So now we know that “Back to the Mac” refers to iOS coming back to it’s parent operating system, Mac OS X. Basically Apple is deciding to take some of the good ideas of the iOS experience (the iPad received particular emphasis) and bring them to the Mac Desktop.

Apple provided a limited sneak peak at Mac OS X Lion, including the upcoming Mac App Store. Seeing is believing though, so read on for screenshots and more information about each item.

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion Features

Here are the main features reviewed by Apple, with screenshots to show them off where available.

• Multi-touch gestures – (we called it) – Apple knows that touch screen notebooks don’t work, trackpads and mice are the way to multitouch a desktop operating system. With this in mind, Lion will have advanced gesture support
• Mac App Store (we called it!) – The App Store revolutionized mobile applications, so of course they bring it to the Mac. Features are automatic installation, one-click downloads, automatic app updates, apps will be licensed for use on all of your Macs. This will be available first under 10.6 Snow Leopard in 90 days. On the developer side, the Mac App Store will have the same developer 70/30 split as the iOS App Store, and submissions will be accepted soon. See screenshot below of the Mac App Store:

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As we anticipated, FaceTime for Mac is now available… as a beta. If you have a Mac with Mac OS X Snow Leopard and you want try out FaceTime than this is how you would accomplish that.

FaceTime for Mac allows you to make FaceTime calls to iPhone 4 and iPod touch users directly from your Mac.

What’s interesting is that Mac FaceTime client is it’s own independent application, it was not built into iChat, although I bet this will change come the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion next summer.

You can see the FaceTime for Mac client running in the above picture from Apple, and yes that’s the new MacBook Air featured in the picture.

Download FaceTime for Mac

You can download the Facetime beta for Mac OS X directly from Apple.com.

Note that any modern Mac OS and Mac OS X system software versions include FaceTime by default and do not need to use this app, the beta is intended for Snow Leopard.

Update 6/5/2011: Apple has announced Mac OS X Lion release date is set for July, will cost $29.99, and is available as a download from the Mac App Store.

We were given a sneak peak at Mac OS X 10.7 Lion today, and Steve Jobs provided a release date: Summer of 2011. The Mac App Store (we called it!) will be available sooner, in just 90 days. FaceTime for Mac beta will be available to download immediately.

Want to see more? Check out Mac OS X Lion: Screenshots & Features

The iPhone Dev Team just released Pwnage Tool 4.1 for download. The latest PwnageTool update works to jailbreak the following devices with the 4.1 firmware: new Apple TV, iPad, iPod touch 3G & 4G, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, and iPhone 3G.

Why is the PwnageTool 4.1 release useful? Pwnage Tool allows you to restore to custom IPSW files, in other words, you can restore pre-jailbroken firmware while maintaining your current baseband, thus allowing you to use a carrier unlock like ultrasn0w.

Pwnage Tool 4.1 Download

Currently PwnageTool 4.1 is only available for Mac users to download, there are several ways to get the file. The approach the iPhone Dev Team recommends is to download the torrent file from ThePirateBay:

PwnageTool Torrent – Pirate Bay Link

Many people cant access PirateBay so your other options are to use the provided download mirrors. Here’s a few direct links:

Mirror 1: fsckyou.org
Mirror 2: iPodTouchMastrFR.com

If either of those downloads don’t work for you, the Dev Team provides an updated download mirror list here, scroll to the bottom of the page to see it.
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The Back to the Mac event is scheduled to be live streamed directly from Apple today.

To watch the live video feed, go to http://www.apple.com/ at 10 AM PDT using Safari on either a Mac or iOS device.

Here’s the message from Apple’s PR team:

Apple® will broadcast its October 20 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac® running Safari® on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone® or iPod touch® running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad™. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on October 20, 2010 at www.apple.com.

Our quick predictions: Mac OS X 10.7, new MacBook Air, iLife ’11… Enjoy!

Adobe Creative Suite (CS) will automatically connect to the internet and attempt to initiate connections with Adobe Online Services and Service Update, this will happen regardless of you disabling the updates within the Adobe preferences for some reason. If you want to turn off the ability for Adobe CS to access the online services, kuler extensions, Adobe ConnectNow, Service Manager, and online help, this is how to do it. The instructions work for Adobe CS4 and CS5.
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According to a recent unconfirmed report, the CDMA iPhone, dubbed “iPhone 3,2” is currently in “field test stage” and, surprisingly enough, includes a SIM card slot.

What does this mean exactly? Certainly easier production lines for Apple. And, perhaps future iPhones will be able to use whatever carrier they want. The addition of a SIM card slot would also make this new iPhone better for global roaming, where you can just buy a new SIM card for the local service (although a US purchased iPhone will need to unlock still).

