Did you hate the sharp case edging on the MacBook Pro? They’re gone in the new models, instead there is a minor rounding of the newest MacBook Pro series case edges. While this may seem insignificant it’s actually a fairly big deal for anyone who is accustomed to the previous MacBook Pro’s sharp corners, which could be downright uncomfortable after extended use.

If this seems unimportant, keep in mind that some users actually went ahead to file their MacBook edges with nailfiles or otherwise to smooth out the edges themselves (see link, or video below).

In search of a good picture to demonstrate the difference, I stumbled across Marco Arment – the Instapaper guy – mentioning his new MacBook Pro 2011 vs the old one (shown up top), and low and behold he points out the same rounded edges. On the left is the previous MacBook Pro and on the right is the new 2011 model year, the difference is subtle, but apparently makes quite a difference in longterm use.

We’ve received a few emails about this change, the most recent from Rieky W:

I’ve just notice that my brand new macbook pro has a new edge profile. It is not as sharp as previous macbook pro, it’s comfortable to place my wrist now.

I know the sharp edges have prevented some users from upgrading or using the MacBook Pro’s longterm, so the corner adjustment may be important enough to sway a future purchase decision for some individuals, and is therefore worth mentioning.

Oh and here’s the popular video that showed users how to file the edges on an aluminum MacBook Pro themselves:
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For anyone who has used the existing iOS 5 jailbreak methods, a new package has been added to Cydia that allows for a semi-tethered reboot.

What the semitether means in practice is that you’ll be able to reboot an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch if you’re in a pinch without the assistance of redsn0w’s “Just Boot Tethered” option, but you won’t be able to use Safari, Mail, or Cydia until you complete the tethered boot with redsn0w and the iOS 5 device connected to a PC or Mac.

From the jailbroken iOS 5 device:

• Launch Cydia and tap on “Add”
• Add the following repository to Cydia:

http://thebigboss.org/semitether

• Using Cydia’s search, search for “SemiTether” and install it

Despite being called a “semi-tether”, it should still mostly be considered a tethered experience due to the app usage limitations. If you’re unfamiliar, you can read the difference between tethered vs untethered jailbreaks, but basically an untethered jailbreak is the most usable since it requires the least maintenance.

As previously mentioned, with SemiTether installed you’ll still need to boot the iOS device using the redsn0w app from Mac OS X or Windows. This is easily done by launching redsn0w, clicking on “Extras” and then choosing “Just Boot” option:

You can find the latest version of redsn0w here. An full untethered release is apparently in the works, we’ll keep you posted.

The newest version of redsn0w released by the iPhone Dev Team provides one of the fastest jailbreaks yet, and you’ll be finished in as little as 80 seconds. This is achieved by offloading some of the procedure to Cydia itself, which then takes longer to open on it’s first launch as the entire process is wrapped up.

If you haven’t jailbroken yet and you don’t mind the tethered booting process, you’ll enjoy the quickness offered by the new redsn0w. If you’ve already used a recent version of redsn0w to jailbreak iOS 5 then there isn’t any reason to download the newest version unless you intend to run it on other iOS hardware.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.9b7

This version supports iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 CDMA & GSM, iPod touch 3rd & 4th gen, and iPad 1. This does not work with iPhone 4S or iPad 2:

• Download Now (Mac)
• Download Now (Windows)

The process is fairly simple, but if you’re new to this you can follow our walkthrough on jailbreaking iOS 5 using redsn0w.

This sweet reader submitted Mac setup comes from Nasar A. and features a little bit of everything: an Apple Cinema Display is connected to the MacBook Pro 13″ on the right, a MacBook Air 11″ sits to the left, and an iPad 2 Wi-Fi and white iPhone 4 round out the mix.

Great Mac setup, thanks for sending this in Nasar!

Send in your own Apple & Mac gear shots to osxdailycom@gmail.com

In what seems to be a never-ending series of revelations from the Steve Jobs biography, the man apparently revealed to his biographer Walter Isaacson that he had “cracked” the TV, perhaps hinting that Apple may release an actual HDTV set in the future.

