Before I get too heavily into the review let me preface by saying that Apple TV isn’t for everyone. It’s a niche device that provides very ample entertainment possibilities, if you’re the right user.

If you don’t own a widescreen TV, then your options for using Apple TV are severely limited. So, if you’re wanting to get the full Apple TV experience, you’ll need a new TV. No better time to make that decision to upgrade to HD..

Apple TV has had two different life spans - before the software upgrade, and the after. Before its massive software upgrade, Apple TV was nothing more than a means of having iTunes available on your TV. There were cheaper options available to allow music to play from your entertainment system speakers, so Apple TV didn’t have much to offer people. Later, they would allow the ability to play YouTube videos, so that sparked some interest, but very little.

Now, through its growing pains, AppleTV has become something that resembles a useful product. Unlike before, Apple TV has direct access to the iTunes store, which improves its convenience alot. The iTunes Store itself has improved by leaps and bounds. There’s now movies available with alot being offered in 720p HD. Flickr and photos from .Mac accounts are now available to be viewed.

The bottom line with Apple TV, is that it’s a very niche device. The casual computer user isn’t going to find a whole lot to like with Apple TV. If you’re into digital rentals, streaming, and having iTunes available through your entertainment system, then Apple TV is definitely something I could recommend.

Matias iRizer Positions

So how does it work? Very simply. The iRizer is made up of two pieces of thick, shiny black plastic. Using angled slots, you can adjust the angle at which it elevates your laptop without any time or effort. It is very easy to assemble and the simple design works to its advantage. The material used is very high quality and had no trouble holding the test notebooks, an Apple Macbook and a Lenovo Thinkpad. If you type while using the iRizer in a more steeply angled position, it does have a little bit of flex and bounce, but it is well controlled when considering the portable nature.  If you’re using an external keyboard and mouse, then the flex is not worth thinking about, as it won’t be evident.

There is not a whole lot more that can be said about the iRizer, because its a pretty straightforward (and somewhat ingenious) product that works as advertised and does so for a reasonable price. When you consider the fact that the MiniRizer is included (basically a tiny version of the iRizer for iPods and cell phones), its something of a bargain - especially if its saving you from years of carpal tunnel or arthritis.

A little bonus for the non-Mac users among us is that if you use a Tablet, this is an excellent way to display the screen-only when it is sitting on your desk. I greatly prefer using my Thinkpad swiveled around on the iRizer than when using it flat on the desk.

For a grand total of $14.99, you get a 5 pack of anti-glare screen protectors. A little mathematics brings us to the conclusion that you’re going to be running $3 per screen if you break the pack up. Money isn’t the only factor in play though, its just the beginning - the Surface Shield is actually an excellent product - even if it cost $15 for just one. The application process is very easy (comes with adhesive backing so you just place it on) and if you’re not quite on with the screen positioning, you can pull it off and adjust it without any consequence - it stays sticky. Just make sure your screen is clean and you don’t get any dust or hairs while you’re putting it on and it goes on great.

They’re anti glare shields - and they live up to their name. In direct window light, they cut down on bright shiny reflections, big time.

Some people prefer the unskinned, glossy surface of the naked iPhone but I personally love the texture and look that the anti-glare skin gives. It cuts down on the saturation a tiny bit, but it still looks great and in most cases, better than without the shield because you can actually see it when you’ve got sun or bright light overhead.

I recommend the DLO Surface Shield on the basis of cost and quality. Price to performance relationship is unbeatable and its an excellent product to begin with. If you can round up a couple buddies to split the bulk pack up with, it costs almost nothing but even if you’re just keeping them as spares, its an excellent value.

These are the “official” iPhone screen protectors, as far as Apple is concerned, because they sell them in Apple retail stores alongside the phones. For $15, you get a 2-pack of your choice of glossy or anti glare; as well as a “Pre-Installation” film that does a surprisingly good job of cleaning the screen.

I prefer the anti-glare. It has a very interesting feel, much smoother than the regular screen. Some swear by the glossier counterparts because they make the screen look more vivid, but I’m fine giving up a little sautration for anti glare and the silky feeling it gives the screen. It also does an excellent job of keeping finger prints off the screen, which is amazing if you’re like me and can’t stand smudges all over.

Its very effective - here’s a before/after comparison of the glare with and without a film.

