lion
Latest
WWDC Interview: IGG Software
This week TUAW and MacTech Magazine teamed up to speak to developers at WWDC about the keynote and how Apple's new technologies will help them and their customers. Over the next couple of weeks, we'll bring you those videos here, MacTech.com and MacNews.com. Also, check out the free trial subscription offer for MacTech Magazine here. In this video, I interview James Gillespie of IGG Software, Inc. at WWDC 2011. James was kind enough to tell us about his thoughts on the announcements at WWDC, and how it will affect IGG's plans moving forward. IGG makes iBank (among other things), which is worth a look if you need a personal finance solution.
Apple goes on a domain name shopping spree
Apple has bought at least 50 domain names in the last three days. While many of the domain names are related to features of Lion or iOS 5 that were introduced at WWDC on Monday, it's unlikely Apple will use most of the domain names as active URLs. Instead, Apple probably just snapped them up to keep squatters from getting them. After all, it's got to be tiring going after every single person who buys a domain with one of your trademarks in it. Here's a complete list of the domain names:
Find My Mac kicks off with Lion
In the latest Developer Preview of Lion, Apple has activated the new Find My Mac feature. Like Find My iPhone, Find My Mac allows users to locate their Macs from any web browser or iOS device. As noted by 9to5 Mac, the Find My Mac setup is available through the Mail, Contacts and Calendars setting in System Preferences. Simply click "Allow," and your Mac is ready to be tracked. Once enabled you can use any web browser or iOS device to track your Mac. When found you can choose to play a sound or send a message, remote lock the Mac or remote wipe the Mac. However, remote locking and wiping will prevent you from locating the Mac again. The Find My Mac feature will be free, all you need to use it will be Lion and a free iCloud membership. This feature is sure to be a bane to thieves, and no doubt we'll be hearing stories about how Find My Mac thwarted more thieves in the future.
How to install Lion from an SD card
After we linked to instructions for how to burn a Lion boot disc earlier this week, Nature's Eye Studios contacted MacStories to let them know they figured out how to get the new OS to boot off a SD card. After downloading Lion from the developer site, the video maker proceeds to wipe a SD card and use the repair option with the Lion disk image as the source to create the boot. Once you've created the backup, you can use the SD card as a Lion installer if needed, then pull a backup from Time Capsule. Keep in mind that the final release of Lion will include a restore partition and Recovery Mode, meaning that you'll be able to boot your machine from a clean Lion installer at any point without the use of external media (assuming your hard drive's not wonky). While this means you're a lot less likely to need install media down the road, it's nice to know the option is there. Check out the video below to see this process in action.
Why didn't we see a Nuance announcement during WWDC?
One major rumor missing from the WWDC keynote yesterday was voice control. It was just last year that Apple purchased Siri, a popular voice companion app for iOS. Apple was also rumored to be working with Nuance to offer some form of voice control in its software. References to Nuance were recently spotted in a developer version of Mac OS X Lion, and sources claim Nuance software is running at Apple's North Carolina data center. Even the Chief Mobile Technology Architect at Nuance was spotted in the WWDC audience yesterday. Despite this mounting evidence, voice control was a no-show at WWDC. Both TechCrunch and Robert Scoble heard from sources that Apple's voice technology was not ready for a WWDC demonstration. It's there, and Apple is still working on it, but it's not quite ready for prime time. Perhaps Apple will wait to roll out this feature and use it to drum up added excitement when iOS 5 finally arrives this fall.
How to burn a Lion boot disc
Mac OS X Lion will debut in July, and this handy set of instructions from Egg Freckles will let you create a boot disc for installation. OS X Lion will be distributed via the Mac App Store, and you can download the installer files to your hard drive. Once you have the installer files, follow these steps to create your very own boot disc: Use Finder to locate the Mac OS X Lion installer, right-click and select "Show Package Contents." Find the SharedSupport folder and look for a file named "InstallESD.dmg." This is the Lion Boot Disc image. Copy the "InstallESD.dmg" file to another folder, such as your desktop. Launch Disk Utility and click the burn button. Select the "InstallESD.dmg" copy as the image to burn, insert a DVD, and in a few minutes, you will have a brand new Lion Boot Disc. These instructions won't do much for everyone right now since OS X Lion is still in the hands of the developers. Bookmark, Evernote or Instapaper this post for future use. You'll be glad you did when Lion rolls out next month.
