Launchpad shows a fading transition anytime it is opened or closed, making for a nice effect over whatever is in the background. It’s pleasant looking, but if you don’t like it you can disable the fading with a few defaults write commands. You can also choose to disable only half of the transition, either for showing or hiding Launchpad.

Disable Launchpad Fading

Launch the Terminal and enter the following commands separately:

defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration -int 0
defaults write com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration -int 0

Now you must kill the Dock so it relaunches with the changes:

killall Dock

Launchpad is a subprocess of the Dock so killing the Dock forces Launchpad to reload, and the change will be immediately noticeable when you open Launchpad again. Gone is the smooth transition, and now it’s a sudden switch, almost like changing desktops but without the side scrolling animation. If you only want to disable half of the effect, say for when Launchpad is being hidden, only use the defaults write command with “springboard-hide-duration” in the string.

Re-enable Launchpad Fading

To reenable fading and go back to the default OS X Lion setting, use the following commands:


defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-show-duration

defaults delete com.apple.dock springboard-hide-duration

Again kill the Dock with:

killall Dock

Launchpad will now be back to it’s usual self with the fading transitions. If you’re not certain, hold down the shift key and see if the transition is in slow motion.

The entire MacBook Pro lineup will be redesigned “radically” this year to more closely resemble the MacBook Air, according to a new report from AppleInsider. Citing a source who says “they’re all going to look like MacBook Airs,” AppleInsider also suggests the MacBook Pro 15″ will likely be the first of the bunch to be redesigned, and will feature the removal of older technologies like the traditional hard disk drive and optical drives, in favor of digital distribution and SSD drives.

Assuming the latest report lines up with past rumors and reports, here is what we could possibly see from a refreshed MacBook Pro line this year:

• Thin and light MacBook Air inspired design
• Dual Core & Quad Core Ivy Bridge CPU’s with speeds up to 2.9GHz
• An ultra high resolution display at 2880×1800
• SSD drive to replace the traditional hard drives
• Removal of the optical drive
• Longer battery life
• Emphasis on digital distribution for software installation

Taiwanese trade publication Digitimes previously suggested that a new MacBook Pro (or Air) 15″ model may come in March, which would coincide nicely with the iPad 3 rollout. If the suspected high resolution display was included, it would also help to resolve the issue of designing for a retina iPad resolution on the currently smaller screen resolutions offered with Mac laptops.

With traditional clamshell mode for a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, or Macbook, an external display, mouse, and keyboard must be attached in order to maintain the running closed-lid clamshell state. Thanks to a third party kernel extension called NoSleep we can now remove those hardware limitations and run a Mac laptop with the lid closed and no hardware attached.

Installing NoSleep is easy and places a System Preference panel for configuration, along with a menu bar item that lets you toggle the NoSleep function similar to the Caffeine app, but only impacting lid sleep behavior.

• Download NoSleep from Google Code

Check “Do not fall asleep when lid is closed” and you can freely shut a portable Mac without the machine sleeping, even without a keyboard or display attached. This is great if you have an old MacBook laying around you want to use as a file server or wireless media center, or you just want to close a Mac while it sits quietly on a desk downloading large files or anything else – just remember to keep the Mac well ventilated when running with the lid closed.

If you’re done with NoSleep or just don’t find it useful, uninstalling NoSleep is best achieved through the bundled uninstaller bash script.

This extension was found on Twitter, although I can’t recall who from or the origin tweet. Thanks to whoever it was!

Assuming iPad 3 (or whatever the next iPad is called) gets the much rumored and highly anticipated ‘retina’ treatment, the screens resolution would come in at a whopping 2048×1536 pixels. That’s an enormous amount of pixels for a screen that isn’t even 10″, and to help convey just how large that is comes an image from clkoerner that compares the rumored iPad 3 resolution to other common resolutions, including the original iPhones, retina iPhones, prior iPads, and a Blu-ray full HD 1080p movie.

Click here to see the full version, be prepared to do a lot of horizontal and vertical scrolling.

As we’ve mentioned before, there is currently no Mac screen capable of displaying a resolution of that size natively, which will pose an interesting challenge for developers and designers to prepare artwork and apps for the next iPad. That fact combined with recent evidence and rumors have led many to believe that Macs with high DPI displays may arrive soon after iPad 3 is announced, although this could be just wishful thinking. A refreshed Apple lineup complete with ultra high resolutions? Let’s hope so, we’ll be finding out soon enough.

Apple has started to air two new iPhone 4S commercials that focus on Siri. The first ad is titled “Road Trip” and features a young couple winging a road trip with the help of Siri. The second ad is titled “Rock God” and features a teenagers journey with music, aided by none other than Siri. Both follow the same recurring theme as past iPhone 4S commercials and have the same background tune. You can watch both of them below.

As usual with Apples commercials, the objective is to show how people interact with the iPhone and Siri in real life situations. Although they aren’t as fun as the classic Santa Siri ad, they both do a good job of conveying how useful Siri is for getting directions, finding food and events, retrieving information, sending text messages, and many other daily tasks.

