Filed under: OS

Let's face it -- as much as we love our Macs, sometimes you've got to use a PC, whether that be for work or at a friend's house, or just for playing some games. But when you absolutely must use Windows, maComfort can make the transition easier. It's a free Windows application (with some premium options) that brings all of the nice software things you appreciate on your Mac back to your PC. It's got a QuickLook-style feature, translates the Windows key to all of your Command hotkeys, and even replicates familiar Mac features like one-button volume control and Spaces and Active Corners. And the app also has a add-on system, so you can download extra features like homemade Docks and shadows just like on your Mac back home.

Of course, it's not perfect -- QuickLook only works in Explorer, not everywhere, and obviously all of the less-superficial features on the Mac (like Terminal and Stacks) will stay in OS X. But if you have to use a PC away from home and are frustrated that hitting what's supposed to be the Command key keeps popping up the Start menu instead, try a little maComfort. The app is a free download with limited functionality, or $20 for full use.

[via LH]

This is pretty impressive --of course there are already lots of ways to automate actions on your Mac, and odds are that you may have messed around with scripting or Automator more than once before. But Sikuli is a new app that makes automating as simple as taking screenshots. Instead of programming actions, all you have to do is put screenshots of the particular UI items that you want to automate in a list, and then the app will use visual cues to do whatever you want it to do. Not only does it make things much easier when actually writing scripts, but it also gives you countless options in terms of automation -- the app can automate any app that has a graphical user interface, because all it has to do is recognize that GUI on your screen. That includes web apps, too -- like I said, the possibilities are endless.

And since it's developed with Jython, you Python experts can insert any Python code that you like in the scripts as well. The whole thing is an MIT project, so it's available for free across all platforms, including OS X, Windows, and Linux. If you've been looking for an automator that'll do any rote task for you, give Sikuli a try.

[via LifeHacker]

A friend's MacBook had slowed down to a snail's pace. Despite looking everywhere for the issue, streamlining everything I could, and yelling at it, it failed to accelerate to usable speed. So I recommended we start from scratch and build it back up with only the things she was using, free of all the other downloads and aborted installs of various software she never used or cared about. It also housed a prior system, and a PC migration from a few years back. All told, the computer was a bloated, duplicated whale of files and applications for what was essentially a light-load writer's computer.

So I backed up the essential parts of her system using Time Machine: documents (including her novel and decades of prior writing, published and unpublished), ten years of family photographs, a 41GB iTunes library, among other things, and then....backed it up again elsewhere, outside of Time Machine.

And again.

And just for good measure, once more time, to yet another drive. I wasn't going to be the (ex-)friend who lost her novel.

What I wanted to do was do the ol' "erase and install" that prior system software discs allowed you to do. But clicking around Snow Leopard left no obvious method for this. But instead of booting Snow Leopard while inside of Mac OS X, if you just directly reboot the computer off the disc itself (holding down the "c" button after the system chime, letting go when you see the Apple logo) you get a few more options. Once you've gone into the installer program, you'll see "Utilities" at the top, and if you select Disc Utility, you can see your hard drive. If you click on "erase" (like I did, with one hand over my eyes) you can wipe the drive clean with various security options, and then you can do a fresh install of Snow Leopard on your computer on a pristine hard drive.

Once you've done that, you can either transfer your files back in directly, or use the installer program's built-in migration utility to restore any or all files from Time Machine.

And now? The world awaits the Next Great American Novel, untragically unlost by yours truly.

The iPhone and iPod touch haven't run Flash natively in the years since their respective debuts, and it's pretty clear based on Steve Jobs's presentation yesterday that the iPad won't run Flash, either. When scrolling through the New York Times's main page, for example, where Flash ads or video might have been there were instead broken LEGO icons, big as life on the screen at the keynote.

Predictably, Adobe isn't happy about this, and is accusing Apple of "continuing to impose restrictions on their devices that limit both content publishers and consumers." They go on to say that without Flash support, "users will not be able to access the full range of web content, including over 70% of games and 75% of video on the web."

