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Shake-To-Undo On A MacBook Pro→

Shake-To-Undo On A MacBook Pro

Paul Horowitz at OS X Daily writes:

The tiny app works by activating Command+Z when movement is detected by the SMS.

If you’re concerned about accidental undos from moving your Mac laptop around, you can prevent this by enabling the ‘Confirmation Overlay’ from Shake To Undo.app’s menubar.

This is basically useless unless you’re really into shaking your MacBook while writing, but the technology behind it is what intrigues me. I first learned about Sudden Motion Sensors (SMS) last year, when I opened my MacBook Pro to install a brand new SSD, and had done a bit of research online before replacing my hard drive. It turns out, this sensor was first implemented by Apple in a refreshed PowerBook line in 2005, and later in the July 2005 iBook. Since then, every portable Mac came with a Sudden Motion Sensor, albeit with differences between G4 laptops and Intel MacBooks.

The SMS acts as a security measure for the spinning hard drive. By calculating sudden acceleration in real time through an accelerometer, the SMS can “predict” when a computer is about to drop off a surface or your lap, and thus tells the hard drive to disengage the drive’s heads from the platters. In theory, this should prevent data loss or at least make for less damages to the drive.

As you can imagine, a number of hacks have arisen around SMS – tilt-based games and utilities like Shake To Undo. If you want to try it out for yourself, you can download the app over at GitHub. I don’t recommend it (it’s bad for your hard drive), but it sounds so ridiculous it might just be fun to test for an afternoon.

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Ronald Wayne’s “Adventures of an Apple Founder” Now On iTunes

In the history of Apple, Inc. the role of the company’s third co-founder, Ronald Wayne, is often overshadowed by the genius of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who built the very first Apple I personal computer and unveiled it at the Homebrew Computer Club. Ronald Wayne was the “adult supervisor” in the early days of Apple, the middle-man between Jobs and Wozniak whom they could trust in case of any disagreement. Wayne contributed to the first Apple logo, and drafted the initial partnership agreement to establish the company. He was given a 10% stake in Apple which, however, he sold for $800 after a few weeks. He later received an additional $1500 for giving up on any claim of ownership in Apple, thus bringing his original 10% to $2300 worth of “profit”, whereas if he stayed on Apple until today his 10% would be worth $35 billion.

Today’s Ronald Wayne says he doesn’t regret his decision, made “with the best information available at the time”. This, and another anecdotes from Wayne’s past and subsequent ventures are detailed in Adventures of an Apple Founder, an autobiography available for $9.99 on the iBookstore, as well as Amazon in paperback format. From the iTunes description:

In the spring of 1976 while working as chief draftsman and product development engineer at the video game maker Atari, Ron assisted a co-worker with the subtle intricacies of forming a small business.It was with Ron’s natural sensibilities, experiences, and skills honed over a lifelong career in many disciplines that he offered himself openly as a resource to two much-younger entrepreneurs: Steve Jobs & Steve Wozniak. These same traits would drive Ron’s decision to leave a short time later.

Adventures of an Apple Founder offers insight into the experiences that define the man whose passion for engineering and design spans over three quarters of a century, half a dozen industries, and a lifetime of adventures!

Wayne recently appeared in an interview alongside Steve Wozniak following Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple CEO. As a side note, Steve Jobs’ official biography by Walter Isaacson recently got a classic cover and it will be released in November 2011, including details on the resignation. [via setteB.IT]

My Artists 2.0 Brings 8tracks Internet Radio, iTunes Integration, Better Controls

When I first stumbled upon My Artists last year, what I found was a great companion for iOS’ native iPod app that allowed users to play songs they had synced on their iPhones with a different interface that, among other things, came with Wikipedia and YouTube integration. My Artists’ main goal, in fact, was to provide users with more information about songs and albums they were listening to, pulling data from the web as a way to showcase videos and songs from the same artist that, however, were not available on the device. My Artists 1.0 was a discovery tool for music already synced on an iPhone; version 1.1 brought several interface improvements, whilst 1.2 focused on Last.fm support as in-app purchase, and made the app independent from iPod.app in that users could see My Artists’ icon in iOS 4’s multitasking tray.

