Blog Action Day

March 3, 2008

Apple Event on March 6

March 3, 2008 – 3:41 am
3 #

I might be a little late to the party, but I still couldn’t help myself but talk about the upcoming Apple event on the 6th. The event according to tech sites reporting on the invitations is going to be on the upcoming iPhone SDK and Enterprise features. The event will begin at 10:00 a.m. and I am sure there will be a nice QuickTime stream shortly after for us all to watch. I’ll get that up ASAP on the event date.

As far as what I think is going to come, for sure talk on how the SDK for the iPhone is going to be implemented. I don’t think we will be seeing a full blown release just yet. A beta or at least an introduction is most likely. Since I am not very keen on what’s considered an “enterprise feature” I can only assume it is going to have to do with Exchange support.

I can’t wait to see what the iPhone SDK promises. I am just going to cross my fingers it won’t cost an arm and a leg through ADC (Apple Developers Connection) and it will be independent developer friendly, which might include freeware developers such as ourselves.

Update: I have some links to various live blogs for those who can’t wait for the QuickTime feed Apple will post after the event. MacWorld and Wired’s Gadget Lab are two of the sites I will be following.

By Skunkie | Posted in Journal | Comments (3)

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January 22, 2008

Atomac’s New WebClip Icon

January 22, 2008 – 11:42 pm
7 #

Thanks to PolyVector and his amazing abilities, he whipped me up a new WebClip icon. I think it came out really nice and better fits the iPhone interface than my original one. PolyVector also helped me do a little updated to the theme here on Atomac. So if you find anything out of place be sure to let us know. Thanks for enduring all my recent pictures of the iPhone as well. I had gotten a new digital camera over the holidays and I have been trying to take pictures every chance I get. I think I have been doing rather well.

By Skunkie | Posted in Journal | Comments (7)

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January 18, 2008

iPhone WebClips

January 18, 2008 – 8:21 pm
0 #

With the recent iPhone 1.1.3 Firmware update along came the ability to customize the Home Screen and “WebClips.” Those of us using Mac OS X Leopard have been introduced to WebClips in Safari 3. This allows you to take a snipet of a webpage and add it to a widget in the Dashboard. This widget will pretty much just be a cut out of the section from the webpage and will still update exactly like you would see it in your web browser. WebClips on the iPhone are a little different. Instead of being a widget that update it is basically an icon on the Home Screen that will take you to the site and the exact spot you were scrolled to when you WebClipped it. The icon used on the Home Screen is usually just a small shot of the actual webpage, but the site developer does have the ability to create an icon similar to a “favicon” that will show as the button instead.

Create a WebClip Bookmark Icon

Phone and iPod touch allow a user to save a WebClip bookmark to your site on their Home Screen.

To specify a bookmark icon for all pages of a web site, place a PNG image named “apple-touch-icon.png” at the root directory of your web server - similar to the “favicon.ico” for site icons.

To override the site bookmark icon on a specific web page, insert a <link> element similar to <link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”/customIcon.png”/> within the <head> element of the page.

The bookmark icon dimensions should be 57×57 pixels. If the icon is a different size it will be scaled and cropped to fit.

Safari will automatically composite the icon with the standard “glassy” overlay so it looks like a built-in iPhone or iPod application.

[From iPhone Dev Center - Apple Developer Connection]

As you might have guessed I created a WebClip icon for Atomac. So if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch and love Atomac enough to add it to your Home Screen (I know you do), you will get the spiffy little radioactive symbol. Maybe in time PolyVector will help me evolve it into something a little more 3D, but I think it looks pretty good for a first try.

Oh and if you would like to give a site your own custom WebClip icon it’s as easy as uploading an icon to a webpage. Go give Clipalizer a go.

By Skunkie | Posted in Journal | Comments (0)

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January 15, 2008

Macworld ‘08 Highlights

January 15, 2008 – 12:41 pm
6 #

Wow, the keynote has already come and gone and with it has brought some pretty nice updates and new gadgets from Apple. I am gonna go over the highlights and what I personaly think. Since I wasn’t able to attend I am going by the current live blogging that was done by TUAW. Lets get started shall we?

1. Time Capsule - Apple’s new NAS (Network Attached Storage) which is a full Airport Extreme Base Station (router) and internal storage of 500GB to 1TB of space to use with Time Machine in Leopard. I am actually pretty excited about this. PolyVector and I have been looking for a TB solution and they easily get up into the $400-$500 range. With Time Capsule this also would remedy our need for a new N router as well. I think this will be something we’ll be getting after the move.

2. iPhone and iPod Touch Updates - The iPhone’s SDK will be available in late Feb. which will bring official no-need-for-jailbreak 3rd party applications. The iPhone’s Home screen can now to customized with new shortcuts using WebClips for Safari. Google Maps now has triangulation using Skyhook Wireless and cell towers. This could be a very useful feature when trying to find new places around town. Chapter navigation, and subtitles have been added to the iPhone’s video playback. As for the iPod Touch, for a $20 upgrade (free with new iPod Touches) you get Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, and Weather. Maps will include the new triangulation.

3. iTunes Movie Rentals - You can now rent new releases and library movies in standard and HD through the iTunes Store. New releases will be $3.99 and $2.99 for older. You will have 30 days to start watching and 24 hours to finish.

4. Apple TV - While the rumors of a Blu-ray or HD-DVD drive were false (was kind of hoping for that one) the Apple TV now has the ability to connect to the iTunes Store and download and rent movies without the need to sync to a Mac or PC. That’s kind of spiffy. Flickr and .Mac support has also been added.

And lastly, the BIG announcement!

5. MacBook Air - Now this is a cool little notebook. It is a 13.3″ widescreen MacBook that is only 3lbs. and 0.16-0.76″. I could go on with the stats, but really, just go check out the page. It is super sleek and definitely an awesome idea for people who need to be a little more portable than even the MacBook can provide. The only downside to this for PolyVector and myself is it uses the same video as the current MacBooks and at a $1799 starting price our real upgrading needs comes to graphics.

The keynote video is not up just yet, but I’ll post it as soon as I can snatch a link.

Update: The Macworld 2008 Keynote has been posted. Enjoy! In addition to the stream you can download the keynote via iTunes as a podcast.

By Skunkie | Posted in Journal | Comments (6)

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January 13, 2008

Some Cheese For Your iPhone

January 13, 2008 – 3:18 am
0 #

I felt like writing some new ringtones for the iPhone the last couple days. The first one turned out like complete crap, so here’s attempt number 2… “Cheese”… It’s a very simple happy synth ring… Enjoy!

Download (iPhone and MP3)

More Ringtones

By PolyVector | Posted in Journal | Comments (0)

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