Chassis:
The iPhone 4 is compact. At 4.5″ by 2.31″ by .37″, the iPhone 4 is smaller than previous generation iPhones. In fact, the phone feels much more ergonomic than other devices on the market making it easier to use. Although a little heavier than previous models, at 4.8 ounces the iPhone is not a brick. In fact, it feels much better in my pocket than other smartphones I’ve used, including the Nokia N97 and the HTC Touch Pro2.

Regardless of size, the biggest cosmetic improvement comes in the form of materials. The days of plastic are finally gone. The back of the phone is now formed with scratch resistent glass, a welcome upgrade from the weak plastic of previous models. Sadly, there are reports of minor scratches on this glass leading users to suspect a lower grade glass than the front touch screen. The phone is then incased in a band of stainless steel to round out the professional appeal.

Speaking of the screen, the new Retina display is majestic. At 326 pixels per inch, the Retina display has by far the highest resolution screen on the market. But is the Retina screen a useful feature or marketing hype? Although it’s hard to imagine, the screen is breathtaking. The level of detail seen in pictures and images is remarkable. In fact, when you load a complex webpage like the New York Times and you can read all the text without zooming, you can more easily understand the usefulness of the Retina display. In fact, thanks to the new IPS technology found in the Retina display, the iPhone 4 has much wider viewing angles from all directions.

Also on the exterior of the phone are the antennas. Perhaps the biggest talking point of the iPhone 4 isn’t what it does well, but its reception woos. As early as launch day, left handed users were noticing signal degradation when holding their phones. As more reports hit the internet, it became clear something was wrong. Apple responded in a press conference designed to highlight the problem and showcase the issue in other device.

Apparently, the formula used to display the signal bars is completely wrong. Apple goes on to say that the reason for signal loss is poor mobile data coverage and suggests that the original bar reading may have been artificially increased. A software update has been released and Apple will supply free cases to combat these problems. Although I can reproduce this issue, I have yet to drop a call or loose connection. Either way, a free case is a nice gesture.

Finally, I’d like to address colors. When Apple announced the iPhone 4, they demoed both a black and a white unit. Unfortunately, just hours before launch Apple officially stated that white iPhone’s would not be available until late July 2010. Personally, I have no interest in this white model. However, the absence of a white iPhone has increased demand for the black model making it more difficult to purchase a unit. Apple says manufacturing issues forced their hand, but it seems to me Apple used this situation to artificially boost demand.

Camera:
One of the reasons I was so quick to jump on this new iPhone was the improved camera. At five megapixels with a larger sensor and an LED flash, pictures look much better than before. Images are crisper and autofocus continues to work wonders. I’ve been particularly impressed with macro shots taken by simply tapping on the screen. And although there isn’t an optical zoom you do have the option of using up to a 5x digital zoom, although I tend to steer clear of this method.

Moving on, video recording is very important to me. Sporting 720p HD video capture, the iPhone 4 is great mobile device for aspiring film makers. The idea of having a viabile capture option wherever you are is extremely appealing, and one of the major selling points of this device. In terms of quality, video look great. Resolution is sometimes marketing hype but Apple’s implementation of video recording works very well and creates excellent video. And if you want to edit your high definition clips on the go, iMovie has gone mobile and works quite well.

Moreover, Apple has added a VGA resolution camera to the front of the phone. Useful for taking self portraits, this camera has another great feature: FaceTime. FaceTime is Apple’s mobile video chat solution allowing iPhone 4 users to speak, see, and hear their contacts. FaceTime is limited to iPhone 4 and is currently WiFi only. Apple has said they plan to make FaceTime utilities public allowing developers to create their own solutions on top of the FaceTime API’s. I’ve yet to determine the practicality of video chat, but having the option to see my friends when I call them is appealing.

Battery Life:
Since the dawn of time, smartphone users have been crippled by poor battery performance making it difficult to last the entire day on one charge. The only solution was to disable services, forcing many users to cripple their new devices to last throughout the day. As of late, Apple has made great strides in battery performance offering powerful laptops with legitimate eight hour batteries and the iPad which lasts for over ten hours on a signal charge.

Without a doubt, the iPhone 4 takes queues from its brothers. With a battery now rated at 1420 mAh, the iPhone takes usage in stride. I’ve been able to complete a day of heaving usage while staying above 40%. Simply amazing. What’s more, Apple’s battery technology is expected to last for one thousand recharge cycles meaning you can expect quality battery performance for a long time.

