MyAppleMenu | Tomorrow | Reader | Singapore | SushiReader
You are here in the archive: MyAppleMenu > 2011 > August
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Ellis Hamburger, Business Insider
Christopher Breen, Macworld
If you have a life crammed with meetings and places to be, it can be difficult for others to keep track of you. Sure, you can post your schedule online or scrawl it on a whiteboard at work, but sometimes it’s helpful to present those who want to know your whereabouts with a single email message that contains the details of your coming week. The same goes if you need to keep others informed of a carpool schedule or department meetings. With Apple's utility Automator you can easily create and distribute just such a message. Here’s how.
Ben Brooks, The Brooks Review
Jordan Golson, MacRumors
Apple has removed the Financial Times app from the App Store after the FT refused to acquiesce to Apple's updated guidelines regarding in-app subscriptions.
Clayton Christensen And James Allworth, Reuters
As paradoxical as it is that the pursuit of profit is what causes the long-term failure of companies, I believe that Apple’s lack of focus on profitability has actually made it one of the most successful companies in the history of capitalism.
Eric Slivka, MacRumors
Federico Viticci, MacStories
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
The three sorting tools do have three distinct functions: Arrange By lets you organize files into groups. The new Sort By option does much of what Arrange By did in the past. And Clean Up By is a kind of impermanent Sort By. But the three options aren’t always available in all Finder views. Sometimes you can combine them; sometimes you can’t. There are multiple ways of invoking them. In other words, they aren’t Apple’s smoothest bit of interface design. But here’s a rough guide to the way they work.
Federico Viticci, MacStories
According to Adobe, “CreatePDF brings the same high-quality PDF creation as Adobe Acrobat” to iOS devices, with PDF documents that look “exactly” like the original files they were generated from; the app uses Adobe’s online services for performance and quality, creating PDFs that preserve quality and accessibility standards with the inclusion of links, images, footnotes, and more.
David Morgenstern, ZDNet
According to a reported bug, Apple Mac OS X Lion client and server have trouble with Windows Sharing for flies including extended attributes. The issue extends to Windows 7 and Windows XP.
The Next Web
David Galbraith
It would be a fitting cap to an illustrious career and the achievement of a long term goal that Fosters never quite pulled off (even if you include the Hearst Tower in NY) to re-import his quintessentially American style from Europe, repeating what Jonathan Ive did for product design under Jobs, and to produce something that becomes an American cultural landmark, something which Silicon Valley lacks.
Beth Stackpole, Computerworld
Now the Apple iPad—and, to a lesser extent, emerging competitors in the burgeoning tablet market—are starting to pop up on the plant floor and in distribution centers and warehouses, promising to wring efficiencies and cost savings out of industrial operations by offering mobility and real-time data visibility to workers in manufacturing.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Once you enter Mission Control in Lion—either by swiping up with three or four fingers, hitting Control-Up arrow, clicking on the Dock icon, or any other means—there are a lot of secrets hiding away in Apple’s new mash-up of Exposé and Spaces.
Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion’s marquee features hide some of the fine subtle changes to existing capabilities. A good case in point is Screen Sharing, the software and underlying service used to provide remote control and viewing of other computers on your local network or out on the Internet. One Lion-wide feature and one improvement in the Screen Sharing application make controlling remote Macs far more fluid.
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
Having recently gotten back into the “Read a Book a Week” habit, I figured I’d give these services a tour and see what exactly they have to offer readers—and if they’re better at enticing me to keep track of my page-count than the promise of an ice cream sundae.
Roman Loyola, Macworld
For general use, the BTO Mac mini can keep up with the 21.5-inch 2.5GHz Core i5 iMac. But the iMac fares better with software that can take advantage of multiple cores or graphic-intensive tasks.
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
You can actually watch all manner of other content on an old Apple TV if you're willing to tinker. The two most popular software interfaces are a version of Boxee and a version of XBMC, both designed for the original Apple TV. Here, I offer you a chronicle of my own experiences setting up these both solutions, and show you how to do the same.
Michael Gartenberg, Macworld
Why Apple's smallest laptop leads the way to the future of the Mac.
Eric's Posterous
Apple's bags are a handsome gray-green, hand-filled and -tied.
