Mac OS X Snow Leopard
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Chitika's look at Apple OS adoption on the eve of a product launch
It's very likely that along with the announcement of some new products tomorrow, we'll get a better idea of when Apple's newest operating systems -- iOS 7 and OS X Mavericks -- will actually ship. iOS 7 is widely expected to ship with the new iPhone(s) that should be announced tomorrow, while OS X Mavericks may be slated for an October release. Online advertising firm Chitika looks at millions of ad impressions generated by their network to scout out trends, and its most recent numbers (from August 15 to August 21, 2013) show that a whopping 92 percent of all iPhone users and 82 percent of iPad users are currently running iOS 6. Why are fewer iPad users on the most recent version of iOS? Chitika noted analyst Chetan Sharma as pointing out that 90 percent of tablet users use WiFi only (even if they are WiFi + cellular devices). iOS 6 has some mobile-focused features like turn-by-turn GPS and FaceTime over mobile networks that made the upgrade to iOS 6 more attractive to iPhone users than those who own iPads. Chitika believes that "based on past adoption rates of new iOS versions, it's likely that users of both device categories will adopt iOS 7 at high rates." So what about Apple's desktop / laptop operating system, OS X? Chitika's numbers show that 34 percent of all Mac owners in North America currently use OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), while 23 percent are still using Lion (10.7). What's quite surprising is the number of users who are somewhat stuck in the past with OS X Snow Leopard (10.6) and Leopard (10.5), a surprising 32 and 10 percent, respectively. For those who are running newer hardware capable meeting the requirements for the upcoming release of OS X Mavericks (10.9), the upgrade to the new version should be a no-brainer. Older Macs, however, will most likely continue to run the older operating systems until such time as the hardware is beyond repair.
AirParrot mirrors your Mac display to Apple TV in real time
A short while ago, I wrote about David Stanfill (of Napkin Studio) and his work on creating an AirPlay Mirroring receiver for OS X. Work continues on that project. At the same time, he's also building a tool that creates live mirroring from your Mac display to Apple TV. Called AirParrot, the new app allows you to select a Mac display and an AirPlay destination (typically an Apple TV). It then uses H.264 encoding to build a live video stream from your selected display. This allows you to work directly on your laptop or desktop system and mirror it to an HDTV display, just as you would using iOS's built-in AirPlay mirroring features. AirParrot is still in its early days. As yet, there is no subsampling (i.e. you cannot just pick a portion of your screen to mirror) and no audio mirroring. Stability can be a bit iffy as well and the developer is still working on a way to keep the Apple TV from going to sleep while mirroring. Built-in options allow you to control underscan (fewer pixels overall, so more encasing black space but better responsiveness) and compression quality (choose from low to high). The app is super useful for anyone who works in groups or in front of audiences. If you can live with the early adopter drawbacks, it will well be worth your money. You can produce live slideshows through Keynote and Powerpoint, demonstrate apps, collaborate with an audience at a corporate meeting, and more. Here's a video showing it in action from the Apple TV side of things. The biggest drawback in its current form is the natural H.264 compression, especially when working with larger screens. So many of us are used to working with high quality presentation on our main computers, which doesn't translate well to Apple TV resolutions. To deal with this, I ended up reinstalling Avatron's AirDisplay back onto my Mac. Using my iPad as an extra display and mirroring from that smaller screen. I was hoping to use Avatron's new Kindle Fire build for testing, as I felt the screen size (which falls between iPhone and iPad) would be an ideal resolution but their app is unfortunately stuck in Amazon review. I was unable to get early access to try it out. You can, of course, also downgrade your primary monitor resolution but I believe most people will find that a big pain in their daily workflow. The following screen shot is from the Apple TV side, mirroring a Keynote presentation set to an iPad via AirDisplay. To finish off, here's one more video, this time of the app's primary menu. That's an EyeTV HD screen just below it that's presenting the output of my Apple TV. Since I mirror my main display in this video, you end up with a nice recursion produced by displaying the data that's being mirrored, which is in turn resampled. AirParrot ($9.99) requires OS X Snow Leopard or Lion. NVidia or Intel HD graphics chipset are recommended for best performance.
