MacCast 03.08.2008 - Show #218
Media/Links
V Opening
V Opening Music
* Music is Say Anything by Manda and the Marbles
* Mandaandthemarbles.com
www.mandaandthemarbles.com
V Sponsor
V Audible
* Get a free audio book with a 14-day trial of Audible Listener Gold
audiblepodcast.com/maccast
* John Hodgman, "The Areas of My Expertise" (abridged) with Jonathan Coulton
V News
V iPhone SDK Special Event
* 28% share of US smartphone market behind RIM (41%), 71% of US mobile browser usage.
V Enterprise
* Push email, push calendar, push contacts. Global address list. Cisco IPsec VPN. Certificates and identities. WPA2/802.1x. Enforced security policies. Remote device configuration and remote wipe
* Microsoft Exchange support with ActiveSync. Uses Mail, Contacts, Calendar already on the iPhone.
* Tested at Nike
V iPhone SDK
* Web apps, over 1,000 available. Facebook, BofA.
* Same APIs and tools used internally at Apple.
V Mac OS X 4 layers
* Core OS, Core Services, Media, and Cocoa (User Interface application Framework).
* Core OS, Core Services, Media ported straight over and added Cocoa Touch to create the iPhone OS architecture.
V Core OS
* OS X Kernel, Lib System, BSD TCP/IP, Sockets, Security, Power Mgmnt, KeyChain, Certificates, File System, Bonjour
V Core Services
* Collections, Address Book, Networking, File access, SQL Lite, Core Location, Net Services, Threading, Preferences, URL utilities
V Media (hardware accelerated)
* Core Audio, OpenAL, Audio Mixing, Audio Recording, Video Playback, JPG, PNG, TIFF, PDF, Quartz (2D), Core Animation, OpenGL ES (embedded OpenGL)
V Cocoa Touch
* Multi-Touch Events (single, multi, and gestures), Multi-touch Controls, Accelerometer (3 axis sensor), View Hierarchy, Localization, Alerts, Web View, People Picker, Image Picker, Camera
V SDK Tools
* Xcode - Source editor, project management, source control, integrated documentation, debugger (remote)
* Interface Builder - GUI design, code connections, localization
* Instruments - performance analysis tools (FPS, memory usage, CPU usage, etc.)
* iPhone Simulator - Simulates iPhone API stack on the Mac
V Demos
* Touch FX - App built in 2 days to play with Photos using image picker, Open GL mesh distortion. Photobooth style effects. Shake to undo.
V TouchFighter - 2 weeks, 10,000 lines of code. Open GL and OpenAL (positional audio). Tap to fire, accelerometer to steer.
* Used instruments to check FPS, and view stack trace to optimize performance.
V Gave other companies 2 week at apple to develop some games and Apps
* EA - A version of Spore
* Salesforce.com - CRM services
* AOL - AIM Instant Messenger
* Epocrates - Medical
* Sega - Super Monkey Ball - using accelerometer
* Amazing depth of apps, and focus on vertical markets that take advantage of the platform.
V Selling on the iPhone
* App Store on the iPhone
* Wireless download over cell or Wi-fi
* App store manages updates.
* iTunes Store - Sideload
* Exclusive way to distribute apps
V Business deal
* Developer chooses price
* 70% to developer. Apple keeps 30%. Developers seem happy with this... I'm not sure about the marketing aspect as the store gets crowded.
* Apple does credit card processing, hosting, marketing, and pays developer each month.
* No charge for free apps
* Limitations on some apps, like porn, illegal, malicious, jailbreak, SIM unlock.
V iPhone 2.0 Update
* Developer SDK+Enterprise
* Beta today, shipping in June as free update for iPhone paid for iPod Touch
V SDK - Free SDK and develop on a Mac. $99.00 for developer program (test on iPhone, distribute app, etc.)
* Certificate that Apple can use to control apps.
* Enterprise - $299 to create proprietary, in-house applications
V iFund
* $100,000,000 for developers to create iPhone apps
* Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield, & Byers
* According to Macworld, they (KPCB) set up the iFund in order to invest in small start-up businesses, with the goal of helping them become standalone, public companies. KPCB's areas of focus are location-based services, social networking, mCommerce, communication, and entertainment.
V Q&A
* Apple will limit VoIP over cell network, but not Wi-fi
* How will developers respond to App Store exclusivity? Apple will only break even with the 30%. You can't get on the iPhone without going trough Apple
* iPod Touch fee. An accounting issue, but Apple doesn't view it as a profit opportunity. Price will be set in June.
* Enterprise program for companies who want to build and distribute private internal apps.
V What was missing?
* No word on a 3G iPhone
* Cut and paste? Notes syncing?
V No Flash. Jobs says Flash light is underpowered and Flash runs too slow
* Scoble disagrees. Flash runs on Chumby (1/2 the processor of an iPhone) and N800's have Flash 9 support
* Fight over PDF engine (licensing) may be at play?
V What's being said....
* Overall I think developers are very excited.
* Apple's servers were being crushed
* Looks like they are approving developers for the beta program, so not everyone can get in.
V Complaints and questions on application restrictions
* VoIP only on WiFi
* Will they allows apps that compete with their own services? Amazon MP3 app?
* Apps are not allowed to run in the background. Only one app at a time.
* File system access is "sandboxed" per app. App can only access it's own files. No access to iPod files (music, video, etc.)
* ArsTechnica other features of iPhone 2.0 include... view Powerpoint, mass move and delete for Mail messages.
* Sun says they will work to get JAVA on the iPhone. They hope to get a native version of Java Micro Edition running on the device.
