Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

When I did my first degree, a few of my lecturers pushed their own textbooks; it makes sense, no doubt, since it would be a work whose authority (one hopes) they would have full confidence in - but it also makes them money.

Now I’m starting my masters (MAVE at Sussex) I find that it’s iPhone apps that are being pushed! Shamelessly, I might add. I like this.

I finally got an iPhone. The trauma of its aquisition is still too raw (and I’m still too poor a typist) to relate, so this is a test for the Wordpress App, to see if I can post a picture from the phone…

Edit: practising editing and getting used to photo orientation (taking photos with the app isn’t as intuitive as it could be). I notice the iPhone keyboard doesn’t seem to have the thingies for doing HTML…

Despite the fact that there was only one feature I claimed I needed in iTunes 8 (which didn’t materialise - it appears the focus is on making playlists less personal rather than more so), I’ve realised there was another feature I wanted even more, and it is there - the ability to mark any file as an audiobook without having to use the make bookmarkable script for AAC files and for the first time being able to get an MP3 into the audiobook library.

If there were a single new feature you’d want in iTunes 8, what would it be?

iTunes is mature, stable, and does almost everything I want. One feature request: annotatable playlists. For any playlist, I’d like to be able to add a description of the playlist, and for any track a note as to why I’d included it. It would be easy to implement, I’m sure Apple could make it easy to edit, view and hide. I want it for my own use, but I think a lot of people would value being able to publish this via blogs and/or social networking sites, and Apple could benefit from links back to the iTunes store…

I’m late to discover this, but those lucky iPhone users have not only got that gorgeous hardware to play with, they can also sync their address book contacts with gmail while the rest of us can’t.

Well, actually we can, though it needs a bit of fiddling in terminal as described in this useful hint. But I mean, really, Apple, what the hell?

The (now delayed) Take 2 version of Apple TV has an AirTunes option according to this article at iLounge, allowing it to behave as an Airport Express.

When the Apple TV first came out, this was a feature it obviously lacked (in common with the new Airport Extreme and now Time Capsule). After comparing it with a Mac Mini I went with the Mini, mostly for the DVD playback and EyeTV support; at the time this suffered a similar disadvantage, subsequently mitigated by the arrival of Airfoil 3 which offers comparable functionality on any Mac (even if you can’t select the Mini’s speakers directly from iTunes).

This official new feature makes the Apple TV look more attractive, although with no price cut in the UK to match that in the US and no movie rentals, it’s still not a killer proposition. Perhaps the more significant angle to this discovery is the fact that Apple haven’t forgotten about AirTunes.

So come on Apple, how about an AirTunes Time Capsule?

I’ve been checking it out and it looks quite cool, though basically it is only an Airport Extreme with the hard drive inside it, so no AirTunes etc. But full Airport Disk support, so it can be used for storage or time machine backups for a number of machines, and you can add another disk (and/or a printer) via the USB port.

What I’d really like to know is how quiet is that hard drive? If it’s near enough silent, I might go for it just for that.

Once again, Europe has to wait…

I haven’t bought any films or TV from iTunes (DVD still preferred) but I can easily see myself renting. DVD rental with no waiting for the post - decide what you want to watch and then watch it straight away - video on demand has been around for so long but iTunes is the first decent implementation. The pricing seems reasonable, too, if they don’t charge us the usual premium for being outside the US.

Meanwhile, with HD rentals, is this a new player in the field, already over-crowded with Blu-ray and HD-DVD…?

Also from the keynote: the Time Capsule. Presumably it can also be a regular Airport Disk (can it be partitioned?) Has it got AirTunes? (I bet it hasn’t). And the MacBook Air. I guess I was wrong to disbelieve the rumours on the grounds they couldn’t use such a rubbish name. Pricey, but I guess worth paying if it’s a second Mac and you really can’t be bothered with the extra couple of pounds.

…five days after I complained because the Rogue Amoeba website was essentially an information vacuum (with no mention of its announced product upgrades, despite several links from external sites to forums that “are no longer online”).

Not only that, when I’d emailed them the chap who replied hadn’t heard of Airport Speakers. Well, Airport Speakers are now here, and they rock.

Apple’s Airport Express is a wifi base station that can plug into your hifi so you can send music from iTunes wirelessly. Airfoil let you send any audio from your computer over the the AEX. Now Airfoil 3 lets you send audio from your Mac to any other Mac running this little app called Airfoil Speakers. The Mac running the latter shows up in Airfoil along with any AEX units on your network. I have a Mac Mini but no AEX (I was going to buy one and plug in next to it just to get AirTunes. Airfoil just saved me £60). It’s a pity the Airfoil Speakers won’t show up in iTunes itself (this is apparently due to Apple’s encrypting the iTunes output) but it doesn’t really matter because you can easily use Airfoil instead.

Now Airfoil can also send the audio from your videos and DVDs to an AEX/Airfoil Speakers. Previously this was a problem because of the delay when sending audio (the video was out of sync). This is solved, now, by using the Airfoil video player which has, built in, just the right amount of delay. It’s a shame not to be able to use your video player of choice, but it’s not a bad little player. It urgently needs to support the Apple Remote (the only flaw I’ve found so far).

There’s a tour of the new Airfoil here. With the new features, it’s indubitably worth the $25, but you can download a trial to use it for up to 10 minutes a time.

Though I’ve got a new Mac Mini plugged into my hifi, I’ve kind of assumed I’d end up having to buy an Airport Express to plug in next to it if I want to stream AirTunes from my MacBook (which I do, and yes I know there’s NetTunes etc. but all the music is organised on the MacBook).

So I got pretty excited to read this interview with Rogue Amoeba CEO Paul Kafasis about Airfoil 3. This is a new version of the app that lets you send any audio to an Airport Express and “one of the major announced features is Airfoil Speakers” which, basically, let you use any Mac to receive AirTunes, ie. act as an Airport Express. Yay!

Except that the link to Rogue Amoeba is broken and just states “the forums are no longer online”. Nothing else. No mention of Airfoil 3 elsewhere on the site. But it’s mentioned elsewhere on the net in posts between July and September ‘07, like this one and this one (which states the update will come in September).

So it seems reasonable to assume, since all the original announcements at Rogue Amoeba are “no longer online” that the upgrade and new features have been quietly swept under the carpet. Still, there’s only one way to find out: I asked them if they’re still supporting Airfoil and they said “we’re still here and development continues on Airfoil”. But they the chap who sent the email professed ignorance of the “Airfoil Speakers” referred to by the CEO.

What’s going on?