Guardian iPad Edition

Ian | Reviews | October 28, 2011

The Guardian’s iPad Edition is now here. We order a Soya Latte and look for spelling mistakes.

We like the Guardian. Not just because we are lilly livered liberals or adore spelling mistakes, but because of all the ‘quality’ British newspapers it has done the most to embrace digital and the web. It has for long been one of the best websites of a newspaper since it decided to publish all of its content on there without a paywall. We loved its iPhone App, as it seemed to have as much care put into its design as its usability. The Guardian has long held design as an important part of its offering, even if its Berliner format is expensive to produce, it looks and feels great.

Newspapers and the iPad

Just like it seemed to take Facebook forever to build an iPad specific App, so it did with the Guardian. In this video, it’s editor Alan Rusbridger (if you ever closed your eyes and imagined what a Guardian editor looked like, surely Alan fits the bill?) explains how they’ve had a good look around at what other titles have been doing on the iPad before releasing something. I suspect this is a shrewd move by them, as the iPad has never been an easy to define device - is it for content consumption? Is it for creating? can it replace your computer? – well thats for you the user to decide ultimately (we think it can do all three). The world of publishing have hoped it would be the first answer to our question and to their prayers. They have wanted the iPad to do for them what the iPod did for the music industry, with us all rushing to iTunes to subscribe to their papers and magazines on our iPad’s. However we know of few people that stick with newspaper subscriptions after the free trial ends, often going back to simply reading news sites on Safari, or just sticking to the free BBC News App. Other recent attempts such as The Daily in the US have not proved as successful as hoped, with some complaining that the experience is trying too hard to be content rich leading to it being too slow to use.

The proof is in the reading

How Newsstand looks on the iPad home screen

Newsstand: Giving publishers prime home screen real estate

So with some excitement and trepidation I loaded the Guardian App from the App Store. The first thing of note was that it landed itself in the Newsstand folder, the new home of Papers and Magazines purchased in iTunes within iOS 5. In fact the Newsstand folder has caused some annoyances for people, as they have tried to hide it away in a folder themselves and can’t. The reason for this is it is simply an iOS folder itself, albeit with the appearance of a bookshelf. It simply contains Apps that have been designated Newsstand status. The Guardian iPad edition is still an actual App, even if Newsstand alters that perception. The crucial benefit of Newsstand though is it enables the Guardian to push out a new edition to your iPad without you having to remember to download it. This is the big difference to the Guardian’s iPhone app: the iPhone app is all about reflecting the Guardian’s constantly changing website, whereas the iPad app to give you a more (dare we say it) traditional newspaper experience, available to read when you wake up or first open your iPad.

Beautiful

The Guardian has always been a paper that takes design very seriously. It’s easy for its detractors to say it probably puts form before function, but its part of the appeal it has to its more liberal and media savvy buyers. I personally loved the look and feel of its new Berliner edition when it decided to not go tabloid like its broadsheet rival The Times, when others felt they where just being snobbish about the tabloid format. So I was excited to learn that the development of the iPad edition drew on the experience of the team behind the Berliner paper. Boy it shows, it’s a beautiful looking iPad App and for me the best attempt yet at bringing a print publication to a tablet computer.

Hold the front page

The front page is awash with great looking high res pictures to promote different stories. There was a time when this would of frustrated me, just as it has with previous redesigns of the Guardian website “just give me more headlines, not endless photos of bloody Charlie Brooker” (that’s not to say I don’t love Brooker, despite recent Lizard mentalness).

The Front Page of the Guardian's iPad Edition

Headlines: No pun downs here just a gorgeous use of colour

On the iPad edition it just looks so vibrant! There is great use of colour too, just as the Guardian’s iPhone app does to distinguish between sections. Tapping on a story takes you quickly to the item with another big illustration dominating the screen. They are using fabulous looking images though, which just make you feel good about looking at it on the iPad’s screen.

Whilst all of this is going on, there is a sliding rule across the top of the page allowing you to jump between different sections such as National, International, Sport or Comment. This reinforces the feel that you are reading a paper (glass?) edition rather than simply surfing the website.

