Wireless And Glitches At CES

Jen-Hsun Huang, CEO of Nvidia, learned how insidious and demanding mobile devices can be when he tried to demonstrate a tablet computer at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Wednesday.

While demonstrating the tablet PC, so many people in the audience had their devices connected to the Web that the network collapsed and his presentation short-circuited after a few minutes.

“You guys suck,” he exclaimed.

Huang’s remark betrayed a private sentiment shared by some of technology’s old guard, who face the painful task of reinvention as the mobile Internet overshadows the personal computer’s role as the main workhorse and leisure tool.

The Consumer Electronics Association estimates that 70 percent of all devices -- including everything from televisions to printers -- will have an Internet connection by 2014, from virtually none just a few years ago.

The trend signals a shift in the tech balance of power from the so-called Wintel hegemony and the PC makers like Dell that thrive off of it, to smaller companies like chipmaker ARM Holdings and Netflix.

Microsoft made a big move, not by unveiling some amazing new PC or software, but by stepping from its decades-old alliance with Intel Corp and moving toward ARM processors, as it dabbles in the mobile device market.

“Windows PCs will continue to adapt and evolve,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at the show's opening keynote speech, but the company’s dilemma was illustrated by the range of half-built machines, which Microsoft hastily assembled to demonstrate the new ARM capability.


Ballmer’s PC demo was a far cry from Apple’s slick product rollouts. The company kickstarted a trend in people getting access to “the cloud” anytime, anywhere, with its iPhone, and now its iPad tablet PC, which could ship more than 36 million units in 2011, according to research firm iSuppli.

Although Apple was not on the show floor, its presence was felt. More than 30 tablets were announced in a 48 hour period, nearly all mentioning Apple was the one to catch up to.

All these connected devices require two things to prosper: a super fast Web connection and content. The former's absence on and off the tradeshow floor made itself known as emails went unsent, Web pages remained unvisited and stage presentations went awry.

All major US carriers announced at CES that they are upgrading their networks, spending billions of dollars in the process, to 4G technology. Verizon Wireless said it will carry 10 new 4G devices in the first half of the year.

Verizon Wireless, AT&T and T-Mobile USA battled it out to show that they were in the best position to get people to use their high-speed wireless data services, setting the stage for an all out wireless war this year.

New applications were also in short-supply as operators pushed to show that the ability to get quality video to smartphones would go a long way toward impressing consumers and giving them reason to buy high-speed services.

“It (video) has always failed in the mobile space,” Cole Brodman, T-Mobile USA's chief marketing officer, told Reuters. “Now 4G can make it a nice experience.”

At Verizon, the push for video will come in many directions including multi-player gaming and video chat, making use of front- and back-facing cameras in smartphones and tablet PCs.

Intel Corp CEO Otellini waved off the Microsoft-ARM alliance as “not a big deal.” The company unveiled a new core processor for personal computers at CES.

Otellini was puzzled with the media frenzy over Microsoft’s move to ARM processors, rather than his company’s new Sandy Bridge processors. 

He reiterated that the first smartphone with an Intel processor will make its debut this year.

ARM, enjoying the attention of its Microsoft partnership and an announcement that Nvidia will begin making CPUs based on its architecture, couldn’t resist making a remark at the chip giant.

“Intel has been saying for years they're going to get into mobile. They've had a totally inappropriate product until recently,” ARM President Tudor Brown told Reuters. “Their product has been improving in terms of power consumption, it's still not as efficient as ARM, but it's getting closer.”

“At some point it becomes viable to start building those things into tablets. But it still doesn't really make sense in mobile phones,” he said. 

Futuristic Technology Takes Hold Of Today During CES

The Jetson's may have felt a little superior if they attended this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, but the non-fictional characters who attended the event most likely felt as if they were peering into the future.

Vuzix has produced Star Wars-like technology capable of placing images on an empty table, while MultiTouch takes a page out of Minority Report's imagination by creating a 46-inch touchreen monitor with endless capabilities.

Vuzix's 920AR are augmented reality glasses that can view a 3D model a user has created using their software and virtually place it onto their desktop.  At Vuzix’s CES demonstration, a user could put on the glasses and see a boat sinking into water on top of a desk, when in reality the desk had nothing actually on it.

