Everyone loves the iPad and everyone loves the MacBook Air 11.6″, making this a perfect Mac setup for the ultraportable road warrior. Another impressive fact; these two devices have a combined weight that is still less than the MacBook Pro 13″ model, if that’s not impressive I don’t know what is.

You could take this setup a step further and get DisplayPad for the iPad (App Store link), for $3 the app lets you turn an iPad into an external display for any Mac, as long as there’s WiFi around.

If Macs get a retina display, what would the resolutions be? 3200×2000 like the default Lion wallpaper suggests? There is no definitive answer, but the above chart shows what may be the best guesses yet.

The resolutions are based on a simple idea from a great post on The Elaborated (via DaringFireball), double the existing screen resolutions, just like Apple did when they introduced the retina iPhone 4 and doubled the iPhone 3GS. Why double? The problem with a Mac (or any) retina display is that it would cause all UI elements to shrink dramatically, making everything tiny and causing a pain for developers to adapt. The solution is to take the same approach Apple chose with the iPhone 4, which as you may recall went over practically seamlessly in terms of apps and UI elements in iOS. Why wouldn’t they take the exact same approach to the Mac?

What gives further support to the doubling of existing resolutions is that TheElaborated’s hypothesized retina iPad display in the above chart is identical to what an analyst claims about iPad 3 resolution: 2048×1536. And the MacBook Pro 15″ resolution of 1650×1080? It doubles to 3300×1620, which is remarkably close to the 3200×2000 resolution of the Lion Fuji mountain wallpaper that started this whole string of retina Mac speculation.

There are some other clues too, such as the infinitely scalable Helvetica font appearing in Final Cut X as John Siracusa noticed, plus there’s a (rumored) presence of stronger resolution independent elements in Mac OS X Lion. Clues and speculation or not, doesn’t it make sense to bring retina to the Mac eventually? I think when costs allow for Apple to produce ultra high resolution Mac displays, they will come, and they’ll look amazing.

The opensnoop utility is an amazing tool for tracking down specifics like what files specific applications are accessing, but you can also use opensnoop to monitor all filesystem access in Mac OS X. To do this, run the utility with no flags attached:

sudo opensnoop

You’ll be asked for your root password, and then you’ll immediately be presented with a firehose of data showing everything that is going on within Mac OS X.

Wondering what all this information you’re seeing is? The colorized guide below shows you what you’ll be most interested in following: Purple is the Process ID, Blue is the Process Name, and Red is the File Path:

Generally, the most useful information to follow is the process name and path to the file the given process is accessing. You’ll find a correspondence to what processes are shown in opensnoop with what is in the activity monitor / task manager.

You can also follow a specific file and discover what is accessing it with:

sudo opensnoop -f /path/to/file

Or you can track anything that relates to a specific file or app by using grep. For instance, I want to follow everything having to do with Terminal app or files related to it:

sudo opensnoop | grep Terminal

We’ve showed you this before, but you can also track specific applications with either their process id, or app name:

sudo opensnoop -n Terminal

Unless you’re troubleshooting very vague problems or you just want to see what’s going on behind the scenes of Mac OS X via the command line, it’s a good idea to use opensnoop with some specifics so you’re not inundated with information.

I use Google Calendar for a myriad of reasons but since it picks up dates easily from Gmail it’s especially useful for me. Yet, somehow I never thought to sync it with iCal. If you use Google Calendar, why not sync it to your Mac? Setting this up is very simple:

• Launch iCal
• Open iCal Preferences from the iCal menu
• Click the Accounts button
• Click on the + icon in the lower left corner of the window to add an account
• Enter your Google credentials and click on Create

You can keep the import settings on Automatic, although setting to Google seems to speed up the first time the calendars are synced. iCal will contact Google for you and grab all the information, there’s nothing else to do.

Now you can add events from iCal and the Mail app on your Mac, or Gmail and Google Calendar from anywhere else, and you’ll always have the same date and event information regardless of where or what you’re checking your calendar from. Don’t forget that you can add Google Calendar support to your iPhone or iPad too.

Ever wonder what self-described Mac vs PC users identify with? Demographics, favorite TV shows, personality traits, fashion and style, political leanings, even wines, this infographic has it all, provided by users themselves.

