ScreenCastsOnline Monthly Magazine Launch

Now that the dust has settled, I'm delighted to formally announce the availability of the new ScreenCastsOnline Monthly Magazine!

This is a brand new digital magazine, especially formatted for the iPad, and available every month via Apple's Newsstand in iTunes.

I've always been intrigued by Newsstand apps and the magazine format and publication model seemed a perfect fit with my ScreenCastsOnline membership. Although ScreenCastsOnline has morphed into a successful business since it's inception in 2006, it's sometimes difficult to explain to people exactly what the service is.

For techies who are familiar with the whole concept of Podcasts and RSS, it's not difficult, but to most people it all seems a bit strange. Whenever I try to explain it in layman's terms, I inevitably end up explaining it using the analogy of a Magazine subscription. You buy a membership, and then new "issues" are delivered each week via iTunes.

Now I don't have to use the analogy, it exists as a magazine, and is delivered just like a magazine, automatically. Heck, it even looks like a physical magazine with a cover and everything!

Just to step back and set the scene, initially, when Newsstand was announced a couple of years ago, I was extremely excited.

The functionality was all there... New issues pushed out automatically when available, no manual downloads, purchase individual issues, monthly and annual subscriptions available… all perfect for ScreenCastsOnline content. The problem was that I wasn't a developer and all of the tools available to create the Newsstand applications were incredibly expensive. Not just expensive to buy, but some of them even attract extra charges when you publish a new issue of the magazine.

So I'd pushed the idea of a ScreenCastsOnline Monthly magazine to the back burner.

That was until about eight weeks ago when I heard of a new development being launched by Ed Dale called MagCast - an affordable solution for Newsstand magazine creation - at last.

I'd met Ed at Blogworld last year, where we both sat on a panel. He's the CEO of 30DC Inc. a leading company involved in web based marketing and education.

MagCast is a essentially a platform that enables the creation of Newsstand applications and magazines. Not only that, but Ed and his team also provides full training in the use of the platform via video tutorials. Currently, MagCast is in closed beta, but will be fully launched soon, and I'll explain more about the process when it's available.

As far as ScreenCastsOnline Monthly is concerned, the app and magazine have been approved by Apple and is now available from Newsstand. As of a few days ago, it reached the heady heights of the number 1 free app in the Computers & Internet category.

There's a free sampler issue available for download plus the first full issue. The full issue contains nearly 4 hours of streaming video content. I've also been fortunate enough to get some of my friends from the Mac community involved to contribute articles, reviews and hints to supplement the video content - such luminaries as David Sparks, Katie Floyd, Allison Sheridan, Tim Verpoorten, Wally Cherwinski and Jane Griffiths are all on board for the first issue.

ScreenCastsOnline Monthly will be available each month (naturally) and contain some of the previous months worth of ScreenCastsOnline tutorials for both Mac and iOS as well as new articles and other content.

Issues are be available for purchase individually, as well as monthly and annual subscriptions at a significant discount. I should point out that the subscriptions include a free months trial so you can subscribe to download both issues for free. You can always cancel your subscription before the end of the month's trial and it won't cost you a penny!

However, If you're a existing (or future) ScreenCastsOnline member, you receive a complimentary subscription to the monthly magazine whilst your membership is current.

The magazine is not intended to replace the full membership, that will carry on regardless, delivering two downloadable tutorials each week. The full membership also has additional benefits such as access to the members area on the website as well as full access to the entire ScreenCastsOnline archive of tutorials.

ScreenCastsOnline Monthly Magazine is really intended for those who may not want the full membership, but are happy to dip in and out of the magazine as it's published each month.

I've embedded a short 10 minute video below giving more information about the magazine.

 I'll still be producing the standalone SCOtutor apps as well as the weekly tutorials and the monthly magazine.

I really hope you enjoy ScreenCastsOnline Monthly and take out a subscription, the initial reaction has been fantastic as can be borne out by these iTunes reviews.

themacscreencastguy

The Bro Show

I recorded an episode of "The Bro Show" with Myke and Terry yesterday, and we discussed the current situation regarding the SCOtutor app withdrawal by Apple, amongst other things.