Calling:
Often overlooked on smartphones, the core function of these devices is calling. Although I’ve personally moved away from voice chat in favor of SMS, MMS, and Email, I still think it is truly important to purchase a phone with solid calling abilities. I’m happy to say the iPhone performs extremely well. I’ve both made and received calls from the iPhone 4 and can honestly say it sounds life like. Words are audible, voices are clear, and I’ve noticed fewer dropped calls.

New to the iPhone 4 is a second microphone, located on the top of the device, for active noise cancellation. In simple terms, the second microphone picks up background noise and removes it from your outgoing audio making your conversations less noisy and distracting. Furthermore, Apple has greatly improved the speakerphone making calls louder and crisper while also enhancing the music listening experience.

Apple has also implemented a software feature to help AT&T’s desperate network. The device actually switches from band to band to connect to the frequency with the least amount of congestion and interference. Don’t get me wrong, if the signal is too weak the iPhone won’t connect to it, but there are other variable in play to make your experience the best it can be.

Conclusions:
You can read as many overviews and walkthroughs as you want but eventually you need to make a decision: should I buy this device? I’m sure you have discovered this by now, but I am extremely pleased with my iPhone 4. I’m always connected and the iPhone is a solid device that drives my communication: whether that be social media or direct conversation. iOS 4.0 is a great software package that makes using the device simple and reliable while also expandable with over 200,000 third party applications.

To be frank, there is no better device on AT&T at this point. The hardware of the Palm Pre Plus is dated and the few android devices are limited by AT&T’s restrictions. I’m a fan of the Tilt 2 (Touch Pro2) but at this point I’d stay clear of Windows Mobile devices, at least until Windows Phone 7 launches. If you are on another carrier, you are not excluded either. If you have good AT&T coverage, I highly suggest you switch to the iPhone, you won’t be disappointed. However, if AT&T 3G is lacking in your area I suggest you look for a different device on your network. The iPhone is a quality smartphone but if you don’t have reception the whole point of an always connected mobile device is lost.

After much deliberation, Job’s himself has confirmed that Apple is dropping software updates for the original iPhone and iPod touch. Not only does the original iPhone not get a crippled version of OS 4.0, like the iPhone 3G’s inability to multitask, but OS 4.0 won’t even install on the original iPhone. Moving forward, I expect software updates will require new hardware in order to get all the new features while last generation devices will get a crippled update. For instance, OS 5.0 will not support the iPhone 3G and will offer a limited experience to 3GS owners.

As the market evolves new hardware is needed to support new features. As consumers, we want the latest and greatest features in our handsets. If Apple were required to update their older devices we, as customers, would see limited upgrades to keep older hardware going. I don’t support dropping features in software when the hardware can support it, like MMS on the original iPhone and multitasking on the iPhone 3G, but I do understand why Apple will no longer support aging hardware. If you want the latest software, then upgrade to a newer handset. Otherwise, enjoy the features you do have or jailbreak to unlock the pirate inside.

The original description for these items read, “Well..These were R & D units..One wont turn off and has some wierd OS…or lack of firmware So it will be dead when you get it,,,but will power up when you plug it in…The other won’t turn on has a brown spot on the screen. Both have cameras”.

Marked as DVT-1 and DVT-2 respectively, these devices appear to have originated from the Apple Development Team. Along with the camera, these devices appear to be running an unreleased version of the iPod OS. Referred to as “switchboard”, this operating system is clearly an internal build used for testing prerelease hardware. Don’t get your hopes up, I doubt this firmware will ever reach our hands.

The seller of this product didn’t give any straight answers regarding the origin of these iPods. In response to a buyer question, he wrote, “Sorry… Have no idea… I bought them from a guy at a flea market and he bought them from a live auction here in the Bay Area.” Not the most reaffirming answer so take these pictures with a grain of salt. Obviously Apple is looking to add a camera to their iPod touch line-up but I doubt these “R&D” units will ever reach the consumers hands.

Email:
One of the simplest yet useful features of OS 4.0 is the unified inbox. Many of use have several email accounts and being able to access your messages from one inbox instead of different ones is a time saver.

As you can see, your messages still look very similar to older versions of the software. However, if you look at the first message you see a number “2″ which signifies there are multiple messages in that thread.

