All indicators seem to point to a July 14 release for Mac OS X 10.7
Lion. If you're going to be an early adopter, we have several links
about the pros, cons, and mechanics of the upgrade. Probably the
biggest reason for longtime Mac users not to upgrade would be that you
depend on PowerPC software, which will no longer run in Lion. A lot of
us will be sticking with Snow Leopard, but if you're a more recent
convert (since 2006), this probably isn't an issue for you.
Mac notebook and other portable computing is covered in The 'Book Review. iPad, iPod, iPhone, and
Apple TV news is covered in iOS News
Review. All prices are in US dollars unless otherwise noted.
Lion Preparation
News & Opinion
Products & Services
Lion Preparation
Preparing Your Mac for OS X 10.7 Lion
MacFixIt's Topher Kessler has posted a tutorial on preparing your
Mac for installation of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion when it's released later
this month (the 14th is rumored). Kessler notes that Apple has taken
some different turns with Lion, especially in the way it will be
distributed, and that minimum system requirements for the upgrade will
be a bit more constrained than in the past, and offers advice on how
best to prepare before taking the plunge.
Link: Preparing Your
Mac for OS X 10.7 Lion
Take Control of Upgrading to Lion by Joe
Kissell
PR: With the upcoming release of OS X Lion, TidBITS
Publishing Inc. has announced the release of Take Control of
Upgrading to Lion by Joe Kissell. This ebook is for Macintosh users
who want to consider and understand exactly what is involved in
upgrading to Lion, especially those who suspect that their Macs are not
ready for the upgrade or who worry about potential problems when
upgrading.
Kissell details how to do a pre-upgrade check for software and
hardware compatibility and fitness, and he provides expert advice on
the best kind of backup to make in case of an upgrade disaster. He also
explains how readers can clean up their hard drives so that they can
get a clean start with Lion, including dealing with old PowerPC-based
software that won't run under Lion.
Version 1.0 of Take Control of Upgrading to Lion is available
now for $10.
Customers can also preorder an additional Lion ebook at a
significant discount - Matt Neuburg's Take Control of Using Lion
(links below) - if they shop before Apple releases Lion.
Those who purchase Take Control of Upgrading to Lion will get
a free update to a longer version of the ebook after Lion ships. The
update, planned to be available almost immediately once Kissell's
nondisclosure agreement with Apple is lifted, will cover full
installation details, offer troubleshooting tips in case an
installation goes wrong, and describe essential post-upgrade tweaks. It
will also tell you how to migrate to a new Mac running Lion, install
Lion Server, and use the new Recovery mode.
Take Control of Upgrading to Lion is effectively the fifth
edition of the popular Take Control of Upgrading... title that
Kissell has been penning since the release of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther in 2003.
Kissell has effectively guided many thousands of Mac users through
upgrading their operating systems over the years, increasing their
confidence while describing important steps that they can take to
mitigate and recover from any problems brought on by upgrading.
Book Details:
- Take Control of Upgrading to Lion by Joe Kissell:
- PDF format
- 66 pages
- free sample available
- Publication date: June 29, 2011
- Price: $10 (PDF, EPUB)
- ISBN: 978-1-61542-138-1
Link: Take Control of
Upgrading to Lion (purchase
link)
Link: Take
Control of Using Lion (purchase
link)
Intego: Be Ready for Lion Security-Wise
PR: As has been widely reported in the press, Apple has
released a golden master version of OS X Lion to developers. This is
generally the final version of a program, that which is then pressed to
disc. Since Lion is only being sold by download, release may occur any
day.
Intego's software has always been compatible with the latest
versions of Apple's operating systems as of the day of their release.
Lion is no exception. We're putting the finishing touches on our
programs to ensure full compatibility with Lion. In a short time, we
will announce the version numbers of our programs that will be fully
Lion-compatible, and will publish that information here on the Mac
Security Blog.
In the meantime, you should know one thing. It is best to upgrade
your Intego software before installing Lion. Not that anything will
break, but Lion may disable certain parts of Intego programs if they
are not compatible, so you won't be protected. To do this, launch
NetUpdate from the Intego menu in your menu bar, or from the System
Preferences application. Check for updates, and update all the programs
for which updates are available. (Some Intego software is already
compatible with Lion, so don't be surprised if you don't see updates
for everything.) After you restart your Mac, go ahead and install Lion,
and all should be well.
Stay tuned for an announcement of software versions that are
compatible with Lion.
Link: Be Ready for
Lion Security-Wise
Intuit Reminds Quicken Users of Lion
Incompatibility
Tidbits' Glenn Fleishman says that Quicken 2005, 2006, and 2007
users who read sites like TidBITS almost certainly know already that
Intuit's Quicken financial-tracking software was never properly updated
for Intel-based Macs and will definitely not function under OS X
10.7 Lion, which is dropping the Rosetta emulator that has heretofore
allowed old PowerPC software to keep on working in OS X.
