Is Apple preparing to sell standalone backlit keyboards?

This should probably be taken with a very large grain of salt, but several sites are speculating that Apple might be preparing to sell standalone backlit keyboards. MacGeneration points out that there are ambient light sensors on the new iMacs, similar to what is found on the MacBook Pro. 9to5Mac goes a bit further and provides a screencap, seen above, of System Preferences showing the option to illuminate keyboards in low-light situations.

9to5Mac is a bit skeptical on the keyboards and guesses that one too many options was copied over from the latest MacBook Pro release, but the site adds that any sort of backlit keyboard from Apple would be considered a winner. Would you want to see a backlit keyboard for Apple’s desktops? Let us know in the comments!

[Via Macgasm]

Is Apple preparing to sell standalone backlit keyboards? originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 22:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Voice Brief for iPhone is updated with some welcome new features

I first reviewed Voice Brief in March. The app uses a synthesized voice to read your email, Twitter feed, Facebook, the current weather, stock prices you follow, and some RSS feeds that you choose. I liked the app and said it had great potential but needed some updated features.

Today it has some of those new features, and they are worthwhile improvements.The new version integrates with your alarm clock so can wake you up to the latest news and weather. It supports Google Reader and improves linking with RSS feeds. It now allows integration with multiple calendars and allows a musical selection to function as a bridge between topics. There are also some bug fixes that should make the app more stable, although I didn’t find any issues with the original version.

Voice Brief is not a small app. It weighs in at 271 MB because all the voice files are on your iPhone. The next update will add a fresh GUI and improved mail account support. The current version only supports Apple’s built in mail and Gmail. I always thought Voice Brief would be great if it was combined with the Siri app, which has powerful search and speech recognition, but it doesn’t talk. Apple has bought Siri, and it’s likely to be part of the iPhone OS at some point in the future, so I expect lots of upgrades.

Voice Brief is US$3.99 at the app store, and you can see a video of the app in action here.

Voice Brief for iPhone is updated with some welcome new features originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 21:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iSuppli: Apple will snag 76% of app download market in 2011

Yesterday, iSuppli released new projections for the app download market. In those projections, iSuppli stated that Apple will snag 76% of the app download market in 2011. That market share will garner Apple $2.91 billion in revenue. iSuppli, of course, attributes Apple’s app download market share to the popularity of its iOS devices.

However, as more Android phones flood the market, Apple’s app download market share is expected to decline in future years. But that decline isn’t enough to knock the Cupertino company out of the top spot. By 2014, Apple will still command 60% of the app download market, iSuppli estimated.

In breaking down the download numbers for 2011, iSuppli expects Apple’s App Store to have the most downloads at 10.3 billion, followed by Google’s Android Marketplace with 5.8 billion downloads. Next comes Nokia’s Ovi Store with 1.1 billion downloads, followed by BlackBerry’s App World with 772 million downloads.

[via MacRumors]

iSuppli: Apple will snag 76% of app download market in 2011 originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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10.7 Lion upgrades expected to come via Mac App Store

It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the Mac App Store is likely to be the preferred method for installing and updating OS X 10.7 Lion. AppleInsider reports that the next version of Mac OS X is going to ship digitally via the MAS, with optical media available as a backup for users on slow connections.

This approach solves the thorny issue faced by MacBook Air owners of upgrading the OS, and also keeps with Apple’s theme of moving away from physical media as its primary means of distribution and eventually eliminating optical drives on most of its machines.

Will this mean that Lion will forsake disc-based distribution completely? Not entirely. There’s still plenty of people willing to hand Apple money for an disc-based OS upgrade, and the company wouldn’t turn this revenue source down.

AI’s source tells them that a disc will be available for those without broadband or who don’t want to use the Mac App Store. I fully expect Apple also to offer USB drives with Lion on them for sale, just like the ones included with MacBook Airs with Snow Leopard on them. I’m surprised that they’re not selling them now for Snow Leopard, actually.

What Apple will most likely do is charge a premium for buying physical media — akin to what happens now with Aperture. Aperture through the Apple retail site is $199, but it’s $79.99 on the Mac App Store. The price difference will probably be big enough that it will nudge a good many users toward buying Lion via the Mac App Store. I expect that by Mac OS X 10.8 in a couple of years, disc distribution of Mac OSes will disappear completely.

10.7 Lion upgrades expected to come via Mac App Store originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Hearst and Apple come to terms on subscriptions

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Hearst and Apple have come to an agreement over iPad magazine subscriptions. According to the WSJ, Hearst will begin selling a range of its magazines through iTunes for US$1.99 an issue or US $19.99 for an annual subscription.

