As you may remember, Apple introduced this Internet Recovery on 2011′s MacBook Air and Mac mini models, which were released alongside Lion at that time. Because Lion’s main distribution channel is the the Mac App Store, and hard drives are known to fail from time to time, Internet Recovery acts as a minimal bootable install in the system’s firmware, which allows the machine to connect to the internet, download and install Lion.

Apple is slowly adding this feature to older Macs, with a large number of major revision in 2011′s hardware, and some of 2010′s hardware update to include this feature. That said, the Mac Pro has yet to receive this kind of treatment. A sign of the times I suppose.

At any rate, the MacBook Air Update can be downloaded from Apple’s website here, and is 2.98MB in size. The iMac update can be found here, and is 3.02MB in size. Lastly, the MacBook Pro update can be found here, and is 3.18MB in size.

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Evernote’s Mac app had an update last week, to Version 3.0.6. The update included some nice enhancements for tables and checklists as well as the ability to view multiple notes in full screen mode.

Another major element of the update is what Evernote calls ‘ a beautiful redesign of our note panel’. I’m a huge fan of Evernote. It’s an app I use  every day on my MacBook Pro. But … beautiful is just not a word I have ever associated with it, or certainly with its writing interface. I have to say though, the redesign has made the note panel feel much nicer and cleaner.

Here’s more detail, straight from the Evernote Blog, on the redesign of the note panel:

The goals of the redesign were clarity and simplification. You’ll notice that the new layout is much more space-efficient. For example, we moved information about the note into the “i” button. We also made note sharing options much more prominent with the new, big share arrow.

In addition to saving space, the new layout is also easier to understand and use. The icons have all been updated, and we now treat dropdowns in a new, cleaner way.

Additionally, we added some intelligence into the headers. When you’re browsing through your notes, we show the date created and updated in the note header area. As soon as you start editing the note, the date fades away and becomes the formatting bar. If you want to edit the date, click on the “i.”

I’ve seen a slew of updates since I first started using Evernote, but I can’t recall seeing one that cleaned up the note panel as nicely as this one has. It’s much more pleasant to work with now.

Here’s hoping Evernote keeps focusing a bit on design and their writing spaces on the Mac and in their iOS apps.

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I’ve been trying to slowly learn the ins and outs of PhotoForge2 for iPhone and iPad, partly because I loved the original PhotoForge app, and partly because the video demos of the app make it seem extremely powerful. I still have no doubts about the power behind the app, but it has been months now, and I’ve made very little progress with regards to understanding more of the UI. PhotoForge2 is proving to be a very hard nut to crack. 

But if there’s one thing I’d like to nitpick on today, it’s the ridiculous carousel interface for displaying tools (e.g. crop, resize, etc.) and effects (e.g. black & white, pixellate, etc.). It looks all right on the iPhone, but it’s almost dizzying on the iPad, especially because the carousal lacks any start or end points. Of course, this is how carousels work, but you can only really gauge where you are in a carousel when it’s laid out in three dimensions. not two. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaNWEdbdMZQ&sns=em

As is, you can spin the carousel and end up right back where you started, and it’s very hard to keep track of the icons because many of them share the same basic shape and colour scheme. The lack of alphabetization also makes it very difficult for you to remember where a given effect is. For an app that specializes in tweaking visuals, you’d think the graphical interface in PhotoForge2 could have been made a little more user-friendly.

I’ll continue to plug away at the app because it still seems like one of the only solutions for using layer masks on iOS, but this carousel paradim really needs to go.

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In practice, I’ve found this method raises my spoken accuracy rate versus speaking to the iPhone while holding it in front of me, but not quite as high as when I use my Jawbone Era headset, which features noise canceling.   Your mileage may vary!

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Now CNet is reporting on research conducted by research analyst Richard Gardner of Citigroup, who recently met with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer. In short, what Gardner was told, is that the iPad will morph into a product that would meet the needs of a consumer who would purchase an ARM-based MacBook Air.

Of course, we’ve heard a plethora of rumors regarding the next-generation iPad. Most of these rumors point to a faster processor, better graphics, and a Retina display coming to the device. With these significant, annual advancements, I believe Apple is aggressively pushing the iPad as a replacement for traditional notebooks. At least for what most people need a computer for, the iPad is a perfect fit. Give it time, and personal computer industry will wither to a niche “pro” market. This is exciting.

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Splitting up the iPad’s keyboard in iOS 5 is simple enough: you just pull it apart width-wise like a QWERTY pastry. Typing on this split keyboard, on the other hand, can be a challenge for some. The split layout makes it much easier to thumb type, but if you’re the kind of person who’s used to typing the letter ‘T’ with your right hand or the letter ‘B’ with your left, it certainly looks like you’re out of luck. 

However, thanks to the sharp-eyed folks at Finer Things in iOS, we now know that the iOS 5 keyboard actually features a set of invisible keys where there appear to be none.  This is a terribly clever little addition by Apple – almost a little too clever, really. How on earth are everyday users supposed to find this stuff out without following sites like iSource? Blatant self-promotion zing. 

