First, find your serial number

Probably the quickest and easiest way to learn about your Mac is with the serial number. Look on the surface of your Mac or on your sales receipt or original packaging. If you can’t find it either of those ways, you can locate this while running your Mac:

• From the Apple menu, select “About this Mac.”
• Click on “More Info…”
• Highlight the “Hardware” category, and look for the serial number there.

(If you have OS X 10.1 or higher installed on your Mac, you can also go to the Apple menu, choose “About this Mac,” then double-click on the OS version number. It will change to your serial number.)

Then use these sites to get the help you need

With the serial number, you can find out the hip version name of your particular model. For instance, how are you to remember that the MacBook Pro 4.1 was also referred to as the MacBook Pro Early 2008. To get even more information about your Mac, Apple has provided a few online services that can help you out:

• Apple’s Support’s Tech Spec Search Utility: A great, well-maintained source of information about Apple products that includes all the product information even after it has been removed from the primary site as well as the Apple Online Store. Enter your serial number into the search box, and you will find information about the processor speed, size and weight, memory, storage and much more. support.apple.com/specs
• Apple’s Service and Repair Web Site: If you are in need of service or repair, whether you have Apple Care or not, this site will help get you started on the road to recovery. You can contact an Apple advisor, make an appointment with a genius at an Apple Retail Store, or search for a local Apple Authorized Service Provider. selfsolve.apple.com
• Apple’s Apple Care Registered Products List: If you have purchased Apple Care for any of your products, or if you have very recently purchased a new Mac and are still covered by the free Apple Care coverage, then this is the place to go when you need help or support. apple.com/support/applecare
• Apple’s My Support Profile list of My Products: Relatively unknown site that helps keep track of all of your interactions with Apple support as well as maintain a list of the products you have registered with Apple. In fact, this site will help you keep track of all of your Apple purchases. supportprofile.apple.com

What I find interesting about being an owner of Apple products is the amount of time and energy people, including myself, put into knowing everything there is to know about the next piece of hardware Apple is to release. Yet as time passes, many of us simply forget the exact details of what we already have. I hope this guide will help close this knowledge gap.

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Weighing in at just over 4 GB each download, this update will likely be a major contender with Netflix for internet bandwidth.  Especially as Apple’s 54 million Mac users begin to upgrade.  While priced the same as OS X Snow Leopard, this cat is no slouch.  With over 250 new features, Mac users will be more likely to want to update sooner rather than later.

What will be interesting this time around is how one performs this download-based upgrade. While users have gotten familiar with the upgrade process of the disk-based distribution, the Mac OS X upgrade path will likely be a little different; requiring enough free hard drive space for the download, the upgrade process, and the larger OS foot print that will likely result.  At a time when Mac users are opting for the faster yet smaller SSDs, extra hard drive space, like network bandwidth will be at a premium.

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A Google employee expressed his distaste for the way Apple does business in no uncertain terms in a recent blog post. Tim Bray, a co-inventor of XML and a well-known blogger in his own right, is also a Google employee on the Android team, having recently joined following his time at Sun Microsystems.

The blog post at issue, which appeared on his personal blog, details his reasons behind joining Google, which include a passion for the rapid pace of development on the platform and the fact that it’s an open source system. Another reason is that he “hates” the iPhone. Or at least the context in which the iPhone operates.

Bray doesn’t shy away from sharing his opinion of what Apple’s done wrong with the iPhone, in no uncertain terms:

The iPhone vision of the mobile Internet’s future omits controversy, sex, and freedom, but includes strict limits on who can know what and who can say what. It’s a sterile Disney-fied walled garden surrounded by sharp-toothed lawyers. The people who create the apps serve at the landlord’s pleasure and fear his anger.

I hate it.

I hate it even though the iPhone hardware and software are great, because freedom’s not just another word for anything, nor is it an optional ingredient.

The big thing about the Web isn’t the technology, it’s that it’s the first-ever platform without a vendor (credit for first pointing this out goes to Dave Winer). From that follows almost everything that matters, and it matters a lot now, to a huge number of people. It’s the only kind of platform I want to help build.

Apple apparently thinks you can have the benefits of the Internet while at the same time controlling what programs can be run and what parts of the stack can be accessed and what developers can say to each other.

I think they’re wrong and see this job as a chance to help prove it.

Even though I wasn’t sad to see Apple nix a whole host of “sexy” apps recently, I can’t help but agree with where Tim Bray is coming from. Apple is effectively packaging and selling back to us a polished and pristine version of what we used to have only free and unfettered access to. Giving them too much control might start to inhibit our ability to continue to have that free access.

I’m not sure handing the reins to Google won’t have the exact same effect in the long run, but that isn’t what will happen if some people side with them in this developing conflict. Luckily, unlike in professional sports, there doesn’t have to be a winner in clashes between mobile device makers. A healthy balance should keep the power of both in check.

Since the iPad and iPhone SDKs are so very close in core functionality, SDK Miners have been trying to unearth something (anything!) we didn’t already know about the iPad. I suspect most people simply glance over these reports, shrug, and move on without comment. After all, we’re a bit tired of tablet rumors by now, right? But looking at some of the comments in the articles (linked below), there are some people who take it all very seriously indeed. And that’s probably a mistake, as I’ll explain shortly.

