The First Thing? Reinstall the OS

This might seem like craziness to some people, but the default OS X install has a bunch of language files, fonts, and printer drivers that you will never ever use. I immediately get the restore disc out and do a clean install of OS X (in this case, Snow Leopard). To do this properly, once you boot from the install disc and select your language, click on Tools in the Menu Bar and open Disk Utility. From there, select your primary hard drive from the column on the left and click on the Erase tab on the right hand side. Ensure that Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is selected and hit Erase. Now you’re ready to hit the ground running.

Quit Disk Utility and you’ll be brought back to the Installer. Click continue until you arrive at a screen with the “Customize” button in the lower left. Click on that and uncheck everything in there so that “Essential System Software” is the only thing being installed. You’re already well on your way to a leaner, meaner system.

Update Everything, Install Only One Program

Even on my brand new machine, the first thing I had to do after booting up for the first time was apply critical system and security updates to OS X. This may take you a few restarts depending on how old your installation disc is, but with my method you’ll never need it again. After your system is completely up to date, open Disk Utility again (located in Applications > Utilities), select your partiton from the left (usually named Macintosh HD), and click on the button that says “Repair Disk Permissions” under the First Aid tab. I generally do this after applying large amounts of updates just to ensure there’s no data corruption now or in the future. If you want to know a little more about this process, check out Apple’s Support Document on the topic.

The hard drive should only contain the freshly installed-and-updated system: none of the programs you use, none of your user files like pictures, music, etc. I download only one program at this point: SuperDuper!

Time For the First of Many Backups

Some people swear by Carbon Copy Cloner, but I love the speed and interface of SuperDuper! — In reality both programs are amazing at what they do: creating a bootable backup of your system. The one feature of the new MacBook Pros and iMacs that got me jazzed was the inclusion of a dedicated SD card reader. The first practical application I thought of, beyond the obvious quick retrieval of photos and videos, was a bootable SD card backup and that’s exactly what I did. You’ll need at least an 8GB SD card for this to work, and I’d recommend Class 6 or higher. The Class of an SD card is a measure of it’s speed; Class 6 cards usually range in the 20-24mbps range, which is plenty fast for our purposes.

Insert the SD card into the dedicated slot or into a card reader connected via USB, open Disk Utility and select it (not its indented partition, but the device itself) in the left column. Once you’ve done that, click on the “Partition” tab on the right side. Under Volume Scheme, select 1 Partition, then click on the “Options…” button. From here, make sure to select the GUID Partition Table, which will make this SD card a bootable OS X device, then click OK to come back to the main Partition section. From here you can optionally name your volume or just hit the Apply button. Disk Utility will format and partition the card and it will appear back on your desktop. Quit Disk Utility and switch over to SuperDuper!

The interface here couldn’t be simpler: In the first drop down, you select your primary hard drive, in the second you select your SD card, and the one underneath should have “Backup – all files” selected. Once that’s done, click on Copy Now, enter your user password, and go grab a sandwich.

First Backup Done, Initialize Offsite Backup

You now have a fresh, up-to-date version of Snow Leopard you can restore from in the future should you ever want to start over or deploy a basic installation quickly on a new machine. Remove the SD card, flip the switch into the “Lock” position, and store the card away somewhere safe.

The next thing I do is install an off-site backup manager. There are literally dozens to choose from and after giving them all a fair shake I decided to go with BackBlaze. Here’s a quick list of other services you can choose from for the sake of fair-and-unbiased-ness:

• Mozy
• Carbonite
• iDrive
• Crashplan
• JungleDisk
• ElephantDrive

They all vary slightly in price and implementation, but all work great. I chose BackBlaze because it’s $5/month/computer for unlimited storage and installs itself as a simple System Preferences panel. All of these services say that the initial backup takes the longest, which is why I still don’t put any of my files on the computer at this point: I basically want  a working duplicate of my computer in the cloud. Your mileage will vary from mine at this point depending on your internet connection, but you basically have to upload roughly 12GB of system files onto the internet. This is something I let run overnight, while I sleep soundly knowing my data is being secured.

Finally, Move Your Files Over, Install Your Apps

I assumed a lot from you going into this article, not the least of which was that you had your data safely stored on some sort of external device or computer. Well, now’s the time to bring all of your goodies into the fray. Add your music, movies, photos, etc and order them however you’d like. If you’re as particular about your folder structures and naming conventions as I am, this could very well be the longest step. Also feel free to install all of the programs you use as this point.

More Backing Up

We’re almost at the home stretch, so now you’re probably thinking “What the hell more could we do to secure our data?” Well, we’ve already started on one: Backblaze.

After I moved all my files over and installed the programs I use on a regular basis, the amount of space I was using jumped from 12GB to 204GB. Backblaze (or whichever service you’ve chosen) will back all of that information up. For me, it took roughly 3 weeks (all the while adjusting how much bandwidth I wanted BackBlaze to use: more at night, less during the day, etc), so that’s pretty much a background thing that will be happening for a while. The last thing to set up is OS X’s own Time Machine.

