Alex Hardy

First things first: happy new year!

It’s that time of year again, when a young mac user’s thoughts turn to wondering what will be unveiled at Macworld Expo. It becomes a bit of a game, as the rumour mill goes into overdrive.

I take a perverse sense of pride in my total failure to correctly predict anything last year. My dismissal of iPhone as “baseless rumour” is particularly funny in hindsight, as was my expectation of Blu Ray drives, the Beatles on iTunes and a March release date for Mac OS X Leopard. Oh, how we laughed…

In that spirit, I present my 100% certain* predictions for MacWorld 2008! Yesterday’s announcement of new Mac Pros clears the decks for a more consumer-oriented keynote, so here goes nothing:

• I’ll start with an easy one: Steve Jobs usually likes to kick off with sales figures. Expect boasting about how well iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard have sold
• There may be a small joke at Bill Gates’ expense, now that he is unemployed
• Preview of Microsoft Office 2008 (thankfully without Roz Ho)
• Full release of Safari for Windows
• Jobs will probably say “boom” at least once while demoing
• Preview of the forthcoming iPhone SDK, and some apps based on it
• A new section of the iTunes store will sell applications for iPhone and iPod Touch, as well as manage updates
• Movie rentals through iTunes will finally make the Apple TV useful
• The Apple TV will be upgraded with more storage and PVR functionality
• The audience will whoop like hyenas on cue
• Reveal of the rumoured ultra-portable MacBook. It will be much thinner than current MacBooks, owing mainly to its lack of an internal optical drive (sold separately). Opinion is split on whether/how it will use flash memory – I expect a small amount will be used for a performance boost rather than storage
• We will get new displays with built in iSights someday… – why not next week?
• And one more thing… iPhone socks. The crowd goes wild…

No, I am not taking bets.

* None of these predictions are in any way certain.

If you work on a Mac and make zip files to share with Windows users, you’ll know what a nuisance it can be when invisible files from Mac OS X find their way in.

Resource forks and ._DS_Store files (which store data such as icons, associations and view preferences) are redundant and visible in other systems, and not only confuse users but inflate the zip file with unnecessary data. It becomes a manual task (on a Windows PC) to remove these files.

So I thought I’d share a little app I discovered the other day: Compress Files by Apimac. Two little checkboxes instruct it to remove these files and you have a nice clean zip ready to send. The $9.95 asking price is nothing compared to how much time it will save you.

I think it’s fair to say that I’ve not posted much this last month. This is mainly because I’ve been very busy. Busy at work, with a significant update to Symphony and with projects for d3creative and MC2. Yessir, I’ve had rather a lot on.

I’ve managed to clear the decks of freelance work, so I’m able to focus on personal projects. I’ve fought down the urge to buy one of these (for now). My immediate task is to back up all my stuff because I’m going to give my trusty iMac G5 a fresh start on Mac OS X Leopard. After that I’ll start work on simpleContact 1.2.

Version 1.2 will include admin account editing and inbox paging in addition to a raft of compatibility and interface improvements.

I will endeavour to get back to regular posts from here on. I think a report on the status of the Refresh project is long overdue.

Pixelmator is available now to buy (there is a 30-day trial). This is slightly later than originally projected, but that’s life in the world of software

I remarked in a previous post that this application looked like a possible alternative to Photoshop for the casual user or designer on a tight budget. I guess it’s time to find out if that’s true.

For $59 you can’t go far wrong.

When I saw this quote by Steve Jobs at this week’s London event I had a flashback:

The [iPhone] camera is great. More megapixels don’t make a better camera, the iPhone is actually a great camera especially with great lighting.

Oh good I thought… It’s back to the PowerPC vs x86 days and the megahertz myth. Here’s the problem: I concede the above remark is true, if evasive. All the pixels in the world evidently don’t help most camera phones take a decent picture when the subject is in motion or poor light.

… But it’s not about what a few know, is it? It’s about what most people believe, and the MHz argument pretty much fell on deaf ears in 2001. Simply put, people expect that the numbers marketed to them mean something, and bigger = better.

What’s more, when I had a play with an iPhone recently I thought the camera was poor. Laggy, awkward to use (because of the software trigger on the touch screen). No flash (so “great lighting” might be hard to find – forget about taking it to a gig).

What it needs is a campaign of proving its quality by direct comparison, and upgrade the sensor to satisfy the uneducated consumer. iPhone is expensive compared to a Nokia N95 (£360 dearer over 18 months), and only looks tempting if you consider it a worthy replacement for your phone, iPod and digital camera.

