macosx
Latest
Windows 7 closes gap with XP, is poised to steal top market share this month
As recently as a year ago, Windows XP was the kingpin of PCs in the US with 43.1 percent market share. But that's rapidly changing. StatCounter shows that while Mac OS X is creeping up slightly and Windows Vista continues its death march, Windows 7 is on the rise, steadily closing the gap with trusty ole' XP. Last month, XP's share sank to 32.17 percent, while Windows 7's edged up to 30.84 percent, leaving the latter poised to overtake XP -- something the much-maligned Vista never did. And if early numbers are to be believed, it's already happened: StatCounter says that for the first week in April Windows 7's share (among desktops, at least) totaled 31.71 percent, compared with XP's 31.56. Either way, it seems Microsoft has convinced consumers that it's finally safe to upgrade.
Latest Lion build features iCal, iChat redesign
The latest Lion Developer Preview (released yesterday) features some cool new redesigns of a few of Mac OS X's built-in apps. First up is a completely redesigned iCal. The new iCal now closely resembles the Calendar app that you find on the iPad. It sports a leather header, complete with strips of torn away calendars. The overall look and feel of the new iCal, like its iPad counterpart, now closely resembles a physical desktop calender. Another redesign, though less noticeable than the new iCal UI, is an updated iChat UI that combines AIM, Jabber and Bonjour contacts together in one window. This is a welcome tweak, as iChat previously separated all your different contacts into separate windows. With the above changes, and the fact that Address Book in OS X Lion already got a similar overhaul so that it closely matches the Address Book app on the iPad, I wouldn't think it's too much to hope that Game Center for the Mac App Store and iBooks for OS X is too far off. [via 9to5Mac]
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview Update 1 is out
The Lion just purred. Apple pushed out an update to the developer preview of the next Mac operating system today. Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview Update 1 is available via Software Update and is the first update since the developer preview first came out on February 24, 2011. The update is minuscule -- 2.2 MB -- and according to the update notes "This update is required to redeem downloads of Mac OS X Lion seed builds from the Mac App Store." There you have it -- future updates of the seed builds will be done through the Mac App Store and not Software Update. The update follows recent reports that Apple was set to deploy a Golden Master release of the operating system, which means that the feature set for Lion could be close to being cast in stone.
10.6.7 update causes OpenType font issues
There's a thread on Apple's Discussions boards suggesting that Mac OS X 10.6.7 introduces issues with OpenType PostScript fonts when it comes to printing and PDF handling. Kurt Lang writes: "As soon as you install 10.6.7, OpenType PostScript fonts are indeed broken... [the issue] is confined to OT PS fonts. All PDF files, including those using OpenType PostScript fonts display correctly in Preview. With the Acrobat Reader, all PDF files display correctly except those using OT PS fonts. So no matter who gets PDF files created under 10.6.7 using OT PS fonts, they will not display correctly on the Mac or in Windows..." Oops. Lang goes on to note that everything was working perfectly under Mac OS X 10.6.6. Also, he has not changed his installations of Adobe Reader or Preview. Only the OS is different. Since everything works fine in Preview and is only troublesome in Reader, you might be inclined to point the finger towards Adobe. However, we agree with Lang that it isn't solely Adobe's responsibility to ensure compatibility with minor OS updates -- if something's changed in the OS's type handling without Apple announcing it, there's not much Adobe could do in advance. Update: Adam Engst at TidBITS dives into the issue and reports that the impacts are wider than we knew. As far as we know, Apple is not yet working on the issue. If you've experienced this trouble, let us know. Hopefully a fix will be issued soon. Thanks, Laurie.
Apple set to deploy "GM1" release of Mac OS X Lion?
Tech Crunch reports that Apple is set to deploy a Gold Master release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in the near future. It's been just over a month since Apple released the Lion Developer Preview. A Gold Master is typically the final version of a software product that is then sent on to be mass produced on CD or DVDs (or delivered digitally). Once a software hits Gold Master, it is usually available to the general public within a matter of weeks. However, this next release of 10.7 Lion, while designated a Gold Master, will actually be labeled "GM1" according to TechCrunch. TechCrunch says this GM1 release will be "only the initial Golden Master candidate" with more to follow. Typically non-final GM candidates are called release candidates, but this is Apple and they always uses their own special naming conventions. However, an Apple GM1 candidate means we'll typically see all the feature tweaks Apple has planned for Lion locked in place, with successive "GM" releases solely focusing on bug fixes and compatibility issues. Mac OS X 10.7 is expected to be released later this summer.
