For most Mac users, hot keys are an absolute life-saver. They save time and allow quick and easy access to OS X functions without having to hunt through endless menus and folders. But unconfirmed rumours that sprung up on Friday of this week show that Apple are apparently ditching hot keys from all the programs sold on the App Store starting June 1st as a “security measure”.

The move is nothing new. Since last year, Apple has been pushing for developers to sandbox their apps, meaning that they cannot mess around with the operating system or other apps installed on the device, however it seems like the latest policy will force many developers to redesign their apps to take out hot key integration. Alfred is a prime example of one of these, which uses simple keyboard shortcuts to launch Mac applications and saved documents.

Currently, developers are allowed to implement hot key integration into their apps in order to launch system-wide shortcuts such as bringing all windows into the foreground or launching the user’s most-used apps all at once, but any apps submitted to the App Store after June 1st will have to remove this feature.

The move may be a nod towards tighter security in the upcoming Mountain Lion release. There has been recent strong criticism of OS X security (especially given the Flashback trojan) and the upcoming Gatekeeper feature in OS X 10.8 is Apple’s attempt to try and make its default operating system even safer. However, some commentators have said that OS X is turning more into iOS in this aspect, with tight controls on what is permitted and a long list of guidelines that developers have to adhere to.

We will, of course, keep you updated on what is happening with this story. In the meantime, feel free to share your comments, thoughts and complaints in the section below!

Despite being a relatively old system, File Transfer Protocol (FTP) still has great value to those of us who deal with uploading and downloading lots of data between servers. Some have argued that FTP is dying, along with hierarchical file systems. However, for anyone who has ever worked on a website or dealt with servers like Amazon’s S3, FTP is still the fastest way to manage all your files.

There are plenty of options out there for Mac users who need a solid FTP client. The most important factors for most users when deciding which is best tend to be speed, layout, and price. Today we are going to look a fresh look at the recently updated ForkLift from Binary Nights (version 2.5), and see how it stacks up against the competition.

Getting Started

How quickly you get up and running with ForkLift, or any FTP client for that matter, depends on your comfort level with certain acronyms. If you know and understand things like FTP, SFTP, WebDav, S3, etc., then the setup process for ForkLift won’t be any more difficult to understand any other FTP app you’ve used. You simply click on the connect button to open up a menu, which allows you to enter server details and login information, and you’re ready to go. You get additional options here as you would expect with an FTP client, including changing the port number, local and remote paths, base URL, and encoding type.

Design

ForkLift doesn’t differentiate itself from the competition in any major ways. The main window is divided into two areas, one showing the files and folders of whatever server you are connected to, and the other shows you your local machine. At the top of each window is a file path that helps you visualize where you are.

Ideally, I think a good Mac FTP client should simulate the experience of using the Finder, and in this way, ForkLift succeeds. In fact, one part of the window design that gives it a leg up on certain competitors is having a left hand column, just like Finder, that gives you a listing of devices, shared drives, current connections, and favorites.

Previous versions of ForkLift were eye sores full of excessively decorated icons cluttering up every pixel of the window. The current version has toned all of that down, and the graphics all fit nicely with the more subdued Lion theme.

You can change the viewing format to icons, list, hierarchy, and cover flow. As with Finder, you can also choose what columns will appear in list view (such as date added, date modified, etc.).

Like many other FTP clients, ForkLift has the very useful tab feature (something that Apple needs to implement into Finder). Other FTP apps like Transmit have tabs as well, but what I like about ForkLift is that it lets you use tabs in both windows if you are using the dual pane view.

The top of the window shows the progress bar. When inactive, it takes up an unfortunate amount of space, similar to the top of the iTunes window. I prefer Transmit’s progress bar that sits at the bottom of the window, where it is more out of the way. When you aren’t transferring anything, the activity bar in ForkLift just seems to take up too much space.

