Apple News, Analysis and Podcasts

Lawsuits notwithstanding, earlier this week Samsung took a few shots at Apple, with a tone that could only be described as defensively whiny, conjuring up images of a certain Star Wars character (must I mention Mark Hamill?...). Samsung appears to be in very vulnerable in the TV space, as Product Manager Chris "Skywalker" Moseley stated at their Prague forum:

Those of us who have followed Apple for three decades have been a spoiled lot. In the 80's we were introduced to the Apple II and then to the Macintosh. The Mac was an unbelievable computer that propelled us 50 years into the future compared to DOS and unix counterparts. 

Last week Sony announced three new back-illuminated stacked CMOS image sensors. In simple terms, Sony announced better camera capability for smartphones and mobile devices, but they're likely to cost the competition much more than Apple, whle lagging behind in overall speed.

Seriously? Take a look at these analysts number in pink/red highlight. It's these analysts that are pegging Apple's returns at or below Apple's own guidance. And that is just laughable. There is no data whatsoever alluding to such ridiculously low earnings forecasts, but I'm glad they exist!

I recently had lunch with a friend who had purchased a Kindle Fire for his wife. "She's always on the iPhone, surfing or on FaceBook, so I got her a Kindle Fire." he said. His statement was somewhat shocking, but on the surface of things, his decision made a lot of sense to me, in that a larger screen device just made more sense. But I questioned why he didn't go iPad? He had thought of going iPad, but the iPad is $500, just so his wife can surf around and check FaceBook? "The Kindle was just $200 bucks..." he said, so he went for the Fire.

The iPhone has been one of the hottest selling consumer devices in recent history. Apple has continued this trend with the iPhone 4S as more and more consumers are switching to Apple's iconic device.

There are many applications in the App Store and finding the best ones can be overwhelming for new users. There are tons of applications not worth buying, but there are also many that make the iPhone even more useful. The Top 5 must have applications for the iPhone are:

Erik Schmidt, former CEO and now Chairman of Google, proudly announced that within 6 months, "We [Google] in the next six months plan to market a tablet of the highest quality." Translation can be found here from the Italian site Corriere.it.

On the surface it would appear that Google is going to compete with its recently acquired Motorola Mobility division, which also manufactures tablets that use Google's Android OS. In reality, the forthcoming product (along with Schmidt's initial announcement) should be viewed as nothing more than hype for Google's latest Android 4.5/5.0 tablet OS, due to hit the market in the June time frame.

Note: This list is inspired by two great forces: David Letterman and Napoleon Dynamite

10. All of your product names all begin with "Microsoft".
9. Your company also builds fantastic refrigerators.
8. Napoleon Dynamite thinks your products have skills.

Apple's stock price is off over 10% in as little as one months time. Aiding the slide, DigiTimes has reported that Apple has slashed (yes, slashed) component orders for iPhone, and Apple can't keep iPhones in stock, possibly due to supply shortages. To top it off, Kindle Fire is now out in the market for only $199, backed with amazing hype. Does this mean the end of Apple is near? Should everyone "Repent Now" from Apple?!

Amazon's Kindle Fire tablet was releasd today, and based on the initial reviews, the secret we T-GAAP-ers already knew about is now out of the bag: The Kindle Fire tablet is no tablet.

Photoshop is the most feature rich photo editor on any platform, but that does not mean it is always the best tool for every job. Just recently the developers of Pixelmator released version 2.0 of their photo editing application. The question this article will attempt to answer is "Can one use Pixelmator instead of Photoshop?" not whether Pixelmator is better than Photoshop.

Despite its lower price, Pixelmator does have a number of advantages over Photoshop and those include:

Podcast Episode 63: Cornholio. The Three Guys (Mark, Karl and Werner) discuss the opening of Apple 5th Ave flagship store in NYC, PBS's show: "Steve Jobs - One Last Thing", iPhone 4S battery life issues, rumors about Amazon updating the Kindle to 8.9" and CBS who apparently turned down Apple's Streaming Service. All this and much, much more in Episode 63: Cornholio.

Does anyone question Steve Jobs' extreme pursuit of perfection? The new glass, unveiled today at Apple's 5th Avenue store in Manhattan, only serves to underscore how different Apple approaches, well, everything. But it also delivers a subtle message to their competition: Don't think for a moment you can fake being us, because you can't. 

Analysts are an interesting breed. They are paid to give their opinion on what the future will hold for a particular company or industry. However, often times they don't know what they are talking about or don't know their subject matter well enough to get it right. Think of an analyst like the local TV weatherperson. They may know about the weather and how high pressure relates to low pressure, but with all their knowledge, they keep their job as long as they're entertaining, not whether the forecasts are completely accurate.

Watching video online has become main-stream as more people have broadband Internet access. Most of the networks offer video streaming services for some of their content. Yet, not all video streaming services are created equal.

For those who use OS X at its core level (UNIX, aka Darwin), a very handy utility is the Terminal.app. Terminal.app is a quick way to drop down to the UNIX level of the operating system and perform some deep level coding. Or it can also be a way to navigate around the operating system if point-and-click isn't your thing.

With Lion Terminal.app got a few cool features, one of which is making windows blur when in the background. This is especially handy when you have multiple windows open at the same time, but want to focus on one. However, there seems to be a drawback to Lion's version of Terminal.app and that is Lion's Auto Save feature.

Yesterday I took some photos with my iPhone 4. When I got back to the office I plugged the iPhone into the USB connector and watched as my iPhone synced with iTunes and iPhoto...  or so I thought.

Adobe created the PDF document format back in 1993. Apple adopted it as an operating system standard format for Mac OS X. Since then, PDF has become the multi-platform standard for storing and sharing documents on any device, and Apple's Preview application is arguably the best basic PDF viewer and editor on the Mac.

With the release of iOS 5 and Mac OS 10.7.2, Apple has added iCloud features to both operating systems. One of the applications that has benefited is Safari, Apple's default web browser.

