AT&T has begun sending out bills and to iPhone customers and it is not pretty. To manipulate a quote from Star Wars, “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of trees suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced”.

Checkout the video below from iJustine (tastyblogsnack.com). It shows her opening her 300-page AT&T bill. It had to come in a box rather than an envelope?! Come on.

The issue is, even though the iPhone data plan is unlimited, AT&T itemizes every bit (and byte) of data along with it’s associated charge. That means when you load a page in Safari, every graphic, image, video, sound, etc. is listed line by line in your bill. Now luckily, iPhone owners can opt-in to receive their bills electronically. If you have an iPhone you should set this up immediately. Do it now, don’t wait.

My big problem with this is that AT&T (and Apple) should know better. With an unlimited data plan it makes no sense at all to itemize charges like this. Let’s hope they hear the complaints coming from their customers and change this practice soon.

Ad-Blocking has been a subject of much debate since its conception. On the one hand we want to support the free sites we enjoy, yet cannot stand obnoxious ads. All the more so when they disguise themselves as application windows to mislead the uninformed user. Being on OS X has been a safeguard against these types of ads for people like my parents, who switched this time last year.

This may not be anything terribly new, but it appears at least one company has put a half-hearted attempt at misleading Mac users. While looking up guitar tabs this morning I came across this:

You might say that including both a Windows interface and a Mac interface would be ingenious, except for it’s fatal flaw. The first giveaway is, of course, the large Fisher Price looking buttons sticking out like a sore thumb. The second is it not being an actual window you can interact with. You might say the ad is doing more damage to itself by alerting Windows users that something is up.

However annoying it is, I couldn’t help but chuckle when I saw the attempt. At the very least we can say Apple is finally getting more attention, maybe not the kind we want, but it’s a start.

Listener Jeremy just alerted me to the fact that Apple is giving away iMoive HD as a free download for iLife ’08 customers. As I mentioned on the special edition podcast, if you have older projects that use themes or FX they won’t work in the new version. Mac owners with G4 and older G5 systems will also need to keep iMovie HD as the new version requires a G5 1.9 GHz or better system. I took a look and the page does state, “iMovie HD 6, previously distributed with iLife ’06, is available for download for those who have purchased and installed iLife ’08.” The download is 154.6 MB, so I assume it is the full thing. I m not sure if it does a check to ensure iLife ’08 is on the same machine, so it may work for anyone. If you try it and it does, let us know.

Join us for Live Maccast chat starting at 9:00 AM PDT and going through the end of Apple’s live event today (8/7). Join us on iChat/AIM in the room: maccast.

To access it using iChat:
1) Launch iChat
2) Go to: File–>Go to Chat… and enter ‘maccast’ as the chat name.

or Click this link to join now (AOL Instant Messenger or iChat account required)

Last week, on the first “I have something to say” segment, we discussed some strategies for convincing our PC using friends and family to make the switch to Mac. In that conversation we briefly touched on what I consider to be maybe the best method for creating a switcher; get them to use a Mac. Now, that can be a challenge as many would-be converts would prefer to try before they buy and most are not willing to drop $600 plus bucks up front for a Mac test-drive. Luckily, many of us have a secret weapon hiding in the spare bedroom, the closet, or tucked away in the garage. It’s your old Mac and chances are it’s still a decent little machine. Anything with a G4 or better processor can pretty much be dusted off, loaded up with Tiger and iLife, and compete with just about any currently sold bargain basement PC. It’s a great way to go. So what are you waiting for? Pass on that OS X Mac goodness. Listener Eric did it and checkout what he experienced.

[Email to the Maccast, 7/29/2007]
I actually converted my parents to Mac when I was in college. Two years ago I gave my mom my year old laptop that ran Windows when I purchased my Power Book for school. My parents are as far from computer literate as they come… they had a computer that was running Windows 98 and was turned on about 3 times a year before I gave them my old laptop.

Continue Reading »

The Fuji Finepix Z5fd is a compact 6.3 megapixel digital camera. This baby is really compact, small enough to fit in your shirt pocket. The 2.5-inch LCD screen is pin sharp too, which is a good thing, as you use this for framing up your shots as well and viewing playback of your photos.

