Ap p l e Magic

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� The best o
Anniversary Special e-book
 APPLE MAGIC

Foreword
Dear Reader,

Contents Apple Computer is renowned for its iconic products. Strong

on design and reliability, Apple hardware and software
iPod Touchup. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
reflect simplicity, elegance, style and functionality. In
The Sophisticated Wildcat. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 fact products like the iPod are a style statement.
The Price of Beauty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The CHIP Test Center reviews Apple hardware products within
Parallels Desktop. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
weeks of its release in India. Many of these products usually
How iPod and iTunes Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
get high ratings. CHIP occasionally reviews Apple operating
iPhone Mania: The Real Facts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 systems and applications. CHIP also tracks the evolution of
Beautiful in Aluminum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 technology on the Apple platform, and we sometimes reflect
on the best features of pervious generation products.
Three to Tango . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

CHIP receives requests from its readers for reprints of

articles that feature Apple products. In fact one reader
suggested that we make a compilation of all our Apple
articles. And that’s what this e-book is all about.

Read the articles in this e-book to uncover the magic within

Apple products. Find out what makes them so special.

– Team CHIP

Intelligent computing CHip |3

APPLE MAGIC
iPod Touchup
The iPod touch straddles the gap between regular iPods and the very desirable
iPhone. Is it just a gimmick, or the best of both worlds? By Jamshed Avari
N
o one can contest the fact that
the iPod has defined what a
portable music player should
be ever since its launch in 2001. Now,
Apple has released a product that
completely reinvents the iPod, stripping
away the iconic click wheel for a huge
touch screen. It’s the video and Internet
equivalent of what the iPod was to music,
not so very long ago.
First off, the iPod touch is much more
closely related to the Apple iPhone than
to any iPod that has come before it. From
its physical appearance to the interface
it uses and the experience you get, it’s
clear that this device was meant to be
an iPhone minus the phone—something
that will definitely suit a number of users,
especially those around the world where
the iPhone isn’t officially available.
The device does have a number of
key points that set it apart from the
iPhone though. Physically, it’s
appreciably slimmer, comes
with the iPod line’s traditional
silver back panel (with one
black corner to house its
Wi-Fi antenna) instead of
the iPhone’s matte textured
one, and lacks the chrome
ring around its front face
4 | intelligent computing CHip
and the camera on the back. There are
no speakers on the device itself, and no
volume buttons on the side.
Software-wise, the iPod touch lacks a
few of the iPhone’s features. The Safari
browser is present, but not the e-mail
client. You can add and edit address
book entries on the iPod touch, but
not calendar appointments. The Notes
application is completely missing, for no
apparent reason, as are the Maps and
Weather widgets that would have worked
fine. And without a cellphone SIM card,
Wi-Fi is your only option for Internet
access.
It almost seems unfair to compare
the iPod touch to its more familiar iPod
siblings. It’s engineered from scratch to
be an entirely different animal. With only
8 or 16 GB of storage space, it’s clearly
not meant to be the next top-end model
of the iPod line; yet it offers more power
and flexibility than any
iPod has so far. It’s
positioned alongside
the iPod classic, which
comes in 80 and 160
GB flavors. For longtime
users, certain things
will take a bit of getting
used to, and for now
Jagdish Limbachiya
it’s nice to have a choice between this
new product and the traditional iPod, now
known as the “classic”.
The package
The iPod touch comes in a rather
understated grey cardboard box, which
opens to reveal the player nestled right on
top, and the rest of the package contents
underneath it. Along with the player you
get a basic beginner’s guide, a USB cable,
a lint-free cloth to wipe off fingerprint
smudges, and a rather pointless plastic
wedge that’s supposed to act as a stand.
There’s no CD with iTunes on it; you’ll
have to wait for the 50+ MB download
from Apple’s website (or install it from the
CHIP DVD).
The instantly recognizable white
earphones that also come with it are, as
expected, a lot better than the ones that
usually come packaged with MP3 players.
Unfortunately, they don’t come with foam
pads like earlier models used to.
Once you’ve peeled the plastic off your
new toy, you’ll find that it only flashes
an iTunes icon on the screen. Until you
plug it in and initialize it, you can’t do a
thing. Luckily though, it takes only a few
seconds, assuming iTunes is already
installed and ready. You’ll be prompted to
register your iPod, which you can skip if
you like. After that, it’s only a matter of
running through a few settings (such as
deciding whether you want to sync the
iPod automatically or not) before you can
start dragging and dropping your music,
photos and videos onto it.
A few things are notably different to
all previous iPod models. There’s no Disk
Mode, which means you can’t use the
player to transport your files or browse
through it using Windows Explorer. This
also means that the option to copy full-
resolution photos to the iPod is missing,
since you wouldn’t be able to access the
files anyway. For the first time, users can
terminate a sync from the iPod end, by
sliding a switch on the touchscreen.
The Right Touch
Once you’ve chosen the music, photos,
movies, calendar appointments and
contacts you want to copy over, you’re
ready to start enjoying them on the go!
Using the iPod touch is almost addictive
at first. The screen that dominates the
gadget’s entire front face is sharper and
brighter than anything we’ve seen so
far on a portable device, and the whole
interface just comes alive because of it.
It’s had to stop stroking, pinching and
flicking your fingers over the screen;
watching icons, menus and entire
windows dance around at your command.
The approach takes a bit of getting used
to, but it’s really intuitive after a few
minutes, making almost every other
system of using a hand-held device seem
primitive in comparison.
Let’s take the Music menu for
Video plays in landscape mode, making full use of the device’s screen. A
single tap brings up or dismisses the video contols.
APPLE MAGIC
example. Depending on where you last
left off, tapping this icon on the home
screen brings up a list of your music
(sorted by playlist, artist, album or track
name) or the Now Playing screen. You
can navigate through long lists of music
simply by flicking your finger up and
down. One of the most entertaining
and useful touches is that all lists scroll
with a stretched-rubber-band effect;
slowing down after a few seconds
depending on how hard you flicked
your finger, and bouncing back from
the edge of the screen after hitting the
end. You can also slide a finger down
the alphabet list on the right to quckly
jump to the corresponding entries. One
major departure from regular iPods is that
On-the-go playlists are now created by
first creating a playlist and then browsing
through your tracks to add them, and you
can edit them at any point while on the The Now Playing screen shows shuffle, repeat
device itself. and track list controls, unlike regular iPods.
Cover Flow is the piece de resistance.
At any point while playing music, you playback controls underneath and text
can just tip the entire unit onto its side information above. Along with the play/
to trigger the Cover Flow view, which pause, forward and next buttons, a
simulates the look and feel of a CD volume slider is visible on screen in
rack. Finger flicks to the left or right this mode. Physical volume buttons
scroll through your album cover images. on the device would also have been
Tapping the CD cover in focus flips it welcome, for easy reach. You also have
over to reveal a numbered track listing, quick access to shuffle, repeat and song
and tapping on an entry will start playing position controls, thanks to the touch
that song. You’ll really need to have your interface.
music properly tagged with the correct Similarly, the Photos application allows
artist, album, track name and CD artwork you to scroll through a massive grid of
information to make full use of Cover thumbnails of your images, either from
Flow, but it’s worth every bit of the effort. your entire library or from individual
The Now Playing screen also places galleries. Clicking on any photo blows it
CD artwork front and center, with up fullscreen, from where you can pinch
The gorgeous Cover Flow view works best if your music is properly tagged
with its artist, album, track number and CD artwork information.
Intelligent computing CHip |5
APPLE MAGIC
with two fingers to zoom in and out, flick
left and right to browse through images or
tap the Play button to start a slideshow.
Rotating the iPod rotates the photos as
well, filling up the screen in slideshow
mode. Unfortunately, the photos are all
downsized from the originals on your
computer, so there’s a limit to how far
you can zoom in without losing detail.
Videos are sorted into Movies and
TV shows, which Apple assumes you’ll
buy from the iTunes store, which is
unfortunately not available to customers
in India. If you encode your own videos