[via The Brooks Review]

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Here’s a post I’ve actually been meaning to link to for a while, : Brian Lam’s Wirecutter post, entitled ‘Happiness Takes (A Little) Magic‘. It’s certainly not news, but it’s as pertinent now in early February as it was in late January, so I’m linking anyway. 

As much as I may love reviewing apps and discussing exactly how I’ve set up iOS 5 notifications, it’s always a good idea to step back every now and then to re-evaluate how much of life my life I’m living online, as opposed to offline. Some of the examples that Lam uses are a little NSFW, but they still really hit home for me.Ultra-connected portable tech like the iPhone in my pocket and the iPad in my bag is almost seductively easy to use, and I’m glad that widely-read techies like Brian Lam are still trying to actively think about how to use all of the toys tools at our disposal. 

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The $30 mykase for the iPhone 4/4S is one of the newest entries in ultimate device protection from the folks at BodyGuardz.  Apparently they aren’t satisfied with simply providing your favorite mobile device with excellent screen protection.  Now, they have also branched out to take on full body case protection as well.  It should come as no surprise, though.  Bodyguardz has a long standing tradition of providing quality products that give you piece of mind that at least the exterior of your mobile accessory will stand the test of time.

The mykase is a case that is made up of three main parts that combine to form a patent-pending system.  This system can be personalized in many different combinations of color schemes, several of which come standard.  The version I reviewed was the basic matte black starter kit which comes with interchangeable color options of glossy white and yellow back panels in addition to the included matching black panel.  The other standard mykase starter kit comes in glossy white, with interchangeable matte black and glossy yellow back panels.

Changing the look is as easy as sliding the bottom section of the case off, and then sliding the back panel down out of the groove that holds it in place.  Then all you have to do is select a different color back panel to replace the one you just removed, and slide the bottom section back into place.  It’s really that easy.  You can even select an supplemental back panel from (7) additional colors for only $10 more.  They also have plans to add the ability to personalize your back panel with designs and pictures of your choosing to add more flare and incorporate more of your individual personality.

The look and feel of the BodyGuardz mykase is very simple and clean.  This is one of the reasons I still use it today.  I wasn’t expecting to like the case as much as I do because initially it didn’t come across as flashy or memorable.  However, I found that I really like the look of the mate black finish, especially when compared to the glossy look of the replacement yellow and white backs.  The coating on the mykase almost has a suede feeling to it.  It’s semi-grippy, but not in a way that prevents it from easily sliding in and out of your pocket either.  At the same time it is soft to the touch.  It feels good in your hand, but still sturdy.  The same surface on the back wraps around the leading edge of the case, allowing you to set it face-down onto most surfaces without worrying about scratching the front of your phone.

The BodyGuardz mykase works equally well with both the iPhone 4 and 4S, and is compatible with iPhones used on AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint.  The headphone jack and noise canceling top microphone are open and accessible along with the Sleep/Wake button.  There is also about a one inch section of the side of the iPhone case exposing the volume buttons and the Ring/Silent switch.

In addition, most of the bottom of the case is open, starting with the botom microphone and extending to the speaker.  The dock-connector port was also fully accessible, and I had no trouble docking my iPhone in any charging station with the mykase installed.  Also, along with your mykase purchase you get (2) free BodyGuardz screen protectors to protect the front of your iPhone.

In conclusion, I found the mykase by BodyGuardz to be an exceptional case both for its look and feel as well as its functionality.  With its slim and sturdy profile it gave me piece of mind that my iPhone was protected without creating the unwanted bulk many of the other protective cases on the market today possess.

The mykase for the iPhone 4/4S was provided for review on iSource.com by BodyGuardz.  For further information regarding our site’s review policies, please see our “About” page.

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As you can see, each individual pixel is made up of three tic-tac shaped sub-pixels arranged horizontally next to each other; one red, one green, and one blue. By varying the intensity of each sub-pixel, any color (that the system is capable of displaying) can be represented.

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iPhone and iPad notifications used to be limited to just pop-ups on the home screen, lock screen, and inside of apps. Then iOS 5 came along late last year and gave users many more options, including an Android-like Notification Center, five-second banners as alternatives to pop-ups, and great new slide-to-unlock notifications on the lock screen.

In fact, Apple gave users a surprising amount of control over notifications in iOS 5 – enough so that one iPhone can function very differently from another, depending on the way that users have set up the flow of notifications. Our iSource team has a pretty varied set of workflows on the iPhone and iPad, so this weekend we pooled some ideas and thought we’d share how we all choose to work with (or without) notifications on iOS 5.

Jay Roth

Like everyone else, I was extremely excited to see iOS 5 create the Notification Center. I had been using the jailbreak Intelliscreen as my equivalent on the lock screen and grew extremely fond of glancing at my iPhone to see what deserved my attention, particularly with regard to the weather, texts, and email, and going directly to the app from a locked iPhone.

