Ryan: Snow Leopard One Month On, My review.

So its here, we have it but do we like it? Snow leopard is Apples new baby and is designed to take on Windows 7, with a light design for optimum speed and performance.
I have been using Snow leopard for a month now and today i want to share my experience with you. I choose to get Snow Leopard for speed, i have a late 2008 macbook 2.4ghz (not unibody) To gain the most speed i have done 2 things, Installed Snow Leopard and upgraded from 2gb of RAM to 4gb. As you can imagine doing both of these upgrades have made a massive difference. Snow Leopard feels much less clunky as you use it, just an all round neater package. I am a huge fan of the new Quick-time with its more fluid design and increase in speed and compatibility. Im not sure if you can describe Snow Leopard as "inspirational" as that changes over Leopard are mainly back ground meaning you don't get to see a lot of it, but in my eyes this is due to great product in the first place. Microsoft would be making a huge mistake to over look Snow Leopard as they clearly have a viable rival to there new OS.

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Jai: Snow Leopard One Month On, My review.

One month ago you would have had trouble shutting me up about Snow Leopard this, Snow Leopard that... The thought of getting a minimum of 7GB of space and faster RAM processes! What more would a geek want?

So after the hype and the dust cleared what are my thoughts on Snow Kitteh? So with the initial update over what made me so pleased to upgrade? Well to begin the initial install was very swift and clean. I didn't need to back up (which was very good as I didn't).

I did notice a boost in power when I opened applications but apart from that no real change.

The one major difference that I saw and still see after a month of living with SL is the upload time from switching the power on to opening mail and a web browser, this all takes a quick average of 35 seconds. This is very quick indeed but it becomes a lot quicker when you close your machine down at speedy average of 6 seconds!

Apple promised better visual on iChat... I am still waiting to see this; instead it has gone to the other side and seems to be giving me problems. I hope that apple sort this out as I am a huge fan of iChat; this problem has made me use Skype.

All the little 'Tarty' bits like, little windows in exposé have not changed the way I use my mac which seems a little sad :-( This is because I only like change when it makes things a better. Why change something that is already great? Isn't that what apple said when naming snow leopard?

So to conclude living with Snow Leopard has not done much for me but has done enough, well I would say that for a free install :-) well worth it!

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

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Ryan: Apple to Ship Multitouch Mice With New iMacs Soon (Rumor)

Apple may soon introduce a mouse featuring multitouch technology, like that seen in its iPhones, iPods and MacBook trackpads.

Sporting a touch-sensitive housing, the new mouse will do away with the roller ball on the current Mighty Mouse (pictured above). The rumored multitouch mouse might apply the inertia feedback seen in iPods and iPhones, whereas scrolling speed accelerates or decelerates in response to how the user touches the surface.

Presumably an Apple multitouch mouse would function similarly to the unibody MacBook trackpads, which detect multitouch gestures. On new MacBooks, tapping the trackpad with two fingers triggers a right-click function, for example; this rumored multitouch mouse might copy this behavior. Also, for a mouse, we would expect a multitouch gesture to replace scrolling in different directions, and perhaps there will be special gestures that trigger Exposé commands as well.

Apple’s new mouse may be released with new iMacs, sources have said. The popular iMac desktops were last refreshed in March, and Apple typically upgrades them every seven months. That would suggest new iMacs — perhaps packaged with multitouch mice — will hit stores very soon.

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Ryan: T-Mobile PAYG Pulse Android launched

T-Mobile has launched the UK’s first Pay-As-You-Go Android handset, heralding the rise of cheaper smartphones.

The T-Mobile Pulse, manufactured by Chinese manufacturer Huawei, has the largest Android touchscreen yet, matching the iPhone in size at 3.5 inches. It has a 3.2 megapixel camera and comes supplied with a 2GB SD card. It also features GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.

The phone is available for £176.16, making it significantly cheaper than rival smartphones. Alternatively, the Pulse is free for customers who choose to sign up to a contract, starting at £20 a month over a 24 month period.

The Pulse follows the T-Mobile HTC G1, launched last year, which was the first Android phone to hit the UK market.

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Ryan: 3 rules out iPhone move

3 has today (29th) ruled out suggestions of it becoming the next operator to stock the Apple iPhone.

Speculation had grown that 3 would be the next mobile operator to announce it would be stocking the Apple iPhone, after Orange and Vodafone confirmed they would sell the 3G and 3G S handsets in the coming months.

However 3 today ruled out making any move to bring the device to its network and will instead concentrate on launching a number of other data centric devices in the near future.

A 3 spokesperson said: "We look to offer customers great value for money with fantastic handsets and very competitive tariffs. We will not currently be ranging the Apple iPhone.

"We've got several strong handsets coming soon that we know our customers will love."

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Jai: Spotify Allows you to download.

Spotify has announced that it will allow users to download tracks!

This service will only be available for those that are paying for a Premium account. An account will set you back £10 per month, but is it worth it?

We all know from Ryans post, how great Spotify is. Being able to listen to all your favourite music... FOR FREE! There have been many songs that I have been looking for that iTunes simply don't have, and it has been Spotify that has turned up trumps.

The one problem that I had was that I am a huge music lover that listens to music when commuting. So to say that my iTunes has become obsolete would be a lie. However could things be changing?

Recently, Spotify made an iPhone app available to temporarily download music to the device. This has proven to be a huge success and this may have sparked this new idea.

Users will be able to create playlists while online, but the difference is Premium payers will be given the choice to sync their playlists with their computer... GREAT! This will allow uses to listen to their library Offline... FANTASTIC! Spotify have not said whether the music will be protected by Digital Rights Management (DRM).

Although the music will be stored on the users Hard Drive it will not be able to be added to other music devices. This may include iPods, iPhones, Zune's etc. Spotify then go on to say that if the users stops paying the subscription then the music that has been synced with the computer will still show, but will be disabled.

You will be able to hold up to 3,333 tracks at any one time. This is set to be increased if the project picks up.

Spotify launched last year and has seen more than two million users sign up for what is a great service. It is also been said that it will be making an appearance in the US by the end of the year.

So my conclusion is keep with iTunes but anything free is good so having Spotify is great; as you will be able to listen to songs that you may have forgotten about, or it may stop you from downloading illegally ... as we all know thats really bad o_O

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Ryan: Windows 7 launch October 22nd.

Microsoft will put Windows 7 on store shelves and computer makers will have systems ready to sell with Vista's successor on Oct. 22nd.

Microsoft will also offer discounted or free upgrades to Windows 7 to users who buy PCs in the months leading up to the operating system's launch in a program dubbed "Windows Upgrade Option," a company spokeswoman has said. This isn't the first time that October has been named as the likely ship date for Microsoft's new OS. In an interview last month, an Acer executive based in the U.K. said "October 22nd is the date that Windows 7 will be available." The executive, Bobby Watkins, the managing director of Acer's U.K. operations, also confirmed that customers who bought a Vista-powered computer from the company in the 30 days leading up to Oct. 22 would receive a free upgrade to Windows 7.
Watch this space for more windows 7 news and reviews, brought to you by the newmacgeek team.

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