Evan Sims

Enough Said?

No, it isn’t mine; it’s actually a Mother’s Day present from my Dad, Sister and I. Still, the thing is insanely sexy to use. I can feel it slowly breaking my will, especially with the local Best Buy carrying Macs now. >_<

iPhone SDK (finally) announced

And I’m shocked to say, it was totally worth the wait. This is exciting as hell— Apple really seems to have listed to the developers and gone all out on a professional, robust SDK and platform upgrade to really make it attractive to customers and developers alike. What I’m most pleased to hear is how they’ve gone with a very Microsoft XNA-like route in giving developers a free SDK to develop with, very inexpensive licensing terms ($99 for freeware/hobbyist and lower end commercials apps), and implementing an onboard applications store. Plus, freeware apps can remain freeware; great news.

I wont go over all the details you’ve undoubtedly seen fifteen times in your RSS reader this morning, so I’ll just link those of you who aren’t up to speed to the Engadget coverage. Likewise, those of the programming percsuation might want to head on over to the Apple Developer Connect and grab yourself a copy of the free SDK.

Fix Safari for Windows start up crashes

Happens a lot under Vista for me. Do what I did; grab the latest beta seed from Apple’s developer site. Works like a charm. Once you’ve signed in (or registered), head to the Downloads section. You should find a bunch of pre-release Apple software, including the latest version of Safari for Windows.

Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG Disconnects on Apple Airport

I’ve had my laptop (a Dell XPS Inspiron Generation 2) for almost three years now. It’s still running strong, and overall I’ve been pretty happy with it. However, since day one I’ve had one majorly aggravating issue with it: the Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG card disconnects. Like, a lot. Frequently. Several dozen times a day. I called Dell support on several occasions, and they were never able to really help. They replaced the card once to no avail. Now that it’s out of warranty, I kind of gave up on making the stupid thing work.

Then I decided to Google one day… go figure.

So it turns out the Intel Pro/Wireless 2200BG (and, I presume, other Intel wireless products) has a feature called PSP, or “Power-Save Polling”. Essentially the technique causes the wireless card to switch between an active and low power passive operating state, reducing power consumption and boosting battery life for your laptop. That’s all well and good, but the technology requires that the router you’re using supports this feature, as both sides of the process must cooperate in a unique manner to keep the connection alive during the lower power phases.

Surprise, surprise: Apple’s Airport line (Airport Extreme, Airport Express, etc.) doesn’t support PSP.

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Apple announces iPod Touch, iTunes Wifi, more.

Today at San Francisco’s Moscone West, Steve Jobs announced a several new iPods, a new iTunes Wifi Store and a new business partnership with Starbucks, among other bits.

iPhone Price Drop

Roughly $200 less. Overdue and very much welcome.

iPod Touch

Apple kind of gave AT&T a kick in the ol’ jewels today by announcing the iPod Touch. Basically, take all the goodness of the iPhone without the phone, and AT&T’s nonsense, and you’ve got the touch. It supports Wifi, has Safari, multi-touch, music playback, video playback, all that fun stuff. Just no phone; and the 8GB model is $100 (USD) less than the 8GB iPhone, after the new price reduction. I was so pleased to see this move, as it gives all of us who don’t need or want to converge their phone with their mp3 player an opportunity to get their grubby hands on the sexy device.

Personally, I think it makes a hell of a lot of sense to keep your cell phone - which, if you’re like me, you undoubtedly upgrade far more often than you do your MP3 player - and just get a very sexy iPod that will last you a long while. Convergence is great, but when you replace your electronics as most of us do, it’s not very financially wise.

(Images courtesy of MacWorld.)

iPod Nano

As many of us had expected, and several sites leaked imagery of in the past week, Apple launched a redesigned iPod Nano, lovingly referred to as the “iPod fatty” - and for good reason. The thing is chunky for a Nano. Honestly, I don’t care much for it. I think it’s pretty fugly. I like the fact that they finally added video playback support, but the design is just hideous. What was so wrong with the 1st gen design, or even the 2nd gen, that Apple felt this direction was worth going?

iTunes Wifi Store

iPod Touch and iPhone owners will be able to browse and buy music right from their palm of their hands using the new iTunes Wifi Store; purchases are delivered straight to the device, and synced up to your PC next time you dock. By far the most exciting them for me at this event.

Starbucks Partnership

Kinda goofy, but worth mentioning; iTunes on the iPod and your PC/Mac will now detect when you’re using Wifi in a Starbucks, and will open access to a new iTunes section that allows you to see what music is currently playing in the store, and purchase it right from your device. This will take a massive infrastructure upgrade for Starbucks, and will not be an immediate launch by any means. From the amount of work that it will take to launch this feature, I’m guessing this is just the beginning of the partnership; these two have got something up their sleeves, mark my words.