WWDC 2008 AKA The Day the Earth Stood Still

The title of this post is somewhat overblown and pretentious! It's not entirely without some merit as an in-joke; Twitter has been electric with, witty, sci-fi references regarding announcements beamed from the Apple mothership, I only needed to mention that Exeter was thundery and my Twitter peeps were inspired to alude to ID4 amongst others.

My initial reaction to Steve Jobs keynote is mostly positive, mostly!

The new iPhone 3G looks most compelling. I'm sold on the 16GB model (in limited edition white) and will be contacting my O2 Shop in short order: as soon as tomorrow. Assuming O2 can offer a good pay-as-you-go plan, alongside the £269 price tag, for an iPhone 3G, July 11th can't come soon enough! An iPod touch 32GB is on order for wireless browsing around the home.

.mac is to morph into MobileMe and e-mail addresses can be transferred, if desired, to @me.com. However, a free service would've been welcomed! Apple's e-mail solution looks like a poor investment against highly featured, and free, services such as Google's Gmail! I'll review MobileMe once it becomes available, from July, and make it known whether or not subscribing for a fee-based service is worthwhile in the long-term!

Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was previewed: “We have delivered more than a thousand new features to OS X in just seven years and Snow Leopard lays the foundation for thousands more,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “In our continued effort to deliver the best user experience, we hit the pause button on new features to focus on perfecting the world’s most advanced operating system.”

Breaking news: Aliens have invaded Apple Store Princesshay...

Apple + Twitter

Follow tomorrow's Apple WWDC 2008 breaking news on Twitter and discover whether or not I'll be buying an iPhone 2! It'll be up to Steve Jobs to convince me!

Friend me on popular social networks: claimID.

The O2 Arena

The halo of geek chic is in full effect and WWDC enjoys a public profile comparable to Macworld!

The buzz surrounding next week's WWDC 2008 is bordering on the feverish! Only a brand with Apple's mindshare could garner such frenetic excitement, from the mainstream mass media, for what is, arguably, exclusively a 'developers delight'!

Not only is there incessant talk of the iPhone 2/3G, there's Mac OS X 10.5.4 (didn't we all just download 10.5.3 last week?), Mac OS X 10.6 codenamed 'Snow Leopard', and a much-needed .mac makeover! The latter holds the most compelling secrets, and may convince me to renew my subscription in October!

Everything hinges on the iPhone 2 and whether or not O2, the exclusive UK network carrier, offers Apple's second generation mobile device at a compelling price point alongside pay-as-you-go deals! If so, I'm sold and it'll be goodbye Orange! Readers who watch Channel Four's Dispatches series will appreciate the pay-as-you-go bias!

Further to the iPhone and .mac refresh, I'm predicting that there'll be an announcement regarding a new portable device called Mac nano...

iCalamity

In the wake of last week's release of Mac OS X 10.5.3, the Apple Discussions forums have been flooded with myriad threads related to innumerable iCal problems! I can concur that the latest Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard update wiped all my iCal calendars, following a .mac sync, and replaced these with empty duplicates!

Thankfully I had a usable backup from which to restore all my calendars! This is my suggested workaround:

*Uncheck iCal sync (System Preferences/.mac)
*Delete this folder: ~/Library/Calendars
*Restore all iCal settings via your backup plan

Hey presto! A working copy of iCal. Your mileage may vary, but I hope that this simple tip will help some (if not all) affected users. Further to this, I'm seriously considering purchasing Time Capsule 1TB at the conclusion of WWDC 2008!

Apple releases Mac OS X 10.5.3

After weeks of comprehensive testing, and compulsive nail biting, by the developer community, Apple has finally released Mac OS X 10.5.3 ahead of next month's WWDC 2008.

The Mac OS X 10.5.3 Update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X 10.5 and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility and security of your Mac.

General

* Fixes a font issue that could result in Helvetica Narrow being used in applications instead of Helvetica.
* Addresses an issue with stuttering video and audio playback in certain USB devices.
* Resolves stability issues with Word of the Day, iTunes Artwork, and Slideshow screen savers.
* Fixes an issue in which certain attached hard drives may not show up in the Finder.
* Addresses an issue with .Mac syncing of Dashboard widgets over multiple Macs that use different screen resolutions.
* Includes additional RAW image support for several cameras.
* Improves the accuracy of the Software Update progress bar indicator.
* Addresses an issue in which Finder may not be available if the computer name is blank in Sharing preferences.
* Improves Active Directory binding and login.
* Eliminates a delay when logging in as an Active Directory user in a .local domain.
* Improves Spotlight searches on a AFP file server volumes.
* Clients can now change their password at the login window when bound to a Mac OS X 10.4 Open Directory server.
* Improves Safari reliability when connecting to the Internet through a Microsoft ISA proxy.

