The latest version of iTunes gets a bit of a makeover on its surface and under the covers to make it look more like the mobile version of iTunes that sits on your iPhone and allow tighter integration with iCloud. Read more »
Isn’t it time for Apple to make good on its promise to make FaceTime an open standard? After all, the video service arrived in June of 2010 and we haven’t heard a peep on any effort to open up FaceTime for use on other platforms. Read more »
Apple just extended a free offer of 20GB of iCloud storage to newly transitioned MobileMe subscribers until next year. But there are some big differences in how data from all your devices — iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — is stored in the new service. Read more »
Mountain Lion’s first update is out and it fixes a variety of bugs discovered when the desktop OS was released a month ago. Though not mentioned in the update guide, some users report the update improves MacBook battery life. Read more »
With the new MacBook Pro with Retina display, Apple made some small but important updates to its Aperture photo-processing app. Aperture 3.3 isn’t a full version upgrade, but the new features added tells us that Apple is serious about this program and its future. Read more »
What’s behind Apple’s decision to require sandboxing in OS X apps? It is not a far stretch to consider that this shift in approach might have a connection to Apple’s long-term plans to make iCloud the center of their strategy for the next decade. Read more »
The major new features in Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion are what everyone is talking about, but with every release of OS X, the company makes some smaller changes that escape the notice of most. We take a look at some of those changes. Read more »
There are two ways to think about securing information: Enabling access to information you want to keep, and disabling access to information you don’t. For information Mac users no longer want, it’s not as easy as moving a file to the trash and emptying the trash. Read more »
Many school districts are rolling out student programs, where most computing is done with the iPad. By more closely integrating with iOS, the upcoming OS X Mountain Lion release should help in schools that make heavy use of iPads and still want to use Macs. Read more »
After running OS X 10.8, or Mountain Lion, for the past few days, I am reaching more for my iPhone than my Galaxy Nexus. The “grand unified user experience” approach of Apple has everything to do with that, and it could blunt Android’s momentum. Read more »
Apple’s OS X Mountain Lion, which should arrive some time this summer, has finally brought true feature parity between iOS and OS X for Notes, Reminders and Notifications. We spent some time with the new features, and here is what we found. Read more »
OS X Mountain Lion looks to improve on Lion with UI refinements and some significant changes for developers. Most of those changes appear to be out in the cloud. Here’s a list of changes that Apple is rolling out, and how they will affect developers. Read more »
One of the new features of OS X Mountain Lion, coming this summer, is Messages for Mac, which replaces iChat. Apple’s iMessage service is available as a beta version to download for use with OS X Lion today. Here are our first impressions. Read more »
Apple on Thursday released a developer edition of Mountain Lion, the next upgrade of it’s operating system that will go on sale sometime in summer this year. As part of the news, the company shared some metrics about OS X Lion (version 10.7). For instance, the […] Read more »
Seven months after Mac OS X Lion, Apple is releasing its first developer preview of what comes next for its desktop OS, which will be called Mountain Lion. Like its predecessor, Apple’s upcoming desktop OS is starting to bear more than a passing resemblance to iOS. Read more »
We’ve already talked about some key highlights from the Macworld | iWorld 2012 show, particularly from the prosumer and developer angles. But my focus here is on those products average Apple users might be interested in, for both Mac and iOS devices. Read more »
While the target audience for Macworld | iWorld is your typical consumer, there are a few vendors in attendance that are focused on reaching developers. If you’re a developer yourself, or work with developers, you might want to stop by the following vendors during the show. Read more »
iTunes may be great for syncing your iOS devices, or buying songs, movies, apps and books, but it’s not exactly the most nimble music player anymore. Here are five great Mac-compatible alternatives that focus on the music, without the bloat that iTunes brings. Read more »
Snapstream is making its TV monitoring capabilities available to Mac users, with a Web-based video player and client that will let its customers search, view and clip live and recorded TV feeds. That could increase help its potential customer base, while making its existing base happier. Read more »
It might seem like the small Apple Remote that used to come with new Macs is a one-trick pony for controlling iTunes or DVD playback, but there are actually some hidden ways to use it. Here are a few that may surprise you. Read more »
