To 3g or Not to 3g, That is the Question

I know that all of the readers have been waiting with baited breath for the MacSparky verdict on upgrading to the new iPhone 3g. [eyebrows roll] Well friends, the wait is over. I've finally decided to "go public".

I have to admit I've waited until the last week to post this because when the first iPhone came out I was vocal pretty early about the fact I would not immediately get one. You can imagine how surprised I was carrying that little bag on launch day. What did it for me the first time was that spiffy video Apple did on how to operate the phone. Well Apple just did another one of those videos (with the same Actor no less) and after watching it I'm even more convinced I won't be buying a 3g iPhone on launch day.

The original iPhone was so much more than my old smart phone that I couldn't resist upgrading immediately. The difference between the 3g and original iPhone however doesn't strike me as all that revolutionary.

It really comes down to this: Are you willing to pay $200 plus an additional approximately $30 on your monthly bill for 3g and GPS? I can see how this is a no brainer some folks who need those features. I'm just not blown away by it. I have wi-fi at home and at work. Most of the iPhone web apps I use are already very Edge optimized and acceptable. I own a $100 Nuvi that handles my navigation.

Also, I think a lot of people will be surprised on July 11 to find out that the 3g buying experience, for lack of a better term, will suck. The AT&T folks are going to make sure the phone is activated before it leaves the store. It probably takes 30 minutes to activate. So lets say you are at a really big Apple Store with 100 employees. That means they can sell 200 phones an hour. Ugg. I think people are also going to be surprised how often their 3g coverage isn't so 3g and more Edgey. This will, of course, depend on where you are located. I am very curious about the non-driving direction uses for GPS on a phone. Maybe not immediately, but very soon I suspect that will be a compelling feature.

Of course I'll upgrade eventually I'm not even ruling out within a few months but most likely for me it will be in November when maybe they have a 32gig model with (hopefully) a better camera. I can say that I am certain I will be nowhere near an Apple Store on July 11. Hopefully, I'll be home updating my existing iPhone software and going crazy in the App Store. How about you? Are you going to upgrade?

Screencast 14 - OS X Toolbar Customization

I just published screencast #14 which explains how to customize the toolbars in your OS X applications. This screencast was inspired by my sister, Alisa and her pal Karen, who are brand new switchers and told me they understood very little of the ramblings here at Macsparky. So this screencast is aimed at the beginner and should help the listeners understand how to customize their toolbars in a variety of OS X applications. You can download it directly right here.

4th of July Photography

I hope everyone had a nice Fourth of July. The nerdy side of me particularly enjoyed shooting my family with sparklers. For these shots I put the Canon on a tripod and set the ISO to 100, the Aperture to 9, and the exposure varied between 5 and 10 seconds. The above shot is of me.

We also went to Disneyland on the third but one of the legs on my knock-off Gorilla Pod broke. I'm going to see if I can return it. As a result I ended up having to prop the camera on a trash can for this shot.

Finally, with no trash can or tripod, the fireworks shots came out jiggly. Feel free to laugh.

Iris Review

It wasn't so long ago that there were very few options for Mac users in the graphics department. There was 800 pound gorilla, Photoshop, and Adobe Photoshop Elements for the rest of us. Adobe was behind on its product cycle and for Intel Mac users, Photoshop in any iteration was a slug.

In just one year, this space has completely turned around. Adobe finally got its act together and released CS3 and an Intel friendly Adobe Photoshop Elements version 6. Likewise, Apple beefed up the core animation, core graphics, and other elements of OS X to allow developers to create their own graphics applications. In short, there has been a boom of quality graphics software including Pixelmator, Acorn, and now Iris.

The developers of Iris bill it as a graphical and photo editing application "designed from the ground up specifically for Mac users." In large part, Iris delivers. It features a simple interface that is much less intimidating than Photoshop. Iris uses a "one window" metaphor for the application. It has simple sliders that are in obvious locations that allows you to adjust color or zoom just like you would in a lot of current OS X applications.

One of my favorite features was the inclusion of a small pane at the bottom of the Iris window that includes thumbnails of all of your current open images. When you're working on several images at one time, this is extremely convenient.

Within very little time, I had easy access to common tools such as dodge and burn and a decent set of drawing tools. The implementation of layers is both easy to use and powerful once you start using the built-in filters. Iris also accepts and writes a wide variety of files depending on your needs.

Another function that I thought was pretty slick was the inclusion of a "new from clipboard" command. This really made sense to me. In fact, I could see this command being used in a variety of applications.

While Iris does a very credible job of giving you easy photo editing and drawing tools, it is not going to replace Photoshop. Indeed, I don't particularly see at replacing Photoshop Elements. The selection tools are not as robust and some of the deeper features from the Adobe offerings are simply nonexistent.