If you're following along with the whole debacle, you might want to give it a listen.

The Bro Show - Episode 114 - Grumpy Old Gents

SCOtutor Apps - An Update

UPDATE: 27th August 2012 - Apple have reversed their decision and will be re-instating the SCOtutor Video Tutorial Apps into the iTunes Store.

Bit of bad news...

The SCOtutor apps have been extremely well received in both the Mac and iOS apps stores. Each title has appeared in the top charts of their categories when released, and I've have tons and tons of great feedback on them all. They really do appear to have been a valuable resource to many people.

The free apps for iPad and Mac have been well received and I've had lots of comments back from people on how they've helped new users and removed the support burden for many people. They've been in the top education apps since they went free.

I submitted an update to one of my iOS apps a couple of weeks ago with a simple update to the icon. I've been updating all the apps with a new icon across the board.

Surprisingly, the app was rejected.

The approval process has not been without problems so I wasn't too concerned. However, when I read the reason for the rejection, I was taken aback somewhat:

2.21: Apps that are simply a song or movie should be submitted to the iTunes store. Apps that are simply a book should be submitted to the iBookstore

That was a new one.

Perfectly understandable I thought, although none of the other apps had previously been rejected with this ruling, I figured it must be something new.

On the face of it, I totally agree that if an an app is "simply a movie" it should not be in the App Store.

I assumed that they meant "movies", you know, "films" as we say in the UK - "Motion Pictures", "Theatrical Releases" cinematic content produced for purely entertainment reasons - "Movies"

Absolutely! iTunes is the right place for them - no question.

But the SCOtutor Apps are not movies - they are educational tutorials wrapped up in a bespoke player optimised for reviewing and learning. They have special controls for easily navigating the content and all have English captions. The application is engineered for multilingual subtitles that change the popup chapters into the selected language. They are certainly not "just movies".

Confidently, I submitted an appeal against what I thought was a simple misunderstanding.

I received a call last week saying the appeal had been turned down and in Apple's judgement, they were just movies for consumption.

Bother!

Even worse, they were going to review the rest of the apps and if they were the same, they would pull all the other apps from the stores too.

Double bother!

So, I resisted the urge to vent my spleen via Twitter and decided to think about the situation overnight.

The upshot was that in discussions with Simon Wolf, the SCOtutor developer, we've decided to enhance all the SCOtutor applications with some additional interactive functionality, to change the experience to something more interactive. The first version of the new enhanced SCOtutor app will allow you to create notes and annotate the tutorial using timestamps. Wherever you are in the tutorial, just tap a button and your notes appear, tap another button and the timestamp of your current position will be inserted, allowing you to mark specific points of the video. Tap done and the video will resume playing. In addition, you'll able to export and share the notes via email.

You can't do that with a movie in iTunes!

And we have even more interactivity planned for future releases.

The main ruling against the current SCOtutor app was that it is a passive experience, so we're going to make the SCOtutor apps as interactive as possible to keep the Apps in the App stores. Hopefully, the new version of the App with the extra functionality will be submitted later this week for Apple to review.

I was going to remain quiet, and not even mention this in public

I had hoped we could submit new versions of the Apps before they pulled all the Apps from the stores. However, I've just taken a follow up call from Apple this afternoon, and they confirmed they will be pulling all the Apps from the stores in the next few days.

If you want to get a copy, you'll need to act quick.

I've no beef with Apple applying the letter of the (their) law and if they consider the SCOtutor Apps to be movies, then so be it. We'll just try and make them much more of an interactive experience, and hopefully get them through the approval process and re-instated.

Obviously it's going to cost me more money, time and stress getting the apps updated, but I think it's worth it.

The main reason for pursuing this is that I do feel that this content does belong in the Apps Stores and not in iTunes. They are extremely valuable resources for people and it saddens me to think that the apps would be withdrawn - especially the free titles which have proven to be so popular and helped so many people.