Before I do, here’s a quick rundown of what we think we know so far from the SDK Mining that has happened in the last five weeks.

January 29

Engadget confirmed that the OS SDK contained support for Video Calling, File Downloads, SMS and even Handwriting input;

We’re told that there are hooks to accept and decline a video conference, flip a video feed (which suggests a front-facing camera) and — most importantly — run the video call in either full screen mode or in just a portion of the screen. That means you’ll be able to chat and do other things at the same time, which could mean there’s at least some type of multitasking going on here.

Engadget’s Nilay Patel adds in an update;

…there’s a spell checker with multiple dictionaries and user-added entries (huzzah!), much richer text support for apps, the ability to selectively draw to external displays (using the VGA or component adapters, we’d imagine), location-aware ads in Maps and possibly other programs that use the Maps API, file upload ability in Safari, a modifiable cut / copy / paste menu, and, most interestingly, prototype support for a “handwriting keyboard.” Maybe we’ll see some stylus action on this thing after all.

In all, Patel lists no fewer than 18 new discoveries, though many of them are pretty dry and technical.

After that, things fell quiet for a while, until just this week.

February 20

9to5Mac reported discovering a set of icons in the 3.2 SDK it believes are “pretty definitive evidence” for video calling functionality in a future iPhone or iPad device.

Image by 9to5Mac

It also found strings of code that refer to iChat, too, but didn’t speculate further. It did say;

While it is possible that Apple brought code over from its Mac telephony products, it is unlikely that they also built icons and compressed them into the iPad SDK for such a product if it weren’t being built for future release.

February 23

MacRumor’s Arnold Kim added to the fresh wave of SDK Mining reports with this graphic of the icons used in the video chat functionality;

Image by MacRumors

Kim writes;

It seems Apple built in API support to test to see if your iPad had a Front Facing Camera, Zoom and a Camera Flash. The front facing camera would, of course, be used for video chat, while Zoom and Camera Flash are often requested features for the iPhone’s camera.

Given the size of these buttons, they were intended for use on the the iPad’s screen rather than the iPhone. We’re not sure why these features were dropped…

And finally, just today, MacNN brings us news of (wait for it) advanced wallpaper options.

Image by MacNN

Well. Be still my beating heart. From MacNN;

In the current iPad simulator, users can now set separate lock- and homescreen wallpapers, reflecting the iPad’s ability to keep wallpaper active while navigating icons. In case the difference doesn’t matter, another button applies the same wallpaper to both screens.

The Disappointment of SDK Mining

While it’s fun to poke-around in the code (in the absence of an actual iPad to play with, it’s the next best thing!), SDK Mining often leads to disappointment. An operating system — even a ‘small’ OS like the one found on the iPhone or iPad — is hugely complex. It’s the end-product of years of development. In that time, as hardware and software prototypes came-and-went, functionality was added and removed, supported and dropped, many times over. This is common to any OS development process.

We need to be careful when reading breathless reports of “hidden” functionality in the iPad (or iPhone) SDKs. In the reports above, the code references camera features, proving that, at some point, Apple’s developers seriously explored that functionality. That doesn’t mean a camera is guaranteed to appear on the iPad. (For instance, just because I once learned how to ride a bike, it doesn’t guarantee I’ll become an avid cyclist.)

So let’s enjoy the speculation — but not get too worked-up over what it might mean. After all, it might never happen.

Worldwide, the iPhone accounts for more than half of the total overall smartphone usage. It’s worth noting that doesn’t necessarily mean that the iPhone’s actual market share is double that of all other companies combined, only that iPhone owners use their devices much more than the owners of any of its competitors do.

Still, it’s definitely good news for Apple. High device usage means iPhone owners are obviously, for the most part, enjoying their smartphones, which in turn means that they will be more likely to speak well of the iPhone to others and to purchase another Apple product in the future. It also means Apple’s revenue from iPhone app sales will likely remain very healthy for the foreseeable future.

Symbian had the next strongest showing, with 21 percent of the overall usage share. But geographically, Nokia’s OS only leads in Africa and Asia now, while the iPhone has surged ahead into the lead position in both North America and Western Europe, two very lucrative mobile markets. 54 percent of smartphone usage in North America was on an iPhone, and in Western Europe 78 percent occurred on Apple’s device. More than half the OS share in Eastern Europe belonged to Apple, too.

In Africa and Asia, Nokia has rather commanding leads of 53 and 50 percent respectively, but Apple is quickly gaining ground. In Asia, Apple’s share during the period covered in the survey rose to 27 percent, thanks to the launch of the iPhone in a number of new countries, and strong sales in some key markets like Japan.

Android also performed fairly well. Google’s operating system gained ground in all markets, reaching a high point of 27 percent in North America and hitting 16 percent overall worldwide. Still, North America is the only market in which Android’s OS share reached a double digits percentage score, the next closest being Western Europe with 8 percent.

This is prime marketing material for Apple, and even for AT&T. Luke Wilson throwing postcards at a map on the ground just reeks of desperation, if you ask me, but playing up the fact that your device is the most used smartphone in the world, and far and away the most used in North America, well that actually starts to become appealing to my interests as a consumer. Or, you could stick with Luke Wilson talking to himself. Whatever you think is best.

