There’s Still Time: Some Apple Gift Ideas

It may be the last minute, but it’s not too late to find wonderful gifts for the holidays. Here are a few ideas for wonderful packages to put under the tree:

iPod Gifts and Accessories for Christmas

With the variety of iPod styles and sizes, there is a gift possibility for every pocketbook.

The 1 GB iPod Shuffle has room for 240 songs in the world’s most wearable music player. Give colours to choose from, including four new hues, make music and fashion statements at the same time. The iPod Shuffle can be operated with one hand. Syncing and charging are simple with the included USB dock. It provides up to 12 hours of music, with skip-free music playback. And with iTunes autofill, the iPod shuffle will deliver a new musical experience every time you sync. Or, songs can be shuffled during playback with the the easy slide of a switch.

The iPod Nano is always a wonderful choice. It comes in either a 4GB (1,000 songs) or 8GB size (2,000 songs). It’s the world’s most popular music player, which now also plays movies, TV shows and more, on a two-inch display which is a dramatic 65% brighter than ever before. The Nano is also beautiful: it comes with a choice of five colours in an anodised aluminium and polished stainless steel enclosure.

The iPod Classic is a wonder. In 80GB (20,000 songs or 100 hours of video) and 160 GB sizes (40,000 songs or 200 hours of video), it offers a 2.5-inch colour display and up to 40 hours of battery life. Its enhanced interface offers a whole new way to browse and view music and video — by flipping through album and movie art. It’s all offered in a beautiful and sleeker design than before. In an anodised aluminium and polished stainless steel enclosure with rounded edges, the iPod classic is not only stylish, but designed for durability.

The iPod Touch offers the same revolutionary multi-touch interface technology as the iPhone. With a pinch, you zoom in to view an image more closely. Or, with a slide of the finger, you can scroll through your songs and videos. A 3.5-inch color display offers astonishing colour on the 320 x 480 pixel display. The iPod Touch offers Wi-Fi, allowing you to surf the web through Safari. Music can be downloaded directly from iTunes from anywhere. The iPod Touch is offered in an 8 GB or 16 GB size.

Or, consider (Product) RED Special Edition iPod models, and Apple will donate a portion of the purchase price to fight AIDS in Africa. Learn more about this at www.joinred.com

Accessories for your iPod can also make wonderful gifts. Consider the purchase of protective cases, armbands, earphones or headphones. Take a look at the choices offered for car audio. Or browse the variety of speaker systems which provide even more possibilities and range for your musical enjoyment.

The Revolutionary iPhone Will Provide Holiday Cheer

A truly remarkable technological accomplishment, the iPhone redefines what can be done on a mobile phone. With its groundbreaking multi-touch technology, it is possible to perform a number of actions with the mere tap, flick or slide of a finger. The iPhone is also a breakthrough portable Internet device which features html email and Safari, the most advanced web browser ever. To make a call, you merely tap a number. Voicemail can be listened to in any order with Visual Voicemail. And of course, the iPhone is also an iPod which allows you to enjoy music, videos and more on a 3.5-inch colour display with CoverFlow.

And there are many wonderful accessories to consider: stylish protective cases. Or, the Apple iPhone Bluetooth Headset which allows for hands-free operation. The Kensington Car Mount which provides a sturdy support for the iPhone as you travel. Or, to keep your iPhone charged while you travel, there is the ExtremeMac In Charge Auto Charger. The iPhone, and many accessories can be viewed at: The Apple iPhone store

The Macs That Make a Jolly Holiday

The truly astonishing line of computers that Apple offers provide an array of excellent gift choices. Both the laptops and the desktop models provide speed, power and quality that is unrivaled.

The laptops

With its increased power and speed, the newly-designed Macbook is the most advanced and affordable Mac notebook ever. It’s perfectly designed for the mobile lifestyle so many of us live - with built-in Bluetooth and Airport Extreme, an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1 GB of memory and large hard drives in all models. Built-in ISight camera, iLife 08, Front Row, Leopard and a 13-inch widescreen with dual-display support, it starts at just £699 (UK) / Eur 1049 (Ireland).