Taming Time Machine

I love Time Machine; before it was introduced in Leopard I never had a backup/restore plan. I figured if I lost everything (thankfully that’s never happened), I’d just start over again from scratch — the force (of  laziness) was strong in this one. Time Machine made it easy and important to me to back up everything digital. Though it isn’t without it’s flaws, it’s certainly the solution a majority of people who use OS X are most familiar with. I don’t use any third party tools to control the times of day it chooses to back up, but I am very particular about what it backs up. Below is a list of folders that I explicitly tell Time Machine NOT to back up and why. If you’d like to save a little space on each back up, you can add any or all of these folders by going to System Preferences > Time Machine > Options.

• /Applications — This folder changes so often and drastically that I’d prefer to manage it on my own. If I need to get an app that I accidentally deleted, I’ll make sure to get the latest version from the company’s website.
• /Library/Audio — After installing Final Cut Studio and Logic Pro, this folder jumps up to a whopping 32GB. Again, if I accidentally delete something from here (unlikely), I’ll reinstall from the disc.
• /Library/Caches — Non-vital files that can accumulate in size rather quickly and change even quicker. No harm here.
• ~/Library/Caches — Same as above
• ~/Downloads — This folder changes so often that I’d rather not have anything in here backed up. I do pretty regular maintenance to keep this folder clear anyhow.
• ~/Dropbox — I’m a mega Dropbox user. If you haven’t heard of it, you should really make it a part of your life. Anyway, Dropbox files already live in the cloud (and usually on many other computers) and have the ability to go back multiple versions. No need to back this stuff up.
• ~/Library/Application Support/MobileSync — Only applicable if you’re an iPhone user, but definitely worth looking into. I’ve synced my iPhone 4, which is loaded with video, to my MacBook only a handful of times, but this folder clocks in at 18GB+ for me.
• ~/Movies — I only use this folder as a drop point for DVDs I rip before storing them on an external drive. This is another situation where the folder changes so many times I’d rather not waste the time having Time Machine back up huge, temporary files.
• ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Podcasts — This folder might have a slightly different path depending on whether iTunes has updated your library recently, but I never bother to backup Podcasts since I download so many of them at a time, watch them, then delete a majority of them.
• ~/Documents/Virtual Machines — This is the folder that VMware uses to store Virtual Machines in. If you use Parallels, VirtualBox, or something else you’ll have to find out where they store these massive files. Basically, every time you boot into the virtual machine the files within are changed slightly, but since the Finder (and, ergo, Time Machine) only see this as one large file, it will back up the whole thing again and again. Needless waste of space here.

Dropbox and Alternative Approaches

Some files I choose to keep in my Dropbox folder for easy access: documents, some pictures, application data, and more. Dropbox is as good a backup solution as any if you’re willing to pay a little more for a very fast, very convenient service that offers a native app as well as a web interface.

It’s worth mentioning that you don’t need to back up to an SD card, but it’s a method I chose because they’re inexpensive, reliable, and fast. You could just as easily follow the same steps on an external USB or Firewire hard drive. Hell, you could even use a USB memory stick if you had one of those lying around. Another option would be to save that step until after you’ve moved all of your files and programs onto the machine and then create a bootable backup of your entire system. You can even automate this with the paid version of SuperDuper so if your primary hard drive ever fails, you literally boot into your backup and pick up where your last backup left you off.

Recap

Here’s how I roll, in list format:

1. Clean OS X Installation
2. Update OS X via Software Update
3. Repair Disk Permissions in Disk Utility
4. Create a bootable backup of my primary hard drive using SuperDuper!
5. Install BackBlaze for off-site backups
6. Move all of my files onto the hard drive, install all of my apps
   1. BackBlaze passively continues to back up all of these files
7. Set up Time Machine on my Mac, excluding several folders that are greedy with my gigabytes
8. Revel in the fact that I’m safe should my MacBook’s internal hard drive bite the dust

In Closing

There are clearly a variety of ways to ensure that your data is safe. None of them are perfect and a few of them (I’m thinking my way, for sure) are a hell of a lot of work to maintain, but when your primary source of income can be crippled because of something as small as a corrupted hard drive, it’s a good feeling to know that you’ve taken steps to make sure you won’t be out of commission for too long.

Getting Started

This part couldn’t be simpler: You open the program and are immediately greeted with a status window where you can start or stop media sharing and choose which types of files to share: Movies, Music, and Pictures. Within seconds of clicking start, your computer shows up on your PS3 and you’re ready to stream.

By default, Playback shares pretty much everything you have, but also offers you the ability to pick and choose what to share. For instance, under Movies you can share iTunes Movies, iPhoto Movies, EveTV Recordings, and even add specific folders. The same level of customization is also available for Music and Pictures – you can share as much or as little as you want.

