However, we’re not leaving the site! We simply do not have enough time to focus on projects as demanding as the podcast and this very blog. Your contributions to the blog are still welcome, and there are a handful of users reviewing and scheduling posts besides us.

We leave you with a project that has occupied some of our time in the interim. The three of us put together an automatically generated community ad that we hope will attract even more attention to questions with bounties.

Thanks for listening, we look forward to returning to the show soon.

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• We begin with more talk of the new iPad. One feature that we would have loved to see is pressure sensitivity. Apps like GarageBand are use accelerometer-based trickery to determine the pressure of a tap, but we would love to see this functionality natively integrated and made accessible to all apps. The possibilities for new gestures and states are attractive.
• We get Jason’s first impressions of the new iPad. He appreciates how much lighter it is than the original version, and loves the greatly extended battery life. The long charge time is an acceptable trade off to a battery that lasts all day. The camera is also a helpful inclusion, and Jason is looking forward to a promised update to Instatweet bringing camera integration.
• We discuss Consumer Report’s controversial claims about the temperatures that the outside of the new iPad can reach. Kyle and Jason haven’t experienced any heat issues, and the temperatures that Nathan has noticed are still nowhere near as high as they are on his plastic MacBook and iMac.
• Wil Shipley recently published an article imploring Apple to provide developers with a more robust system for app upgrades. Kyle worries that, when developers are given the option to charge for updates, every little update will begin costing money. Nathan predicts that, be it by consumer pressure or Apple restrictions, that situation could be avoided. Jason isn’t entirely decided, but agrees that the advantages of paid upgrades outweigh the potential problems.
• Kyle suggests an alternate model to App Store purchasing: leasing. Companies like Adobe are already offering this kind of ‘software-as-a-service’ arrangement. This would potentially provide a mechanism allowing users to try out an app before committing to buying it, and could fund backend services tied to apps. Jason and Nathan can see where it could be helpful, but don’t imagine it having a very wide application.

This episode was recorded on April 3rd, 2012. You can subscribe to this podcast via RSS or iTunes. We would appreciate it if you could take a second to give us a rating on iTunes. We’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to leave a comment on this post or e-mail us at podcast@askdifferent.net. Thanks for listening.

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The iPad does many things very well. Its amazing display, battery life, and surprisingly good speaker make it very fun and easy to use. It has quickly become my favorite device for having fun, relaxing, and using with other people. I prefer the iPad over my iPhone and Mac for casual web browsing, viewing videos and photos, reading books and magazines, playing causal games, reading news and articles, and participating in social media. These are the things that the iPad really excels at. It does them better, or just as well and more conveniently, than any other device.

There are other things that the iPad can do well, but that I find myself using other devices for. The iPad is okay for things like email, serious web browsing, and writing, but not the best. For anything involving a lot of typing, I prefer a notebook. The built in keyboard is good, and AutoCorrect is smart, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get my typing speed on an iPad up to what it is on a big, chunky, tactile desktop keyboard. Voice dictation helps, but it requires an Internet connection and an environment where you can make noise. I could just get a Bluetooth keyboard, but I’m hesitant to do that. As soon as I have to carry a keyboard in addition to the iPad, it essentially becomes less portable than the a MacBook Air. I also prefer a notebook for anything that involves frequently switching between apps or tabs. The multitasking gestures are helpful, but still nowhere as fast as having two windows side by side (and nowhere near as fast as having two monitors). Something like Windows 8′s ability to pin a compact version of an app on screen with another app would be incredibly helpful.

Finally, there are a few things that an iPad simply can’t do. iPhoto and Snapseed for iPad are a start, but I still need Photoshop for anything serious. The same goes for video editing: iMovie is impressive, but it doesn’t come close to Premiere and After Effects. There are some awesome games available for iPad, but playing most serious games isn’t practical on a handheld 9″ touchscreen. An iPad also can’t do everything I need for school: it can’t upload files to the web or use Flash-based websites. I also find myself wishing for better file organization and management tools. Dropbox is great; it lets me store and access all the resources I need for working on an iPad. It is limited, though: files can’t be moved, copied, or renamed. I’m not saying that the iPad should be able to do all of these things. Pro production work doesn’t make sense to cram into an iPad; the screen is too small and the processor is too slow. Other things, though, seem entirely reasonable to expect. I find myself using the iPad mostly at home. It does a lot of things better than an iPhone or Mac, and I especially love using it while relaxing on the couch or in bed. On the go is a different story, though. The iPad is big and heavy enough that I don’t want to take it everywhere with me. Unlike an iPhone, that takes up no space at all, the iPad has to be a serious consideration when going out: are you going to bring a backpack or bag to big enough to carry it in, or just hold it in one hand? More often than not, I decide that it’s not worth it to carry the iPad with me for short trips. I stick to the iPhone when going to, for example, a restaurant or movie. Even though I would potentially like to use the iPad while I’m there, several minutes of getting to use it instead of the iPhone is nowhere near worth the trouble of carrying it. Additionally, I generally don’t bring the iPad to places I’m already bringing my MacBook and iPhone. Once again, being able to do some things better isn’t worth the extra weight and bulk.

Generally, I only use the iPad in a somewhat narrow set of circumstances. I have to be either at home or out without the MacBook for a long enough amount of time that carrying the iPad is worth it. I also have to be doing things that don’t involve a lot of typing, app switching, or using apps or functions not available on the iPad.

