Firefox 5 Moving to Beta Today, Mozilla Planning to EOL Firefox 3.5

Officially released on March 22, Firefox 4.0 has been a success for Mozilla with hundreds of millions of downloads worldwide as seen on the official Glow page, but the transition process from older versions to the latest one hasn’t been as smooth as the Mozilla team hoped. As noted by 9to5mac, users still running the old 3.5 version of the browser have become a real problem for the company, which is struggling to find a way to EOL (end-of-life) the product by somehow forcing or promoting a recommended update to Firefox 4.0 for desktop machines. With around 12 million users still running Firefox 3.5, this means Mozilla has to take care of security and stability updates for an old version, and on the other hand users (who might still be unaware of the update or simply don’t have the permissions to run a software update on an office computer) can’t enjoy the latest features and additions to the browser. Either by generating buzz on blogs and tech websites about the new release or simply displaying a popup on screen asking to opt-in for the update, Mozilla is moving forward on its plan to kill the old 3.5 version.

We need a plan to obsolete Firefox 3.5 as we can’t support it into perpetuity. We have been frustrated with our efforts to move users off of old releases and are worried too many people do not upgrade and are on vulnerable and unsupported versions of Firefox.

In the meantime, things are quickly evolving on the Firefox 5 side. Mozilla is adopting a release cycle similar to Google Chrome, with major updates coming out every few months instead of years. After launching Aurora, a channel for releases between “nightly” and “beta” status to give users a rather stable glimpse of new features to come in Firefox, Mozilla has announced the milestone update will come out on June 21st, with the 5.0 version moving to the beta channel today. Firefox 5.0 is still available in the Aurora channel at the moment of writing this, and we expect the beta to officially go live later today. Among several stability improvements and performance enhancements, Firefox 5.0 will let users “pin” websites, with the browser generating app-specific links for websites like Facebook. The update system for add-ons will go under a major update, and the address bar is also rumored to receive new social sharing functionalities.

iPad 2 To Launch In Taiwan Within 2 Weeks?

According to a new report from Digitimes, Apple may be planning to introduce the iPad 2 in Taiwan within the next two weeks. The website reports several “channel retailers” are pointing to a Friday, May 20 release date, although Apple didn’t confirm any of the speculation and other IT shops declined to comment.

The official launch schedule of Apple’s iPad 2 in Taiwan remains unconfirmed despite some channel retailers already rumored that the launch will be on May 20, since Apple product-only retail shop Studio A has commented that it has not yet received the information from Apple, while large IT shops in Taiwan have all declined to comment about the launch schedule. However, sources in the retail channel estimate that the iPad 2 should be launched as soon as within the next 1-2 weeks.

Apple’s Taiwanese website still displays a placeholder for the iPad 2, offering users a chance to be notified when the product is available. Apple introduced the iPad 2 in the United States on March 11 and 25 more countries on March 25. The device was launched in 12 more countries in late April including Japan, Hong Kong, Korea and Singapore, as well as China on May 6th (WiFi model). A release in Taiwan (and perhaps more countries as part of Apple’s international rollout) later this week would also play well with Apple’s rumored plans to organize a special event for the 10th Retail anniversary,

MacStories Product Review: Wicked Reverb

In the search for an affordable yet comfortable pair of headphones that could replace Apple’s earbuds (at around the same price), I was led to a pair of over-the-ear cans fit for any teenage snow-border who already didn’t own a pair of Skullcandys. The Wicked Reverb, fit for hoodie toting hooligans ready to faux-rock to 128 kbit mp3s, arrived at my desk in an oversized box littered with the kind of graffiti that speaks marketing over value. However, I didn’t want first impressions to ruin what could possibly be a charming relationship, so I’ve spent a couple week’s worth of alone time with my hot-rod red headphones just to see if something Wicked can actually sound, “wicked.” Past the break, a few pics and our conclusive review on whether these are an ample replacement for your worn out buds.

