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iCloud Forgets to Keep it Simple
One of Appleâs mainstay principles - perhaps its key principle - has been to maintain a focus on simplicity and âease of use.â This means that products, especially consumer-oriented ones, should...
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Music CDs Near Dead; iPods Fade
A rumor says that music CDs may soon gasp their last breath. In related news, the current sales decline of traditional (non-touch) iPods is likely to continue. Ted Landau sorts out what it all means.
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Top 5 Apple Stories of 2011
Itâs that time. Time for Ted Landauâs second annual Top 5 Apple Stories of Year. There should be no suspense as to what story is number one. Regardless, weâll count âem down.
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Don’t Pre-judge the Kindle Touch
Ted Landau received his Kindle Touch last week. Just in time. He was on the verge of canceling his order due to all the press negatively comparing the Touch to the Kindle 4. In the end, he was glad...
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Why You Still Shouldn’t Care About AppleCare
With the 2011 holiday season upon us, many many many people will be getting Apple products as gifts over the next few weeks. They will all have an opportunity to purchase AppleCare for their new...
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Why Apple Strays from “Keep it Simple”
Apple is taking some unwelcome detours from the path to simplicity. For instance, how many different locations does it take to accommodate all settings related to iOSâs Notes app? The answer is at...
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Why a 7 Inch iPad Makes Sense
When asked about the wisdom of a 7-in. iPad, Steve Jobs dismissed it as âdead on arrival.â Times have changed. Ted Landau explains why a 7-in. iPad not only makes sense now but offers a great...
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Year One A.J. (After Steve Jobs)
To the vast majority of the world, we are living in the year 2012. To those of us who spend much of our time within the Apple universe, it may be more appropriately labeled as year 1 A.J. (after Jobs)....
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Apple Shines with iBooks Author
Apple is hoping to change the education with its interactive textbooks and iBooks Author app for the Mac. Despite an assortment of criticisms coming from the media, Ted Landauâs bottom line assessment...
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Macworld | iWorld Reinvents Itself
Last week, the curtain came up and revealed a reinvented Macworld. Even the name was new: Macworld | iWorld. From the exhibit hall to the technical sessions to the midway to the evening events, Ted...
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Fix & Avoid CUI Crashes with Lion OS X 10.7.3 Update
Almost immediately after Apple released the Mac OS X 10.7.3 Update last week, some users began reporting a serious and anxiety-provoking consequence of the install: Every application on a Lion drive...
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Ten Apps to Show Off the iPhone
What if you really wanted to impress somebody with how amazing an iPhone can be? If you were limited to showing off only ten third-party apps, which ten would you choose? These apps neednât be the most...
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Mountain Lion Does iOS-ification Right
If there was any doubt about the direction Apple intends to go with OS X, it has been erased. If OS X Lion (10.7) felt like a cloudy harbinger of what might be coming down the road, OS X Mountain Lion...
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Of OS Wars & App Wars
A long time ago, in a tech galaxy far far away, the personal computer operating system war came to a close. The current mobile OS war is nearing a similar endpoint. Marketshare battles among...
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The New iPad: Not That Much but More Than Enough
The new iPad is here. Exactly how new is it? New enough that you should run out and buy one today? That depends. If you already own an iPad 2, thereâs no need to hurry. Otherwise, itâs time to check...
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iPad Squashes Laptops on Way to World Domination
Can an iPad replace a MacBook? For some people, maybe, but not for everyone, at least not yet. Ted Landau argues that while we continue to witness tabletsâ gradual but steady eclipsing of laptops,...
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Are Apple Media Biased? Of Course
Are Apple news media biased? Do they slant Apple news more positively and more often than other media sources? Does the tone of their articles typically suggest rooting for Appleâs success? Are their...
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The New iPad’s (Too?) Yellow Display
While much of the press has focused on whether the new iPad is âtoo hot to handle,â Ted Landau has been tracking another temperature matter: whether the colors of the new iPadâs display are too warm....
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AT&T’s Outrageous iPhone & iPad Rates
How many ways does AT&T overcharge its wireless customers? Every possible way. From text messaging to hot spots, AT&Tâs rate plans are so inflated as to enter into the realm of the absurd....
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Stop the Apple Game Center Cheaters!
Cheaters, who hack Appleâs Game Center to enter phony high scores, are threatening to ruin the leaderboards. Whatâs Apple doing about it? Apparently nothing, and Ted Landau wants that to change.
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What Really Happened with WWDC Ticket Sales
Tickets for this yearâs Worldwide Developers Conference sold out in less than two hours, before most people on the U.S. West Coast were even awake. What was Apple thinking? Most likely, Apple...
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Should Your iPhone Be Your Only Camera?
Are point-and-shoot cameras, especially ones at the low end of the price range, reaching the end of their useful life? Is it time to declare that, for the majority of iPhone 4S owners, the phoneâs...
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Top Apps for Word Processing on the iPad
Youâve decided to use your iPad for word processing. Not just for brief notes or email, but for tasks that require extended typing. The question is: Which app(s) should you use? In search of the...
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Apple’s Six Best Decisions of the 21st Century
Looking back at Appleâs unprecedented financial success over the course of this century, Ted Landau asks: What were the key decisions that Apple made over the past 12 years that contributed most to its...
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Email Attachments, Sandboxing & the End of Tweaks
âHow do I attach a document to a reply message in the iPadâs Mail app?â The brief answer is: You canât. The more detailed answer led Ted Landau down a rabbit hole to various work-arounds, a...
