Apple has released the open source components of OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion. As noted by Steve Troughton-Smith, they also include an example code of GameKit multiplayer on the Mac through the source code of Chess.
You can find them here. [via Ernest Prabhakar]
Last week, Apple published a support document that provides more details on Power Nap, the technology Apple introduced with OS X Mountain Lion to manage certain updates even when a Mac is asleep.
Firstly, Apple notes that, aside from the features explained on the OS X webpage and the System Preferences app, Power Nap also supports Spotlight Indexing and Help Center updates when a Mac is plugged into an AC outlet. The “other iCloud updates” mentioned in Power Nap’s settings include Find My Mac, so you’ll be able to track a Mac’s location even with its lid closed; VPN connections (with certificates) for corporate email and configuration profile updates are supported as well.
Power Nap can be rather confusing for new users, as all of its capabilities aren’t fully explained in System Preferences and the Help Center. Apple’s document also details the frequency of Power Nap updates, so make sure to check it out here. [via @applespotlight]
July was an interesting month for MacStories as we covered the launch of the latest version of OS X, Mountain Lion, and launched our first eBook. Containing all our Mountain Lion coverage from the site in addition to exclusive articles, the book was a challenging but immensely rewarding project. With the exception of some advice from a few trusted people, we handled the book’s creation entirely by ourselves and are very proud of the end result. If you haven’t grabbed a copy yet, it’s not too late to change that — and remember that 30% of all proceeds will go directly to the very worthy cause that is the American Cancer Society.
Besides Mountain Lion, the other notable pieces of news were Google’s acquisition of Sparrow, and the all-but-confirmed rumour that the next iPhone and iPad mini will be announced on September 12th. Apps-wise, July was a quiet month as developers readied theirs for Mountain Lion, but we did see the release of the Tweetbot for Mac alpha along with Rovio’s new franchise, Amazing Alex. For stories, we had two great interviews, an excellent piece on discovering and making music on the iPad, talked about the apps and tools we use to write more efficiently, and created some hands-on examples of what the rumoured 7.85” iPad would look and feel like.
Jump the break for the full month in review, and feel free to read previous ‘Month in Review’ editions from 2012.
Brent Simmons writes about the lack of URLs for Google searches in Safari 6.0:
I asked on Twitter. One way is to drag the magnifying glass into whatever text I’m editing. Another way would be a bookmarklet that gets the current page location. A third way would be an AppleScript script.
I ended up writing a Python script.
From my Mountain Lion review:
That said, there is one aspect to the new smart search field I don’t care for: it no longer displays Google Search URLs after you’ve used it to search for something. So if you want to share a direct link to a Google Search, you’ll need to copy it from the share sheet in either Messages or Mail.
In fiddling with Keyboard Maestro, I built a super-quick macro that grabs the URL of the frontmost Safari window through AppleScript. You can download the macro here, or check out the AppleScript itself if you want to create a system Service with Automator.
As pointed out by user @jaydisc on Twitter, some Apple apps on Mountain Lion can receive the copied search terms as clickable URLs in rich text format. In my tests, only Mail was able to receive search terms in RTF and, apparently, this is a known bug.
If you missed our Mountain Lion coverage, be sure to check it out. Here are today’s @MacStoriesDeals on hardware, iOS, and Mac apps that are on sale for a limited time, so get them before they end!
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Gmail has a small update out this afternoon, promising all around smoother animations and scrolling, the ability to save picture attachments to your photo library, and bug fixes that squash some annoying issues.
Gmail 1.3 on iOS is certainly a bit speedier: scrolling through the Inbox and revealing the panel feels as smooth as a native app, although Gmail’s sliding animation to a message can still display lag here or there. However, the speed improvement doesn’t change that Gmail is a web app, with the Gmail splash logo being displayed at startup, network complaints when strained for bandwidth, and some “this doesn’t feel right” moments when composing email.
A new feature added is the ability to save pictures to your photo library, but it’s clunky, awkward, and not obvious. To save an image attachment, you have to open the image attachment in Gmail’s browser, then tap and hold on the picture to bring up the dialogue to save your picture to your photo library. Oddly, you can print from the message view, but you can’t save a photo (you have to open it first). I think the Gmail for iOS team would be better off replacing the Safari icon in their browser with a sharing icon, letting users Open in Safari, Save to Library, Open in App, or Print from a more familiar and traditional list of actions.
Composing email still feels awkward, with the compose window being relatively finicky and jumpy, but bug fixes have at least solved one annoying selection issue. Before, I couldn’t drag the cursor before the first letter of the first sentence in Gmail for iOS, but this is remedied in today’s update.
Gmail is passable as an app (it’s certainly not Sparrow) and it’s slowly getting better, but its flaws as an email client in a web view still show in the most important places, such as when working with attachments and composing a message. If you’re inclined on being in Google’s ecosystem, Gmail is free on the App Store.
