The following four bundles expire between Dec. 23 and Dec. 31. As tends to be the case with these bundles, there’s usually a standout app or two which make the bundle worth the price tag, then you get a handful of other stuff. The rest can be pretty hit or miss, but if you can get one or two great programs at less than retail, then anything else is just gravy. The best part is, if you or someone you know is new to Mac and could use some great software, bundle deals like these are a terrific place to start!

Titles in bold italics highlight some of the apps that really make the bundles worth the cash.

MacPromo.com
10 OS X Apps for $49.99
Ends Dec. 31

• TypeIt4Me
• Personal Anstispam
• PathFinder
• MacFreelance
• Folx Pro
• DragThing
• Keyboard Maestro
• CuteClips
• Name Mangler
• Personal Backup
• First 5000 buyers also get Star Wars: Empire at War

Indie Mac Gift pack
6 OS X Apps for $60
Ends Dec. 31

• Delicious Library 2
• Acorn 2
• MarsEdit 3
• Radioshift
• SousChef
• Sound Studio 4

Humble Indie Bundle
5 OS X Games (playable on Steam) for… well, you actually get to set your price!
Ends Dec. 25

• Braid
• Cortex Command
• Machinarium
• Osmos
• Revenge of the Titans

MUPromo Bundle
11 Mac Apps for $49.99
Ends Dec. 23

• 1Password
• MacFamilyTree
• DEVONthink
• Flux
• Default Folder X
• Art Text + Fonts
• Swift Publisher
• Chronories
• Interarchy
• Typinator
• WhatSize
• Tweet the Bundle, and get Process free
• Sign up for the newsletter, and get Image Tricks Pro free

For this writer’s money, the MacPromo and the MUPromo bundles seem to have the best line-ups. They include what are widely known as some of the more popular programs for the OS X platform — with the likes of Pathfinder, DragThing, 1Password, and Default Folder X to name just a few. However you want to slice it, these bundles represent some good deals, but they’re as fleeting as the Christmas season, so act quick if you’re interested.

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• Motives and Possibilities for a Big Apple Acquisition
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DataMan tracks all data usage (Wi-Fi and 3G) and calculates how much you can use per day and per week to stay within your data plan. It also informs you, via push notifications, whether your current usage is within or beyond your daily and weekly budget. DataMan can even run in the background and geotag data usage. You can then see exactly when and where you use the most data on a map.

I learned the value of a tool like DataMan last month when my wife somehow switched off Wi-Fi on her iPhone (which only has a 200mb plan). Suddenly, she’d used 90 percent of her data plan with most of the billing period to go. With DataMan, we wouldn’t have been caught by surprise.

I now set the app to alert me on heavy usage days. I don’t worry that I’ll hit my 2GB limit, but I still appreciate the ability to know where the data is going and where I was when I used it. Being able to see the pinpoints on a map, connected by time of usage, allows me to literally track where I was going throughout the day. Between battery drain concerns, though, and the big-brother feel of the geo-location, some users may wish to disable this feature — something that’s now possible in version 3.

DataMan could come in handy for developers looking to study usage trends on test devices. For those who’ve mysteriously exceeded their data allowances and been dinged by AT&T, the $1.99 price of DataMan is well worth knowing exactly how and why. 

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

• App Developers: Are You Ready for HTML5 and Metered Data?
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I realize you can open a PDF, drag another PDF into the Preview window, and combine in that fashion, but in my experience, there’ve been issues with cross-platform compatibility when using this method. I turned to Automator, and within a few minutes, had a pretty simple and effective way to solve the problem.

1. I decided to create a Service rather than a standalone application or workflow, so it would be accessible from anywhere I may end up in the Finder, at any time.



2. Since PDFs were my focus, I set the service to target them while browsing from the Finder. You can obviously play around with these settings to do different things, depending on your needs.



3. The first action to drag into the editor is the heavy lifter here, and is very clearly named: “Combine PDF Pages.” I’d prefer they append to one another rather than shuffle them together.



