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Jason Perlow, ZDNet
Once the preferred platform of visual arts production and digital content creation, the Macintosh’s market share has eroded due to its inability to pace with advances in PC hardware and commodity system pricing.
Connie Guglielmo, Reuters
Apple Inc. said three of its suppliers hired 11 underage workers to help build the iPhone, iPod and Macintosh computer last year, a violation it uncovered as part of its onsite audit of 102 factories.
The company said it stopped doing business with at least one unnamed supplier after finding repeated violations and “inadequate actions” to address the problems.
MG Siegler, TechCrunch
The iPhone may be a closed door, but there is a peephole, Safari. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for on the device, you might want to look through it.
Yukari Iwatani Kane, Wall Street Journal
A month before Apple Inc.'s iPad tablet computer is due to ship, accessory makers are already lining up cases, batteries and other products in the hopes of profiting off the device.
Tom Kaneshige, CIO
An app developer gets swept up in Apple's raid on "sexy apps" and becomes collateral damage for four days before Apple mysteriously reinstates the app.
Ted Landau, Macworld
In the future, whenever I have any accessory connected to my iPhone, it will staying far away from my pants pocket.
Rolling Stone
When Steve Jobs personally called Woodstock, Georgia native Louie Sulcer to tell him he’d won Apple’s iTunes Store 10 Billion Song Sold contest, Sulcer first thought was that he was being pranked.
Lance Whitney, CNET
Although iPhone and Android users download and spend time using about the same number of applications, iPhone users are more apt to buy one, according to a report released Thursday by AdMob.
Matt Asay, CNET News
Apple creates wonderful technology. I've long been a customer. But I don't want it to be my only vendor, any more than I wanted Microsoft to be such. I'm therefore betting on Google to break the choke hold and will happily pay it for its troubles.
Kara Swisher, Wall Street Journal
What Apple is doing is not unlike any big retailer, like Walmart (WMT), banning porn sales in stores.
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
Apple confirmed the existence of yellow-tint and display issues in new iMacs and counsels users to contact AppleCare for a fix.
John Gruber, Daring Fireball
From Apple’s perspective, when it comes to software platforms, theirs is best (Cocoa/Cocoa Touch), because they have complete control. Everyone’s is good (the web), because Apple has control over their own implementation and can influence the future direction of the standards. What Apple doesn’t want is someone else’s proprietary platform, where they have no control at all. That’s what Flash is.
AppleInsider
Apple this week filed for ownership of the term "Magic Trackpad" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, perhaps signaling the name for a new product, or a rebranding of the company's existing trackpads.
Michael deAgonia, Computerworld
If you're a Mac fan, you'll quickly find that there are a lot of Apple-focused tweeters out there. As a Mac expert and aficionado, I thought I'd share a few who I've found to be worth my Twitter time. Here's a list of 10 tweeters, both well-known and obscure, whose Mac tweets keep me informed and engaged. In this list, a tweeter's popularity is less important than the usefulness of his tweets.
Don Reisinger, eWeek
Admittedly, it’s a tough balance. And Apple’s position on not wanting to offend others makes some sense. But what doesn’t make sense is exactly how its App Store works. What constitutes an “objectionable” app? What sorts of apps are more likely to be accepted than others? We might think we know the answer, but as the past week has shown, we probably don’t.
Brian X. Chen, Wired News
Publishers should think twice before worshipping the iPad as the future platform for magazines and newspapers. That is, if they value their independence from an often-capricious corporate gatekeeper.
Brett Terpstra, TUAW
Parallels has announced a new version of Parallels Server for Mac called the Mac Bare Metal Edition. It's optimized to provide better performance for virtual machines running on an Xserve, and allows multiple, isolated virtual machines to run simultaneously on the same server.
Mike Schramm, TUAW
PopCap has released some sales information on their latest iPhone game, Plants vs. Zombies, and it's a runaway hit: the game has sold over 300,000 copies in just the nine days it's been out on the App Store, which means the company has garnered over $1 million in sales already.
Nick Bilton, New York Times
Apple’s iPhone and computer operating systems are both based on the Unix operating system. Why not use the iPhone interface as the basis for a new round of Apple computers?
Gabriel Madway and Alexei Oreskovic, Reuters
Apple Inc CEO Steve Jobs said his company has to "think big" and its $40 billion cash hoard offers flexibility, suggesting that he had no immediate plans to spend the money on a share buyback or dividend.
Faced with questions at the annual shareholders meeting over what Apple would do with its cash -- which stands at about one-fifth of its market capitalization -- Jobs said having the money at hand offers security for the company.
AppleInsider
At Apple's annual shareholders meeting at its campus in Cupertino, Calif., Thursday, the company revealed it intends to open 25 stores in the nation of China.
Nicole Martinelli, Cult of Mac
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS
So yes, bundles will survive, but those that do will survive for the right reasons, and those reasons have to do with meeting customers' needs and desires more than facilitating economies of scale and higher price points. That in turns means that companies relying on bundled products need to figure out business models that serve both the bundled and the unbundled product. Otherwise they'll eventually slide into unbundled oblivion.
Giles Turnbull, Cult of Mac
Thoughts is a desktop notebook app for Mac OS X, designed to look and behave like a real world paper notebook or journal.
Kim Wilmath, St Petersburg Times
"So I was in Tampa, and I was on a roller coaster, and somebody stole my phone. Long story short, I used GPS, tracked the guy down and put him in jail."
Dan Frommer, Business Insider
Palm is basically Apple, Jr. And if a bunch of Apple geniuses can't kick butt on their own at Palm, how are they going to kick butt without Steve at Apple?
One small comforting factor: Palm's competitor includes Google, Microsoft, and Apple.
Josh Lowensohn, CNET News
Apple adds RAW image file support for 11 additional cameras for use in Aperture 3 and iPhoto '09.
Canadian Business
How Steve Jobs weaves his own version of reality, and why we keep buying into it.
Macworld
Have you ever seen Time Machine get stuck during a backup run -- constantly showing a tiny percentage completion, for instance? If so, this hint may help; it explains how to gracefully exit that situation, using two simple Terminal commands.
Erica Ogg, CNET News
The presence of the climate change clarion and former vice president on Apple's board sets the tone for debate over the company's environmental strategy.
John Gruber, Daring Fireball
Apple sees the App Store as an aspect of its brand. Developers see the App Store as the entirety of the Cocoa Touch platform. This is a significant conflict.
It’s entrepreneurism to be willing to take your chances in the market. It’s healthy skepticism to worry about being locked out of the market after you’ve already invested heavily in building your product.
Erica Ogg, CNET News
At the company's annual shareholder meeting, environmental advocates will once again ask for a more formal summary of the impact of the company's products.
Greg Sandoval, CNET News
The Web's video-on-demand sector is filling up fast with some serious heavyweights. If Apple wants to make a mark in digital video that even vaguely resembles the one it made in music, perhaps the company should start treating Apple TV as more than just a "hobby."
