The latest product presentation of Apple, the iPad 2, proves to be the peak of a problem that has long been slumbering beneath the company’s glossy surface and comes in time with Steve Jobs’ illness and his latest address.

To come to the point, I have long been a so-called fanboy of Apple’s products and strategy, which in fact I still am, if it were not for the recent developments surrounding the company.

Just before Apple released the first iPad in January 2010, people were waiting to see a business as usual second, Apple-like Christmas, expecting that the yet unknown product would surpass even the hype of the first iPhone. It was not until Jobs lit up the screen of the new device that I would innerly scream “This is not happening!” – this time not because it was so groundbreakingly cool, but because I was seeing a massive fail coming about:

The iPad has a terrible UI, which seems to represent a blown-up version of the iPhone. There is absolutely no dynamic in the design, even the small slider to unlock the iPhone was copied and reinforces the first impression that the iPad uses only a small percentage of the actual possibilities the uberhuge screen offers. Even the iPhone’s home screen had not been altered by Apple’s design department to fit this larger device.

Jobs’ announcement that the iPad would not support Adobe Flash at all and his subsequent explanations why first led me to believe him. But after the most recent release of the iPad 2, I had to reconsider my convictions: If we have Flash on all MacBook models, why can’t we have it on a big screen as the iPad’s, too? Why is it that performance of Flash on Mac OS X is getting worse and worse, whereas on Windows, it works like a charm?

Steve Jobs’ historical stubbornness to change his mind on certain topics is now at the center of a massive problem that cannot be pushed aside anymore. Earlier battles to enforce new technologies such as the H.264 codec for video may have worked well, but it seems to me that the decision to “betray” such a huge company as Adobe was definitely a mistake. It will not be possible for Apple to get rid of a technology as widely implemented and accepted as Flash. Besides, HTML5 can by no means be an alternative for a relatively dynamic and mature technology like Flash. Just look at Apple’s current website or the iTunes Store and you’ll know what I mean.

The idea of Apple comprising a bunch of wacky pirates entering a uniform market as it was back in 1984 does not apply to the current situation anymore.

Sadly, Apple itself is currently becoming a restrictive empire of uniformity. Ironically, the path of this development was set when the iPhone was met with success in 2007. Since then, record sales of the iPhone have distracted Apple’s concentration on their core product, the Mac, and ignited a cultural shift from former substance to superficiality as well as from openness and creativity to restriction (closed systems such as iOS), increased censorship (App store) and laziness in terms of innovation.

The seemingly “religious” Jony Ive videos appearing on Apple’s website after each new release praising the unrivaled abilities of the newly designed product confirm this consideration.

To put it simple, the iPad 2 is nothing more than a hyped-up version of the original iPad, supplied with a “Smart Cover” to paralyze potential end-consumers. No changes have been made to its “inner values,” i.e. its UI or its ability to do Flash. All we got is two cameras, a Smart Cover, and a stripped-down iLife suite for iPad that maybe 0.001% of all adopters will ever need.

Steve Jobs’ appearance on stage this week was sort of a surprise, keeping in mind that he is still not totally healthy. Maybe it’s the same as with the pigheadedness of some older politicians (see Berlusconi in Italy) that makes any renewal impossible. The younger ones such as Jony Ive, who have always been loyal to the company, are now wanting to go for something more fresh and innovative, but are kept back by their “foster father” Jobs.

I think it’s time even for former Apple fanboys like me to look for alternatives. Motorola Xoom may be a start, but I prefer getting my hands on it first. At least its Android OS seems to offer an environment that Apple once had, but betrayed for its extreme success.

Elgato now publicly promotes its DVB-S feature, which was long concealed for newer EyeTV 310 models as the feature was not part of Elgato’s marketing.

Get a look at the device here:

http://www.elgato.com/elgato/int/mainmenu/products/tuner/EyeTV-Sat/product2.en.html

A note to all American readers: Unfortunately, the device is not yet available for North America.

Yesterday, Bea Arthur passed away at the age of 86 in her family circle. The reason for her death is a cancer disease.

To revive some moments with her, I now want to show you some “Golden Girls” clips from Youtube:

The opening credits…

…some bloopers to warm up…

…the Miami Jingle …

…and the final scene of Golden Girls (Season 7, “One Flew Out of the Cuckoo’s Nest Part 2″)…

R.I.P. Beatrice Arthur!

Solution: This problem has been discussed much in Apple forums. The solution is very simple. Apple has even stated the solution in a support document, which can be accessed via this link: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1755. What it tells you is that all video content containing an AC-3 sound track MUST contain another AAC stereo track for the same film, otherwise no sound will play.

Now, as videos containing an AC-3 track have to be in .mov format for the Apple TV to be recognized, another AAC track (even if it’s “fake”) can be easily added. 

1. Open the affected movie in Quicktime Pro (or another app of your choice). Additionally, open a random AAC file.

2. In the Edit menu, choose Select All as well as Copy. Then go back to your movie. Now, again in the Edit menu, choose Add to Movie. If you open the Movie Properties via the Window menu, you should see that a new AAC file has been added to the film. Please deselect the tick on the left so that the sound of this track can’t be heard when playing the film on your computer.

3. As a last step, save your film. Now, the sound should play again on Apple TV.

Note: Apple intended to have a stereo and a Dolby track for reasons of compatibility. Next time, when you author or convert a movie with an AC-3 track, you may prefer to add a real stereo track for the movie instead of just a fake track.