4. At this point, I thought I was done, but when I would run the Service against a couple of PDF files, I had no idea where the resulting file ended up. For some reason, it wasn’t in the clipboard, but rather, was in some non-accessible directory of OS X. So added the “Move Finder Items” command into the editor, and the result was just what I wanted.



5. Finally, select the files in the Finder, right click, and choose your newly-created Service from the Services submenu. The resulting PDF shows up as some gibberish file name, right on the desktop.

Automator is a flexible tool, and can be made to do so many of the random tasks that we find need for on a daily basis. Hopefully, this simple solution will kickstart the process of creating your own custom workflows, as well.

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The story doesn’t end there. Quick Search Box started life as a fairly dumbed-down, albeit OS X-compatible, alternative to Quicksilver. It seemed that this new offering had the support of Google and would go far. In the meantime, Quicksilver’s code was open-sourced, and the community started slowly hacking away at it.

Now today, we have access to a community-supported version of Quicksilver that runs smoothly on OS X 10.6, as well as the Google-backed Quick Search Box which also works well enough. So which is the better choice for daily use?

I dumped Quicksilver a year or so ago in favor of Quick Search Box. The replacement was good enough for launching and finding files, and since that’s mostly what I used it for, things were good. However, as time passed, the functionality of Google’s product hasn’t closed the gap nearly as much as I’d like to see. Neither has the developer support really exploded in the form of plugins, as we’ve seen over the years for Quicksilver. Worst of all, Quick Search Box isn’t as responsive as I’d like.

So not too long ago, I went to Blacktree and downloaded the latest Quicksilver release. I found it to be much faster than the Google solution right away. Further use has shown it to be nowhere near as buggy as it once was (I have yet to experience a Quicksilver crash after a couple months’ use). But the best part is, all of the old functionality I knew and loved — both native (oh, how I missed complex triggers) as well as plugin support (let’s hear it for text and image manipulation) — is there and better than ever.

Whether you’re a current user of Google’s Quick Search Box, a past user of Quicksilver or new to both, I’d highly recommend taking a look at the latest build of Quicksilver. It’s been a happy homecoming for me, and I’m confident that the great functionality, speed, and extensibility that the app offers will make it of great use to you, too.

If you’ve found bliss with either program, please share your tale, and what it was that was the make or break feature for you.

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Some of the religious apps are audio-based, while others provide brief moments (“thought of the day” style) of inspiration. There are the standard works for reading, as well as full-on study aids to really dig in deep. There are even some religious-themed comic books, if that’s more to your taste. Of course, these various options are used at the whim of individual developers, so not all features and delivery methods are available in every religion.

Audio

Covering both hymns and music, as well as readings of the texts and talks, there are some good choices for those who want to use the iPad speakers (or headphones):

• Christian Radio FM (+ $1.99)
• Mormon Channel for iPad (FREE)
• 50 Audio Catholic Verses (+ $2.99)
• HearQuran (FREE)
• JesusTellsMe (+ $1.99)
• Audiorelatos Biblicos 1 (+ $2.99)

Quick Inspiration

Days are busy, but if you want a quick bit of inspiration before you start your day, these apps should deliver:

• Daily Jesus (+ $1.99)
• Words of Zen ($1.99)
• Words of Jesus for iPad ($1.99)
• Words of Buddha for iPad ($1.99)

Standard Books

If you’re just looking to read the Good Word on your iPad, these apps are probably a good place to start:

• Hebrew Bible (+ $6.99)
• The Quran (+ $.99)
• Russian Bible HD ($4.99)
• KJV Bible (+ $5.99)
• LDS Scriptures Library ($14.99)

Serious Study
With lots of great features, these iPad apps should get you kick-started for some serious religious study:

• Logos (FREE)
• Gospel Library for iPad (FREE)

There are likely other great apps for serious study for other religions, but as they lie outside my own personal purview. I decided it’s best left to devotees of those faiths to suggest their own in the comments.

