Macworld 2008 Keynote

Here's what Santa Steve has in store for us:

* New Airport Extreme with built-in storage, called "Time Capsule". It's designed for Time Machine, so that laptop users don't have to keep plugging in external hard drives. Backup is better automated, as users will always forget or just be lazy. Two options: 500 GB for $299 and 1 TB for $499. It will ship in February.

* New iPhone features - Maps with locations (it triangulates both cell towers and wi-fi points), webclips, customizable home screens (up to 9 separate screens), SMS multiple people at once, chapters, subtitles, and language support in video, and lyrics support in audio. This is all via the 1.1.3 firmware update that was previously leaked, and it is out today for free.

* New iPod touch features - Now features Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes and Weather, that were previously featured exclusively on the iPhone. The update is $20 for existing users but included in the price of new units. The charge is probably partly due to potentially cannibalizing iPhone sales and partly due to accounting (they're not allowed to add major new features later on for free).

* iTunes Movie Rentals - They have Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, New Line, Lionsgate, Fox, Warner Brothers, Disney, Paramount, Universal and Sony on board. New rentals come out 30 days after DVD releases, and they will have 1000 in the library by the end of February. You have 30 days to begin watching it and you must finish it within 24 hours once you've started. You can rent in both HD and SD quality. For HD: $3.99 for older titles, $4.99 for new releases. SD titles are $1 less. There will be software updates today to enable this functionality.

* Apple TV has a brand new UI. You can rent directly from your couch, using an on-screen keyboard to type things in. You can also get podcasts and music videos. It also has .Mac and Flickr support, allowing you to view friends' photo albums. All of this software will be enabled via a free software upgrade in the next two weeks. They're also knocking $70 off the price. You also no longer require a computer in order to use it.

* They now have a deal with Fox where all new Fox Blu-ray titles will have an iTunes-compatible version on the disc designed for iPod users.

* MacBook Air - "The world's thinnest notebook". It has a 13.3" widescreen LED display (not LCD) and is 0.16 inches at its thinnest end and 0.76 at its thickest. It weighs 3lbs. Steve even whipped out an envelope on stage and fitted it inside! It's aluminum with a backlit black full-size keyboard and trackpad. The trackpad supports advanced gestures (a la the iPhone), allowing you to perform extra application functions without needing the keyboard. It also comes with an iSight camera. 80 GB hard drive as standard or you can opt for a 64 GB solid-state flash drive (much faster but considerably more expensive). 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with 1.8 GHz available as an option. It turns out that the processor inside is specifically made for the Air, and has been shrunk by 60% at Apple's request.

It does not come with a CD or DVD drive but there is an external one for $99 that is specifically designed for it. Apple has also created software called Remote Disc that allows you to browse other machines' optical drives via wi-fi and install software using their optical drives. You can do this with both Mac and PC machines.

It also has 5 hours of battery life when you browse the web with Wi-fi switched on. The price is $1799 and it will ship in two weeks. Pre-orders available now. It is also more eco-friendly than its predecessors, using less packaging and no mercury, arsenic, BFR or PVC.

Analysis
Ok, ok, I was wrong with my prediction of no sub-notebook. But it's good to see that Apple has dealt with the potential issues I brought up. This is a great machine for those that need something small and light without compromising power.

My favorite announcement today was iTunes movie rentals and how Apple has integrated these with the Apple TV. Steve acknowledged that the Apple TV had missed the mark somewhat, and that movies are the main driving point. I was expecting movie rentals but I was not expecting HD support as well. I was considering signing up for a Netflix account but this deal is much better. You can rent HD movies that will work on Macs, PCs, the Apple TV, iPods and iPhones for a relatively low fee. No other online rental company offers this. It is also considerably more convenient than sending and receiving discs in the mail.

