This MacBook is hooked up to an external monitor while the far right display is connected to a Windows PC. The screensaver is Fliqlo if you’re wondering.
This Mac setup is from flickr.
Update, May 8: Apple Stores continue to get shipments in daily, they go on sale first thing in the morning. These tend to sell out very quickly, you should call in the morning to verify stock before showing up but generally speaking, the earlier you get there the better. If you’re looking for a specific model, Apple is telling customers to “check back every morning” as shipments arrive frequently. From personal experience, it’s very hard to get one on the weekend unless you go early in the morning.
Update 2: Some stores reportedly have limited stock of select models but they too sell out quickly, check iPad 2 stock in your area by calling your local stores! Variations of the Verizon iPad 2 seem to be the most easy model to find.
Update 3: Some Toys ‘R Us locations are now selling the iPad 2 WiFi models, these are likely sold out so call to verify.
Update 4: Online orders through the Apple Store are now down to 1-2 week delivery time, if you don’t want to deal with calling and waiting in line, this may be the way to go.
The demand for iPad 2 is through the roof which is going to make getting the tablet in the first few weeks a challenge. iPad 2 has sold out almost immediately in many stores, and the most popular and hardest to get model is iPad 2 16GB in both colors. If you aren’t picky about color or the exact model you get, you may still be able to get an iPad 2 in this period of highly constrained supply.
Here’s what we currently know about the availability of iPad 2. We’ll update this list as we get more information.
Currently, the fastest delivery for online orders is the AT&T online store with iPad 2 3G models, otherwise:
Regardless of where you order online, it’s going to take a while to get the device shipped to you. If you want one right now, get in line at a retail store…
Most stores are sold out out all iPad 2 models, call ahead to verify stock. Availability numbers differ, stores are the same as our “where to buy” page.
Don’t want to order online and wait for delivery? AND you don’t want to wait in line at a local store? Your next option is the resale market, it doesn’t come cheap…
If you don’t mind paying highly inflated prices, you’ll be able to get an iPad 2 right away on the resale market
Of course, if you don’t want to get caught up in the initial launch hype all you need to do is wait a month or two, and you should be able to just walk into any Apple Store or retailer and get a new iPad without a hassle.
Update: In just a few short hours, shipping times on iPad 2 are now 2-3 weeks. If you want one sooner, you’ll need to get in line.
Want to buy the new iPad from Apple’s online store? All current models of iPad 2 available for order online are carrying a 3-5 day shipping time. Additionally, the estimated arrival date of iPad 2 models is March 18 to March 25 for standard shipping methods.
If you don’t want to wait a week or two for an online order to arrive, here’s where to buy iPad 2. Your best bet for getting any of the models is probably going to be an Apple Store, they start selling the device at 5PM tonight and lines are expected to gather.
DeviceStats is a cool iOS app that lets you easily gather technical usage statistics about your iPhone. Some of the things you’ll be able to quickly see within the app include:
If you’re interested in this kind of stuff, get DeviceStats for free while it lasts on the iTunes App Store.
Update: well that was a quick sale, the developer raised the price back to $0.99. Thanks to those who pointed this out.
Grab a cup of tea or coffee and get ready for a late night! If you don’t want to deal with the inevitable lines at the official iPad 2 launch tomorrow at 5:00 PM, you can stay awake late tonight and order it directly from Apple’s online store starting at 1:00 AM PST.
Other than being able to shop in your pajamas, buying online will get you free shipping, the ability to engrave the iPad 2, and you’ll be practically guaranteed to get one within a few days, whereas many of the stores are likely to sell out of existing stock.
Here’s the clip from Apple’s press release (emphasis mine):
CUPERTINO, California-March 10, 2011-Apple® today announced that iPad™ 2, the next generation of its magical device for browsing the web, reading and sending email, enjoying photos, watching videos, listening to music, playing games, reading ebooks and much more, will be available tomorrow at 5 p.m. local time at all 236 Apple retail stores in the US and through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com) beginning at 1 a.m. PT.
If you’re committed and want to get your hands on the coolest tablet around as soon as possible, here’s where you can buy iPad 2 tomorrow.
