Official iCreate Blog > General

The countdown has begun. Macworld San Francisco kicks off in 28 days and iCreate will be there to bring you all of the news as it happens. Not only will we be speaking to as many of the exhibitors as humanly possible but we’ll also be running competitions in the build up to and during the show itself.

You will be able to catch up to date information here on the iCreate blog, we’ll also be sending up podcasts as well as Twittering our little hearts out (if you’re not following us on Twitter do so now! iCreate Magazine)

Things we’re already looking forward to are:

Keynote - this promises to be quite a big deal with Snow leopard on the horizon, the possibility of an iPhone update and of course the rumour of a brand new product is already floating around (netbook, netbook, netbook!)

iPhone Apps - No doubt there will be not only be new releases planned to coincide with the event but we’ll hopefully see previews of games and apps to come.

iLife - There could be a brand new iLife announced and maybe even released. Will it have support for gestures? Will we see iLife apps for the iPhone, who knows?

Software and hardware - There will be new products for us to show you and interviews to grab with the makers.

Challenges - I’ve already been set the challenge of finding and interviewing a member of the top brass at Apple and we’d like you to come up with other things I can do whilst at the show (ideas in comments please).

So, its all very, very exciting. Check back for another update soon!

Having access to the creative world in a journalistic capacity has a number of benefits, we often get to test out new bits of software and hardware for our Macs and occasionally we get invited to events and sometimes there are even free nibbles. These last few months we’ve been luckier still, as we’ve had a couple of Cort guitars kicking around. The good fellows at Cort sent us a G245 and an SFX5 so we thought it would only be fair to give them a write up!

The G254 is a Strat copy with an Ibanez twist. The styling is very cool and this is one of those guitars you immediately expect to be extremely versatile; and it is. The two single coil pickups at the front and the double humbucker at the back allow for a nice range of tone variation and with a decent amp you can easily switch between styles of play. The action was really good from the offset, which can be a problem with guitars straight from the factory. We’re told that the Cort team fit and finish every guitar so that they’re ready to play out of the box and that’s definitely the case here.  You can pick the G series of guitars up online starting at around £130 which is a total bargain, if you like a Strat sound but don’t have £400 or more then Cort are more than a worthy option, check out their website where they have a huge range.

The SFX5 is an electro acoustic with a very big sound despite its very slim profile. The Fishman pickup system means you can get all the extra volume you need without having to mic up  and again, the setup out of the factory was really good. Although looks aren’t paramount when it comes to acoustic guitars, the SFX is a cool looking guitar. Its slim enough for you to use stood up without feeling  a stretch on the arms and its light enough that it wont have your left wrist feeling overworked after a couple of songs. You can get the SFX5 from as little as £280 online and again, these guitars are total bargains.

For more info on Cort guitars head to www.cort-guitars.co.uk

It didn’t take long but the App Store has got very nearly 10,000 Apps available to download. There are just 300 or so to go before it reaches the landmark.

The App store was launched in July with 500 apps on it. At the time this sounded like more then enough for us all but the number has gotten bigger and bigger at an incredible rate.

Games are the most common apps on the store at the moment, they occupy nearly a quarter of the whole amount.

There can be absolutely no doubt that the venture has been a success and even though we never doubted it, we never thought it would go this wild or spawn the kind of awesome applications that it has.

Our absolute favourites so far are:

Ben (Editor)

Fieldrunners

Remote

Facebook

Helen (Senior Designer)

Wurdle

Truphone

Vault

and I’m going to go with

reMovem free

Face Melter

Ocarina

Let us know your favs in the comments…

Not content with the mere 2.5% VAT drop in the UK, our friends at Proporta have begun offering a truly credit crunch-bashing deal.

Rather than let the chancellor’s VAT reduction save customers an average of 50p per product on orders from www.proporta.com, the case manufacturer is offering to pay the full VAT on every order placed. An impressive 15% off!

All you need to do is to head to the site and enter the code: STRAIGHTFACE when placing your order to receive your products tax free.

The offer ends at midnight on Sunday 7th of December 2008.

If only the government treated the consumer as well as this…

www.proporta.com

The Magical Mystery Tour that is the route to iTunes for The Beatles’ back catalogue has been highlighted this week by none other than Sir Paul McCartney.

Speaking to BBC news, the former Beatle claimed that negotiations between EMI, The Beatles’ former label, and Apple Corps, the company that looks after the band’s catalogue, were “stalled”.

With the rights to The Beatles’ recordings owned by EMI, negotiations are ongoing with no sign of a resolution in sight. McCartney said in the interview that he hoped The Beatles’ music would appear on iTunes.

There have long been rumours as to if and when the classic catalogue of hits including; Help!, Love Me Do and Blackbird, would be launched on iTunes with several hints from Steve Jobs during Apple Keynotes.

