AllThingsD » iMovie

Animoto Launches App for Easy iPhone Slideshows

Lauren Goode — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 15:39:57 +0000

Making video packages on an iPhone can be cumbersome, especially if you’re used to working with a desktop editing program. The phone’s small screen just doesn’t lend itself to manipulating clips and pics easily.

New York-based Animoto, a five-year-old slideshow service that makes awesome-sauce out of images and video clips, has used some of its $25 million in recent funding to make the mobile editing process a whole lot easier.

In the newly released mobile version of its Web app, Animoto helps users auto-produce slideshows from the images on their iPhones, adding transitions, effects and theme music to selected pictures from the device’s camera roll.

The app takes the idea of “nonlinear” one step further, by displaying selected images and theme and music options in tile format on the app’s interface, for one-tap selection. While users can’t select a song from, say, their iTunes or Amazon music accounts, Animoto offers 500 royalty-free music options, and there are five themes — including holiday and celebration styles — to choose from. The slideshow is stiched together based on the beat of the chosen music, and it takes about 15 seconds to produce a 30-second video, provided there’s good Wi-Fi and data connectivity on the phone. Then, users can share their videos via email, text message or through Twitter and Facebook.

One of the biggest drawbacks of the Animoto app is that it only works with still images, not video clips. For basic slideshow videos, this works fine, but lots of consumers would probably like the ability to throw their video clips into the mix.

Animoto CEO Brad Jefferson says the company wanted to focus first on getting the picture-slideshow capabilities of the app right; he pointed out that users can use Animoto’s Web app to make polished packages out of both photos and videos. Animoto charges $5 to $30 a month for extended video projects; videos 30 seconds or less can be created for free on both the Web site and the iPhone app.

The Animoto video-editing app is currently only available for the iPhone; it is not optimized for use on the iPad.

If the Animoto app isn’t what animates you, there are other video apps out there that will help you auto-tune your mobile video-making. VidRhythm, created by Harmonix, makers of the popular Rock Band videogame franchise, costs $1.99 and includes 20 pre-downloaded songs to help transform everyday videos into music videos. Magisto, which in September received funding from investor Li Ka-Shing, will launch a video-making app in January at the Consumer Electronics Show; Magisto says its app begins to process users’ video clips as they are capturing them on their smartphones, making the mobile post-production process even faster.

And there’s always Apple’s $4.99 iMovie app for iPhone, but that app requires a little more manual editing on the part of the user.

Jefferson says that Animoto is looking to offer a more personal video-making experience that will set it apart from music-video and mash-up apps. He predicts that an increasing number of Animoto videos will be made on its iPhone app, as consumers become increasingly mobile. Some 800,000 videos were made on the Animoto Web site last month, according to Jefferson, and approximately 15 percent of those were viewed on mobile devices.

Animoto also offers a professional-grade video editing program for $249, which contributes to a significant portion of the company’s revenue.

iPad 2: Thin, Not Picture Perfect

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 02:01:33 +0000

Just as most of its competitors are rolling out their first multitouch tablets to compete with its game-changing iPad, Apple on Friday will start selling a second-generation model, the iPad 2.

The new iPad 2 is about a third thinner and over 10% lighter, yet speedier and more powerful than the original version, which sold a whopping 15 million units in its first nine months and, for many users, challenged their laptops as a digital tool. And it costs the same as the original.

[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve been testing an iPad 2 for about a week and I like it a lot. While it’s evolutionary rather than revolutionary like the first model, the changes Apple has made are generally pleasing and positive, and the device worked very well for me.

Its improvements, including front and rear cameras, outweigh the few drawbacks and feature omissions I found. For most average, nontechie users, I would recommend it over the handful of tablet competitors I’ve tested so far, especially given that the entry price remains attractive.

The camera application on the iPad 2 demonstrated after an Apple event in San Francisco.

Dozens of tablet competitors are coming this year and I haven’t had a chance to test them. But the iPad 2, in my view, offers an excellent balance of size, functionality and price, and keeps Apple ahead in the tablet race, at least for now.

However, unless you are desperate for the cameras or feel you are laboring under the greater bulk of the original model, I don’t advise that iPad owners race to get the new version.

The first iPad, which can be upgraded to Apple’s latest iOS operating system, is selling for $399 while supplies last.

Airy, but Potent

Apple’s design wizards have made the new iPad feel much airier. Placed on a table between the original model and the new Motorola Xoom, it makes the others look bloated. Its top surface doesn’t even reach the side buttons on the original model. It has much more sharply tapered edges, and a new, optional, white color adds to the sense of lightness. While the 1.33-pound weight isn’t that much less than the original’s, I found the difference noticeable when carrying the device.

The iPad 2 is about a third thinner yet speedier and more powerful than the first.

Despite being slimmed down, the new iPad 2 still has the same vivid, large 9.7-inch screen, and claims the same lengthy 10-hour battery as the original. Like its current and planned competitors, it now sports a dual-core processor (a chip with two brains) and graphics that Apple says are up to nine times as fast.

But, despite gaining a faster processor, and the front and rear cameras, it still carries the same base price of $499, which competitors have so far found hard to match. Like the first model, it can range up to $829, depending on configuration.

Another crucial strength: The iPad 2 can run about 350,000 third-party apps, including 65,000 that have been optimized for the tablet’s large screen, rather than for the iPhone’s smaller display. Those numbers far exceed what is available for Google’s fast-growing Android platform—Apple’s main mobile competitor—that, according to Google, has 150,000 third-party apps, including fewer than 100 optimized so far for its brand-new tablet version.

I didn’t find the speed difference on iPad 2 to be dramatic, but it was noticeable. Apps launched and ran a bit quicker and the whole device felt very snappy.

It never crashed in my tests, unlike every Android tablet I’ve tested.

Like the original iPad, the new model can be purchased with just Wi-Fi connectivity or with added cellular-data connectivity, which doesn’t require a contract. But the iPad 2 offers a choice between AT&T and Verizon, for those who want cellular. My test unit used Verizon and got decent data speeds. Verizon’s fees start at $20 a month for 1 gigabyte of data. AT&T’s start at $15 a month for 250 megabytes of data.

The iPad 2′s cameras offer decent quality video, good enough for making calls, but disappointing still photos.

Drawbacks

The iPad 2 does have some drawbacks. Its cameras take mediocre still photos and Apple won’t even reveal their megapixel ratings. The company says they were designed for video, not still photography. They did capture decent video in my tests, including high-definition video from the rear camera and video good enough from the front camera for satisfying video calling. But, for a company known for quality, which bundles a new still-photo app with the device, the cameras are disappointing.

Also, the battery life, while very good, isn’t as strong as I found it to be on the first iPad. In my tough battery test, where I played full-length movies until the battery died, with the screen brightness at about 75% and both Wi-Fi and cellular radios running, the iPad 2 just barely exceeded Apple’s claimed battery life, dying after 10 hours and nine minutes. That’s 2.5 hours better than the Xoom did on the same test, but more than an hour less than I got from the original iPad, which clocked in at 11 hours, 28 minutes.

On the other hand, in mixed and non-constant use, with the screen set to turn off when idle for a few minutes, the iPad 2′s battery life was impressive. It easily went 48 hours between charges, even while downloading hundreds of emails and dozens of apps, songs, and books. During this period, I played a few light games, viewed photos, briefly streamed some video clips, read newspaper and magazine articles, consumed several chapters of books, frequently checked Twitter and Facebook, surfed the Web, and made a few video calls.

The new Apple iPad 2 shown during its launch event in San Francisco.

Another drawback I encountered was that the new, more tapered design makes it harder to plug cables and accessories—including the charging cable—into the main port on the bottom of the device, because it is now angled.

Despite being slimmer and lighter, the iPad 2 still has roughly the same length and width as the original, so it can’t compete with the Amazon Kindle, or the smaller seven-inch tablets, if you’re trying to juggle it while standing in a crowded subway.

Finally, there are two big omissions, one old and one new. The old one is that, like Apple’s prior phones and tablets, the shiny new iPad 2 still won’t play Adobe’s Flash video in its built-in Web browser. This is a deliberate decision by Apple, and puts its devices at a disadvantage for some users when compared with Android tablets, which can play Flash, or say they will soon, albeit not always well.

The other omission has to do with cellular data. The iPad 2 can’t use, or be upgraded to use, the new, faster 4G cellular-data networks being rolled out.

Apple says this is because the chips needed to do this are too immature, draining battery life. But the Xoom promises to be upgradeable to 4G later this year, though I have no idea how that upgrade might affect its battery life or monthly fees.

Software

Hardware matters, but software matters more and has been a key strength for Apple products. The iPad 2 doesn’t come with software radically different from the original model. But the latest version of its operating system speeds up the Safari browser, expands the capabilities of its wireless AirPlay system for beaming media to a TV using the $99 Apple TV, and lets you stream music and video from iTunes on a computer in your home. This all worked as advertised.

Apple also has two new $5 content-creation apps for the iPad 2: tablet versions of its Macintosh programs—iMovie and GarageBand. I used iMovie on the iPad 2 to create my own edited video, with titles, soundtrack and special effects. All of the apps I tried that worked on the original iPad worked on the iPad 2, only faster in some cases.

Accessories

Apple has a new $39 adapter that connects an iPad 2 (or iPad or iPhone 4) to an HDTV and mirrors what is on the device screen on the TV screen. It worked fine for me.

The company also has a very cool-looking, very slim cover for the iPad 2 that costs $39 in plastic and $69 in leather, and comes in a variety of colors. It attaches magnetically and turns the screen off and on when you close or open the cover. It also folds into a stand for the iPad and has a lining to keep the glass clean. Unfortunately, I found the cover’s magnetic latch came open in my briefcase, turning the screen on and wasting the battery. Also, the light gray color I had picked up smudges.

The Bottom Line

As new contenders move into the field, Apple isn’t likely to keep its 90% share of the booming tablet market. But the iPad 2 moves the goal posts, by being slimmer and lighter, boosting speed and power, and holding its price advantages, available apps and battery life. As of now, I can comfortably recommend it as the best tablet for average consumers.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos at the All Things Digital website, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com

So Tablets Aren't for Content Creation, Huh? The iPad 2 Begs to Differ.