Let's work backwards from this. First of all, I'd be very interested to see where Adobe got those percentages. Apparently YouTube now accounts for a mere 25% of video on the internet? As for Hulu and a few of the other specific sites mentioned in Adobe's rant, now that Apple is in the business of selling content, exactly how is it in the company's best interest to provide access to that same content, through another company's platform, for free? And as far as games are concerned, once again Apple has this covered, through the App Store. Far from being limited, content publishers and consumers will merely have to adjust to a new method of publishing and consuming content: one that doesn't involve Adobe in any way.

What a day it's been. The tablet is finally out. That's right, the tablet we've been waiting years for is real and will be on sale soon, only it's called the iPad, and it's pretty similar to the iPhone. Just in case you missed something today, here's everything we've learned about the magical and revolutionary device, all lined up in one easy-to-browse list. Just think, in 60 days, you'll be able to flip through these posts with your finger. On a 9.7" IPS screen, I mean.

Liveblog and major news

• Apple Event Metaliveblog
• Apple announces the iPad
• AAPL goes on a rollercoaster ride
• See tweets live during the event on @tuawlive
• iPad pricing starts at $499, available in 60/90 days

Hardware

• Apple's official iPad video, specs page
• Apple making its own chips, starting with the A4
• iPad will ship with 802.11n Wi-Fi, 3G optional
  
• Apple announces keyboard dock for iPad
• Five iPad accessories available at launch
• What's missing from the iPad

Software

• All iPhone apps will run on the iPad
• Apple announces iBooks, an e-reader for iPad
• Apple shows off new versions of iWork apps for iPad
• iPhone OS 3.2 SDK released, supports iPad but covered by NDA

The third major update to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is getting closer to appearing in Software Update. A new beta of Mac OS X 10.6.3 (build 10D538) was released to a limited number of Apple developers last Friday.

The Friday beta includes an update to QuickTime X that enhances reliability, security, and compatibility. The release also provides performance-enhancing tweaks for Apple's 64-bit Logic Pro audio suite, better compatibility with a host of printers, and applications that use OpenGL.

Apple is asking developers to evaluate other core system components in their testing, including VoiceOver, AirPort, and graphics drivers. There's a known issue with the beta when viewing photo albums using Front Row, but the approximately 670 MB release should arrive for the rest of us within the next six weeks.

Although past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future releases, both 10.4.3 and 10.5.3 were released about 110 days after the earlier versions. That would put the release of 10.6.3 near the end of February, 2010.

[via AppleInsider]

News is bouncing around today that the current test version of Mac OS X 10.6.3 has OpenGL 3.0 installed in it, and while it's not completely working yet, developers are hopeful that this means Apple is pushing to have full OpenGL 3.0 support in place as soon as possible. What does that mean for us mere users? Better, faster graphics, and the ability to push the hardware we've already paid for to where it's supposed to be. Most of the hardware sold in modern Macs actually has the ability to make use of OpenGL 3.0 (in fact, the current version is actually 3.2, and 3.0 was released back in 2008), but Apple's never included it in the software.

It's a strange thing, this hesitance Apple has to really push the graphics ability on these machines to the limit. They've kept things slower than they could be in other ways as well, for reasons we're not entirely sure of. It just doesn't seem like faster 3D is a priority for them -- we'll leave it up to you to decide whether that's good or bad.

Dan Frommer over at The Business Insider had a nice, juicy tidbit to send out to anyone who is interested in Apple tablet rumors: he's apparently heard from someone who has seen the tablet's operating system, but not the actual device.

There were three little quotes from the mysterious source in Frommer's nugget of tablet gold:

• It's "pretty" -- obviously.
• "The UI has a good bit of new sexy to it."
• "It's a big iPhone, but it's not just a big iPhone."

Frommer goes on to mention recent reports that speculate that the user interface could have a "steep learning curve." However, he also brings up the very valid point that Steve Jobs would never let a product out the doors of Apple if it was difficult to use or required a lot of learning.