Reviews for iPad 2 are starting to appear, and as expected, they’re overwhelmingly positive and generally conclude that it’s the best tablet on the market. Aside from lavishing praise on the new model, several of the reviewers also confirm one of the iPad 2 specs that every geek was wondering about; iPad 2 has 512MB of RAM.
From a technical standpoint, Engadget probably has the best review, complete with tests on battery life, browser performance, samples from the camera, and a solid software overview. Here’s what they ultimately conclude:
It might frustrate the competition to hear this, but it needs to be said: the iPad 2 isn’t just the best tablet on the market, it feels like the only tablet on the market. As much as we’d like to say that something like the Xoom has threatened Apple’s presence in this space, it’s difficult (if not impossible) to do that.
And Daring Fireball:
The fact is, Apple got it right with the iPad 1 in almost every way, and the iPad 2 reflects that. If you didn’t like the original iPad, you’re not going to like the iPad 2. If you liked the original iPad, you’re going to like the iPad 2 even better.
And Wall Street Journal:
iPad 2 moves the goal posts [of tablets], by being slimmer and lighter, boosting speed and power, and holding its price advantages, available apps and battery life. As of now, I can comfortably recommend it as the best tablet for average consumers.
And New York Times:
…that much improvement in thinness, weight and speed transforms the experience.
And MacWorld:
The iPad 2 raises the bar Apple set a year ago—and it’s time for the rest of the industry to scramble again to catch up.
In other words, you’ll want an iPad 2, and current tablet comparisons don’t matter much because there isn’t any competition yet.
iPad 2 will be available on March 11. If you want to get one on release day here’s where you can buy one, but you should expect lines.
iTunes Home Sharing is a great feature that lets you share your iTunes 10.2.1 library wirelessly with anyone on your local network. This means you can share any Mac or PC’s media library with any iOS 4.3 compatible iPhone, iPod, iPad, or Apple TV, in addition to any other Macs and PC on your network.
We’ll walk you through setting up iTunes home sharing, and then how to access these shared libraries from any compatible iOS hardware, in addition to other Mac’s and PC’s.
Some of us who have downloaded iOS 4.3 and updated their iPhones and iPads have run into a strange syncing error that vaguely states “The required file cannot be found.” If this has happened to you, you’re not alone, and thankfully there’s a fix of sorts.
Important: Make a backup of your iOS device photos before proceeding! The best way to do this is to copy them images to your Mac/PC. If you aren’t sure how to do this, follow our guide to transfer photos from iPhone to a computer, it’s the same for iPad and iPod touch.
Now that you’re photos are all backed up, connect your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad to your computer, and do the following:
Read more »
Some older iPad models have a physical button to use as an orientation lock or mute switch. It might seem mundane, but one of the most appreciated features of iOS for iPad users is the ability to enable the iPad orientation lock switch instead of having it function as a mute switch in iOS on iPad, as that customization can really help some users.
iPad users can now choose to have the side switch function as a rotation lock again, this secures the iPad display in either portrait or landscape mode with the flick of a switch.
Here’s how to get this functionality on all versions of iOS with an iPad that has a physical switch:
Apple has released iOS 4.3, the update includes support for iPhone 4 GSM, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, and iPod touch 3G and 4G, and Apple TV 2. iOS 4.3 brings AirPlay improvements, improved Safari performance, iTunes Home Sharing, the addition of the iPad orientation lock switch, and Personal WiFi hotspot for iPhone 4.
You can download and install iOS 4.3 by checking for updates within iTunes.
Alternatively, you can download iOS 4.3 IPSW directly from Apple:
iOS 4.3 IPSW is also available for the upcoming iPad 2:
If you are having trouble downloading the ISPW files, right-click and “Save As” or use a different browser.
The Verizon iPhone 4 CDMA model is expected to receive the 4.3 update later, although no timeline has been announced from Apple. Older iOS hardware such as iPhone 3 and iPod touch 2G and 3G models will not be supported by iOS 4.3 and are ineligible for the software update.