Dan Gillmor, Mediactive
I watch with amazement as newspaper people drool over the iPad as some kind of industry savior. They’re putting far too much trust in a company that doesn’t deserve it.
MacNN
Dave Caolo, TUAW
John Paczkowski, Wall Street Journal
With Apple inking multiyear Mac contracts with a number of school districts, it’s growth in edu is on the rebound. And now, with the iPad and its promise of hand-held education just a few weeks from market, Apple could be poised to see significant growth in higher ed.
AppleInsider
Apple's iTunes Music Store sold its 10 billionth song Wednesday afternoon, with the milestone being reached nearly seven years after the digital music download destination was introduced.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
With Automator you can save files to both your Mac's hard drive and iDisk.
Dan Moren, Macworld
As always, Apple says the 3.0.1 update contains overall stability improvements, but it also calls out a specific laundry list of topics that user reports connected to the memory bug, such as upgrading libraries from earlier Aperture versions, face-recognition processing, importing libraries from iPhoto, and retouching photos.
Marco Tabini, Macworld
Devon Technologies's new version of its document organizer introduces several improvements and better compatibility with Snow Leopard.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune
Jesus Diaz, Gizmodo
The joy didn't last long. According to an iPhone developer, the new "Explicit" option available this morning on the App Store submission software is now gone. He just got off the telephone with Apple, who confirmed the removal.
James Roger, TheStreet.com
"Apple's discipline in holding Mac prices fairly steady in the face of plunging Windows PC prices translated into dollar share gains in the December quarter," wrote analyst Charles Wolf in a note released Wednesday. "The Apple story could contain an upside surprise if the Mac can sustain the relative growth rates it sustained in the September and December quarters."
William Porter, Macworld
If you want to organize and record your thoughts, have them all in one place, and keep them private, there's nothing better on the Mac than MacJournal.
Craig Grannell, Cult of Mac
Claudine Beaumont, Telegraph
Tim Cook, Apple's chief operating officer, says the Apple TV remains 'a hobby', and that the vast majority of his company's revenue comes from its mobile devices.
Brian Caulfield, Forbes
Apple hasn't just made its products eco-friendly. It's changed an entire industry.
Brian X. Chen, Wired News
Arnold Kim quit his job treating kidneys to dissect the secrets of his favorite electronics company, the famously confidential Apple. Kim launched his independent blog MacRumors.com on Feb. 24, 2000 during his fourth year in medical school. His Apple enthusiasm eventually outweighed his passion for nephrology.
Ben Charny, Dow Jones
Apple Inc.'s recent decision to more tightly control programs sold through its popular App Store may push developers towards archrival Google Inc., a move that could give the Internet giant momentum as it stakes its place in the smartphone market.
Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg
Apple Inc., after facing criticism that its board is too close-knit, will hold its first shareholder meeting this week with a new co-lead director: Avon Products Inc. chief executive officer Andrea Jung. Jung, the newest director and only woman serving on the seven-member board, quietly took over as co-lead in December. She succeeds former Apple executive Bill Campbell, one of the company’s longest-serving board members and a mentor to CEO Steve Jobs.
Harry McCracken, FOXNews.com
Beyond the ads, the hype, and the nerdy debate, both Windows and Mac machines have their pros and cons. Here's a level-headed guide to choosing which one is right for you.
Chris Rawson, TUAW
Sang Tang, TUAW
Every now and then I'll have an "I never knew about that" moment as I come across a setting or nuance in Mac OS X that I never realized existed. Take, for instance, character viewer, which allows you to display a variety of characters in your document. Whether you're a switcher or seasoned Mac veteran, here are five tips that could help improve your Mac experience.
Cecilia Kang, Washington Post
Apple's decision this week to purge its iTunes store of sexually suggestive applications comes amid growing concern in Washington over which agency regulates the Internet and could have nudged the company to act sooner.
Kim-Mai Cutler, Venture Beat
We think there’s a more serious business rationale at play. One of the more plausible reasons is Apple’s desire to mass-market the iPad into the classroom.
Jeff Smykil, Ars Technica
Regardless, the acquisition means that two medium-sized developers for the iPhone are now one larger fish in the App Store sea that is becoming more inundated each day by 40-foot sharks. We can only hope that a group of investors doesn't turn Freeverse into just another iPhone company.
Ted Landau, The Mac Observer
Taken together, these policies tell a potential iPhone developer that an app may be rejected from unexplained reasons, that an accepted app may later be removed for reasons that are inadequately defined and that Apple's behavior may be inconsistent and unpredictable in general. And there is nothing you, the developer, can do about it. Because the App Store remains the only legitimate place where a developer can offer an app to iPhone users. How can this not lead to at least some worthwhile and innovative apps never seeing the light of day?
Aayush Arya, Dan Moren, Macworld
Rocketbox is a plug-in for OS X's Mail that enhances message searching with advanced search options, by-person searching, better search display, and faster performance.
Chris Holt, Macworld
After appearing to be in limbo, the Mac version of The Force Unleashed: Ultimate Sith Edition arrived Tuesday.
Arnold Kim, Mac Rumors
Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet
Dan Moren, Macworld
In a move of expert timing, Apple issued its 2010 Progress Report on Supplier Responsibility on Tuesday. That the report arrives just two days ahead of its annual shareholder meeting is no coincidence; no doubt the company would like to have something positive to talk about during the pow-wow, in which shareholders often take advantage of the opportunity to grill the company’s executives on matters of social responsibility.
Jeff Porten, Macworld
The tool to expose hidden preferences receives an upgrade for OS X 10.6, providing checkbox access to many features not in System Preferences.
Tom Kaneshige, CIO
An Enterprise Desktop Alliance survey shows two out of three companies buying Macs this year, which will bring integration challenges for IT admins.
Nick Spence, Macworld UK
Apple has urged iPhone developers to get help and advice from iTunes Connect at a time when many are seeing applications pulled from the App Store over an apparent change in policy.
Touch Arcade
It seems Apple had a change of heart, as the game was quietly reinstated today — without any changes from the original version. We emailed IUGO's Sarah Thomson who says they have gotten no contact from Apple explaining the return of the game.
AppleInsider
As Apple has officially clarified its new ban on "overtly sexual content" in the App Store, one application featuring pictures of women in bikinis -- to sell beachwear -- found itself removed.
John Gruber, Daring Fireball
I don’t see how it’s anything other than hypocrisy to say that Time Warner can have an app showing swimsuit models and others cannot.
Jenna Wortham, New York Times
Philip W. Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple, said in an interview that over the last few weeks a small number of developers had been submitting “an increasing number of apps containing very objectionable content.”
“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” Mr. Schiller said.
Seth Weintraub, Computerworld
Apple, in a job posting last week, advertised for an "Engineering Manager (Platform Bring-Up)" which states that Apple is taking their iPhone OS and putting it on new platforms.
