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Posts Tagged ‘OS’

Apple investigates SuperDrives issue

September 30th, 2009

As we have reported earlier, several incidents of SuperDrive failures were reported to us. The SuperDrives either responded inappropriately or not at all, after many users had installed Apple’s latest OS, Snow Leopard. We were very aware of that there was a problem, but it has been difficult to determine the scale of it. But it seems to have occurred enough times for Apple to contact a number of users who have experienced the problem of SuperDrive failures and start an investigation of the problem.

We will try to keep you updated, and provide information of potential fixes as it becomes available. Enjoy your lunch!

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Posted in Apple, Marketing, Products

Tags: Failures Fixes Investigation OS Snow Leopard SuperDrive

More iPhone competition – Again from Microsoft, in Pink

September 24th, 2009

Before we started this website, we had followed many other sites reporting of a possible Microsoft phone, which was said to arrive in 2010. However, it was difficult to determine the reliability of those sources, as it all seemed like “just a rumor”. Also many sites refused to believe it, because Microsoft would kind of compete with phones which already use the Windows Mobile OS platform, should they choose to make their own phone. But now though, it appears that this is in fact what the company plans to do.

The earlier rumors, about which we just wrote, said that Microsoft was developing a smartphone codenamed Pink. The phone would be running Windows Mobile and manufactured by a third-party company. And now to the interesting stuff… In new rumors, Gizmodo reports that the “Pink” project actually contains two models, one name Turtle and one called Pure. The phones will feature about all the same functionality as an iPhone, just done the “Microsoft way”, such as an App Store, music and video. It is possible that we will see an integration between the upcoming App Store and the Zune Marketplace. The two following images were posted by Gizmodo and is believed to be prototypes of the two smartphone models (top: Turtle, bottom: Pure).

Turtle prototype Pure prototype So… what do you think? Will this product be able to compete with iPhone on a high level, or will it simply be another Zune story? Enjoy your launch!

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Posted in Products, iPhone

Tags: App Store Competition Gizmodo iPhone Microsoft OS Pink Prototype Smartphone Windows Windows Mobile Zune Zune Marketplace

New PC Tablet concept from Microsoft – Courier to compete with Apple Tablet

September 23rd, 2009

Possible design of coming Apple tablet?

And while we are all waiting for more news of the rumored Apple Tablet, Microsoft reveals plans for a similar product. This places Microsoft and Apple in close competition around tablets, even though none of the companies have actually launched any of those devices. There are rumors that Microsoft has revealed their tablet concept this soon, because they try to appear ahead of Apple on the market. Being the first with this kind of revolutionary tablet, could be essential for a starting success. New rumors and possible evidence of an Apple tablet frequently rise, and though there are no trustworthy pictures of the product yet (as with the new Microsoft tablet), it is almost certain that Apple will introduce such a product within 2010.

Microsoft’s tablet differs from others in some ways, since it hasn’t got any of the usual tablet OS integrations (yeah, not even Windows), but a tailored one made only for this product (so far). The PC Tablet is foldable, just as ordinary notebooks, and features a 7-inch display and is codenamed Courier. It does feature several functions new to the market, which focuses on basically converting all kinds of office tasks to electronic processes. This includes handwriting, clip and paste, copying, address book integrations and much more, everything in smooth graphics and with enabled multi-touch. In other words, the tablet is simply an advanced electronic notebook -- just with integrated address book, internet, photo sharing, camera etc. We have embedded the following video, which previews the device:

There are currently no indications of when Microsoft’s Tablet PC might arrive, but we’ll keep you posted as soon as we get any reports. Meanwhile, Apple’s tablet has been rumored to be official announced in February 2010 following the company’s traditional spring product updates and announcements. This does not mean however, that it will be launched in February, though it is likely that Apple launches the product shortly after the announcement has been made. Enjoy your lunch!

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Posted in Marketing, Products, Technology

Tags: Address Book Announcement Camera Courier Electronic Graphics Inches Microsoft Multi-touch Notebook OS PC Photo sharing Tablet Video Windows

Snow Leopard killing SuperDrives?