Obviously there are many, many more app choices out there. Using the iPad as a platform for religious study means more than just reading the printed (or in this case, digital) word. Many offer online syncing of bookmarks, additional resource downloads, highlighting/note taking, audio passages, and even group study tools. So take your time in perusing the many options to find out which app’s features best suit your needs.

As an interesting aside, I’m seeing more and more iPads appearing at my own worship services on Sundays. The portability and flexibility of the device obviously allows for ease of planning, administration, study, and note taking: all of which fit the bill for many attending church services. I’ve even seen the iPad being used for Sunday School lessons and presentations. The versatility of Apple’s latest device is certainly finding a home in nearly every facet of people’s’ lives.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Analyzing The Social E-book

Zagg, the makers of the venerable Invisible Shield, have several film options that cover every single surface of your phone and allow you to choose the level of coverage you want. For $9.99, you can get the 4FIX Band/Antenna coverage, which is clear laminate for the metal edges (antennas) of your iPhone.

On Etsy, where creative individuals sell their ideas, you can get iPhone antenna-aids. They’re currently sold out, but they sell in a six-pack of different colored band aids. Clever.

Then there’s the most economical idea: the iPhone Patch. At only $1.50, you can get them in several different designs to suit your personality. Maybe they aren’t the snazziest of designs, but I can see teens buying off on this product for sure. All in all, not too bad for the equivalent of pocket change.

Of course, these options aren’t guaranteed to solve any antenna issues you may be having, but they should help remind you to avoid the dreaded “death grip.” And if you don’t care about looks at all, just use some duct tape; that stuff fixes everything!

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Will Apple’s Spectrum Bet Pay Off?

Apple has always been about control. The company controls its hardware and software in such an extreme fashion that its products are often superbly optimized and run like tops. Though, as we’ve seen with the App Store, this high degree of control can also draw criticism, and has caused frustration in the developer community. Now, advertisers are feeling those same pains as developers — but perhaps since they have less to lose, they’ll be more willing to stand up to Apple.

While iAd aims to make in-app marketing easy for developers to utilize, advertisers are feeling the pain of having to interact with Apple’s stringent rules, approval process, and closely-held explanations of how it all should work. A big concern has been the additional time that Apple’s approval processes have added to the design life-cycle (sound familiar?), which can be a killer in the marketing business. These issues have resulted in hardships for early adopters, such as a lack of marketing content or a delayed roll-out while they figure out the best way to approach the use of iAds. While many marketers would certainly love to be on iOS, mobile is not their top priority; mobile display advertising is only supposed to be worth $253 million in 2010, compared to an estimated total $170 billion in total U.S. advertising revenue this year.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Apple has inserted itself directly into the creative process, mandating that they approve designs prior to them ending up in the iAd rotation. That Apple wants a hand in the end look and feel of ads that will run on their devices is really no surprise; they have a standard of how things should look and function in their world, and they aren’t about to let Joe Marketer undo that. The root of the problem though, seems to be that Apple hasn’t released a developer kit of documentation and guidelines for using the iAd platform. Built on HTML5, iAds are intended to run in-app so the user doesn’t have to leave their place if they find interest in a particular advertisement. However, the interaction design is reportedly being closely held by Apple.

Perhaps the iAd concept wasn’t fully baked and should have been cultivated and researched a bit more by Apple before being released. Or maybe it’s such a new business model that Apple is still adapting to the best way of handling it. Whatever the case, it can only help Apple’s case to release some of these guidelines and processes to those who need them most: the people paying money to have their content seen across the iOS platform.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: How iAd and the iPad Will Change Mobile Marketing

The Genius feature, like that already found on iPhone and iPod touch, delivers a listing of apps that you may enjoy, based on your past purchases. The Genius featured on the iPhone has been fairly useful, and I check it from time to time if I’m looking for something new I may have missed in my other searches. When a suggestion isn’t useful, just use the “Not Interested” button to let the App Store know that the app suggested wasn’t your cup of tea.

