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Posts tagged with "lion"

OS X Lion GM Coming Soon?

TechCrunch reports tonight Apple has been gathering feedback and crash reports from developers testing the first preview build of the next major version of OS X, 10.7 Lion, and the operating system is now nearing the “GM” stage. When a new OS reaches the Golden Master status, that means it’s usually ready for public release – although Apple previously announced Lion wouldn’t ship until Summer 2011. Indeed, TechCrunch also speculates a public release could happen around the WWDC – which should be scheduled for June as usual.

Specifically, Apple is gearing up to deploy an OS X Lion update to developers that they may be classifying as the “GM1″ release, we’ve heard. “GM” or “Golden Master” is a title reserved for software that is complete. But from what we’ve heard, this is only the initial Golden Master candidate. In other words, don’t get too excited just yet.

If Apple is planning to deploy multiple GM builds of Lion, that would keep them on track for another (possibly final) GM build / release candidate seeded at the WWDC and public availability soon after that. As MG Siegler notes, the GM seed of OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was released a few weeks ahead of the public launch.

The first developer preview of Lion was seeded on February 24th. Apple decided to rely on the Mac App Store (and the redeem code system) for the distribution of the developer preview, which saw several issues with canceled downloads and slow loading times arose at first. Apparently Apple has fixed the issues with the Mac App Store distributing OS updates on a large scale, and the GM build is almost ready to go. In February, TechCrunch correctly suggested a beta of Lion was about to be released just a day before the actual developer seed. Among the new features of Lion (such as a complete Finder rewrite, new Mail app, multitouch gestures and the Launchpad), many speculate Apple might bring direct integration with the Finder and iOS devices wirelessly, through the new AirDrop utility.

Happy Birthday, OS X!

Ten years ago today, on March 24th 2001, Apple released Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah. Now ten years on, OS X has evolved into what we know and love as being Snow Leopard, that latest major update to OS X.

Between the original, and rather buggy version of OS X, Cheetah and Snow Leopard now, we had 10.1 Puma (September 2001), 10.2 Jaguar (August 2002), 10.3 Panther (October 2003), 10.4 Tiger (April 2005) and 10.5 Leopard (October 2007). With just a few short months before the summer, we don’t have much longer to wait until OS X 10.7 Lion arrives and brings a convergence of traditional desktop OS design and iOS design together into one great operating system.

So Happy Birthday OS X! If you’re feeling nostalgic you might want to have a read of the Wikipedia page on OS X which gives a nice synopsis of the major feature additions each release brought and jump the break to watch Steve Jobs introduce OS X at the 2000 MacWorld.

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“No Acrimony” Over Serlet’s Departure - A Planned Transition→

“No Acrimony” Over Serlet’s Departure - A Planned Transition

Following this morning’s news that senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering Bertrand Serlet is leaving Apple after 22 years of collaboration with Steve Jobs, John Paczkowski at All Things Digital puts the pieces together and says this is a planned transition that’s been in the works for months:

There’s a reason Craig Federighi, who is to take over Serlet’s role, handled demo duties for Apple’s Lion preview demo last year (see video below). And there’s a reason Serlet has been selling off Apple shares recently. They’ve been preparing for this day, which sources tell me is not at all the result of a spat over differences in strategic direction or the diminishment of OS X’s importance to Apple.

“There’s no acrimony there,” one source close to the company told me. “Bertrand’s just decided it’s his time to move on. Avie (Tevanian, former senior vice president of software engineering) handed off to him and now he’s handing off to Craig. It’s just a changing of the guard.

Serlet says he wants to focus on science now. People speculated this morning that Serlet might have left because of the iOS-like approach Apple is taking with Lion, but that sounds like a really stupid theory. I bet Serlet himself saw the evolution of OS X into something like Lion years ago.

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White CDMA iPhone Spotted in iTunes, Bigger Icon Found in OS X Lion

In spite of Phil Schiller’s semi-official confirmation that the white iPhone is real and coming this Spring (and it’s a beauty), people keep finding references to the mythical white unit that was announced last year and never shipped.

Interestingly enough, a MacRumors reader found an icon in the iTunes 10.2 resources that suggests a CDMA version of the white iPhone 4 will be released as well, as iTunes contains two different graphic files for the GSM model and CDMA. Speculation in the past months simply pointed to the white iPhone as a GSM unit, but since the release of the Verizon iPhone many wondered whether the white iPhone could be also released in CDMA flavor. An icon found in iTunes is no proof of Apple’s plans for the white iPhone, and could be the result of a designer thinking ahead and preparing graphic files “just in case”.

One MacRumors reader did some poking around in iTunes 10.2 resource files and discovered an icon for the white CDMA iPhone 4 that would be displayed in the Summary window within iTunes when the device is connected. The image is distinct from the original white iPhone 4 icon and clearly shows the antenna break on the top right side of the CDMA version that is not present in the GSM version.

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OS X Lion To Bring Direct iOS-Finder Integration?

