OS X Mountain Lion may drop support for some older Macs

News

  • February 18, 2012 at 11:34 am

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OS X Mountain Lion Messages

Although Apple’s recently demoed OS X Mountain Lion may not be such a huge upgrade from OS X Lion, the same way Windows 8 will be over Windows 7, yet the new operating system for Macs does come with a set of minimum hardware requirements.

Apparently some Mac models, that can run OS X 10.7 Lion, could be out of luck when it comes to upgrading to the latest OS X 10.8 on public launch this summer. The compatibility list below was compiled by a developer and is based on the Developer Preview of Mountain Lion, so by the time the new OS hits gold state and is released to the masses, more models may be added. This is not an official Apple list.
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Apple gives us a peak of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8: iCloud, Notification Center and Messages

News

  • February 16, 2012 at 10:51 am

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Mac OS X Mountain Lion sneak peak

Continuing with its line of feline-themed desktop operating systems Apple has just released some details on its next generation Mac OS X 10.8 operating system, code-named Mountain Lion. Of course Mac OS X 10.7 Lion was just released last summer, but Apple already has been working hard on the next iteration. In fact Apple is moving into an accelerated release schedule and will now start updating its OS X software once a year.

As Apple itself puts it, many of the upcoming new features in Mac OS X Mountain Lion have been inspired by iOS and the iPad. The features include an integrated notification center, deeper iCloud integration and AirPlay mirroring. The new OS will also include Messages, which is an app inspired by iOS iMessages, anyone running OS X Lion can already download the beta now here.
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PSA: It would be unwise to buy an iPad 2 right now

News

  • February 13, 2012 at 12:41 pm

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iPad Google Search app

Apple follows a once a year update cycle for most of its main products. The company has, like clockwork, updated the iPhone and the iPad every year since their release, personal computers like the MacBook Air, have also enjoyed regular yearly updates.

We’ve been hearing of the iPad 3 for quite a while now, as with many Apple products, rumors started practically as soon as the current generation iPad 2 hit the market. However, now we’re seemingly getting close to the actual announcement of the iPad 3 that should come within the next few weeks. Initially we reported on the possibility of an Apple event this month, now the word on the street is that Apple may hold a new iPad event on the first week of March.
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Mac OS X Lion v10.7.3 update released with Safari 5.1.3, promises to fix your Wi-Fi woes

News

  • February 1, 2012 at 4:56 pm

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Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 update

After several weeks of testing, Apple has finally released a software update for systems running Mac OS X Lion, bumping up the version to 10.7.3. The update includes a number of essential fixes and security patches. We particularly note that the update promises to fix Wi-Fi connection issues when waking from sleep, which is something that our MacBook Air (complete review here) has been suffering from. The software also includes a new version of Safari, 5.1.3 and adds additional language support.

To check for the update on your Mac OS X Lion computer, click on the ‘Apple’ logo at the top-left, then ‘Software Update’. Be sure to have a recent back up of your system before you install the update (e.g. through Time Machine). It’s a quite weighty download, ours measures 730.6MB. We’ll try to update you once we have a chance to test it out on our devices and if this finally fixes Wi-Fi issues on the MacBook Air.

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High-resolution graphics contained in iBooks 2 may point to a 2048×1536 display in the iPad 3

News

  • January 20, 2012 at 6:49 am

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iPad 2 iMovie ~ Selecting the best shots

As we are coming closer to a potential launch of the iPad 3, there’s increasing speculation on the potential specs of Apple’s next tablet. One of longest standing rumors is that the iPad 3 will have a “retina” display with a resolution of 2048×1536 — that is double the 1024×768 resolution of the iPad 2 on each axis or four times the number of pixels.

Well, some developers have dissected the files contained within iBooks 2 and iTunes U that were released yesterday, and found a number of graphics files appended as ‘iPad@2x’. One of these images is the bookmark graphic and as then name suggests it’s double the size of the graphic for the normal iPad.
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The iPad goes to school: iBooks 2 app brings interactive textbooks for $14.99 or less

News

  • January 19, 2012 at 3:51 pm

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iBooks 2 Textbooks on iPad

Apple has just vowed to reinvent textbooks, and of course the perfect delivery vehicle is the iPad. The big unveiling at today’s education and eBook related event in New York City was iBooks 2 for iOS. The latest version of the app now gives access to interactive textbooks. iBooks textbooks make things more exciting than you typical paperback with interactive 3D models, video and audio. You now also have the ability to pinch for the table of contents, and of course you still have all the typical multitouch navigation gestures.

Besides saving you from lugging big blocks of wood, electronic iBooks textbooks allow you to quickly search for content, highlight text, take notes and even turn them to virtual study cards. Textbooks are rather competitively priced at $14.99 or less, and publishers on-board for the launch include McGraw Hill, Pearson, DK Publishing and Mifflin Harcourt.
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iBooks Author hands-on: how anyone can now publish interactive books to the iPad

Reviews

  • January 19, 2012 at 12:45 pm

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iBook Author: template chooser

Apple has just announced the free iBooks Author Mac OS X application, which allows anyone to create and publish eBooks to Apple’s iBooks platform for the iPad. I went ahead and downloaded the free app from the Mac App Store, which only took a couple of minutes, and fired it up to for a first test.

First impressions are really good, the key to the application is simplicity. If you’ve ever used Blurb to publish a book, the experience is similar but faster and more accurate. On launch, you get a choice from six existing templates, or you can start from scratch. The six templates are OK for a start but relatively limited.