Apple iOS 5’s Notification Center is a definite improvement over nothing at all, but for me, I think Apple has missed the purpose in execution. With Intelliscreen, everything unread remained on the lock screen until I read and cleared it in the app. Apple’s Notification Center on the lock screen clears after a single unlock. In a normal operating environment, I have to manually pull down the Notification Center to see what needs my attention – a pretty useless step to me, unless Im’ checking to see the weather forecast.

So what does the translate into? Despite the best aspect, Banner announcements, I personally want the Notification Center to more permanently announce on my lock screen what deserves my attention so I can choose whether to unlock. Since I use badges - mail, text, phone, and a few apps (like Words with Friends, and the terribly inaccurate FaceBook) – I don’t really see the point of it when my phone is unlocked.

Rob Renk

I was very happy to see Notification Center as part of iOS 5.  I love the idea, and I have always felt that this was one area where other operating systems had the upper hand over iOS.  I’m not saying it is perfect now, but at the very least it is moving in the right direction.

When I first set up Notifications I didn’t really discriminate at all.  I left everything in there, and I selected to sort my Apps by time instead of manually, and I allowed badges for everything as well.  The only thing I insisted was for my alerts to be in the Banner style–I mean that was the point, right? We wanted notifications that were less disruptive, and didn’t force you to address them in order to continue what you were doing, if you didn’t want to.

I really liked MobileNotifier by Peter Hajas.  I had been following his work and had MobileNotifier installed on my jailbroken phone. I was encouraged when it was rumored that he’d be joining Apple, as I had hopes for a similar implementation.  From what I can tell, that was what we got in the end.

As time went by, I have definitely trimmed down the apps that I allow in Notification Center.  I mean, really, do I need Infinity Blade to send me notifications–or most any other game for that matter? Now with the recent iPhone 4S/iPad 2 JB tool Absinthe, the sky is the limit.  I am really excited/encouraged by what I have seen thus far.  Once again, leave it to the jailbreak community of creative minds to show us how much potential the iPhone really has.

Patrick Jordan

Like most iOS users (I would guess), I was very happy to see Notification Center come along in iOS 5 to make our lives considerably easier when dealing with notifications. I know it’s still far from perfect, but it’s light years better than what we had before. Speaking of which, I only allow alerts for FaceTime, Phone, and Calendar – as they are still stupid looking and bring back memories of the bad old days.

I allow badges for a whole bunch of apps mainly because I’m just too lazy to go in and toggle them off. Instacast currently has a daunting 71 in its badge as a result of my laziness and the fact that I haven’t caught up with podcasts in a while.

I try to manage which apps can show banners in Notification Center fairly well, as I really like it and when it gets too cluttered it detracts from that. So right now I allow Boxcar, a few good news apps, Instacast, Mail, and a few other stragglers (that may need further weeding out soon) to show up in Notification Center.

I hope Apple will keep refining and improving notifications in iOS, but I’m not holding my breath on that.

Brandon Steili

That should pretty much sum up how I use notification center: I get text messages (banner), emails (banner) and calendar events (alert) and a couple of others important ones, but pretty much everything else that wants to send me a notification can kick rocks [Editor's Note: presumably without shoes on]. I’ve got enough to deal with on a daily basis that the last thing I want is some app deciding it needs to send me a notification about some trivial accomplishment I’ve missed in Game Center (an app that I wish I could delete).

I guess it’s because of this aversion to notifications and annoyances that I pretty much never use Notification Center. I heard my phone bing -I know I have email. I heard a pair of bings (calypso) so I know I received text messages. I don’t really need to waste time unlocking, sliding the panel down, tapping an email, and then waiting while it zips over to Mail.app. Instead, I unlock, go to email, and I’m Done!

With that in mind, I am actually looking forward to jailbreaking again – for LockInfo (or a similar app) which is what I wish Apple would have given us in the first place. If Apple is going to insist upon the lockscreen being a waste of time that could have useful information on it, the least they could do was allow some widgets to be made available for Notification Center. That way it could something useful besides get in the way of Flight Control’s planes coming in from the top of the screen.

Thomas Wong

I like to manage my notifications differently on the iPhone and iPad.

The iPhone functions as my audio alert for most everything from lock screen notifications to Facebook and Words with Friends pop-ups. Very few notifications are actually turned off so that I can simply look at my iPhone’s Notification Center and catch up with most everything I may have missed while walking around. The one exception to this is e-mail, which I have permanently silenced. The only place that my e-mail shows up in is Notification Center and the Mail app, and I find I’m far less distracted by my inbox as a result. I realize that others may not have this luxury due to storms of urgent e-mails, but this setup has worked out very well for me.

My iPad, in comparison, is relatively distraction-free. I get a few banner notifications for iMessages and Beejive instant messages, and I also see the five most recent e-mails inside of the Notification Center, but for the most part my iPad feels much more like a one-task machine. Turning off the majority of the Notification Center switches to OFF has been particularly effective, and I now deal with far fewer duplicate notifications on the iPad and iPhone.