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WWDC: What Apple Didn’t (Exactly) Say
From the MacBook Pro with Retina display to iOS 6 to the new AirPort Express, Apple announced more than enough new stuff at yesterdayâs WWDC to keep us busy. Even so, Apple revealed more than what was...
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The Splintering of OS X
Why is Apple taking so long to come out with signfiicant upgrades to the Mac Pro and iMac? Perhaps the answer lies not so much in whatâs coming in new hardware, but whatâs coming in new software. Ted...
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Splashtop Gets Better…at a Cost
Splashtop Remote Desktop 2 is out. This is a superb app for accessing your Mac from an iPad. The upgrade offers a ânew and improvedâ way to connect to your Mac over WAN and 3G connections. It works...
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SnapScan 1300i: Great Scanner; Hardly an Upgrade
Fujitsuâs latest mid-size scanner is the S1300i. Happily, it maintains Fujitsuâs fine tradition of quality scanners. As an upgrade, however, it is barely worth a mention.
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Apple’s Sandboxing…One Month In
Itâs now been over a month since Apple began enforcing its sandboxing policies for the Mac App Store. With the dust beginning to settle, what can we conclude? Ted Landau offers a perspective.
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RichText Edit for the iPad - At Last!
At last! The wait is over. There has never been an iOS app that can create or edit .rtf (rich text format) documents. Until now. Itâs called, appropriately enough, RichText Edit. Not only does it...
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Deciphering OS X Mountain Lion’s Save Document Features
A paradox: Some of the most attention-grabbing new features in Mountain Lion are ones that you may use only rarely. On the other hand, many of the âsmallerâ changes in the just-released 10.8 version of...
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Digging Deep into iWork Document Sharing in Mountain Lion
If you use Appleâs iWork apps, and you sync documents across Macs and iOS devices, you want to get OS X Mountain Lion. The way iWork handles file sharing and syncing in the new version of OS X is so...
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Apple’s Safari 6 RSS Blunder
Appleâyouâve got some âsplainin to do! What were you thinking when you made the wrong-headed decision to remove RSS support from Safari 6 and OS X Mountain Lion? You took a useful feature, one that...
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The 12 Best Ways to Save Webpages
Youâre browsing the Web with Safari on your Mac. You come across a page that you want to save for future reference. How do you do this? The answer is: it depends. Ted Landau came up with a dozen...
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6 Top Reasons to Visit your Library (Folder)
In your Home directory, you have a folder called Library. Itâs a useful folder, chock full of files that can get you out of jam or customize your Mac in ways that would otherwise not be possible. To...
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Cheers for the Apple vs. Samsung Verdict
In the Apple vs. Samsung patent lawsuit, Apple won. Big time. Humongous. To which Ted Landau says: âFantastic.â Hereâs whyâ
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Apple’s iPod touch Dilemma
Pity the poor iPods. They are the equivalent of yesterday's news. At one time, they were the hottest items in the Apple Store. Now, not so much. With the expected arrival of an "iPad mini," one iPod...
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The iPhone 5 and the 3 i’s: innovative, integrative and imitative
Ted Landau's take on the iPhone 5. Suffering a bit from "Apple media event fatigue," he still manages to consider what's innovative, what's incrementally improved and what may be imitative of the...
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Complete Guide to What’s New in iOS 6 Settings
Ted Landau digs deep into all that is new and different in the Settings app for iOS 6.
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Success and Criticism of iPhones and Movies
This article is ultimately about the iPhone 5, the people who initially found it "disappointing" or "boring," and the people who lashed out at those iPhone critics. In the end, Ted Landau also offers...
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The Trouble with iOS 6’s Passbook App
Passbook is a promising new app in iOS 6. Still, Apple could have done a much better job of guiding users through the often cryptic process of how it works. Ted Landau explains...
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Mac App Store’s Sandbox Loophole
There's a loophole that allows apps sold in the Mac App Store to bypass Apple's sandboxing restrictions. And so far, Apple has not done much to prevent it. Ted Landau explains...
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Multitasking & the iPad
Why doesn't the current crop of iOS devices, especially the iPad, support true multitasking? Ted Landau peers into Apple's past, present, and future - in search of the answers.
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Deciding about the iPad mini
As we count down the hours to the all-but-certain announcement of a smaller iPad on Tuesday, Ted Landau highlights the key questions that should be answered by the media event.
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Apple’s New iPads Set to Crush the Competition
Ted Landau has seen the futureâand it is filled with iPads. In two sizes. Original and mini. With today's iPad announcements, Apple has laid down the gauntlet in the tablet wars. In Ted's view,...
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Moshi’s Cases & Covers Are…Super!
When Ted Landau agreed to meet with Moshi to see their line-up of iOS and Mac cases and covers, he was less than enthusiastic. He left the meeting surprised and impressed - and now happily uses three...
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Apple’s Half-empty Half-full Future
What's happening with Apple these days? Has Apple peaked? Is it running on fumes, no longer cool or innovative, starting its downward spiral into oblivion? Or is Apple well-positioned to surge ahead...
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The Last “User Friendly View” Column
Ted Landau writes his farewell column for User Friendly View, including a look back at the many different topics he has covered over the years.
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For a Big Company, Apple Lets Too Much Fall Through the Cracks
Apple is indeed an awesome and wealthy company, on track to become the first one valued at a trillion dollars. But the heritage of Apple is also concentrated power in a small executive team, and that...
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