The launch of the iPhone 4S mirrored previous iPhone launches with long lines, sell-outs and broken sales records at AT&T, Verizon and Sprint. A reported 4 million units were sold over the weekend. The downside was slow and problematic activation for the new phones, with some people having to wait hours before they could use them.
In Apple’s quarterly report it showed new highs for Mac sales with almost 5 million Macs being sold in the last quarter. This is despite the sale of more than 11 million iPads, some of which may have been purchased instead of a new Mac.
Wall Street wasn’t impressed with Apple’s numbers. Even though they passed Apple’s own estimates, they missed the estimates of Wall Street analysts. This was mostly because of lower iPhone sales due to the fact that a new iPhone model wasn’t released until after the end of the quarter.
A classroom in West Chatham Elementary School in Pooler, GA needs two Mac minis. The students will use them to make podcasts, web sites and ebooks. Join MacMost in supporting this project.
With the World Series underway, you may want to check out Home Run Derby by MacMost’s parent company. This is a free game and a quick play. Just take some swings to see how many you can hit over the fence. A new version just out this week adds full screen iPad support.
In Lion you can now customize System Preferences so it only shows the preference panes you want to see. Run System Preferences and choose View, Customize. Then you can uncheck any pane you want to hide. Press the Done button at the top of the screen when done. You can still search and find hidden panes.
“Our new Mac mini doesn’t have an optical drive. I can’t make the fun sing-along CDs for our road trips anymore!”
“Oh too bad.”
A teacher in Clarksville, Tennessee wants to get an iPad for her second grade classroom. She has already identified several apps and other uses for the iPad that will enhance learning for her students in this high poverty area. And it looks like she is close to her goal. So join me in helping her get that iPad for her class. Join MacMost in supporting this project.
This week Apple pushed out more major updates than it has ever done before at a single time. On Wednesday, iCloud went live, and to support it Mac OS X 10.7.2 was released along with iOS 5 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Then users were asked to switch their MobileMe accounts to iCloud, or establish a new free iCloud account. New versions of iTunes and iPhoto were sent yesterday as well to support iCloud and iOS 5. There were also new versions of Aperture and Xcode. A new update to Lion’s restore feature was also there, seemingly to support the new “Find My Mac” feature.
iOS 5 included much more than just iCloud support, of course. New features and standard apps were introduced for recent models of iOS devices. The new Reminders and Newsstand apps were added, as well as updates for the Music app (formerly the iPod app), Messages, Maps and Safari. In addition, Apple added more optional apps that you can download from the app store: Cards, Find My Friends and Airport Utility.
Zig Zag is a simple puzzle strategy game where you connect two tiles. The tiles have to connect via a line with not more than two turns. And the longer the line, the more points you score. This creates some interesting game strategy where you have to remove tiles in the right order to score maximum points.
This game by MacMost’s parent company has just undergone a transformation. It is now a free app, and it works on both the iPhone and iPad at native resolutions.
“I’ve hacked Time Machine to show files in the future as well as the past. According to our iPhoto collection we go to Hawaii next year.”
If you want to log out of your Mac account, you can choose Log Out in the Apple menu. The keyboard shortcut is Shift+Command+Q. But that prompts you before you log out. If you use Shift+Command+Option+Q it logs you out without the prompt.
Here’s the link to the Apple page explaining how to reset the SMC: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
Here’s a school in a high poverty area of Chicago that has 30 old MacBooks. They use them every day. The problem is that a few of them are out of commission because the batteries are getting too old. Lets help them get new batteries so they can once again get full use out of these MacBooks. Join MacMost in supporting this project.
QR Codes are becoming common enough now that you probably want to make sure you have a free QR code reader app on your iPhone. The very simple Scan app works just fine and I have been using it whenever curiosity gets the better of me.
