Tag Archives for apple

Is the iPod Touch just for Teenagers?

I’ve really enjoyed the iPod commercials over the years that didn’t reduce the user group to a specific age range. The iPhone commercials — even now — demonstrate that the iPhone can be handy for everyone. The iPhone and iPad are ageless, as it were.

A commercial like this for the iPod Touch leaves nothing to the imagination. If we didn’t know who was using the Touch before, or who it is meant for, we do now. This awesome device that’s practical and enjoyable for everyone is relegated to the teenagers, in Apple’s marketing point of view.

I guess this is to be expected, what with ads promoting the sales of their i-device for the holidays. But I do wish they had kept up the “It’s useful for everyone” message, as this is the truth. The iPod Touch is handy for all that are not willing to fork out the monthly bill for the iPhone and its contracts.

Why the iPod Touch is Special

Why the iPod Touch is Special »

Even now that I use an iPhone, I’m still finding uses for my Touch. Besides being swell for music playback with a long-lasting battery life (unlike the iPhone), it makes a good pocket web browser, remote control for my TelePrompter, gaming device for my daughter, and e-reader when my iPad is not around. And when I’ve run out of space for misc. apps on my 16gb iPhone, the Touch carries the extra apps with its 32gb capacity. Matt Ryan highlights five other great uses for the device in his post.

Final Cut Pro X is Growing in Favor with God and Editors

Click image to see original article

Ben Balser just released a tutorial for X. Grant you, he has his product invested in Apple’s new editor, so he is going to like it and promote the professionalism of editors using FCP X. One might question whether he has a serious bias towards Apple’s product because of his considerable investment in it.

Even so, this isn’t to say he is biased. I like what he says in the quotes from this article as he’s taken the time to wrap his mind around the paradigm shift Apple introduced in FCP X. He’s got his head in the game — unlike many pundits that have lashed out at X without giving it thoughtful consideration. Ben notes there are simply significant traits to X that are not conducive for consumers. And the recent free update Apple released fixing various bugs and what-not had everything to do with addressing professional editors concerns — not the whimsies of soccer moms.

Of course, this is just one article that’s extolling FCP X. There are many others. Such positive articles are just not heard of as much as the quarreling forums of rabid independent editors that are drawing a crowd for blasting Apple products. Disliking something about Apple is ever in vogue. Well, I hope to be above such simple-minded trendiness, and find out for myself what FCP X is really made of.

Starting tomorrow, I’m aiming to produce my first video ever in X. It’ll be put to professional use from day one in my workflow. Do I expect to encounter some bumps along the way? I’d be a fool if I didn’t. I will soon see just what to make of the FCP backlash, and whether X is or isn’t as professional as everyone is debating. I’ll keep you posted!

iOS 5 and iPhone 4s Observations

So I finally got an iPhone (and a 4s at that!) after all these years of loyal Apple gadgetry use. As a conscientious spender — in spite of using all things Mac since 1992 — I’ve always thought that I would wait to get an iPhone till I could justify the expensive data plan. Now that I can, I’m retiring my old trusty iPod Touch and using the 4s in full swing.

What I am addressing in this post are my experience with the new iPhone and my greatest disappointments with the new iOS 5.

How I make use of an iPhone

Don’t get an iPhone then find uses for it to justify your possession of it. I wanted to have a genuine use for the device before I purchased one because they are expensive when you consider the monthly bill with AT&T (or other phone service). For me, it boiled down to several pragmatic uses for the tool:

• I need a reliable way to reach family with a call at any time.

• I need constant reminders for various meetings, projects, chores, events, etc.

• As my calendar gets fuller with each passing month in life, I need a constant handy tool to track events.

• A growing majority of my human interaction with friends are on social networks when it’s convenient for them — thus timely access to social networks is essential.

• Then there is the cool reason: I’m reviewing iOS games for AllThumbsGaming.com in the near future. The new speeds of the A5 chip processor in this phone will be put to good use.

• Lastly, what filmmaker doesn’t want a good camera on their person for any unique moment?

So reasons aside, what do I think of the phone? Well, I can’t compare it to previous generations of iPhones as I am a new iPhone user. As a newbie, it’s very user friendly. I like the way it handles system preferences and navigates around apps. The one thing I want more readily accessible is the brightness controls. Burying them in the preferences is a hassle to change evening and morning to save my eyesight.

Of course, I’ve had other cellphones before this one. There is no comparison. Other brands that half-heartedly attempt to offer music, gaming, and social networking services infinitely disappoint. Then again, you get what you pay for. Cheap phones hardly give you any real useful features. Apart from the phone calling aspect.