Unlike the iPhone, the iPad’s Genius feature offers two flavors of suggestions: the kind I mentioned above, which is based on prior purchases, as well as the ‘Upgrades’ view. Upgrades reveals apps that you purchased for iPhone, and which have an iPad equivalent that may be of interest to you. (Obviously this doesn’t matter for apps that are universal between the two devices.)

If you’re looking for some new apps, the search just got a little easier. Fire up Genius in the App Store on your iPad and go find some new apps to plunk down some money on.

Related GigaOM Pro Research: Is Marketing Key to Mobile App Store Sales?

Checking Your Current State of Affairs

First, go to the Finder, right-click on your hard drive, and select “Get Info.” Under the General heading, you’ll find the details on your drive’s Capacity, Available, and Used space. It seems like I’m always shocked at how low that Available space number is, despite my best efforts to keep my Mac’s storage well-groomed. Media files (music, movies, photos) tend to be the main culprit, but Applications and other documents and support files may be to blame as well. The key is in identifying exactly what is taking up that space before you take any sort of action.

Disk Visualization

Disk visualizers are the way to go. They give you an easy way of looking at which folders contain the heavyweight files that you may or may not need (or can at least backup to an external drive if your hard drive space is at a premium). Grand Perspective and Disk Inventory X are somewhat old-school in their visuals, but are free. JDiskReport is a long time favorite of mine (also free) but in 10.6, it requires Rosetta to be installed as it’s not a Universal app for OS X. (The OS installs Rosetta for you, but if you don’t want extra background chaff, this may be a deal breaker for you.) OmniDiskSweeper is also free, but doesn’t have much in the way of visuals. WhatSize has been around for a while, and has a nice user interface and some great features to remove files once they’ve been found. It’ll set you back $12.99. Then there’s DaisyDisk, which looks stunning and works very nicely, although doesn’t have all the nice-to-have removal features. DaisyDisk goes for $19.95

Getting Rid of the Extras

As an extra tip, there are some system type files that are notorious for taking up lots of unnecessary space for many users, a major one being language packs. OS X ships with support for many different languages. There are some solutions out there for easily getting rid of those language packs to reclaim some storage space — just make sure you read the fine print so you don’t break anything!

Printer drivers are another thing that OS X comes loaded-down with. The premise is noble — make it easy for Mac users to use nearly any printer, but that convenience comes at a cost. If you regularly use only a couple of different printers, you may want to look into removing the dead weight drivers.

And lastly, a tip for iPhone/iPod/iPad users: iTunes keeps full backups of your iDevice stored within iTunes. I discovered recently that as I’ve upgraded my iPhone hardware over the years, my number of backups as grown, and taken up several extra gigabytes of storage. It’s probably worth curating those out-of-date backups while you’re at it.

Maintenance

Great! By now you’ve hopefully identified many of the files that are eating up space on your precious hard drive. You’ve either determined them deletable, necessary, or candidates for backup. So how do you maintain the space that you’ve reclaimed and/or have left? Unfortunately there’s no all-encompassing solution (that I’ve found yet), but the following are some applications which offer good solutions for keeping on top of your hard drive using maintenance practices.

Hazel (which we’ve written about plenty) can watch folders for you and perform intricate actions that you decide upon and build based on your criteria, and costs $21.95 — well worth it! AppZapper ($21.95) is the uninstaller that OS X lacks. CleanMyMac is a well-rounded system maintenance solution for cleaning out unused system caches, and other bloat-type files that build up over time. It costs $14.95 for six months or $29.95 for lifetime use. A smallish shareware utility called Singular identifies duplicate files on your hard drive. It was updated recently, but the developer’s main website is currently down, and I don’t recall the cost. Lastly is Squeeze. It doesn’t remove files like the rest, but it does work on compressing your drive’s files to save space. It’s sort of magical, and costs $12.95.