Three magazines will kick off the new subscription deal this July; Esquire, Popular Mechanics and O, The Oprah Magazine. Hearst also stated that it will begins selling newspaper subscriptions through the iPad later this year.

I’ve written about magazines on the iPad several times in the past and I, like many of our readers, have been baffled at the high prices magazine publishers have until now chosen to charge. With the Hearst announcement representing some of the best magazine deals on the iPad yet, hopefully other publishers will soon fall in line. But while I do think the Hearst subscription deal is a good thing for both publishers and consumers, I’m still holding on to the belief that there needs to be a unified iNewstand store before newspaper and magazine sales really take off on the iPad. Price-wise, however, today’s news is a good start.

Hearst and Apple come to terms on subscriptions originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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AppleCrate II parallel computer made from Apple IIe motherboards

In what’s probably the coolest custom-built machine I’ve seen in ages, computer enthusiast Michael J. Mahon has built a parallel computer made out of 17 Apple IIe motherboards.

As you can see the “AppleCrate II” looks like a big crate of motherboards stacked on top of each other — and that’s pretty much what it is, along with some very clever networking and custom boot code.

This is actually his second computer built using old Apple motherboards. The first we covered five years ago; it also used spare Apple IIe boards, although those were a slightly different version.

I’ll let the image of Mahon’s latest creation speak for itself, but if you’ve got some extra motherboards and some free time, Mahon details how he built his latest wonder over on his website.

What’s it good for? Well, in addition to blinking its status lights like a Cylon, it can play Beatles songs in 16-part polyphony — so that’s something.

[via BoingBoing]

AppleCrate II parallel computer made from Apple IIe motherboards originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple hires THX inventor to head up audio projects

Apple has reportedly hired the inventor of THX to head up all its audio projects, Leo Laporte said. Earlier today Laporte tweeted “I have it on good authority that Tomlinson Holman (of THX fame) is joining Apple to run audio. Major upgrade.”

Holman is a legend in the audio industry. Among his achievements are winning an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2002 and inventing the first 10.2 surround sound system. However, Holman is best known for being the chief inventor of Lucasfilm’s THX theater sound system. No word yet on what specific projects Holman will be working on at Apple, but I, for one, would love to see the Apple startup chime replaced with the THX sound effect.

Is it a coincidence that this move of a former Skywalker Ranch-hand comes to light on Star Wars Day? Hard to know, but all we can say to Tom Holman is “May the Fourth be with you.”

[via GigaOM]

Apple hires THX inventor to head up audio projects originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Antitrust class action lawsuit filed against Apple, others over anti-poaching agreements

The law firm of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein has announced that they have filed a class action lawsuit against Apple and other major tech companies on behalf of a Lucasfilm employee. The lawsuit alleges that the tech companies took part in illegal “no solicitation” agreements that barred them from poaching each others employees. These anti-poaching agreements led to “eliminate competition and cap pay for skilled employees” according to the lawsuit.

MacRumors notes that in addition to Apple, the suit names Adobe, Google, Intel, Intuit, Lucasfilm, and Pixar as defendants. Former Lucasfilm software engineer Siddharth Hariharan said in a statement, “My colleagues at Lucasfilm and I applied our skills, knowledge, and creativity to make the company an industry leader. It’s disappointing that, while we were working hard to make terrific products that resulted in enormous profits for Lucasfilm, senior executives of the company cut deals with other premiere high tech companies to eliminate competition and cap pay for skilled employees.”

The lawsuit goes on to say the the anti-poaching agreements first took place among Pixar and Lucasfilm in 2005. Shortly thereafter, Apple, Adobe, Google, Intel, and Intuit all joined in. The anti-poaching agreements were allegedly in place until 2009.

Antitrust class action lawsuit filed against Apple, others over anti-poaching agreements originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW TV "Not so live": Remotes, cases, and keyboards

Both today and next Wednesday, I’ll be away from my messy studio during TUAW TV Live. But that doesn’t mean that fans of the show have to go without their weekly fix. I’ve whipped up a couple of nice HD episodes that you can watch in my absence.

What’s the topic of today’s show? Well, think of it as the Apple version of the Home Shopping Network, since I’m demonstrating a bunch of new devices – the cool Peel Universal Remote Control, the not-so-cool Apptwee Ri remote, the new iChair case for iPhone 4 and the flexible and water-resistant Scosche freeKEY Bluetooth keyboard.

