Uninstalling apps from Mac OS X is set to get even easier in Lion, thanks to usability cues taken from iOS. Using Launchpad, you’ll be able to just click and hold on an icon to cause the familiar icon jiggle and “X” to appear, click the X and the app will delete.

One quirk though, as MacRumors notes, is that this only works on apps installed through the Mac App Store. Other third party apps currently can’t be deleted through LaunchPad, which creates a strange user experience inconsistency, but this may change by the time Lion is released to the public this summer.

Update: Some users are reporting that they can delete any third party apps, not just those from the Mac App Store, through LaunchPad in build 11a444d of Lion Developer Preview. Here’s a screenshot of this:

This screen shot came from a thread on MacRumors forums, although it’s not clear why many users on the same Lion build do not have this ability.

Update 2: It looks like any apps installed after updating to build 11a444d can be deleted through LaunchPad, but apps installed before the recent update can not be deleted. Probably just a bug.

Portal 2 is arguably the most popular game on the market right now, and if you have the patience to wait a few days for the game to arrive you can buy the game from Amazon at a 40% discount for just $29.99 for a Mac & PC hybrid installation disk. The price includes free shipping.

Buy Portal 2 for PC & Mac at Amazon for $29.99

Portal 2 is the sequel to Portal, a wildly popular puzzle game. Instead of trying to explain it myself, here’s the description:

Portal 2 is a unique first-person Action-Puzzle-Platforming game that tests player’s ability to think and act creatively as they use the game’s ingenious wormhole creating portal gun to produce their own paths through otherwise sealed surfaces and across the open spaces of the game.

If you’d rather play Portal 2 from your couch, the console versions are also on sale for just $34.99 at the same link. Game on!

This is somewhat tasteless humor that pokes fun at recent world events and the somewhat overblown iPhone tracking thing.

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A new malware threat has been identified for Mac users, the app is called MACDefender and it disguises itself as antivirus software for Mac OS X. The malware attempts to install itself through hijacked websites, and the threat level is considered low, nonetheless all Mac users should be aware of the potential threat and take steps to avoid a potential problem.

2 Simple Steps to Protect Against MACDefender

There are two easy ways to avoid being affected by MACDefender:

1) If you see the above “MACDefender Setup Installer” wizard at any point while browsing the web, do NOT click to install the application

2) Disable Automatic File Opening in Safari
If you use Safari as your default web browser, be sure to disable automatic opening of safe files after downloading:

• Open the Safari menu and pull down to Preferences (or just hit Command+, to launch them)
• Look at the bottom of the General tab and uncheck the box next to “Open ‘safe’ files after downloading”

If you’re concerned that a Mac has been infected by MACDefender, here is how to check for and remove the malware:

Check for and Remove MACDefender Malware

You can check to see if you have been infected with the MACDefender malware, and remove it, by doing three things:

1. Launch the task manager tool Activity Monitor (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and click to sort processes by ‘Name’ and look for MACDefender or MacDefender.app – if this process is running, select the process and then kill it.
2. Open System Preferences, click on Accounts, and select the “Login Items” tab, now look for MACDefender or any unusual entry in the list. If something is found, select it in and press the “-” button to delete it from the login item list.
3. Open your applications folder (/Applications/) and look for MACDefender or MacDefender and delete the application

In the odd event that you have MACDefender and the above three steps did not remove the app, follow this guide to track down all login and boot scripts and applications, it may be hiding elsewhere although there are currently no reports of this.

If you’re curious, you can read more about MACDefender and how it masks itself as antivirus software at Intego’s blog, they discovered the malware and they also happen to make genuine antivirus software for Mac.

You can quickly change the appearance of any Terminal window by using the Inspector tool in the Terminal app for Mac, which can be summoned at any time for any specific Terminal window or tab.

Inspector is very easy to use, so here is how to change the appearance quickly using it:
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You can take time delayed screenshots in Mac OS X easily by using the Grab utility or the Terminal app, included with every Mac OS X version.

We’ll cover taking timed screen shots in Grab first because it’s more user friendly and doesn’t involve the command line which is a bit more technical, and then demonstrate timing screenshots with the terminal approach second.

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Thinking about engraving your new iPad with some custom ASCII art? Watch out, you might end up with a few extra appendages on your ASCII drawings.