These ads started to air earlier in the week, but weren’t posted online until this evening.

Clicking an email link in a web browser defaults to launching Mail.app, which is great if you use Mail but not so great if you use webmail services like Gmail. This is fairly easy to resolve, though you’ll have to configure it separately on a per-browser basis, with different methods for Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera.
Read more »

Want to see every Apple design ever released in 30 seconds of cheesy video? Of course you do. You’ll see everything from the Apple I to the QuickTake Camera to the LC III and of course modern gear like the iPhone and iPad. It looks like all the bases of Apple’s historical releases are covered here, although I’m not so sure the sock looking things at the end are genuine Apple gear.

Update: Apparently the socks at the end are real, yes Apple sells socks, well, for your iPod anyway. Thanks to those who pointed this out!

The iPad 3 will be announced in the first week of March and likely go on sale soon after, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal’s AllThingsD. Typically well connected and the source of most accurate leaks from Apple, AllThingsD says the event will probably be held at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

As for the device itself, AllThingsD reiterates existing rumors that iPad 3 will have a much faster processor and a high resolution “retina” display. Here is a roundup of the current rumors to paint a better picture of the device we’ll see in March:

• Quad-Core CPU
• Improved graphics chip
• 2048×1536 resolution retina display
• Dual Mode CDMA-GSM Support for 3G devices
• Improved rear and front cameras
• Enclosure, size, and appearance practically identical to iPad 2
• Siri integration
• Likely to ship with iOS 5.1

Most of these rumors have been around a while in some form or another. There is also some speculation that the next iPad won’t be called iPad 3 at all, but possibly iPad 2S, iPad HD, or something else entirely.

Regarding the physical appearance of the device, AllThingsD says the next iPad will be “similar in form factor to the iPad 2”. This is familiar wording to the final rumors leading up to the iPhone 4S’s release last year, which ended up looking almost identical to the prior generation iPhone 4. The idea of having a similar appearance is also backed up by recently leaked images from Apple.pro that are said to be of the third generation iPad rear shell:

These pictures show what appears to be a rear enclosure for an iPad with a 3G antenna, and although it looks nearly the same as iPad 2 there are some minor differences in how the interior is laid out.

Update: The New York Times is also chiming in with their own sources, confirming the early March timeframe and also reaffirming some of the hardware rumors:

An Apple employee said that the version of the new iPad that is being tested inside the company is “essentially the same size and shape as the iPad 2,” with an improved and “truly amazing” screen. The tablet will include a faster processor, said the employee, who did not want to be identified because Apple is not fond of leaks.

The NYT report also raises some questions on naming the next iPad, which may or may not be called iPad 3.

An alternative to checking a SHA1 hash with shasum is to use openssl. Yes, the same openssl utility used to encrypt files can be used to verify the validity of files.

The syntax is quite similar to the shasum command, but you do need to specify ‘sha1’ as the specific algorithm like so:
Read more »

Restoring an iPhone or iPad to it’s default factory settings is easy whether you are restoring as a troubleshooting step or just preparing to transfer ownership of the hardware. You can reset the iPhone on the the device itself, but if the device is unresponsive, stuck on a boot loop, or otherwise needs to be restored directly, the next choice is to connect the iOS hardware to a computer and use iTunes on a Mac or PC.

Using iTunes is also typically faster than resetting through the iPhone or iPad itself, so keep this in mind if you tried the on-device method but it took forever.

Read more »

Spectacle is a free utility for Mac OS X that helps you quickly and easily organize and resize windows, without using the mouse. Apps like this make it much easier to view multiple documents alongside one another and can help to boost productivity, particularly after you remember the keystrokes to throw windows around the screen.

Want a browser window to align to the left while a text editor is aligned on the right? Want to tile four windows into each corner of the screen? Easy. If you use multiple monitors, Spectacle will also let you push windows to the the other displays too.

• Download Spectacle free from the Mac App Store

Spectacle is open source and works with Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7. Here’s the full list of keyboard shortcuts you can use:

Spectacle Keyboard Shortcuts:

• Center / Cmd + Alt + C
• Fullscreen / Cmd + Alt + F

• Left Half / Cmd + Alt + ←
• Right Half / Cmd + Alt + →
• Top Half / Cmd + Alt + ↑
• Bottom Half / Cmd + Alt + ↓

• Upper Left Corner / Cmd + Ctrl + ←
• Lower Left Corner / Cmd + Shift + Ctrl + ←
• Upper Right Corner / Cmd + Ctrl + →
• Lower Right Corner / Cmd + Shift + Ctrl + →

• Left Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + ←
• Right Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + →
• Top Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + ↑
• Bottom Display / Cmd + Alt + Ctrl + ↓

The keystrokes are fully customizable, and the only other preference options are to show the Spectacle menu bar item and launch at login or not.

Even with OS X Lion’s new ways to resize windows, I find apps like Spectacle to be extremely useful, and once you get the hang of using them it’s hard to go back.