When you click on an email that is part of a thread, you get a list view of all the email in that particular thread. Another time saver when dealing with a large volume of messages.


Camera:
Although I dislike digital zoom, having the option on your iPhone is a nice addition. All you have to do is double click on the screen and a zoom control appears atop the live preview.


Gamecenter:
Apple is launching a new application called gamecenter to unify and track your gaming achievements. With features such as matchmaker and leaderboards, gamecenter aims to become your social gaming network of choice for iPhone.


Multitasking:
Multitasking is the big features of OS 4.0. Apple is finally allowing users to run 3rd party applications in the background. Unfortunately, as mrbit points out, apple isn’t truly allowing applications to run in the background but rather is allowing certain application types permission to run a service in the background. So it is a multitasking solution, but it’s not a complete “free for all” like in Android or webOS.

Multitasking Video Walkthrough:


Folders:
Creating folders to organize applications is extremely easy. Simply drag one app onto another and a new folder is created. From there, you can drag more apps into the folder and rename it. Using folders, you are now able to store 2,000 apps on your device.


Backgrounds:
Although not a revolutionary feature, iPhone users have been asking for custom homescreen wallpapers since OS 1.0. Four incarnations later, users can choose any picture and use it as either the lockscreen background, homescreen background, or both.

iPhone OS 4.0 Video Recap:

Media Event Recap*:
iPad
-450,000 iPads sold to date (300,000 at launch)
-1 million pad app downloads day 1 (3.5M through today)
-600,000 ibook downloads
-3,500 iPad apps in app store today

App store
-4 billion app downloads
-185,000 apps

iPhone
-JD power award three years running (2008-2010)
-64% mobile browser usage belongs to iPhone
-50 million iPhones sold (85M including iPod Touch)

iPhone OS 4.0
-Over 1500 new API’s
-quick look, photo library access, in app sms, full access to camera
-accelerate for “hardware accelerated math functions”
-Over 100 New Features (All)
-spell checker, 5x digital zoom, change homescreen wallpaper

Big 7 Updates:
• Multitasking

-drains battery very quickly & terrible performance
-new way to multitask 3rd party apps and avoid battery drain
-double click home button to reveal a window overlay of open applications
-great implementation of multitasking
-7 multitasking services (API’s) for multitasking:

1. Background Audio (Pandora)
2. Voice over IP (Skype)
3. Background location (baseband always connected to cell towers)
4. Push notifications
5. local notifications
6. task completion (upload to flickr)
7. fast app switching (apps save state and stop running, then resume)

• Folders

-Drag apps onto each other to make a folder
-automatically named after category of apps, can be renamed

• Enhanced Email

-unified inbox
-multiple exchange accounts
-organize by threads
-fast inbox switching
-open attachments in apps from app store

• iBooks for iPhone

-iPad/iPhone integration (wirelessly sync books, current page, and bookmarks)
-buy once, read anywhere

• Enterprise Improvements

-improved Data Protection
- wireless app distribution
-mobile device management
-SSL VPN support

• Game Center

-social gaming network
-achievements, leader-boards, match making

• iAd Mobile Advertising

-emotional and interactive ads (almost like ad itself is app)
-keep user in application
-Apple sells and hosts ads, 60/40 revenue split (devs/apple)
-Very quick to implement in app
-ads can use API’s (show theaters near you)

• iPhone 3GS and iPod Touch 3rd generation get all features
• iPhone 3G and other iPod touch models get limited features with OS 4.0, no multitasking
• iPad gets update this fall

*These are the exact notes I took during the media conference. Please forgive any abbreviations and the informal nature of this recap.

Prepare Your Content
You want to consume media on your iPad. I know it. Otherwise, what’s the point? Just as the iPhone before it, Apple is locking down the iPad to play only a few video and audio formats. Why? Apple wants you to purchase content through iTunes. Music and video from iTunes, of course, works perfectly on the iPad giving iTunes a boost in sales because of simplicity. If you get your media from other, less reputable sources, make sure to convert your media to the appropriate format.

For audio content, the iPad supports AAC, proteced AAC, MP3, MP3 VBR, Audible, Apple Lossless, AIFF, and WAV. Most likely, the music and podcasts you listen to now are already in the correct format. In terms of video, the iPad supports H.264 encoded video up to 720p in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats. The iPad also supports 480p content in the MPEG format.

