technokrz {dot} com » Apple

This is Socks for iPod

Sharl — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:11:16 +0000

Wow! Here’s the stylish one. It’s already in the market long time ago, but I just found it in the online marketplace. It’s fun and practical solution to protect your iPod. You can just slide iPod into an iPod Sock to keep it safe and slide it out to dock or change playlists. The socks comes in green, purple, grey, blue, orange and pink.

How to Keep Geotags in Exported Photos

Sharl — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 15:06:51 +0000

If you have exported geotagged pictures from iPhoto to a Mac, you would have noticed that the GPS coordinates are not included in the exported image. There is an easy fix to ensure that the coordinates ride along in the file.

Geotagging – which embed longitude, latitude and any other location data into a picture file – is great fro remembering where you went on vacation. But it can also cause privacy concerns, say, by letting everyone know where you live when you send around pictures of your fancy new television. The option to include the location data in pictures you export from iPhoto 09, select the photos and choose Export from the file menu.

In the include section of the File Export Box, check the box next to Location Information to embed the coordinates in the image

The First Impression of Apple iPad

Sharl — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 23:10:58 +0000

In the end of January this year Apple has revealed the new product iPad. David Pogue has take a look on it.

The Apple iPad: First Impressions

Today Apple finally unveiled its tablet computer, the iPad. Thus concludes Phase 1 of the standard Apple new-category roll-out: months of feverish speculation and hype online, without any official indication by Apple that the product even exists.

Now Phase 2 can begin: the bashing by the bloggers who’ve never even tried it: “No physical keyboard!” “No removable battery!” “Way too expensive!” “Doesn’t multitask!” “No memory-card slot!”

That will last until the iPad actually goes on sale in April. Then, if history is any guide, Phase 3 will begin: positive reviews, people lining up to buy the thing, and the mysterious disappearance of the basher-bloggers.

The iPad is, as predicted, essentially a giant iPod Touch: aluminum-backed, half-inch thin, with a 10-inch screen surrounded by a shiny black border. At the bottom, there’s the standard iPod/iPhone connector and a single Home button. It will be available in models ranging from $499 (16 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi) to $830 (64 gigs of memory, Wi-Fi and 3G cellular).

The cellular signal will be provided by AT&T for $15 a month (250 megabytes of data transferred — think e-mail only) or $30 a month, unlimited. Amazingly, those AT&T deals involve no contract. You can cancel whenever you like. And since this thing isn’t a phone, you don’t have to worry about dropped calls; you’re paying exclusively for Internet service.

There’s no reason you couldn’t use it to make calls using Skype, of course — Apple says that virtually all of the existing 140,000 iPhone apps run fine on the iPad. (You can run them either at regular tiny size, or blown up double with some loss of clarity.)

Then again, you might look a little bizarre walking through the airport holding this giant clipboard up to your ear.

Until I saw the demo, I wondered why you’d want an iPad instead of a laptop. After all, the price is about the same. And once you add a carrying case to the iPad — wouldn’t you worry about that glass screen bouncing around in your briefcase or backpack naked? — it’s about the same bulk and weight as a laptop.

Now, though, it looks like Apple really has created something new. Criticisms of “Like a laptop” and “a big iPod Touch” don’t really do justice to the possibilities.

The iPad as an e-book reader is a no-brainer. It’s just infinitely better-looking and more responsive than the Kindle, not to mention it has color and doesn’t require external illumination. (Book fans should note, however, that the iPad e-bookstore won’t offer bestsellers at $10 each, like Amazon and Barnes & Noble do. And although Apple says the iPad has a 10-hour battery life, it hasn’t yet said “doing what.” Playing video eats up battery a lot faster than reading e-books.)

Web browsing, painting programs, TV and movies, newspapers and magazines all seem like naturals on this 1.5-pound machine, too. The New York Times app is especially appealing to me — and yes, this is my completely independent opinion — because it seems to work like the much-adored Times Reader app for computers.

Overall, the iPad seems like a dream screen for reading and watching–at some loss of convenience in creating. True, there’s an on-screen keyboard, big enough to type on with both hands in the usual way. And Apple will offer a specialized multitouch word processor, spreadsheet and presentation app for $10 each. But I’m guessing that, with no mouse and no physical keys to feel, writing and editing will be more effort than on a laptop. (Apple will also sell an external keyboard that holds the iPad upright as you type. Then again, if you need to carry all that around, maybe a laptop would make more sense.)