Notifications on iOS 5 aren’t perfect (that’s something that pretty much everyone on the team has said), but they’re now good enough that I no longer think about jailbreaking for utilities like LockInfo and Notifier Pro.

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If you’re reading this, chances are you already know where to come to find the best in-depth, up to date Apple news, reviews, and info on the web.  However, now-a-days, there are many different venues to access iSource and the posts of our talented team of writers and editors.  So, when you can’t get enough of iSource, where else can you find us?

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When you come to iSource looking for answers to those burning questions, and you can’t find them after browsing or searching our posts, there is no better place to go than to our Forums.  The Forums are a great place to search through some of the most common questions, ask a question of your own, or even help out a fellow Forum user.  Signing up is painless and only takes a few minutes

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Image source :  chron.com

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Welcome to our weekly installment of Picks of the Week at iSource where we provide our expanded coverage of Apple accessories and applications Here we will promote our favorite iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac and Apple TV related items, as well as bring you occasional tips and tricks. Hopefully many of our favorite items will also be of interest to you. Please feel free to comment on our selections, and suggest picks of your own. Check out this week’s picks after the break.

Espresso  [ v 2.0.1 ]

Picked by: Alex Jordan

My pick this week is Espresso, a web development tool from MacRabbit. I am currently enrolled in a web design class at my local university, and on occasion do paid web development. I’m not particularly great at it, and certainly can’t handle the more advanced Javascript functionality. However, I am pretty comfortable with HTML and CSS. That’s where Espresso shines, with tag highlighting, code collapsing, and other helpful goodies. It even allows you to preview your website from within the app.

Although Panic Inc.’s Coda is a wonderful, competing tool in the marketplace, I prefer Espresso. If you do any sort of web development, and don’t want to shell out the big bucks for Dreamweaver, this is a great tool.

Espresso can be purchased from MacRabbit’s website for $79. A free 15-day trial download is also available

$79 [ Link ]

15 Day Free Trial

Cloud  [ v 1.5.3 ]

Picked by: Joe Tomasone

There’s lots of ways to exchange files that are too big to be emailed – but hardly any this easy.

Cloud App is a small app that resides in your menubar and exists for one purpose – to make it easy for you to share files, pictures, and even URLs with other people.   It couldn’t be easier to use – just drag a file to the icon in the menubar and the file is uploaded.  Click the icon, select the file you uploaded, and you’re presented with a link that you can give out.   Cloud App operates under the Freemium mode; you can share 10 files per day and have a maximum file size of 25MB.   Paid Pro accounts get unlimited shares per day of files up to 250MB in size.  The web site (which is conveniently linked through the icon) allows management of your uploaded files.

It’s tough to beat the simplicity of Cloud App; it’s earned a place on my menubar, ready for the next time someone says, “Our mail server won’t accept…”

Cloud App is free in the Mac App Store and requires free or paid service at http://getcloudapp.com/.

Free  [ App Store ]

Lose It  [ v 3.7.2 ]

Picked by: PatrickJ

I’ve been trying to lose some pounds to enhance my girlish figure over recent months. It’s been going pretty well and I’d honestly never thought of needing or wanting an iPhone app to help me along. Lose It! was mentioned to me by a friend and I’ve been using it for a little over a week now, and I love it. It’s become an instant favorite for me.

It’s based on simple, common sense principles – tracking the food you eat each day and the exercise you do to burn calories and keep fit. Which sounds like no big deal, but for me the devil is in the details and this app has been a huge help on the daily food intake side of things. I have been trying to eat healthier for quite a while, but one thing I never pay enough attention to is portion sizes – I think because I’ve always relied on doing a lot of exercise to burn it all off. Anyway, just the simple act of logging all my daily food intake in this app has made me so much more aware of portion sizes. I’ve only adjusted my portions a small amount, but it is already making a big difference.

The app makes it very easy to log what you eat, and what exercise you do. It’s got entries for tons of brand label food and drink, and a good general search for foods and common exercises – and each provides details on the number of calories taken in / burned.  You can also create your own foods and exercise entries – so if you can’t find one listed, or if the nutritional info is out of date, you can make a new entry with all the correct info.

For now I’m meticulously logging everything I eat and do during each day. I may or may not stick to that long-term, but I feel like even if I don’t the app has helped me greatly by making me more portion-conscious. It’s great to see that with just some minor adjustments you can stay within a better over calorie count each day.

Free  [ iTunes ]

Keynote Remote  [ v 1.3 ]

Picked by: AliciaB

Some apps you discover while idly browsing the tips sections of various blogs or recommended lists, others you stumble upon when you really need an app to help to accomplish a real task in the real world. Such a need was born one day ago while preparing to give a powerpoint presentation for my fellow team members at work. My husband suggested I deliver it using my iPad, using my iPhone to navigate the presentation remotely. And presto! So came the iPhone app Keynote Remote into my life – my Pick for this Week. 