After the release of the first Lion developer preview last week, we have seen Apple is bringing several aspects of iOS to the desktop: the Launchpad mimics iOS’ Springboard and folders, gestures allow you to move between apps like in the iOS 4.3 beta, Resume lets Mac OS save the state of apps (window, position, content) even after a logout or restart. We did a little bit of digging in the Lion preview, and we found some files in the Finder’s resources that suggest a direct connection between iOS devices and Lion’s Finder could be coming in the future.

The files, located in the System folder, clearly show iPhone, iPad and iPod touch icons at three different sizes, likely to be used in the Finder’s sidebar. Other icons currently not used by Lion like “Mobile Documents” (first spotted by 9to5mac) are in there as well. While the presence of mobile documents suggests a Dropbox-like functionality for the Finder is coming with MobileMe / iWork.com, we speculate these iOS device icons might be for a future direct connection between iPhones, iPads, iPod touches and the Finder itself.

Basing on pure speculation, we wouldn’t mind seeing Apple implementing the AirDrop functionality (which lets you share files between Macs running Lion with a single drag&drop) for iOS devices as well. Users with a Mac and a nearby iPhone or iPad could drop files into the Finder and instantly share them. A direct iOS-Finder connection opens to many possibilities, though: what about PDFs, photos, mobile downloads, documents coming from apps? Currently, these things are all handled by iTunes. While many users appreciate the comfort of a single application to manage all kinds of media ending up on their iOS devices, there’s no doubt having an iPad accessible in the Finder would be much more convenient for certain tasks like document sorting or sharing. Perhaps with a little bit of cloud integration.

Again, we’re just speculating here – but the icons are there and ready to be implemented in some way through the Lion Finder. There’s an Apple event tomorrow, iOS 5 is rumored to be previewed alongside the iPad 2 – maybe we’ll see what this connection between iOS and the Mac could be about.

OS X Lion and the Mac App Store Distribution Dilemma

Last week, Apple released the first developer preview of Mac OS X Lion. New and improved OS aside, something set apart Lion from the previous beta releases Apple seeded in the past years: Lion needs to be downloaded through the Mac App Store. That’s right: a 3.6 GB download, available for developers in the App Store infrastructure. How did this happen? Well, the how is easily explainable: developers can log in the Dev Center, request a Lion build and a unique promo code is generated. With the promo code, developers can fire up the Mac App Store and start the OS X Lion installer download. The promo code, as an additional security measure to prevent people from sharing it, can only be used once, on a single machine.

While the method is really clever and brings a bit of fresh air to the developer community (no need to have a download in your browser, you can just leave the Mac App Store do its job), this has raised some questions on the future of Apple’s OS downloads for consumers. Namely, some people are speculating the Lion developer preview is clearly pointing to a summer 2011 featuring Mac OS X 10.7 Lion available only in digital format. Apple is killing the CD, and physical Mac OS purchases. Read more

First Lion App Compatibility List Is Here, You Can Contribute Too

With the first developer beta of Lion “out in the wild”, it’s no secret people want to know which apps are working on the new OS, and experimenting with ways to let incompatible software run just fine on 10.7. Website RoaringApps has put together the first unofficial app compatibility list for OS X Lion, and it’s already a pretty huge one.

Anyone can contribute to the Wiki by sharing details of an app that’s working on Lion or has issues, or you can join the community to discuss the list with fellow Mac testers and developers.

Again, the list is very useful and available here. Check it out.

Lion’s Podcast Publisher Is Podcasting Made Dead Simple

Apple has a pretty diverse set of content creation applications from the much loved iLife consumer suite of applications to the more professional packages such as Final Cut Pro and Logic Studio. In OS X Lion, they have added Podcast Publisher, it’s a really simple and handy utility that will allow anyone to quickly make an audio or video Podcast and share it with the world.

Podcast Publisher lets you create video or audio podcasts; you can either import the audio or video or choose to record it from within the app. If you choose to record from within the app it gives you the options of recording from your Mac’s iSight camera, recording a screencast or recording audio from a microphone. Once the video or audio is captured you have the basic ability to trim the audio or video.

Once an episode of the Podcast has been completed it can be exported to your desktop, iTunes library, shared through Mail or sent to a Podcast library server or remote workflow. Jump the break for some more pictures of Podcast Producer.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

Lion’s Migration Assistant Allows Set Up From A Networked PC

Another new feature discovered in the developer preview of OS X Lion is the ability to set up a Mac from a networked Windows PC as part of the Migration Assistant utility. Traditionally the only way to set up a new Mac and import all your files and settings was to use FireWire’s Target Disk Mode and hook up the old Mac or PC to the new Mac or use a Time Machine disk.

When Apple removed the FireWire port on some of its Macs it added the ability for Migration Assistant to import from a networked Mac, but not a PC. The Migration Assistant in the developer preview of OS X 10.7 Lion now brings the ability for new Mac users to set up Lion with data and settings from an existing Windows-based PC. The only caveat being that it requires a Migration Assistant helper client to be running on the Windows machine. For developers wishing to test this out, you’ll need to download that helper client from Apple’s developer site.

[Via AppleInsider]