Cult of Mac

Apple uses digital certificates and code signing in various ways to help keep Macs secure. One common example is that apps sold through the Mac App Store are digitally signed, which allows an individual Mac to know that it’s getting the genuine article when a user launches the App Store app. It also allows a Mac to ensure that an application hasn’t been tampered with by a malicious user or a piece of malware each time that app is launched (Mountain Lion’s Gatekeeper feature will be based on the same technology).

The same process is used with Apple’s Software Update servers. Each update from Apple is digitally signed using a certificate that let’s each Mac know that they’re getting genuine updates from Apple.

Digital certificates are designed to expire periodically and tomorrow, March 23, 2012, the certificate associated with Apple’s Software Update functionality will be expiring. Apple already has a new certificate ready that won’t expire for seven more years (2019). The transition to the certificate will be transparent for almost all Mac users, but it may create problems with some OS X Server installations.

Apple has come under fire for shipping two new products that aren’t revolutionary breakthroughs, but incremental improvements on what came before.

The new iPad and Apple TV have been called underwhelming because they don’t clean your floor while also making a cappuccino. But in both cases, they are significant improvements on what came before.

The new Apple TV, now in its third generation, adds a faster A5 processor and can now stream high-def video at 1080p.

Is it worth the upgrade?

It might not be an issue for you, but some users who have purchased new iPads have found that the magnets of their existing cases won’t turn the display on and off. This doesn’t just go for third-parties, either: even some old Smart Covers won’t turn the screen off.

What the heck’s going on? As it turns out, there’s a small change in the way the new iPad that only applies to magnetic cases: polarity now counts.

Built upon the DNA of NeXT OS, OS X is already one of the most well known Unix-based operating systems, but it could have been supercharged if the father of Linux, Linus Torvalds, had accepted a job offer from Steve Jobs back in 2000.

Carol Gerber wants to help reconcile lawyers who bring in their own iPads to work with the IT department.

Gerber is an former bankruptcy attorney who has been imparting tech training to lawyers for a decade. On the front lines of the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) movement, she’s created an iPad class approved by the New York State Continuing Legal Education Board.

It’s rare to see government agencies at the front of the technology curve, but it’s becoming more common with U.S. federal agencies after U.S. CIO Steven VanRoekel declared at CES that 2012 the year of mobile for the federal government. While most agencies have pushed to reevaluate their mobile technology option during the past few months, the Environmental Protection Agency seems to leading the government charge to mobile.

The EPA announced earlier this week that the agency has adopted a new “mobile first” policy. Under the policy, it is a setting forward-thinking IT mandate than even the most tech-savvy companies have yet to consider or embrace: develop solutions for mobile devices first and then re-work those solutions to function on the desktop.

Now that Apple’s brought LTE to the iPad, it seems a certainty it’ll come to the next iPhone in October as well. Lurking deep in the iOS 5.1 plist files, though, may be proof that Apple’s already building support for LTE into their mobile operating system. Or it might just be more confusion over what 4G actually means: LTE or HSPA+.

If you thought that the new iPad would be the only tablet to sport a true Retina display, then think again. Microsoft is encouraging tablet makers to introduce high-resolution displays into their devices with support for resolutions up to 2560×1440.

Give most elderly people an iPad and even if they are not tech savvy, they suddenly just get it. Unfortunately, not so for this guy from a German comedy show, who puts his iPad’s Gorilla Glass coating and liquid damage indicators to the test by using his brand new tablet as a chopping board. His daughter’s expression at the end pretty much covers the same surge of horror I feel at the idea of using my new $829 iPad Wi-Fi + LTE for similar ends.

[via AllThingsD]

Those clever Chinese people are great at copying anything. Fake iPhones. Fake Louis Vuitton bags. Fake Gucci sweaters. Fake Disneyland. The list is endless. We’ve even seen quite a few fake Apple Stores pop-up in China over the years. Some even looked like an exact replica of the real thing. Well now some clever Chinese citizens have moved on and are now opening up fake Android stores. The only problem is, Android phones don’t sell so well, so they sell genuine iPhones and iPads

Music streaming services like Spotify, Rhapsody, and Rdio are set to face yet another competitor on iOS, as Sony prepares to make its own service available to the iPhone and iPad. The company’s COO, Shawn Layden, has confirmed that Music Unlimited will be making its way to the App Store “in the next few weeks.”