The iPad is only awesome for a specific set of things, but it does those things incredibly well. To me, it isn’t a complete computer replacement, but an extension. It allows me to do some of the things a computer does more flexibly, conveniently, and enjoyably.

Helpful Apps

Since an iPad isn’t a complete computer replacement, it needs to have apps that allow it to integrate with a computer so that it can extend rather than replace. Luckily, there are many awesome apps and services available to make the integration as seamless as possible. Here are a few of my favorites.

• For casual writing, I use Byword for iOS synced via Dropbox with Byword for Mac (as well as the iPhone version of the app).
• I use Tweetbot for Twitter, synchronized via the excellent Tweetmarker service with Osfoora for Mac and the iPhone version of Tweetbot.
• The Reeder family of apps (for Mac, iPad, and iPhone) is by far the best set of RSS apps available. They are synchronized via Google Reader and Readability.

In Summary

The iPad is a beautiful, fun device. The incredible display, awesome battery life, and powerful processors mean that the user experience is enjoyable and worry-free, making the iPad the best device available for reading, viewing photos and videos, casual web browsing, playing games, and generally having fun. That said, anyone hoping to use the iPad to replace their phone and computer will be disappointed. It’s much bigger than a phone, big enough that it can be a burden to carry with you. Some things; like production, development, and serious gaming; are only possible on a full-fledged Mac. Other things; like writing, email, or anything that involves a lot of typing or switching between apps; are simply more enjoyable on a Mac. But, once you’ve gotten a feel for the things the iPad is good at, you’ll start doing them on the iPad over any other device– what it’s good at, it’s best at.

Having waited in line for hours to buy the new iPad, I briskly walked out of the Apple Store past the outstretched line of people still waiting to get in, and to my car. I was excited – I was one of the very first people in the United States to own a new iPad!

Once I got back to my apartment, I took the plastic off the box and lifted the cover. The tight fit and air pressure made the separation of the cover with the rest of the box take longer than I would have liked, but it is a necessary byproduct of getting the packaging as compact as possible. With the cover off, I was greeted by the new iPad. Removing even more plastic, this time on the iPad itself, I reached for the top of the device, pushed the power button, and the screen came to life.

I’d seen a retina display before, on my iPhone 4, but the new iPad was a completely new experience. My eyes wandered around the display, noting the crisp, sharp text up in the status bar, to the subtle gradients of the linen texture behind the welcome screen. The center of the screen was emblazoned simply with the word “iPad”, and at the bottom the unlock slider beaconed with shimmering text in different languages. I slid my finger across the cool glass and the screen fluidly changed to the next setup screen.

Actually, this is the first time I’ve set up an iOS 5 device, so this is the first I’ve seen of the new “PC free” setup process. I have to say, I don’t think I was asked this many questions when setting up my Mac. Wi-Fi, Apple ID, iCloud, iCloud Backup, Find My iPad, Dictation, etc.. each screen required me to select something and hit “next” to continue. As someone who doesn’t need their hand held through the setup process, I would have much preferred a bank of options asking if I wanted to turn certain features on/off instead of having to wade through pages and pages of them. By my count, there were 15 different screens I had to go through to set up the iPad.

So, setup complete. The icons animate into view. I’m once again struck by the quality of the screen – the graphics in the setup process were nice, but limited. Not here. The background and the icons are all full retina resolution. I instinctively start pulling the iPad closer to my face, wondering when I’ll begin to see the pixels. It doesn’t take that much manual zoom before I can start to see the limits of the detail, but it does mean I have to hold the iPad much closer than I normally would, or plan to do. For casual use, the screen is most certainly a retina display.

As I’m shifting the iPad around, I begin to notice how it feels in my hand. The device isn’t amazingly light, but I’m pleased that it’s not too heavy. I had been hearing reports that it was “noticeably” heavier than the iPad 2, but without one to compare to all I can say is that it certainly feels light enough for casual use. My only real complaint is that the way I like to secure the device involves the bottom-left corner digging into my palm, and it is a little heavy and sharp to hold in that position for prolonged periods.

Features

Retina Display

The display is, by far, the most important part of a device like an iPad. All interaction with the device takes place through the display, and by extension, so does all interaction with the apps, media, and games within the iPad. Since it touches everything you do, the display can make or break the experience of using an iPad. In the case of the new iPad, it makes it. The Retina display has such a high pixel density that, as Apple says, it just disappears until you are no longer aware that you’re looking at an LCD panel. Its brightness can be adjusted to be so high or low that it is comfortable to use in any environment. Contrast is incredible: blacks are smooth and perfectly dark, and whites are pure. Colors are clearer and more saturated than I’ve come to expect even from an iPhone 4S.

That said, there are two things that still disappointed me about the display. Firstly, it’s glossy. I realize that the gloss is a big part of what makes the screen so pretty, but it can make reading on an iPad very difficult when the sun is behind you. If a matte option was offered, as with the MacBook Pros, I would choose that over the prettiness of gloss. Secondly, the screen gets very smudgy very quickly. If I don’t do a quick cleaning every few hours of use, the screen gets cloudy enough that details can be hard to see. That said, the Retina’s brightness, contrast, and color quality are all the best of any display I’ve ever used. The iPad is my favorite device to read on because text is so smooth and sharp and details are so clear. I’ve also found myself gravitating towards the iPad over any other device to watch videos or look at photos because everything just looks prettier.

