If you buy a Mac from now until the release date of Lion in July, you qualify for a free upgrade to Mac OS X 10.7 directly from Apple. This is thanks to Apple’s Up-To-Date program, which gives users 30 days from the purchase of their new Mac to request the free update.

The free upgrade expands to Macs bought through Apple and their resellers, meaning you can take advantage of discounts offered through online stores like Amazon. The announcement was largely lost in the midst of other WWDC excitement, but was included in Apple’s press release regarding Lion:

The Mac OS X Lion Up-To-Date upgrade is available at no additional charge via the Mac App Store to all customers who purchased a qualifying new Mac system from Apple or an Apple Authorized Reseller on or after June 6, 2011. Users must request their Up-To-Date upgrade within 30 days of purchase of their Mac computer. Customers who purchase a qualifying Mac between June 6, 2011 and the date when Lion is available in the Mac App Store will have 30 days from Lion’s official release date to make a request.

Technically the offer expands back to June 6, the official announcement. Outside of the Up-To-Date program, Lion costs $29.99 through the Mac App Store.

Apple also released a nice video intro to Lion that is worth a view.

Update: For those wondering, you will request the free Lion update directly from Apple. With past up-to-date promotions, you entered the Macs serial number into an online form to verify eligibility. This will almost certainly work the same, and you will most likely get a promo code to redeem through the Mac App Store.

We’ve received a fair share of comments and emails about Mac OS X Lion making some Macs seem sluggish, running hotter than usual, and causing the machines fans to run at full speed. This sounded concerning, but after I went about installing Lion DP4 myself and looked into this a bit further I’m here to report there’s nothing wrong, and here’s what’s going on.

Why is the Mac running hot? The explanation is simple: Spotlight. Yup, Spotlight and it’s worker modules mdworker and mds are at it again. When you update to Lion 11A480b, whether you are upgrading from 10.6 Snow Leopard or just from Lion DP3, your Spotlight index has to rebuild itself, and depending on the Lion installation volume, this can take a while.

After Spotlight is done indexing though, your Mac may still be blazing away and running slower than it should. This is also normal, and that’s because right after Spotlight is done indexing the drive, Mac OS X Lion will rebuild it’s system caches by running kextcache, and this is also CPU intensive activity:

You could get away with killing the Spotlight processes, but you definitely don’t want to do this with kextcache, and the Mac OS X Manual for kextcache tells us why – “Caution: Incorrect use of kextcache can render a volume incapable of startup.” Let kextcache run or you could screw up your fresh Lion installation.

It’s hard to give a time estimate for how long these two normal system functions should take, but on my MacBook Air there was a good 20 minutes of blazing fans and sluggish performance while the CPU was consistently pegged over 100%. The time for Spotlight to index may take even longer if you did a dual boot partition scheme because Lion will most likely try and index your Snow Leopard installation as well. You can always click on the Spotlight menu to get an ETA, but it’s not always accurate and it won’t include the kextcache process.

See, no big deal. Finally, you have to remember this is a developer preview and not a final release OS. It’s clear that the excitement for Lion has caused usage and installation by a wider community than developers alone – heck a handful of my non-dev friends alone shelled out the $99 to get developer access just so they could run Lion – but I think this is adding to some of the confusion about system performance. This is absolutely not a Lion system compatibility issue, it’s normal system behavior. Just let this stuff run and your Mac will be happy.

Even more reason to get excited for iOS 5: 1080p HD video playback looks to be coming to iPad 2, iPhone 4, and quite likely Apple TV 2. Technically at least, any iOS hardware that is physically capable of playing the 1920×1080 movies could be getting 1080p playback support in the Fall.

If you’re wondering why 1080p playback matters on small screens like the iPad 2 and iPhone 4, consider iOS 5’s AirPlay video mirroring feature. Although this is said to be an iPad 2 only option, this would create an HD capable wireless media center out of nearly all the iOS devices if the feature becomes widely adopted. You can see AirPlay video mirroring from an iPad 2 to an Apple TV2 on our list of videos of iOS 5 features.

The screenshot above shows 1080p playback on an iPad 2, and 9to5mac says “playback is very smooth and looks great“.

Yet another reason the public iOS 5 release date can’t come soon enough.

Update: We posted the games link under the assumption that all of the titles were abandonware or freeware, but some commenters are suggesting this may not be the case. We don’t have the resources to independently verify either claim, so we have pulled down the link. That said, you can play many of the definitely abandonware games online in your web browser at Virtual Apple IIgs. Our apologies for any confusion.

Ready to get your retro game on? Don’t miss this massive collection of over 165 classic retro PC games, they’re all free to download and they all run perfectly in Mac OS X in little self-contained DOSBox emulators.

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A new patent for what looks like a touch screen Mac has surfaced hot off the heals of the extended Mac OS X Lion and iOS 5 demos at WWDC (PS: watch the keynote if you haven’t already, it’s a great walkthrough of both new OS’s).

