Mar 12, 2008 Mar 14, 2008 Thursday March 13, 2008
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Mac Pro Mini mod is almost the midrange tower Mac you've always wanted
Filed under: Desktops Sure, we think the iMac is a nice machine, but sometimes you want to add a PCI card or six, and when the cheapest beslotted Mac starts at a whopping $2,799, mods like Hideo Takano's Mac Pro Mini just make you wonder what could have been. Of course, no slots in this bad boy either, since it's based around a stock 2.33GHz mini, but it is a mighty impressive effort -- actually, check out Hideo's whole Mac Mod Lab site for even more sick Mini mods.[Via Unplgged] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Windows emulator coming to iPhone
iEmulator has just announced that Apple’s iPhone SDK will allow them to bring a Windows emulator to the iPhone by the second wuarter of this year. John Czlonka, General manager of iEmulator.com, says, “Apple’s new iPhone and iPod Touch software development kit is allowing us to quickly port iEmulator to…
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Apple WWDC to mark the iPhone SDK’s new developer halo
Now that Leopard and the iPhone have shipped, Apple is dividing its annual developer conference into 3 tracks: iPhone, Macintosh and IT, which means fitting the first two into the enterprise. This could mark a new "halo" for the Macintosh coming from the thousands of programmers who will embrace the Mac OS X platform in order to write iPhone/iPod Touch apps.
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UK Apple Store is DOWN
Filed under: RetailWe wait for the results with breathless antici.. wait for it, wait for it ...pation. Let us know if you see anything new, exciting and British when the store returns. Like the iCrumpet or the Royal with Cheese.Thanks to Joe B.Update: Swedish and Norwegian stores down too.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Worldwide Developers Conference 2008: June 9-13
Not surprisingly, Apple has expanded WWDC to three tracks: Mac, IT, and the new one, iPhone. ★
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Austrian iPhone Launch
Filed under: iPhoneSpeaking as a hemi-hemi-Austrian, I was crushed when, as a child, I discovered my Grandmother's family had come from the one without the kangaroos. Despite their marsupial deprivations not to mention the extreme lack of monotremes, the Austrian iPhone launch is due to kick off tomorrow, the 14th of March with an 8GB iPhone selling for €399 and 16GB for €499. (Google monetary conversion tells me this is "Like Way Expensive", aka starting at $615.) T-Mobile will offer two talk plans, a basic and a "Supreme" plan (possibly called a "Royal with Cheese" in France). The plans include just 3GB data, which according to our loyal readers should last about 17 days of normal use -- so go easy on the YouTube videos unless your Konditorei has free WiFi. A big old Danke to Ranier Perl.Update: Who knew?Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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iPhone dual-boot solution surfaces, not for the faint of heart
Filed under: CellphonesThis one's definitely not for the casual iPhone unlocker, but if for some reason you're looking to toy around with a couple of different firmware versions at a time, you can now apparently set up a dual-boot system of sorts on the phone. As Jonathan "NerveGas" Zdziarski notes in his how-to, the hack in question has actually been in use by the iPhone Dev Team for "several months" now, but he says that "now that several more advanced techniques have been developed," they've decided to let it loose for all to use. Needless to say, there's some partition-making and a good deal of command line work involved in the feat (all of which could cause you some serious headaches), but once you've got everything set up, you'll apparently be able to switch between different OS versions just by changing your root-device with a simple command. As iPhone Atlas points out, that option will likely become a lot more attractive once the SDK-compliant 2.0 firmware is released, but if you've got some ideas of your own in the meantime, you can find all the details you need at the link below.[Via iPhone Atlas, thanks Shan] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple sets June date for WWDC '08
Mark your calendars: Apple's 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference will be held June 9 through the 13 in San Francisco, and all eyes will be on the iPhone.
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Future iPhones May Have Moorestown Platform
The Inquirer posts what seems is evidence that Apple is planning to adopt Intel’s Moorestown chip for a future iPhone model. If you are not quite sure what the Moorestown platform is, it is a system-on-chip design, and will combine processing abilities such as the CPU,…
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Apple announces WWDC 08 dates
Filed under: WWDC, Apple, DeveloperWith the iPhone SDK announcement last week, some of us here at TUAW were expecting a Worldwide Developer Conference date to be announced. Thankfully, the world has been put to rights, as Apple has now announced that WWDC will run from 9th - 13th June at San Francisco's Moscone Centre (West Hall). With three tracks (iPhone, Mac and IT) if you're a developer or IT Pro this is probably a conference you'll want to be at -- and students are encouraged too, with Student Scholarships usually available.Whilst the ticket prices are forthcoming, it'll get you 5 days of sessions, Apple engineers, (likely) a Steve Jobs keynote and plenty you can't talk about. With the arrival of the iPhone SDK, we'd wager this years conference is frankly going to be a little popular (what with the full public release likely to arrive around the same time) so it might be prudent to book at your earliest convenience.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Scrabble
iPod game makes a tasty alphabet soup.
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Your next gadget may come with a pre-installed virus
From iPods to navigation systems, some of today's hottest gadgets are landing on store shelves with some unwanted extras from ...
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SLR Happy
When it’s time to get serious about photography, it’s time to get a new single-lens reflex camera.
