Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve been anticipating FaceTime for the Mac ever since we spied the feature on the iPhone, and now Apple is making our dreams a reality with a handy new beta Mac OS X application dubbed “FaceTime.” It’s not an iChat replacement; far from it, in fact. Instead, the standalone, lightweight app dedicates itself to FaceTime calls only, with no sign of your handy AIM or Gtalk buddy list to help you along. It pulls its list of contacts strictly from the Mac Address Book, with no editing available in app, and you’d better hope you have a good handle on that list of contacts (our Gmail-tainted version could certainly use some work). You have to click on a person’s name and then guess which email or phone number they have associated with a FaceTime account — none of the helpful icons from the iPhone have made it over to guide you. It took quite a bit of extra-FaceTime communication to sort out what was what, but once you guess at the right bit of info to place the call with, it’s typical Apple simplicity.

From the phone side it’s intuitive enough: call the email address associated with an Apple ID and you get the computer, call the phone number and you get the iPhone. Conveniently, your computer will “ring” even if the app is closed, though you can turn this feature off in System Preferences if it unsettles you. Hopefully Apple takes this “beta” moniker seriously and has some extra features to add before it releases the final version of the app. We also wouldn’t mind seeing this folded into iChat proper — why have two first party video chat methods? Either way, computer-to-phone conversations are here to stay. The payoff? The psychedelic experience of viewing four Paul Millers simultaneously.

Update: Want a special little bonus? You can apparently video chat with iChat and FaceTime simultaneously, though we tried to add Skype as a third conspirator into the mix and failed (there’s a pic of our experiment after the break). Oh, you should also know that there’s apparently no way to shut off the video in FaceTime outside of quitting the app or physically covering up the camera. EXCLUSIVE: Is Steve Jobs Watching You Sleep? More at 11.

Continue reading FaceTime for Mac hands-on: it works, it’s rough

FaceTime for Mac hands-on: it works, it’s rough originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 15:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As promised, Apple today offered a preview of Mac OS X 10.7, a.k.a “Lion,” which Steve Jobs says has been inspired by the company’s efforts with iOS. That inspiration has resulted in an expanded use of multitouch gestures (but not on a vertical screen), an emphasis on iPad-like full screen applications, and — here’s the big one — an App Store for OS X (which will also be coming to Snow Leopard). Also new is the Launchpad application launcher, which will give you an iPad-like grid of icons and let you create iOS-style folders for applications, and the all-new Mission Control, which offers a unified view of all your open windows, open apps, and your dock. No exact launch date just yet, but Apple says Lion will roll out sometime in the summer of 2011 — head on past the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Mac OS X 10.7 Lion announced, coming summer 2011

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion announced, coming summer 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 20 Oct 2010 12:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As far as we can tell, the general logic behind touchscreen iMac rumors goes something like this: “Apple is good at touch UIs, so it should build a touchscreen iMac.” Unfortunately, the reality of a usable, desirable touchscreen desktop computers has yet to materialize (sorry, HP and Microsoft), and so far Apple has steered clear of those dangerous waters. An international patent recently unearthed at the World Intellectual Property Organization, however, shows just how Apple might go about a touch UI on a desktop computer.

Basically, the patent covers the method of transitioning from a traditional “high resolution” UI (best operated by a mouse) to a “low resolution” UI suitable to finger operation (like iOS). A myriad of sensors can be employed to detect the user moving the screen into touch mode, and as the user does this the difficult high res bits like cursors and scrollbars and drop down menus “slide off the screen,” leaving only a touch UI at the end of the transition. It’s all very broad and vague, naturally, being a patent, but it’s an interesting idea, and makes more sense than ruining the good thing desktop UIs have going with a tacked-on touch UI in the style of Microsoft’s Windows. Of course, stuffing two UIs into one device also seems rather un-Apple like, so we’re not going to start expecting an Apple-built touchscreen iMac or MacBook to act exactly like this until Steve gets on stage and starts telling us how we magical and revolutionary it is.

Apple patent unearthed for touchscreen Macs that can flip between mouse and touch UIs with tilt of the screen originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Aug 2010 18:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Half a year ago, you’d have been forgiven for expecting that today both Windows 7 and Mac OS X would have flagship tablets representing them, in the shape of the HP Slate and the Apple iPad. Alas, one of those devices ran away to enterprise land and the other opted for a mobile OS. It’s against this backdrop of disappointment that Axon’s Haptic tablet enters, with confirmation that its Atom-based innards are fully compatible with Linux, Windows and Mac operating environments. With a 10.1-inch resistive touchscreen, 320GB HDD, 2GB of RAM, and a trio of USB ports, it’s another of those devices you could classify as a keyboard-less netbook, but at least its OS versatility will give it a leg up. Then again, with a pre-order price of $750 and no bundled OS licenses, we suspect it might need a little more than that to succeed where so many have failed.

Axon Logic’s Haptic tablet can run a desktop’s OS, has a desktop’s price originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 Aug 2010 04:13:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Google made some waves earlier this week by reportedly moving employees off of Windows and onto Mac OS X and Linux machines — although the company wouldn’t confirm the switch, the move was said to be precipitated by security issues after Chinese hackers attacked the search giant back in January. Now, that wasn’t the only reason mentioned in the report — Google apparently also wants employees to use home-grown products like Chrome OS, and it’s sort of weird for Google to buy tons of software licenses from a major competitor — but the implication that Windows isn’t secure enough for Google seems to have raised Microsoft’s hackles: a new post on the Windows Team Blog says the irony of the move is “hard to overlook” as Gmail and Google Docs have privacy and security issues of their own, offers a point-by-point breakdown of all the ways Windows 7 is more secure than the competition, and goes on to suggest that a recent piece of shady Mac OS X malware is “a future sign of things to come for Apple and security.” Meow. Now, we honestly think the real story is as simple as Google not wanting to write Microsoft a really big check, but we’re not going to say no to a little fight here — Eric, Steve, you have anything to say?

Microsoft responds to Google moving away from Windows, calls it ironic originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 13:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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