MobileMe iDisk App for iPhone & iPod touch.

This morning I received an 'important message for MobileMe members'. The MobileMe team were pleased to announce the arrival of the new iDisk app. I can see them now, grinning in their tight, sky blue, MobileMe t-shirts, high-fiving in self-gratulation (they're wearing those t-shirts because they haven't been allowed home in the last six-months).

"The iDisk app lets you access your iDisk folders and view files in formats supported by iPhone OS 3.0 including iWork, Microsoft Office, PDF, QuickTime, and more. The app also makes it easy to share files from anywhere. In just a few taps, you can email a link that lets friends and colleagues download a file directly from your iDisk. To learn more, watch the tutorial."

What it means is that you don't have to faff around on a computer the next time you want to share a file on your iDisk - like I did last week. The app is free to all MobileMe members and downloadable through iTunes.

MacBook touch? iPad? MacTouch? iTab? Here for Christmas?

The old tablet rumour has reared it's ugly head again. I'm sure I can remember Steve Jobs saying that there's no market for a Mac tablet. But that was back when they were only used by those working in science - It was way before the iPod touch and the iPhone brought touchscreen computing to the masses. How things have changed.
Reports in today's Financial Times say that the device will be part of a new entertainment revolution. Apple are in talks with music companies to offer more to those who download albums (very apt, since it was partly down to iTunes that people stopped buying whole albums in the first place). It sounds like they will soon be offering not just pdf booklets but interactive extras; the sort of extras you get on a DVD.
This alone isn't exactly what I'd call a revolution. A tablet device is more likely to attract movie-goers, who currently use portable DVD players, and eBook readers (it would knock the socks off Amazon's Kindle). It could also rekindle [;-)] the dying newspaper trade. That's all the iPhoners do on my train from Commuterville - read the mobile news sites.
However Apple hope we'll use it, we're gonna need a bigger cleaning cloth. Imagine the fingermarks.

The new iPod touch and nano will (most definitely) have cameras.

It looks like those Chinese have let the cat out of the bag again. These are all case samples that have been sent to suppliers in the last week and with so many cases being made, this rumour must be true. What the designs don't tell us is whether the new iPods will be able to record video (like the iPhone). If they do, it'll mean the death of the Flip for sure. Read the full story on Cult of Mac.

Over 100 new features for Final Cut Studio

In the new version of Final Cut Studio, you get tighter integration between the new versions of Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, Color and Compressor.
Final Cut Pro 7 expands Apple’s ProRes codec family to support virtually any workflow, and includes Easy Export for one step output to a variety of formats. A full version is £799 and the upgrade costs £249.

Look at all the new stuff in Logic Studio!

With the new Logic Studio, Apple have introduces major upgrades to Logic Pro and Mainstage and added more that 200 new bits to simplify tasks. It's "ideal for professional musicians, live performers and GarageBand enthusiasts who want to take their music to the next level". They're not my words. They're the words of Phil Schiller. Flex Time, for example, lets you pull and push waveforms with your mouse so there's no need for all that cutting and splicing. Click here to see how amazing this is when it comes to changing solo vocals. It would save me hours with my mash-ups. Then I would be able to get more done. And just look at all of these guitar pedals. If only I had £399 burning a hole in my pocket.

Back to the Future: Apple.com circa 1983

Dave Lawrence from Newton Poetry wondered what Apple's website would've looked like back when the Lisa came out. As the interweb didn't exist then (well, not as we now know it) he fired up Photoshop and got to work on designing it for himself. Gone are Apple's 21st Century cool greys, back then Apple was beige (most things were until the 1998's iMac) and look how much power $10,000 could buy you; 5MHz processing power and 1MB of RAM. Scorcher! Mind you 8MHz and 1MB of RAM was fine for me in '91. Designed for the business market, the Lisa never took off. IBM was the default alternative back then, not Microsoft. Apple soon regained some ground the year after - we all know what happened in 1984 now, don't we?
Thanks to Cult of Mac for the story.