Mactalk.com.au - Australia's favourite Apple forum, blog and podcast.

1. Featured Articles

   

   iPhone 3GS Plan Matrix

   108 Comments Anthony Agius - 24th June 2009 - Guides

   Forum member NeoRicen has harnessed his OCD and given us a detailed matrix of all the iPhone 3GS pricing, now that Voda, Optus and Telstra (well, Telstra pricing is leaked, but it’s pretty rock solid) have blown their pricing all over our faces. Virgin and 3 will probably have better deals, but they won’t have the 3GS day 1 unfortunately.

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2. The MacTalk Podcasts Need Your Help

   46 Comments Anthony Agius - 1st July 2009 - MacTalk Stuff, Podcast

   I am sad to say this, but the MacTalk Podcast has hit hard times. My accountant is asking questions as to ...

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3. OCZ Vertex SSD - The Face Melter

   34 Comments Pete Dillon - 22nd June 2009 - Reviews

   Solid state drives have had a mixed reputation from their inception. Small capacity, unstable drivers, and of course, expense. An ...

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Latest Articles

1. Thursday How-To: Create a New User Account

   2 Comments Toby Nieboer - 2nd July 2009 - Guides, Tutorials

   Forum member ClockWork brings us this handy tutorial.
   
   Sometimes, if things don’t work the way they’re supposed to in Mac OS X, you can check if the problem is inside your User folder, or if the problem is System wide, or a Hardware problem.

   An easy way to check this is to create a new User Account and then test the problem in there.

   Although creating a new User Account is very fast and simple, if you don’t know how to do it, follow this fully visual guide.
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2. MacTalk Podcast #81 - Optus, Vodafone, Telstra, Virgin and 3

   16 Comments Anthony Agius - 2nd July 2009 - Podcast

   

   Lauren Watson (prerecorded), Christopher Kahler (arkenstone), Chris Menz (Xenex), Pete Dillon (Phase) and Anthony Agius (decryption) talk about Apple stuff once again.

   • MacTalk Podcast Needs Your Help
   • Steve Jobs Back at Work
   • iPhone 3GS - Telco Ranting
   • iPhone 3GS - Everything Else
   • Increase in YouTube Uploads 3GS
   • iPhone OS 3.1 Beta
   • Micro USB on iPhones?
   • Apps: Field Runners, Peggle, Paper Toss, Knights, Hero of Sparta, Tetris, Flight Control 1.3, Real Racing, Doom Resurrection
   • Brisbane Meet 17th July

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3. iPhone Coming to 3, July 17th

   12 Comments Anthony Agius - 2nd July 2009 - News

   3 have spat out a press release stating that they will have the iPhone 3GS in 3 stores and on their website July 17th. No pricing yet, but that will be announced soon and you’ll see them here as soon as they go up. No doubt 3 will be very competitive on price. The press release is below. Read More ›

4. Australian Apple Online Store Selling iPhones Outright & Unlocked

   37 Comments Anthony Agius - 2nd July 2009 - News

   

   Apple have come to their senses and decided to sell the iPhone outright and unlocked directly off the Australian online store. Seeing as every carrier in Australia has it anyways, this is a logical step to get more iPhones out into the market.

   The 16GB 3GS is $879 and the 32GB 3GS is $1040. The 8GB 3G can still be purchased for $719.

   If you do plan on purchasing an iPhone via the Apple Online store, give little ol’ MacTalk a helping hand by using our affiliate link.

5. YouTube Wednesday - July 1st

   5 Comments Donnie Darko - 1st July 2009 - YouTube Wednesday

   Welcome to YouTube Wednesday! A spanking new segment for the MacTalk blog, creamed full of tasty Apple eye candy. Only the tastiest and juiciest Macintoshy morsels are selected weekly for your retinal delight, so sit back and enjoy!

   First up, an impressive ad for the iPhone app - Worldmate. Impressive animation aside a unique subspecies of Apple fanboy is wonderfully demonstrated here, and to great comedic effect. That guy, with the fart app, who thinks it’s hilarious.. oh no.. he’s coming over here..

   Oh Steve, even you are human. You can’t always rely on that enchanted black skivvy bestowed by the Cupertino druids of old. Observe these rare moments of humanity observed at various Keynotes; what you mortals would refer to as a “blooper reel”.

   This isn’t an Apple video. This, is a glimpse into the potential of the user interface. A futurists dream of an ethereal computing system. The Sci-Fi nerds out there might associate an inspiration with this innovation.

   Hope you dug the vids. More Apple visual treats this time next week, stay tuned.

   Zac // Donnie Darko

6. Can Touch This #9 - Paging Fred Funk

   5 Comments Anthony Agius - 30th June 2009 - Podcast

   

   Talking for way too long about wireless telecommunication providers is Gavin (mrbrut), Marc (marc), Dan (zillatron), Shawn (the gaffer guy) and Anthony (decryption). These are the apps we talked about:

   • Tiger Woods PGA Tour
   • Warpack Grunts
   • Seek and Spell
   • Nike+ on iPhone 3GS
   • BeejiveIM 3.0
   • Flight Control 1.3
   • F1 Timing
   • Ego
   • Papertoss
   • iBacon
   • Little Runner
   • Parachute Panic
   • iPhone 3GS

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7. Brisbane MacTalk Meet - 17th July 2009

   10 Comments Kieran McIlwain - 30th June 2009 - Events, MacTalk Stuff

   

   Rolling on the back of two State of Origin wins, its clear that right now Queensland cannot be beaten.  To continue building this simmering rivalry between Brisbane and Melbourne, I present to you the latest instalment of Alcoholics Anonymous Brisbane’s MacTalk Meet-ups.