Doing the Math: At $29.99, Mac OS X Lion was WWDC's most expensive product
Our own Dave Caolo pointed out something that took the rest of the TUAW team aback: at US$29.99, Mac OS X Lion was the most expensive product discussed at WWDC today. It's not as though the next version of the Mac's operating system had a lot of pricing competition at the keynote. iOS 5 will be a free upgrade to users with supported hardware, and iCloud's services -- which used to cost $99/year under MobileMe -- are all completely free. In fact, other than Lion itself, the only thing Apple announced at WWDC that costs anything at all was iTunes Match at $25 a year. One of the major anti-Apple memes over the lifetime of the Mac has been that Apple's products are far more expensive than those of its competitors. While there are arguments both for and against that line of thinking for Macs and equivalently-configured PCs, the iPad's pricing compared to other tablets' blows that argument out of the water, and Apple's software prices undercut those of Windows by an astonishing margin, as demonstrated in the graphic above. Windows 7 comes in a spread of flavors, while Mac OS X Lion comes in only two: the standard $29.99 user edition and an upgraded server edition that costs $50 more. Both will be downloads from the Mac App Store, and while there's no official word yet, based on a cursory reading of the current terms and conditions, it seems that both Lion and Lion Server Edition will be installable on up to 10 machines associated with a user's iTunes account. So our graphic is wrong in one sense: while you could buy multiple copies of Lion for the same price as the equivalent Windows software, you don't actually have to. If anything, this makes Lion an even more economical prospect than Windows. Even if you want to make the argument that it'd take a Server Edition upgrade to put Lion's feature set on parity with Windows 7 Ultimate Edition (an assessment with which we'd politely disagree), Windows 7 is still only installable on one machine. Therefore, even with "Lion Server Edition" costing a total of $80, that's $80 for a 10-machine license under the current terms and conditions versus $220 to install Windows 7 Ultimate Edition on one. Put another way: for the amount of money you'd pay for a single-machine license for Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, you could install Mac OS X Lion and its server tools on 20 machines and still have 60 bucks left over. If you're like us and you think Lion doesn't need the server tools to be on parity with Windows 7 Ultimate, you could install Lion on 70 machines and buy yourself a six-pack for the same price as one Windows 7 Ultimate license. Apple charged $129 for Mac OS X Leopard and older iterations of its operating system, which were still considered bargains against the pricing of equivalent Windows packages. But Lion's incredibly low cost compared to that of Windows merely demonstrates what we've known all along: Apple is, at its heart, a hardware company. It makes money off of its hardware, but the only purpose of the software is to make the hardware sing. iTunes? Free. iCloud? Free. iOS? Free. Mac OS X? 30 bucks. Microsoft, on the other hand, is primarily a software company dependent on hardware makers to run its software. Xbox 360 and some minor pilot projects aside, Microsoft makes an overwhelming majority of its money off licenses of Windows and Office editions. With that in mind, it's little wonder that Microsoft's software costs so much more... or that Apple is currently cleaning Microsoft's clock financially.
If Lion is your future, make sure Snow Leopard is your present
As we mentioned in our what Mac owners need to know after today's WWDC announcements roundup, Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) will be required for Lion. If you are using Leopard (10.5) or less, you must first upgrade to Snow Leopard. Amazon shows it backordered 2-5 weeks, (available from some third parties), but the online Apple Store has it for US$29 plus shipping. Note that if you are running a version of Mac OS X before 10.5, you should buy the $129 Mac Box Set ($99.99 at Amazon), which includes Snow Leopard, iLife '11 and iWork, but that is a legal/moral obligation, not a technical one. The Snow Leopard DVD will work on any supported Mac, regardless of which OS is installed on it (or even on a new drive). Not sure what version you are running? Go to the Apple menu and select "About This Mac" and look in the window that appears (see image above). If it says anything starting with 10.6, you are running Snow Leopard. Anything less? Time to upgrade. (If you are running Snow Leopard, make sure you are running at least version 10.6.6 and get the Mac App Store app!) You may also want to make sure your Mac is compatible. Apple specifies "[y]our Mac must have an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor to run Lion." That information is shown in the "Processor" line of the "About Mac" window, shown above.
