Apple Goes Back to the Mac

Apple held its “Back to the Mac” shindig in Cupertino today. Here’s the new shiny.

iLife ‘11

Apple demoed major new features in iPhoto, iMovie, and GarageBand. iWeb and iDVD are still included, but it appears nothing has really changed for those two apps. This is the third iLife release in which iDVD has seen little-to-no love.

iPhoto gets a full-screen navigation mode, which looks very slick. Also, improved built-in email support, with templates; new slideshows; even better books (I’ve ordered books in the past as gifts. They’re fantastic); and letterpress cards. Letterpress is pretty fancy. Hard to believe you can get this from a computer company.

iMovie gets a neat movie trailer editor; impressive audio editing; one-step effects; people finder; and sports & news themes. With the much improved audio editor, it appears Apple’s revamp of iMovie in the 2008 edition has finally matured back to iMovie HD’s former glory.

GarageBand gets a new feature called Flex Time which helps keep various individual instrument tracks in rhythm. Also, Groove Matching takes a “genius” approach to match the rhythm of the whole band to a single rhythm. There are also guitar amps and effects; new basic lessons, and a “How Did I Play?” feature which tests your skills at playing a certain song.

iLife ‘11 is available today for $49, or comes free with a new Mac.

FaceTime for Mac

We all knew this day would come. FaceTime was first introduced with the iPhone 4. I found it useful when my wife was out of town for a week, but it hasn’t been used much since. Apple then brought FaceTime to the latest iPod touch last month, but I still haven’t been used the feature in a while. Now, with FaceTime for Mac, I have a feeling I’ll be video chatting from my iPhone a lot. Why? Grandparents. Both my parents and my wife’s parents have MacBooks, and we currently use iChat so they can see my son. The problem is that two year olds don’t sit still for long, and it’s hard to chase him with a MacBook Pro.

There’s no buddy list to maintain. FaceTime just pulls in your Address Book, just like the iPhone. FaceTime for Mac also installs a Push Notification bundle, so you can receive calls on your Mac even if FaceTime is closed.

Now the grandparents can do FaceTime with our iPhones. Now FaceTime is useful. Now FaceTime is mainstream.

FaceTime for Mac is available today as a public beta.

Lion

Apple introduced the next step of Mac OS X – Lion. To create iOS, Apple refashioned parts of Mac OS X. They learned a lot, made the iPad, and are now bringing what they learned from iOS back to the Mac. The main features they want to bring back from iOS are Multi-touch gestures, the App Store, App Home screens, full screen apps, auto save, & auto resume when launching.

Multi-Touch

On the Mac, multi-touch will take its focus on MacBook trackpads, the Magic Mouse, and the Magic Trackpad instead of the screen. They demoed using a Magic Mouse and an iMac, but honestly, I can’t see that being very comfortable. I use a Magic Trackpad with my MacBook Pro when at my desk (the Macbook is elevated on a stand), and I hope Apple just starts shipping those with iMacs in the near future.

The Mac App Store

Yesterday, I talked about a hope of mine for an easier installation and update process. Well, my wish has been granted, but in a way I didn’t really see happening. Apple is opening a Mac App Store within 90 days. It will be available on Snow Leopard, but I am sure it will be even more tightly integrated with Lion.

It makes sense for Apple to have a Mac App Store. I just figured they wouldn’t upset the status quo of obtaining software straight from developer’s websites. The truth is, after reading many developers’ tweets, is that markets change. The Mac App Store won’t be the only way to get Apps on your Mac (for now), but Apple says it will be the best.

That’s not hard to imagine. Their preview of the Mac App Store looks slick, and installation and updating Apps is as simple as iOS. This will be a big hit with users, who want simple.

I am a bit concerned about copy-protected apps. It even bothers me a bit on iOS. Copy-protection schemes always make me uncomfortable, especially when they come back to bite users.

Launchpad

Launchpad is a full screen grid of all your apps. They can be organized into separate home screens or grouped into iOS-like folders. It is very much the iOS 4 home screen brought to the Mac desktop.

Mission Control

Apple is unifying the abilities of Dashboard, Exposé, Spaces, and full-screen apps into a new feature called Mission Control. You navigate between different areas through swipe gestures. Looks like a great convergence and unification of already great features.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is slated to ship by the end of Summer 2011.

A MacBook and an iPad Hook Up…

Apple introduced a redesigned MacBook Air today, at 13.3- and 11.6-inch screen sizes. Apple bills it as the future of notebooks. The goal was to bring many great features of the iPad to MacBooks. These include “instant on,” great battery life, amazing standby time, and solid state storage (SSD).

