ganyet.com » Apple

Let Apple know how you use your iPhone

Josep M. Ganyet — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:57:24 +0000

I just received an email from Apple with an invitation to participate in a satisfaction survey over the iPhone’s registration process with AT&T.

I rarely answer this kind of surveys but I felt I had to let Apple know how 10% of the iPhone owners use them. Here’s my answer.

Steve Jobs Macworld 2008 Keynote in 60 Seconds or how to save a 1Gb dowload

Josep M. Ganyet — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 15:44:24 +0000

I was following the life coverage of Steve Jobs Keynote at Macworld yesterday via Engadget waiting for the final “one more thing” thing. Well this time the rumors got it right and out of the envelope came the much hyped MacBookAir; a nice piece of engineering, design and portability.

As usual, the day after I rushed to iTunes to learn from the master of all em cees only to realize that the whole keynote is available at a cost of a 1Gb download (must be HD) and some 45 minutes of your iLife. I obviously cancelled the download.

But thanks to a comment by Xavier I found a version on YouTube where you get about the same info in a minute plus the fun of the edit.

Watch Steve Jobs Macworld 2008 keynote in 60 seconds.

Apple Macworld 2008: Keynote final predictions (comments roundup)

Josep M. Ganyet — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:53:25 +0000

People are more than excited about today Steve Jobs’ keynote and the term MacBookAir is blogged about everywhere.

I’ll be following the event via Engadget.com life blogging as I did last year (this year they even have Spanish).

If you want to follow it here’s the schedule:

07:00AM - Hawaii
09:00AM - Pacific
10:00AM - Mountain
11:00AM - Central
12:00PM - Eastern
05:00PM - GMT / London
06:00PM - Paris
08:00PM - Moscow
02:00AM - Tokyo (January 16th)

But as much as I enjoy the keynote with Jobs’ “booms” and “one more things” I enjoy the rumors prior to it. Here’s a compilation of predictions taken from the comments at Engadget.com.

Steve is going to wear a black turtleneck w/ jeans tucked into jeans sans belt.
Not only that, I bet Steve’s first words will be, “Good Morning”
People are going to applaud when no applause is necessary
Yellow Submarine iPod, Beatles music
1 more thing = iSoap. Cleans all mac touch-based products
one more thing announcement: “I’m retiring”
Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr on stage to announce the Beatles on iTunes
iPhone SDK will be Android
He will announce that those who take his apple-flavored serum will be invited into Promise City, and the rest will remain at the Gates.

They’re all funny but somehow they make you think.

And one more thing: the macbookair.com domain registration and the redirection to http://www.apple.com/?Will+We+see+a+MacBookAir+on+Tuesday is a fake.

Try http://www.apple.com/?ganyet.com+featured+best+blog+by+Apple and you’ll land on the same page with the image avobe.

Smashed iPhone touch screen still working (pic)

Josep M. Ganyet — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:14:34 +0000

Here’s my photographer friend Voro Sendra’s iPhone after he dropped it and stepped on it all by bad luck.

The picture looks impressive but the touch screen still works!

Wouldn’t this picture look nice in today’s Steve Jobs Apple Keynote?

The Future Of Apple Is In 1960s Braun: 1960s Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple’s Future

josep — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 10:08:57 +0000

Interesting article comparing Braun's design from the 60s with Apple's

iJam: Apple flavored ham

Josep M. Ganyet — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 18:40:02 +0000

My friend Quim Massana sends me the latest iOnline viral campaign: iJam.

BTW the site is done in flash so don’t expect too much of the interface. Watch the video to the end if you want to see the upcoming iJam nano.

UniversoRetro: nuevo podcast (video y audio) de retrocomputacion en español!

josep — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:22:20 +0000

Universo Retro es un podcast en español de dedicado a temas de retrocomputación. En el blog vamos a publicar un nuevo episodio cada semana, que consta de un audio de 30 minutos y un video de 15' acerca de un tema relacionado con la retrocomputación. Por ejemplo el primer episodio es acerca de la Apple Lisa. No duden en visitarlo y mandar sus comentarios, sugerencias e insultos!

Three things you (probably) don’t know about the iPhone

Josep M. Ganyet — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 19:29:34 +0000

By now, everything has been written, reviewed, praised and criticized about Apple’s iPhone. But there’s three features that don’t hit the highlights too often.

Helvetica everywhere!!!

Yes, Helvetica is the font for the iPhone. No Verdana nor pixel fonts but plain old Helvetica in decent readable sizes of up to 20px with nice antialiasing. Check the iPhone’s design guidelines at Apples Developer Center. (by the way, Helvetica the movie is out. Go and watch it)

Screen resolution of 160 dpi

When I first saw an iPhone I thought it still had the plastic film that covers most phones with some icons printed on it. Wrong. I was actually looking at the bright icons at a resolution of 160 dots per inch. Our eyes are used to dealing with screen resolutions ranging from 72 to 96 dpi. (I had the same impression when I first saw the Sony Reader).

The mic in the headset controls iTunes

This was the last feature I discovered and it was just some weeks ago. The distinctive white headphones come with a small microphone attached to the right chord. Well, if pressed while listening to iTunes it pauses the song, if pressed twice it skips the current song and if pressed while ringing it answers the call.

