Apple finally fixes some MacBook keyboard issues

Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals We're sure Apple had a fix in the works long before we got around to posting a poll about it, but if the response to Saturday's informal questionnaire was any indication, this update is long overdue. Apple just posted a new software update for MacBooks and MacBook Pros running Leopard, which solves the problem with the keyboard freezing up sporadically for a minute or so, which had at least two Engadget editors' keyboards in fits. Apple still hasn't...

Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals We're sure Apple had a fix in the works long before we got around to posting a poll about it, but if the response to Saturday's informal questionnaire was any indication, this update is long overdue. Apple just posted a new software update for MacBooks and MacBook Pros running Leopard, which solves the problem with the keyboard freezing up sporadically for a minute or so, which had at least two Engadget editors' keyboards in fits. Apple still hasn't addressed the issue with dropping the first character when typing into a text box on certain MacBook Pros, but this is certainly a good move -- though would it have really killed Apple to be a bit more talkative about the whole process?[Thanks, Turgemanster] Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • Apple Releases Macbook and Macbook Pro Keyboard Fix

    Finally, yesterday afternoon, Apple released the much needed fix for some Macbooks and Macbook Pros that had been suffering from issues with their keyboards since upgrading to Leopard. Thankfully (for me anyway) I did not have this problem with my Macbook Pro, but I'm sure those of you that did could not wait for this update. The description for the update reads: This MacBook and MacBook Pro firmware update addresses an issue where the first key press may be ignored if the computer has been sitting idle. It also addresses some other issues. The update package will install an updater application into the Applications/Utilities folder and will launch it automatically. Please follow the instructions in the updater application to complete the update process. If you haven't updated yet, you can do so through Apple>System Update…

  • Why are their so many Macbook problems lately?

    It appears as though at least some of the latest Apple Macbooks are suffering from graphical issues according to reports on Apple's discussion forum. Both the Macbook and the Macbook Pro are said to be suffering from instances of “visual corruption” in which text duplicates, documents fail to scroll, and animations and videos flicker annoyingly. The video problem, of course, primarily effects Quicktime and Flash. Some have claimed that the problem may be connected to the Leopard Graphics update, was was recently released. Apple has officially commented on the problem by saying “Apple has received reports similar to the behavior you are describing and we are investigating those reports. Further information will come in the form of a Knowledge Base article, Software Update, or Software Release.” This begs the question - why are their so many Macbook problems lately? There have recently been problems with Macbook Pro hard drive failure, non functioning keyboards have been an issue, and now we're seeing graphical problems with the latest machines. I don't have an answer for why this is happening so much recently, but its becoming a very large issue. I mean, I don't see issues with Dell notebook keyboards not functioning, or video not playing properly…why is that? OR - does that happen and I just don't see it because I don't read Windows blogs? The thing we always tell people about Apple is that it “just works” - but more and more recently it seems like we're running into issues where it doesn't “just work”, and I'm not sure why. Is this a big issue - or is it simply a case of bloggers hanging around the Apple discussion forms and finding an isolated incident and blowing it out of proportion? I can tell you my own current problem with my Macbook Pro is so rare that Apple doesn't have another case of it on record. They have tried like mad to fix the problem, but after sending it off 4 times I still can't record audio on it without it turning to a garbled static filled mess. That doesn't mean that the problem is “widespread” or “affecting numerous machines” but that's how these other problems are reported - and seriously - if these issues are affecting only a dozen or so people that's not “wide spread”. Now, I know the keyboard issue affected a lot of people - but I was never able to really tell how many people were affected by the hard drive problems, and it is as yet unclean just how many users are affected by the graphics issue - but this stuff has to stop. So what do you think? Are these problems over-blown? Even if they are, is there anything Apple can do to stop them from happening so frequently?

