a solution to the ridiculous number of applications floating around both operating systems. It provides organized access to all of your music, photos, and movies, as well as integrates the ability to share all of your content via the internet: email, Facebook, Flickr, etc. Obviously, it also provides support for putting said media onto your mobile device, including a slew of phones and ‘personal communication devices’, but also several digital cameras and camcorders, the Zune, and the iPod. Instead of firing up iPhoto for cameras, iTunes for music, and QuickTime for movies, as well as launching Parallels so you can put stuff on your phone, you can go straight to doubleTwist and do it all from there.

Centralization

I’m always up for localizing things. Nothing annoys me more than using a number of different applications just to perform one task. doubleTwist simply searches your iTunes and iPhoto libraries (different apps, same idea for Windows) to bring all content into one window. As much as iTunes has been doing this lately, doubleTwist is conveniently low on extraneous menus, and is first and foremost a media manager, not a player, exporter, or converter.  The UI is simple, given that it doesn’t need to do anything particularly complex, and is intuitive: double click to play, drag and drop to move, and find devices on the side.  Since doubleTwist can upload media from external devices as well as put the content on to them, any moving of media can be easily performed from within the window.  The number of phone devices supported by the Mac client is disappointingly low, but the Windows version is well equipped.  In particular, I appreciate the ability to launch one application to get photos off and music on to my iPod.

Media Player

As a media player, doubleTwist is not the shining star.  For music, there’s no “play through all my music” feature, and playlisting is odd, although each time you open a new music file, it shows up in the “music player” which keeps track of all the last songs you listened to with it.  (That means if you don’t want your secret Jonas Brother’s addiction to get out, you should probably just keep listening to them online.  With a fake email address.)  Volume controls and scanning are just straight lines with tracking balls, but it’s elegant in a clean way.  You can still repeat all, repeat one, and shuffle as needed.  Your “chiclet” Apple Keyboard iTunes controls won’t work, of course, but that’s not really what doubleTwist is designed for: it’s perfect if you simply want to preview that obscure Tom Petty song that you’re using to replace your Beethoven ring tone.  The essence of doubleTwist is that it works for single item viewing, but isn’t good for listening to/viewing multiple items.  Photos are easy to browse, but it’s essentially the same as the Finder or Windows Explorer.  The real benefit comes from not having to click around into a million different folders to get to your content when you need to watch the latest episode of Chuck RIGHT NOW.  But wait!  You can’t access DRM protected content in doubleTwist.  Thought you might get away with it?  You’ll learn eventually.  Of course, you can’t even preview those items in the finder, so it’s really no surprise.  doubleTwist can play .m4v, .mov, .mp3, .aac, (all the standards) as well as .flv files.

Device Management

It’s unfortunate that at this point doubleTwist doesn’t support Bluetooth.  Not having a cable for my phone around, I went straight to that test, assuming that a device manager that specializes in phones would have that from the get go, which was apparently a poor one.  There’s no report on whether or not it actually is in the works, but it’s on the customer feature-wishlist.  However, a number of phones, including the RAZR, the Android, Blackberrys, etc, are supported via their USB cables, allowing for quick media transfers.

The Point

On the doubleTwist “About Us” page, they describe their goal as “to provide for media what the browser achieved for the web: a single, streamlined interface that connects to any device, media source or network”.  On the connection end of things, they have obviously started strong with most popular devices already supported for at least the Windows client, and their interface is definitely streamlined (read: minimal).  However, they could do with beefing up doubleTwist’s ability as a media player in it’s own right: especially access to DVDs and more online networks.  They support YouTube, Flickr, and Facebook, but not Picasa or Vimeo.  I wouldn’t mind seeing some support for creating playlists to sync with, especially so I can use my fictional iPhone and my imaginary girlfriend’s BlackBerry with the same system.  It’s a bold idea, creating a universal media browser.