It does exactly what it says, letting you use your iPhone as a remote for Keynote on iPad, wirelessly via bluetooth or wifi. Incidentally it works also for Keynote on mac as well as iPod touch. It also works well, is easy to set up and quite easy to pair between devices. One thing that I really like is that you view a preview of a slide and its related notes together on the screen. In this way I was able to face my audience and connect with them, rather than consulting notes on a laptop or sheet of paper, and also did not have to look at the projected presentation that often. 

It worked absolutely perfectly today. Needless to say my colleagues were really, really impressed. So impressed in fact that one told me afterwards that he could hardly concentrate on what I was saying for the first few minutes, he was so taken aback at the technology and ease of it.

The question on whether to spend 0.99 cents on this app is a no-brainer in my book. If you use Keynote on iPad and you have an iPhone or iPod touch then you should get definitely this app. Here is the link to the App Store (link).

Reckless Racing 2  [ v 1.0.0 ]

Picked by: Brandon

My POTW is Reckless Racing 2 by Polarbit!

The original Reckless Racing was an absolute joy of a top down racing game to play, but sadly it was entirely too short and lacked any sort of customization. It was very much a one size fits all top down racer. Fast forward a little over a year and Reckless Racing 2 (out from underneath the EA thumb) has hit the app store with what can only be described as a “this is everything the game should have been” feeling, not to mention it’s finally a universal download. Costing (an app store pricy) $4.99, Reckless Racing 2 is simply spectacular and I couldn’t be happier with the money I spent. There’s a little bit of everything in here – TONS of tracks, a big career mode, lots of cars and big customizations.

If you’re at all a fan of top down racing (or racing games in general), you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not picking up Reckless Racing 2.

$4.99 [ iTunes ]

There you have it! Hope you enjoyed this week’s installment of Picks of the week. Please let us know what you think, and share with us some of your favorites.

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Appigo’s Notebook is one of the first purchases I made on my iPhone 2G in 2008, and so it comes as a pleasant surprise that Notebook 2.0 has been released as a free update. The two major features of this update are a switch to the plain text (.txt) format for notes and very flexible Dropbox integration – both of which combine to make the notes you create on the iPhone or iPad versions of Notebook universally accessible. Of course, there are already a number of apps out there (Notesy, WriteRoom, Elements, etc.) that work beautifully with plain text files and sync with Dropbox, so what does Notebook really bring to the table?

[Warning: Notebook turns out to be one of those apps that likes to rename your files for you if they use any characters deemed invalid by Windows. So if you keep a lot of text files with the following characters, Notebook will automatically remove them from the file names: . / : ? * < > | ]

Notebook is probably the only Dropbox-friendly app I’ve seen that syncs properly with multiple non-nested folders, making it extra collaboration friendly. This is an important feature that’s very easy to overlook. Most apps, like WriteRoom, prefer that you choose a single Dropbox folder (e.g. Dropbox/Writer) to keep your notes in. WriteRoom does support sub-folders, but it can still only see notes and folders that are inside of /Writer. Notebook, on the other hand, will allow you to pick and choose exactly which folders you’d like to sync with, and adding a folder will also sync any relevant sub-folders and notes, as well. This means that I can choose to sync /Writer and all of its sub-folders, as well as /Shopping, which is a special Dropbox folder I share with my roommate for groceries. 

Appigo has also made it very easy to move a note to another Dropbox folder while viewing it, so it’s easy to move a private note into a collaborative folder, or vice versa.The only app that I can think of that offers anything similar is Daedalus Touch for iPad), although Daedalus isn’t nearly as easy to use, since it requires you to engage syncs manually.

It should also be mentioned that Notebook syncs with the online task managing service, Toodledo, as well as with Appigo’s in-house task manager, ToDo. I just don’t have much to say about these features as I never really took to ToDo’s UI, which always felt a little too crowded for me. However, if you’re the type to make specific notes into tasks, then Notebook + ToDo could fit quite nicely into your workflow.

Regardless, I think Appigo deserves some kudos here: they’ve kept a longstanding app like Notebook alive and relevant with free updates, and they’ve also made the notes that you keep inside of the app universally accessible – which, when it comes down to it, is really what you want when you take notes in the first place.

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Apple to Likely Benefit from US Government’s Digital Textbook Push

The Associated Press is reporting that the U.S. government is pushing for schools and textbook companies to transition to digital textbooks. Textbook companies have been attempting to break into that market, but the cost of technology is holding them back. Apple is said to continue offering the iPad 2 at a reduced price after the iPad 3 launch. [Read More]

Apple Had Discussed High-Definition Music Formats with Neil Young

This may sound really awesome to some, or really lame to others. In an interview with AllThingsD, Neil Young claimed that he had discussed high-definition music formats with Steve Jobs before his passing. After several years of stagnation, it seems Apple still isn’t interested in pushing audio formats any further at the moment, which kinda surprises me. [Read More]

Analsyst Epects Next-Generation iPhone to Launch this Summer at WWDC

Here’s another analyst expecting the next-generation iPhone to be introduced at this year’s WWDC, which is expected to be held in June. I seriously have my doubts. Apple deliberately moved the release of their iPhone models ahead of the holiday season last year. I would expect that pattern to continue going forward. [Read More]

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Anyone need some extra Dropbox storage space for free?  That’s right–free!  If you are willing to participate in an experimental Dropbox build, you too can get up to 4.5 GB of free storage.  The extra space is for testing out their new automatic upload of videos and photos.   After you download the beta, all you have to do is connect a camera to your computer, and follow the prompts.