Following Marco Arment’s recent thoughts on the Mac App Store and the consequent debates on the future of Apple’s storefront, Macworld’s Lex Friedman talked to some third-party developers to have a better understanding of the issue.
On one hand, Arment says:
The iOS App Store’s restrictions work (“for the most part”), Arment says, “because the platform has grown around them. They mostly don’t get in the way. But on the Mac, the App Store policies are being retrofitted into a well-established environment that they’re fairly incompatible with.
I agree. As I’ve written before, the problem is that Apple let certain apps into the Mac App Store, and is now forcing developers to rethink their strategies. This has effects on those developers’ business, and the customers.
On the other hand, though, it’s important to keep in mind the advantages of the Mac App Store. James Thomson from TLA Systems says:
We’ve had PCalc in the Mac App Store since it opened, and we’ve seen noticeably higher sales from the App Store than through other channels. So, from a visibility and ease of purchase point of view, it would seem that [the Mac App Store is] a success.
Visibility and higher sales are often mentioned by developers as the reasons behind the need to stay on the App Store. But customers, too, like some aspects of the Mac App Store and, it turns out, Sandboxing. As written by Joe Macirowski:
When you think about it, the apps that don’t get along with sandboxing are doing things I now realize I don’t want my apps doing.
Ultimately, it comes down to trusting the developers you install apps from. Maybe Joe doesn’t like the fact that, theoretically, TextExpander could log every keystroke; personally, I trust the guys at Smile to be providers of a great tool for productivity, and not criminals.
As Neven Mrgan wrote, “it’s good for us Mac users that we don’t have to limit ourselves to apps from the Mac App Store”. However, it’s not good for developers that the Mac App Store can’t be trusted for the long term, and that’s not good for Apple either.
Clark is proposing an interesting solution for the future: subscriptions.
It’s becoming clear that the Mac App Store (MAS) is targeting casual software the way the iOS store (IAS) does. This means that, much like traditional pop music through the end of the 20th century, you’ll have a few hits that make most of the money. The problem is how to make money outside of that pop software market.
For my thoughts on Apple, the Mac App Store, and third-party software, read the “Mountain Lion and the Power User” section in my Mountain Lion Review.
It’s too early to tell how the issues mentioned above (sandboxing restrictions, Gatekeeper’s existence, Mac App Store vs. third-party sources) will play out in the long term. We shouldn’t ignore them either: some developers are currently struggling to keep their apps on the Mac App Store, and others are figuring out their own solutions to implement features that Apple demands remain exclusive to it. While the power user will always know how to work around Apple’s default settings, ignoring the complaints and doubts from the developer community would still be shortsighted. Instead, we should consider these issues, reflect on the questions developers pose, and hope that Apple is listening.
As usual, I prefer to wait and see what happens.
Dallas Mahrt, Senior Software Developer at Hulu:
Hulu Plus arrives on Apple TV today.
To start watching Hulu Plus shows instantly, find “Hulu Plus” on the Apple TV home screen. If you are a Hulu Plus subscriber, simply enter your username and password to start streaming […]
If you don’t already have a Hulu Plus account, you can sign up at Hulu’s website or register via iTunes, in which you’ll be charged $7.99 as a monthly reoccurring subscription fee after a 1-week trial. While Hulu has limited advertising, the affordable monthly subscription gives cable cutters the option to watch current seasons of their favorite programs on demand and in HD from major networks such as ABC, FOX, and NBC. Philip Elmer-DeWitt of Fortune writes that Apple’s 30% cut likely delayed Hulu’s availability on the Apple TV, and that Hulu aims to provide a proper alternative as web users can now watch Hulu content for free from OS X Mountain Lion through AirPlay.
Bradley Chambers thinks iCloud should have better support for the education market:
Now you may be saying that personal iCloud accounts is just the way it is and get over it. In the iOS 3 and 4 days, we said the same thing about managing iPads. Apple has DRAMATICALLY improved this process. In iOS 5, they released a lot of MDM (Mobile Device Management) APIs and they also released Apple Configurator. Apple Configurator made it a lot easier to work with the Volume Purchase Program. It also dramatically improved the work flow for loading apps and settings onto iPads in bulk. This was a breath of fresh air for schools with even a few iPads.
Apple has made serious improvements to volume purchase programs and device management in the past few years, so I guess that with iCloud, they simply need more time. Still, this has been a real concern for educators and IT since last June.
Apple is thinking about iCloud in education, but they haven’t made significant improvements recently. For The iPad Project, Fraser Speirs noted how iTunes U supported iCloud sync for notes, albeit with standard individual Apple ID management.
Primarily, this is another nail in the coffin of the “shared Apple ID” deployment model that we’ve been using up until now. If you have multiple pupils and devices all using the same Apple ID, you’re going to get sync issues all over the place. Pupils’ notes will intermingle, their read/unread statuses will get mixed up. It will be a hot mess.
