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  • Ed
    Apple has released iOS 4 for recent iPhones and iPod Touch models - it's available now for immediate download through iTunes.
     
    The new iOS reportedly features over 100 new features, the key ones being multi-tasking, folders, unified Mail inbox, and iBooks for reading ebooks.
     
    First generation iPod Touch and iPhone models are unfortunately not compatible. Multi-tasking is not available on the iPhone 3G.
  • Ed
    After over 5 years with the same enclosure, the Mac mini has finally been given a well-deserved overhaul with an all-new aluminium uni-body enclosure which is smaller in volume by 20% than the previous Mac mini enclosures.
     

     
    The new Mac mini is also the first Mac ever to include a built-in HDMI port, a move which directly addresses the Home Theatre PC (HTPC) market.
     
    The graphics processor has been updated to the same GeForce 320M as used in the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines. Memory can now be upgraded to 8GB and is a user-installable part, thanks to a new base which can twist off from underneath the Mac mini, allowing easy access to the RAM.
     
    The new Mac mini is available for order today and is priced at $649 for the standard model, and $999 for the server model which features dual 500GB hard drives and Mac OS X Server. In the UK, the same models cost £649 and £929 respectively; a particularly unfavourable exchange rate.
  • Ed

    iPhone 4 available for pre-order

    By Ed, in OSx86,

    The new iPhone 4 has today been made available for pre-order on Apple's new website, and the AT&T website.
     
    Currently, only the black models are available for pre-order, in both 16GB and 32GB configurations. The white model is listed as "currently unavailable for pre-order or in-store pickup".
     
    In the US, the 16GB model retails at $199 and the 32GB model at $299, subsidised by a 2-year AT&T contract.
     
    In the UK, none of the mobile network providers have yet made their websites able to accept pre-orders, but the Apple Store is offering SIM-free models online, with a 16GB model retailing at £499, and 32GB model at £599.
  • Ed

    iPhone 4 and iOS 4 announced

    By Ed, in OSx86,

    As was widely expected, Steve Jobs used the keynote speech at the WWDC to announce the hotly anticipated iPhone 4 and its newly renamed Operating System, iOS 4.
     
    Launching on June the 24th in the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan from just $199, the new iPhone features the following:


    Stainless steel and glass construction.
    25% thinner case - just 9.3 mm thin, allegedly the thinnest smartphone to date.
    Apple A4 processor (as used in the iPad).
    Ultra-high resolution screen dubbed the "Retina Display", with a quadrupled resolution of 960x640, equivalent to 326ppi.
    Increased battery life, now at 7 hours of 3G talk, 6 hours of 3G browsing, 10 hours of Wi-Fi browsing, 10 hours of video, and 40 hours of music.
    Front-facing camera with new FaceTime feature for videophone conversations (only available over Wi-Fi).
    Rear-facing camera is now 5 megapixels with an LED flash.
    Video can now record in HD, 720p @ 30fps.
    Wi-Fi now at 802.11n.
    Available in black or white.
    Available in 16GB or 32GB capacities.
    The iPhone 4 will of course ship with the iPhone OS 4, which has now simply been renamed to just "iOS 4", which features multi-tasking, folders, and iAds.
  • Ed
    In an ideal world you'd just pop a DVD into your Mac, press a button in iTunes like you can with a CD to copy it to your hard disk, and then simply play your DVD video file from within Front Row and enjoy the movie in glorious Dolby Digital surround sound and be done with it.
     
    Nope, not that simple I'm afraid.
     
    Firstly, there's two ways to copy a DVD: either the whole DVD disc, lock stock with special features, DVD menus, and the annoying anti-piracy ads even though you actually bought your DVD - or - copying only the actual movie "track" itself, discarding all other content like the special features. There are pros and cons on each side so it's really down to personal preference:
     
    DVD disc copy
     
    Pros:


    Includes all content from the DVD including special features & bonus content
    Cons:


    Still got to put up with annoying ads/trailers, if any
    Files are huge, about 7GB for a DVD
    Files are too big to be streamed over Wi-Fi from a remote location
    Have to use Finder to access files, not a cool interface like Front Row or iTunes

    Video track extraction
     
    Pros:


    Compressed file, approx. 1GB for a film, with virtually no appreciable difference to quality
    Can be streamed over Wi-Fi from a remote location
    Plays from within Front Row & iTunes
    Easy to export to iPod/iPhone
    Omits adverts, piracy warning, trailers
    Cons:


    Omits special features & bonus content
    Surround sound can be a bit fiddly to set up and use
    Let me elaborate on a few of those pros and cons above. The video track extraction technique employs an encoding compression standard called H.264. In my opinion, H.264 is to video what MP3 was to music: an efficient way of compressing the size of a raw file from the original disc into a much smaller file size with virtually no impact on quality. Hence how we can get a whole movie down to 1GB.
     
    This reduction in file size not only means we're playing with much smaller files for ripping and copying, but it also enables the neat trick of being able to play these files over a Wi-Fi network. This means you could have all your movie files stored on one computer, in my case that's my Mac Pro which is in my study, and then have other computers in the household simply act as hosts which stream the films over Wi-Fi and display them on the monitor they're attached to, so in my case my Mac mini in the living room which is hooked up to my plasma. The Mac mini thus does not store any film files, so there's no need for me to have multiple copies of the same movie across my computers, they all just sit in the one central location: the Mac Pro in the study.
     