Dan Goodin, The Register
People logging in to Macs running OS X 10.7, aka Lion, can access restricted resources using any password they want when the machines use a popular technology known as LDAP for authentication. Short for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, LDAP servers frequently contain repositories of highly sensitive enterprise data, making them a goldmine to attackers trying to burrow their way in to sensitive networks.
Jordan Golson, MacRumors
Apple's New York City retail stores will be closing this weekend ahead of Hurricane Irene's possible landfall over the city.
Peter Kafka, All Things D
Apple has completely removed customers’ ability to rent shows from iTunes; the remaining options are to buy individual episodes or in some cases a “Season Pass” for a year’s worth of shows.
“iTunes customers have shown they overwhelmingly prefer buying TV shows,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said. “iTunes in the Cloud lets customers download and watch their past TV purchases from their iOS devices, Apple TV, Mac or PC allowing them to enjoy their programming whenever and however they choose.”
Ted Landau, Macworld
If you’re running Safari 5.1, whether under Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Lion, there’s a good chance you’re not altogether pleased with how well it’s running. At least that’s the reaction I hear from many of my colleagues as well as what I see on numerous forum postings. From the myriad of reported Safari 5.1 issues, I’ve chosen to focus here on a pair of related problems.
Alexis Kayhill, Mac360
Wren tweets but doesn’t follow your Twitter timeline, so you’re not distracted by those you follow. It’s outbound only.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
So, what it boils down to for me is this: What in Lion compels me to abandon what is currently a stable and functional version of the Mac OS? As a mouse-centric power user who’s tweaked his Mac to near-perfection, not enough.
Yet.
Steve Wood, Educators' News
Faruk Ateş
Ken Fisher, Ars Technica
I consider the iPad a PC because, in my view, a PC (Personal Computer) is just that: a personal computing device.
NoodleMac
Allen Paltrow
The first NY apple store in Soho opening was probably the coolest thing that happened to me between the ages 6 and 12. For a while I would spend almost every weekend there. Every year for halloween I was a mac, and I made a habit of shaving the Apple logo into my head to celebrate every OS launch.
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
"I want you to be confident that Apple is not going to change. I cherish and celebrate Apple's unique principles and values. Steve built a company and culture that is unlike any other in the world and we are going to stay true to that—it is in our DNA. We are going to continue to make the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do."
Michael Grothaus, TUAW
His look, his tone, the long pause was evidence enough that he genuinely gave thought to the concern I brought up. And that's the day I began to feel like more than just a replaceable part. I was one of the tens of thousands of integral parts of Apple and it was Tim Cook's raw leadership ability, confidence, and subtle charisma that made me realize that.
Yalım K. Gerger
No matter how many billions of dollars they made, Gates, Dell, Page and Brin were not able to get a penny from my father. Steve Jobs sold my father an iPad for $499, a cover for $69, and an app for $0.99.
Steve Jobs found a way through my father’s stubbornness, resistance and denial. He showed us the path. And for that I am thankful…
Mark Bao
Steve Jobs’ magnum opus—his life’s great work—will be not just Apple, but creating an Apple that will continue to revolutionize without him.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Apple's newest CEO has a tough act to follow. But in turning to chief operating officer Tim Cook to replace Steve Jobs in the wake of the latter’s resignation Wednesday, Apple's board of directors has chosen a familiar face with a proven track record with the company.
Todd Lappin, New York Times
The growth of iPhotography has been fueled by the thousands of inexpensive photography apps offered on Apple’s App Store.
Macworld
I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple’s CEO, I would be the first to let you know. Unfortunately, that day has come.
As far as my successor goes, I strongly recommend that we execute our succession plan and name Tim Cook as CEO of Apple.
Macworld
Steve Jobs has resigned as Apple CEO, according to documents posted by Apple to Business Wire. Jobs has recommended that Apple COO Tim Cook be named CEO, according to the Apple press release.
Lauren Crabbe, Macworld
Daniel Jalkut, Red Sweater
Starting in Lion, Apple fine-tuned the behavior by changing the definition of what constitutes a word delimiter for option-arrow navigation. While it used to stop on e.g. period-separated words, now it considers such chains.of.words to be a single “word.”
Joel Mathis, Macwold
Autodesk on Wednesday launched a new video-effects application for Macs, one that uses the face-tracking technology of OS X Lion to create exotic images using your computer’s camera.
J.d. Biersdorfer, New York Times
Dan Frakes And Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
Cut keystrokes and save time by letting these utilities do the work for you.