Mono-tasking

Initially I wondered if the ‘delivered in the morning’ approach would be frustrating: would it instantly feel like the content is out of date? Especially given that it’s only a few button presses back to Safari and the Guardians own up to date and more importantly, free website. Then there is the social aspect: Would I want to see reader’s comments? What about Twitter and Live Blogs?

In reality though I actually felt happier. I actually read the articles properly, rather than skimming them, without also getting distracted by some other opinion from another reader. Fans of iOS will often cite the concept of ‘mono-tasking’ as a plus of the iPad: you are forced to focus on what you are doing at the very moment, free of distractions such as Twitter or Instant Messaging. I remember being told once that for every short distraction it can take much longer to then get your concentration back to what you are doing. I know I have a terrible concentration span but I found myself enjoying staying within the Guardian iPad edition and forcing myself to get a more rounded look at the news, rather than just cherry pick what I want from Google.

How much?

Right now for a limited period it will cost you nothing. The Guardian are offering a trial period of a free subscription so you can get a good taste of the App. This is a good thing on their part, as it enables you to see how much difference the automatic download of editions makes to the experience. Why is this so good? Well you don’t have to think about it. In the true Apple tradition it “just works”. It’s there and on your iPad for flicking through over the Weetabix. Even better, once downloaded it will all be readable without an Internet connection. Not all of us will be lucky enough to have 3G iPad’s or if we did, any guarantee of signal coverage on our commute.

Select an edition of the Guardian within its App

Morning Glory: Wake up the latest edition, automatically downloaded

Once the free trial period is up the subscription will cost £9.99 a month, with just a monthly commitment. As its a Guardian Edition, this gets you a paper 6 days a week from Monday to Saturday. We can only presume they have an Observer edition in the pipeline, or they are still trying to close it to form a Sunday Guardian. That makes it just over 40p an edition. Currently a weekday edition of the paper will set you back £1.20, rising to £2.10 for the Saturday Guardian. So a great incentive to save some trees.

Should you subscribe? Well if you already own an iPad and spend more than a tenner a month on the old Grauniad, then it makes perfect sense. Not a regular buyer? Well we recommend trying the current free trial to see if you enjoy it over a traditional paper. You then only have to commit to a tenner once to try it for a month.

This is easily the most readable and easy on the eye newspaper yet for the iPad. The Guardian’s typeface and design have set the bar now for other newspapers attempting to conquer the tablet world. It perfectly complements the device and feels great to use. If your someone prepared to spend money on your news past the normal free websites and Apps, then this is the place to put your beer tokens.

Review: OS X Lion – Part 3 ‘Spotlight broken’

Ian | Reviews, The UsedMac Blog | August 17, 2011

So it’s day 2 now of my Upgrade to Lion from my existing Snow Leopard install.

On the face of it it seemed all was well and working. It wasn’t long either after the installation finished that Apple released the first update to 10.7.1 meaning I’d timed the install well.

It didn’t take long though for me to spot something was up with Spotlight. Put simply, it wasn’t working. Like many OS X users, I use Spotlight as my main way of launching Apps. So the first time I tried to open something quickly (Activity Monitor in this case to work out what was taking all my performance up) by typing Act into Spotlight I noticed the only returns to my search where an offer to search the Web or Wikipedia for it. Hardly much use for getting my own Apps open.

So I thought I’d give it the benefit of the doubt and presume that perhaps due to the upgrade that Lion would need to re-index my Hard Drive before it sprang into life. So I left it for the evening to see if the little dot would appear within its magnifying glass icon. Appear it didn’t. Nor had it appeared when I returned to it this evening. So I rolled my sleeves up to try and fix it.

Having delved into Spotlight’s settings in System Preferences I realised that Apple have removed the option there to force it to re-index. So I then did a quick Google search and ended up on the Apple Support forums. This post suggested using a Terminal (a throw back to Lion’s UNIX roots) to essentially use a command line to switch Spotlight off then back on again, thus forcing it to re-index. However this didn’t work either!

About to pull my hair out I went back to the Spotlight preferences and by chance clicked on the Privacy tab. This is not what you want to see:

Somehow my entire Macintosh HD had been added to the privacy list, meaning it would be excluded from any Spotlight searches!

Removing it from the list meant that Spotlight leapt back into life re-indexing my drive. As it stands I have 87 minutes until it is finished. At least thought it has already started returning results and I can quickly open Twitter without reaching for the Dock.

