The panel : Bart Busschots, Stu Helm, Keaton Brandt, Paul Shadwell and Anthony Gartner

Thanks for your continued support of IMP, we hope you enjoy the show! We’d love to hear from you so send your email / audio clips to haveyoursay [at] impodcast [dot] tv and we’ll get them into the mix.

Don’t forget you can support us by using the code impodcast when you sign up for a new SquareSpace account, you’ll get 10% off the life of your account too! Also, make sure you check out  ScreenCasts Online, become an Extra member for a fresh Mac tutorial every week.

This week’s show notes can be found here

So, as you might have guessed from the title (You know, that clause in big bold letters above the body of the post. You can’t miss it!), this post is about the new, built-in battery of the new unibody MacBook Pros. There has been grumbling, there has been complaining, and there has even been full blown temper tantrums. You know what? I am sick of it. That’s right. I’ve had enough. I actually LIKE (gasp) the new built-in batteries, and I am here to bust dispell the myths about them.

Myth #1 – (read in high pitched, whiny, rushed voice) My battery doesn’t last long enough and I need to be able to swap out batteries.

First. Pay attention when Phil talks. Yes, I know he isn’t Steve “his holiness” Jobs, but Phil is one smart cookie, and knows what he is talking about. These batteries last for seven (7) hours. Yes, that is the amount of time to go through a school day, or your average work day (minus lunch), or even all but the longest of flights.

For most people that amount of battery life is more than plenty. Before, you couldn’t get quite that much per battery, usually around 4-5 hours. So you either dealt with it, and plugged in whenever you could, or you could go spend $130 for a new battery, and swap them out; but I am willing to bet, very few people to that, which is the purpose of the poll at the bottom of the page. Please answer truthfully, as I am legitimately interested in the answers. I’ll let it go for a couple of weeks,  and it will eventually be discussed on an episode of IMP Live.

Myth #2 – Well, I am going on a really long flight to Timbuktu and its a 13 hour flight and I need to swap the batteries out to have enough battery life. When Apple measures battery life, they test their portables in a specific configuration. You can find the full configurations over at http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/battery/, but here is the most important piece of information:

The wireless productivity test measures battery life by wirelessly browsing various websites and editing text in a word processing document with display brightness set to 50%.

In addition, Apple uses the “Better Battery Life” setting in the Energy Saver system Preferences. This means, if you need to, you can squeeze even more time out of your battery. Here are some tips for doing so.

• If you have dual graphics cards, use the lower power, 9400M, instead of the 9600MGT

• Turn the brightness down on the screen to the lowest possible level. If you are on a dark airplane, you might even be able to turn it to the lowest setting. Same for you all with the glowing keyboard. On the other hand, if you are outside in bright sunlight, and you position yourself so that the sun is shining directly (not at an angle) onto the screen, you might even be able to turn the backlight all the way off! I have done it before…

• Please, use the “Better Battery Life” setting in Energy Saver. Its there for a reason.

• Turn off radios you aren’t using. On an airplane or using Ethernet? Turn of Wifi. Don’t need bluetooth? Turn it off too. Turning off the IR receiver might also help.

• If you want to watch a DVD on the plane, copy it onto your hard drive using software like Handbrake or MactheRipper (Google them) to make a backup copy onto your hard drive, and leave the disk at home. Of course, you wouldn’t do anything naughty with the copy, would you? You will most certainly delete it from your drive afterward, won’t you? In all seriousness, a spinning disk in the drive is a huge power suck.

If you have any other battery saving tips, post them in the comments. In additon, on that really long 13 hour flight to Timbuktu, how much of that flight will you be playing Plants vs. Zombies, versus sleeping. Yeah, thats what I thought.

Myth #3 – Well I use my computers for years before replacing them and I don’t want to have to go into the Apple store to have them replaced.

Again with the whole Listen to Phil thing. He said you can recharge these bad boys over 1000 times. Where your average battery will start losing charge around 200-250, and you will be seriously hurting by 300. For the average person, 1000 charges is over five years. I know money is tight and macs last a long time, but you’ll probably have moved on by then, and if you do want to have the battery replaced, it costs no more than a normal battery, and is about a ten minute operation. $130 dollars every five years is not a huge problem. Just because I am so nice, I am going to share some more tips (I am just loaded with tips today) about how to keep your battery healthy.