Despite having been released almost a year ago, there are still some apps that haven’t made themselves full-screen compatible. FTP clients are definitely apps that benefit from having more screen space, because all the files you need to deal with can be accessed in a Finder-like window. Fortunately, ForkLift has made the jump, and using it in full-screen was a pleasure. Some may find it unnecessary to use ForkLift or any other FTP client in full-screen, but I personally prefer it. You can also use Quick Look inside ForkLift, which I found removes any need to exit out of full-screen to open Preview.

Performance

I decided to do a causal test of speeds for various FTP app that I have. In addition to ForkLift, I tested transfers with Flow and Transmit. There are a ton of other options out there that I’ve tried in the past, such as Cyberduck and FileZilla, but this is a review of ForkLift, and getting a comparison to two other apps should be sufficient.

I used the same 25MB Adobe file from my hard drive, and sent it to my web site’s server with each app. ForkLift took 35 seconds, Transmit took 41, and Flow took 44. Downloading the file, on the other hand, was much faster and about the same for each app. It is important to note that this was not a very scientific test and that your results may vary. I did perform the test several times, though, and ended up getting the same numbers each time with a negligible variance.

Aside from transfers, general performance with ForkLift was excellent as well. Everything is snappy, from opening folders to logging into a server. Speaking of logging in, I found ForkLift to be almost instantaneous, Transmit to take a half second longer, and Flow to be dreadfully slow in comparison. Further speeding up your workflow is a wide-array of available shortcuts, all of which can be customized.

All in all, ForkLift was the single best-performing FTP client I’ve ever used. I have been using Transmit for years and even it still hangs up frequently when trying to connect to my server. ForkLift hasn’t done that to me once.

Features

ForkLift has a ton of great features that I loved having at my disposal. The first is Stacks, which is a simple way to organize certain commonly used files. I was using ForkLift while working on a WordPress design, and I found Stacks to be great for keeping a few files that I frequently needed close at hand without having to create a separate folder on my computer.

Like many FTP clients, you can use a sync function to simply copy everything from one folder into another. ForkLift expands on this common functionality with “synclets,” which gives you a bit more control over the sync actions you need. Once you customize what you want to have synced for a given folder, you can save those settings, making any future syncs a breeze.

One of my favorite features in ForkLift is “Droplets.” Droplets are shortcuts that you can place anywhere in your system, (I placed mine in the dock), and then anything that you drag onto it gets sent to the remote folder of your choice. If you’ve ever used DropZone, this feature will look familiar to you.

You can, like other FTP clients, mount connections to your server on your computer. One area where Transmit beats ForkLift here is the availability of a menulet for quick access to mounted drives. However, having that sidebar with devices in ForkLift sort of negates the need for a menulet.

Conclusion

In speaking with other people about FTP clients, I get the sense that Transmit is perhaps the most popular among Mac-users. However, after playing around with ForkLift, I would crown it as my favorite. Transmit certainly has a more appealing visual design, but I think ForkLift has a few features that make it a better value.

Some people spend a lot of their time looking at an FTP window, so Transmit’s eye candy certainly does matter. But if you are ultimately more concerned with a broader set of features and better performance, I think you might want to give ForkLift a try.

For some of us, email seems to rule our lives. Wouldn’t it be cool to see how true that statement is? Mailsum is a unique and attractive app that offers you a way to track various statistics regarding your email habits: sent, received, average response time; track it all in style with Mailsum!

We’re happy to announce that we’ve been able to snag five copies of Mailsum to give away to our faithful fans. Read on to see how you can enter!

Tweet to Enter

Entering is simple, all you have to do is click the link below and send out the resulting tweet (or just copy and paste), then leave a comment below with a link to your tweet. That’s it!

We’ll announce the winners on Thursday, May 24th. Good luck to everyone who enters! In the mean time, be sure to stop by the Mailsum website to learn more about this awesome app.

Whether you’re looking to do some late spring cleaning, or you just want to liberate some of your guilty pleasure movies from their DVD prisons, it is time we revisit the process of ripping your DVD collection into iTunes. Ripping DVDs is not only easy, it can save a lot of money as you begin (or continue) to build your digital video library.

