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Pantech's UML290 LTE modem for Verizon gets official Mac support
Though it was predated by a usable hack, the Pantech UML290 USB modem -- one of just two devices launched so far for Verizon's LTE network -- has finally been blessed with an official Mac OS driver. What does this mean? Well, technically, it means that this is the very first time Mac users are getting any LTE love in the US whatsoever -- though with that Samsung-sourced mobile hotspot on the horizon, USB modems might be a tough sale at this point. On a bright note, the availability of the driver today means that Verizon beat its own estimate of February; the UML290's counterpart from LG, the VL600, is still Windows-only, though we imagine that'll be hitting soon as well. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Bloggie Touch software finally becomes Mac-compatible
By this point, we suspect any owners of a Bloggie Touch and a Mac computer will have figured out their own ways to process media and share it with the world, but now they've get another option: using Sony's software designed specifically for those tasks. Yes, the streamlined editing and publishing utility that was available to Windows users from day one has at long last been made to work with Macs as well. You'll need to grab an update from Sony's site, though don't fret if you fear similar delays with future Bloggie models -- Sony promises that devices like the Bloggie 3D will have Mac-friendly software on board from the start. Video of the Bloggie Touch utility awaits after the break.
Twitter for Mac expected to launch with Mac App Store tomorrow
It's time to put away childish things (Tweetie) and step up to Apple's new Mac App Store. Twitter's coders have decided to inaugurate the App Store's arrival on Macs around the world tomorrow with a new version of their client for the platform. Such is the scuttlebutt coming from Razorianfly, who also managed to snatch up the screenshot above, though further details are predictably scarce. All we're told is that the new Twitter for Mac will have the option to perform real-time updates, native re-tweeting support, and a funky option described as "drag and drop" tweets. Well, there had to be some intrigue to this software update.
Steve Wozniak: Android will be the dominant smartphone platform
Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak, has never been one to mince words. Today's no different as demonstrated in an interview with the Dutch-language De Telegraaf newspaper in The Netherlands. The first revelation is an admission that Apple had collaborated with a well-known Japanese consumer electronics company in 2004 to develop a phone that was ahead of its time. Woz is quoted as saying that while Apple was content with the quality, it "wanted something that could amaze the world." Obviously, the phone was shelved followed by Apple's announcement of the iPhone in January 2007. Woz then moved on to the topic of Android saying that Android smartphones, not the iPhone, would become dominant, noting that the Google OS is likely to win the race similarly to the way that Windows ultimately dominated the PC world. Woz stressed that the iPhone, "Has very few weak points. There aren't any real complaints and problems. In terms of quality, the iPhone is leading." However, he then conceded that, "Android phones have more features," and offer more choice for more people. Eventually, he thinks that Android quality, consistency, and user satisfaction will match iOS. Steve closed the interview with a jab at Nokia calling it, "the brand from a previous generation" suggesting that the boys from Finland should introduce a new brand for a young consumer. Hmm, so we guess he'll be in line for the launch of the MeeGo-based N9 then? Update: We've contacted Steve (an Engadget commenter) for clarification. He says he was misquoted by De Telegraaf. [Thanks, Nguyen T.]
Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac moves to public beta
That didn't take long, did it? The promised beta of Windows Phone 7's Mac-friendly companion app is now available, bringing basic media sync capability -- notably with iTunes and iPhoto integration -- to that shiny new Microsoft-powered phone of yours. In fact, Microsoft delivered the client so fast that it beat every single American WP7 device to market -- so AT&T and T-Mobile folks, you can rest easy knowing that you'll be Mac-compatible from day one. Notably, the so-called Windows Phone 7 Connector for Mac lacks any Zune functionality; Microsoft has never written a true Zune client for Mac, unfortunately, but at least this is a critical first step that makes these things usable for Mac owners that aren't tied to the iPhone. Let us know how the app treats you in comments, alright?
Patents hint at iMac Touch and touchscreen MacBooks
With the sweet glass-fronted, LED-backed displays on the newer MacBooks, Apple seemed a step closer to giving us touchscreen displays beyond the current ultra-portable devices. Patently Apple has recently unearthed a couple of Apple patent filings that seem to point in that direction, not just for MacBooks, but for a future iMac as well. Apple is clearly driving very quickly toward mass adoption and integration of its iOS software, and these patents certainly support that. As far as the "iMac Touch" patent, apparently you'd get the best of both worlds as far as Apple's OS offerings are concerned. Based on the orientation of the display, the iMac would switch between Mac OS and iOS. Lay it flat, you get iOS. Stand it up, you get Mac OS. Obviously there are many Apple patents reported that never will see the light of day, but I believe this one has some meat to it. For an iMac refresh, this seems a very logical update. Though it makes sense we could see the same thing in a MacBook update, I'd say we'll see an iMac sporting this dual-OS first.