So a frustrating issue to sort out and one which would stump a normal user without a Genius Bar visit. Hopefully this is one of only few niggles.

Was there an upside? Well it did force me to use Launchpad, the new iOS style App launcher for Lion. This was simple as you’d expect, but would I use it over Spotlight? There’s more chance of me buying a HP Touchpad…

Stay in control of your windows with BetterSnapTool

Ian | Reviews | May 24, 2011

If there’s one thing a little odd about OS X for new users, it is the behaviour of program windows.

Although the traffic light buttons of OS X seem similar to the Close, Minimise and Maximise icons found in every generation of Microsoft’s Windows, they aren’t. Those buttons in MS Windows are pretty intuitive: they maximise if maximise is hit, or minimise to the taskbar if the ‘underscore’ style button is hit.

One of the first things you notice when you first use a Mac is how ‘maximise’ seems to be broken. You can’t easily maximise a window to fill the screen around the Dock of OS X. Instead all that hitting the Green + button will do is expand the size of the window to use the screen space that the window thinks it should use. Want more? Then drag it bigger yourself. If you’ve done that then re-hitting + will return the window back to it’s default.

Obviously the benefit to this is not wasting screen ‘real estate’. That’s it though. Frustrating and it shows that OS X is poor at giving you control over your windows or would like to tile them.

If you’ve ever used Windows 7 you’ll of been impressed with one of its simply yet often overlooked new features: Snap

Snap makes it easy to size windows by dragging them to sides or corners. Want to have Chrome on half your screen then Word on the other? Easy, just ‘snap’ each app to each side of your desktop and they neatly sit there.

In fact one feature I really miss from Windows 7 is being able to ‘Dual Screen’ two app’s by tiling them vertically easily. So can I do that within OS X? Not without another app.

Luckily an iOS developing friend pointed me at BetterSnapTool on the Mac App Store.

BetterSnapTool does the same. Written by Andreas Hegenberg, it brings ‘Snap’ functionality to OS X. Install it easily from the App Store for £1.19 and then open it. It pops up a box to help you switch on the Accessibility API in System Preferences (fear not, this is easy to do and enables BetterSnapTool to do it’s thing). Once running it displays an icon in the System bar and opens its settings page. Lots of tweaking can be done.

It’s beautifully simple to use. Just like Snap on Windows 7, you drag your window to the side of the Desktop you wan’t it to use (either Left or Right) or if you drag it straight up it will fully maximise it. When dragging a lovely transparent animation of the space it will take up is shown to you to confirm how it will look.

So with just 2 swipes I’d easily and neatly tiled Word and Chrome, just as I wanted:

Tiling apps side by side with BetterSnapTool

No longer have that rare feeling of envy towards Windows 7 users

This is one of those apps that takes no more than a minute for you to realise how great a purchase it was.

It’s available in the Mac App Store for £1.19

Opera and the Mac App Store

Ian | Reviews, The UsedMac Blog | May 12, 2011

Having been alerted by a tweet to an update to Twitter for the Mac, I found myself browsing the Mac App Store for the first time in a while. Having looked at the top Paid apps and noting that the rather geeky XCode (used by App developers) was doing well I had a quick browse of the Free apps. Within this I was surprised to see an entry for the Norwegian web browser Opera.

Opera has been around for some time now pitching itself against Internet Explorer and Firefox. In fact it predates Firefox having been first released in the druid days of the web: 1996! Despite this lead on Firefox and a Safari like emphasis on speed, it never seems to have broken through like Firefox has, even with it being available on a number of different operating systems such as Windows, OS X, Linux and even for a time Solaris.

So why my surprise that its in the store? Well Apple has notoriously placed pretty strict restrictions on what it will allow developers to do. One reason many app’s aren’t available is that Apple won’t allow them to change or modify OS X. There are other terms and conditions for App Store entry that Developers for many good reasons may be uncomfortable with too, especially if they operate on Open Source licensing like Firefox. Given these aspects I’ve often expected the contents of the App Store to be from new startups and useful apps that can exist within the ecosystem at the free end of the market.