  • New MacBook firmware update doesn't resolve memory issues

    Apple may well have an update on the way that fixes the 4GB memory problem affecting at least some new MacBooks and MacBook Pros, but it apparently isn't the firmware update that was just released yesterday. According to jkOnTheRun, while the update appeared to have remedied the problem initially, the freezing eventually returned and, once again, going back to 3GB proved to be the only way to get the laptop back into working condition. Of course, Apple never claimed that the update would fix this particular problem, but it seems that there's an increasing number of people waiting to hear something about the matter straight from the company. Filed under: LaptopsNew MacBook firmware update doesn't resolve memory issues originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • ★ The Ins and Outs of Snow Leopard

    Here’s what I expect regarding “Snow Leopard”, the in-progress version of Mac OS X 10.6 which I expect Apple to talk about tomorrow at WWDC. Dropping PowerPC Support This is not going to be popular, and it does seem too soon, but my sources indicate that it is the case. Why would Apple do this, when it is clearly going to antagonize owners of late model PowerPC hardware? A few factors: (a) Snow Leopard won’t ship until next year, at which point even the newest PowerPC Macs will be at least three years old; (b) dropping PowerPC would significantly simplify the QA testing for Snow Leopard; (c) perhaps Apple will argue that there are technical merits, i.e. that by dropping PowerPC support, they’re able to implement certain performance improvements that can only work on Intel hardware. 64-Bit 64-bit support is a talking point for Snow Leopard, but I do not believe it means Apple is dropping 32-bit support in the OS. For one thing, many Intel-based Macs (those based on the older Core Duo, as opposed to the Core 2 Duo) don’t even support 64-bit. Dropping PowerPC support would be aggressive; dropping support for 18-month-old Intel machines would be insane. Plus, unlike PowerPC, the dual support of which in addition to the Intel architecture really does add to the development and testing effort of new software, 32-bit support isn’t weighing down OS X — I’m not aware of a single good reason why Apple would even consider dropping 32-bit support, and there are thousands of good reasons not to (to wit, the thousands of 32-bit Mac apps already in existence). ‘100 Percent Pure Cocoa Apps’ That’s a phrase that is circulating in Cupertino regarding the outline for tomorrow’s keynote. Some have interpreted it as meaning that the Carbon APIs will be dropped from Snow Leopard. I don’t buy that. Last year Apple dropped 64-bit Carbon from Leopard, clearly a sign that the Cocoa side of the aisle is where Apple’s attention lies. But dropping a planned future feature like 64-bit Carbon is a far cry from dropping Carbon completely. Even if you consider no apps other than Microsoft’s and Adobe’s, a Carbon-less Mac OS X 10.6 doesn’t seem feasible. If you thought it was bad when Photoshop and Excel only ran under Rosetta, imagine if they didn’t run at all. Crazy talk. My interpretation of the “100 percent pure Cocoa apps” line is that it’s an admonition for developers — not that they must use “pure” Cocoa APIs for their apps, but that they should, that there are performance and efficiency benefits to doing so that will not be available in other APIs. (Perhaps something to do with the LLVM compiler architecture? Optimizations to the Cocoa libraries to offload more computation to the GPU?) Multi-Touch This stuff with multi-finger gestures on this year’s MacBook trackpads is not multi-touch, at least in the iPhone sense. The marvel of the iPhone UI is the touch screen. I don’t expect to ever see touchscreen Macs. Touchscreen computers from Apple running OS X? Yes, I think, probably someday soon. But not Mac OS X. The user interface simply isn’t designed or optimized for it. Adding touchscreen support to a user interface designed for traditional mouse-and-keyboard access is a lipstick-on-a-pig design (cf. recent demos from Microsoft of Windows 7). The ‘No New Features’ Thing Major version upgrades, whether in an application or an entire operating system, have traditionally been about features, not fixes. Why? Because features are what people pay for. So how could Jobs sell this no-new-features idea in the keynote? One way would be by not selling anything, and announcing that Snow Leopard will be a free (or inexpensive) update. But I can see it being sold another way. The appeal of Mac OS X versus Windows is what? That it has more features? No. It’s that it is more elegant, simpler, more efficient, and more reliable. So I can imagine Jobs on stage announcing that Apple has assigned their best engineers to a year-long project to focus on just those things. Vista may or may not be getting an unfair rap in the press, but the public perception is that these are exactly the areas where Vista is most disappointing. Apple could press their current advantage by emphasizing efficiency, elegance, simplicity, and reliability.

