Apple Reporter

Safari, whether we like it or not, is the Internet Explorer of Macs. No, I don’t mean that it is buggy and unreliable like Internet Explorer, instead it I mean that it is bundled with all Macs. Many people are not Internet Explorer fans, and so they have switched to different browsers. Many of these switchers switch to Firefox for increased security and speed, and on the Mac it is no different.

Firefox 3.0 RC (Release Candidate) 1 was released yesterday. Potentially, this could be Firefox 3 or if changes are needed, the first in many RCs. From the release notes:

“Released: May 16, 2008

This Firefox 3 Release Candidate is a preview release of Mozilla’s next generation Firefox browser and is being made available for testing purposes only.

Preview releases are published to collect feedback from Web developers and our testing community before advancing to the next stage in the release process. The final version of Firefox 3 will be released when we qualify the product as fully ready for our users. Users of the latest released version of Firefox should not expect all of their add-ons to work properly with this preview release.

Please see below for an extensive list of features and enhancements found in Firefox 3, as well as known issues and frequently asked questions. As always, we appreciate your feedback either through this feedback form or by filing a bug in Bugzilla.”

New features in Firefox 3 include:

• Gecko 1.9: A new graphics layout engine used to improve standards compliance.
• Themes for each OS: Mac OS X, Linux, Windows XP, Windows Vista
• Redesigned download manager, bookmark system, password manager, plug-in manager, and others.

Firefox 3.0RC1 is available for download here. Remember, this is a test release! Use at your own risk!

It’s been out for only 6 days, and already the iPhone/iPod Touch firmware version 1.1.3 has been jailbroken by the iPhone Dev Team. According to Jonathan Zdziarski, the developer of the NES.app application for the iPhone and iPod touch and also a member of the iPhone Dev Team, the jailbreak is software-based and was created by himself and six other members. From Jonathan’s page:

“I wasn’t going to post anything, but since there is a lot of confusion surrounding the 1.1.3 jailbreak, I thought I’d clear a few misconceptions up. The iPhone-Elite team and the iPhone/iTouch Dev teams have recently merged and collaborated on a software jailbreak for v1.1.3. I’ve posted some screenshots here and here. Overall, it took the work of about seven members, including myself, to craft this jailbreak - it was a true team effort. It has been previously speculated that this followed up a previous hardware jailbreak, but this is not the case. The software method we used involves some fancy command-line work, however a few other team members have already begun writing scripts to perform most of the difficult stuff, dramatically reducing the amount of time and brain power you’ll need to invest. As to why it hasn’t been released yet, we’re actually a bit torn about the subject. Some of us would like to see it released, but at the end of the day it really does make sense to hang onto the method until next month when Apple’s SDK is released.

According to the post, the jailbreak will apparently not be released soon, apparently not until past the SDK is released (end of February). This could be disappointing for those who upgraded to the 1.1.3 firmware from jailbroken devices, but we can hope that when the SDK is released there will be no need for jailbreak applications.

The last jailbreak for the iPhone and iPod Touch was 1.1.2, which required a downgrade to 1.1.1 and back to 1.1.2. There was also a variety of methods to jailbreak the iPhone and iPod Touch after this, including the TIFF exploit in Safari. With the 1.1.3 update, Apple has made it more difficult to jailbreak the devices, not unlike the catch-up game that PSP users are playing with Sony right now.

[via iPhone Atlas]

So here we are. It’s time for Macworld 2008. Refresh your browsers and get ready for an exciting morning. The keynote starts at 9 AM PST.

8:15 AM: People are beginning to get press badges for the keynote. No one has been allowed in yet, as far as I know.

8:50 AM: Press is about to be let in to the Center.

9:00 AM: People are in the Center now, Coldplay playing while we wait for the Stevester.

9:05 AM: Starting the keynote in a minute or so..

9:13 AM: Lights beginning to dim.

9:14: Get a Mac Ad playing..

9:14: Steve is on stage, talking about Leopard selling 5 million copies, almost 20% of installed base has upgraded.

9:17: Microsoft Office 2008 is shipping as of today.

9:19: Time Machine is good, but not good enough for notebooks. New product announced: Time Capsule

9:19: Time Capsule is Airport Express with build in hard drive for backups.

9:20: Two versions announced: 500 gb - $299, 1 TB - $499.