using any of the free utilities available
online, they’ll all end up under the Movies
menu. You can browse through a list of
videos with thumbnails, and tapping one
will start it playing in landscape mode.
The last of the four main applications
is the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, which
isn’t applicable to users in India. You can
browse through the current favorites and
featured selections, and even play clips
of songs, but you can’t buy and download
music yet. Hopefully, an Indian version of
the iTunes Music Store will launch soon.
Internet features
One of the coolest, most unexpected
The iPhone/iPod touch keyboard takes a while to
get used to, but feels natural enough when you do.
6 | intelligent computing CHip
abilities of the iPod touch is Internet
access over Wi-Fi. This is a huge feature,
one that most people will underestimate
unless they have a Wi-Fi network at home
and start playing with the device. Just the
sheer convenience of having the entire
Internet at your fingertips without being
tethered to a The iPhone already has a
huge established base of web-based
applications and utilities, all of which are
immediately usable by iPod touch owners.
The included Safari browser coupled with
the touch-based input system and the
brilliant screen provides one of the best
small-screen web experiences we’ve
ever had. Websites are rendered in full
HTML, with support for stylesheets and
Javascript. There’s no Flash, which means
a couple of sites won’t work or will have
blank areas, but it’s still extremely usable.
Text input is handled by a virtual
on-screen keyboard. It seems a little
daunting at first, and the sensation of
typing without any pressing any physical
buttons results in low typing sped and
accuracy. But you get used to it within
minutes, and the almost eerily accurate
spellchecker ensures you’ll rarely have to
backspace to make corrections. The most
annoying part is that all the numbers,
punctuation marks and special characters
are placed on a separate keyboard that
you can “shift” to with a button tap—this
really got to be a problem, especially
while typing e-mail addresses in forms.
Another problem is the complete
absence of any kind of copy or paste
functionality—a fairly basic feature in this
day and age!
You can scroll around web pages
by simply dragging them around on
screen with a finger, zoom in or out by
pinching with two fingers, and even tip
the iPod touch on its side to view them
in landscape format. It’s a neat way to
make the most of the screen: some
websites look better in portrait and some
in landscape. Hint: Even the keyboard
is wider and more evenly spaced in
landscape mode, but it leaves only a tiny
sliver of the screen visible on top.
Safari on the iPod touch supports
tabbed browsing. You can open up to
eight tabs to open different pages in,
Web applications for the
iPhone and iPod touch
• mobile.google.com
• iphone.facebook.com
• meebo.com
• bbc.co.uk/podcasts
• static.popcap.com/iphone
• rememberthemilk.com/
services/iphone
but you can’t select a link that you come
across and have it open in a background
tab. The lack of copy and paste functions
makes this a pain.
Hundreds of websites have
customized pages available for the iPhone
and iPod touch. Without the ability
to (officially) add more programs, the
browser is the only way to expand its
capabilities. Loads of popular websites
such as Gmail, Facebook and Meebo
can be used without a hitch. Meebo in
particular is really quite impressive on the
iPod touch, adding a seamless instant
YouTube’s list of featured videos lets you see
what’s popular.
messaging application to the device!
Even though the device lacks a
native PDF reader, Safari opened
PDF documents that arrived as e-mail
attachments perfectly. An infuriating
limitation is that there’s no way to save
attachments to the iPod and view them
offline later; yet another perfectly simple
feature that just isn’t available for some
reason. Similarly, Google Docs works
quite well through Safari. You can open
most Microsoft Word documents and
display them perfectly, but you can’t edit
or download the files.
Other functions
Since Safari doesn’t support Flash, the
iPod touch comes with a custom YouTube
application that serves up videos in its
own format. You can browse through a list
of featured videos, search for something
you like, and bookmark your favorites to
return to them later. Videos automatically
play in landscape mode.
The Contacts application allows
multiple entries per name, and you
can synchronize your phone numbers
and e-mail addresses from Outlook
or Address Book. The Calendar has
multiple views, but you can only see your
APPLE MAGIC
appointments, not add new ones (though
this is expected to be rectified with an
upgrade to firmware version 1.1.2). The
Clock app tells the time in multiple cities,
lets you set multiple alarms, and even has
a neat stopwatch and countdown timer.
Finally, there’s a simple calculator for
basic mathematical operations.
One quirk that takes getting used to
is that you never really close any of the
applications when you’re done with them.
You have to click the Home button to
exit anything, but the next time you open
it, it will pick up exactly where you left
off. Even clearing your Safari history and
cache doesn’t stop it from opening with
the last page you were viewing!
Also, the lack of physical buttons
means that everytime you want to
change the music you’re listening to, you
have to stop whatever you’re doing, go
to the Home screen, and load the Music
The “tabbed” browser interface lets you keep
app again. Luckily, double-clicking the upto eight websites open.
Home button at any point brings up a little
dialog with play/pause, forward, next, and new medium, and third-party programs
volume controls. In fact this works even that run directly on the device will start
if the screen is locked, which is a good becoming available around February 2008.
thing since holding it in your hand while Just the convenience of having a web
running tends to trigger Cover Flow every tablet handy anywhere and anytime will be
few seconds if you leave it unlocked. a huge draw for techies. With no official
The only thing left to talk about is Indian iPhone availability in sight, the iPod
battery life. If you’re only listening to touch will be a worthy alternative for many
music for a few hours each day, the people. It’s insanely expensive though; the
iPod touch should last a week between 8 and 16 GB models cost even more than
charges. Watching videos will bring that the 80 and 160 GB iPod classic models
down considerably, but nothing chews respectively! Go for it if you don’t mind the
the battery as much as using the Wi-Fi! price, the relative lack of space, and the
Just two or three hours of surfing were numerous software quirks. 
enough to completely drain a full battery – jamshed.avari@chip.in
in our tests.
Conclusion
The iPod touch is a marvel of
technology. It feels great to
hold and look at, and nothing
quite describes the feeling
of manipulating the highly
polished and intuitive
interface with your fingers.
It’s a neat music and video
player, but it’s much
more than that.
Web applications
are a powerful
Intelligent computing CHip |7
APPLE MAGIC
Pramod Jadhav
The Sophisticated Wildcat
The latest version of Apple’s operating system adds a few glossy effects and a
lot of new features to an already stylish user experience. We take a look at what
this means for Mac users. By JAMSHED AVARI
D
elayed by a few months, Apple’s
latest operating system puts a fresh
coat of paint on its line of Macintosh
personal computers. Codenamed Leopard,
Mac OS X v10.5 promises more than 300
new features, an impressive claim. While
there’s been a huge amount of tinkering
under the hood, users also have a fair
number of new things to look forward to.
Appearance
You’ll notice a number of visual updates
to the desktop. The default wallpaper is
a dramatic deep-space starfield design,
unlike the sweeping blue gradients that
have come with every previous version of
OS X since its release in 2001. Even the
menu bar permanently attached to the
top of the screen has been overhauled.
The Apple and Finder icons now take on
a black, engraved look, while the bar itself
is semi-transparent, taking on the hue of
whatever wallpaper you have below it.
8 | intelligent computing CHip
Whether you like it or not, there’s no easy
way to go back to the old look.
Also changed is the Dock, which has
received its first complete makeover. The
new dock is a glassy, semi-transparent, 3D
platform on which each icon rests. Active
programs now have a glowing blue orb
under their icons, rather than black arrows.
There isn’t really any functional or aesthetic
benefit to this new design; it’s just one of
those changes that has been made for the
sake of changing things. At least in this
case, you can switch to a more demure
black box with a simple terminal command
(the option isn’t available through the
normal Preferences panel).
Functionally, there are quite a few
additions to the desktop. The Dock is now
host to Stacks; folders that open up to
reveal their contents right on the desktop.
Folders with fewer files in them open
as curved fans, while those with more
icons open as grids on a semi-transparent
background. There’s one special stack for
the Downloads folder, so files saved from
the web while surfing in Safari end up here
instead of cluttering up your desktop. The
concept is neat, but it means an extra step
if you want to just open the folder to see
what’s inside.
Unfortunately, each Stack takes on the
icon of the most recent file added to it.
You’re supposed to be able to see all the
files’ icons layered behind each other, but
you can really only see the one in front. Not