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WWDC 2008 kicks off June 9th for Mac, iPhone devs
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets Mark your calendars, Apple fans -- WWDC officially kicks off June 9th this year (running until the 13th). Expect Mac, iPhone, and IT tracks for your varied Apple platform development needs. No official word yet as to whether El Jobso will be taking the stage at this WWDC, but it certainly wouldn't be an Apple event without him. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Apple Gazette Daily 227 - Lawsuits, AppleTV DVR, 10.5.2 Nightmare and more!
podcast sponsor link:http://www.audiblepodcast.com/applegazette Click the link above to get your free audio book from Audible, and help support Apple Gazette at the same time! Today's Show: Yet another Apple Lawsuit, AppleTV DVR patent filings, 10.5.2 horrors, and more. You can subscribe via iTunes, or by RSS feed, or… you can listen to the episode right here: In addition to that, you can also download the Apple Gazette Daily Widget and listen to every episode of the show right on your Dashboard. Click Here to download.
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WWDC 2008: "A landmark event" from June 9-13
Apple has announced the dates for its Worldwide Developers Conference this year: June 9-13. But this one will be different, it seems, as Apple says it'll be a landmark event "in more ways than one."Read More...
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Apple patent looks towards DVRs with portability
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Video Hot on the heels of that Apple TV patent which included broadcast viewing functions, we're getting a peek at a new application which suggests a possible DVR future for the folks from Cupertino. The concept breaks from standard TiVo-like solutions by making extensive use of a handheld component, which would be used to program and control the recordings, and could periodically download batches of shows for iPod-esque portability. On the set-top side, the box would function largely the way most DVRs do now, though Apple seems to be interested in infusing the process with its typical gloss, and part of the application is concerned with the possibility of gesture-based control for the unit (no surprise there). Of course, this isn't the freshest patent filing in the world, and it's possible Steve has already moved on to a more intuitive, telepathically controlled system by now.[Via AppleInsider] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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T-Mobile planning to launch iPhone in Austria tomorrow
T-Mobile has never really been good at keeping its web resources private, especially when it comes to the iPhone. Now, thanks to a carefully hidden (but not passworded) page on T-Mobile Austria's site, we know that it plans to launch the iPhone there tomorrow.Read More...
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ZapMedia Blasts iTunes With Patent Lawsuit
ZapMedia Services has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple for unspecified damages related to Apple's iTunes and related media players, most notably the iPod. ZapMedia said it made multiple attempts to resolve its patent-related concerns, as well as license its system directly to Apple, but was rebuffed by the company. ZapMedia, which is the the predecessor of ZapMedia Services, created a platform and vision for the enjoyment of digital media assets, the company has claimed.
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News: Apple announces dates for 2008 Developer Conference
Apple has announced the dates for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). This year's event will be held June 9-13 in the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and for the first time ever, will feature sessions for developers building native applications for the iPhone using the SDK. iPhone sessions scheduled for the event include “Get Started,” “Build Powerful Applications,” “Integrate the Technologies of…
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Mac mini modded into miniature Mac Pro design
Another week, another beautiful Mac mini mod. But this one is way hotter than the rest, and is making us feel a little tingly inside.Read More...
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Is Apple Planning an Apple TV That Can Record Live TV?
AppleInsider.com has an interesting piece today which suggests that Apple (AAPL) may be planning a new version of its Apple TV set-top box that would include the ability to record live television broadcasts. The story is based on some recent Apple patent filings.
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Hello BlackBerry, Meet the iPhone
Before you start reading this, a word of warning: this column is about the iPhone. If you’re one of those people who are sick and tired of hearing about the iPhone, then scroll on while you still can. Then again, if you’re one of those people, you’ve got much bigger problems than this column. Maybe you’d [...]
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ActiveState Takes Komodo Edit To The Community
As I've been catching up from an illness backlog, I came across this press release from ActiveState – providers of commercially-supported versions of Perl, Python & TCL – on their decision to take their great editor Komodo Edit open source. This editor has been based on the Mozilla code base, and the open source version incorporates the same licenses as Firefox: Mozilla Public License (MPL), GNU General Public License (GPL), and GNU Lesser Public License (LGPL). Komodo Edit has many features features found in other editors (e.g. TextMate, Xcode) such as code-completion, a code-snippets library, virtual project folders, code folding, and language recognition. Like many editors, it can also be extended via plug-ins with the additional benefit of Komodo plug-ins really being XPI extensions, the same type used in Firefox, with support for all standard Mozilla APIs based on XUL, XBL, and XPCOM. There is also support for Python and JavaScript plug-ins. Komodo Edit works well on the Mac and is an especially enticing alternative to other editors if you work in a multi-platform shop and would like to use a common tool-set for all developers. Having the full source code available can also be a great learning tool for new developers looking to create large-scale Mac applications or for porting their applications to other platforms. Coders looking to grab or contribute to the open source version can find out more via the Open Komodo project. Tags: ActiveState, Commentary, developer, editor, open source, perl, python, Software Related posts Quick & Secure Network Filesystem Access With ExpanDrive (4) Pixelmator Now Available (5) A Look at Native KDE 4.0 for OS X (10)
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Third-gen Zune to hit in 2009, make it to Europe
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video Seeing how long it took the Zune to make it over the northern border and into Canada, it shouldn't be any surprise that it's going to take even longer to get to Europe -- not until late next year, according to the director of Microsoft France. The wait should be worth it, though: that's when the third generation of Zunes will be released, as well as a Europe-friendly version of the Zune Marketplace. There are also some sketchy rumors that Windows Mobile 7 devices will be able to take advantage of Zune content and services, but it doesn't look like Microsoft has anything to say about that yet -- but if that goes down you know a Zune phone is right around the corner.[Via Anything But iPod] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Billboard looks at the profitability of iTunes
After looking at the revenues and expenses for iTunes, Billboard has calculated that the iTunes Store is quite profitable for Apple.Read More...
