In the last days, there is a lot of whispering: Here a Chinese iPod skin manufacturer publishes a small iPhone skin on his website, an analyst wishes for an iPhone for the mass marked … and bang, everybody is expecting an iPhone nano to be announced. Then the news is spreaded, that Steve Wozniak – second founder of Apple – will join the presentation of the newest modbook at the Axiotron booth at MacWorldExpo … it’s a MacBook transformed into a tablet Mac. That increases the desire and spins the rumor mill even faster for an iPod tablet or MacBook touch. However, the market positioning of such a multitouch-gadget will be tricky:

• If Apple stays with the walled garden iPhone version of Mac OS X they would have the existing and vital iPhone developer community committed to multitouch and gesture control … and by the way an exclusive distribution channel for applications with the AppStore. The main focus probably would be gaming and entertainment. But the gadget will loose the “pants pocket factor”.
• If Apple uses a full Mac OS X version they could use the experiences of Axiotron and have to count on the Mac OS X developers, that they implement the benefits and potentials of multitouch and gesture control within their (existing) applications. The gadget would be more like a “MacBook Air Touch” than an iPod tablet and would more likely suite and target the business customers. En passent this would explain why there is so little spectacular information about the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard features leaked out.

What ever Phil Schiller will present on his Keynote at the Moscow-Center at MacWorldExpo in San Francisco on January 6th … and what is hidden behind the concealed exhibition banners … I’m thrilled and I’m really looking forward to it

Sometimes you are embarrassed to conntect Mac OS X Leopard with a Windows XP printserver. It should work the Mac plug-and-play way … but it isn’t. So here is the howto, so you don’t need to trouble your head about it.

Context:
In the first corner: A Mac OS X Leopard (10.5.3) machine
In the second corner: A Kyocera 2000D laser printer connected to a Windows XP printserver which is protected by password and username.

Problem:
Adding the printer via the standard Apple-way as a windows printer works – but printing does not work because it is not possible to authenticate against the printserver.

Solution:
You need to add the shared printer via the hidden “Advanced” printer feature in the Print & Fax preferences.

• Open “Print & Fax” in “System Preferences”
• Click “+” to add a new printer
• Control-click (or right-click) on the toolbar at the top of the window and select “Customize Toolbar…”
• Drag the “Advanced” icon to the toolbar and select “Done”
• Click on the “Advanced” icon … and be patient … after a moment or two, you can select “Windows” from the “Type” dropdown-menu
• Enter the SAMBA URL of the shared windows printer in the “URL” textfield:
  smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@WINDOWSDOMAINNAME/PRINTSERVER/PRINTERSHARENAME or
  smb://USERNAME:PASSWORD@IPADDRESS/PRINTERSHARENAME
  If the shared printer does not need a password, you can use smb://USERNAME@…
• Fill out the other fields “Name” and “Location” as you prefer
• When printing the first time you will get prompted for your USERNAME and PASSWORD. Fill in your windows printserver username and password and enable the “Add this to your keychain” checkbox.

… it’s nearly plug-and-play

The huge system update to Mac OS X 10.5.3 with 200 to over 400 MB resolves a lot of bugs and adds up some additional features to Leopard. Example: More digital cameras with their specific RAW-formats are supported now. Or the possibility to sync the Apple Address Book application with Google Contacts.
Great to see that WIFI stability was increased by the Apple developers.
An annoying – but resolvable – problem appeared after updating when I tried to use the time logging software TimeLog 4: All log entries within TimeLog are saved in iCal – and after upgrading to 10.5.3 my work time entries just doubled. It’s easy to fix the problem by deleting every dublicate log entry – but you better checkt the timesheet in detail before you hand it out to your customer

The cooperation with Apple in terms of iPhone and iPod touch also effects the Mac now: Today, Skyhook Wireless released their Loki 2.0 Firefox toolbar for Mac OS X and Windows XP. Now it’s possible to check the own location with Loki – if there are enogh WiFi-hotspots in reach known by Skyhook Wireless.
Quite amazing technology with a JavaScript-SDK for Web developers, too.

Apple just put the Quicktime-Stream of the 2008 keynote online. So enjoy the show!