As the self-proclaimed digital projectionist for the casa de la Stark, let me walk you through the basic steps and available software applications to get those movies off the plastic and into your Mac.

Introduction

If you assume that ripping your DVD collection into a digital format is a task that just isn’t worth your time, you’d be wrong. The typical cost of a movie from iTunes ranges from $10 to $20 dollars. Ripping DVDs you already own, or possibly DVDs you’ve picked up from Amazon.com, presents an opportunity for tremendous cost savings and greater bang for your buck. Those movies are just sitting there. Why not get them into a format that you can actually benefit from, and maybe get yourself even closer to breaking the cable!

When you first begin to rip your DVD collection it is important to map out a plan. Understanding the use of your final output can save yourself time and megabytes. For our purposes, the mission is to get a commercial DVD into iTunes so we can watch it on an iPad or through an AppleTV.

As you move through your DVD collection, you will find yourself fine tuning the process to make it perfect for your particular setup. I would also recommend that you keep all of your original DVD discs. I typically recycle the cases and store the discs on an old CD-R spindle to save space. Keeping the original disc somewhat handy in the beginning is helpful as not all rips will go perfectly, and you might not see the issue until its up on the big screen.

The Tools

The current software options for ripping a DVD are virtually endless. From free to costly, easy to complicated, the right ripping tool is completely subjective to the end-user. Ideally, find something that makes your life easy while allowing you to create an output file that meets your objective. For this exercise, I will be ripping a new copy of The Recruit that I purchased from Amazon.com for $4.25 (with free shipping). The end result for each of these tools is to generate a file that I can drop into iTunes to be played on my iPad and my AppleTV.

Handbrake (free)

Handbrake is an open source application that is beloved by a strong community of users. Try having a conversation about video conversion, and Handbrake will most likely be thrown into the mix. Unlike the other tools in this article, Handbrake by its own definition is not a DVD ripping software solution. Its primary purpose is about video conversion.

The importance of this fact is that it only works on un-encrypted video sources without the assistance of additional plugins or tools. Most commercial DVDs sold today have some sort of DRM encryption on them, and unless that encryption is bypassed, Handbrake won’t be able to access the video files to perform the rip (or more accurately – conversion). There are several options and third party utilities to help manage the encryption on DVDs. Handbrake, however, will actually offer to point you in the right direction and download a small package to help bypass most commercial encryption. To rip a movie using Handbrake:

1. Click “Source” in top left corner of Handbrake window.
2. Navigate to your DVD -> Video_TS folder. Click “Open”.
3. As it scans the DVD, it will (generally) pre-select the title you need. If it doesn’t, or you want to be sure, scan the available title tracks in the title dropdown. The title with the longest duration is usually what you need.
4. In the presets window, select “AppleTV” (or feel free to choose another preset that meets your need).
5. Click “Start”

RipIt ($24.95)

Featured on AppStorm before, RipIt is an easy program for ripping video from your DVD discs. Unlike Handbrake, it has built in tools to circumvent most forms of DVD encryption. It has been purposefully designed with less options in an effort to keep the process of ripping DVDs forcibly painless.

You can use RipIt to burn an exact copy of a DVD, or create a compressed video file (sans the menus and extras) to play on your mobile devices. For most users, RipIt is probably the best choice for getting your digital collection started. Interestingly enough, it uses the Handbrake CLI for the compression part of the RipIt job. You can change output formats and target a specific platform if you want (such as iPhone, iPad, etc). Personally, I think the default settings are just fine for a file that can accomplish this mission. To rip a movie using Ripit:

1. Insert DVD
2. Click Compress
3. Click Automatically Compress

DVDFab ($45.00+)

Relatively new to the Mac platform, DVDFab is a powerful ripping suite. Like RipIt, it too can bypass most encryption on today’s DVDs. Unlike RipIt, however, you can be very specific in your output options. You can create mirrored copies of your disk, or target the output for a particular platform.