Renton, WA, South Center Mall Apple Store: Over 200 people lined up to get their hands on one of Apple's newest – or less expensive (dare I say cheap or free!) – iPhones. Apple Stores are handing out voucher coupons similar to the iPad launch, but on a more sophisticated level. Apple employees need to know which carrier, configuration and color of iPhone is wanted. The Apple employee then hands out a voucher for that device (see image above).

The voucher program appears to indicate that Apple will not have enough iPhones on each carrier to meet demand. This does not match rumors that were claiming Apple had been producing new iPhones for well over a month in the 150k per-day range.

The MacMini is Apple's entry level Macintosh. It debuted in 2005 and has gone through many revisions over the years. The current model uses an Intel Sandy Bridge i5 or i7 processor with up to 8GB DDR3 memory.

The Mac Mini comes in three different models ranging in price from $599 to over $2000 for a maxed out server version. The base and server models come with only with an integrated processor Intel HD Graphics 3000, but the mid level version comes with a discreet AMD Radeon HD 6630M graphics processor. For those looking at the Mac Mini, the question is which is the best model to purchase.

 The Mac platform has three major Internet browsers: Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and Mozilla's Firefox. All three are very capable browsers that can run the latest webpages and web applications. Previous reviews have given Safari the edge, but all three have been recently updated. In light of these new updates, it is time to take a look at all three again and see how they compare.

Given that each is more than capable of browsing today's Internet, we will look deeper into the strengths and weaknesses to find a winner. The following list gives our browser ranking and a short review why they placed where they did.

The Mac App Store (MAS) lacked most of the valuable software when Apple first debuted it last January. At that time it was a poor place for users to find new software. Most of the apps on the MAS were of low quality, except for Apple's.

That has all changed in the past ten months, as more and more of the top developers are either moving completely to the MAS or are selling on both the MAS and in the tradition way. Pixelmator was the first major software to test the waters and it grossed over one million dollars. That's simply too much money for other developers to pass up.

 This week's "App of the Week" is Bejeweled, a game I play everyday on my iPhone. It is available on many platforms including the iOS, Mac and the Web.

On the iPhone, Bejeweled 2 has four different games: classic, action, endless, and blitz. Blitz is probably the most addicting of the four as scores can be compared with friends on Facebook. Blitz also only lasts 1 minute, so it can be played over and over anytime you have a minute to kill.

 The iPhone 4 makes a great flashlight since it is always there. While the front screen works ok to illuminate a dark area, the camera's flash does a much better job. In order to use it though, one needs to have a flashlight app.

After testing numerous flashlight applications, I finally found this week's App of the Week. While there are many flashlight applications out there, most have ads that get annoying and are slow to launch. This flashlight app is free and does not include any ads.

This week's app is a folder synchronization tool called arRsync. This is a great tool that can backup or synchronize folders and files. Any folder that the finder sees, whether local or network based, can be synchronized.

arRsync does a nice job of backing up folders from one's local hard drive to an external or networked hard drive. The best part about this tool is that it is free.

A recent video posted by 9to5mac.com reveals Apple's Grand Central store in mid-construction mode. The footage is a wee bit shaky, so we question whether the person shooting the video uses a Mac and iMovie (or FCP for that matter), but he appears to have held the camera steady enough to incriminate himself during the filming of the facility. At 2:11 into the video a mirror is caught on the tape, revealing the man holding the camera. From the looks of it, he's a security guard of some sort.

The New Macbook Airs have been out for a couple of weeks, so it is time to check their performance scores and see how they compare with previous models and other MacBooks.

As an owner of a 13" MacBook Air, one of the surprising benefits of upgrading to OS X Lion was the speed difference. Snow Leopard was nice, but wow, Lion took opening windows, using spotlight, launching apps, to entirely new level. This was not something that Apple touted (a faster OS), but from my experience, it's one of the best things about Lion, especially for those with the older Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

That said, there is a price I seem to be paying for that speed improvement — fan noise.

Microsoft recently released an upgrade to their WIndows Mobile Phone Line: Windows Mobile Phone 7.5 —codenamed 'Mango'. Besides another lame codename by Microsoft (Longhorn, Mojave and Birch to name a few), Windows Mobile 7.5 is aiming to relaunch Microsoft's dominance in the mobile phone space... Sounds like something from Microsoft's Redundancy Department.

But is this enough to catch iPhone or Android? Moreover, is it too late?

 By using up to 30% of the Internet's Bandwidth, Netflix has become the place to watch movies and TV shows online. They have the largest movie catalog available online with the best prices. Yet, is Netflix opening the door to defeat?

In the past when users subscribed to Netflix, they would get 1,2, or 3 DVDs at a time with unlimited online movies and videos. Recently, Netflix announced new subscriber plans that essentially broke up their two main services. The change has caused a major backlash from its users, as it greatly increases the monthly subscription price. Will Netflix be able to weather the storm, or is this the beginning of the end for them?

How many times have I heard the statement "If only AAPL were such and such a price, I would have invested... But it's too high now, so I can't." Spare me the details, it's an old and tried diatribe I've been hearing for the past 10+ years. If you are an individual stock investor, invest in the tech industry and have never purchased a lick of Apple, what's been holding you back from investing in Apple, Inc.?

On January 21, 2000, Apple stock took a 2:1 split, trading at $26 per share. Steve Jobs had rebuilt the company's financials, slashed business units and simplified the product line, delivering a focused Think Different campaign. If you were too young at the time or didn't yet understand that Steve Jobs had a successful vision for company, I can grant one mulligan. But for you investors, beyond that point there is simply no excuse.

OS X Lion is here! And it arrived on my birthday (a great birthday present I think). Normally my OS upgrade strategy is to wait a week or two before installing to watch and see if there are any horror stories that might come my way. But being my birthday, I splured and took the plung at around 6:00pm Pacific Time this evening.

Back on June 30th we reported a source in the SF Bay Area had informed us that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion would be released on July 6th. The reasons for the launch date made sense so we posted it but with a big "RUMOR" in front of the article. July 6th came and went. No OS X Lion.