Better Camera

One of the heavily advertised features of the new iPad is the improved iSight camera. The rear camera is a 5MP, f2.4 camera with a five-element lens with a high quality sensor. Its quality is completely acceptable for casual photos and videos. However, nothing except photos taken under completely perfect conditions is suitable for cropping or printing. Photos taken in medium light are always noisy, and photos taken in low light are always noisy and frequently blurry, in part because it is hard to hold an iPad completely steady. Below is a comparison of the iPad camera (left) and the camera of the iPhone 4S (right). Click the images to enlarge them. While similar in quality, the iPhone has the advantage of the extra flexibility brought by higher resolution. The front facing camera has a long way to go; it is really only acceptable for casual video chatting (which is, arguably, its sole intended function).

^{The new iPad (left) vs iPhone 4S (right)}

Dictation

While Siri in her entirety has not been brought over to the iPad from the iPhone, one major part of her has: voice dictation. Dictation works well in quiet environments, but a lot of background noise can be problematic. The overall accuracy is surprisingly good; entire sentences and paragraphs are frequently transcribed with minimal error. While there frequently are some errors, they are usually trivial. Even after long dictation sessions, the transcribed text appears very quickly. Overall, using dictation instead of typing saves me time. The major drawback is that an Internet connection is required to use dictation, so unless you have a 4G iPad you will only be able to take advantage of it when Wi-Fi is available. Another annoyance is that each dictation session is limited to a specific amount of time, which for me is enough for slightly less than a full paragraph. Being forced to stop mid-paragraph and start again from where I left off is fairly disruptive. As a fun test, I tried dictating this paragraph. Here are the results:

Well Siri and her entirety has not been brought over to the iPad from the iPhone, one major part of her hats: voice dictation. Dictation works well in quiet environments, but a lot of background noise can be problematic. The overall accuracy is surprisingly good; entire sentences and paragraphs are frequently transcribed with minimal error. While they’re frequently some errors they’re usually trivial. Even after long dictation sessions, transcribed text appears very quickly. Overall, using dictation instead of typing saves me time. The major drawback is that an Internet connection is required to use dictation, so unless you have a 4G iPad you will only be able take advantage of it when Wi-Fi is available. Another annoyance is that each dictation session is limited to a specific amount of time, wish for me is enough for slightly less and a full paragraph. Being forced to stop me – paragraph and start again from where I left off is fairly disruptive. As a fun test, I tried dictating this paragraph. Here are the results:

A5X Graphics & Performance

The iPad is the first device to include Apple’s A5X system-on-a-chip processor. The A5X boasts a dual-core 1GHz CPU and a quad-core GPU. The GPU is more powerful than the iPad 2′s, presumably to handle the higher-resolution display. The new iPad has 1GB of RAM, twice as much as the iPad 2. To a user, this means that everything just works, without any stuttering or dropped frames. Some animations are slightly smoother on my iPad than on my iPhone 4S, and games seem to run at slightly higher frame rates. This is all fairly impressive given the huge resolution of the display. In general use, I haven’t had any problems with hangs or delayed response. These issues are rare, but not nonexistent, on the 4S. Overall, the performance of the iPad has been given a solid bump. It performs slightly better than the iPhone 4S, despite its higher resolution.

Battery

Teardowns have shown that the battery in the new iPad is considerably larger than the batteries of previous iPads. Presumably, this is to power the 4G radios included in the cellular models. The advantage of a big battery is that, of course, it lasts a long time. Apple claims a 10 hour battery life, and in my testing that seems almost possible: I’ve observed that the battery drains more than 10% per hour (Apple’s claim), but not very much more. The iPad battery seems to last longer than the iPhone 4S battery, especially in standby mode. On the other hand, the disadvantage of a big battery is that it takes longer to charge. Recharging the iPad takes longer than recharging the 4S or my plastic MacBook. Despite the slow charging, the iPad battery is good enough that I don’t really have to think about it. I can use the iPad for a long time and not have to worry about it dying, which is what really matters.

Smart Cover

I picked up a Smart Cover to go with my iPad. I initially got it just because I wanted something to protect the iPad’s screen while stored and traveling, but I was surprised by how useful the cover actually is. It serves well as a screen protector, but it’s also useful when actually using the iPad. I love the ability to roll it up and raise the top of the iPad a few inches, to the perfect angle for typing. Even cooler is the fact that the Smart Cover automatically turns the iPad off and on: when you open the cover, the iPad is ready for a passcode; when you close it, the iPad automatically goes to sleep. The only drawback I’ve found is that the Smart Cover tends to get in the way when holding the iPad by hand. I’ve found that it’s much more convenient to just pull the cover off (made easy by the magnetic hinges) than to fight the dangling cover while holding the iPad.

Part 3: Real-World Use & Drawbacks coming soon. Stay tuned!

Back in the summer of 2010 Apple announced the iPhone 4. At the time I had been using an iPhone 3G for about a year and a half, and I had grown impatient with how slow the device had been operating. When I saw the announcement of the retina screen, the gorgeous case, and the snappiness of the operating system of the new iPhone 4, I knew I had to have one. And when Apple announced that they were moving up the upgrade date for some AT&T customers, I knew I wanted one on launch day. So that’s what I tried to do.