Windows 7 overtakes XP globally, Vista found weeping in a corner
According to StatCounter, it's taken roughly two years for Redmond's latest to surpass XP and become the world's most popular operating system. October 2011 marks the first time that Windows 7 has overtaken XP globally, with a 40 percent share of the market versus the latter's 38. As for Vista, it's been holding steady at around 11. Not that it's much of a surprise, as in North America, Windows 7 took the crown back in April of this year. Rounding out the top five, are OS X (though it's not clear whether that captures all of Cupertino's beasts) and Linux, which come in at 7 and 0.82 percent respectively. But don't take our word for it, hop on over to the source links and get your interactive chart on. [Thanks, Pipera]
Mac OS X 10.6.8 update now available
It looks like Apple's getting another fix in before Lion slinks on to the scene. Mac OS X 10.6.8 is now available for download, and brings with it a number of "general operating system fixes," including further support for IPv6, improved VPN reliability, and removal of known variants of Mac Defender. It also promises to fix a glitch that has Preview randomly shutting down, and will get the App Store ready to roar for when Lion lands on the scene. We're getting it going on our laptop at home. If you've done the same, let us know how it's working out for you.
Mac OS X 10.6.4 now available
Mac OS X 10.6.4 just hit Software Update, people. It doesn't have much in the way of additional features, but it addresses a number of outstanding bugs and glitches -- and it includes Safari 5, in case you're late to the party. We're downloading it now, we'll let you know if we discover anything crazy -- won't you return the favor?
Safari 5.0 and Mac OS 10.6.4 to be announced/released at WWDC?
According to French Apple news site Macgeneration, Safari 5.0 will be released at WWDC. We usually don't post non-verified information, but I think that this might be true since we were sent specific release notes. With the understanding that this is a rumor, albeit a very good one, here's what Safari 5.0 purportedly contains:
Apple seeds new Snow Leopard 10.6.2 beta to developers
The betas of the next Snow Leopard update continue at a fast and furious pace. Apple has reportedly begun seeding a new build of Mac OS X 10.6.2 to developers, just one week after the previous beta. The new potential release focuses on graphics issues, specifically relating to drivers, QuartzCore, and ColorSync, as well as hitting issues with the Dock. Apple has identified no outstanding issues with the build, though the company is asking developers to pay special attention to graphics drivers, TrackPad preferences, and virtual machines. The company says 148 components have been addressed in 10.6.2 betas so far, including issues in Dictionary, Expose, File Sync, Front Row, iPhoto, MobileMe, Parental Controls, QuickTime, Screen Sharing, Spotlight, Time Machine, and USB. [via MacNN, Apple Insider]
Apple aware of Snow Leopard accounts bug that kills data, is working on a fix
Apple just made a statement about that nasty Snow Leopard Guest Account bug that deletes user data -- it's not much, but at least the people in charge are working on things. We are aware of the issue, which occurs only in extremely rare cases, and we are working on a fix. Peachy -- now if Apple would just figure out how to fix all those broken Time Capsules holding the backups, we'd be all set.
Mac OS X 10.6.1 update now live
Well, that was fast -- just over week after Snow Leopard officially shipped, the first update's on the books. Nothing major in the changelog here, but we're told Flash has been updated to a newer, more secure version. Let us know how it goes for you, eh?
Apple puts a freeze on Snow Leopard APIs, freeing up developers to work their magic
Can you taste it? No, we suppose you probably can't. While Microsoft has been happy to share Windows 7 with just about anyone with a taste for danger, Apple has followed the traditional route of development with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, sharing it with developers alone. The good news is that things are starting to coalesce in the run-up to WWDC, with Apple just now informing developers that Snow Leopard's APIs are now frozen, with no more alterations planned before release. That means developers can work on their Snow Leopard-ready applications without much fear of Apple mucking things up with late game OS-level changes, and is a decent milestone towards what should presumably be a summer launch. The latest build also includes Chinese handwriting recognition for Macs with multitouch trackpads, similar to the functionality included in iPhone Software 2.0, and also finalizes the Grand Central architecture, which lets developers address multiple processing cores without all the know-how and complication usually required.Update: MacRumors is also reporting that the new build includes Windows HFS+ drivers with Apple's Boot Camp utility, allowing Windows-on-Mac users to access their Mac OS X HFS+ partitions out of the box.