I am also considering buying an Apple TV now. The device has considerably more use to me now that you can rent and watch HD movies directly from the comfort of your sofa. There is no word on whether purchased movies will be offered in HD as well, or even if they will continue to be offered at all. I will probably hold off purchasing it just yet though, as I am sure that Apple will put a DVD drive in it once a format "wins" the war. I may as well get one unit that does everything instead of 3 or 4, all with different remotes.

Steve mentioned the SDK briefly but did not really go into detail about it, which surprised me. And no 16 GB iPhone or new MacBook Pros either. I was certain they were going to be there. Maybe Apple will just do a minor update to the 'Pros without fanfare later in the year. Steve said that there were a lot of things coming in two weeks but that "there are another 50" afterwards, implying that the announcements are far from over. No new cinema displays and no mention of the Mac Mini either. Some rumor sites have been saying for years that the Mini is about to be killed off but it seems to be the one thing that no-one ever talks about. I think if Steve were to kill it, he would have something better to immediately replace it.

So, in summary, a pretty good keynote. I don't think the stock will jump as high as it did with the iPhone announcement last year but I think this will go down well with investors.

Update: Apple's site has more details on everything announced at the keynote. Also check Software Update because iTunes 7.6 and QuickTime 7.4 are already available for download (at least for me - sometimes they stagger updates across geographic locations). Do not install these on your production machine! Be especially wary of QuickTime 7.4 if you do not have an up-to-date version of Final Cut Pro.

Update 2: View the keynote video online.

Also, Blockbuster and Netflix shares dropped significantly after the keynote. Surprisingly, so did Apple's. It turns out that people were somewhat disappointed with today's keynote. The Macbook Air is a well-designed machine but the price is somewhat prohibitive, which is a shame. If you choose the solid-state drive, it takes the price to over $3000. The price per GB of solid-state memory is falling significantly every year so it would not make sense to spend that much on the solid-state version right now.

My Macworld 2008 Predictions

Everyone's doing it so I thought I would jump on the bandwagon. We just got some new Mac Pros and some new Xserves so I don't think there will be any further announcements in these departments.

What I think will be announced:
* Steve is sure to show off some features of the new iPhone SDK due in February but these will most likely be non-technical, with more technical info saved for WWDC.
* New MacBook Pros. It's been a long time since the last update and Intel just released some new mobile chips.
* iTunes movie rentals and iTunes 7.6. Based on this article.
* 16 GB iPhone plus the new firmware that was previously leaked.

What I hope will be announced:
* An update to the disappointing Apple TV that will allow you to purchase songs, music and maybe even video from the iTunes store, directly from your couch. It may even combine the Mac Mini (also disappointing sales-wise) and Apple TV into one media center unit.
* New cinema displays with glass displays like the new iMac. Not sure about built-in iSight.

What I don't think will be announced:
* I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I don't think there will be an ultraportable or a PDA. A lot of people think there will be one, but I don't. I think it would be too much of a blur between the MacBook and the iPhone / iPod Touch. Remember that with the SDK, the iPhone and Touch will essentially be PDAs so it is unlikely that there will be a separate PDA unless they can make it vastly different.

I'm writing this post on a MacBook and I can say that they can't make this thing much smaller without taking away some of the keys on the keyboard. The only way to make it really portable would be to make it a touchscreen but you would have to hold a massive screen in your hands the whole time (unless they make a stand) but then it would practically be an iPod Touch in all but size anyway. Also, flash-based storage is still very small.

* No 3G iPhone. Steve has said that 3G battery life is poor, and 3G coverage in the USA is relatively sparse.

Find out how wrong I was on January 15th at 9am.

New Xserves

When Apple released the new Mac Pros, they also updated their Xserve server line as well.