What's "difficult to use?" The original CultOfMac post Frommer alluded to was concerned about text entry, and cited Palm's old Graffiti method as something that people had problems with. Even Apple's own Newton MessagePad lost market credibility after its handwriting recognition was widely lampooned by the press. As for the rest of the user interface, it is impossible to imagine that Apple will introduce something that is harder to use than a Mac or iPhone. The "new sexy" could be the key Apple design touch that makes the UI something attractive, functional, and desirable.

Twenty more days... and I'm sure we'll hear at least twenty more rumors.

The release of Mac OS 10.6.3 moves closer as Apple has begun widespread testing of build 10D522. According to AppleInsider, this update focuses on stability and core components like AppKit, CoreMedia, Desktop Services, FileSync, Fonts, HIToolbox and more. The current build is 665.7MB in size.

Reports indicate that nearly 60 crash-happy bugs have been squashed across more than 90 components with this update, like printing issues with iCal, Mail and PhotoBooth (fortunately I haven't experienced those). Additionally, 10.6.3 includes native support for the Magic Mouse.

Apple began limited testing in December, and has released several builds since. Now that testing has become more widespread and the fixes increase, we move closer to release.

We're well into 2010 (OK, 4 days), but there's still a few more lists and "top tens" of the last decade to clean up. One of the more interesting Apple-related wrapups is this list by Fraser Spiers, showing off Apple's best technical feats of the past decade. There's certainly tons of technical innovations by Apple in "the naughties" to choose from -- it was the decade of the iPod and the iPhone. But Spiers' list actually avoids direct mention of either of those, instead choosing to highlight some more Mac-based technical feats. Bonjour is in there, as is the great Time Machine and Snow Leopard's Grand Central Dispatch system. Webkit is probably an obvious choice, given all the places it's shown up in Apple's various releases.

And there are some more interesting picks on the list as well, including Aperture, the underrated Exposé, and even the unibody laptop design. Some might argue that a few of these aren't necessarily Apple's innovations (I wouldn't necessarily credit them with DVD burning and encoding in the 2000s), but it's true that all of these were brought into a widespread, acclaimed form by Apple. If nothing else, a list like this shows just how much Apple has done for personal computing in the last ten years -- we tend to think first, these days, of their handheld accomplishments, but they've had plenty of other technical feats as well.

[via Michael Tsai]

Electronista summarizes John Gruber's report that a "cone of silence" exists surrounding those developing the tablet and virtually no information comes from those directly involved. Many of the tablet team are reportedly the same as those that developed the Calendar, Mail, and Safari iPhone apps – and those people are used to this. They underwent a similar radio-lockdown in late 2006.

Gruber also maintains that Steve Jobs has given the tablet his "undivided attention" since returning to Apple in September. Apple's secrecy is legendary and Gruber's assertions seem to be more conjecture than insider knowledge. He does admit "I don't know anyone who works at Apple who doubts these things; nor do I know anyone at Apple who knows a whit more. I don't know anyone who's seen the hardware or the software, nor even anyone who knows someone else who has seen the hardware or software."

Gruber does seem more confident that his sources say Mac OS X 10.7 is on track for a developer release at WWDC in June. Unfortunately they haven't mentioned any public-release time frame or a possible name – although I'm hoping for "10.7 Lynx."

Our friends over at Engadget have selected their top 10 gadgets of the last decade (the naughts, as I like to call them), and Apple has come up big: four out of the ten choices are made by the company from Cupertino. The iPhone is on the list (of course), as is the iPod. The original Titanium PowerBook fills a spot for its "category-shaping design" and its influence on laptops since its release in 2001.

Perhaps most interesting, Mac OS X is on the list right alongside Windows XP as a co-gadget of the decade. Engadget says that both operating systems provided fresh and clean restarts for their respective companies, and that while OS X took a little while to "become a usable daily OS" (ouch), it still helped to "set a new standard for computing."

