The Mac Professional's Resource
Popular Mechanics 10 Worst Gadgets of the year special featured what some my say is a surprising entry when they highlighted Apple TV right along side Microsoft’s Zune. Many people were quick to point out that Apple and iTunes are still leading the video download market. We agree that there are things that Apple TV can do better, and shouldn’t be called a bad product simply because the market is still emerging. That opinion is backed by some new analysis from ABI Research which states many devices have struggled but the “increased availability of content should help the market grow”. From that standpoint, Apple is in a good position.
While Apple TV is a market leader, we still believe they can improve upon things. At this point, the storage is a joke. 200GB would be a good start for the base model and 500GB for the top of the line. Some may say this is overkill because movies can also be streamed from a Mac, but storage is cheap. Another big improvement would be more content not linked directly to iTunes. YouTube is a good start, but Apple should use some of their billions in cash to make a deal with the networks to stream their shows or to get the NetFlix Watch Instantly function to work, or to, well, Steve has that vision thing, so I am sure he can come up with something.
— Joe Fahs
Last week, with little fanfare, Apple released GarageBand 4.1.1. Along with the usual promises of stability improvements, the update now allows users to create their own custom ringtones. Any song in GarageBand can be the source, so anything GarageBand will play can now be used on your iPhone, including songs from your iTunes library. Users on the Internet were surprised to learn Apple has allowed you to create ringtones from songs they have purchased from the iTunes Music Store. With this feature available, anybody who shells out for iLife doesn’t need to pay Apple an extra dollar to convert a song from their Library into a ringtone.
One can only imagine how long it will take for the RIAA to complain, but many phone manufacturers have allowed custom .mp3 and .wav ringtones for years, so we’re happy to see the iPhone finally catch up in that regard. Who knows, maybe MMS messages will be next.
— Joe Fahs
Transmit, Panic’s file transfer application is out, bringing Leopard support and bugfixes.
You can learn more about Transmit at its’ home page. Or, to directly download the update, click away!
— Tom Ierna