Adobe outlines Leopard compatibility...

Adobe on Friday announced that most of it most popular products were compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, but that many of its applications would require forthcoming updates -- due in December 2007 and January 2008 -- for full compatibility with Apple's newest operating system. Most of its Creative Suite 3 Web are certified and fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, including Photoshop CS3, Illustrator CS3, GoLive CS3, Dreamweaver CS3, Fireworks CS3, Flash CS3, InCopy/InDesign CS3, and Contribute CS3.

Aperture 1.5.6, Backup 3.1.2 for Leopard...

Apple today released updates for two of its applications, Aperture 1.5.6 and Backup 3.1.2. While the main purpose of the updates is to provide compatibility with Leopard, Aperture has received several bug fixes related to accessing system- and application-specific resources. Both updates are available through Apple's website, and the Software Update application.

Hidden Leopard goodies...

Writing for the New York Times, David Pogue points out a number of nice features in Leopard that Apple neglected to mention in its "300 feature" round-up. Among them: the ability to locate menu items directly from the Help menu's search field; faster Spotlight returning of application listings, which allows it to be used as an application launcher more effectively, and the ability to enter equations into Spotlight's search field and perform calculations. There are other Spotlight enhancements as well. You can search the included dictionary from within Spotlight and more.

Sprint to unlock phones, iPhone next?...

In order to settle a class-action lawsuit, Sprint has agreed to provide customers who cancel their contracts, or whose contracts have expired, the code necessary to unlock their phones for use on other carriers. Since Sprint operates on CDMA, this would allow the phones to work on any competing firms' network that uses similar technology; that includes Verizon and Alltell. (AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM, meaning even unlocked Sprint phones won't work with those carriers). Plaintiffs in the suit claimed that Sprint's lock was a barrier to competition because it forced switchers to other carriers to buy new phones.

A closer look at Leopard with screenshots...

After more than year of waiting, the official global release of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is occurring virtually all day Friday and users are expecting the next-generation operating system to bring several advancements and refined user interface. Earlier today we posted our first impressions of Leopard as well as roundup of news, insights, and tidbits (other application specific updates can be tracked using our search, while virtualization developers Parallels said its software is Leopard-ready, while VMware has offered a v1.1 release candidate for Leopard.) We have a screenshot gallery of some of the new features.

Refurbished Apple TVs: 40GB $229, 160GB $339...

Apple's online store is currently carrying two versions of its Apple TV set top box. The device -- which is designed to transfer iTunes content wirelessly from a computer around the house to the living room for viewing or listening -- is available in both 40GB and 160GB capacities for $229 and $339, respectively. The Apple TV works with both Mac and PC computers, and features an 802.11 wireless technology that works with any 802.11 b, g, or n interface -- including Apple's AirPort Extreme Base Station and all wireless cards shipped with all new Macs.

GroMobile 1.3 improves physics, sound...

Braid Art Labs has released GroMobile 1.3, an update to its 3D desktop Gizmo player. GroMobile 1.3 comes with four Gizmos -- miniature games based on strategy and imagination featuring 3D graphics that hover above the Mac OS X desktop -- included, and the GroMobile website offers numerous other mini games available for download. The update includes refined physics, enhanced sound/scoring options, and 3D slider controls that track movements of the mouse. GroMobile 1.3 is available for free, requiring Mac OS X 10.4 or later or Windows 2000/XP/Vista.

Sans Digital introduces 8TB iSCSI bays ...

Sans Digital has introduced the EliteRAID ER104I and MobileRAID MR4I, new expandable 4 bay iSCSI rackmount and tower solutions. The EliteRAID ER104I is a 1U 4 bay rackmount unit designed to allow the expansion of up to eight hard drives with Sans Digital ES104T, MS4T, MS2T1 or other eSATA JBOD units. Both units could be used as Direct Attached Storage (DAS) by directly connecting to a computer for storage expansion, or they could used as Storage Area Network (SAN) storage by connecting to computers using TCP/IP Gigabit Ethernet network.

SanDisk ships 8GB microSDHC cards

SanDisk has begun shipping its 8GB microSDHC and M2 flash memory cards. The company is aiming the new cards squarely at users with mobile phones that accept memory, and launching a "Wake Up Your Phone" campaign to increase awareness of the sometimes overlooked capability. As part of the campaign, SanDisk has teamed up with festival and event producers Guerilla Union (Rock the Bells, Paid Dues) for the “Sunset Strip Block Party,” an event incorporating exclusive headline performances from various artists on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, Calif today, Friday the 26. Performances include Linkin Park, Common, The Crystal Method, Cut Chemist (visual performance) and Z-Trip. The 8GB microSDHC an M2 cards are now available in major retail outlets worldwide with suggested retail prices of $140 and $150 respectively.

Leopard: more news, updates, tidbits...

Apple today is launching Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard in the U.S. at 6:00 p.m. local time, but Mac owners in the UK and Japan are already cracking open their freshly-purchased boxes as a result of the time difference. A PhD student at the natural language processing group of the Computer Science Department at Columbia University is putting the finishing touches on Letterbox for Leopard, which is scheduled for release later today or some time tomorrow. Some eager Apple fans are already waiting in line at the Southpoint Mall in Durham, North Carolina to get their hands on Mac OS X Leopard when it hits store shelves there; the patient customers are broadcasting live video each hour, on the hour, of their experience waiting in line.

New Aperture plugins, add-on...