Of course, this does not affect the weekly ScreenCastsOnline service or membership in the slightest - that will continue on as before, the SCOtutor Apps were just a spin off of ScreenCastsOnline.

So this post is not a tirade about the unfairness of the App Store approval process or intended to whip up a frenzy about the injustice of them removing all my apps.

Apple have changed the App Store rules, and the SCOtutor apps have fallen foul of the new rules. On reflection, the ruling has resulted in a better app experience and will actually turn the SCOtutor apps into better products.

Hopefully the new interactive versions of the Apps will be approved and made available via the mechanisms where they are most appropriate.

In the meantime, if you were holding out on getting any of the SCOtutor apps, you'd best act quickly! You can see a page with all the SCOtutor Apps here.

Update on Thursday, June 28, 2012 at 12:44AM by Don McAllister

Simon has worked wonders and delivered an updated version of the app in record time. I've just re-submitted the enhanced version of app that got rejected to Apple for review. Might take a week or so before I hear back. Fingers crossed it will be enough to keep the SCOtutor apps in the stores,

Update on Friday, June 29, 2012 at 7:18AM by Don McAllister

Looks like Apple have held true to their word and removed all the SCOtutor apps from sale for the iTunes App Store as of this morning. The Mac App Store titles remain for now. No word yet on the approval of the enhanced App but it's going to take at least another week before I hear back. 

Update on Wednesday, July 11, 2012 at 11:32AM by Don McAllister

Bother! Despite the additional enhancements, Apple have rejected the Apps again on the basis they still think they are movies?

Onwards and upwards - I have yet another cunning plan, but I'll keep it under my hat for now. Will update you following the next review which will probably take a couple of weeks.

ScreenCastsOnline Studio Revamp

If you follow my twitter account, you may already know I've had a busy weekend.

I've been using my 11" MacBook Air as my main production machine for quite a while now, recently acquiring a 27" Thunderbolt display to go with it. The 27" Thunderbolt display was a game changer in conjunction with the 11" MBA - the responsiveness of the machine, the clarity of the display not to mention the convenience of the ports built into the display - all accessible via a single Thunderbolt connector.

I still used my 2008 Mac Pro for encoding and storage as despite the 11" MBA being a little powerhouse, the Mac Pro still outperformed it on encoding. I also use a Mac mini as a dedicated development machine for Xcode and publishing the SCOtutor Apps.

Consequently, I had a triple monitor setup - 1 x 15" for the Mac mini, 1 x 15" for the Mac Pro and the 27" for the MacBook Air.

The only thing is, the two 15" monitors were not used. I've started to use Remote Desktop and it works like a dream. I can view the desktops of both machines in high resolution on my 27" monitor. So both monitors were superfluous.

The only three issues I had with the MacBook Air were:

• Lack of Memory - the MBA maxed out at 4GB
• Lack of Screen Real Estate - for video editing on the go, the 11" screen didn't really hack it
• Lack of Grunt - It's a super responsive machine, but for really processor intensive tasks, it could use a touch more horsepower

The solution to all three issues was the introduction of the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display - ordered! I placed an order for the following configuration - 2.7GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, 16GB 1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM, 512GB Flash Storage

At the same time, I started to think about a revamp to the studio.

The two 15" monitors had to go, but I decided to replace them with a second 27" Thunderbolt display. The new MacBook Pro can drive two monitors at full resolution via Thunderbolt plus a third display via HDMI. I can continue to use Remote Desktop to the other machines with plenty of screen real estate.

Usually with a laptop and 2 x 27" displays, you'd tend to use the laptop in clamshell mode and just used the external displays. With having the Retina Display, I didn't want to do this and thought of a way to utilise the 15" display also (See photo). I'm not sure if this is the way to go but I'll use it in this configuration for the next week or so.