If you have tried to repair the boot volume before in Mac OS X before, you’ll undoubtedly have found the “Repair Disk” option is grey and unavailable within the Disk Utility tool.

While this is still the case while booted in most versions of Mac OS X, you can repair the Mac OS X boot disk thanks to Mac OS Recovery Partition, preventing the need from using an external boot drive to repair the disk.

Read more »

Javascript is prominent throughout the web, allowing many of the various sites and features we all know and love when browsing the web to function as intended. With that said, sometimes users need to enable or disable Javascript.

Need to re-enable or disable Javascript in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox? Fortunately, most modern web browsers make it very easy to toggle on or off, and while it’s almost always recommended to keep javascript enabled, there are cases where developers and other users need to turn it off.

Read more »

Apple has released firmware updates for 2010 model year MacBook Air, iMac, and MacBook Pro. The EFI update brings OS X Lion Internet Recovery, which is accessible by booting into Recovery mode and allows a user to reinstall OS X Lion, to each Mac from 2010.

The EFI Firmware updates are available to download from Software Update, or directly from Apple:

• MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 2.3
• iMac EFI Firmware Update 1.8
• MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.6

Updating the firmware requires a reboot as usual and the Mac should be connected to a power source before proceeding. The MacBook Air update also includes a minor bug fix to resolve an issue where the machine could inadvertently restart if the power button is pressed when waking from sleep.

Apple describes Internet Recovery as follows:

If your Mac problem is a little less common — your hard drive has failed or you’ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example — Internet Recovery takes over automatically. It downloads and starts Lion Recovery directly from Apple servers over a broadband Internet connection. And your Mac has access to the same Lion Recovery features online

For Macs that can’t use Internet Recovery, the Lion Recovery Disk tool helps to make a bootable USB device that can offer the same features, although if you want to have the most versatile troubleshooting toolkit, having a fully bootable OS X Lion install drive is ideal.

Mac OS X 10.7.3 added several new high-dpi interface elements, giving another hint that Apple may be working towards releasing Macs with ‘retina’ displays.

DaringFireball points out that it’s possible these elements were updated to make Universal Access and cursor artwork more attractive, but also mentions that some Mac Mini users inadvertently booted into high-dpi display modes when connected to a TV via HDMI:

The simplest explanation is that Apple only just now got around to increasing the resolution of these elements for the benefit of users who use the cursor-zooming Universal Access feature. But, combined with the fact that some people with Mac Minis connected to TVs via HDMI are reporting that after upgrading to 10.7.3, their system rebooted in HiDPI mode, I can’t help but wonder whether we may be on the cusp of Apple releasing HiDPI Mac displays and/or HiDPI MacBooks. I.e.: retina display Macs.

The most noticeable element changes are visible when increasing cursor size, where before a pixelated cursor would appear and now the cursors are smoothed and significantly higher resolution. These higher res images could be appropriate for use on a Mac with a High-DPI display.

Other UI artwork was also updated, as MacRumors pointed out with this comparison image of showing the subtle difference between Mac OS X 10.7.2 and 10.7.3:

Mac OS X Lion has provided a variety of clues that retina Macs may be coming sometime in the near future. From the unusually high res wallpapers, HiDPI display modes, HiDPI options, to the giant icon artwork, there is a fair amount of evidence to suggest that Apple is in some stage of developing Macs with ultra high display resolutions.

There have also been rumors to support this idea. Late last year, Digitimes reported that Apple would release a MacBook Pro equipped with a high resolution retina display in the second quarter of 2012. There is also the expectation that iPad 3 will feature a ‘retina’ display, leading many to assume that a Mac would launch around the same time frame to support development of high resolution apps and artwork for the device.

By combining the Hide All windows shortcut with the minimize keyboard shortcut in Mac OS X, you can use a third ‘Minimize and Hide All’ shortcut that both hides and minimizes all windows open on a Mac.

This hide and minimize all trick is accomplished by hitting the Command+Option+H+M keys together.

Read more »

The iPhone is connected to a computer with it’s USB cable, you launch iTunes and… the iPhone isn’t shown in iTunes. What gives? Fixing this problem is probably a lot easier than you think, and after fielding a call about this I found the simplest explanation was the solution as to why someones iPhone wasn’t appearing in iTunes.
Read more »

We recently showed you how to delete Safari, Mail, and other default apps installed with Mac OS X, and procedurally iTunes is not much different. Unlike uninstalling applications from third parties, if you attempt to drag the iTunes app into the Trash can, you’ll see a dialog box warning that ‘“iTunes.app” can’t be modified or deleted because it’s required by Mac OS X.’

Nonetheless iTunes can be deleted from the Mac, but without a very good reason it should not be done. iTunes is integral to supporting other Apple features and hardware, ranging from the App Store to the iTunes Store, and without iTunes installed you won’t be able to sync apps, music, books, movies, and anything else with an iPad, iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Assuming you understand that and you still want to remove iTunes from your Mac, this tutorial will show you how to delete iTunes from the computer.

Read more »