Jeff Carlson, TidBITS
Rosa Golijan, Gizmodo
Gary Hamel, Wall Street Journal
So rather than fretting about the prospects for the iPad, clever Apple watchers and envious wannabes should be asking themselves: How in the world could one company have accomplished all this? How do you build an organization that is capable of reinventing not just one industry but four—computing, music, electronics retailing and mobile phones. How do you do the unprecedented repeatedly?
Alex Williams, ReadWriteWeb
Ramu Nagappan, Macworld
Apple is selling more Macs than ever these days. And according to a survey from a computer support company, those new customers are enjoying some very reliable machines.
Eli Hodapp, Touch Arcade
Freeverse was originally founded as a Mac shareware company in 1994 but has made a very successful transition to iPhone game development. This new round of funding brings ngmoco's outside investment total to $40.6 million, a staggering amount of money for an iPhone game startup to be fueled by.
Tom Kaneshige, CIO
As the App Store swells with apps, customers turn to Apple's ranking system and customer reviews to make buying decisions. What's the problem? It's that neither system can be fully trusted.
Thomas Claburn, InformationWeek
Adobe blogger John Dowdell wants Apple to start communicating openly about its actions rather than through comments relayed by unattributed sources.
Matt Asay, CNET News
Apple rightly gets credit for building exceptional hardware and software. Even more impressive, however, is how Apple has steadfastly refused to get drawn into markets that it chooses not to service, even when would-be customers are begging to buy.
Philip Michaels, Macworld
Organizers of the annual Mac trade show have already opened up registration for next year’s event. And for the next two weeks, registration for Macworld Expo 2011 is free.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Why yes, it is possible to use two Time Machine backup drives with your Mac.
Josh Lowensohn, CNET News
Apple got a lot of things right in iPhoto '09, and in the latest version of its higher-end, $200 Aperture software it's tried to replicate that same success. But did it work?
The short answer is yes. What might be more surprising to an iPhoto user is how similarly easy to use these features are in Aperture, despite being far more powerful.
Michael Grothaus, TUAW
Apple has posted two new iPhone ads tonight. Both ads seem to target Joe Average and spotlight situations we find ourselves in every day.
Laura Northrup, The Consumerist
Should training sessions be given priority over browsing customers? Is the mission of an Apple Store to sell computers, to indoctrinate users further into the Cult of Mac with hands-on training, or some combination of the two?
Hunter Skipworth, Telegraph
The Japanese love for all things retro has led to many searching and collecting old Mac computers. Internet message boards are springing up across Japan, with its tech-obsessed youth competing for the rarest finds. Buried away in Tokyo's Akihabara district, pretty much the technological hub of the world, lies a busy shop crammed full of forgotten Macs.
Paul Boutin, Venturebeat
Jeff Bertolucci, PC World
Apple can't afford to allow its customers -- even a vocal minority -- to gripe about so-called smut in the App Store, even if the complaints are overblown. The impression that Apple condones adult-themed material finding its way into kids' hands would no doubt hurt iPod Touch sales, and ultimately impact its iPhone and App Store business too.
Craig Grannell, Cult of Mac
MacNN
A pair of New York City residents claimed a first for Apple retail this week by marrying at the 5th Avenue Apple Store.
Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch
Now Apple is moving in the other direction, and it’s setting a scary precedent. It’s showing that it’s comfortable throwing out applications that developers have spent their time and money building, without even bothering to give them advance notice. It’s one thing to have an application get denied when it’s first submitted — it’s another thing entirely to have the rug pulled out from under you once your app has thousands of downloads and customers.
This is, in my opinion, precisely the reason why Amazon need to try very hard to make the Kindle (hardware) stay relevant, even if most of the money is actually made on the e-books themselves.
Philip Michaels, Macworld
It wasn’t find one of the busiest places on the show floor at last week’s Macworld Expo. That would be the Mobile Applications Showcase where around six dozen or so iPhone app developers held court, displaying their efforts before a steady parade of Expo attendees.
Nancy Gravley, The Mac Observer
The recently introduced Chronicle 3, allows you to keep a record of your monthly bills, reminds you when they are due, keeps a payment history, and automatically charts your payments. It is also extremely easy to use.
David Morgenstern, ZDNet
The Environmental Working Group this week released its latest radiation ratings for cell phones and smart phones. Apple's iPhone models can be found in the middle of the pack, unlike a number of its competitors.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
Movist is an alternative to OS X's QuickTime Player for viewing videos; like VLC, it's based on FFmpeg, so it lets you play a number of media formats that QuickTime can't handle.
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
If you now point Mobile Safari to me.com, you’ll be offered with the instructions to configure MobileMe on your iDevice, links to the iDisk and Gallery apps, as well as on-the-go access to the great Find My iPhone feature.
Stephen Shankland, CNET News
Apple has cut some staff working on its Final Cut video editing software suite, according to a report by a video industry insider.
Derek Beigh, Daily Illini
A look around any university classroom shows blinking lights, the glow of screens and power cords running from desk to wall. Technology experts say tablet computing devices such as the iPad and tablet PCs could join this scene in the future.
Matt Buchanan, Gizmodo
It's supposed to be this third thing. Bigger than a phone, smaller than a laptop. It browses; it's got books; it plays video. Can it possibly have a place in a laptop-free utopia?
Erica Sadun, TUAW
Shorter review times are a great move on Apple's part and a win for all parties: developers, customers, and Apple.
Jason Kincaid, TechCrunch
We’ve just heard from Jon Atherton, the developer behind Wobble iBoobs, who says that he just received an Email from Apple indicating that his application was being removed from the App Store because of a new policy change: Apple has apparently decided “to remove any overtly sexual content from the App Store.”
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
Mike Schramm, TUAW
Vince Chew, The Street
Ed Burnette, ZDNet
Philip Elmer-DeWitt, Fortune
In preparation for the scheduled March delivery of Apple's (AAPL) new iPad tablet computer, the company has blocked its bills of lading and other import records from public access, according to a report issued Thursday by Trade Privacy, a trade data protection company based in Reston, VA.
William McQuillen, Bloomberg
Apple Inc.’s patent-infringement complaint seeking to block Nokia Oyj’s phone imports into the U.S. will be investigated by a U.S. trade agency. The U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington said yesterday it will consider the complaint filed last month and decide whether to ban the imports.
Rik Fairlie, New York Times
Photoshop is turning 20, and it's planning a big party for itself. Here are some highlights of its history and online resources for user tips.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Miss the Finder option to send files via Bluetooth? It's still an option, you just need to know how to turn it on.
AppleInsider
New 27-inch iMac purchases direct from Apple now have a shipping wait time of 5 to 7 days, suggesting the hardware maker has addressed issues that plagued the desktops. Also, the file size limit for iPhone App Store and iTunes downloads over 3G has increased to 20MB.
Eric Lai, Computerworld
Apple Inc. will not use Adobe Systems Inc.'s e-book digital rights management (DRM) technology, an Adobe executive said on Wednesday.
