Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Apple has moved with uncharacteristic speed to patch a security flaw that exposed certain personal information to attackers. 14 other flaws have been fixed as well."

So not only do you get extensions, but you get a security hole fixed, what a bargain! We reported on the auto-fill bug in Safari earlier, and now with this update that appears to be fixed. The update also fixed 14 other flaws.

"The Magic Trackpad has just shown up and Apple has already issued a driver update for it."

The update will also enable the inertial scrolling and three-finger dragging (if you want to move windows around) on MacBooks and MacBook Pros with the multi-touch trackpads. You will need to have 10.6.4 though to get it working properly, and if you are curious to see if it will work on your Macbook, Edible Apple has a list of all the compatible versions. You can find more info at Apple, and download the update as well [link].

And to answer a question some of you may have since it is Bluetooth, the folks at Gearlog tried to get the Trackpad to work with an iPhone and iPad. And the result is no, it doesn't work with either and is an OS X only product. One additional note, the buttons for the Trackpad are on the feet not on the surface, which is an interesting design feature, but it makes sense.

"Tuesday the company announced a renewed all-in-one line of iMac computers. The new iMacs feature Intel's Core i3, i5, and i7 CPUs and updated ATI graphics processors."

According to Apple, the new iMacs will have the "latest Intel Core i3, Core i5 and Core i7 processors and powerful new graphics. Starting at $1,199, the new iMac line is the fastest ever with dual-core processor speeds up to 3.6 GHz, quad-core speeds up to 2.93 GHz and discrete graphics including the powerful ATI Radeon HD 5750."

They give you the option to add a 256GB solid state drive as a primary or secondary drive, which supports up to 215 MB/second transfer rates. Apple's press release notes that these will start at $1,199.00 USD, and they are available now [affiliate link].

"Apple® today unveiled a new Mac® Pro line with up to 12 processing cores and up to 50 percent greater performance than the previous generation.* Featuring the latest quad-core and 6-core Intel Xeon processors, all-new ATI graphics and the option for up to four 512GB solid state drives (SSD), the new Mac Pro continues to deliver amazing performance and expandability for the most demanding consumers and professionals."

Not only did Apple introduce a new trackpad and battery charging system, but they also showed off a new Mac Pro and 27-inch Display. The display will replace the 24-inch as well as the 30-inch displays, but won't be available until September, and will come with a price of $999.00 USD. The Mac Pro will be available in August for $2,499.00 USD to $3,499.00 USD, depending on the options.

"As if waiting around until fall to get iOS 4 weren't enough of a downer for iPad owners, the latest rumor we're hearing is that they'll have to pay a fee in order to do so."

Several sites are reporting this "rumor" but, as pointed out at Apple Insider [link], the charge would be a contradiction with their licensing agreement that states "the next major release would be free for hardware owners." So your guess is as good as mine but I'm hoping for free. What are your thoughts? Do you think the recent 3.2.1 is enough of an update to qualify as a "major release" and are you expecting to pay when iOS 4 for iPad comes out?

"iOS 4.0.1 is officially out via iTunes. The only thing Apple says it does is 'improves the formula to determine how many bars of signal strength to display.'"

Available via the usual route, and fixes the signal strength display, but that is about it. In another story, they also issued an update for iPads, iOS 3.2.1. The iPad update fixes a Wi-Fi issue and also adds Bing to the search options.

"Too lazy to cancel your $99 MobileMe automatic subscription renewal and make the jump to one of the many free alternatives? Don't worry, your lethargy has paid off this morning as Apple introduces its new MobileMe iDisk 1.2 app and a beta version of its new MobileMe Calendar."

The MobileMe Calendar Beta design follows the calendar design of the iPad, and also adds enhancements such as sharing, event invitations and publishing a calendar to groups. The best upgrade in my opinion is the adoption of the CalDAV standard. If you decide to give MobileMe Calendar beta a try, Apple has set up a page on how to prepare for it [link]. As far as the iDisk update, it is now optimized for the iPad screen, supports iOS 4 multitasking and gives you the option to open your iDisk docs in apps that are compatible with it, such as iBooks.

"I'm going to be honest, I really could care less about Apple's current antenna/signal reporting woes right now. Businesses and users who use their iPhone with a Microsoft Exchange server are facing a much bigger issue that, by and large, is not being covered."

I haven't seen that many stories on this Exchange issue (here is one), and it sounds like it is/was a big problem, mostly because the companies couldn't do the fix system-wide. The update to fix the problem has to be done individually, and that isn't as easy as it sounds per the author of this story.

"It hasn't gotten quite the attention of the iPhone 4's antenna problems or its proximity sensor troubles, but iOS 4 has caused some heartbreak for corporate users who connect to Exchange servers -- checking mail or syncing contact and calendars can stall out interminably, with no option but to restart and try again."

According to Apple, "immediately after updating to iOS 4, some users may notice that Exchange ActiveSync Mail, Contacts or Calendars do not sync, or sync very slowly. In addition, some Exchange Server administrators may notice their servers running slowly." The problem is the default timer set for a 30 second timeout, so the update sets the timeout to 240 seconds, which appears to fix this syncing issue for most users.

"Last week MobileMe underwent a complete redesign. With only 2-hours notice, members didn't really know what to expect other than the service was just going down for regular maintenance. But when MobileMe came back online, it had a completely redesigned user interface that's fresh and inviting, and a few new features were thrown in as well."

