Apple’s new textbook experience feels familiar; from navigation to the way interactive elements work, the whole thing reminds me a lot of Al Gore’s collaboration with Push Pop Press on Our Choice. If you read my review, you know that’s not a bad thing.

E.O. Wilson’s Life on Earth was a particular favorite, thanks to the exciting introduction video that truly increased my interest in the content. I’m not a callous 16-year old, of course, but it must stand a better chance of inspiring some emotion than a plain old hardcover.

What’s inside the book is more exciting too; in landscape mode, titles display information in manageable, bite-sized chunks, dynamically laid out with interspersed graphics. Flipping the iPad to portrait mode organizes information in a more linear fashion, which is easier to digest during crunch sessions, and lays out all graphics in thumbnail mode in a column along the left-hand side.

The search, highlight, notes and bookmark functions all serve to make keeping track of what you’re reading much easier than with print books. You can even use different colored highlights or underline sections to keep track of different things. For the studious type with a complex note-taking system, this will definitely come in handy.

The lesson assignments at the ends of chapters are great, since they provide a quick and easy way to instantly test knowledge retention, with feedback available on-demand. But I did have a problem with other elements.

In both the Life on Earth and Pearson titles I tested, sometimes interactive content didn’t seem clearly flagged. Often I’d tap things that weren’t interactive, assuming they were, and sometimes I’d miss elements that were in fact movies or dynamic graphics. Our Choice did a better job of marking where touching something would produce a result, but that deficiency could be accounted for by early growing pains, since these are the first titles out to use the format.

One thing’s clear: at a maximum of $15 a pop and with the backing of all the major U.S. educational publishers, these new digital textbooks definitely stand ready to gain some traction.

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• The new $1199 iMac is 70 percent faster than the previous generation entry-level model at the same price point. That’s probably due mostly to the fact that it’s packing a 2.5 GHz quad-core processor, vs. the 3.06 GHz dual-core Intel chip powering the older version.
• The new $1199 iMac is 30 percent faster than the top of the line 27-inch previous generation iMac, if you’d rather compare quad-core Apples to quad-core Apples. That means buyers of even the most basic new iMacs should be seeing considerable performance improvements over the older models.
• The AMD graphics processor in even the entry-level new iMacs is three times faster than the one it replaces. Apple claims it can do 100 frames per second in the high-end iMac, with up to 1.3 teraflops of performance. That’s pushing weight previously only available from Mac Pros.
• FaceTime HD support means that the iMacs can do 720p video calling with other FaceTime HD equipped Macs (MacBook Pro and iMacs for now), and can still do SD calling with all other Apple FaceTime-enabled devices.
• Thunderbolt ports mean you can get up to 10GB per second transfer speeds with connected storage and A/V transfer devices. It also means you can daisy-chain and output to an external display on the 21.5-inch iMac, or to two displays using the 27-inch model.
• Apple now offers SSD/HDD combos as an upgrade option that allow for faster boot times while still providing affordable, spacious storage options.

These are a strong update for the iMac line, and anyone considering an upgrade would be well-served by these improvements. The only thing Apple didn’t change were the looks of the all-in-one, which is a good thing considering how attractive the aluminum and glass combo is. The only downsides to consider are the fact that Apple seems to have gotten rid of the 27-inch iMac’s target display mode, and that it may be preparing to ship OS X Lion this summer. But target display mode probably has limited usefulness for most, and Lion will be an inexpensive upgrade when it does arrive (plus there are no guarantees its coming in early summer, anyway). If you’ve been waiting for the right time to upgrade your Apple desktop, this is definitely a good time to do so.

With additional reporting by Om Malik.

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First, let’s stick with the original iPhone App compatible with the iPad. On my iPhone 3GS, it boots on average in about 12 to 14 seconds. On the iPad, it averaged 6 to 7 seconds. Wow. I can either play it in 1x “original” size on the screen or play it magnified via the 2x icon in the lower right hand corner. Playing a game in the 1x version is difficult. The screen seems tiny and it’s awkward to hold the iPad and click inside the virtual iPhone screen.

When in 2x mode, the game is more naturally played, but of course everything is more pixellated because of the doubling effect. Playing the game was perfectly acceptable in my opinion in 2x mode. That is until I tried … Plants vs Zombies HD

Pictures speak louder than words and here are the pictures from the game at roughly the same level (be sure to click on them to see the full-size).  You can actually see the arms falling of the zombies and other details. Play is slightly different as seed packets and other items are moved to the top of the screen to allow more detail in the house on the side. Interesting that the app loads in about the same time as the original app: 6 to 7 seconds.

