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Monday, October 31, 2011

WriteRoom 3.0 Adds Full Lion Support, Word Count Tracking

Alexandra Chang, Macworld

The latest version adds full support for OS X Lion features, along with the ability to share themes with others, track your writing progress, and more.

Apple's In-store Pickup Option Expands To New York City Stores

AppleInsider

Using Siri And MailShot Pro To Send Email To Groups

Steven Sande, TUAW

ScreenFlow 3.0 Rises Above Ordinary Screen Capture Utilities

Chris McVeigh, Macworld

This amazing app helps you create computer-based tutorial videos by recording your screen activity (along with narration), which you can then share online with friends and fans.

RunKeeper Gets A Major Upgrade

Steven Sande, TUAW

Auto Pause pauses tracking when you stop moving, then starts up the timer again when you begin running again.

IT's Guide To Managing Macs In The OS X Lion Era

Ryan Faas, InfoWorld

This Mac management guide will help you extend your existing support strategies to Mac workstations, and provide tips and techniques for embracing Macs as they become more prevalent in your business environment.

Printing From iPad Shouldn't Cost Extra $80-$400

Steve Alexandra, Arizona Daily Star

The larger point is that consumers who just paid several hundred dollars for a tablet computer shouldn't also have to buy new USB connectors or wireless printers - they should be able to use the technology they already own.

The Seed Of Something Great: Acorn 3.1 Reviewed

Dave Girard, Ars Technica

It's not a Photoshop clone, it's not dumbed down, it has vector tools, good (if buggy) type handling, and it's laid out in an uncluttered way that means a lot to those for whom this program is intended. Nice touches make this an easy app to recommend for image editing on the cheap, but what it lacks, even within this context, makes it just shy of great.

Apple Launches Three New iPhone 4S Ads

Chris Rawson, TUAW

Apple has kicked its iPhone 4S ad campaign into high gear with three new commercials featuring Siri, the new 8 megapixel camera, and integration with iCloud.

Ambitious iOS Apps

Fraser Speirs

When iOS first appeared, it was a smartphone OS. Today, with the iPad, it's much more than that. To be an "ambitious" iOS app, I think you need to be doing one or more of the following things.

Sunday, October 30, 2011

A Sister’s Eulogy For Steve Jobs

Mona Simpson, New York Times

But with that will, that work ethic, that strength, there was also sweet Steve’s capacity for wonderment, the artist’s belief in the ideal, the still more beautiful later.

An Apple A Day...

Michael Gartenberg, Macworld

It's easier to get in shape with your iPhone and iPod to help you out.

Lion Frustrations? Don’t Forget TinkerTool

Matt Neuburg, TidBITS

TinkerTool is a brilliant one-window application that presents itself as a series of panes, rather like System Preferences, each pane providing checkboxes or other interface for throwing undocumented under-the-hood switches in your system and in some Apple-provided software, such as the Finder and Safari. It customizes itself automatically to the particular system and version you’re using, so the options you’ll see are always the right options. And, like TidBITS, it takes a conservative stance; its only options are those that have been determined to be safe and useful.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

iOS 5 Reminders From An OmniFocus User’s Perspective

Don Southard, MacStories

QuickCal Makes It Easy To Add To And View Your Calendars

Dan Frakes, Macworld

Bugs & Fixes: True Sync Of iWork Docs Between Macs And iCloud

Ted Landau, Macworld

If you’re willing to stray from Apple’s recommended path, you can auto-sync between Macs and iCloud—without any need for a web browser. You do it via the Mobile Documents folder—an iCloud-based folder on your Mac that works a lot like Dropbox.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Apps Are The New Channels

John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Why not the same thing for TV channels? We’re seeing the beginnings of this, with iPhone and iPad apps like HBO Go, Watch ESPN, and the aforementioned Bloomberg TV+. Letting each TV network do their own app allows them the flexibility that writing software provides. News networks can combine their written and video news into an integrated layout. Networks with contractual obligations to cable operators, like HBO and ESPN, can write code that requires users to log in to verify their status as an eligible subscriber.

Apple's Tongue-tied Siri Faces 'Singlish' Rival

AFP

Singapore's SingTel has developed an application to rival the voice-activated Siri on the iPhone 4S that is sure to go down well in the island state -- because it can understand "Singlish".

Siri Behind The Wheel

Farhad Manjoo, Slate

Texting-while-driving laws are unclear, inconsistent, and spottily enforced. Here’s how to fix them.

Apple's New Siri Could Get You Into Hot Water Behind The Wheel.

Patrick May, San Jose Mercury News

While Apple's (AAPL) new digital darling is quite adept at putting your calls through or setting up lunch appointments, Siri still requires some good old-fashioned finger-work on your part. For starters, activating her requires you to push the iPhone's home button, which might worry some law-abiding motorists. But California Highway Patrol spokesman D.J. Sarabia says the problem with cell-phone legislation is that you can ask "ten of us in law enforcement and you'll get ten slightly different interpretations. I'd say that holding down the start button for two seconds until she comes on probably doesn't violate the law. But then it's one of those subjective things that in the end a judge will have to rule on.''

In the meantime, when in doubt, keep your mobile conversations with Siri to a minimum, says Sgt. Trent Cross with the California Highway Patrol. "You shouldn't be using Siri or playing with your lap dog or putting on makeup while you're driving," says Cross. "Lives are lost when people get distracted. That's why we highly discourage drivers from doing anything except driving while they're driving."

Import Camera Videos Directly Into iMovie '11

Jeff Carlson, Macworld

Daily Mac App: Trillian

Megan Lavey-Heaton, TUAW

If you need a solid text-based IM client with updates handled through the Mac App Store and syncing, Trillian is a good way to go.

Apple's ALAC Codec Is Now Open Source

Chris Rawson, TUAW

"Apple Lossless Audio Codec sources are available under the Apache license," according to Mac OS Forge, and the project "contains the sources for the ALAC encoder and decoder."

The Problem With Lion’s Duplicate Command

Jeff Carlson, TidBITS

I will admit that duplicating a document and then saving it later does make some conceptual sense. But why is there the delay between creating the duplicate and saving it to disk? Why doesn’t Duplicate open the new window and automatically, quickly, let you choose how to save it?

10.7: Command+Tab Now Stops At The End Of The Bezel

Macworld

To loop back around, you need to release Tab and press it again.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Reopen Recently Closed Tabs In Safari For iPad

Whitson Gordon, Lifehacker

In Safari for iOS 5, just press and hold on the "new tab" plus sign on the right, and you'll see a menu of your recently closed tabs. Nifty!

Adobe Carousel Review: Sync & Edit Photos Anywhere

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Spreaker: Podcasting At The Intersection Of Social And Mobile

Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet

Spreaker (free) just went live in the App Store this morning and it does for audio what Twitter does for text (and YouTube does for video): it makes it easy to share audio content across social networks.

Bloomberg TV And DirecTV Debut New Live Streaming Services For iPad

Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Financial media and data company Bloomberg today launched a new Bloomberg TV+ app for the iPad, offering free, ad-supported live streaming of the financial news channel.

Pixelmator 2.0 Now Available On The Mac App Store, Our First Impressions

Graham Spencer, MacStories

A big drawcard for many will be Pixelmator’s new drawing tools that make it easy to create, combine and edit vector shapes easily. A new ‘Shape Settings’ palette also makes it simple to adjust the shadow, stroke and fill of a vector shape. A new healing tool in Pixelmator 2.0 features content-aware fill technology so that it is easy to remove ‘objects’ from a photograph and make it appear as though it was never even there.