Axon Logic's Haptic tablet can run a desktop's OS, has a desktop's price
Half a year ago, you'd have been forgiven for expecting that today both Windows 7 and Mac OS X would have flagship tablets representing them, in the shape of the HP Slate and the Apple iPad. Alas, one of those devices ran away to enterprise land and the other opted for a mobile OS. It's against this backdrop of disappointment that Axon's Haptic tablet enters, with confirmation that its Atom-based innards are fully compatible with Linux, Windows and Mac operating environments. With a 10.1-inch resistive touchscreen, 320GB HDD, 2GB of RAM, and a trio of USB ports, it's another of those devices you could classify as a keyboard-less netbook, but at least its OS versatility will give it a leg up. Then again, with a pre-order price of $750 and no bundled OS licenses, we suspect it might need a little more than that to succeed where so many have failed.
Kin Media Sync for Mac syncs Kin media with Mac
Sync music, sync photos, sync too much money into a mediocre phone. Now that we've gotten the amateur comedy hour out of the way, it's time to bring you the news that Kins and Macs will henceforth play very nicely together thanks to the just released Media Sync software from Mark/Space. Chosen by Microsoft as the exclusive provider of Mac syncing capabilities for Kin, the company is offering iTunes and iPhoto integration, whereby you'll able to transfer playlists and image albums both to and from your Kin device, as well as a neat transcoding feature to make videos playable on it. The software's free and can be found at the source link below, while the press announcement awaits after the break.
Windows 7, Mac OS X, and Ubuntu 10.04 meet up for an OpenGL benchmarking session
So these three operating systems walk into a bar one night ... alright, we'll behave. With all the Steamy conversation about gaming on non-Windows desktop platforms going on, we thought you might care to peek at a little OpenGL performance comparison review. As the chief cross-platform API, it's the only way we're going to be seeing the latest games running natively on Mac OS and Linux, but how will that experience compare to the market leader? As it turned out, Windows maintains superiority in this field, with frame rates that were habitually above those on the latest Ubuntu and well ahead of what you might get on Mac OS 10.6.3. It's still early days -- after all, Steam's non-DirectX cupboard is pretty bare right now -- but at this point in time, OpenGL gaming is a crown that Microsoft retains with relative ease. Hit the source for all the line graph evidence, and let's hope things improve for the rest of us in rapid fashion.
Apple issues software update for new 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros
Apple would seem to have been optimizing its code in the time between sending its latest MacBook Pro models into mass production and yesterday's launch, as we've just come across a software update for the brand new 2010 laptop models. Specifically aimed at the 15- and 17-inch machines -- which differ from the 13-incher with their Core 2010 CPUs and automatically switching graphics subsystem -- the patch is aimed at improving "graphics stability for high-performance video and gaming applications" while also squashing a variety of bugs. That hardly sounds like you'd be in danger if you didn't update, but we'd still advise swallowing the 258MB pill just to keep your aluminum-clad investment safe.
Mac support for Windows Phone 7 Series: 'maybe'
Speaking on The Engadget Show today, Microsoft's Aaron Woodman didn't commit to supporting Mac OS with Windows Phone 7 Series, but he certainly didn't close the door on the idea either. There are apparently "internal discussions" going on as to whether support will move beyond Windows proper, but one thing's for sure: seeing how WP7S uses the Zune client, there could be implications beyond phones alone if Redmond breaks down and loops Cupertino into the party. Saying that it partly comes down to a trade-off for time to market, Woodman concluded with a big, fat "maybe" -- but if they decide to make it happen, we're pretty sure they'd be pleasantly surprised at just how far and wide the love really goes.
Leopard and Snow Leopard flaw exploited in proof of concept, real-world tomfoolery surely coming soon
Look at you, all cuddled up with your Leopard install, sipping on a steamy hot cocoa, watching the snow fall outdoors, and thinking you don't have a care in the world. We hate to break it to ya but you do have a care, a big one, thanks to a proof of concept hack exploiting a buffer overflow in MacOS 10.5 and 10.6. The flaw has been known about since June, but only now has it been proven to work on Cupertino's latest, and a very straightforward code example of how to use it has been posted online. You know what that means: watch out for those e-mail attachments. Interestingly, the flaw is also said to possibly exist in the PS3 as well, which could make for a very interesting spring -- cocoa or no.
Mac OS 10.6.3 to bring many fixes
The release of Mac OS 10.6.3 moves closer as Apple has begun widespread testing of build 10D522. According to AppleInsider, this update focuses on stability and core components like AppKit, CoreMedia, Desktop Services, FileSync, Fonts, HIToolbox and more. The current build is 665.7MB in size. Reports indicate that nearly 60 crash-happy bugs have been squashed across more than 90 components with this update, like printing issues with iCal, Mail and PhotoBooth (fortunately I haven't experienced those). Additionally, 10.6.3 includes native support for the Magic Mouse. Apple began limited testing in December, and has released several builds since. Now that testing has become more widespread and the fixes increase, we move closer to release.
