Introducing Speed Dial, the easy way to call the numbers you need most.
Speed Dial is a service provided by GoSquared that lets you bookmark a URL, along with the number you want to call, and add it to your iPhone's Home Screen.
All you need to do is follow these easy steps:
Find a number you call a lot. eg: 118 118
Enter "http://www.gosquared.com/call.php" into Safari on your iPhone, but DON'T hit enter just yet.
Now, put "?n=(your number)" after "http://www.gosquared.com/call.php"
To get an icon for your Speed Dial Number, put "&i=" after your number.
After "&i=" put the URL of your 57x57px Web Clip icon (don't put http:// before the URL)
The Keynote has been and gone, and now the analysis shall prevail. As predicted, we were not met with quite such a mind blowing Macworld as last year (with the introduction of the iPhone), but this year's was not to be sneered at.
Time Capsule
This one was unexpected. Combining an Airport Extreme router with a large hard disk is a simple, but ingenious idea. This means, if you enable Time Machine on your Mac(s), and you're connected to your home network, you can back up all your data wirelessly, with unparalleled ease. I think the best aspect of Time Capsule, however, is the price: from just $299, or £199 for a wireless router and 500GB hard drive. I can see the 1TB version being more popular, at $499, or £329. These are aggressively priced.
On a related note, the keynote seemed to focus on the opportunities of wireless. Will we see the ability to sync our iPhones and iPods wirelessly in the not too distant future? This can only be months away.
iPhone Update
Downloaded and installed as soon as I got home. This was no surprise after the leaked videos and photos earlier this month, but still, this update is great. The simplicity of the new Maps interface, the freedom to rearrange icons on the home screen, and long overdue ability to put "web apps" on your home screen are features brilliantly executed.
The only surprise was the addition of 5 apps to the iPod Touch (these already exist on the iPhone). Mail, Maps, Notes, Stocks, and Weather were included in the new iPod Touch update. However, this nice little update will cost $20. It will be interesting to see how many people actually fork out for a few more apps.
I personally think Apple's decision to charge for the iPod Touch update is actually an experiment. When 3rd party apps come out next month, there are still many questions to be asked, like "how are they going to distribute them?" It is quite possible that in order for Apple to ensure all apps are secure and reliable enough for iPhone and iPod Touch users, they will be distributed through the iTunes Store. It is also quite likely that, if there are any large companies like Adobe or Microsoft thinking of building apps that they will want to earn some money for their sales. Apple charging for the iPod Touch update probably means they are just dipping their toes in the unpredictable water of the iPhone/iPod Touch owning community.
Leopard
No major updates for Leopard, only figures. Over 20% of the Mac owning community have already upgraded to OS X 10.5. These figures are unprecedented, and this can only be a good thing for the whole industry. It also shows how quick the Mac user base are to spend their hard earned cash in an Apple Store.
The MacBook Air is, undoubtedly, a marvel of engineering. The fact that you can fit a reasonably specced laptop computer inside a postage envelope is truly astonishing, no matter how you look at it. The price of $1,799 or £1,199 is currently very high due to the money Apple must have spent on R & D, with around 100 prototypes being manufactured before arriving at the final design. I can see the price falling eventually, but it is still questionable, at this price, how the Air fits in with Apple's line of notebooks. I would have liked a little more power for my money - and I can get better graphics etc for less if I buy a MacBook. The MacBook Pro is only slightly more expensive than the Air, and with its far superior specs seems a much more attractive proposition.
The current notebook lineup can only mean one thing: more updates soon. The MacBook Pro has kept the same basic design since the aluminium PowerBook G4, and I was deep down hoping for an update to that. I am in the market for a Pro laptop, and have been holding off for about a year now, knowing that a redesign is around the corner. I can almost promise that a new MacBook Pro will be released this year, probably this half of 2008. The MacBook has gone from being a sexy, cute laptop to looking dated - Aluminium seems to be the material of 2008, the MacBooks now look a little too 2006. I think we can expect a significant price drop, and perhaps a redesign of the MacBooks soon.
Apple TV
No "new" Apple TV as such, just an update of its software. The Apple TV itself doesn't need any new hardware anyway, but I think many were hoping we would see the ability for 3rd party developers to build apps for it, and maybe some DVR capabilities. If Apple really wanted to get our content onto our TVs and go and buy an Apple TV, we would see a lot more 3rd party integration. We now have the ability to view our Flickr photos on our TVs (woohoo), and YouTube was already available, but these are deals that Apple has worked out privately. What if I want to watch a video from 5min.com, or Metacafe?
The announcement of movie rentals on iTunes is good news - it reiterates just how much power Apple have over the entire movie and music industries. No one else could have made a deal like this.
If Apple can also make the Apple TV easier to navigate by allowing the use of an iPhone as a remote control, and allowing it to pull media from iPods and iPhones around the house, then we'll be onto something. I wanted to see a completely new Apple TV at Macworld, one that I would be truly impressed by. At the moment, I still don't feel compelled to rush out and buy an Apple TV.