If you are a cross platform user, DVDFab has a Windows client that operates in almost the exact way as the Mac version. Unfortunately, DVDFab is a bit pricey for most users and that license does not cover both a Mac and Windows installation. However, it does allow you to purchase specific modules which give you the ability to rip Blu-Rays as well as DVDs. To rip a movie using DVDFab:

1. Select DVD Ripper from the options on the right.
2. Select “More” from the preselects and then choose “Apple TV”.
3. By default, the main movie will already be selected. If you want to change it, do that before clicking start.
4. Click “display only forced subpicture” (optional). Typically, I will edit the profile and increase the volume for the ripped movies to 150%. I also change the audio output to Dolby ProLogic II for my particular entertainment output needs.
5. Click “Start”

Meta Information

These last tools are entirely optional. When you burn as many DVDs as I have, gathering DVD cover art can be a pain. Movie descriptions? Forget it. However, if you want your movies to look like you just downloaded them from iTunes, the easiest way to do that is with a tool like MetaX or iDentify. They use the title of the movie (which you can tweak) and scans different movie databases to pull in cast, art, and chapter information. It then adds this information to the output file itself, so when you drop it into iTunes it looks as professional as the big boys.

Final Stretch

Once you have your output file, its time to load it into iTunes. Simply grab your mp4 or m4v file and drag it over to iTunes. If you’ve used a meta program, then you will see your movie with a properly formatted title, description, and cover art. If not, then all you need to do is right click (or control-click) on the file and select “Get Info”. From here, you can update the name, add cover art, and update any other data you want.

Conclusion

Converting your own DVDs to a digital format is a pretty painless process. Using a few basic tools and some pre-planning, you can bring new life to that DVD collection collecting dust in your closet.

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. It would stand to reason, then, that with the emergence of the Internet, it would be necessary to have an invention that would help us cope with the massive amounts of information. Of course, the category of RSS readers has been present for some time, but it’s almost as if that isn’t sufficient enough anymore. I can set up my RSS reader to pull from several different websites, but I can’t limit my information absorption to 5 or 20 or even 100 different websites; it comes from everywhere.

Some of the other AppStorm sites have talking about Pocket, a web service formerly known as Read It Later. Pocket, and other similar services, aim to let you save various articles and videos for later consumption, rather than letting them interrupt your workflow. Today we’re going to look at Read Later, which is a Mac desktop client for both the free Pocket and the paid Instapaper. The app was originally released as ReadNow, but it’s evolved quite a bit since we covered it, so let’s see what’s new.

Saving And Reading

Using Read Later with Instapaper requires a paid Instapaper account. Since that’s not something I have, I will be testing the app with my Pocket account. Adding bookmarks to Read Later can either be done externally (my preferred method is using the Pocket extension for Safari) or through the app (drag a URL to the dock or menubar icon). Regardless of how you do it, simply click the sync button in Read Later and all of your bookmarks will instantly show up.

The default view for Read Later includes a familiar 3-pane window, much like what we’re used to from apps like Reeder. However, the panes can be hidden or shown to form any configuration at all. This is helpful if you want to keep your bookmark list open on the side of your screen even when you’re not viewing an article, hide the sidebar to eliminate distractions while you’re reading, or anything in between.

Your bookmarks display in a very clean, no-frills format, similar to that of Safari’s built in Reader. However, for those times when you’d prefer to view the webpage, Read Later sports a built in browser.

Organizing and Sharing

This is, in my opinion, where Read Later shines. Read Later allows for a folder structure of whatever complexity you desire, and bookmarks can be drag-and-dropped between them. They can also be tagged from the Edit pop-up in the upper right corner. In addition, the bookmarks list can ben sorted by tags, title, URL, or date, and your entire collection can be searched with the magnifying glass icon at the bottom.

While the interface of Read Later doesn’t necessarily mimic that of Pocket’s web app or iOS apps, any of the organizational changes (particularly in relation to tags and read/unread status) are reflected in those counterparts.

