Lowter

Breadcrumbs

1. Home
2. Tags
3. apple

Tag: "apple"

• Apple Previews iPhone OS 3.0

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 17 Mar 2009 at 21:52

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  7 comments

  

  Apple held a press event at their headquarters in Cupertino earlier today to unveil the iPhone OS's third iteration. The updated iPhone OS actually brings a lot of the functionality that people have been asking for, including copy and paste, MMS, and landscape mode. The only major functionality missing is built-in Flash support, but otherwise the iPhone OS 3.0 is a huge improvement to the iPhone platform. Some of the new features include: Cut, copy, and paste Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) A2DP stereo Bluetooth Landscape vi…

• Re-evaluating Safari 4

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Mon 9 Mar 2009 at 21:24

  Type

  Blog Entry

  

  A few weeks ago, Matt posted about Apple's announcement of Safari 4 Beta. Now that Safari 4 has been around for a few weeks, it is time to re-evaluate it, without the glimmer that a new piece of software has. After playing around with Safari 4 for a few days, I personally noticed many of its faults quite quickly. Many others did as well, with a multitude of blog posts about Safari 4's issues popping up last week. First and foremost, Safari 4's tabs-on-top implementation is awful. Yes, it looks nice and gives even more screen real-est…

• Apple Releases Safari 4 Beta

  Author

  Matt Oakes

  Date

  Tue 24 Feb 2009 at 22:20

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  5 comments

  

  Apple have suddenly released a beta version of Safari 4, their web browser, which they seem to be marketing as the latest version that people should use, so it must be fairly stable at the minute. The new features are both cosmetic and under-the-hood. The rendering engine now uses a much newer version of Webkit, which supports things like HTML 5 with offline storage and passes the Acid3 test. Safari 4 also features the Nitro Engine, a much faster JavaScript engine, which should help to keep pass with Mozilla Firefox 3.1's enhanced JavaScri…

• As Apple Enters the Mainstream...

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Mon 12 Jan 2009 at 17:44

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  1 comment

  

  Over the past few years, Apple has continually been moving more and more into the mainstream consumer electronic scene. The introduction of the iPod turned Apple from an old, dying computer company into a hip, new electronics brand. Whilst the iPod has dominated the music-player market, the Mac has always held a back-seat position in the consumer computer market. However, this has changed in the past few years as Mac sales continually climb. It is no longer rare to see someone using a Mac (especially a Macbook). Apple is now a mainstream b…

• Apple Working on 3D Interface

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Mon 15 Dec 2008 at 9:13

  Type

  Blog Entry

  AppleInsider last week reported about a series of patent filings by Apple detailing a potential 3D interface for Mac OS X. The multidimensional interface features a number of ways to organise windows, applications, and more. Overall, the 3D interface makes an attempt to utilise better the larger monitors available on the market. You can read the original post on AppleInsider for all of the specific details of the 3D interface. I've often wondered where interfaces will go next. Graphical interfaces have constantly been improving over the …

• Not Liking the MacBook's New Trackpad

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Wed 19 Nov 2008 at 15:48

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Last weekend I was at the Mall of America with a friend and we went inside the Apple Store. I always make a habit of going to the Apple Store when I am at the Mall of America because it seems that there is always some new Apple gadget I haven't seen in person yet. This time I hadn't seen the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, so I wanted to stop in and to see them in person. Wow, the new trackpads suck. The glass part of the trackpad is nice and it certainly looks sleek without the separate button. However, the new clickable trackpad is abso…

• Lowering the iPhone Development Barrier

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Fri 3 Oct 2008 at 8:28

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Apple's iPhone has become the "cool" platform in the development world, especially with the introduction of the App Store, where developers have been raking in the dough by selling their applications for only a few dollars. When the iPhone was initially released, Apple touted that the development platform was simply the "web", so developers had to use traditional web technologies - XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript - to develop iPhone applications, which ran through Safari. This worked, except for that the applications were slow (because EDGE is slo…

• Apple Understands Design Better than Google

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Wed 1 Oct 2008 at 21:37

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Google's new Android mobile platform is said to pose a real challenge to Apple's growing dominance of the US smartphone market. However, after simply looking at various screenshots of Android, it is easy for me to say that Android is not a real threat to Apple, at least yet. Apple understands design, which is why people find their products visually appealing. Even the smallest detail Apple attends to. Everything is crafted to the pixel, especially on the iPhone. Apple's attention to detail is amazing. Google Android, on the other hand, la…