Apple’s new MacBook Air boots in about 15 seconds, and has a 5-hour (11.6-inch) and 7-hour (13.3-inch) battery under normal use. Both models have a standby time of 30-days.

There isn’t an optical drive (though you can connect one via USB) nor a hard drive. Instead, Apple uses SSD for storage, just like its iPods, iPads, & iPhones.

The price ranges from $99 to $1,599, depending on model. I bet it goes higher if you customize the order.

The thing I love about the MacBook Air? The media on which its reinstallation software is stored. It’s a little Apple-branded USB drive.

I hope Lion comes on one of these instead of a DVD.

Thoughts

The new iPhoto looks compelling. I’ve been experimenting with Aperture, but I’m just not falling in love with it.

The Mac App Store dropped my jaw a little, more so because I didn’t think Apple would actually do it. But it makes a lot of sense. I imagine it will be great.

Lion looks amazing. I can’t wait until next summer.

The MacBook Air doesn’t thrill me much, but I am excited to see how it will influence the MacBook Pro line.

All in all, great event. The only disappointment was we didn’t see more of Lion.

Apple to Live-Stream "Back to the Mac"

Apple announced this morning that they will be live-streaming their “Back to the Mac” event later this morning. Late notice, but better late than never. I really enjoyed watching the live-stream of September’s iPod event.

Apple will broadcast its October 20 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on October 20, 2010 at www.apple.com.

Two hours to go, folks.

Installers and Updates

One last refinement to the overall Mac OS X experience I’d like to see in Lion is the simplification of installing and updating applications.

This is an area that Mac OS X could very much learn from iOS. Installing and updating Apps on my iPhone and iPad is so straightforward it’s almost funny. Most of all, it’s easy to explain to someone else.

Try to imagine teaching App installation to someone who is new to the Mac, or maybe even computing in general. I do this often, actually; and the hardest thing for folks to grasp are the various methods of installing Apps. It’s intimidating. Some Apps come with installers, some come in disk images. Some disk images illustrate the need to drag the App to the Applications folder. Many don’t. Some even are packaged in a ZIP archive, and leave the uncompressed app in the Downloads folder, with no further instruction.

What a mess.

Some have suggested that Apple should make a Mac App Store. I do not think an App Store is the solution. I am fairly positive many developers agree. However, I’d love to see Lion bring forth a single, unified method for installation and updating Apps. Why can’t installation be more like installing a Dashboard widget? Mac OS X recognizes the .wdgt extension and offers to install it in Dashboard. Why not do the same with the .app extension? Or some other unified method that someone much smarter than me has come up with.

As for updating apps, Sparkle works fantastically in many of the Mac Apps I have. I’d love to see Apple employ something similar. Heck, the developer used to work on Apple’s Installer and Software Update team back in 2008-2009. Here’s the pertinent info from his résumé:

Designed and implemented exciting new technology for the Installer that will be employed throughout Mac OS X—details under NDA, but I can disclose that it’s awesome.

We can only hope.

MacStories' Scoop on Lion

Yesterday, MacStories published a scoop regarding tomorrow’s Mac-focused event at Apple HQ. I deliberated last week about my hopes and dreams regarding the new cat. According to MacStories’ exclusive, it appears Mac OS X will be receiving some UI elements from iOS.

Scrolling

Apple introduced inertial scrolling to Mac OS X with the Magic Mouse, then added it to the built-in trackpad of the last MacBook Pro and MacBook revision. With the Magic Trackpad, Apple then brought inertial scrolling to the built-in trackpads of previous unibody MacBooks Pros.

So the foundation for a more iOS-like inertial scrolling is already available. Apparently, Lion will bring the rubber-band effect when you hit the top or bottom of content. This may also herald pull to refresh, which has become popular in a few iOS apps, such as Twitter for iPhone, Facebook, and Yowza. Pull to refresh would be pretty nice for Safari.

Minimizing Aqua

Aqua is the user interface design that made Mac OS X look so futuristic ten years ago. It sounds like Aqua will be taking a step back (but not a complete step out) of the user interface. One such withdrawl will be in scrollbars. Replacing Aqua scrollbars will be iOS inspired scrollbars. If you visit Maxvoltar in Safari or Chrome on Mac OS X, you’ll see the Aqua scrollbar replaced with a minimalistic iOS-like scrollbar. That’s what I’m expecting to see in Lion, although I wouldn’t be surprised if the scrollbar faded away when content is stationary.

QuickLook and Popovers

Lastly, MacStories claims QuickLook will look more like popovers on the iPad, but with a white background. Their mockup looks great.

