MacTheBlog
Dropping iClangers
Written by Alex Kidman Sunday, 22 August 2010 20:32
Somewhere in my office, there's a Clanger that I've dropped. He's gorgeous, with his little pink nose and strange honking noises, a present from a very nice lady I used work with called Lindsay. He's this kind of Clanger rather than the foot-in-mouth variety. I'm sure he's around here somewhere — unless one of the kids has run off with him.
The slightly more common foot-in-mouth variety came up at MacTheForum the other day in regards to predicting what Apple will or won't do. It's an exceptionally tricky pastime, whether you're in the rumours and speculation game, or just trying to analyse what Apple's doing and whether it will in fact work. And it's an area where I'm not too proud to say that I've dropped the odd clanger myself.
When the topic came up in the forum my mind was cast back to an Apple-specific prediction I'd made about eight years ago. In fact, as I write this, eight years and one month ago precisely. There's probably nothing numerically significant in that, but I'm not sure I can make that as an absolute prediction with any guarantee of accuracy.
Anyway, eight years ago was well before I'd bought my first Apple product, to give some perspective. It took some digging around, but on the web, nothing ever dies, and the column I originally wrote, entitled "iPod For Windows. What's the iDea?" is, pretty much exactly where I left it — although my headshot (which if memory serves featured me with a Lex Luthor style bald skull) is strangely missing.
Perspective is an interesting thing. For a start, a 5GB iPod doesn't cost $645 any more, something we should all be grateful for. I wonder if there's any 5GB Firewire-only iPods out there still ticking along? What happens if you take one into a Genius bar to get a battery replacement? Anyway, I'm skipping over the core thing, which is that I was, indeed, wrong.
At the time I figured opening up the iPod to the Windows market was a risky step for a company like Apple that, at the time, wasn't the healthiest of critters. History has proven me wrong; the iPod acted not as a single-unit purchase but a gateway drug for plenty of what used to be called "switchers" to jump over to the Mac platform.
Heck, I'm one of them, although not via iPod; my first actual iPod was an iPod Touch that's in front of me as I type this. Apple's still removed me from an almost embarrassing amount of my money in the intervening period, with a MacBook, iMac, two iPod touches and two iPhones bouncing around the house, so clearly it's not in particular trouble ... yet. But I'd better stop making such predictions.
If I am to salvage some credibility, I'll note that while Apple did step away from the Windows-only MusicMatch Jukebox software solution, it replaced it with iTunes. Ever talked to a Windows user about iTunes? There's not a whole lot of love there. The Windows version of iTunes is, to put it nicely, a dog. Really bad, really unstable code. Yes, OS X can have its problems, and as I've outlined previously, it doesn't always "just work", but the Windows version of iTunes is so particularly crash-prone, often (so I'm told by those that suffer with it) taking the contents of the iPod or iPhone with it, that it's almost enough to convince me that Apple's done it that way on purpose to shift Windows users towards OS X.
But Apple wouldn't be that deliberately devious — would it?
Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a Clanger to find. He's probably off conversing with the Soup Dragon about some other bold prediction I made years ago, and how daft it was in hindsight.
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Where are the good iPad competitors?
Written by Alex Kidman Sunday, 15 August 2010 21:06
I've been using my iPad quite a bit out and about recently as a primary notetaker. It never fails to draw somebody's attention when I do. Given the tech-centric circles I operate in (some of whom like Apple stuff, some of whom are indifferent and plenty of whom are downright hostile), somebody inevitably asks me about the limitations of the device.
I'm not going to say that the iPad doesn't have its limitations, and indeed there are some things that downright annoy me about it that Apple could change with a change of policy and a snap of Steve's fingers.
But the thought that's been striking me more and more as the questions come thick and fast over the months is this: It's been more than six months since the iPad was unveiled to the world. Where on earth are the alternative tablets?
So far I've seen Microsoft's Courier tablet fail to leave the "incubation" stage. Dell has the Streak, which it's launched in the UK and shown off to plenty of local tech journalists (I'm not one of them), but it's a half-sized unit on Android 1.6 with an unclear release path, if indeed it will be released here at all. I've seen and had testing time with a to-be-Kogan-branded Android/Windows tablet, but that product never actually made it to market. I've seen a Huawei S7 Android tablet with a resistive screen that looked OK from a distance, but had me cringing within minutes of trying to use the thing.