I also wanted to tidy up and move some of the more noisier components into a rack. This would both give me a quieter environment and give me lots more under desk storage. So a new rack was ordered and duly installed. This now contains:

• 24 port Gigabit Ethernet Switch (no more daisy chained switches around the office)
• DBX 226XL Limiter/Compressor
• 2 x Mac Mini - Xcode machine & Media Server
• 1 x 4 bay Drobo
• 1 x 8 bay DroboPro - I didn't bother with the rack-mount kit - £150!!!

The Drobos are starting to show their age and are the noisiest bits of kit in the room. I think they will be the next things to go when I start looking at Thunderbolt rack mounted storage.

So most of the new equipment is in place and I now need to spend a couple of days tidying up the inevitable boxes of cables and detritus that seem to accumulate when you take on a job like this.

Oh and by the way, the MacBook Pro outperforms my 2008 8 core Xeon Mac Pro in encoding. I'll do some tests later in the week and post some comparisons.

If you want to see the flurry of activity over the past two days, checkout the embedded YouTube video below (looks like the 1st version won't work on Mobile devices such as iPad as I've included some music YouTube identified as copyright - use the second version for iPad/iPhone)

Desktop Version

iPad/iPhone Version

"Pro" or not "Pro"

Lots of discussions on the web and Twitter about the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

Every review I've seen have gushed about how stunning the screen is, but there's an undercurrent of dissent about Apples new flagship product.

in order to build the slimmest and lightest form factor, Apple have gone down the route of using bespoke components and removing upgradability.

The new MacBook Pro with Retina Display has been given a Repairability Score of 1 out of 10 (10 is easiest to repair) by iFixit, which has drawn many comments of it being "the least fixable computer ever" due to the build approach taken by Apple. RAM soldered onto the motherboard, battery glued in, all sorts of build techniques Apple have adopted to build to a new spec of size and performance.

This lack of upgradability has made many commenters question if it deserves the "Pro" name.

It is true that there are no user upgradable parts or no exchangeable battery, in fact, the new MacBook Pro should be considered a sealed unit, specifically designed for power and portability.

The new MacBook Pro is the most powerful laptop Apple has ever produced. It's also arguably one of the most flexible and extendible laptops, due to its connectivity.

Dual USB2/3 ports, dual Thunderbolt ports, HDMI port, Analog & Digital audio out, SDXC Card slot, full wireless connectivity via WiFi and BlueTooth.

Need wired Ethernet, there's an inexpensive Thunderbolt to gigabit Ethernet adaptor.

Need FireWire? Again, a new Thunderbolt to FIrewire adaptor is (will be!) available.

Memory and Processor? Takes a full 16GB of RAM and the latest quad core processors. 16GB RAM and Quad core processor in a laptop for goodness sake!

Storage? 256GB or 512GB as standard, or pay the extra to get a whopping 768GB.

Want to capture hours of full res video? Connect a Thunderbolt drive or array of drives working at lightening speed.

No, the reason for disagreement over the "Pro" name is that you're locked into the initial configuration of the machine that you buy. As a side note, It looks like you may be able to use a third part upgrade to the SSD drive, but no RAM upgrade is possible.

Much gnashing of teeth that you can't buy a machine with minimum RAM and then upgrade using cheaper 3rd party RAM. This may have been a valid point back in the day when Apple RAM was ridiculously expensive, but to max out the RAM to 16GB is just $200.

So go with the configuration that's going to last you for the next few years when you buy. Considering most "Pro" users will be buying the machine for business use, surely this cannot be an issue?

How soon would you want to upgrade to more than 16GB RAM in a laptop anyway?

In my humble opinion, the true meaning of a Pro machine is performance, flexibility and expandability.

For the new MacBook Pro, performance is a given.

Flexibility and expandability is delivered in spades via the inclusion of USB3, Thunderbolt, HDMI, etc. Whilst Thunderbolt is still in it's infancy, we'll see tons of specialised outboard equipment becoming available over the next year or two.

As far as I'm concerned, the new MacBook Pro with Retina Display is a true Pro machine, no question.

Update - Christine Warren has done a great piece over on her blog along the same lines but with an interesting analogy to cars - well worth a read! Screw Upgrades: The New MacBook Pro IS the Future