MobileMe Calendar Officially Gets Overhauled

If you’re a MobileMe subscriber, you may want to go check out the spiffy new web-based [Calendar] redesign that went live for everyone today.

I have been beta testing the new Calendar for a couple months, and I like it a lot. It’s extremely reminiscent of the iPad’s Calendar app.

But a fresh coat of paint on the web-based Calendar isn’t all that is going on. MobileMe Calendar has been migrated to an all-new backend, which I believe is CalDAV. There’s a number of new features which you can read about, but my favorite is the ability to share a calendar with someone else and allow that person to edit it as well. As my son gets older, he’ll inevitably have play dates and sporting events and such, and it will be nice for my wife and I to both be able to edit a calendar for him.

It’s nice to see Apple continuing to improve MobileMe into a better product with these redesigns. Now let’s hope for an iDisk overhaul.

Lions, MacBooks, Predictions! Oh My!

As I noted earlier, Apple’s Mac event is just a week away, and the invite is highly suggestive of two things:

1. New Aluminum MacBook Pro’s and/or MacBook Air, and
2. Mac OS X 10.7 Lion

The majority of the invite itself looks like the lid of a an aluminum Mac notebook, with the Apple logo freshly cut out (I’d love to get my hands on one of those scrap Apple logos). And then there is the lion peeking out. And let’s face it, I don’t think Apple will stick with the cat theme for Mac OS 11, so my bet is definitely on Mac OS X 10.7.

Needless to say, I have my hopes and dreams…

New Mac Portables

MacBook Pro

I suspect there will be slight refreshes to the MacBook Pro. Faster processors, bigger batteries, USB 3, and maybe even higher resolution screens (maybe even 16:9). Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if the Pro line took a page from the MacBook Air and moved the optical drive to an external accessory. I rarely use my optical drive, and would love to use that space for something else.

MacBook Air

The MacBook Air has always been an enigma to me — super light & portable but severely underpowered and overpriced. Also, with the 13-inch screen, a 13-inch MacBook Pro seems like a better investment.

For weeks there have been rumors that the Air may go to an 11.6-inch screen. I think this seems right. Shrink the screen, shed even more weight, give it the all-glass trackpad like the MacBook and MacBook Pros, and for crying out loud, figure out how to squeeze more than one USB port in the thing.

And hey, if the price can be chopped further, I think you may have something neat on your hands.

Lion

Whenever there is news of an upcoming major update to Mac OS X, I always find myself at a loss for what Apple could possibly add to make it better. And, of course, I am always blown away. Last time, for Snow Leopard, I was blown away by the cost — $29. Once installed, Snow Leopard blew my mind with the overall “super polished” responsiveness. Even though there wasn’t a great deal of new features, it was obvious there was a lot of refactoring under the hood.

For Lion, I can only fathom a couple things that seem like shoe-ins.

FaceTime

Apple’s giant drum to parade around this year is FaceTime. It’s in the iPhone 4 and the latest iPod touch. I also think it is going to be in the next iPad.

For years, we’ve had video calls in iChat on Mac OS X. However, right now, FaceTime isn’t getting a lot of my attention since I can’t do a video call with my relatives who don’t have an iPhone 4 or new iPod touch. Lion will likely change this. I bet iChat will gain FaceTime support for video calls to Apple’s mobile devices.

Hey, maybe Apple will give iChat a much needed facelift while they are at it.

Multi-Touch

Apple has been slowly adding Multi-Touch to the Mac over the years. Mostly, this has remained exclusive to Mac portables, but recently came to the desktop with the advent of the Magic Trackpad (which I love, by the way).

I think Apple will eventually bundle the Magic Trackpad with the iMac as the default pointing device, likely around Lion’s release, as I am sure it will utilize a fair amount of Multi-Touch interaction.

I am unsure how extensive Multi-Touch will permeate within Lion, but I’d wager it will be a foundational release to eventually move away from the traditional mouse for good.

iOS Integration

One thing I appreciate about my Mac apps that have iOS counterparts is the ability to sync their data via WiFi. The problem is that this is cumbersome. You have to launch the Mac app and the iOS app and have both devices on the same network in order for them to sync.

Some apps, such as 1Password have taken to using services like Dropbox to sync data cross device and cross platform, without requiring the user to do anything beyond the initial setup.

That is a much more fluid and transparent way of doing things. I hope Apple provides a method for developers to easily hook into a drop dead easy way to sync information from a Mac to an iOS device. Label this as hopeful.

