Skip to main content

Blogs

Farewell PhoneSaber

Thursday, 07 August 2008

No it's not a Jedi mind trick. PhoneSaber, the utterly useless and mildly amusing iPhone application, which does nothing more than make lightsaber noises when you wave your iPhone about, has been removed from the iTunes Store.

After a 'chat' between the makers at TheMacBox.com and THQ Wireless (the company that owns the rights to mobile Star Wars stuff), it has been agreed that a Star Wars branded version will be a much better idea, and the two parties have agreed to create an 'official' version.

Andy Penfold | Andy Penfold | Read more...


Art attack

Wednesday, 06 August 2008

It’s time for a reality check on the digital convergence thing that’s bringing music, film and other entertainment online.

For consumers, the attraction is that it’s easy to find what you want, in many cases without paying for it. The argument many media companies use against technology is that it has removed the notion of fair exchange (paying for it) from the agenda.

Jonny Evans | Jonny Evans | Read more...


Why we love to hate Bill Gates

Tuesday, 05 August 2008

It’s fair to say that Bill Gates isn’t our favourite person. In the black-and-white world of technology tribes the innovatory, commercial and PR war between Microsoft and Apple – and particularly between their leaders Bill Gates and Steve Jobs – is the stuff of legend.

Gates co-founded the software vendor 33 years ago. Since then he has been both leader and public face of Microsoft. But, as of this July, the 52-year-old will officially step away from his day-to-day role at Microsoft in order to devote more time to his charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. According to a 2004 Forbes magazine article, Gates gave away over $29 billion to charities from 2000 onwards. And he’s kept on giving. So why is he such a hated man? Perhaps we should ask instead “Why would a universally despised man give away so much money?”.

Simon Jary | Simon Jary | Read more...


What's Apple got against the Contacts App?

Monday, 28 July 2008

I have this thing about incorrect images of the iPhone in Macworld, and it's got to the point where I want to give Apple itself a stern ticking off.

Allow me to explain: The iPhone has space for 20 Apps on a screen (a 4x4 grid and 4 permanent Apps in the dock). When Apple first released images of the iPhone there were 15 Apps on the screen. The iPhone looked like this:

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


Why can't Apple and China just be friends?

Thursday, 24 July 2008

Because Mike Elgan says so, that's why.

He penned a piece at Datamation attempting to explain the 'incompatibility' between Apple and China that has prevented Apple from effectively extending its business, and therefore its market share, throughout the People's Republic.

Macworld Team | Dan Pourhadi | Read more...


The Mac keeps driving Apple

Thursday, 24 July 2008

Some 48 hours removed from the light and heat of Apple’s third-quarter earnings announcements, a couple of things deserver further examination. And no, I’m not talking about the “Did someone just cough? Sell! Sell! SELL!” mentality that seems to have gripped the investment community.

What still stands out about Apple’s third-quarter performance—for me, at any rate—is just how well the company’s Mac business did. In case you missed Monday’s announcement, Apple said that it sold a little bit less than 2.5 million Macs during the three months ending in June. That’s the most Macs Apple has sold in any quarter ever. And if it sounds like I’m repeating myself, that’s because I am—this is the fourth time in the last five quarters that Apple has set a new standard for Mac sales.

Macworld Team | Philip Michaels | Read more...


Attack of the clones

Tuesday, 22 July 2008

We scorned. We mocked. We laughed.

Psystar was a puzzling joke. We had no doubt they could get OS X running on non-Apple hardware, sure…but what happens after it’s installed? Can it be updated? Is it even legal? How long would Apple just wait on the sidelines before they light-sabered Psystar in two and sent their attack-droids to destroy the rebellious few who dare purchase a Psystar machine? Seemed risky, and those risks were realized when Apple filed suit against the wannabe Mac-maker last week.

Macworld Team | Dan Pourhadi | Read more...


UK iPhone launch - in pictures

Friday, 11 July 2008

They say a picture speaks a thousand words. Well, doubtless, I'll be writing more than a thousand words on today's iPhone launch, but I thought this visual aid might just show the difference between last year's iPhone launch, and this year's.

iPhone launch: O2 Store, Oxford St, 2007

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


How was it for you?

Thursday, 10 July 2008

If you're buying an iPhone 3G today, then I want to know how it went. Badly, is most people's experience. But let us know what it was like in your neck of the woods. Was there a queue? Did you get an iPhone 3G? How did the approval process go?

We managed to get iPhones from both O2 and Apple Stores in London, but we want to know what it's like outside the capital.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


New-look iDisk folder

Thursday, 10 July 2008

Today has been marked by some very odd things periodically happening to my .Mac / Mobile Me account.