You may also watch video content on the web. Although the iPad doesn’t support flash, it does support HTML5 video. At launch, a handful of providers will support the iPad, including CNN, vimeo, and Sports Illustrated. Apple is compiling a growing list of website who play nice with the iPad to check your favorite website.

Did You Pre-Order?
Just as the iPhone before it, expect supply of the iPad to be limited at launch. Whether the crunch corresponds to marketing or logistical issues, consumers will be scrambling to get their hands on this device. Unless of course, you were smart enough to pre-order the device. In late March, Apple opened up pre-orders allowing customers to order online for guaranteed April 3rd delivery or reserve a unit for in-store pick-up at launch. Although convient for early purchasers, those looking to purchase on launch day will find it more difficult to locate an iPad.

All hope is not lost. Reservations expire at 3:00 in the afternoon so if your store is out of units, check back at around 3 to pick up a device not claimed. Perhaps a better shot, check out your local best buy. Although not available online, local best buys with certified apple departments will be selling the iPad on April 3rd. The inventory for each store is confidential, with sources claiming only 15 per store. Best buy’s will not be opening early but a best buy rep says best buy will be issuing iPad tickets before the store opens to ensure the safety of their customers.

Set-Up
As with other Apple devices, the iPad will feature simple set-up. Like the iPhone or iPod line, plugging the device into your computer should be the brunt of the set-up.

However, you need iTunes 9.1 to sync your iPad. On a mac, go to software update and make sure you have the latest version of iTunes. On a PC, launch iTunes, click on help, and then select “Check for updates” to confirm you are running the correct software.

Once your software is updated, your iPad will show up just as any other iPod or iPhone. Simply follow the prompts and choose to sync your music, photos, apps, and videos.

Apps
According to Apple, all most apps currently in the app store will run on the iPad. The idea here is to get the huge library of iPhone and iPod touch applications running on the iPad. To do this, the iPad will scale these nonnative applications. However, from early reports, scaling isn’t perfect and some apps run terribly on the iPad. To ensure a great experience, here are some native apps you should install on your iPad.

• iBooks
  Designed by Apple, iBooks allows users to, you guessed it, read on their iPad. Simply sync your DRM free ePub documents in iTunes, and get to reading. Oh wait, you are looking for new content. iBooks doubles as a book marketplace allowing you to purchase your favorite titles and new releases all from your device. This application also allows you several in book features as well, including search, bookmarking, and font adjustments. Look out Kindle, iBooks is coming.
• ABC Player
  Looking to watch your favorite ABC content right from your portable device, this app is for you. Allowing you to view full episodes of Lost, Grey’s Anatomy, and the rest of the ABC lineup, this application is great for consuming quality media. In fact, this app won’t cost you a penny and ABC is not charging anything per episode, so you essentially get all the media you want for nothing. Why download an episode in iTunes for $1 when this app legally gives it to you for free?
• Wordpress 2.4
  I love wordpress. I have been using it for years to manage my various blogs and have never had any problems with it. Version 2.4 of the wordpress app is designed for the iPad allowing you to create and edit blog posts and monitor comments all from one simple application. If you run wordpress, this app is critical to your mobile workflow.
• Netflix
  Are you a netflix subscriber? If so, prepare yourself for unlimited streaming right on your iPad. This netflix application allows you to watch all the TV shows and movies you want as part of your netflix unlimited membership. The app itself is free for netflix subscribers. With plans starting at $4.99 per month, video content on the iPad is getting cheap.
• NPR
  I get a lot of my news from national public radio. I currently listen periodically on my freecom musicpal and look forward to catching up on the days news directly through the iPad friendly application. At a cost of nothing, why not download NPR to stay connected?
• iWork
  Consuming media, checking email, and causally browsing the web is fun but sometimes we need to get some work done. Apple has engineered the iWork suite specifically for the iPad allowing you to professionally create, edit, and view word documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. For $30, or $10 for Pages, Numbers, and Keynote respectively, managing schoolwork or business information cannot be easier.

The iPad looks to change the market the way the Macintosh, iPod, and iPhone changed their respective markets. But the iPad is dependent on third parties to produce high quality apps and content to enjoy. Although launch looks to offer a wide variety of this media, I expect the future to hold an even brighter outcome. The iPad will be the device of the future.

