Now that the announcement is over and you can read all about what the new iPhone3G has at tons of sites (like Gizmodo, Engadget, MacRumors or ArsTechnica), the specs of what it DOESN’T have is what sticks in my mind.

• No second forward facing camera
• No native Video Conferencing over iChat or 3G phone-to-phone
• No A2DP Stereo Bluetooth Support (at least not yet)
• No Copy and Paste (at least not yet)
• No MMS (at least not yet)
• No iChat (at least not yet)
• No tethering to Laptops or other devices (use like a broadband modem)
• No upgrade pricing/deals from AT&T (at least not yet) for us iPhone early adopters

We’ll see how this pans out, especially the last bulleted item, when it becomes available on July 11.

UPDATE: Prices for upgrading to the new 3G iPhone? $199 for 8GB and $299 for 16GB with reset 2Yr contract. Yes, that’s the SAME price as it is for new iPhone buyers. I was hoping it would be the same as some European providors who are offering free/cheap upgrades, but I guess AT&T isn’t going that route. *sigh*
Info comes from CrunchGear. Read More...

Tags: iphone, apple, osx, mac, att

Is this the new iPhone 2? The photos look like they portray iPhones in Black and (RED) for the fight against AIDS. It also shows Video iChat over WiFi & video-chat phone2phone over 3G (and the pre-requisite forward facing camera), Macbook Air style nods, and stereo speakers in the rear. No word on any Cease and Desist Takedown notices yet, but if notices do go out, it’s just as good as Steve coming out and saying they’re real.

Photos were sent to MacRumors, CrunchGear, and AppleInsider (haven’t seen it posted there yet).

UPDATE: Engadget is already calling these fake.... we’ll see. If I remember correctly people were calling the “phatty” ipod Nano fake too, until it actually came out.
UPDATE 2: FAKE FAKE FAKE... now we know.



More photos after the break.
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Tags: iphone, ipod, mac, att, macbook air, osx

Amazing music video created for The Bird and The Bee song Again & Again.



I liked it much better than the original music video (check the preview on iTunes here).

UPDATE: There's an interview with the director/film-maker/AdProducer responsible for this viral video, Dennis Liu. Also for those that were wondering, the Actress in the music video is Larkin Clark. Read More...

Tags: music, leopard, osx, mac, video

So my Macbook Air is back and it's as good as new! In fact, it's with a new LogicBoard (and corresponding new Serial Number) and a reinstalled OSX, they might as well have given a full swap. Not that I'm complaining mind you; Apple service at the Garden State Plaza store was superb as always. My only complaint was that I wasn't contacted when the Air was ready for pickup. I found out through the Apple website Repair Tracking and by the Voicemail system they have. One day turnaround is pretty damn good though. Well, actually 3 days if you include: 1st for the initial appointment, 2nd to drop the Air off once they had the part, and the 3rd for pickup. Some other computer makers take weeks to do warranty repairs, especially ones as dramatic as a full LogicBoard replacement.

Once I got the Air back, I tested it out a bit in the parking deck of the mall to make sure it wasn't kernel panicking anymore. It was definitely solid! After I got home, I immediately started the relatively long process of restoring from the Airdisk's Time Machine Backup. This time I used the latest backup (the one taken during the panics) in hopes that it was actually a good backup. Worst case scenario I could have restored again from the next oldest backup afterwards. But that's something I didn't have to do. The last backup is working perfectly and I've had no panics or crashes since! One thing I did have to restore from a separate stored copy was my VMWare Virtual Machine XP File. I just used the one from my Mac Pro as the source. Read More...

Tags: apple, mac, macbook air, kernel panic, genius bar

Everything was going swimmingly with the new Macbook Air until this past weekend when things took a turn for the worst. I started getting Kernel Panics randomly. Empty the trash... Panic. Run Disk Utility's Repair Permissions.... Panic. Startup a WinXP VMWare session... Panic. Reboot... immediate Panic. Definitely something wrong.


At first I thought maybe my SSD drive got corrupted, so I tried a full wipe and Restore from Time Machine... Panic. Booting from Remote Disc OS Install was an exercise in frustration when previously it worked very well and quite often. I finally got one boot and Restore from Time Machine working (picked an earlier Time Machine slice to be sure there wasn't any corrupted files) and it still Kernel Panic'd like crazy. Now the Air didn't want to stay solid for more than a few minutes. Just trying to right click (actually dual-finger click) and it started to Panic.

So I finally broke down and travelled to the Apple Store yesterday after work. Unfortunately it was half an hour before closing and they couldn't take a look, so I made an appointment for this morning. I arrived early before the Mall was even fully open, knocked on the glass Apple Store doors, and talked to the Genius at the G-Bar. After a little diagnosis, he concurred it was a hardware issue and from the Panic logs, it seemed to point to bad memory. Unfortunately the memory for Macbook Airs is soldered to the Mother/Logic Board so after checking with his supervisor, authorized a Warranty Repair. The new Logic Board is on order but don't know yet if it is going to be back-ordered or if there will be any available tomorrow. I get to keep my non-functioning Air until the part comes in; small consolation. At least it is a free Warranty Repair, but it would have been better if it was a straight swap.

