Back in May 2007, I wrote a feature for Australian Macworld on batteries and power solution. You can read the entire yarn here [22MB PDF].

In that story I recommended that users should regularly cycle your notebook or mobile phone's battery. That means letting it run all the way down and then fully recharging it.

Today, I came past this story over at ZDNet. It seems that Apple has a nifty diagnostic app running on an iPod that can diagnose whether a failed battery's condition has come from neglect or from a defect.

One of the telling things about this particular visit to the Apple Store was something the tech told me. He said that he would replace the battery with a new one because it has be “used correctly.” When I asked him to elaborate on what that meant, he told me that Apple’s notebook batteries last longest when they’re routinely charged and discharged.

Apple's batteries are more sophisticated than a simple collection of single cells. There are "smarts" built into them that retain information like the number of charging cycles and let you check the remaining charge by pressing a small button either on the battery (for older Macbooks and MacBook Pros) or on the unibody for more recent models.

If you're a mere mortal and don't have a fancy iPod gizmo for testing your battery, you can achieve much the same with iStat Pro - a widget created by iSlayer. In addition to all the useful system information it provides it's able to access that interesting battery data.

As it turns out, battery life is very much a "use it or lose it" proposition. In order to get the most out of your battery, both in terms of longevity and capacity make it a habit to run the battery down regularly.

I typically connect my MacBook Pro to the web in two different ways; WiFi and a Huawei E160G 3G modem. One of the things I've found, that is really annoying, is that OS X is really dumb when it comes to dealing with multiple network connections.

What I find is that OS X tries to connect to a WiFi network while the 3G connection is active. The problem is that if the WiFi connection is poor OS X persists in trying to use it even if the 3G connection is better. I've encountered the same thing when I've connected an iMac to one router by Ethernet and another over WiFi (Idid this as part of some router testing). OS X was unable to aggregate the connections.

The cure is easy - turn off WiFi before initiating the 3G connection. But that's not very Apple-like.

For an OS that's generally very traveller-friendly this is a real PITA.

Well, as the owner of a shiny, new 13" MacBook Pro I was a little surprised to read that Apple had dropped the hard drive spec from what they had on the previous, MacBook. Rather than the faster 3Gbps eSATA drives they previously used, they introduced 1.5Gbps drives.

In response to some comments by customers, they've released a firmware update to support the faster eSATA specification.

MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 addresses an issue reported by a small number of customers using drives based on the SATA 3Gbps specification with the June 2009 MacBook Pro.  While this update allows drives to use transfer rates greater than 1.5Gbps, Apple has not qualified or offered these drives for Mac notebooks and their use is unsupported.

Did you catch the last sentence - this is a firmware update to support hard drives that they won't support.

I sense confusion in The Force.

I've been using Three's Mobile Broadband service for several years now. I think I'm on my fifth different modem now having upgraded my service and hardware several times. I've been using a Huawei E160G USB modem for a year or so and it's been pretty good.

Yesterday I noticed on their website that the other modem that have on offer, the E180, was available with its claim to fame being a pivoting USB connector and a performance rating of 7.2Mbps, rather than the 3.6Mbps that the E160 offers. Three is usually pretty good at upgrading their customers (provided you extend your contract) so I gave them a call.

It only took a few moments to get through to a salesperson (funny how the sales lines are better manned than the help desks of many telcos isn't it?) and asked about the E180. It turns out that the E180 isn't actually any faster as Three's network limits the speed.

Bummer.

Now that iPhone 3.0 has been released I thought it would be pertinent to look at what's happening in carrier land and to play with a couple of the new features.

Carriers

In Australia we effectively have three major carriers; Telstra, Optus and the newly created VHA that's being formed through the merger of Three and Vodafone.

VHA
VHA has announced that the new iPhone 3G S will be sold through Three stores in Australia. This is significant locally as Three was never an official carrier for the iPhone 3G although they did offer a $300 rebate for any customers bringing a unlocked iPhone 3G to their network.

