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26 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
Now that the excitement over Mountain Lion has calmed down somewhat, we can talk about Apple's Q3 2012 results, which were released on Tuesday. Apple posted record numbers yet again, with US $35 billion in revenue, 26 million iPhones, 17 million iPads, and 4 million Macs sold. All those big numbers mean $11.6 billion in profit, a not-insubstantial number for the Cupertino-based company. There's more analysis and a few notes from the Q&A session that followed the main conference call over at MacStories.
Safari 6.0 was released alongside Mountain Lion yesterday, and the latest version of the inbuilt OS X browser brings a unified location bar that Chrome users would be more than familar with, along with iCloud integration, a few new gestures for switching tabs. But there's more: share sheets have also been included in the latest Safari, and offline articles has been brought to the Reading List. The Next Web says it's faster than ever, thanks to improved JavaScript performance and the latest version of WebKit.
Carbon Copy Cloner has long been the staple of OS X users wanting to create a bootable clone of their current install, and now Mike Bombich has decided to make the software paid-for, instead of the donationware it previously was. If you've already donated previously you get a free licence, but otherwise Carbon Copy Cloner is US $29.95 until August 12, and $39.95 after that. A free 30-day trial is available.
It's only fitting for Apple to pull Lion from the Mac App Store after they released its successor, and they've now done so. Farewell, Lion, you served us well.
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25 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
Apple has released the next big version of their operating system to the pulic, and there's lots of little refinements and a few new features in Mountain Lion to get excited about. It's available for download right now from the Mac App Store provided you're running either Snow Leopard for $24.99, and the installation process works much the same as Lion before it: you download a 4.4GB installer file, which then installs Mountain Lion on your Mac after rebooting. Pretty simple stuff.
Now, to the reviews. While you're waiting for your new OS X install to dowload or install, you can read a few reviews. There's John Siracusa's massive, 26,000 word review over at Ars Technica, or even John Gruber's review (one of his longer pieces in a while) at Daring Fireball. I haven't made my way through any of the reviews just yet, but I can already have an educated guess at what they're going to say: Mountain Lion is the best operating system for the Mac thus far.
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24 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple will release updates to products in September. These updates will include a 13" MacBook Pro with Retina display, as well as a new iMac that (probably) won't come with a Retina display. The analyst's predictions are in line with two previous rumours, says AppleInsider, as his predictions coincide with leaked benchmarks of an as-yet-unreleased model of 13" MacBook Pro.
Mail always seems to be one of the apps that gets changed quite often with every big OS X release, and Mountain Lion is no exception. While Mail in Moutain Lion doesn't quite see the UI overhaul that came with Lion, Mail 6.0 sees the introduction of VIPs, for which rules can be customised and messages prioritised. There's also the ability to search within emails, as well as a share sheet and new iCloud features.
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23 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
AppleInsider has a great series you should definitely be reading on a few of the apps and features included as a part of Mountain Lion, and their latest installment talks about how Calendar and the new Reminders app now offer a smart search feature and location-based alerts. Apple started adding location-based features to Macs and OS X before Mountain Lion, and it's great to see them continue that trend with OS X apps.
Of course, if you've just bought a new Mac from Apple or any authorised reseller on or after June 11, you're eligible for a free copy of Mountain Lion when it's released thanks to Apple's Up-to-Date program for OS X. As the Apple website states, once Mountain Lion becomes available to the public you'll have 30 days to request your free copy of the latest big cat.
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22 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
Over the weekend the team behind Sparrow announced that they were acquired by Google. The developers of the incredibly popular email client for Mac and iPhone announced the acqusition via an email to iusers that also described the future of the Sparrow team, to accomplish a better vision. But what's more troubling is also the news that there won't be any new features released for Sparrow on any platform. There was an iPad client planned as well, but that probaly won't be happening anytime soon now.
The same security flaw in the iOS in-app-purchase scheme that meant the Apple's purchase system could be bypassed has made its way to the Mac, with the same flaw being available to Mac apps. Essentially the flaw allows users to obtain an app's in-app-purchases for free, exploting the fact Apple don't link in-app-purchases to specific users, nor devices.