V Macbook Air supplies low
* Ars Technica did some investigating last week and Macbook Airs seem to be hard to come by with many Apple stores out of stock
* Online ship times are 5-7 days
* Amazon and Best Buy are not fairing better
* Customers are even reported to be paying more for the SSD models to avoid waiting.
V So is it high demand or low supply?
* Apple Store sales rank widget has the MacBook Air outselling the MacBook, the iMac, and the MacBook Pro
V GarageBand 4.1.2 update
* Improves overall stability and addresses issues with the automation of software instrument parameters, FireWire and USB based audio devices and Magic GarageBand
* I know many people who were having issues with Alesis USB devices.
V Aperture 2.0.1 update
* A pretty significant update.
* Fixes to upgrading libraries from earlier versions of Aperture, publishing .Mac Web Gallery albums, Preview generation and deletion, and creating and ordering books.
* Other numerous bug fixes.
V Apple falls short of 1,000 rental goal
* I saw just shy of 400 rentals.
* Some rentals that were there seem to be no longer available
* Possible causes are longer time then expected to do encoding with HD and 5.1. Movie studio licensing?
* Jobs said it's taking movie studios more time than expected to get approval from various rights holders.
V Nike+ iPod expanding to the Gym
* Nike and Apple working with working with Life Fitness, Precor, Star Trac, and Technogym to bring the technology to gym equipment
* Data would be transmitted from Nike+ enabled equipment and sent to the Nike+ wireless dongle and the iPod and later synced to the Nikeplus.com website to set goals, track progress, and compete in challenges with their friends.
V BBC make iPlayer Beta available for iPhone
* Uses Quicktime streaming and web technology
* BBC-produced 'Whistleblower' documentary available on their site.
V Sponsor
V Certified Training Alliance
* The CTA is a nationwide organization of independent Apple Authorized Training Centers offering advanced Macintosh IT Training and Apple certification testing.
certifiedtraining.com
* If you want a certification in Leopard Support, Leopard Server, Pro Applications, or as an Apple Certified Macintosh Technician.
* Even if you don't need the certification, classes like "Supporting Mac OS X for Windows Administrators" may help you if you are an IT Pro supporting Macs.
* Crywolf is the location here in San Diego and they are awesome.
V Feedback, Comments and Commentary
V Automator to Automount volumes
* Last show we talked about using Login-items to set up automounting of network volumes. Andrew has another method since it didn't seem to work for Windows CIFS volumes.
V We worked out a way to get volumes to re-mount on wake from sleep using Sleep Watcher (daemon), some shell scripts, and AppleScript.
Sleep Watcher
* Instructions for this solution can be found in the 'Followup' section on the forum. forum.maccast.com
Mount on Wake
V Review: Logitech MX Revolution Mouse
* Play review from David
* Logitech MX Revolution Mouse. USD $99.00
MX Revolution
V Backing up your Mail
* Mail Steward
mailsteward.com
* Scheduled to scan my OS X Mail.app nightly. I also export MBOX files from Yahoo! mail (pro) and import. Detects duplicates.
V 3 versions MailSteward Lite ($24.95), MailSteward ($49.95), and MailSteward Pro ($99.95).
* Lite and Standard can handle 100,000+ emails and uses SQL Lite database. Standard offers scheduling, export options, tagging, and merging.
* Pro uses MySQL server (required) and designed for enterprises.
V CopyCat X Review
* Play review from John.
* CopyCat X
CopyCat X
V Errors with unzipping archives in OS X
* Listener Chris had used OS X's built-in "Archive" option in Finder, command+click and choose compress (Leopard), to archive some files to DVD
* He had issues when he attempted to restore (unzip) the files getting an "Error 1- Operation not permitted." message
V Make sure OS is using the built in Archive Utility.app (Leopard) or BOMArchiveHelper (Tiger) to do the unzipping. It may be set to use Stuffit Expander instead.
* In the Finder, select the file and choose Get Info from the Finder menu (command+I). Look at the Open with... option. Make sure it is not set to Stuff It. Change it to Archive Utility.app or BOMArchiveHelper. You may also want to click the "change all" for this file type option.
* Now these were large ZIPs, like 14GB, and I have read OS x may have issues with large ZIP files, so reverse may be needed.
* Some reports of success using the very latest versions of Stuffit Expander
V The AirDisk, Time Capsule, TimeMachine debate
* Play feed back from listener
* Listener Martjin agrees and points out some information from a comprehensive Ars Technica piece that explains TimeMachines use of UNIX 'hard links'.
* I have also had listeners say it's because TimeCapsule has some OS X server type software feature that control permissions that Air Disk lacks.
V The system preference hack is:
* Launch Terminal
* Type: defaults write com.apple.systempreferences TMShowUnsupportedNetworkVolumes 1
* Solution is buggy and should NOT be used if you want data to be safe
* An article on RoughlyDrafted has the best explanation I have heard to date. This is supposedly from an Apple developer list, "The problem is that integrity cannot be guaranteed — the AirPort acknowledges receipt of the data before it’s actually written". It would be a firmware fix.
V Closing
V Podcast Marketplace
V Thanks to my sponsors
* Audible.com
audiblepodcast.com/maccast
* Circus Ponies, Notebook
www.circusponies.com
* Smile on my Mac, textexpander, PDFpen
www.smileonmymac.com
* Certified Training Alliance
www.certifiedtraining.com
V Keep emails coming. Audio comments.
* maccast@gmail.com
V 281-622-4269 or 281-Mac-I-Am-9
* PLEASE LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS
* MacCast Forum
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V New music, "Games We Play" by Chase the Light
* From listener Nick. We played a track from them last year
* Checkout their MySpace page for more info
myspace.com—chasethelightmusic
V EOL: Jules Verne's Mac Mini
* Steampunk edition of the Mac Mini
Steampunk Mac Mini