Tag Archives: Apple Software

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. | Also tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment
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 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses
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 | Also 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 | Also 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 | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Response
By Staff | Published: January 13, 2009

Latest WebKit nightly build includes built-in update functionality

As of the current nightly build (39852), WebKit — the developmental version of Safari, available for public testing — has added the capability to update to the latest build within Webkit.app itself, obviating the need for third party software like NightShift.

The Rumors team has been a very active part of WebKit development/testing since its very first day — just as we are known throughout the industry for being prolific beta testers of both hardware & software.

(If you are a hardware and/or software developer with a developmental, beta, or pre-release product you’d like us to help test — and with your explicit permission, review for our readers who are very interested in such technology — please contact us as soon as possible: rumors@macosrumors.com to make arrangements!)

We do of course use other browsers, notably Mozilla Firefox, for various purposes….but have always been passionate supporters of Safari/Webkit and its underlying technology. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 9, 2009

Next for Apple: Mac Pros and Xserves based on Intel Core i7

For quite a while now, the eyes of the Mac community’s high-end segment have been on Intel’s latest processor technology called Core i7.

Previously code-named Nehalem, a project which we have followed since its infancy and in fact back before Apple even confirmed the long-standing rumor of the Intel transition, Core i7 integrates key advantages of leading processor designs across the industry and solidifies gains made by Intel since the original “Core” chips (“Yonah”) first shipped, marking a firm break from previous x86 processors out of Intel that didn’t keep up with competitor AMD, nor leading third-party RISC platforms such as PowerPC, ARM, MIPS and SPARC.

Learning from its mistakes and the successes of those platforms, Nehalem is a triumph of the multi-core engineering era. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Responses
By Staff | Published: January 9, 2009

Microsoft seeks to steal Apple’s thunder, Windows 7 Beta @ CES

Xerces affiliated bloggers & tech-TV anchors attending CES 2009 are streaming the news back to Rumors HQ that Microsoft has made a strong, headline-grabbing announcement at the opening of CES with Steve Ballmer’s announcement of a Windows 7 Beta to be made available for download tomorrow (Friday, January 9th).

LAS VEGAS, NV (Xerces Media)
Xerces-affiliated reporters and long-time source/contributor “Tron” are in attendance at CES, and though many have called this year’s Consumer Electronics Show a ‘hollowed-out shell of its former self,’ this news promises a rather more headline-grabbing show than many pundits seem to have expected.

Tron, only minutes out of the Ballmer speech and battling spotty connectivity due to the crush of wireless-access density in the area of the CES show floor, will be sending us updates throughout the week & week-end from CES as the bulk of Xerces’ remaining reporting teams are on their way home from Macworld. Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses
By Staff | Published: November 25, 2008

Safari 3.2.1 update released

Safari 3.2.1 was released via Software Update overnight, reportedly focusing on bug fixes, but some readers continue to report issues with stability and performance after the update. Stay tuned for an in-depth report on this and ongoing Webkit development shortly. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: November 18, 2008

Mac OS X 10.5.6 update may be released within the week

According to reliable sources, OS X 10.5.6 will be released to considerable excitement — well justified, based on our hands-on experiences with the update that will be posted shortly — within the next few days. Details to follow. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , | 3 Responses
By Staff | Published: August 19, 2008

iPhone Software Update 2.0.2 Released

Late Tuesday evening, Apple released version 2.0.2, a relatively modest update officially containing only bug fixes but unofficially including a number of non-bugfix tweaks to several major components of the onboard operating system as well as its bundled applications in at least three confirmed instances — Settings, Mail and Safari.


Stay tuned for a full “0-day” hands on review from Rumormongers’ Labs to be followed by Reader Reports from our best sources across the globe…..for now, some early vital stats on iPhone 2.0.2 which represents a “quick” release of key functional & security changes which couldn’t wait for the massive and impressive 2.1 release due in roughly two to three weeks’ time….

Although a parallel release for the iPod Touch is expected shortly including all non-phone & non-mobile-data/non-GPS related code — primarily security fixes in the core software, Settings, Mail and Mobile Safari — the releases for the two devices are expected to be synchronous for version 2.1 which will be a fully free update for both devices, provided you are already running the version 2.x.x software package. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: July 11, 2008

Get ready for the iPhone 3G tidal rush….

Apple stores are preparing for the feeding frenzy Friday morning as the new iPhone 3G hits the shelves all across the country. Last summer the first generation sold out of stock the very first weekend; has Apple prepared better for this new release?

If you are determined to catch this first wave and not chance the iPhone 3G selling out before you can get one, you may wish to park yourself outside the Apple stores the night before and wait for the doors to open like an eager concert fanatic camped out on the sidewalk, waiting for the tickets to go on sale for their favorite band’s next show.

If lines aren’t your thing, or if you are just too busy or cool to wait in such a fashion, you could give the AT&T stores a try, where lines are likely to be much shorter with more locations to spread the business between. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware | Also tagged , , , , | 1 Response
By Staff | Published: July 10, 2008

Apple posts hidden link to iPhone 2.0 software!

If you would like to be one of the few to sneak in behind an unpublished link and download the iPhone 2.0 firmware a day early, you need merely click here! (225MB)

To use the package once it has been downloaded (using the command-line curl or ftp utils, or another downloading application which won’t auto-expand the file after download, is recommended), simply option-click on the “Check for Update” button in iTunes, and select the file.

The update will wipe all data from your phone, so it is wise to ensure that all your bookmarks et cetera are backed up. It is not generally possible to specifically backup/restore your Home Screen icons, so be prepared to start from scratch in that regard. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
By Staff | Published: June 9, 2008

Live Keynote Updates STREAMING

Click through to the full page for streaming updates from WWDC 2008! Read more

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Posted in Apple Events | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Responses
By Staff | Published: June 8, 2008

Apple is not dropping Carbon support, PowerPC code


Since the Intel switch, everyone has been waiting for Apple to set a hard deadline for support for PowerPC based Macs. Some have significant numbers of PowerPC machines in use and want to be able to continue using them with new OS X releases in the future, others are clamoring for Apple to go Intel-only.

While it is a given that Apple will eventually drop support for the last PowerPC based macs at some point with a future release of OS X, it is unlikely this will happen as soon as 10.6. Apple does set arbitrary but hard cutoff points for older hardware, but those are specific machines lacking certain features. For Apple to cut support for PowerPC hardware would mean cutting an entire architecture out of the operating system. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Also tagged , | 3 Responses