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:
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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.

Other than changing the actual wallpaper, you can’t change Launchpad specific wallpaper, although you can change Launchpads folder background image to something other than the linen default.

Here’s a few other screenshots showing the black and white effect variations:
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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.

You can download it here from DeviantArt

This wallpaper comes at 2560×1600 and was created by the same artist who put together the nice six pack of aurora backgrounds.

If you have trouble locating the download link on DeviantArt, it’s highlighted in an image below.
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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:
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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
• Download for Mac
• Download for Windows
• Connect the iPad to the computer
• Turn off the iPad
• Launch redsn0w and select “jailbreak” (no it won’t actually jailbreak if you follow the rest of the instructions)
• Follow the onscreen instructions to put the iPad into DFU mode
• Uncheck “Install Cydia” – this stops the jailbreak nut enables the multitasking and mirroring
• Check “Enable Multitask Gestures”
• Click “Next” and let the process complete and the iPad reboot
• When the iPad restarts, go to “Settings” and tap on “General” to find “Multitasking Gestures” and be sure that is set to ON

Once it’s turned on, the easiest way to verify is by pinching with four fingers to see if you return to your home screen.

The Multitasking Gestures
Using four or five fingers you can…

• Pinch to the Home Screen (much like OS X Lion pinches to Launchpad)
• Swipe up to show the multitasking bar of running apps
• Swipe left or right between open applications

Display Mirroring
Display Mirroring only works with HDMI cables and not AirPlay

For those interested in the technical details of this, here’s the source code (via ModMyi user dB) for the modification:

Thanks for sending this in Daniel

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:

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An official jailbreak for iPhone 4S and iPad 2 running iOS 5 is coming sooner than later, as evidenced by iPhone Dev Team member MuscleNerd posting several screenshots of the works in progress. In fact, they jailbreak has already been achieved, but there are unspecified “hurdles left” before the jailbreak will see a public release.

There are currently no time estimates, but typically these teaser screenshots and videos start to appear soon before a first beta jailbreak becomes available. The iPhone 4S and iPad 2 have been noticeably absent from the current iOS 5 jailbreak, both devices share much of the same internal hardware including the A5 CPU, and has posed a challenge to jail break. It’s unclear whether this will be a tethered or untethered jailbreak.

MuscleNerd also posted the following video to YouTube, showing the jailbreak off on an iPad 2 running iOS 5:
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Private Eye is a free real-time network monitor app for Mac OS X that is extremely easy to use. Upon launching the app, you’ll start to see all open network connections by application and process, and you can then filter connections by app, monitor all open connections, or watch only incoming or outgoing transfer.

Connections are reported by application, the time of the connection, and arguably the most useful, the IP address that is being connected to by the app, making it easy to see socket and routing data, letting you know exactly what app is communicating with what server or IP address, for both local and broader internet networks.

If you have any interest in networking, privacy, security, or you just want to keep an eye on what apps are connecting to the internet and to where, you should download this app, but it’s also an amazingly useful tool for troubleshooting network problems and figuring out what is using the network.

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We’ve covered a handful of tips to increase battery life in iOS 5 and even for the new iPhone 4S, but nonetheless the complaints about battery drain are still piling up. The culprit for the 4S is almost always Location Services, and all you need to do is disable a few things:

• Tap on “Settings” and go to “Location Services”
• Selectively disable Location Services for services you don’t use, like Reminders, before proceeding
• Next, tap to “System Services” and switch the following to OFF:
1. Compass Calibration
2. Diagnostics & Usage
3. Setting Time Zone
• Close out of Settings

The Reminders feature combined with Siri is great and obviously helpful, but it seems to constantly query the location of the iPhone, presumably to try and determine where the thing is and if a reminder should be triggered. Turn it off if you’re concerned about battery life.

The other part is ‘System Services’, which the items highlighted in the screenshot below seem to be the biggest offenders hat constantly ping location (with the exception of iAds, which took an unlucky spot). Many reports indicate that disabling just “Setting Time Zones” alone will save considerable battery life.

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Pixelmator for Mac has long been a killer photo editing app. But I’ll cut straight to the point, Pixelmator is the single best Photoshop alternative for the Mac platform at it’s price point, and at just $29.99 (App Store link) it’s much more affordable for the average joe than Adobe Photoshops whopping $500 tag.

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Apple is working on a real television set (iTV?) that utilize the artificial intelligence agent Siri as the controller, according to a new report from The New York Times. They go so far as to say prototypes are already underway, and that “it’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when“, suggesting that Apple may announce the product in 2012 with a release of the TV by 2013.

A Siri based remote control system is described as follows:

It’s the stuff of science fiction. You sit on your couch and rather than fumble with several remotes or use hand gestures, you simply talk: “Put on the last episode of Gossip Girl.” “Play the local news headlines.” “Play some Coldplay music videos.” Siri does the rest.

Of course this experience goes beyond just playing TV shows or the local news. As the line between television programming and Web content continues to erode, a Siri-powered television would become more necessary. You aren’t going to want to flip through file folders or baskets of content, checking off what you want. Telling Siri to “play videos of cute cats falling asleep” would return an endless YouTube stream of adorable napping fur balls.

The NY Times mentions they first heard of plans for an Apple television a year ago, and that the project has been in some stage of development since 2007 when the iPhone and first Apple TV box was released. Why the wait until 2013? Other than refining the intelligence of Siri, Apple has been waiting for large flat panel displays to become cheap enough to be reasonably priced for the consumer.

News and rumors of an Apple television set have exploded over the last week after comments made by the recent Steve Jobs to his biographer proclaimed that he had ‘cracked’ the TV, which the NYT says is a reference to using Siri AI as a replacement for the remote. This was soon followed up by reports that the creator of iTunes is leading the project.

