The Case Against the iTablet at WWDC 2008

I’ve written before about my hopes for an iTablet. I’ve received several emails from readers asking my opinion as to whether or not I expect to see the fabled device on Monday. I know Apple is unpredictable, but I’m thinking about snowballs in very hot places when I say, “no.”
I believe there is such a product in development but I don’t see it making its public debut at the developer’s conveference. There are a few reasons for this:

1. It is a “Developer’s conference”

This is the event for the code jockies. This is where the people who make their living making Apple software get help and a peek at things to come. This is not a consumer event. If there is an iTablet cooking, release at MacWorld makes much more sense than WWDC.

2. The time is not right for an iTablet

Apple has made huge strides towards the mobile platform with the iPhone and iPod touch. Still, they are are just getting out of the gate. I don’t see them giving the iPhone programmers an entirely new platform right out of the gate. Also, Apple needs to get all our money for those fancy new 3g iPhones* before they start tempting us with the iTablet. Part of the magic of Apple is the very careful way in which they build the consumer experience. I think they have a very clear idea of what products they will release and when they release them. And, in my guts, it just doesn’t seem time for the iTablet, yet.
So I’d love to be wrong but I just don’t see the iTablet making its appearance until later, maybe MacWorld 2009.
*Although this probably merits a separate post, I’m also a bit skeptical about WWDC being focused on the 3g iPhone. I could see them talking plenty about the new software and virtually ignoring new hardware. The new iPhone could easily get its own event.so it

Continue reading →

Timeline 3d Review

Picture 1.png

It wasn’t so long ago that I reviewed Bee Docs’ Timeline application. In case you didn’t catch that review, it followed my general survey of OS X timeline applications and I found it the winner for the ease of use and the outstanding final product. I still use it often in my day job to great result.
Timeline is the brain child of Adam Behrenger. I have to admit I love using software developed by small companies like Adam’s. As a user, I know my comments and suggestions are going directly to the guys writing the code. As a result, the software seems tighter and you can feel the sense of pride in the final product that you often don’t get with software designed by committee.
As an example of this, Bee Docs has recently released Timeline 3d. The big difference with this new version is 3d presentation. A universal problem with using timelines is that you either have to dumb it down to a minimum number of events, or it gets too crowded and difficult to read. This is especially true when rendering in two dimensions. Adam came up with a way to take your timeline to 3 dimensions by virtually tilting it on your screen.

Timeline 3d420 w.png

Once you drop your timeline into presentation mode you can press the spacebar that essentially tilts the timeline at an angle in a perspective view. You can then see much further down the page. It all looks very impressive, like something right out of CNN. You can then manually move forward or backward down the timeline and it advances the page and three dimensionally pops out the current event of focus.
These very advanced effects are stunning. Just a few years ago, this would have required some serious programming mojo. Using Timeline 3d, you just press the space bar.
Timeline 3D also will export your timeline to Keynote. It doesn’t draw out the animations but does allow you to snap between each step in your three dimensional timeline. I haven’t had an opportunity use this in the trenches yet but I’m thinking I’ll probably just leave the timeline active in Timeline 3D and command tab to it from Keynote when necessary. I like the more fluid transition and the ability to easily go backward and forward.
Timeline 3D can be found at beedocuments.com and is sold as a separate product from the standard Timeline application. You can download a trial and, if you have use for this sort of thing, I strongly recommend you give it a try. The standard edition costs $40 while the 3D version costs $65. There also is an excellent video at the BeeDocs website explaining how he came up with the idea for Timeline 3D on the Beedocs blog.

