Category: I-phone

Adobe’s Dreamweaver Team Blog today broke the news that they’ve created an HTML5 Video Player widget which generates code to play video in the best player for a specific platform using a variety of video codecs.

The widget is available through the Adobe Widget Browser and works with or without Dreamweaver CS5. It is based on the Kaltura open source library, and is compatible with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.

The team blog noted that HTML5’s <video> tag has limited browser support at this time, forcing web designers to “scramble for a solution” that would work regardless of browser or platform. The widget shifts from the <video> tag to Flash Player when the tag is not supported, and does this regardless of the device on which video is being watched.

The standalone widget can run from directly inside Dreamweaver or as a standalone app using Adobe AIR.

Hat tip to our old friend David Chartier.

Adobe announces HTML5 Video Player widget originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This is a fascinating little stat that echoes a few anecdotal statements I’ve heard before. Nielsenwire is claiming that a full 32% of iPad owners have never actually downloaded an app on the device, with another 5% only downloading free apps. That’s a pretty crazy figure when you think about it — with all of the functionality offered by third-party software on the iPad, almost a third of users have never, ever taken advantage of any of it. And I’ve heard similar things from developers in the past — that a surprising amount of their users have either never downloaded an app on their iPhones at all, or have only ever downloaded free, jailbroken, or pirated apps.

With the news yesterday of the Mac App Store coming, you wonder if we’ll start seeing this same thing happen on traditional computers — lots of users who only stick with the default features, and never explore any farther into what their devices can do for them. In a way, it’s disappointing that these folks aren’t taking full advantage of what the iPad can actually do. But then again, it makes those customer satisfaction stats all the more impressive — 91% of users love their iPads, and only 68% of them have downloaded apps for it. That 23% in the middle must be really easy to please.

[via MacStories]

Survey: 32% of iPad owners have never downloaded an app originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Most users know that you can easily create .zip files in OS X by selecting a file in Finder and choosing File » Compress “FileNameHere” or by control+clicking the file and choosing the same option from the context menu. You can open .zip (and other archive formats such as gzip, tar, and bzip2) simply by double clicking on them.

You may not have known that additional options are available. For example, after you make a .zip file, you could have the original files moved to the trash automatically, or you could have all .zip files that you create automatically saved to the same folder.

Similarly, you can have all archive files that you expand open to the same directory as the archive, or have them saved to a specific folder.

The feature that I was looking for was this: after I expand an archive, just move the original file to the trash so I don’t have to, because I don’t want to keep it.

If the default settings work for you, great! But if you’d like a bit more control, there are two ways to do it. (Note: these system paths are current for Snow Leopard. Previous versions of Mac OS X may be different. See note at bottom of this message.)

Continue reading Mac 101: Use Archive Utility preferences for control over archives

Mac 101: Use Archive Utility preferences for control over archives originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iLife ’09 was certainly moving toward an Intel processor requirement, but iLife ’11 has made the transition complete with even tighter requirements. You have to have an Intel-based Mac, of course, and that Mac has to be running Snow Leopard.

It’s not a giant surprise; things have been slowly rolling that way, both from Apple and other Mac software developers. If you are still running that big Mac G5 desktop or one of the older non-Intel laptops the walls are slowly closing in on you.

Also note that iLife ’11 really wants you to have only the latest version of the software suite. An install will upgrade (replace) iLife ’09, so once you pull the trigger there is no going back. Consider yourself informed, and warned. Do you feel it is a mistake for Apple to leave so many customers behind, or are you OK with the new requirements?

If you don’t have Snow Leopard, iLife ’11 is a no-no originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 17:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Just in time for Halloween, Oceanhouse Media introduces two more of their excellent interactive children’s storybooks. Both of them are spooky, but certainly not scary, being targeted to the four year old and up crowd. Both are about acceptance and teach a gentle lesson about not judging a book, an empty pair of pants or a pumpkin by its cover.

The first is a short book by Dr. Suess titled What was I Scared of? (US$1.99). It only runs 22 pages so it’s priced a dollar less than most of the Oceanhouse Media titles. In it, a very brave furry little guy meets up with a pair of empty pale green pants in the woods that keep popping up wherever he goes. He winds up being not as brave as he thought he was as he becomes more and more frightened of the disembodied pants. It turns out the pants were as scared of him as he is of them, and this is the beginning of their friendship. This book originally came out in 1961, and I have fond memories of reading it to my children. The soundtrack is terrific and as usual, tapping on objects highlight and speak words. The difference I noted between this and the other Oceanhouse Media books is that if you choose the Read To Me option, the young reader must turn the pages by themselves. In the other titles I’ve seen, this was done for you. The same is true with Spookley and I think was a great design choice.

