Apple has posted their new iPhone teaser ad titled, “Hello” on Apple.com. The new commercial aired last night during the 79th Annual Academy Awards. The ad shows a series quick cuts from films and TV shows where the characters are answering the phone and saying “hello”. The spots end with a rotating iPhone, the text “Hello”, an iPhone image, a message that says, “Coming in June”, and a white Apple logo. Interestingly, there is no URL and no text that would indicate the name of the product, iPhone. Personally, I felt the ads probably had little or no impact on anyone who isn’t already aware of the iPhone. Obviously Apple used film and TV images to tie in with the Oscars, but I didn’t find the ad very exciting or compelling. In case you missed it the ad is now available for viewing on Apple’s iPhone page.

[View iPhone Teaser Ad]

Well, looks like the rumors were true, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple has delayed shipments of the Apple TV until mid-March. Apple does not seem to be providing many details on why the product isn’t going to ship this month as expected. Apple spokesman Lynn Fox simply said that Apple is finishing up development and it is taking a bit longer then expected. Guess all that iTunes content will be stuck on your Mac screens for a couple more weeks.

[Update]
Listener John sent in a copy of the email from Apple:

To Our Valued Apple Customer:

Thank you for ordering the new Apple TV, an easy to use and fun way to wirelessly play all your favorite iTunes content from your Mac or PC on your widescreen TV.

Wrapping up Apple TV is taking a few weeks longer than we projected, and we now expect to begin shipments in mid-March, not in February as originally anticipated.

You may check the status of your order any time by visiting our online order status website at http://www.apple.com/orderstatus.

A shipment notification, with tracking information, will be emailed to you as soon as your order is shipped. There is no need to contact us unless you choose to change or cancel your order.

We appreciate your business and thank you for shopping at the Apple Store!

Sincerely,
The Apple Store Team

One of the early “Get a Mac” ads featured the Mac being able to communicate with a new digital camera while the PC just looked on, bewildered. Apple computers are supposed to “just work.” Yep, they “just work” with some peripherals if you happen to have a USB cable handy. Why is this the case?

Apple has always been an innovator. They dropped the floppy disk drive much earlier than other PC makers, included wi-fi in their laptops before many others and of course, Apple’s industrial design has influenced many other computer makers.

But for some reason, Apple has not integrated a media card reader into their laptops, nor their desktop lines. I own a MacBook Pro, and a couple of more slots on the side of the laptop would not look odd or ugly. iMacs could also benefit from a few slots for SD or CompactFlash cards artfully placed below the CD/DVD drive. It’s absolutely inexcusable that the Mac Pros do not have such slots. These are pricey computers; they should have features that are available on low-end PCs. However, I am not sure where on the Mac mini Apple could place easily accessible multimedia card slots.

You would think that since Apple is geared towards the creative, with software like iPhoto and iMovie, that there would be an easy, USB cable-free way to get the data on to your Mac so you can create. Who wants to search for cables when creativity strikes?

If you have a MacBook Pro and are dying to have a card reader, there’s a solution from Belkin that keeps your MacBook Pro’s form factor intact. You can view the product over at Belkin’s site. As of this writing, Belkin is out of stock of their multimedia card reader.

I just saw this cool little app over on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) and tried it out. Desky is a little application that makes it super easy to change your Mac’s desktop in the Finder. All without having to take the usual route of going into the System Preferences. I love simple little apps like this, especially when they work unobtrusively, and Desky does. What makes Desky “click” for me is that you have the choice to place it in the Dock, Finder sidebar, or the Finder toolbar (which is how I have it set up). Then it sits there ready and waiting for you to want to change your desktop background. Once that mood finally strikes, simple drag an image file onto Desky and presto-changeo, you have a new desktop beaming back at you. Sweet! Well worth the asking price, which is free.

(Via The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW).)

When Adam says something looks like it’s going to be cool, it probably will be. The SendStation Dock Extender is no exception.

According to SendStation, “The Dock Extender enables iPod & iPhone users to dock and connect their device with iPod speaker systems and docking stations, as well as FM transmitters and voice recorders, without prior removal of its protective case.”

For ages I have been annoyed because I have to take out my iPod from it’s case thus exposing it’s precious body to the elements whenever I wanted to dock it. No more with the SendStation Dock Extender. From the pictures (see above), it looks like a little dongle that hitches to your iPod’s dock port. Once attached, your iPod, case and all, can then dock with your favorite iPod dock connector accessories using the included Universal Dock insert. According to SendStation the Dock Extender will work with any iPod case that has dock connector opening. I take that to mean any case that accepts the connector from the sync cable included with your iPod. The Dock Extender is due out in March and no matter how much it costs (suggested retail price is to be determined), I bet I will be getting one.