Our customers want to be able to deliver their video content to every screen without sacrificing the quality, interactivity and monetization capabilities they have come to expect from the Brightcove platform. The Brightcove Experience for HTML5 fills the gap between the current playback capabilities of the emerging standard and what our customers need to operate successful online video businesses

-Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove chairman and chief executive officer.

Since the release of HTML5’s video playback features, flash, a bloated and buggy platform, has lost a lot of support. Now that Brightcove has formally adopted HTML5, it is clear flash content is on the way out with the more economical HTML5 option as its primary replacement.

The announcement comes on the heels of the iPad launch. The iPad, like the iPhone and iPod touch, does not support flash because of its huge footprint. In fact, Brightcove repeatedly sites these apple products as beneficiaries of HTML5 video. Clearly Brightcove didn’t want to loose a huge market of mobile users by remaining married to flash. I look for more content delivery platforms to adopt HTML5 in the coming months to support these popular mobile devices.

Mobile internet is on the rise through support from these very popular and easy to use apple devices. With Hulu and other distributors rumored to be working on iPad friendly viewing options, its clear the days of flash dominated media are over. We’ve bashed Apple for not supporting flash over the years but, in fact, they have ushered in a new technology that works much better than current industry standards.

Both The New York Times and Time inc. support HTML5 today with other Brightcove clients coming soon.

Press Release

There is no solid reason why Apple should stop selling screen shields. Some speculate that Apple wants to make the consumer believe Apple screens are more durable than regular products and don’t need the extra protection. Other’s believe that Apple no longer wants to deal with returns of products because of faulty installation of adhesive accessories. While others feel Apple is just flexing their muscles and arbitrarily blocking the sale of a certain product because they have the power to.

This policy change is clearly designed to increase the customers proclivity to the iPad. If the consumer believes the new tablet has an extremely strong screen and doesn’t need accessories, the appeal of the iPad is surely to increase. Although pre-orders are estimated in the hundreds of thousands, Apple is clearly aiming for an iPad in every home and must feel this small move can help them.

One thing is clear, this move is sure to hurt Apple accessory manufacturers. The companies that sell screen shields singularly will loose all the sales they get from Apple retail stores, which I’m sure is a significant amount of revenue. Moreover, bundles that include screen shields will have to be repackaged to remain in Apple stores, eliciting a mad rush of newly packaged accessories.

There are many small companies out their that need the exposure of the Apple store, many small business owners that need their shields and cases to sell, and many customers that want to purchase high quality protection products. I’m not suggesting that Apple is purposely trying to destroy these desires, but clearly Apple’s closed ecosystem is going to hurt these desires.

To keep this topic as straightforward as possible, I’ve created a list of five reasons you should consider the iPad. Although the iPad can do much more than what’s on this list, I wanted to focus on specific elements of the device and steer clear of marketing jargon. So without further ado, the iPad:

1. App Store
   The app store revolutionized the market. It allowed third party manufacturers a centralized place to index all the wonderful applications available for the iPhone and iPod touch. There are now countless apps in the app store to satisfy your hunger. Essentially, the app store allows users to expand their mobile devices to match their limitless and changing needs. What’s great about the iPad, unlike other devices on the market, is this device will launch with a massive app catalog. Most of the apps currently in the app store will work on the iPad at launch and apple has already opened the SDK so developers can build iPad specific apps prior to launch. Essentially, the app store will keep your iPad fresh and new for as long as you use the device.
2. eBook Reader
   Kindle or Nook? These devices costs around $260 and do one thing really well, books. They allow you to discover, purchase, and read books on the go. Unfortunately, beyond reading these products are very limited in functionality. Along with the iPad, apple is launching the iBookStore. Basically, the iPad will have all the functionality of a Kindle in one, easy-to-use application. Function specific devices be damned, there is a new sherif in town, and it does so much more.
3. Digital Picture Frame
   The dark horse on this list. Have you ever looked into purchasing a digital picture frame? High quality digital picture frames can cost $500 or more and only serve one purpose. With the iPad, users can easily sync all their photos to display on the high resolution, vibrant 9.7inch screen. Plus, the iPad can connect to the web so you can display photos from flickr or picasa as well.
4. iWork
   Apple understands a device like this cannot always be used for fun and games. Built from the ground up and optimized for touch, Apple will be releasing pages, keynote, and numbers for the iPad. These apps, which correspond to word, powerpoint, and excel respectively, allows users to easily credit, edit, and email critical assignments all from their portable tablet. Whether it be PDF’s, microsoft office documents, or iWork files, the iPad can manage them all.
5. Price
   Prior to the iPad announcement, bloggers expected the apple tablet to cost just bellow $1000. With the base model actually starting at $499, the iPad is much less expensive than expected. I cannot tell you the last time I saw a high quality, touchscreen tablet for $500. Although the iPad cannot multitask, it’s power will rival similarly priced netbooks allowing the iPad to compete with both tables and netbooks. A high quality 9.7″ touch screen tablet, 16GB of flash storage, a great music player, and more for $500 is a steal.

