Redmond Pie » Mac

How To Copy All iOS 5 Photo Stream Images Automatically To A Folder On OS X Instead Of iPhoto

Paul Morris — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:33:59 +0000

The public release of iOS 5 in October 2011 brought a number of new and exciting features for the average consumer as well as iOS developers. A number of these new features are well documented and are heavily featured whenever iOS 5 or the iPhone 4S are mentioned and include things like the Siri, iCloud integration and the new Notification Center. iCloud is more often that not, referred to as a feature in its own right, which is generally not a problem, but it is worth noting that iCloud is effectively a wrapper for a number of new additions to the iOS platform.

You can think of iCloud as a technology which stores your music, documents and images and then has the ability to ‘push’ all of that stored content to any of your compatible devices. The process is automatic, seamless and effortless just as any cloud service should be. Contained within the iCloud service is ‘Photo Stream’ which basically offers cloud storage for all photographs taken on the device. When activated, Photo Stream automatically uploads all photographs taken on the device camera and automatically pushes it to other iCloud-enabled devices without the need for manual synchronization or any leg work on the users part.

The Photo Stream service is undoubtedly a great way for all users to keep photographs in sync between multiple mobile devices and computers, but to use on an iMac or MacBook; it requires you to have the newest and updated version of the iPhoto software installed. Some Mac users, including myself, are not the biggest fans of using iPhoto, so the ability to update without the need for this software would be the perfect solution.

A member of the Macworld forum, known as DJF3 has come up with a clever way of using the Apple Script language to automate the process which negates the need for iPhoto to be used at all. The process involves creating a tiny little script using Apple Script which is a handy scripting language created by Apple and made popular due to the fact that it generally follows normal speech conventions. To set the script up, you will need to open the Apple Script editor by going to ‘Applications >> Utilities‘ and paste, or type in the following code:

Make sure that before you save and exit the script, you change the target path folder ‘Macintosh HD:Users:user:Pictures:MyStream‘ to the folder on your hard drive where you want the images to be stored. Once you have changed the code to your specific requirements, click run in Automator and the script will work its magic by copying all of your Photo Stream images to the targeted folder on your Mac. The Script is a very handy little way to bypass the official method of storing your Photo Stream images to a folder should you not like using iPhoto.

(via lifehacker)

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Check Out Every Apple And NeXT Product Ever Made In This 30 Second Clip [VIDEO]

Ben Reid — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:53:26 +0000

Apple has evolved a lot since its inception by Jobs and Wozniak, two college buddies with a strong work ethic surpassed only by ambition.

Whilst Macs – in their various forms – now run at lightning-speed whilst encased in sleek compilations of various materials, this wasn’t always the case.

Rob Beschizza of Boing Boing! has put together a rather nostalgic ‘evolution of Apple’ video, scanning through virtually every Cupertino product from the past 35-odd years in a mere 30 seconds.

If you’re more than just a post-iPod Apple fan, I’m pretty sure you caught a few old-school classics in there, despite it falling under the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it category.

I like how the iPhone is paid special attention – afforded a little more airtime than every other product created by the fruit company. In spite of the usual dose of Jobs keynote enthusiasm, nobody could have predicted the device – launched back in 2007 – would have such an impact on the market. In four and a half short years, the device is now the most popular amongst consumers, having sold 37 million units in the last quarter of 2011 alone.

Despite Apple being in constant battle with Google, Samsung et al over who supposedly copied who, and whilst we’ll certainly not call anybody out for outright plagiarism, the influence of Apple’s smartphone device is plain to see.

Meanwhile the Mac and OS X continues to gain a legion of adopters, although competing with Windows on any level is certainly a mountain, one which Apple has yet to truly begin scaling. With consumers displaying the kind of hysteria usually reserved for Apple products regarding Windows 8, it’s fair to say Microsoft – founded by Jobs’ rival Bill Gates – will be enjoying the Lion’s share of the market in the foreseeable future.

As an early Friday Funny, Beschizza also compiled a video of the products created under NeXT – Steve Jobs’ temporary project – in a comparatively short video:

Packing a 25 MHz CPU and 256MB of storage space, this baby retailed for a staggering $6500 – and we though Apple products were expensive. Having said that, one has to wonder just how much one of these would fetch today in mint condition.

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FBI Files On Steve Jobs Released, You Can Read Them Online Right Now

Oliver Haslam — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 17:20:25 +0000

In what can only be described as an interesting turn of events, the FBI has released a document put together when Steve Jobs was being considered for a role under President Bush in 1991.

