Category Archives: Apple Software

By Staff | Published: November 12, 2010

Oracle and Apple bringing OpenJDK to Mac OS X

Java

Following Apple’s deprecation of their own Java distribution for Mac OS X, many developers were concerned the company would simply drop Java completely, leaving it up to Oracle or IBM or the open source community to develop, test and release an integrated Java distribution for Mac OS X. Many were also concerned that only Apple would be able to provide the necessary source code to correctly integrate a Java distribution into Mac OS X.

There are alternative Java distributions for Mac OS X, such as the SoyLatte project, however they do not integrate well with Mac OS X, leaving Java as a second class citizen on the platform.

But a new Apple press release just posted this morning announces that the company plans to participate in the OpenJDK project along with Oracle, to bring an officially supported, tightly integrated OpenJDK release to Mac OS X. Read more

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By Staff | Published: November 1, 2010

iOS 4.2 is now Gold Master

While the official public release isn’t due until sometime later in November, Apple has seeded paid iOS developers with a Gold Master build of iOS 4.2 for the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4, iPod Touch 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation, and the iPad.

The newly updated Apple TV hardware is also likely to be updated to iOS 4.2 at some point this month or early in December, however as there is no Apple TV developer program right now, Apple is not providing early access to iOS builds for that device.

A new Xcode build and the corresponding iOS SDK is also available to paid developers.

As previously reported, the screen rotation lock button on the iPad is now going to be a mute button, which Apple mentions in the release notes for the iOS 4.2 GM seed:

The iPad screen rotation lock switch now functions as a sound/silent switch in iOS 4.2.

Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 21, 2010

Macbook Air no longer ships with Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash

Adobe Flash

Early reviewers of Apple’s recently overhauled Macbook Air portable computer line have noticed that Apple no longer ships Adobe’s Flash runtime with the operating system preloaded on those machines.

While Apple has been quite vocal about their contempt for Adobe Flash, going so far as to completely exclude it from all mobile iOS devices, until now they have preinstalled the plugin on each new Mac, ensuring that webpages and all the content on them will “just work” in most cases.

Apple’s reason for excluding Flash on the new Macbook Air may have something to do with battery life; Flash is known to cause significant performance problems, and in prior Macbook Air models, Flash was frequently accused of being the root cause of overheating and sudden shutdown issues. Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 21, 2010

Apple deprecates Java

Java logo

Java logo

In a note accompanying the Java platform update released yesterday, Apple has announced that in future versions of Mac OS X, they no longer intend to maintain their Java runtime with the same level of attention as they have in the past, and they may not ship Java as part of the operating system at all.

However, as Apple shipped Java runtimes in both Leopard and Snow Leopard, they will continue to support the Java releases on those platforms during their respective lifecycles.

The Java runtime that is available in Mac OS X is maintained by Apple itself, and is a port of Sun/Oracle’s official Java runtime, with extra class libraries included for integrating with Cocoa and the native graphical display system. Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 20, 2010

iLife ’11 now available

Apple announced the next major release of iLife today, including a few welcome enhancements and a shift toward user interface elements that are very strongly influenced by iOS.

iPhoto was demonstrated first, and Phil Schiller was on stage to show of some of the new features, including a full screen interface that any iPhone or iPad user would recognize as using the same “tab bar” common to the iOS device family as well as iPad style photo albums:

iPhone '11

iPhoto ’11, credit: Engadget

Major new features include the ability to pull photos from Flickr, post photos to Facebook and see comments from friends, email photos directly from iPhoto, as well as new full screen faces and places views. Also added is the ability to make letterpress cards right from the application, no word yet on how much this costs. Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 20, 2010

Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” announced, will include Mac App Store

Today, the next major version of Mac OS X was announced and a few key features were demonstrated on stage.

The biggest announcement of course is the Mac App Store, which will allow developers to sell software to Mac users in a curated environment much like the iOS App Store. The App Store will be included in 10.7 “Lion” but will be available for Snow Leopard in 90 days.

With some clear design inspiration from iOS, the next version of Mac OS X also includes some iPad-like functionality. For instance, Apple wants to emphasize full screen applications, and has included some UI elements that are directly taken from iOS such as the “tab bar” that iPhone and iPad users will be familiar with. Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 20, 2010

Mac App Store coming in January with some strange restrictions

Mac App Store

Mac App Store

Apple is looking to extend the wild success of the iOS App Store with one specifically built for Mac OS X applications.

The Mac App store will be a separate application that resembles iTunes in many ways, but functionally it will be similar to the App Store on iOS; users will browse the store for Mac applications, which can be free or paid, pay for them using their iTunes account, and the application will then be downloaded and automatically added to the Dock.

Applications sold through the Mac App Store will also function similar in some ways to iPad applications; they will automatically save configuration and user information, and will save state and “pause” when closed. Users can then reopen the application at a later time and pick up where they left off. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged | 1 Comment
By Staff | Published: October 20, 2010

FaceTime comes to the Mac

FaceTime
Facetime for Mac

Facetime for Mac

Apple used todays Media Event to announce FaceTime for Mac OS X, allowing interoperability with “19 million other devices” that support the video calling system. The new software is available only for Macs running OS X 10.6.4, and is available today as a beta from Apple’s website.

During the event, Jobs referred to FaceTime as the “first video calling on mobile devices”, which of course is not true, but we have no doubt it is the first built in video calling system that people will actually use, particularly if they can communicate with people back at home using Macs and potentially other desktop or laptop computers.