That wasn't Android's fault, by the way; matching it up with a resistive touchscreen rather than a capacitive one was always going to be a recipe for disaster.
I've even seen tablets that are trying ever so hard to actually be iPads. Mid-last week, I was in the offices of CNET.com.au (disclosure: I freelance heavily for CNET and at launch was the site's editor) and they were kind enough to let me have a small play on a a "fake" iPad that they've now published a review of, which you can find here.
Having had a couple of minutes to test the device — most of which was burnt away waiting and waiting and waiting for it to start up — all I can say about the Editor's Rating is that it's perhaps five or six points too generous. That was one ugly system, and a terrible fake iPad.
The thing is, it arguably shouldn't be. It's got a lot of what the iPad itself could use. MicroSD and USB storage built in. Full access to the file system. I could definitely see a use for those in a future iPad, and I could see a competing device using those factors as a key point of differentiation against the iPad.
If only I could see them, because so far, they don't exist at all. I'm honestly not sure why. You could pre-order an Axon Logic "Hackintosh" Tablet — but who knows when that'll actually exist? "Soon", according to Axon Logic's web site. Try as I might, I can't find a date for "Soon" on my calendar. Equally, you could wait for Asus' Eee Pad line to come out ... but that's apparently not due until next March!
Given Apple's general mantra of annual product releases (not that I know anything more than you; remember "Apple does not comment on unannounced products", after all), that means that system will compete with whatever Apple comes up with next. Whatever that is, and even if that is a "new" product at all.
That's the crux of why I want some decent iPad competitors, by the way. At the moment, there's none, or none worth consideration. That's bad for the competitors, obviously, but it's also bad for Apple's consumers. Folks like you and me. Without a push in the competitive space, there's much less impetus for Apple to innovate and re-engineer the iPad.
I'd expect the next iPad to perhaps carry a camera, maybe inbuilt USB or card reader, and maybe be a little thinner or lighter. But if Apple doesn't feel that the market is pushing it that way, who knows whether we'll get a heavily-rebaked iPad with all the trimmings, or just the crumbs that Steve feels are best for us?
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It doesn't just work
Written by Alex Kidman Monday, 09 August 2010 12:53
I'm not a big fan of the whole PC vs Mac argument, mainly because I find it tiresome, with the same old arguments going back and forth endlessly. Macs have no games, one-button mice and are for people who can't be handed anything more complex than crayons because they might chew them. PCs crash endlessly, are over-run with viruses and built out of cardboard and string with the aesthetic sensibility of a dead sparrow.
I could go on and on, but I won't. It's dead boring. As a Mac user, I reckon we, the Mac community, could do a whole lot better. If for no other reason than it's boring, but it's also so inaccurate in places.
That extends to the obvious things that Macs get attacked for — the one-button mouse being the most prominent example — but also some things that the Mac is touted for that simply aren't true. The worst of which is this reliance on the "it just works" mentality.
You know what? Sometimes — more than most Mac fans would like to admit — it just doesn't work. I suspect I'm going to get some scorn for this, but it's true. I'll illustrate with a couple of real world, recent examples of my own, as well as how I've solved them.
Shifting content from one Mac to another is easy, right? Not necessarily. A while ago, I picked up an ex-demo iMac for my wife to use. The same kinds of machines you can find in Apple's refurb store if you're after a bargain, albeit one that may be a little dated. The term used by Apple for this particular machine was "obsolete", so we're not talking cutting edge.
As an already set up machine, it was configured with a user called "Apple Demo", but my wife used it for a while as it was. Keen to set up her own account, and clear out any ex-review detritus that might be cluttering up the system, I set up a fresh installation of Snow Leopard on the machine and restored her documents folder from Time Machine. All good and squeaky clean and "just works", right?
It was, right up until she tried to save a document. Restoring from Time Machine had left all the read/write permissions with the the previous user, not the new user. They were her documents, but she couldn't edit them in any way. I could re-create the Apple Demo user and change the permissions on a file-by-file basis, but that's slow and tedious for several thousand files. Digging around online I discovered there are terminal-based ways to accomplish mass permission changes, but I'm no terminal guru.
For what it's worth, I did fix the problem, and I'll note it here. When you're restoring from Time Machine, permissions persist — which is in line with what most users would want. The same isn't true if you copy the files over to a USB flash drive. Switching into the old Apple Demo user I'd restored, I copied the entire folder over to a connected flash drive, then switched back to the new user and copied from the flash drive to the new user's documents directory. End result? A folder full of free to edit files.
