I'm relieved to see he called the cops and didn't take chances like the guys that personally tracked down a swiped iPhone back in June. That was an amazing tale, though.

The weekend robbery happened in (the apparently appropriately named) Shadyside. North Versailles police have three suspects in custody, and recovered a pellet gun amongst various stolen items.

So for $99 a year, Apple's MobileMe gets you Find My iPhone, email/calendar sync, photo gallery space, and iDisk online backup. But with so many free online services these days, it's really only the tracking/remote wipe feature that interests me (even though someone can just pop up out the SIM card or switch it off if they get into the phone itself). What about you? [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette via Boy Genius Report]

Well, push describes a lot of things. Push is simply an action. Versus, say, pulling. Maybe that's horribly abstract, so try this: If information shows up on your phone or neural implant or messaging program without you (or your wares) asking for it—that's push. The info is pushed to you, versus you pulling it from the source. There are tons of ways push can be (and is) used.

Email's a pretty good starting point for grasping the difference between push and the other stuff. You probably know good ol' POP3—you log into your mail server and pull down new messages. Maybe it's on a frequent schedule, so it feels automatic, even instant, but you're still reaching out to the mail server every time to check and see if there's new mail to download.

IMAP is a little fancier than POP, where all of your folders and email are the same on all of your computers, phones and other gadgets, and any change you make on one shows up on the other, since it's all happening on a remote server somewhere. But with the standard setup, it's still the same deal—your mail program has to log in, see what's new, and pull it down. IMAP does have a pretty neat trick though, an optional feature called IMAP IDLE, that does push pretty well—it's what the Palm Pre uses for Gmail, for instance. Essentially, with IMAP IDLE, the mail server can tell whatever mail app that you've got new messages waiting, without you (or your app) hammering the refresh button over and over. When the app knows there's new messages, it connects and pulls them down, so it gives you just about the speed of push, without matching the precise mechanism.

While different systems do things differently (obvs), what true push services have in common is that they generally insert a middleman between you and the information source.

RIM's setup for the BlackBerry is probably the most sophisticated. When your BlackBerry registers with the carrier (which has to support BlackBerry), the details are handed to RIM's network operating center, so the NOC knows where to send your mail. The NOC watches your mail server, keeps tabs on the phone's location, and pushes email through to your phone whenever you get new stuff.

What makes it push is that your phone's not actually polling a server for new messages to pull—it only receives them when they hit your inbox, and are then pushed to your phone by RIM's servers. This means you save a lot of battery life that'd be wasted by making the phone constantly hit the servers for updates. The flipside is that when RIM's servers blow up, you don't get email, since it's all routed through their system—hence the other panic that grips dudes in suits once every few months lately.

The other biggie is Microsoft, who has Direct Push, part of Exchange's ActiveSync. It's architected a little bit differently, so it doesn't need the precise kind of data about where your phone is that RIM's NOCs do: The phone or whatever you've got sends an HTTPS with a long lifespan to the Exchange server—if new mail arrives before it dies, the Exchange tells your device there's new stuff, so it should start a sync. After it syncs, the device sends out another long HTTPS request, starting it all over again.

Apple's weak-sauce substitute for multitasking works pretty similarly: The developer has something its wants to send an iPhone, when its application isn't actually running, like an IM. It sends the notification to Apple's push servers, which send the notification to the phone through a "persistent IP connection" the phone maintains with the servers. This connection, which is only maintained when push notifications are turned on, is needed to locate the phone, but still doesn't draw as much power as constantly pinging the mail server.

Of course, those aren't the only push systems around, and it's only getting more and more important as stuff gets shifted to the cloud. We haven't mentioned Android and Google Chrome, but both utilize push (or will) in different ways. Suffice it to say, Google Sync will soon be a major player in this game. But basically, all kinds of different data can be pushed—calendars, contacts, browser data, hell, even IM is a kind of push—and they all work more or less the same broad way. Just don't ask us why there isn't push Gmail on the iPhone yet.

Still something you wanna know? Send questions about pushing, shoving and pancake massacres to tips@gizmodo.com, with "Giz Explains" in the subject line.

Developer Nat Friedman thought the same as you did (something along the lines of "f*cking stupid Apple morons"), and spent the weekend writing a script called playnice. The script will get the iPhone's location information from MobileMe, then sends it to Google's Latitude. Obviously, it only works if you are a MobileMe user, making it less useful for the rest of the mortals who are not willing to pay more dollars to Steve and his minions. [playnice via Nat Friendman]

With the iDisk app, you can view supported files like documents, PDFs, even stream music and movies (provided they're in the right formats, natch) and remotely delete stuff from your iDisk. An annoying quirk, though, is that you have to dive into every folder individually to get it to refresh and show any new files. Document and PDF viewing work perfectly. With music and movies, the better the connection, the better the streaming experience, though don't expect to stream your whole iTunes library over it—it's a one song at a time kind of deal. And the movie file support is finicky, to say the least. But when it works, it's pretty nice.