My Artists 2.0, released today, takes the whole concept a step further to become a full-featured music player and discovery system for all kinds of artists, not just the ones you already know and have on iTunes. Thanks to built-in integration with 8tracks, the “handcrafted Internet radio”, users can now listen to a personalized radio station with easy controls to jump through live-streaming songs from the popular online service. Whereas previous versions of My Artists wanted to put more information about your music at your fingertips – by displaying artists’ bios, related music, and videos – My Artists 2.0 brings actual new music to the mix thanks to an 8tracks button that’s always accessible from the main list view, which as usual pulls beautiful and high-res artist pics and album artworks from the web.

The new control bar in the list view has also got buttons for quick play all and shuffle, surely a welcome addition for those who don’t always want to navigate to an artist’s page to start playing music. Once you hit the 8tracks button, My Artists will open a new window, and start streaming a random playlist within seconds. The playlists are user-generated on 8tracks.com, and you can skip and pause songs with the app’s regular playback controls. Tapping on the album artwork of a song streaming from 8tracks will display an overlay with the playlist’s information, although you can also use the sharing button in the upper right corner to open 8tracks’ website in-app. As with older versions, the sharing button has additional options to “explore” (opens Wikipedia, YouTube, or related artists and genres), open an artist’s profile or album details. And when you check out the details for an album you don’t own or have on your device, that’s where another new feature of 2.0 comes to light: native iTunes Music Store integration.

As you can see in the screenshot, alongside a nice inline playing indicator (available both for local and streaming songs) there’s a blue Buy button next to each song belonging to the album you’re listening to through 8tracks. My Artists 2.0 enables you to preview iTunes Store songs without leaving the app or, alternatively, tap on the purchase button to open iTunes and start downloading right away. No matter how you get to an album or song you don’t own, whether it’s an 8tracks streaming session or Last.fm-based “discovery” for related artists, the app will have an iTunes button next to music you don’t have synced.

Speaking of Last.fm: gone is the in-app purchase from version 1.2. Last.fm scrobbling is now free for every My Artists customer, and it needs to be enabled through a login page the first time you hit the Last.fm button. From there on, My Artists will scrobble songs – be them “local” or coming from 8tracks – to Last.fm.

For me, My Artists 2.0 nears perfection. I still miss the ability of displaying lyrics alongside artists’ bios in the now playing overlay, and it’d be nice to be able to “forward” discovered songs to Rdio or Spotify, besides the iTunes Store. But other than that, for someone who listens to music every day, all day (well, almost), My Artists 2.0 offers a fantastic combination of local music playback (enhanced with better, up-to-date artworks and a fresh UI) and Internet-based discovery.

You can get My Artists 2.0 at $1.99 on the App Store.

Apple Hunting For People To Beef Up ‘New Product Security’

Following last week’s news that Apple had lost another iPhone prototype, PC Mag has discovered that Apple is now hiring for two positions that are titled “New Product Security Managers”. Curiously, the positions became available just a day after CNet reported that an iPhone 5 prototype had been lost at a San Francisco bar.

That’s probably somewhat of a coincidence, but it’s clear Apple wants to step up its efforts in safeguarding future products and its intellectual property, describing the new jobs as follows:

The candidate will be responsible for overseeing the protection of, and managing risks to, Apple’s unreleased products and related intellectual property. Position will reside in Cupertino, California and will require up to 30% travel (international and domestic).

The individual will collaborate with other security managers by contributing to, and managing execution of, strategic initiatives set forth by Director, Global Security.

That ‘Director of Global Security’ is David Rice, a former NSA vulnerability analyst and author of ‘Geekonomics’, a book that discused “the astonishing lack of consumer protection in the software market and how this impacts economic and national security”. He was hired by Apple back in January of this year, after Apple also hired Window Snyder as Apple’s senior security product manager in March of 2010.

[PC Mag via CNet]

3G iPad 2s Receive Regulatory Approval In China, First Hong Kong Apple Store Opening Soon

The Wall Street Journal is today reporting that the 3G models of the iPad 2 may eventually be launching in China after the Chinese ‘Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center’ approved the device. Although a specific launch date is not yet known and China Unicom declined to comment to the Wall Street Journal.

Based on the information contained in the Wall Street Journal report, the model (A1396), is the same as the US model that went on sale in March. Those in China have been able to purchase the WiFi models of the iPad 2 since it launched on May 6th but the 3G models were forced to go through additional regulatory approvals.