So it’s good to see a serious app like an alternative web browser to Safari being in the App Store. There are other examples but they are based upon Safari’s core technology (also used by Chrome and known as Webkit).

We aren’t though going to see Firefox or Chrome appearing any time soon. Neither Mozilla or Google would be prepared to alter their browsers licensing models to appear within the store. It would be fascinating to see if their inclusion would have an impact however I suspect that a user that wants to seek out an alternative to Safari will be happy venturing outside of the easy install process of the Mac App Store.

So should you install it? Well if your often on a very poor internet connection such as Dial Up (probably unlikely nowadays) or you are using your Mac with a 3G dongle, then yes. Opera has a feature known as ‘Turbo’. This switches it into a mode where it will call up pages you browse for via it’s own servers that will compress the site to reduce the size of the page. So graphics may be of a lower quality but it means pages will load quicker over a slower internet connection. Clever, ey?

Burn – Simple but Advanced Burning for OS X

Ian | Reviews | February 23, 2011

Burn is a free DVD & CD writing app for OS X. Having recently re-setup the UsedMac MacBook I thought I’d try out some free alternatives to regularly used commercial software. In this case we’d previously had Toast 8 installed but had rarely used it for anything that iTunes or Disk Utility couldn’t do with the MacBook’s SuperDrive.

So we’ve installed Burn having downloaded it from it’s website on Sourceforge. When opening the App your presented with a compact dialog with 4 different writing options: Data, Audio, Video and Copy. Very straightforward given how au fait all of us are now with the creation of CD’s and DVD’s.

In the case of Data you can drag in or add files from Finder and give the CD a title, as well as chose what type of disc you would like to make:

Creating a Data CD: Here we've added some PDF's to Back up

Having added some files and chosen that I want it to work on both PC & Mac’s I’m ready to burn:

Burn dialog: Choose your speed & finalising options

So as you can see the approach is pretty no frills. It’s nice though to have a simple App that does what it says on the tin, especially as it is completely free to use. I know if I was in a rush to get some Documents or audio files onto a CD it would be quicker than trying to use Disk Utility.

Audio does exactly what you’d expect to. You can burn audio files such as MP3′s, WAV’s (large CD quality files) and AAC’s (iTunes standard format). In this screenshot I’ve dragged some Apple Lossless files of Radiohead’s new album ‘King of Limbs’ into Burn to see if it would recognise this recent Apple format. It did and imported them ready to write them as a normal Audio CD to play back in the car or your CD Player:

Burning a CD of Radiohead's King of Limbs with Burn

Creating an Audio CD: Apple Lossless files added to Burn

Then there’s the Video tab, which again follows the same format and lets you burn video files as either a VCD, SVCD, DVD or a DivX CD. I’m not entirely sure if anyone has a need to make VCD’s or SVCD’s now but the option is there. DVD speaks for itself and the DivX option would allow you to potentially squeeze a film onto a 700MB CD that a DivX compatible player can play back.

Finally there is the Copy option. This will let you make an exact image of a DVD or CD, by dragging the icon of the mounted source disc into Burn in a neat drag and drop operation. It will then make an image of the disc on your Mac’s hard drive to then be burnt to a blank disc. It can also burn an image file to disc, so if like below you have downloaded an ISO file (Image File) of Ubuntu you can drag it into the Copy option to burn it to a CD:

Make a disc from an Image: Burning an Ubuntu CD

So no bells whistles or flashy lights but a simple neat and reliable app to make discs with your SuperDrive on your Mac. In use its been as reliable as Toast so far for use so it’s well worth a try if you want to save a few quid.

iPad: Friendly for Facebook

Ian | Reviews | January 25, 2011

The Social Network: Zuckerberg prefers partying to (i)Padding

Friendly for Facebook is a free iPad app that attempts to make up for a lack of an official Facebook download for Apple’s tablet.

For some time now we’ve found it odd that there isn’t a proper iPad Facebook app. After all it’s one if the most popular free iPhone apps and helps Facebook get a massive amount of mobile users. They’ve got a mobile optimised web page as well as an Android app. So why no iPad specific app?

Well when recently asked this, the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg said that they loved the iPad, but didn’t want to be tied any particular platform. They seemed to want to focus on ensuring that they’re site worked in as many different type of browsers as possible.