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19 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
The long and the short of is, Apple pulled all their products from the EPEAT product registry, then put them back after the public outcry. Now, EPEAT are saying they're reassessing how they evaluate ultrathin laptops such as Apple's latest MacBook Pro with Retina display, which could mean nothing at all, or could even mean that EPEAT are looking into how these machines are assesed in accordance with their guidelines.
Apple has released software updates to the 2012 MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, which fixes issues to do with high CPU utilisation, as well as sluggish USB performance. The ambigiously-named MacBook AIr and MacBook Pro Update 1.0 brings minor tweaks to the new laptops, possibly related to the new USB 3 hardware in those machines, possibly with port failures and other issues.
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18 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
Before iCloud, there was a service called MobileMe that had email addresses that ended in @me.com. Before that, there was .Mac that had email addresses that ended in @mac.com — so it's only fitting, that with iCloud, there are email addresses that end in @icloud.com. The third beta of iOS 6 has seen Apple rollout these new email addresses to new iCloud users, but users of the previous emails shouldn't worry: your old email addresses will still work, just like they continued to when MobileMe was rolled out.
An issue has surfaced with the Thunderbolt display when connected to a MacBook Air, with users reporting strange audio issues such as hissing, static, and distortion when the two devices are connected via Thunderbolt. The problem is by no means widespread and doesn't happen straight away, usually presenting itself after a period of time.
An updated version of Skype has been released, which resolves a bug that shared instant messages with other users on their contacts list unintentionally. A similar release has been rolled out to other platforms, so the bug wasn't confined to just Mac machines.
Apple is continuing their push for more land, with a US $304 million land purchase in Austin, Texas for the purpose of a new campus. 9to5Mac has more details.
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17 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
Anandtech has the review of the 2012 MacBook Air you've been waiting for, and they don't disappoint. In their review of both the 11 and 13 inch models, the benchmark every possible aspect of both machines, and their thoughts on the upgraded SSD over the previous generation makes for especially insightful reading, including the part about what kind of impact FileVault's full-disk encryption has on read and write speeds.
Mountain Lion brings an iOS feature back to the Mac, and Game Center makes its desktop debut that looks and feels exactly like the iOS version, right down to the green felt. What's more, OS X stalwart Chess has also been updated with Game Center features, including the ability to unlock achievements, play with friends, and they've even added a few functional changes to Chess as well.
News: Retina MacBook Pro and EPEAT, Mountain Lion launch date, North Carolina data center, and more!
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16 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
Apple may have put all their elegible products back onto EPEAT, but a member of the Electronics TakeBack Coalition says there's a chance the MacBook Pro with Retina display might not make the cut if EPEAT performs a review of the machine's currently gold rating. If EPEAT performs a review, there's the possibility the MacBook Pro with Retina display, the least user-repairable Mac ever,could lose its EPEAT gold, and be removed from the registry entirely.
An overnight event at Apple Stores worldwide has lead MacRumors to suggest the release of Mountain Lion will be July 25th. Overnight updates to the stores on July 24th could mean new marketing in the form of Mountain Lion posters and such, and thus, a next-day launch would make sense.
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15 July 2012
Posted in
Apple
Over the weekend Apple's outgoing Senior Vice President of Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield posted a letter on the Apple website explaining why Apple has now gotten all their products back onto the EPEAT product registry. There's already been quite a bit said about Apple and EPEAT products, including how various companies and organisations won't buy products that aren't on EPEAT. But there's also a bit about how Apple products are above and beyond the EPEAT — it reads like Apple thinks they're above standards, but this turnaround is evidence that at the end of the day, standards matter.
AppleInsider has a look at dication and speech in Mountain Lion. You can already use voice commands in previous versions of OS X, The new speech and dictation in Mountain Lion does require a constant internet connection, but there are a few privacy issues that Apple has taken care of.