AllThingsD » OS X http://allthingsd.com Wed, 19 Jun 2013 11:30:17 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://allthingsd.com/theme/images/logo-rss.jpg All Things Digital http://allthingsd.com/ 144 22 Apple's iOS 7 Team in Deadline Crunch Mode, Adding Engineers http://allthingsd.com/20130501/apples-ios-7-team-in-deadline-crunch-mode-adding-engineers/ http://allthingsd.com/20130501/apples-ios-7-team-in-deadline-crunch-mode-adding-engineers/#comments Wed, 01 May 2013 17:30:44 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=317347 iOS-7Apple’s iOS 7 is so significant a reimagining of the mobile operating system that the company is mustering additional engineering resources to get it out the door in time for a preview at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference, which is June 10-14 in San Francisco.

Sources who declined to be named because they are forbidden to talk publicly about Apple’s plans tell AllThingsD that the company has been “borrowing” engineers from the OS X 10.9 team as part of an effort to double down on iOS 7. “Yes, yes — it’s essentially a repeat of the iPhone/Leopard scenario,” one source said, referring to Apple’s 2007 decision to pull engineers from OS X 10.5 to work on iPhone. “Not as much of a fire drill, though. It will ship on time.”

News of Apple’s iOS 7 scramble was first reported by Daring Fireball last month, and reiterated today by Bloomberg.

So what is it about iOS 7 that has caused Apple to rally additional engineering resources? It’s a pretty big update. With SVP of Industrial Design Jony Ive now oveerseeing interface design, sources say Apple has adopted a unified approach to software and hardware design. And evidently the spartan, elegant aesthetic that Ive has developed around Apple’s hardware is now being brought to bear on its software, as well. Last week, 9to5Mac’s Mark Gurman reported that iOS 7 would feature a “flat” design that favors simplicity over flash. I’ve heard similar descriptions from sources who say iOS 7 is iOS “de-glitzed.”

“Put it this way,” said one source who has been briefed on iOS. “You know Game Center’s green felt craps table? Well, goodbye, Circus Circus.”

Not a surprise, really. With Scott Forstall — an advocate for flashy, skeuomorphic design and its stitched-leather and faux-wood-grain flourishes — now gone from Apple, and Ive in an expanded role, the current and former Apple employees I’ve spoken to say iOS 7 was destined for a new coat of paint. As one said, “Sounds like a much-needed ‘de-Forstallization.’”

Which is not to say that the design of iOS 7 is entirely about removing skeuomorphic gloss. Fact is, Apple hasn’t much changed the operating system’s look since the iPhone was introduced in 2007. If the company has good ideas for design tweaks, it’s about time it implemented them. With new mobile operating systems like BlackBerry 10 and Windows Phone proving that there’s plenty of room left for innovation in the market, Apple can ill afford even the risk of the perception that iOS might be getting dusty.

Apple’s challenge, then, is to overhaul the look and feel of the OS while retaining the intuitiveness that has made it so popular. “The key question here is whether those changes deliver on the core Apple promise of improving customers’ ability to make productive use of the device and deliver a clearly superior experience,” Forrester analyst Charles Golvin told AllThingsD. “Presumably they don’t need the flashy stuff to realize that vision.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130501/apples-ios-7-team-in-deadline-crunch-mode-adding-engineers/feed/ 0 Clearing Up an iPad Picture Problem http://allthingsd.com/20130305/clearing-up-an-ipad-picture-problem/ http://allthingsd.com/20130305/clearing-up-an-ipad-picture-problem/#comments Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:07:42 +0000 Walt Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=300688 Q:

I was so delighted to get your instructions last week on how to delete pictures from my iPad but it doesn’t work for me. I can check off the photos I want to delete and the red delete button does comes up — but it doesn’t delete. It’s dimmed. Any ideas on how to get it to work?

A:

I apologize that my answer last week was incomplete. You can only delete photos in the Photos app on an iPad if they were either taken on the iPad, received on the iPad via email and saved to the Camera Roll, or loaded using the iPad USB or SD card camera adapters. If the photos were synced to the iPad from iTunes on a computer, they can’t be deleted on the iPad. This is almost certainly why your delete button isn’t working. Apple says it bars such deletion because synced pictures are considered to primarily exist on the computer. If you want such synced pictures off your iPad, Apple says you have to go into iTunes and turn off syncing those particular photos or albums to your iPad, or turn off photo syncing entirely.

Q:

How do you create a new photo album on an iPad and get the pictures in the order you want?

A:

To do so, first use the Edit button, select multiple photos, and then use the “Add to…” button, add them to a new album and name the album. Once the photos are in the album you created, you can arrange them by hitting the “Edit” button again and dragging the photo thumbnails into the order you prefer.

Q:

I’m looking for a very light laptop to take on the road. Would it be possible to use an 11-inch MacBook Air on the road while using a PC in the office? All my files are on Dropbox or Evernote. Can I run Office apps like Excel on a Mac and modify files on both the Mac and PC?

A:

Yes. Microsoft makes a native Mac version of Office that uses the same file formats as the Windows version. And Dropbox and Evernote are available and access the same content on both platforms. Most other common file types, like JPG photos, MP3 music and PDFs, work interchangeably. And the MacBook Air is an excellent thin and light laptop. It can even run Windows itself — and the Windows version of Office — if you choose.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130305/clearing-up-an-ipad-picture-problem/feed/ 0 A Fresh New Office Finds a Place in the Cloud http://allthingsd.com/20130129/a-fresh-new-office-finds-a-place-in-the-cloud/ http://allthingsd.com/20130129/a-fresh-new-office-finds-a-place-in-the-cloud/#comments Tue, 29 Jan 2013 14:02:33 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=289630

[ See post to watch video ]

Tablets and smartphones may have taken over people’s lives, but Microsoft has managed to maintain a hold on the way many people use their PCs with one product: Trusty Microsoft Office.

Microsoft’s newest version of Office, available starting Tuesday, is a radical change from the past. For starters, Office 365 has a surprising new price model: It is available as a subscription that can automatically renew each year, if you choose. This new system constantly updates program features year round. Every time you open a program in Office, you will be running the latest version.

image

With Office 365, any PC can be activated or deactivated in one step.

It’s also more closely tied to the cloud, saving documents to Microsoft’s SkyDrive storage system by default, so your documents and personal settings are remotely accessible. With that, Microsoft aims to stave off Office challengers like Google Drive, which gives people a way to create and store documents online, as well as share documents and edit with multiple people.

What’s more, Office 365 gives people a centralized spot online where they can manage their account, showing them where they have Office installed so they can deactivate unused computers with one click or completely cancel subscriptions. And files are still accessible to download even if subscriptions expire.

Along with these broader features, there are significant changes to Office 365’s programs, which include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher and Access. It does a nice job of bringing to the surface some features that were too far buried in menus for people to use. It also packs in many new features, some of which were made for touchscreens and new devices designed to run the touch-centric Windows 8. And Microsoft has updated its Office Web Apps, stripped-down programs that offer free editing, via a Web browser, of files stored online.

I tested Office 365 Home Premium, which costs $99 a year and can be installed on up to five computers, including Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs as well as Macs running Apple’s OS X version 10.5.8 or later. Office 365 University, which costs $80 for a four-year subscription, is available for college students, faculty and staff. Office 365 for businesses will be released on Feb. 27; subscription rates will range from $4 to $20 monthly.

Traditional, non-subscription versions of Office are available for one-time fees, including Office Home and Student 2013 ($140), Office Home and Business 2013 ($220) and Office Professional 2013 ($400). These new suites still receive security patches, as they always have, and can only be installed on one machine and upgrades require installing whole new versions. Like Office 365, these versions of Office also now save to SkyDrive by default, tying them into the cloud.

I installed Office 365 Home Premium on two devices: A Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro 700T, which had a touchscreen and was running Windows 8 Pro, and a MacBook Pro, which was running OS X version 10.8.2. I also looked at and edited documents on computers that didn’t have Office 365 installed by using Microsoft Web Apps. And I set up Office 365 on a Windows Phone to access and edit documents on the go.

image

The new version of Microsoft Word lets people have integrated conversations in editing comments.

To install on the Windows 8 PC, I used a product key given to me by Microsoft for pre-release testing, otherwise you would have to go to Office.com to buy a subscription and get a product key. (A free 30-day trial is available.) The Windows 8 PC install took about 20 minutes, and a helpful introduction walked me through key points of Office 365. One screen asked me, “How would you like your Office to look?” And I scrolled through a handful of patterns and chose a background that looked like rings on a tree stump.

When I installed Office 365 on the Mac, I just went online to office.com/myaccount, selected an option to sign into an existing subscription and entered my username and password. The download on the Mac took about 30 minutes and then I saw on my Mac the familiar tree-ring background. The version was Office: Mac 2011 because the new Office for Mac typically ships after the new Office for Windows.

The My Account Web page is a big plus for people who have had computers die and take copies of Office with them. Now, in one step on My Account, any PC can be deactivated and a new PC can be activated.

The cloud-based structure of Office 365 takes some adjustment, but users can still save files to the PC. In Word, when I wasn’t connected to the Internet and opened a document, I saw a notification reminding me that the version of the document I was reading was an offline copy. This notification also told me when the document was last updated and saved online. Each Office 365 account comes with 20 gigabytes of free storage, but all SkyDrive users get seven gigabytes each, so a person using Office 365 could potentially have 27GB of storage.

I enjoyed using new touch features, like five small squares on the far right of the Inbox screen in Outlook that made it a cinch to quickly sort through my inbox. These small icons enabled replying, moving, deleting, marking as unread and flagging for follow-up. I wrote this column in the new version of Word, automatically saving it to SkyDrive and easily opening and editing it on other computers and a Windows Phone.

Excel spreadsheets are now smarter than ever thanks to auto-fill features. I tested one that felt like it was reading my mind as it filled in names of people who had appeared in an earlier column because it detected the same name pattern. PowerPoint presentations now include special CliffsNotes-like tools that only the presenter can see.

Office 365 feels grown up and ready for the fast pace of the Web. It’s custom made for people who use many devices, including desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. If potential users can wrap their brains around its new subscription system, Microsoft has a winning program on its hands.

Email Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20130129/a-fresh-new-office-finds-a-place-in-the-cloud/feed/ 0 Making Sense of All the New Laptop Flavors http://allthingsd.com/20121120/making-sense-of-all-the-new-laptop-flavors/ http://allthingsd.com/20121120/making-sense-of-all-the-new-laptop-flavors/#comments Wed, 21 Nov 2012 02:03:42 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=271526 Just when you thought it was safe to shop for a new laptop, a fresh problem stands in the way of laptop buyers: Confusion. The shelves are now filled with shiny new PCs and Macs running revamped operating systems, but it’s suddenly more complicated to choose a new laptop, especially for Windows shoppers.


