iMac Core i5 Benchmarks Are In

And boy, is this thing fast.

Via Electronista

Category: Hardware

Magic Mouse – sold out?

It’s nearly two weeks after Apple’s new Magic Mouse debuted, and supplies are extremely constrained. Apple’s own website shows availablity as 5-7 days. Amazon lists their availability at 2-3 weeks. Most other retailers have yet to see any supply of the new wireless mouse.

This of course begs the question – is the Magic Mouse a hit? It seems strange that in a down economy people would be willing to cough up $70 for a wireless pointing device. Of course, this is Apple we are talking about, and most of the reviews for the Magic Mouse have been positive.

We’re still anxiously awaiting our Magic Mouse. Once we have it in hand, we’ll post a review.

Category: News

iPhone Facebook Developer Done With iPhone Development

Facebook Developer Joe Hewitt has written his last iPhone app. Or something like that. In protest of Apple’s well publicized AppStore approval policies, the iPhone Facebook Application Developer has handed the project off to another developer and is moving on to “more open” pastures.

Joe had this to say to TechCrunch:

“My decision to stop iPhone development has had everything to do with Apple’s policies. I respect their right to manage their platform however they want, however I am philosophically opposed to the existence of their review process. I am very concerned that they are setting a horrible precedent for other software platforms, and soon gatekeepers will start infesting the lives of every software developer.

The web is still unrestricted and free, and so I am returning to my roots as a web developer. In the long term, I would like to be able to say that I helped to make the web the best mobile platform available, rather than being part of the transition to a world where every developer must go through a middleman to get their software in the hands of users.”

I can definitely sympathize with Joe on the nebulous (at best) and nefarious (at worst) review process. Hopefully, Joe’s defection will cause someone at Apple to finally fix the problem once and for all.

Category: Software, iPhone

Safari 4.04 available

Safari 4.04 is available via software update. No word yet on whether the recent improvements to the webkit inspector landed in this update.

From the release notes:

This update is recommended for all Safari users and includes improvements to performance, stability, and security including:

Improved JavaScript performance
Improved Full History Search performance for users with a large number of history items
Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins, the search field and Yahoo! Mail
For detailed information on the security content of this update, please visit this site: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

Update: The Webkit Inspector improvements noted above are not included in Safari 4.04.

Update: It appears the keyboard shortcut for Top Sites, Command-Shift-1 has been removed from Safari 4.04. If you use this keyboard shortcut, you may want to hold off on upgrading.

Update: Looks like the shortcut has been changed to Alt-Command-1. That’s the sort of change you would expect to be detailed in the release notes, if your release notes had any meaningful, detailed descriptions.

Category: Software, Web Development

How To Enable PHP & MySQL in Snow Leopard

In previous versions of Mac OS X, Apple included PHP, but usually an older version that what was available at the time of the operating systems release. In Snow Leopard, Apple has included the just released PHP 5.3. Compared with other Mac OS X releases, Apple has made getting PHP and MySQL up and running much easier than before. (more…)

Category: Tutorial, Web Development

Snow Leopard now shipping!

Snow Leopard is out, and if you own an Intel Mac, you should upgrade. Save a few bucks by ordering through Amazon.com, who are selling Snow Leopard for the low price of $25. You can help us out by using the link below.

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Family Pack (5-User)

Category: News

Snow Leopard: Top Seven Grievances

Snow Leopard is a different kind of beast for Apple. Previous Mac OS X releases have focused on adding new features to the operating system. Past releases have given us features like Spotlight, Time Machine, QuickLook, Expose, and more. WIth Snow Leopard, Apple decided to take a feature “time out”, and instead focus on performance, underlying plumbing, and usability tweaks to more than 90% of the apps that make up Mac OS X.

Apple has done a terrific job with Snow Leopard. However, there are still annoyances that make me scratch my head and wonder “Why hasn’t Apple fixed this?”. Here’s a list of said issues.

• Desktops & Screensavers. Want a solid color for your desktop background? Apple has a few for you to choose from. Want a color that’s not on the menu? Better get out your favorite image editor and create it, because Apple still hasn’t given you the ability to select a custom color for a background image. Sure, you can create one and export it as a JPG, TIFF or PNG. But come on Apple – you have the Color Picker at your disposal. Allowing users to select a custom color would have taken all of 20 lines of code to enable.
• Finder Preferences, Color Labels. Again, here is another instance where 20 lines of code would have given users the ability to set their own custom color for Finder labels. Instead were stuck with the same 7 colors Apple deems appropriate to be displayed on your Finder items.
• FTP in the Finder. Still. Broken. Sure, you can mount FTP volumes in the Finder, but you can’t write to them. It’s 2009. 8 years after Mac OS X was birthed, and this is still broken. Can someone tell me why you can mount and view an FTP volume, but not write to it? It makes no sense to me.
• Finder Sidebar. You still can’t rearrange the order of the main top level categories of Devices, Shared Items, Places, and Search for.
• Mac OS X Help. Still exists as a floating Window above all other windows. I understand wanting the Help window to be easy to find among all your other windows, but if I click another on another window behind the Help window, I expect that window to come to the fore front.
• iChat. Still no unified Chat window when using different chat protocols/accounts. This is the one feature that keeps me using Adium. I want one window for all my buddy lists, not one for each protocol.
• Sound/Sound Effects. We’re still using the same notification sounds that shipped with Mac OS X back in 2001. Many of these are the same sounds that shipped with Mac OS 9 and earlier. Apple produces two of the coolest sound editing/creation apps with Soundtrack Pro and Logic. Would it have killed them to refresh the system alert sounds?

So, in my quest to write a “Top 10 Snow Leopard Grievances” article, I could only come up with seven. I think that speaks volumes about how polished Snow Leopard is. Although I’ve been a huge supporter of every Mac OS X release to date, I can honestly say, this one is the most polished operating system releases by any company producing said product.

Category: Opinion

Snow Leopard ships August 28th

The cat is out of the bag (excuse the pun), and yes, Snow Leopard will be shipping on Friday, August 28th.

If you haven’t ordered your copy yet, you can help us out by using the link below to order Snow Leopard from Amazon.com.

Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Family Pack (5-User)

Of course, if you bought a new Mac after June 8th 2009, you can get Snow Leopard through Apple’s Up-To-Date program for $9.99.

Category: News, Software

Ask OS X Factor

Q: I am constantly fat fingering “Command – Escape”, which invokes Front Row. It’s irritating. Any way I can disable Front Row?

A: The best solution is to just disable the keyboard shortcut for Front Row. To do this, open System Preferences, go to Keyboard & Mouse and click on the “Keyboard Shortcuts” tab.

The very first option is “Hide and Show Front Row” . Uncheck the “on” check box, and you’re finished.

Category: Tutorial

MobileMe iDisk iPhone App

The long awaited/rumored MobileMe iDisk iPhone application is now available in the App Store. The app itself is free of charge, while MobileMe will set you back $99/year (Amazon has the 2008 boxed edition, which is still a valid sign up code, for only $58, which is a great bargain. Click here for OS X Factor supported link).

Category: News