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I’m pretty sure that late January is traditionally that time of the year when the Apple rumor mill starts heating-up in anticipation of the impending iPhone OS update. A young tradition, to be sure, but a tradition nonetheless.

This year, however, the media frenzy around the mythical-but-completely-certainly-probably-real Tablet seems to be getting all the attention — rather like a new born baby stealing the limelight from its three year old sibling.

At least BoyGeniusReport — in the past a reasonably accurate source of information on upcoming iPhone OS updates — hasn’t forgotten the tradition and, even though no one is paying the least bit of attention, they resolutely committed to web-page what they think they now know about iPhone 4.0.

So what’s the latest? From BGR:

“There will be multi-touch gestures OS-wide. (Would make sense […] as the rumored OS for the iTablet is close if not the same as the iPhone)

I’m not sure I understand what this means if I’m honest with you. I mean, the few multi-touch gestures we get now in apps like Photos and Safari are sensible enough, (double-tap and pinch zooming are useful in those apps) but do we need multi-touch everywhere? How will the addition of OS-wide gestures make the OS more elegant, more intuitive and easier to use? Now, I’m not suggesting any sort of major calamity; I’m just experiencing something of an imagination-failure here.

“A few new ways” to run applications in the background — multitasking.”

So, the elusive Multitasking is coming to iPhone? I’m not convinced. Speaking from my many years of experience using Windows Mobile, it seems to me that Apple’s approach to memory management on the iPhone is pretty much perfect. Sure, it doesn’t multitask — but in almost three years of iPhone ownership, that has never presented an insurmountable problem for me. And the (ahem- late) introduction of Push Notification Services was a very welcome compromise.

I have since discovered, however, that I don’t need Facebook to notify me about every poke or thrown sheep, and I especially don’t want to be notified of every tweet from my Twitter stream. No thank you.

Perhaps the “few new ways” refers to a sandboxed memory “space” that runs in the background, sort of like an app for keeping-alive portions of other apps, even when they’re not currently front-and-center. Maybe. Whatever it is, you can be sure there won’t be a task manager.

“Many graphical and UI changes to make navigating through the OS easier and more efficient. We haven’t had this broken down, but we can only hope for improved notifications, a refreshed homescreen, etc.”

What do you think? A new, refreshed UI style, perhaps? Or an iPhone version of Exposé? The latter sounds horrid, but still, Soptlight can’t be the only solution to quickly navigating through 10 pages of apps.

“The update will supposedly be available for only the iPhone 3G and 3GS, but will “put them ahead in the smartphone market because it will make them more like full-fledged computers” more than any other phone to date. Everyone is “really excited.”

Makes sense. The 3G and 3GS have more memory than the venerable first generation iPhone. Consider how sluggish the latest build of the iPhone OS (3.1.2) can be on first generation iPhones. Apple is so concerned with guaranteeing a consistent, elegant user experience they kept cut & paste out of the OS for years before they felt the solution was good-enough to publish. So they’re hardly going to support their latest and greatest OS on the ageing first-generation iPhone because the experience will be terrible.

I would wager, too, that core location services have been greatly expanded and even more tightly integrated with the entire OS, making the original location-ignorant iPhone a bit of a silly platform for 4.0. (Don’t forget that patent for a location-aware home screen…)

“The last piece of information is the most vague, but apparently there will be some brand new syncing ability for the contacts and calendar applications.”

Since I’m one of the five or six people in this world who pays for a MobileMe subscription I never really think about contacts/calendar syncing. It just happens for me, quietly, no fuss. I’ve never synced any other way, so I have no experience of the perils and pitfalls of syncing via different methods. I’ll leave you to tell me what you think this means and why I should care.

And Then There’s That Tablet (Again)

Don’t forget that the established wisdom of the Rumor Mill has it that iPhone OS 4.0 and the Tablet’s operating system are pretty much built upon the same core code — hence the reason for Apple’s delay in seeding the 4.0 build to developers. (Since the code is so similar it’s pretty likely that tablet functionality will be easily discovered by a few minutes spent digging through iPhone OS 4.0′s bundled APIs. Apple has held-back on seeding the next major iPhone OS build for this very reason — they don’t want to give away clues as to what’s in store with the Tablet — that sort of information will leak fast.)

So while the world’s press salivates over the upcoming tablet and forgets completely about Apple’s other major products, spare a thought for iPhone OS 4.0. It’s likely to be the most important — and impressive — update in the iPhone’s history. And, unless you have your money ready to splash on the Tablet, iPhone OS 4.0 is the most likely next “new thing” you’re going to get from Cupertino.

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The iPhone climbs to No. 2 in terms of general smartphone OS market share in the U.S., while Windows Mobile drops to third. Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS still tops the list, and in fact does so with an impressive gain in customers over the course of 2009, according to a breakdown of the report by DailyTech.

comScore compiles its results for the smartphone survey every three months, collecting data from thousands of U.S. consumers. The latest three-month period, the one which is detailed in this latest report, ended in October of this year.

RIM, as mentioned, saw pretty significant growth throughout the year. At the beginning of 2009, it had just under 10 million customers, and according to the comScore report, it now boasts 14.96 million in the U.S. RIM has been employing aggressive pricing strategies to compete with the iPhone’s success, including handset giveaways and deep discounts, and it looks like the BlackBerry maker’s efforts have paid off nicely.