It might reinforce a few traditional Mac vs PC stereotypes, but it’s fun to read and interesting to look at, check it out below:
Read more »

This whole iPhone location tracker thing is getting a crazy amount of attention, and everyone seems surprised that a mobile device with a gazillion apps that ask for your location actually keeps track of your location. But, if you don’t want your location tracked, all you have to do is encrypt your iPhone & iOS backups. OSXDaily has covered that tip before, but here’s a reminder how to do this:

Prevent iOS Movement Tracking with Encrypted Backups

• Launch iTunes and connect your iPhone or iPad to the computer
• Within iTunes Summary, scroll down to Options where you’ll see a checkbox next to “Encrypt iPhone/iPad Backup” – check it

You’ll be asked to set a password for the backups and now they’re encrypted, meaning no one can read them without that password. This means that iPhone Tracker app won’t work. Easy enough, right?

Encryption is Good Anyway
Encrypting your backups is a good idea for general security purposes anyway. The iOS backup files are easily found and explored without encryption, which lets someone with access to the files listen to your voicemails, read your sms messages, and, as the recent hooplah shows, track your relative movements on a map.

Encrypt your data and you don’t have to worry about any of it.

iOS Update to Resolve Location Caching
While it’s a great idea to encrypt data, you probably won’t have to for long to stop the movement tracking. John Gruber informs us that the storage of location data is simply a cache file that isn’t getting cleared, and will be fixed in an upcoming iOS update:

my little-birdie-informed understanding is that consolidated.db acts as a cache for location data, and that historical data should be getting culled but isn’t, either due to a bug or, more likely, an oversight. I.e. someone wrote the code to cache location data but never wrote code to cull non-recent entries from the cache, so that a database that’s meant to serve as a cache of your recent location data is instead a persistent log of your location history. I’d wager this gets fixed in the next iOS update.

In other words, encrypt your backups for now, and wait for an iOS update to cure it all.

If you’re an iPad owner who is a fan of RPG’s and retro Square games, kiss your weekend goodbye: Final Fantasy 3 for iPad has just been released. The iPad version comes a month or so after the same title was released for iPhone, and can be downloaded now on the iOS App Store.

Final Fantasy 3 for iPad: $16.99 (App Store link)

Oddly enough, Square didn’t combine this with the iPhone version to make a universal app, so if you bought the iPhone version you’ll need to get the iPad version again, and vice versa. Maybe universal support is coming though.

Square has been busy porting popular oldschool games to the iOS platform, focusing on many of the fan favorites including Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy I, 2, and 3 (everyone is still crossing their fingers for Chrono Trigger).

Want to play FF3 on your TV? No sweat, grab an iPad 2 video mirroring cable and you’ll have an iOS TV game console, or if you have a jailbroken iPad or iPhone 4 you can enable video mirroring on those devices too with a simple hack.

Just when you thought you had enough iPhone 5 rumors for the week… the next iPhone may be a world phone capable of roaming between GSM and CDMA networks, according to Verizon CFO Fran Shammo. This revelation came during a conference call to discuss Verizons Q1 2011 earnings, when asked about some mildly sluggish growth, the CFO responded:

The fluctuation, I believe, will come when a new device from Apple is launched, whenever that may be, and that we will be, on the first time, on equal footing with our competitors on a new phone hitting the market, which will also be a global device.

Other than being able to roam globally (and end up with an outrageous phone bill unless you unlock to use with a local carrier), the other benefit to a single GSM/CDMA iPhone would be reduced manufacturing costs for Apple, and finally a unified iOS platform. Currently, the CDMA iPhone 4 is on a custom iOS 4.2.7 build, while the rest of the iOS lineup is at iOS 4.3.2.

Earlier reports indicate iPhone 5 will ship in September, and will feature the same A5 CPU that is currently in the iPad 2 model. Additionally, the new device is expected to sport an improved camera, and have an enclosure design that is similar if not identical to iPhone 4.

The world phone report comes from Barrons.

In many Mac OS X apps, you can activate a little-known word completion feature by using a simple keystroke. This is incredibly helpful for word recall and for diversifying the vocabulary while typing, and has so many uses. It’s quite powerful and easy to use.

Read more »

If you’re still waiting around to find an iPad 2 in stock, you might want to consider ordering online through the Apple Store. Online shipping estimates for iPad 2 have now dropped down to 1-2 weeks for all models, including both colors and all sizes in Wi-Fi only, 3G, and CDMA. This is a significant change from the 3 weeks that was reported just a few days ago, as it indicates supply is easing slightly against iPad demand that remains through the roof.

