When it comes to the iPhone, it's really really difficult to narrow my app love down to just three picks. So with apologies in advance for all those amazing applications that didn't make this cut, let me jump in with three choices that I simply do not live without on my (jailbroken) iPhone:

Cydia. When Jay Freeman's Cydia first debuted, I was hesitant to use it. It sucked up the root partition space like a sponge and its interface was, at best, preliminary. And now, in 2.0, Cydia owns me. It's simply fabulous. From its command-line Unix support to its fully overhauled interface to its extremely workable update system, Cydia provides a powerful software distribution system, perfect for modern smartphones and a great competitor to AppStore.

Boss Prefs. Boss Prefs offers a wonderful services application. It lets me enable and disable services such as EDGE, Bluetooth and SSH from a central application. Because I only intermittently subscribe to data plans, Boss Prefs ensures that I won't accidentally start downloading a la carte data that starts at about $500 million (or so) per kilobyte. It also lets me enable and disable my mail accounts, so the iPhone works perfectly for whichever mode I'm in: intrepid TUAW blogger at large or private Soccer Mom on the go.

Othello. Othello is my current fidget-game-on-the-go. When I'm stuck waiting somewhere for a few minutes, I pull out Hongtao Guo's perfect take on Othello. With three playing levels, optional sound and a really nicely designed interface, Othello provides the perfect time waster. There are other free versions of Othello under various names on AppStore but I particularly like this implementation. Although I wish it would put me directly into the game board rather than the welcome screen, that's my only criticism of a lovely, free application that's a great deal of fun.

TUAWMy Favorite iPhone Apps: Erica's Take originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 28 Aug 2008 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

So Victor comes to us and says, "Quick, what are your favorite apps?" Without pausing to breathe or think, the words "OfficeCreativeSuiteQuickeys" tumble out of my mouth. That's because these are the three software packages for Mac that I cannot live without. These three apps are where I spend 80-odd percent of my working life.

By the time I can pause and reflect, I realize that I have picked three apps that provide the least Mac-like user experience. With all the rich and beautiful OS X software landscape out there, I've picked the plain but reliable dinosaurs. They're ugly. They're ported (at least Photoshop and Office are). They work.

This isn't to say that I'd change my list upon further thought. Between Word, Excel, Illustrator, Acrobat, Photoshop, and Quickey's Macros (so I rarely have to actually touch a mouse, eek), these packages get the job done. Throw in the equally ugly Eudora mail program (the original, not the almost unusable open source update that's floating around) plus Apple's cadre of less beautiful utilities, namely Terminal, Safari and TextEdit, and we're talking maybe 90% of my work time.

Sure, I've used Apple's Mail, Preview, iPhoto, iWork, Pages and so forth but I always end up going back to the more capable name-brand power-houses. The user experience might not match the slick Apple software but my efficiency goes way way up.

As for the built-in Keyboard prefs or QuickSilver, QuicKeys gives me all the programming control I need for creating and executing my macros. If I'm going to do a job more than once, I'm probably going to write a macro, whether it's sorting my mail or writing my TUAW posts.

In the end, I'm really happy with my paleo-software. One of the big reasons that I'm still (still!) using my 733 G4 Mac as my primary computing machine is that I know I'll have to re-buy these programs should I switch fully to Intel-based computing.

Instead, I'll hang with my favorite dinosaurs and keep getting the job done.

TUAWMy Favorite Mac Apps: Erica's Take originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 27 Aug 2008 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

• When the unmanned Jules Verne spacecraft launched earlier this month for its historic docking with the ISS, it took along several commemorative items, including an iPod containing a special list of songs chosen by the winner of a 2007 contest.

• STS crew member Leland Melvin went to the ISS last month aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis, and he took along an iPod pre-loaded with his favorite Christina McBride album and a few songs he'd composed on the piano.

• For Charlie Hobaugh's flight last year, he let his kids load his iPod for him. (Wow, that's trusting -- he could have spent the 13-day mission listening to Alvin & the Chipmunks).

Thanks Walker!

