MacRumors

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, members of the mobile phone industry met for a three day conference. The iPhone appears to have already had a large effect on the mobile phone industry, with many showing off iPhone clones.

Apple was able to make a phone that paid equal attention to the software and the hardware. And the rest of the industry was following suit here.

EETimes notes that in one conference entitled "It's the User Experience, Stupid", a blue-ribbon panel of human behavior and technology experts agreed that the iPhone represents a model for mobile operators to follow. They agreed that the existing user interfaces on mobile phones were poor compared to the iPhone and suggested that the iPhone's simply structured internet plans may also serve to encourage mobile internet usage. One ongoing hurdle to mobile internet usage has been the presence of confusing data service plans for consumers, resulting in cautious use, due to consumer fear of accumulating large service charges.

Indeed, it appears that iPhone owners are using the internet many times more than their non-iPhone counterparts. Google revealed that there are 50 times more searches originating from the iPhone than any other mobile handset. The discrepancy was so great that Google initially thought it was a mistake. This finding has also been reported by O2 who found that 60% of U.K. iPhone users are sending or receiving more than 25 MB of data a month.

Mobile internet usage remains a growing and potentially profitable market, but has been largely untapped with existing mobile phones.

A recent extension of Apple's trademark to cover handheld gaming sparked some speculation that Apple might try its hand at a dedicated gaming device. However, a more cautious interpretation of this move is that Apple is simply covering their recent move into iPod game sales.

Develop Magazine claims that this is indeed the case, and that Apple is not planning on introducing a dedicated gaming device.

"Apple is very protective of the reputation it has built in the electronics market," said our source - familiar with Apple's conversations with software companies - speaking under conditions of anonymity. "So don't hold your breath for an announcement of an 'iGame' console just yet."

Instead, Apple is said to be looking to add more mobile games to its iPod, Touch and iPhone products. At present, Apple hand picks developers who it feels will make the best games for the iPod, and does not allow all comers to participate.

The iPhone and iPod Touch, however, are due to see a more public Software Development Kit (SDK) this month, though the exact details remain unknown.

A new Apple patent application revealed by Appleinsider describes an interesting extension of the traditional Podcast into a more useful form.

Apple describes allowing users to request directions from a starting point and destination point. By incorporating visual maps and spoken driving directions, Apple would dynamically assembly a 'Podmap' for immediate download. The 'Podmap' could then be transfered into your iPod or iPhone for playback:

"When being played, the podmap presents to the user of the device the voice directions and the corresponding images so that the user is able to successfully navigate from the start location to the destination location. It is particularly useful to play on the portable media device because it can be easily carried or transferred by the user."

Chapter markers could also allow users to easy advance to the next and previous direction.

Anandtech provides another review of the MacBook Air, however, unique to their review is an objective battery test comparing the Solid State Drive (SSD) vs the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) of the MacBook Air. In this case, they actually installed the SSD drive (same as Apple's) into the MacBook Air themselves and kindly provided instructions for readers to do it themselves.

To review, their standardized battery tests involved the following scripted tasks:

1) Use Wifi to browse 20 pages in a loop, spending 20 seconds on each page, while playing MP3s in iTunes.
2) Play a DVD image (off the internal hard drive) in a loop.
3) Download 10GB of files, Web browsing loop from #1, play two 480p Xvid videos in a loop.

In running these tests on both SSD and HDD MacBook Air, they found that the Solid State Drive did make a difference in battery life (contrary to previous reports), with an improvement of up to 16.8% (43 minutes) in the best case.

Anandtech also compared the MacBook Air's battery life to the 2006 Core Duo 2.0GHz MacBook Pro and the current Core 2 Duo 2.6GHz MacBook Pro. Battery life on the previous generation Core Duo MacBook Pro was much worse than the Air, but the SSD Air's battery compared favorably against the newest MacBook Pro -- besting it in Battery Test #1 and #2.