Anyway, the biggest advantage of the new Apple phone over all others on the market is Siri: the voice command personal assistant app built into the iOS. I use her a little more than I’d anticipated. She’s good for everything she’s designed to do. She schedules events, reminds me of my to do items in a timely manner, answers complex math equations, looks up stuff in an encyclopedia (of sorts), looks up any word or phrase in Google, sets my alarms, takes dictation for emails, plays my music… All on my vocal command. I find that as long as a use a clear and natural speaking voice that she’ll correctly understand most everything I speak. Siri is handy in that she reduces many steps it would otherwise take to perform everyday iPhone tasks. Not to mention she can make you smile at her clever work around your challenging questions.

How iOS 5 disappoints a seasoned iOS user

I want to ever find more practicality in the iOS as I do not use a laptop or desktop when I’m away from the office. My computing is all reduced to an iPhone and an iPad on the go and in my living room. As useful as the devices are, there’s just a few issue I take with their shortcomings.

First, they just got a built-in dictionary. It is a duh. Dictionaries are usually more useful than calculators (which the iOS has had on the iPhone since the first generation). So, yes, it’s finally got a dictionary, but the silly part is that to use it there isn’t a dedicated dictionary app, as there is a dedicated calculator app. To use the dictionary, you have to be using various apps with editable text or a PDF or an ebook. Then, you select a word and ask it to give you the meaning. So the dictionary is under the hood, as it were; it’s solely a part of the underpinnings of the iOS. This is one handy application of a dictionary — having it on hand while you write and read — but it seems obvious to me that at times you simply want to look a word up in a dedicated dictionary app.

Secondly, what’s with Twitter integration? This seems awkward to me. Where is the Facebook integration? This new iOS has twittering services built in — so much so you can install the Twitter app right from your system preferences! I use the twittering tools myself, but where are the glaringly missing Facebook tools? Twitter is seriously one-up on the iOS now amongst the social networks, and this is a disservice to iOS users because most everyday users are using Facebook ten times more than they use Twitter. Facebook is for all of life. Twitter is mainly for hobbies and professionals culture. So while it’s nice to have handy access to Twitter from more apps, it’s strange that Facebook is slighted. Hopefully, future Facebook integration is in the works for, say, iOS 6.

Thirdly, iOS 5 lacks new beautiful wallpapers. This is not mission critical for new iOSes, I know, but as much as I like the current assortment of flowers, textures, and funky art wallpapers, there is lots of room to grow for some appealing background images that would liven up the iOS. Most of the backgrounds available today were with iOS from the beginning (more than three years ago) and only a few were added with the first generation iPad (two years ago). Apple is good at the backgrounds they provide, so they just need to add more of them with each significant update. Backgrounds put a new face on a new iOS. Yes, I know there are many websites that provide backgrounds for these devices, but 90% of backgrounds out there are lame, generic, amateurish, or distasteful. Apple set the standards high with their backgrounds and I think they should continue to broaden the best of the best selection of backgrounds.

These things I point out aren’t to say that I dislike iOS 5. I just think these three issues are obvious areas for improvement. With over 200 (supposed) improvements in this iteration of the iOS, many of these improvements are unnoticeable to everyday users. So features like those I’m suggesting would be a bit more significant to everyday users that spend lots of time iOS-ing. As someone that spends little time on Mac OS when I don’t have to for work, I just want to flesh out some of these small things so I encounter less disappointment in iOS’s shortcomings that pertain to everyday use.

So what do you think of the new iPhone or iOS 5?

What I Think of Mac OS Lion

I’ve been using Lion now since the day after the release, July 21st. That’s not long, but it has given me a good enough time to experience the most obvious enhancements and encounter noticeable bugs. Lion exceeds my expectations in the latter. Bugs: what bugs? OS upgrades are known for them, so the intrepid Apple user usually waits a few weeks before upgrading their OS. Well, I’ve been using Pages, Evernote, Mail, Safari, Chrome, Firefox, FCP 7, SP, iTunes, and the like, and haven’t encountered one glitch. Of course, I have always found Safari slower than other browsers, and this is still the case in Lion, but that’s not an OS problem.

As for the goods of Lion, I became a fan of the Finder just about three years ago. I’ve only been using Macs since 1992, so you think I would have become accustom to the primary method to sort and organize files by 2008, but I hadn’t. I struggled to grasp the metaphor, as it were. Thankfully, one day it just clicked.