There's probably a mild security hole there, now that I think of it.
"It just works" isn't just limited to Mac OS, either. On the smartphone front, more than a few users have had problems with iOS4 and 3G iPhones. I figured I'd avoided those issues, as the iPhone 3G in the house updated without a hitch, but a friend of mine wasn't so lucky. Being a friend of mine, who do they call when Apple stuff goes wrong? Me.
More specifically, the iOS4 upgrade had wiped all my friend's contacts. iTunes could find one backup, but it had no contacts in it. In other words, it just didn't work. A little further digging found older backups, but for whatever reason iTunes decided that those backups didn't exist at all.
Again, off I head to the font of wisdom that is Google. This one was trickier, as the contacts database is an SQL database, and that's solidly not my thing. Using iPhone Backup Extractor and sqlitebrowser I was able to get a screenshot of the contacts database in a format where my friend could manually re-enter them into their phone.
Problem solved, but it wasn't particularly easy, the solution didn't come from anywhere near Apple itself and ultimately, it didn't "just work".
I reckon that's OK. Not OK in that it took time, persistence and a small amount of growling under my breath to get things working, but OK in that computers are just computers, designed, built and programmed by people, and people are entirely fallible. Stuff goes wrong, and hiding behind a mantra of "it just works" only makes you look daft when it doesn't. Just work, that is.
Discuss this with me at MacTheForum!
Aperture's book worms
Written by Chris Oaten Tuesday, 10 August 2010 23:46
Not long ago, I implored you to commit your most precious images to hard copy form and, as was rightly pointed out in the forum by Xenophos, the best way to do this is to put them in a photo book. I couldn’t agree more.
Aperture 3’s book layout tools are vastly improved over version 2, with better control over some crucial design elements. Among my favourite are the improved text handling tools you invoke using the ⌘-T key combination. My favourite button in the pane that pops up is the letter width tool, which looks like this:
Professionals refer to letter width adjustments as tracking and kerning. Tracking adjusts the amount of width space applied to all body text and kerning applies to adjusting the space between a pair of letters. You can use A3’s letter width tool to both track and kern. Select all text to adjust tracking, or select a pair of letters to adjust kerning.
And what’s the big deal? The big deal is that going to the trouble to adjust tracking and kerning to improve legibility can add a professional touch to your books. For instance, in most fonts, a capital A and a capital V have a huge gap between them that can impair the way the human eye scans across a page. Kerning them so that they are closer together improves legibility.
You can use tracking creatively, too, by putting additional space between letters. Think of the poster for the film Aliens as an example of this treatment. Best not to to over-use that one, though. It’s already a bit tired. I can’t offer a lesson in tracking/kerning techniques here. It’s not really my strong suit but, if you want to know more, you could have a look at some tutorials here.
I won’t say any more on it, other than to suggest an exercise. In a new book layout, enter the words “This is a headline” into the cover’s default text box — which is the only text box on the page, you can’t miss it. Then select the text and hit that ⌘-T combo. Then start playing around with tracking and kerning. I won’t tell you how to make it look better. Just look at what happens and decide for yourself. You’ve had plenty of practise reading, so let your own eyes be your guide. As an example, I’m a fan of the HeadlineA font for, well, headlines. Problem is the spacing between words is massive, as if you had hit the space bar twice, so I always select the first and last letters of adjoining words and track them together.
This is just one new feature among many that makes A3’s book layout mode a terrific way to get your photos and the stories behind them into print and looking sharp. However, there is one aspect of ordering a book from Apple that might lead to tearing your hair out. It involves managing the title on the front cover and the associated spine text. I’ll outline the problem and offer some workarounds.
The problem: If you didn’t already know, A3 automatically generates a PDF when you push the “Buy Book” button. Generating the text that goes on the spine of your book is built in to the PDF creation process that A3 undertakes to generate files to be sent to the printer. The spine text is picked up from the default text box on the front cover. If you use two lines of heading, and do so by using a hard return, A3’s PDF generation can't parse it as a single line of text for the spine and truncates the second line. It’s there, but you can’t see it. In some fonts at some sizes, you may see the ascenders (ie the top of an L or P) jutting from the bottom into the line of spine text you can see. This is hardly acceptable.
A3 also defaults the text colour on the spine to black, so if you have a black background the spine text is entirely obscured. You can’t see it. Again, it’s there, but you can’t see it.