The strong point of the iPhone app as a manager is that it makes it incredibly easy to share files—go to the file you want to share, click the little wireless icon, and you can email a link to it with an expiration date you set. It also has a bookmark list of your friends' public folders, you can quickly get back to them.

Bottom line, Air Sharing has nothing to worry about. Besides requiring a MobileMe account, you can't upload files to your iDisk from the iPhone, or store any of them locally, which is what really gimps the app. I'd hope that Apple would expand its capabilities, but my suspicion is that they don't actually want you to store files on your iPhone or browse through them like you would on a regular computer—it's a conceptual line they don't want to cross, so we've got a viewer with great interface here, nothing more.

The official feature list includes the options to:

- View files on your iDisk
- Access Public folders
- Easily share files from your iPhone
- Quickly access recently viewed files
- View iPhone-supported file types-including iWork, Office, PDF, QuickTime and more. (Files larger than 20MB may not be viewable.)

But while the app is free, keep in mind that you'll of course need a MobileMe subscription to access your very own iDisk. [iTunes via MacRumors]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.So, if you wanna steal your friend's iPhone and not have them know where you absconded to, all you have to do it go into Settings, then hit Mail, Contact, Calendars and click on the MobileMe account. Turn off Find My iPhone and all your friend will get is a little yellow warning symbol when they try to track it if the phone's been previously located (see above).

Even if they're not smart enough to dig into the MobileMe account setting, all you have to do is turn off Location Services under General settings—that also cripples Find My iPhone long enough to get it back home to wipe it out completely so it's untraceable.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.You can still send nastygrams to the iPhone via the service as long as the phone is still online, so presumably Remote Wipe still works as well, though neither of those will actually help find your iPhone.

Update: Yes, this all obviously assumes they can get into your settings if you haven't passcode-locked your phone or they figure out what your passcode is.

Luckily, it seems like even with this massive vulnerability in the tracking feature—you know, the one the service is named after—it should still be more than enough to catch most iPhone thieves.

[Blam—obviously, the service is not meant to be lojack for your phone. What are pasty gadget geeks going to do when they find out who has their phone? Demand it back? No. Really, its for when YOU think you've left your phone somewhere. Never mind the "turning it off", thieves can wipe the phone.]

Documents you have backed up on MobileMe, like PDFs, Word files, or whatever else, can now be streamed to your iPhone and viewed, as well as sent—instead of sending a hefty email attachment, iDisk will send an email with a link so the recipient can download directly from MobileMe. It's free, and will launch alongside iPhone 3.0. [Apple]

Maybe using the name of her biggest film's title and role to date ("Frida") as the answer to her security question wasn't the smartest choice, but luckily nothing the least bit incriminating has been found so far. And as much fun as it was to scour the internet for the chestiest pic of Salma we could find, we still don't approve of this kind of underhanded hackery.

Since this kind of hacking is so common, we suggest using a total non sequitur as an answer for the custom security question. For example, did you know that my favorite ice cream flavor is Brian Lam? [ElectronicPulp via Technologizer]

Apple has every right to be proud of the fact that it got its act together, and everything that was all herky jerky back in July 2008, when the $99-per-year MobileMe launched, is now working as billed. The push email shows up immediately, if you use your me.com account. Ditto for the push contacts and the push calendar, though you can't use web cals like Google's or Yahoo's if you want to be super synced. The gallery works great; as a dad I upload tons of pictures and videos to the MobileMe gallery right from iPhoto, but with iPhoto '09, I can upload them to my free accounts at Facebook and Flickr too. There's even iDisk, a smoothly integrated 20GB cloud storage service, which now has a public drop box for file sharing, just like YouSendIt. And if you have a time capsule NAS/wireless access point, you can remotely access your disk using mobile me, as well as use back to my mac remote desktop control. (The service tracks the dynamic IPs of all your machines, so each machine can always keep track of the others.)

Maybe you're catching on to the real problem here. It's not just that you "free" junkies who read Gizmodo wouldn't be caught dead paying $100 for anything but a 50" flat-panel TV. It's that the service itself is made up of many pieces you already have. This presents a complicated economic argument: If you already have an online photo gallery and a free or company-given email account that you like and use, why would you pay to have those things twice, just to get contact syncing for your phone and a decent online storage system. Wouldn't you go find a less elegant online storage system for a lot less money, and content yourself with syncing your phone to your computer's address book every couple of days?

I said that the service worked as billed, and it does. My favorite component is the contact syncing, because anytime I add anything on my phone or my computer, the two are instantly in sync. But I'd achieve the same result, with less magic, if I remembered to sync my iPhone every so often.