Facebook.com certainly work well on the iPad. In fact it’s a pretty similar experience to on a desktop running a modern web browser. There is one missing feature though: Facebook Chat.

If you can do without Chat though, is there any need for an iPad app? Surely the screen real estate of the iPad over the iPhone means that you can just stick to doing everything in Safari? Well you can, but sometimes bizarrely in the iOS world, a dedicated app just seems ‘nicer’.

So in comes Friendly for Facebook, an app developed by Oecoway Inc. This app seems to rework the FaceBook site into an App form. It works rather well as well, even if the interface is a little Early Learning Centre in its looks.

It’s a ‘lite’ version of ‘Friendly Plus for Facebook’ and one of many ‘lite’ versions becoming common on the App Store as a way of teasing buyers into trying before buying by developers.

When you first launch it requires you to Connect with Facebook through a familiar looking dialogue. Yep this is what will pop up whenever you wish to Connect a web app to your Facebook account, such as the BBC’s iPlayer or Twitter.

After a progress dialog you are in and taken straight to the Live Feed page.

Straight away you spot the Closeable Ads Banner at the bottom of the screen. Well they have to pay for it somehow, interesting its not iAds.

There is lots that it does well: Photo’s are nicely offered up via thumbnail and you can scroll through them easily. You can switch between the Latest News and Most Popular in your News Feed with a nice iOS style On/Off switch.

There are Buttons across the top for Home, Profile and Friends, as well as a ‘Friendly’ drop down which offers options, preferences and logging in and out.

It has small icons at the right hand top of the app to notify of Messages, Notifications and Friend Requests. All of which it can handle within the App. Occasionally if there is not an API for it, like for Facebook games, it will neatly open a Safari window within Friendly For Facebook and take you to the relevant page.

And it also does Facebook Chat.

So is it worth it on the iPad? Well put simply, yes. Although there is nothing ‘wrong’ with Facebook in Safari on the iPad (its very good), Apps always seem to feel better on iOS devices. In this for instance you can swipe up and down neatly on your News Feed and not worry about where you are in a zoomed in and out page. Essentially, its less clunky and feels more natural.

Downsides? Well sometimes I’ve found I’ve tried to send Messages or Confirm Friend Requests and its failed to do so, but not told me. Oecoway have been regularly updating this app though and I have noticed an increase in stability in recent versions.

It’s also completely free. So on that basis we recommend giving it a Download. It’s not going to waste you any time.

It gets a UsedMac Rating of 4/ 5

What will iOS 4.3 bring?

Ian | Reviews | January 17, 2011

iOS 4.3: it'll be better than our photoshopping

So now we are over the excitement of the arrival of the Mac App Store, lets turn our updating addiction towards the next iteration of iOS: 4.3.

Apple has just seeded the beta of this to developers, which basically means that an early version of it has been given to software developers of iOS apps in order that they can ensure they’re apps will work without hitch on the latest update.

As it’s a minor revision (a major change would mean a 5.0 onwards number) we shouldn’t expect major changes but mostly bug fixes and (hopefully) performance improvements.

They’re are these items to look out for though:

3rd Party support for AirPlay Video

AirPlay video already allows you to stream video from your iPad or iPhone 4 to Apple TV from Apple’s own Movies app. iOS 4.3 will allow developers of 3rd Party apps in the App Store to take advantage of this.

It will be interesting to see if Hulu in the US and Sky TV in the UK take advantage of this with their on demand and live streaming apps respectively. Sky currently charge extra for viewing its channels on the larger iPad, so perhaps they’ll leave AirPlay out, or charge even more for it.

Airplay for Photos

Just as AirPlay will allow you to stream videos from your palm to your TV, we expect this feature to do the same with your photo albums. So instead of turning your iPad into a slightly over specced Digital Photo Frame, you can now do the same with your 1080p 3D 60″ LCD TV. Joking aside this is a nice addition to the Apple ecosystem, so it makes sense that it is all tied up. An even easier way to show off the holiday pics.

Wifi Hotspots

This will bring the ability to create a Wireless Hotspot from your 3G data connection (catching up with Android 2.1 devices). iPhone’s can already ‘Tether’ to Mac’s and PC’s but only via USB or Bluetooth currenty.

