Tag Archives: Third Party Developers

Mac OS X 10.5.7 build 9J39 seeded to developers

According to numerous reports from developers and other sources, this new build is considerably closer to being ready for prime time, but is most likely still at least 2-3 seeds away from being “done” which puts a release date at about a month from now. Stability in build 9J39 is solid but still far from perfect, and quite a few issues still arise from the new bundled Flash Player engine which was introduced in the last seed.

Given the fact that the last officially road-mapped release of Leopard, 10.5.8, is supposed to ship at or around the same time as Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” (WWDC, June 8-12)….and several of the 10.5.x “debugging” team will switch over to work on Snow Leopard after 10.5.7 is out the door….we believe that this will be the last release anywhere near this ambitious and that future updates (whether they be point-upgrades or “security updates”) will be smaller, more frequent, and considerably less dependent on third party developers for hands-on testing. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses

Pre-Release Review of Twittelator 2.0 for IPA

Whether or not you’re a user (yet), it’s nearly impossible these days to be unaware of Twitter — growing at stratospheric speeds as it becomes an ever-more ubiquitous part of the lives & businesses of countless people across the planet, the social network is rapidly becoming as important to the average net-savvy person as names like Google, Facebook, and yes, even Apple.

If you have an iDevice and want to make the most of Twitter, we think you’ll want to check out Twittelator from our old friends at Stone Design.

Available in both free and $5 “Pro” (worth every penny, if you ask us!) versions, Twittelator 2.0 has been one of the most interesting and exciting beta tests we’ve ever participated in. Read more

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Posted in 3rd Party Software, App Store | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Responses

Will Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” really support PowerPC?!

Ever since we posted our first ‘sneak peek’ at Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” two weeks ago, one of the most frequent questions and lingering doubts amongst readers surrounds the issue of support for PowerPC (G4/G5) based Macs. Will it really be present in the final version? Tonight we took a moment to answer that question as best we could for a reader who asked about it in the comments section of the aforementioned article.

“Mizhou” wrote: “A friend of mine just tried to install on a 1.8 GHz G5, and the installer just says that it is an unsupported architecture.”

Quoted from the response by our founder, Ryan C. Meader (@dalaixerces on Twitter):

Internal builds we’ve worked with have (and continue to) support PowerPC but there are increasing signs that the final version may not. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 17 Responses

Will my GPU be fully supported by Snow Leopard’s OpenCL?

According to reliable sources, if you own an Intel Mac other than the Mini or an original Macbook — either of which shipped with Intel’s GMA950 integrated GPU — then you are already good to go for support of the full range of OpenCL acceleration features.

If you have a Mac with the Intel GMA950, then you will get most of the benefits of OpenCL though the performance level of those functions will be significantly lessened due to the lack of dedicated graphics RAM and absence of support for many programmable GPU features that exist in other chips/cards going back to the ATi X1000 series.

To get that full support, GPUs as “old” as the ATi X1600, X1800 and X1900 (the latter of which was available for PowerMac G5s with PCI Express slots, based on the PowerPC 970MP dual-core processor while the former shipped in early Intel iMacs and its X1600M cousins in Macbook Pros) will do the job….but certain nVIDIA cards from the GeForce 7000 series, which shipped in iMacs and PowerMacs during the G5 era, most likely will not. Read more

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Posted in Apple Hardware, Apple Software | Also tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Responses

Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” – First Sneak Peek

Even as Mac OS Rumors worked to prepare our first in-depth look at developmental “alpha” stage builds of Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” earlier this week…the first builds (10A250 and later) seeded to third-party developers in quite some time and the first to be nearly feature-complete hit the grapevine like a shock wave. We have modified this first Sneak Peek to incorporate some of these reports, notably on the most recent 10A261 seed, and will be posting smaller more frequent Snow Leopard updates in the days ahead.

To begin with, let’s review the straightforward nature of Snow Leopard’s mission: eschewing “innovation” at the user level for primarily under-the-hood upgrades, Snow Leopard is a one-year project that Apple has embarked on to catch up with its backlog of ambitious architectural and technological plans for the Mac OS X operating system. Read more

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Posted in Apple Software, Articles | Also tagged , , , , , , , , | 16 Responses

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

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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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

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

Conflicted over the lack of an Apple netbook while Sony announces one?

As we watch with a certain degree of envy the announcement at CES 2009 that Sony is introducing a new 8-inch display based “netbook” Vaio ‘lifestyle PC,’ many in the community are experiencing a duality of appreciation and frustration at Apple’s apparent disinterest in this space. But it may be with good reason.

Already, the iPhone and the Macbook Air nicely bracket the netbook product space.

Between the two, one really doesn’t have much need for such a device…..but nonetheless, when one looks over the specs of the new Vaio Lifestyle PC and its elegant little industrial design, it’s hard not to feel a little bit envious that Apple didn’t do it first.

Specs like these: 1.33GHz x86 processor, 1600×768 (!!!) pixel 8-inch 16:9 widescreen display, built-in micro webcam, two USB 2.0 ports, combined display/network breakout port, audio I/O ports, SD and Memory Stick slots, and a built-in 60GB hard drive or 128GB SSD drive. Read more

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

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

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

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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