This potential product bombshell was dropped by the Washington Post, who suggests that an integrated Apple TV was “Jobs’ final plan”, quoting Isaacson:

“He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,”

“‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

Rumors have long existed that Apple was working on an actual television set rather than the ‘hobby’ Apple TV set-top box. Here’s to hoping this rumor comes to fruition.

Who named Apple? Steve Jobs of course! The story behind the naming of the company has been revealed in Steve Jobs’ official biography by Walter Isaacson.

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iOS allows you to enable private browsing in Safari for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. This feature is sometimes called “Incognito Mode” with other browsers, and essentially this lets you browse the web and visit web sites without saving a record of any browser history, cache, logins, or searches, and it prevents cookies from being stored on the device.

Private Browsing is an excellent way to maintain some secrecy for web activity in iOS, because whatever would normally be visible by whoever comes across the iOS device is no longer stored in any way on the device, and that will stay in effect for all sites as long as Private Browsing is left on.

This article focuses on the feature in prior releases of iOS, if you’re on a newer version you’ll want to learn how to use Private Browsing in iOS 7, iOS 8, iOS 9 here. Otherwise, here is how to use this feature on any iOS device running iOS 6 or earlier:
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Apple has started to air TV commercials for the new iPhone 4S, the first of which focuses on Siri, the virtual intelligent voice assistant that is part of iOS 5 exclusive to the 4S. The ad features people asking questions to their iPhone, ranging from how to tie a bowtie to wondering about the weather, before Siri finally speaks in response to a question about needing a locksmith.

It’s a good commercial, although it certainly has a different feel to it than Apple’s past TV ads. Also fascinating is that the commercial itself is titled “Assistant” rather than “Siri”, but that may not mean much of anything.

The iPhone camera LED flash can be used to alert you to incoming calls, messages, and other alerts to your device. With this feature enabled, anytime a call or messages comes in the devices LED will flash repeatedly, even when the iPhone is on silent mode.

This great feature offers an obvious visual cue with a bright flashing light for when any alert or notification comes in to the iPhone. LED alerts on iPhone are an excellent feature that is not well known, but we’ll show you how to enable this on your iPhone.

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Well here’s a security flaw in iOS 5 that will quickly get patched: anyone with a magnet (or a Smart Cover) can bypass the iPad 2’s locked passcode screen and access whatever app was previously left open. The passcode bypass was discovered by 9to5mac, who recorded a video demonstrating the security breach (embedded below).

From a locked iPad 2:

• Hold down the power button until the the slider appears across the top
• Close the iPad 2’s Smart Cover or swing a magnet over the magnetic points around the screen rim, then remove the Smart cover or magnet
• Click “Cancel” at the bottom of the lock screen

You’re now at the iOS 5 springboard, but the biggest security threat is when users have left an app open with sensitive data, since the lockscreen is bypassed directly to it. This could mean

Protection Against the iPad 2 Lock Screen Bypass:
For the time being, iPad 2 users are encouraged to disable the “Smart Cover unlocking” feature found in Settings > General.

Here’s the video showing the password bypass:

With the addition of the Mac App Store, transferring applications from one Mac to another is made extraordinarily simple and can be done entirely through the App Store itself. This is due to the Mac App Stores licensing agreement, which allows you to download and install Mac OS X apps on all of your personal machines, although they must all share the same Apple ID. Additionally, you can transfer apps manually over a network or with an external USB drive, but that method does not work with all apps and is therefore not entirely recommended. We’ll cover both and you can decide which is best for you:

Transferring Apps to Another Mac via Mac App Store

This is the recommended and most reliable method of transferring apps:

• Open the Mac App Store
• Click on the “Purchases” tab to list all of your installed Mac apps
• Find the app(s) you want to install on the other Mac, and click the “INSTALL” button on the right

Any apps that are not installed on the current Mac will display the “INSTALL” button rather than the lighter ‘INSTALLED’ or ‘UPDATE’. Unlike iOS, this has to be done manually even if you have set up iCloud, which does not automatically download Mac apps (yet at least). You can do the same thing with the OS X Lion installer if you’re looking to upgrade multiple Macs.

