tomacintosh.com

Woke up to find the Apple Store was down yesterday morning, could have only meant one thing, iPhone 4 was getting added to the catalogue. Soon realised the store was not coming back up anytime soon so I grabbed my iPad and headed off to work. Finally the 3G aspect of my iPad was going to pay off! But after hours of refreshing and attempted ordering, the furthest I got was the checkout screen.

It took until lunchtime, and a visit to my old boss, to get the job done. I had already arranged to go there to change out the PSU in his PC. So I hooked up to his WiFi and got my order in about 12:15. I was amazed with how little I hesitated in blowing my wad on the £599 32GB model. I guess some things just have to be bought.

I went for the SIM free model straight from Apple, this way I can keep my current iPhone Simplicity tariff going. The advantage of this is I get unlimited texts and unlimited data, something that looks to be very costly with the upcoming contracts. The new iPhone 4 uses a Micro SIM, but I’ll either get o2 to send me one, or I’ll just cut down my existing one, like I did with my iPad.

So glad I ordered straight away, people ordering today won’t get theirs till July 2nd! Hell yeah!! Right then, time to sell my trusty 32GB 3Gs, adios!

Gaming website CVG.com report that Steam for Mac has been given a May 12th release date. This is slightly behind the initial claims of an April release, but I for one can’t wait to test my iMac to it’s limits. I think Half-Life 2 is going to get it’s fourth run through.

I might even buy Episodes 1 & 2 to go with it! Game on!

Because I am so damn clever, I have calculated the UK iPad prices based on an advanced formula of Apple overcharging us UK customers. This formula has remained a secret for years, but with my amazing knowledge and undying love for everything Apple, I will show you the way…

(US Price) / (Current Exchange Rate) + (£60)

Ok so here goes…

WiFi Model

• 16GB – £389
• 32GB – £469
• 64GB – £549

3G + WiFi Model

• 16GB – £489
• 32GB – £569
• 64GB – £649

If I’m wrong, I will buy each and every one of my readers a top of the line iPad. Actually, no, I won’t. I will just moan at the difference in price, then go ahead and order myself a top of the line one. Usual bloody story then.

You may recall I got bought a very nice Apple ‘Think Different’ neon sign a while back. It’s been left in the cupboard gathering dust, as I really didn’t know where to put it! Well, I finally dusted it down the other day, and gave it a new place in my Mac setup. I think you’ll agree, it looks great! One day I will own a shop with that sign in it!

I really enjoy my little workspace now, especially when it’s all lit up at night. Next stop, to get cracking with that coding book. I will understand it one day. Would be great to make a nice iPad app, as that market will be less saturated to begin with.

Valve have finally announced support for the Mac platform, hoooraaar! Yes, that’s right folks, Half-Life & Co will soon be available for your Apple machines. After a series of image leaks, Valve released a statement saying they intended to release their game download service, Steam, in April. I, for one, cannot wait! (as you can probably tell)

Not only will we see the majority of Valve’s titles ported to the Mac, but we’ll also be treated to a simultaneous release of Portal 2 on PC & Mac. Another interesting prospect is that cross platform online gaming will be available, Mac vs PC war-fest anyone?

This announcement is just one less reason for me to be running Windows on my iMac. The only reason I ever have is to play games. There is a major annoyance factor involved in rebooting the machine into Windows just to have a blast on a game. I usually leave my Mac go to sleep, and have all my most used programs open and ready to jump back to. Shutting everything down is a big no no for moi!

Even better news is the fact any purchases on the PC version of Steam will lead to the Mac equivalent being completely free (and I guess vice versa) Great news for me as I have Half-Life 2, and also Episodes One and Two of said game available to download!

So now it’s only a matter of weeks before my 27-inch iMac (i7 incidentally! (stop bragging)) flexes it’s muscles and tears up some Half-Life 2, hell yes!

As most of you probably know I ordered a new iMac late last year, but when I finally received it in early January it was suffering from the dreaded yellow screen tint. After a simple phone call to Apple Customer Care they agreed to send me an advanced replacement. This replacement was due to arrive on the 28th of January. I got a phone call from Apple on the morning of the 28th telling me there was delay in shipment, and my new machine wouldn’t be here till February the 19th! Anyway, to my surprise I received an email on the 29th stating my iMac had shipped and that I’d receive it today.

Thankfully the new machine (on the left) doesn’t suffer from the yellow tint, the hard drive in it also seems a lot quieter. I thought I’d have a bit of fun and see what it’d be like if I were running these two in a dual screen kind of setup, have to say I was starting to get used to it until I finally gave in and started the Migration Assistant! It’s currently got just under two hours to go and I’ll have to start clearing the old one and packing it up. Never nice to wave goodbye to any Mac equipment, even if it is faulty.