[ See post to watch video ]

So, for this year’s fall laptop buyer’s guide, I’ll focus on sorting out some of the muddle. As always, this guide is for consumers doing the most common tasks. It isn’t meant for corporate buyers or for hard-core gamers or serious media producers.

Windows, Mac Diverge Even More

There always have been some core differences among the many Windows laptops and Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops. Computer makers using Windows tended to offer much greater variety and lower prices, while Mac models had better software, were much less prone to viruses and were generally more reliable and elegant.

Now, with the release of the new Windows 8 operating system, there is an even more fundamental difference. MacBooks remain traditional laptops, controlled by touch pads and keyboards. Apple has kept the Mac separate from its touchscreen computer, the market-dominating iPad tablet.

image

The 13-inch MacBook Pro now comes in regular display and higher-priced Retina display.

But Windows 8 laptops combine the two approaches, with two different user environments in the same computer. One is the traditional Windows desktop mode, best used with a touch pad or mouse and a keyboard. The other is the Start Screen mode, which operates like a tablet, has tablet-like apps and is best used with a touch screen.

So, if you’re looking for a familiar laptop, focus on a Mac. If you like the idea of both approaches in one device, and can handle switching back and forth, pick a Windows 8 laptop.

Which Windows 8?

If you opt for Windows, it gets more confusing. Windows 8 comes in two versions, plain Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. Laptops with the latter have a handful of extra features that make it easier to connect with many corporate networks from home. So, if you need that ability, look for a laptop with the Pro version.

But there is an even trickier division. Some new Windows portables, like Microsoft’s first computer, the Surface, use a variant of Windows 8 called Windows RT. Regular Windows 8 lets you run all the traditional desktop programs in Windows 7, like Microsoft Office 2010, Chrome, Quicken or iTunes. However, RT doesn’t run these common programs. Windows RT machines mostly run the new tablet-type apps that work in the Start Screen. They come with a special version of Microsoft Office, but it omits Outlook. So, if you want to use old Windows programs, don’t buy an RT machine.

image

Microsoft’s Surface RT uses a variant of Windows 8 called Windows RT, which doesn’t run most traditional desktop programs.
Touchscreen or Not

Windows 8 is a “touch first” operating system. It can be operated with a mouse or touch pad, but its newest, coolest component, the Start Screen, and the tablet-like apps sold for that environment via Microsoft’s online store, are best used with touch. And there are some traditional laptops, like Acer’s slender Aspire S7, with touchscreens to complement their touch pads and keyboards.

However, many if not most Windows 8 laptops available right now lack touchscreens. On a visit to a Best Buy store this week, I found the retailer promoting only three touchscreen Ultrabooks, slim, light, well-equipped Windows laptops. There were a few larger well-equipped touchscreen models and one low-end model. All the others used standard screens.

Because I believe Windows 8′s tablet-style mode works best with a touchscreen, I don’t advise buying a Windows 8 laptop without one.

Tablet or Convertible

Unlike Apple, Microsoft has no separate tablet operating system. Windows 8 was designed to run both tablets and standard computers. In my tests, I have found it runs well, maybe even best, on tablets, which can have add-on keyboards to handle traditional desktop programs. But there are a number of laptops, called convertibles, whose screens can flip, or slide, or twist, so they cover the keyboard and look like tablets.

Don’t rely on these convertibles for extended use as tablets. The ones I’ve seen are too heavy and bulky for more than occasional use in tablet mode. If you use a tablet heavily, stick with an iPad, an Android tablet, or a Windows 8 or Windows RT machine that’s actually a tablet.

Storage

Windows 8 and other system files appear to take up a lot more of your storage space than Windows 7. On the Lenovo Yoga laptop I reviewed last week, only 70 gigabytes of the 128GB of storage are available to the user. Get at least a 500GB hard disk or a 256GB solid-state drive.

Mac Confusion

Despite its new Mountain Lion operating system, the Mac hasn’t changed nearly as much as Windows has. There’s one version of the OS, for home and corporate use, and no stripped-down equivalent of Windows RT. While Mountain Lion borrows some features from the iPad, it doesn’t attempt to mimic a tablet.

However, Apple has redesigned its top MacBook Pro models, and introduced confusion. Both the 13-inch and 15-inch Pros now come in two versions: regular display and higher-resolution — and higher-price — Retina display. Be sure you need the extra pixels before opting for the latter.

Price

The least costly Mac laptop, the 11-inch MacBook Air, is still $999. And you can still buy some poorly equipped non-touchscreen Windows 8 laptops for about $300. In general, expect to spend between $600 and $1,000 for a well-equipped, thin and light touchscreen Windows 8 laptop.

Bottom Line

It’s an exciting time to buy a new laptop, especially for Windows lovers. But be careful to wade through the confusing options so you get what you need, nothing more or less.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121120/making-sense-of-all-the-new-laptop-flavors/feed/ 0 Microsoft: Four Million Windows 8 Installs Down, 396 Million More to Go http://allthingsd.com/20121030/microsoft-four-million-windows-8-installs-down-396-million-more-to-go/ http://allthingsd.com/20121030/microsoft-four-million-windows-8-installs-down-396-million-more-to-go/#comments Tue, 30 Oct 2012 17:17:48 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=265051 Back in September, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made an ambitious prediction: “One year from now — between Windows phones, Windows tablets and Windows PCs — we’ll see close to … 400 million new devices running those new operating systems.” Now, not two months later, Microsoft is 1 percent of the way toward that goal.

Speaking at the company’s Build conference this morning, Ballmer said Microsoft has sold four million Windows 8 upgrades since the operating system went on sale last Friday. “The level of enthusiasm we’ve seen is exciting,” Ballmer said. “I think we are really resonating across the board with the work we are bringing to market.”

It would seem so. With four million copies of Windows 8 sold to consumers in four days, Microsoft is off to an impressive start with its latest OS. But it’s got a long way to go to hit that 400 million number. Remember, Windows 7 sold about 175 million copies its first year at market, and Windows Phone 8 has not yet proven itself in the smartphone space.

One last point worth noting: Apple sold three million copies of Mountain Lion, the latest version of its OS X operating system, in the same time it took Microsoft to sell four million copies of Windows 8. But in selling those three million copies, Apple hit about 4.5 percent of its installed base of 66 million. In selling four million copies of Windows 8, Microsoft has only reached a third of 1 percent of its base, which is about 1.25 billion right now.

Errata: An earlier version of this post said Apple’s OS X installed base is 60 million.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121030/microsoft-four-million-windows-8-installs-down-396-million-more-to-go/feed/ 0 A Dragon That Takes Dictation and Controls a Mac by Voice http://allthingsd.com/20121009/a-dragon-that-takes-dictation-and-controls-a-mac-by-voice/ http://allthingsd.com/20121009/a-dragon-that-takes-dictation-and-controls-a-mac-by-voice/#comments Wed, 10 Oct 2012 01:03:50 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=258546 I am writing these words — without touching a key. I’m dictating them into a word processor on a laptop. To do this, I’m using a very versatile program that not only allows me to dictate text but to correct it, delete it and format it, all with my voice.


[ See post to watch video ]

This software enables me to perform other tasks on the computer by just talking. I can launch and close applications. I can search the Web and jump directly to Web pages using only my voice. I can address, compose and send emails. And I can even dictate and post status messages to Facebook and Twitter.

The product that’s letting me do all this is the latest in the software line called Dragon. In particular, I’m using the newest Dragon dictation software for the Mac, called Dragon Dictate 3. Dragon’s maker, Nuance Communications Inc., has for years focused on the Windows platform. In fact, it released a new version for Windows, called Dragon NaturallySpeaking 12, in July. But with Dragon Dictate 3, which launched last month, Nuance has finally brought its Mac version nearly up to speed with the Windows version.

image

Dragon Dictate uses a small window to show its status and often displays two larger windows, one with available commands and one with alternate spellings

Despite some feature differences, the two versions use the same improved voice-recognition engine, so the company said my experience on the Mac would be a good indicator of its Windows product’s performance. I chose to test the Mac version because it can finally do some things formerly limited to Windows, such as selecting a single word by voice for correction or deletion or formatting. Based on my tests, I can say that Dragon Dictate 3, and by extension Dragon NaturallySpeaking, are quite accurate.

However, this is old-school software. By that I mean it’s relatively costly, at $200, and requires time to learn how to use. It could take weeks or months to remember and master the specific wording of each of the many commands. For example, you need to say “File Open” as it won’t respond to “Open File.” So you’d need a good reason to make that investment in money and time.

The software would be a good choice for people who are disabled and can’t type, or even those prone to mild repetitive stress injuries.

So why choose a $200 program? Especially since Apple recently added free built-in dictation to the Mac. First, Apple’s dictation doesn’t allow you to command the computer, or edit by voice. Macs do have a feature that make a limited number of spoken computer commands available. But they don’t match Dragon’s voice command set. You also can’t use Apple’s dictation feature unless you’re connected to the Internet, while Dragon works right on the computer.

The Dragon software has many, many functions (the user manual is 207 pages), but you can boil it down to two: dictation and computer control. The latter means controlling menus and commands either common to the whole operating system or specific to a program you’re using. You can say “File New” to open a new document or “Jump to Wall Street Journal” to open the Web browser and go to the Journal’s Web site.

One of the deficits still lingering in the Mac version is it has fewer sets of application-specific commands than its Windows counterpart. Also, the Windows version allows you to navigate from link to link on a Web page, while the Mac version doesn’t.

Dragon comes with an over-the-head microphone and earpiece that connects instantly via USB, but it also works with many types of microphones. The included gear offers the greatest accuracy. But I was able to get decent results using a Dragon wireless-mic app on my iPhone and even using the built-in mic on the Mac laptop, either directly or via the tiny mic included in Apple’s standard earbuds. You can also use a Bluetooth microphone.

This new Mac version finally is able to transcribe audio files recorded on a digital voice recorder or an iPhone voice-recording app. It worked pretty well, but wasn’t as accurate as real-time dictation.

For best results, you have to train Dragon Dictate before using it, by reading one of several canned texts. This takes five to 10 minutes or so. You can teach the program about uncommon words you use by letting the program analyze documents you wrote. And you can add words or pronunciations manually.