What Mac owners need to know after today's WWDC announcements
With Mac OS X Lion coming in July and the free iCloud service coming in the fall, owning a Mac is about to get a whole lot more exciting. Today's WWDC keynote was full of announcements about the new services Lion and iCloud will offer, and whether you're a Mac newbie or an old hand, it's worth looking at a condensed list of what this means for the future of the Mac. Mac OS X Lion 1. Lion will be available in July, and it only costs US$29.99 for all your devices. Quite a few people expected the next version of Mac OS X to be cheaper than the $129 Apple charged for the first five versions, but we were pleasantly shocked to see it being offered for the same price as the current version, Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Not only that, but your OS X Lion install is valid for any Mac you own, meaning "family versions," the more expensive multi-user OS X versions Apple used to offer, are now a thing of the past. That's largely because... 2. Lion will only be available through the Mac App Store. Apple has made it so you no longer need to buy a retail box with a disc containing the Mac OS X installer. This makes it so you can install Lion on any Mac associated with your iTunes account. There are some unaddressed questions about this process (more on that later), but one thing is certain: if Lion is only available via the Mac App Store, that means it's only available to Snow Leopard users. The Mac App Store isn't available on Mac OS X Leopard or earlier versions, so if you haven't updated to Snow Leopard yet, it looks like a Leopard-to-Lion upgrade will actually cost you about $60. 3. If you have a desktop Mac, now's a good time to go get a Magic Trackpad. Apple has gone full-tilt on integrating Multi-Touch gestures into Mac OS X. The company started integrating such gestures in early 2008, but Mac OS X Lion is making them an integral part of the OS. If you want to get the most out of Lion, and you have a Mac mini, iMac or a Mac Pro, you'll need a Magic Trackpad to take full advantage of features such as Mission Control. Meanwhile, almost all Mac notebooks manufactured after early 2008 should be able to use the new gestures. 4. Mac OS X is taking some design cues from iOS. Launchpad, a simplified-app launcher, should be familiar to anyone who's used an iPhone or iPad. Apps can run in full screen if you choose, emulating the "one thing at a time" nature of working on the iPad. Mail is getting a new dual-column layout, with conversation views identical to what we've had in iOS for some time now. Also similar to the way things work in iOS, apps will resume right where you left them when you reopen them. Speaking of which... 5. Saving and backing up files will be easier than ever. The way Apple's described it, you might never need to worry about losing an in-progess file again -- or manually saving it, for that matter. Taking another cue from the way things have worked on iOS, applications will now automatically save your work as you go. The new Versions feature will also keep track of different saved versions of your work, similar to the way Time Machine's worked for file backups since Mac OS X Leopard. With this feature, one of the decades-long bugbears of the computing world has been addressed at last; now, if an app or your computer crashes out, your work will always be safe. iCloud 1. iCloud replaces MobileMe -- for free. If you were always eyeing up MobileMe's services but didn't want to shell out the $99/year Apple was asking for, worry no longer. Everything MobileMe used to do, iCloud will do for free, starting this fall. 2. iCloud wirelessly syncs data across all your devices. If you've got iOS devices or are a multi-Mac household, you'll find iCloud makes it easy to keep data synced from one device to another. This means you can keep your mail, calendar entries, and contacts synced across multiple devices, automatically and wirelessly. MobileMe has done this for years (and .Mac before it), but iCloud will do it free of charge, so there's no reason not to use it. 3. Photo Stream makes syncing recent photos manually a thing of the past. A thousand of your latest photos can be synced between devices immediately over iCloud. So if you take a photo on your iPhone or iPad 2, it'll show up on your Mac right away, without having to hook your devices together first. The latest 1,000 photos on your Mac can also be streamed to an iOS device over iCloud. 4. iTunes Music purchases now appear everywhere. Buy a song in the iTunes Store on your iPhone, and it shows up automatically on your Mac. Buy a song in iTunes on your Mac, and it shows up automatically on your iPhone. This is a feature people have been wanting for years now, and it's finally available. Unanswered questions 1. How can you install Mac OS X Lion on a new, empty hard drive? If the only way to install Mac OS X Lion is by downloading it via the Mac App Store, it's going to be very difficult to put it on a brand-new hard drive unless Apple provides us with workarounds. Maybe you'll be able to burn your copy of Lion to disc after downloading it or install it on a USB drive. At any rate, I hope Apple gives us an answer to this besides "keep your Snow Leopard disc handy" or "use Target Disk Mode with another Mac," because both of those solutions are suboptimal, to put it lightly. 2. Will Lion be available on disk for institutional use (schools, corporations) or for users with poor internet access? Some of us at TUAW think Apple might still offer Lion on disc for institutional use at schools or businesses, but it's too early to tell if that's the case. As for individuals with poor internet access, you're probably out of luck; the writing has been on the wall for those users ever since Apple stopped bundling iTunes installation discs with iPods. Mac OS X Lion will be available for download next month, and iCloud will debut in the fall. Put the two together, and the Mac becomes more powerful than ever before.