only does this mean that the Stack’s icon
keeps changing, but also that it’s easy to
confuse a Stack with the actual file that it’s
using as its icon.
The last major change to the desktop is
Spaces. A simple multi-desktop manager,
Spaces allows you to configure up to 16
virtual desktops. You can work with one
set of programs in one space, and keep
another set in another space. It’s more
efficient than constantly maximizing and
minimizing windows, and it’s a great
way to reduce clutter (or quickly hide
what you’re really doing). You can set
up keyboard shortcuts and force certain
programs to always open in a particular
space. Unfortunately, you can’t have
different wallpapers for each one, so you
might wonder where your programs are
when you need them.
The Finder
The Finder has also been overhauled. Its
new look is largely modeled on iTunes, in
a move designed not only to make things
easier to find, but also to make Mac OS
more familiar to Windows users. The left
panel is now categorized, with collapsible
sections. But more interestingly, it’s also
inherited the Cover Flow view, which
lets you flick through a row of large
icons representing each file. Each icon
is of course a live preview of the file’s
contents, whether it be a photo, video, text
document, PDF, or even an application’s
executable. It’s a neat way to find your
documents, though flicking through huge
folders tends to choke the system a bit.
Whether in Cover Flow or any of the
other views, hitting the space bar while
a file is selected brings up a new Quick
Look window. Now, you don’t need to
wait for each file’s associated application
to open a file. You can even play videos,
scroll through multi-page PDFs and view
files fullscreen. Most common filetypes are
supported, and third party plugins should
take care of the rest.
The new Finder lets you flip through files in any folder using Cover Flow view.
The new glossy Dock (above) and the alternative (below) if you prefer. A simple Terminal command allows
you to switch between them.
Time Machine
With home and office computers
becoming home to all our precious
documents, photos, music and video,
a simple user error or computer crash
could mean complete disaster. Apple’s
own surveys showed that less than 26
percent of its users had ever backed up
some data, and that less than four percent
had a regular backup routine in place. The
need for a simple, always-on solution has
now been met with Time Machine. In an
effort to make it as simple as possible,
Time Machine isn’t a very configurable
piece of software. Yet, it might just mean
the difference between losing all your
memories and having them automatically
backed up somewhere safe.
Time Machine works if your Mac has
a second internal hard drive or an external
USB/FireWire drive plugged in. It doesn’t
work over a network yet, though this
might be an option with a future update. It
creates compressed backups of every file
on your computer, or of only the ones you
specify. Say you accidentally deleted a file
from a folder. With that folder open, simply
click the Time Machine icon in the dock
(though why there isn’t one on the folder
toolbar is anyone’s guess) and watch the
Time Machine is a simplified backup utility with great visual effects.
APPLE MAGIC
magic happen. In typical Apple style, the
entire desktop just melts off your screen,
leaving the Finder window for that folder in
the middle, with an infinite line of windows
behind it stretching into a supernova-esque
pattern. Stars whizz by the screen as you
look at your window on a different plane:
instead of other windows to the left and
right, you’re looking at different versions
of the same window over time, in front
of and behind it. Use the giant arrows
to step through backed up states of the
folder, or drag the mouse over the timeline
bar on the right of the screen. When you
see a version of that folder with the file
you want, simply highlight it and click the
Restore button. When you’re done, exit
Time Machine to restore your desktop,
with that file pulled back into your folder’s
current state.
Here’s the best part – Time Machine
works with any kind of folder view,
including Spotlight search results! You
can simply search for the file you want to
restore and activate it to search for that file
through space as well as time. And yes,
you can also preview the contents of any
version of any file with Quick Look. Behind
the scenes, your backups are compressed
and indexed for easy retrieval. Time
Intelligent computing CHip |9
APPLE MAGIC
Machine manages space by preserving one
backup per hour for the last 24 hours, one
per day for the last week, and then one per
week after that.
Other Programs
The bundled programs that have received
the most major facelifts are Mail, and iCal.
The two programs are also more highly
integrated; a move that puts addresses,
appointments and reminders at your
fingertips. Mail now includes Stationary, a
wide collection of email-friendly templates
that you can use to create high-quality
invitations, newsletters and photo collages.
These can be seen in any email client that
supports HTML formatted emal. Also, new
Data Detectors allow you to quickly snip
bits of information such as names, email
addresses, phone numbers and times so
you can quickly add new contacts or create
new calendar appointments.
iChat also comes with a large set of
improvements. Multiple conversations
can be shown in a single window
with a sidebar that alerts you when
new messages arrive. You can now
superimpose yourself in front of any photo
or video, to simulate green-screen effects
such as flying over mountains, placing
yourself inside movies, or even presenting
a weather report! You can now video chat
with friends and colleagues while sharing
documents, which means that both can
work on them together. This is a great
way to collaborate on a project, conduct a
slideshow with narration, or even step a
client through a PowerPoint presentation
while maintaining eye contact—all online.
And it’s not just files—you can share your
entire computer with an iChat buddy, so
you can quickly grab a file off your home
computer from work, or help a friend with
Quickly check which applications are running in
which spaces, and click to activate one.
10 | intelligent computing CHip
The 300
Leopard comes with more than 300
features under its hood, apart from the
major highlights. Noticeable or not, here
are some of the cool new things you can
do:
 Sync all your Dashboard widgets from
one computer to another using a .Mac
account.
 Instantly look up any word with
Wikipedia.
 Proofread your documents with the
systemwide grammar checker.
 Preview all the fonts on your computer
and print a sheet of samples at various
point sizes.
 Copy images from supported cameras
using Bluetooth or Wi-fi.
 Manage your network connections
quickly and easily with the redesigned
Network Preferences window.
 Use a mouse button to trigger the
Dashboard or Expose.
 Set time limits and filter internet access
by simply taking control of his machine
from where you’re sitting.
Safari also moves up to version
3.0, with the only major new feature
being Web Clips. Now, you can literally
“snip” any portion of a web page (Safari
automatically divides pages into snippable
zones based on their markup) and turn it
into a Dashboard widget. So if you see
something on a page that refreshes often,
such as a word of the day, comic strip or
news ticker, you can now just snip it out
and place it on your Dashboard.
Boot Camp
With the release of Leopard comes the
demise of the free version of Boot Camp,
The tool that lets you load Windows on
any Mac is now a part of the OS itself. The
final version includes all the drivers that
you’ll need to run Windows smoothly, and
doesn’t force you to burn them all on a
separate disc before installation.
Testing and Impressions
Leopard’s system requirements are rather
modest. It runs on Intel and PowerPC G4/
G5-based Macs (867 MHz and above),
with the improved Parental Controls.
 Superimpose your face over an existing
photo or video in Photo Booth.
 Search through PDF documents with
your results ranked by relevance.
 Automatically switch the default printer
when you carry your computer from home
to school or your office.
 Improve your vocabulary with the new
Word of the Day screensaver.
 Create a screensaver from a collage of
your iPhoto albums.
 Use Spotlight to quickly perform
mathematical calculations, look up
dictionary definitions or even launch
applications quickly.
 Resize, delete and merge partitions on
the fly without losing data.
 Work more efficiently with tabbed
Terminal windows, and change the look
and feel with customizable themes
 Set up your computer entirely using
Braille input and output.
512 MB of RAM and 9 GB of available disk
space. Keep in mind that Time Machine
will require a separate hard drive. We
tested it on a three-year-old PowerBook
with a 1.5 GHz G4 CPU, 1 GB of RAM
and integrated ATi Radeon 9700 graphics.
Performance was quite smooth, and we
didn’t notice any lags or hiccups (except
briefly while using Cover Flow on heavily
populated folders). Leopard seems to
run quite well, and was in fact a little
snappier than Tiger (v10.4) while opening
applications on the same machine.
Conclusions
At Rs 6,200 (there’s just one version that
includes everything), there’s no reason
not to upgrade. Any new Mac should
come with Leopard preinstalled, which
is pretty good value. The few headlining
features such as Time Machine are pretty
cool, though it’s really the smaller tweaks
and improvements that make it great.
Users will see it more as a refresh than a
complete update, but it does bring a lot of
improvements to an already polished line of
operating systems. 
– jamshed.avari@chip.in

