Posts in news

Mountain Lion Links

In this post, we have collected some interesting links about Mountain Lion following its release last week. You should also check out our review, or buy our eBook.

Create Reminders using Alfred. Gianni Rondini has put together a nice Alfred extension that, by using AppleScript support in Reminders, adds new items with a very simple syntax. Obviously, the extension will launch Reminders.app if it’s not open, as the app needs to be running to receive AppleScript commands. Download it here.

Customize the dialog that asks for access to a user’s contacts. As pointed out by Daniel Jalkut, there’s an easy way for developers to customize the information displayed in the new dialog that asks for permission to access your contacts. Third-party apps that need to look-up your contacts even for mundane tasks like auto-fill can take advantage of this (otherwise, the dialog will be generic, with no additional details provided to the user).

 Michael Tsai’s Mountain Lion notes. Good collection of miscellaneous links and information here. I agree with Michael’s comments on the Safari address bar, but I still can’t stand how Google Search URLs aren’t copied to the clipboard (as I noted in my review, search terms are).

The story of the new Zebra wallpaper. Directly by photographer Steve Bloom.

Enable backspace navigation in Safari. Use this Terminal command to be able to navigate in history using the backspace key. I have my MacBook Air set to navigate using three-finger swipes, as well as backspace.

On Mountain Lion’s iCloud filesystem. iA’s Oliver Reichenstein takes a look at the structure of iCloud files and folders under Mountain Lion. Their text editing app, iA Writer, has recently implemented support for folders in the iCloud Document Library across Mac and iOS.

Ars Technica’s review of Mountain Lion Server. Good overview by Matt Cunningham.

Mountain Lion and the Simplification of OS X. Shawn Blanc explains why the interplay of iOS and OS X goes beyond mere graphical resemblances.

Virtual Hosts and Web Sharing in Mountain Lion. A guide on how to bring back a local hosting environment by Brett Terpstra.

Get Back “Save As…” menu. Yet another trick to get back “Save As..” in Mountain Lion.

Mountain Lion and AppleScript. Shane Stanley writes about some important changes of AppleScript in OS X 10.8 over at TidBITS.

For more Mountain Lion coverage, visit our hub.

NYT: Apple Considering Stake In Twitter→

NYT: Apple Considering Stake In Twitter

The New York Times’ Nick Bilton and Evelyn Rusli are tonight reporting that Apple is considering an investment in Twitter to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Whilst the companies are not currently in negotiations and there is no guarantee that the two would come to an agreement, earlier talks do suggest “they may form a stronger partnership”.

As the New York Times report explains, the deal would be one of Tim Cook’s “most important strategic decisions as chief executive” because of intensifying competition from Google and Facebook and the fact that Apple has struggled in the past with social. It would be a unique move for Apple, which typically buys a small start-up and absorbs it into the company rather than investing in a company.

The turf wars have fortified alliances and pushed companies to choose sides. Apple’s dealings with Twitter, for instance, began after its relationship with Facebook soured. In 2010, the company was eager to integrate its Ping service with Facebook, but discussions broke down. Mr. Jobs, the Apple chief executive who died last year, told the technology news site AllThingsD that Facebook had demanded “onerous terms that we could not agree to.”

Apple, which had spent months preparing to hook Facebook into iOS, its mobile operating system, swiftly reworked it for Twitter. One former Twitter employee, who described Twitter as the “lucky mistress” in this chain of events, said the partnership was essentially “handed to Twitter on a silver platter.” Ping, in the end, never caught on with users.

One big question to be resolved is whether Twitter would want a large investment from Apple. Earlier this year, chief executive Dick Costolo said Twitter had “truckloads of money in the bank”. At the same time though, Costolo also recently said in an interview that “[Apple] is a great partner, we think of them as a company that our company looks up to”.

The relationship with Apple is so prized at Twitter that the company assigned a vice president, Kevin Thau, to work with Apple full time, according to an Apple employee who asked not to be named.