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Munster: NPD Data Suggests Slow Mac Sales in April

Citing data compiled by the NPD, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster says [via Barron’s] Mac sales in April have been slow, mainly due to the MacBook refreshed last year that “set the bar high”, but is still nowhere to be seen in 2011. Indeed, speculation in the past months had pegged Apple’s white MacBook to be headed towards discontinuation, leaving room for the popular MacBook Airs as the new Mac OS X entry line.

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster this afternoon offers an update on how Apple (AAPL) computer sales are trending: It was slow in April, he writes, according to U.S. sales data compiled by NPD, thanks to a MacBook refresh a year ago that set the bar high for Apple’s year-over-year comparison.

Apple shipped 9% more units in April than a year earlier, while the Street is modeling the entire June quarter to see an increase of 22%, to 4.2 million units.

NPD data posted in February revealed a 20% increase in year-over-year Mac sales, with Apple set to sell 3.6 million Macs in the quarter – as announced at the Q2 2011 earnings call, Apple eventually sold 3.76 million units. Munster is confident that, in spite of slow sales in April, Apple will hit the Street consensus of 22% growth for the entire June quarter; on the other side of the product line, iPod sales are also expected to be better than the 10-15% drop Munster initially projected.

OS X Lion Includes Nuance Voices, Samples Available Online

[image via 9to5mac]

A number of reports from multiple sources over the past months pointed at Apple willing to ink a deal with speech recognition company Nuance over the implementation of text-to-speech and mobile speech recognition technologies in iOS devices, with a preview of the new functionalities scheduled for the WWDC, where the company is rumored to show off iOS 5 with deep Siri integration – Siri is a “personal assistant” app which used Nuance’s tech, among other things, that Apple bought last year. As noted by Netputing, however, it looks like the Apple / Nuance licensing deal might extend to a broader level, with voices from a Nuance product (Vocalizer, nèe RealSpeak) being embedded in Lion since Developer Preview 1. The voices were included in the first beta of Lion seeded to developers in February, but only last week the website noticed the names and settings in the Text Speech preference panel were strikingly similar to Nuance’s offerings.

The new voices in Lion still can’t be utilized as they return an error upon installation, but the samples can be demoed for free following the direct links below, courtesy of OS X Daily.

Mac OS X Lion is set to include a wide variety of new high quality text-to-speech voices in a multitude of languages, thanks to a long suspected partnership between Apple and Nuance, a speech technology company. The new voices are of surprisingly good quality and speak in major world languages including English, Mandarin, German, Japanese, French, Spanish, Thai, Bahasa, Portuguese, Hindi, Russian, and many more.

While the rumors indicated Apple was working closely with Nuance over speech implementation in iOS devices, Nuance might have licensed its full portfolio of international digital voices to Apple for usage in iOS 5 and Mac OS X Lion. A demo of these new features will likely happen at the WWDC, which is less than a month away. [via MacRumors]

Instagram 1.7 Released, Brings New Profile View

While we’re still playing with Carousel and looking at its beautiful interface for the Mac, Instagram – the official app – has received a majore update on the iPhone that reaches version 1.7 and adds a number of new features, alongside the omnipresent speed improvements and stability enhancements (for older phones this time). Instagram 1.7 brings custom notifications for likes and comments – in the Edit Profile screen, you can specify whether you want to receive notifications from everyone, people you follow, or simply turn them off. This is a welcome addition if you were being annoyed by continuous notifications and badges. In the same screen, you can now add a Bio to display on your public profile. And profiles have gotten a brand new grid view as well, which makes it easy to check out photos at a glance on profiles that have hundreds, if not thousands, of uploads.

Instagram 1.7 is available now in the App Store.