The workarounds: If you want to use two lines of heading in one text box, you can work the automated spine text process in your favour as long as you’re not creating a cover with a very dark or black background. Here’s how.
Enter the title in the default text box. Make it any size you want but small is best. Manoeuvre the text box to a position on the cover where it won’t obscure other page elements and lies within an area of solid colour. On a wraparound cover, you can even move it to the back cover. Then use the text colour tool to sample the colour around that text box and apply that colour to the text. This will cause the text to merge seamlessly with the background. However, A3’s PDF generates a line of black text for the spine. You are then free to add additional text boxes to the cover page to handle headline text in any way you like.
Multiple lines, different fonts, sizes and colours — whatever you do with additional text boxes won’t affect the spine text, as long as you don’t delete the original default text box.
But what if you have a cover with a black background? There’s a way to get white type on the spine. In fact it’s better than the previous workaround, as long as you’re using a wraparound cover. You simply create a new text box, enter the title, choose an appropriate size — nine or ten points is good for most fonts — and rotate the text 270 degrees. The rotation tool is in the Layout Options pane, which you hide or reveal from the gears icon menu that sits under the page thumbnails.
To get this vertically-aligned text box dead centre in the wraparound layout for your cover, create a guide by adding another text box sized to exactly the width of the cover. The text box “handles” located in the centre of this empty text box will reveal the dead centre of the wraparound layout. You can also use an empty picture box but you should remember to delete these empty boxes before sending the book to be printed.
One last tip is to be sure to softproof your book. After you press the “Buy Book” button to get your order under way, there is an option to preview the book in PDF form. You should definitely do this is you want to be certain your workarounds with the book title haven’t generated any unexpected outcomes. If you do see something unexpected (and there may be other glitches in the book during the PDF generation), cancel the order and go back to the drawing board.
I’ve noticed when ordering the extra-large book size that elements can slide around the page when the PDF is generated. This may lead to a white border around an image that appeared to be flush to the edge of the page when you were designing the book. The simple workaround is to go back to the photo box, select it, and resize the photo box so that its edges lie beyond the edges of the page. This may be tricky with tightly cropped shots that already are near the edge of the page. You may need to re-crop an image or select a different image. I haven’t seen these anomalies occur when creating the smaller sizes of books, so I have a suspicion there may be something weird happening under the hood.
To finish up, I want to offer some kudos to the people at Apple online services, who did an amazing job helping me while I worked through the problems that led me to offering you these workarounds. I ordered an extra-large, 82-page book through Apple that came back with an inking error on one of the pages. It looked like a bit of hair or fluff had landed on the paper during printing, preventing the ink from coating properly.
When I registered a complaint, the cost of the book was refunded without question. When I re-ordered the book, Kit at Apple internet services, upon his own initiative, picked up that there was an issue with the spine text and cancelled the order on my behalf so I could fix the problem and re-submit the order. I then went to the trouble of outlining the problems I’d been having, along with my workarounds, and complained that A3 doesn’t offer users enough flexibility in managing title text and spine text.
Apple responded by saying my concerns had been passed on to the Pro Apps group for further support. Each of these email exchanges involving book order issues were turned around within hours. Apple has been getting some pretty bad press lately and while I’m not yet sure if it deserves the negative coverage that “antenna-gate” has caused, I do know of many instances in the past when Apple support has gone totally off the rails. When that happens, Apple deserves a rap on the knuckles. However, there are times when exceptional customer service deserves to be highlighted. And this is one of those times.
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iPhone 4 arrival events
Written by Matthew JC Powell Friday, 30 July 2010 13:20
Unlike previous iPhone releases, at which the customer queues themselves were notable, this time around lines of eager iPhone purchasers were a given for the major carriers. The question was not "who will be first in the queue" but rather "which queue will be the coolest place to hang out".
In Sydney's George Street you had your choice of venues: Optus's queue stretched around the block and then some while only the first 50 in line got to see Kelly Rowland perform; Telstra had musical guests and Masterchef caterers; and Vodafone/3 offered its customer an alternative to queueing with a party at the fashionable Ivy.
(In the tradition of "best laid plans" of course people were still lined up past 1am to get into Vodafone's non-queueing party.)
Alex Kidman and MJCP spent the evening flitting between the three telcos (and the hardy souls lined up outside the Apple Store despite the fact it wouldn't be open until 8am) to check it out. Read MJCP's coverage on Twitter and watch Alex's video record below.
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