The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Clips is a clipboard that works like an app, complete with previews, easy access via hot corners, support for Spaces and even clips across different Macs. Mike mentioned the 1.1 update last month, and now we're giving away five copies of the app (which currently sells for $34.99). To enter, simply leave a comment in this post before Wednesday night (details below).

• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment telling us what was the last thing you copied to the clipboard.
• The comment must be left before October 23, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• Five winners will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: One license for Clips ($34.99)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Cory took a look at Transmissions' Logbook app last week. Designed for your Logbook on Backpack:

The application gives you a simple user interface with which you can update your status and add completed tasks. If you're having a hard time remembering to update your Journal, have Logbook remind you every x number of minutes, and only between certain hours. In addition, you can set a keyboard shortcut for showing/hiding the application in the menu bar.

Now, courtesy Transmissions, you can win one of 10 licenses for Logbook. Just drop them a line at contest@transmissionapps.com to enter.

UPDATE: fixed the email address, sorry folks!

With the October 14th Apple Notebook Event just around the corner, the TUAW blogger squad decided it was time to look into our iCrystalBalls and make a SWAG predictions about what laptop goodness will be announced by the Cupertino Kids on Tuesday. To make this extra crunchy, we're not only posting our best guesses as to what will actually be announced, but what Steve J. will announce as "one more thing".

Steve Sande

Best Guess -- The entire MacBook line will be made of aluminum, and the 15" and 17" models will get slightly faster processors and more installed RAM. If that's the only announcement, expect Apple's stock to dive even further than it has during the recent stock market freefall.

One More Thing -- The iTablet. Netbooks are selling like hotcakes, so Apple will get in on the action by coming out with a 9" tablet with a virtual keyboard and multi-touch support. Since it is all display and no keyboard, it will weigh less than two pounds. Think of an über-iPhone.

Victor Agreda, Jr.

Best Guess -- Ditto what Steve said, except I think a drop in price will happen in light of tough economic times. Despite what some analysts may babble about, Apple is interested in the long game, and that means building more market share. To stay in the game they have to get more price competitive on the low end.

One More Thing -- Again, I agree with Steve, although I wouldn't call this a tablet. More like a mini-Air with a decent keyboard (Apple has long been in favor of keeping decent-sized keyboards on smaller laptops) and touchscreen up top. I think the form factor will be something clever and surprising. If it appears at all, of course.

Robert Palmer

I think we'll see higher-end MacBook enclosures made of aluminum, and a sub-$1,000 model still made from white plastic. There's a part of me that says they won't ditch plastic altogether, because of the style factor: I bet there will be some people who still want a black MacBook. Hey, maybe there will be a black aluminum MacBook. Classy.

One More Thing -- I'm still bearish on the iTablet. I think Apple has too much invested in the iPhone as a mobile platform to try and dilute it with another form factor with a different screen size. If it's a Mac, I'm not a fan of jury-rigging traditionally mouse-driven operating systems for styluses. Personally, I just don't think there will be "one more thing." He hasn't done that in a while, especially at "themed" events (like the music event last month).

Michael Rose

I'm also fairly well convinced that the $800 MacBook (dare we call it the MacBook Jr.?) is inbound on Tuesday, although I'm not sure that the manufacturing rumors are completely on target. The mutterings about a mystery port on the new MacBook -- and a dockability patent from years past -- are starting to sound credible too.

One More Thing: I would love to see a BTO touchscreen option... and maybe a technology preview of an iTablet for delivery later in 2009.

Mike Schramm

New MacBooks are a given -- the Nvidia rumor sounds credible to me, not to mention that it's just what would push me to finally replace my old G4 Powerbook (though I'll miss my little 12" screen). "One more thing" seems like it's trending towards an AppleTV upgrade -- we've got HD content on the iTunes store, so it's time to have a set-top box that's fitting to play that content on. I'm hearing lots of Mac mini rumors as well, but I wonder if Apple will ever upgrade the mini -- it's small, it sells as-is, why break what's not broken?

Of course, as Victor mentioned in an email, "Whatever happens, AAPL will drop 10% because iUnicorn wasn't announced..." Think we're out of our minds? Let's hear your prediction in the comment section!

If you entered one of our snazzy back-to-school giveaways in August you might want to check your email (and junk mail folders) today. We've sent confirmations to everyone who won. Congratulations to you, randomly-selected recipients!

Here's a look at what we gave away:

• Ten licenses of Searchlight, the OS X and iPhone search tool
• Three copies of Bento, a personal database solution
• A big bag of goodies from Dr. Bott
• A Dymo DiscPainter
• 200 premium disc conversions from Ripstyles
• A bunch of games from Freeverse

We'll update this post with the winners once everyone has responded.

Rounding out the last of our back to school giveaways, we'd like to give you a shot at wasting time. School can't be all about studying and learning, can it? Of course, if you happen to be in school for game design this could actually be homework... Plus, if you don't win, there's always Jared and SimStapler. The point: we want you to have fun.

Big thanks to Freeverse for the prize package, which includes your choice of a Freeverse iPhone game (Wingnuts Moto Racer and Sudoku iPhone are currently available), plus the following games: Hordes of Orcs, Kill Monty, Neon Tango and Big Brain Games. That should give your Xbox 360 a break.