Or, offering even more power, speed and memory, there is the MacBook Pro. With its next-generation 802.11n wireless, beautiful upgraded 15″ and 17″ displays, fast NVIDIA graphics, the MacBook Pro is packed with power, but light on pounds. The 2.59 cm (one inch) thin notebook weights only 2.45 kg (5.6 pounds) or 3.08 kg (6.8 pounds) and are easily among the thinnest, lightest notebooks in their class. The power of two processor cores comes with the Intel Core 2 Duo provides up to 2.6 GHz of power inside a single chip. Featuring up to 4 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 memory with an astonishingly fast 800 MHZ frontside bus and support for hard drives up to 250 GB, this is the ultimate in speed, performance and connectivity. The MacBook Pro comes loaded with Leopard, iLife 08 and starts at just £1299 (UK) / Eur 1899 (Ireland) including VAT.

There are scores of accessories for Apple notebooks, which include cases, protective covers, a line of wonderful printers, all of which would make the holiday very merry indeed.

The Desktops

The Mac Mini is easily the most affordable desktop model, offering the Intel Core 2 Duo, coupled with the world’s most advanced operating system, Mac OS X Leopard. It is petite: 5 cm (2-inch) tall, 16.5 cm (6.5 inch) square anodised aluminium enclosure, and offers either a 80 GB or 120 GB harddrive, a slot-loading Combo or SuperDrive, built-in wireless, iLife ‘08, Front Row and Leopard, all beginning at just £399 (UK) / Eur 599 (Ireland).

Just add one of the displays and your choice of a keyboard and mouse, and the Mac Mini will provide you with a truly remarkable array of possibilities.

Apple’s newly-designed revolutionary all-in-one iMac is a beautifully designed high-performance computer available in 20 and 24-inch widescreen models. With 2.0 GHz or 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 duo processor, or a 2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, 4 MB shared L2 cache at full processor speed, a 800 MHz system bus, 1 to 4 GB of memory, the iMac provides plenty of what we need the most. Offering a truly digital life, the iMac includes built-in wireless, Mac OSX Leopard and iLife ‘08. Other essentials include an iSight camera, Builtin Airport Extreme Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Only minutes after opening the box, you’ll be up and running joyously. And it starts at just £799 (UK) / Eur 1199 (Ireland).

Accessories like printers, wired or wireless keyboards, the wireless Mighty Mouse, an Apple Cinema HD Display can all be added to the list of possible gifts.
For more information about the line of Macs and their accessories, see http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore?node=home/shop_mac

Put Apple’s best-selling OSX Ever Under the Tree:

Bring Home a Leopard for Christmas

Learn More

Apple has managed to break all its own records with the sales of its new OSX upgrade, Leopard. Packed with over three hundred new features, Leopard installs easily and works well with the software and accessories your equipment already has installed. You may choose either a single-user or a five-user Family Pack. Here are just a few of the many features that have made Leopard so popular:

Time Machine is the automatic backup program which, with Leopard, is now built into your Mac. It requires only a simple one-click setup to keep your data backed up and safe. And if you ever need to recover a file which has been lost, Time Machine will virtually take you back in time and allow you to find and retrieve it. Anyone who has ever suffered the loss of data knows how invaluable such a tool can be!

Finder is another feature which is greatly appreciated. It allows you to see your files right in the Finer, and to brose through them using Cover Flow.

Safari 3 continues to be the world’s best web browser. It is the fastest on any platform, and is now improved with even better tab control and Find capabilities, inline PDF controls and much more.

Enjoy staying in touch with Leopard’s improved Mail program, which allows you to add style and elegance to your emails with Stationery. And with notes and to-dos, you can stay organized as well!

iChat is another great way to stay in connection with others. You can connect fact to face with an easy-to-use, high-quality video conferencing capability, It now features Photo Booth, for great fun effects, backdrops and iChat Theatre.

