Multiplex - a comic strip about life at the movies
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Posts Tagged ‘Apple’

 

Late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro review

The late 2008 MacBook Pro I had been using since early 2009 had started to show its age. Adding 8GB of RAM and an OWC Mercury Electra SSD extended its life for a bit longer, but it was time.

I was tempted by the first generation Retina MacBook Pros, but talk of laggy UI performance and my old laptop performing well enough for Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign — my main programs — kept me from pulling the trigger. (OSX Mavericks has supposedly alleviated much of that lag.) But I’ve been doing more and more video and animation work in grad school, and that’s where my late 2008’s performance really suffered.

So I waited for the second generation, and when it was announced and released, I jumped. (Thanks for the Apple Friends & Family discount, Andy. My student loans are paying for this guy, but it was nice to save a couple hundred bucks.) Here are the specs of the model I got:

• 15″ MacBook Pro with Retina Display
• 2.6GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (upgraded from the stock)
512GB SSD for storage (stock)
• 16GB of RAM (stock)

It’s in my greasy little hands now, of course — or, rather, sitting on my desk — and I’ve used it for a couple of months, so here’s how it’s been doing for me so far:

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A few Multiplex iPhone app tips and tricks

Multiplex app iconAs I announced last Friday, Multiplex for iPhone and iPod touch is now available in the iOS App Store! Version 2.0 has been completely rebuilt with a great new interface, so for the 10% of Multiplex readers who visit the site on iOS devices, I highly encourage you to try out the app. I use it on my iPad mini, and while there is a laundry list of features we need to add to the app (including, obviously, an iPad-specific interface), I’m really proud of what we’ve built so far.

Version 2.0 is such a big upgrade over the previous version that I wanted to get it into your hands with relatively few new features beyond the interface. There are many more features to come — but I honestly think it’s already the best webcomic reader app I’ve seen. This totally custom experience is the reason I wanted to build an app just for Multiplex rather than see it shoehorned into some one-size-fits-none interface with a dozen other comics.

iPhone app jump menuWe’ve tried to make the app as intuitive as possible, as touch-based interfaces should be, but there are a few subtle features you may not know about. None of these are essential, of course, but

 Want to jump around the app a little more quickly? Long press (tap and hold) the Info button at the bottom left of the strip view to pull up an action sheet taking you to the strip’s current chapter or book page — or to the Home screen.

Want to view all your bookmarks a little more quickly? Sure, you can get to the Bookmarks menu from the Home screen, but you can also directly from the strip view by long pressing (tapping and holding) on the bookmark icon in the title bar.

Going on an archive dive? Hide the interface while reading strips by simply tapping on the image.

• Lastly, I wanted to acknowledge that there is one known issue with the new app so far. On very rare occasions, the Notes from the Manager for a strip may not load. We’re trying to get to the bottom of this, but when this happens, you can tap on the view three times to force it to reload the contents and that always fixes it.

Enjoy! And please remember to rate or review the app if you like it. (And if there’s anything you don’t love about it, please send us feedback!) Helping get it in on as many devices as possible justifies our continued development of the app.

 

Multiplex for iOS version 2.0 is here!

Multiplex app iconMultiplex for iPhone and iPod touch is now available in the iOS App Store! Version 2.0 is completely rebuilt with a great new interface! Dive into the archives, browse the Cast bios, and read the Notes from the Manager blog posts, all from the comfort of your iPhone or iPod touch!

If you love Multiplex and have an iOS device, please please please download the app and leave a review (ideally a positive one!) or head over to the Multiplex app page here at the website if you have any questions, comments, or feedback. Daniel Farrelly (a.k.a. the programmer) and I already have some exciting plans for version 2.1 and beyond, and your feedback is very important!

Thanks are due to our beta testing team: LynxAenslade, Jay Beane, Andy Edelheit, Scott Grandt, Jacob Hitze, Aaron Khoo, Kaylee LaMonde, Jay Malone, Adam Payne, Kevin Rubin, Melissa Savage, Alexandra Smith, Frank Sugino, Tom Spendlove, and Rob Wilson.

iPad Users: While the app is currently built for iPhone and iPod touch, it will run great on your iPad, too — strip images look crisp, even when the app is pixel-doubled. I use on my iPad mini, myself, and it’s my favorite way to re-read the strip. A universal app update is planned for a future release, however!

NEW IN VERSION 2.0: Completely rebuilt interface! Retina graphics! Support for 4″ displays on iPhone 5 and iPod touch (5th generation)! Multiple bookmarks! Book and Chapter cover images! Notes from the Manager blog posts! AS BEFORE, THE MULTIPLEX APP IS FREE AND COMPLETELY AD-FREE.

Download on the App Store

Affiliate link woes (bye, Amazon; hello, Apple)

Those of you who used my Amazon affiliate link (which used to be below this blog post) will notice that it has disappeared. Effective today, Amazon has cancelled the affiliate program for Minnesotans (and several other states) where legislation has been passed declaring that bloggers who use affiliates constitute a “physical presence” in Minnesota and therefore sales tax must be collected for any internet sales.

Now, I’m all for making companies pay their due taxes, but this law is stupid. I am not an Amazon employee. No amount of logical contortions can make the idea that me drawing a comic strip in my apartment constitutes a physical presence for Amazon.com in this state. That is just plain absurd, and so I’ll miss my $50 or whatever a month I got from it, but I understand why they did it.

Thanks, however, to everybody who did use those links (especially around the holidays!). As a poor grad student, they were a nice something extra.

I’ve added Apple App Store/iTunes links to try them out for the time being. If you buy stuff through them, click through those links, and I get a kickback at no cost to you.