Bloated hard drives — whether from your own files, or the system’s — can impact the performance of your system. Using these tools to maintain that available space will not only help keep your Mac running well, but also keep you informed of the space you have, so you’re not caught by surprise when you run low on storage. Good luck waging war on your hard drive!

I’m sure I know what you’re grumbling right now: “iPhoto/Aperture does that, what’s the big deal?” Well, if you want to get right to the good stuff — all the good stuff — without scrubbing through the chaff first, there may be a better way to address the situation.

The situation as I see it, looks something like this:

• Over time, I’ve used iPhoto, so I have some photos there.
• I also, and exclusively now, use Aperture.
• I’ve got random video clips from the point-and-shoot camera that are scattered around Finder and iPhoto.
• I’ve got Flip video in the Flip version of iPhoto.
• I’ve got photos and HD video from my iPhone 4 in Aperture.

I realize that maybe I’m just sorely disorganized (ok, I know I am), but I’m guessing similar conditions probably exist in many a household out there in reader-land. Sharing all of this from my Mac is one thing. At least it’s all right there, so even if I have to switch apps and dig a little bit, I can get to it. But then there’s the real kicker: How do I elegantly get all of the good stuff synced to my mobile iDevice to share on the go?

My Solution

The solution I came up with isn’t necessarily the best (please share your own in the comments for the good of the community!), but it has certainly proven to suit my needs. Basically, I siphon all of the photos and personal video from their various locations (older iPhoto libraries, various Aperture libraries, Flip Video, Finder, and so on) and drop them all into a single iPhoto library (which I’ve named ‘sync’).

If you’re unfamiliar with creating a new iPhoto library, it’s quite easy. When you launch iPhoto, hold down the Option key, and a dialogue will ask you if you want to select a different library, or create a new one. Once I created the new library and dragged all my media in, I made sure it was organized in a way that made sense for me to show it off. So I’ve got ‘Family 2009′, ‘Family 2010′, ‘Photography’, and ‘Home Movies’ albums for easy access to everything. Of course, you may want to drill down to specific events like iPhoto and Aperture do, so do whatever makes most sense for your needs.

The beauty of this particular solution is that since Aperture is my main photo application, iPhoto is left untouched. Therefore, leaving the ‘sync’ library as the default in iPhoto means it’s always available for syncing to my iPhone. And of course if I’m at home I can pull up iPhoto on the MacBook or big screen to easily share the content that I want without having to sift through tons of other media that isn’t nearly as interesting.

The downside here is that whenever you have new photos or videos, you have to manually drag and drop them into your new ‘Sync’ iPhoto library. Although with a little time and know-how, Automator could be utilized to solve this problem as well.

If you’ve run into the same problem, and developed your own workaround, we’d love to hear your solution as well.

The service is currently in private beta, but you can sign up for the opportunity to try it out. Invites appear to be going out already, though who knows how many folks will get a chance early on in the private program. The subscription will run $9.99 per month, and give season pass type access to full seasons of television shows, as well as past seasons for some programming. All of the content will purportedly be presented in glorious HD.

Though the service itself is in private beta, the iPhone/iPad app is available right now for download. There is a gallery of free sample content and a tour of the content offerings as a whole, but otherwise you must have a beta invite to log in and do more.

It looks fairly similar to the ABC television layout — and interestingly, highlights some of the ABC programming that’s freely available via its iPad app. The app works and feels much like the browser-based and desktop interfaces, which was a good move to keep things simple for anyone already familiar with the service. The search functions in real-time and gives an immediate listing of available content for consumption in an easy to navigate layout. You can even hide the top horizontal pane to focus on the shows that you’re looking for without distractions. From a player perspective, you can pause and play, but like the existing service, there are intermittent commercials to sit through which you cannot skip.

