Lower wattage MagSafe power adapters

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Shawn Blanc about the MagSafe Power Adapter:

Though it never stopped me, I always thought using a higher-wattage power adapter for my laptop was a bad idea. Turns out, according to this Apple knowledge base article, it’s no big deal at all.

Sometimes you might even want to use a lower wattage power adapter than the one that ships with your MacBook (Pro). For example when traveling on an airplane that has power plugs that only support a limited wattage.

This way your MacBook might take ages to charge completely, but it will at the very least keep it running.

Instagram acquired by Facebook: One way to export your photos

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Facebook buying Instagram

When Mike and I started Instagram nearly two years ago, we set out to change and improve the way the world communicates and shares. We’ve had an amazing time watching Instagram grow into a vibrant community of people from all around the globe. Today, we couldn’t be happier to announce that Instagram has agreed to be acquired by Facebook.

Now that Facebook has acquired Instagram, I’m sure some people are trying to figure out how to get their photos out of it. Instaport.me is one service that offers you a way to export your pictures from Instagram.

After authenticating with your Instagram credentials, Instaport will gather your photos and offer you a ZIP file after it’s done. I had 232 photos which were 21.3 MB. Here’s the link to delete your Instagram account in case you were looking.

Congrats on that $1 billion though!

Apple starts using their own mapping service, ditches Google Maps

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Yesterday we saw the appearance of the new iPad which was accompanied by a new Apple TV and some other goodies. A special interest happened to be around the new iPhoto for iOS and OS X. As Stephen Hackett of 512 Pixels (via Matthew Panzarino) discovered first, the app isn’t using Google Maps any longer. Apparently Apple is now using their own map service. Here’s how I found out using mitmproxy and some simple changes in iOS that redirect all wireless traffic through a designated proxy. Continue reading →

The Android version question

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Vlad Savov on The Verge asking “Is Ice Cream Sandwich out yet?”:

This is the vexing question that has been percolating inside my mind while reviewing the Sony Xperia S: is Google’s Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android out yet? The instinctive answer would be quick and affirmative, what with the Galaxy Nexus having been on sale for months, but go to your local phone store and try to count the number of non-Nexus ICS handsets currently on sale. It won’t take you long since the answer will almost invariably be zero.

[..]

If Google is in charge of the Android project, it should accept responsibility for all of it, because that’s how the rest of the world perceives it. And if it’s not, it should come clean by clearly defining which devices will and won’t benefit from its "express new OS" service.

I think most Android users don’t care about what version of Android their smartphone is running. Android is becoming the next “feature phone” OS – if it hasn’t already. There is a minority of users, which is probably getting smaller each day, that cares about their Android smartphone choices. They will get a device like the Galaxy Nexus and be happy with it.

The majority of the Android customers though don’t care and just get the cheapest, biggest, whateverest phone there is. What version of Android does it run? They don’t care. If you’re lucky they might ask why they should.

There’s a whole lot more to be said about the problems that will crop up with this growing gap, but that’s worth its own post.

OS X Lion: Wrong keyboard layout during boot using FileVault

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This is more of a “note to self”: After enabling FileVault on my MBP during installation, the input field for entering your FileVault password is using the US keyboard layout. That, in combination with an actual German keyboard, is good for some fun during your next reboot – of course only if you’re using a strong password, which includes special characters.

To be able to change the keyboard layout at boot, you have to tick the box as seen above.

Google TV: They better hurry to meet Schmidt’s target

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Janko Roettgers for GigaOM – Less than 1M Google TV devices in use:

It’s widely known Google TV hasn’t exactly been a success story. Early CE partner Logitech lost millions on the device, and consumer feedback was mostly negative after the first devices reached the market in late 2010. But how many of Logitech’s Revue boxes and Sony’s Google TV devices are actually being used by consumers? The answer is less than a million, according information hidden in Google’s own data. Also interesting: Logitech’s Revue set-top box makes up more than half of those devices.

Remember Schmidt saying this?

By the summer of 2012, the majority of the televisions you see in stores will have Google TV embedded.

Not available on the iBookstore: Apple rejects eBook due to links to Amazon

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Seth Godin – Who decides what gets sold in the bookstore?:

I just found out that Apple is rejecting my new manifesto Stop Stealing Dreams and won’t carry it in their store because inside the manifesto are links to buy the books I mention in the bibliography.

Quoting here from their note to me, rejecting the book: “Multiple links to Amazon store. IE page 35, David Weinberger link.”

I agree with Marco Arment and don’t think Apple should stop eBooks from being published just because of their content, like having links to another store, in this case Amazon. Would it be okay if Google would ban videos from YouTube that have a link to Vimeo in their description or inside the video itself?

Of course Seth Godin could have put the ISBN and title of the book into his eBook, but since we can have “interactive” things like links in digital books, why not use them? But maybe we need a white list/black list of URLs that Apple likes or doesn’t like. If it was just the pure number of links, we need to know how many links would be okay for Apple.

In case you were wondering, after checking the links in his free eBook: none of the linked titles were available for Amazon’s Kindle. They were only hardcovers, paperbacks, etc. and audiobooks by Audible.

I think that Amazon and Apple and B&N need to take a deep breath and make a decision on principle: what’s inside the book shouldn’t be of concern to a bookstore with a substantial choke on the marketplace. If it’s legal, they ought to let people read it if they choose to.

Sounds good to me.

Google+: A ghost town?

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Amir Efrati about The Mounting Minuses at Google+ for the Wall Street Journal:

Visitors using personal computers spent an average of about three minutes a month on Google+ between last September and January, versus six to seven hours on Facebook each month over the same period, according to comScore, which didn’t have data on mobile usage.

I wonder how they managed to sign up 90 million users while only a fraction of them are actually using it after all?