I am old school - I don’t like surprises, really - so since Apple brags about being able to listen to your music your way with iTunes and other iPod products - I am left with something I would consider buying for a portable music device – but, big but too, I can’t see what the HE** my music is.As I stated in earlier posts, I don’t buy the idea that the iPod shuffle makes my life funner by “shuffling things up”…. Yeah, I can load the shuffle with like 12 playlists, in order and then write down, remember or look at iTunes to figure out where the songs i want are - but please, iTunes is great because of its ease of use and music management.”iPod Shuffle is the poor man’s iPod”Okay - heres the truth and I gotta face it.

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As rumored, Apple released upgrades to the Powerbook line-up today. No, they did not introduce a Powerbook G5, as we reported they would not, but they did bump the G4 speeds to 1.67GHz and added improved graphics, hard drives, and an improved 8X superdrive. Obviouslly as the G5 is a technical challenge to fit in […]

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PBS’s Robert Kringley and I seem to think a lot a like. He has written another superb article on the Mac mini that is a must read. It is a little lengthy but stick with it as he does an excellent job of exploring some exciting ideas for the MM and Apple. Thanks to my […]

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AppleInsider reports that Wal-Mart will be selling iPod shuffles at their retail locations. If this turns out to be true - it is yet another step for Apple in reaching the average consumer with their product and probably more importantly their brand. Undoubtably, Wal-Mart can reach more consumers than any other retailer in the US […]

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Okay here is a totally irrelevant and whiny post about something that really means very little except for those who are web masters, graphic designers or internet users on dial-up connections. I was just checking out Apple’s iPod Shuffle page and clicked on the “Gallery” link under “See More of the iPod shuffle” on the […]

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The hot rumor for today is that a small piece of code on a briefly posted page at apple.com referred to a Powerbook G5. Originally reported at The Register I definitley take it with a grain of salt. Of course there will be G5 Powerbooks in the next 12 months but when is anyones guess. […]

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I posted yesterday about my prediction that Apple might be preparing a pro level image editing application to compete with Adobe Photoshop. Thought it might be nice to show some images from Apple’s web site of the new floating palettes in iPhoto. As I eluded to in the previous post, I think these look a […]

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A minor software update was released by Apple today. You can find it in your Software Updates panel in your System Preferences control panel. The update deals with minor fixes for security to several parts of OSX. The update is recommended for all users.

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I spoke too soon yesterday when I wrote about Ranchero Software’s MarsEdit - I had bookmarked another OSX blog writing software app a week or so ago but forgot about it and just downloaded the trial and so far - I am liking it. It is called Ecto and is available from http://ecto.kung-foo.tv. It is […]

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This is a prediction. After traversing the floor at MacWorld San Francisco a few weeks ago I was tired and needed a rest. I did something I rarely did in previous MacWorld visits - I decided to sit through an Apple Demo. The product was the new iLife 05 suite that includes iMovie, iDVD, iTunes and iPhoto. Mere consumer products I thought before the presentation began, but I figured, maybe I’ll pick up some ides for the wife and kids.

I admit that I was surprised. I am used to using heavy weight apps like Final Cut Pro, After Effects, Lightwave 3D, Freehand MX and Photoshop – however these apps were impressive. I had a lot of thoughts about each of the apps, which I will get to in later posts, but iPhoto stood out.

iPhoto now offers advanced image editing, whereas before it was more of a photo organizer, it now is a fairly impressive photo editor. Previous controls let you do basic brightness and contrast manipulation as well as crop, size and red eye removal. Now you can control sharpness, black and white levels and more. But even more impressive were the controls, they were nice pro looking black floating panels with transparency and cool sliders and visual readouts. I thought instantly “Wow, I wish Photoshop was that cool.” Boing, it occured to me. Could Apple be building a secret “Pro” image editing application and we are just seeing a few of its features in iPhoto?

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