Computerworld has released their full archival footage of a 1995 interview conducted with Steve Jobs for a historical project. The video is about 75 minutes long and covers a wide variety of topics, from his childhood in the Silicon Valley, to the early years of Apple, NeXT, Pixar, thoughts on the internet, startups and entrepreneurship, and even more on Apple (remember, this was two years prior to his return in 1997).
Some of the interview echoes a bit of his biography, but even if you’re reading or have already read the book, it’s worth watching for fans of Steve.
Users who rely on Spaces within Mission Control to manage multiple virtual desktops in Mac OS X will be happy to know that these desktops (Spaces, as Apple calls them in Mac OS) are completely adjustable.
This means you can rearrange or move your desktop spaces as necessary, and as your needs change, and it’s incredibly simple to do: Read more »
Just like Microsoft released a video for their sci-fi inspired imaginative future, Blackberry has jumped in with their own futuristic concept video, complete with plenty of touch screens and even touchable holograms.
I think these are fun to watch just to see what companies are imagining, but the main difference between Apple and Microsoft or Blackberry is that Apple is actively shipping things that lead us to believe this stuff is actually possible. The iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone feel like the future now, and they’re tangible. The other interesting thing to point out is that some features in the Blackberry video, like remote data wipe, are already in iOS 5, whereas it’s just a concept for RIM at the moment (as far as I know, I have no exposure to the Playbook).
The video comes via DaringFireball, who suggests that both Blackberry and Microsoft would be better served creating real products that can be used now, rather than fictional movies.
Anyway, enjoy the video, for conceptual reasons if nothing else:
A future version of Mac OS X may bring iOS favorites Siri, iMessage, and AirPlay to Apple’s Mac lineup. Assuming the features are released, it’s unclear whether they will come as an update to Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, a purchase through the Mac App Store, or as part of Mac OS X 10.8.
iMessage & AirPlay for OS X?
Rumors of iMessage coming to Mac OS X started earlier in the year when code snippets were found that suggested iChat may get iMessage integration. 9to5mac has since heard that AirPlay and iMessage for the Mac are currently in development for OS X Lion.
Sources familiar with the future of Mac OS X say that AirPlay Mirroring and an iMessage application are currently in development. Although neither project may see the light of day, they are definitely on the table for release in future versions of OS X Lion.
AirPlay would allow a Mac user to wirelessly mirror their Mac display to an Apple TV, and video streaming would be integrated with QuickTime. 9to5mac indicates there is a possibility that iMessage will be released as a standalone product, rather than being integrated directly with the existing instant message client iChat. If standalone apps are released, it wouldn’t be surprising to have iMessage and AirPlay be downloads from the Mac App Store much like FaceTime was before it became bundled with the OS X 10.7 release.
Siri for Mac?
Bringing iMessage and AirPlay to the current version of OS X is similar to what Kevin Rose mentioned recently about Siri, who stated a rumor that the AI agent would be released for OS X Lion next year.
Separately, we’ve also heard an unverified claim that Siri could replace the existing Speech Recognition module and have ties into Spotlight for a future version of Mac OS X. Siri would offer a significant improvement in voice recognition, dictation, and a new way to search on the Mac platform.
Not Anytime Soon
While all of these claims are in the realm of obvious speculation, some features shouldn’t be expected to appear anytime soon. In all probability, Siri won’t be coming to any other hardware, be it iOS or Mac based, until the next generation iPhone is released. The reason may simply come down to marketing, with Siri being a prominent feature of commercials for the iPhone 4S, it’s unlikely that Apple would dilute a key marketing component of the 4S by spreading the technology around to other hardware.
(Siri & iMessage graphics on this page are mockups)
Side note: even without iMessage, you can send SMS through iChat right now just by using AIM or Google Chat and messaging a phone number prefixed with a +, although standard SMS rates apply for the recipient.
With iOS 5 you can hide many of the Apple default apps and their icons from appearing on the home screen of an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. This includes YouTube and iTunes, but also the essentials like Safari and Mail if you are opting to use third party or web apps in their place.
