Oh, computers. Every time we think we've figured you out, you come up with another number-related disaster for us to fear. This time around, it's the Twitpocalypse -- apparently Twitter decided to use a unique identifier in their API for each separate tweet that goes out, and come sometime this weekend, the number will reach 2,147,483,647 and keep going. Which just happens to be too much for the variable that holds it, and that means that many of your favorite external Twitter clients, from Tweetie to Twitterific, to all of the other magic Twitter apps out there, could go down in a ball of numerically-ignited flame.

The good news is that just like the Year 2K panic, this one is more or less unfounded. We've already spoken to our friend Ged Maheux of Twitterrific, and he says that the problem has already been fixed in the latest version of the software. We'd imagine that most of the really big Twitter apps have already addressed the issue, and taken care to make sure they'll still work (either that, or they'll get on it ASAP). Plus, a Twitter outage wouldn't really be anything that might cause riots in the streets (or different from the usual downtime, actually -- rimshot!).

But it is funny and strange that as long as we have people who can't foresee the future (so, all of us) programming computers, we'll keep running into problems like this. If your favorite Twitter client goes out on Saturday, just find a basement to stay in, stock up on shotgun shells and water, and put your head between your legs -- help is on the way soon.

As with most keynote presentations, Apple released a lot of numbers about just how many people are adopting the Mac and iPhone platforms.

First, over the last three years, the active Mac OS X installed base has grown from 25 million users to 75 million users. This is great news for the platform and for the entire Mac ecosystem.

Also, over 5,200 developers from 54 countries around the world are attending WWDC. Over a million people have downloaded the free iPhone SDK, and created 50,000 applications for Apple iPhones and iPod touch devices.

Speaking of which, over 40 million iPhones and iPod touches have been sold to date. In April, Apple announced that those users had downloaded a cumulative total of one billion applications.

Customers who buy iWork '09 retail boxes may be surprised by what they don't find inside. Namely, a registration code. Apple has stopped shipping iWork with a registration code starting with version '09. "Install iWork '09 from the enclosed disc and you're ready to go," says Apple.

Of course, those using the downloaded trial version will have to enter a serial number if they want to activate their trial version. While iWork has traditionally required users to enter a registration code, iLife has not. Some have implied that this is a tacit invitation to piracy -- install our software on random machines, get hooked then pay for an upgrade, but we're unconvinced. Also, we have no indication (as of this writing, at least) that the iWork apps don't phone home to verify that they're validly installed.

[Via Ars]

During today's Macworld Keynote Phil Schiller announced the immediate release of iWork '09. We previously reported this was fairly likely given the slip-up over at Apple.com. The updated version of iWork is definitely more evolutionary than revolutionary.

Keynote
The first new feature of Keynote are the "Magic Move" transitions. Essentially, you set up your slides and Keynote automatically animates your objects and moves them from slide-to-slide. Additional text and object transitions have been added as well. For example, the text from one slide can morph into the text on the following slide.

The Theme Chooser has been updated as well. It now allows you to easily and quickly view and apply a theme as well. The Theme Chooser also makes it easy to quickly apply a particular slide size. The 3D charts and graphs have been updated as well to include additional textures and new animations.

The killer new feature in Keynote is the introduction of the Keynote Remote application for the iPhone or iPod touch. Using Wi-Fi you can view your slide as well as notes on the slide wirelessly from your iPhone or iPod touch. If you rotate your device into a landscape orientation you can view the current slide as well as the next slide. In true touchscreen form you can swipe your finger across the screen to advance to the next slide.

Click the read link for more information about iWork '09.

For full Macworld Expo coverage, bookmark the TUAW Macworld Expo 2009 landing page. If you missed our liveblog coverage, you can review it here.

touchArcade has a quick look up at Ambrosia's new version of the old Sudoku game for the iPhone, coming soo to an App Store near you. It looks like Sudoku to us -- there's numbers, squares, and entering one in the other with the touchscreen to fill out the puzzle. Yup, seems like if you want to play Sudoku, you'll be able to do it. Not a lot of extra flair, especially for $10 (there is a free version already on the web), but we'd guess it's not really needed in this case.