The latest is my iDisk which has just switched over to the new-look logo. Not sure if I fully approve of the new design, that cloud looks a bit 'Fisher Price', but then the old logo looked like a 1990's throwback.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


Six interesting iPhone applications

Thursday, 10 July 2008

It's driving me nuts. The App Store is up and running and there's hundreds and hundreds of new applications ready. You can download them now (well the free ones, you can't yet get the ones that require payment).

You can read all about them. But you can't yet use them. At least not until the iPhone 2.0 software update rolls along.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


Goodbye .Mac

Wednesday, 09 July 2008

It's time to wave goodbye to .Mac. At 2am tomorrow morning Apple will pull the plug on its venerable Internet service, and at 8am tomorrow MobileMe will go live.

So when we arrive on Macworld tomorrow morning we will be able to fire up MobileMe and discover all the new services.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


Who's Townshend slams iTunes as 'heartless'

Wednesday, 09 July 2008

The Who guitarist Pete Townshend has blasted Apple's iTunes Store as "brilliant, but heartless".

In his personal blog he responds to an article by Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times. Jenkins wrote how thrilled he was by the resurgence of live performance and the death of recorded music.

Macworld Team | Simon Jary | Read more...


O2's flakey Web site

Monday, 07 July 2008

Well I've currently had nine separate upgrade codes from O2 and still no joy with managing to order an iPhone 3G from its Web site.

Every time I go to the site it first asks me for my iPhone number, then crashes at some point between texting me an upgrade code and placing my order. I've managed to get as far as selecting the phone and option and even clicking on the 'Place Order' button before it hanged.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...


A tale of two cities WiFi

Friday, 04 July 2008

Different approaches to wireless Internet access in San Francisco and neighboring Silicon Valley are producing very different results, with one project springing up around the city and the other inching through regulatory procedures.

The high-tech meccas are still pursuing municipal wireless after the first bubble in that industry burst last year. The free-for-cities business model that was to have covered all major U.S. cities in Wi-Fi failed because of high costs and low subscription rates, with some thorny political battles thrown in. San Francisco was one of the most high-profile casualties.

Macworld Team | Stephen Lawson | Read more...


Acrobat's new home on the Web

Wednesday, 02 July 2008

Remember when hardly a week went by in the early months of 2008 without some sort of Apple product announcement? The past few weeks, Adobe has been doing its best Apple imitation, with a slew of product news aimed at creative professionals.

Following the debut of a trio of public betas for the CS4 versions of Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Soundbooth, Adobe kicked off this week by introducing Acrobat 9 Pro. The new version of the PDF creation and editing tool should arrive in July, and Adobe has said that it will integrate Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro into Adobe Creative Suite 3.3 Design Premium and Standard editions, Creative Suite 3.3 Web Premium and Creative Suite 3.3 Master Collection editions. CS3 owners can upgrade for $159. Pricing for full versions, as well as a host of optional upgrade paths can be found at the Creative Suite page on Adobe’s Web site.

Macworld Team | James Dempsey, Macworld.com | Read more...


Jaikoz 1.12.1 - Macworld WWDC 2008

Friday, 27 June 2008

Download free full version of Jaikoz Audio Tagger 1.12.1.

Unfortunately due to a mistake on our part, an incorrect version of Jaikoz Tagger 1.12.1 was included on the Macworld WWDC 2008 cover disc.

Macworld Team | Read more...


Fun with Spore Creature Creator

Monday, 23 June 2008

Spore Creature Creator – available for both Mac OS X and Windows – enables users to create creatures using design tools taken from Spore, a virtual life game created by Will Wright, designer of Sim City and The Sims. Spore takes the Sim City and The Sims concepts to an extreme, where you create a life form from its first stirrings in primordial ooze all the way up to an intelligent, spacefaring civilization.

Spore Creature Creator lets you assemble hundreds of parts into a creature of your own imagining.

Macworld Team | Peter Cohen | Read more...


Microsoft's Golden Age: Going, going ... gone?

Monday, 23 June 2008

Oracle Corp. and SAP AG may still be bigger in enterprise applications, and Oracle in databases. Both IBM and Hewlett-Packard Co. may reap more IT dollars overall. But in the ways that really count, Microsoft Corp. remains the king of the IT industry.

Now, though, Microsoft is at a major crossroads, as co-founder Bill Gates prepares to step away from his day-to-day job at the company next Monday (see more coverage on our "Bill Gates Moves On" page). Although Gates has long been disengaging from Microsoft — he turned over the CEO position to Steve Ballmer in January 2000, and his retirement plans were announced two years ago — his departure raises questions about whether the software vendor's best days are behind it.

Macworld Team | Eric Lai, Computerworld | Read more...


iPhone 3G-killers

Wednesday, 18 June 2008

The iPhone 3G isn’t even out yet and already rival phone companies are lining up to release iPhone 3G-killers.

In the last two days I’ve had my hands on two such devices. The first is a Sony Erricson C905, which Sony was kind enough to show to me at a launch party yesterday.

Mark Hattersley | Mark Hattersley | Read more...