  • MacBook and MacBookPro get keyboard update

    Filed under: Portables, Software Update, Macbook Pro, MacBookToday Apple released a keyboard update for both the MacBook and the MacBook Pro notebooks. In regular Apple style, their release notes are not extremely profuse, "This MacBook and MacBook Pro firmware update addresses an issue where the first key press may be ignored if the computer has been sitting idle. It also addresses some other issues."Please note, this is a firmware upgrade that will install an application in the utilities folder that you will then, in turn, need to open and follow the on-screen instructions. For a list of MacBooks that may need the update, you can look at the Apple support note. If you computer has been affect by these issues, or if you are just inclined to installing all Apple updates, you can get this update by opening Software Update (Apple Menu > Software Update) or by downloading the installer package from the Apple Support downloads site.Thanks to everyone that sent this in!Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • MacBook keyboard fix in Software Update

    Filed under: Portables, Software Update, Macbook Pro, Mac ProIf you own a MacBook or MacBook Pro and have had keyboard problems, Apple just released a software update that will (hopefully) fix this issue! This problem was first spotted when users started upgrading to Leopard. Some users have reported that their keyboards temporarily freeze, especially in Carbon apps such as MS Office 2004.Apple states, "Some MacBook and MacBook Pro systems may occasionally experience a temporary suspension of keyboard input which can last a minute or longer." You can download the update from the Apple Support website or via Software Update.Thanks to everyone who sent this in.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • Mozy On Out: My backup and restore experience with Leopard

    Thinking back a few years, I remember every time I needed to upgrade my system or prepare for a format, I’d rely on using CD-Rs as a method for backing up my media and documents. Pain yes, efficient no, effective, yes. Of course this was back in the early XP days when I needed to format every 6 months to keep my sanity, and my computer booting. But as I grew older, so did my volumes of content. Eventually good fortune was bestowed on me, and a bad Trojan Virus led me to my first iBook. From there formatting wasn’t an issue, now it was only a matter of backing up. Three years and one hard drive later, I had learned my lesson the hard way. Needless to say I began to look for much more efficient tools to remain organized and safe in case that one inevitable day should return, hard drive hiccups and all. I began using an external for basic back up. Thanks to OS X’s ability to simply copy files from my Library to save settings, I was able to back up my iCal, Address book and other application preferences. For software it was more of an issue, keeping .dmg’s can be tough. Documents were simple drag and drop, and media, in all its extenuating glory took quite a bit of time. Then came Mozy. And I was happy. It seemed that for 2 gigs of space I would be able to keep a constant back up of key files, documents, few pictures, and application preferences. Having it completely in the cloud and up to date without me touching it, seemed like the perfect blend of web and application. I did come across SuperDuper! in my trials, and without paying, the free version only allows for a complete wipe of an external drive and an exact duplicate of your hard drive. I gave it a shot, and felt content only until I realized how quickly I add or update files. Without paying for it, free would be out of the option. I finally saw Leopard spots on the horizon and began preparing my backups for a completely clean install and restore for my now MacBook. I figured now would be the best time if any to put all my backing up methods to the test. So I re-plugged in my external and re-SuperDuper!’d my entire Tiger operating system to create a bootable external drive. Thinking about it made me feel the most secure, mostly because of the issues I kept hearing regarding Leopard installs. Next I made sure my Mozy was synced up ready to go with the nearly all 2 gigs filled with documents, app preferences and more. CD-R’s you ask? I think I’ve had enough for a few lifetimes, and for the record I never had a Re-Writeable drive in those days, so you can imagine how fun it was for me every 6 months to re-burn everything. Having a 2 gig thumb drive, however, I duplicated all the files going to my Mozy on it for reference, and well, just in case. Despite the few Leopard install issues I was hearing about, I was prepared for my clean install, and ready to migrate everything if necessary from my external drive. It was my hope that Mozy would be the most efficient method for getting set back up on Leopard. So now came the faithful moment. I popped in the Leopard CD and after one necessary Disk Permission Repair, I had a completely formatted MacBook and Leopard ready to go. So I accessed Mozy’s site, logged in and saw three choices for retrieving my files. One, download the client and restore; two, request the files be sent to me via email; three, buy a DVD burned of my files mailed to me. One, I downloaded the client, set it up, but when I chose to restore files, no files appeared in my directory. It took me a minute, but I finally found them. Browsing through my files, a few were missing, namely my iCal. I attributed this to Leopards new and improved iCal which no longer resides in the Library. However I soon realized more was missing, including documents, and other application files. Odd, I remember backing them up, yup, they’re all on the thumb drive. Let’s see the other options. Two, sure, I’ll request it by email, but it takes a few hours to receive the e-mail, and 2 gigs will take a bit of time to download. And three, despite being cheap, I decided that CD/DVD’s would be a bit aged for my transition, after all this isn’t Windows anymore. So I figured having them e-mail me my files would consist of the same ones the client found, so I hit restore, choice number one (the one Mozy recommends). Seeing the amount of time it would take to download for files that are patchy at best, I gave up after the first twenty minutes. It wasn’t worth my time to reorganize files that weren’t going to be there. So I fired up my external drive, and migrated my life back over, applications and all. I know, you’re all thinking well it’s great you now have Time Machine. It might be for some, but I haven’t set it up yet, and still remain a bit apprehensive about it. I’ve been hearing issues arising with it, moreover I feel a possible hard drive plus RAM hog. The alarm bells are ringing, and until I see it in physical action, I think I’ll stick to what I have. Unfortunately SuperDuper! isn’t Leopard ready, and for the record I did eventually opt to buy it and be able to sync only new files, or updated files to the external. For Tiger it was an immense life saver, and once it’s Leopard ready, I believe it will be my go to system. Maybe it’s hard to let old methods die, and maybe I’m taking the long way, but I’ve always been a, “better to be safer, than sorry� kind of guy. For those who love the idea of uploading to cloud for immediate access wherever you are, I did finally find something worth trying. Box.net offers a 1 gig free account with a good number of features to boot. You can publicly share files, folders, or have a Facebook widget of your files. And so I’ve decided to backup my entire Documents folder to it in case I need to access it globally. But dragging and dropping files can be really tedious, especially if you have to do it one at a time. So thanks to Firefox, and the FileUploader application, I can access my Box.net account and simply drag and drop my entire Documents folder at once for an entire sync. It’s no “back up� system that will automatically retrieve files, and update files, but it is a simple tool provided you keep organized.

