New mac:about Podcast now live!

Me, Saul Kropman, Gary Meyer and Marc Forrest decided to start up a Apple orientated podcast catering for South Africa. This week we take a look at locally developed iPhone apps, buying a new Mac, the relevancy of the Mac mini and Apple TV in South Africa as well as a few hints and tips for your Mac. We hope you enjoy it, and look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions.

 You can listen to it here,or you can subscribe to it in iTunes here.

Some of the tips and tricks we speak about in this episode is RadioPod, Perian, easy removal of icons in menu bar, a great free virtual machine software package called Virtual Box and the best iPhone Apps of the week.

- mac:about Team.

Google drops a bombshell on Apple

Today Google released enhancements of two of their products which seems pretty normal by the looks of it. However, these two updates were targeted primarily as a move to trounce Apple. These two applications are Picasa (a free photo managing and simple editing suite, for Windows and Mac) and Gmail Sync (Google’s free email service).

Picasa:

First up Picasa gains “Name Tags” which automatically searches faces in your photo library, and then you can tag them. Based on these tags, Picasa will then try to look for more similiar faces and tag them as well for you. If Picasa is unsure of a face it will try to guess who it is based on previous name tags. You simply need to confirm it. (Picasa has had this functionality in its Web Albums service, but Name Tags is now built right into the application.)

Picasa also gains much better geo-tagging abilities. Previous Windows versions of Picasa had “experimental” support for Geotagging, but it was not particularly well integrated, and it worked hand in hand with Google Earth. Now however, geotagging is integrated right into the Picasa interface, with an additional frame opening showing where photos were taken. This is a big improvement, and frankly a much better.

So why is these features so important? Because Picasa offers these features absolutely free, whereas Apple’s iPhoto is a paid for application. True, it is free with every Mac, but upgrades to the latest ’09 costs $79.

Google Sync:

Then we get to Google’s other major announcement. Today Google is enabling push services for its GMail services. This enables users to connect to Gmail and having their email “pushed” to their devices as they arrive, as opposed to having to check it at predefined intervals. Not everyone needs push email – in fact, I think you should be very dependent (read: addicted) to email to require push functionality. This service is available to iPhone, Windows Mobile and Symbian S60. Google has offerred these mobile “sync” services for contacts and calendar, but today it completes the sync package with email.
Apple has offered this push email functionality to it’s MobileMe members for quite some time already, so this is nothing new. However, once again Google undercuts Apple’s $99 MobileMe fee with a much lower cost: $0.

With this new Google announcement the only other reasons to go for MobileMe is the iDisk application on your iPhone and also the Find my iPhone feature, which is great. $99 great? Doubt it. The simple fact of the matter is that MobileMe should be a free service, as it would be a great value addition to the iPhone.

One cannot help but wonder if there is some major competition growing between Google and Apple. In the last few months Google’s CEO was kicked off Apple’s board of directors, Google Voice was rejected from the Appstore and there has been a lot of finger pointing between the two companies regarding this. Now one can be on whichever side you wish – but if Google keeps on giving away functionality for free which Apple insists on asking money for, it becomes tough to side with Apple.

Keep it up Google. (Your move, Apple…)

Price Gouging for Dummies (Updated…)

or: Same old, same old.

I have gone on way to much about the prices Core charges for Apple products in SA in this blog. True. But really, they just keep on flaming the fire – I have tried to start looking for positives in their current operations. I have looked for good service (and I did find it once) and I have noticed the slight dropping of prices of macbooks, even if it was old stock they were trying to get rid of. I actually thought this was a recession busting exercise, which I applauded. But then today they announced their pricing of the new iPods that were announced last week by Apple. I just want to inform my readers of these new prices.

Here is some price comparisons:

iPod Touch 64GB:
UK price: £299 (R3638)

US price: $399
SA price: R5499 ($740 or £452)

iPod Nano 16GB:
UK price: £135 (R1643)

US price: $179
SA price: R2499 ($336 or £205)

iPod Shuffle 4GB:
UK price: £59 (R718)

US price: $79
SA price: R1000 ($135 or £82)

I am well aware that you cannot make direct comparisons between countries because of import taxes and such, but these prices straight up ridiculous. Seeing as SA falls under Apple’s european region, the prices comparisons might be better by using UK pricing.

If there is maybe a new tax on iPods that I am not aware of, I would very much like to be informed – in fact, please correct me if I am wrong in comparing SA and UK prices. Criticism? Please. If it is not Core’s fault and in fact the SA government asking this much tax, let me know.

How much is an acceptable price increase for it to reach SA in your opinion? My opinion is that Core should not have charged more than R2000 for the 16GB Nano. This is not the way to do business in the current economy.

UPDATE: After some feedback I have gotten some import tax figures for electronic devices in South Africa. Find it here.

Review: Apple Mac OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard

On the 28th of August Apple finally released its latest version of its Mac OSX – called Snow Leopard. While it is a new version, the changes are very subtle, but those little things add up to highly revamped experience of using your Mac. While the traditional Apple fanboy/journalism bigshots like Walt Mossberg and David Pogue got hold of it a while ago, we regular little people had to wait.

First thing you notice it is quite cheap – at $30, it is much cheaper than any release of OS X up to now (except 10.1, which was free…). While this “new” price for an OS seems great, the honest fact of the matter is that Apple could not actually ask more for this OS upgrade. The typical user will not necessarily notice any of the changes, except for the big speed increase…

Installation:

The typical user will simply insert the Snow Leopard and click on install. Thereafter it asks you your password and thats it. On my machine the entire install took about 39 minutes, which is pretty brisk for a machine which has a lot of software and customizations running. No mess no fuss. Seriously, I cannot think how this can be easier. Even though the licence permits only a upgrade from Leopard, supposedly the upgrader updates Tiger without issue as well. (Microsoft might want to take note of this, their new Windows 7 install process does not allow a straight upgrade from Windows XP).

Apple tells us that we can expect up to 6 gigs extra back after the install of Snow Leopard, and reviews everywhere seem to concur with it. I got back 10 Gigs, which is always great. Apple gets this right by not storing all printer drivers on disk anymore, and also not installing Rosetta, which is now a optional install on the install DVD. (Rosetta is the translation software which enables you to run older PowerPC based applications that has not been coded in Universal code).

Speed, Glorious Speed:

After the first boot up you will notice that the interface is much quicker. Objects and buttons just seem to react quicker in all day to day activities. Opening up large files such as videos open instantly, thumbnails get generated much quicker and you don’t really ever feel that their is a lack of power in the machine. I am running Snow Leopard on a stock standard Macbook unibody with 2.0GHz processor and 2 Gig RAM. I only upgraded the hard drive to a 7200 rpm model. Things that used to crunch the little guy in the past like Time Machine is much, much quicker now.

Talking of Time Machine, not only is it quicker, but it clearly uses less processing power in Snow Leopard. (Apple says 80% faster, but that sounds a little optimistic. I would say 50%) In fact, I noticed many apps use less processing power than before, and the machine does run a little cooler because of it. However, I did notice that apps that are dependent on pure processing power like Handbrake run about the same, and CPU use might have even gone up, because there are more idle CPU power available. Whether it indeed results in faster encoding, I am not sure.

Apple has also rewritten all (or most) of its core applications in 64 bit now, which does make them faster in environments where machines have large memories (more than 4GB). I could not however test this, seeing as I did my testing on a Late 2008 Macbook. However, all the built in Apps do launch much quiker than before.

The other reason why things happen a bit quicker in Snow Leopard is down to a few things, most importantly Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL. Here is Apple’s official statement on GCD:

“With GCD, threads are handled by the operating system, not by individual applications. GCD-enabled programs can automatically distribute their work across all available cores, resulting in the best possible performance whether they’re running on a dual-core Mac mini, an 8-core Mac Pro, or anything in between. Once developers start using GCD for their applications, you’ll start noticing significant improvements in performance.” Well that beats the technical explanation.

OpenCL is a new way of employing graphics processors in modern Macs to assist with everyday processing jobs. Considering the amount of processing power in new GPU’s, it is really a great thing – instead having a graphics card that sits idle waiting for the next game, it can now continually contribute to all apps that have OpenCL code. This however only works on newer Macs with relatively modern GPU’s.

Ever since I started using a Mac, I was always dumbfounded at how well sleep works with a Macbook. I have not had any Windows machine that have worked so flawlessly for travelling – Snow Leopard makes that even quicker. Not that I have ever considered Leopard slow for sleeping and waking.

New Features:

Not counting the major changes in the background, Snow Leopard does not have a lot of new features – in fact, you have to look pretty hard to spot them. Most of the changes are small enough that you will only run into them m
Apart from the speed increase, the only major interface change you will notice is that the “stacks” in the dock is suddenly a whole lot more useful. Clicking on a icon within a stack reopens the stack with new icons, instead of opening up a Finder window as in Leopard. Also, you can scroll around in the stack if you use the Grid view. I find this much quicker than in Leopard.

One of Mac OS X’s standout features – Expose, has been changed slightly as well. Doing the traditional four finger swipe now works the same as before, but holding onto a icon in the dock now gives a quick preview of what it’s window looks like. Very similiar to Aero Peek in Windows 7, yes, but it does not feel as well implemented. Using traditional Expose is still way better than anything in Windows though.

The application with the biggest changes however is Quicktime Player. When I first read about the changes coming I could not care less – after all, who cares about Quicktime? In my mind, Quicktime has never been something more than a useless app that comes with iTunes. However, Quicktime X is completely different beast. Seeing as the preview function (which opens movies, documents and pictures quickly) is built on Quicktime, I find myself using preview a lot more. Where in the past I would fire up VLC for any video file, preview is now much, much quicker. In fact, opening up a multiple gigabyte HD file takes a matter of seconds. H264 files also seem to play very smooth thanks to Quicktime now using the GPU for decoding.
Snow Leopard has now also got support for Microsoft Exchange built in – but it requires that you run Exchange Server 2008 in your organization. I tested it and did not find a single problem – Addressbook and Calendar synced easily enough and it was easy enough to set up as well. I have never been a fan of Entourage for Mac, and this change is most welcome. (Luckily MS is going to switch to Outlook now for Mac as well in its next release). Funny bit of irony: Apple’s operating system comes with support for Microsoft Exchange out of the box, Microsoft’s own OS does not. Office for Mac is suddenly becoming a much tougher sell for the average user.

Issues:

To be honest, Snow Leopard has not given me any headaches so far. Some users have been complaining of incompatible apps, but I have not found any. My productivity software like Microsoft Office 2008 is functioning without issue, and Adobe CS4 is also problem free. However, I did find that these apps did not get the great speed boost I so wanted from Snow Leopard. I reckon the next version of Office for Mac will have better use of technologies like GCD and OpenCL. (Office for Mac is not exactly quick to launch).

I only had a small issue with a Wifi network using VPN for authentication at work, but I sorted it out within 5 minutes. Other than that, it has been problem free.

Wrapup:

Overall, I am very impressed by Snow Leopard. The entire upgrade process was hassle free, and the changes are apparent almost immediately. I commend Apple for keeping the upgrade prices low at $30 (not so much Core, who charges R329, I guess the tiny double CD sized boxes are very expensive to ship here.), but after reviewing it, it becomes apparent that the question is rather whether they should charge for it at all.

The fact of the matter is that yes, Snow Leopard is a service pack when you are looking at features. On the other hand, the speed increases are so welcome that I would easily pay the money. I am trying not to sound like a fanboy, but if you use Leopard, you are pretty silly not to make the upgrade.

Rating:

9 out of 10 (10 if it was free, but again, would it even warrant a review then?)

PS:

Then of course there is the constant comparison with Windows. Windows 7 is arriving end of October in stores and is already complete in RTM guise. We all want the next Windows to cost $30 as well, but Windows has to cater for such a broad range of hardware, that it obviously takes a much larger effort to refine its operating system than Apple. (Face it, Windows 7 is as much a service pack to Windows Vista as Snow Leopard is to Leopard.). While Microsoft will not bring it to market at $30, it will release a Family Pack for multi PC households. I am actually very excited by these two very mature new operating systems now available. (See my review of Windows 7 here.)

Mac OS X Snow Leopard in SA…

It seems South Africans wont have to wait for Snow Leopard after all, it will be released on Friday 28 August at premier resellers. The good news is that the price is not too bad – R329. Compare that to $29 in the US and 29 pounds in the UK, and I guess we are OK.

The official reviews by the typical Apple bigshots have started to trickle in, and the opinions are universally positive. The major plus for Snow Leopard is the performance boost – many built apps launch much quicker, and there is big potential for speed improvements once third party apps start taking advantage of Grand Central Dispatch – Apple typically fancy name for its service that enables better handling of applications in multiple core environments.

The other major advantage is that the built in apps have been rewritten in 64 bit which gives great performance boosts in environments where the machine has large amounts of RAM. OpenCL will enable Macs to use their graphics card (anything from a Nvidia 8600 and up) to contribute processing power to everyday applications. While many of these new technologies are not necessarily going to be used immediately, it does show that performance in the future on Snow Leopard might improve more once third party developers harness these tools.

Only minus is that support for PowerPC macs has been pulled – it is Intel only, which is just about any Mac after 2006. However, you can still run older PowerPC apps as with Leopard, but Rosetta is now an optional component. The install is much smaller because of this – you will have about 7Gig more space than with Leopard. (This is also because the giant printer driver database has been removed, it will by default rather download the driver)

Personally I cannot wait to load up Snow Leopard on my mac – not that I have noticed it was slow. Its almost like the iPhone 3G – I did not notice it was slow until I used a 3GS. Guess thats what technology companies should do – convince you to get something new, when you did not realize you needed it. Evil.

At R329 it is a must have upgrade though.

Now if Microsoft could have only followed suit with this pricing – but luckily they are bringing out a “family pack” of Windows 7, which is great for multiple PC households.

Review Round Up:
Engadget
Gizmodo
CNET
Walt Mossberg (you can even upgrade from Tiger for $29 – whoops!)
PC World
Slashgear

One more thing:
If you want to see if all your apps can run on Snow Leopard, go to http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/ – thanks @neio

Arrogant, but there is an element of truth

My favourite bit: “When you are ready to compromise, you give a call…”.

Gotta hand it to these guys, they know how to market a product. I cannot help but think that Top of the Line PC is probably a Sony VAIO.

The iPhone Apps I Recommend

Recently I came across Hertenberger’s post about what iPhone Apps he uses, so I decided I will do something similiar – after all, there are a LOT of apps out there, and I always enjoy seeing what people use on their iPhones and how they link into their lives. Well here is my homescreen:

Just like Hertenberger’s post, I obviously put my quick access apps down on the dock/tray, and then the most often used apps on the homescreen. Here is my choices, and why I use them.

Contacts and Calendar: While nothing spectacular, I use these apps with Google Sync, which means I always have the latest possible version of my contacts and calendars on my phone. I do not use push, they update when I open the apps. Google Sync method is highly recommended. Want to know how to set it up? Read the guide here.

Facebook: Yeah, you all know Facebook, and yes, it is truly great on the iPhone. While nowhere near the functionality of the full website, it is quicker and easier. I am pretty sure anybody who uses Facebook on their iPhone hardly ever go back to the full website. I am really looking forward to version 3, which will enable a lot of new functionality on the iPhone.

Tweetie: This is the best twitter client on the iPhone in my opinion. Despite competitors being available for less, or even free, you cannot beat the stability and speed of tweetie. Its simplicity has caused me to switch to tweetie on my mac as well. Well worth the money.

Reader: This is not a traditional App, but merely a shortcut key to the Google Reader website. I use Google Reader multiple times per day, and it is a brilliant RSS reader. The iPhone specific interface is also a bonus. Highly recommended. Tip: If you read a lot of different websites every day, consider using Google Reader. You get through a lot of news much quicker and easier than manually visiting every site.

News24: The News24 application is well executed and a very quick way to quickly scan new headlines in SA. If you live in SA, try the application. Highly recommended.

Voice Memos: I use Voice Memos to record all my lectures and then upload them as podcasts for my students. Bonus is that my old iTalk Pro stereo recorder works with Voice memos to increase the sound quality as well. Can take up a lot of space, but if you have a large memory size iPhone you ought to be fine.

Beejive: Beejive is a multi protocol messenger that supports push notfications on iPhone. While its $10 price is a bit outrageous compared to other IM’s on the Appstore, it is stable and feature rich. I especially like the Facebook integration, and the fact that with with the new version you can stay signed in via Push Notifications for up to 7 days. If they drop the price to $5, I think they will have a major hit on their hands.

These are all apps I use every single day – what Apps would you recommend? How does it link in to your lifestyle???

You can also read Hertenberger’s recommendations here.

Core: Credit where it is due

While I have been critical of Core in the past, I was pleasantly surprised by the customer service at the iStore in Waterfront recently. As regular readers of this site might know, despite all of Apple’s issues in SA, I am still a major fan of the iPhone. I honestly believe it is one of the best gadgets I have ever spent my money on, and I have never had any buyer’s remorse.

Needless to say, I was very excited to get my hands on the iPhone 3GS when it was announced by Vodacom. Before this I went into Vodashop’s several times a week to enquire about it, put my names on many reservation lists for the phone all in a bid to get one as soon as they land here. Needless to say, on launch day not a single Vodashop in the Western Cape could help me, all with their own pathetic excuse.

I decided to phone iStore, and surely enough they had only 5 available, and yes, my reserved name was on one of them. And I have to say, the service by Clinton was excellent – I told them I wanted a 32gig model, and I gave them my contract details over the phone. Now I should point out that I did not want a iPhone specific contract – I wanted to stay on a high end Top-Up contract. (When I told Cellucity this, they said no.) Through the day I got updates and confirmations that everything was in order. That night at 19:00 I drove over to Waterfront to go get my new toy. I walked into the shop, signed the final documents, swiped my card and walked out with a new iPhone 3GS.

Now I am pretty sure international readers will think nothing of this, but for South Africans this level of service is unheard of. Lets just say that if Core continues on this path, I might just give them a second chance.

You can read my initial impressions of the iPhone 3GS here.

PS: To this day, not one of the Vodacom branches I booked a 3GS with has phoned me.

What I want from the Apple Tablet.

So, the interwebz are abuzz with the news of a Apple Tablet machine coming, and deservedly so. While I am not anymore going to say that I dont believe it is not coming (there is way to much evidence forming), I am having a tough time placing it in Apple’s line up. Microsoft has been trying to push the tablet idea for years, without much success. I think in Bill Gates ‘s vision we would all be working on tablets today, but sadly tablets are typically only used by sales reps.

So far the rumours seem to be pointing to the device being a iPhone OS based device with a 10 inch capacitative touchscreen similiar to the iPhone. While I cannot seem to find fault with the form factor, I really hope Apple would not use iPhone OS on the device. Current suggestions are that the device will cost about $ 800 – which in my opinion might be way to much for something that will essentially be a internet tablet. Where will this device fit into the typical user’s lifestyle?