If you’re impatient waiting a couple of weeks may seem like a long time, but as I continue to check availability of iPad 2 by calling around, I find that nearly all Apple Stores continue to sell out every morning. The only model that seems to stick around until the afternoon is the most expensive Verizon 64GB version, and by evening even that one is gone too. Sure, you can try finding one at Target or other resellers, but their supply continues to remain strained leaving the Apple Store to be the most reliable location to buy.

It’s not just the USA that has reduced shipping times, MacRumors reports that shipments to Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, UK, Germany, and the majority of Europe are also reported as 1-2 weeks from Apple’s online store.

Want to see where an iPhone has been? How about a detailed map of an iPhones movements, tracking hotspots of where it is physically located most often? Check out iPhoneTracker, a free app that does exactly that.

iPhoneTracker works by parsing through locally stored iPhone backup files and placing stored location data on a map.

You can download iPhoneTracker for free from the developer (Mac OS X only)

The image up top shows one of the detailed maps of iPhone movement the app produces, and you can see a movie generated based on tracking iPhone locations at the bottom of this post.

iPhone movement mapping & tracking not entirely accurate
The data isn’t 100% accurate and some pieces are missing or misplaced, using iPhoneTracker to look at my own iPhone movements, the app missed some significant activity (like flying across the country) and it even placed me in a few locations I’ve never been. The developer of the app explains some of this discrepancy:

As far as we can tell, the location is determined by triangulating against the nearest cell-phone towers. This isn’t as accurate as GPS, but presumably takes less power. In some cases it can get very confused and temporarily think you’re several miles from your actual location, but these tend to be intermittent glitches.

So it’s not entirely accurate, but it’s close. Now, there’s been a bit of hub-bub on the web about iPhone’s tracking your location and movements but I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by this. Remember, your iPhone (and iPad 3G) pings cell towers constantly and has a GPS unit in it, of course it’s going to track your physical movements. The real question is why exactly is this data being stored locally? Who knows, but I’d guess that any device with cellular triangulation or GPS keeps similar information. Some people are finding this location tracking creepy, but personally I think it’s interesting to look at.

Maps locally stored location data only
It’s worth mentioning that iPhoneTracker only works to check locally stored iPhone and iPad backup files, meaning you can’t use this app to remotely follow someone else. Yes, you could run this app on any Mac and it will map out that iPhone/iPad users location data, but that’s pretty invasive and you probably won’t make any friends doing so, and remember that the location data is not 100% accurate.

Prevent iPhone tracking by encryption
If you don’t want someone to be able to use this app to track your iPhone movements, all you need to do is encrypt your iPhone backups. This causes the backup file and your location data to become unreadable unless the backup is decrypted, which would require your password in iTunes. Encrypting your backups is a good idea in general, regardless of how you feel about location tracking.

As I mentioned earlier, the app also creates movies that can be played back showing iPhone movement on a map, here is one example from the apps developer showing a trip from Washington DC to NYC:
Read more »

If you’re troubleshooting some of the more difficult problems that you can have on a Mac, a good place to look are the System & Kernel Logs contained within Console app. But you can access the same OS X logs from the Terminal too.

Read more »

Increasing the size of the Mac mouse and trackpad pointer is an important ability for those with visual impairments, but it’s also a great way to make a Mac more friendly for newcomers to computers in general, like kids and grandparents.

This tutorial will detail how to increase the size of the cursor on a Mac. Adjusting the cursor size is slightly different in newer versions of MacOS compared to older versions of Mac OS X, and we will cover how to make those changes in both.

Read more »

Apple’s next generation iPhone, presumably iPhone 5, will start shipping in September of this year, according to Reuters. No other information was provided, only that the new iPhone will begin production in July for a release some time in September.

Here is the tweet that Reuters sent out:

FLASH: Apple suppliers to start production of next-gen iPhone in July, Aug; begin shipping in Sept – sources

Yesterday, rumors surfaced that iPhone 5 will have the same design as iPhone 4, but feature A5 processors and an 8mp camera. That report also specified a Fall 2011 release for the device.