Adobe Launches Carousel App And Photo Service For Mac And iOS

Arnold Kim, MacRumors

Adobe has launched the Universal iOS app and Mac app for Carousel this evening. Carousel is Adobe's cloud storage service that allows you to access your entire photo library from all your devices.

Apple Issues EFI Firmware, iPhoto, QuickTime Updates

AppleInsider

Apple on Wednesday issued EFI Firmware updates for its Thunderbolt-equipped iMac, Mac Mini, Macbook Pro and Macbook Air computers, as well as minor updates to QuickTime for Windows and iPhoto.

iMessage May Slip Past Police Monitoring

Josh Taylor, ZDNet

Apple's new iMessage application, which bypasses carrier SMS services in favour of data, raises questions about police ability to intercept messages, according to James Espie, product manager for applications at Vodafone.

As companies such as Apple and Skype increasingly take on functions that were traditionally the domain of telcos, they were not taking on the same regulatory obligations as telcos, Espie said at the Planet of the Apps conference in Sydney today.

iPhoto 9.2.1 Update Fixes 3ivx Bug; Addresses Compatibility With iCloud And iOS 5

Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet

The 350+MB update to the popular photo management software addresses an issue that could cause iPhoto to quit unexpectedly on Macs with the 3ivxVideoCodec plug-in installed.

'Codify' Brings Touch Based Programming To iPad

Arnold Kim, MacRumors

iOS developers TwoLivesLeft have just released an interesting new app called Codify, which brings touch based programming to the iPad.

EFI Firmware 2.2 Patches MacBook Air (Mid 2011) Thunderbolt Issues

Jason D. O'Grady, ZDNet

Apple has released MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.2 which fixes issues with the current-generation, (mid 2011) MacBook Air related to Thunderbolt Display compatibility and Thunderbolt Target Disk Mode performance.

Apple Has Made Some Very Subtle Updates To The Visual Design For iOS 5.

Users Illusions

They (Macs) Just Work, Duh

Three Guys And A Podcast

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Apple's 2011 Annual Report: More Hiring, More Sales, No Dividends Coming

Jordan Golson, MacRumors

Condé Nast Sees iPad Subscription Boom With Newsstand

Steven Sande, TUAW

Publisher Condé Nast is reporting that subscriptions for the digital editions of its titles have jumped 268 percent since Newsstand was released on October 12, 2011.

iMessengers Be Warned

Technochocolate

iMessage, one of the headlining features of iOS 5, has a peculiarity with handling multiple recipient messages that you should keep in mind.

Apple's Sometimes-screwball Design Aesthetic

Jason Kottke

I don't know, it's really confusing how the same company, especially one that had such strong design leadership, could produce something as beautifully spare as iOS and something as cheesy as the Game Center app.

Gems Revisited: Fantastical 1.1 And Moom 2.3.1

Dan Frakes, Macworld

'Tsunami' Backdoor Trojan For Mac OS X Spotted

Ben Camm-Jones, Macworld

A Trojan targeting computers running Mac OS X which can be used to launch DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attacks on websites has been discovered.

Apple Online Store Begins Offering In-Store Pickup In San Francisco

Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Users adding products to their shopping cart are now presented with an option of whether to have their order shipped or made available for pickup. Customers can search for their closest Apple retail stores based on zip code, although options are obviously limited with the pilot program currently including only three stores: San Francisco flagship, Stonestown, and Chestnut Street.

Solve Mail Search Problems

Joe Kissell, Macworld

Even when you know the basics of searching in Lion’s Mail, sometimes an email message you clearly remember stubbornly stays lost. If a Mail search doesn’t display messages that you know it should—and you’ve ruled out user error such as selecting the wrong mailbox, or choosing a header instead of message contents—there are several possible causes. Which solution to use depends on whether errors occur searching message contents (the body of your message) or headers (the contents of the To, CC, BCC, From, and Subject fields).

Running With Nike+: Putting The 2011 iPod Nano To The Test

Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica

I'll cut to the chase: Nike+ on the new iPod nano was not particularly accurate for me on speed or distance, but the poor speed calculation is likely because of the inaccurate distance estimate.

Iris 9000 Lets You Boss Siri Around From Across The Room

Jared Erondu, Macgasm

This voice control module from ThinkGeek lets you control Apple’s Siri from up to 50 feet away. In addition, it has an embedded speaker that amplifies Siri’s responses.

Macworld Expo Rebranded As 'Macworld|iWorld' For 2012

Eric Slivka, MacRumors

iPhone 4S Inconsistent Camera Auto-focus

Christopher Breen, Macworld

So yes, there’s an issue, but its consistency can’t be counted on. In the meantime, if you really need to focus on a subject and your iPhone seems incapable of it, give the screen a very gentle tap to focus.

Is Mobile Browsing Faster On iOS 5? Yes- It’s Significantly Better In Our Snapshot Comparison

New Relic

Troubleshooting A Battery-sucking iPhone 4S

Christopher Breen, Macworld

My hope is that not only can I describe how I went about troubleshooting the problem, but call upon others who have experienced poor battery performance to comment here so that we may be better able to pinpoint common issues.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

iOS Basics: Navigate On Your iPhone Or iPad

Macworld

StoryMill 4.0 Ideal For Ultra-organized Novel Writers

Nathan Alderman, Macworld

If you plan your novels with military precision, Mariner Software’s StoryMill 4.0.4 could be the right ally to launch your literary assault. However, writers who engage in a more freeform approach might find the program’s data-heavy approach confining, and those craving even more power and functionality might not find it here.

Change Application Categories In Lion

Macworld

Subtext Brings Social And Gaming To Ebook Reading

Alexandra Chang, Macworld

The app aims to enhance users’ reading experiences with notes—embedded directly into the pages of an ebook—from authors, experts, and Subtext community members; and rewards points to users who contribute to the discussion.

Google Reader And Mac/iOS RSS Readers That Sync

Brent Simmons, Inessential

I’m not an RSS reader developer any more. But if I were, I’d start looking for an alternative syncing system right now.

The Best Time Tracking App For Mac OS X

Adam Dachis, Lifehacker

Apple Addresses Video Freeze Issue On Mid-2010 15-Inch MacBook Pro

Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Apple today released MacBook Pro Video Update 1.0, a new software update designed to address freezing and other video issues on the company's Mid-2010 version of the 15-inch MacBook Pro.

Steve Jobs Solved The Innovator's Dilemma

James Allworth, Havard Business Review

Jobs was profoundly influenced by the Innovator's Dilemma — he saw the company he created almost die from it. When he returned to Apple, Jobs was determined to solve it. And he did. That "subtle difference" — of flipping the priorities away from profit and back to great products — took Apple from three months away from bankruptcy, to one of the most valuable and influential companies in the world.

Over The High-Tech Rainbow

Sue Halpern, New York Review Of Books

Money and magic numbers couldn’t save Steve Jobs, and according to Rothberg, “it will probably be twenty years before we understand cancer the way we understand HIV.” If that happens, what Jobs and his medical team were trying to accomplish—tailoring treatment to the individual attributes of both the patient and his particular disease—will become commonplace. Once again, Jobs was playing where the puck was going to be, only this time he got there too soon. It remains to be seen if, twenty years hence, we will have the kind of society and the kind of health care system that lets the rest of us follow.

iPad Rental Business Is Booming In Madrid, Spain

Mike Schramm, TUAW

PadInTheCity is a company offering up an intriguing proposition: Rent a 3G iPad while you happen to be touring around the city of Madrid, Spain.

