Thursday, March 31, 2011

Lion Preview notes: iCal redesign, iChat account merge, more



We’re getting our first views of Lion Preview 2 and contrary to earlier reports, this certainly doesn’t feel like a Gold Master.  In fact, it doesn’t improve much from the previous preview in terms of stability –which is fine if we are a few months away.
As you can see above, iCal has a new leather bound header (OMG) with faux stitching and interestingly, iChat’s main window houses AIM, Bonjour and Jabber contacts together like Adium.
Also, the Chrome browser crashes pretty frequently for our review copy anyway.
Developers, please post any additional changes you find in the comments.

OSX Lion Preview 2 is out, Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 2…too


Developers, you need to install an update from Software Update first.  Then Restart.  Then go to the Dev Center and get a redeem code.  Then go to the Mac App Store, redeem and download.  The download is 3.7GB.
We miss the old days.
Apple also released Xcode to 4.1 Developer Preview 2:

Monday, March 28, 2011

Mac OS X Lion GM seed nearing release?

TechCrunch reports that development of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is moving along smoothly and is actually ahead of schedule. The current developer preview of 10.7 Lion is pretty stable but is not without its bugs, lockups, and crashes. Apple has been at work improving the operating system and is reportedly actually almost ready to release a golden master build of the next-generation Mac operating system.
Apple is gearing up to deploy an OS X Lion update to developers that they may be classifying as the “GM1″ release, we’re hearing. “GM” or “Golden Master” is a title reserved for software that is complete. But from what we’ve heard, this is only the initial Golden Master candidate.
A golden master (GM) software release is the stage in which the software’s development is complete and ready to print. Probably in Lion’s case, though, a GM means ready to upload to the Mac App Store. Although GMs usually mean the software will be shipping out to consumer’s soon, TechCrunch says there will be multiple GMs – like iOS 4.2 – with the one coming soon being labeled as GM1.
Back at Lion’s announcement in October 2010, Apple said the OS would ship sometime during summer 2011. At this point, development is in its far stages s0 it’s a safe bet that we’ll be hearing more about it at Apple’s early-June World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC). Mac OS X Lion brings many new features to the Mac including Mission Control (Spaces, Expose combined), Launchpad (iOS-like home screens), new Multi-Touch gestures, full-screen applications, an iPad-like mail application, AirDrop WiFi file sharing, and built-in server functionality.
It’s no secret that iOS 4.3 hurt battery life for some iOS device users and with Apple issuing a bug fix-filled iOS update today, many have speculated that the release will include battery life improvements. Now that users have had some time to play around with iOS 4.3.1, readers have written in to report that their battery life issues appear to be resolved. One reader let us know that iOS 4.3.1 “significantly” improved his iPad 2′s battery life performance.
I have noticed significant improvement to my iPad 2′s battery life with the installation of iOS 4.3.1! I’m so relieved that the performance I was getting before isn’t its true capacity.
Others have expressed marginal to significant improvement in battery life through Twitter:
  • “iOS 4.3.1 was released today, seems like my battery isn’t dying as fast anymore.”
  • “4.3.1 update certainly did fix my battery drain issues.”
  • “Pleased that iOS 4.3.1 appears to have cleared the battery draining issue. Only gone down 15% in the last 6 hours.”
  • “Anyone else noticing significant battery life improvement on iOS 4.3.1 for iPhone 4?”
  • “My iphone is definitely draining battery slower under 4.3.1.”
  • “iOS 4.3.1 is out today, it seems to have fixed the battery issue on my iPhone 4.”
It appears that the battery life issue in iOS 4.3 is strictly software related. Perhaps the battery percentage meter is calibrated incorrectly in iOS 4.3 or maybe some background processess are unnecessarily activated. In any case, it appears that iOS 4.3.1 is improving battery life for some users. Did it help you? Use the poll after the break.

How to activate TRIM on any SSD in MacOS10.6.7

First things first: This is experimental and we take no responsibility for what you do to your computer with these instructions.
With the release of the Lion Beta, the Mac OS now has support for TRIM use on SSDs.  TRIM allows SSDs to perform better by erasing unused data sectors ahead of time.  More on TRIM here.
However, some enterprising users have been able to get TRIM support on Mac OS 10.6.7
Update: Oskar Groth, also known as Cindori, built a script to enable any SSD on 10.6.7.
Download TRIM Enabler, follow along in Mac Forums, Xlr8yourmac, and Hardmac was first to document the process.