After that it’s a matter of putting down the text, either writing it directly or dropping a document on the page (you have full control on the typography and colors of course), and other content. Dropping images works very smoothly and you can easily move, resize, bring to front or send back. Things auto-align nicely and text boxes can snap to the end of other boxes automatically. While you are moving objects, guides pop-up to show you the margins between other objects and the page ends.
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iBooks Author is a free Mac app that brings drag and drop simplicity to publishing books on the iPad

News

  • January 19, 2012 at 11:57 am

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Apple iBooks Author Mac OS X app

Apple’s education and iBook related event in now underway at New York City’s Guggenheim museum. The company just unveiled iBooks 2 for the iPad which now includes textbooks, but that’s hardly the only important announcement for today. In a bid to make every person a book publisher, Apple has just unveiled a free Mac OS X application, names iBooks Author, that will allow anyone to design and publish their own books on the iBooks platform.

iBooks Author can be downloaded now from the Mac App Store, as we’ve said for free, and the idea behind it is that it brings drag and drop simplicity to authoring multi-touch eBooks. The application comes with a host of templates to get you started though you can completely customize the look of your book. You can enter your text directly to your book’s pages and you can drag and drop photos, videos and even Pages and Microsoft Word documents directly into your book. You also have the option of making your iBook interactive and for that you have the widgets. Widgets add multi-touch interactivity and include photo galleries, 3D objects, animations and Keynote presentations. You can also add your own Javascript or HTML if you are feeling more adventurous.
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Rumor: Apple preparing for an iPad 3 and iOS 5.1 event in February? What to expect

News

  • January 17, 2012 at 12:30 pm

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Apple iBooks on iPad

One of most anticipated hardware launches of the year is none other than the third iteration of the world’s most successful tablet. The iPad, which made tablets relevant, has transformed the way we consume content on the go, and even how we create it. The iPad 2 and iOS 4.3 were announced at a special Apple event on March 2nd 2011 and released on March 11th.

Betting on Apple’s one year update cycle, we would expect the iPad 3 to be announced around the same period this year. But what do we know about the iPad 3? Well, Apple devices have generally been going in one direction. With each iteration, they usually get faster, thinner, with better battery life and a better screen. It’s almost certain that the iPad 3 will feature a faster chipset, probably an Apple A6 quad-core processor and better graphics. One of the longest standing rumors has been that the next generation iPad will have a high resolution display; most rumors point to a 2048 x 1536, which is effectively double that of the current iPad 2 on each axis. The improved A6 graphic processing unit (GPU) is claimed to be able to handle the quadruple pixels.
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Why we love tech: David Hockney’s ‘A Bigger Picture’ is contemporary art done on an iPad

News

  • January 16, 2012 at 5:29 pm

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The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire, in 2011. iPad drawing printed on paper by David Hockney

David Hockney is one of the most influential contemporary British artists. Born in 1937, with a career spanning more than 50 years, he has relentlessly acquired mastery in a number of media. David Hockney has made paintings, drawings, lithographic and etching prints, designed stage sets and worked with photography and photocollage. In his long, and successful, career he has also always embraced new technologies. David Hockney’s latest exhibition, titled ‘A Bigger Picture’ and running between January 21st and April 9th 2012 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London is a testament to this.

The exhibition is devoted to landscapes and includes more than 150 works by the artist, most of which were created in the last decade while many are massive in size. The vivid works were inspired by Hockney’s native Yorkshire. After Hockney’s 30 year long stay in California and Los Angeles, where he created his famous paintings portraying alluring poolside scenes he returned to his home country and has been based in Bridlington, a small seaside town in east Yorkshire, around 65 miles from Bradford where the artist was born. The exhibition includes oil paintings, watercolors and more than 50 drawings created on an iPad and then printed onto paper. There are also a number of videos created for the exhibition.
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How to: recover a wireless network (Wi-Fi) password on your Mac

Guides

  • January 15, 2012 at 8:11 am

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Back of Wi-Fi router showing aerial

My scenario, I have my MacBook Air connected to a wireless network and I want to give the password to a friend to connect. Now I can go over to my Wi-Fi router and look under its casing where I have the password written on a post-it, but there must be a smarter way around this that would save me the trip. Obviously, there could be tons of reasons why you wound need access to the Wi-Fi key, e.g. you’ve misplaced or forgotten it. The easy instructions below would work on any MacOS X computer that can already connect to the wireless network in question.

MacOS stores passwords in what is called the Keychain. Bear in mind that the Keychain holds a lot more than Wi-Fi passwords, like passwords for websites and FTP servers, networks passwords and certificates.

So here is what you do on your Mac:
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The iPhone 4S getting a warm reception in China despite freezing temperatures

News

  • January 12, 2012 at 4:51 pm

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Beijing Apple Store iPhone 4S launch queues

China is quickly becoming a very important market for Apple. The most populous country in the world has a burgeoning middle-class hungry for technology and of course Apple is carving out a nice piece of the pie for itself. In fact, China contributed to roughly 13.3 percent of Apple’s third-quarter revenue.

Friday 13th of January marks the day when the iPhone 4S goes on sale in 26 new countries, including China. Well as is typical of big Apple product launches, people had already started lining up the night before outside Apple’s two Beijing and three Shanghai stores. Despite the freezing temperatures, hundreds lined-up outside the five official Apple Stores.
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