iFixit.org — The People Who Are Fixing the World — is a new project by the talented and helpful team at iFixit.com, the ‘free repair manual you can edit.’ I have used iFixit to get detailed instructions on upgrading our Macs and it’s been a really useful resource. You can find repair guides for all kinds of things—including game consoles, automobiles, cameras, household items and more. They have a free repair manual app for iPhone and iPad so you can download guides right from your mobile device.
On ifixit.org, we’ll be writing about the problems caused by our throwaway culture. [...] We’re going to profile repair gurus and share why people fix things.
I just today found out about the Ask Different Stack Exchange site, an Apple-focused Q&A forum. It looks like a good resource for lots of common Apple technical questions.
Stack Exchange is a “fast-growing network of 57 question and answer sites on diverse topics from software programming to cooking to photography and gaming.” I’ve spent some time on some of their other sites and they’re a pretty good place to start if you’re looking for answers.
There’s a good thread there where users are sharing some of their favorite little ‘surprise’ features they found in the recently-released OS X Lion.
Card.io is another new mobile credit card processing solution, similar to Square except that it doesn’t need additional hardware to swipe the card—instead, it uses a mobile app to scan the front of the card. There’s a little more info on the How it works page but apparently it’s targeted to software developers to integrate credit card processing into their mobile apps.
They are currently accepting early access requests on their web site: www.card.io. SDK (Software Development Kit) available now for iOS, coming soon for Android.
Apple’s annual Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) kicks off next Monday, June 6 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, beginning with Steve Jobs’ keynote (aka The Stevenote) at 10 AM.
Below is a photo from AppleInsider showing some of the banners going up. It looks like the three themes of the conference will be:
Mac OS X Lion (10.7)
iOS 5
iCloud
I’m really interested to see what Apple is going to do with the iCloud service. I hope it’s better than MobileMe, which never seemed to me to be a very serious effort on Apple’s part. Cloud syncing and backup services like Dropbox and a few others have shown what a good service can look like in that space. I think it’s pretty clear by now that a music syncing/streaming service is going to be introduced as a big part of the iCloud offering. I’m sure that calendar and contact syncing will remain, and some have speculated that parts of the iCloud service may be offered at no cost to users who upgrade to OS X Lion.
This morning Apple opened the Mac App Store. This is like the App Store for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) except it’s for Mac computers.
It’s available as a download for Macs running OS X Snow Leopard. Go to Software Update (Apple menu) and download the 10.6.6 update and the Mac App Store will be installed as a new application in the Dock.
The difference between this and the iOS App Store is that software developers can still sell their apps independently, either through retail channels or directly over the web (and keep all the revenue), or they can leverage the App Store and the added exposure it will bring (and take 70% of the revenue – Apple keeps 30% to cover costs).
This could turn out to be a great deal, both for Mac users and the software developers who sell to them. Tons of added exposure for Mac software, and one place for potential customers to browse for the apps they want. The big selling points are easy discovery of apps and quick download and installation to your Mac. One thing I like about the iOS App Store is the ability to look at screenshots and user reviews, so you can get at least some idea of what an app is like before you install it. And like the iPhone and iPad, you’ll get a notification when there are updates to apps you have installed.
This is a huge change to the software sales model, and one that I think could be very successful. I think the software developers will find a lot of value in it, and if so I wonder if something like this will eventually materialize for Windows apps as well. The concept of a central software marketplace is a proven winner for mobile devices, and I don’t know why it couldn’t succeed for desktop and laptop computers as well.
A few things of note from yesterday’s Apple event. Keynote video can be seen here.
Two new MacBook Air models introduced: an 11-inch and a 13-inch model with on-board flash memory and beefed-up battery life. It seems clear that Apple is moving toward phasing out hard drives on all of its laptops as flash component prices come down.
New iLife ’11 software suite. Nice upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand. iLife will come installed on all new Macs for free, or a $49 upgrade if you already have it. If you use iPhoto and/or iMovie this looks like a worthwhile upgrade, with some great new capabilities in both apps. The new audio and video editing tools in iMovie are really impressive, making it easy to create professional-looking productions, with integrations for uploading videos directly to YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo.