The next day 9to5 Mac had information stating it was their sources claimed July 14th for the release date. July 14th came and went. No OS X Lion. Now we read the 15th and the 19th, maybe the 22nd, how about the 31st? What's going on here? How has Apple kept the launch date of OS X Lion so secretive?

Mark your calendar. Today is the day Verizon ends unlimited data plans, putting a nail in the coffin of all-things all-the-time mobile. Eventually all carriers will follow this model as they are all addicted to charge-per-minute plans, so why not charge per bit downloaded, so their thinking goes.

Governing minutes or data, it is the way pipe providers, and unlimited plans are completely counter to their business soul. But ending unlimited plans on AT&T, and now Verizon, it's an Omen of things to come from every data provider, mobile or not. The capping of data is rapidly extending into homes via cable and fiber internet providers. This shouldn't shock anyone. All of these players were spawned from the world of telecommunications, thus the game is the same across the board. How they can extract every cent from our wallets will seemingly never end. However, there is one white knight that has the cash and cajones to change the game – Apple.

Apple's Mac OS X Lion is due to be released this month and boasts a new feature called Launch Pad. Launch Pad is nothing new to iOS users, as it is the best of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch — now coming to the desktop.

Where Launch Pad is a big win for desktop users is a sheer numbers game. In addition, its organizational abilities run circles around the now antiquated Dock.  

iPods can be used for more than just listening to music. Podcasts are a way to download and listen to regularly produced audio content while on the go. Listening to books also provides another great way to use iPods and iPhones.

One place to purchase Audiobooks is from the iTunes store. The second option is from Audible. Audible, which was purchased by Amazon, sells individual books and subscriptions to several types of audio content. Is purchasing Audiobooks from Audible better than iTunes?

The latest numbers by Charlie Wolf of Needham & Associates indicates that Android's market share is flattening out, and/or perhaps poised to fall over the coming quarters, due to increased competition from the likes of Apple and other forthcoming competition.  Wolf's assertions also fall in line with NPD's latest market share reports, adding further fuel to the fire that Android is getting the squeeze. 

Today, Google's Andy Rubin Tweeted that Android is seeing an average of 500,000 activations per day. First of all, what exactly does Google consider an activation? Is an Android activation an LG refrigerator with Android built-in for touch-screen control? Is an Android activation millions of China Mobile smart phones that have a core Android OS in them, but everything else Google stripped out of them?

First there was the Pony Express, then the telegraph and then the telephone. As time marches on man seems to find a better, cheaper and quicker way to communicate.

It is no different in the 21st Century. Today we have rss feeds, twitter, facebook, e-mail and the beloved "mobile phone" But wait, there's more. Mobile phones have now morphed into mini computers with Apple's iOS, Google's Android and Microsoft's Windows Mobile 7 platforms. In this new war of the mobile device, it appears Microsoft is bringing up the rear with no real chance of catching Apple or Google. Microsoft has lot's of money to stay in the game, but if things stay the same, they are the odds on favorite to being the big looser. And that's exactly why Microsoft may have purchase Skype.

Today Apple made good on their June promise by making Final Cut Pro X (FCP X) available for download. Apple delivered a sneak peak of FCP X back in April, but the company was very mum about Final Cut's complimentary applications, and gave little indication if they would be included in some form of FCP Studio suite, sold separately, or removed from Apple's lineup altogether.

Apple has answered the questions in full today. Motion 5 and Compressor are sold separately via the Mac App Store for $49.99 each. Own a Mac, spend $100 and you have two professional tools at your fingertips. Amazing. Final Cut Pro X is also available via the Mac App Store for $299.99.

There are many good applications for digital painting on the Mac and Pixelmator and Photoshop are just two of them. Both offer the core tools needed for digital painting. Digital painting used in many areas like 3D surfacing, story boarding, concept art, and matte painting.

In this, my fifth and final comparison between Photoshop and Pixelmator, I will compare Photoshop and Pixelmator for digital painters and see if an other applications might be better suited. I will also give my conclusions on comparing Pixelmator to Photoshop.

Most professionals in the print industry use Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. Each application servers a different purpose. Pixelmator was not designed to compete with them, but that does not mean it can’t be used for print use.

Print work takes on many different forms and Pixelmator can easily fit into many workflows. Does Pixelmator have all the tools required for print work? Let’s look and see.

Photographers have a different set of features that they require in their main application. Adobe tried to support this with Adobe Bridge in Photoshop and although some like it, most find it very slow and difficult to use. To answer the needs of digital photographers, Adobe, Apple and others stepped up to create an application dedicated to photography. Applications like iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom have become the digital hub for photographers.

iPhoto has a very limited set of editing tools and is mainly used to organized photos. Aperture and Lightroom, on the other hand, have many more powerful tools to quickly edit and manage photos. When it comes time to really manipulate a photo, these applications don’t have the tools that Photoshop and Pixelmator have. This article will mainly compare image editing and manipulation tasks in Pixelmator and Photoshop.

Pixelmator already provides a great editor for those who edit and create images for web graphics. It has a powerful set of core tools for creating layouts, user interface elements, and can easily manipulate pictures for web use. Pixelmator’s interface and tools are easier to learn and use for users who don’t spend all day in an image editor.

Pixelmator 2.0, which is due out this summer adds many nice tools to really improve the workflow for graphics creators. Some of the more notable new features include: vector drawing, a pixel editing tool, and a new type tool. Now, lets take a look at both the current and new version compared with Adobe Photoshop for graphics creators.

Pixelmator is an image editing application made only for the Mac OS. It was first released back in 2007 and has gone through many updates in the past 4 years. At the beginning of June, the team at Pixelmator announced their upgrade to version 2.0. This new upgrade is due this summer and adds many features that their customers had been asking for like vectors tools, dodge and Burn tools, and an improved text tool.