But these are just the wild speculations of a guy who’s never even tried the thing. (Believe me, I’ll review it when I get one.)

My main message to fanboys is this: it’s too early to draw any conclusions. Apple hasn’t given the thing to any reviewers yet, there are no iPad-only apps yet (there will be), the e-bookstore hasn’t gone online yet, and so on. So hyperventilating is not yet the appropriate reaction.

At the same time, the bashers should be careful, too. As we enter Phase 2, remember how silly you all looked when you all predicted the iPhone’s demise in that period before it went on sale.

Like the iPhone, the iPad is really a vessel, a tool, a 1.5-pound sack of potential. It may become many things. It may change an industry or two, or it may not. It may introduce a new category — something between phone and laptop — or it may not. And anyone who claims to know what will happen will wind up looking like a fool.

Tom Tom iPhone Car Kit

Sharl — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 06:22:18 +0000

Overview

The TomTom app on your iPhone 3GS or iPhone 3G puts award-winning technology at your fingertips, like IQ Routes which gives you the smartest, most efficient route any time of day. That’s just the beginning. Combine it with the TomTom Car Kit to experience enhanced GPS performance for the ultimate in-car navigation.

TomTom Car Kit features

Secure docking
TomTom’s specially designed, award-winning EasyPort mount attaches your iPhone securely to your windscreen or dashboard – perfectly within reach. It lets you rotate the screen for widescreen route display. And it folds flat for easy moves from car to car.

Enhanced GPS performance
The TomTom car kit’s built-in receiver increases the GPS performance of your iPhone to give you a truly reliable signal – even in high-rise urban areas.

Clear voice instructions
With the built-in volume controls and superior speaker, you’ll hear every voice instruction loud and clear – so you’ll never miss a thing.

Easy charging
Dock your iPhone 3GS in the mount to charge it as you drive, so it’s always fully charged and ready to go.

Hands-free calling
Receive calls without taking your eyes off the road, using the built-in extra-sensitive microphone and speaker. And the app automatically starts navigating again as soon as the call ends.

Your music on the move
With the audio out connector you can play all your favorite songs through your car’s audio system with the optional audio cable*. It even fades music out when receiving calls and giving directions.
* Requires compatible car audio system

Tap and go
Using the multi-touch display on your iPhone 3GS or 3G, you can tap your way from A to B – so you get all the best routes. Scroll through the menu, or pinch to zoom in and out on a map.

Go your own way
See your route, your way. Simply rotate from portrait to landscape to get an easier view of the road ahead.

Meet friends and find a place to eat
Find an entry in your iPhone contacts list, and the TomTom app directs you there. Or choose a restaurant, call to reserve your table, then follow the directions.

The smartest routes
The shortest route isn’t always the fastest. TomTom IQ Routes always gives you the most efficient route. It’s the only app that uses the driving experiences of millions of drivers to base routes on actual road speed data.

The world at your fingertips
Always be prepared. The TomTom app comes with an up-to-date, detailed map – and you can add worldwide locations to suit you.

Technical Specifications

Audio out: 3.5 mm
Volume control: Yes
Portrait/Landscape support: Yes
Windscreen and dashboard mounting: Yes
iPhone charging via CLA: Yes
Dimensions: 5.17 x 2.7 x 1.96 in./131.43 x 68.68 x 49.86 mm
Weight: 4.13 oz./117 g

The Top 10 Technology Stories of 2009

Sharl — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 07:06:26 +0000

from PC World by Marc Ferranti, IDG News Service

The Great Recession cast a shadow on all sectors of the economy in 2009. IT fared better than most, however, and the slump did not curb the dynamic nature of the industry. Acquisitions among big vendors continued to reshape the market, operating-system wars extended to mobile battlefields, microblogging became a powerful source of real-time information, and the take-up of small, ‘Net-connected devices was stronger than ever. Here, in no particular order, is the IDG News Service’s pick of the top 10 technology stories of 2009.