Lion Server to be a $50 download from Mac App Store
In the past, if you wanted to set up a Mac OS X-based server, you bought a separate DVD with an expensive license. In the case of Snow Leopard Server, that license was $499 for an unlimited number of users. Now, it appears that Lion Server is going to be a $49.99 set of apps that you'll purchase through the Mac App Store. This is a bit different from what we heard back in February, when Apple's PR department was touting that Lion Server would be bundled for free with every copy of Lion. For those who are currently running the latest version of Mac OS X Server 10.6, updating will be as simple as visiting the Mac App Store once Lion ships in July, then clicking a few times to buy, download, and install the new server OS on your Mac. Your Mac must run an Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, or Core i7 processor to run Lion or the server apps, so that old original Core Duo Mac mini won't be able to be upgraded. What does the server app set add to Lion? • A Server App for setting up user accounts, creating groups, checking usage, and managing AirPort devices. There's no word on whether that $50 buys you an unlimited license, but that seems likely as Apple hasn't stated otherwise. • A Profile Manager to set up and remotely manage Lion workstations and iOS devices. • Wireless File Sharing for iPad • Push notifications • Wiki Server 3, iCal Server 3, Mail Server 3 • Xsan Directory services don't seem to be headlined on the Apple page, but I'm sure we'll see more details as Lion gets even closer to release next month. With Lion Server, Apple is making server software easily accessible for anyone, without the huge licensing fees seen in the Windows world.
iCloud named as successor to MobileMe, will be free service
Steve Jobs unveiled the new iCloud service at WWDC today. iCloud stores a user's content in the cloud and wirelessly pushes that content to all devices. The services will be free with no ads and be completely integrated with the apps found in MobileMe -- and they've all been rewritten from the ground up. Contacts and calendars that are created or modified on one device are pushed to the cloud, and the changes propagate on all other devices instantly. Calendars have also had sharing features added so that you can send them to friends or coworkers. iCloud also allows users to propagate app and iBooks purchases across devices. Purchase an iBook on your iPad, tap the new iCloud button, and the same book will be downloaded on your iPhone, for example. iCloud also features deep backup sets and automatically performs daily backups over Wi-Fi. Backups include music, books, apps, camera roll, device settings and app data. iCloud also features an app called "Documents." When you create a new document in Pages, Keynote or Numbers, that document is automatically pushed to all the devices the user has Pages, Keynote or Numbers on. The iCloud Documents APIs will be made available to developers so that they can build the feature into their apps. Another new feature: in the Photos iOS app there is a new album called Photo Stream, which allows any photos taken on any devices to be pushed to your other devices automatically. The last 1,000 photos will be stored on the cloud for 30 days and then be deleted from the cloud. In that time, you have the option of permanently saving any of those photos to any device you own. Finally, Apple has extended iCloud capabilities to iTunes. You can re-download (for free) any song you have previously purchased in iTunes on up to 10 devices that you own. "We're making it free, and we're very excited about it. So that's iCloud. It stores your content and pushes it to all of your devices, and it's integrated with all your apps," Steve Jobs told the packed theater at WWDC.