The Price of Beauty
The “world’s thinnest notebook” is a sight to behold, but it does cut a few
corners to earn that title. Are the compromises worth it? BY JAMSHED AVARI
T
he MacBook air is a stunning device.
Until you actually hold one in your hands,
words cannot really describe how thin it
is, how solid it feels and how truly amazing it
looks from any angle. Hold it up to eye level
and it’s barely there; slip it into a handbag and
it’s just like one of your paper folders. Yet,
even at 1.94 cm at its thickest point, it’s a fully
functional Mac.
The Air is an ultraportable laptop
that’s designed to have none of a regular
ultraportable’s shortcomings, such as a tiny
screen, cramped keyboard or low-powered
components. Weighing just 1.36 kgs, it’s
designed for both style and utility. However, it
introduces its own set of compromises which
we’ll evaluate soon. Interestingly, only the 80
GB hard-disk-based model is being launched in
India, priced at Rs 96,100. The 64 GB solid-
state version (which would have cost close to
twice as much) isn’t available for now.
First, the good parts
The screen is a beautiful glossy 13.3-inch,
APPLE MAGIC
1280x800-pixel widescreen with LED
backlighting, which is noticeably richer,
more evenly lit and better at displaying high
contrasts than a screen of the same size on
a regular MacBook. The screen is the main
thing that differentiates the Air from regular
ultraportables, since you never have to
squint, and nothing is too cramped on screen.
Everything looks sharp and crisp, and there’s
an ambient light sensor to adjust brightness
depending on your surroundings. Above the
screen is a built-in iSight webcam with a mic.
The keyboard uses the same flat, spaced
out design of the Macbook, which might
take a little getting used to but is really quite
comfortable over long stretches. However
the keys are backlit, a superb feature that
was only found on the high-end MacBook Pro
till now. This really does make a difference
when working in the dark, and we wish it was
standard on all laptops. The layout is a little
different though: the usual [Num Lock] key
has disappeared, you can’t use the keyboard
as a numeric pad anymore. Also, the [F1]-[F12]
Intelligent computing CHip | 11
APPLE MAGIC
keys have remapped functions, such
as brightness, volume and backlight
adjustment and triggers for Expose and
the Dashboard.
The MacBook Air’s trackpad is much
wider than the ones on MacBook and
MacBook Pro models. This is mainly
because the Air supports multi-touch
gestures: you can pinch, spread or rotate
two fingers to respectively zoom in, zoom
out and rotate things such as images, web
pages and text on screen. Swiping left or
right with three fingers will take you back
or forward. These gestures are pretty
convenient, but they’re only supported by
a few applications such as Preview and
Safari so far. Even though the trackpad
is larger, did a great job of ignoring our
wrists brushing against it while typing.
The device almost has no side edges;
the bottom and top converge in smooth
curves. To the left, on the underside, is
a small depression with contact points
for charging. The charger’s plug clicks
into place magnetically. Apple calls this
MagSafe, since it will also quickly snap
out if someone trips over the wire, rather
than pulling your whole laptop to the floor.
On the right hand side is a small flap
which, when open, reveals the Air’s only
connectivity options: one headphones
socket, one USB port, and one micro-
DVI port. Thankfully, the Air comes with
micro-DVI adapters for full-sized VGA as
well as DVI sockets.
Wi-Fi reception is phenomenal, thanks
to a plastic-covered area between the
screen hinges that houses the antenna.
The Air picked up and held on to weak
signals quite well.
Of course, you get the brilliant Mac
OS X (Leopard) and the iLife suite of
multimedia programs free.
Then, the bad
There’s a lot to be said about the device’s
weak points—the compromises you’ll
Measuring only 1.94 cm at its thickest
point, the MacBook Air takes its name
quite seriously.
12 | intelligent computing CHip
This little flip-down door reveals the only three
ports you get—headphones, micro-DVI and USB.
have to make if you decide to buy one.
First of all, the body. The thinness does
result in a slight reduction of structural
strength. We found the lid flexes a little
too easily, and even bends from the
outside when pressed down on. Be very
careful placing any kind of weight on top
of it. Secondly, the screen hinge doesn’t
allow it to tilt all the way back. The
maximum angle is around 120 degrees—
not always comfortable enough.
Then there’s the fact that the unit is
completely sealed. That’s right; just like
the iPod and iPhone, there’s no way to
change the battery or swap it with a
spare to increase your runtime. It seems
Apple is the only company that is actually
allowed to get away with this—while it
has been criticized, products from other
companies would have been mocked and
ridiculed. And during normal usage, we
also found the battery life to be somewhat
lower than the rated five hours with Wi-Fi
turned on. This is really disappointing:
unless you’re always near a power
point, the world’s most portable laptop
can’t really be used on long journeys.
Remember, all laptop batteries gradually
lose their ability to charge fully. You’ll have
to pay Apple to replace your battery for
you, instead of just picking a new one up
and popping it in.
Being sealed also means there’s no
upgrading the RAM (which is soldered
The MagSafe charger connector snaps into its
depression on the right edge.
directly onto the motherboard). It’s great
to have 2 GB; any less and Apple would
have faced severe flak. But it’s also nice
to be able to upgrade.
Performance definitely suffers due to
the weak 4,200 rpm hard drive. It’s just
not well suited to running an entire
computer’s operating system
and programs, which demand
constant read/write cycles to
non-contiguous areas. And 80 GB
doesn’t stretch very far these days.
Which brings us to the lack
of an optical drive. While the Air
doesn’t have one built in, a $99
external drive is available. We
think the drive should have been
bundled, considering the price.
What you do get is a program
called Remote Disc, which lets
you commandeer the optical
drive from another Mac or PC in
case you need to install software.
You’ll need your other devices
to be 802.11n Wi-Fi compatible
(this works much faster than the
more common 802.11g flavor).
Keep in mind that you won’t be
able to use Remote Disc to watch
DVDs or listen to music, which
would be somewhat OK if wireless
broadband was ubiquitous and we
had an iTunes store or equivalent
in India.
As far as the CPU goes, 1.6 GHz is
really the slowest speed CPU you can get
in a laptop today. It’s a reduced-size CPU,
but strangely uses Intel’s 65nm process,
which is being rapidly phased out in favor
of newer 450nm CPUs. There’s no doubt
about it, this machine is sluggish as hell
when it comes to multitasking, video
decoding, copying large files, etc.
Cooling is clearly a challenge in such
a restrictive body. The Air often became
too hot to use comfortably on our laps.
There actually is a fan inside, even though
it’s completely inaudible. Our infrared
thermometer recorded the outer body
reaching up to 52 degrees C with heavy
tasks running.
But all of those are nothing compared
to the biggest sin of them all: The lone
USB port! In fact, other than Bluetooth,
Wi-Fi, mini-DVI out (for projectors) and a
headphones socket, you have nothing in
the way of expansion. No Ethernet, no
modem, no FireWire 400 or 800, no mic/
line in, no card reader, no ExpressCard
slot, no HDMI. Need a mouse? Either go
That’s the MacBook Air sitting pretty on top of a black MacBook. The two are almost equally wide and deep, but this is the angle that really shows off
the Air’s best feature!
Bluetooth or unplug it every time you use
a peripheral. Put that presentation on a
pen drive? Sure, but only after your iPod’s
finished charging. Need to use a wired
network? That Ethernet adaptor (which
you’ll have to pay for since it’s an extra
accessory) means no more external hard
drive.
It’s OK to phase out legacy ports and
connectors, but this is an extreme move.
Not only do people travel with multiple
USB peripherals in this day and age, but
the MacBook Air’s lack of an optical drive
and Ethernet as well as its low HDD
capacity mean you’re probably going to
need even more USB dongles than the
average laptop user.
The lack of a Kensington security
slot, something that’s been standard
on laptops for years now, is a minor
niggle. Let’s face it—the MacBook Air is
very tempting to steal. Also, the mono
speaker is underwhelming at best. That
recessed port flap isn’t friendly at all for
oversized USB adaptors, pen drives and
even headphone plugs. And for all the
talk about wireless connectivity, there’s
no WiMAX, which Intel’s going to start
offering with its Centrino 2 platform
starting in June this year.
So here’s the dilemma
The MacBook Air is a great laptop,
it’s beautiful to look at and it excels
at its primary job, which is to be light
and portable while not compromising
on comfort and usability. However, it
compromises on a whole lot of other
things, which make it highly unsuitable
for very much more than basic office,
communication and entertainment
functions while travelling. It’s not exactly
APPLE MAGIC
an ultraportable and it’s not exactly a
powerhouse either. Demonstrations,
presentations and sales pitches will look
incredible if you whip one of these out
of your folio, but students in dorm rooms
should probably look at more full-featured
options. In fact, it’s probably going to
be more of a second computer than a
primary laptop unless you really never
need to use heavy applications.
The MacBook Air isn’t more powerful
than the regular MacBook or less capable
than the high-end MacBook Pro that it’s
positioned between. And it isn’t actually
a replacement to Apple’s previous
ultraportable, the baby-sized 12-inch
Powerbook (the Air’s full keyboard is
nice, but isn’t going to fit any better on an
airplane tray table than a regular laptop).
For its price, you can get a superb high-
performance laptop with all the essentials
and plenty of frills. Or you could get a
slightly less thin laptop with an optical
drive, Ethernet, and more USB ports. You
might even think Apple’s gone mad for
pricing it at nearly a lakh.
But there are far more people today
who want something sleek, lightweight
and pretty than those who want a
superfast number-crunching monster.
In fact a lot of people won’t even realize
half the things it’s lacking because they
don’t really need them. And for that
reason, the MacBook Air will probably be
a huge success. It’s a beautiful machine
to own and it’ll definitely be an object
of conversation and envy wherever you
take it. If you’ve considered all its quirks
and compromises and still think it suits
your needs, then by all means go ahead,
indulge. 
– jamshed.avari@chip.in
Intelligent computing CHip | 13
APPLE MAGIC
Parallels Desktop
You can run all your favorite Windows or Linux applications on Mac OS X using a
simple program that "virtualizes" other operating systems. by JAMSHED AVARI
Y
ou can’t legally run Mac OS X on any
computer, but you can run Windows
XP and/or Vista and Linux alongside
OS X on a Mac. We show you how to get
the best of both worlds.
Ever since Apple switched to
mainstream Intel processors for all its
computers, they have been able to run
Windows and Linux just as well as any
PC. Apple offers a simple tool called Boot
Camp which allows you to switch between
its own OS X environment and the much
more popular Windows operating system.
This is a great way to run that one brilliant
Windows program that you’ve never found
an alternative for, while retaining all the
usefulness and style of a Mac.
But what if you didn’t have to reboot
your machine each time you need to swap
operating systems? There is in fact a way
Installing Parallels Desktop and setting up your virtual machines
14 | intelligent computing CHip
to run your Windows programs directly
and transparently through OS X. It’s called
Parallels Desktop, and it allows you to
host a virtual machine running Windows
(and thereby, any Windows application)
in a small, self-contained shell. What’s
more, it has a few tricks up its sleeve,
including the fantastic Cohesion mode that
makes the boundary between the host
and virtualized operating system disappear
completely. You can now run OS X and
Windows applications right next to each
other, drag and drop files between them,
and even share your hardware and internet
connection. You might never have to know
they were never designed to do anything
like this!
STEP 1: Download Parallels Desktop for
Mac 3.0 from the website www.parallels.
com. The software costs $79.99 (approx
Step 1
Step 3
Rs 3,395), and a trial version is also
available. As soon as the DMG package
is downloaded to the Mac you want to
use it on, run the executable and start
the installation process by double-clicking
the Install Parallels Desktop icon in the
window that pops up. As soon as the
installation is done, you’ll be prompted to
start creating your virtualized Windows
operating system.
STEP 2: The first choice you have is whether
you’re installing Windows with specially
designed settings (Windows Express),
any OS in a typical virtual machine, or any
OS in a custom environment that you can
define. Choose Windows Express for the
purpose of this workshop, and leave all the
other settings at their defaults. You’ll be
prompted to enter the Windows XP/Vista
serial number (you need a genuine copy).
Step 2
Step 4
STEP 3: Now you’re faced with the regular
Windows install process, except it's all
happening inside the virtual machine.
Don’t worry about disk partitioning, since
the installer can’t tell it’s only affecting its
container. No changes are made to your
hard drive at all. Even when it says it’s
restarting the computer, it will only restart
the virtual machine.
STEP 4: Wait while Parallels Tools is
automatically installed. This will add a
bunch of options to your installation,
enabling seamless mouse and keyboard
control switching, hardware sharing, and
plenty of things you won’t even notice.
Your familiar XP or Vista environment is
now ready for use! Install your favorite
programs or just enjoy Windows’ selection
of preinstalled applications. Note that the
container window acts just like the virtual
machine’s monitor, and will adjust its
resolution on the fly if you resize it.
STEP 5: Click the button directly under
'Play' on the Parallels toolbar to switch
to full screen mode. (You might have to
hold down [Ctrl] and [Alt] together for a
second to release your mouse cursor.) You
Running multiple operating systems and making advanced settings.
won’t even know you’re running Windows
through OS X. Take full control of your
Windows desktop and use any program
you need to. To switch back, remember
the key combination [Alt]+[Enter].
STEP 6: The real magic begins with
Cohesion mode. Click the button below
the Full Screen mode button to begin.
You’ll see all boundaries between the
virtual machine and host just melt away.
Your Windows programs now run free of
their box, mingling with OS X programs
as if they were no different (but retaining
their Windows layout, buttons and
visual style). For the full effect, hide the
taskbar using the ‘Applications | Hide
Windows Taskbar’ menu command. You
can still pull up the Start menu using the
[Command] key or clicking the menu
item ‘Applications | Start Menu’. A few
notification balloons might float strangely
in mid air, but the experience is otherwise
completely transparent. You can cycle
through all open programs using the
standard [Command]+[Tab] shortcut, and
even Exposé shuffles between any type of
window perfectly.
Step 5
APPLE MAGIC
Limitations and advanced features
Parallels Desktop isn’t only for running
Windows applications transparently. It
can virtualize pretty much any operating
system you throw at it, provided you have
a licensed copy of course.
Our test machine was a 2.16 GHz
Core 2 Duo-based Macbook with 1 GB
RAM and onboard graphics. We loaded
Windows XP, Vista and Ubuntu 8.04
(although Parallels Tools is available for
Linux, it doesn’t install automatically and
coherence mode is not supported out of
the box). We could boot up and shut down
each OS as needed, but couldn’t run more
than one at the same time since the host
system’s resources get pretty tied up.
Plugging in a pen drive resulted in a
popup window asking if we want it to be
mounted by the host or the virtualized
machine, and Internet sharing worked
without a hitch, even with our office proxy.
And that's all there is to running Windows
and OS X transparently. Check out the
options under ‘Edit | Virtual Machine…’ to
really customize your environment. 
– jamshed.avari@chip.in
Step 6
Intelligent computing CHip | 15
APPLE MAGIC APPLE MAGIC