As we all know well, there are wars over the best way to access the Internet (Firefox Forever!), and the multitude of media players already in existence make it difficult to convince users to make the switch.  Do I think it’s going to change the way we look at our media?  To be honest, I kind of doubt it.  It’s always going to be tough for doubleTwist to keep up to date with the newest devices, and people will need to seek it out.  I, however, am happy to have a device manager readily available that is universal, despite the fact that I’ll still probably use Finder to look at photos and iTunes to listen to music.  Although we’re coming up on a phase where people will want to put more and more on their portable devices, doubleTwist doesn’t provide enough of a difference in functionality to warrant the casual phone user switching.  Those who deal in multiple devices and media often will appreciate the universal client with the ability to encode a given media file into whatever codec is necessary for the device on hand, but one person usually only gets one phone, and one phone only really needs one client.

Now to the Air: getting significant space upgrades to 120GB HD, double the space, option of 128GB SSD

Added a mini-display port to the Air as well as the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M. $1799 for lower end, $2499 for higher.

New display, confirmed.  Comes with built in-iSight (finally), stereo speakers (slick), 24 inch LED backlit display (1920×1200 resolution).  $900.  Very thin, glass display (last gen-cinema display/iMac hybrid).

Has built in cables to power MacBook/MacBook Pro (MagSafe) and a USB (for what I don’t know).

One more thing…

And it’s the MacBook.  Depressing.  Adding a model instead of replacing, is a smaller version of new MacBook Pros, entry price at just a dollar below $1000, not looking like much.  All metal, first MacBook to do so.  5 hours of battery life, little more beveled than the previous version, more like new MBP, MBAir.

Both MBP and MacBook meet EPEAT Gold specifications for environmental friendliness.

9400M included on MacBook, significantly ups the graphics power.

Wait, newer version MacBooks are actually $1299, the older plastic white model is dropping down to $999.

Cheaper than higher ends used to be, though.  Faster processor, larger hard drive, backlit keyboard added for $1599.

MacBook on same shipping schedule as MacBook Pros (ship today, available tomorrow).

MacBook spec: Core 2 Duo 3 MB L2

Consensus: Brick refers to the process used to make all of Apple’s new notebooks: one piece of aluminum cut out of, makes it stronger, lighter.

Apple’s pushing the process big time, apparently, with a video from Jonathan Ive about the process.

Store still down.

I need to figure out how to do updates like they do with the live blogs instead of summaries like this.  Let me know if you have suggestions.

No word on the 17 inch MBP, TUAW points out.  Word is that SuperDrives are finally on all models.  EnGadget points out that Apple has all matte displays.  Depressing, but who didn’t see that coming?

All right, it looks like nothing more is coming.  Enjoy your new Apple Notebooks…that is, if you’re not busy bailing yourself out of the economy boat.  I’d be set to pick up one of the new Cinema Displays and an Air if anyone wants to donate.

Stay tuned here, to Ars, TUAW, EnGadget, and Gizmodo for the rest of the live (or meta-live) blogging experience, and keep your eyes peeled for the new notebooks in the wild at your local Apple store and online.  (Apple store is still down).  Thanks for reading!

It’s all very exciting: one piece of aluminum is taken and parts are removed to result in a stronger and significantly lighter casing.

The plan is to use this to create more notebooks like the Air.

NVIDIA usage confirmed from Jobs: the new NVIDIA GeForce 9400M: “16 parallel graphics cores, 54 Gigaflops of graphics performance, up to 5 times faster graphics than Intel integrated graphics” (Jobs via Ars).

Multi-Touch glass trackpad, confirmed.  (I’m on my way to bingo winning action).  Entire trackpad is the button, as predicted by DF’s John Gruber.  Capable of Mighty-Mouse style two (in this case, more) button action via software.  39% larger trackpad, more gestures added (some four finger).