I can see this being a feature that users will love as it potentially means 1 less gadget to carry around again: your Mobile Broadband dongle. You can simply switch on Hotspot and use the phones 3G connection to get online via your own Wifi hotspot. Got an iPad Wifi? well that’s covered as well. iPod Touch? Yep that’s online too. In fact anything else Wifi only. Just remember though that this will all come off your Data Allowance.

Oh and there is one potential downer to this: we may not all get it. Yep, Mobile Networks may decide to charge you more for this, with you having to pay extra to get the option. Certainly O2 removes the option but we know from experience that Three and T-Mobile let you tether without extra charge.

More MultiTouch on the iPad

Now this is interesting for iPad users. There are currently rumours abound on the interweb that Apple are planning to remove the Home button from the (presumably named) iPad 2 and iPhone 5. We don’t buy this for a number of reasons: both the iPhone & iPad (and of course iPod Touch) are incredibly intuitive to use. We seem to work out and get the Home button and how it integrates with the overall experience very quickly without prompting. It’s these design elements which have helped iOS become such a mainstream success. In addition it just wouldn’t be practical trying to hold an iPhone in 1 hand and try to use Multitouch gestures alone. That Home button comes into its own for that. The iPad and iPhone have interestingly become very popular for people with accessibility issues and I can’t see the removal of the button helping them.

However perhaps it is a potential change on the iPad. After all most people will hold and use it with 2 hands. This is how the Multitouch gestures could work:

Four finger swiping left and right to switch between Multitasking apps
Five fingers to swipe up to reveal the Multitasking Bar. We like this. Looks really natural.
Five fingers to pinch at the screen to take you back to the Home Page. This looks slightly less useful than the previous two but the, er, animation looks good.

These are a nice development of the interface and the multitouch.

The iPad Switch

Ah this caused some consternation with the last major update. Originally the physical switch on the side of the iPad turned the Orientation Lock feature on and off. With iOS 4.2, Apple decided to bring it in line with the iPhone and changed it to a Mute switch. Not everyone was happy with this so Apple have been rather un-Apple like and give us a choice. Yep in the Settings Menu on the iPad you can choose between either Mute or the Orientation lock. Lovely. Although now I can’t decide what I want it to be. Damn you choice!

Mac App Store is here: our first impressions

Ian | Reviews | January 10, 2011

So the Mac App Store has been with us for 2 days now. We’ve installed it without problems as part of the 10.6.6 update, however we spoken to others who haven’t had such luck with them having to reboot a few times to get rid of ‘Error 100′. Not a great start for an Apple product.

Here it is nonetheless. An App Store icon is added to the Dock for you to the right of the Finder icon, giving it a prominent position. So whether you like it or not it’s in your face and ready to use! I suspect the average will not mind purely out of intrigue, especially as that App Store icon looks rather similar to to that gateway to Angry Birds on their iPhone and iPod Touch.

So diving in I found the initial first launch of the App Store was a little slow. It has since then cached all the entries and is a lot quicker with it.

So what is it like to use? Well no surprises here, it’s pretty straightforward. Just like the iTunes Store there is a featured section, app categories and Charts of the top paid and of course free apps.

As it’s separate to the iTunes Store you have to re-enter your Apple ID (you do have one, don’t you?) even in order to get the free stuff. This is the same deal as with the iTunes Store though. In fact recently we have had friends who are first timers to iTunes scared that they have to enter payment details even for free apps. Now they have I’m sure they’ll appreciate how easy it is to download and buy.

So I’ve downloaded a few of the free most popular apps, including Twitter (a marginally freshened up version of our favourite Mac Twitter client, Tweetie) which is the official Twitter App for the Mac and shares a cosmetic look with the lovely Twitter for iPad app. When you click to download there is a nice animation of the app’s icon flying from the App Store into your doc:

Progress Bar: Rather Nice

It has to be said that this is both very easy and rather smart to watch – i.e. very Apple. For a new user it certainly beats working out how to mount and then unmount a DMG file.

So Twitter was the first app I downloaded. Soundcloud was the second, then the brilliant Caffeine (which I already had anyway but have replaced with an App Store version). All of which end up in the Dock. Which could get interesting if you carry on buying all of iWork and iLife, plus a few games. It’s going to get busy in there! Apple have obviously thought it’s better to add everything to the Dock so that it seems visible rather than people wondering if the purchase has worked. You can then rearrange or organise it yourself later.