This cat:

^---^
= ' . ' =

turned into this mutant four eared cat ASCII:

^^---^^
= ' . ' =

This is obviously a mistake in the engraving process and I found it hilarious – yes I’m easily amused. The recipient of the engraving error could probably complain and have it redone properly, but it sounds like they have a good sense of humor about it and don’t mind the mistake. Here’s their quote from Flickr:

Thought I’d have something subtle and cute engraved on the back of my iPad. Instead Apple wanted me to have something more original and mutant-like. :-)

If you didn’t know, custom engraving is free with any new iPad 2 purchase bought online through the Apple Store, it usually adds about a day onto shipping time. Current delivery times on the iPad 2 are 1-2 weeks, and they’re still nearly impossible to find in stores, so if you’re going to be waiting you might as well get an engraving too… just be careful of that ASCII art.

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Verizon iPhone 4 users can now untether their iOS 4.2.7 jailbreak thanks to a new Verizon Untether tool available on Cydia. All you need to do is install the package from Cydia on a currently tethered phone and it will become untethered, it’s very easy:

• Launch Cydia and add the following rep: http://cydia.pushfix.info
• Search for “Verizon Untether 4.2.7” and install the package
• Reboot your iPhone

Jailbreaking the Verizon iPhone on iOS 4.2.7 is the same as jailbreaking 4.3.2 using redsn0w, just remember to download the iOS 4.2.7 IPSW for the CDMA iPhone 4 instead of iOS 4.3.2.

If you’ve stayed on the sidelines but you’re curious about all of this, check out some reasons why you should jailbreak your iPhone straight from the creator of Cydia himself.

Dying to let Apple know how you feel about the iPhone? Do you have a great idea on how to make the MacBook Pro even better? Do you know of a way to improve the efficiency of a product? Stop keeping this stuff to yourself, you can give Apple feedback directly about products, and they actually encourage it!

Head on over to Apple.com Product Feedback and select the product you want to chime in on. Whether or not they’ll listen to your feature request or rant remains to be seen, but at least you got it off your chest.

Here’s me requesting the next generation MacBook Air gets a glowing keyboard and how I want a pony for Christmas:
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If you dream of Mac laptops you’ll like this one. From the looks of things, there’s a MacBook Pro 15″, MacBook Air 13″, MacBook Pro 13″, MacBook Air 11″, and a mystery Mac behind the the top two (maybe another MacBook Air 13?). All these Macs belong to Garrett Murray of ManiacalRage. If you’re wondering why there are so many Macs in the picture, it’s because he’s transitioning his household from the heavier MacBook Pro’s to ultraportable MacBook Air’s.

The Macbook Air is a great machine so I’m not surprised that people are moving from heavier models to the ultraportable lineup. I just wish the Air had a Core i5, 8GB of RAM, a black screen bezel, and a glowing keyboard, but that’s me being picky.

Apple looks to be developing a new bookmarking feature in Mac OS X Lion that allows users to select web content for reading later. The feature is called Reading List and appears to behave much like Instapaper and ReadItLater, but is currently disabled in Lion Developer Builds of Safari.

MacRumors found the following description that Apple offers for Reading List:

Reading List lets you collect webpages and links for you to read later. To add the current page to your Reading List, click Add Page. You can also Shift-click a link to quickly add it to the list. To hide and show Reading List, click the Reading List icon (eyeglasses) in the bookmarks bar.

Safari’s Reading List could simply be an extension of Safari Reader, a feature that has been in the web browser for a while. Reader strips web content from it’s origin webpage and places it in an overlaid easy to read format (it also skirts around paywalls sometimes).

There is some speculation that Reading List might sync bookmarked pages between your Mac and the iPhone or iPad for later reading, but there is currently no evidence to support this idea.

A nondescript update to Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 2 has been released to developers via Software Update. The description is only that it is “recommended for all users running Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview 2” and likely focuses on bug fixes and feature refinements.

The update brings Lion to build 11A444d, weighs in at 1.17GB, and is the second update that has been made available to Dev Preview 2. Also available is Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 4.

Direct download links to the package update files coming soon!

