Attending Macworld/iWorld 2013? Join us for the TUAW Meetup tonight
For the past few years at Macworld Expo and Macworld/iWorld, we've sponsored a meetup to get together with TUAW readers, enjoy each other's company, and do some great giveaways. This year is no exception, and we have a meetup planned for tonight -- Friday, February 1, 2013 -- starting at 8:30 PM at Jillian's, 175 4th Street, San Francisco. That's just across the street from Moscone West, where Macworld/iWorld is taking place.
We'll be providing refreshments, billiards and tons of giveaways, and the meetup is always a fun place to meet the TUAW cast of characters and new friends. So please join us for what's sure to be an enjoyable evening!
This year's event is made possible by the generosity of our sponsors:
HP -- be sure to visit the HP team at booth 602 to see how technology can empower people to help them create, make the digital tangible, and harness the power of human information.
Readdle -- one of the amazing success stories of the iPad era has been Readdle, the developers of such great productivity apps as Documents for iPad, Remarks, PDF Expert, and Scanner Pro.
Pad and Quill -- beautiful cases for iPad, iPhone, MacBook Air, and Kindle. Handcrafted in the USA by a small Minneapolis-based family company, using local craftsmen to construct bookbindery cases for touch devices.
Many thanks also go out to the many other manufacturers and developers who have donated the products to be given away at tonight's event. What's in the goodie bags? You'll have to show up to find out!
(Note that we did not deliberately choose to cross-schedule with the annual Cirque du Mac festivities hosted by our friends at The Mac Observer; that's just how the venue availability shook out this year. If you're headed to Cirque, come by and say hi on your way!)
Attending Macworld/iWorld 2013? Join us for the TUAW Meetup tonight originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Get a USB 3 hub plus Gigabit Ethernet with Kanex’s DualRole
Even though shipping Macs have sported USB 3 ports for more than half a year, compatible USB 3 hubs have been thin on the ground. Expanding those 4.8 Gbps ports would make better use of all that bandwidth, and the increased bus power (900mA vs. 500mA for the older USB 2 standard) is perfect for juicing multiple devices. What about a Gigabit Ethernet port, too? That would be sweet.
Indeed, the Kanex DualRole hub delivers precisely that package -- a 3-port USB 3 SuperSpeed hub, and a Gigabit Ethernet port besides. The combination means that you can free up ports on your current-gen Mac, especially on the Retina MBP or the MacBook Air if you need to plug into Ethernet; you can claw back either a USB port or a Thunderbolt port that would have normally been used for networking.
Kanex is announcing and demoing the DualRole at Macworld/iWorld this week. In my hands-on time with the DualRole, I noted appreciatively that it includes a pigtail USB 3 connector built-in; finding the correct cable to connect a hub might prove frustrating when most of your cable inventory is USB 2. That 3" cable tucks into the side of the compact gray and white unit (about 3/4ths the length of an iPhone 5, and about 2x as thick) when not in use.
The three expansion USB ports are all on one of the long sides, with a fair amount of space between them to accomodate wider flash drives or other peripherals. There's a 5V power input for an optional AC adapter (not included with the hub), but I was able to power a standard 4GB flash drive and a LaCie rugged USB 3 hard drive simultaneously off the hub without external power and with no problems.
While the USB ports on the hub are entirely plug and play, the Gigabit Ethernet port isn't quite configuration-free. Using the port requires a quick driver install and a reboot on either OS X or Windows; the driver is downloadable from Kanex's product page for the DualRole. Once I installed the driver, the Ethernet adapter showed up immediately in the Network preference pane.
The DualRole is available now from Kanex's online store for US$69.00. If you're looking for a USB 3 hub that's easy to pack and adds networking savvy on the side, it's a find.
Get a USB 3 hub plus Gigabit Ethernet with Kanex's DualRole originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Fri, 01 Feb 2013 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Givit makes video editing, sharing easier
Every year at Macworld/iWorld I see another great video application for iOS. Last year one of the Best of Show winners was Game Your Video, a nifty app for adding effects to video. While I enjoyed the app, it wasn't very straightforward, and editing wasn't a great experience. Givit, on the other hand, almost nails the simplicity of finding and adding those moments you capture to a cohesive timeline and gives you some worthwhile sharing options (in other words: Not just Facebook). In fact, the full name is Givit Video Highlighter. That's pretty much what it is, but there are some power tools lurking under the surface.
