The recently released Mac OS X 10.6.8 Software Update has quietly added native TRIM support to Macs equipped with SSD drives. TRIM insures that your SSD drive will be functioning at optimal speed and extends the life of the solid state disk, making this a must-have update for any Mac user using solid state storage.

Enabling native TRIM support on your Mac’s SSD drive is just a matter of installing the Mac OS X 10.6.8 software update and then rebooting your machine. Installing the OS X 10.6.8 update eliminates the need for the assorted third party hacks that surfaced to hack TRIM to work, so it may be a wise idea to disable those tools before installing the official update.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion also includes TRIM support natively, and is due for a public release sometime this July.

Update: We can confirm that TRIM is enabled on Apple provided SSD’s with 10.6.8 installed, but some third party SSD’s continue to not support TRIM despite the update. Lion may address this, or you can continue to use the third party TRIM Enabler tool.

In another move suggesting that iOS 5 is aimed to kill jailbreaking, the infamous iPhone Dev Team is reporting that new versions of iOS 5 prevent future iOS versions to be downgraded. To clarify, users will continue to be able to downgrade from iOS 5 back to iOS 4 and other pre-5 firmware using older versions of iTunes, but something like a theoretical iOS 5.1 release would not be able to downgrade back to iOS 5 firmware.

The explanation for this will make sense to those familiar with how a jailbreak works, but will probably sound like gibberish to anyone just loosely aware of the process:

Starting with the iOS5 beta, the role of the “APTicket” is changing — it’s being used much like the “BBTicket” has always been used. The LLB and iBoot stages of the boot sequence are being refined to depend on the authenticity of the APTicket, which is uniquely generated at each and every restore (in other words, it doesn’t depend merely on your ECID and firmware version…it changes every time you restore, based partly on a random number). This APTicket authentication will happen at every boot, not just at restore time. Because only Apple has the crypto keys to properly sign the per-restore APTicket, replayed APTickets are useless.

This will only affect restores starting at iOS5 and onward, and Apple will be able to flip that switch off and on at will (by opening or closing the APTicket signing window for that firmware, like they do for the BBTicket)

You can read the technical “Blob Monster” details at the Dev Team blog. They do mention there may be possible ways to ‘combat’ this change, but due to the beta status of iOS 5 they’re not releasing much more information.

Two new and distinctly different iPhones may be released this September, according to a new analyst report. Yes two iPhones, both an iPhone 5 and a lower cost iPhone 4S, are now expected to be launched this fall, presumably alongside iOS 5.

If this is true, the two new iPhone models might spec out something like this:

iPhone 4S: lower end model aimed at prepaid and emerging markets

• Priced around $349 or lower (past reports suggest as low as $200)
• Unlocked
• No-contract required
• Pre-paid voice and data plans
• Hardware based on existing iPhone 4

iPhone 5: upper end model with contract subsidy, powerful CPU, and the latest features

• Dual-core A5 CPU borrowed from iPad 2
• Potentially larger 4″ screen
• 8MP camera

The dual-iPhone report comes from Deutsche Bank by way of Fortune & CNN, with a substantial caveat being the analyst “does not cite any sources or claim any inside knowledge for his two-iPhone theory.” Sources or not, Apple’s own COO Tim Cook has publicly stated they are interested in the prepaid market, and many other news agencies have long reported on a cheaper iPhone going into production.

If this is true, it may go a long way to explain the dual set of rumors that have long floated around which have confused just about everyone, one centered around the all-new iPhone 5 which is said to be full of a bunch of new features, and another focused on the iPhone 4S which is said to be a marginal upgrade based on the existing iPhone 4.

This news comes not long after Bloomberg seemed to clarify that an iPhone 5 was scheduled for September. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, a new iPhone (or two) is definitely coming.

Note: the attached picture is an artists rendering of the iPhone 5 based on rumors.

iDB, the same guys who brought us the iOS 5 wireless syncing video, are now showing off another hot feature in iOS 5: restoring iOS backups directly from iCloud.

The video shows how smooth the process is.

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Looking for some geeky stuff to do this weekend with your Apple gear? Here’s a slew of ideas that are sure to keep anyone busy, whether it’s a DIY project, learning from WWDC 2011, getting your Mac ready for Lion, or just gaming away into the wee hours of the morning, boredom be gone!
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For those of us who didn’t make it to WWDC 2011, Apple has released full videos of all the WWDC sessions. There’s a lot to learn here, with over 100 sessions covering both Mac OS X and iOS, and each is presented by Apple engineers.