If you’re using your phone outdoors, in bright light or anywhere reflections might be annoying, its a godsend. If you like to check your reflection in your screen, it may be problematic.

As far as quality goes, they’re well made. They were the leaders in front films for the original iPhone and my guess is that the manufacturing process hasn’t changed all that much since then. They aren’t total coverage (there is a little extra space on the sides and around the home button) but if you line it up right, you’re pretty much completely covered. The clarity on the glossy is excellent and very good on the anti-glare (which is to be expected).

If you’re looking for a way to keep scratches, smudges and finger prints off your screen, the Power Support iPhone 3G films are an excellent way to do it. They’re available online and most likely at your local Apple store.

The Bodyguardz name first came up in a discussion about another skin product, and I was surprised by the number of positive remarks. My curiosity piqued, I decided to see what the hubbub was about.

When the skin arrived, my first reaction was to the attention in the packaging. BestSkinsEver cuts costs by shipping in a plain letter envelope with no packaging or instructions whatsoever, but that is not the case here. Similar to the more elaborate InvisibleShield, the Bodyguardz comes in a full size box with application solution in a spray bottle and a small plastic square for squeegeeing excess spray from under the skin.

Application is fairly straightforward. It comes in two pieces, front and back, with 4 folds to cover the chrome edges, top and bottom. The application solution (spray bottle) appears to be the same or similar to the InvisibleShield equivalent and works well enough. One thing I noticed is that while the BestSkinsEver shield slid around easily, allowing for precise positioning, the BodyGuardz was very quick to grip and required a removal and re-spraying on my first attempt. Technique is everything, make sure it is well moistened and apply from bottom to top (or top to bottom, your choice), squeegeeing as you go to remove bubbles and liquid pockets.

When you’ve finished applying it, you’ll be disappointing. Lots of little imperfections, bubbles and such that you couldn’t remove. Don’t fret! This is the nature of these products. I’ve had the same experience with the rest of the shields. Be sure to allocate at least 12, preferably 24 hours or more before you start using the iPhone again. The quality of the application improves with time and after a few weeks, it should look perfect as long as you lined it up reasonably well.

(Right after application)

(24 hours later)

As you can see, just one day really improves the quality of the application. Don’t freak out and reapply if it doesn’t look great. Give it a day, if it still has huge bubbles then try the second one.

Like usual, I will try to keep my conclusion fairly straightforward. The Bodyguardz is a fine product and definitely high quality. While they can’t quite beat the price of the super-cheap and no frills BestSkinsEver, they are definitely a cut above in simplicity and ease of application (less tabs and folds, included application spray). The clarity also looks slightly better in a direct comparison. If you find a friend who needs a skin and is willing to split the cost, you’re looking at about $13 for the Bodyguardz full package. This is only $5 more than the BestSkinsEver, but the double pack’s $25 price tag is enough to make a difference if you aren’t splitting up.

The comparison most are probably looking for is Bodyguardz vs. InvisibleShield, as they are comparable in price and product, and competing for the same marketshare. I can say without hesitation that I recommend the Bodyguardz shield. Zagg has shown themselves as a very poor company in my, and the experiences of others, so I try to avoid them where possible. I removed my iPhone invisibleshield already so I couldn’t judge relative clarity, but I believe them to be negligible in difference. The application process is almost identical and I can’t give a nod in either direction. The clincher? Bodyguardz includes two skins in their $24.99 purchase price, so you’re getting twice the value for the same money.

The first difference I noticed is the three piece construction of the BSE skin. Instead of a single back piece like the Invisible Shield uses, it has two pieces, one for the top half and one for the bottom. I’m entirely unsure why they did this and I really don’t like it. It made application more difficult and made my final product look worse. This is a design flaw as far as I’m concerned.

Application was fairly easy, but not as easy as InvisibleShield. Instead of providing a spray bottle of the solution, you have to make your own. I put water in a saucepan and a thumbnail of soap in, as specified by the instructions. Following all the instructions, things went mostly according to plan. The corners were a real pain, because they didn’t want to stay down, but it shares the same corner design as the Invisibleshield so you aren’t getting out of that one no matter which brand you choose.

My front looks great, but I wish it wasn’t so glossy. That’s a feature, not a flaw, but I prefer the anti-glare/matte screen protectors. I will be purchasing one to replace the Bestskinsever front. The back was not so lucky, with several air bubbles. I attacked them with a credit card but they were persistent. That’s the nature of the product, so be very precise in your application to avoid this.

