The PC Report

The second in our Best Music Player series is here and today we’ll be taking a look at Apple’s iTunes music player. iTunes is a music player you’ve all heard of – it’s one of the most used music players available thanks to Apple’s iPod and iPhone range and marketing for their products.

iTunes was announced back in 2001 and started out as a Mac OS 9-only application until it was available for OS X from version 2.0. The latest version, 9.2 (the one used for today’s article) was released along with the release of iOS 4.0 and the iPhone 4, adding support for both. You can download iTunes from Apple’s website now.

One of the most annoying things about iTunes that you notice before you install the application is the massive file size for the download. With a size of 93 MB it’s just ridiculous that there is also a separate installer for those of you running 64-bit Windows like us, the download link of which is hidden in the fine print down the left hand side.

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What do you get when you put a MacBook Air, a Mac keyboard and a Magic Trackpad together into the one package? Something like The MacBook Air Project above. Bart Reardon decided that he would try and fit his perfectly good MacBook Air under a Mac keyboard and Magic Trackpad just for the sake of a modding project, and the results are looking good.

As it happens, the MacBook Air’s motherboard is slim and small enough to fit right under the combination of Mac accessories and combined with the other components of the ultraportable and a hell of a lot of tape you get the perfect-sized keyboard PC. Thanks to the slimness of the Air, the new modded Apple keyboard computer is apparently still quite ergonomic and comfortable to use, despite this tilt and height.

While the mod still has a long way to go, such as replacing the tape with a more permanent solution and fixing the wireless connectivity interference, Bart sees that the device “will be used much beyond internet/email….maybe as an AppleTV replacement.” This is entirely possible thanks to the better-than-netbook specs that the Air boasts such as the 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor.

Good luck to Bart for the completion of his mod – it certainly looks set to beat official market products such as the Asus EeeKeyboard in terms of power and battery life. You can follow his project via his blog or his Twitter if you want to see the Air-keyboard-mod to completion.

So when we last had a look at Safari 5 we were disappointed to discover that some of the advertised features, extensions support and an extensions gallery, were not included with the original package. It turns out that the support for such extensions has been added in the most recent update to Safari, 5.0.1, so we take another look at the browser today but focus on the included extensions support.

After updating to 5.0.1, which we had to do via the web after we couldn’t find the in-built updater (is there even one?), it’s not immediately obvious where the extension gallery can be found. It’s located at the bottom of the drop down settings menu just above the “About Safari” button, so it’s not the easiest or most obvious thing about the browser. The button for the extension gallery actually just redirects you to extensions.apple.com, which is a bit of a downgrade compared to the fantastic built-in browser in the Firefox 4 beta

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So today we’re seeing monster update from Apple, including a new iMac with bumped specifications, a new Mac Pro with an option for up to 12 cores, a new Cinema Display and a fresh from the labs Magic Trackpad that debuts for the first time. This now means that the entire Apple line-up has been refreshed for 2010, except the Macbook Air which we eagerly await a much needed refresh.

We’ll start with the new iMac. Apple has updated the minimum specifications for the 21.5″ iMac to an Intel Core i3 processor at 3.06 GHz, 4GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive and ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics (a bit outdated really) all for US$1,199. If you fancy the screen real estate or power of the 27″ model you’ll be seeing quad-core Intel Core i5s, a 1TB hard drive and ATI Radeon HD 5750 graphics with 1GB of dedicated GDDR5 as the base model for US$1,999, scaling up to a 2.93 GHz Core i7 and the brand new option of an SSD.

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Apple yesterday released an update to their Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” operating system. 10.6.4 includes the new Safari 5 right out of the (virtual) box, fixes some unresponsive keyboard/trackpad issues, fixes a sleep issue with the 2010 MacBook, adds RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras plus a whole load more improvements, fixes and security patches. Previous updates to Snow Leopard are also included with the 10.6.4 update.

As usual, we highly recommend that you keep your system up to date and for Mac users this means installing the 10.6.4 update. You can download the update through the Software Update on your machine, or via a manual download from Apple’s website. Note that by downloading it through Software Update you will get a reduced file size. Full release notes are below.