Oracle (tries) to buy Sun: The big get bigger

Oracle’s April deal to buy Sun Microsystems for US$7.4 billion, reportedly outbidding IBM, has the potential to reshape the tech industry. It’s also a denouement for Sun, whose prescient “the network is the computer” tagline has been overshadowed by mounting losses as users take up commodity servers. In dollar terms the acquisition is smaller than Hewlett-Packard’s May acquisition of services giant EDS for $13.9 billion, but could be more of a game-changer because it gets one of the biggest software companies on the planet into the hardware game, zeroing in on the data center. Major players are trying to emulate IBM’s “one-stop shop” for software, hardware and services. Other notable acquisitions this year included HP’s November deal to buy networking company 3Com for $2.7 billion and Xerox’s September agreement to acquire services company ACS for $6.4 billion. The story is not over, though: The European Union is threatening to block the Sun deal, out of fear that Oracle could quash the budding open-source database market by crippling Sun’s MySQL.

Microsoft launches Windows 7 — we can all move on now

On Oct. 22, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage in downtown New York at the lead event for a somewhat — for the software giant — soft-edged launch for Windows 7. Ballmer presided over a day of speechmaking and sales promotions in cities worldwide. But the events were on the whole smaller than the usual major Microsoft launches. The scaled-back hoopla and the marketing mantra of “simplicity” fit Microsoft’s characterization of the new OS — above all, faster and more straightforward to use than its predecessor, Vista. That much-maligned OS was plagued by hardware compatibility problems, slow performance and annoying system alerts. The older Windows XP, as of the Win 7 launch, was still being used by more than 70 percent of computer users. Microsoft, no doubt happy to turn the page on an embarrassing chapter in its history, says Win 7 is being adopted faster than Vista.

Chrome OS: Emperor’s new clothes or paradigm shift?

Just about a month after the Win 7 launch, Microsoft’s archnemesis, Google, released its Chrome operating system to the open-source community. Google said Chrome, due out in about a year, will be faster, simpler and more secure than existing OSes. It probably will be, because it does a lot less than current operating systems. Chrome runs only Web-based applications and will not even be able to run applications built for Google’s own Android mobile OS. That, and the fact that peripherals for Chrome-based machines will have to comply with specific hardware reference designs, means that in no way can it be a replacement for current PC OSes. But that’s the point. Computer users are spending more time accessing Web services and applications. Not many PC owners are ready to throw out their hard drives, but take-up of small, ‘Net-centric devices will one day lead to a tipping point where the majority of users tap the Web for virtually all their computing needs.

Yahoo, Microsoft sign deal … and seal Yahoo’s search fate?

In the end, the two companies worked out something that was less than a marriage of convenience, but which nevertheless managed to fundamentally alter one of the legendary names in Internet search. A year-and-a-half after Microsoft made an unsolicited bid to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion, kicking off a series of stormy, on-again-off-again talks, the two companies announced a search deal aimed at giving them leverage against Google. The companies agreed to a revenue-sharing deal calling for Microsoft’s Bing to run Yahoo’s search site and for Yahoo to sell premium search advertising services for both companies. This relegates the Yahoo search engine to the dustbin of also-rans, and puts pressure on Carol Bartz, who took the CEO reins from founder Jerry Yang, to build up Yahoo’s non-search technology and services to the point where they can sustain the company. Investors are still holding their breath — Yahoo shares are trading at half the $31 Microsoft offered almost two years ago.

Government 2.0: Obama administration includes tech in stimulus plans

Barack Obama took office with an agenda that included putting IT in the stimulus bill. In February, in the wake of Senate approval, the House of Representatives passed a stimulus package including $7.2 billion for broadband deployment, $17 billion for incentives to adopt electronic health records and $11 billion to hook up the electricity grid to the Internet. Obama, an avid BlackBerry user, had put tech, notably social networking and business intelligence, to work in his campaign. This year, the White House has deployed the Drupal open-source content management system, tapped YouTube for communications, and encouraged projects such as data.gov for data junkies and recovery.gov for the money-followers. The General Services Administration, meanwhile, is opening up a “cloud storefront.” In October, the Federal Communications Commission filed a notice of proposed rule-making on net neutrality rules, which would prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Web content. It already seems that one of Obama’s legacies will be the government’s activism in, and tighter embrace of, technology.