This device has a lot of potential and designers are able to use Vuzix's maxReality software to create an "augmented reality interactive 3D experience," according to the company's website.
The retail price for the Wrap 920AR, along with its software, sits at $1,999, but a representative at CES told RedOrbit that he hopes one day they will have a more affordable version of the device out for the average consumer.
But Vuzix was not the only company pushing the current boundaries of technology at CES.  MultiTouch, a Finland-based company, showed off their “Cell” display, which is a "multitouch LCD for modular display arrays," according to the company's website.

Its multitouch LCD units are full HD and can be stacked in different ways.  At one display, MultiTouch demonstrated how its Cell can be used to play games like Pong.
Another display showed off how menus can pop out of nowhere and land onto the table, allowing a user to order food or a drink from the tabletop.
The technology of the Cell has limitless capabilities and is one more glimpse into what the future holds for how we will eventually interact with technology.

Sharp’s iWall Display Nails The ‘Awe Factor’

There were many appealing booths at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), but Sharp's iWall display took the "awe" factor and ran in my book.  

The iWall uses four walls of screens to display consistent imaging with each other to make you feel as if you were inside a television. 

This booth was the most intriguing of all the demonstrations at the Woodstock of electronic conventions
People stood beside the booth and looked on as if they were taken aboard a ride at Disney World.

3D technology is what the industry has decided is next for the future of television, but this demonstration makes 3D TV look like what high definition picture quality does to black-and-white displays.

The Sharp representatives at the event said that the iWall will be moved to "ground zero" later this year as part of the memorial for the September 11th tragedy.

When I asked the representatives if this technology has been thought about being integrated in movie theaters they said no, but "anything is possible."

The iWall looks like something out of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series.

Although there are many electronics and innovations that have grabbed "the cool factor" out of this electronics lover during the 2011 CES, Sharp's iWall definitely goes above all others and grasps "the awe factor."

Verizon iPhone Announcement Expected Tuesday

Verizon Wireless will take the wraps off of a new Apple iPhone designed especially for their service on Tuesday, sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Saturday.

The announcement will be made in New York, according to WSJ reporters Shayndi Raice and Yukari Iwatani Kane, and sources say that the device itself will become available in Verizon Wireless stores by the end of the month.

This will mark the first time that customers in the United States have been able to choose their iPhone network carrier, ending AT&T's stranglehold on service for the Apple smartphone, which dates back to the iPhone's launch in 2007.

According to Raice and Kane, "The Verizon phone will be similar to the iPhone 4 but run on the carrier's CDMA technology, people familiar with the matter have said… Apple is moving to expand its carrier base in the U.S. at a time when it is facing increasing pressure from phones powered by rival Google Inc.'s operating system, called Android."

The Associated Press (AP) approached both Verizon and Apple for comment. The wireless carrier declined to offer details about the content of the scheduled Tuesday event, while a spokeswoman for the iPhone developers said that they do not comment on rumors or speculation.
"Since AT&T has been heavily dependent on iPhone for customer growth in the last few years, some investors have worried that it could face a mass exodus of subscribers once its bigger rival starts selling iPhone," Sinead Carew of Reuters reported on Saturday.
"AT&T's reputation for network performance problems, particularly in cities such as New York and San Francisco, could exacerbate the problem," Carew added. "But some analysts have said that the loss of customers will be tempered by the fact that most of AT&T's iPhone customers subscribe via family plans, which are trickier to exit as they involve more than one customer."
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Solairs Asset Management investment officer Tim Griskey called the move "a big boost for Apple… It opens up a huge uninstalled base for them in this country."

Mac App Store hits 1 million download mark

It took just 24 hours for Apple to rack up 1 million downloads from the Mac App Store, the company announced on Friday morning. The store opened on Thursday, with more than 1000 Mac applications available for download.

In a statement on the company’s site, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said: “We’re amazed at the incredible response the Mac App Store is getting. Developers have done a great job bringing apps to the store and users are loving how easy and fun the Mac App Store is.”

The Mac App Store’s progress on the download front is somewhat slower than that of its iOS sibling: when launched in 2008, the iOS App Store counted 10 million downloads in the first weekend. However, back in 2003, it took the iTunes Store a week to sell a million song—granted, it was a different world back then. And while Apple didn’t issue a press release when the iBookstore hit 1 million downloads, we do know that it hit 600,000 within the first week and 1.5 million within the first month.