Tap onto “Settings”
Touch on “General” and then “Restrictions”
Slide apps you want to hide to “OFF”
I’ve never used the YouTube app so I quickly disabled it, this is much better than just stuffing it into a folder with other default apps you don’t use.
You’ll also find some core iOS features you can disable in this menu, including things like Ping, iTunes, and the ability to install apps completely, all of which are helpful to disable for public use iPads or even just for childproofing an iPod touch.
Update: A more limited version of this function appeared in earlier versions of iOS, and as others have noted in the comments it doesn’t work with all default apps.
How does the iPhone 4S’s new cameras 1080p video recording stack up to a pro-level $2300 Canon 5d MKII digital camera? Surprisingly well, as is demonstrated by this video from Robino Films. Both cameras shot footage at the same time and side-by-side, with the scenes in perfect sync so that video can be paused and examined more closely.
The settings for both cameras are as follows:
iPhone 4S
– AE.AF locked. That’s all you have!
Canon 5D MKII
– Canon 50mm 1.4
– ISO 160 ~ 640 (varied per shot to match the iPhone)
– F 7~22 (varied per shot to match the iPhone)
– Shutter 1/60th
– Auto WB
– Standard Picture Style
– 1080p 30
Enter the following command, replacing “http://url.com” no the end with the web address you want to give the user agent to:
curl -A "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8) AppleWebKit/535.6.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.2 Safari/535.6.2" http://url.com
You won’t see anything returned from the command line, but if you look in your web logs, you’ll see an appearance of a 10.8 user agent.
This is based on a past tip on changing user agents for web development purposes. If you don’t like the command line, you can also do limited user agent changes in Safari’s Developer menu or by using third party plugins for Chrome and Firefox.
Spoofing the OS X 10.8 User Agent through Safari
An easier command line-free way of doing this is through Safari’s Develop menu, pull down to User Agent and choose “Other” then paste in this:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8) AppleWebKit/535.6.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.2 Safari/535.6.2
Thanks to @polislix for the reminder and WP for the screenshot
Not surprisingly, Mac OS X 10.8 development is well under way, and some Apple employees are using the OS on a regular enough basis for them to show up in analytics logs across the Apple web. Our own OS X 10.8 usage graph is shown above, which shows a clear uptick in everyday use of the development OS over the past few months. Narrowing down for IP and location, the majority of visits are coming from Apple in Cupertino, California, with the remainder popping up around the San Francisco Bay Area.
We first noticed a blip for the next version of Mac OS X back in July before the launch of OS X Lion. Since then, visits have picked up to a steady level, suggesting that internal builds of OS X 10.8 are stable enough for developers and engineers to be using on a daily basis. More evidence is shown in the logs of MacRumors, who first published their findings yesterday:
Practically nothing is known about Mac OS X 10.8, but speculation assumes that more features from iOS will make their way into the next version of Mac OS, in addition to having more deeply integrated iCloud support.
If you’ve downloaded Adobe Acrobat on the Mac you’ve probably discovered that it takes over Preview as the default PDF viewer in Mac OS X, which is annoying because Acrobat is slow to load and a fairly bloated application. Given that Preview comes bundled with Mac OS X, is extremely fast, and quite efficient at viewing not only PDF’s but tons of other file types, there’s little need to use Acrobat Reader as a way to view PDF files. Accordingly, we’re to demonstrate how to change the default PDF viewer back to Preview on the Mac.
If you have a newer MacBook Air you should pay attention. Some of the MacBook Airs are shipping with Samsung displays, and some are shipping with LG displays, both are quality displays, but the LG’s default color profile is lighter and a bit flat. Most users probably won’t notice this, but if you sit a MacBook Air with a Samsung display next to one with the LG display, you can see the difference. This is easily remedied by using a custom color profile that has better gamma. This post will walk you through how to check which manufacturers panel you have, and also show you how to add a custom color profile that makes the LG display just as gorgeous as the Samsung.
Apple has started to air three new iPhone 4S TV commercials. The first, titled “Siri, Snow Today”, is similar to the last Siri iPhone 4S commercial and features people asking Siri a variety of questions and getting responses.
