I’ve recently switched my day-to-day browser of choice from being Firefox (herein taken to be version 2) to Safari. Okay, so being the geek I am, I actually use a nightly build of WebKit (Safari) and Bon Echo (OS X Intel compiled Firefox) but I’ll use the names that everybody knows.
A couple of things annoy me in Safari however. I can’t start up with the windows and tabs from my previous session. Control+Enter still top-and-tails what I type into the location bar with http://www. and .com but does so in another tab. I guess I’ll get used to it. Also while I’m actually building sites I’ll still be using Firefox mainly due to the fantastically useful array of developer tools available.
Continue reading ‘Safari, so good’
I rushed home straight after work this evening to keep up with proceedings from the Apple media event. Okay, I’m the first to admit that I’m somewhat of a magpie and easily attracted to shiny things. Especially so when the shiny thing in question is designed by Apple – much to the amusement and bewilderment of most of my friends!
For the most part, Apple just seem to understand how their customers want things to behave and look. Observe the reaction to the Intel sticker question. Of course the $200 price-drop for the 8 gig iPhone which was also announced today isn’t going down too well with people who have purchased one in the past couple of months. One of the dangers of being an early adopter.
A lot of people (Ed Colligan for example) are having to eat some humble pie with the success of the iPhone. It was the biggest selling smartphone in the USA for the month of July.
Some people remain unconvinced. NBC have abandoned the iTunes Music Store in favour of the much more DRM restrictive Unbox from Amazon. Universal already receive money from each Zune music player sold as compensation based on the assumption that it will be used for playing illegally obtained music. Way to your treat your customers Microsoft. Maybe this is one reason that they’ve only just recently sold one million units. Or maybe because they’re brown. Maybe because they use the terminology “squirting”. Who knows.
I’m now wondering whether to cave in and get the iPod touch or wait it out for the European iPhone launch. The fact that the joystick-type-thing on my K800i is starting to misbehave may just swing it to the latter.
I spent a little of this morning watching the iLife ‘08 guided tour video and when I noticed the new “skimming” feature of iPhoto and iMovie I couldn’t help but feel like I’d seen it somewhere before. Then I realised that I had seen the style sheet genius Stu Nicholls use exactly this effect for pure CSS flick-book style animations at least two years ago. I never really found an occasion to use the technique myself but it seems to work well in the iLife examples I’ve seen.
I set off on the train a little after 7am this morning from Edinburgh for the opening of the new Glasgow Apple store. The queue started at 10pm the night before and was a couple of switch-backs long when I arrived. The idea of queuing for this seemed to bemuse passers-by and denizens of the Starbucks opposite (which was doing a roaring trade).
Continue reading ‘Cult of Apple’
Take two of the biggest things around at the moment – at least in terms of column inches. Put them together and what do you get? The Facebook iPhone portal. Clean, uncluttered, funky transitions and as far as I can make out, advert free (although how long that stays remains to be seen).
Thanks to Mike Coulter’s status update, I know I’m not the only one to be playing around with it while I patiently wait for the UK/Europe launch of the Apple communication device.
As an aside, I was also interested to come across Cityware’s Bluetooth Facebook application that tries to tie-up your online and real-world networks. Something to maybe play around with and keep an eye on, if only to satisfy my curiosity as installation isn’t exactly what you’d call straightforward! Here’s another take on the experiment from the BBC.
After Apple announced the new iMacs and keyboards yesterday
we noticed something in the office. Doesn’t the Mighty Mouse look a little out of place with all of that aluminium everywhere else?
After a phone call to Apple to check on his order status, my colleague confirmed what we’d suspected. There are newly designed mouses on the way - expected in about a month from now. What is unclear is whether or not they will be the latest product to use the currently fashionable multi-touch technology.
The product designers at Cupertino have been busy. The nice illusion of a smaller “chin” on the iMac bears the hallmarks of Jonny Ive’s attention to detail. They’ve even made the super-slim keyboards visually stunning (despite messing around with the function and command keys).
It’s been kind of quiet on the rumour front of late which I find somewhat annoying. I usually rely on Crazy Apple Rumors to distract me until something juicy does actually crop up.
I can now however keep myself amused with my very own rumours thanks to applegazette.
In a word: Wow!
The Steve unleashed Apples long-awaited iPhone this afternoon in his keynote at MWSF and it blew me away. So much so in fact that I’ve only just realised that there was no mention of OS X 10.5 “Leopard” or even iLife ‘07.
This story is currently both the most read and the most emailed on the BBC News website. It’s only going to get more exposure (hopefully good) as people start to actually get their hands on them in the Summer.
The knocking of Apple for just releasing another MP3 player in 2001 and the now infamous Macrumors thread #500 looks silly today – but I guess hindsight is always 20/20. I hope this has the same effect on everyone who questioned the wisdom of Apples foray into the mobile phone market.
They say that they’re aiming for a 1% market share, or about 10 million unit sales. Shouldn’t be too tricky. It could also prove to be the catalyst for Nokia et al to start to bring some fresh new ideas to the table.
Man, do I wish I bought a metric ass-load of Apple stock seven years ago!
According to AppleInsider, plans are afoot for another Apple store in Scotland – specifically Edinburgh’s Princes Street! I was slightly miffed when I heard that Glasgow was getting one first but then I realised that this was probably a Good Thing (™) as I have a hard enough time not buying new toys when passing John Lewis and ScotSys.
