Bertrand Serlet, the man who pioneered OS X leaves Apple

"I've worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science"

Apple announced today that their senior vice president of Mac Software Engineering will be leaving the company for personal reasons. Replacing him will be Craig Federighi, Apple's vice president of Mac Software Engineering and he will be reporting only to Mr. Jobs himself.

[Gizmodo]

New Wi-Fi Diagnostics Tool In Mac OSX Lion

A new tool currently available to developers has been discovered in Mac OSX Lion.


Option-clicking the wifi menu bar icon brings up the usual extra features, as well as a new one; Wi-Fi Diagnostics.

This launches the new Wi-Fi Diagnostics menu, where users can record and monitor all the goings on of traffic, performance and data speeds running through your networks!

Looks like a very useful little tool, and just another easter egg found inside Lion!

No Front Row in Lion?

Despite my comment yesterday about full-screen applications in Lion, Front Row will apparently not be featuring in the next-gen operating system at all.


Front Row has been part of Macs since 2005, but since then with the launch of Apple TV, Airplay and more on-demand services, interest in the full screen viewing application has dwindled. Macs have not shipped with Apple IR Remotes for quite some time.


Not to mention, as an official Apple application, it does not support all file types and codecs, whereas simple third-party applications like VLC player are continuously growing in popularity.


I for one do not use the program, it is a nice addition, but I shall not miss it.


If you DO use it, I'd like to know your thoughts on this.


Thanks to Apple Insider for the info.

OS 10.7 Lion Update!

With the release of the Lion Developer Beta, many have had a chance to play around with it..

Here is a brief look into some of the great [and not so great] features coming in the Summer!

"Time-Machine-like" Backup Saves


A cool new featured implemented throughout the OS is the ability to never lose or accidentally overwrite a file again!
Now Time-Machine currently offers a similar service, but it can't save you every time.
Every time you save a document "Version Control" keeps the old copy you just overwrote, and you can scroll through them like you would in Time-Machine!

Full Disc Encryption


It will now be possible to encrypt your entire OS and HDD/SSD from the get go. Built right into the Operating System!
There isn't much more to say other than that, but more security as standard and easily implemented like Apple are good at can't be anything but a good thing.

Mission Control

Mission control is a simplified, more advanced combination of Expose, Spaces and Dashboard all rolled into one.
Spaces sits neatly at the top, and Windows are grouped by application, rather than making a mess everywhere! How dashboard is included in this screen I'm unsure, but there don't seem to be any improvements to it.

Other Bits

The main point of Lion is apparently to make OS X more like iOS, I imagine within a few years the two will merge further in unique and possibly disappointing ways..

Therefore, scrolling has now been reversed, so down is up and vica-versa a la iOS.

Mail has been widened and lengthened and is now more the it's iOS counterpart.

And there is an extra effort to support more full screen applications like Final Cut and Front Row!

There will almost certainly be a few more interesting additions to come, and I for one can't wait!

RIGHT NOW

Is a terrible time to buy anything made by Apple at all.

Literally anything.

Statistically, Apple refresh each of their product lines every year around the same month, therefore; the iPad event has been confirmed for March 2nd and we can expect a new iPhone around mid-end of June.

Which is a massive shame as I want an iPhone so much after suffering a Sony Ericsson Satio for a year and a half before FINALLY throwing it on the floor really hard in anger. Sadly, I will have to wait, as I would be a fool to purchase anything past the half way point in it's lifecycle..

Like in my last post I mentioned, the new Macs then, i believe they refresh the Mac line in September, are these newly released Macbooks full updates then? I mean, we will be expecting OS Lion in the Summer, and if that's as groundbreaking as it's supposed to be, then surely the hardware will be there to back it up??

Discuss.