One interesting feature, absent in almost all other programs of this ilk, is Access Control. Playback allows you to specify which devices on your network you’d like to share with and what specifically to share with them. This allows me to share all media types with a Windows PC and just share video and music with the PS3. Pretty nifty.

There are some other little niceties like Growl support, automatic generation of QuickLook thumbnails, and even the ability to limit bandwidth (though I can’t think of a reason why you’d want to do this). Codec support is also quite wide, with Playback offering the ability to share anything that PS3 supports.

Score One For the Nerds!

One bonus that really appeals to the nerd in me is the ability to convert high definition MKV files into an MP4 that PS3 can play. Most people will never even come across an MKV in their lives, but I have a few lying around from my days of ripping HD-DVDs. My test material for this was David Fincher’s “The Game”, which if you haven’t seen is your first mission right after downloading Playback. Anyway, the MKV file I converted was 1280×544 @ 24fps, with a file size in the neighborhood of 4.4GB. The Playback output file was quite literally almost identical in size except it was now an MP4. I tried to play this previously unsupported file on my PS3 and, viola!, it streamed (and looked quite glorious I might add).

Bottom Line

Playback fills in the gaps that Sony left when choosing to support only one protocol to share media across devices. Could I set up a UPnP server on my Mac? Probably, but the hassle and headaches aren’t worth it when a program like Playback makes sharing media this easy and effortless. There are a handful of programs that aid you in sharing media to your PS3, and while some of them are quite good, none hold a candle to Playback.

PS – I guess it’s also worth noting that Playback works equally well for Xbox360, though it’ll take a lot more than that for me to even consider buying one of those!

The Foundation: Text Editors

There are a veritable plethora of text editors for Mac and nearly everyone you ask uses a different one they’re fanatical about. This speaks volumes of the quality and diversity of the software available, but in the end it really comes down to your personal preference.

The best way to describe TextWrangler from Bare Bones Software is to say that it feels like TextEdit on steroids. You can use it as a simple text editor for sorting out content, but it also supports syntax highlighting for over 30 programming languages, one of the most robust find-and-replace actions of any text editor out there, and the ability to open and save files via its built-in FTP browser.

Though no longer under active development, Smultron is another free text editor that feels decidedly more Mac-like in its appearance. It utilizes an always-open sidebar similar to iTunes where you’ll view small (but resizable) thumbnails of all your open documents. Some extra niceties that Smultron has over TextWrangler is the ability to edit in full screen mode, view code in split view, as well as a pretty nifty snippets manager for quick access to frequently-used code.

You can’t talk about Mac text editors without a very vocal show of support for Textmate. It’s easily one of my most used applications and for very good reason: it’s literally packed with features and functionality, some of which can’t be found anywhere else. The web development features that are particularly useful include a built-in code preview (using Webkit), inline W3C validation for all of the HTML-ers, code snippets, and bundles, which can be written freely by anyone and add even more functionality to the editor. Textmate isn’t free, but for all it does, the $55 price tag is a steal.

Moving and Shaking: FTP

The clear winner for free FTP program (and possibly coolest icon) on the Mac goes to Cyberduck. It supports multiple protocols including: FTP, SFTP, WebDAV (MobileMe), Amazon S3, and even Rackspace Cloud Server access. It has excellent OS-wide integration and, perhaps more important, plays well with most text editors. You can right click on a remote file from within Cyberduck and edit it with your favorite text editor, then once you save it Cyberduck automagically uploads the file back to the remote server with no intervention needed on your part.

The guys over at Panic know great design, which is why it should come as no surprise that Transmit is one of the best looking and most functional FTP clients on the Mac. One of its killer features is the ability to create droplets: think of them as mini-Transmits that allow you to upload files without even opening the program. Additionally, it supports nearly every protocol you can think of and sports advanced editing of a variety of files remotely (most notably images). All of this packed into an elegant, intuitive UI makes Transmit the best $29.95 you’ll ever spend.

A relative newcomer to the Mac is Flow, a robust FTP program that was a big part of the last MacHeist and has been gaining more and more momentum. When you launch Flow, you’ll immediately notice it breaks away from the standard FTP interface for something that’s considerably more Finder-esque. Compound that with some advanced features not found in many other Mac FTP programs like multiple connections for simultaneous file uploads, right clicking to copy remote URLs, and bulletproof QuickLook integration and you have yourself one fine file transferrer. $25 and it could be yours.

Save the Environment

As far as I’m concerned, the only testing environment you need to set up on your Mac is MAMP, which stands for Macintosh, Apache, MySQL, and PHP. The latest version clocks in at a hair over 200MB. It’s self-contained and can live anywhere on your hard drive, essentially making it the ideal portable development environment. All of your webpages are viewable in the htdocs folder contained within the MAMP directory and can be accessed, by default, simply by visiting http://localhost:8888 while MAMP is running. Get MAMP absolutely free now and start your rapid development.