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Monster's iSoniCast wireless iPod bridge finally starts shipping
Filed under: Portable Audio, Wireless Monster first started talking this one up way back in August of last year, but the company just now seems to have gotten its act together, with it finally starting to ship its iPod Wireless Audio Bridge out the door. Now dubbed the iSoniCast, the device relies on "proprietary 2.5GHz technology" to wirelessly stream music from your iPod to the home audio system of your choice and, like many other similar products, includes a dock conncetor-attached transmitter to let you use the iPod itself as a wireless remote. As you can see above, the device has also gotten a bit of a facelift since its initial debut, but it's hung onto the same price tag, with it setting you back $100 even.[Via Crave] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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First Look: Hulu and You
New video portal promises to eat up all your free time.
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The Week in Gaming News
Another week in the paradise of games. Mochi Media gets funding It is getting harder and harder to follow the deal closing in the online game industry.
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Apple may have delayed iPhone SDK for dramatic effect
Instead of Apple delaying the iPhone SDK or finally being "forced" to offer one due to feedback, we think it's probable that a late announcement was just good marketing. Analysis inside.Read More...
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News: iPhone hack stories to continue post-SDK, writers say
For years, iPod hackers were all but ignored as they succeeded in making early iPods run Linux, games, and alternate menu systems. But in 2007, iPhone and Apple TV hackers started to enjoy considerable and favorable publicity, as they released hacks and applications that let the devices perform beyond Apple-imposed limitations. In response, Apple last week opened the door to officially sanctioned third-party software for the iPhone and iPod touch,…
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Hot Air, Apple TV TiVo and More iPhone News and Rumors
Music industry wants broadband surcharge, Mickey making iTunes money and MacBook Air is one hot tamale.
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Should Apple have had a bigger presence at SXSW?
With the newly released iPhone SDK, Webkit, Safari (now available on Mac & PC) and Apple's professional audio and video software such as Logic, Final Cut and Shake, I was fully expecting to see a rather prominent Apple booth at the SXSW tradeshow. I did see a handful of Apple employees on the list of panelists speaking at SXSW, an interactive, film and music conference and festival hosted annually in Austin, Texas. It appeared they were there more for personal reasons than officially there on behalf of Apple. Is Apple so confident in their place in the industry that they can ignore their core user group? Was their absence simply due to other factors, like a busy schedule or timing conflicts? Surely Apple has enough “evangelists” on staff to send a few. Apple wasn't the only big company missing from the floor… There was no Mozilla or Microsoft or Avid. Yahoo, Google, Mapquest and others were represented, as were a slew of smaller companies offering services, products or software. Should Apple have had a presence at the conference? Have they ever before? To be honest, this was my first time at SXSW and I was more surprised than anything at Apple's absence, especially considering the SDK announcement the day before SXSW started. Tags: apple, Commentary, sxsw Related posts The Apple Store - The Next Starbucks (10) Dudes, It's AAPL, Not APPL! (12) Apple.com Redesign Emulates OS Functionality (10) Apple's Trojan Horse: Webkit (3) Apple Sales Program I'd Like to See (7)
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Encouraging Failure: A Brief Tutorial
Mikey-San has a nice takedown of Dave Jewell’s piece for RegDeveloper encouraging the willy-nilly use of private Mac OS X APIs: Undocumented “wheels”—which is a misleading way of saying “shit that wasn’t designed for you to use”—usually have nothing to do with writing great applications. The two are mutually exclusive concepts when the mass of public APIs are as rich and powerful as they are. We’re not talking about things that are essential to creating good software being hidden from developers. ★
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Yet more great apps coming for the iPhone
Filed under: Gaming, Developer, iPhoneYesterday we posted about the Apple press release announcing that the SDK had been downloaded more than 100,000 times in four days. It's also worth noting, however, that Apple basically confirmed that several well-known developers are officially supporting the iPhone and bringing some exciting applications to everyone's favorite handheld. In addition to the developers represented on stage at the SDK event, of particular interest are: Intuit (of Quicken fame) which wants "to create powerful iPhone applications." Namco, specifically mentioning Pac Man and, my favorite, Galaga. NetSuite, developer of SuitePhone (CRM software similar to salesforce.com). PopCap games, working on the extremely addicting Peggle as well as classics Bejeweled and Zuma. Six Apart, which is developing an iPhone native TypePad blogging client. In short, it's obvious that the App Store is going to be chock full 'o goodness once June rolls around. Personally, I'm slightly worried that with Peggle and Galaga on my iPhone I'll never get anything done.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Intel Targets iPhone. But How Soon Until We See It?
The recent news of Intel’s plans to get “inside� the iPhone has me excited. And I can’t help but think back tot a few years ago when I thought Intel was the devil. It is amazing what a few years and a bunch…
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No Compromises, Except for the Compromises
Apparently a compromise only counts when it’s something like a missing port or the lack of a built-in optical drive. Wired’s Gadget Labs call the ThinkPad X300 a “MacBook Air without the compromise”, but then go on to point out that the screen isn’t bright enough, battery life is poor, it weighs a half pound more, and costs $1000 more. I still think the X300 looks like a terrific laptop, but it’s pretty obvious that Lenovo made compromises in its design — just different ones than Apple chose for the Air. ★
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Apple patent filing shows TiVo-like Apple TV
Apple's latest patent filing could produce an Apple TV product that's a DVR and a movie rental box, and could also be controlled by an iPod.
