News from category ‘Official’

Apple seeds Mac OS X 10.6.6 build 10J521 to developers on Thursday ahead of the public release of Mac OS X 10.6.5. The changelog for Mac OS X 10.6.6 notes that the beta "contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts." App Store receipts could be a reference to the recently announced Mac App Store that is coming to Snow Leopard in the next three months. Strangely, the download is only 3.7MB. The last update to Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard came in the form of 10.6.4 in June. Mac OS X 10.6.4 resolved issues with the trackpad and Adobe's Creative Suite 3.

Yesterday Apple released an update 9.1 to the iPhoto'11 application to solve a problem causing data loss for some users upgrading from iPhoto '09. The update also restores support for the photo calendars that had gone missing in the initial iPhoto '11 release on October 20. It adds several new print product options to iPhoto '11 and also improves overall stability and addresses a number of other minor issues:

• Provides the ability to create and order calendars in iPhoto.
• Additional letterpress holiday greeting card themes are now available.
• Fixes an issue that prevented videos downloaded from MobileMe or Flickr from importing correctly into iPhoto events.
• The update is recommended for all users of iPhoto '11.

Download iPhoto Update 9.1.

Apple sent registered Mac developers emails inviting them to begin submitting programs to the Mac App Store. Moreover, on the Apple's developer website appeared the above banner. That means that Apple has started accepting Mac Apps for their upcoming Mac App Store. The Mac App Store was announced in October as part of Mac OS X Lion's feature set. Apple claimed that it would be launched in 90 days from the time of the announcement. The Mac App Store mirrors many of the submission guidelines and policies as the iOS App Store. The Mac App developer program is $99/year just like the iOS App developer program.

Gizmodo posted shots of dorm blocks, in which Foxconn’s factory workers spend their off-duty lives. Men and women have separate facilities. Eight workers sleep in four bunk beds in a room about the size of a two-car garage. Long shifts, under-exploited exercise equipment, sinks on the balconies, where workers have to wash their clothing and themselves, and tiny televisions (one per a floor) in depersonalized common rooms, this is life at Foxconn’s iPhone factories. Since a spate of eleven suicides earlier this year, every building on the Foxconn campus is draped in netting. It is morbid but seemingly effective; there have been no suicides since the nets were installed in May.

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Recently Voalte has added an additional hospital to their client list. Parkview General Hospital will now be utilizing the iPhone as a primary communications tool throughout their entire building. Parkview General in Fort Wayne is the fifth hospital client for Voalte, which uses the iPhone’s Wi-Fi platform to pull together medical alarms, text and voice messages into one device a nurse can use from anywhere in the building.

Some days ago Apple released a brand new iPad commercial entitled "iPad is Electric" and posted it to the company's iPad site and YouTube page. The new advertisement offers the same music, format as the other iPad’s commercials and follows the same of theme of displaying a series of quick shots of the iPad's capabilities interspersed with corresponding single-word descriptions relevant to the "iPad is..." theme.

Apple sent e-mails to music label representatives to inform them that it that it is preparing to extend the length of iTunes Store song previews in the United States. The new 90 second samples only affect songs that are longer than 2 minutes and 30 seconds, with shorter songs keeping the original 30 second preview length. The company believes that longer songs samples will lead to more purchases. Apple's email notes that by continuing to offer their music on the iTunes Store, labels are indicating their acceptance of the new terms. But it didn’t say any time frames when the extended previews will be available to U.S. customers.

A new iPhone and iPad mobile browser from Skyfire was recently approved by Apple. This new iOS application converts Flash-based video to HTML5 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad users. The app, which is priced at $2.99 and tomorrow will be available for download from the App Store, activates a function that allows Flash video content in the browser to be sent to Skyfire's servers, converted to HTML5, and sent back to the device for display. However, it won't work with Flash-based games, which require interactivity, or popular TV streaming site Hulu.

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During October 2010 ChangeWave surveyed 3,108 consumers to understand the latest trends and demand on the PC and Netbook markets, including the impact of the iPad. Here are some interesting facts that were revealed by the research company:

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This morning Apple dropped the price of the Mac mini in international markets. In Europe the price was cut down on €100. It is now available for just €709 and €999 from most European stores. In the United Kingdom the Mac mini price dropped on £50 (from £649 to £599). This is probably in response to the dollar's continuing decline relative to other currencies. Prices in the U.S. remain unchanged at $699 and $999 for the two Mac mini models.

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Yesterday Apple released the Golden Master version of iOS 4.2 to developers for both iPad and iPhone and iPod touch devices. The GM build is typically the final shipping build that will eventually reach customers. That means that the company is really close to public release of the new operating system.

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Yesterday Target announced that it will start offering the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 on Nov. 7 with the ability for customers to quickly activate it in store. The iPhone will be available for purchase as a part of the Target Mobile centers in the 846 company’s retail stores in the U.S.

Senior vice president of merchandising at Target Mark Shindele is excited about this offer:

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Modern people can’t live without their gadgets. Some of them can’t even make a marriage proposal without assistance of the iPhone! Just like Frank, who used multiple iPhones to coordinate and secretly film his proposal. On October 24 he proposed to his girlfriend Kasey. An elaborate surprise proposal was made in New York City's Central Park. Hidden cameras were synced with special iPhone applications so the entire event could be watched from a safe distance. Kasey was lured to a specific location by a friend of Frank. It was a totally awesome proposal and, of course, Kasey said "yes".

Apple is now investigating an issue with a number of Monster-branded headphones for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. These include those under Monster’s Lil Jamz, Jamz, Turbine and Heartbeat lines. As reported, the abovementioned Monster headphone models do not satisfy Apple’s technical specifications. These headphones use conductive materials, which can result in electrical shorts that cause an iPod or iPhone to pause and play erratically, skip forward or back through songs. Customers may not be aware that the issue is caused by the headphones and may believe that the iPod or iPhone is defective instead. Moreover, Apple received lots of complaints from customers, who believe that the issue is caused by their Apple device. In addition, Apple mentioned that these headphones do not endanger safety of the iPod or iPhone and could not damage devices.

The iPhone Dev-Team recently has released a new version of RedSn0w for Mac and Windows.  RedSn0w uses the Limera1n exploit to support more devices and adds the ability to restore custom firmware ipsws. The crew promises that now RedSn0w will work with the iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4, iPad, iPod 2G, 3G, and 4G (Not iPod 2G-MC yet).

You can download RedSn0w 0.9.6b2 from here.