Apple to drop Samba networking tools from Lion
Changes to its licensing may lead Samba, an open source suite of tools for networking with Windows systems, to be chopped from Mac OS X Lion, according to a report from AppleInsider. Instead, Apple will develop its own solutions for interacting with neighboring Windows systems over a network. Samba's primary goal is to improve interoperability between PCs with Microsoft Windows and computers running other operating systems. Notably, the software enables UNIX-based systems like Mac OS X to speak the Server Message Block (SMB) protocol that Windows uses for file sharing and network directory services. Apple began integrating Samba into its operating systems in 2002 with the release of Mac OS X v10.2 "Jaguar." With Samba, Mac OS X's ability to interact with Windows has grown over the last several years, evolving from everyday file sharing between co-workers into Mac servers capable of hosting account profiles and entire home directories for Windows users to access from their networked PCs. As Mac OS X adopted more of Samba's tools, the team behind Samba gradually transformed the open source licensing for its software. The latest version of Samba is offered only with General Public License Version 3 (GPLv3) licensing, which includes restrictions that essentially prevent Apple from incorporating it into commercially packaged software like Mac OS X. Although Samba has been voted off Lion island, it's unlikely Apple will entirely drop support for Windows networking technologies. Apple is reportedly hard at work building a new suite of built-in tools that will allow Mac OS X Lion to continue dancing with Windows networks. Unlike Samba, however, Lion's networking tools will likely end support for NT domains, networking technology introduced by Microsoft in the late 1990s. Although some networks still rely on NT Domain Controller configurations, even Microsoft ended support for the aging technology with Windows 7. On the bright side, Apple will no longer by trapped by the limitations of Samba. For example, the version of Samba currently bundled with Mac OS X can run into issues with PCs running Windows 7 that are set to Microsoft's most secure options for file sharing. Apple now has the opportunity to address this shortcoming and perhaps introduce its own innovative improvements to networking between future versions of Mac OS X and Windows. For now, it's possible (and likely) the first version of Apple's tools for integrating with Windows networking technologies will face a few initial setbacks and limitations. In this event, Samba can potentially still be added to Mac OS X Lion by tech-savvy Mac users who can survive without a simple installer, graphical user interface and tight integration with the rest of Apple's software. Or Mac users who need Samba's toolset can hope an enterprising developer builds a compelling, easy-to-use Samba package before Mac OS X Lion ships this summer. [via CNET] Updated to note that Mac OS X can work with Win 7 sharing if security options are changed.
Happy 10th birthday, Mac OS X!
It's hard to believe that 10 years ago today, Mac OS X made its official debut after several months of a paid public beta. Mac OS X v.10.0 "Cheetah" was released on March 24, 2001 for US$129. It was slow, clunky and made many users want to throw their Macs out the window, into the closest body of water or quickly scurry back to the safety of OS 9. Despite the plethora of errors, it was clear that 'Classic' Mac OS's days were numbered. The anniversary comes a day after one of Mac OS X's major development leaders, Bertrand Serlet, announced that he was leaving Apple. Serlet helped guide the transformation of the NeXTStep OS purchased by Apple into the Mac OS X (and eventually iOS) that we know and love. In the rest of this post, we share the seven (soon to be eight) major releases of Mac OS X (10.4.4 is considered a major release because of the rewrite for the Intel platform) and video blasts from the past as we share footage of the original announcements and previews of Mac OS X. Check out the gallery of UI changes as well. %Gallery-88902%
Mac OS X turns X years old today
Whether it changed everything, made you think different, or was just a sideshow to the Windows centerpiece of your life, there's no denying version X of Mac OS has been the most successful and enduring piece of software Apple has ever produced. It is turning 10 years old today, so we thought we'd spare a moment to say congratulations and to dust off an image of our favorite logo of the bunch. And who knows, with the next iteration being dubbed Lion and the lack of any more senior big cats available, maybe this will be the last big anniversary before Apple takes the leap into version 11. [Thanks, Robert]
Ask TUAW Video Edition: Migration Assistant
Today we discuss the Mac OS X Migration Assistant. Joe asks, "What's the best way to transfer my old data on my old MacBook to my new MacBook Pro without erasing new software on the MBP like the new iLife suite?" Well Joe, you and many other TUAW readers are going to learn about the Migration Assistant. The video's on the next page, and as always you can leave questions in the comments!