	New High-End Model (Early 2008)	Previous High-End Model (Late 2006)
Processor	2x Xeon 5400 quad core (8 cores) at 3 GHz	2x Xeon 5100 dual core (4 cores) at 3 GHz
Cache	12 MB per processor (24 MB total)	4 MB per processor (8 MB total)
SSE extensions	128-bit SSE4	128-bit SSE3
Frontside Bus	1.6 GHz	1.33 GHz
Memory	800 MHz DDR2	667MHz DDR2
Max hard drive space	3 TB	2.25 TB
PCI Express	2.0	1.0
Power supply	750W	650W

I can't believe that they managed to get an 8 core machine inside a 1U server. Even more amazing is that you are essentially getting double the machine with only a 100W power supply increase. This is a major improvement in performance-per-watt. The Xserve also houses an array of sensors that intelligently monitor temperature and idleness, and adjust processor and fan speeds accordingly. The Xserve power supplies also exceed 80% efficiency guidelines.

I'm not going to go into the processor improvements here, as I already did that in my Mac Pro post, but the power of having 8 cores in a server can be seen on Apple's benchmark page. It's been a while since there was an Xserve update so this new model beats its predecessor by huge amounts. On average, this machine is about 90% faster than its predecessor.

If you have ever used an Xserve, you will also welcome the news that the new model features a USB port on the front so no more delving around behind it to plug in a keyboard and mouse.

This is a great machine.

New Mac Pros

Yesterday, Apple released several updates to their Mac Pro line of professional desktop computers.

	New 8 Core High-End Model	Previous 8 Core High-End Model
Processor	2x Quad core Xeon 5400 at 3.2 GHz	2x Quad core Xeon 5300 at 3.0 GHz
Cache	12 MB per processor (24 MB total)	8 MB per processor (16 MB total)
SSE extensions	128-bit SSE4	128-bit SSE3
Frontside Bus	1.6 GHz	1.33 GHz
Memory	800 MHz DDR2	667MHz DDR2
Max. memory	32 GB	16 GB
PCI Express	2.0	1.0
Bluetooth 2.0	As standard	Extra charge
Keyboard USB hub	USB 2.0	USB 1.1

This is a big improvement over the previous 8 core model. I must admit that I wasn't a fan of the previous one because I felt that the other components were slowing down the processor. The reason for this is that the quad core model had a front side bus (FSB) speed of 1.33 GHz which means a speed of ~333 MHz per core. When the 8 core model was introduced, it kept the same FSB, meaning it only had access to ~166 MHz per core. This bottleneck caused the 8 core model to be rather underwhelming in certain situations, in some cases being outperformed by the quad core version. Overall it was a faster machine, but not as fast as it could have been.

This new version increases the processor clock speed, the FSB, there is more cache available and the memory bandwidth has increased too. If you increase one element, it will eventually bottleneck unless you increase the others, so Apple is doing the right thing by increasing them all at the same time. This thing will scream.

It's worth talking a bit about the new processor too. It is a Xeon 5400 (codename "Harpertown") with SSE4 instructions instead of SSE3 with the old model. What does this mean? Instruction sets are a list of commands that a processor can perform. They are stored in a native form which means it is much faster for the processor to execute one of these instructions to perform a task than it is to convert it from a programming language to its native form. SSE4 has several mathematical instructions that will greatly speed up video encoding and decoding, particularly when using high definition formats.

The Mac Pro now features PCI Express 2.0 which offers 500 MB/s per lane over the previous 250 MB/s. This means that the 16 lane slot for the graphics card can now transfer data at 8 GB/s over the previous 4 GB/s. Brand new graphics cards are available, including the NVIDIA Quadro FX 5600, with 1.5 GB of memory (!) and a price tag to match. The other cards are the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with 256 MB (the standard card) and the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB. This is great news for Motion and Color users.

Apple is now offering 1 TB hard drives with 32 MB of cache for use with the Mac Pro. This allows you to have up to 4 TB of storage inside the machine, up from the previous 3 TB.

This is a really great machine. Apple has a lot of benchmarks here. The new machine seems to be a consistent 10-20% faster than the previous 8 core model. And this is just the two base models with 4 GB RAM. Upgrading to a better graphics card and more memory for example would probably widen the gap even further in Final Cut Pro 6. It's also interesting to look back nostalgically upon the Quad Power Mac G5. In its time, this machine was a speed demon but the new Mac Pro is about 100-200% faster in most tests.