Mail gets major overhaul in OS X
It's the app we probably use the most, and Mail is getting some big-league features in Lion. Attendees at WWDC only got a brief glimpse of the new Mail app, but it's loaded with new and compelling features. The app has been completely redesigned, with a new multi-column view that looks a bit similar to Mail on the iPad. The app can intelligently select recipients as you type, and even suggest subjects as it parses your older mail. There are threaded conversations, and those can be easily saved outside of Mail. Threads even contain attachments. We'll have more on Mail as we learn more, but with Lion itself selling for US$29.99, the Mail upgrade alone seems like it's worth that.
OS X Lion launching in July for $29.99, Lion Server to run $49.99
Apple has been talking about OS X Lion for some time already, of course, but it's now filled in most if not all of the remaining key details at WWDC. Dubbed a "major release" with over 250 new features, the OS adds things like a slew of new multi-touch gestures and full-screen apps (including iPhoto, iMovie, Safari, etc.), plus the all new Mission Control, which unifies Expose and Spaces, and the iOS-esque Launchpad application launcher. It also includes a new system-wide Resume feature that lets you pick up exactly where you left off, a new auto-save feature that automatically saves different versions of documents, the new AirDrop peer-to-peer file-sharing system, and a brand new version of Mail that finally includes a conversation view. The big news revealed today, however, is that the OS will now only be available in the Mac App Store as a 4GB download -- which installs in place, no reboots -- and that it will run you just $29.99 for all of your authorized Macs. It will be available sometime in July, but developers can get the latest preview release today. Head on past the break for the official press release. Update: It didn't garner much fanfare, but Apple has also revealed that Lion Server will be available as an App Store download in July as well, with it set to run you $49.99 (a veritable bargain by Server standards). %Gallery-125426%
Lion will go on sale in July for $29.99 via Mac App Store (Updated)
Apple announced today that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion will go on sale in July via the Mac App Store (only) for US$29.99. Lion was originally announced in 2010 with the first developer's preview coming out in February. It has more than 250 features, including full-screen applications, multi-touch gestures, Mission Control (essentially Dashboard, Exposé and Spaces rolled into one), Launchpad, the Mac App Store built in, resume, auto save, versioning and more. Update (1:30 PM): New version of Mail announced. Peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, auto discovery and setup, confirm to send and receive, fully encrypted transfer, snippets, favorites bar, conversations and more. A blow to newcomers, such as Sparrow, for sure. Update: Lion will be available only in the Mac App Store. 4 GB download, no rebooting, can use it on all personally authorized Macs. $29.99 in July with developer's preview today.
WWDC 2011 liveblog: Steve Jobs talks iOS 5, OS X Lion, iCloud and more!
You're in the right place! Bookmark this page and return on Monday at the times listed below to see Steve Jobs take the stage at Moscone West. WWDC 2011 promises a peek at iOS 5, OS X Lion, the iCloud music storage offering and who knows what else. The iPhone 5? Don't count on it, but also, don't count it out. Your town not listed? Shout your time in comments below! 07:00AM - Hawaii 10:00AM - Pacific 11:00AM - Mountain 12:00PM - Central 01:00PM - Eastern 06:00PM - London 07:00PM - Paris 09:00PM - Moscow 02:00AM - Tokyo (June 7th)
TUAW predictions for WWDC 2011
With Steve Jobs' WWDC 2011 keynote just a few hours away, we already know a lot more about the content of this year's WWDC keynote than in years past. But, it's always fun to dust off the old crystal ball and see what WWDC will bring us this week. Without further ado, here's what some of our TUAW bloggers predict today will bring: Mike Rose End-of-life for the classic iPod A new Time Capsule with cloud storage tied in One more thing: A new MacBook Air
Mac OS X Lion server to come as a paid for downloadable app?