This patent is a clear indicator that Apple is at least exploring the possibility of bringing touch screens to the Mac platform, or at least to a desktop OS that is more advanced than iOS. The discovery was made by PatentlyApple, who suggests that “with OS X Lion slowly adding iOS features, we may one day see such a system emerge” as fully touch capable touch screen Mac.

Diagrams from the approved patent clearly show a user interface and file system similar to that in Mac OS X that is being manipulated by touch:

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iOS 5 release includes a built-in Emoji keyboard that is accessible to anyone and is not region restricted. This is a change from past iOS releases where you would either need to jailbreak or install a 3rd party application in order to use Emoji from the iPhone, iPod touch, or iOS in general.

Emoji is a Japanese reference to emoticons, which are little picture characters that have become extremely popular as an enhancement to SMS and online communication. Outside of using emoji to convey messages, you can also use the emoji icons to create customized iOS folder names, like the camera icon alongside the folder name in this screenshot:

Heads up to @manda907 for discovering this.

Who better to show off Mac OS X Lion than Apple themselves? Don’t miss the Intro to Lion video, where Apple execs Phil Schiller and Craig Federighi show you Lion’s new gestures, full screen apps, Mission Control, LaunchPad, installing Lion through the Mac App Store, auto-save files & Versions, AirDrop Peer-to-Peer file sharing, new Mail app, and remind you that it’s just $29.99.

If you somehow missed it, Mac OS X Lion will be released in July, and a single purchase covers multiple installations on all of your authorized personal Macs, making that $30 an incredible deal. Make sure you meet the system requirements and get ready!

The annual Apple Design Award winners from WWDC 2011 have been announced. The awards go to apps and developers that “set the standard of excellence” and excel in design, innovation, and technical excellence.

This is the full list of winning apps and their respective developers, links go to the App Store:

Student Winners

• Grades 2 – Tapity
• Pennant – Vargatron
• Pulse News for iPhone – Alphonso Labs Inc

Mac Winners

• Capo – SuperMegaUltraGroovy
• Pixelmator – Pixelmator Team
• Anomaly Warzone Earth – 11 bit studios

iPhone Winners

• Cut the Rope – Chillingo Ltd
• Golfscape GPS Rangefinder – Shotzoom Software
• Infinity Blade – Chair Entertainment Group, LLC

iPad Winners

• Osmos for iPad – Hemisphere Games
• Our Choice – Push Pop Press, Inc.
• Djay – algoriddim

Lucky winners get a MacBook Air, iPad 2, iPod touch, a cube ADA 2011 trophy, plus a lot of attention and respect from Apple and developer communities.

Congratulations to them all!

Sometimes seeing is believing. I mentioned a fair share these iOS 5 features before but videos do some more justice than screenshots, so here’s a collection of eight great (see what I did there?) videos that show the best of iOS 5’s beta features.

We’ll start it off with Apple’s official Intro to iOS 5 video which is a nice 5 minute roundup of new features and what to expect come public release this fall. Following that up is a series of amateur videos showing off more specific features like Airplay’s wireless video mirroring, the PC free setup of first boot, Notification Center and how you can customize it, iOS 5 performance on older hardware, and more.

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Apple announced that Lion would be released exclusively through the Mac App Store for $30. This is great because the App Store policy allows a single purchase to install on all your Macs, but what if you don’t have broadband access on all your Macs, or what if you just want a bootable installation disc? Well, you can make your own bootable installation DVD.

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If you want to try out iOS 5 but you don’t have a developer account, you can do so using a crafty technique that takes advantage of a very simple bug in the Voice Over system. This has been confirmed to work on the iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS, but other iOS devices probably don’t work.

Warning: This is reposted for informational purposes only. We are not responsible for anything you do to your iOS device. There’s a reason iOS 5 beta is limited to developers, it’s buggy, it’s hard to downgrade, and it could lead to other problems. Because this is obviously a bug, future iOS 5 betas will fix this, and your iPhone could be trapped on an outdated beta. You may lose the ability to make phone calls.

None of this is recommended. Proceed at your own risk.

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Update: Redsn0w 0.9.8b1 is out to jailbreak iOS 5 beta 1, it has a tethered boot and is not intended for use beyond developers.

The good old limera1n exploit works to jailbreak the first beta of iOS 5, according to renowned jailbreak dev @MuscleNerd, suggesting a public jailbreak will be available for iOS 5b1 soon.

The pictures above were tweeted by MuscleNerd and clearly show iOS 5 beta 1 with Cydia installed alongside another shot showing ssh connecting to localhost. A later picture, shown below, shows Cydia running on the jailbroken device. This jailbreak was said to require a tethered boot on an iPod touch 4th gen.

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Update: Mac OS X Lion has been released!. You can download OS X Lion from the Mac App Store Now for $29.99 right now.

We’re all excited for Mac OS X Lion. We know it’s only $30 but a single purchase will cover installing on all of your Macs. We know it will be released in July through the Mac App Store. But up until now, we didn’t know the hardware requirements. Now we do.

