Monthly Archives: January 2009

By Staff | Published: January 31, 2009

iPod Touch 2nd gen jailbreak released


For the past few weeks users have been waiting patiently (or impatiently as the case may be) after news that the dev-team had managed to jailbreak the 2nd generation iPod touch, but there’s a catch: the device cannot be restarted without being connected to a desktop machine, restarting while out and about will result in a device that will not boot.

The dev-team had been waiting until they could get around Apples restrictions at a lower level, but stated on twitter and elsewhere that if they could not find a way to get into the device at a lower level, they would release a limited, tethered jailbreak for those who were willing to take the risk. So what exactly is the risk? Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software, Apple Software | Tagged , , | 2 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 30, 2009

iDevice OS 2.2.1 points to “iPhone 2,1” product

According to numerous readers and grapevine-lurkers who’ve looked under the hood of the new 2.2.1 iPhone OS firmware, it contains multiple references to a new iPhone — version “2,1” in the terminology used by Apple in all its operating system/firmware variants — better known to some as the “iPhone Pro.”

Given how soon a new iPhone would have to be introduced for it to make any sense at all to include references & support code inside as minor and early-in-year of a release as 2.2.1….we don’t think that this is a replacement for the 3G model. Rather, it is a complementary model intended to broaden the range of options that iPhone adopters have when they decide to purchase one.

Since the 8GB 3G is already as low as $199, we think that this “iPhone 2.1” (not to be confused with the “2.5G” 1.0 or “3G” 2.0) will instead be a high-end model similar to the iPhone Pro we’ve reported on previously, with some or all of these enhanced features:

*Major overhaul/upgrade of the ARM based system mainboard which handles almost everything but the functions dedicated to the “iPod” and “Phone-Modem” chips which are unto themselves nearly complete system boards….those chips will most likely remain unchanged, but the ARM based mainboard will most likely be upgraded to something similar to, or faster than, the ARM Cortex A8 used in the Palm Pre. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 30, 2009

Apple suddenly, mysteriously pulls “nVIDIA Update 2009” package

Almost as quickly and quietly as it appeared, the “nVIDIA Update 2009” package posted earlier this week has disappeared from Apple’s web site and Software Update servers. Despite initial reports from readers that were very positive, since then many have reported experiencing as many if not more problems after the update than they did prior to installing it.

From the release notes originally included with the update, the changes were stated to include:

About NVIDIA Graphics Update 2009

This update improves cursor movement when using the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter with the Mini DisplayPort enabled MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro.

It also improves playback of HD video running on systems with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT or GeForce 9600M graphics. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: January 30, 2009

Upcoming new iMacs to go quad-core; what else will be new?

In recent weeks, the grapevine has moved from speculating about new iMacs based on quad-core “Nehalem” Intel Core i7 processors to having near-total confidence in the broad strokes of the rumor, merely seeking confirmation of the details. Well, some of the finer details are still embargoed….but we have been able to confirm once & for all that the new iMacs will indeed have four-core Nehalem processors with the associated improved motherboards.

At this point our sources have asked us to withhold precise benchmark numbers (we don’t like reporting third party numbers anyway unless they’re ballpark; it stakes our reputation on too many variables that are out of our hands — even with well-established sources)…but we should be able to report those in the near future once team members are able to put their hands directly on a prototype — and there can be little doubt that these new iMacs will be amazing, incredibly fast performers. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 12 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 28, 2009

iDevice firmware 2.2.1 released

Apple released version 2.2.1 of its iPhone/iPod Touch operating system firmware today with many under the hood changes & bug fixes but relatively few “front end” changes — most of them in Mobile Safari.

From Apple’s release notes for the iPhone version of the 2.2.1 package, which weighs in at 247MB:

iPhone Software Update 2.2.1

This update contains bug fixes and improvements, including the following:
– Improved general stability of Safari
– Fixed issue where some images saved from Mail do not display correctly in the Camera Roll

Products compatible with this software update:
– iPhone
– iPhone 3G

The iPod Touch version does not appear to include release notes, but is believed to have the same Safari changes and kernel revision. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Response
By Staff | Published: January 28, 2009

Mark Papermaster, subject of IBM/Apple lawsuit, starts work in April

A former big-wig within IBM’s PowerPC processor division, Apple employee Mark Papermaster will at long last begin actively working at his job as head of the iDevice group at Infinite Loop now that a settlement betwen the two companies has been achieved. Some debate has taken place over whether a relevant contract expires before mid-June, but a press release from Apple today specified April 24th as Papermaster’s start date.

Originally hired in October of last year, Papermaster has been a key player in several divisions at IBM’s technical centers — notably its PowerPC development team — over the years and was vital to the project that brought the POWER4 architecture to the Mac in the form of the PPC 970 “G5.”

Papermaster will replace Tony Fadell, who ran the iDevice Division through November and who remains a technical consultant with the company. Read more

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Posted in Apple Inc. | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: January 28, 2009

Impressive new details of next-gen Mac Pro emerge

As we reported previously, the forthcoming 2009 Mac Pro lineup will be based around powerful new technology from Intel code-named Nehalem; better known through great public anticipation in the lead-up to its release as “Core i7.”

We reported on a mid-stream prototype, placed inside an existing-generation “cheesegrater” tower enclosure, in that article which was built on early desktop Nehalem reference board chips including a pair of quad-core, 2.93GHz Core i7 desktop CPUs.

Since then, we’ve had the opportunity to look under the hood of far more recent prototypes and a much clearer picture of the final Mac Pro has begun to emerge.

One of the first questions readers asked after the initial article was posted was whether the Nehalem Mac Pro will employ those standard desktop CPUs which currently tap out just below 3GHz and have been on the market for a few weeks now….or if it will sport Xeon-class i7 chips that offer higher clock rates, more cores, and numerous other advantages over their standard desktop cousins. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 9 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 28, 2009

iStat for iPhone review

App Store link

To start off, we would like to thank Bjango for making such a nice application and for allowing us to take it for a test drive. We think they have a real winner here that could be of use to many people for different purposes. Those who manage servers day to day will be glad to have a nicely presented and easy to use view of their servers statistics on the device they already carry around every day (you DO carry an iPhone everywhere you go just like us, right?). While the server daemon is OS X only right now, Bjango tells us that a Windows and Linux server daemon are a definite possibility for the future, and we think their success with this app will skyrocket once a Linux daemon is available since many IT admins use Linux on the back end. Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software, App Store, Articles | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: January 27, 2009

Apple releases nVIDIA Graphics Update 2009

Late this afternoon, Apple released a much anticipated set of updates to drivers and related system elements for nVIDIA graphics hardware. Originally targeted only at current-model Macbook, Macbook Air & Macbook Pros which have experienced significant bugs with cursors, crashes and rendering errors, the final version of the update also includes drivers for older nVIDIA GPUs in desktop Macs.

From http://support.apple.com/downloads/NVIDIA_Graphics_Update_2009:

About NVIDIA Graphics Update 2009

This update improves cursor movement when using the Apple Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapter with the Mini DisplayPort enabled MacBook Air, MacBook and MacBook Pro.

It also improves playback of HD video running on systems with NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT or GeForce 9600M graphics.

According to early reader reports via email (rumors@macosrumors.com), IM (AIM: MacOSRumors) and Twitter (@MacOSRumors), the performance benefits on all of the GPUs/Macs listed above — and interestingly enough, also some others — are significant. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 26, 2009

The Mac’s 25th Anniversary — Founder’s Column, Part 1

25 years ago this past weekend, an upstart development team within Apple Computer brought to market a cheaper, faster, better alternative to Steve Jobs’ pet project the “Lisa” (named after his daughter).

Though Jobs’ own feelings about the Macintosh were mixed, he undertook a famous event to introduce it to the world with a unique, historic advertisement (“1984”) and a demonstration that blew away the crowd: the very first Mac 128K seen in public spoke to the crowd that day, using a first-of-its-kind speech synthesizer technology developed specifically for that first Mac — a technology that has been a unique strength of the Mac platform ever since.

This weekend, even as the moment of the announcement event’s anniversary passed us by, the Rumors team was watching an amazing film called Welcome to Mac. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Inc., Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 25, 2009

Follow Mac OS Rumors on Twitter!

Despite being long-time “Web 2.0” hold-outs, the team here at Xerces Media has embraced the best of social networking and other third-party services at last; you can follow our updates and get exclusive dirt as well as an inside look behind the scenes here at Rumors by following @MacOSRumors.

You can also find updates from our site founder Ryan C. Meader and other Xerces-related tweets in his feed under his online handle @dalaixerces. Many of these are more personal, but others include lots of Apple/Mac/iDevice specific content and Ryan has posted many tweets relevant to Mac OS Rumors.

We will be expanding into other social networks and Web 2.0-type services in the near future, and are always happy to take suggestions by email, web comments, tweets or any other means that may suit you! Read more

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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: January 25, 2009

Quicktime 7.6 released; major update includes big changes

This week, Apple released Quicktime 7.6 in a major update which includes not only numerous security and bug fixes as well as considerable performance improvements. Other changes & new features follow below.

From Apple’s release notes, some of the new features include….

Video: Improves single-pass H.264 encoding quality / Increases the playback reliability of Motion JPEG media

Audio: Improves AAC encoding fidelity / Audio tracks from MPEG video files now export consistently

Application Support: Improves compatibility with iChat and Photo Booth

In our tests, framerates of Photo Booth videos are considerably improved, particularly under heavy CPU loads….and similar advances have been made with hardware-saturation scenarios for h.264 transcoding as well as many other resource-intensive functions.

All in all, we’re very impressed with QT 7.6 and can’t wait to spend more time hands-on with it; if you have experiences, bugs, or other feedback about Quicktime to share, please post to the comments, email us: rumors@macosrumors.com or contact us on the social networks — we’ve just opened a new Twitter account at http://twitter.com/macosrumors ! Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: January 20, 2009

Google Chrome (TestShell) for Mac nightly builds coming along nicely

Recently, the Chrome core engine has been wrapped in a basic user interface, minus nearly all normal user-level functinality and lacks any plug-ins but nonetheless allows adventurous users to enjoy the incredible speed of the V8 Javascript engine.

The latest TestShell builds can be found here: http://securityandthe.net/wp-content/uploads/chromium_mac/.

The most up to date build at the time of this posting was 17-Jan-09, available by clicking here.

Although due to the huge dearth of functionality to which nearly every user of finished Web browsers are accustomed to, TestShell is absolutely not a replacement for such production browsers.

However, it does deliver absolutely incredible levels of speed and is even surprisingly stable….though given its very early state of beta testing and highly developmental nature, some crashes are to be expected and quite simply come with the territory. Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 19, 2009

Apple Web store(s) offline; rumblings of announcements build

As of Sunday morning Eastern time, reader and source reports have been coming in at a blistering pace as the online Apple Store reportedly went offline for most of the night. It came back later Sunday morning, and remained online throughout the remainder of the weekend.

Although the timing suggests it could be routine, the sheer volume of source reports and other reasons to suspect new hardware product announcements — almost certainly one or more new Macs — combined with the similarity between current speculation and long-standing rumors about new Mac Minis, price cuts, and/or a new Mac Pro….give us reason to suspect that such announcements could be imminent; if not in the next couple of days, then quite possibly before the week is out. Read more

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Posted in Apple Events, Apple Hardware, Apple Inc., Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Response
By Staff | Published: January 16, 2009

Community reeling from news of Steve Jobs’ “medical leave of absence”

As many of you already know, recently the community has been consumed by fears, doubts, debate and concern over the state of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ health. This culminated in a series of announcements from Jobs, the most recent of which made intense waves on the Mac Web with the news that he will be stepping down from his position until at least June for a “medical leave of absence.”

The following message was sent from Jobs to Apple employees on Wednesday:

Team,

I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. Read more

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Posted in Apple Inc. | Tagged , | 2 Responses