Authors note: I’m wrong on this last point. All the Oceanhouse Media books work the same way. I mistakenly confused the Read To Me with the Auto Play function. The Auto Play function does turn the pages automatically.

Continue reading Two new interactive eBooks for Halloween

Two new interactive eBooks for Halloween originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We’re a few days late on this one, but I thought that it was quite well done and rather clever in a Weird Al Yankovich sort of way. In this spoof of Michael Jackson’s Beat It, Pantless Knights, a group that has made some pretty good musical spoofs, presents TWEET IT. In this video the hipsters, sporting iPhones, and the suits, all with iPads, take it to the streets in a battle of the tweets.

At the quarterly Apple earnings call this past Monday, it was mentioned that Apple hasn’t marketed the iPad to the enterprise market though iPads have gotten on the approved acquisition list of many Fortune 500 companies. However, it was also noted that 85% of Fortune 500 firms are currently deploying iPhones. So wouldn’t it make sense for the hipsters to brandish iPads while the suits threatened them with iPhones?

Click on the Read More link to take a gander.

Continue reading Found Footage: TWEET IT a video parody of Beat it

Found Footage: TWEET IT a video parody of Beat it originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Only a few days ago , Greenpois0n revealed that it had jailbroken the Apple TV. Yesterday, PwnageTool 4.1 joined the ranks, too. Now we have sights of what appears to be the first third-party app running on a jailbroken Apple TV. nitoTV, a small software development firm, has managed to get a simple weather app running on the device. According to nitoTV’s twitter feed, a version of the app with “weather and RSS feeds” will be out “soon.”

While there’s still no word on a public release for any of the jailbreak software, we can only assume that this is the first of many more third-party apps to come for the cracked Apple TV.

[via Engadget]

Apple TV jailbreak yields first third-party app originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sometimes it’s very easy to predict the future. Just as the day follows the night and the sniffles follow ragweed pollen, we can confidently say that within a short time there will be incidents of unwanted exposure on Facelette, followed by urgent cries to protect the innocent, and likely as not the collapse and disappearance of the whole thing shortly after. The path trodden by Chatroulette is a wide one — but maybe we can hope for some awesome piano improvisation along the way.

In the meantime, if you’re of a mind to video chat with random strangers via FaceTime for Mac, check out the service. Developer Zach Holman acknowledges he whipped it up in “about an hour” and that it’s “dumb as hell.” You definitely want to create a throwaway/spampot email address for this, rather than your fulltime Apple ID.

[via Hacker News & Download Squad]

Facelette brings random chat to FaceTime for Mac originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The announcement of the Mac App Store has caused mixed feelings for everybody, but I was especially curious to get a wider view of reactions from the people directly involved in Mac software creation and development.

TUAW polled several developers to find out what their initial reactions were, and I’d like to present a few thoughts, straight from the mouths (and keyboards) of the Mac software community.

Continue reading Developer reactions to the Mac App Store

Developer reactions to the Mac App Store originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Users are reporting that Apple’s new MacBook Air models, announced yesterday at Apple’s ‘Back to the Mac’ press conference, are shipping without Adobe’s Flash player plug-in pre-installed. Traditionally, Mac computers have shipped with Flash preloaded – so users wouldn’t have to worry about installing it. Now, new MacBook Air users will have to download and install the plug-in themselves, should they wish to view Flash content on the internet. It’s not a biggie, but it does send a strong message.

It is well known that Apple has concerns over the performance of Adobe’s Flash plug-in, that’s why Flash is not supported on iOS portable devices. Although Apple has made known it’s qualms with Flash on Mac OS X in the past, this is the first move Apple has made on the Mac to indicate that it is distancing itself even further from Adobe’s internet plug-in.

Back in April of this year, Steve Jobs penned “Thoughts on Flash,” an open letter explaining Apple’s concerns over Flash and why Apple does not support it on its iOS devices. You can read the letter here, or for a fantastic summary by our own T.J Luoma, click here.

At this stage, it’s not clear whether all new Macs are shipping without Flash or if it’s just the new MacBook Air models. Either way, Apple is sending a pretty clear message to web developers and consumers alike: they don’t like Flash.

