Apr 12
21
Double iPad Fail
It still seems to be the case that if you’re an early adopter of Apple products, there can be a high price to pay. The latest iPad is a good example.
It didn’t become evident until after the fact, that the 4G model wasn’t supported by Telstra’s network. To add insult to injury, Personal hotspot isn’t supported on the new iPad either. It would have been nice if the Telstra store I purchased an iPad sim from had have pointed this out. $30 worth of data has been lost. I’ll probably struggle to use the 12GB over 12 months if nothing changes.
Had I known about the situation I probably would have held off buying the SIM.
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Mar 12
25
Who am I?
The ability of Mail on iOS devices to figure out your name from Address Book entries is a double edged sword.
One specific problem you might encounter is not being able to work out what email account you’re viewing because Mail is displaying your real name from Contacts instead of the actual email address in the to field.
This “problem” occurs when you have a single address book entry with multiple email addresses. To understand the problem, let’s look at an example.
My Address book entry is Shane Davis with my GMail address, iCloud address and Oz Mac User address.
When I’m viewing messages in the unified inbox, or any of the inboxes just mentioned, the to address for all 3 accounts says “Shane Davis”
The reason this starts getting complicated and confusing is I have several services for each account such as Twitter, Empire Avenue etc.
The solution is quite straightforward. Step 1 is to remove your secondary emails from the contact record you have set as “me” in the mail settings.
Step 2 is to set up one Contact record for each email address you’d like a “real name” set up for.
EG: For my Oz Mac User email I have a contact record set up with my nickname MacDavo. Now I see MacDavo instead of admin at ozmacuser.com.
For Gmail I’ve set up Shane’s GMail. Not only can I tell what email account I’m viewing, I can also see friendly names in the to address. Just remember these real names will go out in sent mail so pick wisely.
For any other accounts you don’t have contact records set up for you’ll see the full email address in the to field.
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Mar 12
23
Subtle brilliance
When Lion was first released there were mixed reactions to some of its new features. In a effort to be more iOS like, Lion introduced full screen, launch pad and ‘instant on’ with ‘last state restoration’.
Almost a year on I think some may have underestimated just how useful and well implemented the last feature is.
I was among the many people that instantly turned off the feature that restores previously opened windows each time an application is opened/restored from boot. That was a terrible feature. I can’t think of many that would want the last 10 documents they looked at reopened when their machine is rebooted.
Having your session restored to its last state on reboot is useful however. Especially if you’re someone like me who never reboots their machine and has several desktops set up ‘just so’ and half a dozen unsaved documents about the place.
It’s that these unsaved documents get restored that pleases me so much. They’re often notes or bits and pieces I’ve copied from somewhere but don’t actually want to keep.
Another well implemented feature that some may underestimate its usefulness is automatic versioning.
In typical Apple style it is seamless and requires very little thought from the user.
The real beauty of the automatic versioning is the fact it works pretty much the same as time machine for reviewing changes.
A good example of real world usage is working on a document where you delete a paragraph or section and at a later date decide you need them back a few days after the document is closed.
Although Launchpad doesn’t translate that well to large desktops, the ongoing move towards iOS on Mac desktops is a welcome one. Mountain Lion will bring the two different user experiences even closer together again. There may never be an OS-XI. It may simply be iOS across all Apple products.
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Mar 12
20
Text to speech
If you’ve never seen or considered the text to speech capabilities of your Mac, perhaps you should check it out.
OSX Lion seems to have brought with it a much enhanced text to speech capability. Whereas its not a feature I use on a day to day basis, it comes into its own for voice overs in video tutorials. I’ve used it a number of times putting together Screenflow tutorials.
In Snow Leopard there was one North American voice that didn’t sound too robotic. The expression was good with reasonable intonation and not too much word clipping.
Lion has taken this to a whole new level. Through system preferences you can now download very realistic voices from various countries. The UK English and Scottish voices are particularly good. Probably to those not in the UK or Scotland.
To access the new voices, go to Speech in system preferences and select custom from the current voice drop down box. You can listen to a sample of each voice. Tick the checkbox to download and use new voices.
To create voice overs for videos I use TextEdit and Wiretap Studio. First type out the sentence in TextEdit. Start recording in Wiretap Studio then use Cmd-Esc to start the speech.
Once recorded you can save the recording by right clicking the clip from the Wiretap library window and saving a lossless recording to folder option.