A couple videos (shown below) have surfaced from Vietnam that show off what appears to be a prototype iPhone 4 using a fancy Expose-like multitasking feature in an unreleased build of iOS. Here’s what’s worth noting from the videos:

• Expose-like multitasking feature looks great
• It’s a White iPhone 4 (these are due for release any day now)
• The white iPhone in the video has 64GB (!) capacity
• The phone is clearly labeled with XX’s over the build, capacity, and serial numbers, suggesting it’s a leaked prototype
• The iPhone in the video is running an unreleased build of iOS 4 (Build 8A216) – not iOS 5

Hopefully what we’re seeing is a glance into the future of iOS and iPhone. The Expose multitasking feature looks like an improvement over the existing multitasking functionality. Although the video shows this as a version of iOS 4, we all know Expose doesn’t actually exist in current iOS versions, so maybe we will see something like it in iOS 5. In terms of hardware, it would be great to have the choice of a 64GB iPhone (maybe that will be the White iPhone 4’s selling point?), especially since rumors suggest we’ll have to wait until Fall to see the iPhone 5.

Check out the videos below:
Read more »

Portal 2 for Mac is out, the game is a unique puzzle-shooter blend that is unlike nearly any other game on the market. The game includes single player and a new multiplayer cooperative mode that requires two players to work together in unique ways.

Valve describes Portal 2 as follows:

Portal 2 draws from the award-winning formula of innovative gameplay, story, and music that earned the original Portal over 70 industry accolades and created a cult following.

The single-player portion of Portal 2 introduces a cast of dynamic new characters, a host of fresh puzzle elements, and a much larger set of devious test chambers. Players will explore never-before-seen areas of the Aperture Science Labs and be reunited with GLaDOS, the occasionally murderous computer companion who guided them through the original game.

Portal 2 costs $49.99 and can be downloaded through Steam, Valves digital distribution client. If you don’t mind waiting a few days for free shipping, Amazon has Portal 2 for $44.99.

Portal 2 Mac System Requirements

The better your computer, the better the game will run. Here are the minimum specs:

• Mac OS X 10.6.7 or higher
• Intel Core Duo 2GHz or better
• 2GB of RAM or greater
• 7.6GB of available disk space
• ATI Radeon 2400 / NVIDIA 8600M / Intel HD 3000 – or higher

System requirements are great and all, but if you’re like me you want to see just how well Portal 2 runs on a Mac. Check out the video below which shows a MacBook Pro 15″ Core i7 running the game in Mac OS X 10.6.7 on highest settings, it looks amazing and sustains 60 FPS:
Read more »

Redsn0w 0.9.6rc14 has been released, it includes a fix for the iPhone 4 untether problem from the past redsn0w version. This new version can be run directly over iPhone 4 with rc13 and it will untether that jailbreak.

Compatibility: Redsn0w 0.9.6rc14 provides an untethered jailbreak for iOS 4.3.2 on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 GSM, iPod touch 3rd & 4th gen, and iPad 1. If you use ultrasn0w unlock, stay away from redsn0w for now.

Download Redsn0w 0.9.6rc14

As usual, Mac and Windows versions are out (download links have been updated to the newest version):

• Download Now (Mac)
• Downlaod Now (Windows)

If you require assistance, follow our guide to jailbreak iPhone iOS 4.3.2 using redsn0w, it’s geared towards the iPhone but the directions are the same for other iOS 4.3.2 compatible hardware.

If you encounter issues upgrading to iOS 4.3.2 using sauriks’ server, you can follow instructions from the Error 3194 fix for iTunes to remove gs.apple.com from your hosts file.

This version of redsn0w is not compatible with iPad 2 or iPhone 4 CDMA, if you use either device wait for another jailbreak solution.

Customizing the Mac Finder window toolbars can be a good way to gain quicker access to features you use often, and to help navigate around the file system of OS X , but what if you overdo it and the toolbar becomes cluttered with way too many buttons and doo-dads, resulting in a toolbar that looks more like a nightmare from MS Office circa Windows 95 with every toolbar enabled? Great mental picture, huh? Ok, if you end up in that situation and you want to strip out some of the toolbar clutter, it’s not sweat.

Users can quickly remove Mac OS X Finder window toolbar icons with a simple drag and drop removal trick.

All you need to do is start by holding down the Command key and then clicking on the icon you want to remove, continue to hold the click and drag the icon out of the toolbar, where you can release the click. When you’re dragging the item out, you’ll see little tiny boxes draw in the toolbar window, this demonstrates that the icons can be moved around, or, in this case, out.

The toolbar icon will disappear in a puff of smoke, just like dragging icons out of the Dock or menubar.

If you’re wondering why my Finder windows don’t have a sidebar, you can remove it with a keyboard shortcut.