[MyAppleMenu] Oct 24, 2012

[applesurf at myapplemenu.com]

MyAppleMenu
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**** iPad Mini Has Advanced Software To Detect Unintended Touches Around The Screens Bezel ****
<http://www.imore.com/ipad-mini-has-advanced-software-detect-unintended-touches-around-screens-bezel>
Chris Oldroyd, IMore



**** The New iPads: What You Need To Know ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012930/the-new-ipads-what-you-need-to-know.html>
Macworld



**** Hands On With The iPad Mini ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012953/hands-on-with-the-ipad-mini.html>
Dan Moren and Jason Snell, Macworld


> We also wonder whether the more limited range of motion on a one-handed iPad mini might lead app developers to redesign their interfaces; an Apple representative we talked to suggested that the new continuous-scrolling mode in Apple’s own iBooks app may have been introduced specifically to make it easier for iPad mini users to read without having to stretch their thumbs to make a page-flip gesture.

The iPad mini will probably sell much better than the iPad classic, and I suspect app developers will tailor their apps more towards the smaller-sized screen, hence making the visual interfaces on the bigger-sized screen bigger than necessary.


**** Hands-on With The Thumb-able iPad Mini And The Ultrathin iMac ****
<http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/hands-on-with-the-thumb-able-ipad-mini-and-the-ultrathin-imac/>
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica


> Indeed, it's a smaller version of the iPad, but in use, the iPad mini doesn't "seem" significantly smaller. Apple claims you can hold the device with one hand, which may be technically true for some of our larger-handed readers. For me, it was just barely doable, but still possible.



**** Peeved? Apple Will Exchange Your 3Rd-gen iPad For The Newer Model ****
<http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57538502-285/peeved-apple-will-exchange-your-3rd-gen-ipad-for-the-newer-model/>
Sharon Vaknin, CNET


> The manager at the Stockton Street store in San Francisco explained that "this specific store" would allow purchasers of the third-generation iPad to exchange their device for the fourth-generation iPad if purchased within the last 30 days. She emphasized that, unless the recently purchased iPad showed serious signs of wear-and-tear, the usual 14-day return policy would be waived.



**** The iPad Mini's Price Is High, Low, And Everything In Between ****
<http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/23/3544788/apple-ipad-mini-pricing-lower-cost-tablet>
Bryan Bishop, The Verge


> It's a classic Apple strategic move: entering a pre-existing market with a premium device, and banking on design and ease of use to take it to the front of the pack. It's the same strategy Cupertino used with the original iPod 10 years ago, which originally sold at $399 with a mere 5GB of storage, competing against much cheaper MP3 players.



**** Apple Sneaks Out Significant Update To Final Cut Pro X ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012895/apple-sneaks-out-significant-update-to-final-cut-pro-x.html>
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld



**** 5 Ways To Make Your Mac’s Desktop Better With GeekTool ****
<http://mac.tutsplus.com/tutorials/customization/5-ways-to-make-your-macs-desktop-better-with-geektool/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+mactuts+%28Mactuts%2B%29>
Josh Johnson, Mactuts+


> GeekTool is an amazing free app that is a bit like Dashboard for the super nerdy. It allows you to place functional widgets, called “Geeklets,” right on top of your desktop, so you can always see them.



**** Nitro Is A Simple OS X To-Do List App That Syncs To Dropbox & Ubuntu One ****
<http://www.addictivetips.com/mac-os/nitro-simple-mac-to-do-list-app-with-dropbox-ubuntu-one-sync/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Addictivetips+%28AddictiveTips%29>
Falima, AddictiveTips



**** At The Apple Store: Watching Geniuses Watch The iPad Mini ****
<http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57538443-71/at-the-apple-store-watching-geniuses-watch-the-ipad-mini/>
Chris Matyszczyk, CNET


> As I paid for my power cord, I asked the nice Apple lady about the announcement.

> "You've already been told everything, right?" I said.