In short, a million downloads in a day is nothing to sneeze at—especially from a platform that’s more than 25 years old. If the Mac App Store has only a fraction of the impact that the iOS App Store had, then Mac software development is probably still in for a substantial boost. But the real change is yet to come: when Macs start shipping with the Mac App Store preinstalled, look for the fireworks to start for real.

Smartphones making news at CES

The Verizon iPhone will have to wait for another day, but there was plenty of other smartphone news to come out of the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week. Here's a round-up of the smartphone announcements that caught the attention of PCWorld’s staff as they roamed the show floor. You can get full reports on PCWorld’s CES page.

Motorola Droid Bionic

MotoroPerformance was hard to judge. We weren’t picking up a 4G signal when I got my hands on it and I think my unit was low on batteries. It seemed pretty responsive though; the combination of a 1GHz processor, Android 2.2 and HSPA+ is a killer combination.

The lighting in the CES press room was horrid so the photos I took with the Cliq 2’s 5-megapixel camera looked pretty fuzzy. Pricing has not been announced for the Motorola Cliq 2, but it will be available from T-Mobile January 19.—GMla rolled out the first LTE 4G phone at CES this week. The landmark device, called the Motorola Droid Bionic, will run on Verizon’s new LTE network, which is turned on in 39 cities now and will spread rapidly during 2011. The phone, the Droid Bionic, is a largish black Android-powered smartphone that sports dual processors and a beautiful 4.3 inch HD display.

Of course, the key feature that makes all the others run faster and look better is the 4G LTE radio built into the device. Verizon says its new LTE network can pump out download speeds of between 5 and 12 mbps, and upload speeds of between 2 and 5 mbps. This will make video run smoothly, files upload quickly, and videoconferencing and online gaming run reasonably well.

The peer-to-peer gaming apps and HD video apps in particular looked stunning on the Bionic’s screen during my brief hands-on at the Motorola press event Wednesday. Both gaming and video looked bright, right in color and depth. These apps were running with the phone connected to a Wi-Fi network, so it remains to be seen how these apps will work in the wild when the phone is connected on Verizon’s 4G network. The Skype videoconferencing app also worked well on Wi-Fi, and features a small window the screen showing what the person on the other end is seeing.

Droid Bionic

Also impressive: The Bionic has anHDMI out on the side, which enables the user to connect the device to their HD televisions to view all the HD content happening on the phone, like video, gaming or video conferencing in full 1080p.

Other key features of the Bionic include:

• 512 MB RAM
• Adobe Flash Player and HTML5 support
• Front-facing VGA camera and See What I See video feature
• Rear-facing 8-megapixel camera for still and video

The Bionic becomes available in early second quarter from Verizon, and not pricing has been set as of yet.—Mark Sullivan

HTC Inspire 4G

Truth be told, AT&T doesn’t currently have the most exciting Android lineup. All that is going to change this year, however, with the launch of the HTC Inspire 4G, one of many 4G phones coming to the carrier. The HTC Inspire 4G sports a 4.3-inch display and the latest version of HTC Sense user interface.

Reminiscent of the EVO 4G (on Sprint) in design and specs, the unibody Inspire runs on a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, sports an 8-megapixel camera, has 4GB of internal storage, and runs Android 2.2. Hopefully, AT&T will update the Inspire 4G to 2.3 soon after launch.

Pricing and availability have not yet been announced for the Inspire.—Ginny Mies

Motorola Atrix

Motorola showed off a new Android phone that connects to a docking station that looks like a laptop but has no CPU, so that users can access a full physical keyboard and monitor.

The Atrix 4G runs a 1 GHz dual-core processor, matching the power of full-size PCs from just a few years past. The phone hooks to the dock using an app called Motorola Webtop. The docking device weighs just over 2 pounds and has long battery life, said Sanjay Jha, CEO of Motorola Mobility. He unveiled the device at the AT&T Developers Summit at CES in Las Vegas.

Users will be able to browse the Internet on the full version of Mozilla Firefox. “This is not desktop-like. This is the desktop browser running on this,” said Jha.

He did not disclose many more details about the dock. Presumably users will be limited to the applications that can run on the Android phone. The concept of pairing a mobile phone with a “dumb” device that features a larger keyboard and monitor is similar to one called the Foleo that Palm once announced but later killed.