Market conditions and the whim of developers will determine which apps will be worth shelling out the money for the iPad version and which will be updated at no cost. Plants vs Zombies sucked my brain and my wallet in order to get me to pay again for the same game, and it was well worth it! What about you?

Many users are also reporting issues with cracked screens and yellow tinting on the displays, with a gradient from cool to warm as you move from top to bottom down the monitor. I had the latter issue on two replacement iPhone 3GSes, too, so I can’t help but wonder if Apple’s increased ability to move product isn’t affecting quality control.

Apple’s also passing the buck in the description of what the new fix for the software-based flicker problem actually does. To wit:

The 27-inch iMac Graphics Firmware Update applies to the graphics firmware on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 graphics cards to address issues that may cause image corruption or the display to flicker.

Elsewhere, the company notes that the firmware update isn’t a cure-all:

If your screen remains black after applying the updater or if you continue to experience image corruption or display flickering after successfully completing this update, contact AppleCare or an Apple Authorized Service Provider.

So not only does Cupertino seem to be blaming ATI for the issue, it’s not actually promising to necessarily fix anything with this update, either. Whether Apple goes with ATI or NVIDIA, it just can’t seem to avoid graphics card-related issues. At least this time around it didn’t take two or three years for Apple to acknowledge the problem. Still, sales of the 27-inch iMac have been halted, which probably isn’t making consumers or Apple very happy.

Let us know if you’ve tried out the update, and whether your problems have been resolved following its installation. I’ve heard from at least one or two people that they haven’t noticed any improvements. One thing’s for sure: Apple has to nip iMac-gate in the bud before further damaging its quality and reliability reputation.

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The seven apps are all new to me, but they seem to have garnered favorable reviews and even some official accolades from Apple itself. They also cover quite a range, meaning that no two really duplicate the functions or features of the others. Here’s a brief rundown of the apps you get in the bundle.

• GraphicConverter – Does what it says. You can open basically any image file, and then save it as another. You can also do some light editing, organize your photos, run a slide show, and automate your image processing to make working with large batches of files easier.
• Picturesque – Provides a lot of easy, 1-click or simplified image enhancement abilities. Great for those who don’t have the patience or time to learn more advanced programs like Photoshop, or who want really quick turnaround times for time sensitive activities like blogging.
• ImageFramer – Add frames to your pictures. A little weird, in my opinion, but if you’re looking for something different for your photos, this could be it.
• Funtastic Photos – Photo correction and enhancement which automatically preserves your original. Also packs a number of sharing features, and a rich print layout system.
• Graphic Designer Toolbox – Combine building blocks to create crazy new graphic effects and images. You use the unique interface to marry various elements together in a non-destructive process that is both deceptively simple and incredibly deep. Weird but cool.
• DrawIt – A vector image editor and drawing app. Tons of shapes are included in the default set, and there’s support for user-created ones, too. A nice little app that will have you creating Mac-friendly icons and more with relative ease.
• HoudahGeo – Add geolocation data to your photos. HoudahGeo lets you specify information like latitude, longitude, altitude and viewing angle in an image file’s EXIF, XMP or IPTC tags.

All of the apps included in MacGraPhoto have apparently been Apple Staff Picks except for Graphic Designer Toolbox, which won a Think Different award for graphic image editors. At the very least, you’ll probably shave a few steps off of your current process for doing light image editing by picking up the bundle. Plus, if you tell three people about the deal and they buy the pack as a result, the price of your purchase is refunded and you get it free. The bundle pricing expires in a little over five days.

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Poor NVIDIA — it looks like your honeymoon with Apple is over. There hasn’t been an official announcement from Cupertino yet, but a glance at the customization options for high-end iMacs (the ones that use discrete graphics) and Mac Pros reveals that ATI Radeon HD 4000-series cards are already available as new configurable alternatives to NVIDIA products.

ATI was shown the door at Apple when the computer maker introduced notebooks and desktops that feature integrated NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics cards. Many suspect that things turned rocky between Apple and NVIDIA, thanks to the faulty GeForce 8600M GT cards that resulted in the Mac maker offering customers an unprecedented warranty extension for problems related to that component.