I’d be lying if I said this premise didn’t piqué a little bit of interest for me. However, a couple of things seem odd. The first, is that they aren’t clear whether the private beta is allowing you to try it for free, or try it with the $10-a-month subscription. I would hope the former if, but it doesn’t seem to be stated where I could find any clarification. The other odd part, is enabling this subscription service and content for web-enabled television sets. Content-wise, we’re talking about free, over the air network television programming, not cable which may be limited to some people who would pay $10 a month for this access. We can already watch this stuff on our TVs without paying for it. Oh, and we’re still getting commercials while paying for this otherwise free content? Hm…

Yes, there are older shows available, and yes, it’s cool to see this stuff on the go via iPad or iPhone, but with many people having DVRs and Sling devices — not to mention Netflix and the ABC apps for iPad — how enticing will Hulu Plus actually be? If you’ve gotten an invite and have some insights to share on the topic — or even have an opinion (we know you do) about the attractiveness of this new offering — we’re all ears. Guess Flash on the iPhone wasn’t such a big barrier after all.

And the move makes sense too; I mean, with the iPad and iPod touch, “iPhone OS” is a misnomer. But if Apple has seen the point in renaming the OS, at what point will it admit that iTunes is horribly named at this point in time, considering all the functions it fulfills?

More to the point, is iTunes in need of a new name for all of its functionality? Or is there perhaps a different/new application that should take on the tasks that iTunes has handled for the past few years? This line of thinking isn’t a new one, but now that the mobile operating system has gotten the new treatment, and brings additional functionality which allows PDFs to be synced and reviewed using iBooks, there’s a better argument than ever.

Here’s a quick review of the things that iTunes facilitates a sync function for at this point in time:

1. Music
2. Videos – Movies, Music Videos, TV shows, Home Videos
3. Photos
4. PDF documents/books
5. Books
6. Browser bookmarks
7. Address Book Contacts
8. Calendars
9. Email Accounts
10. Audio Books
11. Applications
12. Podcasts
13. Notes

With so many disparate pieces of information and media content being pulled in from so many different applications, I don’t understand the need for iTunes, in its current state, to remain the hub for syncing all this data to our mobile devices. My point here is that iTunes isn’t the single repository for all of the stuff we push to our devices — while it does manage some media, it also tries to play middle man to various applications’ data sources that we decide to pull from.

OS X still includes a little utility (that I’m not sure many people even use anymore) called iSync. Seems like a good name — it certainly conveys the idea of what one may want to do with such a program! So a possible solution could be to re-purpose iSync as the central place to push/pull all of the content listed above, to the iPhone/iPod touch/iPad.

The other, less invasive change (though Apple marketing would have a big job with re-branding efforts) would be to slap a shiny new name on iTunes. iMedia? iStuff? iHub? iXfer? But I don’t know where to begin with such a nebulous collection of functions iTunes is in charge of.

So, what names would you give to iTunes, to better relate all that it does? Or should iTunes even continue to be a jack of all trades?

In the meantime, several of us here at TheAppleBlog have gotten our sweaty mitts on the new iPhone 4, and have had a chance to jot down some impressions after a few days with the new hardware. Perhaps you’ll find the following helpful in making the decision to purchase Apple’s new mobile phone.

Nick Santilli

What an amazing update to an already great iPhone heritage! The construction is so precise and the finish is perfect. It just feels solid in the hand, and I love the glass on both the front and back — which doesn’t seem to be scratching thus far. The speed seems a bit snappier than the 3GS, but the horsepower is quite evident when handling something like mobile iMovie (which is awesome). To me, the camera is the standout feature, though I’m hoping to find the battery blows me away too.

[inline-ad]

The highlights (so far) are:
Extra Photons: Steve told us this new five megapixel camera does better in lower light. He absolutely tells the truth. The camera is spectacular.
The Camera’s Flash: Not only is it super strong, it now gives you a legitimate flashlight in a pinch. Goodbye flashlight apps!
Snappier Buttons: Maybe this is a goofy thing to point out, but the vibrate switch, home button, and even the microSIM slot are extremely rigid and precise.