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How Long Has the iPhone SDK Been in the Works?
Jason O’Grady asks: It’s pretty obvious that the iPhone SDK is a really big deal, right? Could Apple have been planning an SDK all along? Or were they coerced into doing it by the crafty cottage industry of jailbreakers that’s grown around iPhone? The conventional wisdom seems to be that Apple changed its mind in the fall (the SDK was announced in October), but I think it’s pretty clear this was in the cards all along. Simply judging by the quality and scope of the iPhone SDK documentation and tools, it seems like far more than a few months of work. ★
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Another view of Leopard, four months later
Now that Rob Griffiths been using Leopard for a while, what does he think? Do the features that looked great at first glance really work? Here’s his second look at OS X 10.5.
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Apple TV DVR patent creates buzz, but don't get too comfy
Yep, Apple is certainly aware of these fancy DVR things. Considering boosted Apple TV sales and the success of the iTunes Store, though, don't bet on seeing an Apple-branded DVR anytime soon.Read More...
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Low Flash Memory Prices Pressure Chip Makers
In an article presented Thursday at DigiTimes, there was more bad news for manufacturers of NAND flash memory. And perhaps another negative for Apple (AAPL) was revealed.
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Game Developers Making a Play for iPhone
The iPhone is already shaking up the wireless industry. The video game industry may be next. Following Apple's move to open the device to outside programmers, some of the top developers and publishers are already making games for it. The iPhone's high-tech hardware and Apple's plans to distribute software for it over iTunes give it a lot of potential as a game machine, they say. In theory, developers could create games for the device that are more sophisticated than those made for Sony's PlayStation Portable or Nintendo's DS, said John Carmack, president and technology director of idSoftware.
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Sony's 13.3-inch VAIO VGN-SZ791N gets reviewed
Filed under: Laptops Just glancing at the specifications sheet, you can tell Sony's 13.3-inch VAIO VGN-SZ791N packs quite the punch for its size. After all, who wouldn't be pleased with a 2.5GHz T9300 CPU, discrete GeForce 8400M graphics, 4GB of RAM and a built-in optical drive? Still, what looks good on paper doesn't always translate into perfection on your lap, but according to a glowing review posted over at PC Mag, this is one of those cases in which it does. When benchmarked, this critter bested the highly-praised Asus U6S, Acer Ferrari 1100, Fujitsu P8010 and MacBook Air in the vast majority of tests -- heck, it even cranked out a whopping 2 frames-per-second running Crysis at high quality (seriously, that's an accomplishment). All in all, this beauty managed to impress in basically every category, and with 4.5 out of 5 stars and an Editor's Choice badge, it seems that you'd be hard pressed to find a better ultraportable for $2,500.[Thanks, Kane] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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iPhone SDK Downloads Top 100,000
Apple: Apple today announced that more than 100,000 iPhone developers have downloaded the beta iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) in the first four days since its launch on March 6. And I thought WWDC was crowded last year. ★
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Sun, Apparently High as a Kite, Plans to Develop Java JVM for iPhone
Despite the fact that the iPhone SDK terms explicitly state that “No interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Published APIs and builtin interpreter(s)”, Sun announced that they plan to develop a JVM for the iPhone SDK. Eric Klein, vice president of Java marketing for Sun: Our announcement was based on our excitement to build a JVM for the iPhone and the iTouch, as well as our assessment of Apple’s publicly available information on the SDK and related business terms. Apparently they’re so excited they think there’s a device called the “iTouch”. If there are clauses in the iPhone beta SDK license agreement that potentially limit third party application distribution, then these are items that we want to have a positive discussion with Apple about. Please record these discussions and share them with the world, so that we can all have a good laugh. ★
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How Time Machine can decrease inhibitions, encourage risky behavior
Filed under: LeopardLet me tell you something about people from Brooklyn: we are, by nature and environment, edgy risk-takers who live life like we're driving a Maserati down the PCH. Or a Camry up the BQE. Anyway, you don't want to mess with us -- and specifically, you don't want to mess with Mike Solomon, a creative director who's apparently got cojones the size of Jonathan Ive's awards cabinet.What did Mike do that earns him the title of Mac Jock Extraordinare? Faced with a weekend on-site video editing project that would require 20 GB of space and only having 10 GB free on his laptop, he didn't bow to the conventional wisdom -- send a production assistant to Staples for a new 500GB drive, or weed out his Downloads folder. No, he decided the best way to free up the needed space was to out-and-out delete his 65 GB iTunes library, the media addict's equivalent of flushing your stash when the cops show up. Then, when he returned home later, he simply restored his library from Time Machine -- no muss, no fuss.Mike, we salute you and your outside-the-box approach to capacity management. Next time, though, might we suggest a portable drive?[via Macenstein]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Article: The Complete Guide to iTunes Tagging
Though support for the feature was added to iTunes 7.4, iTunes Tagging remains one of the least-understood expansions of the iPod ecosystem—arguably, for good reason. Developed by Apple and implemented in new iPod speaker systems by companies such as Polk Audio and JBL, iTunes Tagging enables an HD Radio tuner to record information about the currently playing track, save it to an iPod, and let the iPod's user easily find that track in…
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News: Apple patents point to Apple TV DVR capabilities
Several new Apple patent applications recently published online suggest that the company may be working on adding DVR features to the Apple TV in a current or future model. The filings and associated images, originally submitted in October 2006, describe a system of menus, some contextual to video being shown on-screen, for the navigation and selection of TV shows for both live viewing and future recording. One section in particular describes a method…
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The needle in a haystack problem