Pixelmator has a strong set of core tools for image editing. There is a natural tendency to compare it with the 800 pound gorilla of image editing, Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop has many more tools and filters than Pixelmator, but it is also ten times the price. Are there tasks where Pixelmator is better than Photoshop? In this 5 part series, I will examine many tasks Photoshop is currently used in and see if a software application that is one tenth the price can replace Photoshop.

Apple is very good at making hardware. They are also very good at making software that runs on that hardware. But what they are really good at is creating an eco-system that uses their hardware and software to solve a much larger problem.

What made Apple's lead in digital music sales and then the creation of an entire new industry — podcasting — so successful was this self-sustaining eco-system. For cool hardware Apple gave us the iPod; for cool software iTunes (desktop version); but it was the iTunes Music Store was the linchpin that made it so other companies couldn't just make cheaper hardware and/or software to compete on par with Apple. Sure one could buy a Samsung MP3 player and purchase music from Amazon, but the integration was always second-rate. Nothing ever just worked like the iPod, iTunes and the iTunes music store.

Typically we don't make a big deal about posting our podcasts, but this is the WWDC, so we are making an exception. Available in the upper right of our site, so go for it as you have time. 

The show was, well, pretty hot. Speaking of hot, you can listen to brothers (guy #1 and guy #3) go after it a bit regarding privacy and iCloud. All your privacy belongs to us...

Holy covered banners Batman! We had thought Apple raised all their banners this past Friday, but have been proven wrong. It appears Werner Reschke (Guy #3), was correct in his guess that Apple may put up covered banners Sunday night. Nice call Werner. You can see more original T-GAAP WWDC banner photos here.

We are not sure what this banner holds under it's black veil, but here are three of our best guesses:

Amazon announced a new service that provides 5GB of free data storage, called Cloud Drive last March. Any music files that are stored in the Cloud Drive, can be streamed via a media player on their Web site.

Amazon has created an Android music player for their service, but not for the iPhone. A review of this service can be found from Kevin C. Tofel at Gigaom and Andy Ihnatko. This service might be nice for Android users, but does it providing anything for Apple users?

Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) is coming up on June 6. Products that are showcased at WWDC give developers who are going to the conference a chance learn how to incorporate them into their applications. Usually, Apple has come out with iPhone hardware about this time of year, so developers can add the new hardware features to their applications.

This year, Apple has not shown off the new iOS version yet, so don’t expect new hardware. This would mark a change in Apple’s annual iPhone update cycle. With the iPhone hardware rumored to be delayed until this fall, what is Steve Jobs going to announce during this keynote at WWDC?

I've been a Photoshop user since 1992 starting with Photoshop 2 (that's "2" not "CS2"). I worked in technical support for a color printer manufacturer and we needed to use and learn Photoshop because our customers were using it to print to our printers. Sometimes customers would send their files so we could troubleshoot them and figure out why they weren't printing the way the customer expected. This type of troubleshooting required research, working with Adobe and a lot of trial and error. With all that experimenting I became pretty adept at using Photoshop. Over time there were other titles that came and went, like CorelDraw and Painter, but nothing ever seemed to hold a candle to Photoshop, but then I encountered a game changer.

For those looking into virtualization software, here is a succinct review of Parallels Desktop 6, with a splash VMware Fusion thrown in for good measure. In business there are still instances where Windows is required for OS X users. Many accounting packages and financial desktop-based software solutions are still tied to Windows-only versions.

Times are changing rapidly, but for Mac business users it isn't quite a 100% Windows-free world (not yet at least). To get us Mac users through the slog that is Windoze, apple.it-enquirer delivers a solid review. Who is this article written by? Good question. It only credits "Admin" but it is likely written by the site's publisher Erik Vlietinck. The quick verdict is that Parallels 6 Desktop is outpacing VMware Fusion in many user friendly areas. Games, boot time and file swapping between OS environments, Parallels is winning the war. 

I had built my presentation in keynote, hooked up the projector just to make sure all was working with my newly acquired MacBook Air. I hit play in Keynote and then grabbed my Apple remote to begin forwarding slides... but nothing was happening.

“What’s going on here?” I thought. Maybe I had a remote with a dead battery so I grabbed another and tried again. Still nothing. To my horror, I quickly learned the newer MacBook Air's no longer have an infrared sensor. The sensor had been replaced with a second USB port. Zoiks! I had a presentation in 2 hours. What was I to do? No way I was going to look like a PeeCee idiot and walk up to my laptop and click the arrow keys every time I needed something to happen.

Adobe released version 10.3 of their Flash Player this week. The key areas of improvement are auto-update notification and security control. Both of these features are welcome additions to the Flash Player for Mac users. Does this new version have any new performance enhancements?

As with the last major release 10.2, it is time to run Flash Player 10.3 through its paces to see if there are any performance improvements for Mac users. The tests below were conducted on the same machine and webpages as our previous tests. The latest versions of Safari and Firefox were used to compare Flash Player 10.2.152 with Flash Player 10.3.181 on the chart below.

In the past, adding an external storage device was slow and cumbersome. Back in the day, users had to turn off the computer, plug-in and screw-in a connector, before turning the computer back on to add an external hard drive.

USB greatly helps the situation by allowing users to plug-in devices without having to turn off the computer. The connectors are smaller and don’t have to be screwed in. Laptop hard drives and USB 2.0 made it even easier by supplying power through the USB port, so these devices didn’t even need to be plugged into a power outlet. The next step is to remove one cable that is left.

I've been a MacBook Pro owner since the Titanium PowerBook G4 days (think 2002). I remember making the jump from a G4 Gray Blue Tower to the portable, sleek and "less powerful" but "more portable" PowerBook G4. It was a scary leap. What if I couldn't run Photoshop or InDesign fast enough? What about other general tasks? Nothing drives me nuts more than to see my computer struggling to keep up with me (and I'm not that fast!). But when the PowerBook G4 arrived it was, in Steve Job's words, "magical"! It was so cool, so sleek, so portable. I didn't have to sit at my desk. I could work on the couch or at the kitchen table or take my work with me when I traveled. All was well until...

