Thunderbolt technology is what was Intel’s Light Peak. It’s not an Apple technology, but rather the culmination of Intel’s handiwork in combination with Apple’s mini DisplayPort. While Light Peak was developed to work over fiber (literally for light speeds), Thunderbolt is implemented over copper. Despite this, you’re still getting bi-directional (in and out as they say), 10 Gbps connection over a cable, plus a 10 Watt feed so you can power heavy equipment on the go (you don’t get that with USB). For comparison, your current USB 2.0 devices only get 480 Mbps through the cable! With this technology, you can drive multiple inputs including monitors, workstations, and audio equipment without a bird’s nest under your desk.
Posts in stories
What Is Thunderbolt?
iPad 2: The Rumor Timeline
With the iPad 2 announcement reportedly scheduled for a media event next week in San Francisco, it’s time to take a step back and re-analyze rumors posted in past months about the next-generation device. If rumors are of any indication and sources to be trusted, this little trip down the memory lane should give us a quick recap of the details we think we know about the iPad 2.
So read along after the break, and let’s see what the Apple rumor mill offered so far about the new tablet. Read more
MobileMe Music Streaming: Keep It Simple
According to recent speculation, Apple is launching a complete overhaul of MobileMe this summer that will include a streaming option for media like music, movies, photos and videos recorded through an iPhone. Steve Jobs himself said in an email from last year that MobileMe would get “a lot better” in 2011. The fact that Apple is working on making MobileMe free in more sections, and more powerful and feature-rich when it comes to cloud-based access to files and media, seems pretty much obvious at this point.
The problem is “how”. With the rumors floating around, all kinds of speculation have arisen lately: cloud storage for your entire iTunes library, through a subscription à la Dropbox; cloud storage through the existing MobileMe plans; cloud storage for free. The list of possible implementations goes on and on. Yesterday, The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple weighed in with an interesting theory about a user’s Mac as a the actual cloud behind MobileMe’s streaming:
Instead of trying to provide everyone with cloud storage, I believe Apple will use MobileMe as the brain of the cloud service. The actual storage will be on our individual machines. In effect, in the cloud.
MobileMe would handle the settings and streaming settings, the files would reside on our Macs. Jim further explains:
Here’s the thing — those songs won’t actually be on my iPhone until I tap to play them. As soon as I tap to play, it will download to my phone. You can scroll through your music library and choose something else and it will download and play.
In effect, what Apple’s doing is setting up a streaming service that you host. By using advanced caching and MobileMe as the brain behind the operation, you will always have access to your media.
iOS Notifications: No More, No Less
With today’s rumors about Apple considering the purchase of a third-party developer to improve the notification system of iOS, I thought I should explain why, in my opinion, Apple really needs to focus on this, developer buyout or not. The problem: iOS notifications get in the way, interrupt one’s workflow or media consumption and once they’re gone, they’re gone. In my usual setup, these are the apps that send me notifications: Twitter (replies from users I follow, DMs), Messages, Facebook, Calendar, Skype / IM, Appshopper. I think most of these apps are used by several iPhone and iPad owners. Read more
My New (Old) Favorite Service: Back to My Mac
Back to My Mac is often ignored by Mac users as just another feature of the equally ignored MobileMe set of online webapps, sync tools and desktop settings. Back to My Mac allows you to display a remote Mac on your local machine’s Finder as if it was within reach, just a few clicks away. Select the remote Mac in the Finder’s sidebar, browse its contents through the Finder itself or just connect to its screen using OS X built-in Screen Sharing features. Back to My Mac, ultimately, enables you to virtually sit in front of your Mac even if the computer is actually miles away from you. All of this happens over the Internet, routed through MobileMe. Read more
Why I Started Using Hazel for Mac
Over the weekend, I have started using an application several MacStories readers and friends of mine suggested for a very long time: Hazel. Following Ben Brooks’ excellent roundup of what can be accomplished with Noodlesoft’s Hazel and a series of great tips I’ve found on the Internet, I decided it was about time to take what many call “the most precious time-saving utility for the Mac” for a spin. The results, even in a short 3-day testing timeframe, are quite impressive.
