ArsTechnica Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Early iPhone prototype with 5x7-inch display

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 11th, 2013)

Most leaked iPhone prototypes have been run-of-the-mill devices that resemble the iPhone we know and love. This latest leak from Ars Technica reveals the tablet roots of our favorite smartphone. These prototype images originated from 2005 and show an iPhone with a 5 x 7-inch display and a ...

Does Apple test the loyalty of new engineers with fake projects?

by Steven Sande (Feb 15th, 2013)

Let's get the answer to this question out of the way quickly -- no, Apple does not test the loyalty of new engineers with fake projects. Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica looked into the veracity of a rumor that was given life by author Adam Lishinsky's book Inside Apple, which posited that some ...

Ars publishes old-school iTunes image gallery

by Steven Sande (Jan 9th, 2013)

In honor of the 12th birthday of iTunes, Ars Technica Senior Apple Editor Jacqui Cheng has published a photographic family tree of sorts showing the app (and its predecessor SoundJam) through its various incarnations. It's an amazing trip down memory lane and demonstrates how even how the ...

Ars Technica chronicles the history of iTunes

by Steven Sande (Nov 26th, 2012)

Provided that Apple doesn't decide to delay the release of iTunes 11 until December, the newest iteration of the music/video player/sync tool/store application should be popping out of Cupertino by Friday. iTunes has been around since January 2001, and Jacqui Cheng at Ars Technica has done a ...

Ars reviews the new iPad: "power to spare"

by Steven Sande (Nov 6th, 2012)

While there has been plenty of press about the iPad mini, not many blogs seems to be paying attention to the faster, full-sized fourth-generation iPad that was announced at the same time. Chris Foresman at Ars Technica took on the challenge of running the new iPad through its paces, and found ...

Want to Roll-Your-Own Fusion drive? It's not for the faint of heart

by Erica Sadun (Oct 31st, 2012)

If you've been lusting after a Fusion Drive but own an older Mac, a Fusion-like solution may not be entirely out of your reach. Posts at the jollyjinx tumblr detail how the eponymous hacker built his own Fusion-style SSD/Hard Drive hybrid using features built directly into OS X. Lee Hutchinson ...

Daily Update for May 31, 2012

by Steven Sande (May 31st, 2012)

It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player ...

Ars looks at 25 years of HyperCard

by Steven Sande (May 31st, 2012)

Ars Technica has a wonderful writeup today about Apple's HyperCard, which would soon be celebrating its 25th birthday if it was still around. HyperCard was a wonderful tool; it provided a way for non-programmers to link "cards" of information with simple scripts and a variety of common Mac user ...

Ars explores music "mastered for iTunes"

by Steven Sande (Apr 30th, 2012)

Ars Technica's Infinite Loop blogger Chris Foresman took a detailed look into the world of modern sound engineering to determine if Apple's Mastered for iTunes program really does improve sound quality of songs that are remastered. The answer to the question of what sounds better ends up being as ...

The iPad as an IT professional's tool

by Steven Sande (Apr 23rd, 2012)

John Welch over at Ars Technica wrote a wonderful post about using an iPad as a system administrator's tool, noting that Apple's tablet is "an addition, not a replacement" to the many tools that IT pros currently use to complete their daily tasks. Welch brings up points that I discovered when ...

Macs are being spied on just like Windows machines

by Kelly Hodgkins (Mar 29th, 2012)

Any tech savvy Windows user is familiar with the term backdoor trojan; either they've been infected with one themselves or know someone who has. Now, it's time for Mac users, especially those who work for entities that are targets for corporate or military espionage, to become more aware of ...

Apple keeps your iCloud data safe

by Steven Sande (Mar 22nd, 2012)

Now that Apple is asking us to entrust our address books, calendars, files, photos, music and more to iCloud, many Mac and iOS users might be asking the question: "Is it safe?" Chris Foresman over at Ars Technica looked into the security of iCloud and concluded that "The simple answer is that ...

Daily Update for March 2, 2012

by Steven Sande (Mar 2nd, 2012)

Ars server logs show iPads using iOS 6, high-res displays

by Steven Sande (Mar 2nd, 2012)

Another piece of interesting evidence of a higher-resolution iPad has been exposed by Ars Technica. Looking at web server logs for February, Ars staffers found that the site had been visited by devices running iOS 6. Additionally, some of the devices had a screen resolution matching the alleged ...

Support for quad-core ARM CPU shows up in Apple's Xcode

by Steven Sande (Sep 23rd, 2011)

The default compiler in Apple's Xcode developer tools is the LLVM-based Clang. Ars Technica reports that they received a heads-up from a developer who works on low-level ARM assembly coding that the latest version of Clang in Xcode adds support for a quad-core, ARM-based processor from Marvell ...