iTunes
On 9/9/09 at apple’s ‘It’s only rock and roll’ media event, iTunes 9 was launched with a slew of new features. Among the update include a new user interface, a new itunes store, iTunes LP’s, iTunes’s extra, enhanced iPhone/iPod touch application management, social media integration with twitter and facebook, and home sharing. With iTunes LP and iTunes extras digital music and movie distribution will never be the same.

With LP’s, you get the classic LP experience with special features including liner notes, lyrics, exclusive interviews, and a UI for the media. However, the music is not in a lossless format which kills the experience and upgrade status one would expect with an LP purchase. From apple’s point of view, I doubt the music industry want’s online distribution to offer such quality but never the less, without lossless files I will never spend extra money to buy an iTunes LP. With iTune’s extras, digital movies now include some of the dvd extras one get’s when one buys the dvd. Again, apple is trying to upgrade digital media by including extras found in physical distribution.

The improved application management system allows users to organize applications in iTunes instead of directly on their home-screens. This saves a lot of time and streamlines the process. Finally, home share allows users with multiple computers on their network to grab media files from any local machine and copy them to any other local machine. It has never been so easy to make sure all computers on the network have the same media library.

iTunes 9 Walkthrough:

Quicktime X
Launched along side snow leopard, Quicktime X eliminates the need for a pro version by including all features in the application, free of charge. You no longer have to pay extra for movie recording or the ability to save quicktime movies from the internet. Quicktime also includes many new features including the ability to record screen captures, trimming, sharing, and a new UI.

Apple has really tried to make quicktime the Swiss Army Knife of media applications allowing you to watch, create, and share media from with-in the app. For instance, to make a quick video you can capture the moment via the isight or screen capture. From there, you can trim the beginning and end to create the perfect file. Finally, post your movie to mobileme or youtube with one click. It’s really that simple.

Don’t forget, quicktime still is a very well done media player. Most files will play seamlessly in quicktime and the new UI makes it even nicer to watch. With subtle transitions and a classy black overlay, quicktime looks as good as ever.

Quicktime X Walkthrough:

Apple has really improved their media player applications. The iTunes update is really well done and I’m it will give apple a jolt in terms of sales. Quicktime X is no slouch either but I’m not sure if it works with any operating systems before snow leopard. So although it’s free, if it requires snow leopard it’s not exactly a simple upgrade.

This launch date actually comes a few days after the end of summer making AT&T’s ridiculous lack of support on day one ever more frustrating. I mean, AT&T has supported MMS on all other phones for years so to limit their flag-ship device is simply absurd. Now AT&T claims the delay is related to the sheer number of iPhone users they have and that they expect record volumes of messages. Now I understand wanting to preserve the network, because I cannot imagine how terrible it would look if the entire network went down, but the fact that their network is so fragile is pathetic.

I’m not saying Verizon or Sprint would, necessarily, do a better job but I am concerned with AT&T’s practices. Their current network is lagging behind and they have no plans, right now, to compete with Sprint’s 4G network nor Verizon’s LTE network scheduled for launch next year. I suppose it will be nice when we finally can send pictures and videos but AT&T’s defense to this poor decision is alarming.

No word on when to expect official tethering on AT&T although they continues to say it’s coming soon.

AT&T

• QuickTime X

Apple’s upgrade from QuickTime 7, what happened to 8 and 9, includes many new features making it more powerful than ever. For no extra cost, you can capture video, audio, and even your screen. In the past video capture required quicktime pro and screen capture required third-party software. Apple has saved you all some money by implementing these tools into QuickTime X for no additional charge. Basic editing, in the form of trimming, has also been added and the ability to upload directly to mobile me or youtube is a plus.