News is becoming more and more social, and Read Later doesn’t try to stand in the way of that. Read Later supports URL-shorteners bit.ly and j.mp, Twitter, Facebook, Pinboard, Delicious, and can even send bookmarks to Evernote.

A Few Extras

As I poked around the Read Later interface, I was pleasantly surprised at the immersive amount of customization available to the user. You can change quite a number of settings that affect the way content is displayed (including a dark setting that inverts the colors), the font style and size of the content, the highlight color in the bookmarks list, and how dock/menubar icons are displayed.

You can also change the way that the app responds to certain input. Not only can you set keyboard shortcuts a few of Read Later’s functions, but you can also change the way that multi-touch gestures are used to navigate the app.

The Verdict

I’ve never used Instapaper, and I wasn’t a Read It Later user (until it became Pocket). I can say as a new user that Pocket has implemented a very effective and attractive sense of style and layout in its iOS apps, and one that I’d like to see continued into a native Mac app.

That being said, Read Later is a very well designed, third-party, multi-service client for Mac, and is currently one of the most elegant options for the offline consumption of your “saved for later” material. It allows me to spend a dedicated amount of time in the morning browsing my RSS feeds and saving webpages that I’d like to look at later, and then proceed with my day without letting the news pester my mind. I know that everything will be waiting for me at the end of the day when I can finally sit down to read.

I’m curious to know your thoughts on services like Pocket and Instapaper. What’s your preferred method for utilizing them on the Mac?

“I finally cracked it,” Steve Jobs famously said to biographer Walter Isaacson in reference to an Apple-made television set. The elegant set-top box known as the Apple TV has been labeled as a hobby since its conception, and many are guessing that a full-fledged television by Apple would finally elevate their endeavors in television from this hobby status.

But what part of the television experience did Steve believe they “cracked”? Was it just integrating the iTunes Store and TV show subscriptions in a way that could directly challenge the cable package paradigm? Or maybe more exciting to imagine, did he have plans to revolutionize the way that we interact with the television?

Let’s look at some of the possible ways that Apple could let us interact with the big screens in our living rooms.

The Current Remote

The current Apple TV remote is about as bare-bones as it can get. It may not have revolutionized the way that we interact with a TV, but it was a radical departure from traditional TV remotes. Not only did it strip away the buttons and confusing interface that typical television remotes have, it completely ignored the paradigm of using channel numbers to reach your destination.

I would like to think that if Apple plans to revolutionize the television, and convince people to switch from the expensive televisions they’ve already invested in, it will need to offer a more exciting way to interact with the screen. The directional pad on the remote can be slow and clunky when used for navigating through grids and menus.

Another thing to consider is that the minimal control scheme provided by this remote would really limit the potential of an App Store on this device. As we will see from the following examples, innovative control schemes could offer a whole new world of possibilities to developers, and could explain why Apple has been holding off on implementing a store into the Apple TV so far.

Siri

Some television sets released in the past few years, such as those integrating Google TV, have shipped with keyboard remotes that enable users to input web searches and other text. But as if existing television remotes weren’t intimidating enough, the extra 30+ buttons make these remotes even clunkier, and the accompanying televisions more complicated to interact with.

A far more elegant way to input small bits of text to your television would be through Siri. Siri integration in an Apple TV is probably the most-rumored method of interacting with the device thus far. While televisions are traditionally turned off when not in use, it would be interesting if the Apple TV set were left in a sleep mode, ready to accept voice commands as soon as you enter the room.

Imagine walking into your living room and saying, “Siri, what’s the weather look like for this week?” or “Siri, what movies are playing?”, and having that information quickly spread out across the large screen. You could also play specific shows or movies quickly with commands like, “Siri, play the latest episode of Big Bang Theory.”

There are already a number of products experimenting with this control scheme. For the Xbox 360, Microsoft released something called Kinect Voice Control, which allows you to control your TV with simple voice commands. Though voice control systems like this haven’t taken off yet, Apple has a history of taking existing technologies and making them mainstream, so Siri integration in the television would have the potential to cause a paradigm shift.