And Ambrosia is also working on a version of Mahjong, called Aki Mahjong Mobile for the iPhone. They don't have video of that that we've seen, but work, they say, is progressing steadily towards an App Store launch.

In terms of innovation, there's not a lot to find in these two games but every new game platform needs a few standbys to fill out the library (we'll almost certainly see Pac Man and Frogger clones in the App Store at launch, not to mention that we'll have to see a good poker game as well), and it looks like Ambrosia's ready to fill the quota for these two traditional games.

If you're an iWork 08 user, then you may want to run a software update, as Apple has just pushed out updates for all three applications. As ever, there's hugely informative release notes: for Pages 3.0.2 and Numbers 1.0.2 "[t]his update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X" while the Keynote 4.0.2 update "primarily addresses performance issues while playing or exporting presentations."

On the TUAW Intel testbed here in the UK, the updates weigh in at 32.4MB, 29.3MB and 27.4MB for Keynote, Pages and Numbers respectively.

Keynote 4.0.2 at Apple.com
Pages 3.0.2 at Apple.com
Numbers 1.0.2 at Apple.com

Thanks to all those who sent this in!

Apple keeps the updates coming with new versions of Keynote (version 4.0.1), Pages (version 3.0.1) and Numbers (1.0.1). The description of each is typically cryptic. According to Apple...

• The Keynote update primarily addresses issues with builds and performance.
• The Pages update primarily addresses issues with change tracking and performance.
• The Numbers update primarily addresses issues with tables and performance.

Sound good? If you've purchased iWork '08, launch software update.

Are you chomping at the bit for iWork '08? Chomp no more (I mean, that can't be good for your teeth)! Apple has just made available a free 30 day trial for download. Take Pages, Keynote, and Numbers for a spin before you plunk down your hard earned cash for it. Now, if only Apple would do the same for iLife '08.

Thanks, Robert.

Doctor Macenstein has a very good commentary up: even though he's a happy iPhone owner, he wants the iPhone to fail. Fail miserably. In fact, he was cheering on the news during the earnings announcement yesterday that Apple completely missed their analysts' fever dream-induced goal for iPhone sales. Why would a man (woman? Did we ever find out what the Doc's gender was?) who's invested $600+ in a phone want it to not sell well? If you're like me, you might answer that, "because he's crazy." Everyone knows success is always good for a product-- if the iPod had failed, we'd never have had the Nano, the Shuffle, or, for that matter, the iPhone. So if Doc Mac wants to wish the iPhone wrong, he's a loony.

Or is he? He makes good points-- lower-than-expected iPhone sales might make Apple nervous enough to get in gear on pushing new software features and updates out, and get that price point dropping for the rest of us. And on the price point Doc's especially got a point-- when Apple was asked if there was going to be a lowered price point, they actually cited customer satisfaction as the reason not to drop it. In other words, if people are happy with the iPhone (and Apple is convinced that they are), there's no reason to change it.

With AAPL doing so well, Apple has a chance to sit back on their laurels and let the AT&T payments roll in. But any self-respecting iPhone user shouldn't let them take it. With a happy customer base, Apple has less incentive to fix those "little" problems like copy and paste and a missing iChat Mobile.

Update: My good colleagues point out that the iPhone missed analysts' goals, not Apple's.

John Gruber has penned an interesting observation of how Microsoft might very well have missed the mark from the get-go when they made the strange decision to take on the iPod and iTunes. Since the player's initial wiz-bang sales period is essentially over (as in: it more or less set a decent sales barometer, at least for now), John wrangles some interesting statistics from Amazon's charts on exactly where the Zune stands in comparison to Apple's players (including year-old models), as well as its ranking in the overall electronics category. To spoil the surprise: the Zune isn't doing so well. We've looked at Amazon's charts before, but as of this writing, a record player is beating out the best selling Zune on the electronics list, while iPods - specifically the small, flash-based nano and shuffle - dominate most of the top 10 spots.

