My local Apple Retail Store was out of iPhone 4, and it’s highly likely yours is as well. You can’t reserver one from AT&T and even the few Wal-Marts and RadioShacks I called were out. I didn’t leave the Apple Store empty handed however.

If you show up at your local Apple Store, the staff is allowing you to add your name to a priority list. This list is essentially your way of staking a virtual claim to incoming iPhones. Once you have chosen the model you want, you have to sign in with your iTunes login and you’ll shortly receive an email with the below information.

When a iPhone 4 comes in, you’ll receive another email stating that you can pickup your iPhone 4. From the time you receive the second email, you have 48 hours to purchase your phone at the store you reserved it. I clicked around on the Apple website, and haven’t seen a link to the priority list anywhere. This appears to be an option only in Apple Stores. The Apple staff I spoke to didn’t know the length of the wait for new iPhones to arrive.

Good luck to everyone still looking to purchase iPhone 4!

Click
If the application you want to add to the Dock is currently open, just command click the icon and choose Options from the menu. In the Options menu, select “Keep in Dock”. You’ll see something similar to the screen grab below.

If the application is currently in the Dock and you want to remove it, perform the same actions as above. This time, the Options menu will have “Remove from Dock” as an option.

Dragging
To easily add a closed application to the Dock, being by going to the Applications folder in the Finder. Once there, drag the application from the Finder window to the bottom of the Dock and hold. If you hold the application near the bottom of the dock, you’ll see the two closest icons move out of the way to “make room” for the new icon. Drop the icon where you want in the dock and it will fall into place.

To easily remove icons from the dock with dragging, just select and hold the icon and move it away from the dock. When a little cloud shows up just below the mouse pointer, let go of the mouse and watch the icon disappear in a puff of smoke.

To view more post for Mac OS X beginners, head to our Beginner Mac section.

I don’t watch much TV during the week, except for during the baseball season (My Braves are stinking it up this year). In addition to baseball and cooking shows, I do sit down a watch a handful of network TV shows. My favorite, Chuck, is again on the chopping block bubble this year and needs your help.

So what does Chuck have to do with Apple products? I’ve written about Chuck a few times on this website before. The show has featured a number of Apple products during its three seasons. It was one of the first shows to feature an iPhone. In fact, the two main characters (Chuck and Sarah) use iPhones and they are shown on nearly every episode. The show has featured older Macs, Cinema Displays, and many more Apple products.

If you haven’t seen Chuck before, I very highly recommend it. The plot features an average geek who mistakenly has a CIA database transplanted in his brain. The US government finds out about the intelligence leak and sends two of its’ top agents to protect him. As the show has progressed, Chuck has become a spy in his own right. The show features references to video games, pop culture, comics, and many other things a geek would enjoy. If you like Mythbusters or Big Bang Theory, you’d probably like Chuck. You can read more about the show on Wikipedia.

So how can you help Chuck? Watch the show live! If you are a Nielsen household, your live viewing counts even more. Chuck has four more shows left this season and now is as good a time as any to start watching. The show features comedy, action, adventure, and is a ton of fun. The chemistry between the two main characters, Chuck and Sarah, is fantastic. I’ve heard from a number of people that Chuck is one of the only TV shows the whole family can watch. Please help this fantastic show get renewed for a fourth season!

Chuck is broadcast on NBC at 8PM Eastern on Mondays. If you are an international viewer, check your local listings for the channel and time Chuck is playing in your area. Let me know in the comments if you watch Chuck and what you like about it!

A short search later, I downloaded OmniDiskSweeper. When you first launch OminDiskSweeper, you’re prompted to choose a drive. Once you select the drive, it takes the application a few moments to “sweep” the drive. Once the sweep is done, you’ll see a list of folders with their current size. As you drill down in your folder list, the size is reflected in those folders as well. You can delete files from within the application and the folder sizes are automatically recalculated.