Vodafone has also announced that you can register interest in the iPhone 3G S here.

At this stage there's no announcement on whether tethering will cost extra but given that Three has actively encouraged the use of phones as modems I don't expect them to charge customers for the privilege.

Optus
Optus hasn't officially released pricing on their site but have sent a press release that states that tethering ("iPhone as a Modem" in Optus-speak) will cost extra. We're looking at $9.95 per month.

In my view, this is ridiculous. Many iPhone users on the Optus network don't use their entire data allowance now. Why they can't use this for tethering is a matter of some conjecture with managing their network capability through charging structures probably the most likely explanation. However, this is very easily overcome by downloading the appropriate profile from this site. The easiest thing to do is visit that address with Safari on your iPhone.

If you're interested in an iPhone 3G S through Optus you can register your interest here.

Telstra
Telstra has been conspicuously quiet on the iPhone 3.0 front. A look at their iPhone website reveals no new information - not even an acknowledgment that there's a new iPhone or an operating system update.

I wouldn't expect to offer different pricing for tethered traffic as they already charge an arm and leg for their service compared to the other local carriers.

Find My iPhone and MobileMe
The value of Apple's MobileMe service has been questionable - until now. The introduction of the "Find my iPhone" services adds significant value to MobileMe.

Firstly, if you lose your iPhone you can use MobileMe to locate the handset. Enabling the service on the iPhone is a little tricky to find (Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts and Calendars > MobileMe >Find my iPhone).

Then. visit www.me.com and go to Settings. Form there, it's an easy thing to locate your phone. If the phone isn't precisely locatable via its GPS receiver then it position relative to carrier transmission towers is provided.

You can also get the iPhone to display a message or make a sound - even when the phone is on silent.

If your phone is truly lost then you can remotely wipe its contents.

When Snow Leopard Server is released later this year, I'm hoping to see a corporatised version of this service for businesses that have deployed a fleet of iPhones.

If you could choose a new name today, what would it be? That's exactly the dilemma many of us face when creating accounts on various social media sites.

I pondered this in my column at Hydrapinion yesterday.

Stop by for a read.

In today's Green Guide, the IT and TV supplement in Australia's best daily news paper - The Age, I have a story on creating your own website.

Titled, "Mastering your own Domain" it tells you about such technological wonders as DNS, IP Addresses, domain registrars and webservers.

You can read all about it by clicking here.

Much is made of Apple design excellence and their innovativeness. However, I suspect that when we look back on 2009, we'll see this as the year when Apple consolidated its technology, focussing on stability and refinement rather that adding stack of new features of marginal value.

iPhone 3.0 and iPhone 3G S

Outwardly, the iPhone 3G S looks almost identical to its predecessor, the iPhone 3G. Other than some changed decals the body is the same. The changes that have been made to the hardware include a faster processor, improved graphics performance and a much needed increase in camera capability with more megapixels and the ability record video and do some basic video editing. In other words, the new hardware is, to a great degree, catching up to market that has moved on over the last year and some evolutionary improvements on the software front.

In fact, a close look at the iPhone OS reveals many subtle changes that improve the user experience hugely without being the sorts of "sexy" features that grab headlines. For example, the font used to display email is clearer. When sending a SMS, the progress bar has been shifted to the top of the screen and doesn't take up nearly as much space as it used to. Also, messages that aren't sent can be more easily resent.

The ability to search inboxes and the introduction of Spotlight to search the entire contents of the phone is a great benefit as well. As I use the notes field in the address book, this is a great boon as it makes it easy to find specific contacts. However, there's still room for improvement with messaging as different email accounts still have separate inboxes. As soon as Apple or some third party introduces a unified inbox for ALL messaging, they'll have my money.

Notebooks

Since the aluminium PowerBook G4, Apple's outward notebook design has only changed marginally. Even the introduction of the revolutionary Unibody manufacturing process has resulted in only incremental outward change. I would argue that although there are many benefits to the Unibody process (environmental benefits, slightly lighter bodies, increased strength) that benefits to end users are incremental.

