TidBITS editors Glenn Fleishman and Jeff Carlson joined Chuck Joiner's MacJury with Adam Christianson, Keith Lang, and Chuck La Tournous to talk about all the news that emerged from Apple's music and iPhone OS announcements. This is part 1 of 2. Norah Jones isn't rock and roll, we conclude.
TidBITS Editor Glenn Fleishman penned this article for The Economist about the state of CAPTCHA, those distorted text images you must enter to post comments or buy tickets online. TidBITS relies on reCAPTCHA for submitting tips and emailing authors.
Years ago, TidBITS published an article calling Input Managers "the work of the Devil." Now Apple has slammed the door on Input Managers: in Snow Leopard, 64-bit apps don't load them. Password manager 1Password was an Input Manager, yet the 1Password 3 beta works in 64-bit Safari. Read Kevin Ballard's blog post to learn about 1Password's new technique for hacking into Safari.
Is your screen looking a little darker? Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard adopts a default screen gamma setting of 2.2 (the same as Windows) instead of the traditional Mac setting of 1.8. Adobe's John Nack consulted with a color expert to get some perspective on why the Mac has always been 1.8 (and the reason doesn't even involve color).
Adobe is reporting that Snow Leopard installs an outdated - and vulnerable - version of Flash Player (though it was likely the most reasonable version to include at the time Snow Leopard was locked down for shipping). So, even if you recently updated Flash Player to avoid security vulnerabilities, you'll need to update again if you've moved to Snow Leopard in the meantime.
AT&T has issued a media alert saying that the company will turn on MMS - Multimedia Messaging Service - for the iPhone 3G and 3GS on 25-Sep-09. A software update on that date will make it possible for iPhone users to transmit images, audio, video, and rich text to other MMS-enabled mobile phones.
In this edition of the MacNotables podcast, Adam joins Ted Landau, Andy Ihnatko, and host Chuck Joiner to talk about why Snow Leopard was released early, what's cool about it, and when normal people should think about upgrading.
In a New York Times article about AT&T's struggles to keep up with the demand that iPhone users are placing on its cellular data network, author Jenna Wortham writes that the MMS and tethering features of the iPhone OS 3.0 are delayed because AT&T can't handle the existing capacity.
It's not really the sort of thing just anyone can do, but Tim Nufire explains in this blog post how online backup company Backblaze created storage pods that can hold 67 terabytes for just under $8,000.
After the publication of his "Post-Literate" article, Adam talks with On the Log host John Meadows about the implications of living with ubiquitous technology that the vast majority of people don't understand well, if at all.
On the MacJury podcast for 01-Sep-09, two out of five "jurors" are TidBITS editors and Take Control authors - Joe Kissell and Matt Neuburg. Find out how everyone's Snow Leopard installation experience went. And hear a vociferous argument about whether or not Apple's Intel-only policy for Snow Leopard is fair to users.
In a one-hour MacVoices podcast interview, TidBITS contributing editor Matt Neuburg gives examples of why small interface tweaks and behind-the-scenes improvements give user good reason to upgrade to Snow Leopard.
We're familiar with Apple's and Microsoft's latest competing ad campaigns, and this New York Times article provides a look at the competition from the advertising standpoint. Especially interesting is the section in the middle about how Apple's iconic "Think Different" and "Switchers" campaigns came about.
The Chinese carrier will sell a version of the iPhone without Wi-Fi, as previously rumored, the Wall Street Journal reports. The China Unicom will apparently pay Apple full price, with no revenue sharing. Estimates put 1.5 million iPhones in use in China currently.
Apple has posted a KnowledgeBase article that explains which software packages (and versions) the Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard installer places in an Incompatible Software folder. The note also details how Snow Leopard will prevent incompatible software from launching to prevent disappointment.