Merry Christmas to you, my dear readers! May your Christmas Eve and Christmas Day be filled with family, friends, fun, joy, wonderful food, and shiny new Apple toys under the tree.
‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a Magic Mouse.
The iPods were extending their warranties with AppleCare,
In hopes that Steve Jobs soon would be there.
I don’t usually post non-tech related things here, but this is my blog, and I can do what I want, right? Besides, circuits and code are inspired by geeks who consume mass amounts of caffeine, right?
Well, tonight, I had a great customer service experience at one of the local Starbucks.
10:10 pm. I have a half hour drive ahead of me and I am worn out. I want some coffee to perk me up for the drive, and I know a Starbucks is just down the block. I’m also pretty sure they close at 10.
As I approach, I notice that the lights are on and people are inside. I pull in. I walk up to the door, and go inside. The guy behind the counter glances up at me and says, “What can get started for you?”
I put in my order for a tall caramel apple spice for my wife, and a venti caramel brulée latte for me. (Yes, venti. Yes, after 10 pm. I know, I’m addicted to caffeine). The guy sets about to making the drinks.
I pull out my wallet, waiting for him to have a chance to ring me up. He glances up from the espresso machine. “Ah, don’t worry about it. The registers locked me out at 10. I just left the doors open so the folks sitting inside can take their time. It’s on the house.”
This is great customer service. Sure, the company lost out on five and a half bucks or so, but this deepened the loyalty of an already loyal customer. The server took care of the customer instead of turning me away, when he surely could have just said, “Sorry, we’re closed.”
Too often, customer service gets thrown down the drain these days. This experience was a refreshing change of pace.
And yes, free coffee does taste a little better.
I’ve been using 1Password by Agile Web Solutions for about a year thanks to my friend Samantha gifting a license to me during Agile’s Thanksgiving gifting program last year. Well, for the past 9 months or so, the team at Agile has been giving 1Password the biggest overhaul in the software’s history.
Since late August I’ve been beta-testing 1Password 3, which I am glad to tell you has been released for the masses today. If you are a Mac user, 1Password is a must-have application. It generates secure passwords for your web presence, and stores them all in a secure database that can be unlocked by your, well, one password you’ll never forget.
Too often I see people that use a word that can be found in the dictionary as their password (which means easily hacked) and then they use it everywhere. Even for their financial accounts online. This is a terrible practice that I even used to use.
Well, 1Password 3 has refined the user interface greatly from previous versions. Now everything is separated into different vaults, so you can easily access your logins, accounts, identities, secure notes, software licenses, and wallet. This program tracks everything for your digital life.
What I have found to be the most helpful is the web browser plugin. Whether you use Safari, Firefox, Camino, etc. (Chrome is in the works) you can easily have the plugin fill in user and password fields for you. Or if you need to fill in your credit card and billing address info for a merchant, the plugin will do it all in a couple clicks. The credit card info is very helpful for changing your info for many merchants when you receive a new card every couple years.
1Password 3 offers many enhancements for users of version 2, and is inescapably attractive for new users. This should be the first download for any Mac.
1Password 3 is available for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and 10.6 Snow Leopard. It costs $39.95 for a new license and users of version 2 may upgrade for $19.95 (until Nov. 30, 2009, then the price raises to $29.95).
For a complete list of what’s new, check out this page.
A week and a half ago, Apple refreshed some of its product lineup for the holidays. The changes included new unibody plastic MacBooks, gorgeous 21.5” and 27” iMacs, updated Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations, an aluminum Apple Remote, and the multitouch Magic Mouse. The Magic Mouse instantly became the object of my desire, and I placed an order for one as soon as the store was updated with the new merchandise. Today, it arrived.
This is purely a thing of beauty.
This has to be one of the sleekest designs to ever come out of Cupertino. The bottom is aluminum and the top is a curved blade of plastic. The top shell does depress physically for button clicks, but otherwise buttons do not exist.
The top surface is multitouch enabled. It detects when you want to perform a primary click or secondary click (aka right click) by how your fingers naturally interact with other mice. This function can be reversed via software if you mouse with your left hand.
Scrolling is achievable with a soft flick along the surface. The new software for the Magic Mouse even gives scrolling the visual feedback of momentum, much like the iPhone. (Please, Apple, enable momentum when I scroll with the multitouch trackpad built into my MacBook Pro!)
