Apple released two compelling new applications with their October 12 announcements; Front Row and Photo Booth, the problem is that neither is available as a standalone application.
When Apple announced the new iMac G5s with built-in iSight cameras they also announced an innovative application that essentially turns the iMac into an old-fashioned photo booth like the ones found in any arcade in America. With the click of your mouse the screen lights up like a flash bulb and the built-in iSight camera takes a picture. From there you can edit it, add effects and email it to grandma or the kids.
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.

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It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of the earbuds that Apple includes with the iPod, they’re cheap and sound terrible. Some people find the Apple earbuds acceptable and happily use them while others replace them with better (and much more expensive) models. Many rationalize Apple’s decision to include basic earbuds with the iPod as a way to keep costs down

One of the fatal flaws with the iPod nano isn’t its scratchability, it’s the lack of cases that were available at the launch of Apple diminutive music player. Apple is so secretive about new product announcements that they don’t include third parties in on them. As a result, there’s no cases or sleeves available at launch and people get their shiny gizmos scratched to hell. I still haven’t received my “nano tubes” from Apple that I ordered at launch. Well, it looks like I can finally cancel that order.
Noreve is a high-quality case manufacturer from France that has released a nice leather case for the iPod nano that I totally dig. I reviewed one of their iPod cases back in April and liked it, and their nano case didn’t let me down. Noreve’s EUR 32.99 (~US$39.97) iPod nano case is an operate-in type case with a protective flap to cover the screen and clickwheel.
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If one can argue that the iPod has had a “halo effect” to benefit Macintosh sales, then maybe one could also argue that releasing Apple’s new Aperture software for Windows would also draw more Wintel users to the Mac platform.
Don’t laugh. Think about it.
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Mitsunobu Tanaka, Ph.D (a.k.a. KODAWARISAN) has posted benchmark results for the 17-inch 1.9GHz iMac G5.

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How 2.0: This retro radio cabinet automatically loads the iPod with tracks taken from classic vinyl.

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UPDATE: Griffin Technology has release iFill version 1.0.9 that fixes a problem with iTunes 6′s database format.
On Tuesday I covered a killer app for the iPod called iFill from Griffin Technology in my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.

It works like this: attach your iPod, enable “disk use” in iTunes and launch iFill. The software presents you with a nice graphical display of your iPod’s memory and allows you to reserve a certain amount for iFill. You then choose from thousands of Internet radio stations and click record (you can even fill your iPod quicker by selecting multiple stations to record at once.) As you sleep and re-charge your iPod you can also be topping it off with iFill.

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We finished the import of all the historical stories from the previous PowerPage back end database. There are now over 8,000 stories in the database dating back to 1999 for your searching pleasure. The GUI for the search pages is still incomplete, so pardon the dust there for a while longer.
Thank you to Habi Jilani who wrote the converter from our Web Objects format to Movable Type.
We are in the process of searching for and importing the stories from the PowerPage lost years (1995-1999) and hope to have them imported an online to celebrate our tenth year anniversary of publishing in December.

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Apple’s new post-production tool for photographers, Aperture, is one of the most promising applications to come along in a while and it has the potential to revolutionize photography as we know it. I’m wondering how it will perform on real world PowerBooks in the field.
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.

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The Eminem Spot is a tempest in a teapot. Apple has been using black silhouettes for its iPod for a while now. The Eminem rap spot is consistent with what Apple has been doing in that campaign. In fact Eminem does not look much different from the hooded Eminem in his Mosh video, although the cartoon characters in Mosh look a bit like South Park and some of the Bush TV spots look Jib Jabish. In the Apple television commercial, the iPod character looks like the typical silhouette with white wires. The color palette in the new Apple ad is right out of the Lugz ad from 2002, and even though this does not constitute plagiarism, there will be no ad industry awards forthcoming for this effort.
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