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News & Opinion
Shopping for an Apple Product? Choose Refurbished
Every Time
Cnet's Rick Broida says that when it comes to Apple products, he can
see no reason to choose anything but Apple Certified refurbs- an
affirmation made not as gushing Apple fanboy, but as someone who thinks
most Apple hardware is overpriced. Broida sees refurbs as a rare
opportunity to get it for less.
Broida notes that the Apple store's refurbished iPad section offers
the 16 GB iPad 2 WiFi for $419 shipped - a full $80 less than what
you'd pay for a new one. A refurbished 32 GB iPad 2 WiFi is $499.
You can get a Core 2 Duo MacBook Air for as little as $699. A 13"
refurbished MacBook Air can be had for $899 - $300 less than new, while
a refurbished 15" MacBook Pro is $540 less.
What's the catch? What do you give up by opting for refurbished
Apple gear?
"Nothing," says Broida, noting that Apple's refurbs come with a new
outer shell and new battery, meaning you get same-as-new appearance and
performance. You also get the same one-year warranty Apple extends to
new hardware. There is literally no downside unless you count the small
cosmetic difference of refurbs shipping in nondescript cardboard boxes
rather then the fancy white ones new Apple gear comes in.
Broida thinks the Apple Store's refurbished section is the only
logical place to start your shopping, noting that he's purchased
refurbished iPhones, iPods, and iPads, and every one of them arrived in
perfect, like-new condition.
Publisher's note: My experience has been the same with three eMacs,
far better luck than I've had with refurbished Kodak digital cameras
and photo printers, for instance, which I would never buy again even if
Kodak survives bankruptcy. dk
Link: Shopping for an
Apple Product? Choose Refurbished Every Time
Link: Apple's
Refurbished and Clearance Page
iOSification Is a Fundamental Shift of Strategy for
Apple
MacStories' Federico Viticci says that looking at his Mac's OS X
10.7 Lion screen, he can count dozens of iOS-inspired elements now
coexisting with old school Aqua interfaces and controls, and contends
that the iOSification of OS X goes far beyond simply converting
graphics and updating apps from one platform to another. It is actually
more a conversion of the entire Apple ecosystem to an iOS-inspired
system of graphical elements, user interactions, business models, user
experience paradigms, and functionalities - a fundamental shift of
strategy.
He notes that in Lion, the user's Library directory is no longer
visible by default, eliminating an important piece of filesystem from
the default configuration of the OS, and that Mac developers will soon
be forced to implement sandboxing, which limits the access a
third-party app has to the filesystem. Viticci maintains that very
soon, almost every aspect of Apple's operations will be iOS-inspired or
iOS-unified, like it or not.
Link: The
iOS-ification of Apple's Ecosystem
Worldwide, 21% of IT Workers Use Apple Products for
Work
Forrester Research's Frank Gillett in a blog post says if you've
been noticing more and more Apple products in public spaces and
workspaces over the last few years, it's not just Apple consciousness
on your part. Gillett says that research data reveal that 21% of
information workers are using one or more Apple products for work, with
almost half of enterprises of 1,000 employees or more issuing Macs to
at least some employees and planning a 52% increase in the number of
Macs they issue in 2012.
Gillett reports that Forrester decided to quantify the presence of
Apple products in the workplace by asking over 3,300 IT decision makers
in their annual Forrsights surveys what they were buying and
supporting, but that doesn't capture the growing phenomenon of
consumerization, where the employees are using personally owned
technology for work purposes, whether at home or at work. Indeed, he
reports, that's exactly what some of the CTOs were doing - bringing
their personal gear to work and figuring out what they could do to make
it work, often with little or no formal IT support.
Consequently, Gillett says Forrester also asked 10,000 information
workers what products they use to get work done, at work and at home,
and has posted in his blog two portions of graphics from the firm's
"Apple Infiltrates the Enterprise report".
Takeaway Highlights
- Managers and execs are more than twice as likely to use Apple
products.
- Younger info workers are twice as likely to use Apple products as
older ones.
- Higher income workers are more likely to use Apple products - about
that latter point, Gillett says use of Apple products is actually
pretty strong right down the income scale, with most of the sample of
10,000 global info workers earning less than $50k, and an adoption rate
of Apple products of almost 17% even in the bottom quartile of workers
who make less than $12k per year.