• Try to keep it within its “happy range,” or the range of temperatures that it preferes to work in. That information, and loads of other fun facts about Apple’s batteries can be found over at http://www.apple.com/batteries/.

• If you are going to store a battery unused for extended periods of time (months or more), to minimize the negative effect this has on the battery, store it at around 50% charge.

• Battery calibration reminds the battery, its controller chip, the cells themselves, and the computer how much of a charge it can hold, and helps the battery hold as much of a charge as possible, for as long as possible. This process should be done at least once a month for optimum battery performance. The following information gleaned from http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1490:

1.  Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your notebook’s battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.

2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.

3. Disconnect the power adapter while the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, the low battery warning dialog appears on the screen.

4. At this point, save your work.  Continue to use your computer; when the battery gets very low, the computer will automatically go to sleep.

5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.

6. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

I hope these tips helped your mobile computing life, and that I have dispelled some of the myths surrounding these excellent built-in batteries. Please vote in the poll below, as I am interested in seeing if my assumptions are correct.

This week’s panel : Stu Helm, Bart Busschots, Chris Wall, Gaz and Paul Shadwell

In this special episode we give our thoughts on the WWDC 09 Keynote from Monday 8th June 2009, if you haven’t sene the Keynote yet we’d suggest you do so first via Apple’s site

We’d like to hear from you so send your email / audio clips to haveyoursay [at] impodcast [dot] tv and we’ll get them into the mix.

We hope you enjoy the show,  and thanks for your continued support of IMP Live.

The panel : Stu Helm, Will, Keaton Brant and Michael King

This show is, again, a bit special, This episode was recorded live at Will’s house in Sherman Oaks, LA. A huge thankyou to Will’s parents for letting me stay with them and for being so welcoming.

Because of the nature of the show, and the fact I’m on vacation, I haven’t included any chapters or time markers again, sorry about that, you will get them back in the next show!

We’d like to hear from you so send your email / audio clips to haveyoursay [at] impodcast [dot] tv and we’ll get them into the mix

This week’s show notes can be found here

Today’s panel : Stu Helm, Keaton Brant, Phelim Brady, Jason Martin, Rob Hansson and special guest Nick Lensander from the Mac Tips Podcast

We talk about some of the news coming off the back of MacWorld and the keynote announcements, as well as having a quick chat to Nick about his experiences at MacWorld 2009

Special thanks to Nick Lensader for joining us this week and to all of you for listening and subscribing.

We’d like to hear from you so send your email / audio clips to haveyoursay [at] impodcast [dot] tv and we’ll get them into the mix

Today’s panel : Stu Helm, Bart Busschots, Michael King, Keaton Brant, Will and returning guest Michael Mistretta

We talk about the MacWorld 2009 keynote and the announcements Phil Schiller made. Special thanks to Michael Mistretta for joining us this week and to all of you for listening and subscribing.

We’d like to hear from you so send your email / audio clips to haveyoursay [at] impodcast [dot] tv and we’ll get them into the mix

A Few Plugs:

Mac Roundtable Podcast : Live @ MacWorld 2009
MacWorld Learning Center Booth (# 3036) in North Hall
4-5pm : Wednesday 7th January

Mac Tips Podcast

We’ll be very lucky to have Nicholas from the Mac Tips Podcast joining us on the next show to talk about his experiences being first in line for the keynote. Nick also did a great job of streaming the audio live from the keynote!

The panel : Stu Helm, Bart Busschots, Lewis King and Michael King

Apple announced the new Macbook Pros, Macbooks and updated Macbook Air at a special invite only event at their Town Hall on October 14th, we gather the IMP team to discuss the updates.

New Macbook
New Macbook Pro
Keynote video
Macbook video

This Week’s Panel : Bart Busschots, Stu Helm, Rob Hanson, Michael King, Nick Balaz, Nick McGuire, Lewis King.

We’d like to warmly welcome back Michael King from his ‘fun’ with hurricane Ike and to introduce you to the latest IMP team member, our second Canadian, Nick (yes that’s right another one) McGuire.