  • Apple (probably) prepping a patch for mysterious clicking issue on new MacBooks

    Filed under: Laptops, Peripherals We're normally fans of "quirky," but there's nothing more frustrating than a quirky clicking experience, as has been reported by many of the ungrateful bastages who've snapped up the new MacBook and MacBook Pros since launch. The primary reported problem was with certain physical clicks not registering on that schmancy new glass trackpad, no small annoyance. Earlier this week an email from a disgruntled user to Mr. Customer Support himself, Steve Jobs, was responded to by a call from Apple's customer relations saying that they were "researching" the issue, and a couple days later a similar request from another user was met with a terse email from Steve: "Software fix coming soon." Of course, these conversations could all be the delusional fantasies of click-addled attention hounds, but we're going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that Apple does in fact have a fix in the works for this problem. So, while they toss that presumed update together, how has the new trackpad been treating you?View PollApple (probably) prepping a patch for mysterious clicking issue on new MacBooks originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • TUAW Predicts! The October 14th notebook event

    Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Other Events, One More ThingWith the October 14th Apple Notebook Event just around the corner, the TUAW blogger squad decided it was time to look into our iCrystalBalls and make a SWAG predictions about what laptop goodness will be announced by the Cupertino Kids on Tuesday. To make this extra crunchy, we're not only posting our best guesses as to what will actually be announced, but what Steve J. will announce as "one more thing". Steve Sande Best Guess -- The entire MacBook line will be made of aluminum, and the 15" and 17" models will get slightly faster processors and more installed RAM. If that's the only announcement, expect Apple's stock to dive even further than it has during the recent stock market freefall. One More Thing -- The iTablet. Netbooks are selling like hotcakes, so Apple will get in on the action by coming out with a 9" tablet with a virtual keyboard and multi-touch support. Since it is all display and no keyboard, it will weigh less than two pounds. Think of an über-iPhone. Victor Agreda, Jr. Best Guess -- Ditto what Steve said, except I think a drop in price will happen in light of tough economic times. Despite what some analysts may babble about, Apple is interested in the long game, and that means building more market share. To stay in the game they have to get more price competitive on the low end. One More Thing -- Again, I agree with Steve, although I wouldn't call this a tablet. More like a mini-Air with a decent keyboard (Apple has long been in favor of keeping decent-sized keyboards on smaller laptops) and touchscreen up top. I think the form factor will be something clever and surprising. If it appears at all, of course. Robert Palmer I think we'll see higher-end MacBook enclosures made of aluminum, and a sub-$1,000 model still made from white plastic. There's a part of me that says they won't ditch plastic altogether, because of the style factor: I bet there will be some people who still want a black MacBook. Hey, maybe there will be a black aluminum MacBook. Classy. One More Thing -- I'm still bearish on the iTablet. I think Apple has too much invested in the iPhone as a mobile platform to try and dilute it with another form factor with a different screen size. If it's a Mac, I'm not a fan of jury-rigging traditionally mouse-driven operating systems for styluses. Personally, I just don't think there will be "one more thing." He hasn't done that in a while, especially at "themed" events (like the music event last month). Michael Rose I'm also fairly well convinced that the $800 MacBook (dare we call it the MacBook Jr.?) is inbound on Tuesday, although I'm not sure that the manufacturing rumors are completely on target. The mutterings about a mystery port on the new MacBook -- and a dockability patent from years past -- are starting to sound credible too. One More Thing: I would love to see a BTO touchscreen option... and maybe a technology preview of an iTablet for delivery later in 2009. Mike Schramm New MacBooks are a given -- the Nvidia rumor sounds credible to me, not to mention that it's just what would push me to finally replace my old G4 Powerbook (though I'll miss my little 12" screen). "One more thing" seems like it's trending towards an AppleTV upgrade -- we've got HD content on the iTunes store, so it's time to have a set-top box that's fitting to play that content on. I'm hearing lots of Mac mini rumors as well, but I wonder if Apple will ever upgrade the mini -- it's small, it sells as-is, why break what's not broken? Of course, as Victor mentioned in an email, "Whatever happens, AAPL will drop 10% because iUnicorn wasn't announced..." Think we're out of our minds? Let's hear your prediction in the comment section!Permalink | Email this | Comments

