What’s in my Dock

Here’s a video showing what’s in my MacBook Pro’s Dock :

Curiosity question for my readers

I’m thinking about making a subsequent podcast to go along with MacApple called coincendentally : The MacApple Podcast. If it became a reality it would be as frequent as i possibly can get a spare moment and available here on the blog and maybe even on the big monster that is iTunes.

Please leave your thoughts and comments below for i REALLY do need some opinions.

P.S. I’ll get to the review of my 13 inch MacBook Pro soon !

13″ MacBook Pro will get a review

Hey everyone !
I’m miles behind the times but i just got a new 13″ MacBook Pro and intend to give it a review soon.

TTFN !

Matt

iPhone OS 3.0 hysteria has hit MacApple !!!

It’s here ! Kinda. What the heck am I talking about you may be asking. Well as you apple-bods may have seen in the news, apple has just a few days ago given a sneek peek at the next release of the iPhone OS (or as some may call Mac OS X Mobile) called iPhone OS 3.0. It’s jammed with cool new features, some of which you’d find on a basic Blackberry, and some developer’s tools that will not only tap into some previously untappable areas, but give consumers’ iPhones more capabilities and muscles. Here’s a rundown of some the most important features :

1) Cut/Copy & Paste !!!!!!!!! Hallelujah ! Apple has finally given the iphone a much needed feature that’s available on, oh I don’t know, EVERY OTHER SMARTPHONE IN EXISTENCE !!! In fact, it’s quite a stylish copy & paste because in order to undo it, all you have to do, is shake the phone. Also it can be used in any app whever it’s a default app or an app store app. You can even use it on multiple photos.

2)MMS support !!!!! Meaning no more sending photos by email but over the cellular network. And you’re not just limited to photos, oh no, you can send contacts since they’re in a v-card format, audio files and even locations.

3)Stereo Bluetooth !!!! You’re no longer limited to bluetooth headsets.

4)Turn by turn GPS directions. Meaning that developers can build turn by turn direction apps using the iPhone’s Core Location (GPS in the iPhone 3G or Cellular/WiFi triangulation in all iPhones and iPod Touchs). However, due to licensing issues, there’s a catch : B.Y.O.M (Bring Your Own Maps) !

5)Peer 2 Peer connectivity !!! This means two iPhones that are near each other can connect to one another via bluetooth and do things like play multiplayer games or share files.

6) Spotlight ! You can now do a system-wide search of your phone including contacts, apps, music, movies, tv shows, e-mails, notes, appointments, etc.

7)Push notification. As Scott Forstall (SVP of iPhone software and secondary speaker of this keynote) said : “We’re late on this one.” This was meant to be released in September but, due to the overload of App Store apps at launch, they had to rebuild their entire server in order to cope with the current amount of downloads (around 800 million !!!). They say that it’s not good to have background processes as it apparently sucks up the battery’s juice 80% faster than push services plus it uses more CPU cycles.

For more info on all of these features and many more, go to www.apple.com/uk The update is currently available as a developer beta and will ship this summer for free for iPhone users though owners of the OG iPhone won’t have all the bells and whistles such as MMS or A2DP Stereo Bluetooth since it has different hardware to the 3G version. If you’re an iPod Touch owner, whether it’s a first gen or second gen, you’ll have to pay $9.95 (about £7) for the upgrade due to regulations in order to make it not look like they’re trying to scam people.

(Photos are property of Apple Inc. as they’re screenshots of the keynote.)

iPod Shuffle is now microscopic !

Recently Apple gave it’s £60 MP3 player a shrink. The 3rd gen model is now the smaller than a paper-clip. Apple achieved this size reduction by removing the controls from the player and sadly they’re now on the headphone cable, meaning you can’t use your own earbuds without first purchasing third-party adapters otherwise you’ll have an iPod that is uncontrollable. I’m mostly excited about the “Voiceover” feature meaning that this is the 1st iPod that actually talks to you, and it’s multilingual in 14 differents languages and it can tell you what playlist you’re listening to. The bottom line is, I think it’s a very nicely designed product for £60 but it’s got too many compromises. I’d give it a 14 out of 20.

Apple desktop lineup has been refreshed. Finally !!!

This morning, the big A gave it’s entire desktop line-up an internal makeover. The mac mini got a much needed refresh as it hasn’t budged since August 2007. The low-end model has a beefed up hard drive capacity of 120GB and the high-end model has a capacity of 320GB. Both models now have Nvidia Geforce 9400M graphics chipsets meaning that you can modestly play games on this bargain box. Connections wise : 5 USB 2.0, Firewire 800, Audio in/out, Mini DVI + Mini DisplayPort for displays, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. Not sure as of this moment on European prices though will look into it when possible in future post. The iMac recieved the same Nvidia graphics and the 24″ 3.06GHz model has a whopping 1TB hard drive as standard as well as 4GB memory which can be upgraded to 8GB on all models plus all models can have a 1TB hard drive. The Mac Pro didn’t get much of a refresh. It’s now in 2 configurations : A low-end one with a quad-core processor and a high-end one with a xeon processor (8 in one). Will keep you updated and talk to you soon. Bye !

Welcome to MacApple

Welcome to MacApple, the blog about all the good and the bad inside the world of the big A. I’ll be keeping you up to date on the hottest news and rumors on iPods, iPhones and Macs and giving you my opinions on them.