The selling strength of Apple’s iPhone appears not to be waning very much at all with the passage of time, if the Vodafone UK launch of the device is any indication. The newest iPhone provider in the UK, which joins recent entrant Orange and original exclusive carrier O2, sold a reported 50,000 handsets when it officially started selling the iPhone on Jan. 14.

It’s an impressive number for a launch this late, when the iPhone 3GS has already been on the market for six months. Even more impressive is the fact that it beat Orange’s launch day total of 30,000 by a wide, 20,000-handset margin, only two months after that company’s introduction of the device.

The massive sales day comes despite the fact that Vodafone doesn’t really offer any significant pricing advantages over either Orange or O2. In fact, pricing and terms on all three carriers are scarcely indistinguishable. And Vodafone’s subscriber base is only the third largest in the UK, following the merger of T-Mobile and Orange. The number disparity would make more sense proportionally if Vodafone already had more market share than did Orange.

It could just be that Vodafone was more flexible with early contract upgrades and other incentive programs for its existing subscribers, but I think what we’re seeing has more to do with the growing outward appearance of freedom of customer choice. Feeling corralled into making a carrier decision based on available hardware is not a pleasant thing, speaking from experience. I would much rather choose my provider based on the testimonials of people I know who’ve actually lived with and used the service.

If I was still in the market for a handset, now that the iPhone is available on all major carriers here in Canada, I would’ve gladly waited until it became officially available on all networks before making a final decision. As it is, I bought my iPhone back when only one provider offered it, and the other two didn’t even have the network capability to support it. The 50,000 figure, then, has more to do with many more people making up their minds now that all the cards are on the table than any significant advantage offered by Vodafone over other carriers.

This strong launch is yet another reason Apple should really considering following Google’s Nexus One strategy and reconfiguring its sales strategy of the iPhone towards more openness. More choice is better for business, and with a device as popular as the iPhone, there’s little carriers can do to prevent Apple from selling its device in whatever way it chooses.

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By the end of business today, the newest UK iPhone carrier on the block will have sold well more than 30,000 iPhones, according to gadget web site T3. Not bad for what’s technically a relaunch of an already available device. Compare that with Motorola’s claim of 100,000 Droid units moved in three days in the U.S. Properly framed and in context, the iPhone figures Orange is claiming are much more impressive, and show that hype aside, any competitor still has a long way to go to contend with Apple.

Orange also claims that the impressive sales numbers represent a new record for first day handset device sales in the UK, at least regarding published results. The launch sales of the device have also helped Orange’s own Wednesdays app climb to the top of the Entertainment category charts, and achieve the No. 2 ranking overall in the free section of the App Store.

Vodafone, which has yet to launch the iPhone, but intends to in early 2010, didn’t want to just sit back and let Orange have its day in the sun uncontested. The UK cell service provider is hoping to convince some would-be iPhone buyers to step back and wait until its own launch, by reporting that in tests (which I’m sure were completely unbiased), the Vodafone network is the fastest using the iPhone:

“We’ve been out and about testing our network across the UK. Whilst our guys were watching the latest YouTube clips on the iPhone they found that Vodafone delivered the fastest download time for a 10-minute video.”

Vodafone provided not a single scrap of statistical evidence to back up its claim, which is only fair since Orange didn’t provide any to support its claim regarding sales numbers, either.

Orange recently came under scrutiny for its reported 750MB cap on data usage under its “Unlimited” plan, and for imposing bizarre restrictions on how network data may be used, restrictions that seemed, if taken at face value, to basically prohibit 90 percent of iPhone usage. Obviously, the company isn’t actually preventing its iPhone customers from doing things like using IM applications, and since no one’s had a chance to hit that 750MB limit as of yet, things appear to be going more than smoothly for the big launch.

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A genie, a load of balls, and an ancient labyrinth come together to create a frustrating, but fun, puzzler.

One of the big boys in the movie biz, Warner Bros., has been solidly churning out iPhone apps for the past few months. Most of these apps have been global franchises, though, including Terminator Salvation, Watchmen and — the double whammy of brand-names — LEGO Batman.

Without a movie, cartoon series, or line of toys, Stuck Genie is an entirely original game. Containing 73 puzzles, the game challenges you to complete each one and earn the highest score.

You Look Like You’re Stuck

It’s immediately clear that the game is worthy of the Warner Bros. name. It’s bright and colorful, instantly pleasing to the eye and, although it’s not an established brand, the game has an artwork style that is very much its own.