  • Ten Big New Features in Mac OS X Snow Leopard

    Daniel Eran Dilger Apple is marketing the idea of there being “no new features� for Snow Leopard and instead promising an overall improvement in how Mac OS X works under the hood, thanks to a diligent code optimization and refactoring cycle discussed in the previous article. At the same time, there are plenty of significant new features coming in Snow Leopard to look forward to. Here are ten big new features (plus a few minor ones) that you probably haven't heard much about from anywhere else, including my previous articles on the subject that already described QuickTime X, Grand Central, and OpenCL. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Pulling Invisible New Features into Snow Leopard. Apple's increasing collaborations with the open source community have pulled back the veil of secrecy on several new but mostly invisible enhancements that will be showing up in Snow Leopard. One relates to LLVM, the Low Level Virtual Machine compiler architecture project originally founded at the University of Illinois. Apple began contributing to LLVM development in 2005, and started using it Leopard to expand support for OpenGL hardware features. Lower-end Macs that lack the silicon to interpret that specialize graphics code can now do it in software. LLVM is also working its way into Apple's Xcode IDE, initially as a highly efficient optimizer and code generator that works as a bolt-on upgrade to components of GCC, but eventually as a complete compiler replacement. That project, known as Clang, was opened up last year. LLVM compiler technology not only makes developers more productive, but also results in code that runs significantly faster on the same hardware. Apple's other open secret: the LLVM Complier The LLVM Compiler Infrastructure Project Another openly hidden secret in Mac OS X is CUPS, the Common Unix Printing System. Beginning with Jaguar in 2002, Apple adopted and licensed CUPS from its developer as Mac OS X's printing engine. It then purchased the project outright. CUPS is also the de facto printing system for Linux distros and is available for BSD and other commercial Unix systems. That means Apple owns the project that develops the printing architecture for Linux. That's not an issue because Apple has established a reputation in open source as a strong contributor and open sharer. According to a review of bug fixes and improvements in CUPS software, 24% of the enhancements came from Apple while 76% came from free and open source software contributors working with Linux, OpenSolaris, and other projects. Of course, 100% of both sides benefited from that sharing. CUPS collaboration has resulted in high quality code and the advancement of new features. CUPS 1.4, the version sources say Snow Leopard will use, adds performance enhancements and a variety of security improvements that use sandboxing to prevent malware attacks on the printing system from being able to read sensitive documents that may be in use by printers. Common UNIX Printing System A third significant new feature originating from an open source project in Snow Leopard is ZFS support, portions of which come from the OpenSolaris project (along with Sun's DTrace technology, which Apple uses in its Instruments performance profiling tool). Leopard debuted read-only ZFS features, but Snow Leopard and Snow Leopard Server will provide both read and write support for Sun's new 128-bit file system. ZFS was designed to provide “simple administration, transactional semantics, end-to-end data integrity, and immense scalability.� ZFS hype during the development of Leopard helped the new file system reach buzzword status as news of the three letter acronym swept through blogs and the tech media. It is frequently described as being the imminent replacement for the Mac's native HFS+. However, the benefits of ZFS including as storage pooling, data redundancy, automatic error correction, dynamic volume expansion, and snapshots all apply primarily to servers and higher-end workstation users who deal with multiple disk drives. ZFS isn't going to replace HFS+ outright in Snow Leopard, and has limited relevance today to desktop and laptop users, particularly those who never move beyond the single disk drive installed in their system. More Predictions for WWDC 2007: Solaris, Google, Surround Apple - Mac OS X Leopard - Developer Tools - Instruments Symbiotic: What Apple Does for Open Source Apple's Open Source Assault Pushing Visible New Features in Snow Leopard. Apple's extensive work in developing push support for Exchange Server on the iPhone will also be included in Snow Leopard's Mail, Address Book, and iCal. Push support in those client side apps are