According to China’s Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center, a device by Apple with third-generation high-speed wireless data capabilities was issued the network access license needed for the company to begin official sales in China. The device, listed under model number “A1396,” is compatible with the 3G standard WCDMA, and would work with the cellular network operated by Apple’s local iPhone partner, China Unicom (Hong Kong) Ltd.

Interestingly, the 3G versions of the iPad 2 mysteriously appeared yesterday, and promptly disappeared, from the official Apple website. Penn Olson managed to take a screenshot of the page which details prices starting at 4,688 RMB for the 16 GB version, 5,488 RMB for the 32 GB version and 6,288 RMB for the 64 GB version - all of which had estimated shipping times of 2-3 weeks.

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, Apple has confirmed that they will be officially opening this quarter, with Engadget China claiming a September 24th date. The store is located in the International Finance Center’s IFC mall and is currently covered up in large, striking red banners with the slogan “The new center of Central”.

[Via MacRumors]

BundleHunt: 11 Great Mac Apps & Design Goodies at $49

How great would it be to have access to some kind of deal for useful and well-designed Mac apps bundled with resources for web design, CSS, or even Photoshop? That’s exactly what BundleHunt is offering in its latest initiative to sell a bundle of “11 Mac Apps + Design Goodies” at $49.99. For the same price of a Thunderbolt Cable you’ll get gems like Launchbar and Divvy – we reviewed the latter here – as well as Hype, the beautiful HTML5 design app, Xslimmer and WriteRoom. And on top of the OS X love, you’ll also get your hands on 4 Smashing Magazine design ebooks, 3 WordPress themes from Theme Trust, and a complete Geomicon icon set.

BundleHunt includes:

  • LaunchBar: Objective Development’s LaunchBar is the original application launcher for the Mac, used every day by folks who care about being productive with their Macs. Gestures may be the hot new trend in Lion, but let’s not forget about the power of the keyboard. LaunchBar lets you control every aspect of your Mac, it’s highly customizable and efficient in letting you access applications, folders, contacts, bookmarks – you name it. Normally $35.
  • Color Schemer Studio 2: This app lets you build color schemes quickly, so you can create and save palettes, and use the color wheel to check out harmonies between your color choices. Available on the Mac and Windows, it fully supports web (RGB) or print (CMYK) standards. Sold  for $49.99.
  • WriteRoom: A full-screen writing environment to get words on a page, stay focused, and keep your work synced across the Mac and iOS. Normally $25.00.
  • Divvy: A new way to manage your desktop by quickly choosing the exact proportions of application windows with keyboard shortcuts. You can create as many shortcuts as you want, and manage your apps’ settings through Divvy’s grid interface. $14.00.
  • Tumult Hype: With “no coding required”, Hype enables designers to build beautifully animated websites that will work on desktop computers, iPhones, and iPads. By rivaling Flash content with a universal standard supported by any modern web browser, Hype uses WebKit to visually build animations, giving you additional tools to create custom JavaScript code and edit an element’s HTML. Original price is $30.00.
  • Seamless Studio: A desktop app that makes it easy to design vector patterns for the web, print, fabric, or any other design project. Available both on Mac and PC, regular price is $49.00.
  • Smashing Magazine: Ebooks from Smashing Magazine are available as PDF, ePUB, Mobipocket (DRM-free) and they include: Mastering CSS for Web Developers; Professional Workflow Package; Modern Web Design & Development; Mastering Photoshop for Web Design, Volume 2. Normally $30.00.
  • TN3 Gallery: An HTML-based customizable image gallery with slideshow, transitions and multiple album options so you can create web galleries that support CSS, XML, and Flickr. $37.00.
  • GeomIcons Full Icon Set: 315 royalty-free vector icons in EPS format desgned by Brent Jackson. $16.00.
  • ThemeTrust: 3 WordPress themes licensed under GPL, with support for widgets, and more. $147.00.
  • XSlimmer: Sometimes applications come packaged with unnecessary code that your Mac will never use, and Xslimmer understands this. You can use Xslimmer to right-size your Mac apps and remove binaries or other chunks of code your Mac won’t need, while retaining the functionality of the app and, actually, trimming the code down to what’s really used so that apps will launch even faster. Normally sold for $15.