9:20: Showing Mac/PC ad for Time Machine

9:21: Second thing: iPhone

9:21: iPhone been out on market for 200 days, 4 million sold. 20,000 sold per day average

9:23: iPhone holds around 20% of Smartphone market in US

9:25: Talking about SDK coming out in February, “we wanted to give everybody something today too”… New features announced: Web Clips, Maps with GPS location, home screen customization.. etc, (just like 1.1.3 firmware)

9:28: Still demoing all the different features, SMS texting, etc.

9:30: Showing “Add to home screen” feature

9:31: Up to 9 Webclips on your home screen at a time

9:33: Showing off Locate Me feature on Google Maps, uses Google and Skyhook wireless

9:34: Update 1.1.3 is available today.
9:35: Mail, Maps, Stocks, Notes, and Weather are now available for iPod Touch (finally). $20 upgrade for iPod Touch users (WTF?)

9:35: Third Thing: iTunes

9:36: 4 billion songs sold as of last week, 20 million sold on Christmas day. 125 million TV shows sold. 7 million movies.

>

9:37: iTunes Movie Rentals

9:38: Every major movie studio is on board, Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, Newline, Fox, WB, Disney, Paramount, Universal, Sony.

9:40: Over 1000 movies available. Watch on Macs, PCs. all iPods and iPhones on the market.

9:40: Watch the movies instantly.

9:41: Library titles are $2.99, New Releases $3.99.

9:42: Launches today in U.S., International is later in the year. Updates will follow for iPods/iPhones and iTunes.

9:45: Apple TV take two, no computer requirement, rent movies, DVD and HD + 5.1 Surround sound. Audio and Video podcasts, and photos from Flickr (woo) and .Mac.

9:46: Syncs with iTunes, HD rentals are $4.99, 100 titles available today

9:47: Showing demo of Apple TV

9:49: Preview movies from interface, see what other renters of that movie have rented.

9:51: Showing a scene from Die Hard, third time we’ve seen Justin Long today.

9:52: Searching through iTunes Movies

9:53: Showing off new UI for Apple TV

9:56: Showing Photos feature, stream directly off of .Mac servers

9:58: Showing Flickr on Apple TV, really nice looking.

10:00: Flickr causing some technical difficulties.. demo is now over, reviewing the features

10:01: Apple TV update is a free software update. Price has been dropped $70 to $229. New software update will be out in two weeks.

10:02: Welcoming CEO of Fox to stage, Jim Gianopulos.

10:05: Apple is reinventing the movie rental model

10:07: Talking about DVDs, Family Guy DVD has a iTunes compatible copy.

10:07: Stevester is back on stage.

10:08: Fourth Thing: There’s something in the air..

10:09: Macbook Air. “The World’s Thinnest Notebook”

10:10: Comparing to Sony TZ notebooks, 3 lbs — too much compromise with other features.

10:12: Macbook Air is 0.16″ to 0.76″ thick. It fits inside an envelope.

10:12: Magnetic Latch, 13.3″ widescreen

10:13: LED backlit, iSight, Macbook-like keyboard but with light sensor, multi-touch trackpad

thanks to Gizmodo for the pic

10:15: Showing off trackpad, moving windows, rotating windows, etc.

10:16: 1.8″ hard drive, 80 GB hard drive standard, 64 GB SSD as an option.

10:17: 1.6 GHz standard, 1.8 GHz option — kinda slow, isn’t it?

10:18: Paul Otellini, CEO of Intel taking stage, talking about processor size.

10:19: Steve back on stage

10:20: 45 Watt MagSafe, 1 USB 2.0 Port, Micro-DVI, Audio Out

10:21: 802.11n + Bluetooth 2.1

10:22: New feature called Remote Disc for installing things via CDs and DVDs, Macbook Air has no optical drive, Superdrive accessory for $99.

10:23: 5 hours of battery life

10:24: 2GB RAM standard

10:25: $1799, ships in two weeks, preorder today

10:25: Showing ad for Air

10:27: Environmentally friendly, recyclable case, mercury and lead free display, BFR free circuit boards, etc.

10:29: Steve–First two weeks of 2008, we have updated MAc Pro, introduced Time Capsule and Macbook Air, updated iPhone, iPod Touch, and Apple TV, and added movie rentals for iTunes.

10:31: Randy Newman about to perform

Well, that seems like it is it. Thanks for all of you who stayed for the whole thing, and an overview of all the new products will be up this afternoon.

NetNewsWire, one of the best RSS readers for Mac OS X, has been updated to version 3.1, and along with that, the software is now completely free.