Ina Fried — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 00:03:34 +0000

As the iPad took the computing world by storm last year, Microsoft and the PC industry tried to take solace in the idea that Apple’s tablet was initially seen mainly as a good way to view, rather than create, content.

Sorry, guys. If it was ever true, it certainly was proved false on Wednesday, as Apple showed that the new iPad was not only capable of making music and editing movies, but of doing so in intuitive and powerful ways not even possible on a traditional computer.

GarageBand and iMovie are quite capable products on the Mac, but the experience on a tablet is really something to behold. On the Mac, GarageBand is a nifty program for capable musicians who wanted to plug in their gear and record and mix their tracks. On the iPad, the app turns itself into the drum set, piano or guitar and even attempts to turn the truly tone deaf into halfway decent musicians through “smart instruments.”

That’s not to say that one can do 100 percent of the work now done on a PC on an iPad, but the list of things that work only on a computer is shrinking. (See this post from last fall when Walt Mossberg left his laptop at home and took an iPad on a trip to Paris.)

Just one year into the iPad era and there are already lots of general productivity and creativity apps on the market, and companies are rushing to find ways to incorporate line-of-business tasks into a device that is cheaper and more easily connected than the typical laptop.

On Apple’s last earnings call, the company said 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies are already working on ways to incorporate the iPad into their business. And Apple is actively touting the business abilities of the device, something it has done only off-and-on with the Mac over the years.

For his part, senior exec Phil Schiller told me that Apple has been careful not to pigeonhole the iPad as just for consumption.

“We never said that,” he said in a brief interview after the iPad event on Wednesday. “Remember, we launched the original iPad with iWork. We showed from Day 1 you can create as well as consume. I think developers have gone far further.”

Remember, at last year’s D8 conference, Steve Jobs talked about how devices like the iPad would slowly usurp traditional computers, much as cars began to outnumber trucks as the United States became a less agrarian nation. Trucks didn’t go away, and neither will computers, Jobs said. It’s just that eventually not everyone will want or need one.

We’re still a ways from that reality, but the latest iPad and its accompanying software are going to make life tougher for those who seek to write off the iPad and similar tablets as just toys.

Want more proof? Check out the video below to see the iPad 2 at work.

[ See post to watch video ]

Google's Eric Schmidt Shows Off Movie Studio, a Tablet Video-Editing App

Ina Fried — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 16:58:56 +0000

Google’s Eric Schmidt said that while computers are being criticized for driving humans apart, the opposite is actually taking place as devices are doing work that humans don’t want to.

“Computers are really here to make us happier,” Schmidt said, promising these devices will give people more time with friends and family, not less.

Schmidt, who gave up the CEO role last month, said that nearly all devices will get more interesting when they connect to the Internet. A music player that doesn’t connect to the network isn’t very interesting, he said, perhaps opening the door to the announcement of a long-talked-about, cloud-based Google music service.

The talk is just geting started. Mobilized got a really good seat in the front row, just two seats over from Andy Rubin, and has live updates below.

5:59 pm: Schmidt talking about things phones should be able to do, such as figure out better traffic routes and bridge language barriers. “You really can do magic,” he says, pointing to Google Translate, which lets you speak one language and have a language you don’t speak returned. “That’s done in a twentieth of a second or what have you,” he says.

6:01 pm: Brings out colleague to show an application on “an interesting new device.”

6:03 pm: The device is the Motorola Xoom tablet and the program is “Movie Studio,” an app built from the ground up for creating and editing movies on tablets.

He has a few images and videos from around Barcelona.

He creates a movie onstage and shows how it can easily be shared on YouTube. (This looks like iMovie and Windows Live Movie Maker so far–both of which also let you edit movies and share directly to YouTube.)

6:07 pm: Upload goes slowly, though, as Schmidt notes it is the problem of doing a demo at a mobile network convention where everyone is hammering the networks.

6:09 pm: The goal of many of Google’s products, Schmidt says, is to do tasks quickly so that people can get back to being human. “We ultimately believe that speed matters,” Schmidt says. Google Instant, he says, can save two to five seconds per search.

Search is also becoming more personal. With permission, users can get more information. Next up, he says, is autonomous search as information comes up as one walks or drives, and is driven by location.

“That’s just the beginning of a large number of new apps that use that infrastructure to make a big difference,” Schmidt says.

Schmidt says how much info to share will be up to the user, but those that opt in can get much richer results.

There’s also a trend, he says, to returning more structured data, such as travel.

6:12 pm: Stat time: 120 million people using Chrome, up three times from a year ago.

YouTube revenue doubled in 2010. Now just being able to monetize professional content at a rate that starts to make sense for content partners.

6:18 pm: Computer science can help all kinds of things, Schmidt says. With phones and tablets, “You never forget everything” which is precisely what phones are good at.

If you choose, you can remember the hotels you stayed in and the people you met, etc., “Humans forget,” he says.

Computers are also preventing people from ever getting lost. When I was a boy growing up in Europe “I was always lost,” Schmidt says.

Translation may not prevent war, but should at a minimum increase dialogue, Schmidt says.

6:18 pm: “Even better you are never lonely,” he sats, because computers can point you to nearby friends or connect you to distant ones.

You are never bored, Schmidt says. You are never out of ideas because we can always suggest what you can do next.

Other changes, include the self-driving cars that Google has been working on.

“It’s obvious that cars should drive (themselves),” he says, adding that there will be a “kill switch” in case there are bugs. And it will take time, he says.

“This is coming. It will be decades, I suspect–not a year.”

He also says these innovations will scale to the masses.

“It’s a future for the masses, not the elites,” he says.

6:21 pm: With that, on to Q&A.

6:23 pm: Talking about targeted broadcast quality ads as next frontier.

“Who wants to see an ad that is not relavent to them,” Schmidt says. And that leads to revenue, which Schmidt points out is the whole point of advertising in the first place.

6:24 pm: Question on Android fragmentation saying there is frustration among phone makers and developers.

“We hear some of this,” Schmidt says. “You’ve stated the problem more strongly than I would have, but I will take that as feedback.”

6:26 pm: Question about role of Google in financial services.

Schmidt quips that Larry Page and Sergey Brin periodically suggest that Google issue Google Bucks as its own currency, but Schmidt says he always points out the regulatory issues.

On a serious front, he talks about the power of near-field communications as a means to turn real-world transactions into electronic ones.

“In that are very large businesses,” he says.

(Google built NFC into its Nexus S device.)

6:29 pm: Are you interested in Twitter?

“We love Twitter and I like to tweet,” Schmidt says, eliciting laughter from the crowd.

6:31 pm: Why so many operating systems?

Sometimes these things occur because the teams move so quickly, Schmidt says.

People have been asking when Gingerbread and Honeycomb will come together. Schmidt: You can imagine the follow-on release will start with an “I” and be named after a desert and will combine the best of both, Schmidt says.

These releases occur on roughly a six-month cycle, Schmidt says.

6:33 pm: On Chrome OS, Schmidt says there will be an opportunity to merge that with Android over time, but better to wait for the operating systems to mature and a natural time than to push them together too soon.

6:34 pm: On HTML5, Schmidt imagines that some number of years from now, most apps–mobile and desktop–will be running on HTML5.

6:39 pm: Question on Google’s role in health care.

Phone should be able to, at a minimum, carry medical info. Several percent of queries on Google are health-related.

6:42 pm: Is Facebook with its “Like” button a main competitor?

Today our main competitor is Microsoft. Microsoft has a good product in Bing, he says.

“There’s a couple cases where it might be too good. We discussed that in a blog post.”

They have the cash, the scale and the reach to do good and amazing things.

6:44 pm: On Nokia-Microsoft partnership:

“We would have loved it had they chosen Android,” Schmidt says. “That offer remains open.”

Android would have been a good choice for Nokia, he says.

‘We certainly tried” to get them, he says.

6:46 pm: How do you approach the fact that Android going higher and lower in the market?

Schmidt says that the company tries to show the best in its Nexus line, while putting minimum specifications out there to set the bar for what developers can expect.

6:47 pm: Question on why Google is not more broadly used in the education market?

Schmidt says the company has funded a number of YouTube professors. “We’ve not yet come up with the killer [education] app,” he says.

6:49 pm: Asked about Google’s interest in the PC operating system market, Schmidt says that Google’s answer is Chrome OS. Sometime in the spring you will see a series of PC makers come out with Chrome OS devices. However, he adds they won’t run current PC apps, such as Windows apps.

“It does not run any of your current PC applications so you might think about it,” Schmidt said. That said, he adds there are, in most cases, cloud-based options that are roughly equivalent.

6:52 pm: With that, Schmidt wraps up.

Video Editing Made Easier

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 23:18:18 +0000

Have you ever watched someone editing photos and videos on a Mac and wondered why they seem much more talented and tech savvy than you are with your Windows PC? These Mac users have a leg up thanks to Apple’s iLife software, a suite of programs that comes loaded on every Mac, making it a cinch for consumers to work with videos, photos and music. Just last week, Apple announced the 9th version of iLife with a new edition of iMovie for editing and sharing home videos.

[ See post to watch video ]

But what’s a Windows user to do with home videos? Many resort to Web-based services for editing and storage, but these require uploading media from camera to PC and then from PC to website. Some use a Microsoft program called Windows Live Movie Maker or editing software that comes with their video camera. But many people will assume there aren’t any good options and give up on editing.

This week, I tested Adobe’s $99 (before $20 mail-in rebate) Premiere Elements 9 video editing software program. This installs on the computer via DVD or by downloading and aims to help mainstream consumers edit, organize and share videos. All past iterations of this product were only available for Windows PCs, but Premiere Elements 9 is also available for the Mac, giving Apple users an iMovie alternative.

Other new features of Premiere Elements 9 include the ability to simply import and edit video clips from Cisco’s popular Flip hand-held camcorder, as well as built-in ways to store and share videos via the Web using Adobe’s Photoshop.com site. Several editing features have been improved and some are new, like one tool that removes irksome humming in the background of your video and another that converts your footage into a cartoon in one step.

I tested Premiere Elements using videos I captured with my Nikon Coolpix P90 digital camera and Flip minoHD camcorder on a recent vacation to Argentina and Uruguay. I installed the video-editing software on both my Windows 7 PC and on my MacBook Pro, and used it to edit out the noisy background noises of an airplane in one video captured from 30,000 feet, and the sounds of a bottle-labeling machine in another video I took during a vineyard tour.

