Apple has pushed out another update to OS X Mountain Lion Developer Preview 3, as the anticipated summer public release of OS X 10.8 nears. The new build is 12A206j and can be downloaded through the Mac App Store by any registered Mac developer running 12A193i or later of Mountain Lion.
The latest build includes noticeable changes to Notification Center, Notes, Share Sheets, and several other prominent OS X 10.8 features. 12A206j also features many bug fixes though it continues to have a handful of prominent issues that are yet to be addressed. Additionally, some 2007 MacBook Pro models are currently missing support in the new version, though that is expected to be resolved in a future update.
Having a backup of your iOS device and its settings is important, so rather than completely disabling iOS backups in iTunes, you can choose to selectively disable only the automatic backup process. This is a much better solution because it allows you to create and retain local backups of an iPad, iPhone, or iPod when you want them, but they are no longer initiated on their own during the sync process.
The vast majority of users should retain the default behavior and allow iTunes to manage and back up your devices. This tip is intended for advanced users who have a compelling reason to disable the automated process.
Disable Automatic iTunes Backups
Quit iTunes and then launch Terminal, found in /Applications/Utilities/
Once automatic back ups are disabled, you can backup manually at any point by right-clicking on the device within iTunes sidebar and choosing “Back Up”, and you can continue to use iClouds manual initiation as well.
Re-Enable Automatic iOS Device Backups in iTunes
To reverse the change and re-enable automatic device backups, open Terminal and use the following defaults command before relaunching iTunes:
We’ve all had the experience of one of our favorite app getting updated and the new version being worse than the previous version. Maybe it’s more intrusive ads, maybe it’s a terribly annoying feature, whatever it is, a poor app update can easily ruin your app experience. The easiest way to avoid this potential letdown is to save a copy of iOS apps, allowing you to downgrade them if you discover the new version is worse. This is much easier to do than you may think, we’ll cover the process of saving a local backup of the app and also how to downgrade to the prior version if you dislike the newest iteration.
Note that if you backup exclusively through iCloud you won’t have this option because the apps will not be stored locally. You can always backup locally in addition to iCloud to prevent that being an issue.
Save iOS Apps & Easy Version Downgrading
This process is best done manually before you update an app.
Saving & Backing Up Individual iOS Apps
Navigate to the iOS app location, this can be done by right-clicking the app in iTunes and choosing “Show in Finder” or by manually going to the local iOS app location at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications/ and finding the app
Copy the app file to another location to serve as the backup, the iOS app files have a .ipa extension
If you feel like it, you could backup that entire directory to another location, though that’s usually unnecessary.
Sidenote for Windows users: the directory you are looking for is: C:\Users\Username\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Media\Mobile Applications\
With the app backed up, you can now safely update to the newest version directly on the iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. If you decide the new version is awful, downgrading is very simple.
Downgrading to Previous Version of an iOS App
On the iOS device, delete the app you wish to downgrade
On the computer, quit iTunes
Again navigate to the local iOS app location at ~/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Mobile Applications/
Remove the newest version of the app .ipa file from that directory
Copy the previously saved version of the app to the /Mobile Applications/ directory
Relaunch iTunes
Resync the iPhone, iPad, or iPod, and the older app version will restore to the device to complete the downgrade
In some situations the older versions of apps won’t be compatible with the newest version of iOS, you’ll know this is the case because the app won’t launch when you attempt to open it on the iPhone/iPad, or you will get a message stating a new version is available and asking to upgrade.
Finally, if you use something like Time Machine, you can always dig through the Time Machine backups to access older versions of apps if you’re in a pinch, but it’s generally easiest to just keep a specific backup of an app if you prefer a past version.
The next generation iPhone will feature a 4″ display, according to two separate reports from Reuters and Wall Street Journal.
The dual reports appear to confirm long existing speculation that Apple would increase the size of the new iPhone screens from the current 3.5″ display to a larger 4″ display. Larger displays are increasingly common in the smartphone world, and both Reuters and WSJ cite competition from Android phones as part of the motivation to increase the screen size.
Other details are scant and the source of the information is the routinely vague “people familiar with the situation”, but WSJ and Reuters have a history of providing accurate Apple rumors and leaks in the past.
Assuming existing iPhone 5 rumors pan out, the next-gen phone could potentially include the following features:
4″ Display at similar screen resolution to existing iPhone models
4G LTE connectivity
A5X CPU borrowed from the iPad 3
10 megapixel or higher camera
All new redesigned enclosure
Ships with iOS 6
The next iPhone is expected to launch later this year, likely around September or October.