The program relies on context to decide what you meant to say, even if the words sound the same. In a test exercise suggested by Nuance, Dragon Dictate flawlessly handled the phrase “you were right to write me right now.”

I found it could handle many — but not all — proper names, product names, long words, addresses and phone numbers. It recognized the sentence “I’m dictating this on a MacBook Air, but I could be using a Lenovo Ultrabook” perfectly, with correct capitalization. It automatically formats phone numbers and addresses. Other sentences it handled with ease included “Barack Obama is running against Mitt Romney” and “I prefer chrysanthemums to hydrangeas.” But it stumbled on some names, like “Kara,” which it interpreted as “Camera” or “terra.”

And it made other errors, some of them simple, like misinterpreting “an” for “in,” even if it got that right most of the time. Fortunately, if you do see a mistake, you can just say, “Scratch That,” and try again, or you can choose an alternate spelling from a window that pops up.

And there are other downsides. For best results, the company suggests you use Dragon in a fairly quiet place, speak in complete sentences and phrases, and think ahead to what you want to say. Meeting those conditions isn’t easy.

Also, Dragon can clutter up your screen. It has a small window showing its status, and often displays two larger windows, one showing available commands and one showing alternate spellings.

Finally, on the Mac version, one of its best features — the ability to learn the names of your contacts — is crippled by an arbitrary limit of 300 names. The feature won’t work at all if your contact list is larger. The company says it plans to fix this.

Overall, however, Dragon Dictate is a step forward for Mac users who need, or prefer, to use voice to write and control a computer.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20121009/a-dragon-that-takes-dictation-and-controls-a-mac-by-voice/feed/ 0 84 Million iPads, 400 Million iOS Devices and More Big Numbers From Apple http://allthingsd.com/20120912/84-million-ipads-400-million-ios-devices-and-more-big-numbers-from-apple/ http://allthingsd.com/20120912/84-million-ipads-400-million-ios-devices-and-more-big-numbers-from-apple/#comments Wed, 12 Sep 2012 22:00:21 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=250264 Apple’s special events aren’t simply showcases for the company’s newest products, they’re state of the union addresses for the company, opportunities to tout its successes in public in a parade of big-number metrics. And the numbers bandied about at this morning’s iPhone 5 unveiling were large indeed.

  • There are currently 380 Apple Stores.
  • Today, they are in 12 countries. When a new Apple Store opens in Sweden on Friday, they will be in 13.
  • Apple’s retail stores collectively had some 83 million visitors last quarter.
  • That’s nearly 1 million people per day.
  • 7 million Mac users have upgraded to Mountain Lion so far, making it the fasting selling Mac OS of all time.
  • The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro together have become the No. 1 notebook in the U.S. in the last three months, with 27 percent market share.
  • The Mac has experienced 15 percent year-over-year growth.
  • That growth has outpaced that of the PC for six consecutive years.
  • Apple sold 17 million iPads between April and June. That’s more iPads than any PC manufacturer sold of their entire PC line.
  • And it sold 84 million iPads through June.
  • The iPad had a 62 percent share of the tablet market a year ago.
  • Today it has a 68 percent share.
  • The iPad is responsible for 91 percent of the Web traffic from tablets.
  • 94 percent of the Fortune 500 are testing or deploying the iPad.
  • There are 700,000 apps in the iTunes App Store.
  • 250,000 of them are iPad-specific.
  • 90 percent of the apps in the App Store are downloaded every month.
  • The average customer has about 100 of them.
  • By the end of June 2012, Apple had sold 400 million iOS devices.
  • There are 200 million customers using iTunes in the cloud.
  • There are 435 million iTunes accounts (with associated credit card numbers).
  • There are iTunes Stores available in 63 countries.
  • Together they have served up 15 billion media downloads.
  • Apple has sold 350 million iPods to date.
  • And it has sold 600 million of pairs of the earbuds which it replaced today with its new EarPod headphones.

RELATED POSTS:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120912/84-million-ipads-400-million-ios-devices-and-more-big-numbers-from-apple/feed/ 0 In a Parallels World, Mac and Windows Coexist App-ily http://allthingsd.com/20120904/in-a-parallels-world-mac-and-windows-coexist-app-ily/ http://allthingsd.com/20120904/in-a-parallels-world-mac-and-windows-coexist-app-ily/#comments Wed, 05 Sep 2012 01:02:42 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=247635 I am writing these words in a preview version of the new edition of Microsoft Word, which is running in a pre-release version of a radically redesigned edition of Windows, called Windows 8. But I’m not doing any of this on a Windows PC. I’m doing it on a Mac, while simultaneously running standard Mac programs, such as Apple Mail and iPhoto.


[ See post to watch video ]

Both Word for Windows and the colorful, tiled Windows 8 start screen are running on a MacBook Air. Scrolling is smooth and quick, as are visual effects. Web pages appear at normal speed in Internet Explorer. Videos, music and photos work well in Windows programs, including new full-screen apps in Windows 8.

Meanwhile, my Mac programs are running well, and I can switch between Windows programs and Mac programs quickly and easily.

What makes this all possible is Parallels 8, a new version of the leading Mac utility for running Windows and Windows programs with regular Mac programs. Parallels 8, set for release this week, has been especially tailored to take advantage of, and to integrate, new features in the latest Mac operating system, Mountain Lion, and in Windows 8, which is due out Oct. 26.

image

Parallels 8 on a Mac, with running Mac and Windows apps, which have red lines on their icons.

This isn’t a review of either Windows 8 or of the new Office for Windows. It’s a review of Parallels 8, which I’ve been testing for about a week. It can run older versions of Windows, such as Windows 7, which worked well for me. Because running Windows 8 is a key feature of Parallels, I spent a lot of my testing time using a pre-release version of the new Microsoft operating system via Parallels.

Parallels 8 does a fine job of running Windows on a Mac, especially Windows 8. It doesn’t emulate every feature, like those taking advantage of a touch screen—which the Mac lacks. But it makes Windows 8 work on a Mac pretty much like it works on a standard Windows PC that you’d upgrade to Windows 8. And it integrates Windows 8 with some new features of Mountain Lion, like centralized notifications and text dictation. Parallels 8 is $80 for use on a single Mac. That doesn’t include the price of Windows, or Windows apps like Office, which is sold separately. Parallels has a feature that lets you buy, download and install Windows. It’s made by a closely held company of the same name based near Seattle.

VMware Fusion—a main Parallels competitor from VMware, a large publicly held Silicon Valley firm—also has a new version, Fusion 5, that is designed especially to handle Windows 8. Its main advantage is it’s less expensive, at $50, and a single copy can be used on multiple Macs. I also installed and tested Fusion 5.

Both Parallels and Fusion are able to run Windows and the Mac operating system at the same time because they create “virtual machines” on the Mac, essentially faux Windows PCs that run side by side with the Mac operating system.

By contrast, Apple’s own solution for running Windows, called Boot Camp, turns the Mac entirely over to Windows, running only one operating system at a time—and requires a reboot to switch between them.

In my reviews of the last couple of editions of Parallels and Fusion, I’ve found Parallels, which claims about 70% of the Windows-on-Mac market, superior. I’m sticking with that conclusion. I found Parallels faster at every common task, like starting and restarting Windows, and resuming Windows from a suspended state.

I never had a crash or observed any strange behavior in Windows 8 using Parallels 8, while Fusion 5 froze my Mac three times and caused some text in Windows 8 to disappear. (When doing these comparative tests I made sure the competitor I wasn’t using and the copy of Windows it was running were shut down.)

Windows 8 works best with a touch screen. You can just swipe to bring up its main controls (called Charms) or to bring up a list of running apps and switch between them. It’s designed to do these things with a mouse or touch pad, by placing the cursor on “hot corners” of the screen. On my MacBook Air, these cursor actions worked perfectly, after a bit of practice.

This function is helped by a Parallels 8 feature called Sticky Mouse. If you move the cursor quickly out of a window on the Mac containing Windows 8, it changes to the Mac cursor for use with Mac programs. But if you move it slowly, it stops at the hot corners in Windows 8 so you can trigger the Windows controls.

One thing that didn’t work as it would on a Windows PC, in either Parallels or Fusion, was swiping into the edges of the touch pad to bring up the controls and app functions.

In my tests of Parallels, I was able to run both the new, full-screen apps in Windows 8—code-named Metro apps—and the traditional Windows apps, such as Office, on the familiar Windows desktop.

The integration of Windows 8 and Mountain Lion features worked well. I was able to dictate text into Windows 8 apps and to drag a file onto the Mac’s Dock icon for the Windows 8 version of Outlook to create a new email with that file attached, just as you can do with the Apple Mail icon.

In the Mac’s new Notification Center, which alerts users to things like calendar events and new emails, Parallels allowed Windows 8 notifications, like new Outlook emails and conformation of Windows app purchases, to appear.

I did find one major downside to using Windows 8 on a Mac. While it worked like a breeze on my relatively new MacBook Air, both Windows 8 under Parallels, and Mac programs running simultaneously, suffered delays when I tried them on an older iMac.

I can recommend Parallels 8 as a good solution for running Windows on a Mac simultaneously with Mac programs, and especially for Mac users who want to also use Windows 8 later this fall, or experiment with the pre-release version.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120904/in-a-parallels-world-mac-and-windows-coexist-app-ily/feed/ 0 Insert Bad Cat Pun Here: Mountain Lion Usage Growing Quickly http://allthingsd.com/20120731/insert-bad-cat-pun-here-mountain-lion-usage-growing-quickly/ http://allthingsd.com/20120731/insert-bad-cat-pun-here-mountain-lion-usage-growing-quickly/#comments Tue, 31 Jul 2012 21:24:04 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=236133 After only 48 hours at market, Apple’s new Mountain Lion operating system was generating about 3 percent of all Mac Web traffic. Now, just four days later, the OS is generating traffic nearly double that.

New research provided to AllThingsD by Web tracking firm Chitika shows that as of midnight ET on July 30, Mountain Lion was generating 5.83 percent of all Mac Web traffic. That makes it Apple’s fourth most popular desktop OS after Leopard; Snow Leopard remains by far the most popular with a usage rate of 44.60 percent. It also means Mountain Lion has had the most successful Mac OS launch to date, a point recently driven home by Apple’s announcement Monday that it had been downloaded 3 million times in just four days.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120731/insert-bad-cat-pun-here-mountain-lion-usage-growing-quickly/feed/ 0 Apple Unleashes Its New Mountain Lion System http://allthingsd.com/20120725/apple-unleashes-its-new-mountain-lion-system/ http://allthingsd.com/20120725/apple-unleashes-its-new-mountain-lion-system/#comments Wed, 25 Jul 2012 12:38:22 +0000 Katherine Boehret http://allthingsd.com/?p=233652 The line between personal computers and mobile devices has been blurring for years. With the release Wednesday of Apple’s newest operating system, called Mountain Lion, shifting between these devices has become even more natural.