Apple's Grand Central Dispatch goes open source -- get at those cores, people
Grand Central Dispatch may not exactly be a household name to the average Apple user, but it's certainly a hot topic among developers, who may know it better as "libdispatch," and are no doubt thrilled that Apple has now made the whole thing open source. Among other things, that means developers are now able to take full advantage of multi-core processors in Snow Leopard, which obviously has some fairly big implications for applications as soon as those developers are able to get a handle on things. Know what you're doing? Just like to get in over your head? Then you can find the complete source code and other necessary information at the read link below.[Via Slashdot]
BlackBerry Desktop Manager beta for Mac leaks out
Let's be honest: BlackBerry users with Macs have led a pretty rough life. You've historically been afterthoughts in RIM's eyes, offered table scraps of first-party software that you usually end up having to combine with third-party stuff to do what you need to do -- and let's not even talk about firmware upgrades. Fortunately, RIM's finally decided to go all-in for Mac, bringing a proper Desktop Manager suite to the platform this month -- but we're not exactly the patient types around here, and we know many of you aren't either, so you might want to go ahead and grab the copy that's leaked recently. It's not a gold release, but with impatience usually comes early adoption and with early adoption usually comes painful bugs, so it's nothing you shouldn't already be used to.
Mac OS X 10.5.8 now available, way less than 0.1 away from Snow Leopard
Apple's just unleashed its latest 10.5 update on an unsuspecting (well, totally suspecting, actually) crowd, so go ahead and fire up Software Update and see if Cupertino's left you any 10.5.8-flavored presents under the tree. We bet you didn't expect Wednesday to be this amazingly, incredibly awesome, now, did you? Follow the break for the full changelog.
Mac drivers for Clearwire WiMAX coming in August, Linux DIY code to follow
From August 17, a free download will contain all a Mac user will need to connect to Clearwire's slowly expanding WiMAX empire. Well, there's also the matter of a $79.99 Clear 4G+ USB modem, available from the beginning of the month, but you can rationalize that purchase by noting it can also hook up to Sprint's 3G network. Once you've got those things, and you've paid your dues -- $30 per month for mobile services -- we're sure they'll finally let you in on the superfast mobile browsing party. Linux users have nothing to smile about here, unless they consider Clearwire CTO John Saw's promise to release code from which to build their own drivers a reason to cheer.
Genius EasyPen and MousePen graphics tablets play on both sides of the fence
Genius, a regular purveyor of cheap and cheerful technology, has today announced a pair of "dual platform" tablets that play nice with both Windows and Mac OS. The EasyPen i405 comes with 28 programmable hot keys, a software bundle, 4 x 5.5-inches of real estate and a $79 price tag. This is trumped by the MousePen i608, which throws in an optical mouse, a 6 x 8-inches working area and -- best of all -- one more hot key to program. Bargain hunters out there might want to prick up their ears, as the MousePen is already available at Amazon and Newegg at prices south of $60, far below its suggested retail price of one Benjamin -- hey, it's no Wacom, but it certainly won't dent the wallet too bad.
Friday Favorite: Scrivener
Not long after I bought my first personal Mac in late 2004, I stumbled across an article that mentioned Ulysses, a text editor geared toward creative writers -- essentially the marriage between a word processor and project management software. It allows you to have all documents within a writing project at your grasp. As a journalist and author, Ulysses was a dream come true, but expensive. Costing more than $100 at the time, it didn't fit into a journalist's salary. I wound up using CopyWrite for a time and was fairly satisfied with it until I read in a forum that people were having luck with a program which, at the time, was called Scrivener Gold. I gave the free beta a try and was blown away by the program's potential. When the full-fledged release of Scrivener came out in early 2007, I bought a license as a birthday gift for myself. Scrivener pulls all the things needed for a complete writing project -- be it writing a script, novel, research paper or newspaper/blog articles -- together in one location and has so many features that even after nearly three years of use, I don't think I've fully explored all that it has to offer. I recently started work on writing my first graphic novel, and have really gotten the chance to flex Scrivener's muscles.
Missing Sync beta available for Pre
Palm would have us all believe that the "cloud," a dash of EV-DO, and a smidge of WiFi are all you need to get your webOS-based device synced to the rest of your world, but back in the real world, we all know that's not necessarily the case. MarkSpace -- well-entrenched in the world of getting BlackBerrys, Windows Mobile phones, and everything in between to play nice with Macs -- has released a beta version of The Missing Sync for Pre, letting you sync your music, bookmarks, ringtones, files, pictures, and just about everything else using its Proximity Sync tech which automatically hooks into your machine when it's in WiFi range. It's free for the time being while it's in testing, but don't use it unless you're willing to shell out should you get hooked -- the final retail version will run $39.95 when it's available.[Via PC World]