Automatic termination is a feature of macOS since OS X Lion that comes from the realm of iOS, the idea is that after an app is unused for a period of time and becomes inactive, it will automatically terminate to free up resources for other tasks. With the help of the new auto-save feature, the user should theoretically never notice any of this going on and they can continue on with their work as usual when they need to, letting Mac OS X manage processes and resources for them without quitting apps or manual interaction through Activity Monitor.
Anytime an iOS device is connected to a computer it will sync and backup the device, and though the syncing process can be annoying sometimes, the backup process should be considered crucial so that you always have a way to restore your iPhone, iPad, or iPod should anything go wrong.
With that said, there are a few limited situations where some users may want to disable the iTunes & iOS backup process completely, which is different than stopping iTunes from automatically syncing because it continues to allow for device syncing but minus the backing up aspect.
We’ll show you how to turn off backups, but we want to warn everyone this is not a good idea unless you know what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, leaving this option best for select jailbreakers or just for demonstration purposes.
Disable iTunes Backups for iOS Devices
Quit out of iTunes and launch the Terminal, then enter the following defaults write command:
Relaunch iTunes, connecting iOS devices will sync but without a backup copying over
With backups disabled nothing will be added to the local directory or iCloud, and anything already there can be deleted through iTunes or manually. Remember, disabling this feature removes the ability to restore an iOS device should you need to, which for 99.9% of people is a bad thing.
Re-Enable iTunes & iOS Backups
Quit iTunes again and launch Terminal, entering the following defaults command:
Relaunch iTunes and connect an iOS device to confirm backups are working again
The instructions above are intended for Mac OS X, but Windows users can disable the device backups by launching iTunes with a flag attached to it, this can be executed from the Run menu or by right-clicking iTunes:
By using a custom URL inside of an anchor tag, you can place a link on any website that will initiate a new iMessage conversation. Anyone clicking the link will then launch the Messages app in iOS or iMessages in Mac OS X to begin a new conversation with the specified Apple ID.
Even if you have limited knowledge of HTML the link structure is easy to use, here’s the format you’d want to use for Mac and iOS;
Apple will release a new thinner MacBook Pro next month at the annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), according to a report from Bloomberg.
With a thinner design, the new MacBook Pro is expected to feature “high-definition screens like those on the iPhone and iPad” commonly referred to as a Retina display, and also include SSD storage which will extend battery life and increase performance. The new laptops are said to run on Intels newest Ivy Bridge processors, though precise clock speeds are currently unknown, and there is no word on bundled graphics card capabilities.
Earlier today, 9to5mac had reported on some information they had received regarding the new MacBook Pro model, and the Bloomberg report seems to confirm much of it. 9to5mac suggested the new MacBook Pro won’t have a tapered enclosure like the MacBook Air, and instead would resemble a thinner version of the square unibody enclosure that already exists but without a SuperDrive.
Rumors of retina Macs have swirled for quite some time, and evidence has been piling up since early OS X Lion developer previews were released. HIDPI mode is currently buried in OS X and can be enabled manually, though there is no official Apple screen capable of utilizing the high resolution.
WWDC 2012 is scheduled to run from June 11 to June 15. Other than an all new MacBook Pro, the event is expected to reveal iOS 6 beta for the first time, in addition to providing a GM build of OS X Mountain Lion, the latter of which is set to be released this summer.
Saving pictures from websites or emails on to the iPad or iPhone is very easy once you learn how. This may be a bit of a beginners tip, but after fielding the question multiple times from relatives and even seeing it popup in comments on wallpaper posts, there are clearly a fair amount of people who aren’t aware of how simple the process of saving images directly to iOS devices is, and that’s OK, we’ll teach you!
In this walkthrough we’ll show you how to save pictures that are either included in an email from the Mail app, and how to download and save an image from the web through the Safari app. Both methods are extremely simple and quite similar, they rely on a tap-and-hold method that is frequently used in iOS. You’ll find this is the same on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, and the pictures will download from the web or email to the local device. OK let’s get to it…
Many Mac users have an external hard disk for Time Machine backups or other media storage purposes, and if you leave it connected to the Mac all the time you’ve probably noticed an annoying side effect: the drive will spin down when it’s not in use, only to be spun up again unnecessarily at random during unrelated operations.
iTunes carrier testing mode allows you to manually load signed .ipcc carrier files onto an iPhone or cellular iPad, these .ipcc files contain various carrier settings pertaining to voice mail, MMS and SMS, Personal Hotspot, APN settings, and other network-specific preferences. If you’ve used an iPhone on T-Mobile or even as a prepaid phone you may have experience with these files, but other than making network configuration easy they can also be used to forcibly enable features that are otherwise disabled by default, like Personal Hotspot on certain international iPad 4G devices. We’ll cover how to enable carrier testing mode, how to find ipcc files, and then how to use those IPCC files with either an iPhone or iPad with a cellular connection.
