Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Productivity, Odds and ends, Internet, Apple

Reader John sent us a fascinating little trip back in time (thanks!) he took on his blog: he found a 1996 copy of MacUser about all of the amazing applications available on the Internet, and decided go look at what had become of them. Sadly, most of them have gone missing, but the old names sound familiar: CU-SeeMe for messaging, Lycos for search, and Happy Puppy for gaming. It’s almost hard to believe there was a time before Skype, Google, and Steam, but 1996 was it.

Even Apple has moved on — their “/documents/product-support” page, something you’d think would have survived all this time, is gone. It’s amazing the turnover the Internet’s gone through in just 10 years. It’s hard to believe that in 2029, something like Google.com will be retaken by a domain squatter as everyone’s moved on to the next big thing.

But then again, things are different these days — Google has obviously successfully figured out how to monetize their free service, and most of the original web companies went down because they could pull that off. But you never know — a site you visit all the time might be completely changed or gone ten years from now.

TUAWA trip back in time with MacUser originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Software, Deals

Getting this one in almost under the wire, MacGourmet Deluxe is currently on sale until the end of Saturday for .95 USD, about 30% off its normal retail price of .95.

We’ve covered MacGourmet Deluxe in the past, and it was actually Dave Caolo’s post that motivated me to give the software a try. The software is touted as the “iTunes for your recipes,” and it definitely doesn’t disappoint in that area. I have a feeling if Julia Child was still alive, she’d be using this software to organize recipes, interface with iCal for planning meals and publishing cookbooks through the partnership with TasteBook. It’s actually almost a bit overwhelming for someone whose cooking experience might be tossing together frozen pre-packaged meals from the grocery store and occasionally experimenting with Alton Brown recipes from Food Network’s “Good Eats.”

But the services that MacGourmet Deluxe is touting with this sale is the integrated nutritional resources. MacGourmet uses the USDA National Nutrient Database to analyze recipes and automatically updates the software as the USDA database is updated.

MacGourmet Deluxe requires Mac OS 10.4 or higher.

For those wavering on whether or not to purchase this software, the tipping point just might be the recently released MacGourmet app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. MacGourmet [link opens iTunes] will allow users to sync with the desktop version of the program to transfer recipes, shopping lists, and more in order to streamline meal planning. You can also create shopping lists from the recipes already on the app itself and comes with more than 200 recipes already built in. The MacGourmet app is .99 USD in the App Store and works with both MacGourmet Deluxe and the regular version of MacGourmet.

TUAWMacGourmet Deluxe sale about to expire originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Accessories, Peripherals, iPhone, Jailbreak/pwnage

We received an interesting email this morning from Polaroid — they are asking for the assistance of iPhone owners to convince Apple to provide Bluetooth transfer support for the platform. Adding Bluetooth transfer support would make it possible for the iPhone to print to the new Polaroid PoGo Instant Mobile Printer (photo at right).

The PoGo (US.95) is a pocket-sized inkless printer that prints full-color photos from cell phones using Bluetooth. Unfortunately, the iPhone doesn’t have Bluetooth transfer capabilities, although a solution for jailbroken iPhones has been in the news lately. As a result, the PoGo and iPhone don’t play together.

Polaroid would like to change that:

To encourage Apple to become compatible with the Polaroid Pogo printer, we are asking iPhone owners to submit an enhancement request form at the following link and to express their interest for better Bluetooth transfer capabilities including OPP profile so they can print to the Polaroid Pogo printer.

http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html

Thanks in advance for your help!

Would you consider a pocket printer for your iPhone if Apple made the necessary changes to the OS? Leave us feedback.

Continue reading Polaroid: Help us convince Apple to add Bluetooth transfer support

TUAWPolaroid: Help us convince Apple to add Bluetooth transfer support originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Software

Twitterrific, from our friends at the Iconfactory, has been updated to version 3.2: the first update for the desktop version of the small-footprint Twitter client in nearly a year.

This new version accurately marks old tweets as read when the software starts, and adds “in reply to” IDs to @ messages so conversations can be more easily tracked.