According to net-security.org, Android malware has exploded 400% since the summer of 2010. Juniper Networks issued the report, which claims there is a shift from attacking the desktop market to the mobile space.

Key reasons cited for increased attacks on the mobile market are:

Historically, desktop computers have been faster and cheaper than laptops. Recently though, laptop prices have fallen to desktop levels, and laptop performance has caught up and surpassed the needs of today's software. This transformation in the PC industry has led to an explosion in laptop sales.

These same trends have also occurred in the Mac ecosphere, with many people switching from Mac Pros or Power Macs to MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Now that the latest iMacs are out, it is time to compare the performance of the latest product line-up coming out of Cupertino.

Back in March we covered Apple's aggressive Thunderbolt plans, and how we believed every Mac would be gaining Thunderbolt by the end of 2011. With the recently updated iMac and MacBook pro lines receiving Thunderbolt updates, nearly half of Apple's Mac fleet has now made the transition to the new technology.

The next Mac on the update roadmap is the Mac mini. But regardless of which Mac is next, Thunderbolt is an absolute game changer, and here's why:

One of the main reasons people buy smart phones these days is to browse the web while on the go. Beyond Phone and Mail apps, it is probably the third most used application on the iPhone. It is just as important on the iPad as well.

The built-in browser on the iOS is Mobile Safari. While it is a good browser, it lacks many features its bigger brother Safari for the Mac has. Some of the noticeable features lacking in Mobile Safari include a tabbed interface and the ability to save files. For those who want more than just a basic browser, we look at two alternatives.

There are many times users want to download YouTube videos but can’t because Google does not give them that option.

Some sites like Vimeo allow registered users to download video if the creators allows it, which many of them do. While Vimeo is a big site, it still does not compare with YouTube, which does not have that option. But now there are plugins to allow users to download videos.

Part I can be seen here. Part II continues with market share assumptions and the fallacies they advance.

iOS vs Android: The Market Share War That Is

Analysts and tech media alike have one central theme correctly identified. Apple and Google are in a heated market–share war, but declaring any victor in today's battle would be pure folly. Yet Henry Blodget advances his position that Android is now the victor and iOS is dead. Blodget flashes around Nielsen's latest purchasing intent survey as proof positive. I also recall a survey claiming nearly 54% of all Verizon customers would turn in their Blackberry's and Android's for iPhone 4 on day one of it's launch.

Henry Blogdet's recently ran an article for Business Insider titled, IT'S OFFICIAL: Android Clobbering Everyone, iPhone Dead In The Water. To get a better idea of what he is talking about feel free to check out his column here. Am I going to rip into Henry's column from the get-go? Absolutely. I found his entire piece seriously troubling, as I had thought that only a Dvorak-like mind could come up with such antiquated material – I was wrong.

I'm not here to personally tear apart Henry, that's not my goal, as I enjoyed his latest column on the economy as it was quite refreshing. But whether Henry's mobile OS mindset comes from a financial or viable business perspective it makes no difference, his positions are completely indefensible. It actually took some time to decipher whether or not he was actually serious. Was this just another Paul Thurott link bait article, or did Henry really think he'd struck gold with this one? Sadly, I think it's the latter, which means I'm putting in the midnight oil to give Henry – and hopefully tens of thousands more – pause to reflect as to why this isn't the PC war of decades past, rather, it is the new war of post PC devices, and how the twixt of these twain couldn't be further apart. 

Tomorrow I'll be delivering one of a two-part series in which I will attempt to dissect Henry Blodget's analysis of Android vs iOS, and how he couldn't be more off base. Not to be cruel, but Henry thinks he's sliding into home plate with this one, when he's not even playing on the field. Really.

Henry's position on this topic, whether from a financial or viable business position are so indefensible, it took a while to decipher whether he was actually serious. Was this just another Paul Thurott link bait article, or did Henry really think he'd struck gold with this one? Sadly, I think it's the latter, which means I'm putting in the midnight oil to give Henry – and hopefully tens of thousands more – pause to reflect and think about how this isn't the PC war of decades past, rather, it's the new world of post PC devices, and how the twixt of these twain couldn't be further apart. 

 iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad allow users to create and edit files while on the go. These devices can be used to write down thoughts or make changes when the ideas hit as opposed to having to wait until back at the office or home.

A text editor must provide an easy way to to write down or edit thoughts as they happen. It must also have quick access to all the user's text files. Any barriers for the user and the editor could destroy the convenience of having it in the first place. These barriers could include a slow interface, buggy application, or too many buttons between the user and their text files. So lets look at the top four text editors for the iOS.

Not all solid state drives (SSD) are created equal. The same is true for Apple's built-in drives on the MacBook Air. When Apple released their new MacBook Air last year, they included Toshiba made SSDs.

Recently, Apple switched their SSDs on new MacBook Airs. These new SSDs, which have a different model number of SM instead of TS, are assumed to be from Samsung. How do these two drives compare with other after-market drives? Time to find out.

I'm a big fan of the original Star Wars films, so without delay, Steve Jobs in Carbonite.

It appears Han Solo has given up his Carbonite casing for Steve Jobs. If you are a Star Wars fan you might find this a great collectible, but not exactly sure how well your iPhone 4 will lay flat on any type of hard surface... Ah, but functionality isn't the real point here is it? Better get this case while you can, as I envision a cease and desist letter coming from Apple very quickly. This case simply makes for a great gift or item to put display on that cubical shelf. You can find it here from the artistic minds at Society6.

Today's computers need a Portable Document Format (PDF) viewer as much as a Browser. This read only file format, which stores text, images, and vector graphics also meets secure legal document requirements. Printing to PDF is a great way to save web pages from the internet as it can be viewed on most platforms with a free viewer. Fortunately, Mac users have two free popular options for a PDF viewer: Adobe's Reader and Apple's Preview.

