Unhappy about making 10 phone calls to customer service only to have problems go unsolved, consumers are increasingly adopting sneaky tactics to get their problems solved. Small claims court, it turns out, is a wonderful resource.
via arstechnica.com read more | digg story
Brenthaven has launched its MetroLite range, a selection of laptop shoulder bags perfect for the professional market. Now 17% lighter, the MetroLite range are sleek, lightweight cases with a patent-pending CORE Protection System that protects the screen from impact throughout. At just £49.95 it comes in green and black and fits laptops from 12-inches to 15.4-inches.
The MetroLite range is a protective yet extra light solution for anyone who travels with their computer, it has improved handles and ergonomic padded shoulder strap to balance weight comfortably. It includes a front organiser pocket, which is a perfect fit for your iPod, PDA or mobile phone. Brenthaven has included an innovative grommet and storage pocket for headphones or a mobile phone headset plus an AC Adaptor pocket with easy access. A back slip pocket is built in for all your loose paperwork or newspapers. The MetroLite range even incorporates a soft faux-suede lining.
With only days away from the iPhone launch, we must remind ourselves not to get tired of the news. After all, this is going to be one of the biggest products launches for Apple in a long time. They have updated their iPhone pages with a snazzy new gallery, showing this little darling in various poses, complete with dock. Check out the new gallery here.
Cocktail… the popular maintenance utility for your Mac has just been upgraded to version 3.8. This new version has an improved interface and some addition features, such as being enabling and disabling spotlight searches for certain disks. A demo of the application is available and the full version costs $15.
Apple today announced that iPhone™ will deliver significantly longer battery life when it ships on June 29 than was originally estimated when iPhone was unveiled in January. iPhone will feature up to 8 hours of talk time, 6 hours of Internet use, 7 hours of video playback or 24 hours of audio playback.* In addition, iPhone will feature up to 250 hours—more than 10 days—of standby time. Apple also announced that the entire top surface of iPhone, including its stunning 3.5-inch display, has been upgraded from plastic to optical-quality glass to achieve a superior level of scratch resistance and optical clarity.
“With 8 hours of talk time, and 24 hours of audio playback, iPhone’s battery life is longer than any other ‘Smartphone’ and even longer than most MP3 players,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also upgraded iPhone’s entire top surface from plastic to optical-quality glass for superior scratch resistance and clarity. There has never been a phone like iPhone, and we can't wait to get this truly magical product into the hands of customers starting just 11 days from today.”
This came as a surprise to me, but news has appeared on Apple's website detailing a new shop they have opened within PC World at Enfield, Middlesex, UK. My previous experiences with buying Apple kit from a PC World has left a lot to be desired, so this news is very welcome. The page on the Apple website explains how the full range of desktops and laptops are on display, with regular demonstrations of the kit and related software. Good move, let us hope this helps to spread the word.
A new service from 7Digital offers users a chance to download MP3, AAC and WMA music tracks from leading artists (and some exclusives) starting at just 50p per track. It is great to see an iPod friendly, DRM free service that can save some pennies for users. Another great feature is that your download history is stored in your account, so you can access your downloads from anywhere you have an internet connection. Of note, video downloads are also available.
There are new applications for the iPhone springing up everywhere now, but how about checking this one out. Gas.app improves googlemaps and adds more gas stations (amongst other things). Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments.
There are lots of new Finder enhancements in Leopard, but one that interested me was Coverflow, which works in much the same way as it does in iTunes, but gives you large previews of your photos, PDF files and other documents. Flick through them just like you would in iTunes. Looks really good !
Wow, even though we didn't get any new hardware announcements from WWDC, the new site design is superb. Check out the expanding sidebars on the Apple website for starters, very cool.
Steve Jobs just announced the beta version of Safari 3 for both the Mac and, big surprise, for Windows too. You can download it here.