However, my launch day experience for the iPhone 4 was terrible. At the time, I lived two hours away from my nearest Apple Store, and, although I had hit the road around 3:45AM, by the time I got to the mall housing my Apple Store around 5:45, there was already a considerable line for the door opening at 6AM, and the store didn’t even begin selling them until 8AM. I got in line and waited for hours, hoping they wouldn’t run out of stock while they continued to let in people with in-store pickups and kept the line for people that didn’t have one (like me) at a standstill. I was getting hungry, tired, and my feet hurt.

Eventually, after more than 6 hours of waiting, I was told that they probably didn’t have enough stock for the people in my section of the line. Fed up, I gave up and went inside to actually use the display devices they had set up, as one of the great ironies of standing in line on launch day is that people that aren’t in line to buy can easily go in and play with the new devices, whereas the people that actually want the device on launch day must buy it sight unseen. Though I don’t personally accept the description of Apple fans as “religiously” devoted to the company, I will say that waiting in line for hours to spend hundreds of dollars on a device you’ve never seen or touched or used does require a level of faith that’s typically only found in religious contexts.

In any case, I ended up going in, playing with the iPhone 4, leaving, and driving the two hours back home having wasted most of the day. Two days later I called around and found that my local Radio Shack, of all places, had one available, so I got it. Of course, if I’d have known I could have spared myself the time, gas, and grief, and gotten one at Radio Shack there’s no way I would have stood in line.

Lesson Learned: Be Prepared!

When the new iPad was announced, I wasn’t sure I wanted to get one immediately. In the email discussions back and forth with the CHAOS team about the currently ongoing iPad contest, it came up that a high profile product launch is the perfect place to meet other local Apple fans and to promote Ask Different. So with only a few days to spare before the event, I decided that I would stand in line and buy a new iPad, and given my experiences trying to get an iPhone 4 on launch day, I decided to be prepared.

The day before the event I went to the Apple Store and spoke with one of the employees, asking about the procedure for the following day and where to line up. I was told to line up by a specific outside door, and that they would suggest to the mall security to open that door first at 6AM. However, I was told that they couldn’t guarantee which door would be opened first, so there was always the possibility that the people lining up at the other door would be let into the mall first. Then, similar to the iPhone 4 launch, at that time the line would move indoors at and the store would begin taking its first customers at 8AM.

I then stopped by Wal-Mart and bought a cheap folding chair so I wouldn’t have to stand or sit on the floor for hours. I also went to the bank and took out the exact amount of cash I’d need for the model I wanted. I’d had my card declined buying stuff from the Apple Store before, and I didn’t want to take any chances. Additionally, I avoided eating and drinking much of anything for 12 hours preceding the launch event, so as to avoid having to use the bathroom. Finally, before going to bed I plugged in my iPhone and my MacBooks so I’d have something to do while waiting in line. I was ready.

Zero Hour

On March 16 I awoke at 3AM. I showered, packed my fully charged MacBooks into my backpack, hopped into my car, and arrived at the mall at 3:30. It was cold – my iPhone reported that the outside temperature was 34F – and it was lightly raining. Looking around the parking lot I spotted a few other cars, but I didn’t see anyone lined up at the door yet. Rather than get out of my car and sit out in the cold, I found a parking spot where I had a clear view of the door, put The Talk Show on, and waited for other people to arrive.

At around 4AM I saw two people walk up and sit down outside the doors. The first people in line had arrived. As I was warm and comfortable in my car, I decided to continue waiting for more people. I didn’t need to be first, or even third, so long as I wasn’t too far behind in line. I continued to wait, and the rain started falling a little harder. I started seeing a few cars arriving with employees, presumably of the Apple Store, getting out and going inside.

At 4:30, an hour after I first arrived, the third person in line showed up. He pulled up beside my car, got a folding chair and a bag out of his car, and proceeded toward the door. Since things seemed to be picking up a bit, I decided to get out of my car and get in line myself. I put on my jacket, picked up my own chair and bag, and headed toward the door.

I arrived at the door relieved to find that there was a small awning protecting a few feet in front of the doors from the rain. I set up my chair next to the man who just arrived, and struck up a conversation with him. I found out that he had taken the day off from his IT job and driven three and a half hours to get to the mall. Seeing that he was obviously very prepared, I asked and we talked about some of the launch events he had attended in the past, like the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S launches, and how they compared with my experience at the iPhone 4 launch. I told him about Ask Different, and gave him one of my moderator cards.

He and I talked off and on as more people started to slowly trickle into line. The rain stopped, and the sky started to lighten as the sun began to rise. As 6AM approached, we could see through the mall that a few people were lining up by the opposite door. We started to get concerned that all our time and effort waiting outdoors would be for nothing if we weren’t the first ones let into the mall. So at 5:58, 2 minutes early, we saw two mall security guard each approaching a set of doors. We started to worry as the security guard reached the opposite door with his key in hand while the guard that was to unlock our door was still a few strides away.The tension mounted; the guard for the opposite door had a double door to deal with, but he was still ahead of our guard that only had a single door to unlock.

I know not which door was unlocked first. All I know is that once our door opened the 20 people in our line did a full sprint to the Apple Store, where they already had line dividers set up, and we made it first. I had secured my fourth place in line.