This is not meant to be a review of Hazel, as I believe the app can go really in-depth with its feature set and I need a few more weeks before writing a proper article. Still, I think I should share my thoughts on why I started using it, especially considering how it’s difficult to find on blogs the reasons why you need Hazel, rather than a list of all the things this utility can do. Last week, when I was not a “Hazel user”, I couldn’t find a single post about getting started with Hazel, and why you should give it a try. So here it is. Read more
Thoughts On The Daily: The Newspaper, The App, The “Newspaper App”
The problem with The Daily, the long anticipated iPad-only publication launched today in a joint effort of News Corp. and Apple, is that it’s three things in a single package: an app, a newspaper and a business model. Taking an early look at The Daily is difficult because of its intrinsic nature of newspaper that’s an app aimed at making Rupert Murdoch’s wallet larger.
I have been testing The Daily for a few hours now, I’ve read most of its content and played around with the social functionalities, and I still don’t know where the newspaper is going as a daily publication, or what’s the general guideline established at News Corp. After all, you can’t get to know a newspaper and its feeling after a single issue or, in our case, “refresh”. But I do have some impressions to share, some complaints to make about The Daily as an iPad application and thoughts on the potentialities of Murdoch’s promise to re-imagine newspapers in the tablet’s era. Read more
Apple’s “Integrated” In-App Purchases, eBooks and iOS Users
Jason Snell, reporting for Macworld about Apple’s statement regarding ebook reading apps and in-app purchases:
For a couple of years now, Apple has been boasting about how many millions of iTunes IDs are linked to credit cards. Recent rumblings suggest that the company is seeking to expand the footprint of its financial services, too. It’s clear that Apple is tired of seeing companies make money on content served to iOS devices without using its system or cutting it in for a piece of the action. The current 30-percent cut of all content purchases would seem to be an impediment to getting partners to embrace Apple’s system; on the other hand, Apple’s the gatekeeper to its platform and if other companies don’t want to play ball with Apple, they’ll be on the outside looking in.
That’s exactly the point. You have to look at this whole Sony / Apple / everyone else story in two separate ways: the business perspective and consumers’ expectations. Apple does business, and it wants publishers selling content on its iOS platform to pay the fee all developers pay. The fee is 30 percent. Whether or not Apple will ease this fee and allow for lower revenue cut on ebook content is unclear, but it’s a possibility. Maybe tomorrow’s event won’t just be about The Daily, who knows. Read more
The Great Disparity in Global iTunes Prices
Over the weekend I curiously started investigating whether Australians had been getting a progressively worse deal for their iTunes purchases as the Australian dollar rose from USD$0.60 to parity whilst iTunes prices stayed constant. The answer is most definitely a yes but it doesn’t just apply to Australians, and the extent of the price disparity is larger than I had thought.
Whilst Apple is entitled to have different prices for different regions, it doesn’t really need to. Furthermore the extent to which there is price disparity is very extensive for the music section of the store and this article aims to bring the inequity to light. Apple has previously been under similar pressure but the exchange rates reverted back, I would hope Apple again reconsiders their iTunes pricing system now when exchange rates have pushed the disparity to a very high level.
This turned into a bigger article than I had expected so here are the key things I cover and keep reading after the break for a full run down with tables, graphs and more.
- iTunes uses fixed prices (i.e. $0.99, $1.29 etc.) and for stores outside the US these price levels were converted using a very conservative prediction of the future value of a particular currency
- The price levels in non-US stores seem not to have been updated in a long time, yet the value of the non-US currencies have mostly appreciated since then. As a result people purchasing from most of the non-US iTunes Stores are now paying more than US customers and Apple is earning more from those customers
- The conversion rate is different for the App Store and Music store (and likely the other stores too), the App store conversion rates are much more appropriate and the price disparity is less extreme.
Updated on April 27 2011 - see end of article for revised figures and comment.