Fleishman says Intuit has clarified the situation, noting that the
less feature-laden Quicken Essentials is ready for Mac OS X 10.7,
but the 2005 through 2007 versions are not, and rumors that Intuit and
Apple might be working together to create a hybrid Rosetta/Quicken
kludge are just rumors.
Unhappily, you can't import data into Quicken Essentials from
Quicken 2005, 2006, and 2007 under Lion, which Fleishman declares
"simply ridiculous," allowing that there's no excuse for Intuit's
inability to update a converter for Lion.
Link: Intuit
Reminds Quicken Users of Lion Incompatibility
News & Opinion
The Cube: Apple's Strangest Romance
Cube entrance to NYC Apple Store.
The ill-fated G4 Cube.
The Register's Andrew Orlowski recalls that ten years ago, Apple
called it quits on one of its oddest products ever, the G4 Cube. The Cube was a strange and
wonderful machine that continues to fascinate today - but it was widely
perceived to have failed. Some people thoroughly enjoyed the failure,
thinking it served Apple right.
Orlowski observes that dull people will always cheer a bold
experiment that goes wrong, and that after July 2001, Apple's design
team never again attempted anything as daring or distinctive as the
Cube.
Also see Charles Moore's Looking Back at the Power Mac G4
Cube Ten Years On.
NeXTcube, Steve Jobs' first cube
computer.
Link: The Cube: Apple's
Daftest, Strangest Romance
Blu-ray Playback Finally Comes to OS X
MacFixIt's Topher Kessler observes understatedly that the
[in]ability to play Blu-ray movies in OS X
has been "a bit of a sore spot" for Mac users, noting that while Apple
initially appeared to be a supporter of Blu-ray while it was being
developed, the company has progressively shied away from Blu-ray in
support of alternative options like the iTunes Store, although the
ability to create and burn Blu-ray movies has been readily available
with tools like Final Cut Pro and Toast Titanium all along, leading to
the deduction that it's more likely been Blu-ray's competition with
Apple's preferred streaming media mode than any engineering impediments
holding Apple Blu-ray support back.
However, Kessler reports that Blu-ray is finally here, with Macgo's
a new $39.95 Blu-ray Player on Mac, the first to bring full Blu-ray
playback support to OS X, allowing native Blu-ray disc playback, and
also supporting playback of numerous media file types. A trial version
offering three months of free playback is available
Link: Blu-ray Playback
Comes to OS X
Link: Blu-ray Player on
Mac
Printing and Sound Problems in Mac OS X 10.6.8
Tidbits' Adam C. Engst wonders if Apple is focusing so much
attention on the upcoming release of OS X Lion that testing of the last
few Mac OS X 10.6 Snow
Leopard releases hasn't been up to the company's usual quality,
noting that just-released OS X 10.6.8 is alleged to be the cause
of a a variety of user-reported problems including printing and audio
issues, hyperactive Dock CPU usage, boot problems for PGP Desktop
users, and more.
Indeed, some have suggested holding off updating to 10.6.8 until
it's time to install OS X 10.7 Lion (which will reportedly require
10.6.8).
Link: Mac OS
X 10.6.8 Suffers Printing and Audio Problems
Carbon Copy Cloner as a Backup Utility
AppStorm's Adam Williams notes that while OS X's Time Machine is a
useful and simple to use backup utility, it's prudent not to put all
your digital eggs in one basket. Furthermore, when you replace your
hard drive, cloning the old drive makes for a completely seamless
transition to the new one, with all of your passwords, apps, files,
etc. right where you expect them to be.
Williams shows how to use the shareware (uncrippled, unlimited demo)
Carbon Copy Cloner utility to back up your files - a process somewhat
more involved than using Time Machine but yielding the benefit of
making an exact, bootable duplicate, and therefore arguably well worth
the extra effort.
Link: Use Carbon Copy
Cloner to Make an Exact Copy of Your Hard-Disk
Link: Carbon Copy Cloner
Poll: Which Mac OS Version Did You Start On?
An interesting poll posted by AppStorm's Joshua Johnson asking
"Which Mac OS Did You Start On?" indicates that System 6 and earlier
veterans, like your editor and publisher, are only a small minority of
Mac users, representing less than 15% overall the last time I
looked.