also being used to power MobileMe's push messaging subscription service and Snow Leopard Server's push messaging services. Apple will be offering both in parallel as alternatives to Exchange, thanks to smart planning on the part of Apple's engineers to develop an interoperable push architecture in Mac OS X and on the iPhone. There is also a fourth application of push that has developed alongside push messaging: Apple's new Push Notification Service. PNS allows iPhone and iPod touch users to set up server side notification alerts that don't require mobile applications to stay running in the background just to update users of the external events they track. Along with Bonjour discovery, PNS will keep iPhones wirelessly connected in all sorts of sophisticated ways that third party developers can imagine in their applications. Whether Apple will integrate a listener for the same PNS system into the desktop side of Mac OS X remains to be seen, but it would allow a single, unified interface for alerting client users of new events. I proposed a system wide, Growl-style notification system in the Leopard Wish List published back in 2005. Snow Leopard Server Takes on Exchange, SharePoint Apple’s Mobile Me Takes On Exchange, Mobile Mesh With the strong push into push messaging, Apple will make mobile devices even more tightly integrated with its desktop products. Leopard delivered Back To My Mac as a novel way to use Wide Area Bonjour's dynamic service registration as a mechanism for sharing resources served from home to any location without configuring static naming services for address lookups. Because any software can register itself with .Mac/MobileMe, this opens the door to third party developers with the vision to exploit the potential of these enabling technologies. A Global Upgrade for Bonjour: AirPort, iPhone, Leopard, .Mac Ten Big Predictions for Apple in 2008 Among the technologies profiled earlier in Myth 3 that have been trickling from the iPhone into Mac OS X, there's at least one idea I proposed for the iPhone that will be in Snow Leopard's Safari: self contained web apps. The new feature will allow users to run web applications as a local app in its own window, essentially making the web platform into a native-looking app that can run outside of Safari. I proposed a similar feature as a possibility for the iPhone prior to the announcement of the Cocoa Touch SDK: web apps packaged up into a set of files that could be run on the device as a Dashboard widget-like standalone app, even when off the network. Why Apple hasn't pursued such an obvious strategy is a little hard to figure out, but it seems they've got the ball rolling on the desktop. That ball will be rolling even faster thanks to SquirrelFish, a new JavaScript interpreter that will make Safari and any other WebKit-based browsers, standalone self contained apps, and Dashboard widgets all a lot faster. Apple's MobileMe, Yahoo's Flickr, and Google various web apps will all gain new speed thanks to faster JavaScript execution. SquirrelFish will also raise the bar in performance and efficiency in the Rich Internet Applications sector in general, giving Flash, Silverlight, and Java a faster, simpler, and more openly interoperable runtime to compete against. RoughlyDrafted: Leopard Wish List: 2005 How Open will the iPhone Get? Surfin’ Safari » Announcing SquirrelFish Microsoft's Application Features in Mac OS X, System Wide. Microsoft's business model of tacking on features hasn't been a total wash. The company's desperate efforts to invent novel marketing features for every new release of Windows and Office have pioneered a number of ideas that have later found their way into Mac OS X. One example is the idea of Fast User Switching, which Apple added to Panther. Windows XP pioneered the trick, but built it upon the kluge that is Terminal Services. Microsoft also helped originate the basis of Ajax web apps by inventing XMLHttpRequest in order to make its Outlook Web Access 2000 web app work decently within Internet Explorer. Today, standards-based web apps are eating a hole into Microsoft's monopoly on the proprietary desktop platform, and tools such as SproutCore and resulting products such as MobileMe are poised to tear down interoperability barriers and level the playing field. Microsoft may now regret having opened Pandora's Box in terms of standards-based web applications, but its efforts to seal the web back up with the proprietary Silverlight plugin, which turns web apps into .NET programs, will now be next to impossible. Another example of a Microsoft innovation are the fancy text features in Word, such as red underlining to highlight spelling mistakes and the green squiggle for grammar errors. Word