Apple Tweaks Smart Cover Line, Removes The Orange Color & Adds New Dark Gray Version

Graham Spencer, MacStories

Apple has also tweaked the design of the Smart Covers with all the leather models now featuring a “color-matched microfiber lining”.

Syncing iCloud With Windows And Outlook

Tony Bradley, Macworld

Apple’s iCloud is a nice tool for keeping contacts, calendar items, and other data in sync between my iPhone and iPad, but what about keeping everything synced up with my Windows PC?

Monday, October 24, 2011

How To Find Mail Messages In Lion

Joe Kissell, Macworld

The easiest way to find something is to type one or more words in the Search box and see what shows up in the message list—you need not even press Return. By default, Mail looks for whatever you typed in the contents of all your messages. However, you can narrow down your searches in several ways.

Apple Updates MacBook Pro With Faster Processor

Jim Dalrymple, The Loop

Apple on Monday updated its MacBook Pro line of notebook computers, adding faster processors and graphics cards.

Launch App Quicksilver Roars Onto Mac OS X Lion

Tom Cheredar, Venture Beat

Steve Jobs Biography - Defaced By Japan

Not Haruki

Koudansha, the largest Japanese publishing house, has just defaced the new Steve Jobs biography by modifying the original cover and adding superflous headlines (with a cover strip).

Apple’s Lower Prices Are All Part Of The Plan

Nick Wingfield, New York Times

Something unexpected has happened at Apple, once known as the tech industry’s high-price leader. Over the last several years it began beating rivals on price.

Apple Posts Steve Jobs Celebration Video From October 19th

Arnold Kim, MacRumors

Apple has posted a video from the Steve Jobs memorial/celebration held on Apple's campus on October 19th, 2011. The 80 minute video is available on Apple's site. All of the retail stores were closed during the event so that everyone could watch.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

10 Years Of The iPod: A Design Retrospective

Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica

Saturday, October 22, 2011

An Analysis Of Steve Jobs Tribute Messages Displayed By Apple

neilkodner.com

I decided to take a closer look at what people are saying about Steve Jobs, as a whole. Looking at how the site updates, it appears to use Ajax to retrieve and display new messages. Using Chrome’s developer tools, I monitored the requests it was making to get the new messages.

How Steve Jobs Ruined My Life

Raymond Jepson, Core77

The genius of Jobs and Apple wasn't the product. It was the vision, the process and the people.

How To Get All Your Apps Everywhere

Roy Furchgott, New York Times

In iTunes, click on “Purchased” in the left sidebar. In the lower right hand corner, it says “Download Previous Purchases.” Click that.

In Safari 5.1.1 , Show Downloads Is Back

Macworld

It’s All About Discovery

Ian Betteridge, Technovia

Making The iBio For Apple’s Genius

Janet Maslin, New York Times

Mr. Jobs, the brilliant and protean creator whose inventions so utterly transformed the allure of technology, turned those childhood lessons into an all-purpose theory of intelligent design. He gave Mr. Isaacson a chance to play by the same rules. His story calls for a book that is clear, elegant and concise enough to qualify as an iBio. Mr. Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” does its solid best to hit that target.

Smart Cover Unlock Bug May Lead To iPad 2 Data Exposure

Chris Rawson, TUAW

Press and hold the iPad 2's power button to elicit the "Slide to Power Off" slider -- but don't slide the control to actually turn it off. Next, close the Smart Cover over the iPad's display to put the device to sleep. Finally, open the Smart Cover and click Cancel on the power off screen. From there, the iPad will present whatever was last running before you locked it.

Bugs & Fixes: Losing iWork Documents In iCloud

Ted Landau, Macworld

That’s correct. There is no automatic syncing between Macs and iCloud. If you later edit the document on your Mac, your changes are not automatically updated to the copy on iCloud.

Complete Guide To FileVault 2 In Lion

Glenn Fleishman, Macworld

Pear Note For iOS Review

Joel Mathis, Macworld

An indispensable tool for anyone who uses their tablet to jot down notes.

Friday, October 21, 2011

First iPhone 4S TV Commercial Features Siri

Chris Rawson, TUAW

Avid Releases Pro Tools 10

Jim Dalrymple, The Loop

iPhone 101: Disable Siri With iPhone Passcode To Prevent Unauthorized Use

Steven Sande, TUAW

Moving To An iPhone 4S

Serenity Caldwell, Macworld

Thanks to iOS 5’s step-by-step activation process, Apple’s made it pretty simple to get started; but just in case you need some extra help, we’ve put together a comprehensive guide for activating your new iPhone, transferring data from your old phone, and some suggestions for exploring your 4S’s new features.

Apple Manager Breaks Rule, Makes 10-Year-Old Girl's Dreams Come True

Ben Popken, The Consumerist

"About three stores down, an Apple employee raced after them and explained that the manager was going to make an exception and let them in. When they were let in the store, they were the only customers in the place and every one of the employees stopped what they were doing as my daughter approached the register."

Apple Announces iOS 5 Tech Talk World Tour 2011

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Apple has just announced the new iOS 5 Tech Talk World Tour, which will take place in nine cities this year.

Make Custom Tones For Your iPhone

Dan Moren, Macworld

While Apple would probably prefer you buy alert sounds from the Tones section of the iTunes Store, with a little time and know-how you can make your own custom tones from any song or sound. Here’s how.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Dragon Adds Recorder App For Time-shifted Desktop Dictation

Michael Rose, TUAW

Dragon Recorder is a free and straightforward voice recording app designed to pair with the company's transcription software; on the Mac, that means the $150 MacSpeech Scribe application. You can use Recorder to record your voice (only yours; Scribe and its Windows sister product are speaker-dependent) on the go, and then easily transfer the recordings via sync or Wi-Fi browser sharing for later transcription.

About Data Security With Safari-only Mode In OS X Lion

Topher Kessler, CNET

The second reason for Safari mode is its main purpose, which is to provide a means for the system to be used without potential damage or access to your data in the event your system has been stolen.

Celebration Of Steve Jobs' Life

Apple

iOS App 'Translates' PowerPoint For iPad Viewing

John Cox, Network World

A new iOS app from Brainshark lets Apple iPad users accurately view full-blown PowerPoint presentations on the tablet.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

New Mac OS X Malware Disables Apple's Malware Protection

Dancho Danchev, ZDNet

Security researchers from F-Secure have spotted a Mac OS X malware that disables Snow Leopard’s XProtect.plist antivirus signatures updates.

Apple Sneaks In GLONASS Location Support On iPhone 4S

Aayush Arya, The Next Web

GLONASS stands for Globalnaya Navigazionnaya Sputnikovaya Sistema (or “Global Navigation Satellite System” when translated from Russian) and is Russia’s alternative to the United States’ Global Positioning System (GPS). Its network comprises of 24 satellites that achieved full global coverage as recently as the beginning of this month.