The next commercial is titled “iCloud” and shows an iPhone 4S automatically syncing and uploading documents, changes, music, and pictures to an iPad, MacBook Air, and iMac through the iCloud service: Read more »
Mona Simpson, an author and the biological sister of Steve Jobs, wrote a wonderful eulogy to Steve that was delivered on October 16th at a private memorial service.
I want to tell you a few things I learned from Steve, during three distinct periods, over the 27 years I knew him. They’re not periods of years, but of states of being. His full life. His illness. His dying.
The eulogy is moving and a must read, in it, Steve’s final words are revealed for the first time. No spoilers, just read the article on the New York Times:
Siri, the intelligent virtual assistant that is currently exclusive to iPhone 4S, has been effectively ported to iPhone 4 and iPod touch. More importantly, it actually works this time around and there are two videos demonstrating the two devices taking voice commands and Siri reporting back.
In a discussion between the iOS developer Troughton-Smith, who completed the port, and 9to5mac, who first published it, is a warning that files from an iPhone 4S are required, in addition to a jailbreak:
… It does require files from an iPhone 4S which aren’t ours to distribute, and it also requires a validation token from the iPhone 4S that has to be pulled live from a jailbroken iPhone 4S, and it’s about a 20-step process right now.
This suggests the mod will be limited to individuals who own an iPhone 4S in addition to other compatible hardware, making them responsible for copying their own Siri files over. Regardless, that is likely against Apple’s EULA with iOS and Siri, but the importance of the port functioning is the proof that Siri does work on older iOS hardware, although some devices run into complications. On the iPhone 4, Siri appears to be working fine and with the same fluidity as that seen on the iPhone 4S, but apparently the iPod touch’s microphone isn’t as sharp as the iPhone models, forcing the user to speak slower and louder for Siri to pick up voice commands. The latter example could also impact the iPad 2, which has seen the port too, and this could be why Apple did not release Siri to other hardware with iOS 5.
Here are the videos showing Siri working on an iPhone 4 alongside an iPhone 4S:
And a video of Siri working on the iPod touch 4th gen: Read more »
Bored with Launchpads background? You can make some changes to it in Mac OS X Lion by changing the background images default blur effect to three other options: unblurred (shown above), black and white blur, or black and white unblurred (both shown below):
Open Launchpad
Hit Command+B to cycle through the background image effects
Update: In OS X 10.7.3, you need to use Command+Control+Option+B to achieve the same effect
Hitting Command+B once should just remove the blur from the background image, which makes Launchpad more closely resemble the iOS springboard. You can use the keystroke a few more times to switch into black and white or to go back to the default blur.
Here’s another nice background picture, by request, it’s the blue sky star field wallpaper that was shown in a recent screenshot of Mission Control. This one isn’t part of a pack, but it does include the base PSD file so you can make your own variations of the blue night sky if you are up for it.
Another great reader submitted Mac setup here: this one is a decked out Mac Mini Server Quad i7 with 8GB RAM and dual 7200 RPM 500GB hard drives, connected to dual monitors, and to the right is an iPad 2 64GB model. Rounding out the desk is an iPod touch, iPod nano, MacBook Air superdrive, Beats Pro headphones, and an Apple wireless keyboard and trackpad.
Sweet Mac setup Jaime, thanks for sending this in! You can send in your own Apple setup shots to: osxdailycom@gmail.com
Below is a picture of all the Apple gears boxes too: Read more »
The first generation iPad got iOS 5, but it didn’t officially get multitasking gestures or display mirroring. Not a huge deal, because a user on ModMyi figured out how to enable these two features and has released a modified version of redsn0w so that it unlocks these abilities, without a jailbreak. It’s pretty easy to use, so if you want to enable these features here’s how to use the tool and make your first-gen iPad feel a bit more modern.
Warning: This is for iPad 1 only. The gestures and mirroring already exist on iPad 2 making this unnecessary. Backup your iPad beforehand just in case something goes wrong, and proceed at your own risk.
Download the modified version of redsn0w that carries the tweaked payload
You can easily re-open closed web browser windows in Safari for iOS on the iPad. This works in all iPad models with iOS, and it’s really easy to do at any time in Safari browser on the device:
, but even if you’re reading or have already read the book, it’s worth watching for fans of Steve. 
The first generation iPad got 