Another Consolation, I have a new bag for my currently non-functioning Macbook Air: The Waterfield HardCase. It's a magnificent bag, exhibiting both sleeve-like and messenger bag-like features in its sleek lines. I'll have a full review at some point after the whole Kernel Panic situation is fixed. Read More...

Tags: apple, mac, macbook air, kernel panic, waterfield, SFBags, hardcase, Sleeve, bag, messenger bag

Well I finally got a Macbook Air. It arrived yesterday and I've pretty much set it all up. I also have my Mac Pro back online. It was down for a few days due to a dead ATI X1900 XT card. I was able to replace it with the ATI 2600 XT that comes standard with the newer Mac Pros. Slower in games than my older card, but at least there aren't rainbow lines showing up all over the screen as it slowly dies. More details for both soon... for now sleep ZZZZZZZZZ

UPDATED - More info after the break...
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Tags: apple, mac, macbook air, macpro, macintel

Why do you do this to me Steve.... my wallet hurts already from two iPhones and more Macs in my home than on my floor at Work.
More after the break... Read More...

Tags: apple, laptop, notebook, mac, macbook, macbookpro, macbook air, macintel, steve, jobs

Sorry, I've been lax about the site lately. Work has been monopolizing most of my time lately. I should be able to return to regular blogging over the next few weeks.
Some of the things I'll have to update the the site with:

• I did end up getting a Mac Pro and had a few (mis)adventures with it. Expect a full review with the gory and glorious details soon. Here are a few specs to tide you over: Mac Pro 3Ghz Quad, 4GB FBDIMM memory, ATI 1900XT graphics card, 30" Cinema Display, 3x 500GB HD in a 1.4Terabyte Stripped RAID-0 set, external Mercury Elite RAID Aluminum 1Terabyte HD for Maintenance Boot and Backups, and lots of other goodies. My Powerbook is now in my Wife's hands. And Ricky retains the Mini (used for the RickyCam).
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• I've been editing my long overdue photos from my South East Asia trip in the newly updated Aperture 1.5. I'm about 80% done. I'll have an update for my SmugMug galleries and some technical notes on my latest Aperture experiences soon as well.
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• I upgraded my primary camera body to the Canon Digital Rebel XTi (400D). I'll probably have a technical review of this camera body and it's differences with my old Rebel XT (350D) and how it works with my L lenses sometime in late December. One caveat, Aperture/OSX still doesn't support the 400D/XTi version of RAW. It's the same CR2 file wrapper as the 350D but new contents. I'm hoping for an OS update to support this and the rest of the newly released cameras (Nikon D80, Sigma SD14, Sony Alpha 100) RAW formats sometime before the end of the year (crossing fingers). Two of the best reasons to get the XTi/400D instead of "upgrading" to the 30D or 5D include: The new Anti-Dust features (image sensor filter shakes dust off on startup and shutdown...and manually if you want) and all my current accessories including the Battery Grip and the batteries themselves from the old XT/350D will work with the new camera. The 10.1 MPixel upgrade is only slightly noticable from the old 8MP but is still more than the 30D.

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Tags: macpro, mac, apple, xeon, woodcrest, raid, aperture, asia, 400d, rebelxt, xti, canon

My... wallet... itchy....

       My... credit.... card... hurts....

Financial Solvency or Mac Pro.... oh well, there goes that idea...sigh.

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• All models built to order with 3 levels of QUAD processing (dual dual-core cpus) up to 3Ghz
• All based on Intel WoodCrest based Xeon 5100 series 64bit CPUs
• Fully Buffered memory up to 16GB
• 4 Harddrives with tool-less install (each 3Gbps SATA)
• Dual optical drive capable (SuperDrives available only right now, but I bet Blue-Ray would be a nice thing to add yourself)
• Multiple GPU options including capability to fit 4 video cards including one double-width card without losing slots
• Priced less than comparably configured Dell systems (are there any dual dual-core Xeon's in Dell's repertoires?)

My Aperture sucking, Final Cut hanging PowerBook dreams it had this amount of power. Unfortunately they did not announce updated MacBook Pros as well with new Merom chips at today's World Wide Developer's Conference Keynote. That would have made a purchasing decision easier since I value my mobile computing capability....double sigh. Still, if I can configure correctly and use the proper discounts (Edu or Corp)....hmmmm....we'll see.


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Tags: mac, macpro, apple, xeon, woodcrest, aperture, finalcut

My PowerBook's right fan has been making loud noises, skipping on occasion, and choking on dust bunnies half the time it's on. I run Seti@Home, so the fans run quite often. Since I already had experience opening up my PowerBook thanks to iFixit's helpful guides to replace my hard-drive (details in previous blog entry in March), I decided to do something about the loud fan before my notebook died for good.