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
For those who simply want to listen to music, the iPod classic is ideal; in fact, it’s the only device that offers decent capacity at an affordable price.
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
Daniel Eran Dilger, AppleInsider
Apple has resumed growth among online movie stores after spurt of competition blunted its market share last year, a recovery credited in part to the company's new AirTunes mobile integration feature.
Eric Slivka, MacRumors
Dan Frakes, Macworld
This simple utility, which operates as a System Preferences pane, displays a list of all Launchpad-eligible applications (essentially, anything located in /Applications or ~/Applications), as well as any folders that either exist inside the Applications folders or that you’ve created within Launchpad. Next to each program or folder is a checkbox—if the box is checked, the application appears in Launchpad. Uncheck the boxes next to the programs you want to exclude from Launchpad, click Apply, and the Dock (which handles part of Launchpad’s functionality) relaunches as your changes are applied.
Joel Mathis, Macworld
United Airlines is joining the “paperless flight deck” revolution, announcing Tuesday that it is distributing 11,000 iPads to United and Continental pilots to replace bulky paper navigation charts in the cockpit.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Lex Friedman, Macworld
J.d. Biersdorfer, New York Times
If the box itself does not prompt you to install an update, you can manually check to see if there is new software available. You just need to make sure the Apple TV is on and connected to the Internet.
Chris Rawson, TUAW
Ted Landau, Slanted Viewpoint
So…if you want a Lion USB thumb drive…make one yourself from the Mac App Store download of Lion. Not only will you save money, you’ll bypass the limitation on using Recovery HD.
Derek Kwok
This is a Free and Legal method to test various versions of Internet Explorer on an Intel Based Mac.
Graham K. Rogers, Amitiae
Day to day, I find that working with Lion has not greatly affected my output with one or two exceptions, particularly the use of resource-heavy software. Safari has now entered that category and occasionally we are left twiddlling thumbs while things sort themselves out. Or not. Aperture 3 has always been a drag since its release, unlike version 2, and as it was a slow performer in Snow Leopard, it remains so in Lion: it is neither better nor worse.
I used to pride myself that I never restarted my Macs apart from when a software update needed this and they would be running for months: my iMac ran for over a year without a need for a restart. With Lion I have been resorting to the restart as a matter of course. This brings it back to life with a spring in its step for a day or so, then bit by bit fatigue sets in once more.
Serenity Caldwell, Macworld
Austin Leeds, Low End Mac
Dan Moren, Macworld
Sepia Labs’s new iPhone app, Glassboard, is aimed at giving users the ability to share information with just certain people.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
A strange chapter in the history of Techspansion’s long-ago-retired video conversion tool VisualHub is now drawing to a close with the release of a free update straight from the developer.
Adam Berenstain, Macworld
Many applications let you create websites with little or no coding, but Adobe is betting print professionals are ready for one more. Adobe’s new Web design program, code-named Muse, lets users take advantage of their familiarity with InDesign to build entire sites as easily as they might create brochures. But while Muse transports the page-layout paradigm to the Web intact, it offers features that establish it as an exciting new tool for making sophisticated, interactive sites.
Chris Foresman, Ars Technica
Depending on the age of your machine and in some cases BTO drive options, the amount of the speedup will vary. Still, even our old original Intel MacBook—which, as we'll explain later, actually represents a worst case scenario—went from just barely usable to actually productive in just a few hours. Here, we'll tell you how to perform the same upgrade.
Chandra Steele, PC Magazine
Due to their much-lauded portability, iPads pack a busy schedule and constantly travel. But because of their fragility, they need a safe place to land. Cue the iPad stand.
Dave Smith, Inc
Running a restaurant has never been easier, thanks to the iPad. De Santos is the first in New York to run its restaurant completely off Apple's tablets.
Josh Sunshine, GigaOM
The menu bar in OS X doesn’t just contain the menus for the application you’re currently using; it can also hold all sorts of helpful extras that can be accessed from any application with just one click. Here are a few of those extras, plus some handy tips for use in the menu bar.
Erick Schonfeld, TechCrunch
Apple notes that it will be phasing out access to the unique device identifier, or UDID, on iOS devices such as iPhones and iPads.
App publishers are now supposed to create their own unique identifiers to keep track of users going forward, which means they may have to throw all of their historical user data out the window and start from scratch.