- Info workers in countries outside North America and Europe are more
likely to use Apple products for work.
Link: Apple Infiltrates
the Enterprise: 21% of IT Workers Use Apple Products for Work
Link:
Apple Infiltrates the Enterprise and Reshapes the Markets for Personal
Devices at Work
Apple Storms Past HP to Lead Global PC Market
PR: Canalys has announced that Apple, after reporting stellar
results, became the leading worldwide client PC vendor in Q4 2011.
Apple shipped over 15 million iPads and five million Macs, representing
17% of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in Q4.
Overall, the total client PC market, including desktops, netbooks,
notebooks, and pads grew 16% year-on-year. Excluding pads, the client
PC market declined 0.4%. The floods in Thailand, that impacted hard
drive assembly plants, caused mild disruption to shipments during the
quarter, but the side effects are likely to be felt in the first half
of 2012.
Among the other top five PC vendors, only Lenovo managed to increase
its market share, by a relatively modest two points, compared to
Apple's six-point gain over the same quarter a year ago. Acer, Dell and
HP - the hardest hit - all lost market share. Now the second largest
client PC vendor worldwide, HP will struggle to compete with Apple
following the end of its Touchpad.
"Currently, HP is pursuing a Windows strategy for its pad portfolio,
producing enterprise-focused products, such as the recently launched
Slate 2, until the launch of Windows 8," says Canalys Analyst Tim
Coulling. "However, questions remain over Microsoft's entry into the
consumer pad space. While early demonstrations of the Window 8
operating system seem promising, Microsoft must focus its efforts on
creating an intuitive user experience that is far less resource
intensive."
Lenovo continued to close the gap on HP, thanks to successful
investment outside of core markets. The acquisition of Medion in
Germany helped Lenovo double its shipments in Western Europe during the
second half of 2011. The vendors decision to use Android for enterprise
and consumer pads gives it a better opportunity than HP to continue
gaining market share.
Dell placed fourth among the top five PC vendors, followed by Acer.
Acer's shipments continued to decline, as a result of the pad's impact
on the netbook market. Acer did, however, make headlines at the 2012
International Consumer Electronics Show in January, when it revealed
its S5 Ultrabook. Unsurprisingly, Acer and other vendors have been
quick to announce their support for the new Ultrabook form factor, with
the view of driving innovation and renewed customer interest in
notebooks.
"We expect Ultrabook volumes to see limited adoption through the
first half of 2012, before finally gaining momentum later in the year
as price points decline and Intel launches a new line of processors and
embarks on an aggressive marketing campaign," says Canalys Research
Analyst Michael Kauh. "In the short term though, vendors will
experience more pressure in the netbook and notebook segments,
especially with Apple's annual iPad refresh approaching.
Pads accounted for 22% of total PC shipments during Q4 2011. In
addition to Apple's strong performance, the Amazon Kindle Fire and the
Nook Tablet by Barnes and Noble boosted volumes in the U.S. market,
allowing both vendors to claim spots among the top five worldwide pad
makers, in second and fifth place respectively."
All regions grew year-on-year with the inclusion of pads. Excluding
pads, however, shipments in Europe, Middle East and Africa and North
America declined, due to weaker consumer demand in Western Europe and
the United States, despite the traditional Q4 sales periods. Vendors
and channel partners took a cautious approach to inventory levels in
Q4, as many had expected a slow quarter. Notebook volumes grew
slightly, at approximately 1% in these regions, but continued their
impressive rise in Asia Pacific and Latin America, as more consumers
embraced mobile computing.
"The consumerization of IT continues to be a significant disruptive
force in the PC industry, but many of the leading vendors have failed
to capitalize on the trend to date," says Coulling. "This year will be
a pivotal year for those vendors that were slow to launch pads. It is
not just the product that they need to get right, business models are
equally important - driving revenues from content delivery can help
vendors reach lower price points in a market that is incredibly price
sensitive."