also features a variety of word auto correction, smart dash insertion, and text replacement features (such as typing TM to get the ™ character). The former have already become system-wide features in Mac OS X, while sources indicate that the latter text processing features will find their way into Snow Leopard, and therefore every application that runs on it. RoughlyDrafted: Remote Display part 3: Terminal Server Cocoa for Windows + Flash Killer = SproutCore Super Size Me. On top of injecting Word features into its OS for the use of every application, Apple will also expand the use of its own Data Detectors, a technology it invented in the mid 90s for identifying useful bits of text and making it actionable. Leopard introduced Data Detectors in Mail as a way to extract contacts and events for use in Address Book and iCal, but Snow Leopard will expose Data Detectors everywhere it draws text. Sources also indicate Snow Leopard will expand upon Font Book to provide full Auto Activation of any fonts requested by any application, using Spotlight to track them down. Snow Leopard is also suggested to have a new set of frameworks specifically for working with multitouch trackpad gestures, patterned after those introduced with the MacBook Air. Speaking of the ultra-thin Air, sometimes less is more. However, the high cost and relatively low capacity of Solid State Drives like the $1000, 64 GB SSD option offered for the Air means that one Microsoft feature Snow Leopard could do without is bloat. As one reader noted, “Currently, Leopard requires 9 GB of available disk space for installation and iLife requires an additional 3 GB. This means that a product such as the [SSD] MacBook Air comes with the hard drive 20% full.� How the MacBook Air stacks up against other ultra-light notebooks Leopard Predictions for WWDC 2006 WWDC 2007: An Inside Perspective From the Halfway Point Think Small. Snow Leopard aims below the bloat to accommodate the coming wave of SSD-based systems. In the latest build, sources say Apple's own apps are losing weigh dramatically across the board. The apps in the Utilities folder all drop from 468 MB to 111.6 MB, for example. Other apps are similarly svelte, as the graph below indicates. Is this the product of just code optimization and shared resources? One factor likely relates to work on Resolution Independence, which substitutes bitmapped raster graphics (which define every pixel) with smaller vector graphics files (which draw GUI elements and controls by recipe). Vector graphics can be scaled to any size while retaining a high quality appearance, while bitmapped graphics can quickly look blocky when scaled up. Adding larger bitmapped versions can solve that problem, but at the cost of consuming more disk space. Apple earlier told developers it would be providing a library of shared, high quality vector graphics they could use instead of each packaging their own bitmapped art into every app. The dramatic size reductions in these apps must also involve more efficient Localization. For example, Mac OS X Leopard's Mail currently weighs in at over 285 MB, but the majority of its bulk comes from 18 language localizations inside the application bundle that consume 276 MB. The actual Universal Binary code is only a few megabytes and even its associated graphics and other resources only amount to 2.8 MB. Why does Apple default to dumping support for 18 or more languages in every app without providing any simple, centralized way to get rid of the unnecessary ones? Perhaps that question is answered in Snow Leopard, where Mail is reportedly just 91 MB. That's too big to simply to be an English-only, stripped down version for developers, but still far smaller than than Leopard's. Across the board, it appears Snow Leopard apps are about a third as large as their Leopard equivalents. And so while Snow Leopard paradoxically gains more useful features through code improvements and under-the-hood retooling rather than from a Microsoft-style new feature focus that aims to deliver “wow� with flashy marketing gimmicks, the system is also getting smaller and tighter. There must also be some other subtraction, right? Will Snow Leopard scrape away the old Carbon API? That's the next myth. WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard WWDC 2008: Is Mac OS X 10.6 the Death of Carbon? I really like to hear from readers. Comment in the Forum or email me with your ideas. Like reading RoughlyDrafted? Share articles with your friends, link from your blog, and subscribe to my podcast! Submit to Reddit or Slashdot, or consider making a small donation supporting this site. Thanks! Technorati Tags: Apple, Development, Mac, Software

The Comments Go Here

Software Releases