First, you can take whatever video you want using your iDevice. Next, you bring in your clips and find the moments you want, and select what are called "highlights" -- which then pop into a small timeline (although the metaphor is not emphasized, as it is more familiar to video editors). I was impressed at how easy it was to find clips and add them to the timeline.
There are a few video effects possible, like speeding up and slowing down video, and tricks like "instant replay" will loop a certain number of times while also adding slow-motion. I'm told there may be more effects later, but if you shoot family or sports videos, Givit is already a powerful option.
Unlike Vine, there isn't really a specific time limit. A person at the booth said "they could be 30 minutes" but I didn't get a hard limit on the time.
For now, Givit is a bit limited to streamlining editing, adding some effects if you wish, and putting some music into the video. I'm told they are adding titles and the ability to import images soon.
The sharing and collaboration features are outstanding, however. While I didn't get a chance to try them out here at Macworld, the team behind Givit has some experience working on the Flip cameras which had sharing tools built in (after they were purchased and subsumed by Cisco).
Of course you have your standard Facebook, YouTube and Twitter sharing. Givit supports cards on Twitter, which makes for a more pleasant experience. But Givit also provides a private sharing option. Just upload your video to Givit and you'll get an email which you can send to others. Anyone wanting to view the video will need to set up a free account, but it's not a bad option for sharing family videos.
Even better, via the web interface you can connect Givit to your Dropbox or Skydrive account. You can then drop video clips there, open them up in the app, and edit the videos. This collaborative video editing on iOS is a wonderful idea, and I'm not aware of another app which does it this well. If you're shooting video at one location and need to quickly get it to your editor at another location, this may the easiest thing to use to get the job done.
If you happen to upload more than 5 GB, Givit has a premium storage offering at just under $30 a year. Like Flickr, if you are a power user this will be a great and relatively cheap option.
Givit isn't perfect, as I found the UI could use just a bit more polish and style. But Givit has two great things going for it: It is one of the easiest video editing apps I've ever seen, and collaborative editing is a powerful tool for content creators. As a free app to try and use, I suggest giving it a spin.
Givit makes video editing, sharing easier originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 31 Jan 2013 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Gravitas from Henge Docks is heavy magic
There's not much to say about a dock, is there? It's pretty simple: You put your iDevice on a dock and, depending on the functionality, you may charge, sync or blast some audio out. In the case of the Gravitas from Henge Docks, you can do all of those things plus there's some magic inside.
That magic is a special alloy, 265% more dense than aluminum, that gives the Gravitas an astounding amount of heft. As a result, you can dock your iDevices into the smallish Gravitas, but remove them without holding the dock with your other hand. It's a beautiful thing, because the dock looks aluminum, but just stays then when you lift your device up.
Besides weighing almost one kilogram, the Gravitas offers an audio line out, and a USB data/power connection. There are plastic inserts to accommodate iPads and iPhones. They'll have 30-pin and Lightning versions available at launch.
The Gravitas should be shipping in March for $69. Henge is here at Macworld, and you can reserve yours with no obligation to buy when it is released. Henge makes some useful, nicely-designed gear (stay tuned for another item we spotted at CES and at Macworld), so if you're in the market for a stylish and useful dock, check into the Gravitas.
Gravitas from Henge Docks is heavy magic originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 31 Jan 2013 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
European customers lose the Mac Pro on March 1, maybe earlier
Product safety regulations, how do they work? European regulators are requiring adherence to UL's 60950-1 second edition standards, which originally came into effect in late 2010. The rules cover power supply design and other technical specifications.
As reported in Macworld, the Mac Pro's 2010-era design doesn't meet the new spec, and Apple is ceasing sales of the tower machine in Europe as of March 1 to comply with the regulatory cutoff. Tim Cook has previously said that 2013 will see a revamp of the heavy-duty Mac form factor, which currently offers expandability at the cost of modern I/O like Thunderbolt.
Even though the Mac Pro could technically be sold for one more month, UK reader Terry Hall in Devon reports that his local retailer had already sent back all the Mac Pro inventory in stock. While it would be nice to think that we'll see an all-new Mac Pro before the end of Q1 2013, more likely that it will debut at WWDC this summer instead.