New MacBook Pro, confirmed.  Looks just like the leaked photos.  Graphics=NVIDIA, All ports on one side, Air manufacturing process (one piece of aluminum plus some), (LED) backlit display & keyboard, trackpad, corners look more rounded, feels more like an Air.  Keyboard also Air-esque.  DVI port, gone.  (Sniff) Replaced with Mini-DVI.  Magnetic latch, iSight, usual MBP items.  “Environmentally repsonsible”

Casing is very light, very thin, still very robust though.

Lied earlier, NVIDIA in the MBP is actually the 9600M GT with 32 Parallel Graphics cores, 512MB GDDR3, 120 GigaFlops AND the GeForce 9400M.  Can switch between the two to improve battery life (lower end=5 hours, upper end=4 hours, not bad).

No FW 400, confirmed.  2 USB, MagSafe, Superdrive (apparently not Supderduper Blu-Ray drive), other standard ports.  HDD and SSD available on MacBook Pro (hope the price drops on this).

Bluetooth 2.1 and 802.11N, no change.  Less than 1 inch thick (0.95″).  Thinnest MBP ever.

Ships today, in stores tomorrow.

Two models, starting at $1999, 15 inch, 2.4 GHz, 3MB L2 2GB RAM, BOTH NVIDIA CHIPS, 250GB HD, superdrive

Second, $2499, processor speed does get a bump to 2.53GHz with 6MB L2 (both can be upgraded to 2.8 GHz apparently).

Well, it took me since the “Let’s Rock” event, but I finally understand what TUAW is talking about when they say “Meta Live-Blogging”-and it’s exactly what I’m doing.  They summarize what all the other bloggers are reporting and bring it together in one easy to find place.  Hmmm…my mistake earlier when I said they were live blogging, but it’s still just as good.  Stay tuned.

We’re monitoring the feeds, and it looks like things are just starting to heat up.

Tim Cook is actually speaking first, not his Jobsness.

Blah blah blah we make better computers, we added boot camp, Cook is giving a basic summary of everything that is good about Macs.  Perhaps a preclude to a new release, Apple?

“Our get a Mac ads are good” Yes, they are.  Even Microsoft tries to copy them.  We don’t copy Microsoft though: Leopard>Vista.  Ouch.

Lots of new stores around the globe.  Fun statistic from Cook: 50% of Mac sales are to users that are new to Macs.

31% revenue share for Macs in US market.

47% of University students use Macs.  Translation: “damn, we’re looking fine today”

Jobs comes back to talk about ‘Notebooks’: starting with how they’re made.  Jonathan Ive is going to talk about how the old MacBook Pros were made.  Wheee!

Much ado about how the cases need to be robust, how they’re put together.  Suffice to say that it’s a significant process.  (check out photos at Ars, Gizmodo, or EnGadget, as well as explanations)

Surely they’ll change all this with the new, all aluminum notebooks.

Well, TUAW caught it: the Apple store is down (about 20 minutes ago).  Must be putting up some juicy new Notebook action!

Well, ladies and gents, it’s a little over four hours to “go time” but as per usual, rumors have been changing last-minute.  First off, photos have been posted of the purported new MacBook Pro, and it’s going to drive some people nuts.  Apple seems to be swapping their products over to the new iMac design with an all aluminum case complete with black outlined display, no latch, and a glass trackpad with no visible button.  Daring Fireball points out that the trackpad is actually all button, in that you push down at any point to click.  New purchasers will also have the benefit of a MacBook-Air-style keyboard, but no matte displays (glossy only, like the new iMac).

It appears as though the graphics card rumor is still standing, but that we will not see processor boosts in any model (without updating the actual processor chipset, I’m not surprised).  Confirmed from MacNN is the rumor that the MacBooks will not have a Firewire port, while the MacBook Pros should hold on to their FW800s.

Finally, rumors are circling that a rumored $899 item will actually be a 24-inch LED display and not the cheap MacBook with economy-boosting action (but both are still speculation, we’ll have to wait until 1pm EST today to find out).

Stay tuned for the actual event (coverage starting here just before 1pm EST/10am PST) or at any of the following sites that will actually be live-blogging the event:

TUAW Ars EnGadget Gizmodo