So how about the range & quality of the Apps on the store? Well it’s early days but its clear that some developers wont be on their as they cannot offer free demo versions or there programmes wont comply with the submission rules of the App Store. Rogue Ameoba, the maker of Audio Hijack Pro and the rather neat Fission audio editor, put their thoughts down on their blog. Other developers won’t be overjoyed at the idea of handing 30% of their sale to Apple either.

But what if your after a free app? Well it should be a great shop window, however big hitters like Google Chrome, Firefox, AdiumX and VLC (all of which are essential OS X downloads) aren’t in there.

Nor yet are Microsoft’s labours or Adobe’s.

So its time for a blogging cliche annoyingly: time will only tell. We’ll have to wait and see if our favourite free Open Source apps get in there and whether the big rival companies sacrifice some profit for a better show window.

It’s not all bad though, just look how much cheaper Aperture is now…

New Year, New Sounds. Love your music with new earphones!

Ian | Reviews | December 7, 2010

Etymotic Custom fit hf2's

Macs sound great. It’s a fact. Why? Their onboard audio excels compared to PC rivals. As a sound engineer I’m often surprised at just how good songs in iTunes can sound when I have a decent pair of headphones plugged into my MacBook.

It’s rare that this can be said about the average onboard sound of PC’s: most of the Dell and Toshiba laptops I’ve used have been an unpleasant listen. Yes loud, but they suffer terribly from ‘CPU cycle’ noise. This is when you can hear noise from the PC almost leaking through your headphones. Each mouse move would lead to a small but annoying interruption to your recently downloaded Beatles back catalogue.

No such woes on the Mac though. Take my Black MacBook, not only does it have a clean sound output without this interference, it’s also a great performing amp in its own right. To borrow a bit of hifi magazine talk: it’s got great dynamics, drives well and brings even compressed AAC & MP3′s alive.

This does require one thing though: great sounding headphones.

Rant time: the standard white earbuds that Apple give with the iPhone and iPod are awful. We hate them. They leak sound meaning others hear more than you, they are tinny, lack bass and poorly sell how good even MP3′s can sound.

So here is our round up of what you should replace them with:

Ear buds up to £40: Sennheiser CX 300-II

CX 300: An amazing leap for the price

Biggest jump in quality for the money from the standard Apple white ear buds. They have good bass (often lacking in more expensive in ear buds). They come with a set of interchangable ear buds to ensure they have a snug fit in your ear. This is important as it helps cut down background noise, meaning your not fighting the noises around you with volume.

Best of all, Amazon has them for less than £20

Headphones up to £40: Sennheiser PX200

PX200: Comfy, portable and sound great

If you prefer more traditional headphones or don’t feel comfortable with pushing ear buds into your ears, you can still get some great portable headphones. Fashionable portable headphone choice has never been better lately with offerings from Dr Dre with his Beats range and Skullcandy offering lots of different retro styles and colours. Not wishing to sound like killjoys though, the most important thing to us is how good they sound. Also important is portability. This is why we really rate the PX200′s. They sound as good as big hifi headphones that are twice the price, they isolate well from outside noise without requiring electronic noise cancellation (if you want to though you can have this by paying extra for the PX250). Most importantly, they are extremely portable and easily fold up into a spectacles sized case.

Ear buds up to £100: Etymotic HF2

Custom fit hf2's: Look weird, feel great

The Etymotic hf2′s are multi award winning in earphones for iOS devices. Perfect for the iPhone, they feature a microphone just like the standard issue iPhone ‘phones, but without sounding rubbish. So you can avoid losing functionality and enjoy music better than ever.

I use these daily. I’ll start with my only criticism: Bass. It could have a little bit more. I am spoilt though the rest of the time with my HD-25′s (see below). So what’s good? Well they aren’t totally lacking in bottom end and make u with it with brilliant natural vocals and a clear mid range. Most importantly they offer great isolation from the outside world, meaning you can start bringing down the volume limiter on your iPod rather than trying to crank it to the max.