Geoffrey Goetz

FaceTime First Impressions: FaceTime does not work through Google Voice, only direct iPhone-to-iPhone calls on AT&T’s network. Both callers must also be connected via Wi-Fi somehow. If that Wi-Fi connection happens to be via a Palm Pre Plus Verizon Mobile Hot Spot Wi-Fi connection, FaceTime works just fine. The quality over Verizon’s network on the video is just as sharp as over a broadband connected Wi-Fi connection. No scientific testing to prove this, but impressions were unanimously good. The front facing camera is a fish eye lens and makes you look fat. The primary lens works much better than the front facing lens when using FaceTime, so if there is something you want to show the person on the other end of the call, consider using the primary lens.

Chris Ryan

I love iPhone 4. I haven’t noticed any of the signal loss issues, though the lack of FaceTime support with Google Voice is a bit of a bummer. The design feels very solid and the overall speed improvements of the A4 processor make AT&T’s 3G network not seem so slow anymore.

From an iOS 4 standpoint, multitasking is a nice bonus, but it’s a little annoying to find every single app I’ve used hang out down there. Without constant closing of the apps, it’s not long before I have 8-9 icons to scrub through.

Oh, and I love the Retina Display.

Brian Schuetz

Initial Impression: The build quality, and the feel of the object when you hold it in your hand is as amazing as you’d expect. I also picked up a bumper when I got the phone, but adding it really ruins the overall aesthetic for me so I’m going sans case for now.

Getting to Know it: The display is insanely nice. Apps that have optimized for the additional pixels available on the screen look really, really, great. When Steve said it would be like looking at a printed page he wasn’t kidding. On the other hand, it’s obvious when apps haven’t provided higher resolution graphics, and they look bad. In a lot of cases, apps have built out versions for iOS 4 but have not optimized for the new Retina Display.

Some Concerns: The death grip (significant interference with the cell signal when holding the device in a certain way) is real, and it’s bad. It’s not entirely clear what’s causing the trouble although speculation on the web is rampant. My own suspicion is that there is a problem in iOS 4 with how the phone is interpreting noise on the signal and choosing to correct for it. I don’t think it’s a hardware flaw, and I’m hopeful that iOS 4.0.1 will fix it.

–

I think Brian sums it up best by quoting Ferris Bueller: “It’s so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

One would assume that AT&T knows enough to prepare for such an anticipated device, but it seems that three years of preparation have not been enough. Whether trying to order through the Apple Store online, or directly from att.com, the account verification step seems to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

However, there is an alternative if you are still not having success with the website approach. (At the time of this writing, Apple.com was still not working as expected, but att.com/wireless seemed to work intermittently.) The Apple Store doesn’t seem to be able to help — they’re still bound by AT&T’s verification steps. But if you walk into a brick and mortar AT&T shop, the good people there should be ready and able to assist you. A quick run by the local store here found no crowding, but the staff was ready and prepared for a rush.

Oh, and one other thing to be aware of: while both 16GB and 32 GB models are available for preorder today, the white model won’t be available until later this summer. Perhaps it was a last minute addition to the sales offering. But whatever the case, if you want one on launch day, you can get any color you like, as long as it’s black.

What has your pre-order experience been like?

On Tuesday, June 15, Apple will begin taking pre-orders for iPhone 4. The new device will begin shipping on June 24 to the U.S., France, Germany, UK and Japan. By sometime in September, Apple plans to be shipping iPhone 4 to 88 countries around the world.

Not just mimicking the current 3GS storage sizes of 16 and 32 gigabytes, the (subsidized) pricing scheme will be the same too, at $199 and $299 respectively. It appears that both models will come in either black or white colors, which incidentally, is visible on the front as well as the back of the new iPhone.

While iPhone OS 4, now dubbed iOS 4, is being released to developers today in Gold Master form, there was no official mention of the ship date for current iPhone users. However, it seems likely that the update would be available along with iPhone 4 come June 24.