Ted Landau, Macworld
With the arrival of Lion, figuring out the best way to be prepared for a restore of your drive requires more planning than ever before. Some simplification may come with later updates to Lion. Until then, I highly recommend that you review all of the options covered here and determine which one(s) work best for you. Do it before trouble knocks on your front door.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
For some people, it just may be the thing that finally gets them using Lion's new scrolling—at least on some of their input devices.
Brendan Wilhide, Macworld
While it may take some time to learn how to unleash DevonThink’s powerful potential, the time can be worth it for users interested in truly taking the paperless plunge in their offices.
Jordan Golson, MacRumors
Skitch is now free on the Mac App Store.
Greg Kumparak, TechCrunch
The message was simple: if you’re not a developer, but you’ve ignored the warning signs and finagled your way into the pre-release iOS 5 betas, you need to stop. Why? Because people are crushing developers with horribly unfair reviews, sinking their oh-so-important ratings because of bugs they couldn’t possibly have prepared for.
Darien Graham-Smith, PC Authority
Josh Ong, AppleInsider
Apple added new share on Facebook and Twitter links to its online store amid server woes that caused intermittent downtime on Wednesday.
Dan Moren, Macworld
Kagi CEO Kee Nethery said that Techspansion would be producing its own free updater, which will be available to customers by mid-September.
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS
Macworld
Between our forums and email, we received nearly 250 suggestions. We sorted through them and then boiled them down to our 60 favorites.
TidBITS
Our goal is to call out subtle aspects of Lion that feel as though they’re making us — and many other long-time Mac users — less productive on our Macs. Our hope is that Apple will revisit the discussions that resulted in these changes to Lion and reevaluate how they affect not just usability for new customers, but productivity for loyal Mac users who live and die by their Macs.
Bob LeVitus, Houston Chronicle
Ben Brooks, The Brooks Review
Serdar Yegulalp, Computerworld
The Web services that we entrust with our data can—and do—vanish. And when that happens, you need to have a plan. In the following pages, I'll take a look at some cases where user data was lost or endangered, how the companies (and their users) handled the situation, and what you can do to keep your own information safe.
Michael Agger, Slate
Ive's primary concern for physicality, and his perfectionist desire to think through every aspect of the manufacturing process (even the boring parts), were the exact gifts needed to make a singular product like the iPhone a reality and to guide Apple products through a new era of human-computer interaction.
Chris Smith, AppleInsider
Apple and Starbucks have partnered to include giveaways of paid iPhone applications in the "Pick of the Week" promotional program, which previously offered iTunes music tracks to in-store customers of the coffee chain.
Everything Everywhere
There is an argument to be made for the iPad being the greatest travel gadget ever made. Its portability and versatility are unrivaled in any other device I can think of.
If you are going on an extended trip and are not worried about writing long articles, then you might just be better off taking an iPad over a laptop. If you are only traveling for short periods of time, such as a weekend, you might be better off with just an iPad.
P. J. Connolly, eWeek
The Lion Server’s management tools are a hodgepodge; some utilities such as the Podcast Composer or the Xgrid and Xsan management utilities are single-purpose tools, while others—such as the Server and Server Admin—overlap functions to a degree that can be confusing.
J.d. Biersdorfer, New York Times
Hold the iPad firmly with both hands (please) and carefully give it a quick shake.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Apple says that the update includes general updates for improved stability, and calls out a few specific bug fixes.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Kagi, a popular payment processor for independent software developers, recently began selling a $5 Lion-compatibility patch for the discontinued-in-2008 VisualHub video converter that the original software’s developer says he didn’t authorize—and isn’t getting paid for. Kagi defends the move, arguing that it’s merely helping less tech-savvy customers that the developer abandoned.
See Also: John Gruber, Daring Fireball: To be clear, I don’t think Kagi stole anything, or ripped anything or anyone off. (Arguably, perhaps, they shouldn’t have treated the customer list for VisualHub as theirs, though.) Their mistake, to my eyes, is betraying the trust of the developers who use their payment services.
Glenn Fleishman, Macworld
Computers connecting via AirDrop don’t have to be connected to the same Wi-Fi network. They don’t require an ad hoc network or software base station. AirDrop bypasses all that.