Mac OS X 10.6.7 available in Software Update
We've been anticipating the release of Mac OS X 10.6.7 for several weeks, and the update has finally dropped. As you can see from the notes above, one of the major improvements is to Back to My Mac, which has been seemingly neglected for the last several updates. Mac users in Windows-centric offices will be happy with the SMB file transfer fix, and several Mac App Store bugs have been resolved as well. The update requires a reboot and, when I got it from Software Update, showed a download size of about 312 MB. The standalone downloads are 475 MB (for the 10.6.6 to 10.6.7 delta updater) or 1.12 GB (for the combo updater valid on any 10.6.x Snow Leopard installation). As always, it's a good idea to make sure your backups are current and you're not in the middle of any mission-critical work before running a system update -- no harm in waiting a day or two while the first round of upgraders shakes out the issues and gotchas.
TUAW TV Live at 5 PM ET: iPad 2 and Mac for you
There once was a blogger named Steve Who had nothing new up his sleeve Till a fresh north wind blew And he got iPad 2 Now a bad limerick he will weave Sorry about that. The title of this post rhymed, so it was impossible for me to continue writing my TUAW TV Live promo post without adding at least one little piece of doggerel. As you can tell from my awe-inspiring poetry, the iPad 2 will be one of the topics of today's show, along with several new apps that will have you hitting the App Store. The iPhone and Mac aren't going to be left out of the show; I have a sweet little iOS peripheral to tempt you with and two major new Mac OS X applications to demo. To top it off, there are some other products that have made their way to me for demonstration purposes, so it should be a full and fun hour. If you haven't joined me and the regular TUAW TV Live chat room crowd for this midweek madness, you ought to try to make it today. To watch the livestream and take part in the live chat, just drop by TUAW a little before 5 PM ET / 2 PM PT / 10 PM GMT, and I'll have full instructions on how to join in. For those of you who may be at work, asleep or otherwise too tied up to participate in the live show, we now offer re-runs in the form of a video podcast. To subscribe to the podcast and automatically receive the latest video in iTunes, click here. New episodes will appear weekly. Should you need a bit of a TUAW TV Live fix in between Wednesdays, be sure to visit the brand new TUAW TV Live Facebook page to discuss potential show topics and Apple. Thanks to TUAW TV Live viewer Uri Lev Kelman for the great logo!
Sparrow chirps out feature list for version 1.1
Several of the bloggers here at TUAW, including myself, are big fans of Sparrow. It's a very Twitter-like Mac email app that is fast, feature filled and has a clean user interface -- and it doesn't have a Quick Bar. Today the Sparrow team announced that Sparrow 1.1 will be submitted to the Mac App Store within a few days, and that the app should be available by the end of March. The big change for Sparrow is that the new version will support most IMAP accounts, not just Gmail IMAP accounts. Any MobileMe, Yahoo or AOL account can now be added to Sparrow, and custom IMAP providers like Rackspace, Fastmail, Zimbra and Dreamhost are also supported. At the present time, signatures are customizable by account. Version 1.1 adds "per alias" signatures, so that if you have multiple aliases for a single account, each alias can have a custom signature. There's a new formatting bar for helping you compose more beautiful emails. It provides flexibility in selecting fonts, font size, text color, quote levels, links and list formatting. To retain the clean inbox that Sparrow is well known for, busy users will have a new "minimal mode" to hide the message preview in the list of messages. That'll be helpful when we do giveaways here at TUAW and get tons of comment emails. Sparrow will also gain a bunch of multi-touch gestures, including a pinch to open or close a message and three-finger swipes to open and close the panel, navigate the message list or switch accounts. Contact groups will be supported as well. All in all, Sparrow 1.1 looks like it will be a winner. Goodbye, Mail.app!