In the meantime, check out the iPhone 4 design video. Seeing it in such detail, and all the behind the scenes technology is really breathtaking!

Built-in OS X Functionality

• Command + Shift + 3

  This keystroke results in a full screenshot and saves the resulting file as a PNG, to your desktop. The file is named with the date and time it was captured.

• Command + Shift + 4

  Pressing these keys initially brings up a cross hair on screen that displays the coordinates of the cursor. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture. When you release the mouse button, the capture will be saved to the desktop as previously mentioned.

  If you press the spacebar while the crosshairs are visible, it changes into a camera icon that you can position over a specific window that you may wish to capture. (That window must be visible when you initiate the keystroke.)

  During both modes you may hold the Control key at the time of capture. Doing so will save the resulting shot to the clipboard rather than a file on the desktop.

Grab

The Grab application resides in the /Applications/Utilities folder. It’s pretty simplistic, and essentially duplicates the functionality of the built-in OS X feature, albeit, with a couple of small differences. After you’ve taken the screenshot, it is displayed for you to review at which time you must explicitly save it, if it is indeed what you wanted. This also allows you to choose where you’re going to save the file. There’s a Preferences window where you can choose from eight cursor images to be captured in the resulting image. Otherwise, things are pretty much the same. The keystrokes are different, as you’ll see next.

• Command + Shift + A

  This keystroke results in a crosshair on screen that displays the coordinates of the cursor. Click and drag to select the area you want to capture.

• Command + Shift + W

  This keystroke allows you to move windows around to select the one you’d like to capture.

• Command + Z

  This keystroke results in a full screenshot.

• Command + Shift  + Z

  This keystroke results in a full screenshot after a 10 second timer elapses.

Skitch

Skitch is developed by the rockstars at Plasq. It’s super powerful and really easy to use. You get to edit size, crop, draw nondestructively, there’s multi-format export, web upload, copy to clipboard, review history and much more. The best part is, it’s 100% free to use!

• Command + Shift + 5

  Pressing this keystroke brings up the (now familiar) crosshairs to select the region of the screen you wish to capture. The image is then opened into Skitch for further editing and use — this is the same for each key combo.

• Command + Shift + 6

  This keystroke results in a full screen capture.

• Command + Shift + 7

  This keystroke brings up a frame that you can resize to capture a portion of the screen. Initially this may seem to be the same as the crosshair — the difference is, the frame retains its dimensions each time, allowing you to capture uniform shots multiple times.

LittleSnapper

LittleSnapper is developed by RealMac Software. It approaches screenshots from an iPhoto perspective, allowing you to catalog, group, and tag your shots for later use. There’s a built-in browser for grabbing all or a portion of a webpage. The export feature allows you to save a webpage to a PDF file, or any screen capture to multiple image formats. There’s also an editor for tweaking the shots once you’ve captured them. With all this functionality comes a price — it’s $39. There’s also a free trial to see if it’s a good fit for you.

• Command + Option + 3

  This keystroke produces a full screen capture. Once captured, it is loaded into the LittleSnapper gallery for further editing and use — this behavior is consistent with all key combos.

• Command + Shift + Option + 3

  Similar to Grab, this gives you a short timer before the full screen image is captured.

• Command + Option + 4

  This keystroke gives you the crosshairs to choose the region of the screen to capture.

• Command + Option + 5

  This keystroke captures a specific window on screen. At least a portion of the window must be visible before initiating the keystroke.

So depending on your screenshot needs, there’s an app for that (sorry, I couldn’t help myself). The built-in tools are great and produce nice results. I personally opt for Skitch almost daily as it provides the level of control I need, but can see where something like LittleSnapper would be ideal for the designer types. There are plenty of other options out there too, if you want to get your Google on. But hopefully we’ve armed you with a little more knowledge today, to get that perfect screenshot the next time you need one.