Anytime you flip between Spaces in Mac OS X there’s a fancy animation, this is nice and all but it makes switching Spaces slower than it needs to be. You can disable the animation which speeds up Spaces transition a bit.
Disable Spaces Animation
Launch Terminal and type:
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool YES
Then you’ll need to kill the Dock for changes to take effect:
killall Dock
Re-enable Spaces Animation
If you want to re-enable the Spaces animations, just change YES to NO:
defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-swoosh-animation-off -bool NO
Kill the Dock again for the change to take effect.
You can also speed up the Spaces transitions by adjusting the time it takes to drag windows between desktops.
If you aren’t familiar, Spaces is the virtual desktop manager in Mac OS X, allowing you to maintain several different desktops that are easy to flip between.
Thanks to Rick for sending in this tip!
The vast majority of Mac users won’t need to manually tweak launchd and launchctl, but there are times when you uninstall or stop using an app in Mac OS X and a service agent continues to needlessly load in launchd. This is annoying, but these rogue agents are easy to remove via the command line, so launch Terminal and away we go. Additionally, there are situations where advanced users may want to tweak agents loaded into launchd for whatever reason. In any case, we’ll detail how to list items in launchd, how to remove them from launchd in OS X, and also how to re-load agents into launchd on the Mac.
Read more »
Did you know that iTunes has a wealth of free language learning courses? There are tons of language lessons offered for free, just find a language you want to learn or brush up on, subscribe to the podcast, and start practicing. I have selected 15 popular languages below, but there are many more available through iTunes.
Some are updated more often than others. They’re all free, and each one is an iTunes link:
Not finding what you want here? Do you want more podcasts for a specific language? There’s an abundance of lessons available on iTunes, check them out here.
Ever wonder what the deal is with some of the crazy Apple rumors? Refer to this handy Apple Rumor Publishing Guide from JoyOfTech. This is a hilarious flowchart that is frequently dead-on regarding the often silly and sometimes just outright fictitious Apple rumor mill.
My personal favorite part of the chart is the first line:
“Did you receive an Apple rumor? -> No -> Make one up and send it to yourself!”
This cracks me up because everyone knows it’s true. Sure, there are a few legitimate sources out there, but there are plenty more that just make things up to get attention.
And yes I’m posting this knowing full well that we publish rumors ourselves, although we try to focus on solid sources and patents as a basis for citation. And no, someones imagination should not be called a “source” to justify the fabrication of a rumor.
Heads up to MacGasm for finding this.
Want to change the crontab editor on the Mac? You can do that! We’ll show you how to use a different crontab editor on a selective per-edit basis, and also how to change the default crontab text editor. You can use vi, emacs, nano, or whatever else you’d like. Most hardcore command line users and unix geeks love vi, but I personally prefer nano, so that will be what is demonstrated here.
If you want to change your default crontab editor to nano, here’s how to do this via the command line in Mac OS X (and linux too but we’re focusing on Mac here obviously).
The CDMA iPhone 4 has been unlocked in the USA, allowing you to use the iPhone as a pay-as-you-go phone on Cricket Wireless. Comments from the YouTube video (embedded below) suggest that Cricket stores are performing the service for $125 and that the iPhone 4 will then work on Cricket or MetroPCS networks as a pay-as-you-go phone.
What’s required? You’ll have to get your hands on an off-contract Verizon iPhone 4 (or pay the termination fee), and then you’ll need to jailbreak the iPhone 4 and take it over to Cricket wireless for some custom MMS update. The process seems similar to what China Telecom figured out with their own unlocked CMDA iPhone.
Pay-as-you-go iPhones work, but not officially supported… yet
Remember, no iPhone has been officially released as a pay as you go phone, but we have showed you how to get an iPhone 4 setup as a pay-go AT&T phone and you can also setup a prepaid iPhone 3GS and iPhone 3G too. Both of these work without jailbreaking if you stay with AT&T’s Pay Go plans.
An official prepaid iPhone may be in the works though, as hinted by Apple’s COO Tim Cook, but it’s unclear whether such a device would be intended for the US market.
Update 9/14/2011: Installing Mac OS X Lion within a virtual machine is made significantly easier with VMWare Fusion 4. All you need to do is:
Installation of Lion is extremely fast, and you are then able to boot and use your virtual OS X 10.7 install.