Swiping two fingers left or right allows you to move backward or forward, respectively, between web pages in a browser, or pages within a document, or items in Cover Flow view in Finder or iTunes.
Inevitably, comparisons must be made to the Magic Mouse’s predecessor, the Mighty Mouse. First of all, the Magic Mouse is only available with wireless bluetooth, whereas the Mighty Mouse had wired and wireless varieties (Apple still sells the wired Mighty Mouse, yet it has been rebranded as the Apple Mouse).
The Magic Mouse is much lighter and thinner than the Mighty Mouse. In fact, even though both contain two AA batteries, the Magic Mouse is on par with the light weight of the wired (thus without batteries) Mighty Mouse.
One stupendous benefit is the lack of the dreaded scroll ball. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the function of the scroll ball, but only when it actually functioned. Due to a poor design decision, there was no way to clean the scroll ball, and it would often gum up and stop working. I managed to sort of clean it with a cotton ball and some water, but cleaning it was at least a twice-weekly event. Scrolling with a touch sensor is much nicer.
Speaking of the scroll ball, here is one nagging difference where the Magic Mouse is lacking. On the Mighty Mouse, depressing the scroll ball acted as a third button, which I had set up to activate Exposé. Also, there was a fourth button on the side that you could squeeze, which I had set up to enable Spaces. The Magic Mouse lacks these buttons, or even a way to access any tertiary function. Perhaps Apple will be able to add in more gestures through software updates. One can hope.
Honestly, I rarely used the squeezable fourth button on the Mighty Mouse, but I used the tertiary button under the scroll ball a lot.
Thankfully, if you have a Mac notebook manufactured since late 2007 or any of the aluminum external keyboards, there is an Exposé button on the F3 key.
All in all, I am actually enjoying the lower profile of the Magic Mouse, as my wrist doesn’t have to bend at all for my hand to conform to it. Clicking is easy, and scrolling feels more natural than ever. The two-finger swipe is a bit tricky yet, but I think I just need to develop the muscle memory for it, like I did with the multitouch trackpads.
The only things lacking are the ability for at least a tertiary function, and I kind of wish the pinch/zoom gesture were available.
I highly suggest giving the Magic Mouse a try at an Apple Store. If you currently use a Mighty Mouse, I’d say overall it is an upgrade.
I’ve embedded some “unboxing” photos in the slideshow below.
I recently discovered a neat little trick about QuickLook. It occurred by accident, but I have since been using it quite a bit.
There is one requirement, you must have a trackpad that has all the multitouch capabilities, specifically the pinch/zoom gesture. Also, I have only tested this on Snow Leopard, so I have no idea if this works on Leopard.
Basically, highlight a file, tap the spacebar to enable QuickLook, then use the pinch/zoom gesture by drawing your two fingers away from each other. QuickLook will expand the document out into fullscreen.
To reverse the process, use pinch/zoom in the opposite direction, drawing your fingers together, and you’ll return to the normal QuickLook HUD window.
I have found this extremely useful for viewing images, and especially documents where I just quickly need some information, but the font renders too small in the HUD window to read.
I hope this little hint has helped you out. If any of you are still running Leopard, let us all know if this works for you.
Too bad the Magic Mouse doesn’t do pinch/zoom. By the way, mine is set to arrive Friday, watch out for a review around then.
It’s hard to believe that 8 years ago today the original iPod was introduced to the world. It’s even harder to see how much it has changed over the years. I mean, the primary iPod of Apple’s arsenal doesn’t even use a wheel anymore!
I remember thinking back in 2001 that this would never take off. I’ve since owned a 3rd generation ipod, a 4th generation iPod, an iPod photo, a 2nd generation iPod nano, and a 1st generation iPod touch. Oh, and now I use an iPhone 3G, which has an iPod app.
I’d say my skepticism was greatly misplaced.
Dear iPod, I lift my glass in your honor. Happy birthday.
(Also, happy birthday to my sister-in-law, Michelle!)
(She’s a recent switcher to the Mac, to boot, which makes her doubly awesome!)
(She’ll also likely never read those words.)
Since my second year of college (which was 5 years ago) (crap, I’m getting old), I’ve been using an AirPort Express base station for my home wireless network. Recently, I’d noticed my household was beginning to stretch its limits.