I did have one problem with contact syncing, but I bring it up mainly to tell how easy it was to fix: I had imported a bunch of contacts from email accounts online, and some contacts got corrupted along the way. I had 18 contacts, out of 250 or so, that wouldn't sync from Mac to iPhone or MobileMe web portal. The fix was easy: Go in and change something about the entry, like adding the person's company name or a fax line, even their kid's name. As soon as you tweak the entry, boom, it gets uploaded.

Most other exchanges in MobileMe have been without incident, even exporting my Google Cals in a big bunch, then manually importing them into iCal from time to time. But the very fact that I use MobileMe for some services and free web apps for others, and the fact that I am in many cases the one making sure everything talks to everything else, underscores the point I'm making, that MobileMe is a confederacy of programs that have nothing to do with each other.

In the end, even after it's working well, it's difficult to recommend for two reasons: The money, which I've sufficiently covered above—a hefty sum when contrasted to free web-based simulacra—and the compatibility, not with your device "ecosystem" but with everybody else. Who uses iCal or Me.com mail? Google wins those battles for sure. Even though I swear by MobileMe Gallery, most people I know prefer Flickr, or just Facebook.

There's a solution. Apple could offer some things for free, and some things cheap. Just bought iLife '09 or a new Mac? Guess what, you get to upload your photos to a MobileMe Gallery. Buying an iPhone? Syncing your contacts and calendar is a $2/month add-on. I think iDisk could easily be a success at $25/year, all by itself, as long capacity goes up each year automatically based on capability. It's not like these component parts have anything to do with one another anyway.

My mother-in-law recently switched to a Mac after eons on a PC. I looked over her shoulder as she was placing the order, and when we came to the part where she could get MobileMe at the low introductory price of $70, she asked me if she should. I thought for a second, and realized the answer was no. I may keep her grandkid's pics on MobileMe Gallery, but she's perfectly happy with Picasa, and there's a beta version of that for the Mac out now. For free. [MobileMe]

This is an email they're sending out to MobileMe members:

Dear MobileMe member:

On July 7, 2009, the .Mac HomePage web application will be discontinued. As of this date, you will no longer be able to create new pages or edit existing pages using HomePage. Any pages you've already published will remain live at their current web address for as long as you like. If you need to make changes to your existing pages, please do so before July 7.

Instead of HomePage, we recommend the other sharing features of your MobileMe membership. With MobileMe Gallery, you can share photos online directly from iPhoto or the web application atwww.me.com. And using iWeb on your Mac, you can create custom websites and blogs and publish them to MobileMe.

We apologize for any inconvenience this change may cause. For more information, please read this FAQ. And thank you for being a MobileMe member.

Sincerely,

The MobileMe Team

• Snow Leopard is due out soon, so Apple needs to clear out Leopard inventory via a $30 discount
• 2TB hard drives just hit the market relatively recently, so NASes and other storage devices using 2TB are the next logical step
• ClubMac and MacMall both showed rendered box shots of a 2TB Time Capsule drive

So with the above points, it seems likely to conclude that Apple's either phasing out the 500GB Time Capsule units in order to make room for the 2TB ones, or just want to reward the people who have been MobileMe customers for a while.

Before I start explaining little things like speed, it's important to understand that the main reason why Time Capsule is cool is that it's the most easy to use device lazy Mactards like myself can back up their machine to. To do so, you just run a OS X Leopard program called Time Machine, which finds your Time Capsule—or any locally connected hard drive—and uses it as a backup HDD. Every day, more or less, by wireless or wired network, Time Machine (the software) and Time Capsule (the Wi-Fi router with a HDD in it) will continue to log changes you've made to your data. The physical drive inside comes in 1TB or 500GB capacities, and is a server drive rated for continous 24/7 use for quite awhile. [UPDATE: Jason just reminded me that last year, some people found the drives in the old Time Capsule to be rated for as a network server drive, but also, for consumer machines. So it's not as robust as some drives you'd find in, say, a data center.] Last fall, the Time Capsule saved my butt when my laptop's drive died overnight. Miraculously, after dropping in a new HDD, the OS X install discs asked me if I wanted to restore from a previous Time Capsule/Machine backup, and ended up losing only 2 hours of data. Two hours!

There's more on the Time Machine and Capsule relationship in our intial walkthrough review.

So, if you want Mac backup in one simple unit, there is no better solution than a Time Capsule. And this one is slightly improved over the last. But unlike a year ago when the first generation drive came out, there are other options that are slightly cheaper. More on these later, after the TC performance tests.

First, let's look at the improvements Apple has made in this hardware and to the previous generation's via firmware.

• Dual Band: Two radios instead of one so you can run in 802.11n on both the 5GHz frequency (very fast, although not as interference or wall/door resistant as 2.4GHz) and on 2.4GHz, while older devices with 802.11b or g simply run on the 2.4 band. The last generation of Time Capsule had both band options, but you had to choose one, and that meant almost always choosing 2.4GHz for max compatibility. Having dual channels—which show up as separate Wi-Fi access points but are on the same network—gives you another lane to drive in while the one is saturated with media streaming, a backup or giant file transfers. Somehow, the new antennas are 6DB stronger than the previous antennas, according to the AP Grapher program.

