the apple blog

Pangea Software’s Brian Greenstone has written Mac games for more than two decades, reports Dan Lyons (newsweek.com), but with $5 million in revenue this year alone, he may now focus his attention on iPhone. “In the last four and a half months we’ve made as much money off the retail sales of iPhone apps as we’ve made with retail sales of all of the apps that we’ve made in the past 21 years—combined.”

Rövid távú örömöt nyújt a televíziózás, távlatilag inkább rosszkedvvel jár. A magukat "nagyon boldognak" nevező emberek inkább olvasnak vagy társaságba járnak, sőt szavazni vagy templomba is ők mennek gyakrabban - derül ki a Marylandi Egyetem időmérleg-vizsgálataiból.

A szociológusok úgy találták: a boldogtalanok mintegy 20 százalékkal több időt töltenek a képernyők előtt. Az amerikaiak a szabadidejük mintegy felét töltik el így. A mostani gazdasági válsággal, közte az elbocsátásokkal vagy részmunkaidőre történő "alulfoglalkoztatással" is van összefüggés. - A tévénézésre fordított idő nő, ahogy az embereknek egyre több szabadidejük adódik - állítja John P. Robinson, a Social Indicators Research folyóirat decemberi számában megjelenő tanulmány társszerzője. Ugyanakkor nemcsak a krízis, de a gazdasági fellendülés is a kanapéra ülteti az embereket, mert a sok munka után passzív szórakozást keresnek. Amikor megy az üzlet, az amerikaiak leginkább dolgoznak, tévéznek és alszanak. A magukat boldogtalannak érzők fele (51 százaléka) érzi úgy, hogy nem tud mit kezdeni a szabadidejével, míg a boldogokat ez csak 19 százalékban jellemzi. Viszont az előbbiek mégis többen (35, illetve 23 százalék) érzik úgy, hogy nehezen tudnak időt szakítani magukra. A televíziózást a kutatók a függőséghez hasonlítják. - Az addikcióra hajlamos emberek általában szociálisan vagy személyükben hátrányban vannak. Az ilyen személyiségnek a tévé egyfajta ópiumként szolgál. Szokásként rögzül ez nála: úgy kapcsol ki könnyen, hogy "bekapcsol" - nyilatkozta Steven Martin, a másik társszerző.

Egy másik felmérés a gyerekek médiafogyasztását állítja pellengérre. Az átlagos amerikai gyerek sok időt tölt a tévé előtt, moziban, internetezéssel, videójátékokkal, a mobiltelefonjával, zenehallgatással és magazinok lapozgatásával (heti 45 óra), akár az iskolában és szüleivel együttvéve (47 óra).

A médiafogyasztás nagy mértékben összefügg a nemi élet korai kezdetével (93 százalékban), a dohányzással (88%), a gyerekkori elhízással (86%), az alkohol-, illetve drogfogyasztással (80 és 75%). Mintegy kétharmados arányban a rossz tanulmányi eredményhez, illetve a figyelemkihagyásos hiperaktivitás-zavarhoz (ADHD) is hozzájárul.

iChat is a great way to communicate and share files in real time with friends and colleagues, whether they’re across the hall or around the globe. With iChat, you can conduct text chats with anyone who has a MobileMe, AIM, Jabber, or Google Talk account. And if your Mac is equipped with a built-in iSight camera (or an external iSight or other FireWire camera) you can conduct video chats with up to three buddies at once.

But there’s another way to chat: via audio. You can invite as many as nine buddies to an audio chat, which makes it great for group communication. As with video chats, you can record audio chats with permission from the participants. Audio chats are especially useful for interviews, long-distance business meetings, family conferences, and other situations when you’d like to communicate verbally with more than a few people at once, or save an audio record of your conversation.

Audio chats require a built-in microphone or an external mic connected to the audio input port of your computer. If a telephone or camera icon appears beside a name in your buddy list, it means they too have the software and hardware needed for an audio chat. (A “stacked” telephone or camera icon indicates that your buddy’s computer has enough power to participate in a multiple-person chat.)


To start an audio chat, open iChat and select the buddy or buddies you want to chat with. To choose multiple buddies, hold down the Command key as you click on their names. Then click on the telephone icon at the bottom of your buddy list, or select Invite to Audio Chat under the Buddies menu.

When they receive your invitation, your buddies simply click the Accept button to join the audio chat. All audio chat participants are listed in the chat window along with their buddy pictures. Each participant also has an individual sound level meter, which makes it easier to tell who is talking.


To enable recording in an audio iChat, select Record Chat under the Video menu. A message is sent to all participants asking for their permission to record the chat. To grant audio recording rights for this chat, your buddies click on the Allow button. When participants want to leave the chat, they just close the chat window. Recording stops when the person who initiated the recording exits the chat.

Recorded audio chats are saved by default in the iChats folder in your user’s Documents folder. You can change this default location under the General tab of iChat Preferences, and search for saved chats by date or title using Spotlight. You can also play your saved audio (and video) iChats in iTunes

Faster DDR3 RAM, “a faster 1,066-MHz front-side bus, and a notably faster Nvidia 9400M graphics processor,” lead Ken Mingis (computerworld.com) to exclaim that “I really like Apple Inc.’s newly revamped MacBook Air.” And, he adds, “ I really, really like the apparent speed boost offered by the larger solid-state drive (SSD),” which, he thinks, “really stands for Speedy Sweet Delight.”

I really like Apple Inc.'s newly revamped MacBook Air, which got extensive under-the-hood updates last month. And I really, really like the apparent speed boost offered by the larger solid-state drive (SSD) in the Air I've been testing for the past week.

I'll have more to say about that SSD in a bit, but suffice it to say that the drive makes a noticeable difference in how fast the Air boots up, how fast programs launch and how fast this slimmest of Apple laptops feels -- especially in comparison to the stock 4,200-rpm hard drive included in my first-generation Air.

New Core 2 Duo processors
For those who may have missed the changes in the Air's specs unveiled by Apple on Oct. 14, here are the basics. The 3 lb. MacBook Air still comes in two models, both of which now use stock Intel Core 2 Duo processors instead of the custom jobs that powered the first generation announced last January.

The base model has a 1.6-GHz processor, the same speed as before. The top model, the one Apple sent over for review, has a 1.86-GHz chip -- 60 MHz faster than the 1.8-GHz processor that debuted on the top-end model at the start of the year. Both processors now feature 6MB of Level 2 cache RAM, 50% more than the older models.

More important, there's increased room for your files. The base model now comes with a 120GB hard drive, 50% more than the first version did; the pricier, 1.86-GHz iteration sports a 128GB MLC (multilevel cell) SSD, double the amount of space offered originally.

The 1280-by-800-pixel LED screen remains unchanged from the earlier Air, according to Apple officials, which is a good thing. It's stunningly bright, even in broad daylight with the sun shining directly on the screen.

The price for the entry model, which has yet to ship, remains unchanged at $1,799. The more expensive model, already on store shelves, goes for $2,499. That's not cheap, but it's a lot cheaper than when the SSD version went on sale in January -- the 64GB SSD cost a whopping $999 extra for less storage space than the base model. The growing use of SSDs in laptops has brought prices down from stratospheric to merely expensive.

The changes in processors and drives aren't the only new things in the second-gen Air. Apple has changed the video-out port to the new Mini DisplayPort, meaning you'll need an adapter if you're planning to use an Air with anything but Apple's new 24-in. LED monitor. Apple no longer includes an adapter in the box, by the way.