Users of the Atrix will also be able to connect the phone into a different dock that will allow streaming to an HDTV or any HDMI-compatible monitor.

Jha did not say how much the Atrix or the docks would cost or when they would be available.—Nancy Gohring

Samsung Infuse 4G

How big can a smartphone’s display get before it becomes a tablet? AT&T and Samsung are pushing the limit with the Samsung Infuse 4G, a smartphone running on AT&T’s HSPA+ network with a 4.5-inch display.

Like other Samsung smartphones, the Infuse 4G sports the company’s Super AMOLED technology, a super-thin display which produces gorgeous colors and high visibility indoors and out. I’m a big fan of Super AMOLED and was disappointed when the Samsung Galaxy Tabdidn’t use it. I’m definitely excited to see it in a larger format.

The Infuse 4G is powered by the older Android 2.2 and runs on a 1.2GHz processor. Other enticing specs include an 8-megapixel camera with HD video recording, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera for video calls.

AT&T did not announce availability or pricing.—GM

HTC Thunderbolt

HTC Thunderbolt

Probably the worst-kept secret phone of CES, the HTC Thunderbolt is finally official on Verizon’s 4G LTE network. According to Peter Chou, CEO of HTC, this smartphone is incredibly fast.

Similar to the HTC EVO 4G, the monstrous Thunderbolt sports a 4.3-inch Super LCD display and a front-facing video camera. We’re guessing that it also has an 8-megapixel camera, but that has yet to be confirmed. Running on the new version of HTC Sense (which has a cloud-based online component). 8-megapixel camera. The Thunderbolt also incorporates Skype video chat into the HTC Sense interface.

Pricing and availability have not yet been announced and we’re still a bit fuzzy on the specs.—GM

LG Optimus Black

Insurgent smartphone maker LG says its LG Optimus Black Android smartphone is the thinnest in the world. The phone’s width measures about 0.36 inches thick, then tapers down to 0.24 inches, which LG says qualifies it as the world’s thinnest phone.

The company says the new phone’s 4-inch screen uses a new display technology called NOVA, which it says takes up less space in the phone’s design and provides a brighter, clearer interface for the user.

“LG Optimus Black provides users with an easier and more natural experience when browsing the web, reading emails, or writing documents with higher levels of brightness and pure white tones that deliver true black and white colors for ideal handset viewing,” LG says in a statement released Wednesday morning. The whiter whites and blacker blacks will help users see the display more clearly indoors or outdoors, and even under bright sunlight, LG says.

LG also says the NOVA display uses far less power (during indoor use) than regular LCD and AMOLED displays. If true, this could have a dramatic positive effect on the battery life of the Optimus Black (the phone uses a 1500 mAh battery), and of phones that use NOVA displays in the future.

Another feature we will take a “wait and see” attitude toward is the new phone’s use of the Optimus UI 2.0 interface overlay. This piece of LG software sits on top of Android and “lets users directly access messages, e-mails and missed calls from the locked screen with just one single finger tap.” On other phones we’ve seen, such overlays have merely create UI clutter and gotten in the way of Android’s simplicity.

The Optimus Black will ship with Android 2.2 (Froyo), but, LG says the phone can be easily upgraded to the more recent Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) OS version. LG says the new phone’s interface lets users lift, shake or tap to do such things as take calls, enter camera mode or play music.

Notably the Optimus Black ships with a large 2 megapixel front-facing camera. LG says the large camera was included to maximize the expanded video conferencing functionality in Android 2.3.

LG says the Optimus Black will begin selling through an as-yet-unnamed carrier in the first half of 2011.—MS

LG Optimus 2X

Nvidia has teamed up with LG to demo the very first Tegra 2-powered phone. This LG Android phone supports 1080p HD video and offers console-quality gaming.

NVIDIA’s co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang called the Tegra 2 a “mobile super chip” in part because it enables powerful multitasking and is designed for content consumption. This LG phone is designed for watching video and gaming in-hand with its textured, curved design. The 4-inch display is constructed with curved glass for multi-angle viewing. Angry Birds demoed on the phone looked brilliant and the videos shown appeared smooth and crystal-clear.