At the moment, it’s two out of three at best.

While I was playing around with colour palettes from my photos I thought it would be kinda fun to put some wallpapers on my site. Some of them work pretty nicely in portrait format so here are three to be going on with:

If you’re hungry for more, then check out the iPhone Wallpapers Flickr Group and Pixelgirl Presents.

Lights Off bills itself as “the first native iPhone game”:

The objective is to switch all of the lights out. Tapping a light toggles it, along with the four adjacent lights. Once you switch all of the lights out, you’ll advance to the next level!

It looks simple and fun, exactly the kind of game that works on a portable device. Installing it looks like a nightmare. Where does this leave Apple? With their heads stuck in the sand, that’s where…

Apple needs to release an SDK for iPhone. Their justification for saying “just build a website” is that it is essential to preserve the stability and security of the device. I suspect the truth is that they simply haven’t built one yet and they’re stalling for time.

But here’s the fact of the matter: Enterprising hackers will fill the breach. Emulation and video conferencing on iPhone, RSS reading on AppleTV etc are fledgling realities, whether Apple likes it or not.

If there’s money or kudos in it, then developers will find a way to build whatever they want. Without proper tools, documentation and support they are liable to make a mess. Apple needs to legitimise and embrace native iPhone development. An iPhone Software Store must surely be inevitable?

The long-overdue redesigned iMac is here. I like the design, based on what I’ve seen in pictures. Once again Jonathan Ive has come up with the goods.

I’ll be out to buy a new Mac when Mac OS X Leopard is released in October, so I was curious to see what these would be like. Now that I know, I’m a little surprised (disappointed, even) by what I see:

(It’s too big)

I’d like to know how sales of the previous iMac split between the 17, 20 and 24 inch models. I like my 17 inch iMac G5 – it feels exactly the right size for my desk. I don’t want anything bigger in my bedroom, and it isn’t for want of space…

When I first got the iMac, my only complaint about it was that since I’d upgraded to it from an iBook, the loss of freedom hurt. I’d gotten used to using my computer where ever I wanted. A desktop felt like a ball and chain.

I occasionally take the MacBook Pro I use at work home, and I’ve re-discovered surfing the web while lying on my bed. Working at my dining room table while my sound system plays music far better than an iMac’s puny little speakers could.

I’m not sure a new iMac is the answer for me. I’ll have to check one out in the flesh.

Oh yes, there is one more thing… Glossy?!?

[Update] I’ve seen one now at the local Apple Store. It doesn’t look as big as I expected. The black border around the screen helps it to feel smaller.

In a riveting bit of non-news, Apple and Microsoft have extended their deal which allows Apple to supply core Windows fonts (such as Times New Roman, Arial and Verdana) with Mac OS X. In a joint statement the two companies said:

Apple customers, developers and web designers can safely specify fonts knowing that their documents, presentations and web pages will appear as they are meant to be seen on screen and in print.

While this is obviously good news (ie: any other decision would be unthinkable), I can’t help but feel like an opportunity has been missed. With Windows Vista only just released, and Mac OS X Leopard almost here, is consistency through mediocrity the best we can expect in the year 2007?

Must we resort to CSS image replacement or sIFR to create a simple heading?

Granted, Verdana is OK (at small sizes) and Georgia is nice too. Arial however is a sorry substitute for Helvetica and in widespread use simply because it was cheaper. Instead of a handful of “web safe” fonts, why don’t we have hundreds? Surely billion dollar corporations can take a font licensing fee on the chin to elevate design across the web? Helvetica, Gill Sans and Futura would be a good start…

While we’re dreaming of changes let’s ban Comic Sans

… that many features that I previously described the iPhone as lacking are present on the rather nicely designed Nokia N95:

• 5 megapixel camera
• Upload to Flickr
• Video recording
• GPS
• RSS (though Apple seems to be building a web based RSS reader for iPhone)

The Nokia isn’t perfect. 2Gb storage (via microSD memory card) is pretty miserable. You have to use RealPlayer *spit*. I can only wonder how syncing all your different assets (contacts, email, music, pictures etc) works.

Apple are going to have to be more aggressive with incremental upgrades to iPhone than they have traditionally been. Reviews are appearing and it looks like the hype is (pretty much) justified – it could raise the bar for design and usability across the whole market. Once the interface is taken for granted however, these technological shortcomings will become more urgent.