Long before the iPhone, there was… an Apple phone? I don’t know if this is real, if it was actually patented by Apple Inc, or if it was ever produced, but it certainly looks like someones brilliant high-tech idea from 1985. Who wouldn’t want to be talking into a flip apple phone?

For more retro Apple fun, check out the hilarious Apple Corporate video from 1984. Be sure to have your audio on for that one, because there’s even a theme song.

image via @AppleSpotlight

If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines wondering why you should jailbreak your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, you’re probably not alone. There’s plenty of reasons, but the video above lets us hear a few directly from Jay Freeman, aka Saurik, of Cydia fame. His main pitch is that jailbreaking gives you the freedom to do things outside of the normal scope of applications, including:

• 5 icons on your dock
• Cool animation customizations
• Quick access panels to settings
• Twitter client from a status bar
• Forward voicemail messages to other people as emails
• Custom lock screens
• Black keyboard vs white default
• iOS appearance themes

In other words, jailbreaking creates a tinkerers wonderland, allowing for thorough customization of the iOS interface and experience. If you watch the video, you’ll see a couple examples of these customizations in action, some are just pure eyecandy and others are genuinely useful enough that Apple should consider adopting them (forwarding voicemails, custom lockscreens, etc).

What app should you use to jailbreak? In the video, Saurik currently recommends using redsn0w (you can read a tutorial to jailbreak 4.3.2 with redsn0w here, it’s easy just follow the instructions).

The downsides to jailbreaking? You have to keep on top of iOS updates to make sure you don’t lose your jailbreak. Saurik recommends just waiting a few days until after an iOS update is released so that a jailbreak is available for the new version, which has been the standard jailbreaker approach for a while now. And no, jailbreaking is not illegal so there is nothing to worry about there.

For whatever reason, Saurik doesn’t mention carrier unlocking, but that’s also a common reason people jailbreak their iPhones in regions where hardware is sold locked by default. Unlocking is getting more and more challenging though, and current methods only apply to older firmware. The good news is that the GSM iPad 2 is unlocked regardless of where you buy it, and this may hint at a more liberalized approach to carrier locking in future versions of iPhone, or so we can hope.

Thanks to Parakeet for sending us the video via 9t5mac

Much like you can monitor Mac OS X filesystem usage through the command line, you can also discover what apps and individual processes are currently using your Macs internet connection. This is a really handy trick if you know your bandwidth is being used by something, or if you’re just trying to track down what applications or background processes are connecting to the outside world.

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You can instantly reveal the location of any item in the Mac Finder from an Open and Save dialog box by selecting the item and then hitting Command+R.

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The more iOS devices you get, the more sync and charger cables you have laying around, and the more you feel the pinch of only having so many USB ports. If you want to sync your iPad, you have to unplug your iPhone, if you want to sync your iPhone, you have to unplug your iPod touch, and so on. To ease this annoyance, there’s a few dual-link USB cables on the market now that let you sync multiple iOS devices at once (and some will dual charge, apparently). Here are two on Amazon:

• duaLink Dual Sync/Charge Cable for iPod and iPhone – $25.95
• XTG Dual iPhone / iPod Splitter Cable for $6.69

Two items with two price differences, you’ll have to be the judge here because I haven’t tried either of these yet but they definitely look useful if you’re juggling a handful of iPods and iPhones with only two USB ports.

The problem with some of the cables, as LifeHacker notes, is that some of the split cables will sync an iPad but not charge it due to the iPads increased power demands. I say some because if you read the product reviews on Amazon though, you’ll see that some users note that it does charge the iPad, and some say it doesn’t. It seems like this is due to only one side of the cable actually passing enough power to charge the device. Expect your mileage to vary, but if you don’t mind only charging one device at a time while syncing both, this could be a solution for you.

Apple and the iPad got a good roasting last night on the South Park season opener, the episode is called HumancentiPad and it’s full of crass humor. The episode rips on Apple, the iPhone tracking controversy, the iPad, Apple Geniuses, Apple Stores, the iTunes EULA, Steve Jobs presentation style, Best Buy, iPad competitors, and more. It’s outrageous, it’s gross, but it’s also funny.

If you missed it, you can watch the full episode online at SouthParkStudios website (no conceivable way to embed the video, sorry). If you’re easily offended or at work, you probably won’t want to watch, you’ve been warned.
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