Apple today unveiled a near final version of Mac OS X Leopard, the sixth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system. Scheduled to ship in October, Leopard introduces over 300 new features, including a new Desktop and Dock with Stacks, an intuitive new way to organise files; an updated Finder featuring Cover Flow™ and a new way to easily browse and share files between multiple Macs; Quick Look, a new way to rapidly preview most files without opening an application; Time Machine, a new way to easily and automatically back up and restore lost files or a complete Mac®; Spaces, a powerful new feature to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them; and enhanced iChat and Mail applications, which easily allow users to communicate even more creatively.
“Leopard is the best release of Mac OS X to date, surpassing even Tiger, and will further extend Mac OS X’s leadership as the most advanced and innovative operating system in the world,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “We think current and prospective customers are going to love Leopard, and that it will help make the Mac even more popular.”
Leopard includes a completely new Dock featuring Stacks, which can help manage a user’s desktop clutter caused by browser and email downloads. With the click of a mouse, users can instantly fan out the contents of a stack to easily see each item. Leopard’s Finder has been completely redesigned, adding Cover Flow as an innovative way to quickly browse and locate files and applications. Finder’s new Sidebar simplifies the organisation of files on a Mac, and adds easy access to shared Macs and PCs on a home network. Subscribers to .Mac can also use the new “Back to my Mac" feature to browse and access files on their remote Macs over the Internet. Also new in Leopard is Quick Look, an innovative new way for users to instantly preview almost any file, and even play media files, without opening an application.
With its unique ability to let users travel back in time to find deleted files, applications, photos and other digital media, Time Machine is a revolutionary way to protect your digital life. With just a one-click setup, Time Machine automatically keeps an up-to-date copy of everything on the Mac. In the event a file is lost, users can use Mac OS X’s Spotlight™ to search back through time to find and then instantly restore the file. Time Machine can automatically back up a Mac to an external hard drive connected with a FireWire® or USB cable, to a server, or wirelessly to an AirPort Extreme® base station with an attached hard drive.
Leopard also includes three new technologies that take full advantage of the latest developments in processor hardware: full native 64-bit support to enable applications to take complete advantage of 64-bit processing while still running side by side with existing 32-bit Mac OS X applications and drivers; easy multi-core optimization and scheduling to take advantage of the latest Intel hardware; and Core Animation, helping developers easily create animated user experiences as amazing as Leopard’s Spaces and Time Machine in their own applications.
Other new features in Leopard include:
• Leopard Mail, offering more ways to customise and add personal style to email than ever before, with more than 30 beautiful stationery designs and layouts that look great on a Mac or Windows PC; Notes, making it as easy to take and organise notes as it is to compose and read emails; To Dos, for creating lists viewed directly in Mail and automatically sync them with iCal®; and data detectors that automatically sense phone numbers, addresses and events so they can be easily added to Address Book or iCal;
• Leopard iChat with iChat Theater, letting users present photos, presentations, videos and files in a video conference; Photo Booth effects, enabling users to transform their iChat video in real time with fun distortion and colour effects; and video backdrops that allow users to choose any photo or video that makes them appear to be anywhere in the world, or out of it;
• Leopard iCal, introducing powerful group calendaring features based on the open CalDAV standard that make it easy to organise and coordinate schedules with other people;
• Spaces, giving users a powerful new, clutter-free way to create customised spaces on the desktop with only the applications or files needed for each project, and the ability to quickly switch between them with one click of a mouse or keystroke;
• Web Clip, bringing anything that a user wants from a web page to Dashboard as a live widget;
• Boot Camp, making it possible to run Windows natively on Intel-based Macs*; and
• new development tools, including Xcode® 3 with a next generation editor; an all new Interface Builder for easier integration of advanced animation effects into an application; simpler debugging; and support for Objective-C 2.0; DashCode, a better way to create new Dashboard widgets without writing a line of code; and Xray, a new application for optimising application performance.
Pricing & Availability
Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard is scheduled to ship in October and will be available through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com/ukstore), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorised Resellers for a suggested retail price of £89 (inc. VAT) for a single user license. The Mac OS X Leopard Family Pack is a single-residence, five-user license that will be available for a suggested retail price of £139 (inc. VAT). Volume and maintenance pricing is available from Apple.