Adobe’s $99 Premiere Elements 9 video editing software program

But I found myself spending more time trying to figure out how to edit videos rather than simply editing. Editing tools are buried in several layers of menus and are poorly named. The option that turns a video clip into a cartoon is called “NewBlue Cartoonr Plus,” found in the Edit tab under Effects at the bottom of a long, scrolling list of other options.

The tool that eliminates background din is called “NewBlue Hum Remover” and is only discovered by opening Edit, Effects and an almost unnoticeable drop-down menu called Audio Effects. A spokesman for Adobe said these new features aren’t exposed differently than existing effects because that would have been confusing. But I found it aggravating to frequently hunt for features and tools.

Adobe separates Premiere Elements from an Organizer application, where all photos and videos are held. This is confusing because a Share tab in Premiere Elements offers to help you upload videos to Photoshop.com, YouTube, or Podbean (for podcast hosting), but Organizer offers additional sharing options like Facebook, SmugMug, and Flickr. If you didn’t dig around in Organizer, you’d never know these options were available.

Adobe signed me up for a Plus account, which costs $50 to renew each year or can be bought with Premiere Elements for $139 (before rebate). Adobe also sells its digital photo organizing software, Photoshop Elements 9, with Premiere Elements 9 in a $149 bundle (before rebate). The extra cost of a Plus account includes 20 gigabytes of online backup and storage—roughly four hours of DVD-quality video or 15,000 photos—versus the 2 gigabytes allotted to regular accounts.

The cartoon function is hard to find in Premiere Elements 9.

I worked on my Mac and PC, dragging video clips down into what Adobe calls a Sceneline (a timeline is also viewable), which shows still clips of each video and lets you drag effects on to those clips to put them into action. For example, I dragged the Old Film effect on to a video clip of tango dancers at a Buenos Aires street market and the footage suddenly looked like an old black and white movie.

I often used Smart Trim Mode, a feature that was added in the last version of Premiere Elements and automatically analyzes footage to suggest what could be trimmed due to blurriness, shaky footage, low contrast or brightness.

Another helpful feature called Smart Tags automatically sorted my still photos and videos into several categories like One Face, Two Faces, Small Group, High Quality, Low Volume, Dialog and Shaky. I selected Dialog and High Quality and instantly found two video clips that I wanted, without scrolling through my library.

Adobe Premiere Elements produces good-looking stuff, even without the extra upgrade cost for a Plus account. But new users should expect to take some time to learn the system and read through directions. If Adobe cleaned up its long, scrolling lists and gave its editing tools more mainstream names, people would feel more comfortable using it.

Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

IMovie for iPhone 4 Hits the App Store

John Paczkowski — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 13:30:13 +0000

As a prelude to the official launch of Apple’s (AAPL) new iPhone 4 today, iMovie for iPhone appeared in the App Store late Wednesday night. The $4.99 application, which requires a new iPhone 4 running iOS 4, adds some relatively feature-rich video-editing capabilities to the device and its new 720p-capable HD video camera.

New iPhone Keeps Apple Top of Class

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:02:18 +0000

Just three years ago, Apple wasn’t in the mobile-phone business at all. Since then, its game-changing iPhone has become the most influential smartphone in the world. Now, on June 24, the company will roll out the fourth generation of the device, called the iPhone 4.

[ See post to watch video ]

While attractive, capable new smartphones emerge regularly from competitors, a new iPhone deserves special attention for two reasons. First, the device lies at the center of a huge ecosystem of 225,000 apps, plus popular related gadgets like Apple’s iPod Touch connected media player and iPad tablet, which collectively are approaching 100 million units sold. Second, the iPhone’s multitouch, gesture-based interface; elegant Web browser; sophisticated music and video playback; and other features have been emulated on many competing devices, so what Apple does affects the whole industry.

I’ve been testing the iPhone 4 for more than a week. In both hardware and software, it is a major leap over its already-excellent predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

It has some downsides and limitations—most important, the overwhelmed AT&T network in the U.S., which, in my tests, the new phone handled sometimes better and, unfortunately, sometimes worse than its predecessor. I’ll get into that below. But, overall, Apple (AAPL) has delivered a big, well-designed update that, in my view, keeps it in the lead in the smartphone wars.

The iPhone 4 is a dramatic redesign. It manages to pack a radically sharper screen; a second, front-facing camera; a larger battery; a better rear camera with flash; and a faster processor into a body that is 24% thinner, a bit narrower, and retains the same length and weight as its predecessor’s. In fact, Apple claims that the iPhone 4 is the world’s thinnest smartphone and sports the world’s highest-resolution smartphone screen.

With the front-facing camera, and clever new software called FaceTime, Apple has brought simple, high-quality video calling to mobile phones, albeit, for now, only over Wi-Fi and only among iPhone 4 owners. In multiple tests, this feature worked very well for me and is a classic example of the value of having one company do integrated hardware and software.

In addition, the iPhone now includes an updated operating system—which also can be installed free on the prior model—that introduces catch-up software features such as limited multitasking (the ability to run apps simultaneously); folders for grouping related apps; and, for email, a unified inbox for multiple accounts and the ability to present messages as threaded conversations. This software is called iOS4.

The iPhone 4 will cost the same as the iPhone 3GS: $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory and $299 for 32 gigabytes, with a two-year contract from AT&T (T). The 3GS model will drop to $99 with a two-year contract and 8 gigabytes of memory.

Design

Physically, the iPhone 4 is attractive and feels great in the hand. Even the back is now clad in glass, which Apple claims is a superstrong variety 30 times tougher than plastic. I dropped it several times from a few feet onto a hard surface with no problem, and it acquired no scratches at all in my testing, even though I didn’t use a case or coddle it.

Although it is the same weight as its predecessor, the iPhone 4 feels denser and tighter—more like a fine possession than a disposable gadget. It still looks like an iPhone, but it manages to make the 3GS appear bulbous by comparison.

While its 3.5-inch screen, once considered huge, is now smaller than those on some other smartphones, the high resolution packs in a lot of material and makes text appear almost like ink on fine paper. The software is simply richer looking and smoother to use than on competing phones I’ve tested, with fewer confusing menus and settings, and far more apps.

Screen, Voice, Battery and Camera

Always brilliant at marketing, Apple has dubbed its new screen the “Retina display.” At a resolution of 960×640, it has four times the pixels of its predecessor and displays a whopping 326 pixels per inch. I don’t know how it compares with the human retina, but I do know that, just as Apple claims, text on the screen shows no jagged lines, even when expanded to giant size.

Voice quality was quite good, even on long speaker-phone calls, and data performance over Wi-Fi was excellent. Video and audio streamed from the Web played smoothly.

Apple claims longer battery life for most functions—seven hours of talk time, for instance, versus five hours on the earlier model. I didn’t perform a precise battery test, but, even in heavy use, the iPhone 4′s battery never reached the red zone on a single day of my tests.

The new rear camera is another big plus. My test pictures came out sharp and clear, even in low light and close-up situations. It isn’t the best cellphone camera I’ve tested, but it is a big improvement.

The iPhone 4 records video in high definition and, in my tests, these videos came out very well in most conditions. Apple also is selling for $5 an iPhone version of its Macintosh video-editing program, iMovie, for editing the videos.

FaceTime

Video calling is one of this device’s best features. As noted, it currently requires an iPhone 4 and Wi-Fi connection on both ends, though Apple says it is making the technology free to others and hopes to have millions of compatible devices. There is no setup and nothing to learn. You just press a FaceTime button, and if the other person accepts the invitation to talk face to face, his or her image appears, with your own image showing in a small corner window.

You can tap an icon on the screen to swap the front camera for the rear one, so you can show your caller around the room, or include other people near you who are behind the phone.

You can even begin a video call as an audio cellular call, push a button, and switch it to a Wi-Fi FaceTime call. It worked great for me, except for a couple of brief freeze-ups.

Multitasking

After years of complaints, Apple finally has brought multitasking to the iPhone. But it has done so in a limited way that won’t please everyone. On the iPhone 4, multitasking doesn’t mean every app can work fully in the background. To prevent a disastrous drain on battery life, Apple has allowed only certain apps to fully multitask. These include streaming audio services like Pandora, which keep playing music from the Web while you do other things, and voice-prompted navigation apps, which keep working while you’re on a call. Others that fully work in the background include Internet calling apps, and those that perform long downloads.

But some logical candidates, such as Twitter and Facebook, merely pause in place when you switch away from them. You can get back to them quickly, and they update more rapidly than before, but they don’t constantly update in the background. They only wake up in the background if you have set them to notify you of an update, and then only for a limited time. Apple says constant fetching of hundreds of social-networking updates in the background would kill the battery too quickly.

In fact, for many scenarios, such as games, Apple’s version of multitasking is really just fast switching among open apps that save their place. And, even to achieve this, the apps must be updated. For some users, this limited version of multitasking will be a disappointment.

To use multitasking you just press the iPhone’s home button twice and a row of icons representing running apps appears. Click on the one you want and, if it has been updated for the new operating system, it will appear just as you left it.

Multitasking also will work on updated iPhone 3GS models, but not on models older than that.

Folders

Because iPhone users can easily accumulate hundreds of apps, it can become difficult to organize them. So the new iPhone OS now allows you to group them into folders. For instance, I grabbed the icon for The Wall Street Journal app, dragged it on top of the one for the Washington Post app, and a folder was instantly created called “News,” based on the apps’ built-in categories. You can change the name to anything you like, or alter or disassemble the folders.

The Big Downside

The most important downside of the iPhone 4 is that, in the U.S., it’s shackled to AT&T, which not only still operates a network that has trouble connecting and maintaining calls in many cities, but now has abandoned unlimited, flat-rate data plans. Apple needs a second network.

Both Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) told me they worked to make the iPhone 4 do a better job with AT&T’s network. For example, the phone itself is surrounded by a prominent stainless-steel trim piece that acts as a large antenna. And Apple said it also tuned the phone to try to grab whatever band on the network was less congested or less affected by interference—to stress the quality of a signal over its raw strength. AT&T said it, too, made some changes to its network with the new iPhone in mind.