The SSD upgrade remains a costly ($999) upgrade for the MacBook Air, but prices are expected to drop over time.

A few sites have posted their impressions and reviews of the Apple TV 'Take 2' update that was released just yesterday. Besides the new interface and computer-less design, the biggest new update to the Apple TV is the availability of High Definition iTunes rental content. This is an Apple TV-only feature at the moment, and only available in Rentals, not purchases. Anecdotal reports have ranged from good to great quality of the HD content. Gizmodo subjectively felt the HD quality was "better than DVD" but not "true" HD.

iLounge went a step further and made direct comparisons (with screenshots) between the Apple TV, Blu-Ray, DVD and HD Cable. The movie they chose was Live Free or Die Hard. Their results:

- Blu-Ray clear winner but surprised by how well Apple TV did
- Very little motion blur or artifacts in Apple TV
- "Because of its cleaner motion and audio, we felt that the Apple experience was better in both overall audio and video quality than the HD cable experience, and for most users, superior to renting a standard DVD as well."

Note that individual experiences may vary depending on the movie due to differences in source material and encoding. It's been said that the Apple TV HD movie previews don't necessarily reflect the quality of the actual HD movie rentals.

Apple has released the Take 2 update for the Apple TV today. The software update is available for download from your Apple TV itself. The free software update allows Apple TV owners to rent movies without the use of a computer in standard and high definition formats. Library titles cost $2.99 and new releases are $3.99. High definition versions add $1 to the price of rental. Movies can be kept for 30 days, but expire within 24 hours of playback.

Apple provides a guided tour of the new features of Apple TV.

Now that some readers have installed the latest Apple TV update, here are some interesting notes plucked from the discussion thread.

- New startup video when booting Apple TV (Youtube video)
- Apple TV can now be used with AirTunes, replicating Airport Express behavior. Will also stream Title, and Album cover. You can also control the iTunes music via the Apple TV (with the remote). Also supports streaming radio.
- Login to Youtube now supported, with subscriptions and favorites
- Fastforward and rewind performance has been improved
- You still need a TV that can accept Component or HDMI
- Anecdotal reports of better decoding performance.
- 1080p signal output, but max resolution Apple TV can display is still 720p
- Apple TV Setup Manual (PDF) posted.
- The Apple TV hardware remains the same. This is a software upgrade only.
- HD Movie Previews not necessarily representative of rental quality. (link)

Further discussion in our Apple TV forum.

Apple has announced iTunes Live: London Sessions (via Macworld UK).

Over 11 magical evenings, starting on Thursday February 21st, 2008, iTunes will host a series of unique recording sessions. More than 25 of the worlds most talented musicians including KT Tunstall, Jos Gonzlez, Tom Baxter, Rosn Murphy, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Spiritualized and many more will perform solo and collaborative sets in Londons legendary AIR Studios.

The event is being held in AIR Studios in North London. Tickets are being raffled via the iTunes Store. Of course, Apple will be recording the event and be releasing them in March via iTunes.

Apple announced Aperture 2, the next major release of its photo editing and management software. The new version contains over 100 new features with a streamlined user interface and entirely new image processing engine. Aperture 2 also introduces new imaging tools for highlight recovery, color vibrancy, local contrast definition, soft-edged retouching, vignetting and RAW fine-tuning, and lets users directly post their portfolios on the .Mac Web Gallery for viewing on the web, iPhone, iPod touch and Apple TV.

Many of the most respected photographers on assignment all over the world trust Aperture to organize, edit and deliver their images, said Rob Schoeben, Apples vice president of Applications Product Marketing. With its simpler interface and lower price, anyone can take full advantage of Apertures power.

Aperture is now priced at $199 and available immediately through the online Apple Store. More details at apple.com/aperture.

A free trial download is now available. Recent purchasers of Aperture 1.5 (Jan 1-Mar 14, 2008) can upgrade for $9.95.