We didn’t see the effects right away, because Apple’s supply chain is likely structured in such a way that its product line was probably in place long before any of the hardware problems began to surface. Adding the Radeon HD 4850 to the iMac line and HD 4870 to the Mac Pro as configurable options may not seem like much in the way of retaliation, but it was probably the first option available to Apple short of overhauling its product line.

Both new ATI options are easy single component swap-outs. If Apple intends to get rid of the integrated GeForce 9400M cards, it will have to wait until the computers themselves receive a major update.

ATI is touting the ability of the new cards to fully utilize and benefit from Apple’s implementation of Open CL Version 1.0 in Snow Leopard, which developers can incorporate into their software to allow a sharing of processor load between CPU and GPU. The HD 4850 is a $50 upgrade, available on the 2.93GHz and 3.06GHz 24-inch iMac models, and the HD 4870 is a $200 upgrade for the Mac Pro.

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The extra cash probably also helps pay for the extra dual-link DVI port the Mac processor comes with, for a total of two. All the other stats are the same for the Mac edition as for its predecessor, including 92 CUDA parallel processor cores with 1.5GB GDDR3 that put out a whopping 76.8GB/sec of memory bandwidth. In other words, this thing kicks.

Other features of the new card include a 3 pin min-din connector for use with stereo 3D glasses, and out-of-the-box Boot Camp support that will ensure you’re using native Quadro drivers in Windows for the best possible graphics performance on both platforms.

The Quadro FX 4800 will cost you more than a lot of laptops, though, so don’t get your heart set on it unless you’re the kind of person for whom graphics are very important (which, if you own a Mac Pro to begin with, you probably are). Also, if you have an older Mac Pro, check before buying, since the card will only be compatible with Mac Pros with device identifiers of 3,1 and 4,1 or higher, which are the last two major product refreshes. No word on whether it’ll be an upgrade option when you’re setting up your custom computer for purchase, but it will retail at the official Apple online store, along with NVIDIA’s other retail partners.

Apple doesn’t point any fingers regarding the source of the problem, which seemed to be the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M card that handles dedicated graphics processing. Let’s hope this fix does finally resolve the issue once and for all, because otherwise Apple might have to move on to hardware replacement and even a general recall. Let us know whether or not the fix works if you were experiencing problems.

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The Game Developers Conference for 2009 is just underway, and already there’s some big news which has particular relevance for that rare and frustrated breed, the Mac gamer.

I’m a Mac gamer myself, and have pretty much given up the OS X side of things and just decided to do all my gaming in a Windows Boot Camp partition. My days of option-booting may be drawing to a close, however, thanks to a new venture that could make gaming a lot more democratic, much to the dismay of hardware manufacturers.

The service in question is called OnLive, and it will basically offer game streaming to whatever machine you happen to have. You can either get it via a very small set-top unit that attaches directly to your TV, or through a desktop software client. That’s when the magic happens. OnLive uses server farms to do all of the heavy lifting for your computer, so that your resources aren’t important. That means my Eee PC can handle Crysis, though I would never actually use that tiny machine for gaming. More importantly, my MacBook and my Mac mini can both handle Crysis without breaking a sweat. Which means I’m belatedly glad that I didn’t spring for that MacBook Pro or Mac Pro desktop.

I can hear your concerns, because mine were the same. This sounds too good to be true, right? Won’t it suffer by being only a marginal company, lacking support? No and no. Kotaku and Time have both actually tried out OnLive, and found it far from lacking. In fact, both reported impressive results. Apparently, OnLive avoids lag using patented video compression and compensation algorithms that result in a very smooth, extremely playable gaming experience, despite the fact that it’s actually content streaming from the cloud.

And do they have support? Oh boy, do they. Check out this quote from Kotaku’s coverage:

The best part? It already has serious buy-in from major publishers, including EA, THQ, Codemasters, Ubisoft, Atari, Warner Bros., Take-Two, and Epic Games. Oh, and 2D Boy.

So publishers are behind it, but considering the threat it represents to both console (the set-top peripheral costs less than a Wii) and PC gaming manufacturers, you can bet that a lot of hardware folks will be dead set against it. It’ll be interesting to see what kind of defense they can mount.