• Exposé

One of my favorite features in OS X is exposé. Apple has improved exposé by organizing your winodws in a grid and allowing you to sort your applications by name (CMD+1) or application (CMD+2). Dock exposé has also been added allowing you to click on an app in your dock and view all instances of that applications. On the topic of your dock, you now can minimize applications directly to their icon in the dock instead of their own location.

• Stacks

Stacks has been updated allowing you to scroll through long grids instead of shrinking the icons. You can also drill into folders in the stack instead of being forced to open the finder.

• Finder

The finder has been rewritten in snow leopard making it leaner and quicker. Graphically, the finder looks the same but now supports icons at 512 pixels. I doubt I would actually have my icons that large but it makes it possible to read text from a document, in the finder, without even opening preview or quicklook.

• Services

Now, instead of cluttering the menu, only services that work in each particular app is shown.

• 64Bit

Snow Leopard is both 64bit and 32bit. I’m not sure how this works on a technical level but natively supporting both 32 and 64bit applications is wonderful.

• Exchange Support

Apple has finally opened their platform to serious business users. Snow Leopard now completely supports exchange right out of the box. Nuff’ said.

• Text Substitutions

(c) now becomes ©, (r) becomes ®, 1/2 becomes ½, and the list goes on. In fact, you can create your own substitutions in the language and text pane in system preferences. All cocoa apps are supported and developers can bring support to their carbon apps as well.

• Smaller Footprint

Apple says you can save up to 7GB of space by installing snow leopard. Although snow leopard is leaner than leopard, benefits are skewed because snow leopard and leopard use different number systems. Compare the available bytes and not the GB number you see.

• ZFS Support

Snow Leopard uses the ZFS file system as well as HFS+. Although HFS+ won’t be completely eliminated any time soon, you do get some benefits including data redundancy and auto error correction from ZFS.
Apparently, apple dropped this feature before launch. I was actually looking forward to the benefits but apple was having licensing issues and dropped ZFS from snow leopard. 10.7 anyone?

• Multi-Touch Trackpad

Have you ever wondered why newer laptops included more gestures leaving your machine limited to one or two finger commands? Well, as I often said, this is a software restriction and now all multi-touch trackpads will be able to to gesture with one, two, three, or four fingers.

• iChat

Technical requirements are much less strenuous in snow leopard using around ⅓ of the bandwidth for video chats. Because of this, iChat is now more reliable and supports video chatting at the higher 640×480 resolution.

• Security

Although apple advertises how safe their system is, and how vulnerable windows has become, Apple has taken it upon themselves to give their users more protection. From parental controls to phishing protection, and hard drive encryption snow leopard is the most secure version of OS X to date. In fact, virus and malware protection has been added and enabled right out of the box.

What You Need

• An External Hard Drive
• Time Machine
• Time

Maintenance
Before you do anything, it’s time for some maintenance. I went through the folders I use the most and deleted all the unnecessary files. From old documents to program DMG’s, I removed most of the unneeded bloat from my hard drive. Not only is this a generally good habit, it saves some space on your drive and makes your back-up that much shorter. From there, I sorted extraneous files and cleaned up my desktop. (Right now, the only icons on my screen are of the three hard drives.) Basically, I preformed spring cleaning in August.
I also suggest taking inventory of all the applications and preferences panes you have installed. Jotting down the few panes you have isn’t an issues but if, like me, you have a lot of apps hand writing them all down is troublesome. For that, open up terminal and type: “ls /Applications/ >> appsiuse.txt” without quotes. You’ll now have a text document with all your apps listed.
Check Your Software
Some maintenance every now and again is worth while but before investing any more time and money into this upgrade make sure the software you use most is supported. If you NEED a certain application and for whatever the reason, it doesn’t work, you’re in trouble. If you have a back-up you could reinstall leopard and restore you’re back-up but that’s a hassle. Use this wiki to check what software is currently supported in snow leopard before moving on.
Back-Up
The bread and butter of this post: protecting your data from failure. It’s highly recommended that you back-up your computer regularly but I cannot stress how important this is now. Installing a new OS posses the largest risk for error and you can never be too careful with your documents and irreplaceable media.

While other tools such as carbon copy cloner and SuperDuper work well, I’ll be using time machine for this post. Grab a clean external hard drive, firewire is recommended for speed and the ability to boot from the drive, and plug it into your mac. From there, go into your applications folder, launch time machine and turn it on.