• Review: New Macbook

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Thu 31 Jul 2008 at 7:35

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Last week, to my extreme excitement, my brand-spanking new Macbook arrived on my doorstep. Since I am attending university this fall, I had to get rid of my iMac because it is simply too large to lug back and forth between Florida and Minnesota. I could have just used my old iBook, but it is slow and outdated, so I opted to purchase a new Macbook and get rid of both my iMac and iBook. Other than the more portable form factor, the Macbooks nowadays are also faster and have better general specs than my old iMac. Disregarding my ligh…

• Opera Mini on the iPhone

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Mon 28 Jul 2008 at 13:01

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  2 comments

  When you search for "opera mini iphone" on Google, you get tons of results arguing why Opera Mini is better than the iPhone's Safari web browser. Now, with the introduction of third-party applications for the iPhone, my question is: when will Opera Mini be on the iPhone? Opera's codebase is suppose to be easy to adapt to new platforms, according to Opera Software, as we see with Opera on the Wii for example. I seriously hope that Opera Software is planning on releasing a version of Opera Mini for the iPhone, but I would understand if the…

• iPhone 2.0 Software Update

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Sat 12 Jul 2008 at 14:25

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  4 comments

  This morning, having arrived back home from Minnesota just last night, I downloaded the new iPhone 2.0 software update that was released yesterday. Overall, the new update is certainly worth the half-hour it took to download it, especially with the introduction of third-party applications. Personally, I was especially happy to see the introduction of foreign language support, other than the original English, French, German, and Italian (especially, considering that it was only sold in the UK and US, the original mix did not include Spanish). …

• Improving Macbooks for Gaming

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Sat 22 Mar 2008 at 13:47

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  2 comments

  I always assert that Macs are better than PCs for everything ... except for games. Gaming has been one issue for Macs that has really annoyed me, primarily the lack of games available for the platform. It is not like Macs do not have the specs for gaming, most have perfectly capable processors and graphics cards for gaming, or at least for casual gaming. However, the lower end Macbooks and Mac Minis do severely lack in graphical capabilities, even to play the few games available for OSX. This article from Macworld discusses some very basi…

• iPhone Service Updates Only via Phone?

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 22 Jan 2008 at 16:33

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Earlier this month I wanted to update my texting plan on my iPhone, because I had continually been going over my quota each month and it was cheaper just to upgrade my texting plan. I logged into the AT&T website, where with most mobile phones you can easily upgrade your plan and your features online. Oh no, not with the iPhone. I got a message telling me that in order to upgrade my iPhone I had to call their service centre. Granted, the process of upgrading my iPhone via the phone was very smooth and the service representative was very…

• Apple MacBook Air

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 15 Jan 2008 at 21:54

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Today Apple released the ultra-thin MacBook Air at the MacWorld 2008 conference. The MacBook Air is the thinnest laptop on the market, whilst still retaining a satisfactory display, keyboard, and level of computing power. It is not nearly as powerful - spec-wise at least - as the MacBook, but its speciality comes with its thin design. It is so thin that it fits in a manila envelope! Apple also released the Time Capsule (a high-capacity central hard-disk system for system backups for an entire household), an updated Apple TV, iTunes movie …

• MacWorld 2008 Speculations

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Mon 14 Jan 2008 at 20:04

  Type

  Blog Entry

  MacWorld, the highly anticipated Apple conference, is set to start tomorrow (Tuesday). As usual, Steve Jobs will give the opening keynote address, which, again as usual, has started up the rumour-mill about Apple's upcoming announcements. Quite a large majority of the speculations are rather far-fetched and are only the crazy dreams of Mac-addicts. Personally, I simply see Apple updating three of their product lines which are in dire need of updates: Apple TV I like the concept of the Apple TV, except, as most people would agree, it is…

• iPhone Craze

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 26 Jun 2007 at 7:12

  Type

  Blog Entry

  With the Apple iPhone hitting stores this Friday (29 June), Apple fans around the world are anxious to get their hands on this new, shiny device. There are already people waiting too! Never in my life have I seen so much hoopla over a mobile phone. I am a huge Apple-fanboy; however, I do not see an iPhone in my future with the current outrageous pricing. Overall, I am quite disappointed with the pricing involved with the phone. First, the actual iPhone costs $499 (4GB) or $599 (8GB). Then you are going to have a large monthly fee for se…

