In a press release issued earlier this morning, Apple has announced that Bertrand Serlet, SVP of Mac Software Engineering, will be leaving the company.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s VP of Mac Software Engineering and Serlet’s long-time protégé, will assume his responsibilities and report directly to chief exec Steve Jobs.
Serlet originally joined Apple in 1997 and has played an instrumental role in the development of Mac OS X. → Read More
Is there really any doubt the Mac App Store will be anything other than a huge hit when it debuts in 90 days? Seven billion downloads on the current App Store would suggest that Apple knows what it’s doing (and that people really love to slingshot cartoon birds into buildings). And the benefits of the App Store are clear: it’s an easy-to-use, one-stop source of safe, tested software. Usually. Maybe not all of that software is worth your time—how many fart Apps do you really need?—but the platform itself is sound, and Apple is keen to make sure it stays that way. But the platform is closed. Only with Apple’s approval (not to mention its 30 percent cut of the action) can your App find a home on the App Store. But is that scenario ideal when it comes to desktop operating systems? → Read More
Remember the HTC Shift? Sort of an early-days tablet. (Tablets are dated in terms of whether they came before or after the almighty iPad.) The hardware wasn’t too bad, but, yeah, it didn’t make a huge mark on the world. But, they’ve now got Mac OS X on there, so if you have one and would like a quick little project! → Read More
Usage of Windows 7 had finally passed that of Windows Vista, according to data from Net Applications. As it stands, 14.46 percent of Internet users are using Windows 7, compared to 14.34 percent for Windows Vista. The king remains Windows XP, which stands at a remarkable 61.9 percent—remarkable because XP is nearly 9 years old. → Read More
Exciting news from Plex, the media center for Mac OS X that won my heart a long time ago. The devs have announced that they’ve integrated Apple’s new video decode acceleration framework into the latest build. In English, that means all h.264-encoded video—and there’s a lot of it out there—can be sent to your GPU for decoding, giving your CPU a bit more breathing room. It should make for significantly better 1080p video performance. → Read More
As far as XBMC forks go, Boxee certainly appears to have the most heat. It has VC money pouring in, flashy deals with content providers, and you’ll soon be able to buy a dedicated D-Link box to more easily use it on your TV. But Boxee isn’t the only XBMC-based media center that’s worth your time. It’s not even the first XBMC fork to go out and make a name for itself. Plex, which is exclusive to Mac OS X, was Boxee before Boxee was cool. I recently talked to the lead developer, Elan Feingold, to get a better understand of what Plex is, what it does, and where it’s going. Needless to say, if you’re running Mac OS X, you ought to give it a shot. It’s good. → Read More
Some more Psystar news for y’all. You’ll recall that the renegade company was more or less shut down last week, slapped with an injunction and expected to pay Apple an awful lot of money. Put all of that aside for a minute, for there’s new news: Apple and Psystar have struck a deal! The deal, which ends a 17-month-long legal battle, means Psystar will stop selling computers pre-loaded with Mac OS X. This ends our long, national nightmare. → Read More
This Apple-Psystar business sure is hotting up! Both Apple and Psystar have asked for summary judgments based on what they believe to be What’s Going On. Such an action would avoid a pesky trial, which would necessarily costs both companies a whole lot of money. → Read More
I do believe the GM build of Snow Leopard, Apple’s latest version of Mac OS X, has leaked onto the Internet. The build in question is 10A432. I see it on one popular Web site, but I shan’t be downloading. Even I can afford $30! → Read More
Poor MacDrive. The latest hot tamale of a rumor says that, starting with Snow Leopard (10.6), Windows users will be able to access Mac files without the use of any special software. You’d mount the Mac as you would any other Windows machine. → Read More
Apple’s latest update to Mac OS X, 10.5.6, has been causing several problems since its release last week. The Bluetooth glitch comes to mind immediately. An even more serious glitch, which causes the download to stop halfway, has been addressed by Apple on its Support site. → Read More
Does Mac OS X 10.5.6 break Bluetooth? That’s what some people are saying on Apple’s support forums, as are the jkOnTheRun guys. It seems that after applying the update—I haven’t bothered to update yet—the little Bluetooth icon disappears from the menu bar. Not only that, but the Bluetooth entry in System Preferences disappears, too. Without that, there’s no way to turn on and configure the service. → Read More
Just a heads up to my fellow World of Warcraft players, especially those of you who use a Mac. You know that SteelSeries MMO Gaming Mouse that came out a few days ago? It doesn’t ship with Mac drivers, meaning that you’re not able to use all 15 buttons as intended. (That’s even when using fancy, multi-button mouse drivers like SteerMouse.) In other words, the mouse isn’t nearly as useful to Mac users right now as it is to Windows users. (Windows users can download the drivers from Steelseries’ Web site.) Mac drivers are said to be on the way, but we’re looking at around one month from the mouse’s release till the drivers are released. Meanwhile, I have to install Wow on my Bootbamped MacBook just to be able to use it properly for the review I’m working on. Shouldn’t be more than a few days till that “drops,” though. → Read More