Jobs comes back, again

Apple’s comeback kid did it again — but this time, the hurdle Steve Jobs overcame concerned health. At the end of June, Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, returned to work after taking a leave of absence in January, citing health issues. It was later revealed that Jobs received a liver transplant. Investors questioned Apple’s decision to hold back information on Jobs’ condition, and the controversy hit at the heart of a nagging question: What would Apple be without its co-founder’s business acumen and laserlike focus on design? After Apple ushered in the personal computer era with the Apple II and reinvented the PC with the Macintosh, the company’s proprietary-systems strategy headed for a dead end and Jobs was ousted. Apple’s fortunes languished. But after Jobs’ return in 1997, Apple launched a succession of hit products including the iPod, the iPhone and a revived Mac using Intel chips. Apple is again a driving force in IT, but while Jobs’ latest return has quieted the distress of Apple fans, issues about the company’s dependence on him linger.

The microblogging revolution: Twitter helps world follow Iranian protesters

Microblogging and social networking have been the butt of cynical jokes as entertainers like Oprah Winfrey jump on the Twitter bandwagon to solidify their celebrity. But Twitter, it turns out, can be a vehicle for much-needed real-time information. The re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over challenger Mir Hussein Moussavi caused chaos in Iran. With Western journalists booted out of the country, in June local Twitter users stepped in, sending out a stream of Twitter messages that helped the world follow events as protesters marched. The U.S. State Department even asked Twitter to postpone a planned service outage. Twitter has also been used to broadcast information by eyewitnesses at many other news events this year. But with the good comes the potentially bad: Twitter in Iran also was used in denial-of-service attacks against key government officials.

E.U. slaps a fine on Intel, but the antitrust fight is far from over

Antitrust troubles for Intel had been brewing for a while when the European Commission fined the chip giant €1.06 billion (US$1.44 billion at the time) in May, citing damage to competition as a result of discounts the chip maker gave to partners. In 2008 the Korea Fair Trade Commission fined Intel about $25 million for abusing its dominant position in the processor market. Intel has been fighting the antitrust battle on many fronts. In November Intel and Advanced Micro Devices announced that they had settled all antitrust litigation and patent cross-license disputes. Intel also will pay AMD $1.25 billion. The fight is not over yet, though. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is conducting an inquiry into Intel business practices, and in November New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed a lawsuit charging that the company had conducted a “systematic campaign” of illegal conduct. No matter how the current cases end, antitrust scrutiny is reshaping the chip market. Intel has to rethink its strategy of discounts to its PC maker friends, and meanwhile, AMD has an extra billion dollars to help it mount further attacks on Intel’s market share.

Droid takes smartphone battle up a notch

In October, Verizon launched the Droid, a half-inch-thick contender for the smartphone crown. Sporting a 3.7-inch touch screen, a metal top and sliding keyboard, the device is the first serious contender to challenge the iPhone and the BlackBerry. Verizon is banking on Droid to counter AT&T’s iPhone offering, while Motorola — Droid’s manufacturer — is desperate for a hit product as memory of its Razr phone fades. The Droid is also a standard bearer for Google’s Android, an OS that looks like a force to be reckoned with in the phone and netbook market. Ultimately, the Droid launch was one of the emblematic tech events of the year, highlighting global adoption of small-form devices that connect to the ‘Net.

IT forecast: Clearing, with a chance of sun

The recession was a story for every sector this year, but tech occupies a special place in the recovery. At the beginning of December, IDC echoed other market research companies when it declared that IT will lead us out of the Great Recession. Global IT spending will increase by 3.2 percent in 2010, getting back to 2008′s pre-recession spending level of about $1.5 trillion, IDC said. Tech did not do as badly as had been feared. Gartner said worldwide chip revenue will hit $226 billion in 2009, down 11.4 percent from last year but better than the previous forecast, which called for a 17.1 percent decline. Meanwhile, IDC said global PC shipments in the third quarter rose 2.3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, to 78.1 million units — the first quarter this year in which PC shipments increased compared to 2008. Until now though, revenue for most vendors has been below 2008 results. Until vendors start reporting results that exceed year-earlier figures, tech will not be out of the woods.

Sky TV app brings Premier League football to iPhone

Sharl — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:39:45 +0000

By Emma Barnett

The application has launched today and for £6 a month people can access the Sky Sports bundle – which includes access to Sky News, the Sky Sports channels and the ESPN channels live on their handset or iPod Touch for the first time.