This resulted in an outdoor walking test of about 100 feet of usable range vs 70 for the old unit, about 30% in a sparse area with few other Wi-Fi signals around. (I tested using the 5GHz N mode on both Time Capsules, and 2.4GHz mode on the second band on the new Time Capsule. In the above chart, you can see the DB ratings, with closer to zero being stronger. In the chart, the SSID "APL-N" is the old Time Cap, and "Network" is the old WRT54AG Linksys router.)

The computers connected to the Time Capsule's N network at between 300 and 270mbits per second. I sent some a file—a 150MB 1080p quicktime trailer to JJ Abram's new Star Trek movie—over the network to a computer on the same type of wi-fi connection and found the new Time Capsule to be slightly faster than the old one and even faster than a top-line Linksys router.

*Shorter times are better.

*One caveat on the newer Linksys WRT610N results—Jason Chen helped me test the new Linksys which he has at his house: The wi-fi congestion in his area is undoubtedly greater in his urban living space, compared to the cabin in the woods where I tested. I'd expect the score to be closer if not on par with the Time Capsule in the woods.

• Remote Disk: If you've got Apple's useful $100 per year Mobile Me service, you can access the data on your Time Capsule's drive from anywhere you've got an internet connection, without knowing your IP address.

Mobile Me's service keeps track of the Time Capsule's address and passes it onto your machines that are registered with the service. It shows up as a drive on your Finder's side bar. Handy! But testing showed that the drive did not always show up on remote machines, and there's no clear way to force the remote drive to mount.

• Guest Mode: Guest mode is extremely simple, creating a different network SSID and security key (optional) on the 2.4GHz band, while keeping the other two access points for your personal use. It separates the network from all your private network's disks, computers, and shared resources by using a different subnet. Guest mode does not include things we'd like to see, like a way to throttle guest bandwidth. It's not an important or useful feature, unless you're making a habit of letting people you don't trust use your internet. Unlike the Mobile Me remote disk function, guest mode is not a feature available to the old Time Machine by software update.

As before, the Time Capsule also has a USB port which can be used to plug in a second disk or printer, which can be shared on the network. I did not test the USB port with a printer, but our previous tests showed this function to be buggy at times. Using Time Capsule with a secondary storage device is not a bad idea, because Time Machine backups cannot be size limited; they'll use whatever disk space you have available to store the incremental changes in case you want to restore a file's version from a specific date in history. Time Machine backup software can also bog down the network when doing a backup, saturating the airwaves. Other machines in the house can now use the second SSID in such a case, but we also recommend Time Machine Editor, a third-party program that allows you to schedule backups whenever you want them. I use it to schedule backups at 1am when I'm usually not working. (These are annoying shortcomings of Time Machine software, and so not something we can blame the Time Capsule hardware entirely for. Not entirely.)

As before, Time Capsule has one ethernet port for your internet connection, and three gigabit ethernet jacks. That's one too few, in my book.

The unit runs very quietly, and sometimes you can hear the disks spinning up or seeking data, but its quiet enough for the notoriously anti-cooling-fan Steve Jobs. The unit's top runs, according to my heat sensor gun, between 100 and 120 degrees. It's warm, so I wouldn't rest anything on it, which would exasperate the heat build up.

Time Capsule is $500 for a 1TB and $300 for 500GB of storage. That's not a ton of storage for high-end machines these days, and multiple machines will almost certainly require the 1TB setup if you want to keep a moderately detailed history of your computers' data changes. As you'd expect from Apple, that's more than the cost of a 1TB external drive and a nice Wi-Fi router. Unlike when Time Capsule's first-generation box was released, you have options now.

If you have an AirPort Extreme, you can plug in a USB disk to the port on it for Time Capsule backups. If you want a NAS that can do Time Machine backups but also act as an iTunes music server, this HP media box will do the trick (although won't act as a Wi-Fi router). Since the new Time Capsule gets a bit more speed and distance out of it radios, and gets the useless guest mode, a refurbished Time Capsule could be a smart budget buy if those things aren't on your "must have" list. If you're a PC user, there's no Windows equivalent of Time Machine back up software included, nor is there a way to use Time Capsule as a remote disk from across the internet, so this product is not for you.

Regardless of my caveats, I just prefer the Time Capsule to these options as it fits a lot of back up functionality and network performance in one box.

Top wireless performance

Server grade hard drive...maybe

Quiet

Easiest backup hardware ever for lazy mac users

Mobile Me remote disk function

Costs a bit more than separate Wi-Fi routers with a USB drive plugged in

Guest mode can't throttle down bandwidth

Remote disk doesn't always mount

PC Support is non existent for back up and remote disk

UPDATE: After a month of use, the Time Capsule unit I received has died. I've also had the radios seize up and stop working entirely, twice. It's less stable than the first generation unit. I also would like to see a quality of service feature for prioritizing bandwidth to apps, as well as a way to decide which machines/ports get higher priority traffic on the network. These things are standard on Linksys routers.