John then uses this data and good ol' fashioned people watching to conclude that Microsoft shouldn't have taken what could be their only swing at the plate in producing a hard drive-based iPod; they should have cranked out a flash memory model to go head-on with the nano - inarguably the home run slugger in Apple's lineup. While I tend to agree with John, I also see a problem with going down this road: Microsoft would likely have had even less room to maneuver, and even fewer things to market ('Beam your tunes') and invent lame, dead-end lingo for - they actually refer to sharing your music wirelessly as 'squirting'. Who wants to bet how excited Steve Ballmer's kids are to 'squirt' at school?

Sure, when you look at what you're up against in the DAP market, Apple's iPod nano and SanDisk's respectable 2GB Sansa player (expandable via an SD slot, and at #11 on Amazon as of this writing) are the top dogs to beat - but what could they have offered? I highly doubt they could have fit their DRM-crippled and arguably worthless (though admittedly buzz-worthy) Wi-Fi sharing feature into a nano-sized player, even if they made it slightly larger and uglier like the Zune is to its 30GB iPod rival. A 'Zune nano' with nothing unique to offer would dry up on its own in a market already dominated by Apple, SanDisk and Creative, and Microsoft's exclusive, 3rd party bitch-slap of a music store would have even less of a leg to stand on.

In summary: I think John's right - Microsoft made a bad move in copying the 30GB hard drive-based iPod, but it was the only move they had. In this light, it kinda makes you wonder why they bothered in the first place.

While the performance line between Apple's high and low end mid-range portable notebooks has lost some serious girth with the introduction of the MacBook, anyone hoping to snag a portable Mac for gaming has some tough decisions to make. The Pro machine packs a a high-end dedicated 3D card that can chomp through today's most demanding games without breaking a sweat, but the MacBook has an integrated Intel graphics chipset, borrowing RAM from your main system stash and dragging down performance. But how much of a drag is that Intel GMA 950 graphics chip, really? What games can it run, and where is the line actually drawn?

If you've been searching for answers to questions like these, I think Rob Griffiths over at Macworld might have cut your googling short with MacBook gaming: A graphics concern? Rob investigated this whole 'integrated graphics card' issue and found that the MacBook can perform surprisingly well, as long as you max it out with as much RAM as you can afford. Testing an unofficial Universal version of Quake 3 (while old, it is fairly 3D-intensive), the MacBook cranked out 52 fps with 512 MB of RAM (which is already a great stat), but once he maxed the machine to 2 GB, Quake 3 offered up 98 fps.

Rob explores gaming performance on the MacBook with a wide variety of other games, both in and out of Rosetta, and even lays out two separate 'what can/can't you play' sections to get down to specifics. Check out the full story if you're still biting your nails on deciding just how much you'll need to pony up to get your mobile Mac game on (also: stop biting your nails. It's a nasty habit).

Since iWork 06 was clearly the 5th wheel of yesterday's keynote, I'd throw money down that it is (unofficially) nothing more than a 20th (note: not 21st) century version of AppleWorks just to give those who still use it something OS X-ish to switch to. I would also bet that Apple is sick of supporting that old horse and could simply be using iWork to help put it out to pasture.

If you watch yesterday's keynote, iWork 06 gets a mention on stage but almost immediately a "well we don't have time for it now, but you can check it out on the web" from his Steveness.

Um, what? You're going to mention this software you introduced barely a year ago but then promptly drop-kick it off stage? And where is Numbers, one of the supposed missing links that could propel iWork into the "useful" category of so many users software toolbelts?

Given this year's "we barely care" treatment of iWork, I think it's safe to say that Apple really isn't planning on stacking it up against Office. At least, not anytime soon.