The Sky TV app is free to download initially and allows users to stream TV via WiFi and not 3G at this stage. It is understood this is because of restrictions from O2. It will be available to all iPhone owners, regardless of what mobile network they are signed to, including Orange, which begins selling the handset today.

Subscribers to the app will have access to live televised matches from the Barclays Premier League, Scottish Premier League and Football League, and other sport tournaments such as the European Tour golf, Premiership rugby and international and domestic cricket.

O2 is offering its iPhone customers three months’ free subscription to Sky Mobile TV. The service is available to anyone but it is standalone – meaning existing Sky subscribers will still have to pay the monthly fee for the live mobile access as it is not included in any TV-broadband bundles. Anyone who wants the service also needs to register for a Sky customer ID.

David Gibbs, general manager for Mobile at Sky, said: “In less than a year we’ve already seen millions of downloads of Sky’s Apps from the App Store. Our new Sky Mobile TV App combines the demand for great live TV on the move with the high quality viewing experience offered by iPhone and iPod touch.”

According to Sky’s figures, there have been two million downloads of the other Sky apps to date. These include Sky+ Remote Record, Sky News, Sky Sports Cricket Score Centre and Sky Sports Football Score Centre.

Apple: ‘Windows 7 is antiquated technology’

Sharl — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 06:58:15 +0000

By Claudine Beaumont

Apple says that consumers may turn to Mac computers because Microsoft’s new operating system, Windows 7, is ‘complex and expensive’

The criticism comes from Brian Croll, vice president of Apple’s Mac OS X worldwide product marketing. He said that Microsoft users were tired of the “headaches” caused by the Windows operating system, and expects some disillusioned Windows users to switch to Apple’s Mac platform.

“Windows users are really tired of all the headaches that they’ve been getting over the years, starting all the way back from Windows Me to NT to Vista and now Windows 7,” he said. “As a result, I think people are looking for something different, and the Mac offers real ease of use, stability and security.”

Apple recently announced its best ever quarter for Mac computer sales, and Mr Croll said there’s “a lot of momentum” behind the platform.

He said the difficulty some users will experience upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7 – which involves a clean install of the entire PC – will prompt them to simply buy a new computer, and he believes a significant number will opt for a Mac.

“We think this is an opportune time for people to take a look at a Mac. We believe we can get even more people moving over.

“Windows 7 is still just Windows. It doesn’t change a lot. It’s still complex, it’s still really expensive when you look at the cost of the upgrade, and there’s still security concerns,” he said.

“It also still requires a lot of assembly. It turns out when you get Windows 7 it doesn’t even have some of the basic applications like mail or chat, or programs to manage your photos. You actually have to go and find them and download them.

“For the consumer, there’s a lot of headache and annoyance built in to Windows 7. It’s built on a lot of antiquated technology… that doesn’t change from release to release. We think that most people probably aren’t going to make that jump [from Windows XP to Windows 7], and as a result, are going to be looking for new computers.”

Mr Croll did not comment on whether Apple intended to run any special offers or advertising campaigns to tempt Windows users away from Microsoft.

Despite Mac computers costing substantially more than some PCs running Windows, Mr Croll said Apple’s computers still represented “great value for money”.

He also denied claims from some critics that Apple had launched its most recent operating system, Snow Leopard, before it was ready.

Scores of Mac users have reported compatibility issues between Snow Leopard and other software, and Apple itself had to confirm that a bug in the software was wiping crucial files, folders, music and data from some users’ computers.

“Occasionally, there are some issues that people find, but they’ve been extremely rare for a new release,” he said.

Microsoft has high hopes for Windows 7, the successor to the much-maligned Windows Vista. The new operating system is designed to make it easier for users to share files, photos and music between computers at home, offers better support for touch-screen devices, and will enable users to browse the internet more safely.

“Windows 7 is more than just a collection of new features,” said Ashley Highfield, a senior Microsoft executive. “It’s a pivotal turning point in Microsoft’s history.”

He said that Microsoft had listened to the needs of users, and worked hard to produce a simpler, more efficient operating system.

“We want to be the glue that binds your digital life together,” he said.

PC World has reported strong first day sales of Windows 7, with demand for the new software outstripping similar early demand for Windows Vista, which was released in 2007.