Mission Control: I'm still experimenting with it, but I think I like it.

So I was naturally concerned when reports were saying Apple had made Lion more like an iOS. I was wary that the Finder might be dumbed down, too minimalistic (or, at least, heading that direction). This hasn’t occured. In fact, I love the enhancements to the Finder and Spotlight. If you are a regular organizer like I, you shouldn’t be disappointed.

A lot of the improvements that users will see are in the asthetics. Of course, if you don’t have an eye for such things, you may be disappointed in the upgrade as a whole, since Apple has painstakingly tweaked each pixel to make the overall image softer on the eyes. Harsh (or crisp) edges for various icons have mellowed out, making me think everything looks “pillowy”. This is certainly not a downside to Lion. Like I said: if you don’t care about the little details of aesthetics, then you may not care. If you are an artist/designer, you’re probably going to study these changes with fascination and respect for Apple’s thoughtfulness in design as it directly impacts the users’ experience for the better.

A great deal of the changes Lion brings are found in the System Preferences. For instance, one of the major detractors of Lion for Apple and PC users alike will be the “natural” scrolling. Natural scrolling means the way you’ve scrolled up/down/left/right on the mouse has been reversed. I know; that didn’t seem natural to me either when I heard about this change. Who wants to re-learn scrolling after 20+ years of experience learning it the “unnatural” way that largely had something to do with Apple’s standardization of mouse controls on the earliest graphic interface operating systems?

Well, as it turns out, most such changes you won’t care for, as with the scrolling, are reversible in the System Preferences (SP). SP has on the whole been refined and is more pleasant to peruse. If you want your old-fashioned scrolling, you’ll quickly find it under the Mouse controls.

Mac's Mail is one of my favorite parts of Lion's upgrades.

My favorite native improvements come to Mac’s Mail. This app that delivers and organizes your emails has been a staple of the OS for at least a decade, right? But I can’t think of anyone who’s used it for more than ten months at a time (besides my brother). Mac Mail just hasn’t offered conducive organization and hassle-free settings in the past versions. In general, I’m pickier about my mail client experience over that of other native apps—like the dictionary—since I spend so much time in it whether I like it or not. Mail now is my one and only emailing client, I’m happy to say. It’s re-design is significant and the new features work well.

If you’re thinking about making the upgrade but aren’t sure of it, I say it’s safe and a pleasant change that you should go with now. If you’re old school and don’t trust a review no matter what because you just know that the OS will mess your workflows up, then you should probably not upgrade till your computer dies and your forced to. In either case, I I’m giving Lion my stamp of approval.

Apple’s Back to Mac Special Event Live Stream

Apple’s “Back to Mac” Special Event Live Stream
If you are at all interested in watching Apple’s presentation today live, here is where you’ll find it. The event is all about announcing new product developments for Mac computers—not iPhones, iPads, or iPods. Apple will make the video available afterward as ‘play on demand,’ so if you don’t get it live, no sweat.

More Consideration of Apple’s iBookstore

More Consideration of Apple’s iBookstore
While my heart goes out to the Nook as my favorite eReading app for the iPad, I’ve mentioned before that the iBook app is a close second. In my recent review of the top three eReading apps, I paid all my attention to the quality of the eReading experience. Shopping for eBooks is important also, so I mentioned it and what I thought of the eBook stores of the top three apps.

What I did not go into was the availability of eBooks on these eBook stores. On that note, here is some food for thought about the iBookstore by Apple. Read the article here. David Winograd is detailed in what exactly sets the iBookstore back from the other stores. Basically, the iBookstore has a long way to go before its stock contends with Amazon’s Kindle store. I sure hope the iBookstore does manage, because I’m not a Kindle fan myself.

I’ll add to what David had to say; I think it’s important to stress not just top sellers, new releases, classics, and popular authors in the books selection. I want to see eBook stores that are exhaustive with most any book. I don’t want to be held back because an author is obscure and one of his books was unpopular.

 

Back to the Mac Event

Back to the Mac Event
Apple told the world yesterday they are having another event to announce product updates in relation to all things Mac computers this October 20th. They dropped a big hint that it will be about the next generation of their operating system, Mac OS X, and that it will be called “Lion.”

I’ve been anticipating Lion for years. I have a good feeling about any update named after the king of the jungle.

What’s interesting too is that this is version 10.7 (10 standing for the X in Mac OS X), and this announcement is right after the tenth anniversary of OS X’s original release. Here you can watch when Steve Jobs announced the very first version back in 2000: