Written by Benny Ling | 08 February 2012
Posted in Apple

The Globe and Mail, Canada's largest-circulation newspaper, reports that two of Canada's telecommunications companies already have their hands on the new Apple iTV. Additionally, The Globe and Mail says the new iTV is controlled via voice and hand gestures, presumably with an updated version of Siri or similar. Previously US retailer Best Buy had leaked information about a new Apple iTV, but they later clarified that by saying the survey was done by a third party.

The Mac OS X 10.7.3 update brought a few small updates in the way of UI updates, and speculation says the new UI resources (in the form of a new hand for hovering over links, as well as a camera that appears when a window snap is prepared) are in preparation for the move to retina-display displays on Macs. Whether that will happen this year or not is another question entirely, however.

Written by Benny Ling | 07 February 2012
Posted in Apple

Two big stories surrounding Motorola and Apple this morning, all to do with patents, injunctions, and other fun legal proceedings. The first was that Motorola was granted an injunction against a few select Apple products in Germany, and as a result, the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and 3G iPad 2 were removed from sale from the Apple online store in Germany. Apple appealed the decision, and they soon restored the sale of the affected products onto the Apple online store.

The other story also has to do with Motorola, who were also granted a patent ruling in their favour over Apple's email services in Germany. Specifically, the patent ruling mentions how Apple's iCloud push email service infringes on a Motorola patent covering "Multiple Pager Status Synchronization System and Method". It's pretty unlikely that Apple will be taking this one lying down, and I would definitely expect them to appeal the decision.

Written by Benny Ling | 06 February 2012
Posted in Apple

Apple has updated the EULA of iBooks Author in order to clear the air surrounding the terms by which iBooks are to be sold. Previously, the iBooks iBooks Author EULA was unclear on exactly what was restricted for sale in the iBookstore, saying that works generated through the iBooks Author app were to be sold only via the iBookstore. Now, the updated EULA specifically mentions this restriction is only applicable to iBooks in the .ibooks format, not any other format that can be generated by iBooks Author.

Last week Apple released updates for both Lion and Snow Leopard, both of which had issues after release. The Lion 10.7.3 update had some weird effects with UI buttons, and was solved by downloading the combo update and re-applying that. The Snow Leopard Security Update also had issues, mostly to do with Rosetta app support. Apple has now released an updated version of the security update that fixes the issue.

Written by Benny Ling | 03 February 2012
Posted in Apple

A company called Passware has revealed they can crack Lion's full-disk encryption as used in FileVault 2 in under an hour. Their software, also by the same name, uses a FireWire connection to inspect the computer's memory in order to extract the encryption key — which can then be used to crack the password. Of course, there are several caveats to this kind of security: if an individual has physical access to your machine, you've likely got more issues to worry about. Plus, the software isn't cheap at US $995.

Mac OS X 10.7.3 has hit Software Update, which means you can update your machines at your leisure. It's a relatively minor update, but it does add support for a few new languages, as well as fix a few issues here and there. If you have a few machines to update or have been burnt by delta updates before, make sure you grab the combo update from the Apple website.