The LG “Super Phone,” as NVIDIA dubbed it, has HDMI-out so you can watch videos from your phone on your HDTV. In the on-stage demo, video looked pretty good though it is difficult to evaluate its quality from a press conference demo.—GM

Motorola Cliq 2

Motorola Cliq 2

When the Cliq came out way back in fall of 2009, I was pretty impressed with it. It was the third Android phone to debut in the United States and the first from Motorola. What I liked best about it, though, was how much though Motorola put into its design. The Cliq 2, debuting on January 19, makes the first Cliq feel like a child’s toy.

Design-wise, the Cliq 2 is sturdier with a more sophisticated look. It is less plasticky than the original and feels very nice in hand. I loved the original Cliq’s keyboard with the dome-shaped keys and the Cliq 2 definitely improves upon this concept. The Cliq 2’s keyboard sort of resembles a honeycomb; in fact, a product manager told me its design is inspired by nature. Rather than individual keys with space in between them, the keyboard is one solid piece. It it sort of hard to explain, but perhaps you can see what I mean from the pictures. I was able to quickly bang out a long message with no trouble at all.

The new MotoBlur interface running over Android 2.2 is interesting. The multiple profiles for work, home and play sort of remind me of another phone on T-Mobile, the HTC-designed myTouch 4G. It is definitely nothing like the gaudy, annoying MotoBlur interface with the text bubbles we saw on the original Cliq.

Rock around the clock: iPod nano wristband roundup

The sixth-generation iPod nano’s staggeringly small size and color display opens up new possibilities as to how it can be worn. While the iPod and iPod touch are generally limited to pockets, purses, and the occasional arm band, the nnano is small and light enough to be worn as a necklace, belt buckle, or even as a watch.

It’s that latter category that case manufacturers have really jumped on—there are now quite a few wristband cases for the nano that turn the minute MP3 player into the ultimate multipurpose wrist watch. Here’s a rundown of what’s available so far.

EagleC

EagleC’s Silicone Watch Wristband Case

If you’re not looking to spend a lot—and let’s face it, who is these days?—the EagleC Silicone Watch Wristband Case ($4) might be all you need to get your tunes on your wrist. Designed to look like what EagleC calls a “stylish, high tech watch,” this bare bones silicone strap provides basic scratch and shock protection, while its simple pop-in pop-out design makes it easy to insert and remove your nno.

Elecom

Elecom’s AVA-N10LB

While most nano wristbands in this roundup are made of rubber or plastic, Elecom’s AVA-N10LB ($42) boasts a genuine leather strap. This classy wristband includes a riveted strap that holds your nano in place, and is available in black or brown.

Hex

The Hex Watch Band ($30) features a custom premium silicone strap, a pop-in pop-out design, integrated control buttons and an audio port cover with inline orientation. If that’s not enough for you, it also comes in a wide assortment of classy colors that should accommodate most tastes.

iLoveHandles

iLoveHandles’s Rubber Band

The Rubber Band ($10) by iLoveHandles is an affordable, bare bones rubber strap for your wrist that has an indented midsection to clip on your nano. The wristband comes in a variety of bright, vivid colors and should be able to fit just about any wrist.

Ozaki

Ozaki’s iCoat Watch+

Remember the slap-on bracelets of the nineties? Ozaki’s iCoat Watch+ puts a 21st century twist on that classic accessory, turning it into a stylish wristband for your nano. Along with its retro, slap-happy design, the iCoat Watch+ features a water-resistant cover that keeps your nano’s connector and socket dry. It also comes in various eye-catching color schemes that match the bracelet’s ’90s appeal. Unfortunately, pricing and availability has not been announced.

Scott Wilson and Minimal

Scott Wilson and Minimal's LunaTik

Scott Wilson and Minimal’s TikTok and LunaTick wrist straps are in a league of their own. The TikTok ($35) features high-grade silicone rubber straps and uses a simple, snap-in design that lets you easily and securely snap your nano into its wrist dock.

The LunaTick ($70) is forged from AeroSpace Grade aluminum and uses a lock-in design making it ideal for those wishing to permanently convert their nano into a timepiece. Both models are available for pre-order and are expected to ship in January.

Speck

Speck's TimeToRock

What time is it? Time to rock! Speck’s TimeToRock wrist band ($25) lets you wear your music on your wrist in a number of rich colors. The soft, flexible strap features a simple pop-in, pop-out design that keeps your nano securely in place, while soft button covers provide shock and scratch protection for your device.

