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  • Ed
    Apple may have a smaller-footprint, sub-$1000 notebook in the works after all, despite COO Tim Cook's poo-pooing of typical netbooks during last week's quarterly earnings call. Why do we say that? A reference to a computer model identified as a "MacBookMini" has shown up in stat logs for the Mac OS X chat client Adium X.
     

    You may recall that just before the MacBook Air was launched at Macworld Expo in January 2008, a reference to "MacBookAir" was found in Adium's stat logs. One occurrence does not a trend make, but the evidence turned up by a TUAW reader once again seems plausible enough to suggest another miniature device may be launched soon. 
     
     
    Click here to read the rest of this article


     



  • Ed
    If you're keeping track of Snow Leopard's progress, you'll be pleased to know that a new build (10A335) has been released into the hands of devs (and consequently, the world). Most interestingly, however, is that it seem this new iteration has a handy screen grab feature that hasn't made an appearance until now -- namely, the native ability (under QuickTime) to "record" your on-screen activities. There are other third-party apps that handle this duty, like the classily-named Snapz Pro X, but the inclusion in this latest beta will almost certainly mainstream the function. It should come in handy if you're constantly trying to tell you parents how to change their network settings, or if you're thinking about producing your own version of You Suck at Photoshop.



    [Via Mac Rumors]
    Filed under: Desktops, Laptops
    New Snow Leopard beta build includes screen recording capabilities, a certain je ne sais quoi originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 25 Apr 2009 17:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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  • Ed
    Apple still has a (perhaps unenviable) goal of getting the next major version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard, out the door this summer. Work continues on that front with a new beta build of Snow Leopard released to developers last night. Meanwhile, the 10.5.7 update to Leopard also got a new beta release with some additional improvements. Both OSes are getting more frequent updates as the product cycles inch closer to release.
     
     
     
    The latest test build of Snow Leopard, 10A335, had no significant changes since the last beta. Developers are still being encouraged to develop and test 64-bit kernel extensions. The accompanying release notes also noted some known issues, including crashing bugs in QuickTime X and Rosetta, problems with Migration Assistant, and odd errors being reported by Disk Utility.
     
     
     
    Click here to read the rest of this article




  • Ed

    View .cbr comics on your iPhone

    By Ed, in OSx86,

    Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, iTunes, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch
    Of course there's an app for this, but I'd never even considered it. While I do occasionally read .cbr (Comic Book Archive files) on my desktop, the iPhone didn't really occur to me as a portable comic book reading device. But sure enough, there are apps for that. iComic is probably the cheapest, but I hear it's a little tough to get set up. ComicZeal is extremely popular, and just a little bit cheaper from the somewhat similar myComics. Pull Lists uses a desktop client to sync up comics for you, which is a little more than I need, but it seems like some people like it. There are actually lots of choices, it turns out -- I would have thought that the iPhone's screen was pretty small for reading comic book pages, but I'll have to give those apps a try.

    Or, if you're too cheap to pay a buck or two for a full app, you can even do it yourself. .cbr files are really just .jpg archives, so as this tip from a while back on the iPhone Comic Book Reader says, you can actually extract out the jpegs, and then just sync them up to your iPhone via iPhoto if you want. Three dollars really isn't that much, and any of those apps listed above will give you a little more functionality (easy flipping between pages, bookmarking, and many other features per app), but if you really want to DIY, there you go.

    Now it would be nice to be able to officially buy .cbr archives over the web from some of the major companies -- the closest they've come that I know of is a subscription service, but of course you've got to use their own client for that (and there's no iPhone app that I can find, though Uclick has a few apps in there for certain books). As long as reading pirated .cbr files is outlawed, only outlaws will end up reading them.TUAWView .cbr comics on your iPhone originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.


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  • Ed
    Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, iPhone, iPod touch
    Admob has released another monthly survey of smartphone metrics, and Apple continues to look very healthy both in the U.S. and around the world. In website requests, Apple iPhones and iPod touch devices are up 4.2% from the previous month, while Nokia, still the top dog in handsets world wide, is down 3.6%.

    One other interesting piece of data is that half of the requests for internet data on the iPhone are coming from 3rd party apps, telling us the impact those apps are having. Apps like sports scores, news and weather apps, streaming music players etc. are really getting heavy use, not only from the iPhone but similar numbers apply to other smartphones as well.

    The research paper also sees the Android phone coming on, with 2% of mobile requests in the U.S., and is the number four smartphone behind the iPhone, Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Pearl. With the iPhone combined with the iPod touch, Apple has the top devices in the world generating mobile traffic.