I’d argue that LaunchBar and Divvy alone make up for the bundle’s price, yet with BundleHunt you’re going to save $400 and get a variety of other Mac software, plus some useful goodies for your next design work. $49 gets you 7 great apps to add to your Mac’s library with licenses delivered directly to your email inbox.

Disclaimer: For every bundle purchased through MacStories, we receive a small kickback. If you’re interested in the bundle and supporting the MacStories crew, please use the link here or any of the affiliate links above.

WeatherSnitch 2.0: Beautifully Detailed Weather Data and Forecasts

I have tried several weather apps for the iPhone in the past year. Eventually I decided to stick with a combination of BeachWeather and WeatherSnitch for iPhone, even though I appreciated the attention to details of Shine, a beautifully designed weather app that was subsequently updated to work better internationally.

So it was with a bit of curiosity that I approached WeatherSnitch 2 last month, when I learned that the developers had switched the original WeatherSnitch to a free app, and released a major 2.0 version as a standalone, paid app. As it turns out, WeatherSnitch 2 builds on the excellent feature set of version 1 adding a darker UI, more reliable and accurate weather data and forecasts, moon phases, and more. WeatherSnitch 2.0 looks a lot like its little brother, now free on the App Store, albeit it’s been completely rewritten to have a new design with snappier animations, and faster update times.

WeatherSnitch 2 lets you add multiple locations, search the ones you’ve already added, and add your current location by tapping on the default GPS icon as in Apple’s Weather app for iOS. Speaking of Apple’s Weather widget: I believe average users will be more than fine with iOS 5, Weather in Notification Center and the additional features Weather received through the betas, but there will still be room for apps that provide a more detailed look at weather data, forecasts, and so forth.

Locations you’ve configured in WeatherSnitch will appear along the bottom of the app as a section you can swipe to change between places. The single-location section lists current time, weather and “feels like” factor, an icon representing the weather, and a bunch of additional information such as rainfall, sunrise and sunset time, humidity percentage, visibility, and wind. Units, colors and other options can be tweaked in the Settings, which have some clever switches for on/off items, as well as units and types (see screenshots below). The bottom part of the UI is WeatherSnitch’s main controller, as swiping between locations automatically updates the data visualized above in the Month, Week, and Day views.

Month view is pretty self explanatory in that it displays a calendar with weather icons and temperature associated to each day of the month. Tapping on a day opens a small popover with the icon in greater detail, high and low temperatures, and humidity percentage. My favorite view, however, is the middle “Week” one. Not only does Week lists weather forecasts for “this week”, “next week” and “week after next” in a vertically scrollable interface with wind/rain/temperature/pressure data, it also lets you switch between day and night forecasts with the tap of a button. The animation for this is delightfully simple, attractive, and powered by a dark linen background.

“Day” is perhaps the most complex of the three views. It contains a continuously scrolling “hour bar” at the top with hour/temperature/wind/rain data and gradually fading colors that reflect the time of day; as you move forward, WeatherSnitch updates the day header at the top, thus allowing you to go as far you want inside the Day view. In the middle, there’s what I interpret as a “day average” section – the developers call it a “a new detail bar” that offers extensive details for each day. The detail bar can be swiped to reveal a nice 3D animation (reminds me of 3Do) to switch night/day forecasts.

WeatherSnitch 2 is a good-looking piece of software with lots of weather data to assimilate – perhaps even too much. In fact, I’m told the developers are working on an update to allow for deeper customization and let users choose what pieces of data to show on screen, optionally with bigger text labels. WeatherSnitch 2 doesn’t disappoint, it’s intuitive and fun to use thanks to support for swipe gesture, and the homescreen icon with optional badge looks fantastic on the iPhone 4. You can get WeatherSnitch 2 at $1.99 on the App Store. Read more

PDF Expert 3.0: Redesigned UI, Page Manager

PDF Expert by Readdle is my favorite app to collect, read, and annotate PDF documents on the iPad, and thanks to a series of updates in the past months it’s also become a solid alternative to iBooks on the iPhone, not to mention support for signatures and text notes. With the major 3.0 update released today, free for existing iPad customers, Readdle has completely revamped the user interface of PDF Expert, adding a new toolbar for annotations, notes, drawing shapes on screen and highlighters, as well as a “page manager” to act on single pages within a document, copy them, export them, and move them with drag & drop.