Cydia 1.1: faster, slimmer, and more stable (with better search)

A few minutes ago, Cydia lead developer Jay Freeman tweeted that Cydia 1.1 had hit the repos.  For more of what is in Cydia 1.1, Saurik gave the following details to
iPhoneDownloadBlog:
Features of Cydia 1.1 will include:
  • the ability to run and operate Activator, libstatusbar, and SimulatedKeyEvents while Cydia is running
  • an overall speed improvement, including the “Loading Changes” dialog
  • “much less” memory usage
  • a more advanced search mechanism with a new relevancy algorithm
  • better management of broken repositories
Here’s everything saurik had to tell us about Cydia:
in read more

iTunes, Songs for Japan

Songs for Japan is a 38 song, iTunes special collection of tracks from the world’s top recording artists for $10. All proceeds go to the Red Cross in Japan.  Again, you can also donate directly to the Red Cross using iTunes as well.

iOS 5 pushed to the fall: major revamp, cloud-based, WWDC preview?

TechCrunch reports that Apple has decided to wait until fall 2011 to launch their rumored iOS 5 for iOS devices: iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Major iOS upgrades are typically revealed by Apple during February or March then previewed again in early June alongside a new iPhone, then released on or around the new iPhone’s availability date. The report claims that 2011 will be different and that customers will likely only get their hands on the next-generation mobile operating system during the fall. It would make sense that Apple would unveil the final touches at their annual fall/September music event.
The report says we’ll most likely get our first glimpse at iOS 5 at Apple’s annual World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) in early June, and we assume developers will get a preview download at that date. The report is scarce on iOS 5 details but it does claim that it’s a major revamp and it will be heavily cloud-based. This should go hand-in-hand with the rumored music locker service from Apple – in addition to Media Stream and Find my Friends. TechCrunch is again expected a new iPad for a fall announcement- that just doesn’t seem likely to us, though.
In terms of Apple launching a fifth-generation iPhone at WWDC with iOS 4 – it does not seem likely given Apple’s past release cycles but could be possible. In fact, we found references to an iPhone 5 with an A5 processor - same one as in the iPad 2 – in the iOS 4.3 development kit. Apple also appears to still be working on iOS 4.x as they released an update yesterday. In addition, Media Stream and Find my Friends were both found in the iOS 4.3 SDK. Apple is also rumored to launch a revamped MobileMe around April that is also heavily cloud-based. Perhaps the new (possibly free) service will tie together with Apple’s next-gen iOS.
TechCrunch has not been the most accurate when it comes to pinpointing Apple information. Less than a week after the iPad’s unveil in January 2010 they reported that Apple is already at work on a Mac OS X tablet  - for a 2010 launch – with an intel processor. They were one of the many sites who pinpointed a January reveal of the Verizon iPhone 4, though. TechCrunch also said back in 2008 that Apple is working on their own search engine.

AMD throws down the gauntlet to Nvidia on graphics speed claims



As Apple transitions its line from NVIDIA graphics cards to AMD (and opens up the OS to much more variety), we’re noting some stong words coming out of each camp on who makes the fastest graphics card in the world.  On the 8th of this month, AMD announced it had released the fastest Graphics card on the market, the AMD Radeon HD 6990.
NVIDIA fired back this week and said they had the fastest Graphics card.  No it is getting real.
Dave Erskine, Senior Public Relations Manager for Graphics Desktop at AMD just fired this off:

We combed through their announcement to understand how it was that such a claim could be made and why there was no substantiation based on industry-standard benchmarks, similar to what AMD did with industry benchmark 3DMark 11, the latest DirectX® 11 benchmark from FutureMark.
So now I issue a challenge to our competitor: prove it, don’t just say it. Show us the substantiation. Because as it stands today, leading reviewers agree with us hereherehere, and here that the AMD Radeon HD 6990 sits on the top as the world’s fastest graphics card.

It should be noted that Direct X isn’t going to have much bearing on Mac users, but it is informative and entertaining nonetheless to see these two industry titans slug it out.
It may also explain why Apple moved from NVIDIA to AMD.
NVIDIA has had some build issues that cause recalls of its portable line which may have also soured Apple to NVIDIA products.  They also build a Tegra 2 processor which powers most of the Android phones and tablets that challenge Apple’s iOS for portable supremacy.