Another Analyst Claims iPhone 5 Won’t Have NFC

Over the past months, several rumors indicated Apple may or may not implement Near Field Communication (NFC) technology into the next iPhone, scheduled for a Fall 2011 launch. While The New York Times reported NFC would eventually find its way on the iPhone, but perhaps not the iPhone 5, others suggested the new iPhone was being built with NFC capabilities in mind, with some even claiming NFC could bring advanced remote computing features when paired to a Mac.

The NFC rumor mill was brought back to full activity this morning with a new report from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi, who says the next iPhone won’t feature such a tech because it simply isn’t ready for mass consumer adoption, and Apple never embraced promising technologies just for the sake of having them on their feature list.

John Paczkowski at All Things Digital posted some parts of Sacconaghi’s note:

NFC-based mobile payments require NFC-capable POS terminals,” Sacconaghi wrote. “Only 51,000 retail locations support contactless payments (per Verifone’s 10K); given that First Data alone deals with 4.1M merchant locations in the U.S. this suggests current penetration of just over 1 percent of merchant locations. Clearly, a higher critical mass is needed before mobile payments would take off.

We do not expect the iPhone 5 to feature an NFC-based payments solution, and instead expect Apple will evaluate and come to market with partners or a complete solution later, perhaps when NFC infrastructure is more established,” he said in a note to clients. “We note that Apple did not release the first cloud-based music offerings, or the first 3G or LTE handsets, and entered mobile advertising only after Google bought AdMob – instead, the company has made its name from re-inventing MP3 players, smartphones and most recently tablets/netbooks, and would retain the option to eventually do the same with mobile payments.

Admittedly, Sacconaghi’s report sounds like Apple common sense – with 1% penetration in retail locations and the lack of clear standards for consumers, NFC still seems like something Apple might like, but it’s not ready to completely roll out yet. The opportunity for Apple to enable mobile payments and smart music recognition (as demoed by Google at the I/O conference) tied to iTunes accounts is huge, but if the company – as they usually do – really wants to reinvent the NFC system as most people know it, we’re going to have to wait for another generation of devices and larger consumer adoption.

Steve Jobs: Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff→

Steve Jobs: Get Rid of the Crappy Stuff

Mark Parker talking to Steve Jobs over the phone, shortly after becoming CEO of Nike:

“Do you have any advice?” Parker asked Jobs. “Well, just one thing,” said Jobs. “Nike makes some of the best products in the world. Products that you lust after. But you also make a lot of crap. Just get rid of the crappy stuff and focus on the good stuff.” Parker said Jobs paused and Parker filled the quiet with a chuckle. But Jobs didn’t laugh. He was serious. “He was absolutely right,” said Parker. “We had to edit.”

Keeping focus is one of the most important things you can do for your brand. Sure you can sell twenty different models of the same thing over and over again, but when you really narrow down your product line to only the best available, the only things you have to sell are good products. It’s more desirable for both companies and consumers when effort is only expelled on the things that count.

“Can anyone innovate like Apple?”  The simple answer: While anyone can learn the principles that drive Apple’s innovation, few businesses have the courage to do so.  It takes courage to reduce the number of products a company offers from 350 to 10, as Jobs did in 1998.  It takes courage to remove a keyboard from the face of a smartphone and replace those buttons with a giant screen, as Jobs did with the iPhone.”\

Carmine Gallo couldn’t have said it any better. While all of what I’ve said might be true, it takes courage. I recommend reading the rest over at Forbes via the read-more link below.

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Apple Releases Lion Developer Preview 3 in Dev Center

Following the release in Software Update last week, Apple just released Lion Developer Preview 3 in the Mac Dev Center as a direct download through the Mac App Store. Changes in Lion DP 3 can be found in our previous coverage, and we’ll update this post as more details come in. Build number of Preview 3 is 11A459e – same of the Software Update version.

The new build in the Mac Dev Center comes after a series of reports of users unable to correctly download and install Lion Developer Preview 3 through the Software Update mechanism.

Update: Lion Server Developer Preview 3 is also available as a separate download from the Mac App Store.