World of Apple

Alex Brooks artistically illuminated by an iPad | Photo by Merry Phillips

There’s no easy way to say it, 2011 was a bad year for this website. Such a statement isn’t easy for me to write because it isn’t easy for me to hear; in July World of Apple will be seven years old and anyone who has ever run a website will know that it’s not all dissimilar to bringing up a child. And this child is now at the ripe old age of seven. What follows is a short reflection of those seven years, the lessons learned and the experience garnered and a hopeful punt at where I’m heading.

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World of Apple is seeking writers to fill several voluntary positions on our team. As a writer for World of Apple you will receive excellent exposure and although you will not be paid it is not uncommon to receive perks from time to time.

For all of the following positions previous experience writing is sought but is not necessarily a must. The applicant should have some experience with WordPress and be technically minded.

The following positions are available for filling:

iPhone/iPod touch Application Reviewer

Everyday World of Apple receives dozens of requests from developers to review iPhone and iPod touch applications. The current team is unable to deal with these requests so we’re looking to take on at least two writers to help review iPhone and iPod touch applications.

Those interested MUST own an iPhone and preferably an iPod touch as well, those with just an iPod touch will be limited in what applications they can review so please only apply if you have an iPhone. Developers often give out free licenses and a small budget will be available from World of Apple but some applications may have to be purchased out of your own pocket.

Requirements: iPhone and preferably an iPod touch but not necessarily required.

How to apply: Send an email to us with a 300 word minimum review of your current favourite iPhone or iPod touch application.

Mac Software Reviewer

World of Apple is looking to take on a reviewer of software for the Mac. The reviewer will be expected to seek out products they wish to review themselves but every so often the team will delegate out products for review.

You should have a passion for Mac software and be an experienced Mac user who can pick out times when Apple’s user interface guidelines are not being used causing a bad experience within an application.

Requirements: A Mac.

How to apply: Send an email to us with a 500 word minimum review of your current favourite Mac application.

Opinion Articles

Ever wanted to rant about the latest Apple release? Fancy stirring up a little attention about Steve Jobs’ recent health issues?

If so then this position could be for you, World of Apple is looking to expand into some opinion articles to add a little interest that differs from the mainstream news and rumours and opinion articles are just one of these aspects we’re looking into.

Requirements: Previous experience with op-ed writing, a passionate watcher of the Apple web and Apple as a company.

How to apply: Send an email to us with a 500 word op-ed about a recent Apple release or news story.

Straight to your Inbox

You can now receive the latest news and rumours from World of Apple straight to your email inbox. The service which is provided by our friends over at Zookoda, delivers a nice selection of stories every few days straight to your inbox. Perfect for those who are on the move and can receive email on their iPhone or Blackberry.

Just type your email address in the box on this page, confirm the email that will follow and you’ll be good to go.

RSS Feeds

The quickest and most efficient way to stay on top of the happenings at World of Apple is to hook into a feed. RSS feeds provide an excellent method of connecting to all forms of data. Getting World of Apple is as simple as clicking this link or if you’re using Safari the feed can be accessed by the “RSS” button to the right of the address bar.

For those using an RSS Reader the correct front page RSS feed is: http://news.worldofapple.com/feed

Feed Me

World of Apple can also be read via our handy tool called “Feed Me.”

Feed Me is quite simply a page containing the latest stories from a selection of websites across the Mac web. Feed Me is the easiest way to get an idea of what is hot at the moment.

This post represents a quick note to our loyal readers regarding recent milestones in World of Apple’s timeline and plans for the future.

First of all over the last few months our readership has pretty much doubled, hurtling us towards our next milestone of 20,000 readers. At this rate we should hit that around the middle of next year. The entire World of Apple team welcomes all our new readers.

Some of you out there may have noticed a few changes over the last day or so, over the last 2 months we’ve been working hard at moving World of Apple to our new host; Media Temple.