Continue reading →

Return of Humpty Dumpty

humpty_dumpty.gif

Every year, about early June, I volunteer at the local elementary school where I give a presentation about how laws are made and the role of the courts and lawyers. This all started when my oldest daughter was in fifth grade and the teachers keep asking me to come back. I love it. It is so fun going over these topics with the kids and they ask such good questions. Once I finish my dog and pony show, the kids have their own mini-trial where they all play roles like the judge, attorneys, witnesses and jury. The trial is about Humpty Dumpty. We all know he fell, but why? Was it an accident? Or was it Murder! The kids conduct their own trial and the jury returns a verdict.
In terms of Mac geekery, the presentation is built in keynote and presented off my MacBook Air into the school’s projector. I use all sorts of flashy word effects and transitions. It is much more glitzy than my normal jury presentations. I think all the motion seems to keep the kids interested. I seem to have lost my third-party remote since my last trial so I had to use an Apple remote which worked fine.
It really was a blast to do it again this morning. My favorite question was one tiny little girl who asked, “Is it fun to stand up and yell objection?” to which I enthusiastically replied, “Yes!” If any of you would like the trial materials or the Keynote presentation for the fifth graders in your life, drop me a note. I even have a quicktime clickable version for those of you stuck with Windows laptops. I’ve seeded this out to lawyers and teachers all over the country the last few years and love to hear it is getting used.

Continue reading →

OS X 10.6?

osx logo.jpg

Today TUAW ran an article speculating that Apple may have 10.6 for us sooner than we all thought. I actually mentioned this a few weeks ago on the the Mac Roundtable episode 40 and it didn’t get much traction. Apple used to update OS X much more frequently than the big gap between Tiger and Leopard.
Regardless, what I found most strange about the TUAW speculation is the idea that 10.6 would come out as a “stability and security” update without any big new features. I find that really hard to believe. Apple seems to “get” marketing better than just about any big company out there. I think it would be really odd for them to release a new OS without having some sexy new feature to brag about. I would venture to say that there will not be a release without some nice new features. Perhaps the features will only be incremental but rest assured, Apple hype them up.
While I don’t know what Uncle Steve has up his sleeve, I do hope they bring more integration with the growing mobile platform. I’d also like to see Apple embrace ZFS disc technology. What are your ideas for 10.6? Let me know.

Continue reading →

.Mac Mail Down and MobileMe Wishes

images.jpeg

It is probably no surprise to any regular .Mac IMAP mail users that the service has been down most of the day. Thankfully you can access your .Mac mail account via the web but even that service has been spotty (probably as a result of increased traffic). It has been widely speculated that Apple is about to rebrand .Mac as MobileMe and increase the services available. A week from today is the WWDC Keynote so it sort of makes sense. Could this be the beginning of the MobileMe switch? I sure hope so. Being without my IMAP for a day (at least) is a pain.
Speaking of all the speculation over .Mac, I’m a happy user of the current incarnation. Syncing data between the multiple macs in my life is generally pretty easy (except when .Mac hiccups on me). Likewise the easy web pages and storage are also of use to me. I keep a family website and frequently send large files using my .Mac space as a host with FileChute (which I reviewed here). Finally, “Back to My Mac” has saved my bacon more than once when I left a file at home.
This being said, if someone put me in charge of upgrading .Mac (or MobileMe) would take this farther. Just a few of my flights of fancy:
* Push Sync to the iPhone calendars, addressses, and email. This wish is actually expected by several pundits;
* Build in something like SugarSync. In essence an iDisk that actively updates and works with specific local files on your system;
* Give me something like “Back to My Mac” but accessible from my iPhone. Also put hooks into it so I can control iTunes and TV;
* Make it bigger and cheaper;
* Make it faster … please!
What are your ideas to beef up .Mac? Sound off in the comments.

Continue reading →

Mac Roundtable #41

mac roundtable.png

While recovering from my Flu, I was able to sit in on the most recent Mac Roundtable over the weekend. It is now up for download right here. In this episode Allison Sheridan impressed us all with her stories of rubbing elbows with some of the worlds greatest super nerds. Yes, she even fetched macaroni and cheese with Bill Gates. We also talked about our use of .Mac (in which I seem to be the biggest user), 10.5.3 and a few other things Mac. Check it out.

Continue reading →

iPhone Google Reader

greader.png

I wrote a while back about the beta for the new iPhone specific mobile safari version of Google Reader. I’ve been using it exclusively since then and I’m pleased to say it is fantastic for my needs. It is really easy to sort through and browse my various feeds and both star or “mark as read” as necessary. This dovetails in with my use of the Google Reader browser on my Macs and office PC. If you are looking for a web based newsreader and own an iPhone you should definitely check this out. You can find the iPhone version of the Google Reader at http://www.google.com/reader/i/.