T-2 hours

Once everyone had settled in, the Apple Store employees started going down the line asking what kind of iPad you wanted to buy. Once you told them, they gave you a numbered card with those specs printed on, guaranteeing you an iPad that day. However, that card would not guarantee you a spot in line, so if I left I would have to start again all the way from the end of the line. Because I liked my position in line, and because I didn’t have any immediate needs, I decided to sit in my chair and wait the two hours for the store to open.

While waiting, there were several Apple Store employees that were walking around the crowd talking with the people in line. Most were just trying to engage people in conversation to pass the time until the store opened. There was one employee with an iPad showing off some features and gestures that I had seen before, but that I assume were informative to most of the people there. He did get my attention at one point, though, by claiming that periodically going into the multitasking bar and quitting apps saves battery life, something that I’d been hearing about a few months ago and that had been resoundly debunked. I had been skeptical about how widespread the problem was, but apparently it’s still going on.

As 8AM approached, the line continued to grow. What was a 20 person line when the doors opened at 6AM had grown to 50-60 people, making me glad that I didn’t pop out for breakfast. The store manager was trying to keep the energy high and keep people excited by getting people in the line to do the wave, having us shout “rocks” in response to her shouting “Apple” several times in a row, and other similar things.

Shortly before 8AM I packed up my MacBook and folded up my chair, preparing to go in.

Go Time

With much fanfare the first few customers, including myself, were let in at 8AM. There were employees lining both sides of the center aisle of the store clapping as we were let in, noticeably with somewhat forced enthusiasm (I waited in line for hours, and even I wasn’t as excited as they seemed to be for the new iPad). I met the person that handled my order at the front of the store, and he escorted me to the Genius Bar at the back of the store.

He asked for the card I was given with my desired model configuration on it, and I gave it to him. Behind the counter, there were several cardboard boxes with the capacity, color, and carrier written on in marker on the floor. He took one out from the appropriate box, scanned it with his handheld POS, and asked if I wanted AppleCare+, explaining the benefits of the service at protecting against accidental damage. I’ve purchased many Apple products over the years at the Apple Store, but this was the hardest I’ve ever been attempted to be sold to when it came to AppleCare. He almost seemed surprised that I refused to buy it, but I told him that all I had was the exact amount in cash for the device. I think he believed me when I handed him the nearest dollar amount for the device + tax before he gave me the total.

After making sure that the receipt email went through, I left the store and was asked to hold up my purchase as I left for the line to see. The time on my receipt shows that my iPad was purchased at 8:04AM, indicating that the whole transaction took less than 5 minutes. As I walked out of the store and out of the mall with my new purchase, I got a better look at how large the line had gotten. Not as large as the line for the iPhone 4 launch, but large enough that I’m glad I arrived early.

Part 2: First Impressions coming soon. Stay tuned!

Yesterday, many Mac system administrators learned on Twitter of an urgent change arriving to their servers leaving less than 24 hours until the expiration day for Apple’s certificate used to sign updates. This change affects a tool that gets little fanfare and is deeply buried as one of 20+ items that Profile Manager can do. Although a Software Update Server (SUS) can normally be set up once and mostly forgotten, but doing so can save money, conserve bandwidth, reduce support tickets, and make a company’s Macs more stable.

The Software Update service allows all the Macs to get Apple software updates from a local server rather than having to use the public servers that Apple runs. This is a huge benefit, saving bandwidth on both Apple’s and the business’s ends, since each update gets downloaded once instead of for every computer. Also, when a company wants to test updates before they hit all their hundreds (or thousands) of computers, SUS allows those Mac administrators to release updates after they have been tested to avoid disrupting their colleagues with update conflicts interacting with other business critical software that could have been caught with some testing.

So, why write about this now?

Today is the day when you might start seeing errors if old software updates now fail validation. Server administrators may also prefer to prepare for a rush of many gigabytes of new downloads to be stored on their servers if Apple releases new packages en masse.

Why are software updates cryptographically signed with a fixed expiration date?

Before shipping a software update package, Apple uses a standard certificate to sign each item which helps ensure that the packages, when finally installed, have not been maliciously modified or innocently corrupted in the download process before they finally get installed on a specific Mac. The certificate used to sign these update packages expires on March 23, 2012. A knowledge base article titled Mac OS X Server: Software Update Certificate expiration appeared recently to explain this situation and offer steps for people to manage this transition successfully. The certificate that is expiring was used to sign the updates provided to Lion Server as well as the Snow Leopard server. All the updates for Macs running either Snow Leopard or Lion will be re-issued, which seems to indicate that older operating system and application updates will not be cached locally by servers going forward.

What happens next?

Several things will happen as soon as Apple starts sending out the new updates (set your calendars – these will expire in 2019 if all goes as planned) :

1. Apple is in the process of re-signing all updates and the existing servers will downloading a new copy of all “current” updates.
2. This means many updates will be doubly downloaded since the prior updates are not deleted by the server (and will now take double the disk space).
3. Each Mac has a 50/50 chance of trying to install an “expired” update, which will then show an error message stating that “The update could not be verified”.
4. The server will be downloading a lot of data from Apple starting today or tomorrow. Some clients with slow connections will notice the continuous download and this might take a week or more to download the newly signed catalog.

