Apple Briefs

In a review whose depth has only been matched by Arstechnica and Digital Photography Review, TiPb last week posted a walkthrough of all of the changes coming in iOS 4 (the new name for iPhone OS).

Whatever you think you know about the changes coming this week to your iPhone, I am sure you will find something new in this article.

When the first Mac Mini with Snow Leopard Server was announced in October 2009, I was intrigued.  A Mini with two hard drives totaling 1TB could certainly work as a file, mail, and calendar server for a small office.  And now Apple has upped the ante.

At first blush, the new Mac Mini Server seems like mostly a cosmetic change with a minor processor bump.  The headline always seems to be the processor, but a 2.53 GHz to 2.66 GHz jump is pretty negligible (and mostly irrelevant for file servers).  It’s nice to see that Apple now supports an 8GB RAM configuration.  RAM is at a premium on servers.  But even if you don’t want to spend the $400 to upgrade from 4GB to 8GB, you’re definitely going to enjoy the new 7200 rpm hard drives.

Previously, the Mini came with what were essentially laptop hard drives, 5400 rpm.  The server version now comes with two 500GB 7200 rpm drives.  It’s a subtle difference, to be sure.  But even minor increases in data access speed will start to add up over the weeks and months.

I have been looking into getting a server for some time.  At the moment we are using primarily syncing and sharing technologies.  But a central server has some appeal.  Now it’s just a matter of finding the time to implement it.  The new Mini is cute, but I don’t need another desk accessory.

It’s been no secret that this blog has languished for some time.  A lot has gone on since I last updated this site regularly.  So it’s time for me to get Apple Briefs back in business.

News, tips, and changes are headed your way.  Stay tuned.

I was tempted to write something about Gizmodo’s handling of the “lost” iPhone this past week. But I am glad I waited.

As usual, John Gruber over at Daring Fireball says it much better than I could have ever said it myself in his well-researched and thoughtful writeup on the matter.

I have been very disappointed in Gizmodo’s behavior through this whole process. Publicly naming the engineer who lost the device was completely classless. As John Gruber puts it:

The people whose identities I’d like to know are those who obtained and then sold the phone, not the guy from Apple who lost it. There is no interest served by outing him other than taking sociopathic glee in making a public spectacle of someone who made a very serious but honest mistake.

For Gizmodo it’s all about the spectacle. It’s one thing to dedicate yourself to finding out the latest scoop on Apple products. That’s what news organizations do. But it’s quite another to turn it into a game. The writes at Gizmodo seems pretty proud of themselves right now. They even claimed success against Apple in this made-up game of theirs:

A controlled leak? The lost iPhone planted by Apple? You have no idea how Apple PR works—and how, like it or not, Gizmodo finally beat them at their own game.

It seems odd for a company that reports on Apple so much to have such an antagonistic attitude towards Apple. I guess this is what Think Secret has been replaced by – a website that is more interested in making noise than it is in the technology itself.

Our firm has used Billings for invoicing for a couple of years. It’s got a nice interface and produces great-looking invoices. The one thing that’s been holding it back is that it’s a solo app, not a small firm app. iBiz has a pretty good multi-user version called iBiz Professional. But Billings has been decidedly single user.

All that’s about to change, though. The Marketcircle website is now offering up a teaser for Billings Pro, a multi-user version of Billings. There’s not much to see so far. But they’re holding a closed beta in a “month or two” so hopefully more details aren’t too far off.