OmniDiskSweeper is a free application by The Omni Group. It requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later. If you’re looking to clear up some space on your hard drive but don’t know what’s taking up the space, I highly suggest downloading OmniDiskSweeper.

The look of Articles is reminiscent of Mobile Safari. The interface includes a progress bar, back and forward, bookmarks and history, and page selection. Up to 9 pages can be opened at once, which is 1 more then Mobile Safari.

Articles remembers the last Wikipedia page that was accessed from the last session, as well as the position left off while reading it.

The bookmarks section includes bookmarks that can be organized into folders, recent history, a link to a random Wikipedia article, as well as a map showing nearby links. Recently viewed are saved for offline viewing

Wikipedia articles are displayed nicely. Clicking on a picture zooms into it, and after loading the picture can be saved or copied. Separate windows are used to open tables, graphs, and extra information.

28 different languages can be chosen to search from, including French, Spanish, and Chinese.

There are a few things I did not like about Articles. There is no way to quickly go to a section. Any section must be scrolled down to. Also, there is no queue.

Even with these flaws, Articles has shaped up to be a great app. Articles is available for $2.99 (iTunes link) for iPhone OS 3.0 and above.

If you’re not familiar with Groupon, it’s essentially a group coupon purchasing website. Each day in a number of large cities across the United States, there is a daily deal. The deal is essentially a gift certificate/coupon to the location featured that day. You have the remainder of the day to purchase the deal before it changes, but enough people need to purchase the deal before the coupon is issued. If the required number of people don’t purchase the deal, you aren’t charged and the coupon is not issued. I’ve never seen a deal not purchased by enough people to trigger the deal however. The deals vary by city, as does the cost, value, and expiration date of the deal.

Up until now, you had to login to the website to purchase the Groupon. Once you purchased the Groupon, you had to print it and present it to your server/cashier. With the release of the iPhone app, you can now purchase and redeem the Groupon right on your phone!

After opening the app, you select your city and the daily deal will be shown. You can sign in with your existing Groupon login, create a new login, or sign in with Facebook Connect. Once signed in, you can see your existing Groupons and purchase new ones. When using a Groupon, your iPhone displays the same code that the printed out Groupon displays. The retailer just needs to verify your code and then you receive the value of the coupon.

I enjoy Groupon as it gives my wife and I a chance to visit different restaurants and save some cash. We don’t eat out a lot, but Groupon has provided good motivation for getting us to try different places. If you live in one of the cities with a Groupon site, I highly suggest you check them out.

The iPad is a nice step up from the iPhone. The iPhone is always with me, so I can pull it out whenever I need to play Plants vs. Zombies, check a sports score, or do a Google search. Doing these things feels cramped on my iPhone’s 3.5” display though. The keys are very small and it is hard to get any “real” work done, like using QuickOffice to work on a document or a spreadsheet. The  point of the iPhone is doing quick tasks because of this screen limitation. The iPad screen is a perfect size for portability yet will not hamper productivity. I can see myself using the iPad anytime I am at home lounging on the couch or sitting at a desk at the library.

My MacBook is my all time favorite purchase, but it has a few drawbacks. It is too bulky and it feels like it has to be lugged around. It also is overkill. While there will be many iPad applications that will have power user features, many will focus on ease of use and simplicity. I do not want applications getting in my way. When I have a goal and mind, I want an app to help me finish my task quickly and efficiently without having to learn tons of features. I also have many gadgets attached to my MacBook ports, so if I want to use it portability I have to disconnect tons of cables. The iPad will usually be in a charging dock when I am not using it, which it can be easily be pulled out of.

While on the subject of “ease of use and simplicity,” I am absolutely thrilled to see the iPad’s emphasis of focusing on one app at a time and not having a screen filled with windows. When I on my MacBook, I have multiple apps open at once but only one window open at a time to minimize distractions.