Being the Apple weblog that we are, we might argue that Windows XP provided a solid update to Windows 98, while OS X offered up some actual innovation in the operating system market (and Apple still carries the banner on commercial UI innovation today). But we're nitpicking on that one -- 40% of their gadgets that shaped the decade were made by one company, and that's good enough for us.

One of our readers informed us that he was seeing some strangeness with Photo Booth time stamps. Photo Booth is the built-in Mac app that lets you grab stills or video from your iSight or attached USB or Firewire camera. It does the job dutifully, and with no issues... until now.

Beginning on or about December 27, the app started creating file names that are exactly one year in the future. It's not getting the creation date wrong, that's just fine. But Photo Booth is now giving files names like 2010-12-29 at 11.00.

It's not the end of the world, but if you are looking to find a file by date in the name, you're sure to be confused. The bug appears in Snow Leopard, and I haven't been able to determine if it appears in other, older versions of the OS.

If you want to check the bug for yourself, take a snapshot with Photo Booth, and then look inside the Photo Booth folder inside the Pictures folder in your user directory. Let us know what you find.

Perhaps Apple should re-name the app "Time Machine II."

[Thanks to Oliver for the tip]

I was eating a late post-Christmas breakfast this morning and perusing my email when I came upon a note from my friend and fellow Apple Consultants Network member Michael Kimble. Mike's been involved with Apple products since before the Mac arrived, so he has seen product trends come and go for decades. In his email, he mused that:

"I've been wondering if Apple, on their Jan. 26th product announcement, won't start to differentiate OS X to include OS X Mobile, OS X Touch, OS X Desktop & OS X Server. But rather than discreet versions of the OS, it is a spectrum where features of one version can slide up and down the scale depending on the functionality of the hardware platform it's running on. It seems to be moving in that direction whether a formal acknowledgment is made or not."

It's not that far a stretch to see Apple adding another variety of OS X to the family tree. As a result of yesterday's post about the as-yet-unannounced Apple tablet, TUAW reader Dillon made a similar observation to Mike's:

"Just a thought, but if the new Apple tablet ran straight iPhone OS, then it would probably be released in June with annual iPhone update... meaning that the Mac tablet will probably run a cross between Mac OSX 10.6 and iPhone OS or just Mac OSX 10.6.

Apple really won't release something unless it is speedy enough. They don't even let you run a background app or multitask on the iPhone due to speed issues. If they wanted to make a speedier tablet it would make sense that they would [deliver] a hybrid of the two operating systems, allowing better speed, battery, and more functionality than the iPhone, yet something not as relatively bulky as Snow Leopard."

Three of the four operating systems already exist (and there's always the family member they keep locked in the closet -- the Apple TV -- with its odd edition of Mac OS 10.4 Tiger). All it would take is for Apple to add a new version of the OS that would, as Dillon points out, allow background processing and true multi-tasking, yet pull out a lot of the more weighty components of OS X.

What do you think? Is a new, formal acknowledgment of a new Apple OS on the way, or will the tablet run a beefier version of the iPhone OS? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.

Illustration from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tigerpixel/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Chitika Research, a company that helps deliver online advertising, has released numbers from its network that claim 45% of iPod touch users still haven't upgraded to the iPhone 3.x firmware. Only 55% of the users measured have paid the cash to upgrade to the latest version (because of accounting regulations around subscriptions, iPod touch users have to pay for an upgrade that iPhone users get for free). And actually, the story is even worse than you think: Chitika points out that since mid-June, every single iPod touch sold has had 3.x pre-installed on it anyway. That means the percentage of users who owned iPod touches before June but haven't yet upgraded is even higher than the overall numbers show.

So how can Apple fix this (and they probably should -- lots of their best and brightest apps require 3.0, not to mention developers have spent a good amount of time upgrading them for the new firmware)? First, and maybe even only step, is to get rid of that fee, and Apple is already working on that one. Of course, education might be another issue -- it's possible that iPod touch users just don't know that there's an upgrade waiting for them. But I have an inkling that the fee is the real issue here. People may scoff at a $10 app, and I'm sure that they're doing exactly that for an upgrade to the firmware.

[via CultofMac]