Windows Mobile actually showed negative growth — it’s the only smartphone company that can make this unfortunate claim, and now has around 7.13 million users. Buyers could be shy of committing to a device that runs Windows Mobile 6.5 when version 7 is set to launch sometime early in 2010. Everyone else, including Palm’s WebOS, Google’s Android, and Symbian all experienced modest gains. Android still tails all others, but during the most recent period it broke the 1 million mark, and I’d expect to see it surge even further on the strength of the Droid in upcoming surveys.

As for the iPhone, it grew to 8.97 million users over the period ending in October. That’s a pretty impressive lead over Windows Mobile, though it means Apple still has a lot of ground to make up before it can snatch the crown from powerhouse RIM. It’s even more impressive when you consider that at the beginning of the year, the iPhone only had around 5 million users, meaning it experienced about 70 percent growth over the course of 2009, a performance that likely has a lot to do with the release of the 3GS and the significant price drop and continued sales of the 3G model.

Overall, the smartphone market continues to do well. Roughly 11.8 percent of the American population claims to now own one, according to this most recent poll.

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Now, thanks to Grackle68k, Mac users who are still running Macintosh System 6, 7, 8 and 9 can have a dedicated Twitter client of their very own. Personally, I think the release of this app was just timed to steal the spotlight away from Seesmic for Windows. Obviously this is much bigger news!

Twitter is available to pretty much any platform, and that’s no accident. The technology behind it is relatively lightweight, with clients only really needing the ability to make API calls to be completely functional. The memory footprint of clients differs depending on what developers choose to add on the client side of things, but little is needed to make one actually functional.

That’s the idea behind Grackle68k, a labor of love for a small group of programmers who realize that there’s still quite the classic Mac enthusiast crowd out there who actually use their well-aged machines for some basic tasks in addition to just keeping them running (myself included). The program lets you tweet, but if you want it to remember who you are on each startup, you’ll have to break out the ResEdit and make a change to a resource by adding your login information. It’s an added step, true, but a fun one that should bring back memories, so hey, I’m not gonna complain.

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VMware Fusion 3 for Mac is now available. That’s right, new virtualization software for your Mac, conveniently timed for the release of Windows 7. Actually, it’s very likely the release of VMware’s latest iteration of its OS virtualization software, Fusion 3, got its release date precisely because of Microsoft’s street date for its latest operating system, because Fusion 3 is specially designed to support Windows 7.

Fusion 3 comes just over a year after VMware released Fusion 2, in September 2008. A year is a long time in the life cycle of a piece of software, and in the case of Fusion, the lapsed time between versions shows in the numerous improvements made to the program that allows you to run another OS on a virtualized machine inside of OS X.

As mentioned above, Fusion 3 goes out of its way to make sure your Windows 7 virtualization experience is as seamless as possible. That includes things like support for Windows Aero, Flip 3D and Windows Aero Peek visualization effects, and the ability to run OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c, which should help with some of your gaming needs, especially if you’re into older MMOs that don’t have a native Mac client.

VMware’s sales tactics for Fusion 3 also focus on recent switchers who are having trouble adjusting to their new and unfamiliar environment on a Mac. For example, the improved Migration Assistant helps you copy your entire PC onto a virtual machine on your new Mac hardware quickly and easily using an Ethernet connection. VMware goes as far as to say it works “just like” Apple’s own Migration Assistant for setting up or restoring a Mac-based computer.

There’s also a lot of improvements under the hood, including a new 64-bit native core engine for Macs that can handle it. That means that Snow Leopard users will be getting the most bang for their buck with the latest version. Memory usage on all Vista and Windows 7 machines is also greatly reduced, so in general, you should experience much snappier performance.

Finally, a lot of improvements have been made to VMware Fusion’s Mac Unity mode, which makes the virtualization experience much more integrated than it is in its default, windowed configuration. The list of new features is long, but some highlights include the ability to search for Windows apps like Mac ones, assigning the new always-on Applications menu to a hotkey of your choosing, accessing recently opened documents using Windows apps, full Exposé and Dock Exposé support for all Windows apps, and 3D gaming/1080p video playback while in Unity mode.

Fusion 3 retails for $79.99, but if you’re upgrading from Fusion 1 or 2, you qualify for a special price of $39.99, or $59.99 with a subscription that includes major version upgrades for the next 12 months. Judging by the last upgrade schedule which saw Fusion 3′s release falling one month outside that bubble, that subscription option isn’t looking all that appealing. If you’re picking it up, let us know how you find it.

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The abstract of the patent reads as follows:

Among other disclosures, an operating system presents one or more advertisements to a user and disables one or more functions while the advertisement is being presented. At the end of the advertisement, the operating system again enables the function(s). The advertisement can be visual or audible. The presentation of the advertisement(s) can be made as part of an approach where the user obtains a good or service, such as the operating system, for free or at reduced cost.

Oh Steve, say it ain’t so. Tell us Patent Application 20090265214 is the result of too many late nights in “creative meetings” with your minions at Cupertino. Tell us it’s a misguided concept you’ve since abandoned (and wish had never made it through the red tape, to be filed with the USPTO). To hell with it, you can even tell us you’re just patent trolling, and that’ll still be preferable to the unthinkable, horrifying possibility that you actually took this idea seriously.