The iPad is an appliance and is the first computing device I feel comfortable giving to my mother to use. She does not use computers now because of how complicated they are to her. The iPad is not made to be configured with a million settings, nor does it show the app’s supporting folders. The easiest devices to use in any house are appliances because they do not have to be tinkered with and are straightforward. This same principle applies to the iPad.

Trying to explain the numerous ways to install and uninstall apps on a Mac is too confusing for the computer illiterate. Installing apps for the iPad is as easy as searching for one in the App Store, putting in a password, and having it download. There are no licenses to deal with or having to give out credit card information to multiple developers. Having her try to hunt down apps online for a Mac just would not happen and is far easier from one store.

Current eBook readers on the market just do not do it for me. Though they are not eBook readers, I am used to seeing beautiful color displays on my MacBook and iPhone. Stepping down to the Kindle’s black and white e-ink feels archaic. Books from the iBookstore will definitely not suffer from this problem.

Some of the tangibles I enjoy about the iPad overlap what is great about the iPhone. Whenever possible though, I will use my iPad over the iPhone.

The folks behind MacHeist, the spy themed software bundle, are getting ready to kick off another event. Details are sparse right now, except the fact that the software bundle sale begins on March 2nd, 2010. The updated website does provides a few clues about what applications might be included with the bundle. The boxes moving across the screen contain application icons for RipIt, Flow, and several other icons for applications I’m not familiar with.

If you visit the MacHeist website right now, you’ll be able to grab a free copy of the Snow Leopard only application Squeeze. From the Squeeze website: “Squeeze is a background file compressor, which uses the new HFS-compression technology in Snow Leopard to transparently compress the folders you configure it to process. Mac OS will read those files normally, they will just take less disk space.”

If you aren’t familiar with MacHeist, you can see our previous coverage of it HERE.

Notes are easy to make. After hitting the plus sign in the corner of the screen, I am brought to the “New Note” screen. Then I put in a title and write my note. When done with the note, an icon can be assigned to label the note. Hopefully a future version of Synotes has a wider selection of icons to better match the note I have wrote.

Notes can be shared easily via e-mail. The web site provides an rss feed as well.

Searching in the app not only searches by title, but also by content of the notes. Being able to search within notes is great and quite helpful.

I can access my notes when on my computer too. The app quickly syncs with the Synotes web site. Notes can be made at the web site, which syncs back to the app. The web site has a few downsides. There is no way to search through notes. Also, there are minimal ways to organize notes.

Each note has important information including creation and last modified dates, where the note was created (in the app or on the web site), as well as version history. Any note can be reverted back to its previous version.

I am pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to make notes in Synotes, and I highly recommend it for users seeking a way to make notes.  Syncode is coming out with an iPad version of Synotes too, and it will be interesting to see how well it turns out. Synotes 1.1.1 is compatible with iPhone OS 3.0 or later for $1.99 (iTunes link).

Browsing for content is easy. My pictures as well as my contact’s pictures are broken down by sets, galleries, tags, and favorites. Searches can be done by my pictures, friends, contacts, or everyone in Flickr. Nearby pictures are shown on a map based on my geolocation. Groups I am subscribed to is also included. There is even a section for Flickr Interestingness which features many engrossing pictures.

After finding some pictures to look at, there are a couple ways to view them. Each picture can be viewed taking up the whole screen in portrait or landscape. Photoflow is like Cover Flow, which is seen in many Apple products. Photoflow has tilt scrolling like in the Instapaper Pro app. When photoflow is on, I can tilt my iPhone forward and back to scroll through pictures.

Uploading pictures is a snap. I can take pictures on the spot with the camera in-app or choose them from my Photo app. Details of pictures can be changed, including title, description, sets, tags, groups, who can see it, geolocation, and if you want to post it to a blog or Twitter. Any pictures posted to Twitter tweets the name of the photo and provides a compressed URL to the picture on Flickr.

Flickit Pro is very beautiful. The theme colors are gray and black with a tile wallpaper.

