Graham Spencer

1054 posts on MacStories since January 2011

Former MacStories contributor.
graham@macstories.net

iCloud To Be Deeply Integrated With Apple’s Time Capsule?

In an article today by Cult of Mac, the website claims to have a scoop on what iCloud is and how it will work. Their source, which is supposedly ‘close to the company’, told Cult of Mac that iCloud will be deeply integrated with Time Capsule. Apparently iCloud will become less of a local backup and “more of a personal cloud server”. The source corroborates the recent rumors that suggested a refreshed Time Capsule would come with embedded A4 or A5 CPUs.

There will apparently be a “Home Folder” in which files saved on a Mac connected to the Time Capsule will be instantly backed up and then made available to any remote Mac or iOS device. The Time Capsule will archive and serve up any files to any connected device, even if the computer that made the file is off. If you do work on a device outside of your local network, the changes will be automatically made when you get back home.

Then in terms of iOS devices, it will allow you to upload photos and videos from, say, an iPhone to the Time Capsule – making them available to the other devices on the network. iCloud becomes the “conduit” for all your files and media.

“Your computer gets backed up to Time Capsule anyways,” said the source. “Now it’ll serve up your content when you want it, where you want it, right there on your iOS device.”

However the source wasn’t entirely sure if it was going to be announced at WWDC, just saying it was “what’s next in line” despite also noting “I heard that they have [it] ready to go”. The final thing the source noted was that they hadn’t heard of anything “about a Time Capsule holding iOS updates”, calling the rumor “incredibly stupid”.

[Via Cult of Mac]

Authorized Biography of Steve Jobs Now Available For Pre-Order

The previously announced biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, which will be the first ‘authorized’ biography of Jobs, is now available for pre-order. iSteve: The Book of Jobs will be released on March 6th, 2012. The description of the book from Amazon provides:

From bestselling author Walter Isaacson comes the landmark biography of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. In iSteve: The Book of Jobs, Isaacson provides an extraordinary account of Jobs’ professional and personal life. Drawn from three years of exclusive and unprecedented interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs as well as extensive interviews with Jobs’ family members, key colleagues from Apple and its competitors, iSteve is the definitive portrait of the greatest innovator of his generation.

You can pre-order iSteve: The Book of Jobs from Amazon right now for $19.80 in paper, or $14.99 for the Kindle edition. Curiously the release date (March 6th), will be on the fourth anniversary of the release of the iOS SDK that allowed developers to build third party apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

[Via Cult of Mac]

Rumor: Lion To Launch On June 14th

In last year’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event, Apple publicly revealed that the next version of OS X, Lion, was scheduled for a summer 2011 release, but didn’t specify an exact launch date. 9to5 Mac today claims to have information that suggests Lion will launch on Tuesday, June 14th, less than two weeks away. It comes after Lion was said to have gone “live for internal testing” less than two weeks ago, suggesting a public release in the near future.

They claim to have heard chatter from several sources, suggesting the June 14th date is a “strong possibility”. Furthermore they report that Apple retail stores will revamp their storefront window to publicise the launch of Lion.

Apple is said to be planning one of their product launch-indicative “visual updates” for the morning of Tuesday, June 14th

The report also suggests that the launch of Lion will mark the beginning of reduced software presence within Apple stores, starting with the possible removal of Snow Leopard. In line with this, another source claims that the retail supplies of Snow Leopard are dwindling, solidifying the possibility of a mid-June launch of Lion. Earlier this year the appearance of several Lion manuals on Amazon had suggested a late-July launch based on their launch dates.

[Via 9to5 Mac]

Apple Hires Peter Hajas, Developer Of The Jailbreak Tweak MobileNotifier

Last week, fans of the popular jailbreak tweak MobileNotifier were left slightly disappointed to hear that the tweak’s creator, Peter Hajas, was taking a break from his jailbreak development work. However, in the blog post announcing the break and in follow-up tweets he left several suggestions that he had started working for Apple, and now there is evidence in the internal Apple Directory System that he is indeed an employee (see above).

That first clue in the blog post was when he signed off with “Until then, stay hungry and stay foolish”. Some clever people recalled that Steve Jobs had uttered the same words of “stay hungry and stay foolish” in his Stanford Commencement Speech back in 2005. However in a tweet that same day, he seemed to distance himself from that suggestion, commenting that the Apple rumor community has “a vivid imagination”. But further digging into tweets by Hajas led some to find a tweet from May 9th in which Hajas, in reply to someone said that “I’m off to work in CA at a “fruit” company” – that tweet has since been deleted.

Today however, RedmondPie seems to have all but confirmed Hajas’ employment at Apple with a screenshot of the Apple Directory System app, obtained from a source working at Apple. The screenshot shows Hajas working as an “iOS & Frameworks” employee. If this is the case, it wouldn’t be the first time that Apple has swooped and hired developers from the jailbreak community, back in 2007 it was suggested that Apple hired several people to work on the application distribution model used by the App Store.

An obvious reason for the hire that many are suggesting is that Apple wants Hajas’ skills for a new notification system in iOS. His MobileNotifier jailbreak tweak has been popular amongst jailbreak users for how it overhauls the inbuilt iOS notification system into something much more helpful and powerful, whilst being less intrusive.