It all started back when we posted those exclusive images of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard Build 9A499. It caused an influx of over 200,000 unique visitors over a 4-day period, during those 4 days we experienced zero site wide downtime but our current host at the time decided that pulling down that gallery was a smart decision to prevent load. The gallery page was down for a total of 24 hours and when it returned only caused the server to choke again.

Believe it or not World of Apple has been hosted on a shared server for the last two years and albeit a beefy shared server it appears it is time to move up the ladder. The distinct disadvantage of a shared server is that what happens to this site or any other site on the server affects every other site on the server and from the point of view of our hosts that isn’t good for business.

So after much searching and deliberation World of Apple is moving away from UK Web Solutions Direct to Media Temple.

The move hasn’t been easy and both UKWSD and Media Temple have helped immensely, but special thanks should be extended to one guy who works ridiculously hard behind the scenes; he knows who he is.

For now not everybody will be pointing at this server as DNS propagation can take anywhere up to 48 hours but if you’re reading this then you have arrived safely, the only difference being a new Media Temple logo under the search box.

Finally World of Apple celebrated its second birthday on September 25th, here’s to another 2 years!

This is just a heads up to our loyal readers to offer an explanation of what has happened to that exclusive Leopard gallery we posted a couple of weeks back.

The gallery was first posted on the evening of Thursday 2nd of August, in the five days ensuing that date the gallery saw over 250,000 individual users; and for those of you that love hits that clocks in well over 50 million.

The huge influx of traffic caused serious server issues, at one point on Sunday 5th we were pushing over 200mbps (megabits per second). The traffic caused some lengthy downtime and due to this we will make the move to a new host in the near future; more on that later in the month.

Following the Tuesday’s Special Event things died off quickly but the gallery remained in place, receiving a few thousand visitors everyday.

That is until this very moment.

At 1 minute past 8 on the evening of the 14th (British Summer Time) our general enquiries inbox pinged with glee and naturally someone jumped to the case. To our surprise it was a “kind” email from Apple Legal;

To Whom It May Concern:

DMCA Certification: I hereby state, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that the activities described above are not authorized by Apple, that the information in this notification is accurate, and that I am authorized to act on behalf of Apple in this regard.

There was certainly some big threatening words being thrown our way.

To be perfectly honest we let it slip for a little while, it was obvious that it wasn’t going to blow over but we did consider fighting it for a fleeting second.

That was until today, it appeared that Apple hadn’t forgotten about it and had decided to contact our hosts about the situation. Naturally our hosts operate strict policies regarding copyright material and by this point Apple was using stronger words;

To Whom It May Concern:
We represent Apple Inc. (“Apple”). It has come to our attention that a website for which you are the administrative and technical contact — World of Apple — is posting numerous screenshots of a confidential pre-release build of Apple’s new operating system, Mac OS X 10.5 (aka “Leopard”), Build 9A499. The webpage in question is http://worldofapple.com/photos/Leopard/9A499.

Yesterday, I sent a notice directly to the site, but have not yet received a response. Apple is prepared to take further legal action with respect to this matter, and expressly reserves its rights to do so.

As you may have noticed the gallery has been removed and now points at this post you’re reading now.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone that makes World of Apple what it is, especially our growing reader base.

I also apologise for any inconvenience this post or the removal of the Leopard gallery has caused you.

In around about 45 minutes Apple will begin its “Mac centric” Special Event at the Apple Town Hall on Apple’s Cupertino campus.

World of Apple will offer updates during the event but tune into one of the following for more detailed live reports. Also read our rumour roundup for details on what we could be seeing at this event.

• Engadget
• Gizmodo
• The Mac Observer

Straight to your Inbox

As of late last week you can now receive the latest news and rumours from World of Apple straight to your email inbox. The service which is provided by our friends over at Zookoda, delivers a nice selection of stories every few days straight to your inbox. Perfect for those who are on the move and can receive email on their iPhone or Blackberry.