The only gripes I have about this app are that it would not update my recent activity and it does now allow deleting pictures. I am not sure if this is disallowed in the Flickr API for 3rd-party apps, though the official Flickr app can delete pictures.

Flickit Pro is a great app to find pictures. It is currently on my first iPhone page, which is where my favorite and most used apps are. Version 2.0 is available for iPhone OS 3.1 or later for $3.99 (iTunes link).

Skribit is an online web service made for bloggers, by bloggers. Once you put a little javascript code on your blog, you’ll notice a “Suggestions?” tab on your page. Readers just click the tab and enter their writing suggestions. You can create an account on Skribit and follow your suggestion or post suggestions and vote anonymously. You can read much more about Skribit on their website.

If you have any topics you would like us to write about, just click the blue suggestion tab on the right side of our page and post your suggestion or vote on other suggestions. From time to time we’ll look over the suggestions and write about them. So what are you waiting for? Suggest away!

The speculation is over. After endless predictions, Steve Jobs finally unveiled Apple’s new tablet today at the Yerba Buena Center, dubbed the “iPad”.

Apple wisely is utilizing the success of the App Store. iPhone and iPod touch users will feel right at home as the iPad will be compatible with all iPhone OS apps. These apps can run in the same size as on the iPhone or scaled up to fill the screen of the iPad. Apple will be more successful with a tablet that is more iPod touch-like then Mac-like. Even with improving Mac sales, there is only so much penetration Mac will have on market share.

There will also be apps made specifically for the iPad. To show that the iPad is more then a multimedia device, Apple showed off a specially-designed tablet version of iWork. Keynote, Numbers, and Pages will be available for $10 each.

There will also be many great apps that are designed with the iPad in mind and will be bundled on the device, including Safari, Mail, Notes, Photos, iPod, iTunes, App Store, Maps, Calendar, Contacts, and iBooks.

iBooks is an app to read downloadable books in the open ePub format. iBooks will also have a built-in store to buy new books.

Pricing is far cheaper then I, as well as many analysts and bloggers, expected. The iPad will have a few different price points. The 16 GB, 32 GB, and 64 GB models will cost $499, $599, and $699, respectively. These will only have Wi-Fi. Add $130 to any of these models to have 3G in addition to Wi-Fi. These prices are great considering that when the iPhone initially launched it went for $499 for the 4 GB model and $599 for the 8 GB version. The Wi-Fi only models will be out in 60 days, while the models with 3G will be out in 90 days.

The iPad has some nice specs. Weighing in at 1.5 pounds and 0.5 inches thick, the iPad has a 9.7 inch screen with 1024-by-768 resoution and fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating. The processor is a 1 Ghz Apple A4. Like the iPhone, there is an accelerometer, ambient light sensor, and Bluetooth.

There will be man accessories from Apple. The iPad case protects the front of the screen and can be adjusted in numerous ways depending on the situation the iPad is being used in. There is also a regular dock and another version with a keyboard and dock combined, which will be awesome for those long typing situations and people looking for a big, physical keyboard to pound away at. There are 2 different adaptors to import photos. One adaptor will allow importing of pictures by hooking the camera up to the iPad via USB. The other adaptor is compatible with SD cards.

There are 2 data plans, both are through AT&T and neither involve signing a contract and can be cancelled at anytime. The first plan includes a measly 250 MB per month for $14.99, while the second plan is unlimited data for $29.99 per month. The unlimited plan will probably have a soft data cap and will not be truly unlimited. All data plans will allow for free usage of AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots.

Some may wonder why the iPad is needed. When using my iPhone, I am sacrificing screen size for portability. iPad flips the script, providing a great screen to view movies and books while not being as portable as an iPhone.