The Back to My Mac is only for MobileMe users, and Airport Express remains unchanged, but if you're looking forward to being able to access a bunch of files easily while you're at work/home/somewhere else, it's pretty handy. [Apple Insider]

Faster syncing with Mac and PC. Changes you make to contacts and calendars on your Mac (Address Book and iCal) or PC (Microsoft Outlook) are now automatically pushed up to the cloud every time you make an update. Likewise, changes you make on me.com, iPhone, or iPod touch are automatically pushed to your Mac or PC. As a result, your contacts and calendars update faster across all your devices. To take advantage of faster syncing, be sure you're running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 (Mac) or MobileMe Control Panel 1.3 (Windows).

After a lousy launch in 2008, Apple decided to avoid associating the word "push" with Mobile Me until they could get synchronization between computers and mobile devices (iPhones, iPod touch) down to acceptable times. Looks like it's close enough now to bring the term back.

Another new feature, iDisk file sharing, has been around since the 13th. Improved iPhone notification and syncing and better web app performance round out the improvements.

Dear MobileMe member:

Over the past few months, we have been working hard to make MobileMe the best service it can be. Here is a summary of the improvements and performance enhancements that have recently been completed.
Easy file sharing. iDisk now makes it even easier to share files that are too big to email. Simply select a file in the iDisk web app and click the Share File button to generate an email with a download link. You can also optionally add password protection and set an expiration date for the link. For more details, view this tutorial.

Faster syncing with Mac and PC. Changes you make to contacts and calendars on your Mac (Address Book and iCal) or PC (Microsoft Outlook) are now automatically pushed up to the cloud every time you make an update. Likewise, changes you make on me.com, iPhone, or iPod touch are automatically pushed to your Mac or PC. As a result, your contacts and calendars update faster across all your devices. To take advantage of faster syncing, be sure you're running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 (Mac) or MobileMe Control Panel 1.3 (Windows).

Improved notifications and sync on iPhone. Reliability of new email notifications and syncing of contacts and calendar with MobileMe have both been improved. To get the best MobileMe experience on your iPhone or iPod touch, you should be running iPhone Software 2.2 or later.

Better web app performance. We have also improved the overall performance of the web apps at me.com including faster start time in Calendar and searching in Contacts. For more details, see this support article.
Remember, to take advantage of these improvements, your computers and devices must be running the latest software versions indicated above.

A reader, who is a MobileMe subscriber, received this fake email today. It says:

Welcome,

Your annual subscription is set to renew automatically on February 06,
2009 PST, but attempts to charge your credit card have failed..

To avoid suspension of your account please login to update your information.

The "login" button leads you to a page pretending to be Apple's, in which, like the rest of these schemes, you are supposed to put your credit card info. [Thanks Bryan]

We've already assumed that much of the next step for Windows Mobile will be to sync personal data—not just contacts, calendar entries and tasks, but text messages, photos and even video—to a secure website. The three purposes are:
• Backup and restore stuff if your phone is lost or smashed all to bits, and use the same to migrate to a new phone.
• Add data and media to your phone via a web interface.
• Use your phone to share stuff over the web to people you like.

Microsoft says it won't be charging a fee for the service, and they'll be sharing details of a limited invite-only beta at the Mobile World Congress this month.

Some more interesting details:

• It has a 200MB cap, so it won't sync anything after you fill that up.
• If you sync contacts and calendar to Exchange Server, it won't sync that data to My Phone, but can still do the rest. Ditto for Windows Live—non-Live contacts will be saved on My Phone.
• It will only run on Windows Mobile 6.x (which should be obvious).
• Syncing occurs between 11pm and 5am, unless you force a manual sync.

There's no mention yet of syncing ringtones and apps, apparently something on track for the v2 of My Phone, formerly known as SkyBox. [My Phone Beta]

The suite is getting a pretty strong set of new features— some fluffy, but many meaty and delicious. See the full list, updated as we get new info, below. But first, the cloud.

Pretty much the whole suite gets towed online here— Pages, Numbers and Keynote all now feature the same online storage and collaboration capabilities, including editing, notation and conversion services. There are two modes of access, too: An online interface, at iWork.com, and transparent integration into the actual apps.

The suite is clearly intended to take on Microsoft SharePoint and Google Docs, but approaches online document management somewhat differently. Rather than editing and organizing documents only through a web interface, Apple has integrated the online aspect into the familiar native iLife apps as well.

New Features:

Keynote:

Motion Move: This Keynote effect will create object transitions between slides, like when teenagers morph into werewolves on low-budget TV shows.

Interstitial slideshows: This interrupts your presentations to display standalone slideshows. Thanks?

