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This year’s Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) kicked off with a keynote by Steve Jobs.  With his team of execs, he revealed three major products- all software-based.  Thousands of new features, services and APIs were announced setting the stage for future products and services across Apple’s compete line of products.

1. Mac OS X Lion- Apple’s next desktop operating system- aka 10.7.

As previously demoed, multi-touch gestures and many details from iOS have been brought over to the desktop.  Security and OS refinement are central as well as the initial integration of iCloud for document, photo and data access.  Release date is “July.”

2. iOS 5.0- The next mobile operating system for iPhones, iPads, iPods & AppleTV. 

The early beta build shows that Apple has continued chipping away at the most-requested features list.  The most visible and obvious change is the introduction of a better notification system.  The OS is now a very capable desktop replacement on the iPad and even more feature-rich on the phone.  Other changes are much more subtle refinements.  Release date is “fall.”

3. iCloud- The long-awaited Apple cloud services offering.

iCloud replaces the earlier MobileMe service with free Contact, Cal, Docs, Photos, and Music sync for free.  The service becomes a wireless digital hub, replacing the requirement for USB to PC functionality with a broadband network connection.

In addition, three of the Apple online stores (Music, Books & Apps) get re-download capability. Furthermore, an option has been introduced to automatically download purchased content on all associated devices “from the Cloud.”  This feature is immediately available in beta release form.  There was no mention of TV or movies.

Most interesting was the announcement of iTunes Match.  This service matches all songs in a user’s iTunes library, including those ripped directly from CD and obtained from file sharing sites, and offers them in the Cloud with high-resolution audio.  At $24.99/year, this is the only paid component of iCloud (other than upgraded storage). Release date is “fall.”

iCloud does not include traditional music streaming or even “iTunes in the browser.”  Instead, it’s positioned more like iTunes-as-a-service.  The vision Apple articulated was that the Cloud exists to make native apps better, not to replace them as Google and Microsoft are pursuing by running software in the web browser.  To drive this point home, Apple’s did not even show web interfaces to the iCloud services (although I do expect to see them at some point).

If iCloud’s services do deliver as advertised, expect this robust service layer will likely grow into an expectation of functionality across both the mobile environment and the entire computing space. 

A few closing stats:

- Apple has sold 200 million iOS devices

- Apple claims 44 percent of the mobile operating system market. Android is #2 with 28%, RIM is #3 with 19% and Others at 9%

- 15 billion songs have been sold through the iTunes Music Store.

- 14 billion apps have been sold on the App Store

- 130 million eBooks have been purchased from the iBooks Store

The secret shortcut to open or close all iTunes playlist folders in a given window is to Command-Click on one playlist folder’s disclosure triangle icon.  This will cause ALL folders to perform the action that a normal click would. 

So if the folder you’ve clicked is open, a command-click will close all folders.  If the folder is closed, a command-click will close all folders. 

This is great when you want to clean up your sidebar view or when you’re picking songs to sync from within the iPhone settings screens (where all the folder lists are expanded by default).

This trick also works in the Mac Finder, but the normal Apple convention is to use an option-click.

Turning off the Safari option to open “safe” files automatically is generally considered a good security practice.  To do this on a single machine, simply visit the Safari preferences and uncheck the box “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading” at the bottom of the “General” options.

It turns out that deploying this change to a large number of managed Macs is quite simple as well.  The following terminal command can be used to “uncheck” the box en masse using Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) and the “Send Unix Command.”


defaults write com.apple.Safari AutoOpenSafeDownloads -boolean No

Construction workers hanging glass at One World Trade Center.  They’ve sure got a lot of panels to go!

It’s finally here!  I’m getting ready to head off to the Brompton US Championship bike race.  The race takes place at Fairmount Park in Philadelphia as part of the Philly Phlyer cycling day.  The grand prize is a trip to the Brompton World Championship in England.

The event requires that all participants ride a Brompton folding bicycle and british racing attire- a blazer, collared shirt and tie. Sports gear is strictly not permitted!

In preparation for the race, I’ve logged more than 1,000 miles on my Brompton M6L.  For a little speed boost, I’ve installed a new crank that gives me 8% higher gearing on my tiny wonder. 

I’ve mapped the route on Google Earth and inspected the course.  It doesn’t look all that different from a loop around New York City’s Central Park.

Download Google Earth KML File

With a little last minute advice from my friend Steven Huang, I’m taking Megabus and stowing my bike in the cargo bin under the bus.  It turns out that the Brompton and its nylon cover fits perfectly in $4 Dimpa bag by Ikea.  I removed the hinge clamps, added some extra padding in key areas and I’m good to go. Thanks, Steve!

Wish me luck!  More images coming soon from the actual event!

The Big Picture does it again-

Massive earthquake hits Japan

Japan: earthquake aftermath

Will others pick up on this amazing way of telling stories through massive pictures? Boston.com has been doing it since 2008.

The future is now-  According to the latest numbers released by IDC, smartphones have finally outsold PCs for the first time ever.

Q4 2010 worldwide units shipped:

Smartphones- 100.9 million
PCs- 92.1 million units

Of course these numbers are for a single quarter, but still.. the writing is on the wall.

37 Signals has posted a nifty tip for accessing your Basecamp account directly from the Mac menubar. 

Here’s a neat trick: You can use the new Basecamp Mobile UI as a Fluid menu bar app on your computer. That way you can get a quick view of your Basecamp projects straight from your menu bar.

The trick uses Fluid to create a new menu item.  Very cool!

I find myself using Dropbox to transfer large files around quite frequently.  For people I frequently share with, I have a shared folder.  But, when I’m sending one-offs, like podcast demos, it’s helpful to use a simple, public URL.

The only problem is that most people will click the URL and it will load within their web browser as an inline file with no obvious way to save or load into a more appropriate media player.  Fortunately, there is a simple trick to make these files download rather than display.

The tip for making dropbox public links download rather than display is to simply add ?dl=1 to the end of your link.  When this link is loaded by a web browser, it will download instead of displaying inline.

For example, a url like:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/555555/myaudiofile.mp3


Becomes:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/555555/myaudiofile.mp3?dl=1


When the iTunes Music Store initially launched in 2003, all music sold contained Apple’s “FairPlay” Digital Rights Management (DRM) copy protection as a way of preventing piracy. 

The iTunes Music Store no longer uses DRM.  The change was announced in the 2009 Macworld Expo keynote and was implemented by the end of January 2009.

Music files from iTunes Music Store containing DRM use the .m4p suffix while the DRM-free versions use .m4a.

The image below shows the visual indicators of music files containing DRM.

Today, all music purchased from the iTunes Music Store is DRM-free and presented in 256kbs AAC format (Advanced Audio Coding) with a .m4a suffix. 

dfbills notes: Strangely enough, some of the free songs given away for various promotions do still contain DRM.  These .mp4 files can be found in various samplers and even free “songs of the week.”