Adobe created the PDF document standard in 1993. Since then, they have provided a reader for many platforms including the Mac. This would seem the obvious choice for a PDF viewer, except Apple's own application Preview comes standard with OS X. Is it worth the effort to install Reader, or is it better to just use Apple's default Preview? Lets find out.

It was back in June 2007 that Steve Jobs and EA Sports CEO John Riccitiello, proudly co-announced that popular EA game titles would be coming to Mac OS X. Madden 2008, Tiger Woods Golf and more would soon find their way on store shelves and run native on Mac OS X.

It was a great moment for the Mac platform, but as it turned out it was short lived. Mac gamers got one version of these games — and then silence. What happened? Where are the Mac OS X Games? I mean the popular ones?!

 When the iPad 2 was announced on March 2, they also announced GarageBand as well. This is the second iLife application to be released for the iOS. The one glaring omission is iPhoto, which would make the best use of the iPad experience as it is a great photo viewing / editing device. Sadly, we still have to wait longer for iPhoto on the iPad.

Since there is no iPhoto for the iPad, other developers have stepped up to provide photo editing applications. We reviewed some of these back in December 2010. Now, it is time to do a new comparison with the two best photo management applications currently available: Photogene and Filterstorm Pro.

This past February we talked about Final Cut Pro 8's forthcoming release and set of capabilities. The new name, Final Cut Pro X (FCP X), turned out to be different than anticipated, but the changes within the application went well beyond the surprise "X". The latest version of FCP was a bold move by Apple, which – before the official launch – was what Larry Jordan described as "jaw dropping".

But FCP X may have left us with more questions than answers. What exactly is FCP X? Who is its target audience? Will FCP 7 live on? What about the rest of the suite? Along the way to the sneak-peek, Apple gave us some clues with their pro direction.

The MacBook Pro 15-inch has a 16% larger screen and is 24% heavier than its smaller MacBook Pro 13-inch sibling. This extra weight makes it difficult to carry around by its palm rests while open, which is significant as a majority of users don't leave their computers on the desk anymore. While the 15-inch is twice as fast in Geekbench scores, most users will not notice the difference unless performing CPU intensive tasks.

The 13-inch is the perfect size for most users. It has just the right amount of screen real-estate while maintaining its true portable nature. Mac OS 10.7 full screen mode, which will be coming out this summer, will help maximize its screen. Apple offers three different 13-inch MacBooks for different customers: MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air.

 The Powerbook 100 series were the first laptops that Apple produced and they had 9-inch screens. For the next 10 years, the computer industry kept developing larger and larger screens for laptop computers. In 2003, 12 years after the first PowerBook, Apple introduced the 17-inch PowerBook. While the 17-inch may have been popular in the graphics and desktop replacement sections of the market, the majority of the users found them to be too big. Users soon found that the 13-15-inch displays worked the best for most users.

Last year, Apple released a major update to the MacBook Air line. They have become a huge success by taking 25 percent of the total Macs sold the the following quarter. The MacBook Air is neither the fastest MacBook, the cheapest MacBook, nor the biggest. So why has the MacBook Air become a major success?

In business there are times when opportunity knocks and you had better be ready to answer the door. Is your hair combed, your shirt tucked in, does your breath smell good? Because on the other side is royalty, and it's called "opportunity".

Google had such a knock on their door in 2009 when Apple decided to enter into a third year of exclusively with AT&T. On the other hand, Google was working with several handset makers across the other three major US carriers delivering the Android OS. While Android wasn't yet mature and its feature set somewhat lacking, Mr. Opportunity knocking at Google's door. But did Google answer?

Some say the iPad does not need a file structure application like Finder on the Mac. That may be fine for content consumption, but not for content creation. Those that want to use the iPad as a productivity device will want to have a finder like application. Storing files in the application and syncing through iTunes is horribly slow and cumbersome at best.

Accessing stored files is a must to create content or be productive. If only one device is used, those files can easily be stored on that computer or device. A problem arises when someone starts to use more than one device. Making sure files are up-to-date on every device or computer can become a headache. This headache can be solved by using Dropbox.

Google announced a new video codec in May 2010, called WebM. This format uses Ogg Theora audio and VP8 video codecs. Google received VP8 when they purchased On2 for $106 million back in August of 2009. WebM is designed to take on the H.264 video codec that has become the digital video standard. Google says WebM is an open and free format.

Since Google does not make any money on WebM, Why have they created it? Google makes money by selling advertising. In Google's eyes, users are the product and advertisers are the customers. The more users Google has, the more they can sell to their advertising customers, and the more money Google makes. Google creates free products and services to bring in more users. 

How does the newly released iPad 2 compare with the first iPad and base model MacBook Air? Apple claims it is twice as fast as the first iPad, but does real world testing support this? Testing performance is a difficult task, as it varies depending on what task is being performed. One computer can be faster at editing video and slower at playing games than another. Apple's overall control o the iPad also makes it more difficult to fully test.

Geekbench has put together a comprehensive set of benchmarks to test a computer's performance. It is available on a wide range of platforms including Mac OS X, Windows, Linux, and the iOS. While the tests are not perfect, it is one of the best measuring sticks when comparing two computing devices. Time to look at some comparisons.

IDC may have some impressive survey clout and reach, but when it comes to actually delivering decent reasoning behind their numbers, my sub-five-year-old daughter can draw better conclusions by consulting her Polly Pocket dolls.

IDC's latest report concludes that by 2015, the smartphone market share will look drastically different than today, with Apple falling well behind the pack. While I agree with IDC's assessment that the market will have shifted, their conclusions are way off.

October 2010 came roaring in like a Lion — well, for Mac OS X fans that is. Once again Steve Jobs took center stage for a Keynote presentation that focused on the Mac. He and his executive team announced and demoed a few upcoming features in Lion, Mac OS X 10.7.

Alongside of the software hoopla Steve also introduced an update to the MacBook Air. Faster, better memory, better storage, better display, better battery life and more affordable. However, there was one line during his keynote that still rattles in my brain — like a tune you hear in the grocery store and then can't get out of your head. Steve said this is "...the new MacBook Air… we think it is the future of notebooks."