Text transitions: There are some news ones! You can slide, twirl, shimmer, etc. All the things that made you hate PowerPoint can now help you hate Keynote, too.

Keynote iPhone Remote: This $0.99 app lets cue your Keynote presentation over Wi-Fi, from your iPhone. It's pretty basic, but also has the capability to display presenter's notes.

Integrated online file storage: Simultaneous group editing with revision control, a la Google Docs.

Pages:

Fullscreen: Pages should have always had a fullscreen-ish option. Now it does!

Advanced outlining, listing: A sensible alternative to a standalone outlining/planning application, it's meant help you plan out longer projects. It's also dynamic, so any embedded document links will automatically update on changes.

Mail merge: Mail merging with Numbers! Again, long overdue, but at least now you can easily do your Xmas cards on your Mac.

MathType: Are you a scientist, mathematician or student? No? Then this doesn't matter for you. The whole suite now has many more functions and full MathType capabilities, for writing formulas into your documents.

Numbers:

Boring! MathType is the biggest addition here, but users also get drag and drop formulas, new chart types, multiple axes, trend lines, and error bars, along with dynamic linked charts. And lest we forget, lots of templates.

iWork 2009 is available now from the Apple Store for $79, a $99 "family pack" for five licenses, or $49 with the purchase of any Mac. The subscription fee for iWork.com will be announced at a later date. Press release below.

[Macworld 2009 Coverage]

Apple Unveils iWork '09

Introduces iWork.com Public Beta for Online Document Sharing

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today introduced iWork(R) '09, the latest version of Apple's popular office productivity suite, which adds powerful new features without sacrificing Apple's legendary ease of use. Keynote(R) '09 introduces advanced object transitions, which automatically animate objects with a choice of effects and Magic Move, an innovative way to create sophisticated animations just by applying a simple transition. Pages(R) '09 features a new Full Screen view that helps you focus on your writing and an outline mode to organize your thoughts. Numbers(R) '09 introduces a quick way to group and summarize data and a dramatically simplified way to create complex formulas. Apple also announced iWork.com public beta, a new service Apple is developing to share iWork '09 documents online.

"Millions of Mac users have fallen in love with iWork," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With iWork '09, Apple continues to demonstrate that innovation is possible in office productivity software, and that creating impressive presentations, documents and spreadsheets doesn't need to be complicated."

Keynote '09 introduces Magic Move, which allows you to apply a simple transition to automatically animate the position, scale, rotation and opacity of any image, graphic or text that is repeated on consecutive slides. New text transitions morph text from one slide to the next. New advanced object transitions animate objects off one slide while simultaneously animating objects onto the next slide with a choice of effects. 3D charts now include cylinder shapes, beveled-edge pie charts, new textures and four new 3D build effects. The Keynote Remote application, sold separately in the App Store, lets you view slides and presenter notes and control your presentation with your iPhone(TM) or iPod(R) touch.

Pages '09 Full Screen view lets you focus on your document without any distractions and reveals the menus, format bar and page navigator only when needed. Outline mode includes templates that help to quickly build the framework for your document and allow you to collapse, expand and rearrange elements, even inline graphics, with ease. MathType 6 support lets engineers, mathematicians and students easily add sophisticated equations to their documents and EndNote X2 integration lets users add and edit comprehensive bibliographic references. Pages '09 also includes 40 new Apple-designed templates, including newsletters, posters, certificates and coordinated stationery.

Numbers '09 provides a great way to quickly categorize data by column, which you can then collapse, expand and summarize to easily make sense of large sets of data. Numbers '09 makes formula writing dramatically easier with an enhanced function browser which includes built-in help for over 250 functions, and visual placeholders with tool tips that explain each variable in a formula. Use the new Formula List to view all formulas in your entire spreadsheet and jump directly to any formula cell with a single click. Expanded chart options include mixed chart types, two-axis charts, and the ability to apply trend lines and error bars. Numbers charts pasted into Pages or Keynote are linked, and can be updated with a single click.

Apple also introduced iWork.com public beta, a new service Apple is developing to share iWork '09 documents online. Using your Apple ID, just click the iWork.com icon in the Keynote, Pages or Numbers toolbar to upload your document and invite others to view it online. Viewers can provide comments and notes, and download a copy of your document in iWork, Microsoft Office or PDF formats. A consolidated online list of all your shared documents indicates when your viewers have posted comments.