Gearlive claims that according to a "reliable source", the iPhone will be getting Adobe Flash support "very, very soon". The site speculates that the release may come alongside the Software Development Kit (SDK) release that is due later this month -- but this timeframe is just guesswork.

Adobe's Flash plug-in is required to play Flash content which is commonly used in certain aspects of web design and web-hosted videos. Apple has managed to get around this requirement with Youtube by converting Youtube content into h.264, which the iPhone supports natively.

Lack of Safari support for the popular Flash plug-in generated a lot of early criticism for the Apple iPhone. Walt Mossberg first revealed in July that Apple planned on adding Flash support in a future software update, but this feature has not yet been seen.

GearLive has not been a regular source of Apple rumors, but notably, they were responsible for the early leak of iPhone 1.1.3 firmware, which turned out to be legitimate.

Apple has released the Mac OS X 10.5.2 Leopard update. The 180MB download is now available via Software Update, and a restart is required after installation:

The 10.5.2 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=307109.
For detailed information on security updates, please visit this website: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=61798.

A number of improvements are detailed, but some highlights are listed here:

- Airport: Improves connection reliability and stability
- Back to my Mac: Adds support for more third-party routers, as detailed in this article.
- Dock: Updates Stacks with a List view option, a Folder view option, and an updated background for Grid view.
- Desktop: Addresses legibility issues with the menu bar with an option to turn off transparency in Desktop & Screen Saver preferences.
- Desktop: Adjusts menus to be slightly-less translucent overall.
- iSync: Adds support for Samsung D600E and D900i phones.
- RAW Image: Adds RAW image support for several cameras, as detailed in this article.
- Safari: Addresses issues with Safari reliably resolving certain domains.
- Time Machine: Adds a menu bar option for accessing Time Machine features (the menu extra can be enabled in Time Machine preferences).
- Time Machine: Improves backup reliability when computer name contains slash or non-ASCII characters.
- Time Machine: Addresses issues in which some external drives are not recognized by Time Machine.

The final build number of Mac OS X 10.5.2 is 9C31, the same as the last developer's build. Once you install Mac OS X 10.5.2, readers should recheck their software update, as the Leopard Graphics Update appears once 10.5.2 is installed.

Standalone Combo Updater (353MB) is also available.

Please add undocumented issues in the Mac OS X 10.5.2 Fixes, Bugs and Problems guide. For discussion, questions and issues, please post to our Mac OS X forum.

Mac OS X Server 10.5.2
Mac OS X 10.5.2 Server has also been released. With the following changes:

Software Update Server
Addresses an issue which could prevent Software Update Server from working properly on a system that had been upgraded from Mac OS X Server 10.4.x.

Mail Server
Addresses an issue in which Virtual Mail users were required to have short names configured in order to become active.

Password Server
Addresses an issue that could block object changes from being propagated to Open Directory replica servers.

Discuss the Server release our Mac OS X Server forum.

Starbucks announced that they are partnering with AT&T to supply Wifi access to Starbuck's 7000 stores nationwide. Starbucks had previously partnered with T-Mobile to provide pay-Wifi access in their stores. AT&T's new service offers free access to specific customers:

Beginning this spring, Starbucks Card holders can enjoy up to two hours of free Wi-Fi service per day at Starbucks locations offering Wi-Fi access, while more than 12 million qualifying AT&T broadband and AT&T U-verseSM Internet customers will have unlimited free access to the Wi-Fi service. In addition, more than 5 million of AT&T's remote access services business customers will be able to access Wi-Fi service at Starbucks locations. AT&T will soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers.

Outside of these situations, AT&T's Wifi service costs $3.99 for a two-hour session, or $19.99 for monthly access. Existing T-Mobile HotSpot customers should be unaffected. T-Mobile customers will continue to get free Wifi access at Starbucks due to an agreement between AT&T and T-Mobile.

Of interest, AT&T states that it "will soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers", suggesting that iPhone users will also get Wifi access in the future. AT&T currently provides exclusive wireless service for the Apple iPhone.