Apple’s MobileMe service is now live at Me.com, an online service that offers web-based email, calendar, address book and online storage, with push services that will sync the MobileMe content to native applications on iPhone, iPod touch, Macs and PCs.

MobileMe replaces the .Mac service. Apple provides a ‘MobileMe Updater for Mac OS X’ that will convert the “.Mac” references in OS X to “MobileMe”. You can obtain this software via Software Update. If you do not find the update, go to System Preferences -> .Mac -> Account Details, and system will prompt you to go to Software Update that shows the MobileMe Updater program.

          <blockquote>
          The Mac OS X Update For MobileMe is recommended for users running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.4 and includes general system fixes that enhance your Mac for MobileMe.
          </blockquote>

Apple is banking on MobileMe’s push model to drive up the subscription, which is priced at $99 per year with 20G of storage. Push email service such as Blackberry has been very successful in the enterprise space.

More details about MobileMe: http://www.apple.com/mobileme/

Apple today releases iTunes 7.7 which you can update via Mac OS X Software Update or download from Apple website.

iTunes 7.7 is not just another iTunes bug fixes update, it is required for use with iPhone 3G, access to the new iPhone App Store, and for upgrade of original iPhone to iPhone 2.0 software. The free Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch allows you to remotely control your iTunes software, presumably over Wi-Fi. You enable this feature via a preference setting “Look for iPhone & iPod touch Remotes” in iTunes 7.7.

          <blockquote>
          Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.
          </blockquote>

With only 2 days to the launch of iPhone 3G on July 11, the Apple hype sphere is at all times high with iPhone 3G news, unboxing pictures and videos, and reviews all over the net. Have you not been tempted?

First, we have the advance reviews of the iPhone 3G from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Some highlights of the three reviews:

          <ul>
          <li>Feels better than original iPhone in your hand due to the curved back</li>
          <li>Data speed is 3-5x faster than original iPhone due to 3G, as expected</li>
          <li>Battery drained much more quickly with 3G enabled</li>
          <li>Speaker sounded better. "In fact, few cellphones sound this good."</li>
          <li>GPS is very accurate</li>
          <li>Exchange ActiveSync works well and relatively easy to setup</li>
          <li>There is still no video recording, no stereo bluetooth, no copy/paste, no memory card slot, no MMS and no voice dialing</li>
          </ul>

Continue reading »

Fluid is a Mac OS X application that lets you package your web applications (GMail, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Digg etc) as native Mac OS X desktop applications, complete with own window, standard menu bar, Dock icon and .app program file.

Fluid creates native Mac OS X application that wraps around Apple Safari’s WebKit web rendering engine. The created OS X application is normally referred to as a Site Specific Browser (SSB), which is basically an instance of the browser engine running a specific website URL. This SSB instance runs the web application separately and not from within the web browser. So crashing your browser such as Safari won’t take down your SSB instance.

Continue reading »

Apple will launch its MobileMe service this Wednesday July 9 sometime between 6pm and 12am PST, according to a notice posted in the ‘system status’ column on the .Mac support site.

Apple announced the .Mac revamp in June during Apple Worldwide Developers Conference and rebranded it MobileMe. The new MobileMe retains many .Mac features, such as mail, calendar, contacts and online storage, with a new emphasis on push services to sync MobileMe contents with your computer and iPhone. .Mac features dropped from MobileMe include web access to bookmarks, slides, iCards and sync with OS X 10.3. Continue reading »

Apple has posted a new article ‘How to replace an original iPhone with an iPhone 3G’ on Apple Support website that contains step-by-step guide on how to move the contents and settings on your first generation iPhone to iPhone 3G.

The steps basically require the use of iTunes (version 7.7 or later required) to back up the contents and settings of the original iPhone, and then connect the new iPhone 3G to restore the backup into it. You can transfer SMS messages, email accounts and passwords, photos, notes, and other personal settings from original iPhone to iPhone 3G.