Pricing & Availability

iWork '09 is now available through the Apple Store(R) (http://www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $79 (US). iWork '09 is available for $49 (US) with the purchase of any Mac(R) through the Apple Store, Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers.

iWork '09 requires Mac OS(R) X version 10.4.11 or Mac OS X version 10.5.6 or later, a Macintosh(R) computer with an Intel processor, PowerPC G5, or 500 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), 32MB of video RAM, QuickTime(R) 7.5.5 or later, a DVD drive for installation and 1.2GB of available disk space. iWork.com Public Beta is not included with the purchase of iWork '09. Account setup and activation are required. Fees may apply. Internet access and iWork '09 are required. Terms of service apply and are available at http://www.apple.com/legal/iworkcom/en/terms.html.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

(C) 2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iWork, Keynote, Pages, Numbers, iPhone, iPod, Apple Store and QuickTime are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20090106/AQTU044)

SOURCE Apple

It's a good solid upgrade full of very nice features. One big catch, though: You need Leopard for it to run. Here's the rundown, app by app:

iPhoto stuff:


Faces: Goes through and identifies distinct faces, automatically tagging them so you don't have to slog through all your photos yourself.

Places: Geotagging, basically. iPhoto gives you a map with pins of where photos are taken. If your camera or iPhone encodes GPS info, iPhoto can figure out if the shot was taken at a particular landmark.

Facebook and Flickr support: Automatically upload your pics straight to your service of choice. (So glad to hear that one!) iPhoto will even grab Facebook image tags and use them in Faces. Flickr geo tags can be used in Places.

Themes: Page layouts for slideshows, with different fonts, caption boxes, etc., with crazy transitions. You can save slideshows to iPhone and iPod touch. It can detect faces in shots, so that they are centered during the slideshow. There's a geo-tag slideshow called Travel Books that looks and acts like a scrapbook.

iMovie stuff: Sounds like they're finally putting back some power functionality—let's hope so...


Precision editor: It's an expanded timeline for audio and video, for tighter cutting.

Advanced drag and drop: You can drag one video on top of another and get advanced context menus.

Themes: Select a theme and it automatically sets style for titles, transitions and credits.

Advanced travel maps: Put in starting and ending points, and it renders a 3D globe of where you traveled.

Video stabilization: Helps you fix shaky shooting when you're editing. Takes some processing time, but the results are amazing.

Other editing features: Skimming, seeing edits (before and after cuts), overlaying audio.

New project library: Organize videos in a more logical way with helpful thumbs.

Garageband stuff:
Yes, Garageband is still getting developed, even though I think it's been a while since even Walt Mossberg recorded a solo project. (Knowing Pogue's talents, he probably has a nice ProTools rig, or at least Logic.) Good thing this version is apparently looking for new musical recruits...

Learn to play: It has an instructional feature that helps teach you how to play instruments like guitar and piano.

Artist Lessons: Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, John Fogerty, Sting and other FOJ jam for your edification. Only $5 a lesson. Hmmm. (More on this.)

There are also updates to iWeb and iDVD, but Apple didn't feel the need to show them off, so they must not be terribly exciting. Here's the press release:

Apple Introduces iLife '09

Major Upgrades to iPhoto, iMovie & GarageBand

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 6 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Apple(R) today introduced iLife(R) '09, which features major upgrades to iPhoto(R), iMovie(R) and GarageBand(R), and includes iDVD(R) and an updated version of iWeb(TM). iPhoto '09 builds on the ability to automatically organize photos into Events by adding Faces and Places as breakthrough new ways to easily organize and manage your photos. iMovie '09 expands on the revolutionary super fast movie creation introduced in iMovie '08 by adding the depth users want through powerful easy-to-use new features such as the incredible new Precision Editor, video stabilization, advanced drag and drop, and animated travel maps. GarageBand '09 introduces a whole new way to help you learn to play piano and guitar with 18 basic lessons and optional lessons from top artists such as Sara Bareilles, John Fogerty, Norah Jones and Sting. iLife '09 is included with every new Mac(R) purchase and available as a $79 upgrade for existing users.

"iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "With iLife '09, we've made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features."

iPhoto '09 makes it even easier to browse and search photos, not only by when they were shot (Events), but by who appears in them (Faces) and where they were taken (Places). iPhoto automatically scans photos to detect people's faces and when you assign a name to any face iPhoto will automatically find more pictures of that person. The library can be searched by name or browsed using the new Faces View. Places automatically imports photo location data from a GPS-enabled camera or any iPhone(TM) or you can manually assign a location to any photo, group of photos or event. Once iPhoto knows where photos were taken, you can easily explore them with a simple search or an interactive map. iPhoto '09 lets you easily publish photos to Facebook or Flickr. Photos published to Facebook include assigned names, and name tags added on Facebook sync back to iPhoto. You can also share photos by creating a themed slideshow to play on your Mac, iPhone or iPod(R), or create a beautiful travel book, complete with customized maps of your journey.

iMovie '09 adds powerful, yet easy-to-use new features to let you create a movie quickly, or add refinements and special effects to your project if you have more time. Drag and drop one clip on top of another to reveal new advanced editing options, including replace, insert, audio only, and even picture-in-picture or green screen. With the revolutionary Precision Editor, you can skim and click on a magnified filmstrip to view clips up close and fine tune any edit, like identifying precisely how much to keep, where to cut, use sound from one clip with video from another and more. iMovie '09 analyzes video and reduces camera shake in clips when added to your project. New titles, transitions, cinematic effects, speed changes and animated travel maps add professional polish to your movie.