Disk Drill protects your Mac disks, recovers files
Many of the disk utilities available for Mac OS X have been around for quite a few years, so it's surprising when a new entry shows up in this very important class of Mac app. The latest entry, Disk Drill from Cleverfiles, comes in four different flavors ranging from a free Basic edition that may be right for most Mac users up to Pro, Expert, and Enterprise versions. All of the Disk Drill editions use a feature called Recovery Vault that knows where every file is on your Mac media. As a result, if you accidentally delete a file, empty the Trash Can when you didn't mean to, or even run into a hardware issue, chances are very good that Disk Drill will be able to find the file using Recovery Vault. All of the versions also provide S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) to keep an eye on your disks and other media and warn you of impending failures. Disk Drill's many versions also provide a way to quickly back up failing drives to disk image (.dmg) files. When you bump up to the US$89 Pro version, Disk Drill adds both Quick and Deep Scan and Recovery utilities. That's right, you can't recover files with the free Basic version. The Basic edition will scan and find those files for you, but you're not going to get them back unless you upgrade to the pro version. The Quick Scan and Recovery works with HFS/HFS+, NTFS, and FAT volumes to run a fast scan for accidentally deleted files. If there's no file system on a drive, or even if a drive has been reformatted, Deep Scan and Recovery can find and bring back almost any file. The Pro version comes with a higher support priority from Cleverfiles as well. Click the read more link to see the rest of this review. %Gallery-118603%
Jam guitar input for Mac and iOS devices gets your axe into GarageBand
Hello Cleveland! Or, you know, wherever you are. Are you ready to rock? No? Oh, well, maybe just a little jam session, then? Apogee Electronics (no, not the company that brought you all those Duke Nukem releases back in the day) has announced the new Jam device, which enables a digital connection for electric and bass guitars into iOS 4.2.1 (and greater) devices or into any Core Audio compatible apps on Mac. You can record straight into GarageBand if you like and use the built-in control knob to adjust your levels. That connectivity won't come for free, naturally, with a $99 MSRP slapped on this one. It'll start rocking stores in March -- plenty enough time to find another new drummer. %Gallery-118299%
Mac OS X Lion offers high-quality, multilingual voices
Since the developer preview release of Mac OS X Lion, we've been able to see in action some of the exciting new features to expect from Apple's new, forthcoming operating system. Today, we've got even more exciting news to share. AppleInsider is reporting that Mac OS X Lion will feature 53 new high-quality voices with over 40 different dialects to boot. From about a third to over half a gigabyte each in size, the voices sound more human than ever (things have come along way since the early Mac voice from the late 1980s or even Victoria from the 90s), even old Alex from Mac OS X Leopard is put to shame by the new crowd: including American English speaking Jill, Samantha and Tom, Australian English Karen and Lee and the rather British English speaking Daniel, Emily and Serena. There's even a South African English speaking Tessa. But it's not only English that Mac OS X Lion will be speaking, the new OS will be able to speak Chinese, Saudi Arabian Arabic, French, Italian, Polish and Turkish to name a few, too. It's reported that the voices will be available for download directly from Apple, so your Mac only speaks the languages you want and need it to. Click here to listen to some samples provied by AppleInsider
Mac OS X Lion hands-on preview
Apple announced Mac OS X Lion with considerable fanfare at its Back to the Mac event last October, and now it's dropped the first developer preview on the world -- giving us a chance to sample some of the big cat's new features and UI concepts. We installed the dev build on one of our MacBook Pros and used it over the weekend, and while we won't be able to see any huge changes in day-to-day workflow until our favorite apps are updated to take advantage of Lion, we did see plenty of interesting system-level features and additions -- and yes, iOS's influence is all over the place. Read on for a full breakdown of what's new! %Gallery-117806%
New trojan MusMinim-A written for Mac OS X