I'm having real trouble with the interface between gmail and Apple mail. So is Megan. My plea for insight and help is right here. Basically, once in a while, it skips some mail. Forum posts have not been successful at troubleshooting this. I have no doubt that this blog post will find the person insightful, smart and kind enough to tell me what to do. Which leads to the point of the post: what if you don't have a popular blog? How do you find that one person in the wide wide world that has the answer to your question, whatever your question might be? Google is amazing partly because it goes so far in helping with the haystack problem. Want a part for your 1957 drill press? You can find it on Google. But Google doesn't help with finding experts when the problem is hard to define, or when interactivity is required. And just about any solution you can dream up has a friction problem: once the system is in place, it will get used too much, by too many questioners, and suddenly it won't be interesting enough for the masses to listen. For example, Craigslist suffers from a decreasing signal to noise ratio (it's a lot less fun to browse than it used to be). Let's say, for example, I was an executive recruiter. Surely, I would benefit from interrupting every person on the planet to advertise a great new job. But I couldn't do it every day or every hour... Part of the success of Facebook is that for your group of friends, you do get that ability (at least until they stop being your friends). But the laws of information make it clear that it doesn't scale. No, there isn't an obvious answer. But yes, it's a universal problem. Worth a think when you get a chance.
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Apple's Michael Lopp: The devil is in the details
Apple's Michael Lopp shared the design process at this year's South by Southwest Interactive conference. Turns out great design is more hard work than magic.Read More...
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YouTube Find: ‘Super Monkey Ball’ on iPhone
For those of you that haven't taken the time to watch last week's full special event, this segment of the video, showcasing what Sega was able to accomplish for the iPhone in just 2 weeks can really show you what is in the store for the iPhone — and why some of us are so excited.
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Disney sells 4 million movies and over 40 million videos on iTunes -- amounts to nothing
Filed under: Portable VideoDisney announced that it sold 4 million movies and between 40 to 50 million videos on iTunes since 2006. That's huge, right? Not really. In fact, analysts expect those numbers to amount to just $123 million ($1.44 earned per video, $14.50 per movie); pennies in comparison to Disney's $35 billion in annual sales. In fact, it's less than 10% of the $1 billion in digital revenue Disney hopes to achieve this year. A clear reminder, dear readers, of just how Type-A we really are. The typical Wal-mart noob still doesn't download their video and music -- hell, they can't even figure out Linux. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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This Day: March 13, 1981: A Case To Be Made
The original design of the Mac called for a lunchbox style machine with a fold-up keyboard. The design was conceived by Jef Raskin but was less inspired than his other ideas. While Steve Jobs was initially fond of the form factor he later decided a case redesign was in order.…
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What Should Apple’s Next Product Be?
Apple has a knack for taking existing technology and devices and turning them into simpler products that have an excellent user interface and good design. They're often thinner (but heavier) than existing products in their class, have fewer buttons, WiFi, a truckload of software level restrictions, generous displays and sealed…
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Invisibility and Metadata
I normally avoid anything that looks like tech support in my entries here, but this may verge on an exception. Bear with me, and I’ll explain. I rebooted my Macbook Pro about four days ago, and lo, to my surprise, the icon for my boot drive had vanished. I was, too say the least, slightly perturbed. (To the right, the culprit.) I tried all the quick-fix things - changed what showed in Finder, tried to get it back through Finder - it was gone there too - and finally, I sucked it up and called Apple. Three calls to Apple - and two instances of being hung up on - a clean install of Leopard, and multitudinous Google searches later, I had found two things: a lot of other people were having these issues, all starting about the same time as mine, and, more importantly, a solution. So first, the solution, and then the explanation of what it is, what it does, and what that means for all of us Mac users. To get your startup drive back, you need to run two Terminal commands. One of them requires that you have an Administrator password. I’d generally try to give you a solution that didn’t require Terminal, given some peoples’ squishiness about that, but I can’t find another frontend to this. (There’s an Applescript running around, but it doesn’t work, really.) First, run xattr -d com.apple.metadata:kMDItemFinderComment /*** In this case the *** signifies the name of your missing drive, as this command will work for any drive. If you want your startup drive, all you need is the slash. Next, run sudo chflags nohidden /*** Same deal with the asterisks, though in this case, another important modification is that it doesn’t need to be run as sudo unless you’re running it on your root drive. Log out and/or restart, and your icon should be back to stay. Now, what that all means. As it turns out, the culprit in all this is a simple metadata flag, the hidden flag. This is the same flag that hides the .DS_store files and other things that you’d rather not see floating about your operating system all the time. The problem, in this case, is a change in how Leopard handles that flag, and metadata in general. Leopard marks a very interesting shift in how Apple’s chosen to deal with the increasing amounts of complicated metadata that we’re all generating. In past years, this has been stored in .DS_store files, for the most part. Tiger added the xattr function family and API’s to play with some, and some people, namely Marquis Logan and John Siracusa, then wrote up some nice little tools that made this accessible to all of us. In Leopard, there is now a native command for this. There are four flags to the xattr command, at least so far as I’ve been able to tell. (There is no man page for this, but -h works.) They are -l, -p, -w, and -d, and all of them are written out as xattr -flag file [file path]. -L lists the names of all extended attributes on the file. -P, used with -l, prints them. -W is written out as xattr -w attribute_name attribute_value file [file path], and changes the chosen value to whatever you specify. -D, the important one for the above command, simply deletes all extended attributes. The first command, then, deletes all the extended attributes on the given file. The com.apple.metadata.kMDItemFinderComment contains, among other things, the flags for drives in Finder. The second command, the chflags command, resets the hidden flag on the given file. Two different methods of getting at two different types of metadata, in essence. The second command is found in a couple of places if you google this, but it by itself doesn’t keep the job done. Without the xattr command, the hidden flag resets every time Finder does. Now, how this happens? I don’t know. I’m working on that - but I suspect that Apple may be too. And in the meantime, I've already found some neat things people are doing with it now. Anyone for a way to kill that annoying 'this program has been downloaded from the internet' message? Tags: Commentary, hacks leopard vanish terminal metadata, Tips Related posts No related posts.