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
Most likely in preparation for the iPad launch, Apple has just raised the maximum size of apps that can be download over 3G to 20MB.
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
Just two weeks after extending its iTunes preview service to apps, Apple has just made another step in this direction and now allows you to consult pretty much the entire App Store directly from your browser.
Ragnhild Kjetland and Rochelle Garner, Bloomberg
Adobe Systems CEO Shantanu Narayen shrugged off Apple's decision not to use its Flash video program on its devices, saying it has a "powerful ecosystem" of partners.
James Pomfret and Kelvin Soh, Reuters
Many of Apple's finished gadgets, from iPods to iPads, are assembled at industrial compounds like the one in Longhua. And when it comes to guarding Apple's secrets, Foxconn, a unit of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry, and other suppliers throughout the region leave little to chance.
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
Aperture 3 was released just last week, but users immediately began noticing issues with scratch disk space eating up their Macs' startup disk. Additionally, users of the latest revision of Airport Extreme and Time Capsule base stations have noticed problems using 802.11n's 5GHz channels.
Gregg Keizer, Computerworld
Some Mac users blasted Microsoft's plan to "ribbonize" the next version of Office for the Mac, while others -- many of whom said they also use the productivity suite on Windows -- defended the move.
AppleInsider
Though the software has some issues and is not yet ready to be officially accessible to developers through the iPad simulator, it can still be used to browse the Web and access popular sites. It also offers a glimpse of how users will interact with the iPad when it ships in late March.
Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service
The latest version of OpenOffice fixes several vulnerabilities that could cause a computer to become compromised by a remote attacker.
Derrick Story, Macworld
Your digital camera and Mac can work together to capture images as well as display them. Many DSLRs, and a handful of compacts, have the ability to shoot tethered, which means you connect a camera to your Mac via a USB cable, then control the camera remotely. With this kind of setup you can save files directly to your hard drive, preview the images on the computer screen, and even control your camera from an iPhone.
Daniel Terdiman, CNET News
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Wednesday said it will launch an investigation into whether Apple's iPhone and Research in Motion's BlackBerry infringe on a Kodak patent.
Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu
Announcing SushiReader 1.0.0, an application that I've build for news junkies like me.
SushiReader is a simple river-of-news style RSS reader for the busy news junkie. You can specify priority levels for your subscriptions so that important news stories are sorted at the head of the queue, which you can read earlier. Keywords can also be specified to further rank individual news stories' importance.
SushiReader requires Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), and is available for free.
Sharon Zardetto, Macworld
You can do more with these little yellow rectangles than just identify items in toolbars.
MacNN
Serious memory leaks are being caused by the newly-released Aperture 3, complaints on Apple's support forums suggest. Affected users note that virtual memory can spiral out of control, to the point that it can consume all of the free space on a Mac's hard drive. This can result in a Mac becoming unusable, either extremely slow or ultimately hanging.
Erica Sadun, TUAW
There are several tricks that can help you analyze why your audio chats aren't working quite right. Here's a quick run-down of the steps you should take.
Paul Krill, InfoWorld
Developers report lacks of new features beyond support of UI elements for the larger screen.
Mel Martin, TUAW
Nuance Communications, the company behind Dragon Dictate and Dragon Search for the iPhone, has acquired MacSpeech, the company that makes MacSpeech Dictate and other voice recognition apps for the Mac platform.
AppleInsider
Users who bought MacBooks between May 2006 and December 2007 that are experiencing hard drive problems may be covered under a new repair extension program.
Thomas Fitzgerald
Jeffery Battersby, Macworld
Now X, once the standard for Mac contact management and calendaring, is a program that doesn't rise anywhere near the level of its predecessor. Poorly documented, occasionally buggy, and often slow, Now X is unlikely to be a viable replacement for whatever contact and calendar application is your current favorite.
Brian X. Chen, Wired News
Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle
The first Macworld Expo without Apple's participation was even better because it left more time to explore non-Apple products and even some presentations critical of the iconic company.
Georgina Prodhan, Reuters
Google sees Apple as a valuable partner and sees no reason for that to change, a senior executive said today, amid rumours that Microsoft's Bing search engine may replace Google on the iPhone.
Kenneth Li, Financial Times
The question haunting publishers is whether they will suffer the same fate as the music industry, which was hit by Apple's 2003 deal to unbundle the album format by offering downloads of individual songs via iTunes.
Alternatively, could the iPad become this generation's iPod - a galvanizing force that will alter the media landscape and retrain consumers weaned on free web content to begin paying again?
Chuck La Tournous, The Mac Observer
The question about what effect Apple's absence would have on the show hung like a pall over the Moscone Center. Until the show floor opened, that is. From that point on, I literally heard not one vendor or attendee even mention Apple -- at least until I asked about it. It was simply a non-issue, lost in the bustling crowds on the show floor; stomped on by rows of people four or five deep trying to get into exhibitor's booths.
Dave Caolo, TUAW
Steven Sande, TUAW
Brad Stone, New York Times
Apple’s chief executive is set to collaborate on an authorized biography, to be written by Walter Isaacson, the former managing editor of Time magazine, according to two people briefed on the project.
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS
If, last week, you heard a faint Macintosh startup chime from the direction of San Francisco, it was the sound of Macworld Expo rebooting after the crash caused by the disappearance of Apple from the exhibitor list. The good news is that although the show was notably smaller than previous incarnations, in terms of floor space and exhibitor count, the reboot was successful. Macworld seems essentially unaffected - indeed, even improved in places - without Apple's presence.
Alex Pham, Los Angeles Times
When Apple launches its iBook store to sell titles for its new iPad device in March, many of its titles are expected to come with a set of handsome digital locks designed to deter piracy.
David Dahlquist, Macworld
Macworld Expo without Apple is a strange enough concept, but Macworld Expo with Microsoft as one of the largest and most visible companies present? It may seem like something out of Bizarro World, but Microsoft had one of the most prominently displayed booths on the Macworld Expo floor last week.
Nicole Martinelli, Cult of Mac
Kyle VanHemert, GIzmodo
AFP
Japanese authorities plan to summon Apple officials this week over complaints that its iTunes online store has billed customers for downloads they never made, officials said Monday.
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
We'll cut to the chase: the 2010 Macworld Expo was a wild success. This was despite the expectations of nearly everyone—the press (yes, even those of us who still went to cover the conference), many of the exhibitors, and nearly the entire Internet. The conference's huge crowds ended up surprising everyone, however, all but guaranteeing a future for the Macworld Expo.
Nick Spence, Macworld UK
Apple appears to now be offering the iPhone 3.0 Software Update free to iPod touch users running the iPhone 2.0 Software Update.
Paul Boutin, VentureBeat
UKPA
Increasing numbers of gadget lovers are resorting to insurance fraud in order to have their iPhones upgraded, an insurer has claimed.