[ See post to watch video ]

I’ve tested the new operating system, formally known as OS X version 10.8, for the past week. It introduces new functions and it mirrors several helpful features first found in the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, such as seamless sharing with third-party networks, iCloud integration and dictation. But I ran into some trouble with Twitter notifications and Calendar.

Apple’s Mountain Lion, which comes just a year after the launch of its previous operating system called Lion, incorporates elements from mobile, but still maintains a separation between the PC OS and the mobile OS. Later this year Microsoft will introduce Windows 8, its first operating system that completely merges the company’s tablet operating system with Windows.

image

Mountain Lion’s Facebook Share sheets let people instantly share content to Facebook.

For $20, one copy of Mountain Lion can be installed and used on all of the computers that you and your family own. Starting Wednesday, it’s available exclusively as a digital download from Apple’s Mac App Store. Most Macs bought in mid-2007 or later that run OS X version 10.6.8 or later will be able to upgrade.

There are over 200 new features in Mountain Lion, so I focused on the ones that made the biggest impression on me. That list includes Messaging, which elegantly blends iMessage with other messaging on the PC; Notification Center, which cleans up notifications from various applications by organizing them in a single panel that slides out from the screen’s right side using a two-finger trackpad swipe; Dictation, which lets people speak anywhere they can type; and integration with Facebook and Twitter, though Facebook won’t work until this fall via a software update.

image

Messaging elegantly blends iMessage with other messaging on the PC.

I got completely addicted to Mountain Lion’s Share sheets, which pop up whenever you’d hope to be able to share something. This includes Web pages from Apple’s Safari Web browser, and items from Apple’s Notes program or photos that you want to send to friends. Share sheets use whimsical animations to bring a paper clip, photo and text together on a little piece of virtual paper that gets whooshed off into the ether. Sharing works through a variety of methods, so you can be sure to reach anyone.

ICloud, Apple’s cloud service, is one of the keys to Mountain Lion’s magic, and it works in the background to send the same data to applications on all of your enabled iOS devices. This lets you relax and pay less attention to what you stored where, because it doesn’t really matter. If you don’t own other Apple devices or don’t use iCloud, Mountain Lion won’t make quite as much of an impact on you.

It’s also worth noting that Apple’s mobile operating system, called iOS, won’t be updated until this fall, meaning a PC, iPhone, iPad or iPod touch should by then work more cohesively with Mountain Lion. I got an early look at Mountain Lion’s integration with Facebook, which is still in its “beta,” or test phase, and is currently only available to developers.

Two of the coolest Mountain Lion features will only work with certain new Macs: Power Nap and AirPlay Mirroring. Power Nap, which updates the PC once an hour as the computer sleeps, only works on the MacBook Pro with Retina Display or MacBook Airs made after mid-2011. AirPlay Mirroring lets people display whatever is on their Mac’s screen on an HDTV with a $99 Apple TV device plugged into it. AirPlay Mirroring only works with the second-generation or newer Apple TV and the iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro made at least as recently as 2011.

image

The Notification Center cleans up notifications from various applications by organizing them in a single panel that slides out from the screen’s right side using a two-finger trackpad swipe.

I tested both of these features on a MacBook Pro with Retina Display and they worked as advertised. My email, software updates and calendar alerts appeared almost immediately when I woke my PC, thanks to Power Nap. But it doesn’t update a computer that’s asleep for less than an hour, which is often the case for me since I take short, 30-minute breaks while I write. I used AirPlay Mirroring by clicking one button on my MacBook Pro with Retina Display and watching a YouTube video about Sally Ride on my 42-inch HDTV. The image quality looked terrific.

Mountain Lion does a nice job of integrating third-party services, like Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Vimeo. If you sign into a network once, you’re signed in everywhere else you might use that network on the PC, which is a plus. Facebook and Twitter integrate with PC Contacts to do smart things like using friends’ Facebook profile photos as Contact photos, and updating these images automatically as friends change them. You can also grab profile photos from Facebook for contacts who aren’t your Facebook friends.

But some features in Mountain Lion need a little polishing.

The Notification Center wasn’t as helpful as I hoped. Twitter and Facebook status update boxes at the top of the Notification Center panel were too limited. When I pasted long Web URLs into tweets, they weren’t automatically shortened, which forced me to use Twitter.com or TweetDeck. Facebook status updates only let you type plain text rather than tagging friends or uploading images in posts.

Notification Center promises to alert you of @reply or direct messages that you receive from Twitter. But it failed to tell me about dozens of @replies that I received; the only ones I did see were from people I follow on Twitter. After some troubleshooting, Apple conceded that Notification Center is currently only capable of showing @reply or direct message notifications from people you follow. They promised to fix this issue in a future update to Mountain Lion.

Facebook notifications from the Notification Center weren’t yet ready for me to test.

The Notification Center kept my last five unread emails, as well as upcoming calendar appointments, and alerts and banners appeared in the top right of my computer screen to tell me about certain things so I wouldn’t miss them. If this drives you nuts, a simple on/off switch at the top of the Notification Center will stop them for a day; settings in System Preferences will permanently turn them off.

I also had trouble with Calendar, which repeatedly told me it couldn’t sign into my Google Calendar, though it displayed events from my Google Calendar. I did a lot of troubleshooting with Apple, but couldn’t solve the problem. Apple said this was an issue they haven’t seen before and that they’re planning to fix it.

Dictation works wherever you can type in Mountain Lion, and users can get it working using one of two methods: Tap the Function key quickly then again to hold it down and speak, then let it go when finished, or simply select the microphone icon (where visible) when you start and stop dictating. This works like dictation on the iPhone or iPad, which shouldn’t be confused with the iPhone’s digital assistant, Siri. You’ll still need to use keyboard shortcuts or the mouse, rather than your voice, to perform commands like “Send” or “Post.”

Apple’s iCloud replicates Reminders and Notes on your PC and other devices. This was a big help to me as I tested Mountain Lion because I wrote down a lot of my impressions in Notes, and these synced to my iPad and iPhone.

I successfully tested other features including setting up VIPs in Mail, storing documents from Pages in iCloud and testing Tab View in the new version of Safari.

For people who already use iPhones, iPads or iPod touches, many of the new features in Mountain Lion will feel like second nature. I can’t completely rely on Notification Center just yet, but this operating system’s focus on smart sharing and overall integration with social networks makes it a pleasure to use.

Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120725/apple-unleashes-its-new-mountain-lion-system/feed/ 0 Windows or Apple? http://allthingsd.com/20120710/windows-or-apple/ http://allthingsd.com/20120710/windows-or-apple/#comments Wed, 11 Jul 2012 01:18:54 +0000 Walt Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=228962 Q:

My home PC using XP has become very unreliable and I am intending to replace it. The question is whether to move on to Windows 7 or switch to Apple? Our house is a Windows house with Windows based external hard drives, games and photo-processing software. However Microsoft’s products seem to lose reliability over time. Then there is the virus issue. In contrast, I have yet to come across anybody who has made the switch from Windows to Apple and regretted it.

A:

My bet is you’d likely be happy with Apple, but, given your long and total commitment to Windows, I would wait to see how you feel about the heavily revamped new Windows 8, due this fall, and the new PCs on which it will come preinstalled.

Q:

My wife and I recently switched to HTC Thunderbolt Android phones and find we cannot easily coordinate our phones and computers. Often when we sync, we get double and triple contacts and events. Is there a phone or something that can easily work for us?

A:

It’s hard to know what specific issue your phones or accounts are having. Android phones naturally use Google Calendar and Google Contacts, and, in my experience, they sync both calendar events and contacts well among Android mobile devices, PCs, Macs, iPhones and iPads, even with multiple users. On computers, most Google Calendar and Contacts users access these services from within Web browsers (contacts are typically accessed from within Gmail.) However, if syncing won’t work for you, try one of the many other calendar or contact apps in the Google Play store, before going to new phones.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120710/windows-or-apple/feed/ 0 Apple Releases Mountain Lion Gold Master Into Wild http://allthingsd.com/20120709/apple-releases-mountain-lion-gold-master-into-wild/ http://allthingsd.com/20120709/apple-releases-mountain-lion-gold-master-into-wild/#comments Mon, 09 Jul 2012 23:41:48 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=228506 Looks like Apple is on track to deliver OS X Mountain Lion to consumers by the end of the July, as promised. On Monday afternoon, the company released a “golden master” of the OS to developers, giving them the final version of the software it hopes to release publicly later this month. Mountain Lion boasts a host of improvements and new features, including deeper integration with Apple’s iCloud service, AirPlay mirroring, and Facebook integration.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120709/apple-releases-mountain-lion-gold-master-into-wild/feed/ 0 Apple's WWDC Keynote by the Numbers http://allthingsd.com/20120612/apples-wwdc-keynote-by-the-numbers/ http://allthingsd.com/20120612/apples-wwdc-keynote-by-the-numbers/#comments Tue, 12 Jun 2012 11:01:46 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=219068 The hardware, software and service offerings unveiled during Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote address Monday made for the biggest story to come out of the event. But there was another, a story told in numbers — really big numbers. Liberally sprinkled throughout the keynote were a bunch of metrics and data points that collectively amount to a brief State of the Union for Apple.

Below, a rundown of those numbers:

  • This was Apple’s 23rd WWDC, making it the longest-running developer conference around.
  • It sold out in one hour and 43 minutes.
  • It hosts attendees from more than 60 countries.
  • There are 400 million App Store accounts.
  • And there are about 650,000 apps in the App Store itself.
  • 225,000 of those apps are designed specifically for iPad.
  • 30 billion apps have been downloaded from the App Store so far.
  • The App Store has generated five billion dollars in revenue for developers.
  • Soon, Apple will bring the App Store to 32 more countries, making it available in a grand total of 155 countries.
  • There are 66 million Mac users — triple the number Apple had just five years ago.
  • 26 million copies of Lion have been shipped so far.
  • 40 percent of OS X users are running Lion.
  • Mountain Lion will be the eighth major release of OS X.
  • It will feature more than 200 new features and 1,700 new APIs.
  • iCloud’s user base has grown to 125 million.
  • Through the end of March, Apple had sold 365 million iOS devices.
  • More than 80 percent of iOS users are running iOS 5.
  • There are currently 140 million iMessage users.
  • They send around one billion iMessages per day.
  • iOS has delivered 1.5 trillion push notifications so far.
  • There are currently 130 million Game Center accounts.
  • Five billion scores have been posted from them.
  • More than 10 billion tweets have been sent from iOS 5.
  • About 47 percent of all photos posted to Twitter are sent from devices running iOS 5.
]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120612/apples-wwdc-keynote-by-the-numbers/feed/ 0 Apple to Developers: "Get Your Apps Ready for China" http://allthingsd.com/20120611/apple-to-developers-get-your-apps-ready-for-china/ http://allthingsd.com/20120611/apple-to-developers-get-your-apps-ready-for-china/#comments Tue, 12 Jun 2012 00:43:06 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=219034 The Chinese market has figured prominently in Apple’s quarterly results for some time now. When the company last posted earnings in April, it reported a record $7.9 billion from Greater China — a 3x increase year over year. As CEO Tim Cook said at the time, “It is mind-boggling that we can do this well.” Indeed, first-half revenue for Greater China topped out at $12.4 billion this year — just $1.1 billion short of what it was for all of 2011.