Though FaceTime for Mac beta is a separate application, much of the core functionality is shipped inside the .App bundle as Frameworks which will likely be included in a future Mac OS X update as system wide frameworks. Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 19, 2010

October 20th Apple Event preview

Steve Jobs will once again take to the stage tomorrow, Wednesday October 20th at the “Town Hall” on Apple’s Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino, California to unveil a new round of products and technology previews with his infamous headline-grabbing presentation style. What will be announced? Grapevine consensus appears to have a firm grasp of the big picture, but as to the details….

With a few notable exceptions (the small number of people working on certain projects within Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion,” internal code name ‘Barolo,’ force us to sit on details of those projects until after the Event when even if those projects aren’t mentioned during the Event, they will be known to a wider group within Infinite Loop and leaks can no longer be tied so easily to our sources), what we’ve been told by some of our oldest and most reliable contacts in Cupertino comports very closely with the grapevine’s consensus of what to expect tomorrow:

*Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” as hinted by Apple’s logo for the Event:

Apple's Back to the Mac October 20th Apple Event logo

….Lion is a collection of long-standing projects, many of them held back from the Leopard and Snow Leopard development cycles because they were too ambitious and too out of sync with Apple’s priorities at the time to make the cut for those releases. Read more

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By Staff | Published: October 13, 2010

Apple schedules Mac-focused Media Event October 20th

Back to the Mac.

Apple has sent out press invitations for a Media Event one week from today on October 20th that will be focused on the Mac, to be held at 10AM in Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino.

As is typical for Apple, they have included a clue in the promotional image, a Lion peaking out from behind a tilted Apple logo. Taking that in combination with the tagline for the event, “Back to the Mac.”, it’s likely that Apple will at least offer a preview of Mac OS X 10.7 codenamed “Lion”, though a release is probably still months away.

Apple’s notebook lineup is also due for a refresh, particularly the Macbook Air which has been neglected for quite some time, and has been the subject of rumors concerning a potential shrink from the 13.3″ form factor down to a netbook-like 11″ screen. Read more

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Also posted in Apple Events | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment
By Staff | Published: June 7, 2010

Apple announces iPhone 4, iOS 4, iMovie

Steve Jobs delivered Apple’s 2010 WWDC keynote today, announcing a new iPhone, a number of new iPhone apps, and updated device and App Store sales data.

First things first, the new iPhone. Apple has named it iPhone 4, and it looks exactly like the leaked prototype everyone has already seen. It will be available in black and white, at the same price points as the current 3GS: $199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB. There is no 64GB model at the moment. They’ve also dropped the 3G model completely, and the 8GB 3GS is now available for $99.

iPhone 4

iPhone 4

Current iPhone users can upgrade to the new device for the retail price as long as their contract expires some time in 2010, though you must agree to another 2 year contract. Read more

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By Staff | Published: June 7, 2010

WWDC 2010 Preview

Today, Apple will present several new products to its third party developer community…and through the tremendous press scrunity — not to mention what Steve Jobs recently called (an undesirable) “nation of bloggers” (ahem) — by extension the larger world of its users, enthusiasts and curious potential ‘switchers.’

Some of them will be software, some will be hardware, but most if not all will likely manage to attract their own little cyclonic orbits of controversy.

Here are some of the grapevine’s expectations; stay with us over the week ahead for post-event analysis and fresh dirt on what’s next from Infinite Loop. Read more

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By Staff | Published: April 8, 2010

iPhone OS 4.0 Summary

Today’s iPhone OS 4.0 preview included plenty of new features that have been requested by developers and users alike. We’ll run through a quick summary of the major additions to the operating system and go in-depth as more information becomes available.

One of the biggest features that Apple has now added to iPhone OS 4.0 is multitasking, implemented in a way that prevents Apps from draining the battery or slowing performance. Apple listed 7 core functions that would be provided by APIs for use by developers:

  • Background Audio
  • Voice over IP
  • Background location
  • Push notifications
  • Local notifications
  • Task completion
  • Fast app switching

Applications that were demoed performing functions in the background include Skype, which allowed a call to remain connected, Pandora, which kept streaming audio running, and TomTom which continued to provide turn-by-turn directions even after the user had switched away from the App itself. Read more

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Also posted in 3rd Party Software, App Store, Apple Events | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments
By Staff | Published: April 5, 2010

Apple announces iPhone OS 4.0 event

iPhone OS 4 Preview Event

Just days after the successful launch of the iPad, Apple sent out invitations for a media event at their Cupertino headquarters scheduled for April 8th, at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. The invite banner, which can be seen above, leaves no doubt that the company will be previewing the next major version of their mobile operating system, iPhone OS 4.0.

Apple is widely expected to unveil new multitasking capabilities along with a user interface refresh. One feature nearly certain to appear in the new iPhone OS was promised to a concerned customer by Steve Jobs himself in an email sent from his iPad: a unified email inbox for the iPhone Mail application, similar to an identical feature found in the desktop Mac OS X Mail application. Read more

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By Staff | Published: February 25, 2010

Latest Mac OS X 10.6.3 beta suggests release imminent

A new test build of Mac OS X 10.6.3 has been seeded to developers, with known issues listed as “none.” This typically means that the build is a final test seed and barring major surprises, can be expected to be released in a matter of days. Read more

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