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iPhone SDK: Not just Intel-only anymore
Think the iPhone SDK is Intel only, because Apple says so? Think again.Read More...
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Disney sales figures for iTS videos announced
Filed under: iTSSilicon Alley Insider noted that Disney CEO Bob Iger announced some numbers for video and movie sales via iTunes since the 2006 launch. With about 4 million movies delivered via the store, and another 40 to 50 million video/TV show sales, that's a lot of bits. SAI isn't impressed, though; writer Peter Kafka runs the math and comes up with a revenue number of about $123 million -- not a blip on the screen for the conglomerate that shelled out $7.4 billion for a renegade animation studio with a notoriously idiosyncratic part-time CEO.What Kafka does acknowledge, and what makes digital delivery via iTunes worth Disney's while (other than the obvious "Steve told us to do it"), is that this is incremental revenue that Disney probably wouldn't have captured otherwise -- Netflix or Blockbuster would have gotten the rentals, and relatively few DVDs would have been purchased to make up the digital slack. What did the revenue numbers look like in the first years of the VCR, DVD or cable pay-per-view offerings? Probably also on the less-substantial side, and yet those businesses are gigantic today.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Disney: 4 million movies, 40-50 million videos sold on iTunes
Disney has given us some insight into how many videos the company has sold thus far on the iTunes Store. Read More...
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Change the default text for just about everything
This is a hint which will allow you to change the default text for just about anything. This is actually quite easy -- all you need to do is edit various *.strings files. The thing is, these .strings files can be found just about everywhere. Here are some good places to look: /System » Library » CoreServices/ Control-click on an application, choose Show Package Contents on the pop-ip menu, then navigate into Contents » Resources » [your language].lproj. A few points: If the string you replace is too long, it will just be truncated and look a bit odd. Some strings don't appear to work anyway. I've no idea why. The strings files have comments in them. For example, search for OD_8 in /System » Library » CoreServices » Finder.app » Contents » Resources » English.lproj » Localizable.strings. Many applications will need to work on a copy, as ...
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Simulate gestures in the iPhone Simulator
You can simulate the 'pinch to zoom' gesture of the iPhone in Apple's Aspen Simulator by holding down the Option key while clicking the mouse in the area you wish to pinch. This brings up a pair of dots that represent your fingertips.
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Better/continuous scrolling on iPhone/iPod Touch
When you are zoomed in to read, for example, a column of text in Safari on the iPhone and iPod Touch, it can sometimes be hard to scroll in a straight line without accidently scrolling left and right. I found this quite frustrating until I changed the way I was scrolling. The important thing is the direction you start dragging in when you scroll. If you move only vertically then the scroll becomes vertically locked and will not scroll on the horizontal axis until you next lift your finger. Conversely, starting a horizontal drag locks scrolling horizontally. The problem is that it's too easy to start off on a diagonal and drag the column you're reading sideways. If you scroll by running your thumb along the very edges of the screen then you can always be sure you're moving in a straight line and you won't suffer this anymore. This has the added benefit of keeping your view of the screen uninhibited since your thumb can be practically off the display entirely. ...
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Use Terminal's vi as default text editor
I've always been a vi guy, but OS X GUI-based vi versions leave a lot to be desired. So for years I've put up with TextEdit as the default application when I double click a text file in Finder or an attachment in Mail. Until yesterday, that is. Using this old macosxhints forum thread as the base, I updated and modified the script to behave properly. Double-clicking a text file now opens it in vi in a new tab in Terminal, opening Terminal if it's not already running (which is rare, as I usually have four or five tabs open all the time). Here's the script:
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First Looks: Polk Audio i-Sonic ES2
As the first iPod speaker system to include iTunes Tagging, an Apple-designed feature that records track information from a live HD Radio broadcast to let you easily purchase the song in iTunes, Polk Audio's i-Sonic ES2 ($499) features AM, FM, and HD radio tuning, four audio drivers for a 360-degree soundstage around the unit, and video outputs that work with all video-capable iPods. A single alarm clock radio is also integrated into the ES2, which…
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Apple sued (yet again) over iPod and iTunes
ZapMedia who filed for a couple of patents in 1999 for a “way of sending music and other digital content from servers to multiple media players”, which were granted in 2006 and Tuesday, respectively, are suing Apple over the iPod and iTunes. The lawsuit, which was filed in East Texas (which is apparently the frivolous lawsuit capital of the world) demands royalties on Apple's iTunes and iPod sales. “When someone takes our vision and our intellectual property without a license after several attempts, we have no option but to protect it through every means available to us,” Robert Frohwein, ZapMedia's general counsel, said in a statement. Personally, I'm beginning to think the US Patient office needs to just stop operations. More and more they are issuing patents for extremely generalized ideas that serve only to be the basis for these ridiculous lawsuits. ZapMedia is not going to get royalties on a single iPod or iTunes sale…ever. It ain't gonna happen. This just another waste of our court system's time, and a continued problem that seriously needs some kind of reform.