These are but a few of the great new features Leopard brings to your life. For fuller details and ordering information, see here

Christmas is a Time for Sharing Music and Movies with Monster iSplitter 200

With the Monster iSplitter 200, sharing movies and music is easier and more convenient than ever. It connects two sets of headphones to iPod, iPhone, notebook and portable CD/DVD/game systems. 24K gold contacts maximize signal transfer. The iSplitter plugs into any standard 1/8 inch/3.5 mm mini-headphone jack. Both listeners may set their own volume level thanks to two independent volume wheels. One set of headphones can also be muted quickly and easily, while the other set continues to play! Tough enough to travel wherever you go — in a car, on a plane or in your bag, the Monster iSplitter 200 is made with high-impact construction and a tough Duraflex jacket, which wraps the cable. A strain relief collar lets the iSplitter bend without putting stress on the cable. See here

To enhance the experience, try using the iSplitter with a great pair of earphones, like the Sennheiser CX300 noise-isolating earphones. Ear adapters in three sizes ensure perfect fit, these are high-quality stereo ear-canal headphones which have a powerful bass-driven stereo sound. Weighing only 4 g., the Sennheiser CX300 earphones are extremely small and lightweight. But don’t let that fool you! They are excellent at reducing ambient noise, allowing you full enjoyment of your music, video — or whatever it is you choose to hear without interference. For these and other earphones choices, see here:

Give the Gift of iTunes

It is simple to give songs, albums, playlists, music videos, TV shows or audiobooks as gifts to anyone on your list. Or, consider giving an iTunes Gift Card or gift certificate so that your loved ones can choose for themselves.

If you purchase a prepard iTunes Gift Card, you can choose from denominations of £15 or £25 (UK) / Û15 or Û25 (Ireland). Gift certificates are also available either through iTunes or the Apple Online Store. It can be sent via email for near-immediate arrival, or you can print the gift certificate on your own printer and deliver it to the recipient yourself.

Another idea: give your children the ability to download their favourite songs by setting up a music allowance account. This gives them the ability to access the store without need of a credit card, and allows you to set the limit on how much they can spend.

Or, when you discover music or videos which you think others will love as much as you do, giving others the gift is just as easy as purchasing the material for yourself. Once your recipient redeems the gift from the iTunes Store, it appears in his or her iTunes library, immediately ready to play or sync to the iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. Another way to do this is by giving a printed certificate with a code that is redeemable for your chosen gift on the iTunes Store.

It’s even possible to create your own playlists and present them as custom compilation gifts to others.

For more information about gifting with iTunes, see
http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/store/gifts.html

For the Photographer on Your List: Aperture 1.5

Anyone passionate about their photography will love receiving this all-in-one post-production toolkit for their work. It is designed and built from the ground up for professionals, and offers everything needed to work with images after a shoot — beginning with organizing and ending with publishing — all with a single, integrated workflow.

Working with advanced RAW workflow, a photographer can see images as they were captured by the camera, and then work with the tools to enhance, adapt, perfect each image, save changes while simultaneously maintaining in its original form the raw captured image.

Aperture’s flexible organizations tools allow improved library management, and offers metadata support. You can quickly organize, then search your images. You have total control of the way your photos are organized. The Projects Panel allows for absolute customization. If iPhoto has been used to store images, Aperture offers an easy way to import the images. The Compare and Select function allows you to move through the library, rating the images as you go.

There is also an excellent Compare and Select toolset, which allows you to quickly sift and identify your images. Immediate previews are available, with autostack images based on time intervals between your individual shoots.

Nondestructive image processing allows for retouching that doesn’t harm the original images. The adjustment settings can be modified any number of times. Spot and patch tools are perfect for fixing imperfections. Aperture is also designed to work with an external image editor seamlessly. You are guaranteed an untouched original master image as well as a set of tools for processing to perfection each image.

And when all the work is finished, Aperture assists in the production and publication of the images — excellent color-managed prints and contact sheets, design customized books, or magnificent websites.

All of what Aperture offers is also tightly integrated with the iLife and iWork suites, making it even easier to move between these various applications.

A fuller presentation of Aperture, which includes video presentations of the various applications, can be found here.

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