But could voice be the only way that you could interact with a TV? If users have many apps, shows, and other media on the screen, browsing would involve a lot of navigation, and I don’t know if people would be comfortable telling their TV to scroll around all the time. Siri would be great for times when you know exactly what you want, but my best guess is that they would need to pair voice with some other method of control.

Secondary Touch Screen

Another potential method of interacting with the TV could be through a smaller, auxiliary touchscreen that users would hold. Instead of navigating through content on the television itself, users would browse menus and collections of media on the handheld screen. This screen could be the size of existing iPhones, iPads, or somewhere in between, and could be included with the television so users wouldn’t have to give up use of their iPhone or iPad when the family wants to watch TV.

With the upcoming Wii U, Nintendo is using a similar control scheme, bundling the system with a small touchscreen remote. Just as Nintendo expects game developers to find exciting ways for the smaller screen to interact with the television, an app store on Apple’s television would open up a world of opportunities for independent developers.

Apple caught mobile gaming companies like Nintendo off guard when its iPhones and iPads turned into fun and affordable portable gaming devices; just imagine the impact it could have on the console gaming market if Apple gave independent developers the opportunity to bring their games to this television.

Body

When I think of using the body to interact with a screen, two things immediately come to my mind: the Xbox Kinect and Tom Cruise’s computer in Minority Report. Both examples are somewhat famous for demonstrating the potential of body-based interaction with user interfaces.

When announcing the iPhone, Steve said that it would utilize the best pointing device in the world: our fingers. Just as the iPhone eliminated peripheral tools needed to interact with portable devices, maybe Apple could perfect the remote-less experience of interacting with a television,

As demonstrated by the Kinect, there is a limit to how much precision you can have when moving your arms around to interact with a screen several feet away; gestures have to be fairly broad. Has the Xbox Kinect tapped into the full potential of using the body to interact with a screen, or could future innovations, such as projecting your fingertips on the screen and enabling intuitive gestures, improve our accuracy when interacting with a television in this way?

Pointing Device

The most successful example of a television pointing device has to be the Nintendo Wii’s remote. Nintendo made a bold move by adopting a radically different control scheme, and has been rewarded with success as the console reaches entire new audiences of gamers. If using your body to interact with a TV is not accurate enough for Apple’s tastes, using a pointing device could offer a greater level of control.

Apple would surely make a very sleek pointing device, perhaps one that looks like the existing Apple TV remote. Just as the Wiimote projects a large pointer finger on the screen, this pointing device would probably have some kind of cursor that you could use to select items on the screen. As evidenced by the variety of innovative games produced for the Wii over the years, this control scheme would be very conducive for an app store as well.

Touch

I find this method of interaction to be the least likely. Touch screens this large would be expensive and less practical, considering we generally watch television from several feet back. That being said, a lot of science fiction movies depict a future in which all screens have some touch capabilities, and this concept video by glass company Corning shows how the touch screen might be beneficial.

The man walks up to his screen in order to read text from news and emails clearly, and to quickly tap items he wants to view. A touch screen this large would also have huge value in educational and business environments, where it could be used as a virtual whiteboard. Interactive whiteboards from companies like SMART are becoming popular in schools around the country, but have to be calibrated often and have low quality displays. A large, precise, high quality touch screen would be popular in a number of professions.

Conclusion

It was certainly uncharacteristic of Steve to reveal Apple’s future plans for a television in his biography. He must have known the effect that this small leak of information would have on the press and enthusiasts. It’s exciting to think that there is a high-security room in Apple’s headquarters likely filled with dozens, if not hundreds, of prototypes for televisions.

They have likely tried most, if not all, methods outlined in this article, and Steve seemed pretty confident that they had found the right pieces to make this television a truly revolutionary product. Hopefully, we will find out in the coming year or two.

Many thanks to Tyler Murphy for providing mockups for this piece.