Head over to the Dev Center to get the videos on iTunes.

The videos are available in both HD and SD formats, and they are accessible to anyone with an Apple developer account – not just the paid $99 iOS and Mac dev accounts – so if you want to watch them all it takes is a brief free registration to get access.

If you want a guaranteed to be great Mac setup, get a MacBook Pro and add an Apple Cinema Display. This particular desk has a MacBook Pro 15″ with a matte display (vs glossy) connected to the always beautiful 27″ Apple Cinema Display.

I don’t know for sure but I think this may be a workstation at the Tumblr offices in NYC, if so that’s a pretty swanky office. Found via Flickr.

One of the most hotly anticipated features of iOS 5 is wireless syncing, and the video above from iDB shows exactly how it works in iOS 5 beta 2.

If you’re a developer you can access this feature right now in iOS 5 beta 2 but it also needs to be enabled in iTunes 10.5b2, everyone else will have to wait until Fall.

Just moments after the freshly released iOS 5 beta 2 was available, it has been jailbroken using Redsn0w 0.9.8b1. This is the same version of redsn0w that worked to jailbreak the first beta of iOS 5 and therefore doesn’t require any additional downloads, but it does include the same caveats as before.

In order to work, make sure you point redsn0w at the iOS 5 beta 1 IPSW file when asked, and then you can go about the jailbreak as usual. Redsn0w 0.9.8b1 continues to be a tethered jailbreak, but will work for iPod touch 3G, iPod touch 4G, iPad 1, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 GSM, iPhone 4 CDMA.

This has been confirmed by MuscleNerd of Dev Team fame, who reminds everyone that this redsn0w release is intended for jailbreak developer use only.

iOS 5 beta 2 has been released to download, the new build is 9A5248d, supports wireless syncing, and likely includes a hoard of bug fixes and improvements. The second iOS 5 beta supports the same hardware as before, running on iPad 2 WiFi GSM & CDMA, iPad, iPhone 4 CDMA & GSM, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 3G & 4G. Backup your hardware and get downloading.

You can download directly from iOS Dev Center

As usual, this release is intended for developers and you’ll need a dev login to access the IPSW files. If you’re just experimenting, remember you can always downgrade from iOS 5 beta back to iOS 4.3.3 if you decide you don’t like it.

For non-developers, iOS 5 will be released in the fall.

You can display and monitor virtually all essential system activity directly from your Mac OS X menu bar using a great utility called iStat Menu:

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The recently released Final Cut Pro X hasn’t exactly received the warmest welcome by longtime Final Cut users, and now thanks to Conan O’Brien (he’s a Mac user by the way), Final Cut Pro is the butt of a hilarious late night TV sketch.

Regardless of your opinions of the app, you should watch the clip. I’ve never even used Final Cut Pro X and I found the video funny.
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Team Fortress 2 is now completely free to download and to play online. No strings attached. That’s right, one of the most popular and highly rated online multiplayer games of all time is now being given away for free.

This could very well be the best free online game for the Mac platform. If you haven’t played Team Fortress 2 before but you like multiplayer action games, there’s no excuse not to now. Since both Windows & Mac OS X versions are available and can play together, you can get your PC friends to tag along too.

Download Steam & Team Fortress 2 Now

Most newish Intel Macs can run the game, the Steam system requirements match TF2’s minimum requirements closely: Mac OS X 10.5.8 or 10.6.3, 1GB RAM or more, NVIDIA GeForce 8 or higher, ATI X1600 or higher, or Intel HD 3000 or higher, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection. As usual the newer your Mac, the better the game will run.

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Fire up Software Update, Mac OS X 10.6.8 has been released. The update prepares your Mac for installing Mac OS X Lion when it is released next month and includes other bug and security fixes.

Direct Download Links for Mac OS X 10.6.8
If you don’t want to go the Software Update route, here are the direct download links:

• Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update
• Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo
• Mac OS X 10.6.8 Server Update

Release notes are as follows:

The 10.6.8 update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:

Enhance the Mac App Store to get your Mac ready to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion

Resolve an issue that may cause Preview to unexpectedly quit

Improve support for IPv6

Improve VPN reliability

Identify and remove known variants of Mac Defender

We’ll update if anything else is worth mentioning.

Update: Native TRIM SSD support is also included in 10.6.8 update, making this an essential update for all Mac users using solid state storage.