The new MacBook Pro's introduced last week (designated as the mid-2009 MacBook Pros in Apple's support documents) represent refinement on the models introduced earlier this year. The addition of an SD slot to the 13" and 15" models and return of Firewire to the 13" product line represent a response to customer demands. Again, this is evolution but no revolution.

Snow Leopard

September 2009 will see the release of Snow Leopard, the latest incarnation of Apple's OS X operating system. The summary version of what Snow Leopard will bring is a bit like the superhero, The Atom. It's going to be fast, powerful and small. According to this informative article by David Pogue

And sure enough, Snow Leopard really is faster--and smaller. Yes, smaller: The OS occupies only half the disk space of the previous version, saving you a cool 6 gigabytes. That's a first in the history of OS upgrades.

Apple says that everything is faster, too: Snow Leopard installation is 45 percent faster, shutting down is 75 percent faster, waking up 50 percent faster, 55 percent faster joining Wi-Fi networks, and so on. (These are all Apple's measurements, and they're all "up to," but still.)

In other words, Snow Leopard is all about doing everything you do today. You'll just do it better. Again, evolution and not revolution.

Why consolidate?

I have a strong suspicion that Apple's strategy is based around the future of its enigmatic leader Steve Jobs. For least ten years, Apple's fortunes have been strongly tied to the fortunes of Jobs. When his health was questioned the stock price suffered, disproportionately in my view. Over the last few months, Jobs has been absent due to ill health and the need for him to take some time to get himself healthy. What we've seen is that the company has continued to operate successfully and develop new and improved products.

I don't think there's any surprise that Apple has been in product consolidation mode over the time when Steve Jobs' health has been in question. In fact, when one considers the long-term future of Apple it's clear that this year is incredibly important. I doubt that Jobs has been 100% hands-off this year but providing opportunities for his other executives to stand up has shown that for Apple there is life after Jobs.

Apple's next test will be whether its able to successfully conceptualise, develop and commercialise a new product. For example, without Jobs, can the Apple TV move from a "hobby" project to a commercially viable powerhouse like the iPhone? Is there someone in the management team with the force of will Jobs is reputed to have that can create something new. Only time will tell.

However, I'm certain that 2009 will be seen as the year Apple consolidated its product lines and market position. Perhaps, 2010 will be the year of Something Big. Maybe Something Big will be Jobs' "one more thing".

Now that I've had my new 13" MacBook Pro running for a couple of days I've discovered a couple of things and thought they'd be worth sharing.

New sound drivers and output hardware

Many Mac users take the easy way when migrating from one computer to the next. Use an application like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your old system to an external hard drive and then either clone that back to your new system or use the Migration Assistant to bring all your user data and applications across. As the transfer to my new MacBook Prowas done for me from the by the crew at the local Apple store I suspect they used the first approach - cloning.

All looked fine until I went to check out the latest edition of the Australian Macworld podcast. At that stage I discovered that I had no sound and that the computer didn't recognise the existence of any sound output devices. Strange, as the MacBook Pro made the customary start-up "bong" when booting up. That made me pretty certain that I didn't have a hardware problem.

After some searching (not surprisingly, there wasn't much help online as the unit is so new) I decided to reinstall the operating system using the "Archive and Install" mode and also using the option that lets me retain all my personal settings and applications.

An hour later and all was well. I now have sound and any settings that I need to find are in a folder called "Previous System".

Power Output from USB and Firewire

I have a bunch of external hard drives in the office at the moment and thought I'd try some out with the 13" MacBook Pro. Well, thus far powered drives seem OK but smaller bus-powered units aren't working. I've tried a couple and they just connect and disconnect. I've tried multiple cables and different drives without success.

I won't name the brands in question yet and I have several other drives to try out but at this stage it seems that external drives that are meant to get their power purely from the USB or Firewire bus are a problem.

I'm not going to say anything. Just watch this an be totally amazed.