[via The New York Times]

Permalink

Google Earth 7 for iOS Brings 3D Imagery to iPhone 4S, 2nd and 3rd Generation iPads

Ahead of iOS 6’s release and Apple’s new Maps application, which includes photo-realistic interactive 3D views with Flyover, Google has updated their Google Earth application for iOS, bringing 3D views to Apple’s most recent iPhones and iPads. Google’s 3D views are automatically rendered when you pinch into supported towns and cities — tilting your perspective will let you rotate about building model and get a sense of placement that flat satellite imagery simply can’t provide. The transition from a flat satellite image to 3D models is quite seamless, although rending those 3D models did put a lot of strain on my iPhone 4S, where I received a “memory low” error via an alert before the app crashed. Viewing your locale in 3D is nifty, at least while Google Earth cooperates. Funnily enough, Kansas City has yet to receive a 3D render of the city, despite today’s announcement of availability for Google Fiber.

Also in today’s update is a brand new tour guide that suggests places you might not otherwise search out, guiding you to explore suggested landmarks and natural wonders from your iOS devices. I found that while this feature is nice to have on the iPhone, it really makes sense on the iPad, where you have the larger screen real-estate to zoom and pinch around maps.

Google Earth is a free download from the App Store.

[via MacRumors]

 

Give Safari 6 Its RSS Back

Apple made the decision to remove RSS support from Mountain Lion with Mail (it felt out of place there anyway) and Safari 6 - no more RSS detection and easy-to-click buttons. RSS isn’t dead, so what can you do to get feed detection working again? One option is to download an older version of Safari, use an excellent 3rd party Mac app such as Reeder, or a new Safari extension (yeah, remember those?) by Daniel Jalkut of Red Sweater Software. It’s called Subscribe To Feed and in a blog post yesterday, he expressed his opinion about Apple’s decision and offers a solution to add RSS detection back to Safari 6.

My beta-quality, more-or-less unsupported Subscribe to Feed extension adds a handy button to the toolbar that, when a page offers RSS or Atom feeds, can be clicked to easily open the feed:// link, which should automatically open your favorite news reader.

I hope this extension fills a void for those of you missing the beloved RSS button from Safari 5 and earlier.

The extension not only works like it’s supposed to (this is beta?) but also matches the look and feel of Safari’s UI. When activated, it simply finds the RSS url and adds it /opens it in your default RSS app. The functionality really needed is the ability to view an RSS feed inside the browser but it does bring back the button functionality, which is nice. You can download Jalkut’s RSS extension on Red Sweater.

[Hat Tip TUAW]

Xcode 4.4 Now Available in the Mac App Store, Enhanced for the MacBook Pro with Retina Display

While developers are likely already running the latest and greatest from Apple’s Mac Dev Center to take advantage of iOS 6 beta and Mountain Lion beta SDKs, everyone else who is learning about development, building for fun, or simply wants a stable version of Xcode can find the latest release in the Mac App Store. Updated to take advantage of the MacBook Pro with Retina display, Xcode 4.4 also includes OS X 10.8 SDKs in concert with the release of Mountain Lion earlier this morning. (Later versions of Xcode 4.3 already offered support for iOS 5.1). Xcode 4.4 requires the latest version of Lion, 10.7.4, or Mountain Lion 10.8 to run.

Xcode 4.4 Release Notes from the Mac App Store

Included in Xcode 4.4:

• SDKs for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and iOS 5.1.
• Enhanced for the MacBook Pro with Retina display.
• Code completion persists your selections to give more accurate suggestions.
• Objective-C @synthesize command is generated by default when using properties.
• Objective-C adds literal syntax for numbers, arrays, dictionaries, and expressions when developing for OS X.
• Apple LLVM compiler supports additional C++11 features, including lambdas.
• Assistant editor tracks caller or callee for the current selection.
• New localization workflow can share a single base .xib file for multiple locales on OS X.
• Source control can commit individually selected changes.
• ARC migration tool converts both retain/release and garbage collected code.
• Fixes an issue where code completion could fail, requiring the user to delete derived data.
• Additional bug fixes and stability improvements.

Specific Xcode 4.4 release notes and feature highlights should be available through the Xcode 4 Downloads and Resources page later today, and through the Mac Dev Center for developers in the Mac Developer Program. Xcode 4.4 can be downloaded via the link above or from the Mac App Store.