But, in my tests, network reception was a mixed bag. Compared with the previous model, the new iPhone dropped marginally fewer calls made in my car, both in Washington and in Boston, and was much louder and clearer over my car’s built-in Bluetooth speaker-phone system.

Yet, in some places where the signal was relatively weak, the iPhone 4 showed no bars, or fewer bars than its predecessor. Apple says that this is a bug it plans to fix, and that it has to do with the way the bars are presented, not the actual ability to make a call. And, in fact, in nearly all of these cases, the iPhone 4 was able to place calls despite the lack of bars.

However, on at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting “no service” or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand, was showing at least a couple of bars. Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this. The iPhone 4 quickly recovered in these situations, showing service after a few seconds, but it was still troubling.

Just as with its predecessors, I can’t recommend this new iPhone for voice calling for people who experience poor AT&T reception, unless they are willing to carry a second phone on a network that works better for them.

For everyone else, however, I’d say that Apple has built a beautiful smartphone that works well, adds impressive new features and is still, overall, the best device in its class.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

More iPhone 4 Coverage »

IPhone 4: Thanks for the Memory

John Paczkowski — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 14:25:29 +0000

Here is a good explanation for why the forthcoming iMovie app from Apple (AAPL) will run on the iPhone 4, but not on its predecessor, the 3GS: The new model has double the memory. Video of a Worldwide Developers Conference session released Thursday confirms rumors that the device is packing 512MB of RAM (see image above; click to enlarge).

That’s twice the RAM of the iPad, which, like the new phone, sports a 1GHz Apple A4 processor. This means iPhone 4 buyers can expect some impressive performance gains over the 3G and 3GS.

“This is really about allowing [iOS 4's] limited multitasking to actually have a robust performance,” Rapid Repair CEO Aaron Vronko told Computerworld. “With only 256MB, the iPhone would waste a lot of time and battery power managing memory [during multitasking]. This definitely helps, and will let you keep more apps in the background without affecting battery life.”

[Image Credit: AppleInsider]

Is iPhone 4 the Biggest Leap Since the Original iPhone? Analysts Say Probably.

John Paczkowski — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 11:00:32 +0000

The first analysts’ notes on Apple’s new iPhone 4 have begun rolling in and they sound a common theme: While not the revelation it might have been (for obvious reasons), the device may well be, as Steve Jobs claimed Monday, “the biggest leap since the original iPhone.”

“Yesterday, Steve Jobs unveiled, at his WWDC keynote, new iPhone 4 hardware and software,” said Kaufman Bros. analyst Shaw Wu. “While this was widely anticipated, we believe the rich features, refinement, and higher build quality are worth noting and difficult to comprehend without seeing and using the new iPhone first-hand. We believe the combination of a new form factor and software will likely serve as a powerful catalyst for iPhone 4 sales, as we have seen in the past with several AAPL products including the MacBook Pro, iMac, and iPod nano, to name a few.”

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster felt much the same way. “While the announced features of the iPhone 4 were as expected, the reality is this phone is significantly more advanced than the next best alternative,” Munster wrote in a note to clients. “We see the iPhone 4 as the most meaningful revision since the iPhone 3G two years ago. As such, we believe more existing iPhone users will be inclined to upgrade to the iPhone 4 than we saw with the iPhone 3GS.”

Munster notes as well that gee-whiz features like iPhone 4’s FaceTime video calling app, its HD video camera and iMovie video editing software are together creating an integrated experience that typically requires multiple devices. “The bottom line is the iPhone is taking unit and dollar share from other device categories,” he writes.

Indeed, it was hard to watch Apple’s (AAPL) demo of the device’s HD video camera working in concert with iMovie Monday and not think that it’s going to eat the Flip Video camcorder and Kodak’s (EK) Zi8 alive as soon as it arrives at market. And things don’t look much better for Google’s (GOOG) Android “superphones,” though obviously, there’s a much bigger battle to be fought there. Certainly, the company and its hardware partners have some serious work to do in the months ahead. (Yes, the EVO’s a great start. But its battery issues are troubling, as even HTC CEO Peter Chou conceded at D8 last week.)

Said RBC analyst Mike Abramsky, “Recent competitive Android smartphone launches by Android-powered phones have raised competitive intensity; however, to us, iMovie for iPhone (demonstrated at WWDC) may be illustrative of Apple’s advantage in vertical integration (software/ hardware). We expect Apple to launch other ‘Super Apps’ on iOS that advantage the platform (multimedia, geo-positioning, touch interface, etc). Bing introduction on iOS may portend a further shift away from reliance upon Google for mobile search….The ‘repositioning’ of Apple’s iPhone OS–to iOS–at WWDC accelerates Apple’s (re)assault to lead personal computing, as the industry evolves to mobile.”

Apple Still Selling Laptops, Refreshes MacBook Pro Line

Peter Kafka — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 12:43:46 +0000

Perhaps the iPad and tablet computers will replace laptops one day. But for now, most people are still going to use conventional computers for day-to-day work.

Apple (AAPL) has just upgraded its line of Macbook Pro laptops; the lowest-priced one starts at $1,199. Details at Apple’s online store and in the press release below.

Apple Updates MacBook Pro Line

Faster Processors, Next-Generation Graphics & Up to 10 Hours of Battery Life

CUPERTINO, Calif., April 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple® today updated the MacBook® Pro line with faster processors, powerful next-generation NVIDIA graphics and even longer battery life. The popular 13-inch MacBook Pro features the new NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor for up to 80 percent faster graphics and a groundbreaking 10-hour built-in battery.* The new 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models feature Intel Core i5 and i7 processors and Apple’s new automatic graphics switching technology that toggles seamlessly between powerful NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and energy efficient Intel HD Graphics processors.

“The new MacBook Pro is as advanced on the inside as it is stunning on the outside,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With faster processors, amazing graphics and up to three more hours of battery life, the new MacBook Pro delivers both performance and efficiency.”

All 13-inch MacBook Pro models now include faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors, 4GB RAM, a 10-hour built-in battery and the new NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor. With 48 processing cores, the new NVIDIA GeForce 320M is the fastest integrated graphics processor on the market, ideal for graphics intensive applications or high performance games. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is available in two configurations: one with a 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 250GB hard drive priced at $1,199; and one with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and 320GB hard drive priced at $1,499.

The new 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro models are up to 50 percent faster than the previous systems.** Using Intel’s state-of-the-art 32 nanometer process, Intel Core i5 and i7 processors integrate the memory controller and Level 3 cache for faster access to system memory. Hyper-Threading technology improves data throughput by creating virtual processing cores, while Turbo Boost optimizes performance between the two processor cores, accelerating the system from 2.66 GHz to 3.06 GHz for intensive dual core tasks, and up to 3.33 GHz for single core tasks.

All 15-inch and 17-inch models include two graphics processors, the new NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M for peak performance and Intel HD Graphics for energy efficient operation. More than twice as fast as the GeForce 320M, the powerful new GeForce GT 330M provides incredibly smooth, crisp on-screen graphics for the most demanding 3D games, creative software and technical applications. Apple’s automatic graphics switching determines which graphics processor an application needs and switches instantly between processors to deliver peak performance and long battery life. Tightly integrated hardware and software allow the new 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro to deliver 8 to 9 hours on a single charge.

The new 15-inch MacBook Pro is available in three models: one with a 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and 320GB hard drive at $1,799; one with a 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and 500GB hard drive at $1,999; and one with a 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and 500GB hard drive at $2,199. The new 17-inch MacBook Pro features a 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and 500GB hard drive for $2,299.

The MacBook Pro glass Multi-Touch(TM) trackpad now supports inertial scrolling, an intuitive way to scroll through large photo libraries, lengthy documents and long web sites. All MacBook Pros feature bright, LED-backlit wide-angle displays with a broad color gamut. The 17-inch MacBook Pro includes a high resolution 1920 x 1200 display, and the 15-inch MacBook Pro is now available with an optional high resolution 1680 x 1050 display. Customers can also upgrade their MacBook Pro with new 128GB, 256GB and 512GB solid state drives.

As the industry’s greenest notebook lineup, every Mac® notebook achieves EPEAT Gold status and meets Energy Star 5.0 requirements, setting a new standard for environmentally friendly notebook design.*** Each unibody enclosure is made of highly recyclable aluminum and comes standard with energy efficient LED-backlit displays that are mercury-free and made with arsenic-free glass. Mac notebooks contain no brominated flame retardants, are PVC-free and are constructed of recyclable materials.

Apple uses advanced chemistry, intelligent monitoring of the system and battery, and Adaptive Charging technology to create a notebook battery that delivers up to 10 hours of wireless productivity on a single charge and up to 1,000 recharges.**** The built-in battery design results in less waste and depleted batteries can be replaced for $129 or $179, which includes installation and disposal of your old battery in an environmentally responsible manner.

All Macs come with Mac OS® X Snow Leopard®, the world’s most advanced operating system, and iLife®, Apple’s innovative suite of applications for managing photos, making movies and creating and learning to play music. Snow Leopard builds on a decade of OS X innovation and success with hundreds of refinements, new core technologies and out of the box support for Microsoft Exchange. iLife features iPhoto®, to easily organize and manage photos; iMovie® with powerful easy-to-use new features such as Precision Editor, video stabilization and advanced drag and drop; and GarageBand® which introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar.

Pricing & Availability

The new 13-inch MacBook Pro, 15-inch MacBook Pro, and 17-inch MacBook Pro are now available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

The 2.4 GHz, 13-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,199 (US), includes:

– 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
– 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
– 1066 MHz front-side bus;
– 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
– NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics;
– 250GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion
Sensor;
– a slot-load 8X SuperDrive® with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
– Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI and HDMI adapters sold separately);
– AirPort Extreme® 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– Gigabit Ethernet port;
– iSight® video camera;
– two USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire® 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
– SD card slot;
– combined headphone/line in (analog/digital);
– glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
– built-in, 63.5WHr lithium polymer battery; and
– 60 Watt MagSafe® Power Adapter.

