We’ve got a lot of explaining to do this week, and Glenn Fleishman is primarily responsible. First he looks deeply at the 3G iPad’s service plans from AT&T, and after that, he examines the whole Apple/Adobe tiff over Flash, explaining just what the fuss is all about. And if that weren’t enough, he shares a simple solution to your iPad’s screen going dark outside. Not to be left out, Adam weighs in to announce the new TidBITS Facebook page and our latest ebook, the essential “Take Control of Permissions in Snow Leopard.” Adam also looks at BBEdit 9.5 and interviews the winner of our 20th anniversary drawing. Notable software releases this week include Fetch 5.6, TypeIt4Me 5.0, iStat Menus 3.0.1, Transmit 4.0, iTunes 9.1.1, PDFpen 4.6.2 and PDFpenPro 4.6.2, and Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.2.
If you're a Facebook aficionado, you'll be happy to discover the opening of the TidBITS Facebook page, which you can connect to your Facebook account so new TidBITS headlines show up in your news feed.
Little is more perplexing than permissions problems, especially for those of us who didn't come to Mac OS X from the Unix world. If you're having trouble with permissions, or would just like to understand how they work, you can now turn to Brian Tanaka's "Take Control of Permissions in Snow Leopard" to learn how to use permissions to keep files private, work with files on servers and external hard disks, solve screwy problems, and delete files that just won't die.
The iPad has a polarizing effect - but not in separating those who love it from those who don't. Rather, the effect renders the screen totally black when viewed in portrait mode through sunglasses.
"Who's John Miller?" you ask. He's the guy who won our drawing for $200 towards an iPhone or iPod touch in the recent TidBITS 20th Anniversary drawing. Rather than just announce him as the winner, we wanted to learn a little about who he is, what he has done, and how long he has been reading TidBITS.
BBEdit 9.5, the latest version of Bare Bones Software's powerful text editor, adds a few interesting and useful features and a vast number of smaller changes and bug fixes.
In a sometimes brutally frank essay about why Apple doesn't allow the use of Flash on iPhone OS devices, Steve Jobs dishes opinions previously spoken only inside the company.
AT&T offers two simple service plans for mobile data on the 3G iPad. But the devil lurks in the details. We examine the fiddly bits hidden in the plan.
Notable software releases this week include Fetch 5.6, TypeIt4Me 5.0, iStat Menus 3.0.1, Transmit 4.0, iTunes 9.1.1, PDFpen 4.6.2 and PDFpenPro 4.6.2, and Digital Camera Raw Compatibility Update 3.2.
We have a cornucopia of reading for you this week, including Apple selling movies via iTunes in France and Ireland, HP buying Palm, the deadline for printing an iPhoto book for Mother's Day, Apple buying a voice search company, the WWDC dates being announced, Princeton suggesting a workaround for the iPad DHCP bug, Sony discontinuing floppy disks, and a rundown on the whole Gizmodo stolen iPhone story, complete with the identify of the guy who found the prototype. Phew!