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Yesterday Apple announced an update to the Mac Mini, one of the most underused products from Apple’s Mac line-up. The new Mini is much slimmer and smaller than previous models, coming in at just a 19.5cm (7.7″) square and just 3.5cm (1.4″) thick. The whole unit comes in a nice aluminium unibody enclosure to fit with all other Macs of late, and the slot loading DVD drive (not Blu-ray, disappointingly) and Apple logo take up much of the visible space.

Internally the Mac Mini is nothing special. It comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor clocking in at 2.4 GHz, 2 GB of DDR3 memory expandable to 8 GB, a 320 GB 5400 RPM hard drive and Nvidia GeForce 320M integrated graphics. 802.11n wireless is available along with Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR. Apple claims that the whole system volume has been shrunk by 20% to allow for the GPU, along with an SD card slot and HDMI port on the back. Four USB ports are present on the back panel along with FireWire 800 and a mini DisplayPort.

The whole system will set you back US$699, and you will also have the satisfaction of knowing that you just bought “the world’s most energy efficient desktop.” Gallery of the new Mac Mini is below.

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Somewhat overshadowed by the release of the iPhone 4 today at Apple’s WWDC, Apple has announced and released Safari 5 for both Mac and Windows. The new browser aims to be more compatible with the latest web standards as well as faster overall and more secure for the users. On the improved speed, Apple claims that the new “Nitro” Javascript engine in Safari is 30% faster than Safari 4 – we’ve put that to the test below.

Also on the list of new features is support for signed extensions in the browser. As of today we haven’t been able to find any extensions to test but rest assured that over the next couple of months you should start to see a trickle of them come in. Safari 5 also brings a new “Safari Reader” feature that turns the website’s content into a well formatted and easy to read layout when the Reader button is pressed. More on these new features below.

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Apple, just a month after the refresh of their Macbook Pro line-up, have released a new 2010 model of their cheaper Macbooks encased in polycarbonate unibody white. The new Macbook comes close to the 13″ Macbook Pro in terms of specifications, with the CPU being bumped to a new Core 2 Duo @ 2.4 GHz, 2GB of DDR3 memory, a 250GB hard drive, DVD SuperDrive and new Nvidia GeForce 320M graphics also seen on the 13″ Pro. The battery in the new Macbook is said to last around 10 hours, with the design of the laptop staying the same as the late 2009 model.

The new model Apple Macbook is now available for your consuming from the Apple Store. Prices in the United States stay at US$999, which puts the 13″ Macbook at a better purchase than the US$1,199 13″ Macbook Pro if you go just by solid specifications. This revelation brings us to think: will Apple be refreshing their Macbook Air, the only Mac laptop not to have received a 2010 refresh, any time soon?

Mac users rejoice today as Valve finally releases their much awaited Mac client for the Steam gaming network and digital distributor. The new client works on all Intel-based Macs (sorry PPC users) and comes with a surprising number of games on launch day. Portal is available along with Civilization IV - both highly recommended games by the staff here – Torchlight, Braid and a variety of other games from smaller publishers are also available with the total number of games coming to 63 as of right now.

Valve has plans to port their entire collection of games based on the Source engine to the Mac, which should include PC favourites such as Left 4 Dead and the Half Life 2 series. To get you started with the launch today, both Mac and PC users will get to download and enjoy Portal for free up until May 24 – we advise you take up Valve on this fantastic offer. As the Mac Steam network continues to grow, more games should be added to the collection so keep an eye out for your favourites.

After Apple had shockingly implemented GPU switching into their most recent refresh of the Macbook Pro line-up, trust a user to come up with an easy fix that allows you to control the switching. Cody Krieger’s gfxCardStatus application has evolved quite rapidly from a utility that just showed which GPU was in use to a full blow utility that allows you to switch between the Intel HD Graphics on-board to the more powerful and more battery consuming Nvidia GeForce GT 330M at your will.

Everyone with a 2010 model Macbook Pro with the GT 330M should check out this handy utility, available now from Cody Krieger’s website. Some users say the application is a bit buggy, but we’ll leave it to you to decide whether to try it out or not.