The Economist Agrees To Apple Subscription Terms, Updates App

Joshua Schnell, Macgasm

We Taught Siri To Add Tasks To Remember The Milk

Remember The Milk Blog

Chronos SOHO Organizer 9 Keeps Track Of Contacts, Appointments, Bits Of Data

Brendan Wilhide, Macworld

SOHO Organizer 9 is a useful tool for any small business looking to consolidate paperwork or information in one place. It may not include all the bells and whistles of more expensive organization software but SOHO Organizer 9 strikes a useful balance between features and easy-of-use.

Put A Whiteboard On Your Laptop With DrawTop

Mike Schramm, TUAW

Apple Posts "Remembering Steve" Tributes From Fans

Arnold Kim, MacRumors

Apple has updated their Steve Jobs page on their site to reflect many memories, thoughts and feelings that people have submitted about Steve Jobs since his passing.

After A Rare Miss, Apple Predicts Record iPhone, iPad Sales And Hints At A $40 Billion Quarter

MG Siegler, TechCrunch

Yes, Apple missed with their earnings today. It’s the first time in a long time that has happened. Some are suggesting that hasn’t happened since 2002. That’s big news. But it’s also masking even bigger news: Apple’s expectations for next quarter.

Text Tips In OS X Lion

Topher Kessler, CNET

NetNewsWire 3.3 Gets Lion Friendly

FairerPlatform

iCloud On The Desktop: A Look At OS X 10.7.2 And iCloud For Windows

Andrew Cunningham, AnandTech

Tim Cook "Not Religious" About Holding Cash; 66% Of Apple's $81B In Cash Is Held Overseas

Jordan Golson, MacRumors

How To Get Siri To Correctly Pronounce Your Name Or Call You Something Else

TiPb

Apple Still Working On Allowing Merging Of Apple IDs

Eric Slivka, MacRumors

But those still hoping for a merging solution may be able to continue holding out hope, as Tim Cook appears to have reached out again, this time in a phone call to a customer in Luxembourg, once again noting that Apple is working on the issue.

All-time Mac, iPad Sales Help Apple Turn In Record Quarter

Philip Michaels, Macworld

The company announced Tuesday that it logged $28.27 billion in revenue and $6.62 billion in net profit for the three-month period ended on September 24. That’s an increase of 38 percent in revenue and 54 percent in profit from the year-ago numbers.

Wall Street may be less thrilled: analysts were looking for the company to post earnings of $7.39 a share and revenue of $29.69 billion, according to Thomson Reuters. Still, Apple’s results came in ahead of the forecast chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer offered in July, when he told analysts to expect earnings of $5.50 per share and revenues of $25 billion during the fourth quarter.

Apple To Close Some Retail Stores Wednesday During Jobs Memorial

Ian Sherr, Wall Street Journal

Apple plans to close some of its retail stores for at least an hour Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the matter, a gesture that coincides with the company’s planned celebration of co-founder Steve Jobs’s life at its headquarters.

Using Apple's Mobile AirPort Utility

Glenn Fleishman, Macworld

Promising Prospect: RestoreMeNot

Dan Frakes, Macworld

This free System Preferences pane, currently in beta, lets you easily disable the Resume feature for particular applications. Just click the Add (+) button, choose the application to be added, and click Open. If the chosen app is currently running, quit it and then launch it again for the change to take effect. It’s that simple.

Fantastical 1.1 Offers Editing, Notes, Full iCloud Support

Dave Caolo, TUAW

Users can now edit events and notes within Fantastical, and changes are immediately synchronized with iCloud.

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Apple Releases Minor 4.4.1 Software Update For Apple TV

AppleInsider

According to Apple, the software update addresses an issue that required a small number of Apple TV units to be connected to iTunes in order to complete last week's 4.4 update.

Turn Off iOS 5 Notifications

Lex Friedman, Macworld

The Best To-Do App For Mac OS X

Adam Dachis, Lifehacker

Wunderlist is a simple and beautiful to-do app that's very easy to use and understand. In terms of features, it sets somewhere in the middle between the minimalist to-do apps and the apps with every feature imaginable. This gives Wunderlist a healthy amount of focus. It just handles your tasks, and its feature set revolves around making adding and managing those tasks easier.

Contract Free iPhone 4S Already Available From Apple

Josh Wright, Macgasm

Once purchased, you simply activate the contract free phone via iTunes. You are immediately presented with a message announcing the successful unlock and you can be on your merry little way.

iTunes 10.5 Helps You Use iTunes Less Often

Christopher Breen, Macworld

What’s most exciting about iTunes 10.5 is that—thanks to iCloud and wireless syncing of iOS devices—you should have to sit down in front of the application far less frequently.

Bulk Delete Email On An iPhone

Christopher Breen, Macworld

So, if Apple won’t provide a solution and you’re unwilling to risk a repetitive stress injury, where do you turn? To your computer.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Learning To Work With Auto Save

David Sparks, Macworld

How To Replace A Color In A Photo

Dave Johnson, PCWorld

Instapaper 4.0 Available: Completely Redesigned iPad UI, New Features, Search Subscription

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Instapaper 4.0 deserved a proper look at all its new features, as it’s a major update that clearly shows how Marco Arment — who’s working on Instapaper full-time — really believes in Instapaper as the better way to read articles on the web. Everything is better in Instapaper 4.0: design, speed, social features, footnotes and dictionary definitions. Instapaper 4.0 improves on almost every aspect of the previous iPad version, while retaining the same basic concept that made the iPhone app great.

iPhone 4S First Weekend Sales Top Four Million

Apple

Apple® today announced it has sold over four million of its new iPhone® 4S, just three days after its launch on October 14. In addition, more than 25 million customers are already using iOS 5, the world’s most advanced mobile operating system, in the first five days of its release, and more than 20 million customers have signed up for iCloud®, a breakthrough set of free cloud services that automatically and wirelessly store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices.

iCloud Transition Off To A Rocky Start For MobileMe, Family Users

Chris Foresman, Ars Technica

Aside from Apple's servers being overloaded with MobileMe account transitions, some are having issues reconciling Apple's assumption that every user has a unique Apple ID and that every Apple ID is used for just one person.

How iOS 5 Will Affect Developers - And You

Matt Neuburg, TidBITS

To me, iOS 5 (from the programmer’s point of view) is a natural development, based largely on Apple’s own observation of the ways in which programmers have pushed at the boundaries of what the framework was readily permitting them to do; it’s an evolution, a coherent growth, gently expanding the programmer’s range of abilities while continuing to respect the conventions that have made iOS such a hotbed of great apps.

In Defence Of Objective-C

Chris Hulbert

An unashamed apologist’s perspective on the loveliest language i’ve worked with.

Are Smartphones Becoming Smart Alecks?

Geoffrey A. Fowler, Wall Street Journal

The creators of Siri put "deep thought" into the personality of their software, says Norman Winarsky, a co-founder of the company that was bought by Apple for $200 million in 2010. Siri was born out of an artificial intelligence project at SRI International, a research institute.

Siri has two distinct systems at its heart. One listens and translates what customers are saying, the other interprets the meaning behind the request and responds. It's in that last part where the sass comes in.

Luminaries Pay Tribute To Steve Jobs At Stanford Service

Peter Delevett, San Jose Mercury News

Friends of Jobs contacted prior to the proceedings were loathe to comment about the event -- either due to the extraordinary security measures or simply because it was a day for the technology industry to mourn its own.