James Galbraith, Macworld
Musical newbies aren’t the only ones interested in using the $5 app, however. GarageBand for iPad appeals to seasoned musicians, too. And those with significant investments in recording equipment may be wondering which, if any, of their existing gear will work with the portable version of GarageBand. I decided to grab my trusty iPad, my iPad camera connection kit, and powered USB hub and plug in whatever I had around to see what would work.
Arnold Kim, MacRumors
Apple has started selling the OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive, intended for users without a broadband connection.
Rentzsch
It’s safe to say everyone loses here: Seth, his customers, Apple and Apple’s developers.
Apple
MacBook Pro helps students at the Missouri School of Journalism effectively learn and practice the skills of modern journalism, including reporting, writing, and editing in different media. And it allows faculty to focus on teaching journalism — rather than managing technology.
Rich Mogull, TidBITS
In the end, Lion is significantly more secure than Snow Leopard even without the Mac App Store ecosystem. Combine the two, and we can see a future where we have security options never before available to consumers, and, more important, where security is an integral part of the overall ecosystem such that even those who know nothing about security are well protected.
Neil Hughes, AppleInsider
Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility will not affect Motorola's patent-related lawsuits against Apple, as the search company revealed on Monday it has no plans to rescind those legal complaints.
Marco Tabini, Macworld
Dan Miller, Macworld
But if Lion is any measure, gestures are becoming an important part of OS X; someday, they might replace the mouse entirely. So Lion's launch is a perfect opportunity to make the switch—or, at minimum, to become conversant in this interactive language. And even if swiping and tapping on a trackpad is already familiar to you, you’ll still need to adjust to Lion’s new vocabulary. Here are some tips for doing both.
Karl Hodge, Macworld UK
Tools for managing social media don’t come easier to use or more comprehensive.
Steven Musil, CNET
Andy Ihnatko, Macworld
I look at my MacBook Pro and I wonder what other hardware features Apple could delete from it in the coming years.
The Small Wave
The cost for Apple to implement this new method may have been enormous (Apple spoke of a product transition coming that quarter leading to lower margins), but look at the dividends it's paying now. It isn't just the reduction in parts, but the corresponding reduction in supplier deals, manufacturing costs, and failures and rejects. Then there's the increased quality that comes with a single, solid part.
Jeff Carlson, Seattle Times
A major operating-system release is filled with all sorts of changes beyond the handful of features a company advertises to catch your interest. In the case of Mac OS X Lion, I keep running into little surprising details.
Ted Landau, Macworld
Eric Slivka, MacRumors
As detailed by F-Secure, the trojan known as "OSX.QHost.WB.A" masquerades as a Flash Player installer but actually adds entries to a computer's hosts file to redirect users attempting to visit certain Google sites.
Ken Mingis, Computerworld
I'm not going to hem and haw: As far as I'm concerned, Apple's new 13-in. MacBook Air is just about perfect.
Maggie Koerth-Baker, Boing Boing
Alan Stonebridge, Macworld UK
MindManager 9 smooths the task of modelling projects and processes as mind maps with simple but useful new features. Foremost is the Quick Entry palette, which shoves all concern about a map’s structure aside in favour of brainstorming keywords and phrases at the earliest stage.
Erik Vlietinck, IT.Enquirer
ScreenFlow, the first really powerful screen recording software for the Mac is being upgraded to version 3 by Telestream. The new version sports a number of improvements that turn ScreenFlow 3 in an absolute winner in this market, but I also found a couple of bugs that need to be ironed out.
Nathan Alderman, Macworld
Light, fleet, and beautiful to behold, the email app dubbed Sparrow lives up to its name. Free from extraneous features, Sparrow does nothing but IMAP-based email in an efficient and elegant fashion.
David Sparks, Macworld
Josh Lowensohn, CNET
Brunerd
Now by default in Safari 5.1, when you hit Command-F and type in a word, Safari will match words that “Start with” your search item.
Mike De La Flor, Macworld UK
Still cutting edge with improved character animation and hyper-realistic dynamics.