GarageBand '09, the updated version of Apple's popular software used by millions to play and record music, now gives budding musicians a fun new way to learn to play piano and guitar. Basic Lessons let you learn the fundamentals at your own pace with Apple instructors in beautiful HD video synchronized to animated instruments and notation. Artist Lessons feature original artists showing how to play their hit songs with everything from finger positions and techniques to the story behind the song. Choose from lessons by popular artists including: Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat, John Fogerty, Ben Folds, Norah Jones, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy's Patrick Stump, OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder and Sting. Artist Lessons are sold separately at the new GarageBand Lesson Store, available inside the GarageBand '09 application. GarageBand '09 also includes exciting new guitar amp and stomp-box effects, and Magic GarageBand Jam that lets you play along with a virtual band that you create.

iLife '09 includes iWeb '09 for authoring custom websites and iDVD '09 for creating DVDs. iWeb '09 adds new iWeb Widgets, such as iSight(R) video and photos, a countdown timer, YouTube video and RSS feeds. New integrated FTP publishing allows you to publish your website to virtually any hosting service and updates to your site can now be automatically added to your Facebook profile.

Pricing & Availability

iLife '09 will be available this month for a suggested retail price of $79 (US) through the Apple Store(R) (http://www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The iLife Up-To-Date upgrade package is available to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after January 6, 2009 for a shipping and handling fee of $9.95 (US). Artist Lessons are available through the GarageBand Lesson Store for $4.99 (US) each.

iLife '09 requires Mac OS(R) X version 10.5.6 or later, a Macintosh(R) computer with an Intel processor, a PowerPC G5 or 867 MHz or faster PowerPC G4, 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended), QuickTime(R) 7.5.5 or later (included), a DVD drive for installation and 4GB of available disk space. iPhoto print services and GarageBand Artist Lessons are available in select countries. Full system requirements and more information on iLife '09 can be found at http://www.apple.com/ilife.

Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh. Today, Apple continues to lead the industry in innovation with its award-winning computers, OS X operating system and iLife and professional applications. Apple is also spearheading the digital media revolution with its iPod portable music and video players and iTunes online store, and has entered the mobile phone market with its revolutionary iPhone.

(C) 2009 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, Mac, Mac OS, Macintosh, iLife, iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, iDVD, iWeb, iPhone, iPod, iSight, Apple Store and QuickTime are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

[Macworld 2009 Full Coverage]

Here's the full list of features 9to5Mac has heard will make it to Apple's SpaceTime Thing:

• The device will tie in MobileMe with an Apple built-in Dynamic DNS system. For instance, if your MobileMe account was "9to5mac", your domain name would be "9to5mac.me.com". This is how you'd reach your filesystem throughout the Internet. Your media would also reside here.
• Built in AFP filesharing for Time Machine backups and centralized file stores.
• iTunes shared Library Database for not just music, but also video. Access over the Internet to all of your media.
• Photo database and tie in with with MobileMe.
• Sharing media with iPod Touch and iPhones both over the Internet and while at home. AppleTV as well.
• The box will be based on the Time Machine platform (ARM), not a more expensive Intel/Leopard Server configuration.
• Lots of power saving features like turning off hard drives when not in use.
• Multiple hard drive configurations would be made available with RAID 5 redundancy.

Essentially, easy centralized media sharing and access—including video—not just over your home network, but over the internet, for all of your computers and iThings, plus a multi-drive backup server. Interestingly, it'll be running on the Time Machine platform, not as a Leopard server. Questions left to answer: How will it interface with Windows boxes? Will you need a MobileMe account? (Seems so. It would make the service a much better value proposition, and perhaps a must-buy.)

The larger picture makes sense to us, even if some of the details don't turn out quite right: Apple (main)streamlined backups and media streaming over the home network, this seems like a logical step from its Time Capsule, especially since they've got a bunch of the infrastructure in place. Constant access to your stuff from anywhere, like Apple's version of Windows Home Server. What would you want to see in an Apple SpaceTime Capsule media server thinger? [9to5Mac via MacRumors]

According to Rob, after getting his iPhone stolen he went to the Apple Store to buy a new one. He proceeded to set up it up with MobileMe, the service that allows mails, contacts, and all kinds of data to be synchronized with Apple's servers. The synchronized data is then merged into a database, and then pushed to all the devices set with the same MobileMe account.

This was the key to the case. A day later he noticed something weird in his new iPhone: There were contacts which never were there. He quickly realized what was happening: The dumb thief forgot to wipe out the cellphone, so Rob had the power to identify those contacts—after that, he called them, got the thief's contact information, and told the police, who apprehend the thief and recovered the iPhone.

He is now selling the old iPhone in eBay, along with this story. Is it too cool to be true? Maybe. Tell us your opinion in the comments. [eBay via TUAW]