Most of my Lion servers use 130 GB of space to store the current set of updates, though none have completed downloading the new set of updates, so it’s not clear how much space the current “complete library of Apple software updates” will require once downloaded. Some of these files are now expired and Apple will not be re-signing and re-including these older updates in the complete catalog of updates that Lion server can download.

I expect the actual download size to be less than 100 GB, but even so that amount is enough for some to earn a letter from their internet provider recommending they pay for a business class service or even pay for overages in some cases. Even if you are not concerned with the amount of data, downloading 50 GB of data on a fast connection can take days and I would expect Apple’s servers to be slow for the next few weeks. Pretty much everyone’s servers will be hitting Apple at the same time since the new downloads are being released within hours of the expiration of the old.

Also, some people that use a Mac Mini server may have less than 100GB free on the drive where these updates are stored and could run into a low disk space situation. However, this is more of a housekeeping problem than something that will immediately cause a problem. By default, the service should pause all future downloads when free space on its volume gets less than 20% of the available space.

Events like this are a great time to verify that alert emails from the server for low disk space warnings are going to the correct group of people.

One more thing…

Also, if you follow the instructions in the Apple KB article as I did, you’ll get an easy-to-miss syntax error and your server won’t download updates from Apple until it is resolved. Step 5 of that guide states “Delete the folder named “html” inside it.” but when you start the service, it won’t create the folder to store all the updates and you will see text in the Software Update Error Log like:

[Thu Mar 22 09:59:34 2012] [notice] caught SIGTERM, shutting down
Syntax error on line 288 of /etc/swupd/swupd.conf:
DocumentRoot must be a directory
[Thu Mar 22 10:01:23 2012] [notice] mod_bw : Memory Allocated 32 bytes (each conf takes 32 bytes)

sudo mkdir -p /var/db/swupd/html

Two other blogs that cover the details of inspecting and working with expired packages are Rich Trouton’s invaluable personal blog Der Flounder  and a blog I have just started following by Greg Neagle on managing Mac OS X in an enterprise environment.

• Package Apocalypse by Greg Neagle

• Apple installer package certificate expiration by Rich Trouton

Mike Bradshaw (bmike)

For more questions and answers on Software Update and Servers, you can search using the tags software-update and server on Ask Different.

• This episode is all about the big news of the week: the new iPad. The first interesting thing about it is its name: iPad. Not iPad 3, not iPad 4G, just iPad. Officially, it’s the iPad 3rd Generation. We discuss our opinions of and experiences with the new naming convention, as well as how we plan to handle the tagging situation on Ask Different.
• We move on to the meat of the new iPad and discuss its features. We list the major changes that were announced, and Kyle and Mike, who both have the new device, share their favorite features and the features they’re more skeptical about. Both love the Retina display, a favorite of Kyle’s for watching time lapse videos. Kyle also appreciates being able to use an AT&T 3G SIM card in a Verizon 4G iPad. The new 5MP, f2.4 camera is also a great addition.
• The first part of the iPad experiences buying it. Kyle and Mike share their experiences with purchasing new iPad, and compare them to previous launch day purchases. Mike observed some technical problems that the Apple online store seem to be experiencing. Kyle went to the Apple Store early, and had a much better experience than the last time he tried that (aside from being pressured to buy AppleCare+). A video from Kyle’s iPad launch experience can be found here.
• Some of the favorite apps that Kyle and Mike have put on their new iPads include: Tweetbot, Reeder, Garageband, 1password, Screens, Prompt, Agenda, FileMaker Go, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, Instapaper, and Twitterific.
• We conclude with some Ask Different news. The New iPad Challenge is currently taking place. This contest awards prizes to people who participate on Ask Different. If you achieve level one, you’ll be entered into a contest to win an iPad. At level two, you’ll receive an iPod touch as well as be entered into the contest. Those who make it to level three will be given an iPad! To see details and check leaderboards, go to http://thenewipadishere.com.

This episode was recorded on March 19th, 2012. You can subscribe to this podcast via RSS or iTunes. We would appreciate it if you could take a second to give us a rating on iTunes. We’d love to hear from you! Please feel free to leave a comment on this post or e-mail us at podcast@askdifferent.net. Thanks for listening.

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Let’s start at the top and work our way down.

Use your Finder skills

As anyone can see, open/save dialogs are very similar to Finder windows. The standard sidebar, view modes, and grouping options are available. Don’t feel limited to using the default Icon View in open/save dialogs just because they’re small. Open/save dialogs are resizable, so don’t be afraid to use whatever view mode you in the Finder. Personally, I’m a big fan of Column View. The new Item Arrangement features are especially powerful in open/save dialogs since the file or folder you’re looking for is frequently one you’ve used recently. I set my open/save dialogs to group by Date Modified, which is a lot more efficient than digging through alphabetical lists.

Navigate with the keyboard

Like in Finder, files and folders can be navigated using the keyboard. In Column and List views, use the arrow keys to navigate across and between files and folders. In Icon view, use the arrow keys to select a file or folder and cmd+↓/↑ to enter/exit folders.

Also like in Finder, there are keyboard shortcuts to jump to common locations:

• ⇧+⌘+O goes to your Documents folder,
• ⌘+D goes to your Desktop,
• ⌥+⌘+L goes to your Downloads,
• ⇧+⌘+H goes to your Home folder,
• ⇧+⌘+C goes to the Computer,
• ⇧+⌘+K goes to the Network,
• ⇧+⌘+A goes to the Applications folder, and
• ⇧+⌘+U goes to the Utilities folder.