The older method is repeated below for posterity sake:
If you want to run Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Developer Preview but you don’t want to bother setting up another partition or upgrading your existing Mac OS X 10.6 installation, you can go with a third option: running Lion in a virtual machine with VMWare.
This is really only recommended for more technically inclined Mac OS X users. If you’re serious about Lion development, remember that virtual machines have their limitations, and you should probably just setup a dedicated partition to run the developer preview directly. Having a dedicated partition will ultimately perform better and the installation process is a lot easier than setting this up to run in VMware. Anyway, if you want to try out Lion in a VM, here’s what you’ll need:
Requirements to Install & Run Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in VMWare:
Regarding the RAM requirement, VMware and virtual machines in general perform best with a lot of RAM, if you plan on using them often on your Mac it’s highly recommended to upgrade to 8GB. With how cheap RAM is these days, I consider it an essential upgrade for power users. If you’re curious, you can read my review of 8GB RAM upgrade for a MacBook Pro where I detail the advantages of having a bunch of memory.
The Walkthrough:
Update: ObviousLogic.com seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth, here’s the walkthrough repeated below via Google Cache:
Everything ready? Then check out the great walkthrough from ObviousLogic: Installing Lion in VMware, it’s broken down into 12 steps that are easy to follow.
Installing Mac OS X Lion in VMware
Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.
Overview
Yay! The developer version of OS X Lion is out in the wild!!! Not going to say where I got it from, but I have it and I want to play with it!
But… Being ill-gotten and a pre-beta release, I really don’t want to install it on a hard drive and boot my iMac off of it. Who knows what crazy things could happen? Would suck if something was wrong with the file system (or a virus installed) and it wiped all attached drives!!! So, since I already use VMware Fusion for my OpenBSD web server, why not run Lion in a virtual machine!?
Issue 1. Only server versions of Mac OS X can be run in a virtual machine. Well there’s an easy way around that. Seems the system only checks for the existence of a single file, which can be created to appease the VM Gods.
Issue 2. Lion’s installation and boot process is a lot different and the VM doesn’t know what to make of it – booting from a disk image makes the VM cower into a corner and cry for help. Or just get outright hostile and tell you, “Not here, Jack!” But, as it turns out, there’s a way around that as well. Not as easy as the first obstacle, but possible nonetheless.
Step 1: Create a blank disk image.
Using Disk Utility, create and mount a new image with the following settings,
Name: MyInstaller
Size: 5 GB
Format: Mac OS X Extended
Encryption: none
Partitions: Single partition – Apple Partition Map
Image Format: DVD/CD master
You can name it whatever you want, but be sure to modify the steps below accordingly.Step 2: Mount the Lion installer image.
The image I obtained mounts as ‘Mac OS X Install ESD’. If yours mounts as something different, then you will need to make any necessary changes to reflect that in the following steps.
Step 3: Mount the Base System image.
The Lion installer image contains a bunch of hidden files, to get to them you’ll need to run the Terminal application. One of these hidden files is BaseSystem.dmg which is used to boot the system.
$ cd “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD”
$ open BaseSystem.dmgThe volume will mount as ‘Mac OS X Base System’
Step 4: Copy the base system.
The entire contents of the base system needs to be copied to your installer image. The ‘Restore’ feature in Disk Utility works great for this. Once that is finished, you can eject the BaseSystem image, it is no longer needed.
Please note, if you chose to “Erase destination”, your installer image will now have the same name as the source, ‘Mac OS X Base System’. I rename mine back to ‘MyInstaller’.
Step 5: Setup the ‘kernelcache’ file.
First the file needs to be copied from the Lion installer image to your installer image, then the boot configuration file updated to specify the location of the file.
$ cp “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD/kernelcache” /Volumes/MyInstaller/kernelcache
$ cd /Volumes/MyInstaller/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/
$ sudo vi com.apple.Boot.plistMake sure the boot file contains at least the following key/value to specify the location of the kernelcache file,
Kernel Cache
\kernelcache Step 6: Copy the installation Packages.