And all this without ever reading the phone’s manual.

ies4osx, Internet Explorer, Intel Macs need only apply

josep — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 21:54:03 +0000

Individuals operating on Apple hardware powered by the Intel chipset are undoubtedly familiar with the versatility afforded by OS X and virtualization software from Parallels and VMware Fusion. These products offer the convenience of running full operating systems like Windows XP or Vista at near native performance. The benefit of opting for software like VMware Fusion over Apple’s Boot Camp is avoiding the requirement for a full hardware reboot and access to both native OS X and Windows applications at the same time. For software / web developers and occasional Internet Explorer users (for websites that still think it’s the 1990’s), the latter is the only selling point worth noting. While virtualization software is convenient, booting a full operating system for the single purpose of [say] testing or using a website with Internet Explorer is unnecessary. Doesn’t running Internet Explorer as a standalone application outside of the Windows operating system environment sound much easier?

OS X + Wine, run Windows applications without the Windows OS

Since the wild success of Parallels and VMware Fusion, alternatives for running individual Windows applications outside of the Windows operating system were pushed towards the edges of the spotlight. Using resources originally developed for Linux users, OS X users saw the introduction of running applications using Wine

Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available. Wine provides both a development toolkit for porting Windows source code to Unix as well as a program loader, allowing many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86-based Unixes, including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, and Solaris.

One project which immediately caught my attention in early 2006 was CodeWeavers Crossover previously recommended as a valuable developer tool.

CrossOver Mac allows you to install many popular Windows applications and games on your Intel OS X Mac. CrossOver includes an easy to use, single click interface, which makes installing Windows software simple and fast. Once installed, your application integrates seamlessly in OS X. Just click and run your application directly from the OS X Finder. Clicking a Windows file or document — including email attachments — will launch the appropriate Windows program, allowing you to work on the files. Best of all, you do it all easily and affordably, without needing a Microsoft operating system license.

Unfortunately, Internet Explorer 6 in Crossover does not support websites which require plug-ins like Flash or Quicktime. Additionally, not much forward movement has been made concerning support for Internet Explorer 7. With more Windows users making the transition to IE 7, developers crossing their fingers for Crossover support should look elsewhere. One project to keep an eye on is Mike’s ies4osx.

ies4osx, run Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 beta

With ies4osx, installing Internet Explorer on OS X is a simple double-click of the installer. All of the necessary files and requirements are automatically downloaded - including default Windows IE fonts and browser plug-ins like Macromedia Flash player. All of that, and the download is completely free. Make sure to send Mike feedback or feel free to donate for his hard work.

The only hands on requirements for the installation is that users select which versions of Internet Explorer to install. Note that Darwine is a required dependancy. The process took a little longer than expected because packages were downloaded and installed individually off of the internet. However, the end result is pure web developer bliss. No longer is it necessary to boot an entire operating system to test in Internet Explorer. Your IE browsers are installed as packages into your Applications folder.

Mike publishes ies4osx development updates on his blog at mikesMassiveMess. Make sure to subscribe in order to stay in the loop for release updates.

Stability, and yes, there is no place like localhost

Completely stable thus far running the IE 6 and IE 7 Beta. Keep in mind that because ies4osx does rely on X11, your browser window will look like something straight out of a monochrome version of Windows 98. No worries though, pages render as they should - complete with IE 6 / 7 quirks included CSS rendering issues and window pop-ups!

What ies4osx users will enjoy:

We all know technology promotes laziness. VMware and Parallels are great, but having to wait for an entire OS to boot sucks! Thankfully Internet Explorer 6 / 7 load in mere seconds on a MacBook Pro.
Developing locally? Typing http://localhost or http://127.0.0.1 from within ies4osx Internet Explorer windows will load your local development directory. No modifications of hosts files necessary.
Crossover users will enjoy the eye pleasing anti-aliased font rendering offered by ies4osx installs.
Thanks to the automatic installation of standard plugins like Flash, web pages load in their entirety.
Saving web pages or files off the internet - by default - are stored in your Home directory.
Less memory consumption. VMware Fusion with Internet Explorer running uses 87 MB. Standalone Internet Explorer via X11 24.84 MB.

Give it a try and share your thoughts or preferences concerning virtualizing full operating systems like Windows XP or running standalone with ies4osx or Crossover. [Digg it]

iTunes mobile on the iPhone and Starbucks

Josep M. Ganyet — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:52:03 +0000

A few weeks ago we got iTunes on the iPhone so we can download any song we want over the air. Kewl!

I bet the Adbusters guys must be really happy with this impulse purchase temptation right on the palm of our hand!

But it doesn’t stop here. A while ago there were some rumors about iTunes booths on Starbucks so customers could download via WiFi their favorite songs. Well it got actually way better (or worse) than that. Consider the following scenario:

You’re sitting in a Starbucks and you hear a song. You fire up your iTunes app on your laptop or on your iPhone and “boom” there comes the artwork for the current song plus the ten previous ones. One click or one tap and the song is yours forever (and your dollar is Apple’s).

Check Apple’s info on the matter.

The system could be generalized to any web based radio station or broadcasting platform for the matter opening new marketing opportunities in the music distribution arena. I bet Steve is on the job already.

Bonus 1: here’s the longest Starbucks order: Double Ristretto Venti Nonfat Organic Chocolate Brownie Frappuccino Extra Hot with Foam and Whipped Cream Upside Down Double Blended

Via Laughing Meme

Bonus 2: You get free WiFi if you own an iPhone or a laptop with iTunes.