    Other key benefits for the video track extraction route is that you can use iTunes to manage and search your music library, and even apply pretty artwork covers to each movie file if you want to get particularly OCD about it (which I do, of course). You also have the benefit of using Front Row as the interface on your TV to access your movies, although it's a shame that Apple has a bug since 2007 which doesn't show the film artwork if you're using a remote source to serve up your film files.
     
    That aside, the DVD copy route is definitely a lot easier from a sound setup perspective. Copied DVD files are simply launched from Apple's built-in DVD player which will auto-detect whether to play the surround sound track or the stereo track depending on your amp & speaker setup. I would assume that anyone bothering to read this and is interested in using their Mac as a home cinema setup will probably have a surround sound setup with a Dolby Digital capable receiver/amplifier, so at this point you should know that surround sound on the Mac via the video track extraction route is fiddly. I'll get into this in a bit.
     
    DVD disc copy how-to
     
    Copying whole DVD discs is really simple thanks to a great piece of software called Mac DVDRipper Pro from DVDSuki Software. It costs $9.95 and you simply launch it, point it at your DVD that you've inserted into your Mac, and let it rip the whole DVD into a neat little file which you can then simply double-click to launch it in Apple's DVD Player. Simple as that.
     
    Video track extraction how-to
     
    If you decide to simply extract just the actual film track from your DVDs, and you intend to use surround sound, in order to get AC-3 working for your extracted files, you'll need to follow these excellent instructions from programmer Graham Booker's blog to get AC-3 passthrough working on your Mac. It's fiddly, but worth it.
     
    A quick education on surround sound standards: Dolby Pro Logic II is not true surround sound; it simply fakes surround sound by breaking up the stereo source and spitting it out through your rear and centre speakers. True surround sound is Dolby Digital, which is also known as AC-3. It requires output from a digital connection on your Mac to a digital input on your receiver, which will need to have a Dolby Digital decoder.
     
    Once you've got AC-3 passthrough enabled, you're now ready to extract the film tracks from your DVDs. The tool of choice will be the popular open-source Handbrake utility. Once you've inserted your DVD, click the 'Source' icon and select your DVD:
     

     
    You'll then want to browse to the 'Audio' tab and set your audio tracks as per the screenshot below, which will encode both 'Stereo' tracks and 'Surround' tracks. This means that you'll be able to play your movie track on normal stereo devices (such as your iPhone or normal desktop PC with standard stereo speakers) as well as on Dolby Digital aware equipment such as a proper home cinema setup with Dolby Digital receiver:
     

     
    You should note that if you intend to watch all your movies through Front Row, there is a great bug which means that if there's more than one audio track encoded in the movie, Front Row will always default to the non-surround track - great! To get around this, the only way I've found around this is to encode only the surround sound track, so in that case your audio track settings in HandBrake should look like this:
     

     
    If you have no intention to ever play your films in proper surround sound (Dolby Digital) then you should put your settings like this:
     

     
    You're now ready to click the 'Start' button and extract and compress the film track from your DVD. Bingo! Follow this process for all your DVDs that you wish to copy.
  • Ed
    Our friends at TUAW have reported that Google are no longer renewing Windows licenses and are now taking the official line of offering employees a choice of either Mac or Linux OS only.
     
    Despite recent tension between Google and Apple, it would appear that using Mac OS X is still preferable over the potential security flaws found in Windows. That said, it may only be a matter of time until the Mac itself becomes a bigger target for hackers as its market share gains.
  • Ed
    Steven Frank, developer for well-reknowned software house, Panic, has put together some useful notes on his blog around synchronisation discrepancies between cloud-based contact manager, Google Contacts, and the ubiquitous Apple Address Book which comes pre-installed on Mac OS X.
     
    Address Book features built-in support for sync'ing with Google Contacts but it's not been made clear by either Apple or Google as to what exactly doesn't work. Steven's useful list is non-exhaustive but is a good start in understanding what may not work.
  • Ed
    Apple has quietly rolled out an updated version of the entry-level $999 MacBook.
     
    The revised polycarbonate unibody MacBook now boasts a 2.4Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics, and up to 10 hours of battery life. At just $999 this MacBook represents great value when you consider its base specs are 2GB of DDR3 RAM, 250GB HD @ 5400RPM, 8x SuperDrive, and an LED-backlit 1280x800 pixel widescreen.
     
    The MacBook remains the most affordable way to own a brand new portable Mac as Apple has expressed no interest in entering the netbook space - for details on how to hack netbooks for Mac OS X for ultra-affordable portable Mac computing, make sure you check out our sister site myMacNetbook.
  • Ed
    Software developers Avatron, well known for their Air Sharing apps allowing users to drag & drop files between their Macs and iPhones/iPods like an external hard disk, are getting ready to release their newest app for iPad, Air Display, that lets you use the newly released Apple product as a 2nd monitor for your Mac.
     
    The app uses Wi-Fi to transmit video data between the Mac and the iPad, and there's a System Preference pane that needs to be installed on the Mac in addition to the actual app itself on the iPad. The app also allows for the iPad's touch screen to be used in addition to the Mac's keyboard & mouse, so you can actually "click" on the iPad's screen by touching it. Pretty neat!
     
    Air Display is expected to be submitted on the App Store next week at a price of $9.99. Lets hope this one gets through the approval process unlike the previously featured Wi-Fi Sync app we covered last month.
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