Apple Briefs

Emerging from a long beta today is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 (my fingers just seem to want to skip over the “Photoshop” in the name). It is a pretty solid update, boasting many new and improved features. NAPP also has a nice rundown of the new features. They covered the territory much better than I ever could, so I’ll leave you in their capable hands. Lightroom 2.0 retails for $299 with a $99 upgrade option for owners of Lightroom 1.x (like me!).

Lightroom is just too cool to not find a use for it. So go out there and be creative!

Agile Web Solutions has given us a sneak preview of 1Password for the iPhone (with lots of screen shots!). I have to admit that I am pretty nervous about taking all of my passwords with me. The cost-benefit analysis just seems to weigh against it (the benefit seems pretty low because I seldom need passwords on the run). But Agile seems to have thought pretty hard about the security aspect and has come up with some pretty interesting solutions. The good news is that 1Password for the iPhone will be free (at least for a limited time). Maybe I’ll decide I need it all the time once I have it! Look for it soon in the App Store.

Update: It’s arrived.

My first impressions of Apple’s new offerings are a mixed bag. I really like the iPhone 2.0 software update. I have only downloaded a few apps, but I foresee many more in my future. So far, my favorite has to be WeatherBug, which has all the weather information I need with an attractive presentation. I have also downloaded OmniFocus, but I haven’t had a chance to spend much time with it. I plan to download Things as well, but I am waiting for the promised sync feature.

In contrast to iPhone 2.0, MobileMe has been something of a failure. The “web 2.0” interface is nice, but I haven’t seen anything compelling. I thought push email would be compelling, but there are two problems with that. First, there is apparently no “push” from your desktop (or laptop) to MobileMe. Second, push kills my battery. I can normally surf and call to my heart’s content, but turning “push” on nearly drained my battery by itself. Apple is going to have to fix that if they want to be a serious enterprise email contender.

The other problem with MobileMe is that Firefox can’t handle it. I use Firefox as my normal browser on Windows, but MobileMe kept bringing Firefox to its knees (making it sluggish and often unresponsive). Switching to Safari solved the problem, but MobileMe should work with any browser, not just Apple’s. I don’t like Safari on Windows. It’s too dark and just doesn’t fit in.

I don’t have plans to get a 3G iPhone, but that doesn’t mean I won’t window shop. There are a couple of nice reviews (with plenty of pics) over at Electronista and Ars Technica. I like the look of the new iPhone, but I am still happy with the clean lines and metal finish of my first generation iPhone.

This week’s big launch hasn’t gone so well for Apple. MobileMe – scheduled to launch late Wednesday night – was down well into Thursday. MobileMe webmail still doesn’t work for me (although I had a few glimpses of it yesterday).

The iPhone 2.0 launch hasn’t gone so well either. I was elated to finally see the message from iTunes that I had an update to download (after repeatedly being told that no update was available). That excitement was short-lived as the update failed rendering my iPhone currently useless. Clicking on my iPhone in iTunes gives me one of several error messages. The reports coming in seem to indicate that 3G iPhone activation is running into trouble too.

It hasn’t been a good couple of days for Apple. Hopefully I’ll get it working and be able to visit the App Store by tonight. Then I can go shopping and post some screenshots.

… but only if you stay up late. The .Mac homepage has the following service announcement from Apple:

MobileMe Launch 7/9/2008, 6pm-12am PT

As part of the MobileMe launch, www.mac.com will be taken offline at 6pm PT on Wednesday, July 9th.

Members will be unable to access www.mac.com or any .Mac services during this time with the exception of .Mac Mail accessed via a desktop application, iPhone, or iPod touch.

MobileMe will be available as soon as possible during this maintenance window.

So, if you’re prone to staying up until the wee hours of the morning (Pacific Time, which pretty much rules it out here at Apple Briefs), you might get to see it on July 9th ¹. The rest of us can expect to see it the morning of the 10th. The MobileMe iPhone features should be activated the following day (July 11th) with the release of the iPhone 2.0 software update. I’ll try to find some time in between games of Super Monkey Ball to test out the MobileMe push email features.

¹ Yes, technically after midnight it becomes the 10th. But I have always maintained that the day doesn’t change until you’ve decided to pull an all-nighter (n/a on holidays).