You won’t need to jump over to Ustream to watch today’s show. Instead, just click the read more link at the bottom of this post to see the video in all of its HD glory, or visit YouTube for more viewing options. If you need a chat with the rest of the TUAW TV Live regulars to make it through the week, why not scoot on over to the TUAW TV Live Facebook page and see what’s going on. You can also subscribe to the video podcast to watch this and other episodes at your leisure.

Many thanks to Uri Kelman for creating the temporary logo for the show!

Continue reading TUAW TV “Not so live”: Remotes, cases, and keyboards

TUAW TV “Not so live”: Remotes, cases, and keyboards originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 17:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Use SSH scripts to share Safari tabs between two Macs

Our own Brett Terpstra developed two SSH scripts that let you share Safari browser tabs between multiple Macs. This method is perfect for those Mac users with an iMac or a Mac Pro as their main work machine and a Mac laptop as a secondary machine for checking email, instant messaging or light browsing. You know the scenario – an email with your updated project timetable lands in your inbox which is running on your MacBook. You open it in a tab and want to send it your Mac Pro where you have been immersed in work-related research all morning. This pair of tab-sharing scripts lets you do just that.

The scripts run over SSH to pull the browser tabs from the front Safari window on one machine to another when the two Macs are on the same network. The scripts can be run remotely, but there are not too many scenarios that prompt you to sync tabs from your home computer while you are working remotely.

The procedure requires you to setup keyless SSH between the Macs and to modify or create a ~/.ssh/config file on each machine that will receive the tabs. You also have to setup a remotetabs.rb script on the machine that is the source of the browser tabs and the getremotetabs.rb on the recipient machine.

If SSH files and config files pique your interest, then point your browser here for all the nitty-gritty details. What are you waiting for? Roll up your sleeves, flex your scripting skills and start sharing Safari tabs back and forth between your Macs.

Use SSH scripts to share Safari tabs between two Macs originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Autoblog’s new app to help you obsess about the auto industry

Autoblog App

Today, Autoblog finally released its iPhone app, bringing together three of the car site’s main components (and a new debut) into a central location. The free app provides up-to-the-minute auto industry news from Autoblog, fuel-efficient car news from AutoblogGreen, tech-related vehicle news from Translogic and, for the first time on a mobile device, new car buying data through the “Aol. Best Deals” service. Try using it the next time you visit a dealership.

As the editor-in-chief of AutoblogGreen (yes, I do more than just review board game apps on TUAW, and TUAW and Autoblog are both AOL properties), I can’t objectively review this app. Instead, I’ll run down the list of features and, since it’s free, interested readers should check out the app themselves and share your reviews in the comments below.

The highlight here is, of course, having quick and easy access to Autoblog news in a dedicated app. Sure, the iPhone has long been able to access the regular and mobile versions of these sites, but the app formats them in an easy-to-read manner that also offers one-touch access to the sites’ picture galleries and videos.

Of course, like most good blogs, part of the experience is participating, and the app offers a really easy way to send in a tip. If you see something great while you’re out and about, you can also send Autoblog a picture through the app. Another nifty feature? You can save blog posts to the app for offline reading, kind of like a built-in Instapaper. It’s also possible to stream any of the Autoblog podcasts through the app, so if you don’t want to fill up your iPhone with downloaded files, now you don’t have to.

There are some capabilities from the regular sites missing from the app: not all categories are represented in the “Topics” tab, for example. More important, you can’t comment on posts (yet). Also, the app is formatted for the iPhone, and so displays at 2x on the iPad. That means I wouldn’t bother with this app on the iPad; instead I’ll keep using Mobile Safari to get my auto industry news.

Sounds good? Check out the free app yourself here.

Autoblog’s new app to help you obsess about the auto industry originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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TUAW’s Daily Mac App: PinPoint

PinPoint

Have you ever lost your cursor on your screen? Do you do lots of screen-sharing demonstrations? How would you like an app that puts some customizable animations around your cursor to help you or your audience spot it?

PinPoint is an app that does just that — it puts a circling animated highlight around your cursor. The app comes with different animations, from circling lines to dog paw prints, each with a plethora of options. The full-screen crosshairs, for example, are particularly useful if you’re trying to make precise adjustments to graphics or layouts. You can even create your own custom animation using an image file, something that could be great for branding presentations or screenshots.

Several activation options are also available, whether you want it on all the time or just when the cursor is moved. PinPoint can also show your keystrokes in an on-screen pop-up with the option to limit it to just modifier keys. A menu bar icon acts as an indicator to show you whether PinPoint is turned on or off, which you can do with a keyboard shortcut.