Address Book

* Addresses reliability issues when searching for contacts using built-in search.
* Resolves issues with mapping addresses that contain an ampersand character (&).

AirPort

* Improves 802.1X behavior and reliability.
* Improves reliability when using Time Capsule.

Automator

* Addresses an issue in which some actions may not work with the "Show When Run" option enabled.
* Resolves an issue in which the "New iCal Event" action may not work.
* Resolves an issue that prevents workflows from being saved in the Finder's contextual menu.
* Fixes reliability issues for Automator scripts that search for files by date.
* Resolves an issue that prevents workflows from being saved in the Finder's contextual menu.
* Addresses an issue in which Automator workflows as Finder plugins do not work when the workflow begins with the "Get Selected Finder Items" action.
* Fixes an issue in which the "Copy Files" action does not reliably work when added from Automator’s warning dialog.

iCal

* Addresses potential privacy issues by allowing events to be marked as private.
* Resolves an issue in which the inspector does not show capacity and availability info for conference rooms within a building.
* Addresses an issue in which the current day could appear in the left-most column of the weekly view.
* Addresses reliability issues with meeting alarms, invitations and attachments.
* Resolves issues with reliability when restoring from iCal backups.
* Fixes accuracy issues with auto-completion, availability data and location names.
* Resolves an issue in which iCal may send cancellation notices for events in the past after a calendar is deleted.
* Fixes reliability issues with iCal syncing.

iChat

* Addresses reliability issues with screen sharing.
* Resolves an issue in which saved chat transcripts may reported as "still in use" after opening and closing them in iChat.
* Resolves an issue with group chats not being indexed in Spotlight.
* Only the last 250 messages of an active chat are saved. Fixed to save unlimited number of lines.
* Addresses issues with echo cancellation that may occur on portable Macs.

Mail

* Resolves an issue in which Mail may prevent idle sleep when set to automatically check for new messages every minute.
* Addresses stability issues that may be encountered when dragging large attachments into an email message.
* Fixes an issue that could occur if two compose windows are open when dragging a file to the Mail icon in the Dock.
* Addresses reliability issues when changes are made to a mailbox while offline.
* Resolves wrapping issues that may be found with consecutive spaces in plain text.
* Fixes issues with certain web pages appearing garbled when emailed from Safari.
* Fixes an issue in which the Sent, Drafts, and Outbox mailboxes incorrectly list the "cc" recipients in the "To" column.
* Addresses reliability issues with attachments added to plain text notes.
* Fixes reliability issues with authenticated RSS feeds.
* Resolves an issue in which attaching an alias to an email message may not send the actual file.

Parental Controls

* Addresses reliability issues with application logging and time limits.
* Resolves an issue in which Parental Controls may prevent forced sleep.
* Addresses performance issues with web content filters.
* Fixes an issue with managed accounts in which iChat transcripts may not be created.
* Addresses issues with 4-byte files and whitelist.

Spaces

* Resolves an issue in which switching to a different space and returning back to the original space may reorder the application windows with a different active window.
* Resolves an issue in which activating an application from the Dock switches to a different space, even if there is a window for that application in the current space.
* Fixes an issue in which Command-Tab may incorrectly switch to a new space.
* Addresses reliability issues with Spaces when syncing preferences over .Mac.

Time Machine

* Includes fixes for Time Machine compatibility with Time Capsule.
* Resolves certain issues when backing up a portable Mac that is on battery power.
* Addresses compatibility issues with Aperture 2.
* Addresses reliability issues when performing a full restore from a Time Machine backup.
* Fixes an issue in which certain function keys may be disabled after using Time Machine.
* Fixes a possible alert message that incorrectly states a backup volume does not have enough space.
* Updates Time Machine to reliably restore attachments and messages in Mail.

VoiceOver

* Includes Braille Update 1.0 which enables GW Micro, HandyTech, HIMS, Nippon, and Papenmeier Refreshable Braille displays.
* Addresses an issue with Braille dot 7 and 8 underlining.
* Fixes an issue in which HTML page anchors may be ignored by the VoiceOver cursor.
* Fixes an issue that prevented Hot Spots from being used in text areas.
* Resolves an issue with spell checking in which VoiceOver may only announce the first misspelled word if there are multiple words spelled incorrectly.

As ever, I unreservedly recommend all Mac-based readers to download the hefty Mac OS X 10.5.3 Combo Update! If readers encounter any show-stopping problems, please post a comment. Thank you in advance.