Macking 138

Apple's iPhone a Reality (in June)
One of the most rumored and blogged products ever, the iPhone from Apple made it's official debut at Macworld last month. It has everything a Macker has been waiting for (except an internal hard drive): Runs OSX, has full Web and email capability, plays iTunes audio and video files along with any standard non-protected formats (excludes WMV, of course) and syncs with iCal and PhoneBook. It has a desktop! Move files around! Copy, paste and delete! Type on the on-screen keyboard! Even at a projected cost of $599 for the 8Gb model, I will so be there if only they will fix some of the Won'ts, detailed below. The Palm system, while superior to WinCe in most ways (and more battery-efficient) was severely limiting and growing moldy from age and lack of any real advanced development. Palm fans have written that the Tungsten line was the last good product from Palm; I'm using the T model, which has been replaced twice under warranty. I hope it hold out until June.
Want one? There's a caveat: Cingular (now owned by AT&T) will be the exclusive dealer and will require a two-year voice and data contract before you can even get one. So much for selling it unlocked for use with any service. Or not - other bloggers think that it will be sold unlocked and you will then have to find a provider that supports it, and the only one will be Cingular. After two years, probably anyone.
More significant is what it WON'T do. The embedded Safari browser doesn't support Java or Flash and it won't open Word or Excel files. Only Apple will be allowed to develop for it, so no 3rd party games, no iChat and lots of other won'ts, detailed by David Pogue at his blog on nytimes.com.
Yes, they are calling it an iPhone. They did not own the rights to the name, the Cisco Skype-compatible product hit the streets last year with that name, also shared by the Internet Phone Company, who had to take their site down due to the overload caused by Apple enthusiasm. According to reports, Apple just went ahead and used the name without finalizing an agreement. More money for lawyers all around - at press time Cisco filed suit against Apple. I would have preferred MacPhone, anyway.
You can still see the keynote address at Apple's web site. If there is one thing Jobs is a master of, it's presentations. Highly entertaining.
Meanwhile, over at the CES show in Las Vegas, dying tech icon Motorola introduced a smartphone based on Windows Media. I saw this first and it looked dated and pathetic even before I saw the ApplePhone. Motorola is also known for the popular RAZR series of phones that enable the FBI and skilled phone hackers to turn it into a spy microphone even when powered down. Motorola, you may remember, lost out to Intel when it was unable (along with IBM) to keep up with Apple's needs for more powerful and energy-efficient processors. Chalk up another loser for both Motorola and Microsoft.

Word for 2008
In a win for Microsoft, or at least the Macintosh Business Unit, located a thousand miles from Redmond in Silicon Valley, the new version of Office appears to address some of the usability concerns people have had with the 2004 version. A few new features will be added, including a "publishing layout view" that emulates the early version of iWeb. It can automatically resize, rotate and add modifications to images dragged and dropped into documents. This feature will not be in the Windows version. Early beta testers report that, overall, they like the program.
By the way, the reason there is, and never will be, a Windows Media Player 10 for Macintosh is that would come from the Microsoft Consumer Unit, which does not exist at all. MS has abandoned all consumer development for Mac, so no more IE, no media players, chat or any other piece of software that we would need to interact with their site. Since the MBU is profitable for M$, they keep it alive but otherwise expect nothing from Microsoft, ever again.

AppleTV
I was all set to get this one, until reading an interview on Ars Technica with an Apple engineer at Macworld convinced me otherwise. Too much that it won't do.
It won't play VIDEO_TS files ripped from DVDs. Won't play .avi files. Won't play DivX. In fact, it won't play anything that iTunes or an iPod won't play. It has a USB 2 port, but you can't add external storage to the tiny 40Gb drive it comes with. Basically, it's a TiVO replacement, but it requires TiVO. It won't work with Dish Network or DirecTV, or your cable box, if TiVO won't work with it. It's limited to 720p resolution, and scales down when used with a non-HDTV set.
Some "clever Japanese hacker" will probably open up the USB port, and others will find their way around Apple's other limitations. Since I can already watch any video format I want on my TV with my G4 Tower, VLC and a dedicated video card, all sitting within 3 feet of my TV, I just saved $300 by not buying AppleTV. In fact, the winner here may be Microsoft because their Xbox 360 can play 1080i and let you add IPTV products, and even buy games directly through the box over the Net. The Xbox is $600, though, and AppleTV is $299. AppleTV makes you use your computer to get iTunes content and then stream it from there. It's probable that we don't have the whole story yet; there may be integration with Leopard that gives it more features than appear right now. There is lots of discussion going on Ars Technica's forums, and it's only Wednesday of Macworld.

New Airport Extreme
Apple's Airport Base Station has been severely overpriced compared to the rest of the wireless routers, even though it had extra features and much greater ease of configuration (especially compared to the Mac-hostile Linksys routers). The new version drops the cost by $20 to $179, but adds two extra 10/100 BASE-T Ethernet ports for hardwiring other devices, lets you set access times for when different users can access the network, supports up to 50 Macs or PCs, and can turn almost any external USB 2.0 hard drive into a shared network drive. That feature alone makes it worthwhile, but you will have to watch your password and access security because it would be easier to hack into such a drive than a networked computer. It also supports the draft version of 802.11n, which connects many times faster than the 802.11a/b/g which the current AirPort supports. Down side: the new standard is supported only on Core2Duo Macs, which don't include my original, purchased-last-May, MacBook.