The 191-page document was compiled as a background check on Jobs, who was being looked at for a possible role on the President’s Export Council during the presidency of the first George Bush. The documents also outline details of a bomb plot against the Apple co-founder during 1985.

The full document is now available on the FBI website and can be freely downloaded for perusal by anyone should they so wish, and at 191 pages we’re sure we will be hearing of little tidbits for days to come, as people work their way through the document.

The overall feel from the few pages we have read is that there are a considerable number of people that Jobs apparently upset during the years leading up to this FBI investigation. You need not look too far through the document before quotes start to pop up in which some of the trademark Steve Jobs behavior is mentioned, including drug use during his youth with "several individuals [commenting] concerning past drug use on the part of Mr. Jobs" cropping up.

The famous reality distortion field, mentioned prominently in Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs, is also mentioned in the FBI’s report.

Several individuals questioned Mr. Jobs’ honesty stating that Mr. Jobs will twist the truth and distort reality in order to achieve his goals. They also commented that, in the past, Mr. Jobs was not supportive of [redacted] (the mother of his child born out of wedlock) and their daughter; however, recently has become supportive.

As is usually the case with such FBI investigations, Jobs will probably have been asked who should be interviewed, which makes us wonder just who was on the list. Given the number of derogatory comments throughout the report, it’s clear that Jobs’ friends at the time were perhaps not quite so friendly as he thought.

Jobs previous Top Secret security clearance is also mentioned during the report, which relates to his time at Pixar and the work the company did for the NSA during the late 1980s. The clearance was later revoked in 1990.

If you’ve got the time and the inclination, we’re sure there are a few interesting little anecdotes to be found in the 191-page document. Do let us know if you find anything!

You can read the whole document by heading over to the source link below.

(via Gawker)

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New HiDPI Images In Mac OS X 10.7.3 Points To Future Release Of Retina Display Macs

Paul Morris — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:58:38 +0000

Whenever a new product release draws nearer, we brace ourselves for the inevitable barrage of rumors surrounding the technical specification and the aesthetic appearance of the product. Post launch, we then sit in amazement as somehow people manage to perfectly predict just what is going to be announced, and laugh uncontrollably at the others who were so far off the mark. It was like they just tickled a random idea generator and printed the result.

The rumors however, aren’t always just about the potential of future hardware and on a more consistent basis the point releases of iOS and Mac OS X are starting to be stripped apart and little snippets of information being collated and pieced together. In the past we have seen logs from iOS which make reference to a possible quad-core processor being present in either the new iPad 3 or the next iPhone as well as the possibility of 4G LTE data connectivity. Each nugget of information is like a piece of a jigsaw puzzle which, when pieced together paints a rather interesting portrait.

The latest jigsaw piece has been found in the most updated version of Mac OS X Lion which was recently offered in the 10.7.3 download. John Gruber of Daring Fireball has made reference to a Twitter post from iOS developer Matt Gemmell, as well as a separate tweet from Cabel M. Sasser who both point out that a number of UI elements in the latest 10.7.3 version of Mac OS X have been replaced with new HiDPI resources which scale to a larger size.

In the blog post, Gruber outlines the different UI resources which have benefitted from changes:

Have you noticed that Safari’s hovering-over-a-link pointing-finger cursor looks a little different in Mac OS X 10.7.3? It’s not just that the finger is at a slightly different angle — it’s a new UI resource that scales gracefully to larger sizes. That’s not the only new high-DPI image resource in 10.7.3: the grabby hand in Mail, the camera cursor for selecting an individual window to take a screenshot of, and a few other UI elements got the high-DPI treatment in 10.7.3.

A possible explanation for the inclusion of these new HiDPI resources is the future release of a range of iMacs and MacBooks which contain a HiDPI display, in other words are Retina-ready. The speculation is intensified by the fact that some owners of Mac Minis have reported that after the installation of OS X 10.7.3, their machines are rebooting into HiDPI mode if they are connected via HDMI. Some of you may also remember the little check box which allowed users to enable a HiDPI display mode that was present with the release of Mac OS X Lion, which when selected, rendered everything with twice as many pixels as the standard mode.

It looks certain that we will have a Retina ready iPad 3 in the coming few months, so it makes sense that Apple would want to compliment that with a range of beautiful, super-high-resolution-Mac machines.