September 5th, 2009

Mac OS 10.6 came out the 28th of August, and since then users are beginning to blame Snow Leopard to cause their SuperDrives to malfunction. The drives simply stop reading discs after the installation of Snow Leopard has finished, and the developers who experience this also note that Apple does not fully cooperate to solve the issue. Some though, have said that their SuperDrives don’t die entirely, and that they can still play CDs while being unable to read any DVDs.

Although developers and new Snow Leopard users blame the installation of 10.6 to be the reason for their SuperDrive failures, we have reason to believe that it is an old problem which shouldn’t be caused by a Snow Leopard installation. Why? Because SuperDrives have reportedly had these failures long before the new OS was released. It is therefore still a mystery why they actually fail.

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Posted in Products

Tags: CD Disc DVD Mac OS X OS Snow Leopard SuperDrive

Apple updates Flash in Snow Leopard update 10.6.1

September 4th, 2009

Earlier, when Apple first released its new major operating system Mac OS X Snow Leopard the 28th of August, the OS downgraded Flash to an older version, which came with several security issues. It is therefore important that the individual user, if he knows about it, updates Flash to the latest version manually.

However, in the recently seeded 10.6.1 update coming up for Snow Leopard, it seems that Apple addresses this issue. There have been many concerns about it and it has certainly caught Apple’s attention.

The new 10.6.1 software update contains the usual bug fixes and addresses many smaller issues, such as DVD playback, unresponsive applications, printer drivers, Mail functionality, removing items from the Dock etc. The seeded version is currently being tested by a limited audience and is 71.5 MB large.

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Posted in Products

Tags: Dock DVD Flash Mac OS X Mail OS Printer Seeded Snow Leopard Software update

3 follow-up software updates by Apple

September 1st, 2009

To follow up on certain issues after releasing their major OS update, Snow Leopard, Apple has posted three new software updates to meet and improve the overall compatibility. As usually, the software updates can be downloaded and installed using the built-in Software Update on your Mac, or downloaded from Apple’s Support Download page.

The most noticeable of the three software updates is a new firmware update for SuperDrives. The update does only apply to newer (2008 or later) Mac Minis and iMacs, and fixes the optical disk drive noise, when starting up your Mac.

Also, the Mac OS X Leopard Server received a new update called Mac OS X Server 10.5.8 Update v.1.1, which is available as Combo and Standalone software update, and fixes a lot of smaller issues, including a few OS problems.

And in the end we have an update for the newer (2009 or later) Mac Minis, which is the Mac mini EFI Firmware Update 1.2, which simply makes the Mac read the latest Apple memory kits better.

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Posted in Products

Tags: Firmware Update iMac Leopard Mac Mini Mac OS X Memory kit OS Snow Leopard Software update

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 4

August 31st, 2009

Today you can read the fourth part of our Mac OS X Snow Leopard review. Yesterday we made a review of the new fabulous QuickTime Player X, but during my lunch today it appeared to me that something in the review was missing and a short while later I found out what was missing. I was so excited when I wrote the review on what was new so I totally forgot what was missing in the new QuickTime Player and that is to say, the opportunity to upgrade to an enlarged pro-version of the application. In Leopard you had to upgrade to QuickTime Player Pro to download QuickTime videos on the internet, specially the Get a Mac ads on Apple’s website? Now you don’t need an upgrade, because you don’t need a pro-version at all. Just right-click the video you want at press ‘Save as QuickTime movie…’ It doesn’t get any easier than that.

Around in the corners

Today’s review will cover many small new features in Mac OS X Snow Leopard. All of them are there to make your life easier and more perfect. Let’s start with the upper right corner of your screen. Here you can see the Spotlight-icon. Spotlight is a part of Finder, which has been completely rewritten and now supports 64-bit computing and Grand Central Dispatch. It’s faster than the Finder in Leopard and to be more accurate, it is 1.8 times faster to refresh PDF icons and 1.4 times faster in refreshing JPG icons than in Mac OS 10.5 Leopard. Spotlight is now, because of the new Finder, faster than ever and it only takes a few seconds to find what you are looking for.