Given that, it’s little wonder so much attention is being paid to China in the software updates announced at this year’s WWDC. Apple has added a bevy of new features for Chinese consumers to both iOS and OS X, and it went out of its way to note them during the keynote address that kicked off WWDC today.

To iOS 6, Apple has added Baidu as a new built-in search option in Safari. Also onboard: Support for video sharing sites Youku and Tudou and micro-blogging service Sina Weibo. Improved text input has doubled the number of Chinese characters supported in handwriting recognition. Finally, Siri has been updated to understand Mandarin and Cantonese.

To OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has added the above features, with the exception of Siri, along with a few others. There’s a new version of Lookup that supports Simplified Chinese and a new version of Mail that supports popular Chinese email services QQ Mail, 126 and 163.

“The Mac has been growing fantastically well in China,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, remarked during his portion of this morning’s demo. “Get your apps ready for China.”

Wise advice and another big nod to the Chinese market, which Apple clearly views as a massive opportunity.

RELATED POSTS:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120611/apple-to-developers-get-your-apps-ready-for-china/feed/ 0 OS X Mountain Lion Gets Faster Browser, Facebook Integration http://allthingsd.com/20120611/os-x-mountain-lion-gets-more-icloud-integration-faster-browser/ http://allthingsd.com/20120611/os-x-mountain-lion-gets-more-icloud-integration-faster-browser/#comments Mon, 11 Jun 2012 18:05:43 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=218810 Apple watchers have been jawing about the company’s forthcoming OS X Mountain Lion operating system for some time now. During the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference this morning, they got their first good look at it.

As expected, the OS has much deeper integration with Apple’s iCloud service, including new features like Reminders, Notes and Messages — a chat app that supports iMessage and other IM protocols — and something Apple is calling “Documents in the Cloud,” a feature that keeps your documents updated and synced across your devices. Another new feature is dictation. This morning, Apple’s Craig Federighi explained quite simply: “Anywhere you can type, you can talk.”

Though not announced on stage, Facebook integration is also coming to Mountain Lion via an upcoming software update. This will allow users to post photos, links and comments from within apps, and also adds the ability to receive notifications and post status updates from the Notification Center in Mountain Lion.

Also onboard:

  • A new version of the Safari browser with a faster JavaScript engine, a unified search bar and iCloud tabs that display open pages across various devices.
  • Power Nap, a feature that keeps your Mac working while it sleeps. It fetches software updates, updates your Photo Stream, and performs other simple tasks while you’re away from your machine.
  • AirPlay mirroring, which allows a Mac to share its screen with a TV or projector.
  • Game Center, a popular gaming feature from iOS.
  • Some new features for China: Improved Chinese input method, new fonts, and sharing support for popular Chinese Web sites.

Mountain Lion will be available next month via the Mac App Store for $19.99. That price is good for Mac users as far back as Snow Leopard. And one purchase updates all your Macs.

RELATED POSTS:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120611/os-x-mountain-lion-gets-more-icloud-integration-faster-browser/feed/ 0 The New Internet Has Arrived -- Now What? http://allthingsd.com/20120606/the-new-internet-has-arrived-now-what/ http://allthingsd.com/20120606/the-new-internet-has-arrived-now-what/#comments Wed, 06 Jun 2012 21:32:31 +0000 Craig Sprosts http://allthingsd.com/?p=217573 You’ve probably heard that the Internet is running out of IP addresses. The consequences would be severe if this happened — millions of potential Internet users could be deprived of Internet access and all its benefits.

As bad as this sounds, don’t panic yet. Most ISPs are upgrading their networks to support the transition to IPv6, and content providers are following suit. 

Starting at the IPv6 World Launch Day on June 6th, 2012, many of the world’s most popular Web sites will make content permanently accessible over IPv6. While the launch will expose some problems with “broken” IPv6 implementations in operating systems and browsers, most end users will get the content they want over IPv6 without issues.

So if there won’t be major service disruptions for the billions of Internet users worldwide, why should we care? Because the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 is the biggest single change in IP networking since the start of the Internet. And while it is a functional inevitability, the “new” Internet also presents a huge opportunity for enterprises, operators and content providers to turn the network transition from a necessity into a valuable business tool.

How we got in this situation and why we will get out

Internet Protocol 4, or “IPv4,” is one of the original Internet protocols that specifies the source and destination for data transferred over the Internet. Due to rapid Internet growth and our insatiable appetite for new devices, we’ve now used up over 93 percent of available IPv4 addresses.

The remaining 300 million unallocated IP addresses will go fast. Analysts estimate the number of Internet-connected devices could triple in the next three years from around 5 billion today to 15 billion by 2015. This increase will be driven by the ever increasing number of smartphones, TVs, portable gaming devices, tablets and laptops, as well as a variety of new smart devices such as home monitoring systems, appliances, smart meters and even automobiles.

The only long-term solution is for ISPs to upgrade their networks to IPv6, giving them more IP addresses. The good news is that they are.

Network-based solutions and applications provider Nominum surveyed 67 ISPs — which provide Internet service to over 110 million households — about their IPv6 plans. We found that 97 percent of these companies have implemented or plan to implement IPv6: 23 percent have already done so, 35 percent plan to do so this year and 39 percent plan to do so in 2013 or later. Not surprisingly, expanding the pool of IP addresses in order to grow their business was the number one business reason for making the change.

The business case for IPv6

It has been said that there is no business case for IPv6 for enterprises. This is simply not true.

Google and other forward-looking content providers are aggressively promoting IPv6. Why? What value do they see that most other enterprises don’t yet?

These are a few business cases to consider:

  • Increased customer loyalty — IPv6 makes “connection-intensive” content such as Facebook or Google Maps faster and enables new applications such as peer-to-peer gaming.
  • Higher network efficiency — IPv6 supports much larger packet size, which makes downloading videos and accessing cloud applications faster and less expensive.
  • Cost reduction — Many large enterprises (especially ones that have made acquisitions) have multiple “islands” of identical private IP addresses connected together by expensive Network Address Translators (NATs) that can be eliminated with IPv6.
  • Increased revenue — IPv6 addresses contain much more information than IPv4 addresses including the device manufacturer and Mac address, a unique identifier for each device on the network. This will make it easier for ISPs to offer their subscribers optional network-based apps like parental controls that allow families to choose what content their kids are allowed to view from any device. It will also allow content providers and their advertisers to more accurately target search results, content and advertisements to specific people and devices based on their IP address. In fact, this may be the biggest motivation for many ad-driven content-providers to adopt IPv6.

Now What?

Now is a good time for every network operator to think about how IPv6 fits into his or her future plans. Beyond looking at their need for IP addresses, companies should consider other business benefits such as the ones above. ISPs should continue interoperability testing and carefully monitor the pace of IPv4 exhaustion versus their current deployment plans.

Large enterprises should:

  • Verify that all new network equipment and applications purchased are IPv6 compatible.
  • Evaluate how IPv6 could help in their cloud initiatives.
  • Consider conducting an IPv6 pilot of their Web site.
  • Consider upgrading users to more recent operating systems such as Windows 7 or OS X Lion with better IPv6 support in advance of any deployment.

Small businesses should ask about their ISP’s plans to offer IPv6 service. Like the introduction of other major technologies, including the Internet itself, we are probably underestimating the change IPv6 will bring once broadly deployed. Once IPv6 is deployed there will surely be new applications that we haven’t yet thought of, and the Internet user’s experience will be better than ever before. Innovative companies will find ways to use this transition to improve efficiency, increase competitive differentiation and become more agile.

As Manager of Fixed Broadband Solutions, Craig oversees worldwide product marketing for Nominum.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120606/the-new-internet-has-arrived-now-what/feed/ 0 Rounding Up the Apple Rumors Ahead of WWDC http://allthingsd.com/20120606/rounding-up-the-apple-rumors-ahead-of-wwdc/ http://allthingsd.com/20120606/rounding-up-the-apple-rumors-ahead-of-wwdc/#comments Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:30:31 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=217175 Apple will kick off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference with a Monday keynote address from CEO Tim Cook, and there’s no shortage of prognostications about the products he’s likely to show off.

Back in early May we reported that WWDC would see the debut of a brand-new “blow your head off” Apple-developed mapping application. On Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal confirmed this. So we can almost certainly expect a new Maps application to be part of Monday’s presentation. Also a near-sure thing: A new MacBook Pro with a significantly thinner chassis and high-resolution “Retina-esque” display, as we previously reported.

But what else might we see?

During the opening night session at D10 last week, Cook’s comments about Facebook strongly suggested that the announcement of some manner of iOS integration with the social networking service — similar to the one Apple has already done with Twitter — could be on tap. As Cook said, when asked about such a deal at D10, “Stay tuned on this one.” Does that comment mean that iOS 6, which Apple plans to show off at WWDC, will have Facebook baked in? Certainly possible, as other have claimed.

Another likely possibility: New Macs. We’ve been hearing chatter about a refresh of most of Apple’s Mac lines for some time now. Yesterday, 9to5Mac reported that Apple has new versions of the MacBook Air, the iMac and perhaps the Mac mini and/or Mac Pro, the last of which is long overdue for an update. We haven’t been able to confirm this report independently, but it, too, sounds entirely plausible. MacBook Airs have not seen a refresh since July 2011. And the last MacBook Pro refresh was a relatively minor one in October.