The attention to detail, especially important from such a big publisher, pervades almost every aspect of the game. Even the name-entry screen is fun, finding you spinning an alphabet wheel, and dragging letters around to spell your name.

Musically, the game features a chill-out soundtrack pinched straight from the beaches of Ibiza. It’s absolutely out of character for a puzzle game — especially one featuring a mischievous cartoon genie.

And yet it works: When the puzzles get tougher, the mellow background music makes it feel more like you’re chillaxing, as opposed to seriously flexing your cognitive problem-solving muscles.

Control Your Inner Genie

Before jumping into the first level proper, there’s a tutorial section. The tutorial explains the basics: By tapping and dragging, you control an orange ball moving through a labyrinth.

Your aim, in each level, is to collect the other balls dotted around the maze. The mazes are incredibly simple, and collecting the balls is achieved simply by colliding with them.

The real challenge is that the balls stick to your orange ball as you collect them; your shape grows and changes with each added ball. Maneuvering through the maze becomes tougher as you collect each ball, and forward planning is key to solving each puzzle.

Misadventures in the Maze

My sojourn through the freaky genie’s labyrinth hit a major roadblock, though. Closing the app to take a break, due to a tough level, I returned hours later to be sent back to the start of level one.

Apparently, Stuck Genie features no auto-save functionality. This means that to save, you have to exit the game by first pausing it and then clicking exit (which instigates a save). Simply tapping the iPhone’s Home button will exit, but it won’t save.

Furthermore, after working my way back to the tough level I’d been stuck on, I discovered that there’s no rest or rewind button. This is an all but essential feature for this genre of puzzle game.

To reset the level, you have to open the menu and select rewind; it doesn’t ruin the game, but it’s an oversight nonetheless. Far more preferable would be, say, tapping the genie to use a magical time-reversing crystal, or even just a plain old rewind/reset button.

Summing Up

There’s something about the cartoony yet ornate artwork, which, when melded with the Café del Mar-esque chill-out soundtrack make for a very mellow but challenging puzzler.

This mellow vibe is immensely important in Stuck Genie’s case, because some of the puzzles had me literally roaring with frustration — the good kind of frustration, though, when you know you’re being beat by a devious puzzle and you’ve just got to solve it.

Despite being so much fun from the off, the difficulty curve was unexpectedly steep. Nevertheless, fans of challenging puzzlers should download Stuck Genie and get stuck in immediately.

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Having a laptop battery that drains quickly is one of the most annoying things I can think of. I bought a laptop over a desktop so I could use my computer anywhere and expect the battery to last enough time to get a decent amount of work done. Whenever I find something that can increase my battery life, I get excited. I recently stumbled across a firmware patch for MacBooks that does just that.

The patch was released in March 2009, but I did not find it until just now. According to Apple: “This update improves the ability of MacBook batteries to maintain a charge when the system is shut down and not used for an extended period of time. For more information about this update, please visit this web site: About Battery Update 1.4.”

The products that were affected are as follows: MacBook (13-inch Late 2006), MacBook (13-inch Mid 2007), MacBook (13-inch), MacBook (13-inch Late 2007), MacBook (13-inch, Early 2008), MacBook (13-inch, Late 2008), MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009).

If you own one of the affected models and are interested in giving your MacBook’s battery life a boost, head over to the firmware update page and click the download link.

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I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later, now that it is possible to unlock the iPhone for use on any GSM carrier, but Play.com is now officially offering a sim-free version of the 16GB iPhone for sale on their website without having first unlocked it from O2. According to Play.com, the offer is completely above board, and takes advantage of EU regulations which ensure the availability of sim-free mobile phones to all networks.

This news isn’t to say every barrier is now removed from any UK resident owning an iPhone. There’s still the little issue of cost, and with the iPhone that’s actually not a little issue at all. Play.com is selling the sim-free version for £599, which works out to about $882 U.S. dollars (using today’s conversion rate). That’s a heck of a lot more expensive than the $599 no-contract AT&T model we’ve been hearing about lately. But can you really put a price on freedom? I sure can, and it’s a lot less than $900.

Unfortunately, I don’t really have a choice. There are no import options for North American customers, so over on this side of the pond we’ll have to stick to paying out the nose on eBay for less-than-legit alternatives. Still, I can’t help hoping that this is only the beginning of a loosening of the locked-down distribution model of the iPhone. I understand that Apple can’t be seen willfully encouraging sim-free sales, in the interest of keeping their carrier partners happy, but there’s nothing wrong with quietly giving up the goods when someone like Play.com points out a legal necessity, is there? Of course Canada, where I live, has the most draconian cellular racket in this or any other hemisphere, so I shouldn’t hold my breath.