And, like most dialogs, you can press enter or either ⌘+O or ⌘+S to accept your selection and dismiss the dialog. Hit escape to cancel and dismiss the dialog without performing any action.

Type your paths directly

Let’s move on to a more advanced feature: the Go to Folder dialog. Like in Finder, you can access a prompt for typing a path by pressing ⇧+⌘+G. If you love the keyboard, you’ll love this dialog; frequently, the fastest way to get to where you want to go is by typing its path. This is especially true because the Go to Folder dialog features tab autocompletion: type the beginning of the name of a file or folder and hit tab to fill in the rest of the name automatically. My favorite part about the Go to Folder dialog is that it appears automatically whenever you begin typing a path (/ or ~). When saving, the desired filename can even be included in the path.

Create shortcuts for commonly used folders

The Go to Folder dialog enables full keyboard control of open/save dialogs, and that means TextExpander. Any power users who don’t have TextExpander are seriously missing out. If any of this article has been interesting to you, I highly recommend that you install the trial and spend a few days playing around. TextExpander is available from Smile Software for $35, and is well worth it.

Now that you all have TextExpander, let’s put it to use. Open/save dialogs have some built-in navigation shortcuts for jumping to common folders, but everyone has other folders that they open from and save to frequently. With TextExpander, you can configure snippets that take you straight to a folder with one keyword.

Click the TextExpander menu bar item and choose Open TextExpander. Click the New Group button and create a new group called Paths. Make sure to set Expand after: to Whitespace. Now let’s create some path macros.
There are a few rules to making these. First, make sure they start with a ~ or a / so that the Go to Folder dialog is opened when you start typing. The slash is easier to type, so I usually go with that. The other rule is to end with pressing the enter key so that the Go to Folder dialog is dismissed. Let’s make a snippet.

Select your group and press the New Snippet button. In the Abbreviation field, type the keyword that you want to use (remember to start it with a ~ or /). Make sure the Content field is set to use plain text, and then type in your path. At the end, press the I button at the bottom left of the snippet pane. Choose Key -> Enter. Ta-da, your first path snippet. Go to an open/save dialog and try it out. Type your abbreviation and you’ll be instantly taken to the path you entered. Time to get to work making these for all your commonly used folders!

Create shortcuts for repetitive selections

TextExpander is even more powerful that that, though. There are some cases where you frequently travel to a file or folder that matches certain conditions but is different each time. I, for example, frequently want to open the last screenshot that I took. Here’s where a little shell scripting comes in. Create a new snippet in your Paths group and give it an abbreviation (I chose /lshot). Set the Content field to Shell Script by clicking its menu and paste the following code in:

#!/bin/bash
set -e
cd ~/Desktop
thefile=$(ls -t "Screen Shot" | head -n 1)
echo -n "~/Desktop/$thefile"
osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to key code 36'

Basically, this script finds the most recently modified file on your Desktop with the words ‘Screen Shot’ in its name. If you store your screenshots somewhere other than your Desktop, you’ll have to change the path in the third and last line. That last line presses the return key. Be sure to include that in your own scripts if you want navigation to take place automatically.

Now you can type one word in any open dialog and have the most recently-taken screenshot be selected for you. I’m sure that everyone has other interesting situations where TextExpander is helpful in open/save dialogs. If you’ve got a cool one, post your script in the comments. If you need help writing your script, ask on Ask Different or the Unix Stack Exchange site. If you’re an AppleScript fan, note that you can also use AppleScripts in TextExpander snippets.

I hope this article will help you be more efficient in open/save dialogs. If you’ve got any questions or tips to share, feel free post in the comments below.

Apple recently announced the revamped and recharged iPad, and they hit stores today. This new iteration of Apple’s tablet features  impressive quad core graphics and state of the art Retina technology for higher def viewing. The new iPad continues to set the standard for elegance in design and advancements in performance and technology.

We’re impressed. Are you?

In our corner of the Apple universe, we continue to build a comprehensive resource helping those who dare to ask different. To celebrate the new benchmark in tablet computing, we ordered a few for you, in case to you didn’t have the chance to.

Because we can’t give new iPads to everyone (we wish that we could!), people who participate on Ask Different during the next two weeks to different degrees earn different Apple products. Visit the Ask Different iPad Contest Page for specific details on how these iPads (and iPods) are being given away.

I’ve been a longtime user of Sparrow for Mac. As a Gmail user and a fan of its Tweedie-inspired interface, it just felt like a much better fit for how I like to interact with my email than the stodgier Mail.app or Postbox, providing nearly all the benefits of the Gmail web interface in a beautiful native app. So I was very excited this morning to discover that, after months of waiting, Sparrow for iPhone has finally been released.

First Impressions

Sparrow for iPhone looks good, and it’s mostly consistent with Sparrow for Mac. This isn’t a great surprise, as Sparrow for Mac takes its design cues from the now-defunct Tweedie for iOS. The whole interface is very fluid and responsive as well, unlike the official Gmail app for iOS which can be laggy and slow. One thing that I like from the Mac client that I was pleased to see that they brought over to Sparrow for iPhone is showing the avatars of the senders next to their messages in my message list.

