Apple Posts 10.6.7 Update for New iMacs, EFI and MacBook Pro Updates

By Federico Viticci

Apple posted a series of software updates overnight, all of them aimed at improving stability and performances of the new iMacs, MacBook Pros and Thunderbolt, the technology introduced in the MBPs back in February. The biggest update is for the early 2011 iMacs, which got an updated version of 10.6.7 with bug fixes, performance and security enhances. More specifically, the update improves the reliability of Back to my Mac, addresses Mac App Store bugs, improves Thunderbolt support and addresses other issues with graphics stability and 3D performances. It’s a 382 MB download. Another update for the iMacs – an EFI update – “includes fixes that improve performance and stability for Thunderbolt.”

The MacBook Pros received updates, too. The MacBook Pro Software Update 1.4 improves Thunderbolt, external display support and 3D performances, whilst the EFI update 2.1 “includes fixes that resolve an issue with Turbo Mode in Boot Camp, and improve performance and stability for graphics and Thunderbolt.”

You can find all the updates in the Software Update panel on your Mac, or by following the direct links below.

The Daily: 800k Downloads Since February, $10 Million Loss

By Federico Viticci

It’s not looking good for The Daily, the joint collaboration of Apple and News Corp. that launched in February as an iPad-exclusive magazine featuring the new iTunes subscription system. During today’s News Corp.’s March quarter earnings call, the company revealed the app is still a “work in progress” that generated a $10 million loss over the last quarter, as reported by Peter Kafka at MediaMemo.

For instance: Asked to comment on The Daily’s performance, Carey says it’s a work in progress, which lost $10 million last quarter. Then, in the background, someone — most likely CFO Dave DeVoe, mentions “800,000 downloads”.

Assuming that’s the actual number, that’s the first time anyone from News Corp. has talked about the iPad app’s performance. I’ve asked News Corp. to confirm.

MediaMemo also reports the 800k figure is for downloads through iTunes, not paid subscriptions. Downloads below one million seem to be a little low for The Daily, which was heavily promoted by Apple on its website and the App Store with multiple weekly homepage features. News Corp. itself stated several times in the past that the app was set to expand to more devices (like Android tablets) in the future, but it appears that Apple is still holding an exclusive on it as of today. Apple for instance helped The Daily’s team implementing subscriptions before the app’s launch giving them access to unreleased APIs not available to other developers, and News Corp. even tried to push the app to millions of eyeballs with a remarkable Super Bowl commercial. However, a few weeks ago rumors started to surface about The Daily’s slow decline in popularity and social media engagement, in spite of the publication even offering a website to read news coming from the iPad version.

Apple Using New “Pulse” Program for Customer Feedback

By Federico Viticci

MacRumors reports several users in the past week have received email invitations from Apple to join a new customer feedback program called “Pulse”, aimed at providing ”input on a variety of subjects and issues concerning Apple.” The program apparently allows users to receive up to two surveys per month to provide feedback on various Apple products and purchases.

Apple values your opinion and invites you to participate in a survey about your Apple products. Your responses will remain completely confidential, and results will be viewed only in aggregate. The survey should take five minutes or less to complete.

MacRumors also points out Apple ran different customer feedback programs in the past, but this one seems to be a much more extensive market research managed by San Francisco-based firm Socratic Technologies. A little digging into the domain’s info revealed applecustomerpulse.com was registered in January through MarkMonitor, Apple’s usual branding company used to handle domain registrations and other similar efforts. As much as a new customer feedback program can be minor news for Apple watchers and fans, it’s important to note how Apple Customer Pulse is a described as a community with ongoing subjects and material to share – it’ll be interesting to see how the service will play out in the next months and whether Apple has bigger plans for it.

Hearst Confirms They’ll Implement Apple’s Subscriptions In July

By Federico Viticci

The Wall Street Journal reports Hearst, one of the major magazine and newspaper publishers in the United States, has agreed to Apple’s terms and will begin implementing iTunes subscriptions in three of its iPad apps starting with the July issues. The apps – Esquire, Popular Mechanics and O, The Oprah Magazine – will receive an update to enable monthly ($1.99) and annual ($19.99) subscriptions. The July timeframe seems to confirm the rumored deadline for publishers set on June on 30, when developers of existing “publishing apps” will have to update their software to sell subscriptions using Apple’s system.

In a big win for Apple Inc., magazine publisher Hearst Corp. has agreed to sell subscriptions to the iPad editions of a range of its publications through iTunes, beginning with three of its popular magazines, the publisher said.