Iris fits in that space already occupied by Elements, Pixelmator and Acorn. All of these applications are aimed squarely at that user who does not want to spend the time and money required to master Adobe Photoshop but still wants some photo editing tools beyond iPhoto. If that is you, take a look at Iris. I can't make a recommendation between Iris, Pixelmator, Acorn and Elements.  I think that depends a lot on the user and I simply haven't spent enough time with the applications to give an intelligent recommendation. Regardless, all of these applications have trial periods available. When making a decision such as this, it's probably best that you kick the tires yourself.


Iris retails for $79. You can find it at Nolobe.com. You can listen to this review on Surfbits MacReviewCast episode #167.

Happy Fourth of July!

Happy Fourth of July to all of my American readers. Without getting all "political" on everyone, our nation is, in many ways, a freak of history. We were formed by taking on the most powerful empire in the world, we have a diverse population that amazingly sticks together (although it isn't always pretty), and we have the longest running democracy on the planet.

So today in between barbeque and fireworks, stop and raise a glass to our amazing experiment.

If you want to read last year's rambling about the founding fathers, click here.

Midi and Music at the Typical Mac User

A few weeks ago I got on Skype with Victor over at the Typical Mac User. We both were musicians in a former life so it was fun reminiscing and chatting about our current Midi set ups. We also eventually got around to the ways you can exercise your musical bent on a Mac with just about any budget. Head on over and check out.

MacSparky on Mac Roundtable #43

I participated in the most recent episode of the Mac Roundtable. We were all tired of the iPhone speculation and instead focused the show on email management and some of our favorite software and toys. Somehow I managed to talk about OmniFocus (again) and also discussed my experimentation with Evernote and the Amazon Kindle. I hope it is as enjoyable to listen to as it was to record. You can download it here.

Audioengine W-1 To the Rescue

Yesterday I volunteered to help some dear friends (and fellow Mac users) with their wedding slideshow. I did the usual drill with FotoMagico and it looked spectacular. Just for giggles, as I was going out the door I packed my usual bag of goodies I take when doing presentations with my Mac. Thank goodness I did! The video guy didn't have any cables for the projector and, even worse, the DJ was about 50 feet away from the computer and didn't have any audio cables.

I pulled out my trusty Audioengine W-1 (reviewed here) and an RCA adapter (also brought by me). Using the W-1, we were able to wirelessly bridge audio to the DJ and the slideshow was saved. I just continue to find uses for those Audioengine W-1s. I think the DJ plans to buy a pair now too.

OmniFocus Talks Back

It wasn't so long ago that there were no task management applications on the Mac worth a damn. What a difference a few years make! Now there are multiple quality applications from the lightweight Do It! to the 800 pound gorilla, OmniFocus. There are also several web based solutions, like Remember the Milk. I've made no mystery of my appreciation of OmniFocus (reviewed here). I know, however, that this Omni love is not universal.

A lot of users feel OmniFocus is just too much for them. Not quite intuitive enough and too ponderous to figure out. The word "bloat" hasn't been used, but implied. I can appreciate these comments but having used OmniFocus since the alpha, I can't help but think a lot of these complaints are a result of a lack of familiarity with the program which is, once you figure it out, very scaleable.

One of my favorite Mac writers is TidBITS' Matt Neuburg who reviewed OmniFocus with several compliments and complaints. Matt has also done a few screencasts explaining his heartburn. This has prompted a response from OmniKing, Ken Case on the Omni blog. While I understand Matt's criticisms, I think Ken's response is spot on. OmniFocus just works for me. It is as much a part of my day as green tea and cranky lawyers (not me of course). The idea of OmniFocus Touch in a few weeks has me giddy as a sugar-saturated schoolgirl backstage with Hannah Montana.

I think that Omni's challenge with OmniFocus is largely getting new users over the initial hump. Omni has a few screencasts but that is not enough. They need to go deeper so new users have an easy way to get running. I realize some users simply don't need a task management system with the depth of OmniFocus, but for those who do, Omni needs to show the way. After all, reading the manual is so 90's.

Time Capsule Recovery ... 34 Gigs ... Check!

I've had a few readers email me following up about my over-air time capsule recovery of my cratered Aperture library (all 34 gigs of it). These emails fall into two general categories:

1. Friendly questions about whether you can actually recover a 34 gigabyte file over the air, and;
2. Indignant outrage at why on earth I would do such a thing. These emails also include questions about whether I have a lick of common sense.

So just to keep the answers simple ...

To group #1: Yes, you can. On an "N" network it takes about a day.
To group #2: You are probably right. I could have done it over ethernet cable but I just wanted to see if it was possible without it. Call it, "taking one for the team."

Everything came back fine and things are happily backed up again not only on the Time Capsule but the SuperDuper external drive too.