Another good piece of news to build up the momentum before iPhone 3G is released this Friday July 11. This time it is from a survey published by kakaku.com, a price comparison portal in Japan for home appliances and electronic goods. The survey results show that many are considering purchasing the iPhone 3G, and about 29% of the other carriers’ subscribers are apparently considering switching in order to use iPhone. iPhone 3G will be released by SoftBank Mobile exclusively in Japan on July 11.

          <blockquote>
          The survey results showed that the intention of buying the iPhone is strong among the respondents: Those who answered "I have already pre-ordered one," "I will definitely purchase one," "I intend to purchase one" or "I am considering purchasing one" accounted for 50.9% of all respondents, Kakaku.com said.
          </blockquote>

Reasons cited for why they want the iPhone 3G include “Because its functions seem interesting”,”Because its design is superior”,”Because its interface seems easy to use” and “Because I like Apple’s products”.

Kakaku.com portal conducted the survey from June 19 to June 25 and received 7,963 responses, about 90% of which are male respondents.

Source: TechOn!

Upgrading the RAM of your Mac is often the cheapest way to make programs run smoother. When you are running multiple programs at once, Mac OS X will swap the memory occupied by idle applications to hard disk when the active applications have insufficient RAM to work with. This constant swapping of memory to slower hard disk ‘slows down’ your computer. Increasing the RAM of your Mac does not increase the speed of the machine, it just makes the computer swap lesser and run at its optimal best.

We recommend a minimum of 2G for general computer usage. You will need as much RAM as possible if you run ‘heavy duty’ programs such as virtualization software (VMWare Fusion, Parallels Desktop), Photoshop, Aperture, digital audio video editing programs etc.

Buying RAM from Apple Store is notoriously expensive compare to compatible RAM that you can get elsewhere. For example the 4G memory kit (2x2GB SO-DIMMs 667MHz DDR2 PC2-5300) for MacBook Pro from Apple Store is $400. Compatible RAM from Crucial for the same 4G memory costs $104. We have been using compatible RAM on our Macs for quite sometimes with no problems whatsoever and do-it-yourself upgrading of RAM on your Mac is easy.

Continue reading »

Line for the iPhone 3G has started outside of Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in New York, a week ahead of iPhone 3G’s launch on July 11. News is some people in the line are there to attempt to break the world record for waiting in line. We salute the people in the line, and what a way to spend your Fourth of July weekend and seven days of your life!

From GearDiary:

          <blockquote>
          “This is the first line forming for the 3G iPhone at the flagship Apple 5th Avenue Store in New York City. About 10 people in line with the first two being a man and woman with a young child. I talked to the security guards and New York police who will allow everyone to stay and indicated that as of yet there are no plans to put out barricades. It appears that most (if not all) of the people in line are part of some group who may be either attempting to set a record for waiting in line or gain some publicity for themselves. It’s too early to tell if this is a hoax or whether these folks will stay in line through sun and rain for the next seven days”.
          </blockquote>

Number one in line is a man and woman with a baby, lets hope we don’t see the baby everyday for the next seven days. Are these people there for world record? Or for some kind of publicity stunts? Are they hired by Apple to hype up the launch? Will the line get longer and stretch over to wall street? Seven days to all the answers…

Source: GearDiary

Google has released a new version of Google Talk instant messaging application for iPhone and iPod Touch. Google Talk runs entirely under the Safari browser of iPhone and iPod Touch and there is no software to download or install. Just point your iPhone or iPod Touch browser to www.google.com/talk.

Announced the release yesterday in Google Mobile Blog, Google Talk for iPhone does not provide the same always on experience as the desktop version due to its web application nature:

          <blockquote>
          There are some differences from using Google Talk on your computer. For instance, in order to receive instant messages with Google Talk on your iPhone, the application needs to be open in your Safari browser. When you navigate away to another browser window or application, your status will be changed to "unavailable" and your Google Talk session will be restarted when you return.
          </blockquote>

It is great to see more instant messaging platform release on iPhone, providing alternative to traditional SMS text messaging available on mobile phone. With AOL AIM Client confirmed for iPhone, let’s hope we get MSN/Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger on board soon. Market share estimate that AIM has about 50 percent of the instant messaging market, followed by MSN/Windows Live Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger. Google Talk has about 2.5 percent of the market, according to Nielsen Online.