This past Thursday, RIM's co-CEO Jim Balsillie spun his best story, explaining why RIM would be able to compete in what he called the "Superphone" market space. Balsille also tried to clarify why the RIM's financials were not in line with Wall Street expectations, presenting a rosy picture in just a few quarters from now.

Unfortunately for Mr. Balsillie, renaming smartphones as "Superphones" won't change the Blackberry makers problems. RIM's margins are shrinking, and the physical keyboard market is limited. Making matters worse, RIM's efforts to counter the iPhone with their touch-screen Storm lineup has been a complete failure. RIM's best days are behind them. To make this perfectly clear, 2011 is the beginning of the end for RIM.

Apple's rollout of iOS 4.3 a few weeks ago seemed like a ho-hum, second-fiddle announcement compared to the launch of iPad 2. While we all welcome updates to operating system software — well, those updates that improve our lives — iOS 4.3 was pretty much a yawner...

...until I started using Personal Hotspots.

Last week I set out on a mission to purchase a Motorola XOOM tablet, in an effort to compare it to Apple's iPad 2. We Three Guys were going to put the XOOM through its paces and deliver test results. We were ready to do live side-by-side video app and browsing comparisons between the two devices. Unfortunately, after five days of line squatting and Apple Store stakeouts for an iPad 2, we are still without an iPad 2. In contrast, finding a XOOM took little to no effort, there are plenty in stock at any Verizon or Costco location.

That said, finding a Xoom and purchasing one is a completely different story. The strings attached to buying a Xoom makes doing your taxes seem like fun. We'll spare you the test results of just the XOOM (after all, there are plenty of benchmarks out there showing the iPad to be vastly superior), and simply let you know the pain you'll be in for if you decide to buy a Xoom.

Since Chrome's first stable release, it has become the third most poplar browser on the Mac. Because Chrome has rapidly grown in popularity, it is time to compare it with the default browser, Safari.

Both browsers use the same Webkit rendering engine, but does Chrome offer features compelling enough to switch? Time to find out.

Piper Jaffray delivered some interesting survey results over the weekend. The analyst firm conducted a poll from people standing in line to purchase the iPad 2 during Friday's launch event. While many are focusing on how many people the survey claimed were new to the iPad (roughly 70%), there is another statistic that reveals Apple's true genius — the number of people buying higher memory configurations.

Apple has an entry-level $499 iPad, but it's not model that's selling in the majority, at least not this time around. There was rumor as to whether Apple would bump the base model iPad to 32GB and scale north from there. This seemed plausible considering Peter Oppenheimer's remarks during last quarters financial conference call, claiming margins on iPads were very strong. Many companies, if having the chance, would have jumped at including more storage in order to win the specifications game, but not Apple.

Earlier this week we prominently posted that we would be bringing you our Apple iPad 2 vs Motorola Xoom with side-by-side testing report. Unfortunately, we Three Guys and a Podcast took a bit of advice from our "good friend" Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray. 

The advice he gave all of us? Gene explained we shouldn't expect any long lines for the iPad 2, as it was available at many retailers verses last year. Perhaps Gene missed the fact that the original iPad was available for pre-order, while iPad 2 was available for pre-order for less than 24 hours before retail launch.

Google's Android OS fragmenting into a death spiral may be overblown at times, but it certainly won't be overstated in the tablet arena - assuming of course, one of these years PC hardware vendors will be able to compete with Apple's iPad and its pricing.

Android's appearance in the tablet market is currently minimal, but as PC vendors are forced to get in the game due to shrinking netbook and notebook sales, Google is going to witness Pandora breaking out of her box, with no quick fix on how to remedy the situation. The issue I am speaking of is one that is (or soon will be) staring every Android tablet developer squarely in the face — Android's complete lack of attention to hardware vendor's screen resolution, aspect ratio and pixel density. Mind you, this is no trivial problem.

The search engine Apple uses for the Mac is called Spotlight. It is a good search engine, but it is on the slow side and does not include any power user features. If you are looking for something more, look no further than LaunchBar by Objective Development. Once installed, it is accessible by using the spotlight or user definable shortcut.

LaunchBar is significantly faster at bringing up search results than Spotlight. It also has an extensive list of options to customize the search index. This allows users to specify which folders or file types to be included or excluded from LaunchBar's search. Customizing the search index is another way to speed up and improve the search results.

Apple refreshed their Macbook Pro line-up at the end of January 2011.  The big news out of this update was an announcement of a new data port called Thunderbolt and the move to Intel's Sandy Bridge micro-architecture.  Apple also switched from Nvidia's integrated graphics processors (IGP) and discreet graphics processors to Intel's IGP and AMD's (formally ATI) discreet graphics processors.  With this move, Apple changed the Macbook Pro 13" graphics chip to the Intel HD Graphics 3000.  Intel's Sandy Bridge main processor is a big upgrade from the previous version, a Core 2 Duo, but is the graphics processor an upgrade or a downgrade?

Intel has been known in the past for producing very poor graphics processors.  This lack of a good graphics processor from Intel is the main reason why most decent desktop and laptop computers come with a discreet processor.  Nvidia built a graphics processor into the supporting chipset for the Intel x86 main processors, which was used in the previous MacBook Pros.  Nvidia's IGP performance was substantially better than anything Intel came out with and provided a huge upgrade in performance.

It was January 2010, and front and center at CES was Steve Ballmer who "demoed" for us three (he really only used one) "slate" products running Windows 7. Well, "demo" is really an generous description. Ballmer picked the slate up, did a few things with it and then put it back on the shelf next to the other two "slates". We were told that 2010 would be a year full of slate product introductions — and it was going to be exciting!

Ballmer got his prediction half correct. On January 27, Apple launched the iPad — a real tablet that ran a sophisticated OS and it began shipping in mass in April. If you had an iPhone or iPod Touch, you knew how to use the iPad right out of the box: download software, sync with your computer and everything else. Even better your iPhone/iPod Touch software could be used on the iPad. Developers also were in luck as they didn't need to do much to adjust their apps for the iPad either.