Test Your Code, Not Your Patience

The bane of any web developers existence is Internet Explorer and while we might not like it, it needs to be accounted for. Boot Camp is a good idea in theory, but would severely break your workflow should you have to reboot every time you made a change. That’s where virtualization comes in: boot up Windows (or any other OS, really) from within OS X for rapid testing and debugging.

Sun’s VirtualBox has come a long way over the years and in many respects can stand toe-to-toe with the paid virtualization clients out there. It fully supports multiple versions of Windows all the way back to 2000, many distros of Linux, and even BSD variants. It’s fast, intuitive, and gets the job done while leaving your wallet intact.

Holy layer of abstraction, Batman!

I won’t get into the Parallels vs VMware Fusion speed debates (though I already have) because with each new version released one becomes faster than the other. Priced identically at $79.99, these programs offer incredible speeds, loads of configuration options for power users, and enhanced graphics capabilities (for when you take a break from coding for a quick frag-fest). You can sometimes get Parallels at a discounted rate if you follow software sales like MacHeist or MacUpdate Promo (actually happening right now, including Parallels!), so some users opt to wait for that and save a bit of green. Beyond minor aesthetic details, each of the programs behaves similarly and in the end should cut your Windows testing time down significantly.

That’s All, Folks

Hopefully with all of the aforementioned tools you’ll be able to quickly and effortlessly jump into Mac web development while keeping your bank account at a respectable level.

Let’s get right to the heart of this thing:

If [Apple] could do the Mac all over again, it would use the iPhone OS. Don’t think of the iPad as a big iPod touch. Think of it, rather, as the new Mac—a new mode of home-based computing that Apple hopes will bubble up through its product line.

I understand the thinking here: From the outset, Apple has always had a keen eye for user experience and has tried to keep that tightly controlled, but by “doing it all over again” and starting with such a simple (and, by proxy, limited) operating system, they would have alienated what I believe to be their most important demographic: the fanatics who swear by the Mac for it’s ease of use, excellent software libraries, and seamlessness. These fanatics are the ones convincing their family members to go out and get Macs, they’re also the ones purchasing newer models and operating systems every two to three years.

Compound all that to the fact that the iPad will be for only the most casual of uses in its current incarnation; it’s nearly impossible to accomplish any sort of real work due to the lack of multi-tasking (which I’m sure will inevitably arrive). I couldn’t imagine how frustrated I’d be if I was working on a text-heavy website and constantly had to save and quit my code editor to hop over to check an email from the client and then quit that to hop over into iWork to read the latest document they sent me. It would be maddening.

The Mac is an open platform, and the iPad is closed. Anyone can write and distribute PC or Mac software or compatible gadgets, without having to have them verified or approved. That’s created an incredible pace of innovation, though it has its downsides, too, such as the incredible pace of malware innovation.

He had to throw PC into the mix in order to safely cite “malware innovation” since as far as my experience goes, you can count on one hand the legitimate threats to OS X as a platform, half of which require the user to have admin rights and install compromised software.

Obviously, the iPhone ecosystem has flourished under Apple’s benign dictatorship. But the whole ecosystem is reliant on that dictatorship remaining benign. (And even now people who enjoy BitTorrent would argue that it isn’t benign at all.)

I’m not really sure where BitTorrent plays a part in this at all, but ok.

I’ll admit I’m fearful, uncertain, and doubtful. Apple has fallen in love with end-to-end experiences, and I don’t want anyone other than me to have the last word on what I can install on my own home computer.

Apple has always been in love with end-to-end experiences, and of course no one wants to be told what they can and can’t install on their own computers, which is precisely the reason why a desktop environment will be in Apple’s future for years to come. The sheer amount of incredible developers on the Mac platform in tandem with all of the innovations to OS X are the exact reasons why it has flourished so much in these past few years.

The iPad is just another device that will likely carry the fabled “halo effect” that the original iPods touted: an experience so rich created by Apple that it actually motivates users to purchase Apple computers, and iPhones, and iPods, and so forth and so on. It’s clear that Apple is making boatloads of money from the mobile computing space, but I’m inclined to believe them when they say that the iPad is that in-between device for people who already have a laptop and an iPhone, as opposed to being the successor to the desktop environment.

First Things First: What It Is

It’s not a phone, it doesn’t have a camera, and half of the models won’t feature a persistent data connection — assertions of it being a giant iPhone or iPod Touch¹ are mainly from an aesthetic standpoint.  On the flip side, it’s less than a laptop: no physical keyboard (without the special dock OR an Apple Bluetooth keyboard from what I understand) and no fully-featured version of OS X. I’ve read from event attendees that when you plug the iPad in to sync, you’re actually able to browse through the folder structure a la the iPod Disk Mode of yesteryear, so we sway towards the laptop side of the fence.  It is obviously running a variant of iPhone OS, so we then swing back into this middle area, which is exactly where Jobs positioned it from the get-go.