> "No, no,' she replied. "We've got it on the screen over there."



**** Apple Fusion Drive—Wait, <i>What</i>? How Does This Work? ****
<http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/10/apple-fusion-drive-wait-what-how-does-this-work/>
Lee Hutchinson, Ars Technica


> Apple's Fusion Drive does not appear to function like an SSD-backed disk cache, but rather seems more like a file-level implementation of a feature that has existed for some time in big enterprise disk arrays: automatic tiering.



**** How Apple's "Little" Approach Leads To Big Wins ****
<http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/how_apples_little_approach_leads.html>
Michael Davies, Harvard Business Review


> Apple's innovations emerge from a systematic and sustained application of what are in fact well established, if not (yet) widely understood, principles, and practices. It aims for little, more—and enjoys a lot more success as a result.



**** iBooks Author 2.0 Available In Mac App Store ****
<http://www.imore.com/ibooks-author-20-available-mac-app-store>
Leanna Lofte, IMore



**** First Look: iPad Mini ****
<http://www.loopinsight.com/2012/10/23/first-look-ipad-mini/>
Jim Dalrymple, The Loop



**** Apple Unveils iPad Mini And Fourth-generation iPad ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012869/apple-unveils-ipad-mini-and-fourth-generation-ipad.html>
Lex Friedman, Macworld


> The iPad mini is 7.2mm thick—23 percent thinner than the new, fourth-generation iPad—“thin as a pencil,” as Schiller put it. It weighs 0.68 pounds, which is half the weight of the previous iPad. “It’s as light as a pad of paper.”

> Schiller also took the wraps off the new fourth-generation iPad, saying, “It’s amazing.” The new iPad uses the Apple A6X chip, a new chip that further improves upon the speed performance of the A6; the company claims that it’s twice as fast as the A5X, with double the graphics performance. It gets the same ten hours of battery life as the third-generation iPad.



**** Apple Updates Mac Mini With Faster Processors And Storage ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012878/apple-updates-mac-mini-with-faster-processors-and-storage.html>
Dan Frakes, Macworld


> The new Mac mini looks nearly identical to its predecessor on the outside, with the only external change being upgrades to the computer’s four USB ports—the mini now uses the USB 3.0 standard.



**** Apple Slims Down iMac In Latest Update ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012880/apple-slims-down-imac-in-latest-update.html>
Roman Loyola, Macworld


> While the familiar almuninum design remains, the new iMac is much thinner than its predecessor. The company reengineered the iMac’s internals and display, and Apple says the display system is 45 percent thinner and 8 pounds lighter.



**** Apple Unveils Fusion Drive For New iMac And Mac Mini ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012884/apple-unveils-fusion-drive-for-new-imac-and-mac-mini.html>
Lex Friedman, Macworld


> The Fusion Drive, which is available as an option for the new iMac and both Mac minimodels, is a hybrid drive that merges a 128GB flash drive with a hard drive—all into a single volume.

> Schiller explained that Mountain Lion and the apps that ship with your Mac—like iTunes and iPhoto—reside on the flash drive; other data you add fills up the traditional hard drive. But the Fusion Drive is smart and handles data storage automatically: If you use Numbers more then iMovie, for example, it will automatically move Numbers to the flash side, with iMovie moving to the traditional drive side. Mac OS X figures out what programs you use the most and what would benefit from being on Flash.



**** Apple Brings Retina Display To The 13-Inch MacBook Pro ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012870/apple-brings-retina-display-to-the-13-inch-macbook-pro.html>
Roman Loyola, Macworld


> The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro sports a display with a resolution of 2560 by 1600 pixels, a huge 4-times increase over the 1280 by 800 resolution on the 13-inch MacBook Pro released in June.