How iPod and iTunes Work

For the first time user, transferring songs to the iPod can be baffling. Ever
wondered what’s the easiest way to do this? Is it really necessary to use iTunes?
The secret is to understand how the whole system works. BY BRIAN PEREIRA

A
pple Inc’s iPod music player and
iTunes software are a self-contained
system. The iPod is tightly integrated
with the iTunes media player and the iTunes
Store (online). Have you noticed, whenever
you transfer songs to the iPod using Windows
Explorer (as you do with other MP3 players),
they just won’t play on your iPod. The only
way to do that is through the iTunes software
(available on this month's CHIP DVD). With
this software you can set up a library, that
will help you organize your music collection,
photos, podcasts, movies and videos. iTunes
also let's you view what's stored on the
iPod and also the available capacity. More
importantly, iTunes is used for synchronizing
content on your PC with your iPod.
iTunes software is also a front-end for
iTunes Store Songs can be downloaded for just
browsing the iTunes Store on the Internet. 99 cents each. Other content like
This is perhaps the element that
You can buy and download music, videos, audiobooks, podcasts, ringtones etc are
makes the iPod so appealing. From
movies, TV shows and audio books from the available. While some of the content is
this online store one can buy the latest
iTunes Store. Apple periodically releases new free, the rest can be purchased using
episode of a TV show, for as little as
versions of iTunes. Check what's new in the credit cards or gift cards.
$1.99. Movies can be bought or rented.
update/upgrade and how you would benefit.

INTERNET

iTunes Software
Installed on the PC or Mac, this is
the interface for copying digital
content between the computer
and the iPod. It is also a library
for organizing all your content.
Create Playlists and use these to
selectively transfer music.

Find it on this month’s

iPod player be synchronized with iTunes on a

PC Hard Drive The 3rd generation iPod Nano and sixth computer for this content. And new
Carefully organize your collection of generation iPod Classic are more than content can be sourced either from
digital music files, photos, videos and music players. They can store and play the iTunes store online, ripped from
other content in folders on the hard drive. multimedia content like video, photos, CDs and DVDs, or generated by users
podcasts, TV and radio shows, and (digital photos and home videos).
We suggest that you do not go deeper audio books. But they should always – brian.pereira@chip.in
than two levels of folders. Otherwise it
will be cumbersome to map these into the
iTunes library.

16 | intelligent computing CHip Jagdish Limbachiya Intelligent computing CHip | 17