Who Is It Good For?

I will admit that my initial reaction differs greatly from my feelings on the device today and a lot of that was based on speculation that the iPad was going to cost somewhere in the range of $1000 to $1200 dollars. For a grand, the iPad would’ve gone the way of the G4 Cube or the iPod Hi-Fi.  However, for half of that price it becomes a significantly more appealing device for a lot of people, myself included.

The first group I could see gobbling this device up would be media connoisseurs. Not necessarily people who frequently purchase media online (though I’m sure that will be the case), but rather people who have a massive collection of movies, music, eBooks, or even iPhone apps that want this stuff on-the-go or just at arm’s length:

• You want the answer to the Final Jeopardy question before that snarky-ass Trebek?  Pick up the iPad and Google it.
• Want something to do while you’re on the can?  iPad + The New York Times app should be handy.
• Bored on your hour-long train ride to work? Go ahead and catch up on your favorite TV show to ease the pain.
• Could you imagine if Logitech made a Harmony app for it? Best. Universal Remote. Ever.
• So forth and so on…

Another group of people who might dig this device are the casual computer users.  One of the first things I thought when I saw it was “Mom would friggin love that thing” and I’m pretty that most parents (hell, even some grandparents) could get accustomed to the iPad right quick. The learning curve for the most used tasks: web browsing, sending/checking email, and maybe the occasional game are so minimal and intuitive that I’m sure moms and dads would have a solid understanding in less than a day.

The third and final group are the ones that seem to be scrutinizing it the most.  The media professionals that thought this tablet was actually the third set of commandments never brought down from Mt. Sinai. They’re yelling about DRM and iPhone OS and AT&T and so many other nuancical things, which are all valid concerns, but there’s the simple fact that none of the yellers have even used the damn thing. I can see writing up a well thought-out list of pros and cons after using a demo unit or even just playing around with one in an Apple Store, but the fact remains that all of these people crying foul about how locked down the thing is haven’t even seen one outside of the Keynote video. I would estimate that 25% of them will completely change their tune after holding one in their hand and using it for 10 minutes.

Here’s a list of actual uses I could see as possible for a media professional with the iPad:

• A photographer showing off their portfolio or recently-taken on-site photographs
• A video editor preparing to show dailies to a director/producer
• A web designer showing off photo comps OR working website demos in Safari
• As a presentation tool to ensure none of your fancy Keynote animations are lost in the shuffle

I’ll admit that’s not the greatest list at the moment, and true all of those things are easily accomplished with a laptop, but keep in mind that this platform is in its infancy from a developer standpoint. I’m sure we’ll be inundated with a slew of apps that will allow us to do things faster and better, just like on the iPhone itself.

Flash Flood

Perhaps the astute noticed that I left out all of whining over lack of Flash support. The amount of people that are upset by this is ri-god-damn-diculous. I never thought twice about whether or not this tablet would support Flash, my assumption was always “No, and that’s a good thing.”

Flash has been a good platform for delivering video up until the recent advent of HTML5, which offers a far superior implementation in terms of ease of use and overall user experience (no plugins required, above all else). YouTube and Vimeo, two of the largest video sites on the internet, have embraced this open standard and the implementation is flawless  It’s not an accessible platform on it’s best day and soon even animations will be able to be fully supported with the CSS3 standard, so I can’t imagine that Adobe will have such a stranglehold in the online video and “rich UI” market for much longer.

For the one or two things that Flash does well, we must recall the egregious offenses some Flash developers are responsible for, not the least of which are: god-awful, seizure inducing banners, walk-in advertisements, and sites that are 100% flash-based (cue subtle nods to most restaurant websites). Advertisers have gotten so out of hand that people have come up with solutions like ClickToFlash and AdBlockPlus in order to combat the onslaught.

Think of Flash as roller coaster cars that have finally reached the top of the first hill. Once half of them have gone over the edge they’ll pull the remainder down pretty rapidly.

Technically…

The iPad is a very capable machine. Without regurgitating all of the specs featured on Apple’s page, it was easy to see just by watching the demos that it’s a much fuller experience than what’s currently achievable on the iPhone. The custom chip created by Apple’s own manufacturer is clocked at 1Ghz, which doesn’t sound like a lot by today’s multi-core multi-processor standards I realize. Though I’m sure when paired with a perfect storm of cache, RAM, and a fast hard drive (in this case, the fastest: SSD), you get a lot of power in a little device. To put this in perspective, the iPhone 3GS uses the last generation of the same processor clocking in at 600mhz and most definitely less cache. Double the speed of the 3GS and you’re in the ballpark of the iPad.