Now when we’re already up there, we can go a little to the left… to the time to be precis. If you click the time and go to the ‘Date and time preferences…’, you can now choose to display the date right next to the clock. This feature only works if you show the time digitally.

Snow Leopard allows you to 'recycle' items from Trash

If you have ever experienced that you’ve accidentally deleted something and you’ve closed the window that the deleted item was stored in, you can now click the Trash icon in your dock, then right click on the file that you have accidentally moved into the Trash and you will discover a new option called ‘Put back’. The ‘Put Back’ option allows you to restore the file to it’s previous position on the hard disk.

The icon view has also been improved and allows you to look through a multipage document or watch the start of a QuickTime movie, right from Finder if you list the files in columns or cover flow. Speaking of icons: the resolutions on icons can now be up to 512 by 512 pixels and that is four times more than Leopard.

Startup and shutdown times

One of the most popular and known improvements in Mac OS X Snow Leopard is the faster shutdown and wake-up speed – and they are serious about this! When I put my MacBook Pro into sleep, it takes about 2 or 3 seconds, depending on how fast I write my password, to come back and use my MacBook Pro. It is incredibly fast. The shutdown and startup speeds are also improved and they are much faster too.

Chinese handwriting for multi-touch trackpads

Another feature, which I’m not sure to use that much actually, is the improved Chinese handwriting input, which allows Chinese people, and everyone else who wants to write Chinese, to use the multitouch trackpad to draw Chinese characters. I’ve tried it and it works like a charm, but since I don’t know any Chinese words or signs, I really can’t tell how if it works, sorry.

Like James May from Top Gear would have said: “You have to start with hello”.

That was all for today. Come back tomorrow and read more about the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

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Posted in Products, Reviews

Tags: Chinese handwriting Finder Grand Central Dispatch Mac Mac OS X MacBook Multitouch Trackpad OS Quicktime Review Snow Leopard Spotlight Trash

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 2

August 29th, 2009

Yesterday, we provided you with our very first impressions of the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Today we will go a little further and write about what is new in the Mac OS X Snow Leopard. We have already showed you how the new stacks feature works, but there are many other features in Mac OS 10.6.

Spaces, system preferences and dock

If you are one of those who upgraded from Tiger to Snow Leopard, which you actually can, you are probably a rookie when it comes to the feature called ‘Spaces’. Spaces allows you to have up to 16 different work spaces, which the video beneath will show you:

If you didn’t notice in the video above, there is something new about the ‘System Preferences’ window. It isn’t that important, but it’s new and deserves some space in this article: the ‘keyboard and mouse’ preferences has been split into two single buttons as you can see on the picture below.

If you click the keyboard button, you can see a list of keyboard shortcuts that you can use in different applications and you can add new shortcuts to applications too.

Another new feature in the new Mac OS X is, that you can minimize windows into the application window. That is very useful if you don’t like your dock to be kilometers long or if you just love to be organized. The ‘minimize into dock’ function can be activated through the dock preferences in ‘System Preferences’.

If you can’t find a specific window, you can use Exposé. This function has been improved in Snow Leopard. When you activate Exposé, the windows are now arranged in a grid. A new feature in Exposé is that if you left click and hold an open application icon in the dock, Exposé shows you all windows from the specific application that are currently open or minimized, even if it is placed in another space.

Today, we have covered some of the new features in Mac OS X Snow Leopard and tomorrow we will take a look at QuickTime Player, which has also been improved a lot.

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Posted in Products, Reviews

Tags: Exposé Mac Mac OS X OS Quicktime Review Snow Leopard Spaces Tiger YouTube

Coming Apple Tablet to be released in 13-15 inch models?