The new toolbar in PDF Expert for iPad is easily dismissible with a tap on the “x” button, so you won’t have to look at it all the time while you’re reading a document. Similarly, a single tap on the edit icon in the upper toolbar (the one that contains navigation buttons, the new Recents menu, search, bookmarks, and sharing options) will display the annotation toolbar again. You can manually highlight text or use the automated tools for highlights, underlines and strikethroughs; you can add shapes, notes, your signatures, and choose from a variety of free-hand highlighters with different colors. Changes can be reverted at any time, and I haven’t noticed any visible slowdown when navigating annotated documents with hundreds of pages.

The new toolbar is clean and unobtrusive, but it gets better with the new Page Manager. With a tap on the pages button, you can switch to a bird’s eye view of all your document’s pages with live previews (that is, thumbnails include annotations and highlights). You can add a blank page between existing pages, select one and move it around – even select multiple ones, rearrange them, rotate them, email them, and extract them as a new document in PDF Expert’s main section. Live previews update fast on the iPad 2, and the “extract” function is undoubtedly useful if you need to focus on specific pages of a document.

PDF Expert 3.0 is a great update that improves both design and usability, whilst adding some other “little gems” you can check out in the app’s built-in update guide. PDF Expert for iPad is available at $9.99 on the App Store. Read more

The “Apple TV Set”


Jean-Louis Gassée notes how the “Apple television” that’s been long rumored among Apple fans and the tech press will have to face two problems: architecture and implementation.

As many imagined, the device would look something like this:

Imagine a true plug-and-play experience. One set with only two wires: power and the cable TV coax. Turn it on, assert your Apple ID credentials and you’re in business.

But then it would come down to getting cable channels into the set:

Large carriers, such as Comcast, are known as Multiple System Operators, MSOs, with an emphasis on the “M”. They’re a patchwork of acquired systems that have never needed to be compatible. This would either restrict the TV set to a small number of carriers, or make the product more complicated and prone to more bugs — and more field tech visits.

And on top of that, Apple would have to solve the problem of easily troubleshooting a 50-inch screen, or simply figure out a way to get people to upgrade to newer models of “Apple TV set” every couple of years:

We’re willing to upgrade our laptops, smartphones, and tablets every year or two because Moore’s Law keeps improving the CPU and other electronics at the rapid rate that made the computer industry’s fortunes. An integrated Apple TV set wouldn’t benefit from better electronics as naturally as an iPhone does…unless, of course, the tiny iOS computer is implemented as an easily accessible plug-in module.

I’d argue that the television market is so variegate, and potentially lucrative, that there’s more to figure out and correctly implement than U.S. cable providers and MSOs. Looking at Apple now, it’s hard to see a company willing to disrupt a market with a brand new, premium device…available exclusively in the United States. Even the Apple TV, “not part of the stool” and still considered a hobby, was released in the United States and Europe last year. Then look at the iPhone. It took almost four years to get there, but as it turns out the majority of profits now come from regions outside Americas (and iPhone is “key driver” of Apple’s revenue in Greater China – more context here and here).

The problem with the Apple TV set isn’t an “American cable company” (you name it) – it’s the television market as a whole. If we take in account the segments and population that can afford an HDTV nowadays – assuming it falls somewhere in between the $500 - $3000 range – it’s easy to see how Apple will have to make a product that ultimately just works with any television content provider in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Why would they ignore those markets?

There are greater issues to solve and differences to consider in the international TV market. Just a few examples: Italy still switching from analog to digital TV, satellite’s popularity in many areas of Europe, or some ISPs’ offerings with Internet/ TV packages. Supposedly, Apple will have to come up with a solution to work around these, in several countries. Italy may not be Apple’s finest source of revenue, but Europe/Japan/Asia-Pacific combined made for $14.94 billions of revenue in Q3 2011. I’m just assuming some of these Apple customers would also be interested in a TV set from Apple.

We don’t know what Apple has in mind, we can speculate on the company’s margins for such a device – we can only imagine that there is a market to disrupt because the current television sets are too difficult to configure and troubleshoot, with different user experiences and fragmented interfaces, store fronts, or even remotes.

I believe the question isn’t what will the TV set from Apple look like, as we can make a pretty accurate guess about that. Rather, I’d speculate on how many markets Apple is willing to enter at once, and its timing.