Apple has started rolling out pieces of the puzzle that is iOS 5 and iCloud. We will be updating the site as and when these pieces are out for you to download/install.
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Being halfway across the globe from Apple HQ, it is always tough to stay up till 1am to listen to Steve Jobs and his merry men wave their magic wands and share with us the latest products from Cupertino. But fans we are, we were up at 1am to watch as live streaming of Apple Events returned.

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Apple released a bunch of software updates over the past week, focusing on fixes and compatibility issues, especially with the iLife software suite.

Here are the whole list:

• iLife Support 9.0.3 – direct download
  iLife Support provides system software resources that are shared by iLife and other applications. This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability for the Media Browser, and fixes a number of other minor issues. The issues addressed include:
  • Resolved memory leaks for improved performance of the Media Browser
  • Corrected issues to display custom folders when added to the Media Browser
  • Maintained correct image dates when importing from iPhoto to Aperture

• iMovie Update 8.0.3 – direct download
  This update addresses general compatibility issues, improved overall stability and fixes a number of other minor issues. The issues addressed include:
  • Support for 720p AVCHD Lite cameras and camcorders
  • Deleting a beat marker no longer modifies the project duration
  • Video Effects palette now uses the correct thumbnail for still images

• iPhoto Update 8.0.3 – direct download
  This update addresses general compatibility, improves overall stability and fixes a number of issues in the following areas of the application:
  • Publishing to MobileMe, Facebook, and Flickr
  • Slideshow playback
  • Location (GPS) info embedded in emailed photos and exported JPEGs

• iDVD Update 7.0.4 – direct download
  This update addresses general compatibility issues and fixes an issue where iDVD is unable to add title/comment to an image in the image details list. This update is recommended for all users of iDVD version 7.

• Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 2.6 – direct download
  This update extends RAW image compatibility for Aperture 2, iPhoto ’08, and iPhoto ’09 for the following cameras:
  • Canon EOS 500D, Canon Rebel T1i, Canon EOS Kiss Digital X3
  • Nikon D5000
  • Olympus E-30

• AirPort Utility 5.4.2 for Mac – direct download
  This update includes general fixes and compatibility updates for the following applications: AirPort Utility and AirPort Base Station Agent. The update also installs AirPort Disk Utility on Macs running Tiger.

• QuickTime 7.6.2 for Mac – direct download
  QuickTime 7.6.2 includes changes that increase reliability, improve compatibility and enhance security

• GarageBand 5.0.2 – direct download
  This update addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and fixes a number of other minor issues.

• iTunes 8.2 – direct download
  iTunes 8.2 now supports iPhone or iPod touch with the iPhone 3.0 Software Update. iTunes 8.2 also includes many accessibility improvements and bug fixes.

Did it help fix any issue for you? Let us know

iTunes Plus upgrade with choices now

Kirk McElhearn’s rant on iTunes Plus upgrade policy written for Macworld probably reached the eyes of those in Cupertino. There has been a change, for the better.

As of January 28, 2009, Apple has changed their policy, and you can now upgrade individual albums or songs (if you purchased the songs on their own). I would like to think that my Macworld article had something to do with this change…

Enabling two finger zooming on maps in iPhoto ’09

From a twitter tip by @Stroughtonsmith, you can enable zooming on maps in iPhoto ’09 with the scroll wheels or using two-finger scrolling to zoom by typing this in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.iphoto MapScrollWheel -bool YES

(via TUAW)

iPhoto ’09 Faces works with your pussy…cat

I love the Faces feature in iPhoto ’09 that I spent hours just trying to match photos of friends and family. And according to Jason Kaneshiro, Faces also recognises his cats and were able to identify the two cats he has. Think the pattern recognition works as long as there are clearly defined features on the subjects’ faces. So are you going to id your dogs too?

HD video Web service shoot-out

CNet did a comparison with a few of the more popular Web services that provide HD video hosting and with the availability of more affordable HD cams like Flip HD and Creative Vado HD, and applications like iMovie ’09 that comes with stabilization feature, having a good HD Web service site to host your movies will be a bonus.

Not surprisingly Youtube is named the best, not just for its low cost of FREE, but also for its good HD encoding and additional tools like adding subtitles and annotations.

Here’s a quick look at news over this Lunar New Year holidays.

iLife’09 begins shipping

Apple is shipping the popular iLife’09 application suit from today. The latest version which was announced at this year’s Macworld has some new features which will make managing and creating multimedia projects a joy.

iLife’09 is available at Apple Store Online (SG) at S$138 for a single license and S$168 for 5 License Family Pack. Customers who purchase a qualifying new Mac computer or an Apple Certified Refurbished computer on or after 6 January 2009 that does not include iLife’09 can also upgrade to iLife’09 for S$18 (offers ends 28 March’09).

iLife’09 is also available in the Mac Box Set that comes bundled with iWork’09 and OS X 10.5 Leopard at a price of S$288 (S$388 for 5 License Family Pack).

Another Trojan appears, again via pirated software

Intego sent out another alert about another Trojan that is bundled together with pirated copies of Adobe Photoshop CS4. The package that is being distributed contains a clean Photoshop installer, however, the malicious Trojan stays within a crack application that serializes the program.

According to the alert:

After downloading this version of Photoshop, users will run the crack application to be able to use it. The crack application extracts an executable from its data, than installs a backdoor in /var/tmp/, a directory which is not deleted when the computer is restarted. (If the user runs the crack application again, the Trojan horse creates a new executable with a different name; these random names make it harder to ensure safe removal of the malware.) … Since the malicious software connects to a remote server over the Internet, the creator of this malware will be alerted that this Trojan horse is installed on different Macs, and will have the ability to connect to them and perform various actions remotely. The Trojan horse may also download additional components to an infected Mac.