SwitchEasy

SwitchEasy's Ticker

SwitchEasy’s Ticker features a stainless steel strap pin, polycarbonate push through buttons and a specially developed elastometer base material that’s more versatile and shock resistant than standard silicone or rubber. It also features a rotatable headphone jack that allows it to work with both lefties and righties, and is available in a number of vibrant colors.

Apple updates Remote Desktop, adds widget

It was easy to overlook amid the Mac App Store launch and the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update that accompanied the store, but Apple also posted updates for its remote desktop management software Thursday. In addition to the client and admin updates for Apple Remote Desktop, the company introduced a new dashboard widget that provides an at-a-glance view of remote computers.

Both the admin and client versions of Apple Remote Desktop 3.4 are pretty straightforward updates. According to their respective release notes, they provide compatibility with the Mac App Store.

The Apple Remote Desktop Dashboard Widget works with the Apple Remote Desktop software to provide quick information about computers in a given network. The widget is integrated with the administrative application, Apple says, which allows users to work with any computer in the system with a simple click.

The 1.54MB widget requires a licensed copy of Apple Remote Desktop. It runs on Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later.

'Installed' apps, the Mac App Store, and you

If you’ve spent some time browsing the aisles of the new Mac App Store, you’ve probably come across software marked as “Installed”—despite the fact that you didn’t purchase it from the store. It’s one of the most confusing aspects of the Mac App Store, and one on which Macworld has fielded a lot of questions already.

But the problem can go beyond simple confusion. Though you might be inclined to think that the store has found all of your existing apps and “grandfathered” them into the store, it doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to get updates for those applications via the Mac App Store itself. And what about those third-party programs that you have installed that don’t show up in the Mac App Store? Do you have to repurchase all of those?

While there’s no simple answer to the dilemma, let’s take a look at the underlying issue that causes this confusion, and then see what you can do about it.

Bundle, bundle, who’s got the bundle?

The culprit here is something called a “bundle ID.” This is a unique identifier, created by the software’s developer, for each application on your computer; the system uses these IDs for storing settings and other information. They look a bit like a Website address in reverse: iTunes’s, for example, iscom.apple.iTunes. If you look in the Preferences folder inside your home directory’s Library folder, you can see the bundle IDs for most if not all of the programs on your computer.

The problem arises from the fact that when the Mac App Store was announced, Apple didn’t tell Mac developers who wanted to put their wares in the store whether they should use the same bundle ID for the Mac App Store version that they use for their existing app or create a separate one—never mind that the two versions of the software may be, for all intents and purposes, identical.

When the Mac App Store launches, it apparently scans your computer for a list of those bundle IDs, which it likely pulls from a centralized OS X system called Launch Services. (You can pull up the list yourself with a little Terminal hokery-pokery—scroll down to the comments for the most recent version of the command).

If the store detects an application installed on your system where both the bundle ID and the app’s version match the information associated with the app for sale on the store, that app gets marked as Installed. Those are the apps that where the developer chose to use the same bundle ID for the version in the Mac App Store as the one that it sold elsewhere. (Note that those apps do not show up in the list of Purchases that you can access in the Mac App Store.)

Red Sweater Software founder Daniel Jalkut told me via e-mail there are pros and cons to each approach. The problem in the first case, he says, is that users may believe that—because the app is already listed as Installed in the Mac App Store—they’ll be able to get updates through the store, write reviews, and so on, even though that isn’t the case.

However, apps that use a different bundle ID for their Mac App Store version present separate challenges. In that case, as Jalkut points out, the store will still show you the option to buy applications that you’ve already purchased elsewhere, potentially leading to unintended double-purchases—a risk exacerbated by the fact that the App Store has trained most users that they can re-download an app for free and because the Mac App Store doesn’t currently ask for confirmation before a purchase.

Seeing double

So, what to do? Unless you really want to get all your app updates through the Mac App Store, you can avoid re-buying your software at present. Most programs still allow you to update to a new version via the application itself (look for a Check for Updates option in the menu or in the application’s preferences window).

Really, most applications work the same whether you get them on the Mac App Store or from the developer itself—and those that do differ probably have more features when you don’t get them from the store. For example, Bare Bones Software removed a couple of features from its BBEdit and TextWrangler text editors—specifically, the programs’ command-line tools and the ability to save files owned by another user—to comply with Apple’s Mac App Store guidelines.