Also, Twitterrific now uses the more secure HTTPS protocol to communicate with the Twitter servers. Using a proxy server is now more reliable, along with other changes to the network and communication foundation. A complete list of the changes is available on the Iconfactory website.

Twitterrific comes in two flavors: one is free, but supported by ads from The Deck, and the second removes the ads, but is . Twitterrific requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, and a Twitter account (obviously).

The Iconfactory also recently started tweeting themselves, and you can find them at @iconfactory. In related news, remember that you can also follow @TUAW for updates above and beyond what you read on our site, along with tweets from all our contributors, too.

TUAWTwitterrific 3.2 squashes bugs, adds small features originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Hardware, Peripherals, Mac OS X Server

We’ve talked about the Data Robotics Drobo storage solution here on TUAW a few times, but there hasn’t been a hands-on review of the device on this blog…until now.

The Drobo is a mass storage solution that takes advantage of RAID — Redundant Array of Independent Disks — to provide a single large volume by combining two to four “naked” (not in an separate enclosure) hard disk drives. Drobo uses a proprietary system called “BeyondRAID” to do this while eliminating a lot of the administrative headaches that are normally associated with setting up RAID arrays.

Drobo uses a combination of RAID 1 (mirroring) and RAID 5 (striping) to provide relatively fast response times and redundancy. If a drive fails, you simply pop it out of the array and pop in a new one. Drobo takes care of rebuilding the new disk while the array is in use. While many traditional RAID solutions require all drives to have exactly the same capacity, you can mix or match drive sizes with Drobo. This makes storage growth quite easy to manage — as new, larger capacity hard drives appear in the future, you just need to pull out a smaller drive or two and replace them with the larger drives. Drobo takes care of integrating the new disk or disks into the array. Click the Read More link for the rest of this post.

Continue reading Working with a robot: Drobo in action

TUAWWorking with a robot: Drobo in action originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, iPod touch, Jailbreak/pwnage

Early this morning the iPhone Dev-Team announced the impending availability of the latest release of PwnageTool and QuickPwn. The feature most touted was compatibility with the recent update of the iPhone’s OS to 2.2.1.

The announcement over at the Dev-Team’s blog also provides some very useful information regarding unlocking and jailbreaking iPhones and iPod touches. It gives heads-up warnings for users in different situations, such as factory-unlocked iPhone owners, YellowSn0w users, and iPod touch owners. It covers what they should or should not do regarding upgrading to 2.2.1 and using PwnageTool or QuickPwn; the Dev-Team also details a fix for entering DFU mode when using OS X 10.5.6.

Currently the release is Mac-only, but a Windows-friendly version of QuickPwn is said to be “coming soon.” You can grab the release from the official BitTorrent download. Alternatively, there are several unofficial HTTP mirrors available. The team recommends comparing the SHA1 checksums when downloading from an unofficial mirror. Given the recent string of security-related downloading incidents, TUAW cannot recommend highly enough that users download from an official source or follow the Dev-Team’s security advice.

I tip my hat to the many fine folks that sent this in!

Continue reading PwnageTool and QuickPwn updated, compatible with 2.2.1

TUAWPwnageTool and QuickPwn updated, compatible with 2.2.1 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Audio, Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

Ever since the iPhone could run applications people have been really excited about the possibility of streaming XM-Sirius on the go.

After a lot of buzz, it appears the uSirius StarPlayr will finally be submitted to the app store this weekend. Then Apple will decide when to release the player to eager consumers.

The player, developed by nicemac LLC has been getting positive reviews from beta testers.

The bad news is that streaming services will no longer be free. Despite a promise from Sirius-XM that prices would be capped for 3 years, as of March 11, 2009, streaming will be an additional US .99 a month. Additional radio charges will be US .00 extra monthly. Costs of the base service will stay the same. and subscribers can lock in their current rates by agreeing to a 3 year contract extension. People rushing to do that may help the beleaguered merged companies in the short run. On the other hand, a lot of customers may not be anxious to throw a lot of money at a service that may not survive 3 years.