• Apple's Xcode

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Mon 20 Mar 2006 at 19:52

  Type

  Blog Entry

  There are very few conversation-worthy code editors for OS X. Most code editors for OS X provide rather simple functions, but not enough capability to handle larger volumes of code and a multitude of files. Luckily, Apple offers Xcode - an integrated development environment that can handle a wide variety of programming languages - which is included freely with most Macs. Xcode is intentionally for OS X programming - Carbon, Cocoa, etc. - but it also works well with web programming languages such as PHP and Perl. Xcode's true ability shine…

• Apple Releases Intel Mac Mini

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 7 Mar 2006 at 20:40

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Earlier last week Apple held a small press event at their corporate headquarters, located in Silicon Valley, California. The event announced that the PowerPC-based Mac Mini was being replaced by an updated, Intel-based replacement. Apple also released HiFi speakers and leather cases for the popular iPod. The new Mac Mini is about three to five times faster - depending on the model - and contains the new Front Row software. The updated Mac Mini comes in two models, with the lower model containing a Core Solo processor and the higher model …

• Intel Based Macs!

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 10 Jan 2006 at 20:00

  Type

  Blog Entry

  The long anticipated MacWorld Expo 2006 keynote speech is over, and along with it we get a host of updated products from Apple. The major new releases are the Intel-based Macs. Overall, Apple released: An Intel-based Mac laptop, known as the MacBook Pro. This new laptop features an Intel Core Duo, making it four times faster than the previous PowerBook. It also features a built in iSight camera, support for FrontRow and the Apple remote, and a new MagSafe AC adapter. An Intel-based iMac. This updated Mac does not boast any other new …

• MacWorld Is Coming

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Thu 29 Dec 2005 at 16:28

  Type

  Blog Entry

  The annual MacWorld conference is coming next month and Apple rumor sites have already began predicting the new products that Apple will release. Some of the more prominent rumors are: An Intel-based iBook, which would feature a 13.3" widescreen. An Intel-based iMac counterpart. It would be identical to the current iMac, but would feature an Intel processor. An Intel-based PowerBook, which would feature a built in iSight camera, much like the one currently featured in the iMac. A digital camera. A DVR upgrade to the Mac Mini. A repl…

• Safari Passes Acid2

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Wed 2 Nov 2005 at 7:54

  Type

  Blog Entry

  In the recent OS X update (10.4.3), Apple made a multitude of small changes and fixes. The main update (for web developers) is that Safari now passes the Acid2 test. It is the first official browser release to pass the standard's test. Both iCab and Konquerer pass in beta versions, but Safari is the first official release. It should only be a matter of time for most browsers to pass, excluding Internet Explorer. Opera and Firefox are already working on passing the test. This will be a huge improvement in standardized rendering.…

• Securities in Macs

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Sun 9 Oct 2005 at 15:16

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  3 comments

  Philip Miseldine is a recent Macintosh converter, around the same time as myself. Like most Apple users, he does not worry about computer viruses, and does not run any virus protection software. He recently wrote a blog entry about the security advantages in OS X. I have never worried about security on my computers, mainly because I chose more secure software. Windows has one main weakness - Internet Explorer. Even on a Windows platform you can secure yourself through the one port for viruses - the Internet. Using Opera/M2 and Firefox/T…

• Mighty Mouse to the Rescue!

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 9 Aug 2005 at 16:15

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Comments

  8 comments

  One downside that people always find when they purchase a Mac is that the included Apple mice are always one button. Most users end up upgrading to a two button mouse sometime in their Mac life. Thanks to Apple this is no longer necessary. Apple has finally revealed a powerful "mighty" mouse with every feature imaginable in your input device. The mouse still features a one button design using sensitive touch sensors to determine click input. The Mighty Mouse's design not only is slick, but is practical. This $50 mouse not only feature…

• Browser News on Macs

  Author

  Ethan Poole

  Date

  Tue 7 Jun 2005 at 6:48

  Type

  Blog Entry

  Macintosh browsers have been on the move lately, exceeding most other large players. Safari passed the Acid2 test not too long ago, being the first web browser to do so. In the past few days I've seen more activity on the Mac with Safari being made open source and iCab passing Acid2. iCab, a Mac browser, now passes the Acid2 test, the third browser to do so. Hopefully this signals the events that Firefox and Opera will make moves toward passing the standard's test, leaving IE to be the only one left. Apple has created Web Kit containin…