9.17
No Big Deal: Google Gears for Safari on OSX
How in the world can Google’s Gears begin supporting Safari on OSX and that not be spread out all over the internet, loud and clear, the very second it happened? You would think news like that would be inescapable, what with Google’s grand plans to take over your mobile phone with Gears enabled web apps ‘n’ all.
It’s fairly well accepted that one of the main reasons Apple created Safari for Windows was to make a key component of OSX for iPhone/iPod Touch available to the widest possible web developer base and therefore make it that much easier for those poor souls, interested in iPhone/iPod Touch specific website development but without access to a Mac, to test their sites within an application native to that device (scroll down to where it says “SAFARI FOR WINDOWS”).
And, so the story goes, I think, for Android. Gears for Safari on OSX allows web developers on the Mac platform to more easily develop web apps that take advantage of the Gears “framework” (if you will) with an eye towards a future version of Gears that will most certainly be made for Safari’s mobile cousin. It makes it that much easier to start developing those killer, always on web apps that, it is speculated, will be the eventual heart of Android and that, Google might hope, be the future of all mobile platforms, including the iPhone. And, oh yeah, there’s always that ol’ desktop market to penetrate too. Let’s not forget that.
All that’s left is Chrome on the Mac. The mobile computing future just keeps getting more and more interesting.
6.9
Those Days are Over
All you people who bought your iPhone to improve your personal and business productivity, let me tell you — those days are over
–– Macworld Editorial Director, Jason Snell
Yes, gaming has come to the iPhone/iPod Touch. Jason Snell is liveblogging from Apple’s 2008 WWDC keynote.
6.5
It’s Coming
WWDC! Yay! by Gernot Poetsch © & John Siracusa’s WWDC 2008 Keynote Bingo board
The next best thing to Macworld for Apple geeks has got to be Apple’s annual WWDC. A few years ago the conference, held every year at San Francisco’s Moscone West (site of last years’ Macworld admission fiasco – god I hope it’s not a repeat of that nasty scene), flowered into a second venue – joining Macworld – through which Apple regularly introduces new hardware and software.
This years’ near sure bet is the much rumored 3G iPhone but there are other possibilities being thrown around as well. It seems Apple always has something up it’s sleeve. I am sure this year will be no different.
The keynote will begin at 10:00 AM on Monday, June 9th. I am sure there will be some sort of live coverage, weather it be various sources liveblogging the event or a video stream (more likely, it will be the former) but there is usually a video of the event posted on Apple’s website the day after if you prefer to catch “His Steveness” in action, live, tossing out his reality distortion field into the audience … and beyond. One thing is for sure: don’t expect to be able to access Apple’s website from around Noon to, say, 1 or 2 in the afternoon.
12.20
Stacked, Against
What a mess
Ooooooph!
Hear that? That’s the sound of an OSX Leopard feature hittin’ the pavement…head first…hard. “Stackin’” (stack n. crash. v. crash.), if you will. How sweeeet the sound.
If you’ve had your ear to the ground since Leopard came out you’ll have heard the rapidly growing rumble of dissatisfaction with many features of the new Dock. One of them is the new way in which folders in the dock respond to clicks/control-clicks. Instead of opening the folder/presenting a menu with the folder’s contents you are presented with a fan or translucent grid of the folder’s contents/option menu. This is a major change to the Dock’s behavior and not a change for the better.
Those of us Leopard users that wince a little every time one of those damn screened back or fanned-out collection of icons pops up in the dock are going to get a little relief, it seems, late this year or early next. Ladies and gentlemen it appears that 10.5.2 is slated to give us back the list feature in the dock.
“Nerd!”, you say? I care not! I wait with baited breath.
P.S. Interesting that, in the images of the developer preview presented in the post to which I’ve linked, there is another modification, to another of the features of the new Leopard dock that has received a major thrashing and nobody seems to be talking about it: the shiny shelf of the bottom-positioned dock is gone and has been replaced by the same sleek black look you get when you position the dock on either the left or right side of the screen. Go ahead, have a look. It [still] feels like a Christmas present from Apple but apparently the credit for that special dock look goes to LeopardDocks.