The 2.66 GHz, 13-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 (US), includes:

– 13.3-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1280 x 800 glossy display;
– 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 3MB shared L2 cache;
– 1066 MHz front-side bus;
– 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
– NVIDIA GeForce 320M integrated graphics;
– 320GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion
Sensor;
– a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
– Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI and HDMI adapters sold separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– Gigabit Ethernet port;
– iSight video camera;
– two USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
– SD card slot;
– combined headphone/line in (analog/digital);
– glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
– built-in, 63.5WHr lithium polymer battery; and
– 60 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 13-inch MacBook Pro include the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a 320GB 5400 rpm or a 500GB 5400 rpm hard drive, a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare® Protection Plan.

The 2.4 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,799 (US), includes:

– 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
– 2.4 GHz Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
– integrated Intel HD Graphics + NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M discrete
graphics with 256MB of VRAM;
– 320GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion
Sensor;
– a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
– Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI and HDMI adapters sold separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– Gigabit Ethernet port;
– iSight video camera;
– two USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– SD card slot;
– audio line in (analog/digital);
– audio line out/headphone (analog/digital);
– glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
– built-in, 77.5WHr lithium polymer battery; and
– 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.53 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $1,999 (US), includes:

– 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
– 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
– integrated Intel HD Graphics + NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M discrete
graphics with 256MB of VRAM;
– 500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion
Sensor;
– a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
– Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI and HDMI adapters sold separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– Gigabit Ethernet port;
– iSight video camera;
– two USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– SD card slot;
– audio line in (analog/digital);
– audio line out/headphone (analog/digital);
– glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
– built-in, 77.5WHr lithium polymer battery; and
– 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

The 2.66 GHz, 15-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,199 (US), includes:

– 15.4-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1440 x 900 glossy display;
– 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 with 4MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
– integrated Intel HD Graphics + NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M discrete
graphics with 512MB of VRAM;
– 500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion
Sensor;
– a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
– Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI and HDMI adapters sold separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– Gigabit Ethernet port;
– iSight video camera;
– two USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port;
– SD card slot;
– audio line in (analog/digital);
– audio line out/headphone (analog/digital);
– glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
– built-in, 77.5WHr lithium polymer battery; and
– 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 15-inch MacBook Pro include the ability to upgrade to 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, a high resolution 15-inch 1680 x 1050 display in glossy and antiglare, a 500GB 5400 rpm or 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB solid state drive, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

The 2.53 GHz, 17-inch MacBook Pro, for a suggested retail price of $2,299 (US), includes:

– 17-inch widescreen LED-backlit 1920 x 1200, glossy display;
– 2.53 GHz Intel Core i5 with 3MB shared L3 cache;
– 4GB 1066 MHz DDR3 SDRAM, expandable to 8GB;
– integrated Intel HD Graphics + NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M discrete
graphics with 512MB of VRAM;
– 500GB serial ATA hard drive running at 5400 rpm, with Sudden Motion
Sensor;
– a slot-load 8X SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD+/-R
DL/DVD+/-RW/CD-RW) optical drive;
– Mini DisplayPort (VGA, DVI and HDMI adapters sold separately);
– AirPort Extreme 802.11n wireless networking and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR;
– Gigabit Ethernet port;
– iSight video camera;
– three USB 2.0 ports;
– one FireWire 800 port (FireWire 400 compatible);
– ExpressCard/34 expansion card slot;
– audio line in (analog/digital);
– audio line out/headphone (analog/digital);
– glass Multi-Touch trackpad and illuminated keyboard;
– built-in, 95WHr lithium polymer battery; and
– 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter.

Build-to-order options for the 17-inch MacBook Pro include a 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7 processor, 8GB 1066 MHz DDR3 memory, a 500GB 7200 rpm hard drive, a 128GB, 256GB or 512GB solid state drive, antiglare display, Mini DisplayPort to DVI Adapter, Mini DisplayPort to Dual- Link DVI Adapter (for 30-inch DVI display), Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter, Apple Remote, Apple MagSafe Airline Adapter and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

*Testing conducted by Apple in March 2010 using preproduction 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo-based 13-inch MacBook Pro units with NVIDIA GeForce 320M and production 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo-based 13-inch MacBook Pro units with NVIDIA GeForce 9400M.

**Testing conducted by Apple in March 2010 using preproduction 2.66 GHz Intel Core i7-based 15-inch MacBook Pro units with NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M and production 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo-based 15-inch MacBook Pro units with NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT.

***EPEAT is an independent organization that helps customers compare the environmental performance of notebooks and desktops. Products meeting all of the 23 required criteria and at least 75 percent of the optional criteria are recognized as EPEAT Gold products. The EPEAT program was conceived by the US EPA and is based on IEEE 1680 standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products. For more information visit www.epeat.net.

****A properly maintained MacBook Pro battery is designed to retain 80 percent or more of its original capacity during a lifespan of up to 1,000 recharge cycles. Battery life and charge cycles vary by use and settings. For more information visit www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery.

Latest MobileMe Takes Out Glitches and Eases Syncing

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 01:02:04 +0000

Apple Inc. last summer brought out a promising new service called MobileMe designed to synchronize email, contacts and calendars among any combination of its own Macintosh computers and rival Windows PCs, plus Apple’s iPhones and iPod Touch devices. It also offered online email, contacts and calendar, online photo galleries, syncing of Web bookmarks and 20 gigabytes of online storage.

The main idea was to replicate for consumers the kind of seamless, over-the-air email, plus contact and calendar updating, available to corporate users via systems like Microsoft’s (MSFT) Exchange.

[ See post to watch video ]

The only problem was that MobileMe, which costs $99 a year after a 60-day free trial, and is available at MobileMe.com, was so buggy and ragged that I couldn’t recommend it. Apple (AAPL) pledged it would fix MobileMe. So, I have just spent a few weeks testing it again on multiple Windows and Mac computers, and an iPhone.

This time, my verdict is different. Apple has fixed all of the speed and reliability issues I encountered last year. In my new tests, MobileMe’s email was prompt and reliable. I was able to add, delete or edit a contact or calendar entry on one device, and see these changes almost immediately on all the others, and on the MobileMe Web site. The Web-based photo gallery, which can also house videos, worked fine on both Windows and Mac, and I was able to upload photos to it from my iPhone. The file storage also worked well, and now has a feature that allows you to share files too large to email. And each MobileMe account works with an unlimited number of computers, iPhones and Touches.

But there is one major caveat. While MobileMe works with Windows, it works better with Macs. The main reason for this is that, as I noted last year, its synced calendars and contacts show up in an odd manner in Microsoft Outlook, the most popular calendar and contact program in Windows.

Apple acknowledges the Outlook problems, which show up only in a mixed environment of Macs and Windows PCs, and pledges they will be fixed by the fall. The company says that if you are using MobileMe solely on Windows PCs, with or without an iPhone, the Outlook problem shouldn’t appear in most cases.

Apple’s MobileMe

There are other drawbacks for Windows users. While the Web version of MobileMe works fine on Windows in the Firefox Web browser, or with the Windows version of Apple’s Safari browser, Apple warns that it might not work properly in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7. The site worked well in the new Internet Explorer 8.

In both versions of IE, my tests showed that another MobileMe feature, bookmark syncing, didn’t work as advertised. Some bookmarks didn’t appear at all; others were listed alphabetically instead of in their original order. Apple is promising to fix this problem as well.

Some features are available only on Macs. For example, you can upload photos and videos to your MobileMe galleries directly from Apple’s iPhoto and iMovie programs. On Windows, you have to upload these using the MobileMe Web site.

The Outlook problem works this way. If you have a mixed group of Macs and PCs, and your Mac’s calendar isn’t named Calendar, its information won’t sync with the main calendar in Outlook. It will appear as a separate calendar that requires extra steps to make visible. Worse, if your Mac or iPhone address book contains subgroups of contacts, these appear as separate address books, which require extra steps to make visible and may not properly sync up the same names as the Mac contact groups.

However, MobileMe now finally does a fast, reliable job of syncing calendar and contact items. In my tests, I was repeatedly successful in doing this in a variety of scenarios. I added a new phone number to a contact on my iPhone and, a minute or two later, it was added to that contact in Outlook, in the Mac’s Address Book program and in the Web-based MobileMe address book. I then changed the contact again in Outlook, and again in the Web-based address book, and the changes appeared everywhere else.

The same process worked with calendar items. None of this required cables (though, for Windows computers, you must first download and install a MobileMe control panel that runs in the background). The only glitch I ran into, which Apple is promising to fix, is that when I switched my iPhone to sync with MobileMe, it wiped out all the custom ringtones I had assigned to particular contacts.

Apple’s $99 price may seem high, given that you can get some features for much less, even free. And MobileMe lacks some obvious features, like online backup or automatic syncing of all files. Also, there’s no way to create limited access to allow an assistant or family member to use just your MobileMe online calendar.

But MobileMe finally does give consumers the main email, contact and calendar convenience corporate users rely upon daily.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Hello and Welcome to iMoviePhone…

John Paczkowski — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:45:38 +0000

As we head into the summer iPhone refresh cycle, the Mac rumor sites are fast pulling together a wire-and-string outline of what the device might look like. Last week brought with it reports that iPhone ’09, or whatever it might be called, will sport a 3.2 megapixel camera. Now comes news that
it may be built around a new Broadcom (BRCM) chip that supports 802.11n wireless connectivity. That means more efficient power management, better Wi-Fi throughput, improved reception speed and range, and perhaps even FM radio reception as well.

Also making the rounds today are reports claiming iPhone 3.0 will support on-board video editing. Seems there are some resources in the latest beta of the OS suggesting that video capture and manipulation will figure large in the next device–things like “UIMovie Scrubber Editing Right,” “UIMovieScrubberMaskLeft” and whatnot. Now, while these resources could be pointing to something else entirely, it seems plausible that they are referencing some sort of video tool (iMovie Mobile? iMovie Light? iMoviePhone?)–particularly when considered with the MobileMe “Publish Video” feature also found concealed in the 3.0 beta. That said, no mention of video editing was made during Apple’s recent iPhone 3.0 event. Perhaps Apple (AAPL) hopes to keep it under wraps until the device’s official debut. Or perhaps there’s nothing to keep under wraps in the first place.

Weekend Update, 1.31.09

Beth Callaghan — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:04:19 +0000

Rumor has it there are big games going on this weekend–at least one of which involves football players. The rest involve the usual players, though they might appear in different positions–and on different teams–from week to week. These games, most likely, will continue through Monday and beyond. Scores will be kept on an ongoing basis.