If you’re a cyclist, runner, or hiker and own a Garmin Edge 305 or 205, or a Garmin Forerunner 305 or 205, then you may be interested in a new GPs training application from Montebello Software. Ascent will let you download and analyze GPS data using text based and graphical views. The program also offers an “Animation” feature that offers real-time playback of your activity. This feature offers a heads-up display, giving you the ability to review values like speed, gradient, heart rate, and cadence. In addition, Ascent includes GPS location, altitude, time in heart rate zones, activity type, equipment, effort, disposition, and weather data. The program can import .tcx and .hst files exported from the Garmin Training Center application and can also import and export files encoded in the standard GPS Exchange Format (.gpx). Assent sells for USD$35.00 and is available for download on the Montebello Software web site.

For the past few days I’ve been playing around with the social site twitter.com. It’s an oddball kind of thing. The idea is to post little snippets of what you’re doing or thinking.

Then, anyone can subscribe to your “twitters” and follow what you’re up to. And you can subscribe to others’. It has hundreds (thousands?) of regular, everyday people twittering about their days. But it also has a fascinating smattering of tech celebrities.

I was turned onto to it by MacBreak Weekly regulars Merlin Mann and Leo Laporte (I’m following their twitters, sadly they’re not following mine).

There are many other tech celebs, too. There’s someone claiming to be Steve Jobs, and two people claiming to be Woz (there’s even a slight chance that one of them is real).

You can follow people’s twitters on the twitter.com website. But most people set it up to have them sent as text msgs to their phones, other mobile devices, or to their computer IM client. You can post twitters from each of those too.

The Macintosh connection here is an excellent twitter “client” called Twitterific. It’s an app that runs in the background, and pops up anytime one of your “friends” makes a comment. You can also use it to post your own twitters. It adds an item to the right side of your menubar, so you can easily open its window when the spirit moves you to tell the world that you’re headed out for a dentist appointment.

Anyway, the whole thing is oddly addictive. It’s a new way to be part of a distributed community.

If you decide to give it a try, put your twitter name in the comments, and I’ll add you to my list. And if you want to add me as a twitter friend my name is jackhodgson.

You’ll need to act quickly on this one since the offer ends at midnight (EST) tonight. Thoughtout.biz, makers of the Ped alternative iPod dock, is offering free Sik imp and Sik din iPod cables via their web site. The Sik imp cable attaches to the 30-pin iPod connector and offers line level output and 6-pin FireWire port which can be used for syncing (firewire iPods only) and charging (all dock connector iPods). The Sik din is the same as the imp, but adds a car adapter for charging on the go. I personally have the Sik din and love it. The line level output offers much better audio levels and sound quality than the built-in headphone jack. It is the cable I use for going into the cassette adapter in my car. There is no purchase necessary to get these free cables, but you do need to pay for shipping and handling. I would also encourage you to take a look around the web site at some of Thoughtout’s other great products. If you are a MacBook Pro owner checkout the MagStay Pro and I personally own and can vouch for the FlexPed mounting system. If you want to take advantage of this offer hurry as supplies are limited (limit one per person per household). You’ll find more details on Thoughtout’s products and info on this special offer at thoughtout.biz.

Austin Sarner’s killer she-she disc burning app Disco is now out of beta and available for public consumption (Maccast review). Disco 1.0 for Mac OS 10.4 brings many improvements and features over the Beta and includes fixes such as a redesigned disc naming system, a fully rewritten Discography database engine, improved Unicode support, and more. Disco offers a simplified alternative to many other disc burning apps out there, but doesn’t skimp on features. The innovative interface helps guide you through the burning process and allows you to do advanced things, like spanning. Spanning takes data that won’t fit on a single CD or DVD and intelligently spreads it across multiple discs. To keep track of all your discs and burns, Disco also has a feature called “Discography”. Discography is a built-in media cataloging solution making it simple to search through all your previously burned files to find out what disc they are on. Add to all this, cool, fun UI elements and eye candy (like smoke effects as you burn your discs) and you have a great burning package at an affordable price. Disco is now available at an introductory price of USD$14.95. They also offer some multi-license options, with a family pack for under USD$30 and a 10 pack for under USD$90. More information and details can be found on the Disco web site and on the Disco blog.

One of the coolest apps that sets the iPhone apart from any other mobile phone is visual voicemail, which displays who left you a message and allows you to listen to each in any order. It’s a new way to answer your mobile phone voicemails, but now you can do the same on your Mac with the CallWave Visual Voicemail widget.

Setup on your Mac and Mobile Phone

CallWave has setup this free service to allow you to receive your mobile voicemail on your computer. Just download the Apple widget (Yahoo! Widget and a Vista Gadget users can play too) to your Mac, install it in the usual way. Then open your Dashboard and click on the CallWave Visual Voicemail widget to set it up.
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