[Via Redmond Pie]

Android and iOS Continue To Dominate In US Smartphone Market

Apple has continued making gains in the US mobile and smartphone market according to the latest comScore ‘Mobile Subscriber Market Share’. Surpassing RIM, Apple jumped to being the fourth largest OEM with a share of 8.3% of the US market. Samsung remains number one with 24.5% of the market, followed by LG and Motorola.

In terms of smartphone operating systems in the US, Google’s Android leads the pack with 36.4% of the market, an increase of 5.2 percentage points over the three month period. Whilst Apple’s iOS, is still in a solid second place, and grew its share by 1.3 percentage points. RIM continues its slide, falling another 4.7 percentage points and Microsoft also managed to see its market share fall by 1.3 percentage points.

Meanwhile in terms of usage, more US consumers ar using web browsers (up 2.1 percentage points), downloading applications (up 2.4 percentage points), playing games (up 2.5 percentage points) and using social networks or accessing blogs (up 2.7 percentage points).

[Via comScore]

CCleaner Coming To The Mac, First Beta Available Now

CCleaner, widely praised amongst Windows users, is making its way over to the Mac, with a first beta release available now. For those who are unfamiliar, CCleaner has been a Windows application that lets users easily delete and clean up their computer of temporary files, caches and other files that clog up their computer’s space, with many also using it for privacy, clearing out their browser data.

Being the first beta release, the OS X version has far less features than the current Windows version does. Nonetheless it still includes the core features of removing caches, cookies and history from either Safari or Firefox as well as clearing out the Trash, Recent Files and Servers and the Temporary folder.

Piriform, creators of CCleaner have said that they plan to release a full version within a few months, so expect more beta releases soon with support for more applications and more cleaning features. You can download the first beta release for OS X here.

[Via Lifehacker]

Apple Thanks Apple Store Employees In Tenth Anniversary Poster

Apple didn’t openly celebrate the tenth anniversary of its retail stores except for using the occasion to role out iPads as an interactive “smart sign”. However it has been noticed that in the back-end of stores, Apple has sent a tenth anniversary poster. The poster is almost philosophical in its review of the past ten years of Apple stores, highlighting the successes, failures, trivial facts and lessons learnt.

Jump the break for a recreated version of the poster, or head to ifoAppleStore for a transcribed copy of the poster. Otherwise, here are some highlights that we thought were interesting:

We’ve learned that a 32’6” transparent glass box can stand tall even among the giants of the Manhattan skyline.That when glass becomes as iconic as the Fifth Avenue Cube, it can also become the fifth most photographed landmark in New York City.

We’ve also learned that getting these details perfect can feel like trying to move a mountain. Sometimes two. But in the end, the effort is worth it. Because steel, glass, and stone can combine to create truly unique and inspiring spaces.

We’ve learned that a visit to the Genius Bar can fix more than just computers. It can also restore a customer’s relationship with Apple

We’ve found that when we wear black T-shirts, we blend in. And when we wear too many colors it’s confusing. But blue shirts are just right. We’ve also learned that it takes precisely 4,253 stitches to embroider the Apple logo on those blue shirts. And we even figured out which direction the stitches should go in.

As beautiful and iconic as our stores may be, the people who create and staff those stores are what matters most. So on this 3,652nd day we say think you to very single one of you. We say thank you to thosewho were there on the first day, to those whose first day is today.

[Via MacRumors]

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Apple Paying Record Companies Up To $150 Million For iCloud

According to The New York Post, Apple will hand over between $100 and $150 million in advance payments to the four major record labels as part of its iCloud deal with them. Each of the four, which includes Sony Music, EMI, Warner Music and Universal, were offered between $25 million and $50 million as incentives to get on board with Apple. The exact figures will ultimately depend on how many tracks consumers end up storing on Apple’s iCloud offering.

Yesterday we reported on the expected initial cost of iCloud, which is rumoured, to be free for the first year and $25 a year after that. The New York Post also notes that Apple will take a 30% cut of fees, the music publishers receiving 12% and the rest to going towards record labels and artists.

We also reported yesterday that Apple had finalised its iCloud deals with Universal Music, which was the hold out record company.  The New York Post also notes that the size of the advance payments was the major stumbling block for Google, which had apparently been negotiating with the music companies before launching its cloud music offering last month. The official iCloud announcement will come on Monday at the WWDC keynote.

[Via The New York Post]

 

Tim Cook: Tablets To Outsell PCs Over The Next Several Years

In a report by Goldman Sachs analyst Bill Shope, Tim Cook speaks some pretty bold words about the future of the tablet market and the PC market. Speaking with Shope, he says “he sees no reason why the tablet market shouldn’t eclipse the PC market over the next several years”.

Shope notes that Apple, in the statement is more “overtly optimistic” on the long-term prospects of the platform than they have in the past. In the report itself, Shope suggests that Apple will sell 8.1 million iPads in the June quarter, compared to last year it would be 72% increase.

Apple executives were also touting the fact the iPhone is now officially available from 200 carriers worldwide, and that ten years since opening, its retail stores are doing well.

[Via BusinessInsider]