Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

- Steve Jobs, 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented.

- President Barack Obama

I’m truly saddened to learn of Steve Jobs’ death. Melinda and I extend our sincere condolences to his family and friends, and to everyone Steve has touched through his work.

Steve and I first met nearly 30 years ago, and have been colleagues, competitors and friends over the course of more than half our lives.

The world rarely sees someone who has had the profound impact Steve has had, the effects of which will be felt for many generations to come.

For those of us lucky enough to get to work with him, it’s been an insanely great honor. I will miss Steve immensely.

- Bill Gates

If you would like to share your thoughts, memories, and condolences, please email rememberingsteve@apple.com

The following statement was issued by Apple’s board of directors (via AllthingsD):

We are deeply saddened to announce that Steve Jobs passed away today at age 56.

Steve’s brilliance, passion and energy were the source of countless innovations that enrich and improve all of our lives. The world is immeasurably better because of Steve.

His greatest love was for his wife, Laurene, and his family. Our hearts go out to them and to all who were touched by his extraordinary gifts.

Steve Jobs co-founded Apple, served as CEO and Chairman and most importantly was the visionary leader that saved Apple from demise. It is a very sad day. Steve had an extraordinary life that touched so many people. He created Apple in his parents garage to build it into the world’s leading tech company and the most valuable corporation.

Steve also co-founded and was the CEO of Pixar Animation Studios, which created some of the most successful and beloved animated films of all time including Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. Pixar merged with The Walt Disney Company in 2006 and Steve now serves on Disney’s board of directors.

Steve grew up in the apricot orchards which later became known as Silicon Valley, and lived there with his family until the end. We will ALL miss you Steve!

Remembering Steve Jobs, the man who saved Apple

AllThingsD is reporting that NEW Apple CEO Tim Cook will unveil a fifth-generation iPhone at a scheduled media event on Tuesday, October 4th.

Joy of Tech on Netflix split. Says it all I think!

So you are ready to spend your $29.99 and download Lion. Here are some great reviews you may want to read.

Cult of Mac – Leander Kahney & John Brownlee
OS X 10.7 Lion Is The First Great PC Operating System Of The Post-PC Age

ars technica – John Siracusa
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion: the Ars Technica review

MacWorld – Jason Snell
Lion: The Complete Macworld Review

Just fire up Software Update. Alongside OS X Lion, iWork update, Safari 5.1 and few other Apple updates comes iTunes 4 sporting some new Lion based features, 64 bit and better performance.

What’s new in iTunes 10.4

iTunes 10.4 is now designed for OS X Lion.

You can now use iTunes with OS X Lion’s new Full-Screen App capability, which allows you to use iTunes and other apps without distractions. Navigate between your full-screen apps with a simple gesture.

Note: iTunes is now a 64-bit Cocoa application on OS X Lion and includes a number of important stability and performance improvements. Some iTunes plug-ins may no longer be compatible with this version of iTunes. Please contact the plug-in developer for an updated plug-in compatible with iTunes 10.4.

Today unleashed its Lion with new hardware to boot it from! Here is what you need to know.

Continue reading New MacBook Airs, New Mac mini, Lion Roars!…

Ken Segall:
VIDEO EDITOR returns home to find that his long-time companion has packed and left. His head swirls with multiple emotions, from anger to revenge.

That’s basically the scene that played out in the heads of the Pro crowd when Apple unveiled Final Cut Pro X.

…Apple isn’t actually abandoning the Pros. They’re simply redefining what the word Pro means. FCPX is only the most recent indicator….In the world of Apple, a Pro product used to mean “designed for high-end professionals with needs far beyond those of mortal men.” Now it simply means “the high-performance model.”

So basically, if you aspire to owning the faster/better/more advanced computer or software — congratulations, you’re a Pro.

Nice insight!

Read more

Josh was the first person to show me Final Cut Pro (version 1) at DV Expo many years ago when few had ever heard of it. I spent over an hour with him and another colleague while Josh showed me what Final Cut Pro could do. I was immediately sold and knew I saw the future of non-linear digital editing and bought a new Mac and FCP as soon as I arrived back home from Long Beach, California! I later meet Randy Ubillos, creator of Premiere, KeyGrip (later renamed Final Cut Pro) and Aperture, a brilliant and a true innovator. I will forever give thanks to these guys as it shaped my vision and career.

Totally interesting read of Josh’s opinion on Final Cut Pro X and the way Apple released it:

Josh Mellicker on Final Cut Pro X (dvcreators.net)

Jeffery Harrell:
I used Final Cut Pro X for a while. And I formed some opinions about it. Oh, and since it’s been asked: I cut this with Premiere 5.5 on my laptop. Never used Premiere before, needed a project to learn on.

The last time I checked the Mac App Store had 1269 ratings for Final Cut Pro X with one of the lowest ratings I have ever seen for an Apple software product. Over 70 percent of the comments on Twitter are negative and the gutsy lampooning that Conan O’Brien served up on the product that had just been released that is missing so many professional features I am wondering IF Apple is tone-deaf. Maybe this viral video from a former Final Cut Pro user will help clarify to Apple brass that they may just have a loser on their hands.

Hilarious as always!

