MyAppleMenu by Heng-Cheong Leong

Wed, Jun 13, 2012

Confirmed: Waze And Others Contributing To Apple’s iOS 6 Maps’ Crowd Sourced Traffic Data

Peter Ha, TechCrunch

Answers To Your Retina MacBook Pro Questions

Roman Loyola, Macworld

Apple expands Back to School promotion to include iPad purchases

Eric J. Bruno, Macworld

Developers: Retina-optimized Mac Apps Will Take Time

Joel Mathis, Macworld
While Apple is already updating its own apps for Retina display, officials with third-party developers Adobe and Autodesk said they’ll need time to ship Retina-optimized apps to the public. Their Photoshop and AutoCAD applications, respectively, were shown in Retina form during Apple’s Monday keynote at WWDC, along with Diablo III from Blizzard Entertainment.
“What was shown at WWDC 2012 was an unreleased build of Photoshop,” Marissa Lee, a spokeswoman for Adobe, said in an email on Tuesday. “This updated version of Photoshop is expected to be available later this year.”

Why The Rumors About The iPhone Ditching Walking, Public Transit Are Wrong

Philip Bump, Grist
Instead of relying on Google to determine the best bus to take in a city, the city (or developers in the city) can create their own tools. The City of New York, for example, could display estimated times of arrival for the next train at your stop. And biking. The existing toolset doesn’t allow for biking directions. An open Maps API could. By opening the Maps tool to the broader operating system, Apple has made mapping a functionality, not a separate application.

Developers To Apple: Promote Our Apps!

Jessica E. Vascellaro, Wall Street Journal
In an interview, Apple's senior vice president for world-wide marketing, Phil Schiller, said Apple has done a "tremendous amount" to help apps get discovered and discussed how Apple's new software for iPhones and iPads, called iOS 6, attempts to do more.
But developers keep pushing for a bigger overhaul. "The design of the store is basically the same as when it had only a thousand apps," said Ben Hamey, co-founder of Bonobo Pte, whose apps include a program that lets users graph their braking and acceleration as they drive. "The top 100 paid apps list is very static and difficult to penetrate even with significant app sales," Mr. Hamey said.

Developers Are Key To Winning The Tech Wars

Hayley Tsukayama, Washington Post

Apple Airs New MacBook Pro Commercial: “Innovation In Every Dimension”

Federico Viticci, MacStories

Apple's Secret Weapon

John Brownlee, CNN
Hardware manufacturers trying to compete with Apple constantly discover that they can only build competing devices off of Apple's rejected parts, or else build new factories from the ground up to manufacture the parts they need.

Apple WWDC Conference: The Jokes

Jon Brooks, KQED

Apple's Siri Gets Behind The Wheel. Who Should Worry?

Poornima Gupta, Reuters

The Last Laptop

Farhad Manjoo, Slate
The mystery is what will happen to Apple’s laptop line as it picks up more and more features that we associate with the iPad. Like Apple’s tablet, the new MacBook has a Retina display, and it boasts seven hours of battery life, which is closing in on the iPad’s 10-hour mark. At some point Apple’s laptops will add touchscreens, too—touch will be too widely embedded in the computing culture for laptops not to have it. At the same time, the iPad will get faster and faster, in time matching the power of today’s laptops. And all the while, the Mac OS will keep picking up more and more features that Apple first showed off on its mobile OS.

Apple Says New Models, Designs For Mac Pro In Works, Due In 2013

Connie Guglielmo, Forbes
Cook doesn’t mention the iMac, and Pogue’s reference to an update to the iMac in 2013 is incorrect, Apple said (which probably means that you can expect an iMac update sooner. The iMac, Apple’s all-in-one-desktop originally introduced in 1998, was last refreshed in May 2011.)
Can a Mac Mini be as powerful as what a Mac Pro can be?

The Future Of Mac OS X

Heng-Cheong Leong, MyAppleMenu
Apple adding features from iOS "back" to the Mac is something that we should celebrate. Innovation is innovation, no matter where it comes from. OS X Mountain Lion demonstrates, to me, that Apple sees a future in Mac OS X. There is a vision down in Apple HQ, and it's not iOS on a Mac.
In fact, if Apple stops making significant changes to a product, then we should worry about it.

Macbook Air Teardown Reveals New Ssd Connector, More

IFixIt
Apple tweaked the SSD form factor and switched to a different flash controller. The new unit is based on a SandForce SATA-III controller chip, but stamped with Toshiba markings. It’s still removable, meaning that folks will be able to upgrade the drive once third-party components become available. While the board bears visual similarities to mSATA, it is not using the same connector.
The RAM, on the other hand, is not upgradable.

Ping’s Future

John Gruber, Daring Fireball
I was under the impression that Ping was in more of a “we don’t know what we’re going to do about it” state, not a “yeah, we’re killing it” state. For example, Ping is still there in the iTunes app in the iOS 6 beta — but, it doesn’t work.
Wouldn't Apple at least try again with Ping, now with FaceBook integration?
(On the other hand, Apple didn't try anything with Twitter integration.)

New Features In iOS 6 Receive Spotty Support From Older Devices

Jordan Golson, MacRumors
Turn-by-turn navigation, Siri, and FaceTime over 3G, for example, will not be available for iPhone 4.

Amazon Cloud Player App Available For iPhone And iPod Touch

Kelly Hodgkins, TUAW

The Mac's Mid-Life Crisis

MG Siegler, Massive Greatness
I get asked all the time by people what MacBook I would recommend to buy. It used to be an easy answer, but it got a lot more complicated today. (Aside from everything I said above, do you dare buy a new Air when a Retina one must be in the works?) That's not necessarily a bad thing, we just happen to be at the beginning of a transition of the Mac into its next phase. In some ways, this is a mid-life crisis.

At Apple Keynote, Talk Is Of Products, Not Steve Jobs Or Tim Cook

Nick Bilton, New York Times
Something different happened during Monday’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where the latest MacBook computers and Apple operating systems were unveiled. No one was talking about Mr. Jobs. They weren’t talking about Mr. Cook’s presentation style, either.

iOS 6 Has Introduced An Automagically Changing Status Bar That Changes Color

Joshua Schnell, Macgasm
Thankfully, perhaps, it's not a translucent status bar. :)

No More Passwords To Update Apps

Grant Brünner, Macgasm
This will make things easier for all of us, and now maybe your mom and dad will actually do their updates themselves instead of waiting for you to do it for them when you come to visit.

iOS 6 Features You Might Have Missed

Lex Friedman, Macworld
Here’s a look at some cool features coming in iOS 6 that you may have missed.
I like how the new Share screen looks. And I am assuming the screen is scrollable?

Cook: Apple Planning Professional Mac For 2013

Jason Snell, Macworld
Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed in an email to an Apple customer that the company is working on “something really great” to address the professional market.
Also:
  • Apple: “New” Mac Pro Is No Longer New (MacStories): Apple appears to have changed its mind in regards to putting a “New” label on its online Store next to the “new” Mac Pro that was silently updated yesterday.