European customers lose the Mac Pro on March 1, maybe earlier originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Discover Mac desktops in Microsoft SCCM with Parallels Management
Along with its presence here at Macworld/iWorld and MacIT this week, virtualization heavyweight Parallels has a new offering to help big businesses and other large-scale enterprises wrangle their growing (and sometimes unpredictable) Mac populations in the context of the Windows-centric management tools they already have in place. Launching today, Parallels Management is a suite of plugins and agents that allow OS X machines to be audited and managed inside Microsoft's System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) console.
The Parallels plugin delivers visibility of Macs on corporate networks, while also giving administrators the controls they are accustomed to on the Windows deployments in their environments. For OS X machines with Parallels Desktop's enterprise edition installed, those virtual machines can be controlled and locked down in compliance with the organization's overall security and IT policies, just like the hardware PCs are.
If your organization already has an investment and internal expertise on SCCM, an approach like the Parallels Management setup makes a lot of sense. Of course, if there's not an installed management platform and you have a heterogeneous OS profile or a BYOD plan for your users, platform-agnostic options like Absolute Manage (formerly LANrev) might be more fluid.
Even if you prefer to manage the Mac deployments with a platform-specific tool like JAMF's Casper Suite, that doesn't mean that SCCM admins in corporate IT must remain forever ignorant of what's going on in Mac-land. The SCCM plugin for Casper provides real-time audit data to the SCCM database from JAMF's inventory of installed Macs on the network.
Parallels Management is offered as a $30/year/Mac subscription license, providing all the audit and management access to SCCM. The enterprise edition of Parallels Desktop, which provides single license key installs and mass deployment of VMs (and which you can deploy using JAMF's tools, if you like), is $100/year/Mac.
Discover Mac desktops in Microsoft SCCM with Parallels Management originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Thu, 31 Jan 2013 08:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Smartphones May Be the Key to Better Health Care
The best tool to improve and keep track of your health may be in your pocket, says Dr. Eric Topol, a pioneering figure in “wireless medicine” — the practice of using apps and devices in health care. An article from NBC News describes how new apps for
iPhone and other devices can measure vital signs and even detect whether someone is having a heart attack. “These days, I’m prescribing a lot more apps than I am medications,” says Dr. Topol. “The smartphone will be the hub of the future of medicine.”
Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium brings inexpensive Office power to home Macs
Like it or hate it, Microsoft Office is the accepted standard office application suite for many companies. Once employees become accustomed to the holy trinity of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, they often decide to use those apps for home use as well. Microsoft today announced global availability of Office 365 Home Premium for Mac and PC, a cloud-based version of the productivity app suite.
Rather than requiring Office to be downloaded to your Mac and then constantly updated with Microsoft's patented blend of security patches and bug fixes, Office 365 Home Premium is accessed from a web browser. Any patches, fixes, or new features are available instantly when you launch one of the apps. One other advantage? Microsoft usually waits three years between new releases of the Office suite; now features and services can be added immediately.
The service can be used on up to five devices per household and is available as a subscription for US$99.99 per year. While it won't currently run on iOS devices, persistent rumors point to a release of Office 365 for iPhone and iPad later this year.
Unlike Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, which only provides Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook, the cloud suite adds OneNote, Publisher and Access. To store your documents, Microsoft provides 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage on top of that available with a free SkyDrive account. If you make Skype international calls, Microsoft adds 60 free minutes per month so you can talk to family, friends or business associates.
You don't need to pay up front to try the cloud apps included in Office 365 Home Premium. There's a 30-day trial available for free at Office.com. Of course, if you're allergic to all things from Redmond, you can always use Google Drive's free Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Form and Drawing cloud apps.
Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium brings inexpensive Office power to home Macs originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium brings inexpensive Office power to home Macs (Updated)
Like it or hate it, Microsoft Office is the accepted standard office application suite for many companies. Once employees become accustomed to the holy trinity of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, they often decide to use those apps for home use as well. Microsoft today announced global availability of Office 365 Home Premium for Mac and PC, a cloud-based version of the productivity app suite.
Rather than requiring Office to be downloaded to your Mac and then constantly updated with Microsoft's patented blend of security patches and bug fixes, Office 365 Home Premium is accessed from a web browser. Any patches, fixes, or new features are available instantly when you launch one of the apps. One other advantage? Microsoft usually waits three years between new releases of the Office suite; now features and services can be added immediately.