Also possible: Deeper native integration of iCloud into OS X Mountain Lion and iOS 6. As I wrote when iCloud first launched, “If, as Steve Jobs says, software is the soul of Apple’s products, hardware their brains and sinew, then iCloud is their memory — and soon perhaps one of their biggest selling points as well. Certainly it’s a feature that will differentiate Apple’s already well-differentiated products even further from the competition.” ICloud may not be a major driver of customer loyalty now, but with its ease of use and promise of change-on-one-device, update-to-all computing, it will be, someday. And it’s been about a year since iCloud debuted, so it, too, is due for an update.

What else? APIs for iCloud and Siri, perhaps. Apps for Apple TV, or a broader enhancement to the device that paves the way for a more comprehensive TV offering. As Tim Cook noted at D10, Apple’s Apple TV business has grown quite a bit in the past year. In 2011, the company sold fewer than three million Apple TVs. In the first six months of this year, it has sold 2.7 million. As Cook told D attendees, “This is an area of intense interest for us. We’re going to keep pulling the string and see where it takes us.”

Perhaps WWDC attendees will get a chance to see, as well. We’ll find out on Monday.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120606/rounding-up-the-apple-rumors-ahead-of-wwdc/feed/ 0 Apple Television, AirPlay and Why the iPad Is the New TV Apps Platform http://allthingsd.com/20120604/apple-television-airplay-and-why-the-ipad-is-the-new-tv-apps-platform/ http://allthingsd.com/20120604/apple-television-airplay-and-why-the-ipad-is-the-new-tv-apps-platform/#comments Mon, 04 Jun 2012 12:00:01 +0000 Jeremy Allaire http://allthingsd.com/?p=216090 Ever since the publication of Walter Issacson’s biography on Steve Jobs where he cites Steve as saying that he and Apple had “cracked the code” on TV, there has been insane speculation about Apple’s purported forthcoming TV products and strategy. And appropriately so — Apple’s rise as the dominant global consumer electronics powerhouse for Internet platforms and devices ensures that whatever the company does, it will be transformative for consumers and the TV industry.

Much of the speculation has focused on whether a proper Apple Television monitor product would arrive, what size, shape and features it might present, and how it might integrate with Apple’s cloud services. Vitally, the speculation has also dovetailed with a belief that if and when Apple launches a TV (beyond the Apple TV puck offered today) that Apple will attempt to challenge the cable TV industry with a new subscription-based offering for mainstream TV content.

Will there be a new TV monitor product? What about an updated Apple TV puck? What does this mean for cable TV?

Asked about this at last week’s All Things D conference, Tim Cook was noncommittal, saying only that Apple TV is “an area of intense interest for us.” And that the company is “going to keep pulling this string and see where it takes us.”

In my humble opinion, the entire debate over whether Apple ships an actual TV set and introduces some updated iTunes video package is a complete sideshow for a broader and bigger phenomenon and transformation for how we all use TV, and that this transformation is already being rolled out by Apple.

However, before getting to that, I want to first put to rest the near-term question of whether Apple will launch a directly competitive product to cable TV — e.g., a multi-channel subscription TV product to the leading broadcast and cable content available today.

Apple’s Approach to Cable TV Content on their TV Platform

Apple will not anytime soon launch a competitive subscription video product to cable. There are deep structural and contract rights issues that limit their ability to do so, and Apple does not want to buy their way into premium content from top-tier broadcasters who are collectively making hundreds of billions of dollars worldwide from subscriber fees shared from Multi-Channel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs such as Cable, Telco, and Sat TV).

Given this, I believe Apple will seek partnerships with the top cable companies for them to open up their APIs for their EPG, VOD libraries and Network DVR infrastructure so that Apple can offer a superior user experience on top of those services, in a carrier/operator independent manner, much as they did with the mobile telephony services of the leading telephony carriers in the world.

In such a model, you’d purchase and use an Apple TV device (more on what the devices will actually be below) and use it in concert with an existing subscription from a TV operator, and access the TV functionality as an App. Yes, cable TV will just be an app among what will be tens and then hundreds of thousands of apps on your Apple TV.

While this is likely the path Apple will pursue in the mid-term, I believe they are unlikely to get any of the very top-tier TV operators like Comcast and Time Warner to go for their proposal. At best we might see an Apple TV EPG App that interacts with linear broadcast streams using CableCard integration with your existing provider which they could more or less do without agreement from the cable operators, but given how much value the cable companies are putting into VOD and Network DVR features, it seems unlikely that Apple would be happy shipping such a limited feature set.

So, if Apple hasn’t “cracked the code” on disrupting how we purchase and consume subscription- and advertising-supported broadcast TV content, what is going to be so revolutionary about Apple’s new TV product?

Reconceptualizing TV as an Application Platform

To understand where I think Apple is headed, one really needs to step back and re-conceptualize how one thinks about TV. In my view, TV is the last screen to fall as a computing platform. What do I mean by this? That we should think of TV screens and monitors as the final frontier in Internet-based software applications, not as devices to watch and consume video content.

Properly conceived, a TV is a large high-definition audio/video rendering device that plays a role in displaying content and related data. While certainly the ideal device for consuming and using video-based content, it is also simply put the largest computer monitor in our lives, and one that very often presents in a social context — the living room, the conference room, the dorm room, the classroom, the retail store floor and shop window. In short, these TV monitors are at the core of all of our major social and economic activities.

And in recognizing the broader role that these monitors play in our lives we can begin to re-conceptualize TVs as not just screens for video, but as a rich computing surface for viewing information, playing games, communicating, learning, shopping and so forth. In the past, when trying to use these screens for non-video applications, we would connect them to a PC or laptop (to present a shared piece of content that a group could discuss or interact on), or connect them to a game console for playing games.

In general, most attempts to evolve the capabilities of the TV monitor into richer computing platforms have failed. There are many reasons, far too many to discuss here, but in short the TV monitor as computing platform has failed because of poor execution on software, software user experience and poor user interaction devices and paradigms.

The iPhone and iPad as Next-Generation TV Computers

It is precisely with this re-conceptualization of TV in mind that I believe Apple has “cracked the code” on TV. Specifically, Apple sees that TV monitors are just that — high-quality audio/video rendering devices — and that the real power lies in application platforms and user interaction devices that can be easily brought to bear on those monitors.

But rather that putting Apple software directly into the TV, they are bringing your existing Apple devices and applications to the TV set without requiring you to buy a new TV monitor. In short, the iPhone and iPad in your pocket or handbag is the next-generation TV set-top box, and it is both highly personal and highly social and capable of bringing hundreds of thousands and soon millions of rich interactive applications and experiences onto your TV set.

And this is where Apple AirPlay comes into the picture. Released with a significant upgrade as part of iOS 5 last year, and becoming a core part of OS X this summer, AirPlay allows a user to easily beam any content or application to an Apple TV device. The basic use case is that when your iPhone or iPad sees that an Apple TV is on your network, you can easily beam audio and video directly to the TV. This allows you to browse and discover any media on your Apple iOS device and experience and enjoy it on a TV, including even any videos that you encounter on the Web (assuming they properly support HTML5, HLS streaming and the players detect and surface AirPlay UI).

Already today, there are fantastic iOS Apps that take nice advantage of it — Netflix, MLB At Bat, CNN, MSNBC and dozens of other mainstream video sources can be browsed and selected on an iPad and beamed to the TV set. It’s an effortless and enjoyable experience.

But AirPlay is not just for video; increasingly, it is for any kind of application. In last year’s update to AirPlay, Apple introduced two new and inter-related concepts: AirPlay Mirroring and Dual Screen Apps. AirPlay Mirroring allows you to mirror your iPad (or iPhone) screen onto your TV monitor with ease (if you own an Apple TV, try the following — double click the round home button on your iPhone or iPod and swipe the bottom apps menu to the right once or twice and you’ll see the Apple TV icon, and you can then mirror your device).

This is incredibly powerful. It essentially turns your iPad into a powerful TV Apps platform that can render any application on the TV while enabling the user to use their touch-based device to browse, select, navigate, etc. To fully take advantage of this capability, developers need to create “Dual Screen Apps” that are aware of AirPlay and of the TV screen and the local touch-based iOS screen. And it’s already happening: From MLB, which allows you to use your iPad as a second screen for HD baseball game broadcasts, to games that render on the TV while using your phone or tablet as a controller, to many of Apple’s own native apps like iPhoto and Keynote which present rich interactive interfaces on the iPad while rendering media onto the TV.

TV Apps are here and they’re all about building dual-screen iPad Apps that interact with AirPlay-enabled Apple TV devices.

All of this hangs together if Apple is successful with a broadly distributed device to connect to your TV monitor. Today, that is the Apple TV puck. Even now, it is a highly compelling product — $99 for enabling your TV to become a general purpose app and content platform controlled and used from any iOS (and soon Mac OSX) device. I added one to every TV in my home, and now rarely use my Smart TV embedded OS or my cable TV set-top OS/interface. I’m playing games on my TV with my kids, watching movies, streaming live broadcast TV using authenticated TV Apps from companies like CNN and ESPN, and with dual-screen MLB it is hands down the best way to watch baseball with an iPad App in hand.

While there are clearly bugs and user experience issues with how AirPlay is implemented today (and this is clearly recognized by Apple, who have more or less kept AirPlay features on the down-low), it holds incredible promise and, more importantly, I believe is at the center of Apple’s emerging TV strategy.

The Next Generation Apple TV Device(s)

This brings us full circle to the core question — what will Apple’s next generation TV device products encompass and enable? If my analysis is correct, I believe that this will likely mean that the core focus for Apple will not be on their own TV monitor product, but on continuing to advance a device platform for extending iOS onto TV sets easily, while dipping their toe into the actual TV monitor business as well. What’s critical is that they be able to sell a massive volume of TV add-on devices to consumers who already own HD TV devices, because at the end of the day the core focus is on extending the iOS and iTunes ecosystem onto the TV, and the fastest way to accomplish this is with a commodity add-on peripheral.

At the core of Apple’s NG TV products will be new hardware and new software.

First, Apple will release a new Apple TV add-on product, though I expect that rather than using the current “puck” design it will instead be a thin black bar, perhaps 1 inch tall and 3 inches wide, that can easily mount to the top of almost any existing HD capable TV set. Like the existing Apple TV, it will have HDMI and power jacks on the back, but it will also include a high-def camera built into its face, as well as an embedded iOS environment that provides motion sensing and speech processing.

Second, Apple will also release a TV monitor product as well with identical capabilities as the updated Apple TV add-on device, but in a design and form factor that presents the Apple brand effectively. Why would they do this when it is such an established market with such long replacement cycles? In short, because they can, and it will be gorgeous and include the latest innovations in display technology, and will sell at a premium price that ensures a reasonable gross margin for Apple.