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Senior Apple Director Jumps Ship For Google To Work On A “Secret Project”

Ben Reid — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:37:17 +0000

Simon Prakash, Apple’s former senior director of product integrity, has just been hired by fierce rivals Google to begin work on a supposed “secret project”, details of which are currently unknown.

Prakash spent 8 years in Cupertino, his last role overseeing product quality control across all of the fruit company’s product lines.

Relations between the two companies are strained, with iOS and Android constantly competing for smartphone supremacy. Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs threatened to “destroy” Android, branding it a “stolen product” in his first and only official biography, compiled by Walter Isaacson.

It will certainly be interesting to see what the seemingly hyped project consists of, or if it is indeed worth getting excited over. The consensus seems to be that Google will utilize Prakash’s experience at handling the quality of Apple’s hardware – from Macs to iPhones – to deliver something for Sergey Brin. The possibility of new Motorola-branded devices – a company Google paid good money for back in August – would seem the most plausible outcome.

Employees of the big companies regularly travel from one to the other, but this is the first time a senior exec has been snatched from Apple and headed over to the Big G. Reportedly, Google has avoided directly extracting head honchos from Apple due to an agreement between the two companies as well as Pixar, Lucasfilm, Intel and Intuit. The rule was not only put into place to stop occurrences such as this, but also to keep employee compensation fees down to a minimum.

While the reports are a little sketchy, it is believed Prakash’s departure could spell an end to the agreement, with the Department of Justice said to be in the process of investigating the situation.

Whether Apple will miss Prakash remains to be seen, but jumping ship to Google will no doubt have hurt a company which has just posted record numbers in its Q4 earnings call of 2011. With all the aggravation Apple is receiving (and indeed distributing) in its on-going spat with Samsung, the fruit company doesn’t need any more distractions in the run up to the unannounced third tablet device, which is said to be dropping next month under the ‘iPad 3’ moniker.

(source VentureBeat)

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Best Buy Customer Survey Hints At A 42” Apple TV, Will Run iOS And More

Oliver Haslam — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:47:46 +0000

We’ve been hearing rumors and counter-rumors of an Apple television for a couple of years now, but things have really heated up of late.

Now Best Buy has waded into the talk of a television with an Apple logo by including such a thing as part of a survey run by the retailer.

In the survey, conducted by an outside firm for Best Buy, we are told all about a new television from Apple, and one that takes advantage of both iOS and iCloud to change the way we watch television.

With the 42-inch set, Apple "finally reinvents what a TV can do," is spoken of throughout the survey as if it is 100% real, with no mention about the possibility that the people in Cupertino might just be thinking about such a thing.

Other features mentioned are the ability to use your iPhone or iPad as a remote control, much the same as we can with the current shipping Apple TV. It’s a feature that we can all-but be sure of making it into any shipping product., so we’ll give Best Buy points for that one.

An iSight camera is also mentioned throughout the blurb, though we notice that Apple is currently calling its cameras "FaceTime Cameras" elsewhere, so that may be one big clue that something isn’t quite right here.

Most interesting is the supposed price of this Apple television. If Best Buy’s survey is to be believed then we will be handing over $1500 to get our hands on such a thing. With the price of televisions plummeting over the last year or so, that seems slightly high to us.

All that is pretty much irrelevant considering this is almost certainly not a sign of what is to come. While we have to give someone at Best Buy an A+ for effort, there is just no way that such a thing would leak via this kind of route. We all want Apple to make a television at some point this year, but this latest rumor doesn’t make us believe it any more than the rest.

Check out the full text from Best Buy’s survey here.

Be one of the first to get the all new 42" Apple HDTV at Best Buy for $1499. Apple finally reinvents what a TV can do:

42" 1080p LED flat panel display

Incorporates Apple’s operating system (iOS) found in its current Apple TV set top box which allows you to purchase and stream movies and other entertainment from the Internet

Download and use apps from the App Store. Can you imagine playing Angry Birds on a big screen in your living room?

Supports Apple’s new iCloud service for storing your movies, TV shows, and music content that you’ve purchased from iTunes and beam them to your Apple HDTV.

Use your iPad or iPhone as a remote control, and do everything from controlling your TV, to purchasing new shows and swapping content between your Apple devices and the iCloud service.

Built-in convenience with built in iSight camera and microphone for Skype.

In addition to iTunes, stream content from popular sites such as Netflix, YouTube, and flickr.