BoomTown wrote this week about a new game of tag taking Facebook by storm. Whether or not you’ve written a list of “25 Random Things” about yourself, you’ve likely read a few. BoomTown only gave up five, but they’re good ones. On defense, AOL announced it would lay off 10 percent of its workforce due to the overall ad meltdown; CEO Randy Falco’s memo to his troops is here. And whether or not AOL has buyer’s remorse over last year’s $850 million acquisition of Bebo, the company is not considering putting the social network up for sale.
BoomTown followed the tough love approach of Yahoo’s (YHOO) new CEO Carol Bartz, and liveblogged the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call, during which Bartz insisted (without mentioning Microsoft) that she wasn’t brought to Yahoo to sell the company. She also shared some canny-folksy wisdom–in the form of a chicken metaphor–about the value of the company as a whole, but it’s still a little early in the game to call that one. Of course, BoomTown had a few opinions about the unspoken Microsoft (MSFT) scenario.

Over at Digital Daily, there was a lot to be said about smartphones. Apple’s (AAPL) so-called “iPhone patent,” which would cover much of the Palm (PALM) Pre’s multitouch and gesture interface, has the potential to be a huge game changer in that race, if it’s upheld. And as if Palm doesn’t have enough to worry about, Sprint (S)–its exclusive carrier for the Pre–is rumored to be preparing to lay off 14 percent of its workforce in March, when the phone is expected to launch. Elsewhere in that contest, it turns out that Research in Motion’s (RIMM) BlackBerry Storm, which was largely panned by critics, is actually selling at a decent clip–one million so far in the U.S. No iPhone, but still, it could be worse. As Digital Daily noted, Dell (DELL) is said to be readying two phones to enter the market dominated by the iPhone, BlackBerry, and soon the Pre: one an iPhone-like Windows Mobile device, and the other a Pre-like Android device. Both could launch as soon as February, but greatness is not anticipated. Digital Daily also kept the tech job-cut score, which increased 74.2 percent from 2007 to 2008. Here’s a roundup of some of those affected.

MediaMemo had some interesting numbers to share: While Obama’s Inauguration was indeed a big day for Web video, it wasn’t as huge as some estimated. Exact numbers are impossible to measure, of course, but roughly 13 million people watched the ceremony online, while roughly 38 million watched on television. On an ongoing (and presumably growing) basis, though, numbers suggest that almost 20 percent of Netflix’s (NFLX) subscribers are using the company’s streaming service to watch movies online. That should increasingly morph back into the world of television as the company’s technology makes it simpler to stream directly to a set-linked device. In the world of print, things continue to look grim. Time Warner’s (TWX) Time Inc., in a standoff with its distributor, which upped its price by seven cents per magazine–has announced it will take its business elsewhere as of Feb. 1. If this is a game of chicken, it’s anybody’s guess who’ll win. And Time Inc.’s Ann Moore received a lifetime achievement award from the magazine industry’s trade group on Thursday. In her acceptance speech, she expressed her belief in the power of magazines and print advertising and her gratitude in the fact that she’s not in the newspaper business.

In Personal Technology this week, Walt Mossberg reviewed iLife ’09–specifically iPhoto, GarageBand and iMovie, with mixed results. In Mossberg’s Mailbox, it was all about Windows 7: Whether it requires new drivers, how it stacks up to XP, and how upgrades from XP and Vista compare with each another. Katherine Boehret reviewed the BlackBerry Curve 8900 in the Mossberg Solution, and liked it.

More next week.

iLife Gets Better; Just Don't Ask It to Find a Face

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 02:08:03 +0000

While Apple‘s Macintosh computers are known for handsome hardware design, what really makes the Mac distinctive is its built-in software. That software includes a suite of multimedia programs, called iLife, which is preinstalled, free, on every new Mac.

The iLife software has integrated photo, video, music and Web-design applications meant for average, nontechnical consumers. It is better, in my view, than any comparable offering on the Windows platform, even those that cost extra.

This week, Apple (AAPL) released the latest version of the suite, called iLife ’09, and I have been testing it for a while. It includes five programs: iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb and iDVD. The new version will be bundled on new Macs, and current Mac owners can upgrade to it for $79.

[ See post to watch video ]

This latest iteration isn’t a radical revision of iLife, and I wouldn’t say that it’s a must-have upgrade for current Mac owners. But three of the programs — iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand — have significant new features that make them more appealing and useful.

In particular, iPhoto now has the ability to detect and identify faces in your photos; to identify and map the location where they were shot; and to directly post sets of photos to, and synchronize them with, the popular online services Facebook and Flickr.

I focused my tests on iPhoto’s sexiest new feature — face recognition. It worked OK, but it wasn’t as good as I had expected from software made by Apple.

GarageBand, a powerful but easy tool allowing nonprofessionals to mix and produce music, now offers beautifully produced video lessons in how to play the two most popular instruments: guitar and piano. There are some free lessons built in, but you can also buy, for $5 each, lessons from famous artists such as Sting and Norah Jones.

In iMovie, you can now do precision editing of clips. You also can insert one clip in the middle of another by simply dragging and dropping; insert animated maps into travel movies; and apply handsome themes that can make a home movie look like, say, a scrapbook. There’s also a new tool that stabilizes jerky footage, like video shot from a moving car, although Apple warns that this process can take hours.

For me, however, the most important improvements in iLife ’09 are in iPhoto, Apple’s program for organizing, editing and sharing digital pictures. The top two are face recognition and geo-tagging, the ability to tag a photo with its location. Neither of these features is unique to iPhoto. For instance, the Web-based version of Google’s (GOOG) Picasa photo software has face recognition, and Flickr, a Yahoo (YHOO) online service, has location tagging. But Apple has enabled them in iPhoto in its typical handsome, easy manner.

There are two new views of your photos in iPhoto ’09. One, called Faces, organizes all the photos in which faces have been identified. You click on a thumbnail bearing a person’s face and get an expanded display showing all of the photos identified as including that person.

The second, called Places, shows a Google map with pins in the places where the locations of your photos have been identified. Click on a pin, and see a display of all the photos shot at that location.

Face recognition takes several steps. First, iPhoto analyzes your photos to pick out the faces, which are then shown enclosed in a rectangle when you click the new “name” button. You then are prompted to type in a name under the rectangle identifying each face. Once you’ve identified the same person in multiple photos, iPhoto begins to identify that face in any additional photos. If you bring up a picture of a person you’ve identified, and click “confirm name,” iPhoto will show you other pictures it thinks include the same person, and ask that you confirm its suggestions.

In my tests, on two different Macs with thousands of photos, face recognition worked most of the time. But I was too often disappointed. In a surprisingly large minority of cases, iPhoto failed to detect the presence of a face, even when it was large and clear, or to correctly identify faces it did detect, even after I had named or confirmed the same face in dozens or scores of other pictures.

The program sometimes confused men and women, and in a few cases even claimed animals or inanimate objects were people. It rarely detected faces shot from the side, even if they were sharp and obvious. The program also was slow to analyze newly imported photos, or to synchronize name tags already entered on Facebook, a feature Apple touts.

The Places feature worked much better, automatically recognizing the location of pictures taken from devices with built-in GPS tagging, like Apple’s own iPhone, and optionally showing a map when you click on a photo. It was also easy to manually enter a location for an entire “event,” or group, of photos taken at one time.

I still like and recommend iPhoto and iLife. But, in my opinion, the new face-recognition system isn’t up to Apple’s self-proclaimed high standards, and isn’t reliable enough to justify an upgrade all by itself.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Mac Faithful to Get an iLife

John Paczkowski — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:40:44 +0000

iLife ’09–the latest iteration of Apple’s multimedia application suite (iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iWeb, iDVD) arrives at market tomorrow, Jan. 27. Uncrated by Apple SVP Phil Schiller at Macworld earlier this month, iLife ’09 features what looks to be a killer rewrite of iMovie, Apple’s consumer video-editing software, and a new version of Garageband ’09 that offers basic lessons for guitar and piano (free) as well as “artist lessons” from the likes of John Fogerty, Norah Jones and Sting ($4.99). It also boasts a new version of iPhoto that now categorizes photos according “Places” and, thanks to some slick facial recognition technology, “Faces.”

A new iLife ’09 license from Apple (AAPL) will set you back $79 unless you purchased a new Mac on or after Jan. 6, 2009, in which case it’s just $9.95.

Macworld ’09: iMovie '09

John Paczkowski — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 17:33:03 +0000

Next up on the Macworld agenda: iMovie. This Apple (AAPL) software has been given not just a refresh, but a full rewrite. We’ve added so much to iMovie this year, says Phil Schiller, that iMovie will be the consumer video editing software to have. And that may turn out to be so. Precision editing, drag and drop. Dynamic themes. Automatic stabilization. Animated travel maps. Randy Ubillos, Apple’s chief architect of video, takes the stage to demo the product.

He quickly demonstrates the optimization of a video clip, adjusting its audio, the angle of the video. It’s a very complex edit and he does it very, very simply. The video stabilization tool is, and I hate to sound like a fanboy here, mind-blowing at first look. It’s accurate and fast, and appears to be professional or near-professional in quality. Furthermore, these enhancements are for the most part being done in real time.

A set of new built-in animations, transitions and themes rounds out the application. All very slick.

Flip Camcorder Goes High-Def

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 01:40:05 +0000

Over the past couple of years, Pure Digital Technologies has changed the way people think about video cameras by turning these heavy, expensive, intimidating devices into affordable, user-friendly gadgets that fit into a shirt pocket.

To keep the prices of its Flip camcorders affordable, Pure Digital always made some sacrifices in quality and style. And though the company improved on style in June by releasing the sleek $180 Flip Mino, it stuck with standard definition while other companies boasted high-definition capturing capabilities.

The $230 Flip MinoHD is the first camcorder from Pure Digital Technologies to use high definition.

Today, Pure Digital adds a high-def member to its family: the $230 Flip MinoHD. This handheld camcorder looks like the original Mino (more digital camera than video camera), but the MinoHD is capable of capturing high-definition footage in 1280×720 pixel resolution, or 720p. (The regular Mino records at 640×480 pixels.)

Both cameras can be personalized with colorful designs that people can either make themselves or select from TheFlip.com. It’s also possible to upload personal photos to decorate the camcorder. This personalization process is free on new Minos, but people who want to personalize Minos they already own are out of luck.

