For those of us that have something to hide, you’ll be happy to know that in iOS 5 Safari offers a private internet browsing mode. Once it is toggled on it prevents Safari from compiling a history of your browser activity.
Apple is pushing out more updates to computers released in 2011 to enable Lion Internet recovery. Initially this recovery feature was only available on the MacBook Air and Mac Mini when they made their debut in July.  Recently, however, Apple made it available on certain model MacBook notebooks and this week it was released for early 2011 iMacs like the one I purchased in June.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m surprised that Apple enabled Lion Internet Recovery on my iMac. I thought they’d hold out and only offer it on a refreshed model as an incentive to upgrade.
Apple’s on a roll this week after the plethora of updates yesterday Apple has released three more new ones today. They are HP Printer Software Update 2.8, Aperture Update 3.2.1 and Thunderbolt Software Update 1.0.
All of these are available now via Software Update on your Mac. Check out all the gory details after the break.
You can set up your iPhone notifications in many ways. You might like vibrating alerts, audible alerts, or maybe you don’t want any alerts at all. Now there is a new visual alert, but it’s buried away and hard to find.
Today I’ll fix that and show you where it is hiding.
Hot on the heels of the early 2011 iMac firmware update comes an EFI firmware update for the mid-2011 MacBook Air and Mac Mini. The new updates are labeled version 2.2 and 1.4 respectively. The updates are available via Software Update or direct download.
The updates address the following issues:
Apple has released an update to the early 2011 iMac EFI firmware. The new update is labeled version 1.7 and it is available via software update.
The update addresses the following issues:
Apple has released an update to iPhoto bring it to version 9.2.1. This update primarily addresses the complaints about iPhoto quitting unexpectedly that we’ve received from Cult of Mac readers.
The update is available now via Software Update on your Mac. Check out the complete details about iPhoto after the break.
Recently I’ve been talking about some of my favorite Mac OS X tips. Now this week I’ve started sharing some of my favorite tips for iOS. Today I’ll show you how to look up word definitions in iOS using the Define command.
The tip today is a simple one that most Mac experts might already know, but I met a newbie today who didn’t have any idea why there are so many items listed in Recent Items a sub-menu on the Apple menu.
“There are just toooo many recent items under documents,” they said, and complained about the Server item being there when they didn’t have any servers.
So I showed them how to fix it, and now I’ll show you too.
Did you buy an app for your Mac that you later regret having bought? Or did you decide it was so terrible that you don’t want to be reminded about having bought it? Well, you are in luck, because now there is a way to remove purchases now from your Purchased history in the Mac App Store.
Apple appears to have resolved the problems where 15-inch Mid-2010 MacBook Pro computers may intermittently free or stop displaying video.
The resolution has appeared in the form of a software update that is available now.
Apple has updated the firmware for Apple TV to version 4.4.2 about a week after pulling and releasing for a second time the earlier 4.4.1 update. The earlier update provided a some bug fixes and if we were to guess this one probably does too.
It looks like Apple is also offering an Apple TV tip for updating which I hope isn’t the normal thing to expect going forward. I’ve had a lot of trouble getting my Apple TV to find and install new updates. I hope that 4.4.2 resolves that problem for good.
Apple introduced High Dynamic Range (HDR) photography along with the iPhone 4 and iOS 4. HDR will automatically produce improved camera shots by combining three camera shots into one image. The HDR setting in the Camera app remains in iOS 5 and the new iPhone 4S.
That isn’t necessarily a good thing if you are prone to using the camera in your iPhone and HDR a lot, because HDR produces two images which are stored on your camera roll: the original and the HDR enhanced one. If your device has limited storage space this could start to be a problem.
If you have an iPhone 4S the images produced by the 8 Megapixel camera are larger than the ones produced on the iPhone 4 or iPhone 3Gs. Luckily there is a way for you to force the Camera app to only save the HDR image.
Apple has fixed an issue with Mission Control’s All Windows mode in Mac OS X 10.7.2 that will make a lot of people happy. You can now rearrange the desktop spaces and full-screen applications by dragging. The Dashboard and the first desktop space remain fixed in place at the first and second places in the desktop spaces and full-screen applications list.
Although dragging these objects around is new, the trick to getting it to work is similar to a previous tip.