NetNewsWire was created by Brent Simmons, and version 1.0 was released in February of 2003. In 2005, a company called NewsGator purchased Ranchero Software, Simmons’ company, and their application NetNewsWire. In June 2007, NetNewsWire 3.0 was released, and added integration with iLife products and Growl support, as well as a new interface. As of version 3.1 (released January 10, 2008), NetNewsWire is completely freeware, and offers support with Bloglines and NewsGator’s RSS syndication service, as well as a tabbed browser built-in and an interface quite similar to Apple’s Mail client. Brent was also the creator of Marsedit, a popular blogging client for Mac OS X that was purchased by Red Sweater Software in February 2007.

According to an Ars Technica interview, Simmons, creator of NNW, is “totally excited about NetNewsWire going free! It’s an ideal situation, a developer’s dream come true: I get paid to work on software I love, and everybody can use that software. How sweet!” It appears that NewsGator is now offering all of their RSS readers for free, such as NetNewsWire and FeedDemon.

NetNewsWire has been briefly covered before on Apple Reporter in the post “What’s on your Dock?” where it was shown that I myself use NetNewsWire. I use it to gather all my Mac related feeds (my news source for writing), such as Macworld and TUAW.

NetNewsWire can be downloaded at the NetNewsWire homepage at NewsGator.

Adium, arguably the best IM client for Mac, has been updated to version 1.2, adding features such as improved menus, improvements to Jabber support, better group chat and better Applescript support. From the Adium team:

“The Adium team is proud to announce the availability of Adium 1.2. This is a major feature release with a ton of fantastic improvements as well as a a ridiculous number of bug fixes. We’ve discussed many (but not all) of the new features themselves previously on the blog, including the improved Adium menu item and account management features, various and sundry improvements to Jabber support (including SSL certification authentication, server-supplied action support, and discovery services browsing), fixed Bonjour local area network messaging with file transfers, better group chat (conferencing), a completely rewritten Applescript dictionary which should lead to all sorts of powerful new interactions with other programs, and detachable groups. (One ‘advertised’ feature which did not make it into Adium 1.2 was MSN personal messages; development efforts for these are still in progress by the libpurple team. A future version of Adium will have this enhancement once it’s ready.)”

Next on the Adium team’s list of improvements are MSN personal messages (a favorite of MSN users), and eventually video chat. Adium has been covered on Apple Reporter before, as one of our “Apps of the Week”.

More info about Adium: (from the App of the Week post)

Adium is a chat program that was first developed in 2001 by college student Adam Iser. Since then, it has had a long and confusing developing cycle, involving name changes and version number mix-ups. As of this writing, Adium is at version 1.1.4, and is currently the most popular IM solution for Mac OS X. While there is virtually nothing wrong with it, one frequently requested feature is A/V chat, which is being worked on as I write this. Adium offers almost complete customization, from message styles to contact list windows, dock icons to sound sets. It is also open source, and completely free. Is there anything wrong with it?

Adium is available for download here.

Boy Genius Report reports (odd wording) that Jay-Z, who has recently retired as President of Def Jam Records, is apparently entering into a deal with Apple to start an iTunes record label. While the topic of an iTunes record label has been floating around for some time, it would seem that now would be the right time for Apple to launch their own label.

What’s interesting is that until around now, it would’ve been impossible for Apple to start their own label. The debacle between Apple Computer and Apple Corps. has begun to settle, and according to Paul McCartney, The Beatles’ collection of music will be on iTunes in the first quarter of 2008. This decision could be one of many settlements between the Apples, another of which apparently would be to allow Apple Computer to pursue a place in the record industry, at least more of a place then they have made with iTunes. According to Charles in the BGR comments:

“Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company, has an agreement since 1991 with Apple Inc. that Apple Inc. can never get into the music industry. They tried to sue Apple Inc. over iTunes, but the judge ruled in Apple Inc.’s favor. If Apple Inc. were to start a record label, that would be crossing the lines of their agreement.”

If the rumors are true, this would signify an entirely new venture by Apple, and perhaps would trump many, if not all of the other announcements at this year’s Macworld.

Newcomer to the Apple rumor mill Gearlive have posted 10 supposed new images of the latest iPhone update, 1.1.3.

App dragging on the Springboard

The images showcase 4 new features to the iPhone. The first of them being the ability to move around icons on your home screen of the iPhone. While the “springboard”, as it is referred to by iPhone users, has been enhanced before, the ability to move apps around is, as far as I can tell, a new feature to the iPhone.