The downside to the Mac App Store method is that it re-downloads the app, and for users working with constricted bandwidth that may not be the best solution. For those situations, you can attempt the manual transfer via network or USB, but the reliability of this next method will vary depending on the app itself.

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Steve Jobs official biographer Walter Isaacson told 60 minutes that Mr Jobs refused early cancer treatment and later regretted his decision to try alternative therapies:

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A nice addition to iOS is the ability to rename your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch device directly on the device itself through the Settings app. This is a nice software feature which prevents users from having to go about changing the name with iTunes on a computer. Instead, the entire name adjustment is handled directly in the Settings application itself.

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By request, here is a great 6 wallpaper pack of original variations on the classic OS X Aurora style wallpaper, each image is 2560×1600 and looks great on any Mac (or iPad). This pack was sent in to us but we can’t track down the source again, so thanks to whoever that was.

Download them all from DeviantArt

If you’re not sure where to find the download link on DeviantArt, we’ve pointed it out clearly below:
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Steve Jobs was working on future Apple products the day before he died, according to Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son. Son revealed the following story in an interview with the US Ambassador to Japan:

“I visited Apple for the announcement of the iPhone 4S [at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California]. When I was having a meeting with Tim Cook, he said, ‘Oh Masa, sorry I have to quit our meeting.’ I said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘My boss is calling me.’ That was the day of the announcement of the iPhone 4S. He said that Steve is calling me because he wants to talk about their next product. And the next day, he died.”

Mr Jobs passed away on October 5, 2011.

While we’ve heard some tantalizing clues to Apple’s future, there was no indication as to what the product discussed between Steve Jobs and Tim Cook was. Web speculation assumes it to be next years iPhone, which Steve Jobs is said to have been deeply involved with.

Video of the interview between the US Ambassador and Masayoshi Son is embedded below, as found by PCMag:
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Now that you’ve set up iMessage, if you use multiple iOS devices you’ll want to be sure to sync your conversations across them all. For example, if you use an iPhone and have an iPad, you may want to have iMessage sync between the iPhone and iPad seamlessly. This is supposed to happen automatically as long as the iMessage account on each iOS device is set to the same Apple ID, and the services is enabled, but it doesn’t always do so.

If your iMessages aren’t syncing, there’s a quick fix to have them reliably sync across all your devices.

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Of all the Launchpad tips and customizations, one that has been greatly desired is the ability to manually adjust the icon size of apps. A tip sent in by Rohan Agashe moves us in that direction, allowing you to change the Launchpad icon size down from the large icons in OS X 10.7.2 to the smaller Launchpad icons that were present in Mac OS X Lion 10.7.1.

This trick is limited to those who have an existing backup of Mac OS X 10.7.1 through Time Machine or otherwise. We are not going to provide old copies of Dock.app or the executable since it is part of OS X Lion and that would be against the EULA.
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Apple has updated their Steve Jobs memorial page with a stream of memories, quotes, and thoughts sent in following the passing of Mr Jobs:

Over a million people from all over the world have shared their memories, thoughts, and feelings about Steve. One thing they all have in common — from personal friends to colleagues to owners of Apple products — is how they’ve been touched by his passion and creativity. You can view some of these messages below.
And share your own at rememberingsteve@apple.com

It’s a rather impressive example of just how much Steve and Apple have impacted not only the world, but individuals. Here’s a few excerpts:

Thank you Steve for your innovation and persistence over the years, you will go down in history as one of the modern world’s true genius in design and marketing. I am truly saddened today to hear the inevitable news of his passing, may he rest in peace he certainly deserves it and my heart felt condolences to his family and friends.

Steve, you will never be forgotten. You have changed my life, and the life of many others. You changed the way we think by thinking different yourself. You have changed the universe and will never be forgotten. -An Apple, and Steve Jobs fan.

You were one of the most creative people to ever live. You made machines so beautiful and useful. God bless your family.

The outpouring of support and gratitude in Jobs memory continues around the world. One of our readers sent in a picture of this billboard which shows a #ThankYouSteve hashtag, and is featured prominently on the main avenue of Monterrey, Mexico:
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