Just type your email address in the box below (or on this page), confirm the email that will follow and you’ll be good to go.

RSS Feeds

The quickest and most efficient way to stay on top of the happenings at World of Apple is to hook into a feed. RSS feeds provide an excellent method of connecting to all forms of data. Getting World of Apple is as simple as clicking this link or if you’re using Safari the feed can be accessed by the “RSS” button to the right of the address bar.

For those using an RSS Reader the correct front page RSS feed is: http://news.worldofapple.com/feed

Feed Me

World of Apple can also be read via our handy tool called “Feed Me.” Feed Me is quite simply a page containing the latest stories from a selection of websites across the Mac web. Feed Me is easiest way to get an idea of what is hot at the moment.

Are you in line for an iPhone right now? Send photos or videos to [email protected]

World of Apple is looking for unboxing photos and videos as well as well written hands on reviews of Apple’s hottest device.

Monetary gifts will be given to individuals who supply photos, videos and reviews to World of Apple.

All contact should be made to [email protected]

As some of you may have noticed we finally made the move to World of Apple 2.0, I made a mention of the new site back in April last year, and just under a year later we’re ready for prime time.

The new site comes in 5 key parts, which can be broken down very nicely.

• Feed Me

  One of out favourites, Feed Me is a single page which offers a complete overview of the Mac web.

  The page is split into three columns, which lists, news and rumours, blog postings, and iPod related stories.

  Some may think that the page has no advantage over an RSS feed but we feel the added visual feedback and compact overview adds substantial advantage over a feed.

• Archives

  World of Apple contains in excess of 1,200 posts, there is nothing worse than archives simply consisting of a page with a huge list of posts.

  The team at World of Apple spent many weeks searching through several designs of archives trying to find the easiest and most efficient method of sifting through posts. Quite frankly one could not be found, so we made out own.

  The archives page offers a break down of year, month and then a date timeframe, accompanied with server efficient and scalable AJAX system to help the process along.

• Search

  As mentioned above World of Apple contains over 1,200 posts; but we also have over 4,000 comments, we feel that all that information goes to waste without an easy way to get to it.

  The new search feature is available on the majority of World of Apple pages and offers a quick and refined search.

  Just type what you’re looking for, hit enter and the whole website will slide down and reveal a set of results. If this isn’t what you’re looking for then an advanced view is available.

• Enhanced Feeds

  For those who wish to lurk in the feeds, we’ve enhanced them to contain the hundreds of images we had to posts.

  Each article now contains its own comment feed, allowing you to follow comment conversation in your RSS feed reader.

• New Look

  You can’t add 2.0 to the name without sporting a new look, not only had World of Apple redesigned its logo but we also redone the entire colour scheme.

  The new looks comes with functionality as well, readers who visit the site regularly can adjust the text size to their liking as well as centre of left justify the entire site. All of this functionality can be accessed just above the feeds list in the middle left of the site.

So I welcome you to the new site and hope that everything moves smoothly over the next few weeks.

If you find any problems or suggestions, feel free to feed back to us either privately or via the comments on this post.

We have more features coming in the future and hopefully the site as a whole will continue to progress and expand.

Just wanted to throw a word out to those who attempted to join us for Live coverage of the Macworld Keynote, we’re unsure exactly what happened but you can be assured we will be investigation further.

As far as we can tell at this point, one minute all servers appeared fine, so we turned on the redirects and ran a few more tests, everything was good, around 2 hours before the Keynote was due to begin things started to slow down.

It was around 1 hour before the Keynote was due to begin that suddenly the Live server went down, we rebooted and it went down again, the final stats before the reboot for Apache were 8,000 unique accesses and 1.56m/bits of data within the last 59 seconds, that would have been around 1 hour before the Keynote.

At this point it looked fairly hopeless that the server would keep itself up, so in summary we don’t rate goddady.com dedicated hosting at the moment.