Over half of new Macs are being bought by users new to the platform. After years of negative experiences on that other platform, new Mac users might be a little worried about downloading software for their machine. Here are some safe bets to get you started. Read More »
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Jon Buys
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Moving from Windows to Mac is a big change, and can be a little disconcerting at first. A friend of mine described the feeling akin to being “underwater.” One of the biggest differences between the platforms is in how windows are managed. Read More »
I’m one of the lucky few who can carry their MacBook Pro to and from work each day, and just use one computer for everything. Still, I’m not always happy with my current setup. There’s one big thing missing that PC laptops have: the docking station. Read More »
Back in July, I wrote an article rounding up some of the top RSS readers for the iPad. Since posting, I’ve started using a new client, River of News. River of News is simple, elegant, and beautiful. Twitter embraces very different design principles. Which is better? Read More »
Adobe today announced the newest version of their consumer photo editing tool, Photoshop Elements, the kid brother of the Photoshop CS5 we all know and love. Adobe also announced Premiere Elements 9, available for the first time on the Mac. Both are available now. Read More »
iOS 4.1 was, as expected, announced during today’s annual September keynote, and includes a slew of bug fixes, and a few new features. But iOS 4.2 was also previewed, which bring iOS 4 to the iPad. Read More »
More Must Reads
One annoyance that I’ve found in dealing with multiple windows in OS X is how each application seems to view the green plus button a little differently. Divvy is an app that provides a user-defined solution to that oversight, and does it in style. Read More »
Did you know that the same servers that host your iWeb site can host HTML generated by any app? We’ll take a look at using Jekyll with MobileMe to generate a blog that can be hosted on your MobileMe account. Read More »
Under my desk is a PowerMac G4 with a whopping 512MB of RAM. When I acquired the old boy, it was running Tiger, had been used and abused and desktop support had put it out to pasture. But I knew all it needed was some TLC. Read More »
Something about Apple’s press conference yesterday just didn’t sit right with me. They seem to be doing the right thing by giving out the free bumper cases, but how they explained why the cases are needed in some instances didn’t quite cover everything. Read More »
Feed reading is arguably one of the primary uses of the iPad, so making a good RSS client for it very important. Here’s a run-down of the five feed readers available now for the iPad. Read More »
Apple has opened up the Safari extensions gallery for third-party submissions in preparation of opening the gallery to the public. While you can install extensions now, you need to first know where to download them. Read More »
One of the best features of the iPad is its lack of features, especially when it comes to writing. Knowing that chat is not running and Twitter is turned off lets the writer focus entirely on the task of writing. Read More »
This is a developing story, and not all of the facts are out yet, but if what is being reported on The Next Web turns out to be true, it may be prudent to stop reading and remove your credit card from your iTunes account. Read More »
Today, Apple released a press statement announcing that it is delaying shipments of the white iPhone 4 until late July due to manufacturing delays. The black iPhone 4 is not affected by this manufacturing issue. Read More »
iOS 4 brings a new way to organize apps on the iPhone. Previously, the only organization available was to separate the apps on different pages and flick between them. After a few pages of apps, it became harder to find the one you were looking for. Read More »
Apple’s new Mac mini has a number of great new features including an updated case, an HDMI port and a speed bump in specs, but what’s not so great is its value proposition when compared to an iMac or MacBook. Read More »
The best place to start with any new programming job is a simple “Hello World.” With this walkthrough for creating a basic Safari extension, we’ll create a skeleton to build a toolbar button from using just a little bit of frontend code. Read More »
Steve Jobs revealed at the D8 conference his vision of what the future of the Mac looks like: a Ford F250. Not in design, and maybe not in build quality, but in everyday utility. Read More »
Apple quietly released a major upgrade to Safari, bringing the browser up to version 5.0 for both Mac and Windows. Safari 5 brings several welcome improvements, including a new “Reader” mode, improved HTML 5 support and a new extensions architecture. Read More »
Inside the new iPhone 4 revealed today at WWDC is the same superfast chip architecture that powers the iPad, the A4. Alongside the A4 is a bigger battery, giving the iPhone better battery life and improved performance. Read More »
iCab Mobile is the browser for the iPad I’ve been waiting for. Using the same WebKit rendering engine as Mobile Safari, iCab brings a true “desktop” class browser to the iPad, including tabs and more settings than you can shake a stick at. Read More »
Everything changes as it grows, some things for the better, but others for the worse. Anyone who’s been a part of the Apple community for the past 10 years can testify how Apple has changed over that time. Jonathan Rentzsch has cancelled his incredible C4 conference. Read More »
Soon after receiving my bluetooth Apple keyboard, I found that most of the keyboard shortcuts I was hoping for were not there. So, after trying every keyboard shortcut I could think of, here’s a rundown of all the shortcuts that work on the iPad. Read More »