Available for $1499.

Sold!

(via TheVerge)

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Download Firefox 11 Beta For Windows, Mac & Linux

Paul Morris — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:35:28 +0000

I know what you’re thinking, you only installed Firefox 10 a few days ago on your desktop and Android devices, and the beta of Firefox 11 is out already? Well yes, it does seem that Mozilla are pumping out updates faster than a steaming freight train, but worry not as the beta version of Firefox 11 may just bring some updated goodness that appeals to you if you are a fan of the foxy browser.

Considering this beta release comes right on the back of the release of version 10.0, it contains some pretty sizeable and notable changes. One the largest and probably most useful additions, is the inclusion of add-on synchronization. The new sync features offer the ability to mirror any add-on installations you may have across multiple desktop machines, whereas previously you would have to go through the whole process manually for each set up. Firefox is playing catch up a little bit, considering browsers such as Google Chrome have offered this enhanced sync ability for quite some time, but considering the implementation issues; Chrome has suffered and it will interesting to see if Firefox handles this feature in a more elegant manner.

The official Firefox beta 11 release notes contain a number of feature additions as well as fixes and updates to certain aspects of the browser and reads as follows:

[NEW] Firefox can now migrate your Bookmarks, History and Cookies from Google Chrome.
[NEW] With Sync Enabled, add-ons can now be synchronised across your computers.
[NEW] The CSS text-size-adjust property is now supported.
[HTML5] The outerHTML property is now supported on HTML elements.
[HTML5] View source syntax highlighting now uses the HTML5 parser.
[FIXED] Redesigned media controls for HTML5 video playback.
[FIXED] Firefox notifications may not work properly with Growl 1.3 or later.

Users may have noted that in the Google Chrome browser, the update process occurs seamlessly in the background. This silent update feature will also now be included with Firefox on Windows. The somewhat annoying User Account Control, which seems to require permissions to do anything, will only need to be granted access one time only, meaning after the initial permission has been granted; updates will be handled seamlessly upon restart of the browser.

The latest beta version will also include support for web developers, allowing them to visualize a webpage in full three dimensional goodness using the page inspector 3D view which has been built in. If the machine being used is compatible with WebGL then viewing the page in 3D will offer a whole new perspective on web page structure and make up.

All in all, the new beta version of Firefox offers a mix of much needed features along with some important bug fixes and developer implementations. Visit the downloads page for Windows, Mac and Linux compatible versions, or, simply refer to the download links below to download Firefox 11 in standard English:

Download Firefox 11 beta [Windows]
Download Firefox 11 beta [Mac]
Download Firefox 11 beta [Linux]

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RAGE: Campaign Edition Blasts Its Way Into The Mac App Store – Download Now

Oliver Haslam — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:09:18 +0000

The Mac isn’t usually known for its gaming prowess, but if you’re the lucky owner of a top of the range iMac then you’re actually using a machine that would make a pretty awesome gaming computer.

Throw into the mix the fact that Valve has finally brought Steam to the Mac and that Apple’s own Mac App Store offers a great way for developers to get their games into the hands of users without the hassle of discs and boxes, and the Mac suddenly makes a little more sense as a gaming platform.

With that in mind, ID has released one of its top games for the Mac, with RAGE: Campaign Edition now available for download.

A first-person shooter, Rage is set in a post apocalyptic future, where an asteroid has struck the Earth with catastrophic consequences. Gamers will find themselves wandering the wasteland as the human race struggles to come to terms with its new fate.

We have to admit that the premise does indeed sound super awesome, and with ID’s turn of phrase, we’re sure you will too.

Developed by id Software, the creators of DOOM and QUAKE, RAGE is a groundbreaking first-person shooter set in the not-too-distant future after an asteroid impacts Earth, leaving a ravaged world behind.

Sounds awesome, right?!

You can download RAGE: Campaign Edition right now via the Mac App Store in exchange for $40, and you’ll need to sit and wait for the 12.47GB to download, too!

Hardware-wise, you’ll be needing one of those beefy iMacs. 2.4 GHz CPU Speed | 4 GB RAM | 25 GB
free disk space | (ATI): Radeon HD 3870; (NVidia): GeForce 8800 | 256 MB VRam. No Mac Minis here! In fact, ID says that no integrated graphics chips are supported, so that means no MacBook gaming unless you have one of the higher-end models and the MacBook Air is certainly out of the question.

As if you needed telling that!