I will keep the conclusion fairly brief for those who have skimmed to this point. BestSkinsEver are made of the same material as the InvisibleShield and offer the same protection. Where they differ is in the design, presentation and ease of use. BSE requires you to download the application instructions in a PDF from their website and make your own solution, where Zagg sends an elaborate box with instructions, a little squeegee and the application solution.

Are these little perks worth $20 more? Probably not, especially since you’ll be waiting at least a month to get your Invisibleshield with the current delays. If you prefer a seamless back and somewhat easier application, go for the IS. If you’re willing to put in a little more effort to save $20, go with the BSE. They’ll both protect your new phone nicely.

Once you’re up and running, it feels very similar to Leopard. I don’t know how much this will change through Snow Leopard’s development, but don’t expect a terribly different interface. The subtle changes to the current Aqua definitely look good though. The biggest changes are under the hood. Snow Leopard is fast. Very fast. Like, surprisingly fast. From boot times to general application usage, Snow Leopard was noticeably quicker than Leopard when using the same system. Apple and 3rd party applications alike, they all launched faster and performed smoother. I’m sure this can be attributed to the new 64-bit architecture, but its amazing how much of a difference it really is.

But I digress, as I’m sure you’re bored of all this text - lets go on to the good stuff! The pictures:

About This Mac:

Nothing to see here, just the standard “About This Mac” screen. Click for full screen.

Install Weight

This was very interesting, though probably evident by the quick install. By default, the System folder of Snow Leopard is nearly 1 gigabyte smaller than that of Leopard (10.5). Optimizations have clearly been made.

Now on to the software changes. Right off the bat, there were new (unreleased) versions of many of Apple’s “staple” softwares. Quicktime, Bootcamp, Mail, even the Address Book have seen updates. Address Book’s most notable feature is the Exchange Server integration so happily boasted by Apple at WWDC.

Software Update

By replacing the in-your-face popup window that was Leopard’s software update with the preferences panel, they took everything I hated and made it into a cleaner, friendlier interface. Bravo!

Boot Camp 3 Beta

This one was an “expected surprise”. I haven’t had a chance to play with the new drivers, but the current version 2 is already so polished that I doubt any major changes have been made.

32 Bit Mode

This is most likely a developer mode “feature” rather than a poor interface decision, but many of the system preference options require “restarting” into 32 bit mode. This is instantaneous (it simply closes system preferences 64 bit and opens 32 bit) but annoying.

Exchange Integration

Highly trumpeted, but nice to see anyways. Lacking a live Exchange Server, this feature went untested.

Quicktime 7.6

I was expecting to see the highly anticipated Quicktime X, but was instead greeted with the unreleased Quicktime 7.6

Thanks for looking! This post will be updated continually as our experience with Snow Leopard progresses. As of June 25th, we have experienced 0 crashes.

]]> http://www.testmac.net/osx-106-snow-leopard-preview/feed/ http://www.testmac.net/aperture-2-vs-lightroom-2-beta/ http://www.testmac.net/aperture-2-vs-lightroom-2-beta/#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 07:57:04 +0000 admin http://testmac.net/?p=9 The two biggest players in the photo management game for OSX are Apple’s Aperture and Adobe’s Lightroom products. Both take RAW files in and make it easy to do basic editing and processing to greatly reduce the time required to process your images. Today, we will be testing the speed of imports, as well as their respective processing outputs, with sample images and 100% crops.

We used the latest versions of Aperture 2 and Lightroom 2 private beta (available to owners of Lightroom and by invitation). To test import speed, a Sandisk Ultra 2 card was filled with 21 RAW images, taking up 144.6MB space. It was placed in a Digital Concepts USB 2.0 CompactFlash Card Reader and connected via USB to an Apple Macbook Pro laptop with a 5400RPM hard drive. We used a clean install of Mac OSX 10.5.3 Leopard and new installations of Aperture and Lightroom. The camera used for testing was a Canon 30D.

First up - the import speed test. This was fairly self explanatory: both immediately recognized the CF card when it was inserted and were ready to roll.

Aperture was by far the big winner here, clocking in at 20.5 seconds to import our 21 RAW files.

Lightroom had a much poorer showing, though it is currently a beta version. It took 35.5 seconds to import our test files.