APPLE MAGIC
iPhone Mania: The Real Facts
I
t's been a long time
coming. We've had the first-
gen iPhone in India in some
form or the other ever since
it launched in the US, but hey,
official is always better than not.
For those of you who are in a hurry
to get a confirmation on the prices, the
iPhone is priced at a hefty Rs 31,000
for the 8GB version and Rs 36,100 for
the 16GB version. This means you get
it without being bound to any contract
or postpaid plan. You can use it with a
prepaid or postpaid SIM card, and pick
absolutely any plan you like. Vodafone has
annonuced special pricing plans for iPhone
users, which even preexisting customers
can switch to by sending an SMS (details
are up on their website www.vodafone.
in). Alternatively, you can choose a special
data plan to add on to your existing
prepaid or postpaid tariff. Airtel has just
a data plan with capped downloads,
and a fee for every extra KB (details at
www.airtel.in/iphone3g). This makes
downloads a little cheaper than with
regular plans, but what we really need is
a scheme with unlimited data transfer.
Considering we don't even have 3G in
India, the operators should have made
EDGE surfing prices more attractive.
Sadly, the phone is going to be
operator-locked. If you buy an iPhone 3G
from Airtel or Vodafone, you can't use it
on any other GSM network. People on
Idea, BSNL or any other provider will have
to wait till they can get an official iPhone
that runs without any hacks.
What's Good
First off, let's talk about the design. The
new iPhone 3G, though essentially the
18 | intelligent computing CHip
same format as the last iPhone, with
exactly the same 480 x 320-pixel, 3.5-inch
screen and identical button placement, is
a major improvement over the first-gen
iPhone. Gone is the shiny steel, in favor of
a new black plastic backplate (or white, an
option on the 16GB version). It certainly
looks better now than earlier (though the
white version seemed a bit tacky at first
glance). The back is slightly curved around
the edges, which makes it seem narrower
than it really is, and gives it a sleek feel
and better grip.
There are a total of ten different
antennas in the iPhone 3G (four for GSM,
three for 3G, and one each for Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth and GPS), so the switch to a
plastic back was needed to ensure all
those signals get through without any
problem. All buttons on the phone sides
are made of metal now, unlike the plastic
volume up / down and ringer switch on
the original. Also, the 3.5mm headphones
socket now sits fully flush on the top,
not recessed as it was in the first-gen
Does the iPhone live up
to the hype surrounding
it, and is it really worth
the price? Here's
everything you need to
know about buying and
using one in India.
By Varun Singh, Tech2.com
iPhone, so you can use any aftermarket
(read "better") headphones you want with
it. As for the other bits in the box, Apple
includes a tiny charger which lets you plug
in the USB sync cable and charge the
iPhone from a wall socket. Sadly, no dock
is shipped with the iPhone 3G, so you'll
have to spend a bit extra if you want to
flaunt the phone on your desk. The box
also includes a SIM removal tool and a
cleaning cloth (desperately needed), other
than some small documentation.
Now for the functional bits: since there
is no 3G available yet, we were only able
to test the battery life with GSM talktime,
Wi-Fi browsing, and music playback. We
tested with Bluetooth off, the display
brightness set to high (with the auto
dimming sensor enabled), and the bundled
headphones at 85% volume. We got a
good 3 hours of talk time, almost 2hours
30 minutes of heavy Wi-Fi browsing, and
another 1 hour 30 minutes of mixed music
and video playback in a single charge
from the phone, all while running two
email accounts (one push, one pull) in the
background. That is indeed better than the
original iPhone, and honestly, quite good
for a phone of this caliber.
Other improvements include louder
and better incoming voice quality, and
two tiny but surprisingly loud ringer
speakers at the bottom of the phone.
Now, let's dive down into the software.
Visually, the iPhone 2.0 software is only
a minor upgrade. You can now have
between multiple pages in the menu to
accommodate the expanding number of
applications, and a new iPhone App Store
icon has been added.
Once you've created an account on
iTunes and synced the phone with your
PC once, the App Store can work as a
standalone application, allowing you to
install free or paid apps directly to your
phone using Wi-Fi or EDGE. Obviously,
you can also download the apps on your
PC using a broadband connection. When
you sync the phone, all apps will be
installed to the phone as well. The App
Store truly makes the iPhone the easiest
phone to install software on, ever, and will
go a long way in ensuring its success as a
platform to develop software for.
As for the built-in apps, there are a
few minor tweaks to the existing ones.
Camera now allows you to geotag photos
with GPS data, so you can figure out
where they were clicked. If you upload
them to a photo sharing site that supports
EXIF geotags, you'll automatically see
them sorted by location on a virtual
map. Calculator now switches to
scientific mode when you tip the iPhone
horizontally. The new Google Maps app
takes advantage of the built-in A-GPS, and
locks in on your position in under 20-30
seconds in most outdoor locations. As
for other major improvements, Exchange
ActiveSync push mail support is built in,
so getting push mail for business users
APPLE MAGIC
is just a matter of getting their Exchange
server set up for push mail (out of the
box on Exchange 2003 onwards), and an
active data connection on the iPhone. No
extra services need to be bought, making
the iPhone a serious contenter in the
enterprise space as well. You can sync
your mail, calendars, and even contacts
with your Exchange Server now. Also,
you can add any number of your personal
email accounts from Gmail, Yahoo, or
any other service that provides POP3
or IMAP, and set up a schedule for how
often your iPhone should fetch mail
from those accounts. If any documents
in Powerpoint, Word, or Apple's own
"Work" suite formats come your way, you
can view them in full glory on the large
screen. Unlike Blackberry or even a Nokia
Mail For Exchange service, you get to see
all your mails in full HTML format. You
can also use the paid service MobileMe
to sync your .Mac contacts and calendars,
and get push mail as part of the package.
The Bad $299 for 16GB), but sadly, the operators
We begin with the biggest negative of don't seem to agree. Airtel and Vodafone
them all: the price! Buyers had been believe that the contract system which
expecting Apple to bring the iPhone to works abroad can't be enforced in India,
India at a price which is at par with the so you'll have to shell out the full price of
rest of the world ($199 for 8GB and the phone, sans any subsidies or "in-plan"
charges ($699 and $799 respectively).
The problem is that despite paying the full
price, and with no contract obligations,
it'll still be locked for use on the network
you bought it from (and you can't buy one
without being an existing subscriber or
signing up for a new connection on the
spot). This is totally unfair, considering
that the entire GSM market in India works
with unlocked phones.
Other major provider-related negatives
include no support for visual voice mail,
Intelligent computing CHip | 19
APPLE MAGIC
no ability to pay for downloads or value-
added services as part of your bill.
As for the hardware and design of
the phone, some basic gripes remain.
The phone is still a fingerprint magnet,
and the plastic back gets scratched even
more easily than the metal used to. You'll
have to wipe it before trying to show
off to friends, watch a video, or surf the
web, but the moment you use the touch
screen it'll get dirty again. The phone still
doesn't come with a user-replaceable
battery, so if yours dies, expect a long
and expensive trip to the service center
to get it swapped out. You can see to
open the case, but don't even think about
opening the two screws at the bottom of
the phone to open the casing, as
you'll instantly void the warranty.
Functionality wise, you'll still
miss some very basic things like
the ability to record video, send
MMS messages, or forward SMS
messages, all features we’re very
used to. You can't even copy
and paste text from one place to
another, one of the most basic
features of any smartphone,
especially one that needs to be
used in the enterprise where you
may need to paste text into email
messages. As for Exchange
support, the iPhone asks to
delete all your existing contacts
on syncing, and keep only the
ones that are on the exchange
server. Any contact added after
that also gets uploaded to the
Exchange server. Most users
wouldn’t want their personal
contacts going into their office
address book, and vice versa. A
modern Nokia E-series phone
allows you to select whether the
contact is public or private.
Then comes the iPod part. If
you've got such a brilliant media
player phone, you should be
able to use a wireless stereo
20 | intelligent computing CHip
Bluetooth headset. Sadly, you can't do
that with the iPhone 3G; You have to be
tethered to the wired headphones. You
can't use any of the hundreds of cool
mobile and car or home entertainment
accessories out there in the market that
support Bluetooth music streaming.
Then comes the GPS functionality.
The iPhone isn't half as good as a Rs
9,000 Nokia Navigator phone with Maps
2.0. Google Maps can't even find routes
in Indian cities; forget about things like
voice navigation and turn-by-turn guidance
which are now a basic part of any GPS
device. This is really disappointing, since
that high res display and fantastic signal
acquisition ability are laid to waste by
incomplete software.
And while the App Store is
undoubtedly cool, Apple has banned
anything that tries to improve upon the
built-in music player, camera and GPS,
apart from tons of other restrictions.
Conclusion
We give the iPhone 3G an abysmal rating
of 50 percent. Here’s how we arrived at
that conclusion. Let's assume the iPhone
is the greatest phone of all time, and give
it a full hundred marks to begin with. We’d
chop off 20 percent for the horrific pricing.
It's more expensive than any competitor
touted as an iPhone killer, and most of
those have spec sheets a mile longer than
the iPhone’s. 80 percent left.
Let's take off five percent more for the
fact that 3G still isn't available in India,
and because you'll have a tough time
finding Wi-Fi hotspots at most places.
That swanky Safari browser is going to
suffer a lot due to lack of bandwidth, and
remember that you can’t browse basic
WAP sites. And hey, what's with no Flash
support? Even a 12,000-rupee Nokia
phone supports that.
Another five percent deserves to be
cut because despite paying full price, you
are locked to the operator, despite no
contractual obligations. Ten percent goes
because the iPhone lacks A2DP stereo
Bluetooth headset support, which is a
major disappointment for a music phone.
Sixty percent left.
And that last 10 percent is cut
because the iPhone 3G fails to deliver
as a complete navigation device, despite
having such a great screen and awesome
A-GPS built in. Final rating: fifty percent!
That said, remember that the iPhone
still has the most innovative and powerful
mobile UI and application development
platform ever made. Besides, the
coolness factor is off the scale! But until
these basic niggles are fixed (and most
of them are fixable by a price drop or
software updates), it fails to deliver on
the promise of being the phone that will
change your mobile experience forever. 
–feedback@chip.in