Now, just let the program run it’s course. When you first enable time machine it will create a complete back-up of your computer. For me, after maintenance and moving youtube videos/events to a different external hard drive, I had about 170GB of data that needed to be backed up. This process can take some time so I recommend backing up your entire hard drive the day before your upgrade. This saves time when you have snow leopard in hand and allows you some breathing room to resolve any issues you may have.

That’s everything you should do before installing snow leopard. The easiest way to upgrade is to choose upgrade in the snow leopard installation interface. Ideally, it will install snow leopard and keep all your settings, documents, and media the way you left them in leopard. However, for those of you who want to start fresh, you can always wipe your drive clean and install snow leopard by it’s self. From there, you can restore your data from time machine or just start from the beginning: it’s your choice. I plan to detail this process, in video, in the near future so stay tuned and subscribed.

1. The Software. Mac OS X is the most complete operating system I have used in many years. It has the eye candy everyone wants but is also responsive. Apple doesn’t preinstall junk-ware from third-party manufacturers on your machine either. They simply install the functional media suite iLife, free of charge, to get you on your way.
2. Applecare. Let’s say you are a new user and for some reason your machine is not working correctly. Nothing is perfect all of the time but apple doesn’t put you through the annoying hoops other companies call customer service. All you have to do is call Apple and a representative will do their best to help you. Do you live by an apple store though? If so, just go to the store and a ‘genius’ will help you fix the problem. If they can’t, they will replace the faulty component and in some cases give you a completely new machine. Even on the apple website you can find hundreds of tutorials to help you with any issues you are having.
3. Security. With new viruses, trojans, and spyware hitting the web every day it’s imperative to keep yourself protected. Apple made this a priority and uses an operating system designed more securely from the ground up than windows could ever be. Besides that, there are only a handful of viruses for the mac platform so the chance of getting infected is extremely low. With apple releasing security patches frequently, you can rest easy at night knowing your data is protected.
4. Quality. Apple has been leaps and bounds above the competition when it comes to making reliable products. The new unibody design for their laptop line is extremely durable and it’s single piece of aluminum is bound to keep your laptop running for years to come. From the past though, apple machines are still chugging along today. A friend of mine uses a three year old powerbook G4 as his primary machine and it can still do everything he needs it to do. From school to work to play, you can expect your mac to keep up with your needs.
5. Design. Apple machines are known for their sleek look and have been trend setters for years. Companies have tried over and over again to capture the sleek look of an Apple PC but few have matched what Apple has done. Functionally, Apple first brought firewire to their notebooks many years ago and now firewire is the gold standard for connecting high-speed devices to a computer. When apple began installing iSight cameras on all of their notebooks, the competition noticed. It’s almost common now to see webcams installed on mobile computers. When apple does it, you can expect other companies to follow suit.

It’s not an issue of being biased when making a choice to buy a mac. You can run windows or linux on your apple machine but you also get the benefits that no other company besides apple can supply.

]]> http://michaelsherlock.com/2009/01/08/why-apple-computers-are-worth-the-price/feed/ 1 http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/10/16/spotlight-turns-to-notebooks-apple-event-racap/ http://michaelsherlock.com/2008/10/16/spotlight-turns-to-notebooks-apple-event-racap/#comments Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:00:38 +0000 Michael Sherlock http://michaelsherlock.com/?p=204
The apple event “Spotlight Turns to Notebooks” brought an entirely new look to apple’s notebook line-up. Mostly for the better, this event revamped the macbook and macbook pro lines, updated the macbook air and announced a new monitor. However, there are some major issues in these new products that are uncharacteristic of apple.

Problems

• Glossy screens only.
  Prosumers need a monitor that displays colors accurately, which this glossy screen does not, and one that can be used in different lighting environments without being crippled by glare. Have a choice was good, a matte only option would be fine, but Glossy only is a problem.
• Cinema Display Connectivity
  Although this new display does have a 3 port usb hub built in along with an isight and speakers it is only compatible, out of the box, with the new macbook’s and macbook pro’s. For any other machine, you need an adapter which costs extra money.
• Firewire 400
  The macbook does not have any firewire options and the pro variety has firewire 800 only. This is a huge problem. Macbook users will no longer be able to use their external hard drives or video cameras and pro users are down a port. Come on apple, it’s just one little port but would be wonderful for many people.

Watch the keynote .

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