If it does not have a keyboard (or at least the ability to connect one) I wonder how it will fit in my daily routine. If I already have an iPhone and a Macbook, what will this device at to my computing lifestyle. I might see it as internet device that lays around at home, but not a travelling workstation that replaces my Macbook.

What I hope it is:

The more I think about it, the more I hope they just add at least the ability to use MacOSX on the device. One potential use which I do find intriguing is using the device as a secondary touch screen, when in the vicinity of your main Mac computer. There is a clear selling point.

If it can sync wirelessly my documents and media with my Mac, and enable me to quickly grab the device on the run, that sounds great. But then it should dock as well once I come back to my desk, and sync back any new info. A device like that might just replace the role of my macbook for quick trips, provided it has keyboard support. If this is the case, I expect to see Apple tablets in many meetings…

But Apple being Apple, I am sure whatever they create, it will be hit at first. Only time will tell if Apple can truly perfect the idea of the tablet computer.

Radio interview with Core by Radio 702 (or a lesson on how to tick off South African Apple users)

Redi Direko has interviewed the spokesperson of Core Group SA, and also the owner of CAB Platinum in Sandton. While I will agree we need to give the best possible service to the end user in South Africa, this interview quickly got out of hand. Redi did not allow CAB to state their facts, and was instead looking for contradictions. On the other hand Core’s spokesperson was allowed to state his views without interruption and she ate everything up.

Listen here

While I respect Redi Direko a lot, I believe this interview was not handled well. CAB is not necessarily the bad guy – we need to focus on the way Core does its business in SA. Instead of fostering competition in SA, Core has decided to become a distributor and reseller in SA, which in my books is what I would call a monopoly. It is impossible for another reseller to undercut Core’s prices which is why you do get stores like CAB looking for alternative import methods. Go look at industry – competition is what ensures success.

At one point Core said that they cant be described as a monopoly seeing as they only have 1 percent of the computer market in SA. True. But that is 100% of the Apple share, and 1% overall might be a bit more if they charged reasonable prices. And that little 1% probably consists of the most vocal fans of any brand on earth.

The interview had terrible structure and I had a overriding suspicion that Redi automatically classified CAB as the bad guy. She is entitled to her opinions. But then when you head over to the 702 website – here is what you find:

If you click on the ad, you will find a testimonial page where Chris Gibbons tells how much he likes Mac, with a direct link to one of Core’s pages. Having advertising on your page which is similiar to a product discussed on your show is not that bad – I mean, you cannot control ads these days right? But when that product is then also endorsed by one of your top radio presenters, and then it links directly to Core, I think credibility might just be lost.

I really hope 702 makes a follow up interview with RJ van Spaandonk, and that he answers some of the issues customers have with Core in South Africa. (for an idea of how many people have issues, look at Seth’s article).

A week ago I had a telephone conversation with a Apple EU representative. After posting my previous article on Apple’s pricing in SA they phoned me within 24 hours from Ireland. Now that is what you call service – at least they made me feel heard. They informed they were aware of the situation that Core is creating in SA, and they also told me that Core should have to honour international Apple warranties. (they also told me I should take VAT into account which I accept as an error). Still, I have not heard anything from Core when I asked similiar questions. In my opinion, Core is the company that does not cater to the end user. They charge ridiculous prices and their service is pathetic:

http://www.mpieters.com/2009/05/just-how-expensive-is-apple-in-sa.html

http://www.stopcore.co.za

http://www.macgeek.co.za/2009/05/31/open-letter-to-core/

http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2009/05/25/calls-for-apple-us-to-revoke-local-distributor-cores-license/

http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2009/05/19/core-group-insiders-come-forward/

To be honest, I am actually disgusted by Apple’s choice of distributor. A respectable company would come forward regarding these issues, not use scare tactics like www.stopgrey.co.za. If your prices and service was better, you would not be having all this bad press.