Written by Benny Ling | 24 May 2012
Posted in Apple

Sir Jonathan Ive is now officially Sir Jonathan Ive, after the ceremony which happened today in London. His title is now Knight Commander of the British Empire, and it gives him the right to be referred to as Sir Jonathan Ive. What's even more interesting is in his interview with the Daily Telgraph, Ive was asked what product he would most be remembered for. His answer was  "what we’re working on now feels like the most important and the best work we’ve done, and so it would be what we’re working on right now, which of course I can’t tell you about."

The story of Apple and publishers colluding to fix the price of ebooks has been argued in the courts for some time now, but a US Judge has said that Apple "knowingly joined" the ebook conspiracy. His comments don't mean that Apple are guilty of anything just yet, but it does mean that the class action lawsuit will be moving forward.

Written by Benny Ling | 23 May 2012
Posted in Apple

It's been a few years since the original release of Coda by Panic, and when it first came out in 2007, it changed how a lot of web developers worked on the web. Panic has just announced Coda 2, the version of Coda they made better at everything so it can make you better at everything. Coda 2 features a newly revamped interface for switching between open documents, a re-imagined sidebar with even more functionality, and the same quality that you've come to expect from Panic. Coda 2 will be available in both the Mac App Store and from the Panic website on May 24th.

The Wall Street Journal has revealed their top paid US CEOs in 2011, and Tim Cook is at the top of that list with a take-home salary of US $378 million thanks to quite a few shares he was granted last year. His base salary is US $900,000 with annual incentives to the same amount — seeing him beat out runner-up Larry Ellison of Oracle by a few hundred million is quite interesting.

Written by Benny Ling | 22 May 2012
Posted in Apple

A new feature has been revealed in the latest Mountain Lion developer release, and it's automatic downloads. Automatic downloads on the Mac mean that when you buy an app from the Mac App Store on one Mac, you'll get a notification saying you can then have the app automatically downloaded to any other Mac that's signed into the same Mac App Store account. Note that the feature doesn't appear to work just yet —  but clearly automatic downloads are something Apple is definitely planning to bring to Mountain Lion.

Ars Technica has a fantastic article on the state of iPv6 in Apple world, covering every aspect of the latest networking protocol. You'll be pleased to know that IPv6 has, in one form or another, been included as a part of OS X dating back to 10.2, but Apple have made various tweaks to the underlying implementation over the years. The article goes into much more detail, but suffice to say, proper IPv6 support in their operating systems is definitely one of their highest priorities.

Written by Benny Ling | 21 May 2012
Posted in Apple

It's estimated that the current LCD panel in any model MacBook currently costs Apple around US $68 per machine. But with retina displays on the horizon for MacBooks in the future, that cost is estimated to go way, way up — up in the vicinity of around US $130, if analysts are to be believed. The only question that remains is: will Apple pass that cost onto consumers in the next revision of MacBooks that include retina displays, or will it simply be absorbed by the company?

Apple has confirmed it will be enforcing the Mac App Store sandboxing policy come June 1. Apple has delayed the sandboxing requirement in the past — twice, in fact — but in an email sent out to Mac developers just a few days ago, Apple confirmed that Mac App Store sandboxing would be taking place as planned on June 1. A few apps, Pixelmator included, have already been updated, but other apps should be following suit very soon.

Written by Benny Ling | 18 May 2012
Posted in Apple

There's a Apple program called AppleSeed that seeds copies of unreleased software to a select group of individuals before its public release, separate to those seeds provided to developers. Apple recently sent out an email to members of the AppleSeed program that prompted them to register the different pieces of Apple hardware they owned, saying they needed the information for "exclusive seeds" of future Apple software. This prompted 9to5Mac to speculate about hardware-specific features coming to future Apple products.

Sparrow for Mac has been updated to version 1.6, which adds support for POP-based email accounts, along with unified folders for more than just your inbox. The update includes unified folders for starred and sent items, as well as drafts and trash, collecting all your starred, sent, drafts, or trash items across all your email accounts into the one unified mailbox for easier access.