Apple’s Tribute to Steve Jobs

You will probably want to watch this video of Apple’s tribute to Steve Jobs, held on the Apple campus on October 19, 2011. There are some very moving moments as people who knew and worked with Steve talk about how they remember him.

Happy 10th Birthday iPod

Ten years ago today, Apple introduced the first iPod. To many people, it’s hard to imagine what the world was like back then. In my latest Macworld article, I look at How the iPod changed the world of music, discussing my experiences before the iPod and since it’s introduction.

I Want Keychain Syncing Back in iCloud

iCloud is new; it’s hard to really grasp what it may become in the future. For now, it manages a link to your e-mail account (if it’s a mac.com or me.com account, of course), which isn’t really rocket science; it syncs contacts and calendars; it can sync photos; and it can find your iOS device or your Mac.

However, MobileMe, which iCloud replaced, had a number of additional syncing features, one of which I’m already missing: keychain syncing. The keychain is the encrypted file on your Mac that stores your password. Being able to sync this from one Mac to another is essential, so when you create a new account on a web site, and use a secure password that you can’t remember, you can log into that same account later on another Mac. Sure, you can use 1Password, a password management tool, but it’s not the same. 1Password integrates well with a web browser, but there are more clicks to get your password entered in a web form. In addition, the keychain stores passwords for everything: web sites, e-mail accounts, FTP servers, network shares, and much more. 1Password only manages web site passwords automatically. If you want to add other passwords you can, but you must do so manually.

Ideally, Apple would not only bring back keychain syncing, but also add the keychain to iOS, so you can access your passwords there. I hope they realize how much people with more than one Mac need keychain syncing and bring it back soon. (And, while they’re at it, I’d really like my iDisk back please.*)

*It’s still there for now, but is scheduled to become extinct at the end of June, 2012. So I’m thinking ahead with that request.

Thank You Steve

I can’t begin to say how much Steve Jobs changed my world. Fare thee well.

The End of the Line for the iPod

Yesterday’s Apple event was mostly about the new iPhone 4S, and the Siri intelligent assistant. There were some small tweaks to the iPod line, but no real changes. The iPod nano got a slightly different interface, which will be available to owners of the current model via a software update. The iPod touch got a boost in capacity. And the other iPods – the classic and shuffle – are unchanged. As I said in a recent article, there were plenty of reasons to keep these models.

Interestingly, and for the second year in a row, Apple showed three of the four iPods on screen during the presentation; they left out the classic. They keep ignoring it, yet it continues to sell well. After removing the few games that you can buy for the iPod classic from the iTunes Store, maybe they’re just going to keep selling until they run out of stock. Or maybe this will be a recurring event: every year, people will speculate on the demise of the iPod classic, and every year it will hold one for a bit longer.

I tend to buy all new iPod models, as I write a lot about these devices. But this is the first year in a long time that I won’t be buying any. I hate the nano, and sold mine a few weeks ago. The classic hasn’t changed, I have the first version of the current shuffle, and the touch hasn’t changed either except for capacity.

It’s clear that the era of the iPod is winding down. I wrote about this last year for Macworld, discussing what I called the iPod plateau. Apple has clearly reached this point, as they had nothing new to add to the existing product line. They could, eventually, add the Siri technology to the iPod touch; my guess is we’ll see that next year. Apparently, this requires a more powerful processor than what the iPod touch has, but as Apple gets the technology refined, it will be easier to add it to the cheaper device. For the other models, it looks like there’s nothing left to do. They can change minor features, form factors, colors and capacities, but the era of the iPod is now over.

On the other hand, while Apple wants a lot more people to buy iPhones, the world is full of people not willing to pay the cost of a data contract for a phone. (I’m one of those people.) What I see in the future is a pre-pay iPhone, or an iPhone light, that offers phone calls, music play, apps and the rest, but without an expensive 3G contract.

The iPod is still an important device. Apple sells millions of them. But since they can’t go any further with it, they’re going to stop putting it in the spotlight. However, the same thing will happen with the iPhone soon; there’s only so much a device like this can do. They’ve added interesting technology to the new iPhone 4S, and I’m curious to see what next year’s iPhone will offer. But I think we’ve entered an era of minor incremental upgrades. The technology is mature, and there’s not a lot of room for major changes.

A Curious Problem with Electricity and an iMac: Updated

I’ve had many problems with my recent 27″ iMac. First was a video problem, that was corrected with the 10.7.1 update, then came a problem with a burning smell coming from the computer. This smell only arises when I really push the iMac – converting videos with Handbrake, for example – and led to my contacting AppleCare for a solution. They had a repair center take the iMac, do tests, and, the first time, change the logic board, as the technician spotted a piece of scotch tape touching the processor.

After this repair, I got the iMac back and was happy. Until I converted another video; the smell occurred again. Back for repair, tests, yet nothing was found. So it was sent back to me.