Publisher's note: Both Charles Moore and I joined the Mac world with
a Mac Plus, introduced in
January 1986. I first used a Mac in late 1986, probably with System
3.2. When I got my own Mac Plus in 1990 or 1991, I think it included
System 6.0.3, and that machine eventually ran System 7.5.5 (helped with
a 16 MHz Brainstorm
accelerator). dk
Link: AppStorm Weekly
Polls
The PC Buying Experience in 2011
PR: Bruce Temkin says they've just published a new Temkin
Group report, The PC Buying Experience, 2011, reporting on how
consumers chose computers and the difference between Apple buyers and
others, and the differences in channels that they use.
Here's the executive summary:
Computers have become a standard appliance
in most households, but why aren't they easy to buy? This report
analyzes the buying process of 842 US consumers that have recently
purchased a computer. Apple is the leader across the buying experience
but Dell and HP are not far behind. This report compares the customer
satisfaction of the leading computer suppliers in five stages of the
consumers buying process. It also examines influences and decision
factors on the consumer buying decision by major PC manufacturer. Key
findings are that Apple consumers care more about customer service than
PC buyers, consumers that buy PCs directly from the manufacturer are
more satisfied than those that buy at a retailer and Best Buy employees
are more helpful than those at other retailers.
As you can see from the graphic (one of the 10 figures in the
report), Apple's largest satisfaction gap with PC makers shows up in
customer service and the smallest gaps are with the buying process and
with the computer itself.
The report also examines this data by PC brands. That analysis shows
that HP and Dell are much more competitive with Apple than are "other"
PC makes. HP outpaces Apple when it comes to the process of purchasing
the computer and Dell is only one percentage point behind Apple when it
comes to the ease of setting up a computer. Buyers of all three brands
are equally satisfied with the computer they purchased.
The report is on sale for $195
Link: The PC Buying
Experience, 2011
Ricoh to Buy Pentax, Focus on DSLR Market
IDG News Service's Martyn Williams reports that Japan's Ricoh is
planning to acquire the venerable Pentax camera brand as part of its
move to enter the digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera market.
The Ricoh brand was a relatively minor player in the heyday of the
35mm single lens reflex (SLR) film camera, but Williams notes that its
digital camera lineup has been to high-end point-and-shoot models with
fixed lenses, and that Ricoh says in a statement that the Pentax
acquisition is in aid of getting it back into the SLR business and help
diversify its revenue stream, which has recently been largely reliant
on its multifunction printer business for corporate customers.
Publisher's note: Pentax, then known as Asahi
Optical Co., Ltd., has been making SLRs since the Asahiflex of 1952. The
first Pentax SLR with a pentaprism, which allows
viewing through the camera lens without the reversed image typical of
waist level viewfinder, was introduced in 1957. Other innovations
included a rapid-wind film advance lever (instead of a knob), a rewind
crank (again, instead of a knob), and a microprism focus aid. It used
the rapid return mirror introduced with the Asahiflex IIb (lots more
details in the
Wikipedia article on Pentax cameras). Pentax introduced
through-the-lens metering with the Spotmatic (1960 prototype, 1964
production), and I believe the Electro Spotmatic (ES) was the first
with aperture-preferred auto exposure. Pentax was acquired by Hoya in
2007.
Ricoh has been selling SLRs since the mid-1960s, starting with the
Singlex,
but has never been a major player. (Pentax and Minolta have long been
second-tier camera makers behind Nikon and Canon but ahead of Ricoh,
Konica, and a host of other brands). dk
Link: Ricoh to Buy
Pentax, Set Sights on Digital SLR Market
Products & Services
Dragon Dictate for Mac: Watch & Learn Videos
Available
PR: Learn Dragon Dictate quickly and easily with Dragon
Dictate for Mac: Watch and Learn.
In this set of QuickTime video lessons, speech recognition expert
Dan Newman shows you how to get the most from Dragon Dictate.
You'll learn how to get up and running quickly, tips and techniques
for accurate dictation, and much more. It's like having a friend at
your side to guide you in learning Dragon Dictate.
Includes 60 minutes of instruction in twelve video lessons:
- Setup and Training (4 minutes)
- Starting to Dictate (4)
- Quick Tour (11)
- Punctuation and Capitalization (5)
- Spelling and Numbers (6)
- Correcting by Keyboard (6)
- Correcting by Voice (4)
- Adding New Words (2)
- Improving Accuracy (5)
- Healthy Computing (3)
- Tips for Speaking and Dictating (5)
- Text Macros (5)
You can view a sample lesson - Punctuation and Capitalization - at
the link below.
Dan Newman, President of Say I Can Speech Recognition, is the author
of three books on speech recognition software, has written for many
publications, including PC Magazine and Speech Technology, and has
appeared on the PBS television show Computer Chronicles. A computer
expert and skilled teacher, Dan has helped thousands of people use
Dragon software successfully.
Dragon Dictate for Mac - Watch and Learn sells for $49.95.
Link: Dragon Dictate for
Mac - Watch and Learn
Desktop Mac
Deals
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