Between several Macs, an iPhone, iPod touch, TiVo, XBox 360, Wii, etc etc and so forth…things were getting crowded for the little AirPort Express, which supports a maximum of ten clients. Also, the AirPort Express just wasn’t transmitting enough to reach the places like the kitchen and bedroom.
A couple days ago I picked up a dual-band AirPort Extreme for our cozy little home. This was quite the upgrade for our network, as we had never realized the 802.11n capabilities of our computers. So now I am running simultaneous 802.11n and 802.11g networks. The iMac and MacBook Pro run on the 5GHz n network and everything else runs on the 2.4GHz g network.
I was curious how well syncing app data from Mac clients to iPhone clients (think 1Password) would work, since the different spectrums appeared as different networks to the Mac. I’m happy to report that the AirPort Extreme allows devices on both networks to interact with each other as if they were on the same network. Everything is absolutely seamless.
It took a grand total of about ten minutes to set up the g and n networks from the unboxing to being up and ready to go.
I even noticed quite the improvement in download speed on the 802.11n network. As illustrated in the image above, I tested my MacBook Pro on both the 802.11g and 802.11n networks using Speedtest.net. The speed difference was just under 7.5 Mb/s! I had never seen results come in above 16.3 Mb/s.
Needless to say, I am very pleased with upgrading to the dual-band AirPort Extreme. It’s a little spendy compared to other dual-band base stations from D-Link and Linksys, but I much prefer to use AirPort Utility to manage my base station than a web browser.
I’d recommend this even to Windows users, but it’s a no-brainer for a Mac house.
Update Oct. 24, 2009: Sure enough, I bought my AirPort Extreme on Saturday, Oct. 17 and Apple goes ahead and updates the darn hardware on Tuesday, Oct. 20. Well, my local-ish (it’s 40-minutes away) Apple Store finally got the new ones in. And thankfully, Apple has a policy where if they update the hardware you just bought within 14 days, you can exchange it.
Since only 3 days had passed, I was golden. I stopped there last night with the now-old-generation Airport Extreme all boxed in its original packaging with the receipt, and the guy helping me did a flat-out exchange. I had been told when I called earlier that I would be charged a 10% restocking fee, but looking at the new receipt, that didn’t happen.
There isn’t much different about this one and the one I picked up last week. In fact, externally, they are identical. Apple says the antenna has been re-engineered. So instead of being a 2x2 antenna it is now a 3x3 antenna. Apple claims this allows 50% better performance and 25% greater range. I ran Speedtest.net again and I had marginal improvement in download speed at 23.02 Mbps, and upload of 0.97 Mbps.
I doubt I’ll realize much difference, but I figured if I am going to have this router for around 5 years or more, I might as well take advantage of getting the latest and greatest since I had the opportunity.
Also, make sure to actually use the disc in the box to install a new version of AirPort Utility. I had v. 5.3.2 from Snow Leopard, but this new base station requires v.5.5, which Apple has not pushed through Software Update yet.
If you’re considering purchasing an AirPort Extreme, flip the box to see the bar code label and look to make sure the part number is MC340LL/A. That’s the freshly re-engineered one.
A couple days ago, MMS finally arrived for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS in the United States. Here in Nebraska, the rollout from AT&T seemed to be a success. Granted, we don’t have near the amount of iPhones on the AT&T network here in the land of corn as San Francisco does.
My experience occurred around 12:15 pm on Friday, when I saw Twitter light up with reports that the carrier profile update was available in iTunes. So I slapped my iPhone into my Griffin Simplifi (if you don’t have on these on your desk, you seriously should get one), and clicked Check for Update in iTunes. The new profile installed in about 2 seconds.
Then I hopped into the Messages app on my iPhone, and was baffled as to why I didn’t have the little camera icon. Silly me, I had to reboot the phone. After doing so, I now had MMS on my iPhone.
Naturally, I snapped a picture of my son and sent it to his Grandma. She claims she didn’t get it, but said she’s also been mass deleting texts from friends and family after a surgery she underwent recently. However, I did shortly receive a picture from a friend’s Blackberry, along with the nice little note, “Let me introduce you to a new technology called Picture Messaging. LAUGH.” Har har.
Anyway, that’s my experience. Care to share yours in the poll and/or comments?
A little note: I meant to write this up in short order after the September iPod event, however, some family health issues moved things such as the blog from even the back burner to off the stove. My apologies to you, readers, but family is by far the most important thing.
At Apple’s predictably annual iPod music event on September 9, 2009, Apple fans worldwide were finally able to welcome Steve Jobs back to the stage after his medical leave.