Please note: You take full responsibility for your actions on your computer. I can never be held responsible for any damages caused by my tutorials. Errors excepted!

For all the ones who are fed up with it I have a solution that might work (specifically for Mac OS X Leopard):

1. Go to System Preferences. Choose Network, then Advanced…

2. Click on the menu tab TCP/IP.

3. In the drop down list Configure ipv6 choose Off.

Also, make sure that your firewall does not block any incoming connections. If the error persists, turn it off, i.e. activate Allow all incoming connections.

Please feel free to report back here to share your success with us. Maybe you can deliver other good solutions not mentioned here.

Please note: You take full responsibility for your actions on your computer. I can never be held responsible for any damages caused by my tutorials. Errors excepted!

Press the sleep/wake and the home button at the same time for about a second. The screen shortly flashes, this is the sign that the screenshot has been created. It now lies in your camera roll folder in the Photos app. 

Happy shooting!

I began doing some research on the internet, called a service hotline but nothing helped. I reset the iPhone to exclude every trouble caused by a non-standard setting but even this didn’t solve the problem. Then I visited the carrier’s support page and was helped by a friendly forum user who said that it could be just the network settings, which might be corrupted. I would have to reset them. This I did and – surprise – it finally worked!

So before you restore your iPhone or ANYTHING, just try this solution, it worked for me:

Go to Settings (on your home screen) -> General -> Reset and push the button Reset Network Settings, then confirm. Done.

Please note: You take full responsibility for your actions on your iPhone. I can never be held responsible for any damages caused by my tutorials. Errors excepted!

I hope there won’t be too many people around so that I can get one before sun sets again. I guess that here in Switzerland many people are really looking forward to buying it. I have just watched a TV report about the iPhone sale and they showed a huge crowd of people waiting in front of the only Swisscom store that will sell it at midnight.

Furthermore, there is much news around on Swiss Apple sites, as on macprime.ch They have changed their normal interface to a special iPhone report page where people can send in texts and photos about their experiences. 

I think I should turn in soon in order to be fully awake next morning and to enjoy the shiny new iPhone without the wish to sleep. Wish me luck…

See this Flickr group with photos of the crowd waiting in Zurich: http://www.flickr.com/groups/iphone-day/pool/

UPDATE:

There was really a huge crowd waiting in front of the store. And the worst was that they had very few iPhones in stock. For example, there were only 8 (!) black 16 gig iPhones around. I had to wait about less than 2 hours after they opened the store for the first customers. The activation, which had be done in-store prolonged time for shoppers waiting. I was very lucky to belong to one of the first standing in queue because when I left the shop again there were about a hundred people waiting!

I know this has already been done officially, but now it’s about time for us bloggers to thank you, Nederlanders, for this great party and the football fever you brought to our country! You have certainly been the friendliest fan base of all teams playing…

BEDANKT EN TOT ZIENS!

Oh, yes, before I forget: There is an official page by the city of Berne: http://www.oranjebern.ch where you can upload your photos and revive emotions!

Copyright note (image): Some rights reserved by Flickr user kaspar.loosli

This tutorial* explains a method that helped me get my PowerPC apps running again after they have started crashing immediately at launch (I am running the latest Leopard upgrade Mac OS X 10.5.2). I thought I’d share it with you to save you from all the trouble I went through lately.

Symptom:

You are on an Intel Mac. PowerPC (that means non-native) apps are always crashing immediately when you try to open one.

Before you proceed, you might want to have a look at the log file of the specific app after the crash. In the crash dialog, click on Report… and then on Problem details above to see what was put into the file. If you see a process called translated you have good chances to get it working again with my method.

If there is nothing like “translated”, please scroll down and try a simpler method from Apple’s support website first (although that didn’t solve my problem).

Solution:

The problem lies behind the Rosetta application, more precisely, a process called translated. This process is also a file in the system responsible for PowerPC apps to run properly. Somehow, this file must have gotten corrupted. But don’t ask me how, I am not an expert. 

1st step: Look for your Leopard Installation DVD (the disc that was delivered with your Mac or the one you bought in-store for upgrade).

2nd step: First finish your work and save it. Then restart your computer. Now put the DVD into the computer.

3rd step: Now, in Finder, click on Go to… and then Go to folder… In the new window type in (case sensitive!): 

/Volumes/[OS X disk image name]/usr/libexec/oah/

where OS X disk name stands for the name of the DVD you’ve just inserted (you can see its name on the desktop). Now you should see two files. One should be a folder with the name Shims and the other one our wanted file translate. Now copy ONLY the translate file.

4th step: Open again the Go to folder… dialog. Now type in:

 /usr/libexec/oah/

Again, you should be able to see the folder and the file translate. Before you paste the copied file here and replace the other file you may want to backup the existing translate file from here. Do this first if you want to play it safe! (Maybe you have to type in your user password once; this is nothing special for important system files as these)

5th step: Now close all open windows and do not touch any files in the system anymore! Afterwards, restart your computer.

Now everything should be working again as usual. Congrats!

CRASHING OFFICE APPS (PARTIAL SOLUTION): Visit the following Apple support page to see another solution for crashing PPC apps (especially Microsoft Office) but with a different cause: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303677 

Additional advice: Please see comments below!

If everything suggested didn’t work, search Google or Apple discussions.

*Please note: You take full responsibility for your actions on your computer. I can never be held responsible for any damages caused by my tutorials. Errors excepted!