Starting with their July issues, apps for Esquire, Popular Mechanics and O, The Oprah Magazine, will be available through a new service from Apple that allows customers to sign up for subscriptions inside the apps and get billed automatically. Subscriptions to all three publications will be sold for $1.99 a month or $19.99 a year.

Hearst said it will eventually sell newspaper apps and other content it owns on a subscription basis through iTunes too.

Hearst is the first big name to jump on Apple’s subscription program, which started in February but failed to attract publishers as an initial debate on Apple’s 30% cut and optional sharing of subscribers’ personal information sparkled a controversy as to whether publishers should really consider iTunes as a viable alternative to web apps. Since February though, several app magazines and newspapers for the iPad started implementing subscriptions, some of them even reporting good results after a few weeks. Apple also began promoting iPad apps with subscriptions in its own App Store homepage, and as the June deadline approaches it looks like publishers will be forced to update their apps and accept Apple’s plan if they want to keep selling digital copies to iPhone and iPad users.

Cydia Tweak Lets You Cycle Through Apps With The Volume Keys

By Federico Viticci

If you own a jailbroken iPhone, you don’t mind trying new tweaks and you’ve been looking for yet another way to modify the look of Apple’s iOS multitasking UI, there’s a new app called PhySwitch available in the Cydia Store that I’ve been positively impressed with over the past week and decided to keep installed on my device. Just like Multifl0w, PhySwitch presents running apps as windows, rather than icons. But unlike the aforementioned hack, PhySwitch doesn’t scroll through windows horizontally, like you would do on a computer or larger screen: considering the nature of the iPhone’s display, developer Pedro Franceschi opted for a vertical solution that makes much more sense on the iPhone, and uses the volume keys to let you cycle through apps. You can bring PhySwitch’s fast app switcher in the foreground with an Activator command you, and after that you’ll be able to quickly browse apps with the volume keys, or a vertical swipe. It’s really simple and, for some reason, I’ve come to use it on a daily basis.

The tweak’s not perfect (apps don’t come in the foreground immediately, as PhySwitch goes back to the homescreen for a second and re-launches the app you selected) and could use some speed improvements, especially for the opening animation. However, I think it’s a very clever hack that’s very easy to use and accessible. Get it in the Cydia Store, and check out the demo video below.
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Amid Rumors of Interest In iOS Devices, Intel Unveils Ivy Bridge Chips with 3D Transistors

By Federico Viticci

Earlier today Intel officially unveiled the technology that will power its next-generation of chips, codenamed “Ivy Bridge”, with production set to start for PCs and servers by the end of 2011. After a decade-long research in Intel’s labs, the company announced a new 3D transistor structure named “Tri-Gate” that will allow to boost performances and efficiency in the new chips that Intel will also make for mobile devices and tablets. This announcement comes after speculation earlier this week about Intel willing to consider making processors for Apple’s iOS devices – which currently feature CPUs manufactured by Samsung, a company that’s at war with Apple over several patent infringement claims as previously reported. Intel hasn’t disclosed any plan to make chips for Apple nor did Apple comment on any of these rumors, but the mobile versions of Ivy bridge featuring 3D transistors for optimized speeds and battery life could surely be an option for Apple in future devices.

Intel’s 3-D Tri-Gate transistors enable chips to operate at lower voltage with lower leakage, providing an unprecedented combination of improved performance and energy efficiency compared to previous state-of-the-art transistors. The capabilities give chip designers the flexibility to choose transistors targeted for low power or high performance, depending on the application.

The 22nm 3-D Tri-Gate transistors provide up to 37 percent performance increase at low voltage versus Intel’s 32nm planar transistors. This incredible gain means that they are ideal for use in small handheld devices, which operate using less energy to “switch” back and forth. Alternatively, the new transistors consume less than half the power when at the same performance as 2-D planar transistors on 32nm chips.

Intel’s first 22nm Ivy Bridge microprocessor was demoed today running on a server, laptop and desktop computer. Production is slated by the end of the year, with Intel likely demonstrating the power of the Ivy Bridge platform with more demoes over the next months.

Apple Releases iOS 4.3.3 [Direct Links]

By Federico Viticci

Apple just released iOS 4.3.3. It’s available now in iTunes if you check for updates, and direct links to the downloads will be available shortly.

As previously reported, iOS 4.3.3 improves the way iPhones and iPads handle the location tracking database stored on-device by making it smaller in size. The location database will be no longer backed up to iTunes and it will be deleted entirely when Location Services are turned off.