    Admob measures the impact of various mobile phones by looking at requests for mobile ads from a network of 6,000 websites and 1,000 applications. While the numbers may not exactly reflect the universe of mobile phone use, it does show trends that are important to keep an eye on.

    When you consider that the iPhone is only about 2 years old, the numbers are even more impressive.

    If you'd like to read the complete report, click here.TUAWiPhone and iPod touch continue to dominate smartphone web traffic originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.


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  • Guest

    Tutorial released for Apple logo LCD mod

    By Guest, in OSx86,

    Last month, we reported on an impressive MacBook modification that placed an LCD behind the machine's Apple logo, giving it a useless (but extremely cool) second independent display. Many speculated about how this could have been done, and one of our own forum users even did a quick and dirty video of how it could have been faked.
     
    Today, however, we have answers. The creator of the hack has posted a tutorial on his site for those among you with the intestinal fortitude to attempt such things. In my original article, I assumed that the display was tapping into the machine's video out. Therefore, using an external display along with it would not be possible. It turns out, however, that the hack actually uses a USB display (that's the sound of my hand hitting my forehead)—a Century Japan USB-4300U to be specific, which is neatly tied into the logic board. The author mentions that the hack does lead to the loss of one external USB port, but only when the LCD is drawing power from it.
     
    Click here to read the rest of this article
     



  • Ed
    We just got the announcement, iPhone OS 3.0 is coming. Set your clocks, mark your calendars. It's going down March 17th. Apparently, we'll get a sneak peak at the new OS, as well as a look at a brand new version of the SDK. Exciting stuff indeed, and we'll be there live at 10am PST (1pm EST) with the liveblog. Apple's calling this an "advance preview of what we're building," so we're not expecting anything ready to go as of the 17th, but hopefully this will allow developers to start building toward future functionality (hey, how about some push notifications?), and presumably users won't have too many months to wait after that for the real deal.
     
    via Engadget - View the full article
  • 64Bit
    It's like waiting for a bus... only this time, four came at once.
     

     
     
     
    Apple introduced the long-anticipated update to its ageing Mac Pro range in the form of the "Nehalem"-powered towers. Featuring Intel's latest Quad-Core Xeon which pack all four cores on one die for efficient transfer of data as opposed to splitting them over two, the new Mac Pros show no cosmetic differences. Top-end clock speed on the processors went down in a rare move, from 3.2GHz to 2.93GHz, but performance claims from Apple state they are twice as powerful as the outgoing generation.
     
    It's worth noting that the 20" and 23" cinema displays have quietly disappeared from the range, and the new Mac Pro is now featured alongside the LED Cinema Display in product shots.
     
     
     

     
    So it looks like the various images and video posted on various websites were the real deal, as Apple announced the updated Mac Mini sporting no less than five(!) USB ports. To much relief, Apple has replaced the onboard Intel GMA graphics chipset with the much healthier NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with up to 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM, and also upped the max support of RAM to 4GB.
     
    Probably the coolest feature in our opinion is the Mac Mini's ability to now support dual displays in extended desktop mode at 1920x1200 resolution from the Mini-DVI and DisplayPort outputs.
     
     
     

     
    Still sticking with the Intel Core 2 Duo processors, the iMac range did receive an update too, albeit a tame one bar (relatively) recession-friendly pricing, with a 24" iMac starting at just $1,499 (£1,199 inc. VAT). Note that the standard issue keyboard is now sans numeric keypad, but the full length version is still available via the Configure-To-Order options on the Apple Store as a no-cost upgrade.
     
     
     

     
    On a more subtle note, the MacBook Pro range got a sort-of update in the form of faster CTO options on the processor front. The 17" and backlit 15" MacBook Pro's can now be spec'd up with lap-scorching 2.93GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processors for an additional $300 (£210 inc. VAT).
  • ~pcwiz
    A federal judge ruled that Psystar can continue its countersuit against Apple. The judge also hinted that if Psystar proves the allegations then other companies will be free to sell Mac clones as well. Psystar claims that Apple broke antitrust laws by binding the Mac OS X operating system to its hardware. According to the judge, if Psystar can prove that Apple abused copyright laws, then Apple's allegations against Psystar will be detered. Psystar has 1 week to submit its revised counterclaims, and Apple will then be given 20 days to respond.
     
    Full story on ComputerWorld
     
    Thanks to Jeezoflip for bringing this story to my attention
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