For every 500MB of photos and videos automatically uploaded, you’ll receive another 500MB space bonus, up to 4.5GB total.

Seems rather painless for a more than doubling of the standard storage space currently offered with a free Dropbox account.

A few more highlights form their forum on the new beta build

1.3.12

• 500MB of free space on first photo import
• Cleanup UI in Windows non admin installation.
• Fix infinite restart of Dropbox when database was corrupted.
• Fix import error on iPhone with lots and lots of photos.
• Better Handling of out of quota issues on first photo import.
• Other small fixes

1.3 Features

• Importing of photos from cameras, phones, and SD cards.
• Batch upload/download of files.

via [Gizmodo]

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I got an e-mail from Capcom this morning informing me that Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is now out as a free download on the App Store. The title is actually a port of the excellent Nintendo DS puzzle-adventure game of the same name, so the touch mechanics should transfer over quite nicely to the buttonless iPhone and iPad. The premise is terribly mysterious and I don’t really want to spoil much, but a lot of the game boils down to switching between the ghost world (where you can manipulate things) and the physical world (where things actually happen). There’s also a wee bit of time traveling thrown in there for good measure, but the first two chapters will cover all of that nicely.

The two aforementioned chapters come free with the game, and if you end up liking the sample, you can purchase the rest of it as $10 DLC. I’ve actually played a significant portion of Ghost Trick on the DS already, so I’m quite comfortable with recommending the purchase. The humour is quirky, the animations smooth, and the storyline has a habit of making all sorts of ridiculous twists. Ghost Trick is well worth a download if you’ve been looking for a game to keep you entertained for a few hours.

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Macotakara is following up one of their earlier reports in which they claimed that the iPad 3 announcement event would be held in February. In their new report they claim that there will indeed be an event held in February, but will lack a product announcement. They also now claim that the iPad 3 announcement and launch will occur sometime in March.

So, to set everything straight, a Japanese blog with a spotty track record in regards to accuracy, that claimed that the iPad 3 introduction would occur in February, is now claiming it will occur in March. However, February will still see a media event, but one lacking a product announcement. Right.

I think they’re half right. That is, the next-generation iPad will be unveiled and launched in March. This gives enough time for the people that received the iPad 2 during the holidays to not feel so quickly outdated. However, if Apple has something to say that is not a product announcement, I can’t see them holding a special event for it. I can see them making their statements during the iPad event depending on the subject matter. In other words, I don’t expect an event in February.

[UPDATE] The ever-well-informed Jim Dalrymple of The Loop reports that Apple will not be holding an event in February. He’s proven to have very reliable information, and I really wouldn’t bet against what he says.

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The 10.7.3 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that:

- Add Catalan, Croatian, Greek, Hebrew, Romanian, Slovak, Thai, and Ukrainian language support
- Address issues when using smart cards to log into OS X
- Resolve issues authenticating with directory services
- Address compatibility issues with Windows file sharing

The download can be acquired via Software Update in the Apple menu. There are several different flavors of this update ranging in sizes of 997.01MB for the client version to 1GB for the server version. Apple also released Security Update 2012-001 for Snow Leopard users. Lastly, Apple released Apple Remote Desktop 3.5.2 Client, which addresses issues with screen sharing.

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I always find it interesting to see how different people attempt to organize everyday life. Shawn Blanc recently posted a quick thought on To-Do Lists and Schedules, stating that he has  “a daily to-do list and a routine schedule. The to-do list is the “what”, the schedule is the “when”.”

I tend to agree with this approach, although the apps I use are different. Shawn uses Fantastical or BusyCal on the Mac for scheduling appointments and uses OmniFocus for tasks. I currently use the iOS Calendar app and I leave all my tasks inside of Things. However, Shawn’s post reminded me of how one app, Calvetica, tries to manage both the “what” and the “when” using just one paradigm: the calendar.

I have always thought that lists were the best way to manage tasks (a.k.a. ye olde to-do list). After all, lists can easily be re-ordered, items can be separated into different lists, and good task apps usually have an “All” and a “Filtered” view to let me view tasks with flexibility. I’ve been using Things consistently since publishing the review of the iPad app, but I’m not opposed to trying out other solutions now and again, and so for the past few days I’ve been giving Calvetica a shot as a daily task manager.