   Come join your forum buddies, put faces to names and enjoy a few beers and some good food.  We don’t bite, seriously!  Given the season it may be advisable to bring a coat, however we will kick on regardless of rain or shine (and what a rainy winter it’s been).  Follow the “read more” link for full details and join us in the forums to discuss the leadup or RSVP to the event.

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8. Tuesday Evening News - Rapid Fire Edition

   0 Comments Anthony Agius - 30th June 2009 - News
   • It’s official, Steve Jobs is back at work. Hooray!
   • NVIDIA has released some Adobe CS4 plugins for the Mac that let the Creative Suite take advantage of the powerful video cards in your computer.
   • Speaking of Adobe - they’ve closed down for a week to save money.
   • Mashable has some tips on using the video camera in the iPhone 3GS together with Twitter.
   • TidBITS reviews Path Finder 5, which is an awesome Finder replacement.
   • ZDNet.com reports that iPod Touch take up of OS 3.0 is extremely poor, under 15%, compared to almost 50% on the iPhone.
   • StarCraft 2 is coming soon and ArsTechnica has more info on this incredibly anticipated sequel.
   • The BBC gave some 13 year old kid a 70’s era Sony Walkman and he wrote about it, in comparison to his fancy-pants iPod.
   • Woz sold his HP calculator to start up Apple. Now HP are hawking their calculators on the App Store for your iPhone or iPod Touch.
   • You probably don’t want to install v1.7 of the EFI firmware update on your Mac if you’re using a non-Apple-supplied HDD.

9. Win an iPhone 3G S Thanks to iWorld Australia

   23 Comments Anthony Agius - 29th June 2009 - MacTalk Stuff

   

   Our friends at iWorld Australia, distributor of brands like Dexim and iLuv, are giving away an iPhone 3G S to one lucky MacTalker. All you gotta do is a quick survey on your favourite iWorld product. Easy huh? You would be dumb not to enter. Visit http://mactalk.iworldaustralia.com.au/ to be in the running for an iPhone 3G S.

   The comp is open until the 31st of July and iWorld Australia will contact the winner of the iPhone 3G S. There are 5 iPhones available to win, but there is one put aside just for MacTalkers!

   Enter now!!!

10. Monday Morning News

    1 Comments bennyling - 29th June 2009 - News

    So you have your swanky new iPhone 3GS, and one of the first things you do is check out the video recording on your new toy. Unfortunately for this guy, he manages to drop his shiny new 3GS into the pool while he’s filming… Uh oh. Incredibly, the iPhone 3GS takes it like a champ and not only continues to record, but manages to function long enough for him to get the video off the phone and upload it onto Youtube for all to see. Some eagle-eyed commenters have said that it’s not an iPhone as they don’t come with lanyards. You be the judge.

    Ever since the iPhone 3GS launched with all it’s video-capturing and uploading goodness, Youtube has seen a massive 400% increase in the number of mobile uploads. I’d have to say that most of them would be people “just testing” the feature, but it’s like the Flickr camera-phone revolution all over again, innit?

    Speaking of wanky, The Chasers managed to gatecrash the iPhone 3GS launch at the Sydney Apple Store, saying “We just wanted to make sure everyone was wanky enough”.

    You can tell that the graphics in the iPhone/iPod Touch are of a huge importance to Apple, because they just upped their stake in Imagination Technologies to 9.5%. Imagination Technologies is the company behind the PowerVR chips inside the iPhones which make all those pretty colours - they’re the ones with the special sauce to make things scroll like butter.

    Got a new iPhone 3GS? Found you’re not getting as many gees-of-three as you were on your old iPhone 3G? Macworld try and pry apart this oddity. More interestingly, you can enable what seems to be a “Field Test” mode on your iPhone 3G or 3GS simply by entering some combination of numbers, stars, and hashes in the Phone application. I just tested this on my iPhone 3G with Telstra, and have to say I have no idea what any of it meant, but it could be useful to those in the know.

    Gizmodo says that the new Snow Leopard developer build comes via Software Update on your Mac, not via the usual channels. It also adds the Dock Expose feature - what else are you waiting for?

    Again on the not-yet-released software front, a new build of 10.5.8 has been seeded to developers. Those code monkeys are working overtime at Apple, I tell ya.

    If you’re one of the lucky people who have managed to score a shiny new MacBook Pro with included SD card slot, the folks over at Macworld show you how to create a SD card startup disk for your new toy in case things go awry. Extremely handy in case of emergency.

    If you’re the type who is after porn from the App Store, you’re SOL. Apple have released a statement stating that they “will not distribute applications that contain inappropriate content, such as pornography”. You’ll just have to find your delights somewhere else, gentlemen.

    Lastly, if you’ve been gifted with a new iPhone 3GS, try not to tax it too much - Engadget Mobile is reporting that some 3GS models actually experience discolouration when overheated, and it ain’t pretty. If that’s what the French get when they use their networks, I wonder how the 3GS will fare with Telstra’s blazing speeds?