OnLive is set to launch late in the year, with an external beta planned for summer. It’ll probably be a subscription-based service when it does launch, so some might object to not actually owning any games, but considering the rate at which I grow bored of most, it seems like the perfect set up for me. I see a future where I’m playing Mass Effect 2 on the highest graphics setting without so much as a hiccup on my Mac mini. Please help make this a dream come true, OnLive.

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At this point, it seems like having some graphics issues is more of a “coming of age” thing for a new Mac product than something that surprises or worries us, though I’m sure if you have one of the affected MacBook Pros, you think otherwise.

Users are reporting in an Apple Support thread that the recently shipped 17-inch model is acting up, displaying green lines and ugly screen artifacts. The problem is apparently tied pretty clearly to the NVIDIA GeForce 9600M (the dedicated card), since the problem doesn’t arise while running the integrated 9400M, only appearing when you switch to the more powerful card.

No word from Apple yet about the issue, although they will likely try to resolve things with a firmware fix before trying anything more serious. One customer in the support thread said he received word from Apple that he would have to have his laptop replaced, although I doubt they realized at the time that the issues were so widespread.

It’s hard to believe that a machine so expensive, after such a long delay, could have such serious and quickly apparent problems. I suppose you could excuse Apple and just chalk this up as another NVIDIA screw up, but Apple must do some serious testing with these machines before they release them to the buying public. The alternative, of course, is that they were well aware of the problem but opted to stick to internal deadlines and deal with the problem down the road with a firmware update rather than delay the ship date of the 17-inch MacBook Pro any longer. Whatever the issue, Apple seriously needs to stop shipping significantly flawed products, or their reputation for quality isn’t going to last.

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It’s likely you’ve heard mention of the Axiotron Modbook, the third party (and only) Apple tablet computing solution, but I like talking about it anyway. Axiotron, a small company operating out of El Segundo, California, won high acclaim for their Modbook, taking best in show at 2007′s Macworld convention.

The Modbook is a converted Macbook, equipped with a Wacom-penabled touchscreen display. It’s a drool-worthy piece of tech, especially for graphic designers who do a lot of field work. And now you can drool even more, because the Modbook now comes complete with Sketchbook Express 2009, an exclusive version of Autodesk’s graphics software.

If you work with Wacom tablets in any kind of graphic design/illustration capacity, then you’ve probably also heard of Sketchbook Pro, formerly of Alias, until it was acquired by Autodesk. Sketchbook Pro 2009 was released earlier this year, finally bringing Intel compatibility to the versatile graphics editing software. I’d previously been a huge fan of Sketchbook Pro, but switched to Corel Painter when the program wouldn’t work on my black MacBook. Getting Sketchbook Pro 2009 was like hooking up with an old friend after a lengthy absence. The Express edition that bundles with the Modbook features much of the functionality of the full version, but users are limited to three layers, whereas the full version supports unlimited stacking.

Currently, Axiotron only offers their service for pre-aluminum MacBooks (no MacBook Pros, either), but they’ve recently committed to supporting new models in the new year. You can get a Modbook either by ordering one directly from Axiotron, or by buying Modservice, which uses your existing MacBook for the conversion. Existing Modbook owners can pick up SketchBook Express free by clicking the download link on the application overview page.

Modbooks start at $2,199, while Modservice using your existing notebook starts at $1,299. Not a bad idea if you have oodles of cash lying around and you’ve just upgraded to a new MacBook and haven’t found a use for your last gen model.

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Apple has updated their laptop line (sans the “white MacBook”) with NVIDIA’s new GeForce graphics chips: the 9400M for the MacBook and MacBook Air, and the 9600M GT for the MacBook Pro.

The 9400M contains 16 parallel graphics cores offering 54 Gigaflops of graphics performance. This translates to, according to Jobs, a “5x faster graphics than the chips [Apple’s] been using”. The 9600M GT doubles the amount of graphics core to 32 and offers dedicated 256 / 512 MB of dedicated GDDR3 memory at the cost of only an hour of battery time (down to 4hrs from the 9400’s five). The 9600M comes in addition to the 9400M on the Pro line for a dual configuration allowing you to switch between processors depending on your needs.

Not only is this great for performance in general, but this is a also huge win for gamers as the integrated Intel chip on the MacBooks have made gaming close to non-existent, as I’m sure many would-be fans of Spore can attest to.

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Given that it supports Photoshop .psd files, iSight, and much more, it may be a fantastic mid-way application for those not willing or able to plunk down the cash for Photoshop CS3.

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