News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
With Opera Software’s announcement that the company is this week demonstrating an iPhone-app version of its eponymous Web browser, we’ve seen quite a bit of commentary about the app being dead in the water, along with some legitimate speculation as to whether or not Apple will approve a third-party Web browser. (The company hasn’t yet submitted Opera Mini to Apple for approval, although our colleagues at Macworld UK got a look at it earlier today.)
Dan Frakes | Feb 17, 2010
Over the past few days, I’ve watched Apple’s iPad announcement and read impression after impression of the device from people who've actually used it. (Alas, I drew a short straw this time around and didn’t get to attend the event.) As I vicariously experienced Apple’s latest gadget, the one thing that struck me was that as amazing and lust-worthy as the iPad appeared, it also seemed utterly familiar and, well, normal.
Dan Frakes | Feb 2, 2010
The “Apple tablet” is finally official, and it has a name: iPad. Though this super-sized iPod touch is largely what we expected, Apple’s announcement included a number of nice surprises, as well as a couple bombshells. I’m not talking about those things we assumed would be true, such as a large screen and support for existing iPhone apps. I mean those features we hoped for, expecting disappointment, or those that caught us off guard. With an hour or so to contemplate the day's news, here are my five biggest/best revelations from Apple’s big event (plus a bonus one).
Dan Frakes | Jan 29, 2010
I’m generally not a fan of wildly speculating about products that don’t officially exist. So for the most part, I’ve tried to refrain from pontificating about Apple’s rumored tablet computer. But now that Apple’s officially announced... an announcement, and it appears all but certain that some sort of tablet-like device will be revealed at that event, it's time to get my keyboard warmed up.
Dan Frakes | Jan 27, 2010
In the week or so since Google announced it’s going to release its own operating system, the Web has been littered with commentary and analysis about “what this means” for one company or another…even though we know almost nothing about that product, Chrome OS. We know it will have a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel, and that “the Web” will be the development platform. But that’s about it. So, as Rob Griffiths pointed out last week, it’s a bit early to be making predictions about the impact of Chrome OS.
Dan Frakes | Jul 16, 2009
A nifty iPhone feature is the capability to upload a photo or video directly from the phone’s Photos app or Camera Roll to a MobileMe gallery. The iPhone grabs your MobileMe login info from Mail, so you don’t even have to remember your account password.
Dan Frakes | Jul 3, 2009
Back in February 2006, over three years ago, I wrote an editorial asking—in fact, nearly begging—Apple to make the iPod shuffle’s Autofill feature available to all iPods. If you’ve never owned a shuffle, Autofill is a feature of iTunes that automatically picks an assortment of songs, from either your iTunes Library as a whole or a playlist of your choosing, to fill up the iPod. (Depending on your setting, the tracks are chosen randomly or with preference given to those with higher ratings. You can even set iTunes to pick a completely new set of tracks each time you use the Autofill feature.)
Dan Frakes | Mar 16, 2009
Apple’s announcement of the third-generation iPod shuffle brought something many of us never thought we’d see (other than in a Saturday Night Live skit): an iPod with no buttons. There’s a switch for turning the shuffle on and off, but the familiar—and easy to use, I might add—five-button control pad has vanished.
Dan Frakes | Mar 16, 2009
As you’ve no doubt heard, Apple released a beta version of Safari 4 earlier this week. Among the new features in this pre-release is a major overhaul of the program’s interface. While Windows users seem to be quite pleased with many of these interface changes, as the Windows version now looks much more like a native Windows application, Mac users are voicing mixed reactions. Perhaps the most controversial change in Safari 4 for the Mac is a new approach to tabbed browsing that places tabs at the top of the window—replacing the traditional title bar—rather than in a dedicated tab bar.
Dan Frakes | Feb 27, 2009
As you've probably noticed, Macworld's staff spent last week covering Macworld Conference & Expo here in San Francisco. In the past, covering the show required me to carry around various printouts—my schedule of meetings and events; a list of vendors with booth locations; and Expo floor maps—as well as an official show guide and a notepad for jotting down notes.
Dan Frakes | Jan 14, 2009
I recently dropped into San Francisco’s Moscone Center—home of Macworld Expo every January—to check out the annual AES Convention, put on by the Audio Engineering Society. Think of it as Macworld Expo for the music and audio industry.
Dan Frakes | Oct 9, 2008
Since the day the iPod classic debuted a year ago, with essentially minor tweaks over its predecessor, I’ve been saying it’s Dead iPod Walking. Even the name implies at much: When a product carries the label “classic,” it’s a pretty good bet the company doesn’t see that product as anything more than a legacy offering for, um, classic customers.
Dan Frakes | Sep 15, 2008
As I type these words, I am waiting for Apple's Developer Connection web site to ease up sufficiently for me to download the long-awaited Software Developer Kit for the iPhone (and iPod touch, just by the by). In a way, I hate developer-oriented announcements — "here's a really cool thing we're working on, and it's available now, and hoi polloi can have it in about six months". Actually, it's the six months I hate.