Calvetica’s task manager looks just like its event manager, but for the little checkmarks beside each of the task titles. Switching between tasks and events is as simple as tapping on a button in the menu.

The immediate advantages to this calendar view is that you can tell at a glance what is due and when; I also find it easier to visualize a task when it’s a blot on a 31-day calendar rather than a simple date (July 25). Calvetica tasks are coloured differently based on the lists they’re in (iSource is orange, Personal is blue), but there doesn’t really seem to be any way to tell which tasks are overdue.

If you’ve missed a due date, Calvetica will automatically move overdue tasks to the current date. This makes sense, but it also takes some getting used to, as most other task managers highlight overdue items in red.

If you find it overwhelming to see all of the tasks from your various lists at all times, you have the option of hiding lists just like you can event calendars. However, this solution is more cumbersome than a straight-up filter, since viewing just my iSource tasks requires me to manually hide every other list first.

But I don’t want to seem like I’m not giving Calvetica credit here: I love the way the app allows me to create multiple tasks from one dialogue box, and I also think the “week” view is a very nice touch.

When Do You Sync?

One of the only confusing parts about using Calvetica as a task manager is figuring out how and when it syncs. You’ll have to sign up for a Pocket Lint account from within the app before you can sync anything, and after that, it’s not made terribly obvious when exactly the syncing process happens. It wasn’t until I asked the developers at Mysterious Trousers that I found out that tasks sync on startup and exit. That’s fine by me, but it’s also not completely consistent. Newly created tasks transfer from my iPad to my iPhone quickly enough, but Pocket Lint sometimes has trouble remembering which tasks I’ve completed.

Undated Tasks, Please

As flexible as Calvetica already is, I think it still needs to support longer-term tasks without due dates. This is really where the calendar-based UI falls apart for me. Aside from the set of tasks I have scheduled for the week to come, I also like to keep a larger task list of draft ideas that have no due dates. These tasks are just good ideas that I want to act on once I have more free time. The tasks are still in the same iSource list in Things (alongside the tasks with assigned due dates), but such a distinction is currently impossible in Calvetica. Tasks either have a date, or they don’t exist at all.

I think a re-orderable list of items without due dates would help a lot in this regard. Even Teux Deux, an app that prefers users to think about one week of tasks at a time, has a special section for unordered lists. I realize I could also keep my list of undated tasks in another app or a separate text file, but transferring tasks over one by one would be a lot more difficult than simply tapping on an undated task in Calvetica and assigning it a due date.

Conclusion

If giant lists of things never worked for you, and you already prefer to see things as blips on a calendar, then Calvetica could be a great fit – especially since $3 buys you both the iPhone and iPad versions. The interface that was originally designed for handling calendar events adapts surprisingly well to the managing of tasks – so long as you’re the type to think about every task you create as having a due date. I’ll be keeping an eye on Calvetica, but I think I’ll be heading back to Things for now.

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Of course, the only changes the iPod nano saw this year were on the user interface side and pricing side of things. There were no hardware changes. Soon after these changes were made, a patent application surfaced showing Apple’s interest in incorporating speakers in the device’s design.

With all of that backstory out of the way, Apple.pro is reporting that a series of new photos have emerged showing a camera-equipped iPod nano. This design shows a housing that protrudes from the backside of the device which encases the camera and brings the lens flush with the device’s clip, which also has a hole for the lens.

The iPod line has clearly lost momentum since the introduction of the iPhone. Last October’s lukewarm refresh is proof of that. If I had to wager, Apple will slow the significant iPod refreshes to every other year, or refresh only when technology allows them to make a cost-effective advancement. I believe that is why the iPod touch did not receive an A5 processor this year. It simply costs too much for Apple to turn a nice profit on it.

Images courtesy of Apple.pro.

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As you may remember it was rumored throughout much of 2011 that Apple would be building near field communication (NFC) technology in future iPhone models. Obviously, NFC technology did not make it’s way to the iPhone 4S, but a new piece from Fast Company claims that, in an interview with a Mastercard executive, Apple could be working with credit card companies at the moment in order implement the feature.

To be specific, Mastercard did not admit to working with Apple on NFC, but rather gave a non-answer, answer in which they covered their ass by claiming confidentiality agreements were in the way. In other words, they are working with Apple on this technology and corresponding agreements, but can’t talk about it.

NFC allows users to use their device as a credit card of sorts. With NFC terminals installed in stores, the customer can pay for a transaction with a wave of a card. Building NFC into an iPhone, would effectively turn the device into a digital wallet. Further proof that Apple is interested in user transitions, the company recently rolled out a new self-checkout system in their retail stores, that utilizes a customer’s iTunes account to speed up checkout. NFC could be used to further improve the speed of the transactions.