Siri is currently only available to iPhone 4S users, but is widely expected to make appearances across the Apple lineup down the road, including in Mac OS X and the iPad.

Despite the relative ease of updating to iOS 5 through iTunes either directly or by IPSW, some users are still reporting problems.

In some cases this is user caused (error 3194 is easy to fix as is error 3200 & 3002), but if you’re continuing to have issues it could be related to a firewall or a handful of other causes.

For those cases, here’s another approach to manually update to iOS 5. Basically you just throw the downloaded IPSW file into the default IPSW location and have iTunes update without downloading, this seems to work for nearly everyone encountering problems.

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Microsoft has put out this interesting concept video to demonstrate what they think the future of computing will be like. The iPad influence is clear, and in short, everything is a touch screen or tablet, complete with holograms and other things that look like they belong in a sci-fi movie. The best part? There’s none of that ugly ribbon UI either! Microsoft describes the video as follows:

Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go.

You have to hand it to Microsoft for thinking out of the box here. Presumably Windows 8 is the first step in this touch-everything direction of active tiles and an entirely new UI. You can get a preview of that now by installing Windows 8 in VMWare or VirtualBox right on your Mac, the developer preview is free while in beta although it’s fairly boring without a touch screen.

Looks great, but until they’re shipping real iPad competitors running an OS baked in Redmond, consider this as a purely theoretical part of the future.

Video and several screenshots are below:
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Spaces are the the Virtual Desktop feature in OS X, and it’s part of the Mission Control window management system on the Mac. If you’ve opened a few desktop spaces that you no longer need access to, you can close them.

Perhaps the fastest way and most efficient means of closing a desktop space in Mission Control for Mac OS X is by using the option key. Here’s how it works:
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Want to sleep in? You can quickly turn off all your alarms on the iPhone by telling Siri simply to “turn off all alarms“, Siri will then confirm the alarm change plus show you the alarm settings. Oversleeping due to Siri likely won’t be a valid excuse to get out of school or work for the day, so it’s best to save this one for the weekend.

More useful during the work week, you can also tell Siri to turn on all alarms and Siri will display the scheduled alarm times:

This little tip was sent in by Jeff S by way of FinerThingsIn, thanks for sending this in.

Fire up your DVR and get ready for some couch potato action next week, a documentary about Steve Jobs titled “One Last Thing” will air on PBS this November 2nd at 10:00 PM. The film is said to be an hour long, and will include interviews with Jobs himself, as well as his colleagues and friends. Here’s the official description:

ONE LAST THING takes an unflinching look at Jobs’s difficult, controlling disposition, and offers unique insights into what made him tick. While there has been near-universal agreement that Steve Jobs was a great innovator in business and technology, ONE LAST THING looks into why he was so great. What were the influences that shaped his character? What drove him from such humble beginnings to the heights of success?

Featuring interviews with, among others, Ronald Wayne, co-founder of Apple with Jobs and Steve Wozniak; Ross Perot, who invested in NeXT Computer when Jobs was running out of money; Walt Mossberg, principal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal, who interviewed Jobs every year from 2003-2010; will.i.am, frontman and producer for The Black Eyed Peas, whose “I Gotta Feeling” currently ranks as the most downloaded iTunes song ever; Dean Hovey, designer of the original mouse for Apple; Robert Cringely, writer and host of the PBS series TRIUMPH OF THE NERDS: THE RISE OF ACCIDENTAL EMPIRES; Robert Palladino, calligraphy professor at Reed College, whose classes Jobs credited with inspiring his typography design for the Mac; and Bill Fernandez, who introduced Jobs and Wozniak in Sunnyvale, where the three hung out in his father’s garage and tinkered with electronics.

In a never-before-broadcast interview from 1994, Jobs expounds on his philosophy of life: “You tend to get told that the world is the way it is, but life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact; and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you … Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

In his many successful Apple product launches, Jobs developed his own catchphrase to tease his audiences. Appearing to reach the end of a presentation, he would then announce to the expectant crowd: “Oh — one more thing,” before unveiling his latest design achievement. This documentary exploration of the life of one of America’s most successful innovators and entrepreneurs pays homage to his famous presentational skills and his unique talents.

This is one of many shows to cover Steve Jobs in the wake of his passing. If you’re a fan of the subject matter, it’s hard to get enough of this stuff.

You can read the press release or check your local listings for more information.

Want to tile a wallpaper on the Mac? A tiling wallpaper will repeat all over the desktop background, just like a tile is repeated in flooring or a wall. Well, you’re in luck because modern Mac OS X versions can do tile a wallpaper image, just like you could do way back in ancient Mac OS releases and all other versions too.

But how you tile a desktop image depends slightly on versions of system software, and on the size of the image itself.

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Walter Isaacson was on Charlie Rose this week to discuss Steve Jobs and the writing of his biography. If you’re interested in Steve Jobs and his legacy, this is another great interview filled with interesting tidbits. It’s arguably better than the recent 60 Minutes segment and at nearly an hour long, touches on a fairly wide variety of topics related to Jobs.

• Watch the interview online at CharlieRose.com (Sorry no embeds available)

The discussion between Isaacson and Rose also clarifies some of the soundbites that you’ve undoubtedly heard related to Mr Jobs cancer treatments, the reason the book was written, the naming of Apple, and what other industries that Steve would have likely disrupted had he survived another 7 years (including one I haven’t found mentioned online… yet).

This is the second recent Charlie Rose episode to cover Steve Jobs, the first being a discussion on Jobs with various Silicon Valley executives and friends just a few days after his passing.