By Staff | Published: June 26, 2009

New Snow Leopard seed, 10A394 released via Software Update

Today Apple released Snow Leopard developer seed 10A394 through the Software Update system. This is the first Snow Leopard seed to be released in an “update” form through Software Update rather than as a complete separate build from the Apple Developer Connection website.

The download weighs in at 655MB, and requires that build 10A380 already be installed. Apple claims the new build contains the old standby of “general operating system fixes for stability, compatibility and security”, and users are reporting that the new Dock Exposé feature works now.

Rumors’ own beta/nightly-build aficionados and the usual suspects on the grapevine will be spending extensive hands-on time with Mac OS X 10.6 build 10a394 in the hours and days ahead; expect further related posts both on our web site and via our Twitter feed (@MacOSRumors) as information becomes available to us. Read more

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By Staff | Published: June 26, 2009

Safari 4 faster, more stable on Snow Leopard than 10.5.x

Though many readers have reported the problems with Safari 4.x on Leopard, few of the same issues were reproducible by testers/developers and sources who have hands-on access to the latest post-WWDC builds (10a380 and later) of Snow Leopard.

We’ve noted the considerable boost to Safari 4 performance that users of Mac OS X 10.6 build 10a380 have experienced in previous posts to our Twitter feed, and it would appear that a similar difference applies to many of the stability problems readers have been reporting with 10.5.x, even after the recent Safari 4.0.1 Update is applied.

In fact, in several cases, it would appear that v4.0.1 actually made some of these issues worse. Paradoxically, though the 4.0.1 Update package is not available for Snow Leopard (requires 10.5.7) and 10.6 is still almost three months away from release with plenty of system-level bugs left to be fixed, virtually all testers we talked to were left scratching their heads in surprise when attempts were made to reproduce the widely reported crashes/misbehavior on 10a380 or more recent builds. Read more

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By Staff | Published: June 8, 2009

LIVE Coverage of the WWDC 2009 Keynote

There is no auto-refresh on this page, so we recommend that readers manually reload in their browsers for the latest updates every few minutes. Please do not do so excessively, since traffic load on our servers is already extremely high.

Last Updated: 3:15 EDT (newest updates at the bottom) — Live Coverage is now complete. This is an archive of our postings as of 3:15 PM; more can be found in other posts here on Rumors or by following us on Twitter.

From our Twitter feed: Several readers at the Moscone Center have noted that banners there show the iCal logo w/ the date June 19th…a release date?

Also noted by many attendees on the banners is a new Quicktime X logo. Read more

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By Staff | Published: June 8, 2009

Steve Jobs sighted at the Moscone Center?!

Breaking reports coming out of the lines waiting for entry into the WWDC 2009 Keynote (media has just been admitted in the past few minutes) suggest that Steve Jobs may have been sighted entering the Moscone Center via a side entrance approximately one hour ago.

Stay tuned to Rumors for updates on this breaking news and ongoing LIVE Coverage of WWDC 2009 here on the Web and also from our Twitter feed, @MacOSRumors! Read more

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By Staff | Published: June 8, 2009

WWDC Preview Part 3: iPod Touch, Other iDevices, One More Thing?

As Rumors has previously reported, we expect an entirely new family of iDevices to be shipping by the end of the summer — and although expectations for an announcement of new 2009 iPhones are running high today, the actual shipping date of those new phones is most likely at least a few (3-4?) weeks in the future.

We also believe that at least one other group of iDevices, most probably and expanded/upgraded iPod Touch lineup, will be announced today….with at least some models paralleling the feature set of the high-end 2009 iPhone, including:

*One proposed marketing name for the new iDevices was “iPhone/iPod Touch X2,” denoting the “twice as fast, twice as much, twice the features” advancements over 2007/2008 models….

*Faster CPU (~600MHz ARM Cortex A8/similar, or perhaps a slight upgrade to the existing 412MHz ARM11 in the 500-600MHz range) competitive with the Palm Pre’s 620MHz Cortex A8 chip….and faster GPU (PowerVR multi-core, 5X+ performance gain over today’s iDevices) which supports Anti-Aliasing/Anisotropic Filtering, greatly improving visual quality at the same display resolution.