I brought my MinoHD along on a weekend trip to a lake in North Carolina and used it to capture beautiful images of leaves at their color-changing peak and games of charades among friends. Overall, I really liked the quality of the footage, which had rich hues and sharp details such as glistening ripples of waves on the lake’s surface. And the MinoHD’s improved sound even clearly picked up the voices of two guys paddling away from our dock in a canoe.

[ See post to watch video ]

But if you’re the type of person who likes to play back videos after capturing them, you might be disappointed that the MinoHD’s 1.5-inch screen is no larger than the previous models. This means you won’t get a good look at the high-definition footage until you play clips back on a computer.

Another downside is that high-definition footage is much too large to easily send to others in its original format, so it must be compressed to 480×270-pixel resolution for sharing on Pure Digital’s software. Previous Flips also compressed videos for sharing (the Mino uses 360×270), but I particularly missed the ability to easily show others my videos in HD quality via the camera’s software. Pure Digital says it’ll enable HD sharing through a partner company by early next year.

The Flip MinoHD weighs 3.3 ounces and has four gigabytes of internal memory, or twice that of its predecessor, yet both hold 60 minutes of video because the HD format takes up twice as much space. In true Pure Digital style, the camera’s seven buttons are easy to use: Press the red record button to start and stop, and press plus or minus buttons to zoom in or out with a 2x digital zoom while recording. A play/pause button plays back videos and a delete button gets rid of unwanted footage to free up memory; alternatively, videos can be offloaded to a PC.

The MinoHD comes loaded with new software called FlipShare. I found this worked much better than Pure Digital’s previous sharing software, which was rather straightforward but had its share of quirks and rough edges. FlipShare worked on Macs and PCs running Windows Vista and XP. I should note that the software crashed and insisted on changing the color scheme on my Vista laptop the first two times I plugged in my MinoHD, but I had no problems after that.

FlipShare’s use of drag-and-drop video organizing resembles the way that Apple (AAPL) iTunes songs can be dragged into playlists. And just as iTunes searches for music when it’s installed, FlipShare scoured my computers for other Flip videos, neatly arranging those clips into folders. I easily named videos, and clips not saved to the computer were clearly marked as “Unsaved.” Eight large icons at the bottom of the FlipShare software illustrate what can be done with the videos: save to computer; play full screen; share via email, greeting card or Web site (YouTube, AOL Video or MySpace — no Facebook as of yet); or create a movie, snapshot or DVD.

FlipShare works with other Pure Digital camcorders, and users of the older software will get a prompt to upgrade to FlipShare next week. It’s also fully compatible with Apple’s video applications, including iMovie and iDVD. And when I plugged in my MinoHD, iTunes opened and asked if I wanted to import my MinoHD footage.

Pure Digital says the MinoHD’s internal battery lasts for two hours of overall use (recording, playback, standby, etc.) or for 90 minutes of straight recording. Compared with other Flip video cameras, this battery life is half that of the Mino and on par with the older Flip Ultra, which runs on two double-A batteries.

After using the fully charged device to record 60 minutes of footage over a weekend, I still had about one hour remaining. It charges by plugging its pop-out USB connector into any computer’s USB port, and will also work with some USB chargers, though not Apple’s. Pure Digital will sell a standalone charger for $20 that should be available by the end of the year.

If you’re in the market for a simple camcorder that records high-quality video, the Flip MinoHD is definitely worth $50 more than the regular Flip Mino. But don’t say I didn’t warn you so when you’re bummed out by the screen’s still-small size and its inability to share true HD footage via the FlipShare software.

– Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://walt.allthingsd.com

The New iLife: We Test Upgrade of Apple Suite

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Apple Inc. last week introduced a redesign of its elegant iMac desktop computer, the machine that packs a powerful, beautiful consumer PC into the back of a generously large, bright screen. The new models are even thinner than their slim predecessors, sport an aluminum skin instead of white plastic, and have a new, flat keyboard, more power and lower prices.

Apple’s new iMac comes loaded with iLife ’08 software.

But Apple‘s bigger change was a major update to its iLife software suite, which comes loaded on all its Macintosh models — not just the new iMac — and can be purchased by existing Mac owners for $79. The suite includes iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD, iWeb and GarageBand — programs that help average people organize, edit, share and publish photos, videos and music. These uncluttered and intuitive programs have been best of breed, so Apple’s decision to update iLife is intriguing, if for nothing other than to see what major improvements could really be made.

This week I tested iLife ’08 on a new iMac — the midrange $1,499 20-inch model with a 2.4 gigahertz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and a 320-gigabyte hard drive. I focused especially on iPhoto and iMovie, the anchors of the suite and the programs that got the biggest overhauls. One significant change in iPhoto is its new method of organizing photos by sorting images into “Events” according to their dates, rather than by the batch in which they were uploaded to your computer. The iMovie program underwent a more drastic overhaul, adding a library for storing all of your video clips and a new interface for organizing those clips into a movie that dispenses with the traditional timeline design long used in digital video software.

Both iPhoto and iMovie now use “skimming,” a rich feature that lets you scan through photos or videos just by passing your cursor over a thumbnail. And if you have an account on Apple’s online .Mac service ($100 annually), both programs offer effortless one-click photo or video uploading to a “Web Gallery,” where you can share your content. Videos can also be uploaded directly to YouTube without a .Mac account.

Before delving into the software, a quick word about the new iMac is in order. It’s an improvement on an already stellar computer, with beefed-up specs. There are four models, from $1,199 to $2,299, in two screen sizes — 20 inches and 24 inches. The base 20-inch model costs $1,199, a price cut of $300 from the prior 20-inch model. The base 24-inch model now costs $1,799, down $200 from the old model of the same size.

The biggest adjustments for users will be the screen and keyboard, which took me a few days to get used to. The new iMac comes with a glossy screen, which makes colors pop but also reflects more background light than a traditional matte display.

Radical Keyboard

The keyboard is radical-looking. It’s much flatter and sleeker than typical desktop PC keyboards. I found it easier to type with, but in an attempt to make it more like that of a laptop keyboard, Apple rearranged some built-in key functions, which was confusing at first. If you hate it, you can still use an older Mac keyboard or any USB keyboard, even those meant for Windows computers. For now, the new iMac offers only a wired keyboard. A small wireless model is due in a few weeks.

I quickly picked up on how to use the new features in iPhoto and iMovie, thanks to unintimidating, self-explanatory icons. The Events feature in iPhoto might be a pain for users who are transferring numerous already-organized albums from the previous version of iPhoto into this one, as not all albums will perfectly translate into Events. But it’s a great improvement over the old method — and over Windows photo programs I’ve tried — for organizing newly shot photos.

The new version of iPhoto will look familiar to anyone who used the older version; its layout is the same, with a list of your photo library on the far left and a large display area to the right of this list. I uploaded a couple of albums at once, and each was automatically sorted into its own event because the photos from each were associated with two different dates.

Skimming the Thumbnails

A few new features stand out at a glance. When photos are grouped into Events, these are neatly marked with one large thumbnail image that is selected to represent the entire pile of photos. By passing my cursor over this top thumbnail, I skimmed through all of the images in that Event in mere seconds. A button labeled Web Gallery instantly uploads images to a .Mac account, and a list of photos that are shared online appears in iPhoto.

The updated iPhoto automatically groups photos into Events represented by thumbnails that make for faster photo browsing.

Rather than deleting images that I didn’t want in a particular Event, I selected the new Hide icon, which takes marked images away from view but notes the number of hidden photos at the top of the Event as a reminder. Hidden photos can also appear within the Event, denoted with red X marks.

Double clicking on any image now magnifies it without opening editing functions, letting users quickly see larger versions of each shot. Editing in iPhoto was already straightforward, but new options provide more customization; for example, red eyes can be removed with a cross hairs (like the old iPhoto) or by using a circle that manually adjusts to match a subject’s pupil size.

The new version of iMovie is deliberately designed to steer away from the familiar interface most consumer video-editing programs use, which was borrowed from professional-grade software. Instead of the usual timeline of clips, iMovie employs a more free-form canvas where clips and effects can be assembled. Apple knows that this may irk people used to the traditional method, but believes it will make video editing much less intimidating for casual users.

To test iMovie, I used a high-definition Panasonic video camera to capture amusing moments around my office and brought it with me to Boston for three days so I could document my sister’s move into her new place (the moving guys were thrilled). In both places, I turned the camera on and off numerous times, capturing short clips.

Instant Recognition

My video camera was instantly recognized when I plugged it into the iMac, prompting iMovie to generate thumbnail images of each clip. Times when the camera was turned on or off were clearly marked, and I chose the clips I wanted to import. Transferred content appeared in the new iMovie library at the bottom half of a screen, and I dragged and dropped clips to the top half of the screen to add them to a project. Clips can be selected by using your cursor to draw a yellow box around the whole clip or just a part of the clip that you’d like to use. Skimming through content is helpful here — as I moved my cursor from left to right through clips, the audio and video played in the top right of the screen, letting me see and hear footage so as to select exactly where to trim a clip.

The new interface for iMovie is more approachable for everyday users, with a smart library that organizes Projects and Events into two different libraries.

After dragging various clips to the top half of the screen, I added special features like music, sound effects and title slides to my project. These were all added the same way my clips were: by dragging and dropping to put the right thing where it needed to go. Music from iTunes can be used with videos, or Apple provides over 500 different sound effects and tunes.

Still photos can be incorporated into iMovie using a “Ken Burns” effect (panning across a still image) to keep the video’s pace moving along. And any videos captured on a digital camera that were uploaded into iPhoto can be retrieved and used from within iMovie. If footage is too dark, it can be automatically or manually adjusted, like images in iPhoto.

Polished Results

In just about 15 minutes, I created a short movie that mashed together various clips from three days of moving. I added titles to introduce the movie, and transitions in between each clip that looked really polished.

I uploaded photos and videos to the .Mac Web Gallery, checking off the privacy option (passwords can be set to limit who sees the content). Other options to check include showing titles of photos; enabling a feature that lets others upload images to my gallery via a set email address; and letting other people download high-resolution versions of my content. In one step, videos can also be uploaded to YouTube.com or transferred to your iTunes library, where they can be viewed on a PC or Mac, or moved over to an iPod or iPhone.