Link:
Apple Storms Past HP to Lead Global PC Market
Products & Services
Eco-Friendly Battery-Free BlueEye Mouse
PR: Genius, a Taiwan-based maker of computer
peripherals, has announced what it claims is the world's first
battery-free wireless mouse that is recharged within minutes - DX-ECO
BlueEye Mouse.
Your editor is a big fan of the Logitech Solar Keyboard for Mac
that's been my main input device for the past six months or so, and
this Genius mouse sounds like an ideal companion device.
Genius says the BlueEye DX-ECO's battery-free design has
built-in a gold capacitor to expand recharge life up to 100,000 times,
and it can be ready for a full day's use after only a three-minute
charge. The Genius BlueEye technology lets you work virtually anywhere,
connecting to you Mac or PC via bi-directional 2.4 GHz RF from up to 15
meters (about 50'), and anti-interference technology ensures working
smoothness. Also supported is hot key 4-way scrolling, access to
Previous/Next Page, Flying Scroll, and dpi adjust between 800 and 1600
dpi. The DX-ECO's tiny super mini USB pico receiver can be stored
inside the DX-ECO.
DX-ECO Features
- 2.4 GHz 7-button Battery-free mouse
- 1600 dpi BlueEye engine
- Flying scroll to hyper scroll document browsing
- Works on dusted glass, marble, thick carpet, sofa upholstery
- Ergonomic design with rubber comfort on thumb grip
The DX-ECO's suggested retail price will be $39.99, and it should be
available at major resellers in the USA & Canada soon.
Link:
Genius DX-ECO BlueEye Mouse
Software
Free Alternatives to 15 Mac Apps
AppStorm's Henry Bennett notes that while there's a huge range of
paid OS X software out there, more often than not there is also some
form of free alternative, and he outlines 15 great free pieces of
software that achieve much the same purpose as a popular commercial
software application, although the latter are usually going to do the
job better, look nicer, or have more features than any free app.
For example, he notes that while Photoshop is without question a
brilliant piece of software, it costs a whopping $700, and freeware
image editor Seashore might be perfect for most people looking for a
general photo editing application on a tight budget. Seashore supports
layers, alpha channels, and has a decent tool set, image editing
controls likes contrast and hue sliders, and so forth.
The 15 apps profiled are:
- Photoshop alternative: Seashore
(requires OS X 10.4.11 or newer)
- AppZapper alternative: AppCleaner (OS X 10.4)
- Parallels/Fusion alternative: VirtualBox (Intel only)
- Linkinus (IRC) alternative: Colloquy (OS X 10.4, earlier version
supports 10.3)
- Transmit alternative: Cyberduck
(OS X 10.5, earlier version supports 10.4)
- Concentrate alternative: Isolator (OS X 10.4 and
10.5/10.6 versions, 10.7 in beta)
- InDesign alternative: Scribus (OS X 10.5,
Intel)
- Pages alternative: OpenOffice (system requirements not
posted, but PowerPC compatible)
- CoverScout alternative:
Album Artwork Assistant (OS X 10.6)
- CoverSutra alternative: Bowtie
(OS X 10.6)
- MainMenu alternative: IceClean (OS X 10.5,
separate PowerPC and Intel versions)
- DaisyDisk (monitor disk space used) alternative: DiskWave (OS X 10.5)
- Illustrator (drawing) alternative: Inkscape (OS X 10.6)
- TextMate/TextEdit (text editor) alternative: TextWrangler (OS
X 10.5, earlier version supports 10.4))
- Coda (web development) alternative: Aptana Studio (OS X 10.5,
Intel)
All excellent suggestions, although your editor leans toward
LibreOffice as opposed to
OpenOffice.
Publisher's note: We have included Mac OS and hardware requirements
where we can find them. It's nice to see so many of these freeware app
still supporting OS X 10.4 Tiger and PowerPC. I want to also mention
NeoOffice, a port of
OpenOffice/LibreOffice specifically optimized for Mac OS X.
dk
Link: 15 Freeware
Alternatives to Popular Mac Software
DashExpander vs. xType: Which Free Expander is
Better?
AppStorm's Joshua Johnson says:
"As a writer, one utility that I simply cant live without is some
sort of text expansion app. These tools are simply invaluable to my
workflow and save me hours of typing every month. I personally am a
huge fan of TextExpander ($34.99
at the Mac App Store). Its my go to text expansion app and it
simply blows away the competition. I wouldn't dream of switching.