Two new plugins that extend the functionality of Apple's Aperture digtial photography workflow tool have been released. Publish for Approval allows customers to approve images remotely over the internet. It allows creators t ou web-publish selected images, then customers to automatically display their choices within Aperture. The tool uses the built-in web sharing abilities of Mac OS X, and the power of AppleScript, to create and display webpages, containing your images, to the client. On the webpage, the client selects the images they approve, and clicks a button to submit their choices to the creator. Immediately, their selections are displayed in a Smart Album in the creator's Aperture project.

Sprint fallout may lead to easier unlocks...

Sprint has settled a class action lawsuit whose result may force it and other phone carriers to relent and allow phone unlocking, according to an update by Ars Technica. The complaint, filed by California residents Linda and William Mackenzie as well as Gerasimo Molfetas and Katherine Zill, argues that Sprint has broken the state's Unfair Competition Law and related laws by refusing to unlock phones for customers who wanted to switch providers. As part of the settlement, Sprint will be required to give customers an unlock code for their phone when they choose to switch carriers. The policy change will be retroactive to 1999 and will require that both new agreements and customer service agents publicize the details, according to the terms.

Boynq WakeUp docks iPods in unusual form...

Sound specialist Boynq has announced a new iPod clock stereo with an unusual design. The speakers of the WakeUp actually rest on a corner, the main anchorage of the clock being a three-panel "wall," with each panel containing an LCD displaying time, input channels or the FM radio station in a white tint. The clock can be adjusted through buttons on the side of each panel, or else through an included remote control; bass and treble equalizers are built in, and the satellites put out 10W of RMS power per speaker. iPods are docked on top of one of the panels, which fits Minis, standard 4G, 5G and Classic iPods, all generations of the Nano, and the iPhone as well as the iPod touch.

Mozilla creates Prism platform for web apps...

Mozilla today announced the first version of Prism, the company's new platform for bringing web applications to the desktop. Similar to Adobe's AIR or Microsoft's Silverlight, the technology is designed to provide users with a clutter-free, dedicated environment to run a web-based program while still having access to the inherent advantages of web standards and a constant connection to the Internet when needed. Unlike the Adobe or Microsoft offerings, however, Mozilla's solution would not necessarily require specialized code to be written for each new program. In many cases, Prism can split apps away from a website and run them as separate software, complete with the same task switching or Expose interaction as a full-blown program, the company says.

DirectControl preview adds Leopard support...

Centrify today announced that it has added support for Leopard to its DirectControl software for Mac OS X. Users of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard can utilize security with single sign-on and administrative control provided by DirectControl's Active Directory-based management and Group Policy support. "Centrify is proud to deliver support for the newest release of Mac OS X, and we believe this is representative of our continued efforts to make the Mac work seamlessly in the enterprise," said David McNeely, director of product management for Centrify. A preview version of Centrify DirectControl for Mac with support for Leopard is already available, and the application is scheduled to ship in mid-November for $60 per workstation and $350 per server.

Apple to run user-created iPod touch ad...

Apple is preparing to air a new TV commercial on Sunday, October 28th featuring its recently introduced iPod touch. The commercial features a fast-paced overview of the portable player atop a song titled "Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex," according to the New York Times. Interestingly the spot's creator, Nick Haley, is an 18-year-old student and Apple fan in the UK who created the content and uploaded his video to YouTube. There the ad received four out of five stars as well as numerous positive comments, and YouTube revealed more than 2,100 views of the home-brewed advertisement as of Thursday, October 25th.

Mac OS X Leopard: first impressions...

Both Electronista and MacNN received our copies of the latest version of Mac OS X yesterday and are putting it through its paces in advance of the official release at 6PM tonight. Since then, we've been using the OS as part of our daily workflows and are ready to hand out our first takes on the new functionality and performance of the software for those users not yet bent on making the upgrade. Our experience so far has been upbeat -- though not without its share of (minor) flaws.

SWsoft: Parallels should be Leopard-ready...

SWsoft, the developers of the Parallels Desktop virtualization software, say that the program has been tested with Mac OS X Leopard, and should be compatible. "We're confident that Parallels Desktop is compatible with Leopard. Performance is great, and core functionality works smoothly," says SWsoft director Ben Rudolph. "You'll be able to safely upgrade to Leopard when it goes live without worrying that Parallels will work." Despite this, the company cautions that it has not actually tried Parallels with the final build of Leopard, which might still generate unexpected errors.

FileMaker issues Leopard compatibility note...

FileMaker, producers of its ubiquitous namesake database software, have issued a compatibility notice to coincide with the release of Mac OS X Leopard. The company says it is aware of two major issues with Leopard and FileMaker Pro 9/Pro 9 Advanced: the first is that Instant Web Publishing, which normally lets users view and modify databases via a web browser, is completely non-functional in Leopard. Secondly, users must currently specify particular regions to get the program to run, due to issues with language support. The English version must currently have the "International Formats Region" in Mac OS System Preferences set to United States; choosing another, such as United Kingdom, will not work.

Vista sales slow despite record MS profit...

The sales rate of Microsoft's Windows Vista is gradually slowing down as the operating system reaches the one-year anniversary of its release to businesses, according to the company's latest financial results. The Redmond, Washington-based company shipped approximately 28 million copies of Vista in the latest quarter ended September, or 9.3 million copies per month. Though the Windows developer pointed to 27 percent growth in business licenses and noted that many home users were buying the more lucrative Vista Home Premium or Ultimate editions, the rate represents a decline from the 10 million per month reported early in summer. Shipments of the OS peaked in the first three months after its January release, when the company sold an average of 20 million copies per month thanks to a wave of early adopters and users waiting for Vista to replace older systems. Over 88 million copies of Vista have been shipped to date, Microsoft says.