The new programs in iLife ’08 are a pleasure to use, and the new iMac is a great way to experience them.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Email: mossbergsolution@wsj.com.

Jobs to Dell, Gateway: Whatcha Gonna Do With All That Junk, All That Junk, Inside Your Trunk?

John Paczkowski — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 23:14:16 +0000

Given the recent monomania over Apple’s iPhone, it’s sometimes easy to forget that the company also has a thriving personal-computer business that’s tearing market share from the hands of rival computer-makers.

But while Apple may have taken the “computer” out of its name, it definitely hasn’t taken the computer out of the company. According to market researcher IDC, sales of Apple machines rose to 1.76 million units during its third quarter of the year, up 33% from the same period a year ago.

And they’re sure to rise in the fourth quarter as well, thanks to a batch of new products the company debuted today. At an event at its corporate headquarters, Apple uncrated a sleek new aluminum-and-glass iMac desktop (with all-new Bluetooth 2.0 keyboard) and a faster Mac mini as well as significant upgrades to its iLife (revamped iMovie) and iWork (new spreadsheet program) software suites and .Mac service (10 GB of storage plus new photo-sharing features).

Interestingly, Apple’s selling its new iMacs at prices lower than those of their predecessors, and while those prices are still higher than those of low-end Windows PCs, the company says they compare favorably to more high-quality PCs. “Our goal is to make the best personal computers in the world and make products we are proud to sell and recommend to our family and friends,” Apple CEO Steve Jobs said at Apple’s event today. “We want to do that at the lowest prices we can. But there’s some stuff in our industry that we wouldn’t be proud to ship. And we just can’t do it. We can’t ship junk. There are thresholds we can’t cross because of who we are. And we think that there’s a very significant slice of the [market] that wants that, too. You’ll find that our products are not premium priced. You price out our competitors’ products, and add features that actually make them useful, and they’re the same or actually more expensive. We don’t offer stripped-down, lousy products.”

Anyone Can Produce, And Star, in a Video -- Just like Mine

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 00:01:00 +0000

Everyone can now be a video producer. YouTube and other Web sites are filled with short amateur videos created on typical home computers. Even print journalists like me have joined the trend. For the past couple of months, I’ve been recording brief video commentaries to post along with my columns on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site, WSJ.com.

But how, exactly, does one make such a video? I’ve had multiple readers ask me about how I do mine, so I thought I’d explain the process. Because the Journal employs professional producers who help me, the method I use isn’t a purely amateur experience. But most of it is the same as what anyone could do at home. One look at my (ahem) production values confirms that. You can see for yourself at wsj.com/mossbergvideo.

[ See post to watch video ]

My method is pretty simple. Shortly after writing the columns each week, I sit down in front of a computer with a built-in video camera and record the commentary using the free software that comes with the computer. Then, using the same software, I convert the movie into a format our Web producers can use and upload it to them. They add titles and insert footage of any products I’m discussing.

I have recorded most of these videos in my home office in Maryland, using a desktop computer. But when I am on the road, I have used a laptop in hotel rooms from Las Vegas to New York City to Munich. At home, I use a professional microphone supplied by our producers, but on the road, I just use the laptop’s built-in mic. And I don’t use any special lighting.

In both settings, but especially in hotel rooms, I make sure the parts of the room that get in the shot aren’t too messy or distracting. Nobody wants to see a used room-service tray in one of these videos.

So far, I have done all my videos on a Macintosh, either an iMac desktop or a MacBook Pro laptop, and I’ve used Apple’s built-in iMovie software — mostly because it is simple and reliable, and produces good videos despite unpredictable conditions. It also easily exports the videos into QuickTime files, an Apple format that our producers — who also use Macs — can easily use. YouTube can use this format, too, along with other formats.

Such videos could also be created on a Windows computer that has a camera and accompanying video software. I have tested this on a Hewlett-Packard Pavilion dv6000 laptop with a built-in camera, using the free Windows Movie Maker program in Windows XP. The videos recorded fine, and I was able to save them in Microsoft’s Windows Media Video format, which the Journal producers — or sites like YouTube — can use.

Unfortunately, on this particular H-P computer, I’ve had problems with the video and audio being out of sync, an obstacle I’ve never encountered on the Macs. But I assume that doesn’t happen on all, or even most, Windows machines.

My videos are very basic: It’s just me talking into the camera and occasionally holding up a product. I’m not moving around much, or including other people. I don’t usually record multiple takes, and I don’t have time to do editing. Because I don’t care much about production values, there are shadows and the sound is hardly perfect. But you could use the same hardware and software to make more elaborate videos with better lighting and sound. Both iMovie and Windows Movie Maker allow extensive editing, the use of video effects and the addition of titles and transitions.

You could also buy better video software. For instance, our producers in New York edit my videos using off-the-shelf Macs running a high-end Apple video program called Final Cut Studio, which costs $1,299. A simpler version, Final Cut Express, costs $299. On Windows, there are video programs like Adobe Premiere Pro, for $849, or the simpler Premiere Elements, for $99.

What if you want to use a digital camcorder or the video function of a digital still camera, to shoot your videos? Well, you can easily do that and just import your videos from the camera into your Mac or Windows computer using a cable and most video software.

After you’ve imported the video and saved it to your hard disk, you can either directly upload it to YouTube or another Web site or edit it first before uploading.

While my computers have built-in cameras, if yours don’t you can buy an add-on, such as the external iSight camera made by Apple. For Windows computers, Logitech and others make a variety of external cameras. If you use a Mac, I also recommend a small program called iGlasses, a terrific $8 utility that can tweak Apple cameras to compensate for poor lighting or to enhance images. It is available at www.ecamm.com.

Two other tips: Remember to look into the camera, not at the screen, so you don’t appear to be looking away from the viewer. And if you wear glasses, as I do, turn off the screen, so it doesn’t reflect in your glasses.

If I can make videos, so can you.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com. See video versions of my reviews at wsj.com/mossbergvideo.

New Product for Mac Operates Windows, OS X Simultaneously

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 00:01:00 +0000

When Apple Computer announced back in April that its new Intel-powered Macintosh computers could run the Windows XP operating system as well as its own Mac OS X, the news was treated as a big deal. It meant that people considering switching from Windows to the Mac no longer had to worry about being unable to run the one or two Windows programs they relied on that might have no equivalent on the Apple platform. They could buy a Mac, work mainly in the nearly virus-free Macintosh operating system, and simply fire up Windows occasionally — on the very same Mac — to run any Windows software they needed.

Now, there’s an even better approach to running Windows on a Mac. It’s called Parallels Desktop for Mac, and it’s from a small Herndon, Va., company called Parallels. It emerges from testing today and goes on sale for $79 at the company’s Web site, parallels.com.

I’ve been testing Parallels Desktop on a new MacBook Pro laptop, and have found it works very well, despite a few drawbacks. I prefer it to Apple’s solution, even though the Apple approach is free and also works very well.

Apple’s system, called Boot Camp, has one big limitation: It allows you to run only one of the two operating systems at a time, requiring you to reboot the computer to switch between them. As a result, you can’t quickly jump between Mac programs and Windows programs. You can’t, for instance, simultaneously download your corporate email in Outlook using Windows while editing a home video in iMovie using the Mac OS.

With Parallels Desktop for Mac, you can do this. You can run any combination of Mac and Windows programs at the same time, on the same screen. No rebooting is necessary. You can even cut and paste material between Mac and Windows programs, and share files between the two environments.

The Parallels approach, called virtualization, runs Windows, with all its features, inside a window in the Mac operating system. It creates a faux Windows PC, called a “virtual machine,” that co-exists with Mac OS X. You can devote the full screen to either operating system or you can reduce Windows, and whatever programs it’s running, to a window on the Mac that can be dragged anywhere on the screen and made as small or as large as you like.

Unlike Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop can run every version of Windows back to Windows 3.1, not just Windows XP. It can also run Linux and even older operating systems like OS/2 and MS-DOS. You can even create and run multiple virtual machines, with different operating systems inside, up to the limit of your Mac’s memory.

Virtualization isn’t a new concept, and it’s not even new on the Mac. Microsoft offers a product called Virtual PC for Mac that runs Windows inside a window on older, pre-Intel Macs. But Virtual PC runs painfully slowly on these older Macs, and it can’t run every Windows program. It doesn’t run at all on the new Intel-based Macs.

Parallels Desktop runs Windows a little more slowly than Apple’s Boot Camp does because it is accessing the Mac’s hardware through the Mac operating system rather than directly, as in a dual-boot system. But, in my tests, it was very snappy, as fast as many regular Windows computers.

Inside my virtual Windows machine, I was able to run programs like the Windows version of Microsoft Office, the Windows versions of the Firefox Web browser, iTunes, Adobe Reader, Google Earth and more. All worked well, as did Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser, Google’s Picasa photo program and Google’s Google Talk instant-messaging software.

I was able to do email in Apple’s Mail program while simultaneously watching a baseball game in Internet Explorer inside my Parallels Desktop Windows virtual machine. I wrote part of this column in the Windows version of Microsoft Word and part in the Mac version, cutting and pasting between the two.

And, unlike Boot Camp, Parallels Desktop doesn’t require you to dedicate a fixed section, or “partition,” of your hard disk to Windows. Its virtual Windows computer is contained in a big Mac data file that uses only as much space as Windows needs.

Setting up Parallels Desktop is fast and easy, though some novice users may find the program’s terminology a little daunting. As with Boot Camp, you have to supply your own copy of Windows to install once you create the virtual machine. And because the virtual Windows machine created by Parallels behaves like a real Windows computer, you have to install the usual raft of Windows security software.

So what are the drawbacks? I couldn’t eject a CD in Parallels without switching back to the Mac environment. Parallels treats fast USB 2.0 ports on the Mac as if they were slower USB 1.1 ports. It doesn’t support Microsoft’s DirectX technology, which many games rely on. The company pledges to fix these things in future versions.

Also, if you elect to use the optional file-sharing feature, your Mac data files could be corrupted or erased by a Windows virus. For that reason, this feature is turned off by default.

Still, Parallels Desktop is a very good product and a pleasure to use. It’s like having two computers in one, the best of both worlds.

Email me at mossberg@wsj.com.