If you want to go a step further for great isolation, or want more comfort, then the Etymotic comes with a a little bit of paper. The paper alone wont give you a perfect fit, but whats written on it will. It’s a number to contact a local approved Audiologist. What will they do? Well for a small fee (around £20) they will take a mould of your ear canal in order to create custom ear plugs. It’s an odd sounding procedure but its how most modern musical performers now hear themselves onstage. Just take a look at the next concert performance on TV to notice the performers wearing ear phones. For another £70 or so Etymotic will create ear plugs that are the ultimate fit your your ears. These simply replace the generic plugs that come with hf2′s.

Are they worth it? When I initially got mine it was to maximise isolation as I was concerned about trying to battle noise on London’s Underground. I didn’t think about the comfort factor or improvements in Bass. At first I think I expected complete silence when wearing them somewhere as noisy as the Victoria Line, so was dissapointed when I didn’t get that. However when I tried the same journey without the custom moulded ear plugs, I struggled to hear music at the same lower volume. I also barely realise I’m wearing them compared to the standard fittings.

This is clearly a high end commitment, but if you wear them a lot, or are also in the market for proper ear plugs to prevent deafness, once you’ve had a mould done once, it can be used by Etymotic for repeat orders.

Pro Headphones over £100: Sennheiser HD-25′s

HD-25's: Friend of Pro DJ's. And the Deaf.

If you want to spend more money and want a pair of great sounding headphones that are built to last then we have only one recommendation for you: It’s Another entry for Sennheiser with the now legendary HD-25′s. These headphones are de rigeur in the world of TV sound recordists and DJ’s. Why do they love them? Firstly they are brilliantly built and rugged. They are also modular, meaning that if you damage the cable for example it can easily be replaced.

Best of all is how they sound. These headphones perform brilliantly with mids and highs that you’d normally find on top end hifi headphones costing twice the price. They have brilliant isolation and amazingly true and clear reproduction. Keep your music high quality (256 AAC or 320k MP3) on your iPod, iPhone or iPad and you’ll be amazed at how good it can sound. CD’s and Apple Lossless files on your MacBook will sing.

(Want to stand out in a crowd of DJ’s? Or a Wag? Then check out the gorgeous S ennheiser HD 25 Adidas Special Edition)

So treat yourself for Christmas and bin those white earbuds for something better!

Our favourite App in the World RIGHT NOW: Find My iPhone

Ian | Reviews | November 25, 2010

The Find My iPhone functionality of Mobile Me has been made free in iOS 4.2 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad

So what’s the catch? Well there is one: only iPhone 4 users benefit from this freebie.

Never the less this is must do if you have compatible devices. I’ve just set it up on our iPad and it’s very straightforward, even if you do not already have a Mobile Me account (the chances of which are slim. We don’t even have one. Why bother when Google Sync and Dropbox is free).

You simply need to set up a Mobile Me account on your device under the ‘Mail, Contacts, Calenders’ section of settings. Select Mobile Me, then simply add your Apple ID and password (that’s the one you use to buy from the iTunes Store with). You may need to agree to a change in the Apple Store T&C’s.

Once that’s done you can pop along to me.com and voila:

Find My Ipad: But don't track me down

Amazing isn’t it. And I can assure you (without revealing my address) that even without GPS, the location by Wifi was spot on. As soon as we add a 3G SIM to our iPad we will check out the accuracy from mobile network triangulation.

So what can you do once you found the location of your device online? Well here’s the really cool bit. You can send it a message:

Find My iPad: Display a Message

Which then magically appears on the device!

Find my iPad: The Message on the iPad

It will also send you an email to confirm that a message has been sent to it.

Ok so that may not do the trick. Even worse is you may of not put a Lock on your home screen. Luckily though Mobile Me has thought of that:

Find my iPad: Set a Home Screen lock

But what about your precious data? Those ‘private’ pictures of your girlfriend? Your Home Office emails? Yep you’ve guessed it:

Find my iPad: Wipe it clean

A scary looking box. Which is exactly what you want if your worried about someone else getting hold of your iPad, iPod Touch or iPhone 4. Even if you think your mate is about to Twitter jack you you might as well lock it to stop them.

So do not hang about with this. Follow Apple’s easy illustrated instructions here

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