The service can be used on up to five devices per household and is available as a subscription for US$99.99 per year. While it won't currently run on iOS devices, persistent rumors point to a release of Office 365 for iPhone and iPad later this year.
Unlike Microsoft Office for Mac 2011, which only provides Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook, the cloud suite adds OneNote, Publisher and Access. To store your documents, Microsoft provides 20 GB of SkyDrive cloud storage on top of that available with a free SkyDrive account. If you make Skype international calls, Microsoft adds 60 free minutes per month so you can talk to family, friends or business associates.
Update: Several TUAW readers pointed out that only the standard Office apps are available to Mac users, meaning that they will pay the same subscription fee as PC users but get only about half of the applications. In addition, the Office on Demand feature that streams the full Office 365 apps to any Internet-connected PC (like a business center PC, for example) isn't available to Mac users as it requires Windows 7 or 8.
You don't need to pay up front to try the cloud apps included in Office 365 Home Premium. There's a 30-day trial available for free at Office.com. Of course, if you're allergic to all things from Redmond, you can always use Google Drive's free Document, Spreadsheet, Presentation, Form and Drawing cloud apps.
Microsoft Office 365 Home Premium brings inexpensive Office power to home Macs (Updated) originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
iOS 6.1 ready for download, improves iTunes Match, adds movie ticket purchsing via Siri and Fandango
iOS 6.1 has been a curious update. It offers a minor handful of API upgrades for developers but otherwise has been a way for Apple to tweak internals. First appearing November 1st, the beta has had occasional updates, most recently moving to the fifth beta last night before its final release to the public.
Interestingly, the few API upgrades centered around Apple's troubled Maps API.
In any case, it's been a heck of a long time coming, and it's good to see the release finally make it out to the public. Especially since a lot of devs were worried that the beta would expire before going gold.
Other new features that are new to iOS 6.1:
- LTE support for more carriers, with a complete list of supported carriers at www.apple.com/iphone/LTE/.
- Purchase movie tickets through Fandango with Siri (US only).
- iTunes Match subscribers can now download individual songs from iCloud.
- New button to reset the Advertising Identifier.
Full information is available at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222
Check your iOS Settings app for over-the-air updates or request the upgrade from iTunes.
(Many thanks to Erica Sadun for providing information about the API upgrades)
"iOS 6 is the world's most advanced mobile operating system, and with nearly 300 million iPhone, iPad and iPod touch devices on iOS 6 in just five months, it may be the most popular new version of an OS in history," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. "iOS 6.1 brings LTE support to more markets around the world, so even more users can enjoy ultrafast Safari browsing, FaceTime video calls, iCloud services, and iTunes and App Store downloads."
iOS 6 features include Siri(R), which supports more languages, easy access to sports scores, restaurant recommendations and movie listings; Maps with Apple-designed cartography, turn-by-turn navigation and Flyover view; Facebook integration for Contacts and Calendar, with the ability to post directly from Notification Center, Siri and Facebook-enabled apps; Shared Photo Streams via iCloud(R); and Passbook(R), the simplest way to get all your passes in one place. Additional updates in iOS 6.1 include the ability to use Siri to purchase movie tickets in the US through Fandango, and iTunes Match℠ subscribers can download individual songs to their iOS devices from iCloud.
The revolutionary App Store℠ offers more than 800,000 apps to iPhone, iPad and iPod touch(R) users, with more than 300,000 native iPad apps. App Store customers have downloaded over 40 billion apps, and Apple has paid over seven billion dollars to its incredible developer community. Customers can choose from apps in 23 categories, including newspapers and magazines offered in Newsstand, games, business, news, sports, health & fitness and travel.
Availability
iOS 6.1 is available as a free software update today. iOS 6.1 is compatible with iPhone 5, iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad (third and fourth generation), iPad mini, iPad 2 and iPod touch (fourth and fifth generation). Some features may not be available on all products. For more information please visit www.apple.com.
*LTE is available on iPhone 5, iPad mini and fourth generation iPad Wi-Fi + Cellular models through select carriers. Network speeds are dependent on carrier networks, check with your carrier for details.
**Information about LTE carriers can be found at www.apple.com/iphone/LTE andwww.apple.com/ipad/LTE.
iOS 6.1 ready for download, improves iTunes Match, adds movie ticket purchsing via Siri and Fandango originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Mon, 28 Jan 2013 13:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments