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Mac

Best Apple Mac compatible keyboards

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For a lot of Mac users, the Keyboard is the canvas on which they paint their art. It takes just the right feel in order for a keyboard to reach perfection, and no two keyboards are exactly the same. That’s why many Mac users spend years trying to find the perfect match.

Apple ships a keyboard with every new Mac (except the Mac Pro and Mac Mini), but it is supremely subpar, and doesn’t last very long. So what is a Mac user to do? Here are three top quality Mac keyboards you should consider.

Logitech diNovo Edge Keyboard

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Logitech diNovo

The diNovo Keyboard has that PC look but with an ultra-modern feel at only 11mm thick! Not to mention it comes with a charging station and a bluetooth adapter for your Mac. This item is reviewed on many tech sites consistently getting some of the highest marks. Many buy it for the TouchDisc alone which combines fine cursor control, scrolling and selection all in one. It’s black stealth appearance will definitely get some looks. It’s a laser cut plexiglass that feels smooth and responsive. If the standard Apple keyboard had an evil twin it would be this keyboard. Pricey, but like we said it sells easily time and time again with all its added features Get the latest price on the diVovo Keyboard here.

Logitech Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 for Mac

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Logitech Solar Keyboard

We know what you’re thinking: Solar? Come on, that will only work under the sun, right? That’s what’s so cool about this particular Logitech keyboard. It works by collecting light from the light bulb in your office, as well as the sun. One of the worst parts about a wireless keyboard is that almost all of them eat through batteries like they’re going out of style. This solar keyboard doesn’t have batteries at all. It is always charging, and storing that charge.

We found in our tests that as long as a light was positioned over the keyboard, it never ran out of power. Get the latest price here.  It’s also reasonably priced at about ($55 USD).

Matias Tactile Pro Keyboard for Mac

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Matias Tactile Pro

If you’ve been using a Mac for a long time, you’ll remember the awesome Apple keyboards that came with the Mac back in the late 90s and early 2000s. They had amazing tactile keys that made the cool clickity clackity sound that everyone associates with the keyboard today.

That keyboard went away when Apple redesigned the iMac. Matias makes some of the best Mac Keyboards available. The Tactile Pro is a great keyboard that allows you to type fast. There are two things you should be aware of. First the Tactile Pro is loud, as it has that traditional keyboard sound. Second, it isn’t wireless, so you’ll have to deal with a cord. Luckily the cord is very long, so you’ll be able to route it through your desk  Get the latest price here.

Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch K811 Keyboard for Mac

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Logitech Easy-Switch

Our last choice is another Logitech keyboard. This one is a bit more traditional in that batteries power it, and it’s also Bluetooth, so you won’t have to worry about losing the little dongle that comes with the K750.

If you’re looking for a small compact BT keyboard that will work with both your Mac and your iDevices, this is the best choice. It’s aesthetically pleasing and the keys, though shallow, are clicky enough that you should feel right at home.  Get the latest price for the Logitech Easy-Switch here.

Bottom Line

The keyboard is still important, even after 30+ years of personal computing. It’s likely to continue to be important, even as touch computing continues to revolutionize the term computer. Of the keyboards we look at here, we prefer the diNova, but it isn’t for everyone. If you’re a minimalist, then it’ll be great, but if you prefer a more traditional style, one of the other mac compatible keyboards will suit you better.

iPhone

Apple releases iOS 7.0.6 to fix SSL bug

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We’ve been looking forward to Apple’s next big iOS bug fix release for many months. The wait continues, unfortunately. Apple, who seems to enjoy teasing its enthusiast community, has released iOS 7.0.6 via OTA update. It is not the update we were hoping for.

What’s in iOS 7.0.6?

So if you were hoping for fixes for the continuing crash problems in iOS, or perhaps fixes for some of the many bugs in iOS 7, you’ll be supremely disappointed in iOS 7.0.6. The only thing the Apple says is in this update is a fix for SSL connection verification.

  • Data Security
  • Available for: iPhone 4 and later, iPod touch (5th generation), iPad 2 and later
  • Impact: An attacker with a privileged network position may capture or modify data in sessions protected by SSL/TLS
  • Description: Secure Transport failed to validate the authenticity of the connection. This issue was addressed by restoring missing validation steps.
  • To put it into plain English, it allowed network snoopers to intercept SSL protected data.
The Wait for 7.1 Continues

While this is no doubt an important update, and security-wise it seems like a pretty big bug fix, it is a bit disappointing that this isn’t the 7.1 update. After all, it’s getting close to March. iOS 7 was released in October, and this will be the first major update. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to release several smaller updates that actually fixed some of the bugs users are experiencing? Instead it seems that most of the small releases up until now have all been for under the hood fixes, and a few small UI tweaks.

There are several things we’re waiting for. First has to be a fix for the constant re-springs that a ton of users are experiencing. We’re also waiting for several fixes to the way the iOS 7 user interface functions.

The iPad has been especially buggy, with multitasking not working most of the time, apps crashing all over the place, and several minor UI inconsistencies, all adding up to a really poor experience. Here’s hoping that iOS 7 brings some relief for these bugs.

It seems we’re destined to wait until at least mid-March before iOS 7.1 comes out. According to iMore, the update is still on track for a March release.

Bottom Line

The wait for iOS 7.1 has seemed unbearable this go-round. Perhaps it’s that iOS 7 has been unusually buggy. iOS 7 was completely redesigned, so it was thought when it first came out that Apple would release quick updates in order to polish the several areas that were less than perfect.

They have released several updates to iOS 7 since October, and each time users waited by their phones, drooling with anticipation, hoping for that one bug fix that they really desired. Every time, they were disappointed because the release was just another minor under the hood tweak.

News

Apple bringing iTunes Festival to SXSW

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Since 2007, Apple has put on a live concert series each year, under the moniker “iTunes Festival”. The concerts are free to go to, and are also streamed for free on all Apple devices, including the Mac and Apple TV. The concerts have always been held in London, where it has seen enormous success with over 400,000 visitors since 2007.

2014 will be the first year where the concert series is held outside of London. This year it will happen March 11-15 at SXSW (South by Southwest) in Austin, Texas. The event will be held at the Moody Theatre in downtown Austin.

From the press release:

“The iTunes Festival in London has become an incredible way for Apple to share its love of music with our customers,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We’re excited about the incredible lineup of artists performing and SXSW is the perfect place to debut the first iTunes Festival in the US.”

Musical Guests

Over the years, the iTunes Festival has had several of the biggest names in music perform on stage, including Justin Timberlake, Brittany Spears, and Lady Gaga. This year the Festival will include Coldplay, Pittbull, Imagine Dragons, Keith Urban, and Zedd, with additional acts to be announced later.

SXSW

In the tech-sphere we mostly know SXSW as a technology party where startups can show off their stuff to potential investors and the public. A ton of brands have launched and/or gotten popular at SXSW over the years including Twitter and Foursquare.

That SXSW is just part of the actual event, a separate event is put on for music related quests, and another for film. This will be, perhaps, the first year the music event overshadows the tech event, at least in the tech press.

SXSW starts March 7 and goes to March 16.

Can’t Make it to Austin?

Getting to Austin can be a huge pain, and once you do get there you’ll have to put up with hundreds of thousands of people wandering the streets, and attending the events. If you can’t get there or don’t want to deal with the crowds, Apple will be streaming the event live and on demand for people who use their platforms.

It can be done through iTunes on the Mac, or through the dedicated iTunes Festival app on the iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV. Apple streams all the events for free. They started the event in order to bring more traffic and sales to their iTunes music store, and (according to Apple) to give back to the fans of music and Apple.

Mac

Apple readying fix for sleep crashes on 2013 MacBook Air

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The truth is yet to be known, however it seems that Apple has been having several major problems with recently released software and hardware, at least more than usual. There are the severe bugs in iOS 7, which have yet to be fixed, Mavericks has been a mess especially for Gmail users, and the new MacBooks have had several problems.

One of those problems is about to be fixed. 2013 MacBook Air owners have been experiencing intermittent issues when the computer goes to sleep and/or wakes up. Sometimes the computer crashes completely, sometimes it just freezes, or users are presented with a black screen.

This has led to some extremely lengthy threads on the Apple Support site.

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These problems have gone unresolved since at least November of last year. It looks like the problem is related to a Mavericks (OS X 10.9) bug, which causes the keyboard and touchpad to miscommunicate. It also seems to be only affecting a small percentage of users.

Clever and ambitious users have been able to re-create the issue by pressing the power button, and clicking the touch pad immediately. Which has led to the conclusion that something is going wrong with the way the software communicates clicks during the wakeup/sleep process.

A Fix is Coming

Apple is already deep into development of the next software update for Mavericks. They released another seed of OS X 10.9.2 to developers earlier this week. According to an Apple Support Representative, the fix for these problems will be included in that update, as long as nothing crops up that prevents the fix from being deployed between now and the update’s release.

Developers who are using the beta, which is now in its fourth iteration, have claimed that the problem has been completely fixed. It looks like Apple did this by preventing the computer from going to sleep when the power button is pressed accidentally. Whether or not this solves the problem for all users will remain to be seen.

How to Get Around the Problem Now

If you are experiencing this problem, there seems to be only one work around that works, and that is to do a hard restart of your computer. To do so all you need to do is press and hold the power button.

The question is when will Apple release the patch with the fix? The answer, as always when it comes to Apple, is when they think its ready. It could be tomorrow or it could be a couple months away. Logic seems to indicate that it will be sooner rather than later, as it is at beta 4 at this point, so it has to be getting pretty close. Bold prediction: expect the update to drop in March alongside iOS 7.1.

News

Record songs from iTunes Radio with this new Mac App

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It’s hard to tell whether or not Apple’s iTunes Radio has been a success. They haven’t announced numbers beyond the first weekend, so who knows how it’s really doing. For those of you who do use the service, which can be accessed through iTunes on the Mac, doubleTwist has released a new Mac app, called AirPlay Recorder, which allows you to record songs played on iTunes Radio for later listening.

What the App Does

Basically the way it works is by tricking iTunes into thinking the app is an AirPlay device. Which then causes the music to go to the app, which then records it. It’s very simple, and probably very illegal (more on that later). Each track is saved in your music folder in a specialized “Recorder” folder that can then be transferred directly into iTunes.

This marks the second time that doubleTwist has released an app to rip songs from iTunes Radio. They released an Android app in January, which basically does the same thing; only it does the recording on an Android device instead of directly on the Mac.

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DoubleTwist AirPlay Recorder
Legally Speaking

What the app does is cool, no doubt, and it is most definitely useful to start a huge collection of music, the question is whether it’s legal or not. While we’re no lawyers here, it seems unlikely that it follows the letter of the law.

The developers claim it is legal because in the US radio and TV are available under the Fair Use clause of copyright law. “We are based in the US where recording radio and TV for personal use has been protected under fair use for decades,” writes the developer on their Google Play app page.

Of course, this takes a pretty liberal view of what radio really is. iTunes Radio isn’t exactly radio as we knew it 20 years ago before the Internet became popular.

Will the App Survive?

That’s the question isn’t it? Technologically speaking can Apple block an App like this without blocking legitimate AirPlay receivers? It would seem the only way is if they somehow have a way to block certain receivers, which is of course possible, knowing Apple.

It’ll be interesting to see how Apple responds to this, or if they will respond at all. If they have a way of blocking it, they will for sure. If they don’t have a way, chances are nothing will be said about it from Cupertino.

The AirPlay Recorder app costs $9.99, and is available on the doubleTwist website. It does have a free trial version, but will only record the first 10 seconds of each track until you make the purchase. It’s quite expensive, but since you’ll save money on buying CDs from iTunes, you’ll make it up in no time.