What on earth would motivate Apple to consider something like this? It can’t be the competition. The upcoming Chrome OS from Google may well be ad-supported in some manner, but we have to hope it’ll be implemented the same way Google currently injects ads into Gmail. Perhaps Apple explored the possibility of an ad-supported OS as a means for offering cheaper Macs? But the cost of a Macintosh computer is tied closely to its hardware and besides, since when did Apple start searching for ways to deliver cut-price computers? This isn’t Dell we’re talking about.

Here’s an extract from the (typically lengthy) patent description:

The operating system is configured to present one or more of the advertisements to users of the computer device. In some implementations, the operating system can disable one or more functions during the presentation of the advertisements and then enable the function(s) in response to the advertisements ending. That is, the operating system can disable some aspect of its operation to prompt the operator to pay attention to the advertisement.

This paints a picture of some twisted low-level hijacking of the OS while ads are played. For example, imagine your pointer suddenly stops responding to mouse movements (or disappears altogether) only to be restored after a commercial or two (for products you don’t want, or simply can’t afford) finish assaulting your senses with bright colors and boisterous music. What makes this worse is that you hit the mute key ages ago, but the OS temporarily turned the sound on again. You know, because you can’t enjoy all the subtly exquisite levels of torment an ad has to offer unless you get the full audio/video experience.

Yep, that’s a cold sweat that just broke out on your brow. Sadly, there’s more of this horror. The patent also describes an OS-provided framework of which third-party applications can take advantage to deliver the same ad-driven pain:

The software platform provides a framework upon which one or more application programs (e.g., programs, services, user interfaces) may be executed. For example, the operating system can disable input to, or output from, one or more of the application programs while the advertisement is being presented.

So imagine, if you can bear to, an ad-supported version of iWorks. You’re writing that essay or juggling multiple documents to prepare that report that was due yesterday. You’re lost in a world of footnotes and references, utterly absorbed in your task when suddenly, boom! — every Pages window freezes. There’s not a blinking carat to be seen anywhere. Then a horrible ad for life insurance starts playing — you know, that one you hate so much that, when it plays on TV, it sends you diving for the remote in a mad dash to hit the mute button. But you’ve already learned that mute won’t help you now.

It plays for 30 skin-crawling seconds. You’re desperately trying to stay focused on your suspended workflow, grinding your teeth as you endure this torment. But then — the horror! — it’s followed by another ad, this time for Microsoft Office!

30 more seconds (and severely worn tooth enamel) later, you’re settling back into your document… then boom! It’s time for the OS to hang, because Burger King wants to tell you about its new Windows 7 Whopper…

OK. Dry those tears. Have a stiff drink. This isn’t real. I mean, it might have been prototyped (gods forbid) but just because there’s a patent for this ghoulish monster, that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.

Not yet, anyway…

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First, a little background. I flirted with Macs in high-school Graphic Art lessons and then again, very very briefly, in the late 90s when a colleague handed me a PowerBook and said “Here, you could use that if it’s any good, but I don’t know if it even works…” It did work, but to be honest, it really wasn’t any use to me at all. Anyway, even if I had wanted to use the Mac, everyone I knew was working on a Windows PC of some flavor or other, and though the PowerBook had a working copy of Microsoft Office (such as it was in those days) incompatibilities were an ever-present problem.

Here’s an example of a conversation I had, many times, with the one person I knew who used a Mac;

Gloria: Liam, that file you sent me…
Liam: Yes, the Word document.
Gloria: It doesn’t work properly. I’ve lost all the formatting.
Liam: What do you mean, you’ve ‘lost’–
Gloria: It’s a mess.
Liam: Did you open it using Word?
Gloria: Of course I did! Look, will you just paste the text into an email for me, yeah?

I used to think the problem lay not with her computer, but more with her inability to use it. I later saw for myself, however, that she was absolutely right. Word documents created on a Windows PC didn’t fare well in Word on her Mac. Crazy.

The short of it is that I used Windows for everything and I had no compelling reason to want to switch. At home and at work, even on the road with my Windows Mobile devices through the years, I was 100 percent a Microsoft customer. Throughout those years, every experience I had with the Mac was a bad experience. And it was usually, as in the example above, related to the same tedious issue — incompatibility.

By 2005 I’d certainly heard about Mac OS X, though the closest I came to it was reading Paul Thurrott’s reviews and opinions on his SuperSite for Windows. He spoke of a decent OS, but reassured me that I was missing nothing. Then Apple released the iPhone and, despite my aversion to all things Apple, the Geek in me couldn’t resist and I bought one.

The experience on the iPhone was simply amazing, far better than any I’d had on any other device in… well, forever. It made me question my assumptions about the Mac. So in the summer of 2008, I wandered into the Apple Store on London’s Regent Street and spent a half hour pratting-about on different machines. I left with a MacBook. And on that very day, Windows died for me. Leopard was a breath of fresh air.

But let me be clear; I didn’t switch because I felt the Mac was a superior platform. Honestly, I feel that, for the majority of people, it’s no better or worse than Windows at the mechanics of making email, word processing and web surfing possible. I switched because it offered a far superior experience in doing those everyday things. When I think about Windows and where it fails for me, it always comes down to that same issue; experience.