As yet none of The Beatles’ songs are available for legal digital download however this latest round of press appears to clarify that the sticking point has little to do with the band and more to do with corporate debate and rights.

Solo works from all of The Beatles’ members are available on iTunes but as a band their work is absent.

Apple Inc recently settled a dispute with Apple Corps over the right to the Apple name and logo in the field of digital music in which Apple Inc triumphed, however this does not appear to have hampered the current iTunes/Beatles negotiations.

There seems to have been progress made with a deal favourable to both the band and the public but, for now (to use another Fab Four pun) it appears to be a Long And Winding Road.

Maybe it was the rumours about a MacBook nano, maybe its just a lifestyle thing but we’ve heard talk that the MacBook Air (the worlds thinnest notebook) is looking to shed a bit of weight. Could it be that its in-laws are coming in for the holiday season and it wants to look its best or maybe its getting nervous now the other laptops are all made from Aluminium, who knows.

In all seriousness, it looks as though Apple are going to try and reduce the weight of the MacBook Air by introducing some Carbon Fiber into the casing. The story has appeared on AppleInsider and Macrumors both of whom have decent reputations in the rumour stakes.

For us, this is an interesting twist, we’d have thought that the number one priority for Apple would be to drive those prices down and get more people buying the MBA. Now that the other MacBooks are all aluminium, have better specs and are comparable in price, we’d have though that the best thing to do would be to make the MacBook Air the netbook of the family.

Instead, Apple are going to try and shave a bit of weight off of it so that it sits in the sub 3pound category. Brilliant.

Before you get carried away, the MacBook nano shots circulating on Flikr are not real. A quick inspection by anyone other than the biggest ludite will notice that they are “rebranded” PC notebooks. Shame.

The mock-ups on display aren’t all bad though. They do suggest some decent system specs for the size and, if Steve Jobs is to go back on his word (that Apple has no plans to enter the netbook market), then a truly sexy, cost-effective Mac could be born. There are some nice looking curves to these fakes but one sticking point is that they are white. With the new MacBooks coming in aluminium only as well as the MacBook Air, the remaining white MacBook is the bottom of the line model that saw small updates on the last refresh. Will we ever see another white MacBook? Will it become the staple of low end Mac systems (the Mac mini also has a white panel). With the advancement in laptop design at Apple and the new unibody enclosures, it seems unlikely.

SJ has said Apple has some “interesting ideas” when it comes to small form factor notebooks but remember they do have an ultra-small device running Mac OS X already in the iPhone.

There’s still room for a smaller MacBook to sit between the mobile and laptop positions but for now it looks like we’ll have to imagine what could be.

Check out the Flikr photos here

The day big day has arrived, so what better way to show your allegiance and keep track of the election than by using your iPhone? Apps have sprung up all over the App Store promoting both McCain and Obama as well as a selection of news trackers, poll counters and more.

As with most genres of iPhone App, quality varies drastically so we’ve put together a list of the best free apps so you wont have to worry about wasting your cash.Perhaps today’s result will eventually mean you don’t have to worry about cash quite so much…

1. Obama ‘08

If John McCain had an iPhone app for his campaign, it would be up here. But he hasn’t, so it isn’t. For a free app, the Obama ‘08 is a polished, interactive application providing the latest news, media and methods to get involved.

2. Obama/McCain Poll Tracker

Simple yet effective, this app shows the current percentage standing of the two candidates using information from a variety of media outlets including ABC, Fox and Ipsos.

3.Polis

Get minute-by-minute updates on the polls, state-by-state and take advantage of the Red State/Blue State map button to receive realtime updates on the election as it happens.

4. Obama/McCain Inaguration Countdown

Two free apps, both doing the same job. See photos and quotes from your choice for the next man in the White House as well as a count down to their “potential” inauguration.

5. iRepublican/iDemocrat

The iPhone equivalent of a pin badge. A logo and an image of your chosen party to digitally display your party colours for all (or at least all who look at your iPhone) to see.

For anyone who was thinking about getting a Mac this Christmas who had some reservations as to whether Apple would pull their usual trick and release an update just moments after you’ve left the Apple Store - you can rest easy. The line up is set.

A post on MacRumors confirms that:

Apple has issued a statement to Macworld clarifying that there are no plans for any new products before the holiday season.

“Our holiday line-up is set,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans told Macworld.

This announcement squashes circulating rumors that the iMac and Mac mini are scheduled for imminent updates.

Although we’re a tiny bit disappointed that we wont get to play with anything new this Christmas, it does mean Mac shoppers can breath a sigh of relief.

Does this mean we’ll see something brand new at MacWorld Expo? We hope so…

For those using tabs in Safari, there’s a quick and easy way to create a new tab rather than head to the file menu or control click on the tabs bar to access the contextual menu.

Simply double clicking the tabs bar will perform the same task in a fraction of the time. Very simple but supremely effective.Try it today!