Aperture, iPhoto, and iMovie Receive Small Updates Alongside Launch of Mountain Lion

While Apple’s iWork updates for Pages, Keynote, and Numbers include support for iCloud and the MacBook Pro with Retina display, today’s updates for professional and creative applications such as Aperture (already updated to take advantage of the Retina display), iPhoto, and iMovie consist of stability improvements and further integration with this morning’s release of OS X Mountain Lion.

Aperture 3.3.2

The latest version of Aperture includes updates for added compatibility with Mountain Lion, addresses stability issues that can occur when the app is in Full Screen mode, tweaks auto white balance when using Skin Tone mode, and now lets users sort projects and albums in the Library Inspector by date, name, and kind.

iPhoto 9.3.2

Today’s iPhoto update is about bringing sharing options to Messages and Twitter, whilst fixing some stability issues and improving compatibility with Mountain Lion. Last month, iPhoto and Aperture were updated with the release of the MacBook Pro with Retina display. Among other things, this update unified the two apps’ libraries, enabling them to access each others’ stored photos natively.

iMovie 9.0.7

While iMovie’s release notes don’t specifically mention Mountain Lion on the Mac App Store, it does call for fixes with third-party Quicktime components, improved stability when viewing MPEG-2 clips in the Camera Import window, and brings sound back to MPEG-2 clips important from a camera (where it may have been absent before).

You can download Aperture, iPhoto, and iMovie from the Mac App Store.

iWork Suite Updated With iCloud & Retina MacBook Pro Support

Apple has today updated the Mac versions of iWork (Pages, Keynote, Numbers) to include support for the new display on the Retina MacBook Pro as well as integration of iCloud. Support for iCloud now allows users of the iWork apps to create documents on their iPhone, iPad or Mac and then continue working on them on any of their other devices, no matter where they are. The highlight of it all is that changes are synced across automatically and instantly. iCloud support for the Mac apps has been a long time coming, with the iOS versions updated to include support late last year, but comes today on the release of Mountain Lion which touts iCloud support as one of the key improvements.

Users of the new Retina MacBook Pro and iWork suite will also be happy with today’s update that now natively supports the new display. As Apple says, “everything you create in iWork is stunning on the new MacBook Pro with Retina display”.

For those wanting a complete overhaul of the iWork suite, well today just isn’t that day. Whilst Apple nearly always just calls it “iWork”, there are a few reminders on Apple’s own website, that these are apps that last received a major update in 2009.

You can download or purchase the latest version of iWork from the Mac App Store: Pages, Keynote, Numbers.

Apple Pulls Lion From The Mac App Store With The Release Of Mountain Lion

Apple today released OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion on the Mac App Store and has now also removed OS X 10.7 Lion from the Mac App Store. You can no longer go to the Lion page via its direct link, by searching or by finding it on the top grossing list as it was earlier this morning.

Apple presumably pulled Lion because users wanting to upgrade to Mountain Lion can also do so from Snow Leopard. Keeping both Lion and Mountain Lion on the Mac App Store would have presumably caused confusion for some users - particularly given Lion cost $29.99 and Mountain Lion costs just $19.99 - seemingly suggesting that Lion was the latest OS.

Update 4:05 PM: Customers who purchased Lion should still be available to download Lion from the Mac App Store when you option click the Purchased tab.

You can read the MacStories review of Mountain Lion here.

Announcing Our First eBook

MacStories is pleased to announce their first eBook, MacStories Features: OS X Mountain Lion, for $6.99. With a detailed review of Mountain Lion, numerous sections covering its new apps and features in depth, and 30% of its proceeds going to the American Cancer Society, MacStories Features: OS X Mountain Lion is a great way to learn about Mountain Lion, support MacStories, and fight cancer all at once.

Contents

We’ve put a lot of effort into this book: it contains exclusive guides for preparing your Mac for Mountain Lion, walks you through every aspect of the install process, and contains great tips and tricks you won’t find anywhere else. Every inch of its over 120 pages is custom-designed and optimized for Retina displays, presenting its content in a beautiful, easy-to-read format.

You can download MacStories Features: OS X Mountain Lion here.

Buy Now

Buy Now

Cover image by ehtesham/Shutterstock.com