Gallery: iPod Endeavour

TUAWiPods rock the Space Shuttle originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 15 Mar 2008 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

You're standing in line when Bill Clinton, former US President, walks by with his Secret Service escort. Quick! What do you do? (1) Shake his hand. (2) Share a quick joke about Arkansas's night life. (3) Ask him to sign your iPhone.

If you're B. Ioffe, the answer is 3. He writes that President Clinton shared that he is an iPhone owner; Steve Jobs fixed him up with an iPhone for his personal use. This of course demands the question: If ex-Veep Al Gore is on Apple's Board of Directors, why didn't he snag his old buddy an iPhone himself? Or, as Ioffe writes, at least a prerelease 3G version.

TUAWBill Clinton: iPhone User originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWWho Is Hubert? originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Nov 2006 02:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWCook breakfast with your MacBook originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 13 Jul 2006 20:26:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If, for one reason or another, you just can't get around having to work on a PC either at school, in the office or elsewhere, MacDrive for Windows 98 - XP might alleviate some of those daily headaches you've been having. Recently updated to version 6, MacDrive enables Windows to open, read from, write to and even format Mac OS-formatted discs and drives (HFS/HFS ). While this includes hard drives, CDs, DVDs, floppies (uh, what's a flop-y?), Zip, Jaz, SyQuest and more, CD and DVD burning is only available for Win 2K, 2K3 and XP.

The beauty of MacDrive, or so Mediafour's website boasts, is that working with HFS/HFS drives is completely seamless once the software is installed - no learning curve, no extra steps. While I (fortunately) don't have a Windows machine to test this, Mediafour offers a free trial (form link). MacDrive costs $50, and Mediafour offers a 30-day "Love it or Return it" money-back guarantee.

TUAWMacDrive 6 - read/write Mac-formatted drives and discs on Windows originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 26 Mar 2006 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The deal between Yahoo and Musicmatch has generated lots of reports today. This one from MP3.com has a pretty funny brand for the service: Matchoo

TUAWYahoo and Musicmatch: Matchoo! originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Sep 2004 00:16:20 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

He recently filled up the iPods of everyone who worked on REM's new album with songs that he thought they might like - and considering iPods can take up to 10,000 songs, this was a Herculean feat of downloading. "He's become obsessed with it," says Stipe. "He has done this for everyone who worked on our new record, including the engineers, who he had only known for a couple of weeks. What's interesting is to discover what he thinks we should be listening to. Mike got entire albums by Miles Davis, for example, while I only got the greatest hits.

[Via BoingBoing <- Thomas Hawk's Digital Connection]

TUAWREM's Peter Buck gave away iPods full of downloaded songs originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 12 Sep 2004 10:17:59 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

I've been giving a lot of thought to all the hype that Skype has been getting as of late.  So much has been said about the great aspects of Skype, of which there are a few, that in the interest of balancing this with a bit of perspective on the downsides, I thought I'd throw a few of my own opinions into the ring for you all to chew on.

Before we can really talk about what Skype is, and why it's good and cool and innovative (oh...wait, it's not really innovative), we need to be clear about what Skype is not.  Skype is not a new concept and Skype is not a replacement for your other phones.  It may be good for calling your other geek friends (I do) and it may be good for calling your possibly tech savvy parents in Florida, but don't try calling grandma or grandpa.

I'm not trying to bash Skype here.  I think it's an interesting and innovative solution in the sense that, well, it's free, but it's not the first of its kind.  Ever heard of Net2Phone or the more or less defunct NetMeeting which also added video conferencing but never got around to allowing you to call peoples land lines?  There are others as well.  Not to mention the recent offering from BT / Yahoo.

Continue reading My gripe with the hype around Skype and five good reasons why you shouldn't cancel your other phone services just yet

TUAWMy gripe with the hype around Skype and five good reasons why you shouldn't cancel your other phone services just yet originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 09 Sep 2004 13:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Wow! How will they keep everyone else from taking advantage of this great deal?

[Thanks Andrew!]

TUAWHUGE deal-better than free iPods originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2004 00:06:09 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Here's the scoop: it comes in both 17-inch and 20-inch widescreen versions, and it's an all-in-one with everything built-into the monitor. The 17-inch model comes with either a 1.6GHz or a 1.8GHz PowerPC G5 processor, and the 20-inch only comes with a 1.8GHz chip.