Eric Slivka, MacRumors
Dan Frakes, Macworld
Eric Slivka, MacRumors
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
Apart from the inclusion of the built-in Kindle Store, users have little reason to use Cloud Reader on a smartphone or a tablet over a native app. The store is the Web app's major highlight, and I can see people using Cloud Reader to buy content more than actually reading the content there. For reading, I still prefer either the native iPad app or the Kindle hardware itself, but the availability of the Web app does make it easy to read from anywhere. I don't believe Amazon will ditch its apps for iOS or Android, either—users like options, after all, and the experience is a bit more smooth—but Amazon has clearly seen the benefits of using the Web to get around app store rules.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
Dave Rosenberg, CNET
Apple's Mac operating system has surpassed Linux in popularity as a development environment in North America, according to an Evans Data survey.
Ryan Paul, Ars Technica
In short, the new Mac mini is a strong update that brings a lot more credibility to Apple's entry-level Mac. The decent performance, compact form factor, and minimal energy consumption add up to make the mini a winner.
Dan Moren, Macworld
Kirk McElhearn, Macworld
If you manage complex projects, a program such as OmniFocus is probably a better, though more expensive, choice—Todo’s limitations make it impractical for complex projects. But if your needs are somewhere in between complex project management and simple lists, Todo is a fine program. Its limitations won’t affect most users, though I’d like to see better documentation and font and style options.
Lukas Mathis, Ignore The Code
How you balance simplicity and depth depends on who you want your audience to be.
Eric Slivka, MacRumors
"We're simplifying the Fifth Avenue cube. By using larger, seamless pieces of glass, we're using just 15 panes instead of 90."
Joe Kissell, Macworld
Some of these new or revised features behave in ways one might not expect, but with a few key pieces of information you’ll be ready to use them to their full potential.
The Practice Of Code
So the jump from the 2010 MacBook Air Toshiba to the 2011 MacBook Air Samsung is pretty sizable (almost 65% faster at random tests). The dip in performance from Lion FileVault is also not insignificant (up to 14% in random tests).
Lex Friedman, Macworld
If you found Spaces too confusing or too much trouble in Snow Leopard, you should give virtual desktops another try in Lion. Mission Control combines features of Spaces and Exposé and makes them way more usable. A trio of Hints readers have offered up some tips that make Mission Control easier to work with—which could make you more productive.
Jackie Dove, Macworld
Quark, developer of the desktop publishing software QuarkXPress, has been acquired by Platinum Equity, a Los Angeles merger and acquisition company, for an undisclosed sum.
Stuart Dredge, The Guardian
Faber and Touch Press released their iPad app for T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land in early June, and saw it rise up the App Store charts fuelled by acclaim from the literary and technology press, as well as featured placement from Apple. So how has it done since? Rather well, according to head of Faber Digital Henry Volans.
Jonathan Seff, Macwold
On Monday, Apple released Lion Recovery Disk Assistant, a tool that lets you fix a Mac with a corrupted or dead hard drive by creating a Lion Recovery volume on an external hard drive or USB stick.
Jonathan Seff, Macworld
Christopher Breen, Macworld
But that this iMac is the last of its line—a computer designed for an inefficient learning environment. In the future Apple will push portable in the form of less-expensive laptops and iPads as the way computing devices can really help contribute to education.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
It’s a way of creating a template document.
Dan Moren, Macworld
Devir Kahan
If you are an app developer or icon designer for an app developer, ditch the shine. The shine just flat out makes icons look terrible. And I find this all rather funny as Apple really did this in the first place to make icons look nicer.
Ross Catanzariti, ARN
Apple's latest MacBook Air may look virtually identical to the previous model, but it's under the hood that most of its improvements lie. Faster Intel Core i5 and optional Core i7 processors gives Apple's ultra portable notebook a huge performance boost. The Air is still an expensive proposition on the whole, but the extra grunt combined with a thin and light design, fast, flash-based storage, and excellent battery life make it a worthy option for road warriors.
Adam Berenstain, Macworld
With Tumult’s Hype 1.0.3, you can create interactive HTML 5 animations without typing a single line of code. It’s simple enough to use that even novices will get great-looking results quickly, although there’s room for improvement. Limited design tools and an inflexible interface can interfere with building complex projects.
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Apple on Monday unveiled a new, $999 “education only” 21.5-inch iMac. The new iMac—which is available only to authorized education purchasers, not educational customers buying through Apple's public-facing education store, is cheaper but less powerful than the $1200 base 21.5-inch iMac offered to all consumers.
Sanjiv Sathiah, Electronista
Our view is based mostly on the addition of the discrete graphics card in the 2.5GHz edition, which turns it into more of a 'grown up' system that can handle more than just the basics. The Mac mini is a well-built and distinctive system, and a good gateway into the Mac universe if you're a typical Windows user. The only real hitch is that it isn't meant for everyone.