"That being said, I realize that not everyone can justify dropping
$35 for a snippet expander. Newbies to this specific app genre might
want to cut their teeth on a free app, so today were going to compare
two such apps from the Mac App Store:
xType (formerly Presto) and
DashExpander. How are these two apps different? Which is the best
for your needs? Read on to find out."
Link: DashExpander vs.
xType: Which Free Snippet Expander is Better?
Tex-Edit Plus 4.9.11 Released
PR: Trans-Tex Software's Tex-Edit Plus X 4.9.11 is a
scriptable, styled text editor ASCII text editor that fills the gap
between a Apple's bare-bones TextEdit and a full-featured word
processor. It's fast, efficient, and has a clean, uncluttered
interface, and is also great for cleaning up text transmitted over the
Internet. Tex-Edit Plus can read and write RTF documents and support
pictures in common formats (TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PICT, PSD)
Another Tex-Edit Plus specialty is it's integrated support for
AppleScript - Apple's wonderful, Mac-only technology that allows
ordinary people to create automated shortcuts with minimal effort. Doug
Adams maintains the official AppleScripts for Tex-Edit Archives, filled
with scripts for download, hints, tips, examples, and step-by-step
instructions for those of you interested in saving time, impressing the
boss, and avoiding repetitive stress injuries.
Tex-Edit Plus also supports Apple's new Automator, which has been
drastically enhanced for OS X 10.7 Lion. With 36 custom Automator
actions and unrivaled AppleScript recordability, Tex-Edit allows you to
create custom scripts and workflows with the push of a button. Of
course, if your time is of little or no value, please feel free to
ignore AppleScript and Automator.
Natural-sounding OS X voices are now available. If you use
Tex-Edit's speech facilities to proofread documents (or if you want to
find out what Eliza really thinks about you), check out the high
quality voices produced by Cepstral. The Version 5.2 voices, including
the new Callie voice, are extremely cool.
New in version Version 4.9.11
- Fixed an important bug involving the "Check for New Version"
command. (It now correctly downloads the most recent release version of
Tex-Edit Plus.)
- The "Speak Text" button in the Tools panel reads only the selected
text. If no text is selected, the entire document is read.
- The "Check Spelling" button in the Tools panel checks the spelling
of only the selected text. If no text is selected, the entire document
is spell-checked.
- Fixed bug noted when speaking text aloud using high quality Lion
voices. HQ Lion voices choke on traditional Mac high ASCII characters
(e.g. "smart quotes").
- New preferences file format. (Note that all Preferences settings
will reset to default values the first time this new version is
launched.)
- Tools panel now preserves find string, replace string, and checkbox
values between launches and prefs dialog reset.
- Tools panel find & replace functions now operate independently
from values in main "Find & Replace" dialog.
- Added "Open Scripts folder" and "Open Script Tools folder" buttons
to Script Tools panel.
- Added "Duplicate Document" and "Duplicate Selection" scripts.
- Minor improvements to Tools panel interface.
- Minor improvements to Script Tools panel interface.
- Both panels are displayed by default.
- The "Shift Left" and "Shift Right" functions now honor the
"Preferences->Tabs->Tab keypress will insert x spaces" setting.
(For example, if this pref is selected with 5 spaces per tab, then
Shift Right will insert 5 spaces instead of a tab at the beginning of
each paragraph.)
- Improved behavior of "save" command, to minimize appearance of the
"save as" warning when editing nonnative text files (e.g. html).
- Updated Automator actions so they function properly on 10.7
(Lion).
- Will now run on G3 or newer and MacOS 10.4 or newer. (Recompiled to
accommodate older G3/10.4 systems.)
- Fixed font size bug noted when printing page numbers.
- Fixed bug in text clipping file name.
- Fixed bug in "uniform styles" AppleScript property.
- Fixed bug noted when creating RTF files that contain pictures. The
pictures are now drawn correctly in other word processors (e.g.
Word).
Tex-Edit Plus is $15 shareware and is not locked, crippled,
time-limited, or ad-infested.
Link: Tex-Edit
Plus
Desktop Mac
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