Is the PC “dead”? Of course not, but if you don’t see the trend moving away from local / desktop computing and towards mobile / cloud computing, you’re missing the sales figures for each market: Nearly 50 percent of recent device sales are mobile. Read more »
Snapseed, Apple’s iPad app of the year for 2011, is available on the Mac as of Thursday via the Mac App Store. It’s more expensive than the iOS version, but cheaper than a lot of the photo editing competition. So how does it stack up? Read more »
A common New Year’s resolution is getting more organized, and email is often very much in need of organization. I’ve long been a fan of the “Inbox Zero” philosophy. It’s easier than you think to accomplish, and these simple tips will help you get there. Read more »
A new year is a perfect time to talk about ways to protect your data. You should be backing up and you know it, and if you are already backing up, it’s time to test your strategy and include things you may be forgetting. Read more »
Since I use multiple mobile devices on various platforms, it sometimes gets to be a chore trying to read saved web pages when offline. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between two great solutions: Instapaper and Read It Later. But both might be trumped by Evernote. Read more »
Traditionally, the Mac has made up an extremely small sliver of corporate PC purchases, but over the last few quarters, more and more of them have been incorporated into the workplace. And on the heels of this trend was an announcement from the analysts over at ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone, aimed at mobile gamers, has a new twist that could add more appeal: OnLive’s cloud gaming service now supports the slide-out gaming controls on the Android smartphone. Touchscreens certainly work for games, but button-mashing is best done on…. buttons. Read more »
Apple sees its highest share of desktop and laptop shipments in 15 years. But growth is coming not only in the consumer space, where it grew 24.6 percent compared to overall PC market’s 5.3 percent, but in the enterprise market too. Read more »
Apple finally talked about when people can expect to get their hands on iTunes Match, and it’s later than iCloud in general. Later in October is as specific as the company got to putting a release date on the cloud-based subscription music service. Read more »
Evernote, the popular note-taking app, recently updated its clients on both Mac OS X and iOS, and though there are highs and lows, overall each update brings appreciated improvements. The changes could even upgrade Evernote from bench-warmer to starting player in my daily workflow. Read more »
One of the most dreaded questions in any household is “what’s for dinner?” The question is fraught with complex issues of family responsibilities, finances, and personal preferences. While it won’t do the dishes, iPhoto has become an indispensable meal planning tool in my family. Read more »
Mac OS X Lion is not without its problems, but there’s also a lot to love about the big cat. My top five favorite things about Lion include some revolutionary shifts, along with a few relatively small changes that make a big difference. Read more »
Mac OS X 10.7 Lion went on sale on Wednesday, and already Apple is saying this release is selling “faster than any other OS release in Apple’s history.” It’s also the first time Apple’s done a major desktop OS release through its Mac App Store. Read more »
Apple isn’t about to miss out on sales of its new Mac OS to those who don’t have a solid Internet connection. The company is going to put Lion on a USB stick and sell it for $69 starting in August. Read more »
What do you do if your brand or product is looking a little long in the teeth? Hitch your wagon to Apple’s star, that’s what. Apple’s software and hardware offer a great opportunity for brands to reinvent and extend themselves, but only if it’s handled correctly. Read more »
Apple executives told Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty that Apple “generally views product cycles as software driven.” Huberty met with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, SVP of Retail Ron Johnson and VP of Internet Services Eddy Cue Wednesday to discuss the company’s future outlook. Read more »
In my recent post about pairing SSD and HDD storage in a Mac, I used a little-known command line feature to redirect some of my user folders between the drives. I’m talking about symlinks, which can be a very powerful tool for Mac users. Read more »
Hunch.com offers a great visual snapshot of Mac users and their PC counterparts over on the site’s blog today. As you can see for yourself below, at least a good portion of the results are pretty much in keeping with prevailing stereotypes. Read more »
NoSQL vendor Couchbase is targeting developers using Mac OS X with a new version of its Membase Server and an upgraded Couchbase Server designed specifically for that platform. Mac is hardly the most popular choice among developers, but its popularity appears to be picking up. Read more »
A new feature of Mac OS X Lion unearthed by AppleInsider allows remote users to log in to a Mac using a separate account from the one currently being used on that computer, and to see their own distinct desktop and computing environment. Read more »