Michelle Spitzer, Florida Today
New York Times
The best thing for everyone, Apple included, is public access to plans before projects are built, not after.
AppleCasts
Gene Steinberg, Tech Night Owl
Matt Neuburg, TidBITS
Moreover, there’s a larger question at stake: Who, precisely, is in charge? I think it should be me, but Lion disagrees — and not in this respect alone. Automatic Termination is merely one aspect of an overall “nanny state” philosophy characteristic of Lion, and which I find objectionable. When I tell an application to run, I mean it to run, until I tell it to quit; Lion thinks it knows better, and terminates the application for me.
Ted Landau, Macworld
Roman Loyola, Macworld
FileVault 2 not onlyencrypts your Mac’s internal drive, but it can also encrypt external drives. Interested in securing your data? We’ll take you through the steps here.
Adam Berenstain, Macworld
If you want a simple way to create attractive interactive websites, Karelia Software’s Sandvox 2.1.4 may be the ticket. Its template-based WYSIWYG tools make building sophisticated pages a snap. But this convenience comes with limited design options that might vex users expecting to create truly unique-looking sites.
Jonny Evans, Computerworld
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
Lion users who run into disk trouble may be able to get a USB recovery drive with a Lion installer for free from AppleCare—if a tech support person decides that the situation qualifies. Apple sent out an internal memo to AppleCare and Apple Store employees earlier this week that USB flash drives with Lion are now available to give to qualifying customers, though the customer has to have explored other options first.
Brent Simmons, Inessential
Here are a few things I’ve been doing lately to write better code, and less code, with less effort.
Eric Slivka, MacRumors
Apple today addressed that confusing behavior with the release of Xcode 4.1.1 through the Mac App Store, a small delta update that removes the installation alert that has been causing problems for users. Users who have already successfully installed Xcode 4.1 do not need to install the updated version.
Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times
When you prepare to lay out a grand or two for a new Mac, you’re hoping for a transformative experience. Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt do for the Mac in 2011 what a flux capacitor and a Mr. Fusion machine did for a DeLorean in “Back To The Future.”
Derrick Story, Macworld
Dan Frakes, Macworld
If you need to edit or process your images, you’ll want a full-featured image editor such as Acorn or Photoshop. But for frequent resizing tasks, ImageXY is quick to launch, easy to use, and fast to finish.
Casey Johnston, Ars Technica
Gene Steinberg, Tech Night Owl
Jason Snell, Macworld
Sharon Zardetto, Macworld
Farhad Manjoo, New York Times
Chris Eidhof
On Mac and iOS, there has always been a culture of quality. Applications are very polished, and you can see that developers really put effort into building their products. This is a lot of fun and very inspiring for a developer. It pushes you to raise the bar and have higher standards. The defaults provided by Apple are very high quality too, which means it’s easy to build something that works and looks good.
Daniel Jalkut, Red Sweater
Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
Their conclusion: Macs provide good protection against the initial phases of the attack, but once the bad guys are on the network, it’s a whole different story. “They’re pretty good for [protecting from] remote exploitation,” Stamos said. “[But] once you install OS X server you’re toast.”
The problem is that many of Apple’s server protocols—mDNS, Apple Remote Desktop, the Mac Kerberos authentication, for example—use weak authentication models that give the attackers ways of getting access to parts of the network that should be blocked. “Every password-based authentication mechanism in OS X has problems,” Stamos said.
Philip Michaels, Macworld
QuickTime 7.7 for Leopard is solely a security update. Apple provides few details about specific issues addressed by the 68.85MB download in its release notes, but it promises information “on the security content of this update” for users who want to dig into this support document.
Jeffery Battersby, Macworld
How do you manage your personal finances if Quicken won’t work with Lion? Fortunately there are several alternatives to help you keep tabs on your cash flow.
Christopher Breen, Macworld
Shawn Blanc
After using the 13-inch MacBook Air for almost two weeks, it has been difficult to pinpoint exactly what it is about this laptop that makes it so great. I don’t think it’s so much in what the Air is, but rather what it is not — or rather, what it doesn’t have. The Air doesn’t have an optical drive, it doesn’t have many ports, it doesn’t have a removable battery, and it doesn’t have much weight.