Yesterday the Nielsen Company reported that for the months of November 2010 to January 2011 Google's Android operating system’s market share has pulled ahead of Apple and RIM with 29% of the smartphone sales in the U.S.

As with most things, when you look behind the curtain there is more than meets the eye — and in this case we don't find a happy, content Android family, but one fighting for its smartphone life.

The two leading browsers on the Mac are Apple's own Safari and the Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser. There are other browsers available for the Mac, including Google's own Chrome, but this test will be between the two market leaders.

During the testing period, Firefox 4 beta 11 and Safari 5.0.3 were used. Although Firefox 4 is still in beta, it is already better than Firefox 3, which Safari clearly beat in past competitions. This test examined eight key areas for browser performance and usability. Now it is time to compare these two browsers.

The iPad 2 launched today with great fanfare and a solid, if not modest, hardware update. Apple's hardware team showed us how they can industrial engineer like no one else, delivering a razor thin iPad 2 — which is even thinner than the iPhone 4. The iPad 2 shows us Apple's hardware prowess, but a few major pieces were missing amongst the mix.

The iPad 2 sports the same resolution screen as iPad 1, humble camera specs, and ho-hum software updates — for now. The big reveal in hardware and software looks to be on the horizon, arriving in the in iPad 3.

The clock struck midnight and February 10, 2011 was born, but apparently no lines materialized at Verizon retailers. Why?

We heard a lot of hoopla surrounding the supposed "event everyone has been waiting for." Verizon made a special commercial with clocks just about to strike midnight and people in anticipation of being able to get an iPhone on the Verizon network. Jon Stewart was exuberant, claiming "a spring in my step... a certain twinkle in my eye" about the iPhone Verizon announcement. Apple even made the "Twins" commercial showing an iPhone on an AT&T and Verizon network simultaneously. So where are all the Verizon iPhone customers?

Apple's earbuds are neither the best sounding nor best fitting earbuds on the market. They do have two things going for them: they are relatively cheap and have a really nice remote and microphone. Acoustibuds might be the answer for those who don't like the way normal earbuds fit or sound, but don't want to shell out $100 for a nice pair.

Acoustibuds are small pieces of flexible silicone rubber that fit over most standard earbuds to channel the sound directly into the ear. This silicone rubber fits into the ear and helps to prevent the earbud from falling out. They may look like a gimmick, but how do they feel and sound after 9 months?

Adobe released version 10.2 of their Flash Player plugin at the beginning of the month. This latest version adds preliminary support for Stage Video, which is supposed to reduce CPU usage during video playback. In order for Adobe to improve the Flash Player, they need to improve battery life by reducing CPU usage during flash playback. Heavy CPU usage may not be a major factor on desktop computers, but it is on anything using a battery, as it drains the battery quickly. Is this new version any better on the Mac?

Looking at CPU usage will be the way to determine if Adobe Flash has improved or not. The best way to test this new version is to compare it with older versions of the Flash Player and similar sites running HTML5. This test was conducted with Adobe's Flash Player 10.0, 10.1, and 10.2. An Aluminum 24" iMac with 4GB of memory, 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, and running Mac OS X 10.6.6 was used as the test platform. Safari version 5.0.3 and Firefox version 4.0b11 were both used to conduct this test.

If you're like me, you have an iPhone and you like it. I started with an iPhone 3G back in the day and recently upgraded to the iPhone 4. It's a great phone. It's a great mobile device. It's just great.

Each weekday I spend anywhere from 60-90 minutes in my car driving to and from the office. I have a handy Kenningston cradle that holds my iPhone 4 front and center while I drive. I use the Jawbone ICON (Thinker) to take incoming calls. It's a driver's perfect world... almost. What can cause frustration is an incoming text message or the "bing" of an incoming e-mail. Currently there is no good way to process and respond to a text message or read an e-mail while speeding along at 60+ mph. There are some that can use one hand to drive and one hand to navigate their iPhone. While I might be able to do that, I'm not willing to press my luck by taking my eyes off the road for more than a second, let alone read while driving.

Apple's announcement to end production and sales of XServes on January 31, 2011 was a sad day for many Apple IT professionals. To read about the frustration it brings to the Mac community you need to look no further than Apple's own discussion forum on the topic.

One person in the forum said, "This is so unlike Apple, pulling the rug out on us - it's more like a MS move, sounds like they're slipping." Another lamented, "This is horrible news for any ACN out there. We fight tooth and nail to convince business and enterprise that Apple is a valid contender. How OSX Server is "real UNIX' and how Apple servers are more cost effective for licensing and support... To then have to sheepishly explain we have no rack-mounted option, no hot-swap drives or redundant power, no LOM, no actual 'server' - it's embarrassing and destroys Apple's presence in the server room." So this begs the question, does Apple need to be in the Server market? Yes.

The Macintosh operating system comes with it's own screen capture tool called Grab. It's flaws will be very visible if used for any length of time. One of those flaws is the fact is it only saves images in a TIFF file format. Since TIFFs are big and rarely used, every screen grab requires at least a two step process. One step is to capture your screen and the second is to convert the file in another format like JPEG. There is a better way.

LittleSnapper by Realmac software is a must for any screen grabbing user with many advanced features. It makes Apple's Grab look like a high school project. Lets take look at some of the key features of Little Snapper now:

Despite our earlier report of Final Cut Studio and the MacBook Pro arriving in April (notwithstanding Sandybridge taking a slight “detour” to market), there is no indication that FCP has been thrown off its pace, and it is rapidly approaching its launch — with one of its largest updates ever.

The MacBook Pro may very well join the launch, shipping in late April/early May. We continue to hear the new MacBook Pro will arrive with higher resolutions screens, increased battery life, a thin chassis that follows the format of the MacBook Air — and no optical drive. One 15" legacy MacBook Pro model will remain, gaining internal updates only, for those believing they require an onboard optical drive.