The fact that Apple is releasing these models now means that there will be no significant Mac Pro announcements at Macworld next week.

Interesting Apple patents

Apple was recently granted several interesting patents.

The first one offers a method of analyzing video frames and working out their attributes such as if the footage is interlaced or progressive, and if pulldown has been applied or not. This would allow software such as Final Cut Pro to change project settings to match these attributes automatically without any user intervention. It would also allow software like Compressor to work out which fields in interlaced footage are duplicates and only rendering them once, thereby speeding up rendering times and reducing file sizes. I would imagine this is geared at ProRes, Apple's professional codec.

The second patent is for a DVD web system that provides a method of controlling - and being controlled by - internet content. Web content is currently available via next generation HD DVD and Blu-ray players but this patent specifically caters for two-way communication and control.

Their final patent covers color correction using an accelerated graphics card rather than the processor. My first thought was that it was a patent for the technology in Apple Color but further reading revealed that Apple proposes a playback system (such as QuickTime) where the original color space of the video (such as NTSC) could be converted to the current color space of the monitor to ensure accurate color reproduction.

It must be noted that Apple ultimately may not choose to implement these technologies into their products.

[via AppleInsider]

How to trash preferences

If an application in Mac OS X fails to load or exhibits strange behavior, a common way of fixing the problem is to trash preferences. But what does this mean?

Application preferences such as window layouts and sizes, user-selected options, etc, are all stored in a preferences file ending in .plist. There is a different file for each application. When you delete this file ("trash" it) and fire up the relevant application, the app will notice that the file is missing and create a new one with default preferences. This can solve many issues.

Below is a table of common professional applications and where their preference files are located (note that ~ refers to the current user's Home folder):

Application	Folder	Filename
Final Cut Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.FinalCutPro.plist
Compressor	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.compressor.Compressor.plist com.apple.Compressor.CompressorSharedService.plist
DVD Studio Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.dvdstudiopro.plist
LiveType	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.LiveType.plist
Motion	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.motion.plist
Shake	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.shake.plist
Soundtrack Pro	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.soundtrackpro.plist
Apple Color	~/Library/Preferences	com.apple.color.plist
Adobe Photoshop	~/Library/Preferences	com.adobe.Photoshop.plist
Maya 7	~/Library/Preferences	com.alias.Maya.7.0.plist
Maya 8	~/Library/Preferences	com.alias.Maya.8.0.plist
Vue 5 Infinite	~/Library/Preferences	com.e-onsoftware.vue5infinite.plist
Vue 6 Infinite	~/Library/Preferences	com.e-onsoftware.vue6infinite.plist
Boujou	/Library/Preferences	com.boujou.plist

Additional Final Cut Pro settings are stored in the ~/Library/Preferences/Final Cut Pro User Data directory. You need to trash "Final Cut Pro 6.0 Preferences" (and any previous versions), "Final Cut Pro Obj Cache" and "Final Cut Pro Prof Cache".

After deleting the files, empty the trash and fire up the application again.

Update 4/4/08:
We now have an application called Preference Manager for trashing, backing up and restoring preferences.

Apple to adopt Intel's mobile platform

This has not been confirmed by Apple but AppleInsider is reporting that Apple has taken a liking to Silverthorne, Intel's new 45-nm mobile platform chip. The chip is slated for release in early 2008 and uses between half a watt and two watts of power.

Intel describes it as a "landmark" release. The chip is fast for a mobile chip, consumes very little power and is less than the size of a US penny. It is also incredibly cheap. Intel described an "average price" of a device with the chip as only $100.