Summing It Up

After doing a little bit of research on the device from a technical standpoint as well as hearing what attendees had to say after the hands-on demos, I think it’s safe to say that despite a harsh words from the Apple fanatics who thought this device would somehow change the entire world for the better, it might actually sell better than anyone anticipates. I, personally, can’t wait to try one out for myself… At which point I’ll be more open to hearing out the fact-based ramblings and rantings of the unhappy campers.

1 – I have the overwhelming urge to injure anyone who calls it an “iTouch” and I don’t know why.

On the 27″ iMac, you now have the ability to utilize a video input, which has been on everyone’s wish list forever and a day.  My question is this:  If I bought two 27″ iMacs, could I use the video out from one into the other to extend my desktop AND THEN connect them via Firewire 800, enable Xgrid processing and, in essence, utilize the four cores for intensive tasks like video rendering?  The ball is in your court, Apple.

Update 10/22/09 Another question I need answered: Can the iMac still function as a second monitor if OS X isn’t installed or in other situations like when booted into Windows via Boot Camp?

What it offers

At it’s most basic level, MobileMe provides a dead-simple way to keep all of your contacts, calendar events, and Apple-provided me.com email account completely linked up.  This means that if you add a contact on your iPhone, it’ll automagically get sent to “the cloud” and be synced down to your computer’s address book application.  You could also add a series of events to iCal or your Outlook calendar, give them a label, and color code them and within minutes they’ll appear on your iPhone calendar exactly as you’ve added them. If you mark an email on your @me.com account as read, and move it to your ”Follow Up” folder while in Mail.app,  that’s exactly how and where you’ll find the email on your iPhone.

I think you get the picture about how tight the integration is.  The best part is at no time do your iPhone and computer have to be connected, this all happens wirelessly and instantaneously.

Stacking it up

Two out of three of those features (Address Book and Calendar syncing) can be acquired for free from a similar service called Google Sync.  You can see my write-up and review of that on my Google Sync Follow Up article.  The difference between the two is as simple as whether you prefer Google products or Apple products.

With Google Sync, you’ll be working within the realm of Gmail, Google Contacts, and Google Calendar. Your Gmail account also won’t be Push, which is probably a negligible feature for the casual user.

Using MobileMe, Apple’s Mail, Address Book, and iCal will be your primary desktop programs for viewing and editing contacts, events, etc.  Notice that when using Google Sync your information will be stored online at all times whereas with MobileMe your information is accessible from the web (via me.com), but can also be manipulated with desktop applications quickly and easily.

The extra mile

The aforementioned features alone weren’t enough to persuade me to the MobileMe side of the fence.  It was the additional value adds that Apple tacked on which sweetened the deal and made it a worthwhile purchase.

1. Bookmarks Sync
   This might seem like a small thing, but for someone like me who’s constantly bookmarking articles and interesting things for later consumption and classification, this is a life (and time) saver.  Anything I bookmark on my phone gets synced back to my computer and vice versa, so I’m never away from my bookmarks.
2. Back To My Mac
   This has proven to be indispensable for me since I’m not always home to access my computer.  Basically, you log in to your MobileMe account on your primary Mac and then when you log in to MobileMe on any other Mac (on the same network or 500 miles away), you’ll be able to access all of the files on your home machine AND share the screen.  In the past I’d often find myself forgetting a snippet of code or image file when working on a website remotely and would pretty much have to make do without it, but now with Back To My Mac it’s as easy as mounting my home machine on the desktop as a disk and continuing on easily and painlessly.
3. iDisk
   Apple goes ahead and throws you 20GB of space  and 200GB of monthly bandwidth to divide up however you’d like.  By default it’s split evenly down the middle between file space and mail, although you can adjust it however you’d like from the me.com control panel. I’ll reserve my comments about iDisk for the next section
4. Gallery
   This is a dead simple and damn sexy way to look at your photos and videos.  On a desktop web browser you’re given a few options for how you’d like to browse and when viewing on the iPhone it looks identical to skimming your photo albums.  It’s such a rich experience it almost feels like you’re using a desktop application.  You can view one of my photo galleries right here: Bella Ragazza.
5. iLife Integration
   I use iPhoto for organizing all of my pictures and the integration of MobileMe makes sharing my albums a piece of cake. I just select any number of pictures, an album, or event, click the MobileMe button and it publishes the gallery just like that.  The same is true of iMovie and iWeb, although I don’t routinely use either of those programs so I can’t vouch for them personally.
6. Me.com
   I’m not personally a big user of the Me.com website, but it would be doing a great injustice to the service if I didn’t at least mention it.  Everything I’ve mentioned above is accessible from one central place at Me.com.  You can view your contacts, calendar events, galleries, and iDisk files from the rich web applications Apple has set up.  Everything is interactive and makes you feel like you’re on the desktop and if you’re not an iPhone user this would be the best way to access everything quickly and easily.
7. iPhone 3.0 Features
   Find My iPhone, by all accounts and measures, is an awesome service that lets you find your phone and even if you can’t locate it, you have the option to remote wipe it to clear all of your data if a less-than-honest individual was trying to access it from afar. The iDisk App isn’t available yet, but looks like a great way to access your files on the go, like a lite version of Back To My Mac aimed squarely at iPhone. I’m eagerly awaiting this to tie my digital lifestyle together just a tad more.

