Mac App Store for Xmas?

Appletell are floating an idea that the Mac App store may well launch on December 13th, in time for Christmas.

Really?

It's public knowledge that Apple have been pushing developers to get "Mac App store ready" versions of their applications into them for validation for a while.

I'm aware through Twitter, that many App developers have already submitted Apps for inclusion into the Mac App store.

It's also public knowledge that a second beta of Mac OSX 10.6.6 has been released to developers (AppleInsider) with support for the Mac App store included. This would allow developers to do a final test on their apps ahead of the Mac App store launch.

Steve's announcement in the recent Apple event would put the scheduled launch of the Mac Store round about the 20th January 2011 (90 days from the announcement).

So why would Apple bring this forward?

Obviously it needs to be ready, first and foremost, and by all accounts it is.

If they could launch a fully operational Mac App store before Christmas, it could be a major boost to Apple.

It's well documented that traffic to the existing iTunes and App store goes ballistic at Christmas.  Sales of music and iOS Apps goes through the roof, as new iPod touch and iPhone owners go online with their brand new devices, and start downloading and installing from the iTunes store.

Imagine the same scenario for all the new Mac users this Christmas.

All the new iMacs (and probably this Christmas, new MacBook Airs) being given as Christmas gifts, crying out for new, shiny Mac software. But where to get Mac software over the Christmas period?

Welcome to the Mac App store!

The timing would be perfect.

If they did manage to launch before Christmas, Apple will get both a huge uptake from existing Mac users wanting to test out the new service for a couple of weeks before Christmas, plus all the new business stemming from the new Macs after Christmas.

Very smart!

And let's just say Apple keep to an annual rollout of the iPad, with version 2 coming out in MArch/April, they could schedule a special event in January to pre-announce the new iPad, just like in 2010.

What would be on the first few slides of the hugely covered iPad launch?

Spectacular sales of Mac Apps over the Christmas period, all thanks to the new Mac App Store.

Genius.

MacBook Air Prize Draw Winner

And the winner is:

Jude Chua of the Philippines

Congratulations Jude!

I didn't intend to do the draw live but changed my mind at the last minute. So I dusted down my ustream account and set everything up, but.... the technology let me down.

Apologies!

Here's a short video of the proceedings!

Apple TV Update

So the new Apple TV update came out (4.1) with support for AirPlay and very impressive it is too.

But I'm still not happy!

I wrote back in October - Apple TV Fail - about specific problems I was having with the new Apple TV and my Sony HD TV. It's only three or four years old and supports 720p 50Hz .  I've been using it with great success with the 1st Gen Apple TV, which had a menu for TV resolution.

When connected by default, it uses 720p 60Hz and you get a fuzzy, ghosted image. Switch the 1st Gen Apple TV via the menu to 720p 50Hz aand bingo- perfect picture.

The new Apple TV specs include support for 720p 50Hz and 720p 60Hz on most popular TVs. Sony are even mentioned in the spec. 

Connected it to the new Apple TV and it defaults to 720p 60Hz - fuzzy, ghosted image.

But Apple haven't included a TV resolution option in the Settings menu of the new Apple TV!

So I'm knackered! The new Apple TV doesn't work with my HD TV.

I'd hoped that the TV resolution menu might re-appear in the new release of the firmware, but it didn't.  I've logged a call with Apple but they can't promise a resolution - excuse the pun.

So I bought an HDMI to Component cable to see if that would work and....

Nope!

Looks like you need some active circuitry to convert the signal.

I can buy an HDFury2: Universal HDMI to Component converter which I'm confident would work, but that's £123 - it costs more than the Apple TV.

The only other option is a new TV. 

Despite being a gadget fiend and not really needing an excuse to buy a gadget, you'd think I'd be over the moon at the prospect of upgrading the TV, but I'm not.

There's nothing wrong with it. 

Plus I don't really want all the hassle of switching over.

I had thought I might replace my TV next year, when the new Plex enabled LG TVs come out, but not now. Not just because Apple decided not to make the TV resolution switchable.

First world problem I know!

But what to do......

Update: Following the blogpost, I was contacted by a ScreenCastsOnline viewer - Kent Christian - who has kindly offered to send me a HDMI to Component Video adapter that should do the trick - Will report back.

Nuke and Burn? Probably not...

I''ve had Microsoft Office Mac:2011 on my desk for the best part of two weeks now, still wrapped in its shrinkwrap.

The problem has been I've just been crazy busy trying to prepare for next year's MacWorld and MacMania cruise.

Along with all the prep for the presentations, I need to organise and prepare for the shows to deliver whilst I'm away.

However, this morning I needed to do some heavy number crunching on some huge spreadsheets and unfortunately,  Numbers just wasn't cutting the mustard.

The version of Office 2011 I have includes Word, PowerPoint and Excel, and to be honest, it was only Excel I was interested in.

So I rip open the shrinkwrap and pop the disk into the drive, expecting to be presented with a selection menu to just install Excel.

Unfortunately this wasn't the case and the installer ended up installing all three applications, and even some apps I wasn't I wasn't even aware about. Seriously Microsoft, Remote Desktop Connection?

I have to admit, I was even more miffed on discovering that Microsoft Office installs itself automatically into my dock without asking - bad show!

Update: My bad! There is a customise button on the installer as pointed out in the comments. Don't know why I never noticed that! Apologies Microsoft ;-)

But anyway Excel was now installed, along with Word but also Powerpoint.

Excel I wanted, Word is probably worth me taking a look, but as a hardened Keynote user, PowerPoint was really wasn't on the radar and surplus to requirements.

Couldn't find an uninstall option, so I sent out a tweet to find out how to install it.

As you might expect, I received a mixture of responses,  from nuking or burning the machine (a bit drastic there chaps!) but also the advice to just drag PowerPoint to the trash. It looks as though there's no uninstall in this latest version of Microsoft Office.

I was just about to trash Powerpoint when I received a solitary direct message from someone suggesting

...you should give PowerPoint a fair chance. In many ways it is better than Keynote, especially when it comes to diagrams.

I have to say that I wasn't expecting that!

My knee jerk reaction was just to get rid of the app and stick with Keynote. In retrospect, this perhaps was a bit blinkered of me.

Powerpoint 2011 is obviously the result of many months of work by teams of people and it's very dismissive of me to just delete without even trying it out.

So although I haven't got a chance at a moment to try it out, I'll leave PowerPoint on my hard drive and when I do get a minute, I'll will give it a spin.

As I expected, Excel is much more suited to handling the large spreadsheets, so I'm happy for now and can get on with all this number crunching. I'd forgotten just how powerful Excel is and I look forward to being re-united with Pivot Tables again.

I'll check out Word and Powerpoint soon, but wouldn't it be funny if I ended up using PowerPoint for my MacWorld and MacMania presentations after all!

SitePoint Interview

I had a note over the weekend that an interview I did, whilst at Blogworld and New Media Expo 2010, has now been posted.

Thanks to Kevin Yank for the invite.

The audio of the interview (and a full transcription) can be found here