A quick rundown of the specification of the Z5fd will help you to see just how featured packed this camera is. As previously mentioned you get a 6.3 megapixel resolution, a 2.5-inch LCD screen, picture stabilization and natural light modes, face detection, up to ISO 1600, 3x optical and 6.2x digital zoom. The camera has 26MB of internal memory, but no xD memory card supplied. It also has 14 quick scene modes, for things like portrait, night, and sports shots.
Continue Reading »

Okay, I’m just about all iPhoned out. I know many of you are sick of it. Sorry for all the jazz…I’m posting this here mostly because I think many were expecting some sort of review from me. DONT READ IT if you don’t care about the iPhone. ;-)

A little more (EDIT- actually a LOT more) on the phone itself: A friend grabbed mine from me at midnight and wouldn’t let go of it for an hour last night! The interface is intuitive enough that he only had to ask me once or twice how to walk through the features.

Set-up

Setup was too damn easy. I’d planned on a couple of hours setting it up, getting contacts synced and all that, even though I knew it was just iTunes easy. It took 5 minutes to walk through the setup, a few more to get the activation email, and a few minutes for my contacts, calendars and music to sync into the phone. Almost boring! LOL I had no problems with activation like I see some are complaining about on the news.
Continue Reading »

Apple and AT&T have announced the available rate plans for the new iPhone and they are simple and reasonably affordable. Prior to today’s announcement, many had speculated the iPhone may require an expensive data rate plan on top of the already pricey phone. You will require data plan, but the good news is it’s included with all of the required 2-year service contracts. Also included with every iPhone is access to the killer Visual Voicemail demoed by Steve Jobs at this years Macworld. With your new iPhone you will have a choice between 3 service plan options. $59.99 for 450 minutes, $79.99 for 900 minutes and $99.99 for 1,350 minutes. All plans include unlimited data (email and web), Visual Voicemail, 200 SMS text messages, roll over minutes and unlimited mobile-to-mobile and a one-time activation fee of $36. Family plans are also available.

“We want to make choosing a service plan simple and easy, so every plan includes unlimited data with direct Internet access, along with Visual Voicemail and a host of other goodies,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think these three plans give customers the flexibility to experience all of iPhone’s revolutionary features at affordable and competitive prices.”

With the announcement of this pricing it looks like Apple is poised to make an even bigger impact when the iPhone goes on sale this Friday, June 29 at 6:00 p.m. (local time). You can pick up yours up only at Apple’s US retail and online stores or from an AT&T retail stores in the US. The iPhone is available in your choice of the 4GB model or an 8GB model for $499 (US) or $599 (US) respectively.

I have to say for me, prior to this announcement, I had no interest in getting an iPhone. Now I must admit it is looking a bit more attractive. Don’t get me wrong, I am still not getting one, but I believe this may push other “on-the-fencers” over to the buying side. Glad I’m not an Apple or At&T store employee scheduled to work this Friday. Good luck fellas!

Apple’s website detailing a new shop they have opened within PC World at Enfield, Middlesex, UK. My previous experiences with buying Apple kit from a PC World has left a lot to be desired, so this news is very welcome. The page on the Apple website explains how the full range of desktops and laptops are on display, with regular demonstrations of the kit and related software. Good move, let us hope this helps to spread the word.

Bing Gorden co-founder of Electronic Arts announced that they want to and are going to be in the Mac game(no pun intended). This is what I’m talking about and what some of you said in the comments section on my previous article.

EA is answering the call by releasing at the same time in July Command and Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need for Speed: Carbon, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix(believe it or not, but it looks pretty good). Bing also announced that they would also be releasing simultaneously their Madden and Tiger Woods games to the Mac.

ID founder John Carmack also made an appearance to show off some new technology they are going to be implementing into their new games which will be shown off at E3, it would be a safe bet to say it will have an OSX release, only what is it, plus the fact that they are at the conference gets me all excited.

So a huge announcement from EA saying they are going to give us Mac gamers what we want, and making it a timely release. Now we have to show them that we want this by supporting them, and purchasing the games.

What do you think about these new developments?