Download RAGE: Campaign Edition for Mac [Mac App Store link]

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The Mac Will Get A Touchscreen In The Future, Recent Patent Application By Apple Suggests So

Paul Morris — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 14:53:46 +0000

There is no denying that as a company, Apple have reinvented the use of the touchscreen. Before the iPhone and iPad, we did have devices which used touchscreens, but these were mostly based on resistive technology and required a stylus or some other horrific jabbing device to operate. Then came Apple in 2007 with the original iPhone which had a beautiful, crisp, capacitive touchscreen built right into it which totally changed the way we use personal consumer electronics.

As a company, Apple are now onto the fifth generation iPhone model and about to announce the third generation of the hugely popular iPad tablet and in that time; the touchscreen technology has evolved. The introduction of the Retina display was a huge step forward along with the ability to handle multitouch user gestures for a more effective user experience. I also remember a keynote speech, which I believe was around the time of the original iPad launch, during which Steve Jobs made reference to the fact that touch displays just do not work on notebooks or desktop machines due to the ergonomics and the awkward movements required.

A new patent Application by the company seem to hint that they have been working on a way to get around the impracticalities associated with using a product like the iMac with a full touchscreen interface. Submitted this week to the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the application provides an outline relating to a concept of a desktop machine with a touch-enabled graphical user interface. We are all already familiar with various personal computers which already feature a full touchscreen interface, Dell and HP are a couple of examples of manufacturers who have already brought this functionality to the market. But we also know that Apple not only likes to do things better and improve upon existing solutions, but they also only get involved in something if they are sure they can reinvent it.

The application seems to suggest that the patent they are attempting to file focuses around on-screen virtual controls, which is a unique approach to the problem and would definitely make a touchscreen desktop machine easier to use, which addresses the initial concern.

The on-screen virtual controls concept includes a number of virtual knobs and sliding tools which I can only imagine would allow users to directly control a number of different options through various software packages and may be of particular use to music and video editors. The patent explains, "The visual augmentation could include displaying an outline and/or fill region (e.g. a color or pattern fill) around the knob element, displaying text labels for minimum and maximum limit values and displaying a slider element with the knob element".

The obvious progression for Apple would be to bring their touchscreen magic to their larger devices such as the iMac and possible MacBook ranges, but time will tell if they have found a powerful, user friendly way of achieving this.

(via PatentlyApple)

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Apple’s “Connected TV” Solution Set For Fall 2012 Launch, Says Report

Paul Morris — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:01:40 +0000

We should all know by now that the rumor mill which surrounds Apple and its products will never stop. As soon as a product is launched, the speculation regarding its replacement begins and continues for the next twelve months until we actually see the launch happening in front of us. One of the latest and most persistent rumors surrounds Apple’s intention to release a branded physical television set which some have dubbed the ‘iTV’.

The television speculation has been growing for a number of years, but has intensified recently due to links with certain component manufacturers which have prompted experts and analysts to go out on a limb and say the product is definitely coming in 2012. US analyst Gene Munster believes that Apple have struck deals with a number of high profile component manufacturers which will see the company launch the product within this calendar year.

Munster, who works for the Piper Jeffray analyst firm, has been speaking directly to these manufacturers who confirm that they have been approached by Tim Cook and his cohorts which Munster has told clients will be a huge success for Apple and will reinvent the way the world thinks of a connected television set. Munster obviously seems extremely confident of his claims, saying:

We believe that Apple only enters mature markets with the goal of revolutionizing them, as it did with the smartphone. Without a revamped television content solution, we do not think Apple enters the TV market… Apple enters markets to reinvent them.

His theory on the situation seems sound, considering it as a well known fact that Apple strives to do things better than existing solutions. So just how could the Cupertino company reinvent the television, considering it is such an established product? Munster believes that by offering premium pay-as-you-go content along with web-infused content and a new and unique discovery engine, Apple can succeed in their mission. One previous rumor which adds even more fuel to this iTV speculation is the fact that Apple have been said to be bidding for the rights to the Barclays Premier League, competing against the likes of BSKYB and ESPN which would almost guarantee an immediate customer base in the United Kingdom.

Munster has been wrong in previous predictions about this speculative product when stated that the television set would arrive in 2011, but the fact that the last few months have churned up more rumors than ever before and the addition of component manufacturers speaking out about the deal means that 2012 could be the year we see TV being reinvented.

(via TechRadar)

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Redmond Pie » Mac

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