Read more
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By Staff | Published: June 8, 2009

WWDC 2009 Preview Part 2: iPhone OS 3.0 & Snow Leopard

In the case of iPhone OS 3.0, we already have a fairly good idea of its feature set, performance, and reliability from the series of developer betas that have been released over the past several months. Although Apple has not yet made an official statement as to its final release date, there has been none of the hedging that we’ve seen with Snow Leopard; we wouldn’t be surprised to discover that some type of delay, or a “Final Beta” similar to Snow Leopard’s, will be announced today….but the most likely outcome is a release in the near term if not actually today.

Obviously, we’re very excited about that and we know all of you are as well. If we’re forced to wait for one more round of debugging to be carried out and for developers to test their apps against a set of new features, we’ll live…but many things about the dev process thus far, and the state of the mobile operating system itself, suggest that a release is imminent without significant further delay. Read more

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By Staff | Published: June 6, 2009

WWDC Preview Part 1: 2009 iPhones

As Rumors has previously reported, numerous indications from within the source code of iPhone OS 3.0 Beta releases….industry leaks from suppliers….and Infinite Loop itself as well as reports from reliable sources all over the planet all converge on a few relatively widespread fact-based predictions:

*At least three distinct 2009 iPhones: “3Gx2” or “3.5G” high-end model with enhanced specs & full support for AT&T’s new 7.2Mbps “Enhanced 3G” cellular data network….an entry-level model more or less the same as today’s iPhone 3G with mostly cosmetic changes and a few tweaks (possibly Bluetooth 3.0, among others), and a third “International” model designed for certain markets such as China which have unique cellular networking standards/requirements.

*Within each model family, there will be at least two pricing/value tiers based largely on storage space (but possibly also storage performance, in some cases); in approximate terms, 8GB 3G $99 — 16GB $149 (3G)/$199 (3.5G) — 32GB 3.5G $299, with a possible additional 64GB tier at $399. Read more

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By Staff | Published: May 17, 2009

Other iDevices may wait, 2009 iPhone will be announced at WWDC

Normally Mac OS Rumors is not in the business of making completely firm predictions even when based on the most reliable and fact-based “insider” information….too much can, and often does, happen between the prototype stages we’re privy to and the actual announcement day.

For example, our predictions of first-generation Macbook Air models with CPUs clocked at upwards of 2.0GHz were based on the numerous prototypes (Steve Jobs once publicly stated there were over one hundred [!] distinct Macbook Air prototypes with widely diverging specifications) and only after the announcement did it become clear such prototypes would have been unstable at the higher operating temperatures of those faster Core 2 mobile processors with the Air’s limited cooling hardware. Not to mention uncomfortably hot to the touch! Read more

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By Staff | Published: May 17, 2009

iPod Touch, other 2009 iDevices to include video camera?

It is already widely believed among rumor-mongers — with very good reason, based on the extensive source reports we’ve received on this specific detail — that at a minimum, the high-end 2009 iPhone will sport a new CMOS imaging sensor (“camera”) with 3.2MP photo capabilities and video output far superior to that of current 2007/2008 iPhones which only support video functionality when Jailbroken, and even then with poor image stability/quality/framerate.

The latest wave of rumors on the grapevine take this several steps further, suggesting that at least some type of camera will be included across all 2009 iDevices including the new iPod Touch and the much-speculated-upon “fourth iDevice” (entry-level iPhone, high-end iPhone, iPod Touch, and “iTablet” or similar).

Rumors’ sources have led us to go even further out on a limb than that in our predictions: based on the latest reports to come out from under source embargo, we believe that every 2009 iDevice with a camera will have some form of video capability, and most likely will be at least 3.2 megapixels for photographs/1280×720 (720P HD) video resolution. Read more

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By Staff | Published: May 17, 2009

Multitasking for 3rd-Party Apps?

Some have speculated, based on varying degrees of “insider” information, that all iDevices (current 2007/2008 iPhones & iPod Touch models as well as upcoming 2009 iPhones, iPod Touch models and an all-new iDevice sometimes referred to as ‘iTablet,’ ‘iPad’ or ‘iPortal’ which will compete with Tablets and “Netbooks”) running iPhone OS 3.0 when it ships this summer may have more than just the “background notification” features announced at the iPhone OS 3.0 Preview Event in March.

Specifically, several rumor-mongers have suggested that certain apps — either a specified number (two [2] is the most frequently mentioned figure), or a limited range of application types which would fit certain requirements to be “pre-approved” for background-tasking capability by Apple’s AppStore managers.