Occasionally you might need to reword your sentence to avoid word clipping. The UK English Daniel voice sounds like a BBC Presenter. At times he’s not perfect, using a slightly incorrect tone of voice for some sentences. With some backing music this is usually less obvious.
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Mar 12
9
Is Apple changing its spots?
There has been some buzz around the web that Apple’s might be changing it’s logo.
Apple's new logo?
While there is some excitement about the modernized throw back to the eighties rainbow logo, the new design doesn’t immediately thrill me. Is SJ turning in his grave?
The double rainbow looks a little too Windows for my liking. The monochrome logo albeit plain has a striking simplicity to it; much like the Apple user experience.
Perhaps in time, if this is the new design, I’ll get used to it. Initially however, I’m not won over. If I had to like a color logo, I’d actually pick the original 80s version.
Posted in Editorial by .
Mar 12
8
iPad Retina is here
For some it was a long time coming. For others who know about the release cycles for Apple products it was just on time. Retina display for the iPad.
The screen shots look fantastic, and just to emphasise the difference, Apple have cleverly allowed you to zoom up on an iPad2 and iPad3 on their site, just to illustrate what a difference the extra pixels make.
Spot the difference!
4G is a welcome addition, which means the next iPhone will certainly have it. For those that haven’t noticed, the iPad is leading the iPhone; not the other way around. What I mean by this is, new features you see on the iPad will come out on the next iPhone, but it doesn’t necessarily work around the other way. The retina display itself is an example of this. That said, that one particular item would have been a lot harder to implement on a big screen device like the iPad than it was on the phone while still maintaining performance and battery life.
The camera got an upgrade to 5MP, but it’s the one item on my iPad that gets the least used. The front facing camera is obvious and useful. I just haven’t found a use for the rear facing camera. Even if I’ve got my iPad and see a shot that looks good, I’ll pull out my phone vs. taking a shot with the iPad. Call me vain, but it just looks too dorky. After all, I’m an Apple user, not a Bill Gates look alike 
With any luck I’ll have a white 64GB 4G iPad in my hands within a week or two. I’ve never previously bothered with cell connected versions, or the white products. The 4G has made the difference. I would have bought a white iPhone 4S had they arrived in store on time. In another departure with personal tradition I decided to get engraving: Passion fuels Innovation. I’d better get cracking and write some iPad apps to justify the purchase of a 3rd iPad.
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Mar 12
5
Lighting the way
As I tiptoed around the house this morning, using my iPhone to guide me, I couldn’t help but wonder how many other people use their iPhone as a torch.
Forget “torch” applications. The home or power button is far faster and easier and gives that 5 second illumination just to check you’re not about to step onto the cat!
If you need slightly longer illumination, and don’t want to keep pressing the power button every 5 seconds, there’s a couple of tips. The first is, double click the home button. This gives you about 20 seconds of illumination vs. 7.
If you need to fish around for your keys, then the door lock, select the camera. Pick a photo from the gallery if you have too. I have a very bright Home Screen image, hence why the power/home buttons are so effective.
I guess slightly more savvy people than me might well have a torch app on their home screens or dock. 99% of the time I only need a few seconds of illumination just to find my way.
For reasons I can’t entirely explain, no other phone has ever lent itself to this function. Perhaps because they were too bulky, not always in my hand because of it’s many other functions. Whatever the case, I doubt Apple realised they were designing one of the handiest torches going! 
Posted in Editorial by .
Feb 12
27
Not quite picture perfect
Despite it’s many successes, Apple doesn’t always get things right first time round. One very good example of this is Photo Stream.
Initially Photo Stream struck me as a really great idea. An effortless way to get photos on all your devices. In practise however, it’s a little over enthusiastic, and lacks some key features. I’m sure I’m not alone regarding the following peeves.
The foremost problem with Photo Steam is it’s all or nothing approach. I take photos of products to remember their price and features. I don’t want these in my photo stream.
I often take multiple shots of the same scene. Obviously I don’t want 10 pictures of the same thing in my Photo Stream.
That devices like the AppleTV will optionally use pictures from your Photo Stream for it’s screen saver multiples the problem. All or nothing.
One drastic solution is to turn off network connectivity on your phone while you take pictures, then move them somewhere else before turning the network back on. Another solution is to use a 3rd party photo app that stores photos privately and allows you to selectively post them to your main photo album. These are less than ideal approaches to what should be a no-brainer feature.