I believe Apple continued in great stride without Steve at the helm for his 6-month absence, although I have to say it is great to have him back at Apple and feeling well-enough to give a keynote.
Don’t get me wrong, any company would benefit from a presenter like Phil Schiller, but Phil just isn’t Steve.
Well, I’ve already come right out and shared the best and most newsworthy part of event, but there were some other highlights. If you remember, I shared my predictions a week prior to the event. Shall we see what happened?
iTunes
iTunes 9 did indeed debut. As I predicted, I was disappointed in iTunes getting a complete overhaul from Carbon to Cocoa. Instead, the interface was tweaked a little, and a few new features were added (most of them pretty handy).
The Genius feature now includes Genius Mixes, which Apple described as being like a radio station of your music that just goes great together. So far, the feature is quite nice, especially when you just want music to play for a long time while you work. It’s definitely better than just hitting shuffle r using iTunes DJ.
If you use an iPhone or iPod touch, you can now mange your apps on your home screens via a virtual interface within iTunes. This is a freaking Godsend.
The iTunes Store has an entirely new interface and I like it (it’s been rewritten in Webkit). I was a little perturbed when I saw that the Shopping Cart disappeared and everything is 1-Click now. That is, until I discovered the new Wish List, which basically serves the same function as the Shopping Cart. Also, the rumored social media integration is present, but only in the Store and (thankfully) not as profound as I feared it might be. Quite simply, the iTunes Store allows you to post links to content in Facebook and Twitter. Fairly harmless, and entirely optional.
Some albums are getting extra content called iTunes LP. Think of it as a digital version of the booklets that come in CDs. Movies on iTunes also gained iTunes Extras, which is the same as the DVD menu and special features.
Lastly, the best announcement concerning iTunes is Home Sharing. Finally it is easy to transfer media (music, movies, TV shows, audiobooks and even iPhone/iPod touch apps) between computers in your home. My wife and I used to sneakernet music we wanted from each other’s computers via thumbdrive. Now we can easily browse each other’s content and drag & drop it right within iTunes. This is by far the best feature to hit iTunes in a very long time.
iPhone OS 3.1
OS 3.1 for the iPhone and iPod touch shipped out the day of the event. This solved my abhorrent battery life issue, but did nothing to improve wi-fi reception on my iPhone 3G. (I used to be able to get wi-fi anywhere in my apartment, but since OS 3.0, I can only get it in my office and half of my living room. Doesn’t even register in my bedroom. Good thing there’s 3G in Lincoln).
iPod Updates
I have to admit, this is the part where things really turned upside down for me. I was sure the iPod touch would get a camera and I was skeptical about the iPod nano getting it. Turns out the iPod touch got a little speed and capacity bump, and no camera.
The iPod nano received brighter colors, a slightly larger screen, and a video camera (can’t take still pictures). It also gained a pedometer and FM radio.
I figured the iPod classic had seen the end of days, but it limps on at the same price point, sporting a 160 GB hard drive again (up from 120 GB last year).
And the shuffle indeed received more colors, adding pink, blue, and green to the black and silver. Also, you can pay $20 more for a highly scratchable stainless steel premium version. *rolls eyes*
Wrap-Up
All in all, it was a good event. New iPhone software, modest improvements to iTunes, and the annual refresh of iPods (though disapppointing as far as the iPod touch) are all very nice.
However, the biggest takeaway is Steve Jobs has returned, and I don’t think any of us could be upset about that.
AT&T today announced MMS availability for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. The service will be available on September 25, 2009 via a software update.
MMS arrived as a feature of iPhone OS 3.0 in June. iPhone carriers around the world were able to support the feature, found on almost any mobile phone in the past few years, on launch day. However, AT&T has not yet supported the feature. As the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the US, many customers (myself included) have been disappointed by AT&T.
I have to wonder if the software update AT&T is speaking of will be a simple carrier profile update or if they have accidentally announced the release date of iPhone OS 3.1. I posited yesterday that iPhone OS 3.1 would show up at next week’s iPod event, just as iPhone OS 2.1 did last year. This could still happen as Apple could issue a small carrier profile update for MMS on the 25th, but I wouldn’t put it past Apple to release 3.1 for the new iPod touch models and say it will be out in a couple of weeks for iPhone users.
Time will tell. 6 days to be exact.
