Apple Archive

Being the brains behind Microsoft has made Bill Gates the wealthiest guy in the world. So he can pretty much afford to buy his kids any gadgets they want. However, Apple devices are banned in the Gates’ house. This is surprisingly not a rule set by Bill Gates. Melinda Gates has made it very clear in an interview with The New York Times that she does not allow Apple hardware in the house. If the kids want an iPod they’ll have to settle for a Zune instead.

So, Apple held its usual autumn press get-together just now, and after a few rather uninspiring ones (to me, at least), they finally managed to blow me away, with the new MacBook Air (especially the 11.6" variant). They also gave a sneak peek at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which has... An App Store. An App Store Apple is going to open on Snow Leopard within 90 days.

In this day and age of iOS this and iPad that you'd nearly forget it, but the gadget maker from Cupertino actually makes personal computers and an accompanying operating system as well. It's been nearly three years since the last substantial release, so it's about time: Apple has just announced a press event titled 'Back to Mac', with a lion on the invite.

Let me tell you, when what you teach and develop every day has the title "Innovation" attached to it, you reach a point where you tire of hearing about Apple. Without question, nearly everyone believes the equation Apple = Innovation is a fundamental truth--akin to the second law of thermodynamics, Boyle's Law, or Moore's Law. But ask these same people if they understand exactly how Apple comes up with their ideas and what approach the company uses to develop blockbuster products--whether it is a fluky phenomenon or based on a repeatable set of governing principles--and you mostly get a dumbfounded stare. This response is what frustrates me most, because people worship what they don't understand.

I love OSNews, but it does seem like some of its editors enjoy just a little too much taking a good natured jab at Apple upon occasion (well, more like every chance that particular editor can get). I thought it time for a little good news and analysis about Apple that critics often overlook.

The iPhone jailbreak community is on a roll lately. Not only did the US Library of Congress do the right thing by adding the jailbreaking DMCA exemption, the two major jailbreak application stores - Rock and Cydia - will merge into one. Cydia will acquire Rock, an all Rock applications will be moved into Cydia. There's also some impressive statistics in here that indicate just how popular jailbreaking really is.

Very good news out of Cupertino just now. It took quite a bit of negative press, but Apple has finally caved in: the company is dropping its restriction on third-party development tools for iOS. Also, the company has published all its App Store review guidelines out in the open for the first time. It took a little too long, but very good news nonetheless.

"Yesterday's release of iOS 4.1 was good news for iPhone gamers and iPhone 3G owners who had performance issues post-4.0, but bad news for jailbreakers, with the Dev Team themselves warning users not to upgrade to 4.1 as there was no known way to reverse the baseband post-update. As usual, though, what's true in the cat-and-mouse jailbreaking scene one day is not true the other, and now there's good news for jailbreakers, at least in theory. iPhone hacker pod2g has revealed on Twitter that he has successfully discovered a new bootrom exploit, and even better: all the new iOS hardware including the iPhone 4 and new iPod Touch is vulnerable to it."

"By now, most iTunes users have already downloaded and installed iTunes 10. We've already given you the low-down on the biggest addition to the new version of iTunes - the Ping social network - but we also wanted to give our impressions on two 'improvements' promised in the release notes: look-and-feel and performance. While we agree that iTunes is 'faster and more responsive', we're not sold on the revised user interface." Vertical window titlebar widgets? Can't we just take this thing 'round back and put a bullet between its eyes? We'd be doing everyone a favour.

Ping would have been a great thing for Apple to have done about 3-4 years ago, but at this point, the Social Networking thing has pretty much played itself out, picked its winners, and we've all moved on. Apple went to all the trouble to make a deal with a golf company, and all we got was a third rate social network? First of all, in what is probably just a temporary setback, Ping is choked with spam, but more importantly, it's just a sucky social network.

A whole lot of Apple news of course, but we've never really done music players or streaming devices, so let's skip the barrage of new iPods and the new Apple TV (streaming-only? Fail). The real meat is of course iOS 4.1 and 4.2, both of which were detailed during today's press event.

"When it comes to Apple products, the iPad and the iPhone get all the headlines. But in recent years, the company's Macintosh line of computers has enjoyed a remarkable revival that has been vital to Apple's emergence as the most valued technology company on Wall Street. In the latest sign of that comeback, Autodesk plans to announce on Tuesday that it is bringing its flagship AutoCAD design and engineering software to the Mac for the first time in nearly two decades."

"Apple has released security updates for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad to address flaws in both PDF handling and I/O - these flaws had been exploited recently to create a Web-based jailbreak for the company's portable devices. iOS 4.0.2 is available via iTunes for the iPhone and iPod touch, and iOS 3.2.2 patches the flaw for iPad owners."

So, now that jailbreaking is easier than ever, right now is probably the best time to dive into the vast array of possibilities that lay ahead in shackle-free land. I've already tricked my iPhone out pretty substantially, but there's always somewhere further you can go. Yes, Flash had already been ported to the iPad, and now the iPhone has received the Flash treatment as well. Jailbreaking required, naturally.