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Because of the Mac’s wide adoption in the desktop publishing and design world, managing fonts in OS X has long been an important, if unpleasant, task. The Apple tools have always been meager, but Leopard has made important improvements to Font Book, the system utility for managing installed fonts. However, there are still circumstances in which you may want to enlist the help of additional tools to get your fonts into shape.

Continuing our Font School series, I will outline the areas where font management software can help. Also, be sure to read our overview of Font Management Apps for the Mac.

Why Do I Need to Manage Fonts?

There are two general reasons why you would want to enlist software to help manage your fonts. The first, and most obvious, opportunity is simply to get a better handle on the fonts that are available for use in your designs or documents. If you work in a group or team, then it becomes even more important that everyone have the same fonts so you can more easily pass work around without experiencing weird font substitution problems.

The second opportunity is to improve system and application performance. Mac OS X Leopard does just fine with several hundred individual font variations in a few hundred families. When you get beyond that, into thousands of fonts, the system starts to slow down and certain applications take forever to update font menus or even launch. You will want a tool that can activate only the fonts that you need to keep things running nice and lean. Also, some applications like Adobe Creative Suite, QuarkXpress, and Microsoft Office manage their own fonts and font management tools can help you consolidate control.

When Fonts Go Bad

The other important reason for good font management practices, and good font management tools, is to provide you with some assistance in sorting out problems. The most common problems are the system locking up or dropping into a kernel panic when trying to load a bad font or in the event of a Font ID conflict. Good font management software should help you find corrupt fonts and ID conflicts and deal with them. Other problems are generally caused by bad font substitution (the system picking the wrong font and displaying gobbledygook in your email or browser) or corrupt font caches (gobbledygook characters written on top of each other and other nonsense). Good font management software helps manage these issues or at least helps clean up the mess.

Common Problems

Font Cache Corruption

The System, Word, and Adobe all keep their own font cache to speed up on-screen rendering. If the cache becomes corrupt, you will see all sorts of weird behavior. The symptoms include weird characters all printed on top of each other. The fix? Simply flush the cache. In the case of the system cache, you will need to restart the computer when you do so. Most font utilities include a tool to flush these font caches. I like the free Linotype FontExplorer X myself.

Font ID Conflicts

Font ID conflicts prevent the system from loading all the fonts properly. The most common symptom is that the computer will simply not boot except in safe mode. If the system boots, but then hangs when trying to login to a user account, you probably have a conflict (or maybe a corrupt font) in the User font library. Font management software can help you find ID conflicts and resolve them.

Corrupt Fonts

Fonts, just like other files, can become corrupt. If this happens, the system will often hang because fonts are loaded at such a low level in the operating system. There are a few font utilities that can scan for corrupt fonts. FontDoctor and Smasher are two that are available today. Good font management software will scan for corrupt fonts as they are added to the library and FontAgent Pro will also check as fonts are activated.

Font Substitution

Many times, documents specify the font that they are using in a non-specific way. A great example is a CSS stylesheet that asks for Times. There are several variants of the Times font and sometimes your system will pick the wrong one when trying to render the text on the screen. If you see nonsense text or characters in your email or your web browser, you almost certainly have a font substitution problem. The fix is to deactivate the problem font.

Pro Tip: If you see gobbledygook in email or in your browser, try deactivating Helvetica Fraction or Times Phonetic because these seem to be the most common problems. If you need more help, check out the very well written, and relatively inexpensive, e-book from TidBITS publishing titled, Take Control of Font Problems in Leopard.

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The folks at Matchware recently released MindView Pro 3.0 for the Mac. What was formerly called OpenMind has an all-new name and some nifty new features. So, what has changed in this new version? Well, it isn’t a significant upgrade, but here is the short list:

• The product has been renamed from OpenMind 2 to MindView 3.
• There is a new Top Down Vertical layout (see below).
• There is a new Power Filter that has been added to the inspector area. Note, that filters are stored per document.

As a long time user of MindManager from Mindjet, I was eager to see how this product worked. I will say that MindManager on the Mac does not compare to its Windows brethren.

One of the reasons I went looking for a new mind mapping client is the ability to import/export the content and maintain file format fidelity. With MindView 3, I can accomplish that goal.

Of the new features in version 3, here is an example of the new Top Down Vertical Layout.