Despite the “XP” in its 2001 OS name, it was only with Windows Vista that Microsoft finally seemed to “get” that user experience matters. Yet, beyond Vista’s eye candy there’s not a lot in the way of a unified, cohesive and organic experience that makes me want to use it as my everyday computing environment. This isn’t blind fanboy-ism talking; I used Vista since its Longhorn days right up until last summer, so I know I gave it a long-enough evaluation!

The user experience in Windows 7, too, has not changed since Vista, save perhaps for the addition of some fiddly new UI gimmicks (Aero Peek anyone?). To me, 7 ‘feels’ just like Vista did. I keep moving around the OS hoping to have an epiphany; “Aha! There’s the cohesive, rewarding experience I was searching for!” — but it just doesn’t happen.

I want to like Windows 7, but after trying various beta builds for the last year and repeatedly doing my best to enjoy it, I found myself feeling relieved whenever I returned to the elegant lines of Mac OS X.

I don’t hate Windows 7. I don’t think it’s shoddy, unattractive or fundamentally flawed. But just as Thurrott would say of Snow Leopard, when it comes to Windows 7 there’s just not much there. Windows 7 is a perfectly capable operating system that looks nice and gets the job done. Ultimately, however, it’s just not very interesting and, for recent switchers to the Mac, it’s too little, too late.

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Also new in 3.1 is a relaxation of the API limitations! Just kidding. But there are some nice user-side improvements that make it easier to forget about all the fuss surrounding the App Store lately.

Genius

Apple’s dubiously named Genius recommendation engine comes to the App Store in 3.1. The service will check what you’ve already installed on your device and return results based on those selections. Thus far, I’m none too impressed with the mental acuity of Genius for Apps, which seems to be largely keyword-based.

iPhone OS 3.1 also supports the new Genius Mixes feature available in iTunes 9. iTunes will automatically create up to 12 playlists based on what’s in your library, without you even having to select a track as a starting point.

Home Screen

Finally, there’s a way to organize your various iPhone and iPod touch Home screens that isn’t painfully slow and liable to drive you completely nuts. With iPhone 3.1 and iTunes 9, you’ll be able to rearrange app icons visually on your computer, and then sync that arrangement to your portable device.

You can even select and drag multiple apps at once, and change the order of entire Home screens at a time, just like you should’ve been able to do from the start.

Syncing and iTunes

With iTunes 9 and OS 3.1, you should see improved syncing for all media, including new sync options like the ability to sync Faces from iPhoto ’09. Students can organize their iTunes U content, and you can now redeem gift cards and promo codes in the App Store application. You can also see how much credit is available in your account right on your device.

As mentioned above, you can now download ringtones wirelessly from the iTunes store on your device. That means it’s far easier to spend $1.29 on something that will give you at best a week’s worth of pleasure and those around you months of agony and annoyance.

Video

As seen in early builds of iPhone OS 3.1, video editing is now non-destructive thanks to a new “Save as new clip” option that preserves the original. You can also save received videos from email and MMS into your Camera Roll, making them easier to review and share with others.

Many Little Things

iPhone OS 3.1 also brings a whole host of small changes and adjustments, including a fix for that nasty icon display issue, anti-phishing measures in Safari, Voice Control access via Bluetooth headsets, phone number pasting in the Phone app, and maybe most impressive, the ability to remotely lock your iPhone with a passcode for MobileMe users.

My early hands-on experience with 3.1 also seems to indicate that general performance is much improved, resulting in much snappier, tighter OS performance overall. Bugs will no doubt raise their ugly heads, but for now, it’s all roses. Just plug your iPhone or iPod touch in and click the “Check for Updates” button in iTunes to get rolling.

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Apple has made usability and user-experience a core part of the design philosophy in everything they produce (Well, almost everything. That’s right, I’m looking at you, MobileMe web apps). Mac OS X and, more obviously, the iPhone OS are shining beacons of the right way to design user-friendly, accessible, easy-to-use software.

What’s a Manual?

Did you need to read a manual when you got your first iPhone? Or how about your first iPod? Even the least technically proficient people I know own such devices and they never once cracked-open the “Getting Started” booklet. These are the same people, it should be noted, who bought copies of “Windows XP For Dummies” because they considered that OS too difficult to learn and use without a printed guide to-hand.

The iPhone is probably the ultimate user-friendly computer (though not the most accessible, but that’s a different matter). My neighbor’s six-year old son once took my iPhone from my hands and brandished it proudly to his friends, announcing “I’ve seen these on TV”. He then demonstrated to his impressed buddies, with absolute confidence, “This is how you take photos… this is how you play music…”

For a six year old with no previous experience of an iPhone other than what he had seen on television commercials, he was surprisingly adept with the thing. I doubt he could have been quite so confident (or impressed) with a Windows Mobile phone or, even worse, a Motorola.

By the Numbers

A recent article on MacRumors reported analysts’ predictions that Apple is expected to sell more than 80 million iPhones in 2012. Of course that’s not the same as 80 million iPhone users, but it’s still a mammoth user-base. If we’re to assume an OS convergence across iPhones and iPods (and maybe tablets, too?) in the next three years, we can easily assume a few hundred million people all over the world owning Mac OS X-powered devices that are super-easy to use despite their many and varied forms and functions.