Kevin J. O'Brien, New York Times
The biggest gathering in the global mobile phone industry opens Monday in Barcelona, and much of the talk will be of Apple and its groundbreaking iPhone.
Rahul Sonnad, GigaOM
Harry McCracken, Technologizer
Do I miss the older, larger, newsier Macworld? Absolutely. But I do get the sense that some of the people who are declaring the new Macworld to be pointless and/or about to die are pining for a show that never quite existed.
Paul Boutin, VentureBeat
This year, Macworld bravely carried on without an Apple booth or a Steve Jobs “One more thing …” keynote. With Apple nowhere to be found at San Francisco’s Moscone Center, there’s a new-Apple-gadget buzz missing from the show.
But in another way, Macworld has opened up. Daddy Steve Jobs and Mommy Apple PR are gone. Let’s party!
Chris Holt, Macworld
Do have any unidentified tracks in your iTunes collection? How about mislabeled albums? Tune Up can help. Tune Up is a why-didn’t-I-think-of-it-first iTunes add-on that cleans up your iTunes library by identifying missing information in your iTunes library.
Ciara O'Brien, Irish Times
Tech giant Apple has thwarted plans to bring romance into the lives of the shyest iPhone owners by rejecting an application that allowed them to send anonymous e-cards to potential Valentines. The Secret Valentine programme, developed by Irish firm Appsie, was given the elbow by the App Store because the software would allow users to disguise their true identity.
Brian Caulfield, Forbes
Roman Loyola, Macworld
MixMeister Technology has released MixMeister Express 7. The audio program is designed for the inexperienced who want to make professional-sounding music mixes with your song library.
Brooke Crothers, CNET News
Performance laptops based on Intel's Core i5 processor are pushing out the older Core 2 laptops. Meanwhile, the Mac maker sticks to its Core 2 guns.
David Chartier, Macworld
John Gruber, the Daring Fireball himself, stowed his keyboard and took a Macworld Expo stage on Friday evening to spell out the top 10 problems plaguing Apple. Gruber’s gripes ranged from competition, to Steve Jobs, and even software about boxes.
Frédéric Filloux, Washington Post
With the iPad structure, Apple is creating absolute control for product, delivery and even ownership that can be revoked at will.
Cameron Sturdevant, eWeek
The dearth of Apple hardware and creative application announcements at Macworld, held here Feb. 9 to 13, was strangely filled in by a growing number of bread-and-butter business tools designed to help IT managers corral the Macs that make it into the enterprise.
David Morgenstern, ZDNet
MacSpeech this week at Macworld Expo San Francisco launched its latest speech-to-text software, Scribe. Instead of the real-time recording and translation in its Dictate packages, Scribe handles recorded audio files.
David Morgenstern, ZDNet
Most attendees at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco this week — distracted by plentiful iPhone apps, whispered tales of the forthcoming Apple iPad, and the sight of dancing booth workers with their faces covered by unfortunate costumes of gigantic Microsoft Office for Mac icons — may have overlooked a trend: The Macintosh is back in the engineering segment.
Derek Thompson, The Atlantic
Apple is starting a small revolution in three big categories.
Jim Dalrymple, CNET News
If the iPad's early success could be measured by the number of new applications that will support the platform, it should do just fine, according to a new report from research company Flurry.
Sebastian Rupley, GigaOm
Proprietary strategies have paid off big time for Apple. Its revenues exploded and its stock soared even as many people questioned its closed practices with the iPod, iTunes and the iPhone. But I predict that the iPad, aggressively closed as it is, will illustrate the folly of remaining strictly closed over the long run.
Nick Mediati, PC World
Macworld Expo without Apple is a smaller, lower-key affair, but that hasn't kept Apple enthusiasts from attending the show. The show floor is as packed with attendees as ever, despite Apple's absence. And in a sense, the lack of Apple isn't such a bad thing, as it lets the show's focus shift from the giant Apple booth to smaller vendors, some of which had impressive wares.
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
Developer and grade school IT admin Fraser Speirs discovered a loophole in Apple's Parental Controls that allows young children to browse racy text descriptions and screenshots in the App Store, even if they can't actually download the apps they describe. Apple has begun plugging that hole, but instead of keeping those apps out of view based on age ratings, Apple is rejecting apps until the screenshots are "kid-friendly."
Jackie Dove, Macworld
Boinx Software has released PhotoPresenter 4, an upgrade to its presentation tool for digital photographers. PhotoPresenter 4 is a theme-based photo viewer for creating animated slideshows with photos, movies, and music.
Heather Kelly, Macworld
During the development of Aperture 3, Apple let a select group of professional photographers try out a beta version of Aperture 3. We spoke with some of those testers, to find out which of Aperture 3's features they found most useful.
Chris McVeigh, Macworld
ArtRage Studio Pro 3.0.5 does an excellent job of recreating the subtle nuances of natural media on a digital canvas, and it's easy enough to learn and use quickly. Although it has a number of interface quirks and some brushes can be slow, it’s certainly worth considering if you’re a traditional artist looking to trade in your messy paint tubes for a tablet.
Danny O'Brien, Irish Times
To take part in that success, just as thousands of other developers reaped the reward of the iPhone, is a great temptation. But after the decade or so of freedom that coders have enjoyed, I know many who will wait on the gold rush, and seek out somewhere that isn’t just the same old company town.
Evan Schuman, StorefrontBacktalk
The problem is how Cupertino is defining both the good (“provide beneficial information”) and the bad (“deliver targeted ads”). Who’s to say that a cleverly targeted ad doesn’t, in fact, potentially provide beneficial information?
Patrick May, San Jose Mercury News
The only thing about this week's Apple-less Macworld Expo that hasn't been downsized is nostalgia for the Steve Jobs-dominated, bigger-than-life geek-fest it used to be. With Apple gone, the trade show's 26th year opened this week with fewer exhibitors, smaller crowds, a venue clipped down in size like a bonsai, and a lot of Apple faithful looking over their shoulders for a glimpse of the good old days.
Venkatesh Rao, VentureBeat
Eugene Kim, The Harvard Crimson
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
Apple has released a kernel extension to address unusual heat and performance issues related to audio tasks on Nehalem-based Mac Pros. Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 is designed to address CPU utilization issues caused by tasks such as listening to tracks in iTunes or using FireWire or USB-based audio interfaces.
Jim Dalrymple, CNET News
Apple and Microsoft are being sued for allegedly infringing on another company's patent that describes an HTTP streaming server.
Jim Dalrymple, CNET News
Apple on Thursday began the "Countdown to 10 Billion Songs," a contest with a $10,000 gift card as a reward.
Leander Kahney, Cult of Mac
Much to my surprise and delight, the crowds are showing up in droves for Macworld. Though the gates opened just 30 minutes ago, the show floor is already crowded with attendees.
Philip Michaels, Macworld
MacPractice is using this week's Macworld Expo to show off version 3.7 of its practice management and clinical software for doctors, dentists, chiropractors, and optometrists.