A recent report details an interesting tale of woe for preorder iPhone 4S customers. These customers decided that the right thing to do would be to preorder their iPhone 4S for home or office delivery. After all that sure beats waiting in line for hours on launch day right?
Unfortunately for some customers that isn’t true since they are going to have to wait weeks to get their preordered iPhone 4S while Apple Stores or other brick-and-mortar stores either had or continue to have stacks of them.
The biggest problem – they can’t even cancel their pre-orders and buy one from a local store.
William Joye, who originally reported the problem about iOS 5 updates bricking first generation iPads, has reported back that the prescribed fix using Redsn0w fixed the problem with his iPad.
Here are the steps he used to bring his first generation iPad back to life.
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Cult of Mac reader, William Joye, brought an interesting problem  to our attention. According to William there is “an issue concerning upgrading first generation iPad 3G to iOS 5. A number of owners, including myself, now have disabled iPads after attempting to upgrade to iOS 5.”
This is the first we’ve heard about this problem and by far the worst after iOS 5 was released last week. Sadly, it seems that Apple isn’t showing a lot of concern about the problem and may not be helping users resolve the problem.
It never ceases to amaze me about what people will do to get your attention so today’s video tidbit shouldn’t be much of a surprise. After all we’ve seen MacBooks, iPhones and iPads go through all kinds of hell on the wrong end of a gun and even a PT Cruiser.
So it shouldn’t surprise you that someone has taken the iPhone 4S and shot it with a .50 caliber incendiary round. He even goes so far as to ask Siri if it is bullet proof. See how Siri replied and how well the iPhone 4S did or not after the break.
There is an open discussion on Apple’s discussion forum where iPhone 4S owners are reporting problems they are having with their new phones display. The majority of complaints are about how the display has a yellow tint which is especially clear when you place the iPhone 4S next to an iPhone 4. There are other lesser complaints about color washouts and contrast in the same discussion thread.
Well if you had any doubts about this past weekends iPhone 4S sales you can rest easy it was a blockbuster weekend for Apple and all the carriers. Millions of customers are out trying all the new features in iOS 5, on their iPhone 4S and in iCloud. It also looks like a lot of you are trying to find your friends with Apple’s new Find My Friends app and related services. Well it looks like this morning that the service is experiencing activation problems.
If you are an AT&T Customer and you upgraded to an iPhone 4S this weekend you might want to check your account settings. Something fishy is going on with customer messaging plans. I got wind of it from a friend who is currently traveling in Alaska.
Apparently if you previously had Messaging Unlimited with Mobile to Any Mobile Calling on your old phone you’ll find out like I did that AT&T switched you to the Messaging Unlimited plan. That plan does not including the Any Mobile to Mobile calling feature.
California Governor Jerry Brown announced Friday, that Sunday, October 16th will be known as “Steve Jobs Day” statewide. This will coincide with the private Steve Jobs memorial planned at Standford University for the Apple co-founder. The Governor tweeted the news about Sunday late Friday after the announcement that some of Silicon Valley’s well-known people were invited to the memorial service at Stanford.
We have no doubts at Cult of Mac that iPhone 4S sales this week-end are going to be a blow out and the first thing people will probably try to do after obtaining their iPhone 4S is to converse with Siri. Â Well it looks like this morning with way too many people to talk to Siri has gone offline or maybe its just out on a coffee break.
I had a late day yesterday and I’m only now getting around to playing around with and testing Siri. I think the rest of you might have worn it out since it isn’t as snappy as it was yesterday when I tried  a few preliminary requests.
According to a report Steven Troughton-Smith has made progress on porting the Siri voice assistant to the iPhone 4. The resulting ported version of Siri isn’t ready for prime time so I wouldn’t get to excited just yet and return that iPhone 4S you bought yesterday.
The new iPhone 4S has a minor physical tweak that makes it difficult to fit into some cases. The culprit is the silent/ringer switch which has been moved down slightly towards the bottom of the phone. Since I’ve had a few reader queries about cases for the iPhone 4S I thought I’d share some information about cases I have on hand.
I have six iPhone 4 cases that I either purchased or received for review and  surprise a that a lot of them fit just fine for regular use.  Only one of them  wouldn’t fit at all.  If you have one of the other five you’ll be just fine when you upgrade to an iPhone 4S.