According to Hardmac, Mac OS X Lion server will come as a paid-for downloadable app from the Mac App Store. One of Hardmac's French readers (Blaise) inadvertently stumbled across this help window when typing "install server" in the help menu of a beta build of Apple's newest, soon-to-be-released version of Mac OS X, Lion. The help window states, "If this Mac isn't a server, you can make it one by installing the server app." It then goes on to detail the process of installing the app and creating an administrator account. The help menu ends with, "The Server app downloads the Server Essentials software package, installs it, and configures this Mac as a server." However, as we've noted previously, Apple's own Lion marketing webpage states that "Lion Server is now part of Mac OS X Lion." It reads, "It's easy to set up your Mac as a server and take advantage of the many services Lion Server has to offer." Being that Apple currently charges US$499 for its Snow Leopard server package, it's conceivable that Apple may charge something extra to flip Lion's server switch via the Mac App Store. But we're unconvinced. Mac OS X Lion, alongside iCloud and iOS 5, is scheduled to be introduced on June 6th by Steve Jobs at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference. [Via 9to5Mac]
iCloud offerings might be free to those who upgrade to Lion
When Steve Jobs kicks off Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) next Monday, AppleInsider suggests the iconic CEO may reveal an aggressive price-point for some of the Cupertino company's upcoming cloud services -- free. On Tuesday, Apple announced plans to unveil iCloud, a suite of cloud services expected to replace MobileMe, and Lion, the eighth significant upgrade to Mac OS X, at WWDC next week. According to the post, people familiar with Apple's plans expect the computer maker to offer some of iCloud's services gratis to Mac users who upgrade to Lion. But AppleInsider notes that some components of iCloud are not likely to be free for any customer. Apple recently negotiated new licensing deals with (at least) Sony, EMI, and Warner Music, and is expected to announce its own music streaming services on June 6. Much like MobileMe today and competing music offerings from Google and Amazon, Apple's upcoming music services will likely include a complimentary trial period, but customers should ultimately expect to pay a subscription fee to host content on the company's servers.
Steve Jobs will introduce iCloud, Lion, iOS5 at WWDC keynote June 6
It's official (for real, this time) -- Steve Jobs will introduce iCloud, "Apple's upcoming cloud services offering," iOS 5 and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion during the WWDC keynote on June 6. Note that iCloud is named specifically and referred to as "cloud services," suggesting that it's more than music. There has been much speculation about iCloud as a music locker, streaming service and MobileMe successor. Also, developers and customers alike have been eager to see iOS 5, and we were recently led to believe that Mac OS X Lion is getting close to a releasable state. It's going to be an exciting keynote, and we'll have full coverage. See you on the 6th! Show full PR text CUPERTINO, California-May 31, 2011-Apple® CEO Steve Jobs and a team of Apple executives will kick off the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) with a keynote address on Monday, June 6 at 10:00 a.m. At the keynote, Apple will unveil its next generation software - Lion, the eighth major release of Mac OS® X; iOS 5, the next version of Apple's advanced mobile operating system which powers the iPad®, iPhone® and iPod touch®; and iCloud®, Apple's upcoming cloud services offering. WWDC will feature more than 100 technical sessions presented by Apple engineers. Mac® developers will see and learn how to develop world-class Mac OS X Lion applications using its latest technologies and capabilities. Mobile developers will be able to explore the latest innovations and capabilities of iOS and learn how to greatly enhance the functionality, performance and design of their apps. All developers can bring their code to the labs and work with Apple engineers. For more details, visit the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference 2011 website at developer.apple.com/wwdc. Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced iPad 2 which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.
Apple to unveil iCloud, iOS 5 on Monday, June 6
Had some doubts that Apple was heading skyward? Those lingering concerns can now be put to rest. Apple has confirmed that it will be announcing iCloud on June 6th, what it's calling an "upcoming cloud services offering." That will be part of the keynote for this year's Worldwide Developers Conference, known to the cool kids as WWDC. This is, of course, where everyone has come to expect new iPhones to come to light, but this year we're thinking the focus will be more on software, and indeed Apple's event notice indicates that the big highlights will be Mac OS X Lion and the next version of its mobile operating system, iOS 5. This is a decidedly non-Apple way to announce something big like iCloud, making us wonder what other surprises Steve Jobs will have for us at the event -- yes, he'll be kicking things off. As ever you can find out as it happens here, live.
