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The Loop looks at OS X Mavericks
Perhaps this post should have been titled "The Beard looks at OS X Mavericks," since the subject is about an article written by veteran Apple blogger Jim Dalrymple on his Loop Insight blog. Dalrymple's opinions are highly valued by Apple, and he received a 13-inch MacBook Pro and a copy of OS X Mavericks to evaluate for the blog. His blog post is a first look at the beta Mac OS, and he's actually quite happy with what Mavericks has to offer. Dalrymple pretty much decided that he'd use the Mavericks machine as his only work computer, doing his blogging, tweeting and all other work under the beta software, as "this was the only way to truly evaluate what the operating system could do." To begin with, Dalrymple was pleased to find that all of his apps worked under Mavericks. He was happy with the addition of Finder tabs (multiple tabs in one Finder window), and found Finder tags "a lot more useful than website tags." iCloud Keychain -- which syncs passwords stored on your Mac with any iOS device you choose -- was a feature that Dalrymple really finds to have a lot of potential, as it can ease password access from within Safari on iOS. Likewise, Dalrymple is happy with OS X Mavericks' Notifications, which now allow one-click replies without needing to launch an app. But he singled out Maps in Mavericks for special love -- one of his favorite features is the ability to take directions created with Maps on the Mac and send them to an iPhone or iPad with a click. It's a fun post by one of the top Apple bloggers and well worth a read. While Dalrymple can't divulge any new features due to the Apple NDA, he does a great job of explaining how the features that were touted during the WWDC 2013 keynote work in real life.
The Loop's Jim Dalrymple takes on WWDC 2013 expectations
When he's not hanging around with rock stars (like Guns 'n Roses guitarist Slash, at left above) or controlling the Northern Hemisphere's supply of Heineken, Jim Dalrymple (right) is talking about Apple and those other things at The Loop. Jim's been an industry insider for quite some time, so when he talks, smart people tend to listen. Today Jim did all of us in the Apple blogosphere a favor by outlining what he feels are reasonable expectations for what we'll hear and see during the WWDC 2013 keynote. Some of the highlights from his prognostications include: "The important thing to remember about WWDC is that it is a developer conference. It's not a place where Apple is going to show off the newest iPhone or iPad," followed by the admonition to bloggers that, "If you are going to write an article that Apple will release the new iPhone or iPad at WWDC, don't do it." "...Don't expect an iPhone or iPad at WWDC," followed by the brilliant footnote comment "If you write a story after WWDC stating that since there was no iPhone or iPad, the keynote was a bust, you are just stupid." "For me, the Mac products fit well with a Tim Cook keynote at WWDC. That's all I really expect from Apple in the way of hardware at the conference." Regarding the rumored "flat design" of iOS 7: "Personally, I don't think that Apple will take it as far as what some might think. The way I envision iOS 7 is more of a modernization of the look and feel of the operating system. Kind of like what Apple did with OS X over the years." There's quite a bit more on The Loop, so head on over to read Jim's post. And dude, I owe you a Heineken or two for writing most of this post for me.
Talkcast tonight, 7pm PST/10pm EST: Beard Edition!
Once more we come to that point in the week where we practice a time-honored tradition, the Sunday Talkcast. Tonight's show is a special one, as we are going to be joined by The Man, The Myth, The Legend: Jim Dalrymple, of Loop Insight. We'll be talking about The Magazine, among other things. I have heard tell The Beard may be joining us as well, so if you join us, do be on your best behavior. When The Beard is frightened, it doesn't end well. As usual, the Kelly Show means Aftershow, so you should come by for that as well. Since it's really all about you, the community, do see if you can join us, won't you? To participate live, you can use the browser-only Talkshoe client, the embedded Facebook app, or download the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for +5 Interactivity, you should call in. For the web UI, just click the Talkshoe Web button on our profile page at 4 HI/7 PDT/10 pm EDT Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VoIP lines (Viva free weekend minutes!): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 -- during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *8. If you've got a headset or microphone handy on your Mac, you can connect via the free X-Lite or other SIP clients (aside from Skype or Google Voice), basic instructions are here. Talk to you tonight!
Apple targeted by hackers
Reuters is reporting that Apple has been targeted in a cyber-attack. Apple announced the breach this morning, noting that malware had targeted a "limited number" of Mac systems. Reuters notes that the same hacker group is suspected of an attack on Facebook machines last week. In a statement the company made to The Loop, Apple said that the malware infected the systems through a vulnerability in the Java browser plug-in. "The malware was employed in an attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for software developers. We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network. There is no evidence that any data left Apple. We are working closely with law enforcement to find the source of the malware." Macs with OS X Lion and Mountain Lion installed ship without Java, and OS X currently disables Java if it is unused for 35 days. Apple will release an updated Java malware removal tool today that will check Mac systems and remove this particular malware if it is found.
Apple: Please use the Firefox browser to sign up for WWDC 2010
Our good buddy Jim Dalrymple over at The Loop brought up this useful piece of information for those developers who are rushing to sign up for WWDC 2010: As per Apple's own recommendation, don't use Safari 4.0.4 or earlier; use Firefox or the latest version of Safari. According to Jim's post, he was contacted by developers who ran into issues when trying to complete their transaction. One developer went so far as to do an online chat with an Apple support person and captured the screenshot of their conversation that is seen above. Apparently devs who were using Safari 4.0.5 didn't run into the problem, but it's still pretty funny when Apple's own support personnel recommend using Firefox rather than the official browser.
