macOS Archive

Consistency in UI Design Is Now ‘Boring, Old-fashioned, Stodgy’

Thom Holwerda 2011-01-07 macOS 98 Comments

Remember the good old days? The good old days when people cried loads of foul over the inconsistency in the Windows user interface? You know, applications deviating from the norm - with even Microsoft seemingly doing whatever pleased them? This was considered a huge problem, especially by those from the Macintosh and Apple camp. Oh, how the times have changed.

Mac OS X 10.6.6 Updates Security, Introduces App Store

Submitted by HAL2001 2011-01-06 macOS 6 Comments

"Apple today released Mac OS X 10.6.6 which which increases the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac. What's also very important in this release is the introduction of the long-awaited Mac App Store with more than 1,000 free and paid apps. The Mac App Store offers apps in a variety of categories. Users can browse new and noteworthy apps, find out what’s hot, see staff favorites, search categories and look up top charts for paid and free apps, as well as user ratings and reviews." Anyone else bothered by the incredibly shoddy user interface? What the heck is up with the entirely messed up placement of the titlebar widgets? If you ever needed proof the Mac OS X team has become a ghost town thanks to iOS, this is it.

TotalFinder Fixes the Finder

Thom Holwerda 2010-12-21 macOS 67 Comments

It's a public secret that there are many people with complaints about Mac OS X's Finder. It lacks several features common to other file managers, and on top of that, it has several issues with dealing with some types of network shares (SAMBA, specifically). While third parties can't fix the bugs, they can extend the Finder's feature set. TotalFinder is a collection of Finder extensions that tries to bring some of Google Chrome's interface ideas to the Finder. BinaryAge was kind enough to provide me with a free license so I could give a quick review of TotalFinder.

Mac App Store Opens on January 6

Thom Holwerda 2010-12-17 macOS 6 Comments

"Apple announced on Thursday that its Mac App Store will open in three weeks, on Thursday, January 6. The Mac App Store is designed to offer Mac OS X users a simplified purchase, download, and installation experience similar to that of the App Store for iOS."

Submitted by jebb 2010-12-16 macOS 14 Comments

In two recent columns, JLG analysed why iOS may well replace OS X, as well as why it may not be such a good idea after all. "So: Now that I've taken both sides - yes, iOS will be the Apple OS; No, it won't - what do I really believe? I think it's a matter of numbers and layers of software silt. The lure of a fresh start, of a born again OS that I evoked two weeks ago will be too strong. Over time, iOS version 7 or 10 will become the operating system that runs inside most Apple computing devices."

Saurik To Launch Mac Cydia

Thom Holwerda 2010-12-14 macOS 37 Comments

Hi, I'm Thom Holwerda and I jailbreak my iPhone. There, I said it. Some suggest all jailbreakers only do it to pirate applications, but those of us familiar with the practice know there's a whole load of other reasons, the biggest of which is customisation. The iOS isn't pleasing to look at in my book, and hence, jailbreaking allows me to make my iPhone pretty. Jay 'saurik' Freeman, the man behind the Cydia App Store, is going to bring Cydia to the Mac, to bring the kind of customisation options from Cydia to the Mac.

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-11-12 macOS 32 Comments

The jokes about two evils joining up are easily made, but I'll try to refrain. Apple recently marked its Java implementation as deprecated. Well, we now know why: Apple and Oracle have announced that Apple will contribute to the OpenJDK project, effectively meaning that Java for Mac OS X will be developed by the OpenJDK community. Why do I have this image in my head?

Mac OS X 10.6.5 Released

Thom Holwerda 2010-11-10 macOS 27 Comments

"As expected, Apple has released Mac OS X 10.6.5, the fifth update to its Snow Leopard operating system. The update brings a number of fixes for a wide variety of issues, including printing problems, Exchange compatibility, and improved graphics drivers that 'address stability and performance of graphics applications and games'." For the first time in a long time, I get to install a new Mac OS X update. My new MacBook Air 11.6" arrived two days ago!

USB3 Arrives for Mac OS X Thanks to LaCie

Guest post by fran 2010-11-04 macOS 31 Comments

Steve Jobs recently told a Mac user, enquiring about the probability of USB3 on Macs in the near feature, that the technology is not ready because Intel has yet to adopt the platform. A recent rumour slated Intel to integrate USB3 it into its chipsets by no earlier than 2012. LaCie electronics, however, is not prepared to wait around until 2012, and has just released an USB3.0 driver for Mac OS X. Just one catch: it only works with LaCie's hardware.