If you’re prone to losing your cursor on the screen, waving the mouse around like a madman trying to spot where it is, PinPoint will certainly help. Likewise, if you’re someone who does demonstrations of applications on the Mac, being able to highlight cursor and keyboard input could be a real boon. PinPoint is available in the Mac App Store for US$2.99.

TUAW’s Daily Mac App: PinPoint originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Macworld publishes first round of benchmark results for new iMac

Macworld posted the results of its first benchmark tests for the newly updated family of iMacs this morning. The publication’s tests found Apple’s latest iMacs to be generally faster than previous iMacs, although certain build-to-order (BTO) models from 2010 still outperformed the new family of iMacs in some tests.

The new top-of-the-line, quad-core 3.1 GHz i5 iMac bested the previous high-end model, a quad-core 2.8 GHz i5 iMac, in every test. Notably, the 3.1 GHz iMac performed 16% faster in the Speedmark 6.5 test and 22% faster in Macworld’s iTunes encode test.

The results were mixed when comparing the new iMac to powerfully configured BTO models from last year. When pitted against a quad-core 2.93 GHz Core i7 BTO iMac from 2010, the new 3.1 GHz iMac performed about equivalently in the Speedmark test but fell short in applications like Cinebench and MathematicaMark. The older, i7-based iMac offered Hyper Threading, a technology that virtually doubled the number of processor cores seen by the operating system; apps that took advantage of this technology worked better on the older machine.

When compared to a dual-core 3.6 GHz i5 BTO iMac from 2010, the current 3.1 Ghz iMac edged out its older relative by 14% in overall performance and finished tasks in Mathematica, an app that makes use of multiple processing cores, up to 67% faster. In many cases, however, the faster clock speed of the older machine helped it complete certain tasks more quickly.

Overall, the new iMacs seem to offer generally better performance in a more affordable package. But, if you frequently use software optimized for fast clock speeds or Hyper Threading technology and don’t need any of the new gadgetry in the newest machines, it may be worth tracking down a 2010 BTO iMac with a 3.6 GHz i5 or 2.93 GHz i7 inside.

Macworld publishes first round of benchmark results for new iMac originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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iOS 4.3.3 available, contains changes to location database

ios 4.3.3 update

As it said it would do, Apple has made some changes to how it stores and manages the “iOS crowd-sourced location database cache.” In particular, it reduces the size of the cache, doesn’t back it up to iTunes and deletes the cache when you disable Location Services. Apple came under fire for storing all of your location data and this addresses the bug.

This update is for iPhone 4 (GSM model), 3GS, the iPad 2 and 1st-gen iPad, iPod touch (4th and 3rd generation). Go get it by connecting your iOS device to iTunes and checking for updates.

We’re likely to see updates for developers soon, if history is any indication. Also, iOS 4.2.8 is available for Verizon iPhone 4’s, with the same changes to the location database.

iOS 4.3.3 available, contains changes to location database originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 13:35:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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New iMacs and HDD+SSD configurations; how do they work?

MacStories points out there is a small, but perhaps important, difference in the “SSD+HDD” option on the new iMacs. You used to simply get two drives you had to manage separately, as in the screenshot here taken from my MacBook Pro (in which I long ago swapped the optical drive for an SSD). For the new models though, Apple now specifically states: “if you configure your iMac with both the solid-state drive and a Serial ATA hard drive, it will come preformatted with Mac OS X and all your applications on the solid-state drive. Then you can use the hard drive for videos, photos, and other files.

This may suggest a change from the older models, where the SSD came with OS X installed on it but the HDD was blank. As OS X helpfully stores various files under your /Users folder, this (by default) ended up on the SSD. Users had to take special action to put files on the HDD instead of the SSD. There’s been some speculation that Apple would do something different in these new devices, perhaps by placing the OS on the SSD and mounting /Users on the HDD to try and give users the best of both worlds.

As someone who has a hybrid setup exactly like this today, it strikes me as a rather un-Apple solution because it’s fiddly, complex, and it requires the user to stop and think on a regular basis. I use a 64 GB SSD as my boot volume and /Users/rich on the boot volume is a symlink (note: see update at the end of this post) onto the 500 GB HDD unit. My OS X install, my /Applications folder, and my Aperture library are all on the solid state drive; pretty much everything else, like my Aperture masters, iTunes library, and so on are on the magnetic drive.

This isn’t a bad compromise, but it’s still hard to look after.

Continue reading New iMacs and HDD+SSD configurations; how do they work?

New iMacs and HDD+SSD configurations; how do they work? originally appeared on TUAW on Wed, 04 May 2011 13:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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