On Saturday, information security firm Sophos reported a new "backdoor Trojan" designed to allow remote operations and password "phishing" on systems running Mac OS X. The author of the Trojan refers to his or her work as "BlackHole RAT" and claims the malware is still in beta. Indeed, Sophos, who re-named the threat "OSX/MusMinim-A," says the current code is a very basic variation of darkComet, a well-known Remote Access Trojan (RAT) for Microsoft Windows. The source code for darkComet is freely available online. The biggest threat from MusMinim appears to be its ability to display fake prompts to enter the system's administrative password. This allows the malware to collect sensitive user and password data for later use. The Trojan also allows hackers to run shell commands, send URLs to the client to open a website, and force the Mac to shut down, restart or go to sleep arbitrarily. Other "symptoms" include mysterious text files on the user's desktop and full screen alerts that force the user to reboot. Additionally, the malware threatens to grow stronger. "Im a very new Virus, under Development, so there will be much more functions when im finished," the author of the Trojan claims via its user interface. Sophos believes the new malware indicates more hackers are taking notice of the increasingly popular Mac platform. "[MusMinim] could be indicative of more underground programmers taking note of Apple's increasing market share," says Sophos on its blog. Another line from the malware's user interface supports the idea that hackers' interest in Mac OS X is growing. "I know, most people think Macs can't be infected, but look, you ARE Infected!" In an apparent response to the increase in malware threats on the Mac, Apple is reportedly working with prominent information security analysts like Charlie Miller and Dino Dai Zovi to strengthen the overall security of Mac OS X Lion, the company's forthcoming major update to its desktop operating system. It's the first time Apple has openly invited researchers to scrutinize its software while still under development. Mac OS X Lion is scheduled to be released this summer. In the meantime, Sophos tells Mac users to be cautious when installing software from less trustworthy sources. "Trojans like this are frequently distributed through pirated software downloads, torrent sites, or anywhere you may download an application expecting to need to install it," they say. Also, "patching is an important part of protection on all platforms" to prevent hackers from exploiting security vulnerabilities in web browsers, plug-ins and other applications. [via AppleInsider]
Mac OS X Lion has TRIM support for SSDs, HiDPI resolutions for improved pixel density?
As you'd expect, developers have wasted no time in tearing apart the Mac OS X Lion preview, and in so doing they've allegedly discovered some intriguing things -- namely, support for the SSD-wiping TRIM command, and a series of high-DPI display modes which would allow for icons and UI elements with twice the graphical detail -- which could mean a PC-sized Retina Display. The former doesn't sound like the most exciting upgrade, but it's truly a boon for Mac users with solid state storage, as TRIM can greatly improve write speeds in compatible drives. As far as the improved pixel density rumors are concerned, it's not clear whether Apple's actually looking at doubling display resolutions in new computers (9to5Mac imagines a 15-inch MacBook Pro with a 2880 x 1800 screen) or whether Apple's simply moving to maintain icons that are precisely the same physical size across all its displays -- which would make fantastic sense for a touchscreen UI, by the way.
Dear Aunt TUAW: How do I install a Lion partition on my MacBook Air?
Dear Aunt TUAW, I'm in the Mac Developer program and I'd really like to be able to install Lion on my MacBook Air as a second OS. What are the best strategies to do this? Is it worth going out and buying a second SSD drive and swapping that out with my primary Snow Leopard system? Thanks for letting me know! Love and Kisses, Your nephew G
Lion will drop support for earliest Intel Macs
In the past two releases of Mac OS X, we've seen the baseline support for legacy machines hiked a notch higher each time; for Leopard, eliminating slower G4s from the working list, and for Snow Leopard dropping PowerPC support entirely in favor of the newer Intel models. Now, with the developer preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in the wild, the next frontier for obsolescence is set -- the new OS drops official support for Core Duo and Core Solo-based Intel Macs as well. We have heard from some testers that they've successfully installed and booted Lion on the older unsupported machines, but your mileage may vary. Update: Our correspondents were confused about the requirements, and in fact were using supported machines. Why the shift? Apple's not saying yet, but the machines based on these 32-bit Intel CPUs may not have the horsepower or addressable memory space to support Lion, or Apple may be pushing towards a full 64-bit OS and kernel (which might cause some issues for hardware drivers and peripherals). In any event, if you've got a first-generation Intel Mac that's more than four and a half years old, you may be staying with 10.6 Snow Leopard (or Leopard or Tiger, for that matter, if you haven't updated). Machines with the newer 64-bit Core 2 Duo and later chips are almost all good to go with the new cat in town, with one exception in this preview release; "late 2006" iMacs with Core 2 Duos are not yet supported. Keep in mind that the exact system requirements and supported models may change between now and the official release of 10.7 sometime this summer. [hat tip to ZDnet]