Before the packages can be copied from the Lion installer image, there’s a file on your installer image that needs to be deleted.
$ sudo rm /Volumes/MyInstaller/System/Installation/Packages
$ sudo cp -R “/Volumes/Mac OS X Install ESD/Packages” /Volumes/MyInstaller/System/Installation/Packages
The copy (cp) command will take a few minutes; it’s copying a few gigabytes of data, so be patient.
Step 7: Flag the system as a server installation.
Again, in order to boot an OS X volume in VMware, it needs to be a server. The system checks for the existence of a file in a specific location; you can imitate a server installation simply by creating that file.
$ cd /Volumes/MyInstaller/System/Library/CoreServices
$ sudo touch ServerVersion.plistThat’s it for the installation disk. Both installer images can be ejected.
Step 8: Create a virtual machine.
This shouldn’t be anything new to you, but I’ll go through each step anyway.
Open VMware Fusion and select “New…” from the File menu.
Click the “Continue without disc” button.
Select “Create a custom virtual machine” and then Continue.
Select ‘Operating System: Apple Mac OS X’ and ‘Version: Mac OS X Server 10.6 64-bit’, then click Continue.
Click the “Customize Settings” button, then name and save the new virtual machine.
Choose “CDs & DVDs” from Settings, then click “Use disc image” and select your installer image.
Choose “Hard disks” from Settings, deselect “Split into 2 GB files” for the pre-created hard drive and click “Apply”. *
Feel free to make any other changes to the settings with one caveat, you must use a SCSI hard disk; IDE drives are not recognized by the installer after it boots. Also, if the hard disk is going to be used as a boot disk, it cannot be split into separate 2 GB files, so make sure to deselect that option when the HD is created.Step 9: Replace the VMs NVRAM.
The default NVRAM will boot up previous OS X systems, but it will not boot up a Lion volume. I have a VM that I initially used as a Snow Leopard system. Booting into that system seems to have set the NVRAM so that it will know how to boot a Lion volume. Here is the NVRAM file from that VM. You can download it and use it in your VM.
nvram.zip
Download and uncompress the nvram file.
Locate your VM within the Finder, right click and select “Show Package Contents”.
Delete the current nvram file if one exists.
Copy the downloaded nvram file into the folder and rename it to match the name of your VM; mine is named, “Mac OS X 10.7”, so the nvram file would be renamed to “Mac OS X 10.7.nvram”
Now you should be able to run the VM and it will boot up to being the installation process.Step 10: Installing Lion.
After the installation disk boots up, the first thing you should do is run Disk Utility and format the hard drive. All the norms apply; GUID partition map, Mac OS X Extended (Journaled) format, etc. When done, Quit to return to the installer.
Continue with the installation.
When the installation is complete, it will attempt to reboot the VM using the freshly installed OS on the hard disk. It won’t boot, because it’s not a server installation.
Step 11: Forcing the VM to boot from the CD.
VMware will not let you change the startup disk in the VMs settings, so you’ll have to force a change while the VM is running.
Start the VM. As soon as you see the vmware splash screen, hit the escape key. This will bring you to a boot menu, select “Boot Manager”
This will then bring you to another menu where you choose which device to boot from. With “Mac OS X” selected, you can look at the ‘Device Path’ info on the right side of the screen to see the path to the default OS X boot device (this should be the hard disk). You can then move through the list to determine which device would be the CD to boot from. (The Pci or Scsi numbers will be different.) If you choose the wrong device the first time, you can just restart the VM and choose another until you get it right.
Step 12: Flag the new system as a server installation.
After the VM boots from the install disk again, run the Terminal from the Utilities menu.
I labeled my HD, “OS X Lion HD” when I initialized it, so I would enter the following to ‘touch’ the system,
# touch “/Volumes/OS X Lion HD/System/Library/CoreServices/ServerVersion.plist”
Now you can quit the Terminal, choose Startup Disk from the Utilities menu and restart from the hard disk.
You can click and drag any URL in Twitter for Mac to another application, this is particularly helpful if you want to open a URL in a different browser rather than the default web browser set system-wide in OS X.