We discuss all that’s going on in the Apple world, have a good old rant about what Apple are playing at with the App Store and generally tear the news to shreds.

Sorry for the long show, but you know what we’re like when we get on a point! Oh, before we forget, take a look at our new ScreenCasts Online affiliate link, our friend Don McAllister does a great job of this weekly screencast show, well worth the money, if you want to sign up please use the following link.

Show Notes & LInks

News Segment

App Store Controversy:

• (Bart) – Apple are at it again, another good app banned for “duplicating” non-existant functionality (Developer’s blog)
• (Stu) – Apple “solve” App store rejection problem with NDA (via MacRumors)
• (Mike) – Apple Proper-kill Podcaster (via Infinite Loop)
• (Bart) – Great summing-up of what’s going on and why it matters (via MacWorld)

Apple News

• (Stu) – New Apple stores for Bristol (UK), Calgary (Canada), Honolulu (Hawaii), Geneva (Switzerland), Israel, Toronto (via MacNN)
• (Rob) – Apple’s growth to continue despite economy (via Macworld UK)

Web Browser News

• (Rob) – WebKit engine first to pass Acid3 test (via AppleInsider)

Security News:

• (Bart) – Java update for OS X released – lots of security fixes including some really nasty ones – would be wise to update now! Some fixes are OLD (back to March) (big DL – 136MB) (via TUAW)
• (Bart) – Apple’s patch release policy does not impress Enterprise (Didn’t know Geordi La Forge used OS X?) IT (via Infinite Loop)

iPod / iPhone / iTunes News:

iPod

• (Nick B) – Some software love for the oft-forgotten regular iPods – iPDA software released to turn regular iPods, including the Nano into a PDA (via MacWorld UK)
• (Stu) – Association for the Blind praise new iPod Nano’s accessibility (via Infinite Loop)

iPhone

• (Rob) – Does the new T-Mobile G1 pose a threat to the iPhone? (via AppleInsider)
• (Nick B) – First beta of iPhone 2.2 firmware seeded to developers (via Infinite Loop)
• (Lewis) Stage 3 of iPhone 3G Launch Today (via Infinite Loop)
• (Stu) – China Mobile want to cripple iPhone 3G ? (via AppleInsider)
• (Nick) – Hong Kong can get unlocked iPhone 3G ? Via Apple Online Store (via Cult of Mac)
• (Stu & Nick) – Shocking recall of iPhone 3G power adapters (via Infinite Loop)
• (Lewis) Apple speed up iPhone 3G purchasing online for US customers (via TUAW)
• (Mike) – AT&T Planning to Inegreate iPhone with U-Verse ? (via TUAW)
• (Stu) – PocketMac for iPhone adds Lotus & Entourage Sync (via MacNN)
• (Nick B)iPhone Beta Tester Community Registration Open (via JAiB)
• MobileSafari 2.2

iTunes

• (Lewis) Movies rumoured to be coming to Germany soon ? (via Infinite Loop)
• (Stu) -NBC sees record amount of traffic since iTunes return (via Infinite Loop)

Rumour Mill:

• (Stu) -Apple & O2 to bundle Broadband with MacBooks? (via Mobility Today)
• (Mike) – Another MacBook Pro rumour – Photoshoped? (via Gizmodo)
• (Lewis) Placeholders for new Macs in some retailers systems (via AppleInsider)

The Apple Funnies

• (Nick) – The iPhone you can eat? iCupCakes! (via TUAW)
• (Rob) – Lego MacPro (via Gizmodo)

Picks & Tips of the Week

• (Rob) – Podcaster App Review – yes, I was lucky enough to make it on to the Beta Test team! (via Switchmac.com)
• (Stu) – Upgrading your Mac, some tips.
• (Lewis) – Gaming on the iPhone.
• (MIke) – Generator from Sears
• (Nick Balaz) – Spore

This week’s panel : *Elaine Giles*, Stu Helm, Chris Wall, Michael King, Rob Hanson and Nick Balaz

IMP is honoured to have our first female panelist in the form of Elaine Giles from MacBites. We go long this week for some great one liners, some wonderful insights into the latest Apple news and of course some great heckling from Elaine

Show notes and links coming soon, just getting them ready to copy over.

Enjoy the show!