After weeks of rumours it seems Apple have finally come out and officially announced it will be staging an event on Wednesday Jan 27th at 10am PST. It will take place at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, in San Francisco. For us UK peeps this will be at 6pm, so make sure you get home from work sharpish! The event has been labeled ‘Come see our latest creation’. This is the biggest indicator yet that Apple will be showing it’s iSlate Tablet device, the first new product since the iPhone debuted at Macworld 2007. So what can we expect? Well so far the strongest rumours suggest…

• 10-inch Touch Sensitive Display
• Runs custom ‘Tablet OS’ a mixture of iPhone OS and Mac OS X
• Tablet Apps on AppStore – Custom made for bigger screen
• Subscription based Digital Content such as the New York Times delivered to Tablet
• SIM Card Slot for 3G Mobile Broadband Connectivity

Steve Jobs himself is supposedly ‘very happy’ with the device, this after he actually dismissed Tablet PCs in 2008 claiming they were ‘only good for browsing the web on the can’ Does this mean Apple have something special on the cards? Are all them patents purporting ways of giving touchscreen keyboards more tactile feedback going to come to fruition? I certainly hope so.

Hi all, just a quick post to let you know I have started this years Race Schedule. So far  the start times and practice info isn’t 100% but I have laid down the main race dates as a starting point. Also of note, I am keeping it all on the same Calendar as last year so you guys can just keep it subscribed year after year. There was a slight issue though, I have changed the URL slightly to reflect the fact that it wasn’t *just* a 2009 Calendar. Please re-subsribe by hitting the button below. ReTweet to spread the word.

Oh and just incase you haven’t heard, there’s a new guy in town…

Well it finally arrived. After waiting the best part of 3 weeks, my iMac showed it’s face on the 6th of January, a full day ahead of schedule. After eagerly unpacking it I prayed the glass was intact, it was. I then prayed it would boot, it did. So far, so good (I thought)

I’ve been following a few forums online with plenty of people complaining about various ailments their iMacs are suffering from. This put me on tender hooks, I didn’t know what to expect when I turned it on. The first thing I noticed was the lack of any dead pixels, which is always a good thing. After a few minutes of use though, I did notice something, the dreaded yellow screen tint problem was clearly visible. The bottom section of the screen, more towards the right hand side, is a very warm colour, whereas the rest of the screen is clarity personified. I was slightly upset.

I ran through a few more tests to see if there were any other problems, the hard drive wasn’t noisy, the screen didn’t flicker or blackout and I had no beach-balling problems whatsoever, the thing really does fly to be fair! This made me wonder whether I could forget the yellow tint problem and just get on with it, after all, it is a beast of a machine and I was loving using it.

So, after two days of trying, I finally cracked! For the money I paid I think the machine should be perfect, hell it should be better than perfect! So I called Apple, they were very helpful and have agreed to send me an advanced replacement, meaning I can keep the current machine until the new one arrives. It’s a bit of a lottery at the moment though, will I get a machine that is 100% perfect? It could get even worse…?

I ordered this machine on the 16th of December knowing there was a 2 week lead time on them. For the first few days I was constantly checking the tracking hoping a miracle would happen and I’d have it before Christmas. I was wrong. I got the ‘Shipped’ email off Apple late on Christmas Eve (24th Dec) which was a week earlier than they had initially quoted. I was pleased and was hoping I’d have it in my hands before the new year kicked off. I kept checking the status online, but had still not been given a tracking number. I went through the usual antics of using Apple’s delivery reference number on a host of courier websites (TNT, UPS etc) but to no avail.

After a phone call to Apple they told me to expect my tracking number on the 4th of January. So yesterday came and went without any sign of an email, I phoned again. This time the representative told me my Mac was on schedule for a 7th of Jan delivery. I asked him regarding the tracking number and he said I won’t get one until the carrier in the UK pick it up! So basically I hear nothing until the day of delivery! I think this is shocking by Apple. I’ve been reading various online forum posts regarding shipment of their i7 iMacs. Many people in the USA have had their orders before me even though they didn’t order until late December! Not only that, they had full tracking info all the way from Shanghai to their front door.

Let me just say, I’m hoping and praying I don’t get a machine with any of the following symptoms

• Yellow tainted screen
• Dead pixels
• Grumbling Hard Drive
• Flickering & Blackout issues
• iSight with dead pixels
• Cracked Glass