The fact Photo Stream doesn’t allow you to delete individual, nor multiple selected images is quite a major failing. In the bad old days one of my major gripes with Microsoft was their design mantra, “Bill knows best.” In other words, the software functions in a manner that falls short of user expectations, but there is no simple work around for it. In Apple’s case, you can “delete” photos in your Photo Stream by resetting it. All or nothing.
I would hope in the near future Apple will address this glaring omission to an otherwise great idea. It should be possible to selectively choose pictures from your album and publish them to Photo Stream. Alternatively, there should be an easy mechanism to select which album you want your photos posted to. This approach would make the iPhone camera so much better; being able to save photos to different galleries, that may or may not be published via iCloud.
In the meanwhile I’ve switched Photo Stream off. Good idea, not quite picture perfect execution.
Posted in Editorial by .
Dec 11
22
Wireless Update
More wireless blues and traps for young players.
For the last month or so, my wireless has been getting very flakey. So bad the internet keeps dropping out in the back half of the house, and the wireless network disappearing altogether.
With younger families moving into the neighbourhood, it’s little surprise the number of wireless networks has increased dramatically. There are 3 – 4 at the back of the house, and 4 – 5 at the front of the house.
There’s a huge problem running your base stations on 5GHz only. I could never figure out why my iPhone could never pick up on the network in the front of the house. The answer was, the newer Airport Extreme out back runs dual band, whereas the 2nd gen device runs 2.4 or 5. As the iPhone only supports 2.4, it could use the network within range of the dual band Airport, but not the older 2nd gen running 5GHz only.
In a nutshell, with so many other networks around, it’s no longer possible to extend the network down to the back of the house. This has ultimately led to running ethernet which has brought about some massive benefits.
The foremost of these is being able to use the AppleTV. On wireless trying to watch movies or listen to music was an exercise in frustration. 8 minutes to buffer a 2 min video! Now I can encode my DVDs and watch them far less effortlessly on the ATV.
The compromise was splitting the house into 3 separate wireless networks with the 4th gen Airport Extreme in the front of the house. It runs a 2.4 and 5GHz network. The latter is used for everything including the iPad2 that can use 5Ghz.
The second is the 2.4 for iPhones. The third runs down the back for my office.
The other tip I picked up to improve performance is to drop the multicast down. This allows devices to connect at lower quality radio levels, EG: 1 – 2 bars.
It’s not ideal having to swap networks with the phones, but I’m not constantly walking between the 2 halves of the house.
Maybe in another couple of months I come up with another solution. Meanwhile I have uninterrupted internet
Posted in Editorial by .
Oct 11
13
New Season Apples?
In the aftermath of Steve Jobs untimely passing, one of the most alarming articles I’ve read was one claiming 4 years of Apple product design had been left behind by Steve. (Daily Mail article)
Conceptually this is only alarming if Apple rely solely on these designs and fail to innovate for the future. The concern revolves around the fact technology life cycles are around 8 years. Look at Wifi, Virtualisation and many other new technologies and you’ll see a common pattern. They start life in a fairly shaky manner with Geeks and Technologists as the early adopters.
Over the first 4 years the product improves in leaps and bounds, to the point where in year 4, the uptake by the mainstream is fairly solid, and the product’s pretty stable.
By about year 6, almost everyone has the product or technology. Innovation has slowed significantly, and big improvements are few and far between. The product is as close to “finished” as it’s going to get, and there’s not much more than can be done to improve it further.
It’s usually around years 6-8 that technology around the product has started changing to such a degree, that people are beginning to do things entirely differently. The Internet for example, smart phones and most recently tablets.
For the last ten years Apple have been at the forefront of some of the big changes in the way we do things. The iPod, iPhone and iPad. Their notebook products have been cutting edge as well, not to mention the trackpad and whole touch concept that has completely changed the way we interface with our devices.
In order for Apple to stay at the forefront of technology, they can’t rest on their laurels. Steve has certainly left them in good stead with OS X Lion, iCloud and the iPad. However, the iPhone is starting to enter that phase where it’s no longer innovating. iCloud has certainly integrated it far further. Technologies like AirPlay and AirPrint have massively improved it’s usability. At another level however, it’s starting to languish behind, with updates being catchups, rather than setting all new standards.
Features in my view that have been long overdue are the centralised notifications. Ability to customise all system sounds. The lock screen could still do with some improvements, such as being able to see the weather and calendar on the lock screen all the time, as you can in the notification centre.
Hopefully the team that has been built can be as innovative as the innovator himself. If that turns out to be the case, I believe Apple will in fact be that much better off as their ongoing success will not be at the hand of an individual.
Long live Apple Innovation.