Apple's iPhone Luring People To Ditch Rival Phones

Kate Holton And Poornima Gupta, Reuters

Apple Inc's latest iPhone looks set to become its bestselling device ever, and one reason appears to be disenchantment with rival smartphones.

Why So Siri-ous?

MG Siegler, TechCrunch

The simplest answer is one that has played out time and time again over the past several years: Apple did it right.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Apple iOS 5 Refines Features

Glenn Fleishman, The Seattle Times

Apple has reached a point with iOS where it can't provide features that make you want to tear your clothes off and run into the streets with joy. But it can smooth down the rough edges, freely borrow from its competitors' best innovations, and make you have to think even less about how you manage your device, and just let you use it.

Siri Will Never Open To 3rd Party Devs

Rob Cortez

Whether you are an iOS developer or not, after playing with Siri for 5 minutes, you can’t help but think “this thing is going to be incredible once other apps can plug in to her power.” Great in theory, but not in practice.

How Steve Jobs Changed

James Surowiecki, New Yorker

In giving up a little control, Jobs found a lot more power.

Apple Imposes 'One Device' Limitation On 'Find My Friends' Service

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, ZDNet

Picking Up Public Radio, But Still No Talking Back

Joshua Brustein, New York Times

Meanwhile, Back At The Lion Ranch...

Matt Neuburg, TidBITS

In my experiments, applications such as TextEdit and Preview did not vanish from the Command-Tab switcher the moment they were windowless and backgrounded. But they did eventually vanish from the Command-Tab switcher (and the Dock, if they weren’t a permanent resident there). So while the timing may have been changed, the basic behavior has not; and the basic behavior still seems to me to be just plain wrong.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Serving At The Pleasure Of The King

Jeff Atwood, Coding Horror

As a consumer, I like that Apple is perfectly willing to throw its software developers under a bus to protect me (or, more cynically, Apple itself). But as a software developer, I'm not sure I can cope with that and I am unlikely to ever develop anything for an iOS device as a result. If you choose to deliver software in the Apple ecosystem, this is simply the tradeoff you've chosen to make. Apple developers serve at the pleasure of the king.

iPhone 4S Seems To Fix 'Death Grip' Antenna Issue

Arnold Kim, MacRumors

Early testing and reports from iPhone 4S users seem to show that the signal drop from tightly gripping the iPhone has been diminished or even eliminated.

Apple Sets Steve Jobs Memorial For Sunday

Wall Street Journal

Apple Inc. has invited some of Silicon Valley's biggest names to a memorial service for Steve Jobs Sunday, Oct. 16, according to a copy of the invitation and several invitees. An Apple spokesman said the Sunday event is a private service.

How To Configure iCloud If You Share An Apple ID

Lex Friedman, Macworld

The good news is that you can continue to share an Apple ID for iTunes purchases with your family while maintaining individual, separate iCloud accounts. And the even better news is that Apple totally approves of your doing so, so you needn’t feel guilty about it.

Bugs & Fixes: Logging Into iCloud And MobileMe With Separate Accounts

Ted Landau, Macworld

Friday, October 14, 2011

There Are Some Siri Limitations Outside The US

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Many customers are finding out for the first time that Siri, the voice assistant Apple announced and demoed at the Let’s Talk iPhone media event last week, has some limitations outside the United States.

Siri Can Make Calls From A Locked iPhone (By Design)

Arnold Kim, MacRumors

Having Siri enabled while your phone is locked allows for you to continue to have hands free usage of your phone, even when in a locked state. Apple does offer you the ability to turn Siri off on the Lock Screen, if you prefer more security over convenience.

Apple Drops The Ball On Aussie iPhone 4S Pre-orders

Chris Rawson, TUAW

Unsurprisingly, it seems Apple has prioritized US and European-based pre-orders while leaving folks in the Southern Hemisphere in the lurch.

Siri Is Stuffed With Hilarious Easter Eggs

Charlie Sorrel, Wired

Not only is Siri shaping up to actually be as good as its hype, but it turns out the Apple and Siri engineers have tucked some excellent easter eggs inside — so many, in fact, someone has already started a Tumblr to catalog them all.

iOS Developer Claims Publishers Are 'Buying Their Way Up The Charts'

Pete Davison, GamePro

Ian Harper of Hungry Shark developer Future Games of London claimed that larger, more profitable publishers were effectively "buying their way up the charts" by making use of Cost Per Install marketing programs.

Cleaning…

Marco Arment

When the cleaner wipes it out, it appears that the app has failed and deleted their data. And customers won’t know that it’s an iOS 5 behavior — they’ll understandably blame the app developers. Even though it’s not our fault, it’s certainly going to become our problem.

There needs to be a file storage location that behaves the way Caches did before iOS 5: it’s not backed up to iTunes or iCloud, it’s not synced, but it’s also never deleted unless the app is deleted.

iPhone 4S Teardown

iFixIt

Thursday, October 13, 2011

iOS 5: Newsstand Overview

Graham Spencer, MacStories

Now with iOS 5, developers that are developing Newsstand apps can deliver a new “souped-up” push notification that informs their app (rather than the user as push notifications normally do), that a new issue is ready to be downloaded. When a Newsstand app receives such a notification, it can download in the background if the device is on WiFi. The main limitation here is that each app can only send 1 of these push notifications per day, so at the moment developers cannot develop newspapers that deliver both a morning edition and evening edition – although I suspect this might change eventually.

Secrets Of iOS 5

Jeff Carlson, TidBITS

Now that iOS 5 is out, we can focus our spotlight on stuff that we feel is cool, overlooked, or both.

Demand For iOS 5 And iCloud Was So High, Apple Almost Broke The Internet

Matt Brian, The Next Web

Taking Away The Magic

Rui Carmo, Tao Of Mac

And Apple took away that magic, bestowing it solely to iPad 2 owners and leaving my hindbrain and fingers pointlessly swiping every now and then.

Zone One By Colson Whitehead – Review

Patrick Ness, The Guardian

By nearly any definition, Whitehead is a literary writer of impeccable credentials. A MacArthur grant recipient, he's been shortlisted for both a Pulitzer and a National Book Award. He's written serious historical and contemporary fiction, but in a surprising move, he has now turned his hand to that most ubiquitous of modern phenomena: zombies.

iOS 5: Tips, Tricks & Hidden Features

Chris Herbert, MacStories

Scott Forstall, The Sorcerer's Apprentice At Apple

Adam Satariano, Peter Burrows And Brad Stone, BusinessWeek

As the person in charge of Apple’s mobile software division, he oversees the iOS operating system, which runs the iPhone and iPad, devices that account for 70 percent of Apple’s revenues. At 42 he’s the youngest senior executive at Apple. He may also be the best remaining proxy for the voice of Steve Jobs, the person most likely to channel the departed co-founder’s exacting vision for how technology should work.

The Speaker

Dustin Curtis

Yet another one of those design decisions that you don’t really appreciate until you see someone doing it wrong.

Review: BBEdit By Bare Bones Software

MacNN

BBEdit, from Bare Bones Software, is a robust text editor that can perform many coding functions. Although it is easy to use, it has many complex features. It can open almost any length document, provides custom color-coding, and offers multiple find options.

The Good, Bad And Ugly Of Apple’s iOS 5 Update And iCloud

Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times

A quick glance might not convince you that Apple’s changed much of anything. And yet this is probably the most fundamental shift Apple has made to the iPhone and the iPad since the company begrudgingly conceded that maybe allowing third-party developers to write apps for these things might be a good idea after all.