Third, Apple will provide updates to iOS that include significantly enhanced and improved AirPlay functionality, and where AirPlay capabilities become a more front and center aspect of the iOS experience. Additionally, they will release new iOS APIs for dealing with second screen device capabilities such as the new camera and microphone, motion detection and speech recognition. Developers will be encouraged to build iOS apps that are Apple TV ready, using dual-screen features and motion user interaction, among other things.

The Big Picture Isn’t Apple Cable TV, It’s the 500,000 TV Apps Already Here on iOS

Not to beat a dead horse here, but Apple will not, at least right now, re-invent the pricing and packaging and user experience of long-form cable and broadcast TV content, at least not much beyond the iTunes store. In fact, if anything, Apple will recognize that a deeper alliance with TV operators is inevitable (to build on their EPG, VOD and Network DVR APIs), and will push further into providing support for TV Everywhere authentication services in iOS, and evangelize broadcast brands to launch TV Apps for their networks and shows that take advantage of the NG Apple TV model described above. Further, they may seek alliances with the likes of Comcast to launch pure-play over the top (OTT) editions of products like XFinity as TV apps.

But it won’t matter, because with Apple TV, cable content is just an app. What matters is that soon potentially tens of millions of HD capable monitors will become a screen for the hundreds of thousands of apps running on devices that are already in your hands.

Jeremy Allaire is founder, Chairman and CEO of Brightcove, a leading global provider of cloud-based software used by media companies and marketers for online video and mobile apps.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120604/apple-television-airplay-and-why-the-ipad-is-the-new-tv-apps-platform/feed/ 77 Psyonara Psystar http://allthingsd.com/20120515/psyonara-psystar/ http://allthingsd.com/20120515/psyonara-psystar/#comments Tue, 15 May 2012 17:05:03 +0000 John Paczkowski http://allthingsd.com/?p=208361 Psystar’s ill-advised campaign against Apple has ended in an utter rout.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review the Ninth Circuit’s rejection of the Mac clone maker’s claims that Apple violated antitrust law by refusing to license Mac OS X to third-party hardware manufacturers. In doing so, the court let stand an earlier ruling barring Psystar from peddling PCs with the Mac OS X operating system preinstalled, circumventing the technological measures Apple uses to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X and assisting others in doing so.

Which means this is likely the last we’ll be hearing from Psystar, which was already bankrupt when it embarked on this little adventure, though the company’s legal counsel continues to put on a brave face.

“I’m sure that the Supreme Court will take a case on this important issue eventually,” K.A.D. Camara of Houston law firm Camara & Sibley, told CNET.

Somehow, I doubt that. Recall that Psystar was found to have violated Apple’s exclusive reproduction right, distribution right, and right to create derivative works by installing Mac OS X on its hackintoshes in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120515/psyonara-psystar/feed/ 0 Apple Fights Back Against Malware Attack http://allthingsd.com/20120410/apple-fights-back-against-malware-attack/ http://allthingsd.com/20120410/apple-fights-back-against-malware-attack/#comments Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:02:51 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=195097 Apple just posted a Knowledge Base article on the the Flashback malware incident that has been the subject of so much discussion since it was revealed to have created a a 600,000-Mac-strong botnet last week.

By my scorecard, the article amounts to the first public comment Apple has made on the subject, period. And it’s very interesting indeed, especially in light of all the flak the company had been taking over what appeared, to some eyes, to have been an inadequate response.

First and foremost, Apple says, it is working on software to detect and remove the malware from an infected machine. Secondly, the company says it is working with Internet service providers around the world to disable the servers that are being used as the “command and control” network that’s basically telling compromised machines what to do.

Apparently it’s this effort that has caused trouble for the security outfit Dr. Web, which originally discovered the vulnerability in the first place: In working on shutting down the C&C servers, Apple apparently got servers that Dr. Web had used to track the spread of the outbreak shut down as well, according to this report on Forbes.com.

The vulnerability that allowed the malware to get through in the first place wasn’t in Apple’s Mac OS X itself, but in Oracle’s Java. Apple agrees with me at least with regard to machines running older versions of Mac OS: Disable it.

Anyway, here’s Apple’s article, in its entirety:

About Flashback malware
Summary

A recent version of malicious software called Flashback exploits a security flaw in Java in order to install itself on Macs.

Products Affected

Java, Mac OS X 10.6, OS X Lion

A recent version of malicious software called Flashback exploits a security flaw in Java in order to install itself on Macs.

Apple released a Java update on April 3, 2012 that fixes the Java security flaw for systems running OS X v10.7 and Mac OS X v10.6. By default, your Mac automatically checks for software updates every week, but you can change that setting in Software Update preferences. You can also run Software Update at any time to manually check for the latest updates.

Apple is developing software that will detect and remove the Flashback malware.

In addition to the Java vulnerability, the Flashback malware relies on computer servers hosted by the malware authors to perform many of its critical functions. Apple is working with ISPs worldwide to disable this command and control network.

Additional Information

For Macs running Mac OS X v10.5 or earlier, you can better protect yourself from this malware by disabling Java in your web browser(s) preferences.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120410/apple-fights-back-against-malware-attack/feed/ 0 How to Find Out if Your Mac Is in the Infected 1 Percent http://allthingsd.com/20120410/how-to-find-out-if-your-mac-is-in-the-infected-1-percent/ http://allthingsd.com/20120410/how-to-find-out-if-your-mac-is-in-the-infected-1-percent/#comments Tue, 10 Apr 2012 19:59:09 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://allthingsd.com/?p=194947 The chatter in computer security circles last week and over the weekend was about the Mac. A weakness in Oracle’s Java has led to the infection of some 600,000 Macs with malware, creating the first known Botnet comprised of machines on that platform.

Naturally, Windows apologists, sick of being the target of a decade of malware-based ridicule, were quick to jump up and down and scream that the Mac’s newfound market success has made it the next natural target for malware creators.

One thing that has been lacking of yet is a course of action for the 1 percent of Macs in use that have been hit with the malware. Kaspersky Labs, which did a thorough analysis of the malware today launched a Web-based tool to determine if your Mac is among those known to have contracted it.

The tool checks the Mac’s UUID number against a database of machines known to be affected and tells you if you have it, and if you don’t know what a UUID number is, it shows you how to find it.

If your machine turns out to be among the anointed 1 percent who some say are the harbingers of a new apocalyptic phase for Mac security, there is a removal tool.

So now that we’re nearing the end of this kerfuffle, what can we glean from this incident on the state of Mac security? First off, it’s necessary, as always, to include a hedging statement. In the investing world we often hear the phrase “Past performance is not an indication of future results.” It means that unknown, unforseen circumstances can always bring about a substantial variation in a known and established pattern.

On the subject of security the pattern has been this: Occasionally, a vulnerability, sometimes nothing more than a proof of concept, sometimes something a little more threatening, such as this Flashback malware or the MacDefender one that occurred last year, appears and re-opens the discussion. After years of marginal market share, the Mac now represents a juicy new target for malware creators, and Mac users are in for a rude awakening.

Indeed, various pundits have been saying that some onset of significant serious trouble for Mac owners is just over the horizon. This indeed could happen. A new supervirus could emerge tomorrow that causes all kinds of unforseen troubles. But it hasn’t yet.

Windows still remains a target. As recently as 11 months ago, Microsoft’s own data showed that of the 420,000 Windows users who downloaded a then-new malware removal tool, those who had infections averaged 3.5 threats per machine. And of the top 10 threats seen at that time, seven were the result of vulnerabilities in Java, something you should probably consider turning off, whether your computer runs Windows or Mac OS.

As of today, for those 600,000 people whose Macs are infected, they’re averaging only one threat per machine.

One is still too many, especially if it’s a bad one. And clearly Apple can’t act like it’s impervious to security concerns, yet there’s no evidence that it is. Just slow. Some critics have said Apple didn’t respond quickly enough to this latest outbreak, especially in light of the fact that Flashback/Flashfake took advantage of a Java vulnerability that has been known for about a month. Apple clearly could have and should have responded faster.

Apple last year hired David Rice, a former U.S. Navy Information warrior, so it has at the top of its security team a well-respected executive with a history of thought leadership on the subject.

The current state and future of Mac security will be a topic I hope AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg ask Apple CEO Tim Cook about on the stage at D:10 next month. One hopes he’ll give us some visibility into the urgency or lack thereof with which Apple views the evolving threat landscape.

But if this is the worst that the malware creators can dish out, I still like my chances on the Mac. The apocalypse isn’t here yet.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120410/how-to-find-out-if-your-mac-is-in-the-infected-1-percent/feed/ 0 Mountain Lion Safety Guide (Comic) http://allthingsd.com/20120221/mountain-lion-safety-guide-comic/ http://allthingsd.com/20120221/mountain-lion-safety-guide-comic/#comments Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:01:02 +0000 Nitrozac and Snaggy http://allthingsd.com/?p=176612

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120221/mountain-lion-safety-guide-comic/feed/ 3 For iPad and Mobile Devices, a 'Port' out of the Norm http://allthingsd.com/20120208/for-ipad-and-mobile-devices-a-port-out-of-the-norm/ http://allthingsd.com/20120208/for-ipad-and-mobile-devices-a-port-out-of-the-norm/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 02:04:27 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=172874 The pocket-size USB flash drive has become nearly ubiquitous in the PC world, for moving files among machines and for adding extra storage. But it can’t be used with most tablets because they lack standard USB ports.


[ See post to watch video ]

Now, there’s a special, modified, pocket flash drive that works as usual with PCs and Macs, but can transfer and stream files to popular mobile devices without standard USB ports, such as Apple’s iPad and iPhone, Amazon’s Kindle Fire and many other Android devices. Its secret: It has built-in Wi-Fi to beam the files to and from tablets and smartphones wirelessly. It can even stream files like videos to many devices simultaneously.

PTECH

The AirStash drive with removable SD memory card

It’s called the AirStash and is made by a tiny company called Wearable Inc., and distributed by Maxell Corp. It’s available at Amazon.com and a few other retailers for $150 for an 8 gigabyte model, which can increase the storage capacity of a base iPad by 50 percent. An AirStash model with 16 gigabytes is $180.

The AirStash is a clever device that solves a genuine problem, though not without some issues. In my tests, it worked as advertised, without crashing or exhibiting bugs. But it’s pricey and has one big drawback: When a device is connected to the AirStash via Wi-Fi, it can’t be connected to the Internet. The company plans a fix for that as early as next month.