Mac OS X Lion System Requirements

In order to install Mac OS X 10.7 you will need:

• Intel Core 2 Duo, Core i3, Core i5, Core i7, or Xeon processor
• 2GB of RAM
• Mac OS X 10.6.6 or later with the Mac App Store installed
• At least 4GB of additional disk space to accommodate the download, but more is obviously recommended

That’s it. The hardware requirements are surprisingly basic, but that’s good news. Apple’s own Lion web site even touts a simple three step process to install the update once it becomes available: check Mac compatibility, update to the latest Snow Leopard, and download Lion from the App Store.

What about upgrading from OS X 10.5 Leopard directly to Mac OS X 10.7 Lion?
If you meet the hardware aspects of the Lion system requirements, then you’ll most likely need to upgrade first to 10.6 prior to 10.7, simply because 10.6.6 is the release that the Mac App Store was included with. Lion requires the App Store to install from, and thus the 10.6.6 requirement to install. If you’re in this situation, Snow Leopard is $29 with free shipping from Amazon.

Core 2 Duo is NOT the same as Core Duo
This is important to point out: the Core 2 Duo chip is newer and fully supported by Mac OS X Lion. In fact, any Mac bought within the last 5 years should have the Core 2 Duo CPU and will be fully supported. The names are similar, but the chipset is fundamentally different, with the Core Duo being an old Pentium-M based 32 bit processor and the Core 2 Duo being a completely different 64 bit architecture. Blame the confusing naming on Intel.

What about Core Duo & Core Solo Macs?
You’ll notice Core Duo & Core Solo CPU’s are not officially supported. The Core Duo & Solo chipset made a brief appearance on a series of Macs released between 2006 and early 2007, so any Mac newer than 2007 should be good to go. The other news about the older CPU’s is that users have hacked Lion Developer Builds to work on those chips, so you can bet someone will do the same for the final Lion release too. That said, there’s probably a good reason Apple has chosen not to support the Core Duo and Core Solo CPU.

If you have multiple Macs, this may be one of the best and most underrated features of the Mac OS X Lion release: you buy Lion once and you can install it on all of your Macs, no additional purchases are required per machine, all of the downloading and installation is handled through the Mac App Store.

In other words, for just $29.99 you have an unrestricted personal license for Lion installations on your authorized Macs connected to the Mac App Store. Here’s a screen cap from the WWDC 2011 keynote video of when Phil Schiller mentioned this:

This was later confirmed by Apple’s Press Release regarding Lion, but the whole thing largely went under the radar in the barrage of other news about Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, iOS 5, iCloud, and all related things from WWDC.

While the general personal license is very cheap, it is unclear how Lion updates will work for situations where group licensing is required, which is common in the corporate and academic environments, but it’s unlikely a site license would cost just $29.99.

Mac OS X Lion has been released and is available exclusively as a download through the Mac App Store for $29.99. Lion Server will be offered as a separate download for $49.99.

Download Mac OS X Lion from the Mac App Store for $29.99 (App Store link)

Apple has released iTunes 10.3, an update that includes aspects of iCloud including a beta version of iTunes in the Cloud. What does that mean to you?

iTunes 10.3 in the Cloud Beta has two main features:

• iTunes will automatically download new music, apps, and book purchases to all of your devices seamlessly and without syncing (or, if you want, you can sync manually like before)
• You can now review purchase history and download past purchases individually

Download iTunes 10.3

There are four ways to get your hands on iTunes 10.3 and try out the iCloud beta features:

• Direct Download from Apple (74mb DMG file – Mac OS X only)
• Get it from iTunes home page (Mac or PC)
• Update from within iTunes
• Download from Software Update

I got impatient so I went with the direct download link, but you may have luck elsewhere.

And no, you do not need to be running iOS 5 or iOS 5 beta to take advantage of iTunes in the Cloud beta, it works fine with iOS 4.3.

Apple has a special knack for picking fantastic looking desktop pictures… and I know I wasn’t the only one drooling over the newest Mac OS X Lion space wallpaper shown throughout the WWDC 2011 keynote.

This one is fresh out of WWDC & Lion Developer Preview 4 and shows the gorgeous Andromeda Galaxy, and, not surprisingly it looks stunning on any Mac display.

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Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview 4 has been released for developers to download from Apple’s servers. The new build number is 11A480b and includes a variety of changes that were shown at WWDC 2011, and was announced alongside iOS 5 beta 1 and iCloud.

Developers can download the update directly from Apple through the Mac Dev Center. If you’re currently running Lion DP3 you can also download it directly through Software Update, although this does not seem to be available to all users yet.

Not a developer? You can get a nice preview of the latest build in first portion of the WWDC 2011 video, otherwise you’ll have to wait until July for the official release date.

Developers can now check out all the new fancy iOS 5 features first hand with the first pre-release version of iOS 5 beta 1. The download is accessible to all registered developers through the iOS Dev Center.

iOS 5 Beta 1 comes as build 9A5220p and supports all iPad 2 models, iPad, iPhone 4 GSM & CDMA, iPhone 3GS, and iPod touch 4th and 3rd gens.

Those without an iOS developer account will have to wait for the public release date this fall.

Update: if you’re brave enough, you can install and run iOS 5 beta without a dev account, it is not recommended and could lead to problems.