A Nightmarish Tale

The end result? Well, in the world of desktop computers the drive toward user-friendliness has today produced legions of end-users who know how to send an email but don’t know the difference between POP3 and IMAP; users that practically live on Facebook but can’t tell you if they’re using Firefox or Internet Explorer to get there. Users that – and I have personally experienced this during years of providing technical support to friends and family – can’t even tell you what Operating System they’re using;

Liam: What Operating System are you using?
Friend: What’s that? Is it the Internet? I use Google.
Liam: No, I mean… [thinks]… The thing you see when you turn your computer on.
Friend: I don’t see anything.
Liam: Well, you ought to see something. It’ll probably say ‘Microsoft’ or ‘Windows something-or-other’…
Friend: Where should it say that? Do I have to click on something?

…and so on.

I’ve had these conversations (yes, exactly these sorts of conversations, I’m not exaggerating) with otherwise very smart, very well-informed individuals. University lecturers, engineers, lawyers and doctors are all categories of end-user I have helped and who have all responded precisely in that stumbling, bewildered manner.

A telling point; I’ve never had to provide tech support to fellow Mac users. Sure, I’ve shared hints and tips and recommended cool software. But no Mac owner I know has yet asked me how to find their trash folder, email a photo or connect to their wireless router. (All examples of common issues my Windows-using friends have shared.)

The Death of Technical Proficiency?

These people are not dumb, they’re simply computer illiterate. When I was in high school in the early 90’s, there was a lot of talk about the importance of computer literacy. Becoming computer literate at that time meant learning how to build your own network, how to ping servers, how to patch, bridge, daisy-chain and hack until everything kinda-sorta-worked.

But this wasn’t the Reserved Domain of the Geek. These were skills required of anyone who wanted to use computers. Today, the standard by which someone is considered (generally) computer literate has almost nothing to do with technical proficiency, and everything to do with throwing sheep at friends on Facebook.

More than any other software or hardware company, Apple has removed the barriers to entry that, when I was growing up, were simply accepted landmarks in the computer technology landscape. The soon-to-be-released Snow Leopard is the latest in a long evolutionary line of carefully researched and engineered efforts at democratizing computer technology – and all the potential it unlocks for end-users.

For thirty years, in fact, Apple has lead the way in creating intuitive, user-friendly computer technology. They’ve most assuredly made the “dent in the universe” Steve Jobs spoke of. But the more foolproof the products become, as Rick Cook warns, the greater the idiocy of those who use them. I guess that means there will always be a job for a geek like me. But, really… how much easier can it all get?

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Even though I will warn you, as I was warned, that these videos are almost certainly clever fakes, the Mac addict portion of your brain will likely still experience a pleasurable thrill when you see them. I first saw these over at Cult of Mac, but they’ve been making the rounds, with TechCrunch and Gizmodo also weighing in on the veracity of these movies purporting to show the upcoming Apple tablet device in action, running iPhone OS.

Note that this isn’t claiming to depict a production model of the tablet, but rather some kind of development hardware toolkit in action, which is supposedly why the volume controls and other buttons are located on that external hardware controller device and not on the tablet itself. Additional screenshots have been posted to the MacRumors forums, with some showing the “About” panel, mobile Safari in action, etc.

The problem is, if this is supposed to show something that’s actually made by Apple, then it’s very early days indeed. Apps mostly seem to run in their original resolution, so that you end up with what looks like a bunch of different iPhones running simultaneously on the same screen. Assuming the device was anywhere near complete enough to be in the hands of a few lucky developers, I’d also have to say that Apple would likely have done a little more work on its own basic software suite.

Despite the iPhone-emulator feel of the demo, it is undoubtedly cool, and whoever has invested the time and money to come up with this deserves massive kudos for doing so. At the very least, it appears to allow true app multi-tasking, which is something that actually makes the concept of a large-scale iPod touch-type device genuinely appealing. The dock-like app bar at the bottom of the screen is another great idea, since a home screen-style setup on a device this size would probably make for a rather cluttered UI.

There is a very small chance this could be real, and if it is, it raises a lot of questions about how Apple will deal with running iPhone apps on significantly different hardware (the keyboard, for instance, which can’t possibly stay relegated to a small, fixed space), and how third-party developers will deal with the same issues. Really, the whole thing makes me suspect that a straight-up port of iPhone OS for such a device really isn’t the best solution, and that instead a Snow Leopard install that takes some touchscreen cues from 3.0 makes much more sense.

Check out the videos below.

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As you may already know, one of the improvements that came along with iPhone 3.0 was mobile Safari’s ability to access the iPhone and iPod touch’s geolocation services. Geolocation is quickly becoming a feature that more and more web developers are looking at implementing, especially given that the recently released Firefox 3.5 and Chrome 2.0 support it. It boggles my mind how far we’ve come from the days of avatars and handles, when only a rare few ever shared their real name and photo online, let alone their actual, real-time location.

King of the Internet that it is, Google is spearheading the implementation of location services on the web. It recently introduced location support in Google Maps for Firefox and Chrome users, which works pretty much like the Maps app on your iPhone or Android device does, albeit using Wi-Fi signal towers for most computer users (who don’t likely have GPS capabilities in their machines), so it’s more comparable to the iPod touch. As of yesterday, Google’s mobile search site also supports geolocation, which works perfectly with the latest version of Safari for the iPhone.