I ordered both left and right fans (you can never be too sure) from iFixit. Today they arrived, so after backing up my hard-drive (while we ate dinner), setting up a workspace (Ricky free due to the puppy fence we have setup in the computer/Ricky room), and making sure all my tools were in easy reach, I began my deepest surgery yet into my PowerBook. You can see the gory details from the example iFixit pics above and can read the process from iFixit's guide here. As you can see, I had to actually remove practically everything inside the PowerBook including the logicboard. There are about 17 different ribbon/thin cables to disconnect and tons of screws. Luckily, just like the last PowerBook surgery, I used iFixit's excellent screw organization system with some tape to prevent any mixups. One of the things I had to do when putting it all back together was scrape old heat transfer material from the CPU and heatsink...and also from the ATI graphics array/heatsink. After cleaning with isopropyl Alcohol and letting it dry, I re-applied new thermal paste from a little Heatsink tub I had from my Overclocking PC days. It's actually the best Heatsink material available according to old [H]ardOCP tests, so I figured it's probably much better than what Apple used in the manufacturing process.



Once everything was back together, I booted up and tested everything I could. Everything from the keyboard/trackpad, to all the ports and the Airport/Bluetooth worked perfectly. Not only that, but everything seemed to be running smoother/quicker. Even bootup was much quicker. The CPU Temp was actually running about 5 degrees cooler even with Seti@Home on; and, I could not hear the fans (though I knew they were running). So far it looks like it was a successful transplant and should tide me over until it's next replacement (probably not until next Winter with a 2nd rev MacBook Pro).

And just so it doesn't look like I'm TOTALLY out of sync with what's going on out there in Apple land... yes I know about BootCamp. It is pretty cool (though those who used the previous hack to do pretty much the same thing have to do a full reinstall). I still think that true Virtualization using the kernel optimized Qemu would be a better solution to run necessary windows apps on top of OSX. Then again, it is a good idea for when you want to play the occasional PC only game.

UPDATE:
I guess I spoke to soon... Parallels Workstation was announced today. It's a new piece of software that provides full Virtualization support under OSX. This means you can run at "near native" speeds multiple OS's like Linux and Windows XP on top of OSX on a MacIntel and be significantly faster than Emulators like Qemu and MS Virtual PC (which is still PPC only). Though this would make a great way to test out Windows Browsers while developing on top of OSX... and use Corporate mandated PC software, it is probably not an ideal environment for running the more demanding PC games. When I eventually get a MacIntel (probably not until next winter) I would mostly stay in OSX, run Parallels Workstation for the occasional Windows/Linux test or NBC Remote Access, then use BootCamp to play any Windows only heavy games. Of course, it would be better if those games were available for OSX (like Star Wars Empire at War, but at least there will be a way (or multiple ways) to play them on the same box now.




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Tags: fan, apple, powerbook, macbook, repair, mac, ifixit, bootcamp

I've been missing the boat on a lot of recent stories for this blog... the price I pay for having a day job.

Notable Notables and associated Thoughts:

• South Park vs. Scientology: Recent blow-ups between Isaac Hayes aka Chef, Matt and Trey Stone (creators of South Park), Comedy Central, The Church of Scientology and the denizens of Tom Cruiseland, have made lots of news. Follow the link for more info on all of the above. Definitely the best quote in all this hubub comes from the South Park boys themselves: "So, Scientology, you may have won THIS battle, but the million-year war for earth has just begun! Temporarily anozinizing our episode will NOT stop us from keeping Thetans forever trapped in your pitiful man-bodies. Curses and drat! You have obstructed us for now, but your feeble bid to save humanity will fail! Hail Xenu!!!"
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• XP on MacIntels contest won but other options out there: Also making it's way through the blogosphere... Two guys from Cali have made a custom EFI bootloader and associated process for making a MacIntel dual-boot capable on a single hard drive. Many drivers including Video drivers still need to be worked out, but there are many people working on those and we're only a few days away from fully functional MacIntel XP systems. Photoshop on XP/MacIntel has already been shown to beat any current Core Duo system out there that's made for XP based on scripted benchmarks [Gearlog link]. This is pretty cool stuff, but I would hate to reboot everytime I wanted to use the few Windows apps/games I would need. Personally I'd much prefer the Virtualization/Emulation approach using Q (freeware open source "Virtualization/Emulation" software akin to Virtual PC). The Q on MacIntel people are currently working on a Kernel Xtention (kext) that would access the Core Duo's virtualization capability rather than using a processor emulation scheme similar to Virtual PC or Rosetta (what Q currently uses). The result of that would be Windows XP (or Vista or any x86 virtualized OS) running on top of OSX at near native speeds. Imagine running XP games/apps in a window next to OSX windows without slowdown on your brand new MacBook Pro. Now THAT would be my cross-platform solution of choice. The current implementation of Q unfortunately is still stuck in Emulation land and suffers accordingly.
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  Tags: scientology, chef, southpark, Matt stone, Trey Parker, XP, windows, mac, macintel, coreduo, onmac, kext, macbookpro, virtualpc

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