Preview of Mac OS X Lion. Release targeted for summer 2011. Apple calls this ‘Back to the Mac’ as they are taking some of what’s been popular on the iPad interface and bringing it to the Mac OS.
A few changes coming with this OS X release:
Mac App Store. The iPhone and iPad have an App Store for quick and easy downloading and installation of apps, so why not the Mac as well? This model could be very successful as it will give Mac users a convenient way to find applications they want, a notification system to let them know when updates are available, and customer reviews to see what other users have to say about the apps. Apple will offer the same 70/30 revenue split with developers as they do today with iPhone and iPad apps, and traditional application sales and installation has not been eliminated — the App Store will just be another distribution channel. The more I think about this approach the more I like it, because although installing applications on any computer is generally easy, it’s not always intuitive — and even less so for those who don’t have much experience with computers. The iPhone/iPad model just seems perfect for most situations: select an app, click the Install button, done. The average user shouldn’t have to deal with file systems or compressed archives or virtual disk volumes for something as trivial as installing an app.
Launchpad. An iPad-style interface for organizing and launching Mac apps, in addition to the existing Dock method.
Full-screen apps. Another iPad-like feature, taking some apps to a full-screen view to maximize the use of monitor real estate and reduce unnecessary clutter on the screen. I think this will be especially useful for working on photos, videos and word processing tasks. I frequently use Aperture in full-screen mode for photo editing and I think it’s a good feature that could extend well to other applications.
Mission Control. This is a trackpad gesture-based feature that combines some of the functionality of Exposé, Spaces, Dashboard and full-screen apps. Apple is really pushing the touch interface here — learn a few simple swipe gestures on the trackpad and reduce the number of times you have to grab the mouse for common tasks. This seems like both a bold step and an obvious one. Millions of people are accustomed to using a touch interface on mobile devices today, so the way we physically interact with technology is already undergoing a subtle transition. I think that little features like this could play out in a much bigger way than might seem obvious today.
FaceTime for Mac. FaceTime was recently introduced as part of iOS4 on the latest iPhone 4. It’s basically like Skype video-calling but only worked over WiFi between iPhone 4 devices. With FaceTime for Mac you can install the app and, if you have a Mac laptop with a built-in iSight camera or an external camera, make FaceTime video calls between iPhone and a Mac. iOS 4.1 or later is required. FaceTime for Mac beta download is available now.
As a follow-up to a previous post about embedding Vimeo videos and having them work on Apple’s iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch), Vimeo just announced their Universal Player which will deliver the appropriate video format for the device being used. Vimeo’s FAQ page has more info on it, but the new method uses an <iframe> HTML tag to frame in the content, and the player will detect the device to serve the right video file. YouTube has recently rolled out something similar. Vimeo’s code looks like this (line breaks were added):
I did some quick testing and it worked fine. Both the iPad and iPhone were delivered h.264 versions, while Mac and PC still get the standard Flash player. I would like to see Vimeo offer some embed options to include serving straight HTML5/h.264 to the desktop as well and avoid Flash altogether.
WordPress doesn’t like the <iframe> tag, so if you’re using WP you will need to install the Embed Iframe plugin. In my testing this plugin has supported the new Vimeo method within a WP post. I have a test page here where I embed two videos, the first one using the new iframe code and the second one with the earlier javascript workaround.
Many people are using Vimeo.com for their video hosting rather than YouTube. I’ve been using it for nearly a year. Personally, I like it better than YouTube because you’re not limited to 10-minute segments per video. I like the features they provide with a Vimeo Plus membership, and the user community that’s grown there. Also, the content on Vimeo seems to have more of an artistic focus, with some very talented folks posting quality work.
One of the limitations with Vimeo right now, however, is the lack of HTML5 embedding and the impact this has on iPhones and iPads. You can view videos on the Vimeo.com mobile site (www.vimeo.com/m) with your iPhone and iPad (neither of which will display Adobe Flash content), but if you want to embed your videos on another site, Vimeo doesn’t yet have a player implemented to handle embedding for those devices.
