Blog, posts for Category 'Apple talk'

So,

If you have been following what's written on the Web about the iPhone and the AppStore, you know there has been a lot of (out)rage about Apple's "censorship" on iPhone Apps.

They rejected many Apps on the basis of being gross, violent, tasteless (fart apps anyone?) and who knows what. And people have been complaining that Apple should just open the floodgate and that the public would make a difference between Apple and the Developers.

Oh, really?

Here's what happened today...

You might be familiar with the news that an iPhone app was allowed on the AppStore, then later pulled by Apple, which purpose was to silence a crying baby by shaking him violently (yeah, tasteless, stoopid etc.).

10' ago I was watching the news on one of France's national channels (France3) and they talked about it! OK, some families associations in the UK made a fuss about it so it made the news.

But then, here is how the "journalist" introduced the subject: "Apple has released an application that allowed people to silence a baby by shaking him violently".

Let's watch this is slo-mo: the way it is presented is that Apple MADE that application, then pulled it later on because people complained. But, wait, isn't Apple only providing the "shop"? Aren't people supposed to make a difference between the pipe and the dirty sewage waters going through it? Yes, in a perfect world.

So Apple had a 2'-long segment on National TV News about how they released a baby-shaking app. Great PR...

You can bet that Apple will continue to be as tight on their approval process as they can be.

Oh, by the way, did you know that, according to the same journalist, "Apple's online boutique has a billion different apps available"? Yeah, me neither...

App Market Scam: Rogue Android App Allegedly Destroying G1 Memory, Installing Adware

Who's complaining about Apple policing the AppStore?

So, this might be the last MacWorld Expo, even if IDG has posted banners announcing MacWorld 2010.

At least, this will be Apple's last MacWorld, that's for sure. And although it does not seem that there are less people on the show floor this year (maybe the "last one" effect?), there is a distinct lack of excitement, it feels just like another trade show (appart from the bunnies, of course).

Maybe it's the fact that there was the usual over-expectation before the Keynote. I mean, the iLife updates are quite significant, and iWork.com could be BIG, but when people were expecting a new Mac mini, Snow Leopard, a new iPhone and whatnot, of course people will be disappointed. This is probably the BEST argument for Apple to drop MacWorld and only organize events when they have products to announce.

That said, the Apple booth seemed a bit empty, but the rest of the Moscone halls were packed with the usual bunch of major league players and wacky third parties.
Overall, I think that it's a good MacWorld, although it's hard to say if the Expo can survive without the Apple "halo", just like the Paris Apple Expo died after Apple cancelled its participation.

So, what's new with iMovie 09?
Well, at first sight, not much: the interface is quite similar and you could be lulled into thinking it is a minor update.
But fear not, Apple has seriously revamped iMovie, after down-vamping it between iMovie HD and iMovie 08.
The first thing is that now you can activate "advanced features", and get many more fine tuning options.
Amongst the new features, let's mention a few.
Green screen: OK, this might be a bit "gadget" and we sort of saw it coming with iChat's "blue screen" feature, but it does work fine (although it seems it's not really easy to find how to use it, as the Apple staffer I was talking with could not find how to do it). I had a look at a greenscreened video and if it's not pro-quality, it certainly does the trick.
Precision editing: this allows you to do fine editing, going down all to way to the frame level.

And this is what people have been asking for since they simplified iMovieHD into 08.

Maps: seems like Apple loves geo-features, since after adding geotagging to iPhoto, they offer a tool in iMovie that allows you to mark a number of locations on a map, then iMovie will generate an animated "itinerary", just like one of the map sequences in the Indiana Jones movies. Maps can have various styles, and there even is a pseudo-3D globe. I'm not sure this is essential stuff, but it goes along with the iLife apps and is mostly done with taste.

Image stabilization: this is quite an impressive feature, especially if you shoot in HD. iMovie can detect and highlight clips that are too "shaky" and you can ask it to "stabilize them". What it does is zoom, rotate and crop the video frame by frame so that the final result is stable. The demo clip from a Safari in a Jeep was quite impressive, although the cropping means that if you shoot in SD, you could face significant pixellation. Oh, yes, the feature is real fast, like, live.

There is now the possibility to crop and rotate (by 90° steps) clips, which is really nice, and you can add chapter and comment markers for export to iDVD and H264 video.

Unfortunately, the tool that allowed you to fine-tune the volume of the soundtrack using anchor points is still missing.

Overall, this, like iPhoto, looks like a solid upgrade to the previous version, and I must say it is damn fast.