Look at Apple, all busy filing patents and whatnot. Take this one (well, these ones), which shows several potential 3D interfaces for the Finder. The patents were first filed, according to AppleInsider, in June of last year under the name “Multi-Dimensional Desktop.” It’s as you might imagine: the Dock & Co. are able to move along the Z axis in addition to the normal XY axes. A simple concept, yes—“hey, let’s make the Finder 3D”—but one that really hasn’t been deployed in any meaningful way yet. The question then becomes, when can we expect such an interface? Probably not with the next version of OS X, 10.6, (that’s “O Ess Ten” not “O Ess Ecks”), or Snow Leopard, which is rumored to be released on next June. (Rumored in so far as Apple said in June that it was about a year away.) → Read More
Here’s a random software recommendation for Mac OS X users. A ProTip, if you will. If you’re into IRC at all, you should check out Linkinus, which is developed by Conceited Software. I bought it last spring and have been using it ever since. Yes, I understand the concept of buying an IRC application borders on the insane, what with X-Chat being free and all, but the shareware period is long enough to decide if you want it or not. The main innovation of Linkinus, which costs £12.50 (right now, around $18.54), aside from its customizable user interface, is this pane system it uses. It divides the main window into as many panes as you want. In each pane is a chat room, meaning that you can follow several different rooms simultaneously. (I typically follow What.cd’s room, HDBits’ room and 2600′s room.) It’s pretty neat, otherwise I wouldn’t waste your time with this post. It’s also a fairly esoteric application, so unless you’re searching MacUpdate or VersionTracker for “IRC” you’re not likely to come across it during your daily Internetting. So yeah, if you’re looking for a better-than-average IRC app be sure to check Linkinus out. And no, I don’t know the developers from a hole in the wall, I just thought some of you might like it. → Read More
Work on Plex, the Mac-enhanced port/fork of XBMC, continues, with the media player having been updated to version 0.7 two days ago. It’s not just a bugfix or anything—I wouldn’t bother mentioning it here if that were the case—as the developers have added several features that should compel you to upgrade. One word about upgrading, though: because so many internal settings have been altered with this latest release, the developers recommend that you trash your old preference file in order to prevent conflicts. Yes, that means you’ll have to re-do your Library, but it takes only a few minutes to re-scan everything. So what’s new? For one, the settings menu has been revamped. Now you’ll find more Mac-like names for settings (“Ken Burns effect,” à la iPhoto versus “Pan and Zoom,” a Windows anachronism) and legacy settings that didn’t really affect anything have been removed. Less junk to navigate through, then. → Read More
I just wanted to remind my fellow Mac users that they really ought to be using Plex to play back all their movies. (And I do mean movies—a quick clip here and there, you’re best served by VLC or mplayer.) A new version, 0.5.15, was released two days ago, and includes all the usual bug fixes that you’d expect. What’s unexpected, though, is the complete revamp of the application’s branding: new logo, splash screen, default skin, etc. (Again, I recommend the skin Aeon, though it’s a bit of a pain to set up.) In conclusion, Plex is neat. Use it. → Read More
The Yankee Group has a new report out that says Macs are increasingly being found at the office, with enterprise adoption now at the highest levels since the late 1980s. The report polled 740 IT admins and C-level execs, and found that 80 percent of them have some sort of Mac and/or OS X presence. The report cites the likes of Time Machine and File Vault as reasons why Mac adoption is on the up and up. One-touch backup? Easy encryption? It’s not surprising, then, to see Macs becoming more and more popular. Now, whether something like the iPhone can replicate the Mac’s success at the office remains to be seen. via 9 to 5 Mac → Read More
Apple’s Security Update 2008-005 fixes that DNS glitch that has been freaking people out for the past few weeks. As such, it’s advised that you stop whatever you’re doing and apply the patch right now. Some had accused Apple of dragging its feet in applying the patch, but now that it’s here, expert plenty of “what took Apple so long?” stories. Bottom line, the hole has been shut. Apply the patch, or feel the Internet’s wrath. Maybe. Or use OpenDNS. That’s fine way to avoid the DNS glitch, too. via Apple Insider → Read More
The first shots of Snow Leopard, Apple’s new operating system that should be here in about a year, are now starting to appear online. On a German site, of all crazy things! Anyhow, the biggest news from the released screen shots is the existence of a mysterious “Save as Web Application” menu item in Safari. What this does is save the Web site—let’s say Gmail, for example—and somehow saves a copy of it for use offline and on the desktop. In other words, it saves a Web site and turns it into a locally executable application. We’re officially going backwards, functionality-wise. All that, of course, is idle speculation. “Save as Web Applcation” could well mean something entirely different in Apple Speak. The rest of the screen shots, and there’s a lot of them, just show updated versions of apps like Quicktime. via Apple Insider → Read More
San Francisco, CA