Steve Jobs famously said “if you see a stylus, they blew it” with regard to touch screens, but don’t tell that to Wacom. They just released a nice sketching and note taking app for the iPad called Bamboo Paper. The app is intended for use with a stylus (shh, don’t tell Steve Jobs) and looks to improve the quick sketch experience on the iPad.

It has all the standard features you’d want, with different paper types, ink color options, sharing functionality, but maybe most important is that MacWorld says it has one of the “fastest rendering engines for drawing” on the iPad. That’s a big relief if you’ve been annoyed with the rendering lag that exists on some of the other drawing apps out there for the iOS platform.

Get Bamboo Paper on the iOS App Store, it’s free until June 30 but afterwards it costs $2.

If you want to go against Mr Jobs grain and grab a stylus, here are a few to choose from since they all appear to work the same:

• BoxWave iPad Stylus – $15
• Targus Stylus for iPad – $12
• Acase Stylus for iPad – $10
• Bamboo Stylus – $29.95

I can’t give any specific recommendations because I’ve never used a Stylus for the iPad or iPhone, but anything is probably better than that silly sausage that became strangely popular last year in Korea due to their chilly winters.

The upbeat promo video demonstrates the features and speed of the app, and also shows Wacoms Bamboo Stylus product too:
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If you’ve always liked the idea of hiding your iPad in a discreet case, why not build your own out of an old book? This is a great idea and it’s pretty simple, you don’t need much to get it done either:

• Old book that is a bit larger than the iPad
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Wood glue or similar
• Exacto knife, box cutter, and/or Dremel tool
• Patience

The Instructables guide has the following advice for choosing a good book for this project:

Take your iPad to a second-hand book shop or thrift store and find a book that is the right size. I found the best size was when you set the iPad on the pages of the book, there is about 20mm (3/4″) to 25mm (1″) all around it. Too small is a problem because the paper won’t be strong enough to hold the iPad in and too big is fine, if you like carrying alot of size and weight you don’t need. The perfect thickness is when the pages of the closed book are the same or slightly thicker than the iPad. I also chose a book with lots of photos because the pages were thicker which meant stronger and less to cut.

Basically you just open the book, outline and measure the iPad, and start cutting. If you’re OCD, the Dremel tool is used to make clean lines around in the inside of the book, but it’s not a requirement. After the pages are cut out to accomodate the iPad snuggly, glue the pages and back cover together (but not the front cover!), wait for it to dry, and you’re done. Instructables suggests you don’t glue the pages together so you can slip the power adapter through and charge the iPad while it’s in the book, but I think the protection offered by having the pages bound together is worth the trade off. The only thing I’ve noticed that the guides are missing is a little thumb notch so you could easily pull the iPad out of the book.

Instructables: Recycle an Old Book into a Stealth iPad Case

You could use the same guide to create a discrete case for the iPhone, an iPod, MacBook Air 11″ or any other laptop too, although building one for the 17″ MacBook Pro may pose a physical challenge. This is much cheaper than buying something like the BookBook iPad case, although admittedly unless you get a fancy leather book it probably won’t turn out quite so classy.

If done properly, it looks just like a standard book when closed:
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If you have a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro, you can check the battery cycle count. This lets you see how many charge and drain cycles have been used on the battery, and gives you an idea of overall battery health.

This functionality exists in all versions of macOS and Mac OS X, and we’ll walk you through how you can check the cycle count using built-in system management functions.

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Soon users may not need to jailbreak in order to get custom widgets on the iPhone with iOS 5. At least, that’s what a recent patent granted to Apple suggests.

Multiple references of widgets, custom widgets, and user created widgets using a “widget creator module” are reference in the patent listing on the US Patent Office site (emphasis mine):

The GPS module 135 determines the location of the device and provides this information for use in various applications (e.g., to telephone 138 for use in location-based dialing, to camera 143 and/or blogger 142 as picture/video metadata, and to applications that provide location-based services such as weather widgets, local yellow page widgets, and map/navigation widgets).

The applications 136 may include the following modules (or sets of instructions), or a subset or superset thereof: … widget modules 149, which may include weather widget 149-1, stocks widget 149-2, calculator widget 149-3, alarm clock widget 149-4, dictionary widget 149-5, and other widgets obtained by the user, as well as user-created widgets149-6; widget creator module 150 for making user-created widgets…

This diagram from the patent displays widget references as well, including the Stocks and Weather widgets which are already included in iOS 5 beta (seen in the screen shot at the top of this post):
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