Just take note – you can prevent yourself from all this hassle if you #1 – download and execute files from trusted sources and more importantly #2 – don’t pirate softwares.

A few Software Updates

A few Software Updates is available via the Software Update app:

• iDVD Update – 7.0.3 (29.3MB) (details here and download link)
• iLife Media Browser Update – 2.0 (3.8MB) (details here and download link)
• NVIDIA Graphics Update 2009 (3.21MB) – improves cursor movement with DisplayPort enabled Macs, and HD playback quality on machines using newer NVIDIA cards (details here and download link

Local 9-year old writes iPhone app

Meet the world’s youngest iPhone developer. Lim Ding Wen of Singapore, who recently turned 9 (not a typo), has written an iPhone app called Doodle Kids that allows you to paint on the iPhone using shapes like triangles, circles, squares made up of random colours and sizes.

More on Ding Wen at the The Singapore iPhone Guide

The updated softwares – iLife’09 and iWork’09 – are definitely worth looking into. Again, these are not revolutionary changes to the two application suits, but a maturing of softwares that targets the general consumers, but sprinkled with professional features that are made easy to use. Yes, even your grandma can definitely do those edits with these new tools.

You can see the new features here at their respective pages – iLife’09 and iWork’09. But here are some of the more interesting new features.

Putting Faces and Places in iPhoto

The most exciting improvements to iPhoto, though might on first look mere cosmetic, is the introduction of Faces and Places. Those two, add to that with Events, gives you a much more intuitive way of organizing, viewing and sharing of your photos, as briefly touched on in this post at 37signals.

Apple realized that people don’t just want to find photos. Go back to iPhoto’s domain: it’s that situation where you have a bunch of photos and you want to look at them and share them. When you’re in that situation, you don’t just want to see random photos. You want to see and share photos of certain things. Like photos of your wedding, photos of your trip to Maine, or photos of that dinner in Paris. These are Events.

With Faces, iPhoto lets you easily sieve through tons of photos and group them of a particular person on an easily accessible page. Need to find all the photos of your wife or your Mom, just tag a few of the photos and let iPhoto identify the photos taken of them easily. Added with sync support to FaceBook, you can easily upload photos of your friends whom you had named in iPhoto, when synced will be converted into tags in FaceBook and your friends will be automatically notified about these new photos. My concern is how good the detection is when the person is not looking directly at the camera.

As for Places, you can track the photos taken at various places on your previous holidays, or find all the photos taken over the years at a particular spot in the country. However, as most of us won’t have a GPS-equiped camera (or iPhone, at least till last year), most of our photos need to be painstakingly geotagged for Places to be effective.

Themed slideshows and Travel Maps are beautifully done, but are mostly cosmetic than useful. How many Sliding Panels slideshow do you want to see before it becomes passe?

I’d love to use iPhoto just because of Faces and Places, but I’d think twice as I still prefer to organize my photos via the Finder than to have all my photos imported into the iPhoto Library, something which Aperture and Lightroom allows.

Pro-app features in iMovie

iMovie meanwhile, have a few new tools that you might find only in professional applications – video stabilization, precision editing of both the video and audio tracks, green-screen and picture-in-picture effects (need to activate advance functions to see them), just to name a few.

Video shooting is becoming more available now to consumers, from small handhelds like Flip Video, to traditional video cams from Canon, Sony etc to even higher-end DSLRs like Canon 5D MkII and Nikon D90, we will definitely see more home-made videos being shot. But as most of us don’t have access to steadycams, many if not most of our videos will be like watching the Blaire Witch movie. Having video stabilization built into iPhoto, a previously pro-app only feature, is a boost for all. To see it in action, see it here. However, do note that you will need to run your raw clips through iPhoto’s Analyze for Stabilization option before stabilization will be set, and it will definitely take time if your clips are long. This feature itself, is definitely worth the money paid for iLife.

The improved editing and effects tools will definitely push more consumers not just to shoot videos, but also to edit them and share them with friends and families.

GarageBand, iWeb and iDVD

GarageBand has become a popular tools not just for musicians to record and produce their music, but also for podcasters to mix their podcasts for their shows. It has also become a useful tool for ring tone creation for your iPhone. With iLife’09, GarageBand now takes on another role in your music life – as your personal music teacher.

They have included Basic Lessons, using videos and interactive features on GarageBand to teach you piano and guitar lessons. For more advance classes, you can even enlists help from famous artists like Sting, Sarah McLachlan and Norah Jones to teach you how to play their tunes. Though you will need to pay for these Artists Lessons via GarageBand’s built-in store.

IWeb wasn’t mentioned during the keynote but Apple’s collaboration with Facebook also extended to iWeb. When you link your iWeb site to your Facebook account, whenever an update is done to the site, a notification will be sent out to all your friends in Facebook. Other improvements includes updates to the widgets that you can add to your site – RSS feeds, YouTube videos and Google Maps and Adsense to name a few.

Nothing new in iDVD except probably some new themes to the mix.

To buy or not to buy?

So is it worth spending S$138 (S$168 for 5 License Family Pack) for iLife’09?

YES, if you want to make full use of the photos and videos you took. Apple has made these tools that will give your photos and videos an attractive and professional look and more importantly, in an affordable and very easy to use package.

Do check it out at the nearest Apple store and test them out.

Update: If you buy a Mac on or after January 6 that shipped without iLife’09, you can get the upgrade at a cool S$18 with Apple’s iLife Up-To-Date Program. Do read up the details on how you can get your upgrade before the end of March.