Interface

Message List

The primary view in Sparrow is the list of messages. If the message is part of a conversation thread, the number of messages in that thread appears on the right hand side of the message in the message list, much like Sparrow for Mac. Swiping from right to left on a message in the message list brings up a menu where you can quickly reply to, star, label, archive, or delete that message. Tap “Edit” in the upper right hand corner and you can select multiple message, then mark them as read or unread, or move, archive, or delete them. Scrolling the message view works as you’d expect, except that when you hit the bottom of the list there’s a control you can tap to load more messages.

Sparrow’s facilities for managing mail messages right from the message interface completely blows the iOS Mail app and the native Gmail app out of the water. Power Gmail users especially should love the enhancements Sparrow has made to this interface – I know for a fact that I’m going to start archiving more messages now that it’s trivial to do so. I also really like the semi-automatic infinite scrolling, one of the things I really hate about the iOS Mail app is the fact that it’s game over once you hit the end of the list.

Reading a Message

Tapping on a message in the message list causes the interface to slide to the left, revealing the contents of the message. If the message is part of a message thread, it still goes directly to that message, unlike iOS Mail which first takes you to the thread. In the message view the number of messages and the current message’s position in that thread appear in the top center. Tapping it will bring up a view to select among the messages in that thread. There is also a button in the lower right hand corner that expands into a menu to compose a new message, forward, star, archive, and trash. In the upper right hand corner is the button to reply to the message.

At first glance, the message view looks quite similar to iOS Mail’s message view, but there are a few nice things. First, instead of showing quoted text it hides it under a “…” button, like the Sparrow for Mac app. A small thing to be sure, but I prefer this behavior. Second, I like the fact that the controls for forwarding, archiving, etc are hidden behind a button. In iOS Mail there is a permanent bar at the bottom taking up valuable screen real estate for some features I rarely use. Finally, I really like how Sparrow shows the information under “Details”. There are mini avatars next to the names of the senders and recipients of the messages, as the people that were CC’d the message are shown in different color than the recipients of the message.

Composing a Message

There are a few ways to compose a message. You can tap the button in the lower right-hand corner of the message list, tap the reply button in a message view, or tap the lower right-hand button in the message view and tap the leftmost button on the pop-up menu.

If you’re sending a new message, you’ll be presented with a list of your contacts. If you tap directly on the contact, it will add them to the “to” field, but there are also CC and BCC buttons you can tap to add them directly to the CC and BCC fields directly. If you need to enter the email address in directly, you can do so with the text area at the top.

From there, it acts pretty much as you’d expect, with an area for the subject and body of the message. One nice feature of Sparrow is the ability to send mail from different accounts or with different aliases. To change the address the mail comes from, tap the “From” are in the top center, and you’ll get an interface to select the email address you’d like to use. (You will have to have set up your aliases in the preferences).

Switching Folders and Accounts

By default the message list shows the Inbox, but you can get access to Starred, Sent Mail, Drafts, Trash, Important, or any of your labels by tapping the button with the three horizontal lines in the upper left hand corner, or by swiping from left to right on the message list.

At the top center of the message list is the name of the section you’re in. This can also be tapped to quickly switch between Inbox, Unread, Starred, and Priority, giving you quick access to these common views. Even if you’re in a label or other section, tapping the name will bring you back to the Inbox. I really like this feature, the Inbox is most often where I intend to go in my mail apps, so it’s nice that Sparrow is providing me with one-tap access to get there.

If you tap the button in the upper left again, or swipe from left to right again, you get a list of your accounts. If you have more than one account, there will also be an option for a “universal inbox” that will display all your email in a single message view.

Drawbacks

Although Sparrow for iPhone is an amazing app, there are a few drawbacks. The biggest one is that there is no push support for email notifications. And because iOS apps can’t continue running indefinitely, this means that you won’t be able to be notified at all if you get new email and Sparrow doesn’t happen to be running. The given reason for why push notification is not included is as follows:

If Sparrow was to do Push today, we would have to store your credentials (login/password) on our servers to frequently poll your accounts, and send you notifications.

This is a responsibility we’re not ready to take. As a startup focused on iOS/OS X development, we do not have the skills to secure your data on our servers and we do not want to put sensitive information at risk. That’s why Sparrow iPhone 1.0 doesn’t do push.

Their post goes on to mention an API that VoIP apps use to stay constantly connected, and that they’ve started a petition to request the ability to use that API, but in the meantime, no push.

Another downside is that Sparrow for iPhone only supports IMAP. In other words, if you want to add a POP or Exchange account, you’re out of luck. In my mind this is an acceptable limitation for a 1.0 given that Sparrow targets Gmail users, and Gmail’s interface is through IMAP. Still, if you were hoping to use Sparrow for all your mail and you have non-IMAP accounts, it’s not going to do the job quite yet.

Conclusion

Sparrow for iPhone is great. The interface really is top notch, after using Sparrow for five minutes going back to iOS Mail feels handicapping, and the Gmail app’s UI feels horrifying. Once they sort out the problem with push notifications, I’ll completely ditch iOS Mail and replace it with Sparrow. In the meantime, I’m going to keep Sparrow in the dock on my iPhone, but I’m also going to keep the iOS Mail app nearby just in case.

Sparrow is currently available from the App Store for $2.99, which is a significant bargain. If you care at all about mail on your iPhone, I highly recommend checking out Sparrow.