Beautiful in Aluminum
The iMac has grown up! No longer a cute, white computer, this retro machine
in its new aluminum-and-glass avatar gives us all pangs of longing. This month
CHIP got its hands on the monster 24-inch model. BY Jamshed Avari
W
e love Apple. They always make
such beautiful, shiny products. No
matter how much you spend on one,
you’ll always want to upgrade to the latest and
greatest offerings they put out! The new iMac
line is no different. Representing a huge leap in
aesthetics, it’s completely abandoned its glossy
white yuppie look in favor of something far more
mature and sophisticated. And we bet it’ll have
hordes of newcomers and Apple faithful alike
flocking to their nearest stores.
So let’s talk iMac. Physically, it carries
forward the form factor of the previous
generation, with the guts stashed neatly behind
the screen itself. What’s changed is mainly the
design. White is out; instead the entire body is a
curvy, retro-looking enclosure made of aluminum
and glass. The first thing you’ll notice is the
jet black screen area, with its highly reflective
surface that extends to a round-cornered black
strip around the screen itself. The remote
control’s IR sensor must be somewhere in that
black strip, but it’s completely invisible. The
APPLE MAGIC
Pramod Jadhav
integrated iSight webcam is still there too, along
with a microphone, but you really won’t notice
it at all till it’s activated and a green LED above
the screen comes on. Below it, the famous iMac
“chin” lives on, but it’s far less noticeable and
obtrusive than on the white iMacs. In the center
is a large, black Apple logo as glossy as the
screen itself.
The slot-loading optical drive on the side is
exactly the same dual-format 8x DVD rewriter,
which is a bit of a letdown. Not only are 16x
drives the standard today, but a Blu-ray or
HD-DVD drive wouldn’t have been out of place
on a system like this at all. On the rear you’ll
find the power button, a headphone/speaker
jack, analog/digital audio input, three USB ports,
one FireWire 400 and one FireWire 800 port
each, gigabit Ethernet, and a mini DVI port. Dual
display is supported, but a mini-DVI adapter will
cost you extra. We weren’t thrilled about all the
ports being only on the back. The power button
is easily reached by curving a finger around
the iMac’s base, but if you regularly plug in
Intelligent computing CHip | 21
APPLE MAGIC
headphones or USB devices, it becomes
annoying. A few ports on the side panel
below the optical drive slot would have
been perfect.
Ah, but that screen. It’s gorgeous.
Simply gorgeous. The smooth, reflective
glass-on-black offsets the aluminum
enclosure perfectly, and it’ll take your
breath away before you even switch
the iMac on. One could spend hours
enraptured by the rich, crisp colors
supported by the perfectly even
backlighting. It’s clearly one of the
best monitors we’ve ever used. Even
screensavers look better on it! Seriously,
though, the out-of-the-box color calibration
is pitch perfect, though a number of
presets can be found in the System
Preferences dialog box and you can
follow a wizard to set it up yourself if you
so choose. Just like on Apple’s Cinema
Display panels, all brightness, color,
contrast and other controls are executed
through software. No adjustment buttons
mar the surface of the iMac. The viewing
angle is actually reduced from the previous
model, at 170 degrees, versus 178 degrees
on the older white iMacs, but this isn’t a
huge loss, and images remain sharp and
crisp even at that angle. We didn’t have
a problem with the reflective surface
under the even lighting in our Test Center,
however you might have to tilt the body
a certain way or swivel the unit slightly
depending on lighting conditions at your
desk. Calling the glass “reflective” would
be an understatement.
The keyboard: with almost as much
pre-launch speculation surrounding the
keyboard as the iMac itself, it certainly
got our interest. Talk about your radical
You’ ll either love or hate the new keyboard, but
you won’t be able to stop admiring its design
22 | intelligent computing CHip
The iTunes screensaver displays an animated
collage of all your album artwork
redesign, this thing looks nothing like a
regular computer keyboard. It’s got the
aluminum body of the iMac and its Mac
Pro counterparts, but the white, plastic
keys of the current-generation MacBook:
flat, white, widely-spaced squares. The
whole thing is designed to be as small
and flat as possible, but that seems quite
strange when placed in front of a hulking
unit like the 24-inch iMac. It’s beautiful
to look at, but after a while the mushy,
low-profile keys got really annoying and
just weren’t satisfactory to pound out long
documents on. We wound up missing
keys such as [CTRL], [COMMAND] and
the arrow keys, simply because of being
used to a standard key spacing. This might
have made sense for a portable machine,
or on the optional Bluetooth version of
this keyboard (which is even smaller), but
decided we prefer the previous generation
Apple keyboard for our desktops. Oh,
there’s no height or tilt adjustment, and
the traditional pair of USB ports is still
present, but recessed in the stand to such
a degree that you have to lift the keyboard
each time to plug anything in. Some of our
larger pen drives wound up raising one
corner off the table, making the whole
thing unstable.
The mouse is Apple’s standard Mighty
Mouse—unchanged since the last
generation. While we’re grateful for the
right-click functionality, it’s disabled by
default. Moreover, the white body looks
strangely out of place next to its now-silver
brethren. Even Apple’s latest iPods don’t
come in white anymore, so why didn’t
Mighty Mouse get the memo?
Also unchanged is Apple’s universal
remote, which still triggers the Front Row
You can have swooshing 3D animation of any RSS
feed as your screensaver too
media interface. The only addition to the
retail package is a soft, black, lint-free cloth
for keeping your screen spotless.
Hardware
Available in 20-inch and 24-inch versions
(the 17-inch has been discontinued), you
have a number of configuration options
when purchasing. If you really feel like
pushing the hardware, you can configure
a 24-inch iMac with a 2.8 GHz Core
2 Extreme processor, 4 GB of DDR2
RAM, and a terabyte of storage space.
Unfortunately, graphics options are still
heavily limited. The best options are the
modest ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro with 256
MB memory for the 24-inch iMac, and the
even weaker Radeon HD 2400 XT with
128 MB memory for the 20-inch model.
Thankfully though, 1 GB of RAM is the
minimum specification across all models.
We received the 24-inch version of the
new iMac for evaluation. It came loaded
with a 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 1
GB RAM, a 320 GB hard drive and the
aforementioned Radeon HD 2600 Pro.
Cruising
Once switched on, you’ll barely hear the
iMac make any noise. It’s almost eerily
quiet, especially when running side-by-side
on a desk with our middle-aged desktop
machines. Even under heavy loads you
won’t hear the fans spin up to more than a
dull whisper. This isn’t to say the machine
runs cool though. We noticed that the top
rear of the aluminium enclosure can get
pretty hot after a while.
Bluetooth reception is stellar; the
iMac was detecting devices at least 20
feet away that weren’t being found by a
APPLE MAGIC
desktop computer right next to it. Wi-fi
reception was as good as that on a laptop a
few feet away.
The iMac was snappy enough in daily
use, without any noticeable lag in booting
or loading programs. We managed to
multitask between office, multimedia
and online applications with relative ease.
High-definition video looks simply stunning
in full-screen mode, and the system didn’t
stutter even once in a long playlist of HD
The all-new Numbers application has preset GarageBand has seen only minor upgrades, but
video files. On the other hand, regular DivX layouts for many common mathematical tasks it’s always fun to spend time with
movies looked awful in full-screen mode
simply because they had to be stretched
on average four times their size to run on
the mammoth 1920 x 1200 screen!
Games have never been a strength
of the Macintosh platform. We tried a
relatively old game, Age of Empires III, to
evaluate graphics quality. The iMac dealt
superbly with complicated battle scenes
when running in full-screen mode with
all the quality settings turned up. Only
antialiasing caused hiccups when set to
Exposé makes it easy to switch between multiple iMovie is one of the few programs that has seen
‘Low’. Turning it up to ‘High’ was too much running applications with a cluttered desktop. any drastic changes to its interface
for the graphics card, and made the game
effectively unplayable. delays. You’ll have to pay the full $130 so we’d keep Windows around as a
The one thing we didn’t do was install (approximately Rs 6,500). dual-boot option, but wouldn’t make it our
Windows XP or Vista using Apple’s own What you do get is the latest version of primary system.
BootCamp solution or Parallels Desktop. iLife, Apple’s multimedia and entertainment
suite. With completely revamped versions Conclusion
Software of iMovie and iPhoto, and marginally We love the new iMac. Forget about using
Unfortunately, Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) improved versions of the other programs— it, we could easily just spend an entire day
has been delayed till mid-October. It was iTunes, iDVD, iWeb and GarageBand. You staring at it. Having grown out of its chic,
supposed to have been ready by now, also get a trial of iLife, the office suite trendy white shell into something far more
but delays attributed to the launch of the that includes the word processor Pages, suave and sultry, this Mac will have people
iPhone mean that the new iMacs still ship presentation maker Keynote, and the randomly stopping in corridors just to stare
with 10.4. Stranger still, there’s no coupon all-new spreadsheet application Numbers. at it and ask you about it. And while that
system by which you’d get a discount on We’ll be covering these suites as well as would be enough for most people, the
Leopard when it finally does ship, which OS 10.5 in depth in coming months. hardware innards will probably convince
is what Apple has done in the past for OS All this in addition to a 30-day trial almost everyone else that it’s a worthy
of Microsoft Office 2004 makes for a investment. At selling prices ranging
compelling software package. Almost from Rs 64,600 for the base 20-inch
everything you’d need for day-to-day model to Rs 96,100 for the fully-loaded
tasks is available to you out of the box. 24-inch model we reviewed, they certainly
Honestly, all you have to do is plug it in and command a premium, but also represent
switch it on, and you have a compelling better value for the price than any Apple
entertainment center at your disposal. system before them.
Of course if you decide you don’t like We’d probably wait for news of OS 10.5
OS X and its ecosystem of proprietary before buying one ourselves, but this won’t
programs (which do take a bit of getting likely be a deterrent for lots of people. The
used to!) you do have the option of running new aluminum iMac is a winner, even if it
Age of Empires III ran smoothly till we tried to Windows XP or Vista. This really does take sells on sex appeal alone.
crank the antialiasing settings
away the charm of using an iMac, though, – jamshed.avari@chip.in
Intelligent computing CHip | 23
APPLE MAGIC
Pramod Jadhav
Three to Tango
Apple’s new office suite refreshes two popular applications and adds a third.