**** iBooks 3.0 Debuts At Apple's "Something More To Show" Event ****
<http://www.macworld.com/article/2012866/ibooks-3-0-debuts-at-apples-something-more-to-show-event.html>
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld


> The app now supports more than 40 languages—including Korean, Chinese, and Japanese—and features a new “continuous scrolling” reading option for those who prefer scrolling over page-turning. Another welcome addition: iCloud not only syncs your page turns, but all your purchased iBookstore books over your various devices.






MyAppleMenu Reader
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**** We Are Not All Westerners Now ****
<http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/we-are-not-all-westerners-now/>
Leon Hadar, The American Conservative


> We tend to celebrate foreign-policy intellectuals as thinkers who try to transform grand ideas into actual policies. In reality, their function has usually been to offer members of the foreign-policy establishment rationalizations—in the form of “grand strategies” and “doctrines,” or the occasional magazine article or op-ed—for doing what they were going to do anyway.



**** Mining Truth From Data Babel ****
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/24/books/nate-silvers-signal-and-the-noise-examines-predictions.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0>
Leonard Mlodinow, New York Times


> Healthily peppered throughout the book are answers to its subtitle, “Why So Many Predictions Fail — but Some Don’t”: we are fooled into thinking that random patterns are meaningful; we build models that are far more sensitive to our initial assumptions than we realize; we make approximations that are cruder than we realize; we focus on what is easiest to measure rather than on what is important; we are overconfident; we build models that rely too heavily on statistics, without enough theoretical understanding; and we unconsciously let biases based on expectation or self-interest affect our analysis.






SingaporeSurf
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**** Telcos To Offer New iPad Mini & 4G iPad ****
<http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/1233233/1/.html>
Brandon Tanoto, Channel NewsAsia


> The three telcos, SingTel, StarHub and M1, said in separate statements that they will offer the new iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad in the coming weeks and customers will be able to connect to their 4G network with speeds of up to 75 Mbps.

> They added that details on pricing and availability dates will be released in due course.



**** Lessons To Learn From HK's Public Transport System ****
<http://www.todayonline.com/Voices/EDC121024-0000036/Lessons-to-learn-from-HKs-public-transport-system>
Paul Chan Poh Hoi, Today



**** Beware The Curse Of Full-employment Singapore Economy ****
<http://sbr.com.sg/economy/news/beware-curse-full-employment-singapore-economy>
Singapore Business Review


> Tight labour market feeds into higher wages and service costs, says CIMB.



**** The Day The Constitution Died (Again) ****
<http://article14.blogspot.sg/2012/10/the-day-constitution-died-again.html>
Article 14


> The impact of this decision is that in future, any judicial review case involving a public interest will require special damage to be suffered by a citizen before it can be brought before the Court.  And so, one possible avenue of ensuring Constitutional governance is closed.  And so too, our Constitution has died.  



**** The New Norm Of Tepid Growth And Inflation ****
<http://www.singapolitics.sg/views/new-norm-tepid-growth-and-inflation>
Aaron Low, Straits Times


> Much of today’s and tomorrow’s inflation can be attributed to the government’s own policies, such as the low numbers of COEs and a tight foreign worker policy.

> The most obvious solution is for the Government to relax the foreign worker policy. But that would be politically unpalatable, given the great unhappiness Singaporeans have against over-crowding as well as the government’s overriding objective to reduce reliance on foreign workers.



**** Demand Change! ****
<http://politicalwritings.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/demand-change/>
Political Writings


> If we want real change, demand for empowerment, not entitlement.



**** S'pore, Malaysia Govt Firms Agree $1.2 Bln Iskandar Project ****
<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/23/uem-iskandar-idUSL3E8LN3GN20121023>
Kevin Lim, Reuters


> Singapore government-linked firm Ascendas will help build a $1.2 billion industrial park in Malaysia's Iskandar economic zone, boosting an area Malaysia has been promoting aggressively, in a sign of improving ties between the neighbours.



**** Fright Night Returns To Asian Civilisations Museum ****
<http://www.asiaone.com/News/Latest%2BNews/Singapore/Story/A1Story20121023-379328.html>
AsiaOne