YouTube has a solution in place, and there’s been some push from Vimeo members in recent months to get this done there as well. Recently the Vimeo staff responded that they’re working on it, and I expect they will deliver something good. We don’t know how long it will be until it’s ready, so in the meantime I thought I would post a temporary solution to get embedded Vimeo videos working on the iPhone and iPad. This is not my original idea. I found it in this YouTube video describing the process, and decided to document it a little further and put it here. Thanks to YouTube user “optikalefxx” for posting his solution for everyone.
(It’s nothing more than a javascript browser-sniffing workaround/hack, but it works well enough and might be a good way to bridge the gap and get your videos to these popular iDevices until Vimeo delivers a proper API for it.)
Here’s a link to the code in a PDF you can download, including some notes, caveats and assumptions about using it. (If you have trouble with formatting when copying the code from the PDF, try this Google doc where I have included a complete HTML page that you can work from.) I assume you’ll know what to do with this, how to modify it for your particular video ID, dimensions, controls color, etc. As always, make a backup copy of any files before you modify, and test it across your platforms and devices before publishing. This method is intended to be temporary, and it may break in the near future as Vimeo implements their HTML5 embed solution, so don’t put this out there expecting it to be a long-term fix. Caveat developer.
There’s no rounded plastic back like the previous two models, the 3G and 3GS. The front and back are flat, covered with a specially-engineered glass surface from top to bottom and a stainless steel frame holding it together. I think this new form factor looks much better, more solid and modern than the curved-back models. The weight is about the same as before, 4.8 ounces, but it feels heftier.
Screen Resolution
Apple calls it the Retina Display, and resolution on this screen is ridiculously sharp. It’s most noticeable to me when looking at text — there’s none of the jaggies or pixelated stuff we’re used to seeing on small screens.
Speed
This model feels much faster than my two year-old 3G. The 3GS was probably closer in terms of speed, I don’t know, but it’s a big improvement over the older model. Everything just feels faster and smoother, from app launching and switching to game performance.
Multitasking
Apple has worked out a way to allow multiple apps to run in the background (sort of) without putting an extraordinary drain on the battery. So you can stream music over Pandora while continuing to read email or browse the web, for example. What I like most about this feature is the ability to switch quickly between apps and pick up where you left off — it’s more like switching apps and less like quitting and restarting.
Folders
Folders are a great idea, and something that’s been needed since the App Store took off and people started filling their iPhones with dozens of apps. Instead of having several screens worth of apps you have to scroll through, you can group apps together in folders for quick access. I predict that many users will have a folder that’s the equivalent of the ‘junk drawer’ in the kitchen — a folder for those apps we thought we might use, and still could someday, but probably not, so we’ll just stick them in a random folder and forget about them rather than delete them.
Cameras
There are two camera lenses, one on each side of the phone, so you can shoot still photos or video from either side just by touching a button on the screen to toggle from one to the other.
Still Camera
The 5-megapixel still camera with LED flash shoots in 4:3 aspect ratio, and is probably good enough to replace many point-and-shoot pocket models, certainly good enough for casual use. It won’t come close to replacing my DSLR, but it’s not intended to, and sometimes the best camera is the one you have with you. Below is an unmodified shot from the camera.
Video Camera
It’s amazing to me that a little mobile device can shoot High Definition 720p video at 30 frames per second, but the A4 processor seems to handle it well. Shoots in 16:9 aspect. Short clip below to demonstrate the quality, this is unedited HD video straight from the phone.
This morning Apple opened the 
Folders are a great idea, and something that’s been needed since the App Store took off and people started filling their iPhones with dozens of apps. Instead of having several screens worth of apps you have to scroll through, you can group apps together in folders for quick access. I predict that many users will have a folder that’s the equivalent of the ‘junk drawer’ in the kitchen — a folder for those apps we thought we might use, and still could someday, but probably not, so we’ll just stick them in a random folder and forget about them rather than delete them.