The most obvious choice for the processor would be the iPhone. Currently it uses an ARM processor. This new chip would offer a smaller form factor, better battery life and more powerful capabilities. However, the best feature of the new chip in my eyes would be the fact that the iPhone would now be running on x86 hardware. This means that software such as Adobe Flash Player can be ported very easily, and is the reason why Flash support does not exist on the current iPhone model.

There are two reasons why I haven't purchased one yet. The first is the lack of Flash support (need it for web development) and the second is the fact that I want to completely replace my iPod and unfortunately my music collection is about 33 GB. 32 GB flash drives are available now so my hopes are high for an iPhone that fits the above criteria in late 2008 / early 2009.

Downgrading from Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 to 6.0.1

I like to keep an eye on my server logs and I get a list of what people searched for in order to reach the site. A significant number of people have been searching for a way to somehow downgrade from Final Cut Pro 6.0.2 back to 6.0.1. I didn't realize so many people were having problems.

There is no easy "rollback" method of downgrading. You'd have to uninstall FCP completely and reinstall it again. You would, however, be stuck at version 6.0.0 because Apple only offers 6.0.2 on its site, unless you can find a mirror somewhere (I couldn't).

The best way of preventing this issue in the future is to use something like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your hard disk onto another disk. You can generate an exact carbon copy of your working installation and instantly restore to it if you run into problems in the future. An essential editor's tool.

Also be aware that if you happened to save one of your projects under 6.0.2, you will be unable to open it in a previous version. I am not aware of a way of converting them back again. The best way to prevent this in the future is to save a backup before you upgrade.

The moral of this story is: don't install on a machine in the middle of a production unless you are having serious problems that the patch claims to fix, and always prepare a way of getting everything back to normal before you upgrade.

P.S. If you're installing Final Cut Pro 6 on top of Final Cut Pro 5, it is best to uninstall version 5 first. In most cases, it won't do anything untoward, but for a lot of people a working machine is their livelihood and you don't really want to take unnecessary risks when you can avoid them.

Update: We now offer a tool for removing Final Cut Studio from your system.

OS X Leopard security update 2007-009

Apple just released a security update for OS X Leopard 10.5.1. It is recommended for all users and fixes the following:

Core Foundation
CUPS
Flash Player Plug-in
Launch Services
perl
python
Quick Look
ruby
Safari
Samba
Shockwave Plug-in
Spin Tracer

With regards to installing on a production machine, it's kind of a fine line. On the one hand, you don't want to break anything but on the other, hackers often reverse-engineer a patch in order to find out what the original security issues were. They then target unpatched machines.

Obviously this is significantly less of an issue with OS X than it is with Windows but I would say that generally speaking, there is no harm in installing security updates on a production machine, but it's probably best to give it a day or two first and keep an eye on Apple's Leopard support forum to see if anyone else had any issues.

Update:
Didn't realize Apple posted one for Tiger at the same time too. It fixes:

Address Book
ColorSync
Core Foundation
CUPS
Desktop Services
Flash Player Plug-in
gnutar
iChat
IO Storage Family
Launch Services
Mail
perl
python
ruby
Safari
Safari RSS
Samba
Shockwave Plug-in
SMB
Spotlight
tcpdump
XQuery

Importing MXFs into Final Cut Pro

I think filmmaking is the only profession where the word "cheat" is used to mean a positive thing. Shane Ross has figured out a way of importing MXF files from Panasonic P2 cards. This is a way of importing P2 footage without having to go through Final Cut's "Log and Transfer" dialog. You just drag it directly into Final Cut and there it is, ready to be used.

In order to enable this functionality, you must install Panasonic's free P2CMS utility. The P2CMS utility allows you to view MXF files natively in QuickTime. Because Final Cut is built upon QuickTime, it also inherits this functionality. Presumably it should be backwards compatible with FCP 5 as well.

One caveat is that when you import, you will get a dialog saying that the media is not optimized for Final Cut Pro, so depending on the speed of your machine, you might have to constantly render everything. But this is good if you want to cut out the Log and Transfer step.