But what do measly seconds mean when the greater issue is image quality? We did a comparison test using the automatic tools built into Aperture and Lightroom to compare the final image quality. Thought you will always get the best results out of an individually processed file in Photoshop, Canon DPP or Nikon Capture NX, a photographer trying to process thousands of RAW files on a deadline doesn’t have time to edit each file. These presets and automatic adjustments are huge timesavers if the end result is acceptable. We used factory default settings and clicked Auto Adjust for both programs.

Lightroom

Full size (resized for web)

100% Crop (resized for web)

Aperture

Full size (resized for web)

100% Crop (resized for web)

In my opinion, Lightroom is the winner in terms of image quality using the automatic settings. Quality is completely subjective and I encourage readers to voice their opinions using the comment form as to which they feel is the better result, but the Lightroom sample is more pleasing to my eye then the Aperture sample. It may be due to more aggressive sharpening or higher contrast, but the Aperture version looks softer. Again, no sliders or settings were manually adjusted; only auto tools were used. It does appear that the Lightroom crop has more digital noise then the Aperture crop, perhaps a byproduct of the sharpening (or a lack of noise reduction, which can make an image less sharp).

Like any test, please take this with a grain of salt. Hopefully this has helped shed a bit of light on the best options for photo cataloguing and processing.

There are a number of free alternatives to Apple’s bundled Safari web browser, and to get a better idea of which of these are worth your time, we have put together a brief comparison.
We took 5 popular browsers and tested them for loading speeds, memory usage and interface. Without further ado, the contenders are:

Mozilla Firefox 3 (RC3)
Camino 1.6
Opera 9.5
Safari 3
Shiira 2

We tested using a clean install of OSX 10.5.3 Leopard with all updates installed on an Intel Macbook Pro 2.4ghz with 4gb RAM and a 200gb 5400rpm hard drive (current base-end model with an additional 2 gigabytes of RAM).

If you would prefer to cut to the chase, we have cliffs notes: Shiira was the fastest browser we tested, but also the quirkiest. It would not be recommended to someone who was only familiar with Internet Explorer or Safari. We also determined that the Apple-supplied Safari browser held its own against the third parties and is not a bad choice if you are already comfortable with it.

We downloaded the latest available version of the browsers from their respective websites and placed each application on the desktop. Each was run to set homepages, disable prompts for “Default Browser” and finished the initial configuration/setup stages for each. Then, the test computer was restarted and had its permissions/pram cleared for the cleanest testing with the least variables.
Our first test was raw speed, from click to page loaded. We set each browser to load Google.com as their homepage (though one was unable to do so), cleared all preferences.

One problem we encountered right off the bat was the Shiira, no mater how hard we tried, would not allow a home page. Even when it was entered in the home page field, when the browser was re-opened, it defaults to a blank page. This may be part of the reason that Shiira’s speed was faster then others, so please take that result with a grain of salt.

Initial Boot Speed

In this test, lower is better. As we mentioned, Shiira (the current fastest) did not account for page load times. Google was cached by each browser so the impact is not tremendous but it is a factor.
The Winner: Shiira (with an asterisk by its record)

Javascript Test Speed

In this test, lower is better. Safari came out the champion of the Javascript test, blowing away the competition. Camino was far behind the rest, with Shiira placing a respectable second.
The Winner: Safari

Idle Memory Usage

In this test, lower is better. We conducted the memory usage test by opening each browser to Google.com and leaving it alone. Safari was by far the worst offender here, with Camino taking the prize for lowest idle memory usage.
The Winner: Camino

Load Memory Usage

In this test, lower is better. We conducted the load memory usage test by opening each browser to a Youtube video and played halfway through before testing. Safari made up for its poor idle memory with a very low load usage and won by a large margin.
The Winner: Safari

Shiira was the fastest browser we tested, but also the quirkiest. It would not be recommended to someone who was only familiar with Internet Explorer or Safari. We also determined that the Apple-supplied Safari browser held its own against the third parties and is not a bad choice if you are already comfortable with it. Often touted alt-browser Opera failed to impress in any categories, and fan-favorite Firefox was not exceptional, but its immense community support and extensive plugin library make it a very viable option.

I personally use Firefox, but after this testing, I’ve begun to use Shiira for daily browsing and found it to be a very comfortable interface. Any of these browsers are an excellent choice, hopefully we’ve helped provide some options!