The report comes from BoyGeniusReport.com:

The iPhone 3,2 could be the mythical CDMA + GSM/HSPA device that would support Verizon, AT&T, and the other current worldwide iPhone 4 carriers frequencies. The mid-cycle refresh would bring an updated antenna design for the current iPhone 4 and bring CDMA-compatibility; essentially, Verizon Wireless subscribers would have the same device as AT&T subscribers.

BGR has a reasonably accurate history of leaks and news, but like always this is just a rumor so take the information with a grain of salt. The debate is really about whether or not the upcoming CDMA iPhone will include a SIM card slot, nearly everyone agrees that the iPhone will be available on Verizon soon. Recent reports from the Wall Street Journal and New York Times suggest the Verizon iPhone release date is rapidly approaching, with the most reliable sources saying it may arrive as early as January of 2011.

The BGR report also indicates that the next iPhone 5 is currently in engineering verification phase. Most analysts expect an update to the iPhone 4 before the appearance of iPhone 5.

So you installed the limera1n jailbreak and now you want to use greenpois0n instead (or vice versa), what do you do? Using a tool called APTBackup, we can backup all your jailbroken apps, and then reinstall another jailbreak complete with all your previously installed jailbroken apps.

Yes, this process works to uninstall greenpois0n and install limera1n too. The procedure is the same on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

Uninstall limera1n/greenpois0n and install greenpois0n/limera1n

This is a several stage process. You’ll backup your jailbroken apps, then uninstall the existing jailbreak, then re-jailbreak the iPhone, and finally restore the jailbroken app backups. Here are the steps to follow:
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This has to be one of the coolest iMac mods you can do: mounting the iMac to a wall.

Does this look awesome or what? The mount in the picture above is the VESA iMac Mount Adapter Kit which for $29 is actually quite a bit cheaper than I thought it would be (compare to LCD TV mounts at $100+).

I’d never seen this done so well before but one of our readers sent in a couple pictures of this VESA iMac wall mount kit, it works for both the 24″ and 27″ iMac models, as well as the new Apple LED Cinema Displays.

A wall mounted iMac would make for a great Mac media center, or just a super clean looking desk. If you’re curious about installation, it doesn’t look too complicated. Basically you unscrew the existing iMac base and then replace it with a bracket that attaches to the VESA mount system.

Here’s a video (in German) of a guy performing the installation and setup on a 27″ iMac:
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The fastest way to get MP3 and m4a file info out of Mac OS X is using the Terminal and afinfo command. The command line tool you’ll want to use stands for Audio File Info, rather appropriately. You can try it out yourself with any audio file, though for the purposes here we’re looking at an mp3 or m4a file.

To get started, launch the Terminal and type this at the command line, specifying the path to the audio file to retrieve meta info and file details about:

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Is the Kindle and iPad war over digital reading finished already? Did the iPad lose because of the iBookstore? According to TUAW, the “iBookstore six months after launch is one big failure”, which is a harsh way to say there just isn’t enough available content. Let’s review this and the eReader battle between the two devices.

Amazon Kindle Store vs iPad iBookstore

The numbers tell the story. The Amazon Kindle Store has over 700,000 titles, including books and magazines. Meanwhile, the Apple iBookstore has only 60,000 titles, half of which came from a Project Goutenberg, a source of free copyright expired books.

If you’re a bookworm, it’s pretty obvious what your choice would be, right?

Well not quite, the iPad can also download the Kindle app for free which gives the iPad access to all of the Kindle Store content. Suddenly your library just expanded to be equal to that of the Kindle, and due to this I wouldn’t limit my purchase just based on the availability of the digital bookstores offerings.

iPad vs Kindle for reading books

The strength of the Kindle lies in reading. If you compare the iPad and Kindle screens purely for readability, it’s a no brainer who wins: the Kindle’s e-Ink technology produces amazingly crisp typography. This makes the Kindle the hands down winner of the eReader battle… if what you’re looking to do is read books.

I’ll say it again: if you’re an avid reader and you want the best possible eReader on the market, get a Kindle. The screen is freakishly good for reading thanks to digital ink, the available content is bountiful, and the device includes free 3G access – all for about 1/3 the price of an iPad.

The current iPad isn’t an eReader (perhaps the rumored 7-inch iPad with retina display will change this). If you want an all-in-one device that plays games, browses the web, has full access to the App Store, and can also read digital books, grab the iPad.