Lion Recovery Update 1.0 Released

Peter Cohen, The Loop

Apple Releases Xcode 4.2

Eric Slivka, MacRumors

Mac OS X 10.7.2, iPhoto 9.2 Bring iCloud Support

Lex Friedman, Macworld

Included in the 10.7.2 update is Safari 5.1.1, which adds the aforementioned iCloud support, along with a variety of other improvements. JavaScript performance is improved up to 13 percent over Safari 5.1, and Apple says that various hangs and excessive memory usage are addressed, too.

OTA Everything

Ben Brooks, The Brooks Review

From the OTA Delta updates to iOS itself, to iCloud, to WiFi sync — this is the stuff that really makes iOS devices feel magic.

Some Users Face Problems Upgrading To iOS 5

Lex Friedman, Macworld

iOS 5 Now Protects Against DigiNotar, MD5-signed Certs

Chris Foresman, Ars Technica

The update removes trust for any and all security certificates from hacked certificate authority DigiNotar, and drops support for certs with MD5 hashes and updates TLS to version 1.2 to improve security of SSL connections.

Getting Started With iCloud, Apple's New Sync Service

Serenity Caldwell, Macworld

Apple Launches ‘iTunes Movie Trailers’ For iOS

Cody Fink, MacStories

Aperture 3.2 Gets iCloud Integration With Photo Stream

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Apple Updates Remote, iMovie For iOS

Dave Caolo, TUAW

This update offers a number of changes, including iOS 5 compatibility and the ever-popular "stability and performance improvements."

How To Upgrade Your iOS Device To iOS 5

Serenity Caldwell, Macworld

iOS 5 has hit the stage, and eager users everywhere are getting ready to upgrade their devices. If you’re concerned about the upgrade process, or simply want to know all your setup options before making the big switch, let us help you upgrade your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to iOS 5 with this step-by-step guide.

Exciting And Ambitious

Shawn Blanc

But now, with iOS 5 and iCloud, we no longer need the USB cable.

Apple Releases iPhoto 9.2 With Photo Stream Support

Federico Viticci, MacStories

The Annoyment Center

Ben Brooks, The Brooks Review

As an idea it is great because now you can finally see all those past notifications. Except what the Notification Center really points out is that Apple had it right all along: old notifications truly are irrelevant and tend to be clutter.

iWork For iOS Updated With iCloud Integration

Federico Viticci, MacStories

iOS 5 Reviewed: Notifications, iMessages, And iCloud, Oh My!

Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica

We're talking significantly revamped notifications, Twitter integration, wireless sync, iCloud, home screen improvements, and more—so many, in fact, that we can't address everything buried within an app or setting in a single review. What we will do, however, is talk about the major updates as well as those tidbits that interest us the most after having used the OS. We did run across a few nitpicks here and there that we hope Apple addresses in future updates. Overall, though, we think it's worth upgrading to iOS 5.

Apple Releases AirPort Utility For iOS

Lex Friedman, Macworld

AirPort Utility lets you manage your Wi-Fi network and AirPort base stations—including AirPort Express, AirPort Extreme, and Time Capsule—from your iOS device. The app allows you to configure base station and network settings, including advanced features like security modes, wireless channels, and more. It also provides a graphical overview of your network, a list of clients, and information about your external Internet connection.

Sprint Won't Sell iPhone 4S With Unlocked micro-SIM Card Slot

Casey Johnston, Ars Technica

While some initial reports suggested that the owners of the Sprint iPhone 4S might be able to pop a local GSM microSIM into their phones while abroad and avoid Sprint’s roaming charges, Sprint denies that that is the case.

Six Mostly Irrelevant iOS Changes That Make Me Smile

MacSparky

1. Turn off e-mail badge.

Apple Releases Find My Friends For iOS

Lex Friedman, Macworld

The app, which requires iOS 5, lets you find your friends by geolocating their iOS devices—presuming your friends have granted you access to that data.

See Also: Hands-on: Find My Friends is Apple's Google Latitude, by Jacqui Cheng, Ars Technica.

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

iOS 5 Review: Ambitious Update Rings In The Changes

Dan Moren, Macworld

It seems like every time a major software revision comes along, it’s described as the “biggest ever.” In the case of iOS 5, though, that might not be hyperbole—there’s hardly a part of Apple’s mobile operating system that isn’t altered in some way by the latest update.

Don’t think that this is just change for change’s sake, however. By and large, iOS 5’s changes are for the better, spackling a number of shortcomings and gaps in functionality that have existed since day one.

The iPhone 4S

John Gruber, Daring Fireball

This is the easiest product review I’ve ever written. The iPhone 4S is exactly what Apple says it is: just like the iPhone 4, but noticeably faster, with a significantly improved camera, and an impressive new voice-driven feature called Siri.

How International Is The iPhone 4S 'World Phone?'

Jason Snell, Macworld

So if you’re a Sprint or Verizon iPhone 4S customer traveling internationally, you can buy a pre-paid micro-SIM card with dramatically cheaper rates for data and voice calling, rather than pay for international roaming offered by U.S. carriers to their existing customers.

iPhone 4S Review: It's A Sure Thing

Jason Snell, Macworld

In the end, the iPhone 4S follows Apple’s recent trajectory of iPhone releases: It’s an object of some appeal to people who last upgraded their phones a year ago, and over the next year a great many of them will find it worthwhile to upgrade to the iPhone 4S. But to all those people who’ve been hanging on to their iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, the wait is over: It’s time to upgrade without any hesitation whatsoever. The iPhone 4S has speed, a great camera, some cool voice-recognition features, and the same beautiful industrial design that was introduced in the iPhone 4. It’s destined to be immensely popular. The S, in this case, seems to stand for “sure thing.”

The iPhone Finds Its Voice

Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal

The iPhone 4S is one of Apple’s less dramatic updates, but, when combined with the Siri, iOS 5 and iCloud features, it presents an attractive new offering to smartphone users. Some may be content to skip the new hardware and just enjoy the software and cloud features with older models. But those buying the phone will likely be happy with it.

Review: iPhone 4S

Jim Dalrymple, The Loop

You can look at each of the items that Apple will release in conjunction with the iPhone and be amazed with how innovative each one of them are. When you put them all together in one product like the iPhone 4S, you have an incredibly successful product that other companies just can’t compete with.

The iPhone 4S: Faster, More Capable, And You Can Talk To It

MG Siegler, TechCrunch

When I ask Apple this, they’re vague in their response. They note that some people say it stands for “Special” or “Super”. Others say it’s for “Speed” — much like the iPhone 3GS, the successor to the iPhone 3G. Or maybe it’s “Storage” (this is the first iPhone with 64 GB option — and with iCloud storage). Or “Sprint” (this is the first iPhone to run on that network in the U.S.) Or perhaps it’s for “Speech” or “Siri”. Either of these last two would get my vote. The point is, the “S” can stand for any number of things depending on who is using the device. Here’s all I know for certain: this is the best iPhone yet.

Apple Offering AppleCare+ For iPhone 4 And 4S Preorders Until November 14th

TJ Luoma, TUAW

Good news for those who pre-ordered the iPhone 4S: If you did not get a chance to order AppleCare+ with your iPhone 4S, Apple is extending your eligibility.

Steve Jobs On Why He Wore Turtlenecks

Ryan Tate, Gawker

"That's what I wear," he said. "I have enough to last for the rest of my life."