Neither of these fits very well with Infinite Loop’s style, nor are they consistent in any way with the information we’ve received from our own “insider” sources. Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software, App Store, Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses
By Staff | Published: May 13, 2009

Mac OS X 10.5.7 “Juno” released along with several other updates

Apple has posted the Mac OS X 10.5.7 Update package to its Software Update servers, weighing in at a hefty 449MB just for the incremental update from 10.5.6. Combo packages are also available both for the standard (729MB) and server (951MB) variants from Apple’s Downloads Page.

Readers are encouraged to report on any problems or changes.

From release notes for the standard Delta Update package:

What’s new in this update?

Address Book

* Improves reliability of Address Book syncing with iPhone and other devices and applications.

AirPort

* Improves the reliability of AirPort connections, including improvements when roaming in large wireless networks with an Intel-based Mac.

Client management

* Improves reliability of synchronizing files on a portable home directory.
* Fixes an issue in Mac OS X 10.5.4 and 10.5.5 in which managed users may not see printers that use the Generic PPD.

Read more
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Posted in Apple Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Responses
By Staff | Published: May 5, 2009

Whither Mac OS X 10.5.7 “Juno”?!

Numerous sources, and the grapevine at large, are in agreement that Juno is in a nearly completed state — in fact, several developers had already been pulled off the project to join other operating systems development teams (Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” and iPhone OS 3.0) as of last Friday.

But so far this week, there has been no new developer seed nor has the update been released. Historically, for many reasons Apple has chosen to release point upgrades for OS X on Mondays or Tuesdays. In keeping with that trend, it is still possible that we could see a release in the next 24 hours….but at least one key source reports that may not happen.

In fact, this source — who has rarely been wrong, but is not necessarily in a position to know for certain whether any items remain on the Juno team’s to-do list (which was almost entirely minor bug fixes as of last week) — says that it could be a few more days, and there could be one final developer seed to test the associated bug fixes before posting 10.5.7 to the Software Update servers. Read more

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By Staff | Published: May 5, 2009

Will iPhone OS 3.0 fix Apple’s broken App Store approval process?!

Recently, Apple has made some particularly outrageous missteps with regards to its App Store approval process — approving obscenely offensive apps like “Shake the Baby” (only taken down after days of widespread condemnation), while denying apps & updates which are not themselves in violation of Apple’s (perhaps questionable) policies, but rather merely allow access to the same mature-oriented third-party content iPhone & iPod Touch owners can easily get via Mobile Safari. In recent days, Apple has dropped several hints that the enhanced Parental Controls in iPhone OS 3.0 may resolve most if not all of these issues.

Two of the most recent examples of questionable decisions by Apple’s App Store submission moderators (censors?) include the first update to Nine Inch Nails’ wildly popular & innovative “NIN: Access” app, the development of which we’ve followed closely here at Rumors….in that case, Apple moderators cited the ability to download podcasts (which is far from being specific to NIN: Access) which included NIN’s “Closer,” with a single offensive lyric (“I want to f-bomb you like an animal”). Read more

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By Staff | Published: April 27, 2009

Apple reportedly in talks with Verizon, Sprint over 2010 iPhones & 4G

Despite recent comments (both public and private) by Apple to the effect that the company intends to stay focused on GSM cellular network technology — rather than CDMA, Verizon’s technology of choice — for a number of reasons, notably international adoption of GSM over the alternatives….a towering new tidal wave of rumors on this subject were sparked over the weekend by USA Today.

A solution to the problem of CDMA (EVDO for 3G data) versus GSM would be a jump straight to “4G” technology, something that Infinite Loop is reportedly working on quite aggressively for its 2010 iDevices (not just iPhone!) which will include cellular data-network connectivity. It would also open the door for Apple to also work with the #3 network behind AT&T and Verizon: Sprint, the most aggressive adopters of 4G to date. Read more

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By Staff | Published: April 27, 2009

Impressive Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” build 10A335 seeded

Despite being a mere 21 builds apart from the previous seed, 10A314, released earlier this month….the latest Snow Leopard seed (simultaneously released in both Standard and Server versions) has definitely taken a big step forward in many areas.

Several elements of the full internal Mac OS X 10.6 code tree, such as the “Marble” interface revamp and overhauled Finder as well as the entire PowerPC version of the operating system, continue to be withheld from the developer builds — but even absent those more visible features, Snow Leopard is truly beginning to shine and show full potential with the advent of 10A335.

Performance is a notable area of big improvement since build 314 was released at the beginning of April; already stunningly fast, sources confirm that 335 removes a significant amount of debug code which always bogs down developmental versions of OS X as compared to their final-release counterparts. Read more

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