MindView 3 Top Down Vertical Layout

Filters

Another new feature mentioned above is that you can also filter the data in mind maps (generally ones with lots of branches) so that you can see specific information quickly.

MindView 3 Power Filter

Import/Export

MindView 3 has exceptional export and import capabilities. I was able to export the above simple mindmap as a Word file and then reimport it without any loss in data. However, I did have to reapply the visual style chosen in the original mind map. Thankfully, it was an easy workaround as opposed to losing the actual data (or its structure).

The Export dialog box has many options for a variety of file formats.

MindView 3 Export Dialog Box

Templates

Lastly, MindView 3 comes with a great set of pre-defined templates from timelines to bibliographies and much more. MindView 3 also has a vast library of clip art to use within your mind maps.

MindView 3 Template – Acknowledging Sources

Using this template, you can quickly map the related items when building a document that requires sources. MindView 3 automatically assigns the clip art and structure to the mind map, so you just need to enter the respective data – a very big time saver.

MindView 3 Multimedia Catalog

As you can see, the catalog has a rich set of visuals from a wide variety of places. The best part is that you can favorite particular visuals that you use often within your mind maps.

Conclusion

If you need a solid mind map tool, then MindView 3 is an exceptional choice. It has a rich feature set, and for a cross-platform product, it is very easy to use. In fact, the product does an excellent job of adhering to Apple user interface guidelines. And, with its extensive export capabilities, you can get your data out easily and import it into a variety of other programs without a hitch.

So is there a negative? I would have to say the price. MindView 3 retails at $279, which is not cheap. Other competitors in the space are also not inexpensive, with prices ranging from $129-199. Regardless, you do pay a premium for MindView 3. Thankfully, the folks at Matchware have educational and volume pricing. So, if you are a student or you need more than five licenses, you can get a reasonable deal.

As an aside, I find that one major annoyance with the software vendors in the mind map space is that they do not import/export their competitors file formats. Thus, you better be prepared to export it to text and/or OPML (an outline format). Of course, if you are happy with your existing mind mapping tool, then this might not be an issue.

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A subsidized laptop offering from Apple would help alleviate complaints arising from the October 14 event that pricing on their new notebooks remained too high. Thompson also thinks that Apple is keen to avoid a netbook, as it might cannibalize MacBook sales, so discounting an existing product through a third-party allows them to essentially have their cake and eat it too.

The model to be discounted is thought to be the $999 entry-level white MacBook, a likely choice because it would require a much smaller subsidy than any of the new aluminum models. Many other computer manufacturers, like Dell and Asus, currently offer netbook/subscription packages with wireless carriers like the one proposed between Apple and O2, though such bundles have failed to attract much interest in North America.

O2 is already the exclusive carrier of the iPhone in the U.K., making it the natural choice for a laptop subsidy partnership. Vodafone and Orange currently offer netbooks bundled with mobile broadband subscriptions in the U.K. Vodafone has both £25 and a £30 per month plans, offering 1GB and 3GB of data transfer, each of which includes an Inspiron Mini, free of charge. Orange offers 3GB at £25 per month, and throws in an Eee PC 900 (WinXP, 16GB SSD) for no further cost. Both providers require a two year minimum subscription to get the free hardware. If Apple does go ahead and offer a similar deal in partnership with O2, expect similar monthly pricing and bandwidth limits, and not free, but deeply discounted hardware.

Would you sign a contract to pick up an Apple notebook for a low initial cost? Or are mobile broadband bundles just another example of the cheap razor/expensive blades school of marketing misdirection?

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So if you’ve been holding out on pulling the trigger on a new toy, now might be the time to pull out the old credit card and pony up the dough.

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What does it in for me, however, is that Apple is pushing their ringtone product at me when I don’t even own an iPhone.

In the iTunes store for every album that has any ringtones available for its songs it shows the little bell next to the songs I could purchase as a ringtone as well as an entire section in the sidebar dedicated to ringtones.

You could call it cross selling/marketing but I call it overcrowding and unnecessary. It wastes valuable screen space pushing a product I have absolutely no possible way of even using.

Maybe Apple is doing it in the hopes that some poor soul without an iPhone will accidentally purchase it thinking they can use it or maybe the marketing guru’s think a few 30 second loops of a song will make me buy an iPhone. I’m not sure. I am sure that I’d like a Preference option to turn off any and all traces of ringtones in the store though.

If they’re really looking to cross sell some things, maybe a more useful feature would be suggesting the movies and TV shows that certain songs by that artist include.

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