MobileMe Included

Apple has been building a gigantic data center on the east coast for some time. I have long wondered if that was either for a streaming iTunes service, or for a free MobileMe. Overall, MobileMe is much better than .Mac, which it replaced, with one glaring exception – iDisk. It is slow and just plain doesn’t work all that well.

I’d really like to see iDisk get overhauled to be a lot like the aforementioned Dropbox. That would actually facilitate that iOS syncing integration pretty well.

My hope would be that MobileMe would move to being free with Lion, but I do actually feel like I get my $100 per year out of it. The advantage of making it free is that more users would adopt the technology, making for a leaner, cleaner experience. Also, iOS device owners on Windows may feel more inclined to have that seamless integration between Mac OS X and iOS.

UI Refresh

Undoubtedly, a major Mac OS X revision brings some fresh UI paint. Maybe I’m crazy, but iTunes always seems to be the forerunner for design choices that later find their way to Mac OS X. Particularly, I am think of the “traffic lights” going vertical, and the title bar possibly going by the wayside. It seems to work well in iTunes, though I am unsure how well the removal of the title bar would fare in other places, such as Safari (that is, unless, Tabs on Top finally made their reappearance).

I can definitely see the traffic lights going vertical. I’d bet a nickel on it.

iLife and iWork

Who knows, maybe we’ll see fully 64-bit updates and overhauls to Apple’s two famous software suites. I know I wouldn’t mind seeing both of these appear.

That’s my wish list and educated guesses.

Back to the Mac!

Apple just sent out invites to the press for an event on 20 October, pictured above. It simply says Back to the Mac, and shows a lion behind a slightly rotated Apple logo.

I’ll bet my money on a preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Also, I’d wager speed bumps to the MacBook Pro line (it’s due) and that 11.6” MacBook Air redesign that has been in the rumor mills the past couple months.

I hope this event is live-streamed like the September iPod event was.

Apple's Stock Opens at Over $300

Today Apple reached a new milestone for its history: for the first time ever, their stock reached over $300 per share. Who knows if it will stay there throughout the day, but the fact is, it has happened. Congratulations to all the folks in Cupertino.

I should have bought AAPL when it was $7 per share.

Disclaimer: I do not own any AAPL stock.

Passwords

I checked my site stats this morning to see a rather unusual metric — 3,200 page views in the span of a few moments, while unique visitors remained at a normal, more rational number. I then checked to see which content was being viewed, and lo and behold, it was the login screen to the admin of my site!

Then I checked the access log to see that all the attempts were from a single IP located in Turkey (using Firefox on Win XP, at that). I’ve since blacklisted that IP from ever being able to view my site, and made a more unique path to my login page, since I’m the only one who needs it.

The attacker was unable to gain access to my site largely in thanks to 1Password. If you’re the kind of person who uses the same password for everything, you either desperately need 1Password or would not be interested in it at all. Trust me, you should be the former.

I used to rely on only two rather weak passwords for everything. As of a couple years ago, I jumped on 1Password’s bandwagon (thanks to my good friend Samantha) and now have a unique complex password for every site I use. 1Password keeps track of all of them, and is easy to use with its browser plugin. And I always have my passwords handy thanks to the 1Password iOS app.

Your identity (and bank account!) is so important. Don’t trust it to feeble passwords. Get 1Password, because it is awesome.

P.S. Also a major hat tip to my host, Squarespace for their awesome stats, logs, and IP filters. Love you guys.

Sparrow is a Refreshing Rethink of Mail

I mentioned the other day Bjango’s philosophy of the best method to design a desktop app is to imagine you’re building them for iOS. Well, it looks like there are some like-minded developers out there looking to rethink the Mac email client.

Sparrow is definitely taking cues from not only the iPad’s Mail app, but also a highly popular Mac Twitter client — Tweetie. Sparrow currently only works for Gmail accounts, but it looks like integration with Yahoo! Mail, MobileMe, and other IMAP providers.

Sparrow is a very compelling email client. It has a minimalist approach initially, showing just a Tweetie-style accounts and mailbox sidebar and an iOS-style message list. However, you can click a button and expand the window to show a preview pane.

If you don’t use the preview pane, you’ll notice that the app has a lavish amount of Core Animation. Double click a message and it ghosts in. Close the message, and it fades away with a subtle zoom. Same thing happens when open the app’s preferences.

Even though the app is currently in beta, it really feels like something right out of Cupertino. I would love to see Apple revamp Mac OS X’s Mail app like this.

Sparrow is a free download for now, though the developers would be crazy not to charge for this at the time of final release.

Go ahead and give it a whirl.