Enabling Carrier Testing Mode in iTunes
The process to enable carrier testing is a bit different for Mac OS X and Windows.
Mac OS X:
Quit out of iTunes
Launch Terminal from /Applications/Utilities/
Enter the following command at the prompt and then hit return:
Windows:
If you happen to use an iOS device with Windows, iTunes carrier testing mode is enabled by launching iTunes as an exe with a flag attached to it:
Finding & Downloading .ipcc Files
All signed ipcc carrier settings files are stored in an xml file on apple.com, you can access that gigantic list here:
Find the carrier file you want to use and then copy the URL and paste it into your browser address bar to download it directly from Apple. Save that file somewhere that it is easy to find for using with iTunes.
Loading .ipcc Files onto an iPad or iPhone with iTunes
Now that carrier mode is enabled, you can load carrier files onto the iOS device. In either OS X or Windows:
Connect the iOS device to the computer
Launch iTunes and hold the Option key while clicking on “Check for Update” to load an .ipcc file
Select the .ipcc file to sync the .ipcc to the iOS device
Disconnect the iOS device and reboot it for changes to take effect
We were sent this tip as a method to forcibly enable the Personal Hotspot wi-fi router on Australian 3rd gen iPads, which apparently ship with the feature disabled by default. The solution to that problem is apparently just a matter of loading an ipcc file and rebooting the iPad. Thanks to Jeremy for the tip info!
If you find yourself adjusting things in System Preferences often enough, it’s helpful to create a universal keyboard shortcut to quickly launch into the control panels on the Mac.
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, summer is fast approaching and that can often mean extreme heat which pushes the temperature limits beyond what any computer is intended to operate in. In fact, Apple specifies ambient operating temperatures for most Macs as between 50° and 95° fahrenheit, this means that anything above 95° goes beyond the conditions the Mac was specified to function within.
Most Apple fans own several iProducts since it’s so easy to go from a Mac to an iPad to an iPhone, but Fabiano F. has a setup that goes beyond Apple gear and branches into other mobile platforms, including Palm, Android, and even a Kindle. Hardware shown from left to right is:
iPhone 4S
Palm Treo 650
iMac 21″ with an Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse
Galaxy Tab 2
iPad 2
Kindle
MacBook Air 11″
This is a great Mac setup on a clean glass desk which matches Apple gear so well. It may be an unpopular opinion, but the home screen of the Android tablet is kind of nice with the weather widgets and other customizations, test Android 4 yourself within the constraints of a virtual machine and you’ll see some of the obvious pros and cons to a widgetized home screen. Maybe widgets will come to iOS some day, beyond Notification Center?
Check out past Mac setups, and send in your own setup shots to osxdailycom@gmail.com, include a list of hardware and a brief description of what you use it for.
If you have a group of pictures which are orientated incorrectly that you need rotated either clockwise or counterclockwise, you can do that in Mac OS X without any third party apps. Bulk rotation of images can be accomplished quickly with the help of the bundled Preview app, we’ll show you how to use the app for this purpose with almost any group of compatible image files in a variety of formats, be it a group of JPG’s, GIF, PNG, TIFF, or anything else that can be opened in the Preview application.
Everyone has run into a webpage where the font size is unbearably small on an iOS device, typically a reverse pinch gesture will make the text legible but on some pages that have a fixed width you then have to scroll sideways in addition to up and down. You can sort of get around that font size limitation by using the Reader feature on an iPhone or iPad, but that’s not ideal for every website either. This is precisely what two handy bookmarklets aim to resolve, by creating two fontsize increase and decrease buttons that can be accessed directly in Safari.
This addition is so useful that the concept should probably be included in future versions of Safari for iOS but only time will tell if that happens. In the meantime here’s what you need to do to get this working.
Repeat this process separately for both the increase and decrease functions:
Open Safari on iPad or iPhone and create a bookmark for any page
Tap the Bookmarks button at the top of the screen and choose “Edit”
Edit the newly created bookmark, naming it either a minus (-) or plus (+) symbol and replace the URL by pasting in the appropriate javascript code shown below, depending on the desired function
Save the bookmark change and load a new web page, tap on the + or – buttons to test font size changes live. Refreshing the page restores the font size to it’s default.
These bookmarklet tweaks work by editing a bookmark URL and replacing it with a javascript that changes on page behavior, similar custom bookmarklets have allowed us to View Page Source in iOS Safari and even use Firebug on iOS.
This very handy solution comes from Marcos.Kirsch.com.mx, who recommends placing them in the Safari bookmarks bar for easy access.
Saving pictures from websites or emails on to the iPad or iPhone is very easy once you learn how. This may be a bit of a beginners tip, but after fielding the question multiple times from relatives and even seeing it popup in comments on 