All come standard with 256MB of RAM (which is expandable up to 2GB), and the 17-inch model comes with an 80GB hard drive and a DVD/CD-RW combination drive, while the 20-inch model comes with a 160GB hard drive and a DVD-R/CD-RW SuperDrive. Click to see some more pics.

Continue reading The "French-born" iMac G5

TUAWThe "French-born" iMac G5 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 31 Aug 2004 09:50:19 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

We had mentioned during iTunes UK launch that users were upset because most independent artists wouldn't be included in the catalog. Now some users are using the playlist-sharing feature to protest against the lack of indies by creating iMixes with titles like "iTunes needs indies!". As you would guess these protest lists are climbing up the iMix charts (in the pic above the IMix got 4&frac12; stars.)

I'm sure it will be a matter of time until Apple brings the indies in. I mean, if Steve Jobs really want to get serious in the European market.

TUAWiMixes used as protest against lack of indenpedent artists originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 28 Jun 2004 07:56:19 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

TUAWiTunes already sold 800,000 songs in Europe originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 24 Jun 2004 08:25:10 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Another surprise is the cost of a song that's 79p, instead of the expected 99p (equivalent of $1.43, which is the cost practiced by Napster UK.)

Some users are still upset due to the fact that most independent artists are unavailable at this time. According to the Association of Independent Music (AIM) negotiations with Apple have broken down with ';a number of its members'.

As we've been reporting here there's fierce competitiion to get the biggest chunk of the European market - starting from Britain.

Yesterday, Napster's British operation announced an exclusive distribution deal with broadband provider NTL. Napster will now be bundled with NTL's Broadband Plus service package beginning in July.

Microsoft also announced an expanded alliance with online music provider OD2 to create a sort of music-service jukebox in Europe. Microsoft MSN's SonicSelector jukebox, already powered by OD2's and available in the UK, France and Italy is expanding to include Germany, Belgium and Spain.

TUAWiTunes unveiled in the UK, Germany and France originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 15 Jun 2004 06:37:51 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Ninety percent of consumers have no more than 1,000 songs on their PCs. And 77 percent responded to be interested in players with a capacity of 1,000 songs.

The 4GB hard drive included in Apple Computer's iPod Mini, and in MP3 players from some Apple rivals, holds roughly that number of songs. "Hard drive players with such large capacity for content go above and beyond not only the music that most consumers want on their portable music player, but also beyond the digital music that they own." Hard drive size isn't the only thing that matters to music lovers. When asked which features matter most, 55 percent listed a rechargeabl

I remember the 20 Mbytes hard drives many years ago. If anybody asked I would never think of storing multi-gigabyte files.

What about an informal survey? How many song files do you have? Comments are open.

TUAW1,000 is the magic number for player capacity originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 22 Apr 2004 18:04:42 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

For months, digital-music services have been touting albums for $9.99 to entice more people to buy online. But Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store has been charging $16.99 for "Fly or Die," while Roxio Inc.'s Napster service sells the 12-song collection for $13.99. Both prices are higher than the $13.49 that Amazon.com charges for the CD itself. The same pricing shifts are showing up on albums by a growing slate of artists, from Shakira to Bob Dylan.

In case you don't have access to the WSJ here's a NPD group chart showing some titles that are cheaper on CD than when purchased in digital form.

TUAWDownloading Music Gets More Expensive originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 08 Apr 2004 09:13:16 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

http://www.tuaw.com/2004/04/02/hey-ya-at-29-pence/http://www.tuaw.com/2004/04/02/hey-ya-at-29-pence/http://www.tuaw.com/2004/04/02/hey-ya-at-29-pence/#comments It just gets better in Europe, through the wires we learn that Wippit relaunched today offering downloads at 29p ($0.54). This move is the declaration of an European price war for digital songs.

Most European services follow the price model created by Apple iTune's and charge the the equivalent of 99 pence per download. Price wars are always good for consumers and this one could, eventually, cause in a longer-term the death of the CD format as we know it.

TUAW"Hey Ya!" at 29 pence originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 02 Apr 2004 12:15:25 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments]]>Fri, 02 Apr 2004 12:15:25 EST