The AirStash looks like other USB flash drives, except a bit wider. Its storage is provided by a removable SD memory card that pops into the bottom edge. You can substitute your own larger card. In fact, you can swap in the memory card from your camera and beam your photos.

This product is aimed at the iPad and iPhone, and the company has a free app for those products that makes it easy to manage and view the files on the drive. But its wireless file transfers also work, via the Web browser, on non-Apple devices, even computers. And the company plans an Android version of the app.

A typical way to use the AirStash would be to first plug it into your computer like any flash drive and copy onto it photos, documents, videos, podcasts or songs. Then remove it from the computer and press a small button on the front of the AirStash that turns on its Wi-Fi network. Next, you connect your iPad to this network, launch the AirStash app and all the files on the drive show up.

PTECH-JUMP

The AirStash app allows an iPad to wirelessly import photos from the drive.
PTECH-JUMP

The AirStash app allows an iPad to create a new directory on the drive, below.

From the app, you can view documents, play songs, watch videos, view photos or listen to podcasts. On a non-Apple device, there’s no special app, but you can still access the content on the drive. You just link up to the AirStash Wi-Fi network, launch your Web browser and go to airstash.net. A page appears with a list of the drive’s contents.

AirStash performed some feats I found impressive. In one test, I was able, from about 75 feet away, to flawlessly watch three movies stored on the AirStash at the same time on three devices. I had “Inception” playing on an iPad, “The King’s Speech” playing on a Kindle Fire and “Star Trek” playing on a Dell laptop. I stress, none of these movies was stored on the devices—all were stored on the AirStash.

In another test, I was able to watch a movie on an iPad, play a song on an Android-based Motorola Droid and read a PDF file on a Mac, simultaneously. Once again, all these files were stored on an AirStash drive 75 feet away.

The AirStash can beam material to as many as eight devices at once, except for video, where the limit is three devices. It can beam the same video to three devices at the same time. A parent could use one AirStash to provide different videos to each of three kids during a drive in the car.

Wearable, the maker of the AirStash, boasts it works in both directions: You can also write files to the AirStash from a device like an iPad. Technically, this is true. For instance, from the AirStash app, you can export photos stored on an iPad or iPhone to the drive.

But several iPad apps for viewing or editing documents, which the company says work with AirStash, require a geeky setup process, and I couldn’t get them to send edited documents back to the drive.

There are some other limitations. For instance, on non-Apple devices, the Web interface is rudimentary, and on the Kindle Fire, music can’t be streamed from the AirStash.

Finally, unlike most other flash drives, the AirStash has a battery to power its Wi-Fi. The company claims up to seven hours of continuous battery life between charges, and while I didn’t do a formal test, the battery life seemed good to me. You can recharge the device either through a standard USB wall charger, like those that come with cellphones, or by plugging it into the USB port of a computer. In the latter case, the Wi-Fi capability can’t be used while charging.

If you’re pining for easier file transfer or expanded storage on your iPad, iPhone or other mobile device without a standard USB port, the AirStash might be the ticket, albeit an expensive one.

Email Walt at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120208/for-ipad-and-mobile-devices-a-port-out-of-the-norm/feed/ 0 Digital Music Meets Its Match in Apple iCloud http://allthingsd.com/20111130/apple-itunes-match-review/ http://allthingsd.com/20111130/apple-itunes-match-review/#comments Thu, 01 Dec 2011 02:03:21 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=148916 One of the more interesting ideas in the new wave of cloud-computing services is the music locker. This is a service that lets consumers store their music collections on a remote server and access them from any device, either by streaming the tunes or downloading them.


[ See post to watch video ]

Amazon and Google offer such locker services. But they have a big downside: You have to upload all your music to your locker first. If you have a collection of several thousand songs or more, that can take days as most home Internet connections have slow upload speeds, even if their download speeds are decent.

Now, Apple has introduced a locker service that mostly eliminates that problem by doing away with the need to upload the vast majority of your music, while still allowing you to populate your locker with your songs quickly and easily. It’s called iTunes Match, and it’s the last piece in the company’s rollout of its massive iCloud initiative, which includes things like wireless synchronization of contacts and calendars.

Here’s how it works. Instead of making you upload your song files to Apple’s servers, iTunes Match scans the iTunes library on your Macs or Windows PCs, then matches the titles you have with the 20 million songs Apple has the right to distribute via its iTunes store. If your songs are included in that 20 million, Apple simply places them in your online locker. In almost all cases, users will be left with only a small remnant of songs to upload—such as recordings by garage bands. (ITunes Match works only for digital music, not movies, TV shows or audiobooks, even if they’re available in iTunes.)

Once the songs are in the cloud, they also appear in your library in iTunes on computers, or in the Music apps on iPads, iPhones and iPod touch devices. You can stream the music, or press an icon with a downward arrow inside a cloud to download it. You can include up to 10 devices in iTunes Match. Plus, iTunes Match—which costs $25 a year for up to 25,000 songs—covers any song you own, regardless of how you obtained it. That includes songs purchased from non-Apple music services or imported from CDs, or even those that were downloaded illegally.

PTECHjp

Pressing the cloud icon beside a song downloads it to a device.

I’ve been testing iTunes Match on several Macs, a Windows PC, and on an iPad and an iPhone. In general, I found Match delivers on its promises, despite some limitations and glitches, several of which Apple told me it will remedy via software updates.

Because of Match, my music collection is now complete and essentially identical on all my computers and on my iPad and iPhone, allowing me to access any of my songs from any of these devices, without manual synchronization via a cable, or paying more than once for the same song. My Match locker is even accessible from my Apple TV device.

Match is an optional addition to an existing free service called iTunes in the Cloud, which covers only songs you bought from Apple’s iTunes store, or which you buy there in the future. Songs bought from the iTunes store don’t count against the 25,000-song limit in iTunes Match.

Google’s music locker is currently free, but limited to 20,000 songs. Amazon is now offering unlimited music storage for $20 a year as part of a broader plan that allows storing various types of files in the cloud.

One nice aspect of iTunes Match is that even if your songs are in a lower-quality format before they go into your iTunes Match locker, Apple streams or downloads them in a relatively high-quality format.

In my tests, I scanned and matched the iTunes libraries on several computers containing all my music—about 5,500 songs, a number Apple says is fairly typical for iTunes users. The process took under an hour, including the time needed to upload the minority of songs Apple couldn’t match. However, I have a mostly commercial collection and a fast Internet upload link in my home. I have heard from at least one colleague with a larger library and a slower Internet broadband link, who says it is taking forever to upload his nonmatched songs to Apple.

In my case, some of my songs weren’t accepted by iTunes Match, and were marked with cryptic icons that Apple doesn’t adequately explain. A handful were declined because of an unspecified “error.” Apple later told me these files were corrupted, sometimes so subtly that it didn’t affect playback. Others were declared “ineligible.” Mostly, these songs had been imported from CD years ago at a quality rate of lower than 128 kilobits per second. Also ineligible are things like audiobooks or PDF booklets Apple sells with some albums.

In my case, these exceptions were reasonable and few, but Apple needs to explain them better. The company says it is working on doing just that. In the case of the subtly corrupt files, Apple says a new version of iTunes coming soon will be more liberal about disqualifying a song.

I also ran into two Match problems on my iPhone and iPad that Apple says are bugs that will be fixed in an upcoming release of the operating system for those devices. One bug scrambles the alphabetical order of songs, albums and artists. Another causes album art to either never appear, or to show up only when a song is almost done playing. Apple won’t say when the bug fixes will be ready.

There are a couple of issues that Apple has no intention of changing. One: If a person has more than 25,000 songs, Match won’t allow the user to designate a subsection for storage in the cloud.

The other: On iPhones and iPads, Apple downloads the whole of any cloud-based song you’re streaming, even if you don’t want it on your device. Apple says it does this for smooth playback, and for playback when you’re offline. It adds that all songs stored on your hand-held devices are now placed in a special cache from which old or rarely played songs are automatically removed periodically to make room for new ones.

In all, I like iTunes Match, and can recommend it to digital music lovers who want all their tunes on all their devices. It’s another nice feature of iCloud, priced reasonably.

Write to Walt at walt.mossberg@wsj.com

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111130/apple-itunes-match-review/feed/ 0 Delete a Facebook Account http://allthingsd.com/20111005/delete-a-facebook-account/ http://allthingsd.com/20111005/delete-a-facebook-account/#comments Thu, 06 Oct 2011 01:00:31 +0000 Walter S. Mossberg http://allthingsd.com/?p=129305 Q:

How do I permanently delete a Facebook account?

A:

Facebook doesn’t make it quick or easy. The default choice is to “deactivate” your account, which allows you to change your mind and reactivate, and thus spare the company the loss of a member. Deactivated accounts can’t be seen by others, but all their data remain on Facebook’s servers. You can totally and permanently delete an account, but this isn’t a simple process. You have to submit a request, at http://on.fb.me/n5OemK, or go to the Facebook help center and search for “delete account.” Then you have to wait awhile, while Facebook hopes you change your mind. More information on both options is at: http://on.fb.me/pxjtS2.

Q:

I am generally very pleased with the MacBook Air that I recently purchased. However, when I am on the road, I find that my Air loses connectivity to the wireless network that I am using. Any thoughts or suggestions? This is frustrating.

A:

I have noticed something similar lately, on my own MacBook Air that’s been upgraded to the new Lion operating system. It doesn’t randomly drop Wi-Fi connections, but it does take too long to reestablish them when waking from sleep. In my case, this is a new and recent behavior. I asked Apple about your question and my experience, and the company conceded that it has received reports of problems with Lion-equipped Macs “sporadically” dropping Wi-Fi connections and is developing what it hopes is a fix. That fix, it says, will be part of a software update to be made available soon.

MOSSMAIL

A fix is coming for MacBook Air machines with Wi-Fi problems.

Q:

I want a tablet for occasional road trips. If I get a Wi-Fi-only model do I need to worry about my passwords being stolen if I use an open network? Is it better, if cumbersome, to use my Droid X smartphone to set up a password-protected Wi-Fi hot spot and connect through it?

A:

I have long advised avoiding shared, open, public Wi-Fi networks when dealing with sensitive data. I am not a security expert, and I am sure there are ways for determined hackers to penetrate your Droid, or any smartphone. But I agree that your odds are much better with a password-protected network that you control, that only you use, and that relies on a cellular network proprietary to a wireless carrier. Just remember that your security is never guaranteed on the Internet, especially in public places.

Email Walt Mossberg at mossberg@wsj.com.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20111005/delete-a-facebook-account/feed/ 0