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Under The Radar News - Thursday
Bill could wound credit card issuers. A proposed bill that would see credit-card interchange fees established by the government, instead of by vendors, would deal a $570M blow to Visa's annual revenue, and reduce MasterCard's (MA) revenue by $250M and earnings by 25%. Bank issuers, including JPMorgan & Chase (JPM), Citigroup (C) and Capital One (COF) stand to lose nearly $17B in annual revenue. The bill was prompted by intense lobbying from mega-retailers including Wal-Mart Stores (WMT); the bill's "consumer friendliness" increases its chance of passing. Visa (V) IPOs next week.
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Terminal Tip: using whois
Filed under: Terminal Tips Whois or "Who is," is a way to query for contact information (or domain name ownership information) about the person or company in control of a site. If you want to know who runs a website, you don't have to look any further than your Mac and opening a Terminal window. All you have to do is open Terminal.app (/Library/Utilities/) and type in "whois" and space followed by a URL. For instance, the following command would give you the whois information for tuaw.com: whois tuaw.com. You can do this for almost any website; however, some domain names use some form of a hiding service from their registrar that allows them to hide their contact information. Be forewarned that you shouldn't use information like this to stalk people!Please note that if you have Terminal-itis, or are scared of the Terminal, you can use Apple's Network Utility in Mac OS X to do a whois query. Just open Network Utility.app (in the /Applications/Utilities/) and click the "whois" tab. From there you can enter a URL and do a query, all within a pretty "Aqua-licious" user interface.Permalink | Email this | Comments
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Reader Feedback Request: 10.5.2 Nightmare in need of solution
Long time site reader and frequent commentor, The Wizard, sent me an email last night about a problem that I don't have a solution to. Since I know that there are many of you that have had problems with 10.5.2 (and yes, I understand that there are also many of you that haven't had any problems - that's great - but we're looking for a fix here.), I thought I would post a segment of his email to see if anyone can help come up with a solution for this problem. From The Wizard: After upgrading my first generation mac mini to 10.5.2 my usb bluetooth dongle (an MSI) suddenly stopped working. I can see it in the system profiler but I can never get to turning the bluetooth on. I tried another one with no success. I tried resetting the PMU on my mini but it didn't resolve the problem. Any ideas folks?
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Rogue Amoeba wishes extra hard for iPhone SDK additions
The developers from Rogue Amoeba have posted a list of their own iPhone SDK enhancement requests, which include root access and VoIP-over-cellular. When pigs fly.Read More...
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MacNotables #814: The iPhone As A New Platform, the iPhone Apps Store and More with Adam Engst and Chuck Joiner
Adam Engst and Chuck Joiner continue their review of the iPhone SDK. Adam explains why he believes the iPhone is more useful in urban areas, Chuck brings up Apple's 30% cut of gross sales in the upcoming iPhone Apps Store and the two discuss the enterprise aspects of the announcement. Adam provides perspective from the teenage tech user (via a friend) of an important factor that hardware and service providers need to understand, and admits he may soon be in the market for an iPhone. Is the iPhone poised to become a platform in its own right? Find out in this second in a two-part conversation. Adam Engst Chuck Joiner
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News: Crazy Kart 2 being ported to iPhone
French game developer Int13 has revealed that it has successfully begun porting its Crazy Kart 2 racing game over to the iPhone and iPod touch platform. The game, which appears to be a clone of Nintendo's Mario Kart series, features a 320x320 playing area, a virtual steering wheel touch control, 3 vehicle classes, 6 different characters, downloadable content, and Wi-Fi online multiplayer. The company said of the release, “Thanks to it's…
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News: Apple sued over iTunes, iPod technology
ZapMedia Services has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple over iTunes and its related media players such as the iPod. According to ZapMedia, the suit comes after multiple attempts to resolve its concerns with Apple, including offering Zap's patents for license. In question are U.S. Patent Numbers 7,020,704 and 7,343,414, each of which is entitled “System and method for distributing media assets to user devices via a portal…
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ZapMedia sues Apple over iTunes tech
Apple was sued Wednesday over allegations its iTunes online music store and iPod music players are illegally using a patented ...