Dan Miller, Macworld
New suite will ship by end of 2010, including better compatibility with Windows version, improved collaboration tools, Visual Basic, and Outlook.
David Chartier, Macworld
David Pogue was in true Pogue-ian form today in “Late Night with David Pogue,” the kick-off feature presentation before opening the Macworld Expo showroom floor. After a brief tongue-in-cheek introduction by Paul Kent as “Steve Ballmer,” (“Rock the new era,” indeed!), Pogue wasted no time in cracking jokes.
Leander Kahney, Cult of Mac
Steve Jobs blew the iPad launch by not doing it at Macworld. There’s not the same buzz about the iPad as there was about the iPhone, and that’s because it wasn’t introduced to 4,000 fans at a keynote. And it won’t be on the show floor for fans to check out (even in a glass case).
You think that if Apple asks IDG to put a few glass cases at Macworld Expo for free, IDG will not agree?
Dave Rosenberg, CNET News
Big Blue is expected to announce Thursday at Macworld San Francisco that it will soon be delivering its enterprise social platform, Lotus Connections, and Lotus Quickr team collaboration package for use with the iPhone and Mac.
AppleInsider
The update appears to be related to the release of Aperture 3.0, which made changes to how that software shares images over the local network, in addition to adding support for iPhoto's Places and Faces features.
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
Flexibility is essential for people to take advantage of the many tasks they can perform on the iPad, and these two “multis” would go a long way toward making the tablet easy to use.
Joe Kissell, Macworld
Getting rid of files you don't need can do more than just reclaim wasted disk space.
Jeff Carlson, Macworld
iMovie '09 offers several pre-made designs for titles that overlap your video, from basic centered text to animated concoctions like Sideways Drift and Lens Flare. All you have to do is select the title and edit its text to get a slick effect. But you can do a lot more to change the appearance of the text, from quickly applying different fonts and colors to tweaking the typography.
Neil Ticktin, MacTech
How do VMware Fusion 3 and Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac compare?
Dan Moren, Macworld
Macworld 2010 will be the first San Francisco show in which Apple hasn't participated, but that doesn't mean the show won't have plenty to offer attendees.
Jackie Dove, Macworld
Insider Software has announced FontAgent Pro Server 4, an upgrade to its server software targeted to the enterprise sector of the font management market. Available now, it features font-usage tracking, live backup, automatic failover server access, Kerberos single sign-on support, and directory services enhancements.
Thomas Fitzgerald
Aperture 3 is an amazing upgrade. People had begun to worry about the future of the software, as it was two years since the last version came out, but I can see now that they’ve been doing some major work under the hood.
Brian Caulfield, Forbes
While Jobs touts that Apple is different because it makes the "whole widget," the company actually relies heavily on outside innovations.
Dawn C. Chmielewski, Los Angeles Times
Iger told Wall Street investors during Disney's earnings call Tuesday that the Burbank entertainment conglomerate plans to develop casual games and other forms of entertainment for the portable device, including digital books and a new and improved version of ESPN's ScoreCenter app on the iPhone, which provides real-time sores for more than 500 sports leagues around the world.
Wall Street Journal
Pundits have wondered what might become of Apple once its chief aesthete and perfectionist is no longer calling the shots. An Apple that rolls out increasingly junky devices merely to lock more and more customers into the iTunes-App Store mall is one gloomy possibility.
Matt Rosoff, CNET News
Getting back to Dick Brass's criticism of Microsoft, I find it fascinating that top Microsoft executives were aware almost immediately of the threat the iTunes Music Store posed to the whole Windows Media ecosystem, but Microsoft was still unable to stop it. This matches what I've seen time and time again in my last 10 years following the company.
Ramu Nagappan, Macworld
In the wake of Apple’s release of Aperture 3 on Tuesday comes a flurry of related image software updates: iLife Support 9.0.4, Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.0, and Aperture SlideShow Support Update 1.0. All are available now via your Mac's Software Update.
Rob Griffiths, Macworld
Re-enable a few missing entries from the Services section of the contextual menu in Snow Leopard.
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
Last week, we told you about some unusual issues affecting Nehalem-based Mac Pro models, characterized by abnormal performance degradation and CPU power draw when using on-board audio circuitry. Several sources have told Ars that Apple support technicians are now saying the problem is known, and that the issue is being actively investigated by Apple engineers.
AppleInsider
Since Apple granted music labels the flexibility to set individual song prices between $0.69 and $1.29 on the iTunes Music Store, growth of digital music sales has slowed, one music executive revealed Tuesday.
Connie Guglielmo, Bloomberg
The decision to quit didn’t come as a complete surprise to Macworld organizers. “This maps to Apple’s ideology for controlling every aspect of their message,” said Paul Kent, general manager for Macworld. “They made it very clear that their stores are the outlet for reaching their customers. They wish Macworld well.”
Even so, Macworld has been trying to convince Apple to participate in some way, including asking the company to lend some iPads for display, Kent said.
Jason Snell, Macworld
The update ($99 for existing Aperture users), which Apple said offers "over 200 new features," includes advanced versions of the Faces and Places features previously seen in iPhoto '09. There's a new image-refinement tool called Brushes, which allows users to paint adjustments directly on to images. And a new Projects feature adds flexibility.
Leander Kahney, Cult of Mac
MG Siegler, TechCrunch
Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle
The Magic Age of computing combines wireless connectivity to the Internet, fast and inexpensive hardware, and intuitive software that ties it all together and effectively shields you from the wires, nuts and bolts. While there remains a lot of clunky tech out there that's still frustrating and often more of a hassle than it's worth, take heart: In devices like Apple's iPad, you can see the future coming.
Ben Grubb, ZDNet.com.au
Supermarket chain Woolworths has asked for more time to respond to intellectual property administrator IP Australia over a trademark dispute lodged by Apple last year concerning its logo.
Alistair Goodman, TechCrunch
Apple’s recent behavior bears an increasing resemblance to carriers with respect to the walled garden they are creating around the iPhone. Restricting applications, restricting the use of location on the device, blocking Flash, and now potentially taking advertising in house—these moves are taken from the carrier’s playbook with the hope of locking out meaningful competition. Ironically, Apple may very well become the barrier to open innovation in mobile in much the same way as carriers have been before the iPhone came along.
Spandas Lui, ARN
Apple has launched a partner program to funnel corporate business opportunities back into its channel.
Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle
David Coursey, PC World
If Apple is really considering price cuts on its just-introduced iPad, the best advice is to make them before launch, not after.
Jeff Jedras, ITBusiness.ca
So, increasingly, there is a stronger and stronger case to be made for bringing Apple into the enterprise market. The question is, is the enterprise a market that the fiercely consumer-focused company even wants to go after?
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS
What do we mean when we say that the iPhone OS should support multitasking? If we define what we're looking for more carefully, it might be easier to lobby Apple for support in iPhone OS 4.0 and beyond.
