Written by Benny Ling | 11 January 2012
Posted in Apple

Depending on what Apple-related blogs you currently read (current website excepted, of course), Apple CEO Tim Cook's salary in 2011 was somewhere in the vicinity of $1.4 million or almost $400 million. Fortune helps clear up any confusion about the matter, though, saying that Cook didn't make anywhere near $400 million — at least not on his salary. According to the proxy statement Apple filed on Monday, Apple paid Cook just under $1 million in total — with the rest in the form of 1 million "restricted stock units".

The Verge has an interview with Dom Leca, co-founder of what is easily one of the best Mac email clients of our time — Sparrow. They ask him mundane questions such as what phone he uses, all the way up to what he thinks about adhering to popular OS X UI conventions and forging your own path. It's a great interview.

Written by Benny Ling | 10 January 2012
Posted in Apple

The Consumer Electronics Show for 2012 is now well underway, and a plethora of new products are being released all over the place from every consumer electronics brand you've ever heard of. The real news is that Thunderbolt docks and hubs are finally starting to make an appearance, with the likes of Belkin, Lacie, and even Lenovo laptops featuring the newest connection standard. 9 to 5 Mac has more coverage.

The Blackbox bamboo case is a very stylish case for your MacBook Air that is, like its name suggests, made out of natural bamboo. GigaOM had a chance to take a look at the case, and said that was well-suited to harsh treatment, and best of all, the case itself even comes in a version made specifically for the iPad 2.

Written by Benny Ling | 10 January 2012
Posted in Apple

2011 was a year of 10-year anniversaries for Apple, including the 10-year anniversary of its retail operations. Ten years of Apple Retail later, and Apple is one of the most successful retail chains in the world — but what's next for the Cupertino-based electronics company? AppleInsider take a look at what's in store for Apple Retail in the next ten years, and what other records will be broken by Apple during that time.

The Mac App Store is also one year old as of a few days ago, and MacStories has a great insight into what happened during the first year of the newest download-only store, from the launch of various Mac App Store exclusive apps, to the user confusion when faced with re-buying apps (and the decision to do so based on what benefits the Mac App Store would offer them).

Written by Benny Ling | 05 January 2012
Posted in Apple

Apple are definitely working on a HDTV solution if the rumour blogs are to be believed. 9 to 5 Mac is saying Sir Jonathan's workspace/studio is currently home to a 42-inch+ display that might eventuate as the HDTV we never knew we wanted, but they're also saying Apple might be having issues nailing down licensing deals for content, citing a CBS earnings call comment. Then again, we heard the same about iTunes Match and look how that panned out!

An Adobe exec has been tapped by Apple in order to try and save the iAd platform. Former head of Adobe's Media Solutions division Todd Terasi joins Apple in order to have another try at breaking into the lucrative advertising market — even after his predecessors failed to do so.

Written by Benny Ling | 04 January 2012
Posted in Apple

Apple has planned a late-January media event, and the rumour blogs are already saying the event will mostly be about iBooks and publishing. 9 to 5 Mac reports Apple's Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue will be involved, pointing to something that isn't quite a product announcement but some kind of news that will no doubt affect the publishing industry. Perhaps a Newsstand announcement of some sort?

An Apple Store ex-Genius says Apple doesn't value retail staffers anymore. Chad Ramey posted a message on an internet website shortly after finishing his final shift at an Apple Store in Arizona, which detailed how he was unhappy that Apple doesn't seem to care about their staff anymore — and that Apple Retail has become more about profits and the bottom line than it has about the customers and their experience.

Written by Benny Ling | 03 January 2012
Posted in Apple

Fantastic long-form reading from Wired, who go in-depth about Dropbox and how it squares off with Apple's own iCloud. Dropbox has been a great solution for keeping files in sync across different devices, and now iCloud does a very similar job although it's not quite as transparent as the Dropbox solution is. MobileMe was never designed for the cloud — but iCloud is the cloud, all the way.

A handy Apple support article details iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match availability by country. Taking a glance over the list it seems residents of New Zealand can re-download everything bar TV shows again, and iTunes Match also seems to be available in your country — which is more than can be said for a few other countries on that list.

Written by Benny Ling | 02 January 2012
Posted in Apple

The Apple iTV might not be here yet, but as the rumours start to fly people find themselves asking what the Apple TV will have to do to win over the hearts and minds of consumers the world over. GigaOM kick off the show by saying that it's not about the range of content available, but about the overall experience that the iTV offers to consumers. Then again, Apple has always been about the experience — the content just magically follows.

From 9 to 5 Mac: "Apple’s Senior Vice President of Design Jonathan Ive can add a new title to his resume: Sir Jonathan Ive." Sir Jonathan was awarded his knighthood in the United Kingdom in the New Year Honours List, and his response to his new knighthood was "absolutely thrilling".

Written by Benny Ling | 23 December 2011
Posted in Apple

Exactly three days and fifteen years ago, Apple purchased a little software company called NeXT. Later, they would integrate NeXTSTEP into their own operating system, and a few more years later, that operating system would be called OS X — and still contain fragments from an operating system that was the very first stepping stone towards the operating system we all know and love today.

Firefox 9 has been released, and it brings support for gestures for back and forward page navigation under Lion, just like the same features that have been Chrome and Safari for the past few versions. There's also faster javascript performance, and a full-screen view that isn't quite the Lion standard of one app.

OS X Daily take you through the process to do a batch resize of photos with Automator, where you can scale images using a simple Automator workflow. I've been using a similar method (without all the fanciness of the Automator stand-alone app), and it works exactly as described.

Steve Jobs once said "people who know what they're talking about don't need PowerPoint", and even went as far as implying that any form of projected media on a screen isn't appropriate for any kind of presentation.

Just a short note about NZMac.com and news posts over the Christmas and New Year's holiday period: there won't be any news posts until early January. From yours truly and on behalf of the team at NZ Tech Media, have an excellent holiday period, and we'll hope to see you sometime in the New Year.

Written by Benny Ling | 22 December 2011
Posted in Apple

The New York Times is saying Apple has conceptualised what may eventuate as wearable devices. Spurred on (or, at least otherwise influenced) by the enormous success of what has become the iPod nano watch phenomenon, Apple might even be in the prototype stage of wearable devices that interact with other Apple hardware — perhaps an iPod nano that talks to the iPhone.

Apple has seeded yet another beta of Mac OS X 10.7.3 to developers. Build 11D36 has a build number that's just three builds above the previous seed, comes with no known issues, and the delta update from 10.7.2 weighs in at just under 1GB. Apple just squeezed one more beta just before Christmas.

Written by Benny Ling | 21 December 2011
Posted in Apple

The deal between Apple and Israeli flash manufacturing company Anobit isn't just a rumour anymore, as Apple has reportedly sealed the deal for the princely sum of some $500 million. The acquisition is the second non-software of its kind since the PA Semi acquisition a few years ago, and likely represents what Apple is likely to massively improve on in the future.

Engadget has a great interview with Ronald Wayne, the third founder of Apple who later sold his share of the company for a mere $2300. Wayne recently showed off pictures of original Apple designs, which included diagrams and concepts of Apple products — some of which made it to market, some of which just stayed as concepts.