To enter, tell us your favorite non-videogame game from your childhood (like chess, Parcheesi, Risk, etc.). The other rules (same as always) are below.

• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter, leave a comment telling us your favorite game (not a video game) from childhood.
• The comment must be left before August 24, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter once.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prizes: One iPhone game (up to $10), Hordes of Orcs ($24.95), Kill Monty ($19.95), Neon Tango ($24.95), Big Brain Games ($29.95)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

So if you're looking to ditch the CDs when you move into the dorm but don't have the time or inclination to rip them yourself, why not take a look at Ripstyles? They were kind enough to offer today's prize: 200 CDs in their Premiere Stylizing service can be ripped for free (and they'll give you a deal if you want to rip more).

But if you don't win the prize, fear not. They are also offering a 10% discount off all their CD conversion services, as well as their Ripserver, by simply using the promo code "TUAW" (no quotes). Not bad, considering it can take hours to rip hundreds of discs. That's time you could spend studying!

As usual, read the rules below. This time, in order to enter the giveaway, we'd like you to tell us your favorite song in the comments. Good luck!

• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment telling us your favorite song.
• The comment must be left before August 22, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: 200 CDs converted using Ripstyles Premiere service ($158 value)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Got an iPhone or iPod Touch but having trouble with the full-size version of TUAW? Try i.tuaw.com, our mobile Safari-tuned experience. Smaller, faster, lighter and unlike our m.tuaw.com pages (which work great on BlackBerry), you can add comments to posts. We realize it took a while, but we think you'll enjoy the experience of not watching Safari crash or lag horribly. Fun fact: nearly all of our mobile traffic comes from iPhones -- who knew?

So let's say you can't stand the iPhone. "I can't stand the iPhone!" we hear you shout, repeatedly. Fair enough, Apple's "third platform" can certainly take over the news at times, and the plucky little touchscreen-that-could definitely generates strong opinions.

As a gift to those of you tired of everything iPhone, we cooked up an iPhone-free RSS feed for you. Never again will your eyes burn with the news of yet another dice-rolling app, or wacky accessory. One caveat: older iPhone posts might still show up (we're going back in time to fix those as we can), and once in a blue moon an iPhone post might accidentally appear. We apologize in advance for the quasi-cognitive dissonance.

UPDATE: For those of you who want an iPhone-only page, or any other category-specific page, please check out the long list of categories on the right. All those links under "Mac News" on down are category pages. Enjoy!

Despite the notion that one day optical media will seem "quaint," in the current world we deal with a lot of physical discs. So why not label those discs with something a little better than a permanent marker? The Dymo DiscPainter is a rather large but impressive printer for one thing only: optical media. Pop in a disc with the appropriate coating, set up the print job and boom: a nicely-printed disc for all that soon-to-be-obsolete media you're carting around.

We've got our shiny review unit ready to send to the lucky commenter who is randomly selected via the comments. Maybe not great for the dorm room, as the Dymo is pretty big, but you could always use it to prop open your dorm door. To enter, simply tell us what was the last CD or DVD you burned (keep 'em clean folks!). Be sure to check out Steve's review of the DiscPainter. And stay tuned the rest of this week as we've got more goodies to come!

• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter leave a comment telling us what was the last disc you burned.
• The comment must be left before August 21, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter only once.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prize: Dymo DiscPainter ($250)
• Click Here for complete Official Rules.

So textbooks and gas shot your budget for a shiny-new iPhone 3G? We feel for ya, with your old-and-busted first-gen iPhone, nano, Airport Extreme and shiny new MacBook. What, you don't have all that either? Pity. Tell you what, we'll give you a bunch of accessories for those items instead, OK?

Courtesy of Dr. Bott, you could win an entire bag of cases and other goodies. Just for fun we're throwing in the Dr. Bott bag itself-- because we really think you could use a pick-me-up.

Specifically, the goodies in the bag are:

• Marware's C.E.O. Premiere for iPhone (original, not 3G), a clip-on sideways case for your hip
• Griffin's Streamline sport armband for the latest rev of the iPod nano
• H-Squared's Air Mount, so you can attach an Airport Extreme to your wall
• A copy of the Stationery Pack from Equinux, so your emails to home (begging for cash, no doubt) will look pretty
• A copy of MacFamilyTree, so you can figure out who to email (and beg for cash)

To enter, let us know what your favorite subject or class is (or was). Sorry, this giveaway is limited to the US and everywhere in Canada but Quebec. Good luck!



Da rules:

• Open to legal residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
• To enter, leave a comment below telling us your favorite subject or class in school.
• The comment must be left before August 19, 11:59PM Eastern Time.
• You may enter once. Duplicate entries will not be counted.
• One winner will be selected in a random drawing.
• Prizes:
• Marware's C.E.O. Premiere for iPhone ($35)
• Griffin's Streamline sport armband for the latest rev of the iPod nano ($30)
• H-Squared's Air Mount ($35)
• Stationary Pack from Equinux ($30)
• MacFamilyTree ($50)

Click Here for complete Official Rules.