Sidekick 4.0.3

Glenn Fleishman, Macworld

Sidekick isn’t the perfect solution for automatic settings updates, but between recognizing where you’re at and letting you manually change groups of settings, it avoids most of the tedium of adapting your Mac to your current spot.

Core Data And The Undo Manager

Marcus Zarra, Cocoa Is My Girlfriend

One of the nice things about developing software for OS X is all the “freebies” we get out of Cocoa. For example, when we are building a UI with text input we get undo support for free! How cool is that?

Likewise, when we are working with Core Data, it also has undo support built right in. Every NSManagedObjectContext has a NSUndoManager that we can use. However there are some situations where the default undo support is insufficient. In this article we are going to walk through one such situation.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

iTunes 10.5 Is Live

Megan Lavey-Heaton, TUAW

iTunes 10.5 introduces iCloud to the software along with automatic downloads. You can also download previous music, TV, app and book purchases again at no additional cost. Some previous purchases might not be available because they are no longer available through iTunes.

It also adds Wi-Fi syncing, which automatically syncs an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iTunes any time they're both on the same Wi-Fi network, one of the key features of iOS 5.

Dropping Safari For Chrome

Lex Friedman, Macworld

State Of AirPlay Speakers

Terry White

How To Put A Menu Everywhere On Your Mac

Ron McElfresh, NoodleMac

How about if you could bring the Mac’s Menubar to the mouse pointer, regardless of where the pointer is on the screen? No more reaching across the screen to the Menubar. The Menubar comes to you.

Facebook For iPad Out Now

Mike Schramm, TUAW

Monday, October 10, 2011

How To Convert PDFs To Word (And Other Formats)

Kirk McElhearn, Macworld

Apple Announces Over One Million iPhone 4S Pre-Orders In First 24 Hours

Arnold Kim, MacRumors

Apple has announced that they have received over one million iPhone 4S pre-orders on the first 24 hours.

Copy Mail's Autocomplete Database To A New Mac

Lex Friedman, Macworld

Rumor Accounting

Stupid Apple Rumors

An Apple For My Teacher: How Steve Jobs Brought You This Column

Tabatha Southey, The Globe And Mail

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Cards App Appears On Apple Website, Will Require iPhone 3GS Or Better

MacGasm

Thoughts And Observations Regarding This Week’s iPhone 4S Event, Written Almost Entirely Before Wednesday’s Sad News, But Which The Time Has Come To Publish Because Life Goes On

John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Normal people don’t buy brand-new $700 smartphones each and every year. In the U.S. they buy them on two-year contracts, and they don’t shop for new ones until their old contracts are over. So the iPhone that the 4S needs to present a compelling upgrade for is the 3GS, not the 4. And the iPhone 4S absolutely smokes the 3GS. It’s crazy better than the 3GS. 2009 3GS buyers who skipped the iPhone 4 — which I’m guessing are most of them — ought to be delighted by the iPhone 4S.

Friday, October 7, 2011

Sweept: iPod Nano With Multi-Touch.

Bill Eccles

The motion is beautifully imperceptible, just like a real watch. It’s stunning.

Unlocked iPhone 4S Coming In November, Won't Work With CDMA Carriers

Sam Oliver, AppleInsider

Apple on Friday began taking preorders for the iPhone 4S, and also revealed its next-generation handset will be sold unlocked and contract-free in November starting at $649.

The unlocked iPhone 4GS will only work on supported GSM networks, like AT&T in the U.S. But it will not work with any CDMA carriers, including Verizon Wireless or Sprint.

iPhone 4S Now Available For Pre-order

Cody Fink, MacStories

Real Racing 2 First iOS Game With 4-person Split Big Screen Action Via AirPlay

AppleInsider

Reeder For Mac 1.1.2

David Chartier, Macworld

Reeder has a unique style while still feeling Mac-like, especially on Lion (thanks largely to Reeder's iOS roots). A flexible interface, a great out-of-box experience, and customizability made it my go-to Google Reader client from the first days I used it.

Review: Espresso 2

IT.Enquirer

It still has some features that are rough around the edges, as well as some behaviours that I find odd (but that could also be personal taste), but it’s certainly a good HTML editor, with 95% of the functionality you require.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Steve Jobs, 1955 – 2011

Steven Levy, Wired

As product after product emerged from Apple, each one breaking ground and changing our behavior, Steve Job’s reality field actually came into being. And we all live in it.

Universe Dented, Grass Underfoot

John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Late last night, long hours after the news broke that he was gone, my thoughts returned to those grass stains on his shoes back in June. I realize only now why they caught my eye. Those grass stained sneakers were the product of limited time, well spent. And so the story I’ve told myself is this:

I like to think that in the run-up to his final keynote, Steve made time for a long, peaceful walk. Somewhere beautiful, where there are no footpaths and the grass grows thick. Hand-in-hand with his wife and family, the sun warm on their backs, smiles on their faces, love in their hearts, at peace with their fate.

Steve Jobs: Making A Dent In The Universe

Jason Snell, Macworld

My last question to him was—and this was just after the “interim CEO” days—how long he felt he’d stay at Apple. He paused to contemplate for a minute. Then said, and I’m paraphrasing here, “Well, you know what the song says. We’re all just renting time here on planet Earth.” His tone seemed very different from the rest of the interview, and I actually appreciated that he was so philosophical about it. Who can say what the future holds?

Steve Jobs Biography Arrives In October, A Month Early

Peter Kafka, All Things D

Mourners Flock To Apple Stores To Pay Tribute To Jobs

Lauren Crabbe, Macworld

As the sun set over San Francisco on Wednesday, locals and tourists alike traveled to the city’s flagship Apple Store on Stockton to pay their respects to the man who helped shape it all.

The Steve Jobs I Knew

Walter S. Mossberg, Wall Street Journal

But there was a more personal side of Steve Jobs, of course, and I was fortunate enough to see a bit of it, because I spent hours in conversation with him, over the 14 years he ran Apple. Here are a few stories that illustrate the man as I knew him.

Statement By Steve Jobs’ Family

Pree Release

Tim Cook's Email To Apple Employees

Macworld

Microsoft's Gates, Disney's Iger & More Comment On Passing Of Steve Jobs

AppleInsider

Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs Dies At 56

Philip Michaels, Macworld

Steve Jobs, Apple’s co-founder and its CEO through a period of record growth and innovation for the company, has died. He was 56.

Jobs is survived by his wife Laurene Powell and four children, and his sister, Mona Simpson.

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Sparrow 1.4 Gets CloudApp Integration, Pull To Refresh

Federico Viticci, MacStories

iPhone 4S: An Interplay Of Hardware And Software

Federico Viticci, MacStories

The iPhone 4S is a good phone because it’s based on the iPhone 4. But the 4S has got some new stuff that has been made possible by its new hardware, and it will make for a more pleasant experience thanks to iOS 5, for a simple reason: Apple understands that hardware and software together drive innovation and customer satisfaction, not specs alone.

Told Ya So: iPhone 4s Is Not Revolutionary, But Didn’t Need To Be

Andy Ihnatko, Chicago Sun-Times

During the Tuesday media event, Apple didn’t manage a Secretariat-style breakaway from the other phone makers. But they showed themselves to be ticking along in fine stride and showed no signs whatsoever of tiring.