Java Trojan Attempts to Attack Mac OS X, Fails

Thom Holwerda 2010-10-27 macOS 42 Comments

It's one of those days again. A supposed security threat appears, and the internet loses its collective brain and starts panicking like Alpha and Omega's kingdom come. This time around, it's a trojan horse thing (it's a trojan, worm, and root kit all in one, though) that targets Mac OS X and Windows. As it turns out, though, the threat this thing poses is not very large (at this point in time).

Submitted by Radio 2010-10-21 macOS 24 Comments

"No surprise that Apple's new Mac App Store has a similar set of rules and regulations as the iPhone App Store, and we just got the full list. There's nothing here that's too different from the iPhone review guidelines, but it all seems terribly odd when applied to a regular computer, and some of the more restrictive policies have already drawn ire from developers like Mozilla's Director of Firefox Mike Beltzner, who says the restriction against beta code won't work well with the Mozilla 'open beta' development process."

Apple To Remove Java from Mac OS X?

Thom Holwerda 2010-10-21 macOS 127 Comments

After the news that the new MacBook Airs do not ship with Flash pre-installed (which is news considering Flash has been part of Mac OS X for a very long time), we now have news that Apple is also taking what appears to be the first steps towards removing Apple's own Java runtime from Mac OS X.

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-09-14 macOS 12 Comments

"Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac launched today with a number of new features and refinements for users looking to run alternative operating systems in virtual environments on their Macs. As summarized on Parallels' site, the update brings enhancements to gaming and graphics, simpler setup and integration, greater manageability and mobility, and better performance. Beyond improvements to the standard Parallels Desktop application for Mac OS X, the company has also released a new, free iOS application, Parallels Mobile, bringing remote access on the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to users running the desktop software."

Ars Technica: Mac OS X Public Beta Repost

Thom Holwerda 2010-09-13 macOS 2 Comments

"For the vast majority of Mac users, the September 13, 2000 appearance of the Mac OS X Public Beta was the first glimpse of Apple's attempt to produce a modern operating system. Hop in the Classic.Ars time machine and check out John Siracusa's original review of the Mac OS X Public Beta." I've read all Siracusa's Mac OS X reviews in one day once. Very much worth it.

Submitted by REM2000 2010-06-15 macOS 12 Comments

From the apple site: "The 10.6.4 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard. It includes Safari 5 and general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that: resolve an issue that causes the keyboard or trackpad to become unresponsive, resolve an issue that may prevent some Adobe Creative Suite 3 applications from opening, address issues copying, renaming, or deleting files on SMB file servers, improve reliability of VPN connections, resolve a playback issue in DVD Player when using Good Quality deinterlacing, resolve an issue editing photos with iPhoto or Aperture in full screen view, improve compatibility with some braille display."

Xcode UI Improvements

Thom Holwerda 2010-06-03 macOS 9 Comments

"Xcode is a fantastic development environment for developing Mac, iPhone, and iPad applications. But it has some areas for improvement. In this post, I'll explore some improvements to how documentation and autocompletion is integrated into the development workflow and how Xcode could provide specialized interfaces for working with system frameworks."

Jobs: No Mac OS X App Store

Thom Holwerda 2010-04-26 macOS 46 Comments

Over the weekend, a rumour spread like wildfire through Apple and Mac circles which stated that starting with Mac OS X 10.7, Apple would introduce the App Store model to the Mac, allowing only Apple-approved applications to run. It became apparent to me right away that this was a load of nonsense, and for once, I was right: Steve Jobs has personally dismissed the rumour.

Mac OS X 10.6.3 Released

Thom Holwerda 2010-03-29 macOS 6 Comments

Apple has released Mac OS X 10.6.3. "Apple on Monday released Mac OS X 10.6.3, the latest software update to its Snow Leopard operating system, bringing improvements in the reliability and compatibility of QuickTime X and addressing compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications."

Submitted by poundsmack 2010-01-20 macOS 6 Comments

The Mac version of BumpTop, the 3D desktop which shipped for Windows last year, has been released. It more or less works the same as the Windows version, but with lots of Mac-specific features and looks. It also supports multitouch gestures on Apple's trackpads.

VLC for Mac Death “Greatly Exaggerated”

Thom Holwerda 2009-12-17 macOS 44 Comments

Late last night (CET), we reported on the story that the VLC project needed more developers for the Mac version of this popular video player, or else the Mac variant may disappear. Just about every website out there reported on this issue, but it turns out it all got a bit exaggerated (on the internet? Surely you jest...). We spoke to VLC developer Pierre d'Herbemont to clarify the issue, and they've also put up a wiki page about the so-called demise of the Mac version of VLC. He also detailed what, exactly, they meant by "Apple is blocking us".