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iPhone SDK works on PowerPC Macs, sort of
Filed under: iPod Family, Developer, iPhoneA MacRumors post suggests that the recently released, "Intel-only" iPhone SDK works on PowerPC Macs as well. According to the post, it worked fine on a iBook G4 running Mac OS X Leopard. The post did go on to say that Xcode displayed an error message upon trying to build a project, saying that the "target architecture does not match." Errors like these are to be expected, but at least those PowerPC-using developers can start to develop for the iPhone. There is no word yet on how the $99 digital certificate will work on the PowerPC Macs. 3by9's website has the full details on how to get the SDK running on your PPC Mac.[original post by 3by9]Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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TSA explains MacBook Air grounding: just doing its job
Filed under: Laptops What, you don't read the official Transportation Security Administration blog? No worries, we've got your back on this one with the TSA's official reaction to Michael Nygard's missed flight as a result of its incredulous MacBook Air inspection. TSA agents are in fact trained to look for anomolies. So along come the MBA laptop. It's new (thus, rarely seen), ridiculously thin, and lacks a mechanical hard drive and any visible ports. Requesting further inspection is exactly what Mr. Nygard should have expected. As surly and detached as TSA officers tend to be, in this case they were doing their job just as they were trained. Of course, knowing this isn't going to prevent any of us from bitching and moaning every time we have to remove our shoes now is it? Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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New MacBook vs. First-Gen MacBook: What's the Dif?
Apple's refresh of its MacBook laptop is just that -- a refresh -- and yet, expectations for any new Apple technology run high. Is it much faster than previous generations? Is it a much better buy? Does it include any new software? If a customer already owns a MacBook, is a new MacBook worth buying? Previously, I owned a Titanium PowerBook, followed by an iBook G4, which I replaced with a first-generation MacBook. In all three instances, each new acquisition resulted in a major upgrade experience.
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New PDF Converter Has Office-Caliber Muscle
Plano, Texas-based Docudesk, which makes software tools to convert proprietary file formats such as Adobe's PDF, recently introduced an enterprise version of its deskUNPDF document conversion line. The launch of deskUNPDF Professional provides users with new feature options and conversion formats to address a wide array of PDF document conversion needs on both Intel and PowerPC OS X systems. Any software conversion tool that allows users to break the limits of song, video or document publishers' access limitations should raise questions of ethics.
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Sell the News, Buy the Rally
My advisory has put forth a terrible possibility: A CRASH.
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Disney: $122.8 Million Reasons to Sell on iTunes
Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger told the audience at the Digital Hollywood Media Summit today that that Disney has sold 4 million movies and 40 to 50 million videos through iTunes since signing up in 2006.
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Mac OS Ken: 03.13.2008
Apple: 100k iPhone SDK Downloads in Four Days / Rob Enderle: SDK Downloads Impressive / Report: iPhone Dev Team Cracks iPhone 2,0 Software / Apple to Hold 2Q Conference Call on April 23rd / Apple Updates AirPort Utility to 5.3.1 / ZapMedia Sues Apple Over iPod/iTunes Combo / Heinen Seeks to Have Trial Pushed Back / Disney CEO Talks iTunes Downloads / 9to5Mac: iPhone on Telstra in Australia? / SMH: 3 Apple Stores This Year for Australia / Reports on First Apple Retail Store in China / Intel Confirms 160Gb SSDs Between April and June 2008
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Who's suing Apple today? ZapMedia gets angry over iTunes
Filed under: Portable Audio, Portable Video Another day, another furious litigant claiming that an Apple product infringes on one of their patents. Today we've got ZapMedia, who's having some fun with a patent granted Tuesday by claiming that it covers tech used in both the iPod and iTunes. The patent describes a central media server and a "plurality of media player devices" that access the server over various networks -- but it was filed for on September 20th, 2005, which, you'll note, is after the 2003 launch of the iTunes Store. Hmm, not to worry, ZapMedia also says it has a 2006 patent on similar tech -- but a quick search of the USPTO doesn't show any other patents issued to the company. Looks like someone's got a little explaining to do, no?Disclaimer: Nilay's a lawyer, but he's not your lawyer, and none of this, particularly the quick USPTO searching part, is legal advice or analysis.Read - ZapMedia lawsuit articleRead - ZapMedia patent issued yesterday ("System and method for distributing media assets to user devices and managing user rights of the media assets")Read - Google patent search showing ZapMedia's other two filed (but not granted) patents Permalink | Email this | Comments
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What I’d Like To See Developed From The iPhone SDK
Ever since Apple laid their plans out for an SDK I’ve been racking my brain about what the development could create and to stir it up, I’m going to toss in what I think might a good App. Remote Lojack I know this App is already…
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Bampot of the Week: Alexander Wolfe
Fraser Speirs takes apart a jackassy piece by Alexander Wolfe positing that developers are “angry” at Apple regarding the restrictions in the iPhone SDK. ★
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iPhone 2.0 SDK: The No Multitasking Myth
Daniel Eran Dilger Certain pundits have developed a rash of malignant concerns about iPhone 2.0's SDK. The first issue they're scratching at is the iPhone's apparent inability to run multiple applications at once. The suggestion is that the iPhone is a multitasking impaired appliance just like the original Mac or the Palm Pilot, and unlike the supposed multitasking powerhouse that is Windows CE, which powers Windows Mobile devices. That's wrong, here's why. (more…)
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Why is Safari using 97% of my CPU?
Safari pegging my CPU(Credit: Dave)The last few days of my MacBook Air have been a little wonky. I couldn't figure it out until today when I noticed that Safari was using anywhere from 90-97% of my CPU. I also noticed a few times when the CPU was ...
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Why is Safari using 97% of my CPU?
I never thought that Firefox would use less system resources than Safari.