All this time, I’ve been in touch with a level-2 AppleCare technician who has been very helpful, and who has tried to find a solution. But we’ve come across something extremely odd, and can’t figure out what could be the cause. Here’s the deal.

The burning is clearly caused by excessive temperatures. The iMac has a number of heat sensors, and I’ve recorded the temperatures when converting videos, to see how high they go. I won’t list all the temperatures, but rather the one that is the highest, the secondary heatsink. This is the inside of the back of the iMac – the aluminum back is a massive heatsink. In my tests, this sensor went up to 89 C. In the tests at the repair center, it didn’t exceed 66 C. And yesterday, I tested the same process – converting a video for an hour – in different rooms of my house.

First, in my office, it reached 89 C. Then I tried in my wife’s office, where it only hit 73 C. (That room was 2 degrees cooler, but those 2 degrees are not enough to make that much difference.) I then tested it in the living room, on the ground floor, where the temperature was the same as in my wife’s office. It hit 89 C.

So, the conundrum: what is causing this difference in temperature from one room of our house to another? I’ve ruled out voltage (I’ve tested in all rooms, during the tests, and it’s around 238 V.) It’s not peripherals, as the tests were done with nothing connected, only a wireless keyboard and Magic Touchpad. All the tests were done with the same power cable (and I’ve tried two different ones), with absolutely no variables other than the socket they were connected to. (All connected directly to the wall, not to power strips or UPSs.)

If anyone has an idea, I’d be grateful if you could post a comment. Thanks.

Update: I’ve found some very odd behavior on this iMac. The AppleCare technician asked my to do some tests using Snow Leopard. While I wasn’t able to get everything exactly the same (I booted off of an external USB drive), the discrepancies between Lion and Snow Leopard were more than surprising.

Using Handbrake for my tests, converting a .dvdmedia file, and using the same file both with Snow Leopard, then, later, with Lion, I found the following:

• Temperatures were much lower with Snow Leopard than Lion. After an hour or so, the secondary heatsink was only 47, compared to as much as 89 C with Lion. There was a difference in temperature in my office; it was a few degrees cooler than during my tests the other day, but that is not where the difference lies.
• Using the same file conversion with Handbrake, Snow Leopard draws between 16 and 17 W and between 16 and 17 A. With Lion, the same file, there was 36 W and 33 A being drawn.
• With Snow Leopard, after an hour, Handbrake was converting the file at about 29 FPS. With Lion, Handbrake converts the file at 46 FPS. (Other files in my tests the other day were over 60 FPS, and I didn’t let the conversion run very long with Lion this morning; at times, the FPS rate increases during a conversion.)

Now, there are a few very small differences in my tests that would skew the results just slightly. My Lion tests today were with my standard account, so there were some background processes running. This would limit Handbrake’s access to the processors by a few percent, which could explain why I only got 46 FPS under Lion today compared to over 60 FPS the other day with a virgin account. But in all cases, the processor was being used to the max; all four cores were spiking, with total CPU usage around 390% or more at all times.

So, what does this mean? For some reason, Lion is using my processors much more; not only are they drawing twice as much power, in both watts and amps, but they are working harder (the FPS difference with Handbrake). I have an i5 processor which does not support hyperthreading, so that’s not how it’s working harder. It’s almost as if the iMac is overclocked with Lion. My thought is that this Mac was designed when Snow Leopard was available, so the temperatures and fan speeds are designed for that OS. But if Lion is doing more with the same processors, then the temperatures are naturally higher. It’s worth noting that there are a number of threads on Apple’s forums where people are experiencing higher temperatures with Lion than with Snow Leopard. I am curious to know what is going on; the temperatures I get when doing pretty much nothing (writing, web browsing, etc.) on Lion are higher than Snow Leopard temperatures when I’m maxing out the processors.

This does not explain my differences in temperature from one room to another; one friend suggested a grounding issue, which I’ll look into soon. But this difference in both temperature and performance is certainly surprising.

Apple Now Providing Demo Version of Final Cut Pro X, Mac App Store Only App

Apple has updated Final Cut Pro X, the much-derided recent version of its video editing software, and is now offering a downloadable demo version. For an application sold only through the Mac App Store, this is certainly a Big Thing.

Many people – from users to developers – have complained about demo versions of apps not being available from the Mac App Store. Some developers offer demos on their sites, usually those who sell both directly and through the Mac App Store. But ideally, you should be able to download a demo from the Mac App Store, then choose a menu item to convert that demo into a full version of the software. I’m sure that many people hesitate about buying apps for this reason. While this isn’t an issue for apps that cost a dollar or two, there are many apps on the Mac App Store that cost a fair amount of cash. Demos would help users know if the apps do what they want, and would most likely increase sales.

The demo of Final Cut Pro X is available here.

Two New Macworld Articles: Ripping CD Box Sets and a Review of Dragon Dictate

I’ve got two new articles on Macworld today. In the first, I look at issues that arise when you rip box sets of CDs. And in the second, I review Dragon Dictate 2.5, the speech recognition program that lets you talk instead of type.