Once you grant Safari (and Google.com) access to your device’s location, you’ll see a little blue dot on the main search page, with your location spelled out next to it. When you change locations, you’ll have to manually update by clicking a link next to that, but if you tend to stay in one place like myself, Google seems to be content to remember your choice for quite some time, so you won’t have to find yourself each time you visit.

Searching for things like restaurants, maps or directions, will then bring up results relevant to where you are. Even though the stated location doesn’t seem to be any more specific than the city you’re in, I found that a search for “closest grocery store” actually came up with results in my immediate area, although it did miss the one right across the street from me, so that could just be because I live downtown.

Still, it’s very handy to have Google be even broadly aware of where you are in the world when returning search results. Especially in a mobile device, which you generally use when you’re out and about, and therefore in need of on-the-spot directions and info about local amenities and services. Hopefully where Google has gone, others will follow, and we’ll see geolocation built-in to many more web apps and services. I would love to see some corporate websites like Best Buy work it into its retail store finder pages, but considering the rate at which retail chains usually implement new tech, I’m not holding my breath.

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If you ask any of the Apple “fanboys” why they are so devoted to Apple, at least one of the reasons you will hear is that Apple “sweats the small stuff,” which really proves its dedication to user experience and attention to detail.

Here’s a few of my favorites that demonstrate Apple’s attention, not just to its hardware and software, but to even the product packaging. See how many you may have noticed before, and feel free to add any that I might have missed in the comments below.

Serial Numbers

In the world of computers, serial numbers are important for a variety of reasons, including verifying warranty status and determining the correct specifications, to name a few. Many Apple products feature, in addition to their standard serial number, a barcode that makes reading this serial number much easier for Geniuses or other technicians.

Though some newer models have forgone barcodes, such as the 2009 model MacBook Pros and MacBook Air, barcodes can still be found on many other Apple products. In addition to serial numbers represented as barcodes, some Macs, like the Mac Pro, also include a barcode for the system’s MAC address. Though it changes from model to model, Apple has often put these barcodes and serial numbers in easily accessible places.

On the Power Mac G5, the serial number was located on the inside of the tower, behind the aluminum side panel. On iMac G4s and eMacs, the serial number was located on the inside of the optical drive cover. This really made it easy to quickly locate a serial number if you couldn’t access it through the OS.

Fiat Lux a la Mac

As many people leave their Macs running non-stop throughout the day, they have likely stumbled upon the infamous sleep light. Much like a heartbeat (or “snoring”), the little light pulses while your Mac sleeps. When the iMac G5 originally shipped, its sleep light indicator was bright! It didn’t bother people during the day, but for those who kept their iMac in an office or bedroom, it could light up the whole room at night. Apple issued a firmware update that reduced the sleep light’s brightness during evening hours, giving a much more relaxing pulse than before.

Beyond sleep lights, other indicators on newer Macs are typically hidden until needed. Take for instance the iSight indicator light, built into displays, which is seemingly non-existent until the camera is activated. Similar to the sleep light on the unibody MacBook Pros, the power light on the new aluminum Apple Wireless Keyboard blends in seamlessly until its activated. The thin aluminum that has been perforated with tiny holes for the light to shine through, but when there is no light, the keyboard looks seamless.

Indicator lights on power adapters are also worthy of mention. With once quick glance, you can easily see what is going on. If the light is amber, the battery is charging. If the light is green, the battery is fully charged and ready to go.

Another interesting use of light is the Apple logo on the rear of the portables. The light that illuminates this logo is simply excess ambient light from your display. Go ahead and take a look. Lower the brightness on your display and watch the apple dim.

Product Shots

The next time you see a promotional shot for an Apple product, take notice of the time. For many years, whenever a Mac has been shown displaying the OS X desktop, the clock indicates the system version that the Mac ships pre-installed. This trend even carries forth to Apple’s retail stores, where display signage and wall banners that showcase Leopard prominently feature the system clock at 10:50. Due to only having 60 minutes in an hour, showing a clock at 10:60 for Snow Leopard would not make much sense. Pre-release screenshots from Apple still display 10:50, so this trend will likely end soon.

In the iPhone arena, all of the promotional images of the iPhone and iPod touch all display 9:42 (except one preliminary image,which displayed 9:41). What’s the significance of this? Some think it may relate to the time the iPhone was originally introduced; others see it as a somewhat disjointed homage to Douglas Adam’s “Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.” Most of my research seems to confirm that 9:42 was the actual time of the iPhone announcement during Steve’s keynote in 2007.

Hidden OS X Easter Eggs

Apple’s attention to detail moves beyond the hardware and into its software as well. Take for example the Clock widget in the Dashboard. Look closely at the second hand and notice how it vibrates much like a real clock does.

For those that use Mail, as you drag the divider between the date column to expand or make the column smaller, the formatting of the date dynamically adjusts to fit. If there’s room to display the time, it shows up. As you make the column smaller, the formatting reduces to fit. Most email applications would just truncate whatever did not fit in the column.

This is just a small list of a huge number of little details found on a lot of Apple products that really make them a joy to use. The tipping point, so to speak, is that Apple doesn’t market any of these as “features,” it’s just the fact that they took the time to integrate them subtly into the Apple experience that makes it all worthwhile.

If you’ve found other examples of Apple’s attention to detail, let us know in the comments!

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