The new version of Apple’s flagship professional editor Final Cut Pro was released on Tuesday of this week via the Mac App Store and has had mixed reviews. Most professional editors have been left perplexed as to what Apple was thinking. Now Conan O’Brien lampoons Apple’s new editing product.

Maybe becoming the punchline for late night TV will get Apple to re-think killing off Final Cut Studio which pros have depended on for years. The amount of missing features that professional editors have depended on is quite astounding. I have been using Final Cut Pro since version 1. In fact I used to teach it at a state college and my own training center years ago. I have spent many hours in front of Final Cut Pro, so I was quite excited to see a massive upgrade. BUT, upgrade it isn’t!

See what some are saying about Final Cut Pro X after the jump.
Continue reading Conan Makes Fun of Final Cut Pro X…

Now we can add this one to the list:

Roxio has released a new version of Toast for the Mac. Yes, some Macs no longer have optical drives, but Roxio has re-written Toast adding several new features to make it still worth upgrading. I have just downloaded Toast 11 as I just can not think of owning a Mac without Toast installed as I use it almost daily.

Toast 11 adds many requested features such as recording to multiple drives simultaneously, a much better software updater, and the ability to save custom video profiles. This is quite useful for converting video for a particular device. Toast 11 also brings features for directly uploading media to social networking sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook and technology optimizations, dubbed VideoBoost, that help dramatically speed H.264 (high definition) video conversion or encoding.

Toast now includes – Internet audio recording; the ability to capture, save, and convert Web-based video content; disc spanning (automatically spreading a large amount of data or audio tracks across many discs); one-click backup of HD camcorder footage; dual-platform compatible disc creation; and TiVo-to-Go support.

Toast 11 now has built-in video tutorials which should help stop my phone from ringing with the usual how-to questions!

Continue reading Roxio Releases Toast 11 and Toast 11 Pro…

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Steve Jobs makes a surprise visit and unveils the next generation iPad. The new iPad 2 is faster, thinner and lighter. Here are the basics:

• Apple A5 processor, dual core CPU
• 2x CPU speed, 9x graphics speed improvement
• Front and rear cameras with FaceTime and PhotoBooth
• Gryoscope
• 33% thinner, 13.4mm to 8.8mm thin — thinner than an iPhone 4, and lighter than the previous iPad
• AT&T or Verizon 3G models
• White and Black iPad 2
• Same original iPad battery life, over 10 hours of usage and a month of standby time

Pricing for the new iPad lines up exactly with the original model: iPad Wi-Fi will be available in 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB capacitties for $499, $599, and $699 respectively. The iPad Wi-Fi + 3G will be available in the aforementioned sizes for $629, $729, and $829. The new model will go on sale in the U.S. on March 11th with many more countries joining in on March 25th.

Announced along with the iPad 2 is iMovie and GarageBand for iPad which will sell for $4.99 each in the App Store. Apple also introduced a new Smart Cover for the iPad 2.

Read more at the Apple website

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said on Monday that Apple’s board of directors has granted him a medical leave of absence. It is currently not known why Jobs requested the leave or for how long he will be gone. Jobs also took a six-month leave of absence in early 2009 when he received a liver transplant. Today, Jobs says that he will continue as CEO and will be involved in major strategic decisions while Apple COO Tim Cook will take over day to day operations during his leave.

Team,

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple’s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

Steve

Get well soon Steve!

Apple has release Mac OS X 10.6.6, which, among other things, adds the company’s much anticipated desktop application store. “With more than 1,000 apps, the Mac App Store is off to a great start,” said Apple’s CEO, Steve Jobs. “We think users are going to love this innovative new way to discover and buy their favorite apps.”

Looks to me as this simple idea will help many Mac users find apps they may never have found. Plus Apple should make a boatload of cash on this. Seems there will be the added benefit of lower app prices as the competition is on. The Mac App Store already has some bargains as compared to the website prices for some apps.

Continue reading Mac App Store Launches…

Probably if you have an Android smartphone you may be familiar with DoubleTwist which essentially is ‘iTunes for Android’ that allows you to manage your media and sync to your phone. The new AirSync feature brings media syncing over Wi-Fi connections. Music, photos, video — DoubleTwist handles it all.

To use AirSync, you’ll need to in have installed DoubleTwist on your Windows or Mac and you will need to buy the $4.99 Android App from the Android Marketplace. Once both apps are running, simply enter the passcode provided to start syncing. Your initial media sync can take quite a while, of course, and there have been reports of the process being a bit buggy.

Still, for cable-free synchronization of all your media between your computer and Android device, DoubleTwist and AirSync is quite nice. OK Apple, I would like this for my iPhone and iTunes now!

OK, Mac owners you updated your iPad and iPhones to the latest iOS 4.2 for all those great new features. Well one of the first things you might have discovered is that AirPrint was not really what you were hoping for. First off it only works with a handful of printers, probably not the ones you may own!

There are a few options, but I recommend this one – download ecamm’s Printopia for Mac. This $10 app adds printing to most any printer you already own that your Mac can print to. It also adds a few other nifty things like sending print jobs as PDF’s directly or to your Dropbox account saving paper.

Printopia works with Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5) and PowerPC Mac also. ecamm alows for a free demo version so you can try before you buy.

Touting the new features of the recent iOS 4.2 update, Apple shows off the improved iPad.