Geek Dad

SHawn Blanc

I can’t put my finger on why exactly, but this statement and its slide stood out to me as one of the most strategic and purposeful slides of the event. Perhaps it’s a way of stating the fact that even though the iPhone is selling at an astronomical rate, it still has an enormous market to penetrate. Perhaps this slide was a banner to Wall Street and everyone else saying, we’re doing great and we are nowhere close to slowing down, nor are we running out of track“.

New iPod Nano Features Available To 2010 Model Via Software Update

Federico Viticci, MacStories

AppleCare+ For iPhone Covers Accidental Damage

Steven Sande, TUAW

AppleCare+ ($US99) must be purchased at the same time that you buy your new iPhone, and covers up to two incidents of damage due to handling errors. For each of those incidents, Apple will extract a $49 service fee, but that's a lot less expensive than purchasing a whole new iPhone.

Apple's Launches 2 New Apps: "Find My Friends" And "Cards"

Jordan Golson, MacRumors

Cards is an iOS version of the greeting card-maker built-in to iPhoto, but with a twist -- instead of printing and shipping cards to the user, who then has to buy stamps, address and mail the cards -- Apple takes care of printing, mailing, and postage and sends the card directly to the recipient, with a push notification going to the senders iPhone upon delivery.

OS X Lion: 6 Million Downloads So Far, Apple Approaching 60 Million Mac Users

Don Southard, MacStories

Apple Unveils Dock To Micro USB Adapter To Comply With EU Standards

Chris Rawson, TUAW

Thus far it appears to be available only in the UK Apple Store, and at £8.00 it seems fairly inexpensive as far as Apple's accessories go. It will be available on October 14.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Apple Unveils iPhone 4S

Lex Friedman, Macworld

Apple’s new iPhone 4S doesn't look all that different on the surface from the iPhone 4 it replaces. But the latest iPhone unveiled by Apple at a press event Tuesday promises an improved processor, new wireless system, and more powerful camera, along with voice control capabilities.

The feature is called Siri, based on the voice-activated app that Apple bought in 2010. Forstall described it as “your intelligent assistant that helps you get things done just by asking.” Forstall asked the iPhone 4S what the weather is like today, and the phone gets to the meaning behind his words, displaying a weather forecast. He asked, “What time is it in Paris?” and Siri responded with a live clock. “Wake me up at 6 a.m.” instantly set an alarm clock for early tomorrow morning.

Apple Updates iPod Nano, Touch Models

Jonathan Seff, Macworld

In this year’s update, Apple will make the nano’s multitouch display easier to navigate by using larger icons. The 1.54-inch nano screen will now display a single icon at a time; you’ll swipe the screen to switch icons.

iCloud To Make Official Debut On October 12

Serenity Caldwell, Macworld

Following its preview at Apple’s World Wide Developer Conference in June, iCloud has received an official debut date—October 12—at Tuesday’s Let’s Talk iPhone Apple event. It replaces the company’s oft-maligned $99 MobileMe service, offering a central online repository for your mail; contacts; calendars; music, TV, app and book purchases; photos; documents; and backup—all for free. In addition, Apple introduced a new app called Find My Friends, for connecting with friends and family.

iOS 5 To Ship October 12

Lex Friedman, Macworld

If you’re hungry for new insights into iOS 5, though, Forstall may have left you disappointed; there was little in his presentation that wasn’t discussed back in June—save for the October 12 release date.

Color Splash Studio 1.0

Alexandra Chang, Macworld

Adobe Releases Flash 11 And AIR 3

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Copy Files From Your Mac To Your Kindle

Jason Snell, Macworld

The Cost Of Not Buying Good Software

J. Eddie Smith, IV, Practically Efficient

Good software is virtually free, regardless of its purchase price, because the payback dwarfs the investment. If your time is worth something, you’d be rational to pay hundreds of dollars for applications you use every day.

Grazing 2.1 & Grazing For OS X: Push Links Back To The Mac

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Grazing 2.1 is a must-have if you’ve been looking for an alternative iOS browser capable of sending webpages as push notifications back to the Mac. If you don’t care about push notifications, at $1.99 you’d still get a fine, stable browser with lots of functionalities, support for multi-touch gestures, and an elegant UI.

OS X Lion: Where Did My Windows Go?

Topher Kessler, CNET

TextExpander Is Awesome!

Terry White, MacNews

TextExpander allows you to create shortcuts that expand out to the full text that you type on a regular basis.

Growl 1.3 Now On The Mac App Store: $1.99, Completely Rewritten

Federico Viticci, MacStories

One of the biggest new features of Growl 1.3 is the Rollup window — from a first look, it appears to be Growl’s unofficial response to Apple’s Notification Center for iOS. Because Growl keeps working even while you’re away from your computer, the Rollup window will collect the notifications you’ve missed in a single place, allowing you to review them later.

Preparing Your Lion Repair Kit

Christopher Breen, Macworld

Hong Kong Apple Store Express Counter In Additional Stores

Dave Caolo, TUAW

The Express Purchase Counter is for customers who walk in knowing exactly what they want.

Monday, October 3, 2011

How Take Control Makes EPUBs In Pages

Michael E. Cohen, TidBITS

Nonetheless, the adoption of Pages, with all of the work we had to do to get there, is beginning to pay off for us: we are able to produce new Take Control books and revise existing books more quickly and efficiently than ever, and with more attractive results for the EPUBs. Not bad for a few dozen hours of hard thinking and research, and with a word processor that costs less than $20!

Kensington Orbit Wireless Mobile Trackball

Dan Frakes, Macworld

Trackballs are a bit of a niche market—in my experience, you either love them or dislike them, and far more people are in the latter category than the former. But for those of us who are trackball fans, Kensington’s Orbit Wireless Mobile Trackball is the first one I’ve found that’s compact enough to take on the road while still being good enough to make me want to bring it along.

Virtual Showdown: Parallels Desktop 7 And VMWare Fusion 4 Reviewed

Dave Girard, Ars Technica

I think it's safe to call Parallels Desktop 7 the winner here. Despite the incredible gains in VMware's 3D performance, it's still harder to find a scenario that favors VMware Fusion, whether for performance, features, or the interface.

Sunday, October 2, 2011

The App Culture

Jason Snell, Macworld

Here’s hoping Apple finds a way to keep our Macs secure, while allowing OS X apps to remain as powerful and innovative as they’ve been over the last decade. Mac users deserve both security and power—and the Mac App Store should be a showcase for the very best that Mac software developers have to offer.

App Sandboxing Risks Eroding The Mac's Identity

Andy Ihnatko, Macworld

Can AppleScript and Automator have any future on an operating system where every app is surrounded by an impenetrable steel shell of distrust?

The Mac must never, ever become a consumer product like the iPad, saddled with artificial limitations in the name of safety, reliability, and tidiness. If Apple refuses to give us the 21st-century equivalent of HyperCard, why can’t they at the very least treat AppleScript and Automator like the gems that they are?

Saturday, October 1, 2011

A Lego Game Where Your iPhone Is The Judge

Warren Buckleitner, New York Times

How quickly can you build a fish out of Legos? How about a ship, or a tree? Lego: Life of George, available in stores tomorrow, lets you test your pattern-matching skills under pressure, providing you have a camera-equipped iPhone or equivalent, and a free app called Life of George which is your blueprint, timer, progress tracker, and — most interestingly — your judge.

By Heng-Cheong Leong

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