It’s not all butterflies and rainbows

There are definitely certain parts of MobileMe that are lacking.  The one major sticking point I have is the speed of the iDisk when transferring files thru the Finder.  It mounts on your desktop just like a regular hard drive and by default mirrors the folder structure of your home directory (Pictures, Movies, Music, Documents, Sites, etc). This makes it easy for newcomers to understand how to move files to their iDisk, but the transfer speeds are attrocious.  For a standard video file of 100MB, I clocked my upload speeds thru the Finder at roughly 8kbps to 19kbps on my 16/2mbps cable connection.  Compare that to when connecting via FTP (any clients with WebDAV support are capable of this) with the same video file transferring at an average of 114kbps and you can understand why I’m a little baffled by this.

While on the subject of iDisk, another tiny problem I have is the lack of options for adding more storage space. By and large, most users won’t ever have to worry about hitting the 20GB ceiling, but for someone like me who stands to benefit from storing uncompressed video files or moving large amounts of music to and from my iDisk for safe keeping, the option to purchase additional space by the 10’s of gigabytes as opposed to a system like Amazon’s S3 where you only pay for what you use seems teensy bit archaic.

My only other gripe is that I’m not crazy about having to use iWeb to create a webpage on my allocated web space.  Beings that I’m a designer/coder by trade, I’m curious to see how fast an Apple server would load my pages to the masses and don’t really want to use a WYSIWYG editor to test that curiosity.

In Summary

If you’re an Apple computer user and have an iPhone, then MobileMe is really a no brainer.  For $99 a year, you get the convenience of, well, everything… everywhere.  Access your contacts, calendars, mail and more from a variety of platforms and programs.  Serve pictures and videos attractively from the MobileMe Gallery. Store and access your files on “the cloud” or just get them directly using Back To My Mac.  Despite the one or two complaints I have, they’re certainly not enough to outweigh all of the convenience and ease of use MobileMe has provided me for the past three months.

It’s the Little Things

The first thing you really notice upon first booting up 3.0 is that it’s very snappy; everything feels just a pinch faster.  Additionally, the interface has a new level of polish with some subtle cues that let you know how everything works and where everything is; basically everything you’d expect from Apple and then some.  Two great examples of the enhanced polish that I’ve noticed are: Closing apps now provides you with the slightest of fades as the apps vanish into the background.  The other is the changing of the cursor color from a very dark blue to the same blue as the text message send button and slightly thickening it, making it easier to track when skimming through lines of text.  These are such simple changes, but ones I noticed in an instant.

The new Spotlight feature is one of my favorites: From the home screen, you can either swipe to the right or press the home button and you get a nice little fade of your icons as the Spotlight search bar comes into view.  Assuming you don’t have  pages upon pages of index-able apps (I have four, but not four completely filled pages), searching works like a charm and you can even control the results order via Settings > Phone > Search Results.  You can also swipe down on almost any application window (iPod, Notes, Mail, etc) and search specifically in that area.  The attention to detail and intuitiveness of it is nothing short of amazing.

The Phone and Messages icons have received a small design treatment.  Not so much that you’d readily notice, but they both have a faint diagonal pinstriping now and the “SMS” text has been removed from the messaging icon.  I can only assume this is the case in the 3G and 3GS iPhones, since they’re they only ones which support the new (and still unavailable, thanks AT&T!) MMS feature.

Obviously, the option to go landscape on everything should garner a big “Horrah!” from users.  In the Mail app it works great and has been something I’ve personally been hoping for since the 2.0 release.  The text messaging area also benefits from the landscape keyboard plus some minor interface tweaks for the better.  In the pre-3.0 system, upon sending a text you’d have to wait for it be completely sent before accessing the keyboard or text area again.  Such is not the case in 3.0, as the progress indicator has been moved to the title bar, allowing you to navigate freely while the text sends.

Another great thing I’ve noticed is that the call lists (Recents/Voicemail) have been greatly improved, telling you which source has called you (home, mobile, etc) and giving you the appropriate state (based on area code) for numbers not in your phone book.  These are both two huge improvements as far as I’m concerned and should be put out there for all to see.

Three Words: Cut, Copy, Paste

I can’t say anything that hasn’t been repeated ad nauseum about the integration of cut/copy/paste into the 3.0 OS.  I will say that the execution is very tight and works better than expected.  I like the addition of “Select All”, as sometimes I just want to completely highlight all of my text, delete it, and start from scratch.  The ability to copy and paste text, images, and links between programs will be huge and I’m already thanking Apple for it.