Is this competition really even fair? Are the two devices really competing against each other? I think unless the Kindle releases a color screen and an app store of it’s own, they’re competing in different markets. Each device has it’s own strengths and weaknesses, and your purchase really needs to depend on what you want out of the device. If you have the money to spare, why not buy one of each?

One of the cooler things about Android phones is Live Wallpaper. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s basically animated wallpapers behind your home screen, and the effect can be really flashy. You can get a similar experience on your jailbroken iPhone by using something called vWallpaper. vWallpaper aims to replicate the Live Wallpaper experience by allowing you to run videos as your iPhone wallpaper.

Here’s how to get vWallpaper on your iPhone:

• Add the following source to Cydia: http://i.danstaface.net/deb/
• Search for and install ‘vWallpaper’
• Launch the newly downloaded vWallpaper
• Tap on ‘Video Wallpaper’ and then slide ON to enable the video effect
• Now select the video you want to use as your wallpaper
• You can also download new videos by clicking on ‘Download Videos’

The effect is much easier shown than explained, here’s a random video from YouTube that shows the effect in action:
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One of the features of Windows 7 that gets pretty good reviews is the window preview, you access these by hovering over items in the Windows task/start bar and a little preview of the minimized window is shown as a pop-up. With a little utility called HyperDock, you can get this same functionality on your Mac Dock.

HyperDock includes window previews (see screenshot above if you’re not sure what this would look like), some advanced window management features, and you can even control iTunes and iCal through the preview windows. I tried it out and it works as advertised.

If you want this sort of thing on your Mac, check out HyperDock, it’s free for now while it’s in beta but is expected to cost money when the final version is released.

The internet is always full of surprises, but this is quite unique, it’s an iPad shirt. Literally. It’s a shirt with a clear front pocket that you can slide the iPad into and wear it on your chest.

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Greenpois0n for Mac is now available to download, it works to jailbreak iOS 4.1 with the iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPod touch 3g, and iPod touch 4g.

If you’re wondering where to download the Greenpoison jailbreak from, you can find the necessary downloads from the official website.

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Updated 5/9/2012: If you don’t have a credit card you can still create an iTunes account. Effectively this is creating a free iTunes account, with access to download all the great free apps and other free content from the App Store.

Setup iTunes Account Without a Credit Card

This is the process to create an iTunes account with no credit card for payment:

• Log out of any existing iTunes accounts
• Launch the App Store from iTunes or by clicking a link to a free app
• Find and select a free app (Remote is a free app from Apple, for example)
• Click on “Free App” to purchase the free app
• Click on “Create New Account”
• Click on Continue and create a new account as per the directions
• You’ll soon see a Payment Options menu, select “None”
• Verify the newly created account with the email address you provided
• Your new iTunes account has been created – with no credit card!

The process is the same from your iPhone or iPod/iPad too, just go through the processes of creating a new account and just be sure to select “None” as the payment option.

As stated before, the account can download any free content, but will be prompted for a credit card if an app costs money. This is a great iTunes solution to provide children with, giving them access to all of the freebies on the App Store, but avoiding any potentially high credit card bills.

Dota fans will be excited to hear this one; Dota 2 is coming as it’s own independent game on the Mac and PC platforms in 2011, and it will be distributed through Steam.

The press release from Valve is brief:

Valve, creators of best-selling game franchises (such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress) and leading technologies (such as Steam and Source), today announced Dota 2, a massive sequel for one of the most played games in the world.

Coming to the PC & Mac in 2011, Dota 2 promises to take the unique blend of online RTS and RPG action that has made Dota popular with tens of millions of gamers and expand upon it in every way.

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New and old technology rarely work well together. In this case, not just the old, but the real old, the Apple II is pre-Macintosh hardware at it’s finest. If the urge to geek around with old Apple hardware ever strikes your fancy, you can use an app called ADT Pro that lets you transfer disk images to an Apple II from a computer in the modern world:

Apple Disk Transfer ProDOS (ADTPro) transfers diskettes and disk images between Apple II-era computers and the modern world. If you’re familiar with the original ADT, ADTPro extends ADT’s reach by working with more disk formats, drive types, communications devices, and host operating systems.

There is a host (server) component that runs on modern computers with Java, and an Apple (client) component that runs on any Apple II or Apple /// compatible computer with at least 64k of memory

The data is transferred either through a serial card, the II’s modem port, the serial port, an ethernet card, or the cassette port (? didn’t know about this one).

ADT Pro is open source and can be downloaded freely at the ADT Pro project page

You can see ADT Pro in action with the above picture, where a MacBook Pro is transferring disk images to an Apple IIe. This picture was found on Flickr, and probably deserves it’s own post in our Mac Setups section.