MacCraic

Howdy folks, since Ginger has decided to not allow me to trade in rumours & speculation anymore on the podcast (except where I get a patent story in) I have decided to throw in my few cents as to what presents I believe Uncle Steve will be showing us tomorrow. So here we go :

Firstly as the title of this post suggests tomorrow will see the introduction of a new iPod Nano (Touch) with a 1.7 inch touchscreen which is about the size of the screen from the 2nd gen Nano. This is obviously based on the stories broken by Macrumors showing pics from a Chinese accessory manufacturer of a new case for this device & the pic of the 1.7 inch display, also an AppleInsider story with render of what it should look like . This along with the introduction of a 32, 64 & 128GB iPod Touch with features close to those found on iPhone4 (Retina Display for 64 & 128GB model but Facetime for all of them) will mean the dropping of the iPod Classic I believe & the death of the clickwheel. With that, the iPod OS will be no more on all display based iPods running on iOS going forward, the Shuffle will remain for now to cover the lower end of the market.

Secondly, there will be an update to iTunes to allow it to be more social as per AppleInsider but it will not go to the cloud yet as the data centre in North Carolina is not due to go live till January 2011 as per comment from Tim Cook (COO) during last quarterly analyst call. There is also a rumour going that iTunes song previews will be extended from 30 secs to a min (will they allow that on a 2min 30 sec song ?).

Thirdly, believe that iTV (UK naming rights pending ) or AppleTV revised will be previewed at the event, it is believed that this runs iOS (a headless iPod Touch effectively) as originally broken in an Engadget story here , will be compatible with existing iOS apps in the store & can be controlled via an iPod Touch or iPhone using acclerometer or even a remote (Magic Wand here we go) .  Looking to get one of these myself.

As for a far out idea of what I think could also be introduced, I started thinking about the invite being in the shape of a guitar & realised it reminded me of the the electric guitar icon used for GarageBand, so I’m gonna throw out a mad thought that iLife 2011 will be previewed with a new feature/app allowing you to create your own iTunes extras/LP features.

Finally, I’m also hoping as per the current IMP episode panel that iTunes 10 is introduced, written to be Cocoa native with improved performance & media management capabilities.

Will sign off now & look forward to tomorrow.

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Tonight the boys have a quick discussion about Mr Byrne’s quick hop across the Atlantic & all things iOS4. (™ Cisco – Licence pending to Cupertino )

Justin & Dave: We discuss our experiences of installing & using iOS4

Links MacCraicer’s may be (passingly) interested in checking out :

The New iOS4 Shortcuts, Features, and Settings You Need to Know  [IOS4]

Steve Jobs tells us why iPhone 3G didn’t get wallpapers…

Go Daddy Promotion

Contact details

• twitter.com/justingbyrne
• twitter.com/davidshortle
• themaccraic@gmail.com
• Mevio

Outro

Tag- That’s all the Craic from this week’s…iOS4 ..Mac !

 

 MacCraic 83 - The Short One [35:01m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Those of you reading this who also listen to the podcast will be aware that  I have made the jump into the Getting Things Done philosophy in respect to my personal and professional life.   Part of this adoption has been using iCal more rigorously than I have in the past.   Couple that with syncing iCal with my iPod Touch via Mobile Me and you get a powerful calendar combo.

Well lately that combo has been less than powerful as I’ve had an issue syncing calendars with my iPod Touch. Events I would add on my Mac were not appearing on the iPod Touch.  They would be added when synced via iTunes but the point was I wanted them added on the fly without having to be back at my Mac and wire in my device.

So I put on my investigative hat and went through the settings on the iPod Touch and made sure Push was turned on and that my Calendar was activated to sync.   Then went into my calendar checked it.   Still no new events coming down.  It was getting very frustrating.

Well remembering what Victor Cajiao of TypicalMacUser.com saying “Google is your friend” I executed a Google search for syncing and found a link to a support article on Apple’s website which basically told me to do what I was already doing.  Not very helpful.   As Einstein would put it “The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result”.

However in the sidebar there was a section for Related Discussions and under that a topic titled “Problems syncing calendars with Mobile Me“.  Sure enough user Stanley Horwitz was having the same issue as me.   Forum member A A P L had the solution.

This blew away all the crud that was there and I was left with a nice clean calendar with all my events showing up, including the ones just added on the Mac this morning.   Apple forums and user A A P L for the win who described the solution as the “Flush & Fill”.   So appropriate for MacCraic.

I thought I’d share that with you in case any Craicers out there are having  similar issues.

So until next time – flush and fill!

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Just after reading a good article over at Appleinsider about reveal that new & improved Zune HD2 will effectively be MS answer to the iPod Touch ( Haven’t we been here before ? ) as per following section:

“At this week’s Game Developers Conference, Microsoft unveiled its new XNA Game Studio 4.0, which allows developers to create games that can run on a variety of devices, including Windows desktops, the Xbox 360 and future phones running Windows Phone 7 Series. In addition, ZDNet’s Mary-Jo Foley said Microsoft is working on a “Zune HD2″ that will be similar to the iPod touch, in that it will have no phone functionality.”

And what about the current ZuneHD owners ( How many are there ?), will they get to share in this new version of the dev kit ? Unfortunately not as the new dev kit is only compatible with Windows Phone 7 & the new Zune HD2.

Would you seriously consider this lot again considering that 1G iPod Touch (2007) still runs apps from App Store just fine. Have’nt seen Apple break support yet.

Think Different before you buy into the next MS device (they’re throwing enough money at it as usual).

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Hi folks, just wanted to make an addition or two post wise which I left out of the latest podcast.

The Town Hall meeting incident: As regards what Stevie J actually said or didn’t say, Daring Fireball has his take (now updated with same information on this Wired article) on what happened at the Town Hall meeting. Whatever the words used, the sentiments are the same as Google & Apple are in a lot of ways now enemies.

Also, neglected to mention that out of this meeting Stevie also stated following as reported by macrumors.com:

• that agressive updates are to be delivered to iPhone that Android will not be able to match (an A+ upgrade to iPhone apparently, so guess we can expect a baby brother chip (A2 running on Cortex A9 SP chip perhaps) without a doubt in next 4 months)
• Lala was a talent purchase, whose team have been integrated into the iTunes team (wonder how Eddie Cue is going to keep ‘em in hand )
• New Macs for 2010 that will take Apple to the next level (can’t believe that a 22-inch touchscreen Mac is it- gorilla arms anyone ? )
• Blu-Ray is effectively still a “bag of hurt”, so a wait & see approach is been taken sales wise (considering there are now Blu-Ray players under €150, there should be a considerable jump unit sales wise especially after Xmas period)

Sorry for not including these in show. Promise to behave going forward.

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