Jonathan Davies

As with the last Apple Event its that time again for another quick round-up of my predictions for what we may, or may not see at Apple’s World Wide Developer’s conference. I’ll be watching Engadget and Macrumors Live’s coverage. And as soon as they open up the store for orders of the 3G iPhone, I’ll be placing mine.

I’ve been pretty tapped into the rumors - mainly because I’m looking at buying an iPhone as soon as they are available, but I am by no means sure as to what they will talk about. it just seems that there are to many things that could happen to fit them into one keynote.

• As I’m on the topic of the iPhone I’ll start there: Slight design changes, nothing to big, I’d be pleased with something like this. 3G (obviously), GPS and more coolness on the whole. I really, really want it to ship within a week of the announcement - if it will is another thing entirely.
• I’m sure there will be a big focus on some on the new iPhone Apps, as neat as they probably are… this will be the time where I go get something to eat, it doesn’t really interest me at all in a keynote speech - I want to hear more Apple stuff.
• Lets talk about Mac OS X. Maybe a preview of “Snow Leopard“, or at least it will get a slide or two. I’m hoping they’ll talk about the future of Mac OS on a whole. Michael has a great post here with what he thinks about that Snow Leopard stuff.
• Mobile Me - sounds cool but I won’t buy it. Or at least until I get a second Mac. Its a long time coming though - but Steve did say that himself.
• New Cinema Displays? Why not? Thinner, faster, bigger(?). They’re only two years due.
• Don’t see anything happening to laptops at this point. I think there are far more important things to talk about this time - how about a special event in Autumn (Fall, for you US folks).

There you have it… There are a couple other things that I could touch upon but most of them I don’t expect to actually flourish. Macrumors has a good summary here.

What would you like to see at WWDC (if it hasn’t already happened)?

I’ve always “wanted” an iPhone, but have never really come up with a reason that is strong enough to over-through what is a very hefty price tag. In fact, over 18 months, with the cheapest contract, costs you £900.

If you hadn’t noticed. That’s a lot of money for a phone.

But now it’s gotten to the point where I think (obviously, when the 3G iPhone is released) I am going to give in and say yes. But why, what has changed since the release of the iPhone to make me realize that I need one.

The biggest reason was the actual iPhone itself, before there was nothing to gauge a good and bad phone, they were all rubbish. But now you can see how good phones could be… It’s a lot harder to put up with them now.

The problem that I currently face is as to whether I am going to end up using the phone enough. Currently I don’t really use my phone very much. It’s a catch twenty-two situation. I want an iPhone because I don’t use my current phone, but I am hesitant in buying a new one because I don’t want to waste money on something that I may find out I don’t need.

But it’s not really the phone functionality that draws my towards it. I like the simplicity, the user interface, the iPod, the web browser. So even if I don’t find myself using the phone functionality, will the unlimited data plan balance things out?

I’m not sure yet, any thoughts?

With creating Wanted, I have been making some rather large steps up. SD to HD, hosted website to self hosted website and finally from using iMovie to Final Cut Express.

All in all I have really enjoyed learning the ins and outs of the app; I think that to really learn an app you need to sit down with a project - a target of what you want to do and get to work. Messing about with it and clicking on buttons is all very well, but you never really learn a workflow.

By having a project you can work out the best way of doing things, and over time find out better ways of doing so.

I was very surprised. when I realized that I actually preferred editing in Final Cut Express over iMovie. Just the sheer control you have over your footage is far superior to that of iMovie. Simple things: like cropping video, having layers - being able to move and resize video and images manually. These are all things that I now take for granted.

Sure, the interface may not be the best in the world - but it works very well and once you get over it you realize how intuitive it really is. The amount of “things” you can do is also impressive, there are enough to probably, at this stage, to do whatever I want. By the sound of things, Final Cut is simply a few more things added to the menu.

The only thing that I have found lacking in the Final Cut Express bundle is a app similar to Motion. I don’t think LiveType does any of the stuff I want it to be able to do, like, create different and exciting lower thirds and enticing introductions. I tried, but could not get anything near what I was looking for.

Luckily for me I have enlisted my friend, Stu Helm, who is whipping me up a couple of things for Wanted!

So far I am loving exploring Final Cut Express, it has made me want to venture out from just video podcast and to maybe making a few short films. Should be a great experience!

Which do you prefer? iMovie or Final Cut Express?

Well, it has taken a bit of time but I have finally persuaded my grandparents to switch to the Mac platform!

They’ve been using a Windows Sony Vaio for a while and to tell you the truth it hasn’t been a bad machine at all. But they’ve had a couple too many problems with Windows itself - especially Norton.

I was wondering if you have any advice that I can give to my grandparents, and maybe just new switchers in general when moving from Windows to Mac. They’re pretty much your average users. They browse the web and check email and use skype to contact friends.

As people add comments and ideas, I’ll add them to the blog post.

Now all I need is for my dad to switch…

I knew this post would come up sometime, I didn’t know when. But I think it’s now the right time. For the first time since purchasing my Mac I am starting to feel the limitations on the hardware, ever since venturing into the video space.