Cancel That Online Account?
An article in PC World (via Slashdot) details the difficulty the writer had in canceling accounts that were very easy to set up. Worst of the lot were NetZero, AOL, True.com, Classmates.com, BlueMountain, Rhapsody, Napster, ESPN and MSN Internet. (In my experience, AOL is easy to cancel. Their new policy of offering to keep your email account for free if you use your ISP to access them is a smart step, and was easy to execute. You could simply stop checking your mail and never visit them again.)
The article detailed the maze of windows and obscure links one had to navigate. Worst of the lot? True.com's terms-of-service agreement stated that if you were to dispute an authorized charge as unauthorized, their lawyers could dun you for $1000 per incident!
Read the article, tremble, and then be careful what you sign up for. The article also details ways to avoid these hassles in the first place, and what to look for before you sign up.

What's Wrong with Adobe Reader
A former Adobe employee (who remains nameless for obvious reasons) writes in the Macintouch Forum:
"Adobe doesn't ship a Reader 8 for Mac because the Reader Mac project is seriously messed up. I worked at Adobe from Oct-Dec. 2005 and the entire Acrobat Mac project is mismanaged due to incompetent management. The people who are running the project have never written software and know nothing about how to properly run a software project. My boss at Adobe called it "Chaos-driven development".
"I was working on the Acrobat Mac installer/updater along with one additional engineer and the whole time it was nothing but daily emails with "Oh, one more thing...". The, ahem..., 'management' people on Acrobat for Mac didn't seem to understand the concept of an MRD or feature set or even a schedule. It was just one daily headache after another, which of course causes delays.
"Also, the Mac Reader project was outsourced for a long time and the 'developers' threw lots of the original working code out and replaced it with broken Java code. The thing got so bad at one point that Adobe brought all the development back in-house but alas, so much of the original greatness of Reader for Mac was lost that the product has never been the same. The Reader codebase is also written in CodeWarrior so Adobe has been having a terrible time getting a Universal Binary version out because CodeWarrior does not support Universal Binaries. So many great engineers have been replaced by imported workers at Adobe that they are incapable of producing a good piece of Mac software. I know - I saw what is happening there.
"Also check out the great new BetterReader project, which promises to completely replace Reader with a modern version that works and is fast." The site has not been updated since last year, though, and there are no email links. I hope it hasn't been abandoned

MacBook Still Working
I should make this a regular monthly feature. Because there were so many problems with my and other people's MacBooks, I told everyone to avoid this model at all costs. Apple replaced it with the Core2Duo model which avoided the heat issues, but for the older ones a combination of firmware updates and Service Center repairs seem to have ended the overheating.
Now the only people who should be wary are those buying refurb and used models. Make sure they have received the full treatment from Apple before buying. Some day I will be selling mine while I still have a year of AppleCare on it and I was originally afraid I could not ethically offer it to my readers. Check with me in a year or so, or just after Apple releases something so hot it just demands my attention.

Bugged Since 1998
Acer, a manufacturer of Microsoft laptops, has been implanting bugs in their products since 1998, according to Singapore news site vuln.sg. This is not the typical bug that causes things to break; this "bug," an ActiveX control, is designed to allow any website to run any application, thus bugging your computer. Quoting the article, "Checking the interface of the control reveals it has a method named "Run()" as shown below. The method supports parameters "Drive", "FileName", and "CmdLine". Isn't it strange for a control that's marked "safe for scripting" to allow a method that is suggestive of possible abuse?" Author Tan Chew Keong then developed a test script on his web page that would launch the embedded calculator.
Fortunately, this kind of "bugging" doesn't affect Acer's displays, which are pretty good screens sold at some Apple dealers for use with Mac Minis and others for $249. Just another reason we use Macs. The New York Times agrees: in an article "Tips for Protecting the Home Computer" they state, "Using a non-Windows-based PC may be one defense against... malware... Alternative browsers such as Firefox and Opera may insulate users." File under security, duh, microsoft, obvious (tagging beta).

Join PMUG Already
The Portland Mac Users Group is repositioning itself to be a major resource for Mac users. I want more people to join and take advantage of the social aspects of Macking: meeting people with whom you can share information and knowledge.
Everyone has questions, sometimes at inconvenient times. Wouldn't you like to find more friends you can call up those late evenings with a plaintive "hellllp!!"? While the Internet has revolutionized information exchange and quick answers, without the human component there will always be something missing.
PMUG has always been about volunteers; people who learn helping others to learn. There are a lot of things we would like to do, but we need more participation. We need more writers, artists, accountants, doctors, lawyers, programmers, hobbyists, retirees and students. The Mac is growing its user base dramatically; there are more Mac users now than in the first twenty years combined. Too many of you are Macking alone; some surrounded by Microsoft relatives and friends who just don't understand you at all. Those who are leaving Microsoft will find a helpful home where you can catch up on how things work over here.
So visit the PMUG site and plan on attending one of our Tuesday evening 7pm open houses in our office/classroom in the Galleria, room 315, downtown at 10th and Morrison. Take Max or the streetcar, or park in the SmartPark next door and take the 3rd floor skybridge right to our floor. I started this way back in the ancient days of 1984; I want to see it continue to grow and thrive.

No Microsoft products were used in the production of this column.

email mp at moonmac dot com. (I took out the mailto link because that's how the spammers find me.)