Bookmarks on the Springboard

Next is the ability to add bookmarked pages from Safari to your home screen. The possibilities that are included with this feature are endless, and it is sure to be a feature that iPhone users will quickly integrate into their iPhone usage.

Maps — Locate Me, Hybrid View

Third in the feature list are new additions to the Maps app, based off of Google Maps. Maps now supports Hybrid mode, a recent addition to Google Maps, which is similar to the Satellite setting but with the addition of street names and other labels to roads, etc. Maps also sports new additions to the menu at the bottom of the app, including the biggest feature added to Maps: the “Locate Me” feature.

According to Gearlive, the feature uses cell-tower triangulation to locate the iPhone and subsequently the user on Maps. Like the home screen bookmarks, this feature is something that should quickly be integrated into the iPhone’s “must-use” features.

Multiple Contact SMS/Texting

The last feature shown in Gearlive’s gallery is the ability for SMS messages to be sent to multiple contacts. This feature is probably something that should’ve been included in iPhone v1.1.1, but the addition of this will please those of us who are text-message fiends.

Opinion/Analysis

While the fact that Gearlive is not a reputed site for Apple rumors remains, the features shown are pretty compelling evidence to show a new firmware update is in due order. While I do not keep track of every iPhone third-party app that is released, I am well informed enough to know that features like the ones shown would have been unmasked already.

Gizmodo has reported that the firmware shown is indeed real. While the confirmation is not from anyone close to Apple themselves, it is from a reputable iPhone hacker named Natetrue.

Nate says that the update brings the expected shutdown of third-party apps and unlocks, but this is expected for all updates (note that while Apple said they would shut down third-party software on the iPhone in 1.1.2, it was jailbroken within minutes).

[Thanks to Gearlive for images and Gizmodo for verification of update]

The brilliant people over at the iPodHacking forums have released a UI hack for your old (or in my case, current) iPod Video that can make the interface look pretty close to an iPhone.

The hack requires that you run Windows, as the program iPod Wizard is required. You must also not be afraid to potentially mess up your iPod, updating/changing your firmware is required and there is a possibility of error. I’ve done the hack myself, and it is definitely worth the trouble. The menu screen is really crisp and the Now Playing screen is amazing.

While I can’t offer any technical support, I can give you the link (click on the image below). There doesn’t seem to be that many problems, just a few bugs that’ll be fixed in time.

Lifehacker interviewed Nicholas Jitkoff, the developer of Quicksilver today. The interview, which discusses the past and future of Quicksilver, is a good read for any Quicksilver fans. Highlights: Quick Look integration in an unreleased, unstable version of Quicksilver; Jitkoff telling QS users to switch to LaunchBar. Overall, Jitkoff seems to think that Quicksilver has a grim future, but perhaps the recent open-source release of Quicksilver will revive the long-lived application.

Dear Apple,

We love your products. Some of us get our paychecks writing because of you and your products. The amount of care you put into your products is visible, sometimes, but other times it just feels like you build the products that we so graciously buy half-heartedly.

I myself have had numerous problems with my Apple purchases. I received my Macbook Pro January of this year, and from day one I had a problem. I realized that it would not play DVDs. I promptly sent it in to AppleCare, and within two weeks I had it back. Since then, I have not experienced much problems with it, until recently, when a slew of problems have all shown up instantly.

The Macbook Pro, since its creation and release in early-2006, has experienced numerous issues, and I myself have fell victim to a few of them. About 4 months after I purchased the Macbook Pro, the fan began to act up. After the installing of a third-party application to detect the fans’ speed and temperature, and it was then that I discovered that one of my fans was completely unresponsive, and that the entire computer was relying on only one fan.

The next issue I can’t blame on Apple entirely. In the Northwest during the Fall, we are victim to strong winds and along with that, power outages. As I left for school in the morning, I left my Pro plugged in to the Magsafe adapter, while it was asleep. Throughout a series of power outages, my Pro stayed charged, but asleep. When I used it on a Friday night, in my bed while it was unplugged, I shut it off. The next morning, I realized my Macbook Pro was completely inoperable unless plugged in. I, for the second time, called AppleCare and began the lengthy process of sending my Mac in for repair. I’m not blaming this issue on you, however, this event spawned a new set of problems.