Just to put it into context here are a few things to bear in mind:

I’m running on a Santa Rosa 2.2GHz MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM.

I am recording my video at 1080i with a Canon HV30

I am using Final Cut Express to edit the footage.

The main problem is not the performance in editing and putting the clips together to reach one final piece, but instead the time it takes once I’ve put together the story - for it to render and export the footage. I find myself having to wait over an hour while I wait for a five minute video to render.

Admittedly, it was a 720p high definition. But really, this is the sort of quality I am aiming at. I want good content that looks good. I want people to be able to download this content and play it on their big screen TVs. As I’ve said before about this podcast I have decided not to take the half hearted approach and gone for the best equipment that I can afford .

To put it bluntly: I don’t put up with crap so by should other people?

After not even having my Mac for a year I am already contemplating the next computer I will be purchasing (though it may not be what you expect). The problem with the Mac is that it as soon as it shows you all these amazing things you can do with it; it’s obsoleting itself while trying to show you the best it can do.

NB: I’m not to sure if my last sentence made sense. Please leave a comment if you don’t understand it, it will just take a very long comment to explain it any better

Yesterday I received yet another parcel in the mail. This time from Apple, as they delivered my 500GB Time Capsule. I whizzed through the setup with ease and am now using it for not only backing up but also as my n router (we were previously on a g network).

I found the setup very interesting. Strangely easy. The fact that you didn’t have to know all the lingo and if there was any, for those who actually know what they are doing, it explains simply what this will do and tell you what “you” will want.

However I am having doubts about the range of the device. It doesn’t seem to go much further than my g router, something I thought to be one of the advantages with an n router. As for speed I am very impressed. Straight away I could tell the difference of now having n instead of g.

The last problem I have found is that the box has to be hidden away downstairs as the wired network around the house isn’t working properly. I guess I will have to wait a bit longer before ordering that printer…

Last weekend I put in my order for a 500GB Time Capsule. On Wednesday if it found out that you can now use an external drive, with an Airport Extreme to get the same effect. I already have a 500GB external drive. So do I now regret ordering my Time Capsule (which by the way, hasn’t arrived yet)?

The short answer is, no.

My main reasoning behind it is that I would then have to pay £120 for the Airport Express (for the n networking), and if you add that on top of the pricing of my hard drive it would make it over the £200 price of the Time Capsule. So I will not have 1TB of external storage. Some that I can have hooked up directly to my Mac when I am at the desk and another 500GB when I am about the house, but still don’t want to keep on my main hard drive. IT’s kinda of like that when I am at home I have a 620GB hard drive. It sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Some may ask why I don’t just sell my 500GB hard drive and put it towards something else. My reply to that is this. I have just come into the possession of a Canon HV30. Why you probably know records at 1080i - so I’m going to need a lot of space to fit all of that content on. And that 500Gb hard drive is probably going to be getting a lot more use then it would have if I hadn’t got my hands on the HV30.

With this method of storage I can separate out my data and have one hard drive for this purpose and the Time Capsule for the other. THe HV30 is arriving sometime today. Expect my initial thoughts on Monday,

I’m expecting my copy of Final Cut Express to arrive in a few days and was hunting online for some good tutorials. Though there are some good user created tutorials some of the best, in my opinion, are the ones by Apple. These tutorials cover every app that Apple makes, from iDVD to Motion. Of course there is a limited amount that they can cover and seem to be created for the new user of the application. For something more in depth I would head over to Lynda.com

Though they are still a valuable resource and great for anybody who is looking for an overview. The way in which Apple presents the tutorials is where the interface really shines. All the tutorials for the app in question are situated on one page and thanks to some AJAX magic I presume, when you click on a tutorial it shows up in the main pane. Apple also have added some nice “small things” that really add to the experience; for instance when you finish watching a tutorial a little tick appears showing that you have viewed the tutorial. It’s also nice to know that they stick around even if you don’t.

Moving on to my next point. How many companies actually do this? Create tutorials for the user to make their lives a little bit easier. Evidently not many as I did not even consider, before coming across them on the Apple website that Apple made theme.

Why do Apple do this? What is in their favour and what do they get out of it? Obviously it provides marketing for the product so the user is more prepared to by it knowing what he is in store for; but I think they are also subtly targeting the PC market - saying “Yes, it really is as easy as you’ve heard“. The way in which the tutorials are shown make the hardest app seem so trivial. The way in which clicking on this makes this happen. Not clicking on this and this and this, makes this happen.

Maybe I’m looking to deep, but I think Apple really are the sort of company that would convey this sort of message, even this subtly. I mean look at this blog post by Glenn Wolsey a while back. This one icon had the whole “Here’s to the crazy ones speech on it“. How many companies actually do that?

Just my thought of the day, what’s yours?

Props to Zach Kolleger for designing and coding me a footer which he has coined a “thick footer”. In which it adds the ability for you to add certain items to the bottom of your blog. For instance, I have my Flickr Photos, Blogroll and Tag Cloud.

Zach runs his personal blog where you can find him talking about his thoughts and experiences with technology. Once again Zach thanks for helping me out.

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I can see the Apple ad now…

So small you accidently throw it out with the Sunday paper.