It would be nice if Apple provided a way to absorb existing applications, or at the very least allowed developers the ability to discount the Mac App Store versions of their apps for users who owned previous versions, but there’s no indication that such an option is the offing, so don’t hold your breath.

Ultimately, the state of the market may demand repurchasing some applications—especially if others follow the lead of developers like Pixelmator and Sophiestication, who are shifting their sales to the Mac App Store on an exclusive basis. At a certain point, you will only be able to get updates for those programs via the Mac App Store. But the day when that’s true for all your apps is probably still pretty far off.

Blue Microphones Mikey (2010)

When last we reviewed it, Blue Microphones’ Mikey was a capable, though somewhat limited, iPod microphone. It was capable because it recorded good-sounding voice memos on an attached iPod, but limited because it offered just three gain settings and no line-in port. Today’s Mikey makes strides in the right direction. It includes not only a line-in port that allows you to easily record audio from an external source, but also a USB port for charging the iPod while the Mikey is connected. While it has the same three gain settings, those settings have been tweaked so that they’re less sensitive—making it very difficult to overdrive the gain on any of Mikey’s settings.

The $80 Mikey is a cardioid condenser microphone that records 44.1kHz/16-bit audio at a fequency response of 35Hz to 20kHz. Unlike the first Mikey, it doesn’t carry a speaker—not a huge loss as that speaker was very tinny. It can be angled to seven different positions. It works with the first three generations of the iPod touch, the second-through-fifth generations of the iPod nano, all iPod classics, the fifth generation iPod, and the iPhone 3GS and earlier. (So, no support for the 4G iPod touch and iPhone 4, which each have built-in microphones.) It’s compatible with any iOS voice recording application—including Apple’s Voice Memos—but the company recommends its free Blue FiRerecording app as it adds the ability to record over Mikey’s threshold level as well as record for a user-specified period of time (an hour, for example) or until a time you specify (5:00 PM, for instance).

Where the first iteration of Mikey was easy to overdrive at the most sensitive setting, the latest Mikey is perhaps a bit too conservative. Because it is, it’s worth making test recordings before committing to a particular setting. For example, the setting where Mikey is least sensitive—the one you’d use for a blaring concert recording—requires a lot of sound. With the first Mikey, I got reasonable results using this setting with Mikey set atop my piano. With the latest Mikey, this setting produces recordings that are too quiet. Similarly, where the old Mikey was plenty loud at the medium setting when recording voice notes, I found the most sensitive setting better for this purpose.

I recorded a few voice memos using both the new Mikey (attached to a 3G iPod touch) and Zoom’s $99 H1 Handy Recorder (). I switched Mikey to the medium setting and switched the H1’s Auto Level control on. Sure enough, the Mikey recording was much quieter. This is hardly a deal-killer, but it does mean that you have to adjust your expectations of what low, medium, and high settings might deliver and not be too disappointed when a faint sound isn’t picked up terribly well with any of Mikey’s settings.

Other than the fact that you can use your iPod as a field recorder, the most interesting thing about the new Mikey is its ability to record audio via its line input jack. This was a feature found on older third-party iPod microphones (none of which now work with modern iPods) that the original Mikey lacked. On the first review unit I received the port was too recessed for the miniplug cables I have, resulting in recordings that included the right channel at full volume and a left channel that echoed in the background. I asked for a second unit and it behaved as it should. The line recordings sounded fine from a variety of sources.

The trick to performing line input recordings is setting the proper volume level on the device you play from. Mikey’s Gain switch has no influence when recording via the line input jack—switch it to low, medium, or high, and it will record at the same level. Instead, adjust the output volume of your audio source (another iPod, for example) and watch the recording meter in the app you’re recording with. Do this correctly and you wind up with very good sounding recordings.

Macworld’s buying advice

The second coming of Mikey—with its line input jack, ability to charge an attached device via a USB cable, and its resistance to being overdriven—addresses many of my criticisms of the first Mikey. It turns your iPod into a serviceable recorder (although quiet on the low and medium settings). Those on a budget who need a field recorder on a fairly routine basis would be better served with a dedicated and more flexible device such as the Zoom H1. But if you only occasionally require a pocketable recorder for an iPod you’re carrying anyway, this Mikey is a reasonable choice.