A Few New Apps

Let’s just cut right to the chase, since I know everyone is excited about it: the new and improved Stocks app ROCKS! Actually, I’m so uninterested in the Stocks app that, in addition to not opening it yet, I’ve banished it to my last page of apps (along with the similarly useless Contacts app).  I must confess the Voice Recorder apps is pretty cool and something I can see myself using on a regular basis for quick things.  Couple that with it’s ability to sync recordings to iTunes and you have yourself a winning app right there.

MobileMe and the new features therein

I’m reserving my comments about MobileMe for my actual rundown and review of the service as a whole (review forthcoming).  I will say, however, that the deal has been greatly sweetened with the addition of Find My iPhone, Remote Wipe, and over-the-air Notes syncing. (Not that my phone actually ever leaves my side, but it’s a nice thing to have).

In Summary

If you didn’t believe the iPhone was the mobile handset for you because it was missing feature X, you’ll have absolutely no reservations about getting one now because with the 3.0 software Apple has covered the spectrum of everything a smart phone should do for a user.  Set some time aside on Wednesday to get to know your new iPhone because in addition to all of the things I’ve listed, there are plenty more things to discover and become acquainted with.

Preface

As you all probably know by now, I’m an avid Twitter user.  That said, I also realize that Twitter, by it’s very nature, can be distracting.  I chalk this up to that fact that it’s so easy to update and ingest multiple (and oft-unrelated) small pieces of information so rapidly that you just get lost in it all.  Because of this, when I look for a Twitter client (be it on the Mac or the iPhone) I’m looking for something streamlined that organizes the chaos rather than heightening it. There’s also this little voice in the back of my head that cries foul whenever I see a non-native interface on my screen. I’m looking at you, Adobe AIR.

So all I look for in a Twitter client is a clean, streamlined UI written in the native OS language (whether it’s Mac or Windows).  To some that might be unfair because I’d hazard a guess and say that a majority of people I follow on Twitter use either TweetDeck or DestroyTwitter, both of which use non-native interface widgets.  Regardless, this is my take on the subject and if you want to chime in, that’s what the comments are for.

On Tweetie

So we get to Tweetie, which isn’t a port of the iPhone app by any means, but brings what you could call an “iPhone-esque” experience to the desktop. In a world of Twitter clients that want to inundate you with as much information as possible and take up so much screen real estate, Tweetie plays it pretty close to the chest and breaks things up in the same fashion you’d find in many iPhone Twitter clients.

Very slick and takes up only a fraction of the screen real estate of some of the other Twitter clients.

Along the top you’ll also notice breadcrumb navigation that tells you exactly where you are if you’ve explored inside of a particularly lengthy series of @replies, DMs, searches, etc.  It’s a great way to show how you arrived where you are, but also functional in the sense that it lets you backtrack by clicking earlier in the breadcrumb trail.

The main timeline is concise and clutter-free.  To the right of each of your follower’s tweets is an arrow that allows you to shoot back a quick @reply and clicking on a @username takes you to that person’s stream.  When you receive new tweets, the menu bar glows blue and within the app itself blue markers appear to indicate what’s been received (stream updates, @replies, DMs, etc).  It actually makes zipping through all of the conversations easy, organized, and most importantly: intuitive.

Speaking to the ‘Verse

The weird thing about Tweetie, and I know I’m not alone on this one, is the position of the New Tweet button which is tucked away, very small, in the bottom left hand corner of the program.  Being a keyboard jockey, it really isn’t too much for me to just hit Command + N, but for some people it could take a few moments to realize it’s a clickable button.

Once you find the New Tweet button, you write your tweets in a window separate from the main program, which at first I thought was kind of a silly idea; especially after having used the Mac version of Twitterriffic for so long. Turns out, it’s grown on me and has proven to be a distraction-free way to write tweets that works especially well when you want to add links or images to the mix using drag and drop.

Additional tools built in to the compose window allow you to shorten URLs and add images.

The preferences of the program allow you to select from both a wide variety of URL shortening services as well as image hosting solutions.  For URL shortening I vacillate between bit.ly and tr.im, and both are fully supported which makes me smile.  As for the image hosting, all of the usual suspects are included: YFrog, TwitPic, Twitgoo, or Posterous.  The amount of tools packed into such a small window is actually quite impressive.

Summing It Up

As with any software, your mileage may vary from mine.  If there’s one thing that’s for sure though, it’s that Tweetie accomplishes the goal of taking a massive amount of data and funneling it in such a way that makes general consumption easy, fun, and usable for both beginners and pros alike.

There are some things that I would change about it: ability to remove the dock icon, add a refresh button (maybe opposite the new tweet button),  add the ability to delete tweets, and a few others, but overall for a 1.0 release it’s already shaping up to be one hell of a program.