There are a few downsides with the iPad. There is no support for Adobe Flash, which stinks because many video sites support it. There is also no ability to run applications in the background, which is surprising given the CPU speed. Also, AT&T is the sole provider for cellular data service and they already have had a tough enough time handling the iPhone and other smartphones. “With the iPhone and other smart devices, we saw a 7,000 percent increase in data usage over the last 13 quarters” said AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel. Verizon is not a carrier for the iPad, though there were many analysts who thought they would be. With Apple going towards multiple carrier models in other markets with the iPhone, it would be surprising if Apple did not go that route in the United States eventually

Apple has clearly positioned the iPad as a middle ground between the iPod touch/iPhone and MacBook. It looks to be great for people who want to surf the web and view media, or for kids as a laptop instead of a cheap netbook.

Unless you have been on another planet, you probably heard about the special Apple event tomorrow (Wednesday) morning. The Apple event begins at 10AM Pacific in San Francisco, CA. Everyone article in the mainstream press pegs it as a given that Apple will announce a tablet of some kind. We know the tablet is coming, but what exactly will it bring? If it’s just a large iPod touch, I think a lot of people are going to be very disappointed.

I’ll be checking the action as it goes down live via Engadget. They have already setup a place holder for their live coverage here. We’ll have our own recap and reaction of the event after it’s finished.

David Weiss created a cool “Prediction Score Card” for the event tomorrow. You can download a copy here. If you participate in the score card, come back and post your score in the comments after the event. I’ve already filled mine out so I’ll post my score tomorrow afternoon.

Do you have any predictions you’d like to share? Use the comments below to post your ideas.

CoverSutra has many great features, including Last.fm scrobbling, spotlight-esque searching of your iTunes library from the toolbar, cover displaying on the desktop and the dock, and much more.

I finally made the plunge and purchased CoverSutra and am not disappointed. The sale price is valid for all versions of CoverSutra, including 1.2 for Tiger and 2.22 for Leopard and Snow Leopard. Free upgrades are available until version 3.0 is released.

This week my routine changed for the better. Instead of writing down my list, I decided to test out the Groceries iPhone App from Sophiestication Software.

The very first thing you’ll notice about Groceries is that the UI is beautiful. The App is very responsive and you can tell a lot of thought was put into the design. After opening the App, you immediately begin adding items from the extensive default database to a new shopping list. Items can be added via a search or browsing by aisle. If you don’t find an item, it’s a simple tap to add it to the database.

Groceries makes it very easy to customize your grocery list. You can add notes and amounts to each item with just a few taps. You can add frequently purchased items to your favorites list for quick access. You can even email your list with ease. The ability to email the list is a nice touch in the event that you need to send your spouse to the grocery store instead.

Perhaps the greatest feature of Groceries is how your grocery list is organized. When adding items to your list you’ll notice they are organized by aisles. This small design decision leads to a huge payoff. Within each list, you have the ability to reorder the presentation of aisles. Essentially you can match up the aisles within Groceries to the layout of the grocery store you shop at. This allows you to easily see when you have finished shopping on a particular aisle and can move to the next one. I no longer have to continually scan my shopping list to make sure I’ve crossed off every item. A quick glance at Groceries will confirm that I’m done with that aisle and can move on.

This App has a ton of other fine detail. The ability to keep the list at exactly the same spot even if I lock my iPhone is a nice touch. A quick tap will reduce my list to just the remaining items, useful for long lists. I can clear out a finished list easily as well.

If possible, I’d like to see some kind of integration with MacGourmet or MacGourmet touch. I’m not even sure if that’s possible or what integration I’d like, but I’d be willing to bet the developers are smart enough to think of something good. Comments in iTunes also mentioned some type of indicator for coupons and I concur that would be a good idea. Maybe a little coupon icon right beside the item name.

Groceries (iTunes link) will set you back $1.99 and is available now in the App Store. After my first grocery store visit using Groceries, I can’t see myself ever going back to pen and paper. This App saves me time in the grocery store and that fact alone is worth the small price of Groceries. In fact, I’d say that this app is the best $2 I’ve ever spent on “Groceries”.