As far as the streaming app goes, nicemac hasn’t released a price yet, but says once it is purchased updates will be free until they bring out a major upgrade.

Sirius-XM haven’t released their own player. That may happen, but this third party app will certainly be first on the scene.

Addenda: One of our loyal readers says, and we confirm, that people with long term subscriptions will be able to stream for free for the life of that subscription. Thanks Daniel.

TUAWSatellite Radio finally coming to iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, App Store

As with the Highlander, ultimately you can only have one iFart app in the store. Oh sure, you can have 60+ fart apps total (scientists estimate by 2025 there will be over 2 million fart apps available), but you can’t have two apps with the same name. Even tacking on “the” or similar prefixes won’t help (suffixes like MK-II may work, but we haven’t tried). The question I’m asking is: what’s in a name? Would a fart app by any other name sell as well? And should developers worry their app name will be taken by the time they submit their app?

Ultimately I wonder if there will be issues surrounding app names. But wait — isn’t that two apps named Sudoku in the pic above? Way back in August 2008 Macworld noticed several apps named Sudoku, but on a search today I could only find two apps named exactly the same and one was from EA. Of course, that doesn’t mean they will appear in your app list as such, and they can appear under yet another name on your iPhone. Every other app I found with Sudoku had some modifier word before or after the name: platinum, color, dojo, expert, etc. But then, there really can be only one iSudoku, or one Sudoku Pro… and who determines which “pro” app really deserves the name? (Short answer: Apple)

This isn’t a huge issue, since I doubt some random person could come along and name their app IBM or Kodak or Netflix. Apple would likely nip that in the bud. But as the App Store grows, we may see a bit of a land grab, if we aren’t already. The good names, the ones that are easy to search and make logical sense, will probably go first. You probably don’t want to be the guy who has to name his to-do list app something really wacky, do you? I’m not sure what a solution would be, as Apple can’t arbitrate every IP dispute, not can it police the business practices of every developer. In the end, it’s just like domain registration — first come, first served.

TUAWWhat’s in a name… on the App Store? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iLife, Software, Odds and ends

An intrepid tipster emailed us late yesterday, and described an interesting challenge: He figured that if Apple didn’t develop iPhoto’s face recognition technology themselves, who did?

He disassembled the app using OTX, a developer tool based on Apple’s otool, and found the areas of the software related to facial recognition. There, the string “OKAO” appeared, including in the “FaceRecognitionManager” object.

OKAO Vision is a product from Japanese firm Omron Global that — hey hey — recognizes faces and their various features. Does the face have big eyes? Are they in trouble? What is the person looking at? The transliteration “okao” apparently means “face” in Japanese, according to their website.

“OMRON is committed to raising the accuracy of face detection so that OKAO Vision can be used in many different lifestyle occasions and social settings,” their website reads. iPhoto ‘09 must fit in with that plan. Omron has other facial recognition products, including software for mobile phones, and a camera-plus-hardware-plus-software console that can accurately tell if a person is smiling or not.

The software works reasonably well, according to Gizmodo, but does pick up some false positives in patterns, or, say, Mount Rushmore.

TUAWiPhoto ‘09 uses face detection package from Omron originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPod Family, iPhone, App Store

I’ve always thought that the lack of iCal todo syncing was one of the strangest omissions on the iPhone and iPod touch. Now, finally, it’s possible thanks to Appigo Sync (beta), a free small helper application for the Mac designed to interface with Appigo’s Todo iPhone app (iTunes link).

Todo on the iPhone has been able to sync with online services Remember the Milk and Toodledo for a while now. With the addition of Appigo Sync, however, you can now get your todos from iCal (though, unfortunately, it cannot sync with both your Mac and an online service). Like most other desktop syncing solutions for the iPhone, it works over WiFi and requires your iPhone and Mac to be on the same network.

Appigo Sync is a free download. Todo for iPhone is .99; there’s also a free Todo Lite limited to seven tasks, but which will allow you to test out the syncing (both iTunes links).

Continue reading Appigo Sync brings iCal todo syncing with iPhone app

TUAWAppigo Sync brings iCal todo syncing with iPhone app originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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