My grandmother, who is quite tech-savvy, let me borrow her white Macbook while my Macbook Pro was in repair. I have had it for roughly 10 days, and already there has been a problem. I have treated it excellently, almost exclusively keeping it in a case when it was not sitting on my desk. But the plastic trim at the end of the Macbook, near the trackpad, is slowly coming off, leaving a disfigured area near the trackpad.

Around the same time, I also noticed that the Magsafe adapter that came with the Pro, which as you will remember I have had less than a year, is beginning to malfunction. I have discovered that I am not the first to experience problems with it. The wiring around the Magsafe end of the power brick is now exposed, and is only functional around 33% of the time.

Note, as I mentioned earlier, that people receive their paychecks from writing about you and your products. I am one of those people. I blog about exclusively Apple news at applereporter.com. But my experiences with Apple products have been less than satisfactory, to say the least. My next item on my Wish List, which I am vigorously saving up for, is an iPhone. But will I be subject to the same problems on the iPhone as I have been with my Macbook Pro? I hope not, because both are beautiful and quite functional products, but based on my previous and current experiences, I’m not sure I can safely trust that my iPhone would be durable enough to last even past a few months.

I urge you Apple, please take the time to actually work on your products. Do not be so eager to ship things out quickly, think back to the original Macintosh, which Apple spent years on creating before they released it. I am not saying that the products right now are horrible, on the contrary, I believe them to be some of the most useful and aesthetically pleasing products I have ever seen in my life, but instead, I ask that you think about the quality of your products and how, with a little bit of time, your consumer model could change from the generic fanboy who will buy your products, regardless of the quality of the products themselves, to the regular computer user, who should not have to be afraid of bad quality.

Sincerely,
Kristian Freeman
http://www.applereporter.com

Open source project ies4osx allows IE to be run on a Mac, using Wine emulation. Conveniently, the program comes bundled with Darwine, the port of Wine libraries to OS X. For those of you who have been wondering from the beginning, “Why in the world would I use IE on my Mac?”, IE, being the most commonly used browser worldwide, is infamous for ruining web design templates and CSS style sheets. So for the web designers out there, this download is worthwhile so your web pages, which work fine in Safari and Firefox, can also be tweaked to work on IE. Ies4osx also allows you to install multiple versions of IE, from IE 5 to IE 7. Overall for web designers, it’s not a bad idea to grab ies4osx.

Microsoft’s long in the making Office 2008 suite has been previewed a little bit more on the Microsoft site, and there are some new features that have not yet been seen. One of these is iPod and iPhone integration with Powerpoint, for easy sharing of presentations using the photo viewer. Also announced is compatibility with the Apple Remote, and other features, all of which can be viewed here.

Panic, the company behind brilliant apps such as Transmit, Coda, and Unison, have updated their popular icon organization and customization tool CandyBar to version 3.0. With the new update, there are many added features that make CandyBar an amazing and fun experience to use. First off, CandyBar 3.0 is compatible with 10.5 Leopard, so for those who don’t like the new icons for Leopard, you can customize them as well as the Dock, just as you did with Tiger. CandyBar also has a new UI, making it easier to browse through the icons you’ve downloaded. Along the same lines, iContainers, the standard for icon sets, can now be used with Quick Look, for simple icon viewing. All the icons are now 512×512 also.

CandyBar 3 is shareware, and is limited to 15 days and 250 icons. It can be purchased for $30 a copy, or $19-$24 for an upgrade (see page.

For those of us who follow Mac news religiously, you may have seem the various reports of ways to change your Dock (in Leopard, to be exact). Most of these require going into the App’s file contents and using Terminal to change things, and overall it’s just complicated. But for those of you who want to be able to change their Dock, a new app by Whimsically Plucky Software called DockChanger offers the ability to change your Dock theme instantly, without any file managing or Terminal config. It also comes with 90 themes built-in, and the option to download a new set of themes each month. DockChanger is this week’s App of the Week at Apple Reporter.

DockChanger is shareware, 10 Dock changes for free then $10 for no restrictions.

Inquisitor, the popular search enhancement tool for Safari, has been updated to version 3.0, build 50, and is now usable on Leopard. Because earlier versions of Inquisitor made use of the InputManager folder which is no longer available in Leopard, it has taken some time for it to be updated.

Inquisitor, as previously mentioned, enhances your search bar on Safari and auto-completes the phrases and offers suggestions. This is useful in many different ways, as you can imagine, and follows the same lines as Quicksilver in terms of time reduction and increase of productivity.

Download is available here (download will start upon opening link)