[via AppleInsider]

New MacBook Air shipping without Flash installed originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It seems that Apple will sell its iWork and iLife apps individually through the forthcoming Mac App Store. Some keen-eyed observers noticed hints during this week’s demonstration, ElectricPig reports.

During the demo, you could clearly see GarageBand, iMovie and iPhoto icons among the available apps. Indeed, the screenshot on the official Lion information page shows the same thing. It’s impossible to see what the cost will be (we *think* it says $14.95), but the idea is interesting. Many users buy the bundle for one or two apps only (iMove and iPhoto, but not GarageBand for instance). An a la carte offering would prevent those shoppers from paying for an app(s) that they won’t use.

The Mac App Store will premiere for Snow Leopard users in about 90 days. We’ll know for sure by then.

[Via MacNN]

iLife, iWork apps to sell individually in Mac App Store originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:50:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Macworld Germany has described what they’re calling a security hole in the FaceTime for Mac beta (Google translation). The gist is this: once a user has logged into FaceTime for the Mac, his/her Apple ID and password can be altered from the app by anyone with access to the computer while FaceTime is running.

Let that sink in for a second.

If you were to log into FaceTime for Mac and then abandon your computer with everything running and no concern for who has access to it and for how long, there’s a possibility that a n’er-do-well could sit down in your empty but still warm chair and engage in a scandulous conversation with your poor Aunt Shirley (who undoubtedly is wondering why you’d be dumb enough to walk away from your operational Mac in public) before changing your password and making several pricey purchases in iTunes.

In related security news, cash registers left unattended with their drawers open are likely to be robbed and cars left running with the doors unlocked are likey to be stolen. As Ars notes, “…whoever happens to be sitting at the computer can change the associated account password.”

In the interest of our readers’ safety, here are a few steps we suggest you take:

• Don’t go to the bathroom while FaceTime is running on your Mac at Starbucks. Hell, don’t leave your Mac on a table at Starbucks no matter what it’s doing.
• Don’t run FaceTime on a public computer.
• If the “office prankster” asks to use your FaceTime account to make a call, SAY NO.
• Think. Physical access is total access.

The takeaway here is this: any miscreant who has physical access to your computer is a potential security threat.

FaceTime for Mac security hole easily remedied originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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A piece of news that got brushed aside for a bit yesterday due to the “Back to the Mac” event, Western Digital chief executive John Coyne said that the company has taken a hit due to the iPad’s popularity. The result is a 10 to 20 percent drop in shipments of hard drives for low-end netbooks and laptops over the next few quarters, he said.

Granted, Coyne is probably popping antacids after yesterday’s MacBook Air announcement. With up to 256GB of flash storage on the logic board, Apple is definitely making the point that the future of storage for laptops, netbooks and tablets is not a disk-based hard drive.

What will save the hard drive industry at the moment? Coyne urged investors to look at long-term storage solutions, where the disk-based hard drive reigns supreme … that is unless Apple comes out with a flash memory-based Time Capsule.

[Via AppleInsider]

IPad is affecting the hard drive industry, but MacBook Air could deal a fatal blow originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:37:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you attended our liveblog of yesterday’s Back to the Mac event, you were introduced to Sam Levin, a Bay Area PR guy who also happens to love Apple products. Sam was our man-on-the-street for the liveblog, sitting in the audience and giving us a firsthand view of the proceedings.

On his way out of the keynote venue, Sam noticed a table with a pile of Apple retail bags — a very large pile of bags — so he walked over to see what was going on. It turns out that Steve Jobs’ invitation to the press to get a hands-on demo of the new MacBook Air was actually an invitation to take one home for two months. Sam picked up an 11″ model and headed for his home office.

Shortly after Victor Agreda and I finished up our TUAW TV Live stint talking about the event, Sam was ready to do the typical Apple fanboy thing — an unboxing of the MacBook Air. If you missed the live video yesterday afternoon, now’s your chance to see just how thin that new device really is. Sam compares it side by side with an iPad, boots it up (note that it takes a long time for the 11″ model to boot, but it’s pretty fast after that), and even does a quick FaceTime chat with me on my Mac.

The video is on the next page; click the Read More link to view it.

Continue reading TUAW TV Live redux: New MacBook Air unboxing video

TUAW TV Live redux: New MacBook Air unboxing video originally appeared on TUAW on Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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