Here are the direct links for iOS 4.3.3:

Apple also released iOS 4.2.8 for the Verizon iPhone. You can download it here. As for the build numbers: iOS 4.3.3 for the iPad 1 is labelled 8J3, with other iOS devices getting build 8J2. The Verizon iPhone’s iOS 4.3.3 is build 8E401.

New iMacs To Use SSDs As A “System Cache” For Spinning Hard Drives?

By Federico Viticci

Yesterday, we noted the new iMacs featuring Sandy Bridge processors and Thunderbolt technology came with an option in the Apple Store’s online configuration page to pack a hybrid Serial ATA Drive + SSD setup at an additional cost. What’s curious about this hybrid setup is the note left by Apple to inform users that OS X will come preinstalled on the solid state drive, leaving space for documents and other media on the bigger (but slower) spinning hard drive.

iMac also offers an optional 256GB solid-state drive (SSD), which has no moving parts and delivers increased drive performance for many operations. The 256GB SSD can be purchased in place of the standard hard drive or in addition to it.

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 led to speculation as to whether Apple was planning to install OS X on the SSD and show the other drive as a mounted volume in the Finder, or they developed a brand new system to automatically handle the processing of files and system info across the SSD and the spinning drive. Several bloggers and Mac users wondered how Apple could manage to easily allow the new iMacs to quickly switch between drives, save the OS on one drive and media on the other, symlink the user’s Home folder to content saved outside the SSD. These technical questions also had to face the 4-6 week delay that showed up when ordering a new iMac with hybrid configuration. However, the solution may be pretty simple, as it could lie in Apple’s use of Intel’s new Z68 platform, which – combined with the upcoming “Larsen Creek” SSDs – allows for a new caching system called ”Smart Response Technology.” Intel’s BD82Z68 Platform Controller Hub is indeed being used in the mid-2011 iMacs, as iFixit confirmed earlier today.

Intel’s Smart Response Technology works like this: in a hybrid configuration such as the one possible in the new iMacs, the smaller SSD acts as a “system cache” for the bigger & slower HDD. The OS (boot files, resources, extensions) are cached on the SSD for faster loading times, but the user only sees one drive in the Finder / Windows Explorer.

Smart Response provides a middle ground between capacious but slow and inexpensive hard drive storage, and fast but small and expensive SSD. With it, one can retain a high-capacity hard drive, and speed it up using a small SSD. The technology uses the small SSD’s low access times and high speeds to make it work as a cache of the HDD, it might even store copies of key parts of the HDD such as the boot volume and system files, to make booting faster, and the system more responsive overall.

It’s not clear at this point whether the delay in shipping times is caused by Apple waiting for Intel’s new solid state drives, and if Smart Response Technology will be enabled at all in Snow Leopard. Apple’s note on OS X coming preinstalled on the SSD surely raises some important technical questions, and we’ll know more in a few weeks when these hybrid iMacs will start showing up. [TonyMacx86 via 9to5mac]

Listary for iPhone Creates Lists, Syncs with Simplenote

By Federico Viticci

I’m a huge fan of Simplenote, the free web service that works anywhere and allows you to create and sync notes across the web, iPhone, iPad and desktop computers thanks to a plethora of native third-party apps. In fact, I believe Simplenote is the easiest, yet most powerful note-syncing tool currently available on iOS devices: forget MobileMe’s notes, Simplenote is elegant, minimal, and when unlocked at its full potential with a $19.99 Premium account it allows you to do some nifty things with your notes like turn them into plain text lists, back them up on Dropbox (thus opening a whole new layer of possibilities) and create a personalized RSS feed. Simplenote works well as a free service, but it becomes a powerhouse of notes when using it as a Premium subscriber. It doesn’t surprise anyone that in the past year dozens of apps that sync with Simplenote and also sport Dropbox integration have been released in the App Store. Thanks to all these apps (including the excellent Notational Velocity for Mac), users have found a way to keep notes in the cloud, and have them always available, anywhere, on any device.

Listary, a new iPhone app by developers Portmanteau, wants to turn Simplenote into a list management tool without requiring a Premium subscription. With an elegant interface and the use of its own plain text syntax to recognize new and completed items, Listary works on the iPhone as a native app but can be accessed by any other Simplenote app, text editor or web browser. It basically works like this: once logged in with your Simplenote account, Listary will look into your note database and asks you if there’s any existing note you’d like to turn into a list. Read more

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