The revamped interface that greets you is pretty nice, but the best part of the update, in my opinion, is the ability to set rules for your mail so you can keep it organized, as well as the ability to now archive your mail. I wish you could add IMAP instead of just POP, but at least they have also given you the option to add other accounts. Overall a pretty good overview of the new features.

"Most iPhone and iPod touch users are likely on a downloading binge today. Not only has iOS 4 been released, but tons of apps have been receiving multitasking updates, and now Apple has released an update to iBooks that adds universal support, among the many other new features."

So what are those new features?

Read more...

"ReaddleDocs is a revolutionary document viewer, file manager and attachment saver for iPad. It can catch documents from any source you can imagine: PC or Mac computers, web sites, email attachments, iDisk, Dropbox and other online file storages and even iPhones. All files are saved to your iPad locally so you can enjoy reading them anywhere!"

This version, updated on June 7th to version 1.1.0 for the iPad, now lets you highlight text on the PDFs you have on your iPad, using the same touch controls you are used to for copy/cut/paste on the iPhone and iPad. It's available now in iTunes for $4.99 USD [affiliate link]. A nice update to this handy program, it's one that I've added to my iPad and works really well for managing my docs.

"Apple has released QuickTime Player 7.6.6 for Mac OS X 10.6.3 Snow Leopard with absolutely no release notes, so there's no telling what has changed."

He's right. But if you are a skeptic you can check out the info on QuickTime Player 7 or the update for yourself. Let me know if you find out anything though will ya?

"Apple updated its Mac Java engine today, only for Intel machines running 10.6.3."

Actually they released two, one for 10.5 called "Java Update 7" and one for 10.6 called "Java Update 2." The MacObserver story has even more info on this update, probably more than you will want to read to be honest, since these updates basically fix a couple of security holes that allow arbitrary code to be executed by Java applets.

"Apple today updated its productivity suite of iPad applications with various bug fixes and small features."

Lots of updates through the series of iWork programs for the iPad, language updates, bug fixes and the like.

"Ambrosia Software has released iToner 2.0.5, a free update to its best-selling custom iPhone ringtone utility. This update streamlines several low level iPhone syncing, communication, and support processes to enhance the iToner user experience and reliability."

This is a great little program if you like to create your own ringtones, and you don't want to jailbreak your iPhone to do it. With iToner 2 you can pretty much take any audio you have on your make and make it a ringtone very easily. This update fixed some "confusion" issues when iPads were connected, as well as some other bugs related to syncing, and is free for registered users, $15.00 USD for new users. It's a Universal Binary application that requires minimum of OS X 10.4.10 or later.

"Adobe released a near final version of Camera Raw 6.1 on Friday. The release candidate fixed an issue where Photoshop CS5 could crash when opening files with the Camera Raw 6.0 plug-in, and added support for ten more cameras."

So if you have Photoshop CS5 and want to give this a try, be warned it is still a beta product. You can find out more about it at the Adobe Labs site.

"Independent software developer Reggie Ashworth today is pleased to announce AppDelete 3.1.1, an update to his very popular application deletion utility for Mac OS X. With a simple Drag & Drop, AppDelete will uninstall anything along with all of the associated items. Mac users will no longer have to hunt through their system to find and delete these items manually."

This is a handy little program, that makes sure you get all the files deleted from any app you want gone from your system. You can find out more about it at the Reggie Ashworth site, and is priced at $7.99 USD. What program do you use to make sure all the files are gone, or do you just drag the program to the trash and hope for the best?

"iTunes 9.1 brought a feature to all iPods that had previously only existed for the Shuffle: the ability to sync lower bitrate, 128 kbps AAC versions of songs."

And the article continues: "With only a modest reduction in sound quality, enabling this feature saved nearly 2 GB of space on my 16 GB iPhone 3G. After enabling it, the feature works by re-encoding songs on the fly to the lower bitrate the first time you sync your iPod. This will likely be followed by a very lengthy first sync as hundreds or even thousands of songs are downsampled to 128 kbps AAC, but all subsequent syncs are supposed to skip this step altogether unless you make major changes to your music library."

Ah but what he has found is that the sync operation every time after was extremely long as it re-encoded music that had previously been encoded. Basically it was doing the process all over again. So if you are experiencing this, check your version and if you have 9.1.1, then download iTunes and reinstall and it should go away. The new build hasn't been pushed out yet so it isn't in Software Update. This is only happening if you have enabled the option to convert higher bitrate songs to 128 kbps AAC on your iPod or iPhone. If you didn't enable it then you won't experience the problem.

"Fans of Red Sweater Software's blog publishing tool MarsEdit got a surprise Tuesday morning with the release of MarsEdit 3. The most significant update to the software is the addition of a rich text editor, though those who fiddle with the HTML for their blog posts got an updated syntax highlighter. A new media manager rounds out this solid update, one that the company hopes will attract new users and get old ones writing again."

Responding to requests from users, since the release of MarsEdit 2 roughly 2.5 years ago, they have brought out version 3 which includes rich text editing, HTML syntax highlighting updates, an improved media manager and integration with iPhoto, Aperture and Lightroom among others. There is even support for pages in WordPress blogs and the (welcome I'm sure) ability to write and save posts offline and schedule the posting for a later time. I don't do a lot of this type of work, but it sounds like a welcome update to the popular program. MarsEdit 2.x users can upgrade for $14.95 USD, however if you purchased after January 1st, 2010 you can upgrade for free. New users also get a free 30-day trial to see if you want to spend $39.95 USD for a new license. More info can be found at the Red Sweater site.