Matt Phillips, Wall Street Journal
Apple intends to stay “nimble” on pricing of the iPad, possibly lowering prices if the newly unveiled tablet device fails to gain traction among consumers.
That was just one of the items in a note out Sunday night from Credit Suisse recounting meetings with Apple executives.
Matt Asay, CNET News
Apple has changed the way we think about operating systems, by helping us to forget the operating system entirely.
Pamela Pfiffner, Macworld
In the 20 years since its introduction, Photoshop has changed the way we see the world, altered our sense of reality, and transformed the way we express ourselves.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
When I put my selfish desires aside, I care very little about Apple’s absence. Because, for me, what Apple does and doesn’t do at Expo makes up a small portion of the value I derive from it.
Katherine Murray, Macworld
If you want to do more with your photos than leave them in a folder on your hard drive, occasionally e-mail them to friends, or set them up in an online photo album, you will find that PrintMaster Platinum 2.0 is more than worth its $40 price tag. It comes with everything you need to create, print, and share fun, high-quality, creative projects. Flexibility is the watchword here, and you have lots of choices for producing memorable stories with the images that are meaningful to you.
Tim Bajarin, PC Magazine
The iPad could give rise to a new creative self-publishing crowd that could, in turn, become competition for the established publishing industry. Today's creative writers could bypass the industry altogether. The opportunity is already there to a degree, via a number of self-publishing programs, but Apple's iBookstore would give them a power partner with a unique technology and powerful distribution.
Jim Dalrymple, CNET News
Although Apple's iPad has yet to hit the market, the Federal Communications Commission has expressed concern over its potential impact on AT&T's 3G network.
Ryan Kim, San Francisco Chronicle
Perhaps the most obvious upshot of the latest unveiling was Apple's continued recognition that its future, unlike its origin, is tied to mobile devices.
Matt Buchanan, Gizmodo
Publishers joining Apple’s iBooks store are turning their back on Amazon and its vision of the flat $US9.99 ebook. Apple forced the music industry to charge 99 US cents per song, so why are they helping publishers set their own prices?
To screw Amazon.
San Jose Mercury News
Its iPods and iPhones wooed the young and tech savvy. But with its iPad, Apple may reach a new demographic: the middle-aged.
Rob Griffiths, Macworld
Learn how to consolidate only selected music and media in iTunes 9.
Joe Kissell, Macworld
If you’ve been using Time Machine for backups, there may come a time when you outgrow your backup disk. It’s easy enough to plug in a larger disk or buy a Time Capsule (or a larger Time Capsule) and choose that as your new Time Machine destination, but doing that means starting over. If you want to move to a larger disk while maintaining the continuity of your backups, you can. It just means taking quite a few steps.
Rob Pegoraro, Washington Post
It's past time we ushered the Flash site intro and the animated menu off to the junkyard.
Lexton Snol, PC Adviser
In another stage of its mounting battle with Google, Apple has hired two mobile ad industry big hitters.
Ian Sherr, Reuters
While Apple likely will not market the chip publicly, analysts say the new processor underscores how rival chip designs may eventually win out over Intel Corp's designs in the emergent hot category of mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
Times Of India
Jenna Wortham, New York Times
A start-up called Siri, based in San Jose, Calif., hopes to do a slightly better job by bringing a virtual personal assistant to your pocket — more specifically, to your Apple iPhone.
MacNN
Apple has notified App Store developers that they will be prohibited from using location-based information for mobile advertising. The company claims the GPS data can only be used to provide "beneficial information." The announcement has ignited speculation that Apple has reserved the capability for its own advertising endeavors.
Lee Gomes, Forbes
Why chipmakers might not be necessary anymore.
Daniel Maurer, New York Magazine
Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
Cloud computing backup system is a God-send for anyone with more than one computer – especially if you ever leave home.
Mark Wilson, Gizmodo
Gregg Keizer, Macworld
The iPad is too big and lacks communication capabilities, says the former Apple exec who oversaw the demise of the company's iconic-but-flawed Newton project.
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
Dan Frakes, Macworld
If you've ever found the Internet to be a bane to your productivity, Freedom can help. This utility lets you temporarily block Internet access so you can get some work done.
Ben Long, Macworld
Finding the right storage solution for your needs can be tricky, as you try to balance performance with expandability. Throw in the need for backup and network-wide access and things can get quite complicated.
Daniel Lyons, Newsweek
How Silicon Valley conquered the carriers.
Richard Wray, The Guardian
The chief executive of Arm has given the strongest hint yet that the company's technology is inside Apple's iPad.
Brad Stone, New York Times
AT&T announced Thursday morning that it will now allow the SlingPlayer iPhone app to stream live over its 3G network.
AppleInsider
Apple this week expanded its browser-based iTunes Preview, now allowing users to view information on software within the App Store without ever launching iTunes.
Greg Vincent, Business2
Allen Stern, InformationWeek
Jonathan Zittrain, Financial Times
Mr Jobs ushered in the personal computer era and now he is trying to usher it out. We should focus on preserving our freedoms, even as the devices we acquire become more attractive and easier to use.
Jeff Gamet, The Mac Observer
Matt Asay, CNET News
Pricing creates perceived value, something that Apple does exceptionally well and open source does exceptionally poorly.
Marco Tabini, Macworld
Today's blog post provides a little more information on what's holding back the release of an updated app: the company says it's working on methods to provide the highest voice quality possible by using wideband audio—a technology used in telephony that extends the frequency of sounds transmitted across a connection, thus providing clearer audio signals.
Doug McLean, TidBITS
AppleInsider
The latest Mac Pro models with Nehalem-based Intel Xeon processors reportedly suffer a 20 percent performance hit when playing audio in Mac OS X, users have reported.
John Martellaro, The Mac Observer
Like the science fiction theme of making a clean break, politically and spatially, from the institutions of Earth, Apple would like nothing more than to, once again, make a solid leap forward with a new generation of iPads and other tablet devices. However, this time Apple will be protected by patents rather than mere copyrights. In addition, development will be fueled by custom, proprietary hardware, thanks to PA Semi, and leveraged from the modern underpinnings of Mac OS X so carefully crafted over the last decade.
Elinor Mills, CNET News
Lax security screening at Apple's App Store and a design flaw are putting iPhone users at risk of downloading malicious apps that could steal data and spy on them, a Swiss researcher warns.
iMerlion
I've been given to understand that Maps is missing from Apple Singapore's iPad features page because there are issues with promoting Google Maps in Singapore. What are those issues? Your guess is as good as mine.
Ones And Zeros
Don Dodge On The Next Big Thing
For five years I was a Microsoft evangelist to the startup and venture capital community. That ended a couple months ago. I am now a Developer Advocate at Google and I love it. After years of defending Microsoft against the Apple fanatics I decided to go to the other side of the road to see for myself.
Chris Ryan, The Apple Blog
The beauty of “smart” file management, of course, is once you have defined the frameworks for the album, folder or playlist, new content will automatically fall in place if it meets your rules.
Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg and Yukari Kane, Wall Street Journal
Major textbook publishers have struck deals with software company ScrollMotion Inc. to adapt their textbooks for the electronic page, as the industry embraces a hope that digital devices such as Apple Inc.'s iPad will transform the classroom.
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
Nearly three years after its introduction, the Apple TV remains a hobby in the eyes of Apple. This view was confirmed by CEO Steve Jobs during a post-iPad Town Hall meeting among employees, where he reiterated that the company still views the set-top box as experimental.
Doug McLean, TidBITS
A fierce independence and commitment to envisioning the future has earned Apple its current celebrity. Greenpeace should take note, and allow its own hard work to become the sole spokesman for its cause.
Electronista
Apple is just one of 30 US corporations that have been asked for info on their human rights practices in China, Reuters reports. The requests are the work of the assistant US Senate majority leader, Dick Durbin, who cites Google as a standard for how ...
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
USB app syncing is coming to an end for iPhone users, but it may not be the end of the world. Apple recently asked Lexcycle to remove USB syncing capabilities from its popular e-book reading app Stanza, prompting the ire of many users. While loss of the feature is upsetting, the good news is that Apple has an alternative planned for a future iPhone OS update.
Sara Dickerman, Slate Magazine
My iPhone is absolutely filthy, and not because it's clogged with frisky NSFW photos. The screen cover is coated with streaks of flour and butter and overlaid with a haze of anonymous kitchen grease. For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to suss out whether the iPhone can earn a place in my kitchen. And just as any new pair of sneakers must one day be scuffed, I've had to let my shiny wireless pet get mussed.
Nicholas Bonsack, Macworld
The reason behind the feature's axing? As Apple's Michael Jurewitz has stated on Twitter, there is no public API for syncing via USB. In other words, there's no Apple-approved method for iPhone applications to sync with companion apps through a USB cable.
Rob Griffiths, Macworld
If iPhoto is slow to launch on your machine—as in taking over a minute to load, including visits from the spinning beach ball—here’s a possible fix that also happens to be a simple one.
Dan Moren, Macworld
Among the embarrassment of riches that iPhone OS 3.1.3 brings is better accuracy for the battery level on the iPhone 3GS, a problem where third-party programs would sometimes not launch, and a bug that could cause an application to crash when using the Japanese Kana keyboard.
Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but Blu-Ray is on a collision course with iTunes and something's got to give.
Nick Spence, Macworld UK
Version 1.1.021 adds a new sharpen tool, support for a variety of photo borders, and—for U.S. users of the app—playback of video hosted on Photoshop.com.
Marco Tabini, Macworld
Just as when the iPhone was first announced, everyone is both extremely excited by the iPad's possibilities and disappointed by the lack of at least one feature that they were expecting it to have. In the case of at least two—handwriting recognition and a full-fledged version of OS X—I contend that Apple's move is a deliberate choice for the iPad's future.
Larry Dignan, ZDNet
What’s the business use here? In a word: Dashboards. Salesforce.com, Oracle and others all have iPhone apps showing sales, dashboards and corporate data. However, the screen is kind of small. With the iPad, you can check out a full dashboard of data, track sales and get your corporate health check on the go. Simply put, screen size matters for corporate dashboards. You can envision multiple business intelligence applications on deck.
Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle
Joel Johnson, Gizmodo
It's taken me a couple of days for me to understand the wet sickness I felt in response to all the post-iPad whining, until it finally came up in a sputtering lump: disgust.
Ian King and Arik Hesseldahl, Bloomberg
Apple Inc.’s A4 chip, unveiled last week as part of its iPad, shows how chief executive officer Steve Jobs is extending control over the company’s hardware at the expense of Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp.
Edward Tenner, The Atlantic
To some observers, he is the arch-survivor, rising phoenix-like over childhood misery and life-threatening illness; to others, he is the maestro of perfect technological pitch, in tune with the soul of the new machine. My favorite insight into Steve Jobs, though, comes from an essay mentioning neither Jobs nor any Apple product.
Bobby Caina Calvan, The Sacramento Bee
Apple's new creation, the iPad, may be a novelty to many consumers, but hospitals are already starting to abandon paper-and-pen clipboards for hand-held digital tablets.
Harry McCracken, Technologizer
With Apple’s absence, the organizers are emphasizing the educational and social aspects of Macworld, by redoubling efforts to make the conference component worthwhile.
AppleInsider
Apple on Monday released a second firmware update that aims to address screen flickering that has plagued some users of the late 2009 model 27-inch iMac. The update, entitled 27-inch iMac Display Firmware Update 1.0, is a 294KB download available direct from Apple. The accompanying description states the update will "address issues that may cause intermittent display flickering.
Dennis Sellers, Macsimum News
I think this is definitely a program that you’ll want to check out if you’re creating landscapes of any kind for the digital world. I use Vue as one of the tools in my creative workflow because it works great with my other 3D applications and it’s my favorite tool to compose and render scenes.
Erik Vlietinck, IT.Enquirer
Mind mapping on the Mac has been largely an affair of personal productivity, i.e. no mind mapping software delivered an integration with enterprise-scale business systems such as Microsoft Sharepoint. MindManager 8's focus is exactly on that weak spot and also on more Mac OS X integration.
Ashlee Vance and Brad Stone, New York Times
The do-it-yourself approach gives Apple the chance to build faster, more battery-friendly products than rivals and helps the company to keep product development secret.
Nicholas Bonsack, Macworld
Apple has just released a minor iTunes update that fixes a problem with being able to remember passwords for the iTunes Store.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
You say that your Apple TV and Mac ignore each other? Walk through these troubleshooting steps.
Dan Moren, Macworld
For Apple, it’s not about killing off tinkerers, but ensuring that not everybody who wants to use a computer has to be a tinkerer.
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
It looks like Apple’s choice of the 4:3 format is designed to fit certain types of usage, such as reading books and magazines, browsing the Web and using productivity applications. While many people will probably watch movies on the iPad, Apple seems to be betting that the iPad will be used very differently from laptops.
Bobbie Johnson, The Guardian
Apple's new iPad tablet computer could hamper innovation and cause long-term damage if it becomes a hit, according to experts.
Elinor Mills, CNET News
Peter Svensson, Associated Press
The slim, 1.5-pound "tablet" computer unveiled last week will be linked to Apple Inc.'s first e-book store when it goes on sale in a few months. The books, however, will not be compatible with Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle or with the major alternative e-book system.
Chris Matyszczyk, CNET News
In case you were wondering how Apple intended to advertise the iPad, the answer might just be "very well."
Nick Bilton, New York Times
With over 60 million iPhones and iPod Touches in the marketplace today, content providers have been given two choices: either stand with Adobe and stick with Flash, or make the switch to non-Flash technologies and reach this huge audience, most of whom don’t really care about a format war — they just want to get the content.
Alexander Vaughn, App Advice
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.