August 29th, 2009

According to some assumably reliable sources, a new report indicates even further expansion of the current Apple Tablet rumor. The new report suggests that Apple’s upcoming tablet will be made, not only in the anticipated 6 to 10 inches wide models, but also in models as large as 15 inches, which is pretty large for a tablet computer. It has always been of common understanding that the new tablet models will run an improved version of the iPhone OS (or smaller Mac OS X)… however, this new report believes one of the models (assumably the largest) will actually run a full Mac OS 10.6.

If it is indeed true, such a model will be normally competing with all current tablets on the market, which grows every day, and for Apple to successfully penetrate the market with a tablet computer, the model will require some high level of innovation. Tablets running Mac OS X have already been seen in industry, which means that Apple will need some additional creativity in the device, to gain respect and positive publicity. The rumor, since it is still unconfirmed, indirectly says that we are actually going to see two very different Apple Tablets, since the smaller ones may be great for playing games and writing quick notes on the fly, while the larger models will be pretty much a replacement for office Macs whose owners doesn’t need anything more than a pen or fingers to navigate and use the computer. But as said before, it is highly improbable that Apple will “just release a tablet”. If they make the larger models, they will undoubtedly guaranteed come with something which doesn’t replace their other Macs.

The new tablets have been rumored to arrive in early 2010. There is a possible announcement of them in the upcoming media even, but it remains unlikely.

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Posted in Products

Tags: Games iPhone Mac Mac OS X OS Tablet

Heard of it, caught and tamed it – Review of Snow Leopard, part 1

August 28th, 2009

It took some time, patience and actually not a huge amount of money. The hunt was unusually easy and I expected degrees blow zero. Of course I did remember by Jägermeister to protect myself against the murderous cold, but it turned out to be extremely unnecessary. The hunt began last Tuesday 25th August at 5:00 p.m. and ended today at 13:30 p.m. I had finally caught my prey.

The snow leopard (also known as ounce) is smaller than other big cats. It’s body length ranges from 75 to 130 cm. It has long thick fur which color is something between grey and yellow with dark spots. It didn’t scare the s… out of my pants because who can be afraid of something smaller than a lion that cannot roar?

Snow_Leopard_Disc

First impressions and the upgrade

Anyhow, my first impression of the new Mac OS X Snow Leopard was great. The package was a little confusing though and unfortunately damaged during the transportation to my house, but I didn’t care – I wanted to get started! I ejected my Football Manager 09 DVD from my MacBook Pro and pushed the Mac OS X Snow Leopard disc in and a few seconds later the installation began.

Oh dear god, this takes FOREVER...

I had no idea on how long it would take to upgrade an operating system to another, but still I got a little surprised when the timer showed ‘1 hour 45 minutes remaining’. A few seconds later it was only 1 hour and 3 minutes and I decided to do something useful while Mac OS X Snow Leopard installed itself. I began the installation at around 1:40 p.m. and at 2:26 p.m. I got a message: ‘Install succeeded’. When I studied I had math on a very high level so I can hereby, without any calculator , tell you that it took 46 minutes to install Mac OS X Snow Leopard. This, of course, depends on how fast your Mac is. After the installation it did an automatic reboot, which took forever (maybe because of my excitement) and two minutes later the well-known ‘Welcome’-video appeared on my screen. Oh yeah it evokes memories from the first time I ever opened my Mac.

The new stack function is pretty sweet

When the video stopped I could finally begin to explore the new operating system, Mac OS 10.6. Except for the desktop picture, I couldn’t really see any big difference, until I clicked on ‘applications’ in my dock and discovered the new ‘stack’ and oh boy this little detail will make my life so much easier and I don’t really know why. This might sound a bit ironic, but I actually love the new ‘stack’.

Let the stack be the ‘crack of dawn’ in this article. Our review on Snow Leopard will of course continue tomorrow, so see you then.

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Posted in Products, Reviews

Tags: Installation Leopard Mac Mac OS X MacBook Pro OS Review Snow Leopard Stack