Continue reading →

SugarSync Customer Support – It’s Quick

Picture 1.png

Hey gang, I’m back after landing on my back with the flu. Thanks everyone for writing to ask what was going on. So anyway, yesterday I did my usual routine of diving into OS X upgrades without blinking. It worked out fine except SugarSync garbled up on one of my machines. Today, when I finally started feeling human again, I emailed them and had a response back within 30 minutes with the required fix. Impressive.

Continue reading →

Comic Life Magiq Review

comic life magiq.png

You may be familiar with Plasq. They’ve brought us applications like Skitch and Doozla. But before those applications existed they had a very successful application called “Comic Life”. The first iteration of Comic Life gave you comic book formatted pages in which you could drop your pictures or artwork and add talking bubbles. In essence, it allowed you to produce your own electronic comic books. I first heard of it when it shipped on my daughter’s iMac.
Plasq has now reinvented Comic Life with the recent release of Comic Life Magiq. This new release represents a significant interface and feature upgrade over the original Comic Life. Booting up Comic Life Magiq, you are presented with a series of potential themes. Of note here is that these themes are not all comic book related. They have themes like “road trip”, “memories”, and “birthday”. In other words, the folks at Plasq figured out what we were all using the application for and have embraced it. Of course, if you don’t want a ready-made theme, you can make your own. It will be curious to see if web sites start sprouting up devoted to sharing Magiq themes.
Once you load up your theme, there is an updated but somewhat familiar Comic Life interface that allows you to start dropping your pictures and artwork into the template. One nice feature is that in addition to your iSight camera and iPhoto album, Comic Life Magiq can browse your Aperture library.  It is all very easy to comprehend and without cracking the manual you’ll find yourself changing the layout and otherwise modifying pages an options in no time.  The text effects are also fun with a variety of comic friendly and not-so-comic-friendly fonts to choose from that can be dropped into any one of several included bubbles or simply drawn across the page.
While these features represent a welcome update to a very fine application, the most notable new feature in Magiq is the image editor. Plasq has joined a growing list of OS X developers dabbling image editing. Actually the term “dabbling” really doesn’t do this effort justice. The Magiq image editor is quite powerful with different layers, each of which can be easily reset.
The Color layer gives a variety of common photo editing tools such as sharpen, exposure, hue, and crop. The next layer has a very easy set of tools to do a more than average job of removing an image from a background.  The method, which requires two sets of rough outlines on the area to be removed and the area to be kept is very intuitive and consumer friendly. As an example, my eleven year old probably has no interest in learning photoshop, but in Comic Book Magiq she was all over this tool. The next layer allows you to warp objects with a variety of familiar tools from the OS X core image assets such as pinch, bulge, twirl, and squeeze. If that isn’t enough there are additional layers to allow you to put an overlay on the image and filter the effects, such as blur on the image.  Finally, there is a paint brush that allows you to draw in what could not be accomplished in prior layers.  While most of these tools were intuitive to lear, others took some experimentation to figure out.  I think some degree of complexity is inevitable with this many tools. 
Once your masterpiece is done you print or export it in a variety of formats including FLickr, HTML, PDF, and iWeb.
Comic Life Magiq requires Mac OSX 10.5 Leopard and reliant on some of the Leopard tricks.  Strangely, Magiq can not read older Comic Life files.  I hope the developer releases a conversion tool or adds this functionality to a later release.  
The inclusion of the robust photo editor really transforms Comic Life Magiq into a significant upgrade over its predecessor. It gives you one application to create the layout and do the photo edits. This seems to be just one more example of convergence in OS X software. There are videos and a trial download at Plasq.com. If you are looking for a fun way to present photos, go take a look.  Comic Life Magiq can be purchased from Plasq directly for $44.95 for a full version or $29.95 for a cross-grade from Comic Life. They also have a limited time introductory $5 discount for the early adopters.

Continue reading →