Interestingly, Steve's last statement was that we are only in the second week of 2008, and we have another 50 to go. Will we be seeing more updates and new products this year than ever before?
All in all, the keynote was good, but nothing to write home about. It looks like all the good stuff is arriving in February.
Written by Ashcroft · January 16, 2008
· Filed under Technology
At GoSquared, we like parties. So what could possibly be better than turning up armed with your iPhone and ready to accept the offer of "have you got any drum and bass?" and get some beats pumping on the hi-fi? Except you can't (except if you want to fork out a further £15 for an adapter) because of the inset jack! Bummer!!
Right, now this is where the ingeniousness comes in and where my bohemian streak comes to show. I will show you how to plug any pair of headphones into the iPhone without having to buy an adapter and yes, without having to file the hole larger.
Firstly, don't start cutting headphones up. You may think "oh yes i can wire speakers, so why can't i wire headphones?" The answer to this is that its very fiddly and just not worth your while because even if you do manage to re join the ipod headphone jack to another pair of headphones, the quality will suck!
Ok, so lets begin. Start by removing the plastic at the base of the jack (with a bit of persuasion, it should slide up) which will then reveal another fitting underneath. (like in the photo below)
I used a pair of old Sony headphone extenders. Headphone extenders are ideal for this as rather than having to go about this procedure with all of your headphones, you can just do it to that and plug them into that instead.
You may find that the few jack will fit straight into the iPhone, but depending on the headphones it may need just a little bit of filing down with use of a needle-file (pictured)
And there you go! you should be happily listening to your iPhone music with your now jack-hacked (a little word i made up) headphones!
The best bit is, it is completely reversible. When you're done, simply slide the plastic back to its original state (providing you haven't damaged it in the process so be moderately careful). This may not work on every single pair of headphones. Different types may differ but it will be interesting to see what works and what doesn't
How many unannounced products (with unconfirmed names) have their own blog?
The guys running the MacBook Air Blog have taken a "screenshot" of a page on the Apple Store that supposedly shows the customisation options for the new MacBook. I suppose, one could give them credit for their quick actions, but the image is quite obviously a 5 minute Photoshop edit, with very little thought put into the actual data shown.
For example, why would Apple suggest adding a 40 inch Cinema Display to your order, when a current MacBook isn't even powerful enough, graphics wise, to run a 30 inch display. Also, it is fairly common knowledge that the 2 major Solid State Memory sizes currently available are 32GB and 64GB, whereas those listed in the image are 80GB and 60GB.
This "MacBook Air" also looks too similar to the current MacBooks, simply poorly Photoshopped to look a little smaller. If we do see a MacBook Air at Macworld, it will almost certainly follow Apple's trend of anodized aluminium, in line with previous rumours.
The price point of this "MacBook Air" - $1,999.00 also does not seem correct. I would expect the new MacBook to be priced below the current MacBook due to its inevitably lower specs, or to perhaps even replace the current MacBook altogether.
All in all, to the owners of MacBookAirBlog: nice try, hope you had fun, now take a deep breath and put your Photoshop skills towards something more productive.
Not long until the Keynote! We're not expecting another "world changing" keynote, like last year, but let's hope Jobs brings us some good stuff for '08.
A brilliant article on Wired today, by Fred Vogelstein on what it was like behind the scenes while working on the iPhone.
I highly recommend reading the full article, if not to see how the iPhone was made, but to see how Apple have, undeniably, changed the mobile phone market.
Consider that Apple began working on a mobile phone back in 2002, just after the launch of the iPod. They quickly realised that, one day, phones would replace their most successful consumer product, the iPod, so began a project that combined a phone and an iPod, code-named Purple 1. After many revisions of P1 (and failure to reach market), and the development (and failure once on sale) of the ROKR Motorola iTunes Phone, Apple continued working on cell phones, but focused their attention on building a true convergence device that would be game changing.
An interesting snippet: In February 2005, Jobs secretly met with Cingular executives, including Stan Sigman. Jobs presented a three-part message to executives:
Apple had the technology to build something truly revolutionary, "light-years ahead of anything else."
Apple was prepared to consider an exclusive arrangement to get that deal done.
But Apple was also prepared to buy wireless minutes wholesale and become a de facto carrier itself.
The phone market is now more competitive than ever. The iPhone has raised the bar on what consumers can expect from a handset, and for the past year every phone manufacturer has been working day and night to simply catch up with what Apple has brought to the table.
It makes you wonder what Apple are working on at this very minute.
Apple today announced that it will be standardising its music pricing across Europe. This means that UK prices will fall from their ridiculously high 79p per song.
Currently, Apple charges more per song in the UK due to higher wholesale pricing by the music labels. However, today's announcement makes it clear that Apple will reconsider their deals with any music labels that do not lower their UK pricing to the same level as the rest of the EU within the next 6 months.
This move has been referred to as "pan-European" pricing of music - it is only fair that we should all pay the same price for the same content after all.
“This is an important step towards a pan-European marketplace for music”, said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We hope every major record label will take a pan-European view of pricing”.
As a UK iTunes user, I warmly welcome this announcement, even if it is a little late.
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