With a word processor, presentation maker and spreadsheet application, iWork
‘08 might be just what you need to get productive. BY Jamshed Avari
T
hings are looking good on the Apple
software front! Mac OS X 10.5 will be
released before the end of NOVEMBER
2007, and new iLife and iWork ‘08 suites were
launched just a little while ago.
Usually regarded as a cheaper and less
capable alternative to Microsoft Office, iWork
users were always at a disadvantage due to the
relative roughness of the applications, and the
lack of a spreadsheet application. While this
new release addresses one of those problems,
iWork has a number of shortcomings that mean
it is still not in any position to take on Microsoft
Office for serious office work.
The new suite is clearly targeted at users
who don’t need a huge number of options
while creating documents. These applications
are perfectly suited to home users, school
and college students, and those who need to
make the occasional presentation or report at
work. The emphasis is strongly on the finished
product; with features that add a polished sheen
to all your work.
24 | intelligent computing CHip
One potential shortcoming is still the lack of
a dedicated, powerful Outlook equivalent. While
OS X ships with the perfectly capable Mail, iCal
and Address Book, there still isn’t an all-in-one
personal information management program that
can help you arrange meetings, track workflow
and plan out your business day. Even Microsoft
Office for Macs ships with Entourage.
Nevertheless, it’s gratifying to see the
amount of work that’s gone into iWork ‘08,
and the number of changes and upgrades that
the applications now incorporate. Who knows
what else Apple will decide to include in future
iterations of the suite?
Overall, we’re quite impressed with iWork
‘08. There might still be times when we’ll feel
the need to fire up an Office application for
some specific task, but until we review Office
2008, that situation probably won’t come up
very often. At just $79 (approximately Rs 3,150),
you get tremendous value for your money.
Very soon, Microsoft’s going to have a serious
contender on their hands.
Pages
Perhaps the most drastically overhauled
of the bunch, Pages comes across as a
program with a distinct split personality. It
can’t seem to decide whether it’s a word
processor or a page layout application, so
it makes you choose what you want it to
be every time you fire it up. When you try
to open a blank document, Pages will ask
you to choose one of the two modes, and
presents you with a number of templates
in both categories. Selecting a template
will open Pages in the applicable mode.
Word processing mode is what you’re
most probably more used to. Just like any
other program you start typing, and format
your text, insert images and tweak things
around as you see fit. Pages 2008 feels
familiar enough, though users of Microsoft
Word under Windows will need to get
used to plenty of quirks.
Page layout mode, on the other
hand, will take a while to get used to if
you’ve never used Adobe Indesign or
QuarkXpress. Rather than just clicking and
typing (which is what you’d expect to do
in a word processor,) you have to create
text boxes for individual elements on your
page. You can drag them around to create
headlines, paragraphs and captions; you
can place images and have your text wrap
around them; and you can format it all for
professional printing.
Using a single application, though in
separate modes, for word processing and
page layout makes sense considering
that many functions of the two types of
programs overlap. However it also leads to
a certain amount of confusion, since you
Sharing and Interoperability
One of the great things about the three
programs that make up iWork ‘08 is the
fact that they are interoperable with
Microsoft Office 2007. This means that
the iWork applications are actually the
first and only programs cabale of opening
Office 2007 documents on a Mac!
With Office 2008 for OS X delayed
till early next year (the last version to
be released for the Mac was Office
2004), this news will be welcome those
who need to multitask between the two
platforms. The conversion process isn’t
One of the newsletter templates available to you in Layout mode, complete with a masthead, side column
and space for a lead story. Each element, from the text to the images, can be adjusted to your liking.
can work only in one mode per document.
Unfortunately, Pages is only an average
layout application with nowhere near
the flexibility of dedicated page layout
packages.
New in the 2008 version is change
tracking (long overdue), which functions
in almost exactly the same way as it
does in MS Word. A thin toolbar appears,
allowing you to turn tracking on or off,
jump between edits, and accept or reject
them. Comments and notifications appear
in a column on the left, but you can also
switch to Markup View, which shows the
changes inline.
Also new is a Format toolbar that
changes contextually depending on the
element selected. Text brings up font
always perfect, especially in documents
that rely heavily on macros or features
such as Track Changes.
Text formatting in Word 2007
documents remains largely intact in
Pages, as do embedded images, charts,
footnotes, and numbered lists.
Numbers can’t handle Microsoft Excel
PivotTables or Visual Basic scripts, but all
data is readable. Beware though, some
of your extremely complex forumlae and
calculations might or might not survive the
transition.
APPLE MAGIC
control options, while a table will bring up
data sorting and ordering tools (somewhat
similar to the Office 2007 Ribbon). In
addition, a tabbed Inspector window can
be set to float alongside your document,
with all the detailed formatting and setup
options you could need. Whether it’s a
simple font adjustment, paragraph spacing,
or controlling the behaviour of embedded
multimedia elements, the Inspector holds
all the options you’ll need.
Minor tweaks include a grammar and
style checker that can proofread your
document and suggest changes based on
contextual word usage (though it will work
perfectly only under OS X 10.5 when it is
released) and a revamped set of document
templates in dozens of categories.
Keynote can open PowerPoint files,
but don’t assume all your transitions will
make it through unscathed.
Of course there are loads of other
options for sharing your files. All three
applications can save to Microsoft Office
formats for easy accessibility, or even
export to PDF files so you can share them
with friends or clients.
And just in case you were wondering,
users of the erstwhile AppleWorks who
have large collections of files in old
formats are in good hands as well.
Intelligent computing CHip | 25
APPLE MAGIC
Keynote
Fans of Steve Jobs who follow the
speeches he makes while launching
new products will be more than familiar
with Keynote. It’s the program he uses
to run the slideshow that’s always in the
background to emphasize the points he
makes, and to show off giant graphs or
images of all the cool new stuff.
Keynote incorporates the same
contextual Format toolbar and the tabbed
Inspector as Pages does, as well as a new
image manipulation tool called Instant
Alpha which can isolate a subject from its
background.
Keynote’s graphics seem more elegant
and refined than the usual PowerPoint
fare we’ve all been subjected to at some
point in our lives. You’ll find a lot of
rounded corners and glossy icons. You
can manipulate photos, add shadows and
reflections or crop them till you’re satisfied
with what you see.
The 2008 version adds a few more
options you can use to impress your
audience, including a voiceover recorder
Numbers
It’s safe to say that Numbers isn’t like
any spreadsheet application you’ve ever
used before. An all- new addition to the
iWork suite, Numbers rounds out the set
of office productivity applications with a
unique take on data presentation.
While you can still use Numbers to type
data into a single large grid, the beauty
of the program is revealed when you use
one of the templates, or create a blank
document in the Interactive Print View.
Imagine your workspace as a blank canvas,
on which you can position any number of
tables, photos, graphs, text elements and
graphics. It’s a bit of a challenge to get
used to the idea, and this approach has its
ups and downs.
You can position individual elements
as you like, if that makes workflow easier
for you, but the main advantage is that
you can arrange the elements so that
they print exactly the way you imagine
them. Elements can simply be dragged
and dropped, with ruler guides popping
up to help you align everything perfectly.
Calculations and cross-references of
26 | intelligent computing CHip
The Inspector window shows all the options you
need to customize your slideshow
and slick new animation and text effects.
But the most interesting addition has got
to be what Apple calls Smart Builds. This
somewhat unintuitively-named feature
allows you to turn a set of images into a
spinning cube, have them dissolve into
each other, or even spin around just like
the icons in the FrontRow media interface.
It’s just a simple drag-and-drop process.
Similarly, A-to-B Animation lets you
move, scale, rotate and adjust the opacity
of any on-screen object. You can create
a simple path for objects to move on, (a
simplified version of shape and motion
course will stay intact. The concept works
well, but seems aimed more towards
generating jazzy school projects than
corporate financial analysis sheets.
Each table can reference cells in any
other table, and this is made even easier
because you can type names for row
and column headers and footers, and use
those as references rather than an obscure
combination such as $AF$148.
The main interface also has a column
down the left that lists a number of quick
styles that you can apply to your tables. In
the lower left corner you’ll find the sum,
average, minimum/maximum values and
numerical count for any selected range
of cells. Dragging one of these indicators
onto footer cell in a table will automatically
apply the respective formula to that cell.
Now, when you add or delete rows to your
tables, the new value will be displayed.
What’s more, each time you select a
cell with a numerical value, a little slider
appears under it, allowing you to change
the value just by dragging the mouse.
You can use this to check the results of
calculations when one variable changes.
Creating a Smart Build is as easy as dragging
images onto the timeline and selecting effects
tweening in applications such as Flash).
Combine these effects to add an
impressive visual edge to your slides.
Together, they eliminate the need to set up
complex multi-slide transitions that require
either precise timing or manual control.
You can even record a separate narration
for these effects, with pauses before each
stage is triggered.
And finally, when you’re done creating
your presentation, you can export it
directly to YouTube, turn it into an iPod-
compatible video file, or even an Adobe
Flash animation.
Create multiple pages and place any number of
tables, images and text elements on them
You can even add rows to a table by
dragging a corner and stretching it as
much as you need. If a single column in a
table is likely to spill over to another page
while printing, Numbers can scale them to
fit on a single page.
Excel power-users will find that
Numbers lacks a large number of the
analysis tools and any kind of support
for pivot tables or macros. However
this is only the first version of what will
undoubtedly blossom into a much more
powerful tool in the future. We look
forward to evaluating version 2. 
– jamshed.avari@chip.in