It’s the subtraction of all these things that adds up to make the Air such an attractive and incredible computer.
Dan Frakes, Macworld
Without an optical drive, the 2011 mini may not be quite as versatile, but Core i5 processors mean that, for the first time, the mini is a serious performer—nearly twice as fast as its predecessor and comparable to some of Apple’s latest MacBook Pro models. And with FireWire 800, Thunderbolt, and a reasonably accessible hard drive, even good storage performance is an option. Of course, it’s also great to see Apple bring the price back down to $599.
On the other hand, those who need great graphics performance won’t find it here, and the loss of an optical drive is likely to scare off some buyers, especially those looking to use the Mac mini as part of a home-media center (though the lack of a Blu-ray option anywhere in Apple’s product line already made this a moot point for some).
I, Cringely
In an era where interest rates on idling cash are averaging one percent, Apple is using its cash to get 15-20 percent discounts on parts. That’s exactly like earning a 15-20 percent interest rate.
Iljitsch Van Beijnum, Ars Technica
The higher quality screen with its higher resolution is often a joy to use. The keyboard was already very good and regains the highly desirable backlighting. The size and weight are a revelation. The SSD is amazing, the CPU capable, the GPU adequate. Battery life can be good, but it can also trend towards mediocre if you let too many applications run in the background.
Christina Larson, Foreign Policy
The result is that Apple's image in China now emphasizes not rebellion, but luxury -- or as Wolf puts it, "exclusivity." Its gorgeous glass-walled stores are located next to high-end clothing boutiques like Armani, Versace, and BMW Lifestyle. Apple is seen as the choice of "top white-collar professionals," as stylish 30-something Lily Ou told me, glancing up from a row of brightly colored iPhone cases at Beijing's Sanlitun Apple Store. Ou is a sales manager for an international food distributor. "I like to show off my Apple identity," she said.
Jordan Golson, MacRumors
The new ones are much friendlier, telling viewers about iPhone features and noting they are "just one more thing that makes an iPhone an iPhone."
Sascha Segan, PC Magazine
I'd also like to see Apple and Google starting to include more data-optimization technologies, like Opera and BlackBerry use to shrink Web pages and other Internet content. If we're in for an era of data scarcity, I'd rather sip data than not be able to use it at all.
Dan Miller, Macworld
The main appeal of CleanHaven is its straightforward simplicity: You’d likely be able to use all of the program’s features right away, without any tutoring or help.
Ryan Faas, Computerworld
Here’s a look at how Lion will affect the existing processes at those organizations and what companies considering a big Mac investment should keep in mind.
Dan Moren, Macworld
Lex Friedman, Macworld
Daniel Eran Dilger, AppleInsider
Apple has posted a not yet fully functional login page for its new iCloud service, representing a revamped version of its existing Mail, Contacts, Calendar and Find My iPhone MobileMe apps as well as newly integrating the document sharing features of iWork.com.
Glenn Fleishman, TidBITS
Adding 10 GB, 20 GB, and 50 GB of iCloud space (for totals of 15, 25, and 55 GB) costs $20, $40, and $100 per year, respectively.
Jason Snell, Macworld
At just a hair below three pounds, the 13-inch MacBook Air will probably hit the sweet spot for users accustomed to larger computer screens. But for my money, the 11-inch Air is the real winner here. At $999, it's now holding down the low-price end of the Apple laptop market. It will almost certainly be the laptop of choice for students, and they'll love its light weight and small size.
Ben Brooks, The Brook Review
Lukas Mathis, Ignore The Code
Jonathan Seff, Macworld
Owners of the second-generation Apple TV can now stream previously purchased TV shows directly from the iTunes Store, as well as watch videos from the popular video-hosting site Vimeo, thanks to a software update released on Monday.
Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica
On Monday, renowned iOS developer Mike Lee announced the Appsterdam Legal Defense Team, which will be made up of indie developers fighting patent trolls as a single unit and funded by contributions from participating companies. The goal, aside from the obvious one of being free from frivolous patent lawsuits, is to become "the ants of East Texas, minding their business until someone invades their anthill."
Jackie Dove, Macworld
Adobe has unveiled Edge, a new motion and interaction design tool that lets creative pros build Flash-style animated Web content using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS. It is available now as a free public preview release from Adobe Labs.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.