The real world experiences of children using the iPad has not stopped the Nielsen Norman Group from releasing a preliminary 93-page report detailing the usability problems of the iPad, citing problems in learning gestures, hidden controls, small buttons, and many other usability errors. Read More »
Looks like Mac Developers will be in the running for an ADA after all…ADA as in “Ars Design Award,” that is. Ars Technica is stepping up to fill the empty space left by Apple this year by hosting their own ADAs. Read More »
LapDock and Clamcase look like they both had the same idea at the same time: convert the iPad into a netbook/slate hybrid, and get the best of both worlds. The idea is genius, and the execution, from what we can see so far, looks great. Read More »
I don’t think I’ve ever had a device as throughly beaten as this old Mini. So, imagine my surprise when, after months of neglect and mistreatment, the Mini powered on and filled my daughter’s room with music once more. Read More »
Google’s Chrome browser is fast, small, and “nearly” perfect. Using the same Webkit rendering engine as Safari, and its own custom V8 javascript engine, Chrome has been blowing away the competition on Windows for over a year. Google is finally nearing a release … Read More »
Once upon a time, iTunes did exactly what it sounded like it should do: play music. It was the digital jukebox for your mac, Rip, Mix, Burn, remember that? Looking at the sidebar in iTunes now, I’ve got Music, Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, iTunes … Read More »
Time again to pop a shell and dig into the deep, geeky Unix internals of OS X with Dig Into Unix. Today we are going to look at two top-shelf power tools for text editing: sed and awk. Sed is a Stream EDitor, and … Read More »
Snow Leopard’s release is just around the corner, so here are some quick and easy steps to make sure that you are ready to upgrade. Turn On Time Machine If you haven’t already, now is a great time to turn on the Time Machine built in backup. … Read More »
This is the third installment of our Dig Into Unix series, an ongoing look into the deep, geeky insides of the core of OS X. In the first part, we got to fire up the Terminal and take a look around … Read More »
Continuing our Dig Into Unix series, we’ve now covered the absolute basics of launching Terminal.app, moving around the file system, looking at files with cat, and learning about commands with man. Now, I’d like to introduce you to the power of vi. vi (pronounced vee-eye) is … Read More »
Just about as far back as I can remember, every new release of an operating system has brought new features, additional functionality, and, unfortunately, more bloat. This applies equally for OS X and Windows, and in recent years has become even more prominent. Windows XP was bigger … Read More »
When Apple revamped its operating system and adopted Nextstep as the base of OS X, they brought along with it an extremely powerful version of Unix based on the open-source project FreeBSD, now known as Darwin. Unix has a long history, one that started … Read More »
Apple has once again received top honors among computer manufacturers for customer satisfaction, and not by a small margin, either. The recent American Customer Satisfaction Index survey (PDF) has Apple beating their closest competitor by 10 points, something with which the creators of the survey … Read More »
Since first appearing in Tiger, Automator has brought programming to the masses in a simple drag and drop interface. An entire ecosystem has sprung up around Automator, using its ability to create and distribute complex workflows and actions, and the ability for developers to provide Automator … Read More »
Apple prides itself on creating products that are simple and easy to use. A prime example of this philosophy can be seen in Mail, the default email application included with Mac OS X. Mail is not an all-encompassing “collaboration” tool, and it is not “groupware;” … Read More »
One of the things that I’ve always loved about the Mac is its cohesiveness. Everything just flows. It’s the experience that careful attention to design has created. When I open the lid of my MacBook, OS X springs back to life, just as expected. When I press … Read More »
If any one application is near and dear to almost every Mac users heart, it is the web browser. With more applications becoming web based, and web applications becoming more complicated, the browser’s appearance, feel, and most of all performance become even more important. … Read More »
If you are planning on getting started in developing for the Mac, one of the first things I recommend setting up is a version control system. Beanstalk is a hosted Subversion system, so you can access your code from anywhere you have an … Read More »
Syncing Google Calendar with iCal just got a whole lot easier thanks to a new setup tool released by Google called Calaboration. Calaboration is a Google Code project that allows you to add calendars to iCal with a simple point and click interface, … Read More »
Jon Hicks from Hicks Design has released the Helvetireader skin for Google Reader. Helvetireader takes a minimalist approach, masking many of Google Readers abilities, creating a simple and very easy to read interface to Google’s excellent RSS feed reader. Google Reader has been my … Read More »
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Apple’s Greatest Advantage: The Apple Ecosystem
Google’s power in the mobile computing world seems to grow with every new product announcement and Android device that comes to market. But for all its reach, the search giant is missing one piece of the puzzle that Apple does better than anyone else: product integration. Read More »