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Launch Center is one of those $0.99 apps that you could easily form an entire iPhone workflow around – you just need a bit of time to think one up. I decided to give the app a shot after seeing it mentioned recently on MacStories. On the surface, Launch Center is a quick launcher for apps, system actions, and websites: load the app up and you’ll have options to…

• turn the rear Flash on
• Speed Dial / Text / Email a Contact
• Launch Website/App (more on this in a bit)
• Post to Facebook (official Facebook app required)
• Tweet (using the iOS 5 pop-up box)
• Google My Clipboard (well, Your clipboard)

As of version 1.1, you now also have the option of scheduling a notification for any one of those actions. The notifications can appear just once, or they can repeat daily, weekly, monthly, or annually.

Super Dialer

One of the first things that will occur to most users is that Launch Center can function as a bit of a super dialing app. It’s quick and easy to up speed dials and quick texts to family and friends and then stack a few of your most-used apps just below. For those who want to keep a minimal home screen profile and only keep in touch with a few people, Launch Center will probably be a great replacement for the Phone app on your dock.

Scheduling + Launching = Semi-Automatic “Profiles”

Launching other apps straight from Launch Center isn’t too difficult – all it usually takes is the formula [AppNameGoesHere://] – but it isn’t the same for every single app, so Launch Center isn’t a terribly newb-friendly app. But for the initiated, the combination of custom-URLs and scheduled notifications gets non-jailbroken iOS 5 users closer to automatic profiles, much like the ones available on Android and Blackberry.

If you’re the kind to set e-mail sounds OFF before you sleep, you can set a settings shortcut (see iDownloadBlog for a full list) for Sounds to pop up at 11:45 PM before you head to sleep, and all you’ll have to do is tap on the pop-up, switch e-mail sounds OFF, and then doze off. Not as cool as a GPS- or time-triggered profile, but it’s better than nothing.

Reminding You To Use That App You Always Forget to Use

There are all sorts of great apps for keeping track of your daily budget, weight, and what you’ve been eating for lunch and dinner…but these apps are only useful when you remember to use them. If you’ve been having trouble remembering to launch MoneyBook to record how much lunch cost, or Foodish to snap shots of your Salmon Sandwich, then scheduled actions in Launch Center could prove enormously useful.

Curbing App Addiction?

Alternatively, if you find there are certain apps that you’re simply checking far too often just because they’re on your homescreen, you could also try and use Launch Center to launch them only at specific times of the day. That way you can tuck Facebook away in a folder on your fifth home screen and wait until Launch Center pops up with a notification in the evening, which will then give you permission to e-stalk your friends for a while.

I’m sure there are other uses for Launch Center, so if you’ve got some unique use cases of your own, share with the class in the comments.

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First up, Airport Utility 6.0 for OS X Lion has been redesigned to look more like the iOS Airport Utility that has been out for some time now. The update is 14.13MB in size and can be acquired here.

As for the Base Station and Time Capsule Firmware update, it can be installed on the appropriate hardware via the Mac or iOS Airport Utility. This update fixes an issues with wireless performance and provides access to a Time Capsule hard drive or AirPort disk with an iCloud account.

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Well, today Apple has released Final Cut Pro X 10.0.3, which brings multicam and XML support, along with advanced chroma keying. These are some of the major features that were demanded by users after it was discovered that they were missing from Final Cut Pro X.

The update can be acquired through the Mac App Store, along Motion and Compressor, which were also updated today. Motion seeing an update which improves the speed of text editing, the ability to add animation keyframe, and other minor tweaks. The Compressor update offers minor enhancements such as improved speed in transiting from Uncompressed 10-bit 4:2:2 to ProRes. These are free updates to paid customers.

This, to my mind, proves that Apple will listen to their customers. However, it amazed me that the company made such a misstep in the first place, and neglected to include these features. Serious features that are needed by professional customers. It was either an amazing oversight or a foolish feature cut.

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We’ve known since the get-go that the Multitasking Bar on iOS devices is misnamed. It would be more accurately described as a Rapid App Switching Bar or Apple’s First Stab at App Switching Bar – as there is currently only very limited and closely controlled multitasking on iOS. So the apps shown in the Multitasking Bar are not generally running in the background (with some exceptions) but are just the most recently used apps.

There’s been a fair bit of debate around the web about how much (if any) memory and other resources might be used by the apps shown in the MT bar, and how much (if at all) users should worry about ‘managing’ apps in the bar. Now a very clever gent called Frasier Speirs has gone a long way towards ending all need for any debate on this subject. He’s written very well on the subject on his blog site and also released an excellent video demo showing in great detail how iOS multitasking works.

Here’s the main sections listing for the video:

• An app going from active to background to suspended
• Instacast HD requesting extra background time to finish a podcast download
• TomTom running indefinitely in the background
• Batman Arkham City Lockdown and Real Racing 2 HD competing for big chunks of device memory
• Batman Arkham City Lockdown forcing several smaller apps out of memory

The verdict from Speirs is that killing apps manually (to try to free up memory) is fine as a troubleshooting step, but should not be part of a regular routine on iDevices – as it just not needed.

Check out the video demo here:

http://speirs.org/blog/2012/1/6/ios-multitasking-in-detail.html

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