Sandwiched between two layers of Gorilla Glass, your iPhone’s innards are a thickly packed tissue of silicon, precious metals, plastic and Li-Ion power cells. Space is at such a premium inside an iPhone that literally every milimeter counts, which is why Apple is always at the forefront of technologies that will make a critical component just a little smaller, a little thinner.

Foremost among these is the venerable SIM card. Apple first managed to reduce the physical footprint of the SIM card with the iPhone 4 with the micro SIM, and now they want to do it again with the nanoSIM.

The only problem? The rest of the industry doesn’t like the nano SIM, and now Nokia is speaking out against it.

I confess: I didn’t think they could do it. When I heard that Angry Birds Space was coming, I honestly didn’t see how Rovio could create a game that was different enough, while still retaining the original Angry Birds magic. But I shouldn’t have doubted: this game is a success, precisely because it gets that balance exactly right.

Lately, RIM has been losing major enterprise customers to Apple on a regular basis. U.S. federal agencies (including NOAA and ATF) have been some of the biggest enterprise switchers from BlackBerry devices to iPhones.

Today’s bad news must have a particularly nasty sting for the BlackBerry manufacturer. For the first time, iPhone sales in RIM’s native Canada have surpassed sales of BlackBerry devices – and by a pretty wide margin. Given the sense of loyalty that many Canadian businesses and consumers have shown to RIM, which is based in Waterloo, Ontario, the new numbers highlight the extent of RIM’s challenges and shortcomings.

Apple’s plans to build a giant solar farm in Maiden, North Carolina, to power its new data center are well underway. The new building will require a 20 megawatt array of solar panels to create enough power, and that’s going to take up over 171 acres of land, or 107 NFL football fields. This aerial footage gives you a sense of just how huge the facility will be.

The world’s favorite music streaming service Spotify has just added a bunch of new music apps. Spotify apps are widgets that run inside Spotify and let you access the music in various ways. The first apps launched a few months ago on the Mac (they’re still not on the iPhone), and the second wave has just dropped. I have taken a quick look, and there are a few gems in there.

It’s a well known fact that the new iPad takes significantly longer to charge than the iPad 2. You can chalk that problem up to the fact that the new iPad has approximately 70% more battery in the same form factor than the iPad 2, requiring almost twice as long to charge. Consequently, the iPad has gone from being something you could charge up in just a few hours to a tablet that needs all night to charge to 100%.

But you shouldn’t stop charging your iPad at 100%. No sirree bob. If you want the most battery life from your new iPad, you should keep the device plugged in for at least an hour after it reports full. Why? The iPad battery gauge lies.

Prepare yourself for a another look at OS X Mountain Lion and a peak at iOS 6, because Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference looks set to begin in early June. San Francisco’s Moscone Center — the company’s favorite venue for WWDC — has been booked up for a mysterious “corporate meeting” for one week starting June 11.

This hilarious iPhone 4 case will guarantee that you win any dorkathon you choose to enter. The plastic case — which covers the back and sides of the phone — is shaped like a raw hard drive, complete with vendor sticker, fake screws and even SATA connectors.

Sick of all those icons cluttering up your Desktop? Need to give a presentation at work but don’t want your boss seeing all the imgur images you downloaded during the sales meeting? This two dollar app from the Mac App Store may be just what you need to de-clutter and hide all those pesky Desktop icons.

Adobe’s next version of Photoshop — CS6 — is now available as a free download in beta form. The update packs in a lot of new features, but it really feels more like a reboot, with a redesigned interface and several features ported back from Photoshop’s sister product, Lightroom.

If it’s not a smaller iPad, it’s a bigger iPhone, and today’s rumor sees the iPhone approaching the absurd size of Samsung’s phablet, the Galaxy Note. The Korean Maeil Business Newspaper cites unnamed sources who claim that Apple is already placing orders to its suppliers for 4.6-inch retina screens.

Angry Birds Space has just survived re-entry and is now in the App Store for just $1. The new Angry Birds, despite the release of the Seasons and Rio editions, is the true sequel to probably the most popular iOS game ever. Also, it rocks.

Netflix has updated its popular iPad app with enhanced Retina graphics. Everything from the icon to the app’s text has been updated for the new iPad’s shiny display, and the update is available now in the App Store.

One of the biggest complaints about the Netflix iOS app has been the lack of HD video streaming, and according to Netflix, HD video is coming soon. We wouldn’t be surprised if the next app version included the upgrade. We can’t wait for that!

Remember that streaming HD video over 4G on the new iPad will use a lot of data, so be aware of how much video you stream on the go.

One of the new features introduced in iOS 5 was the ability to create keyboard shortcuts for common and often used phrases. This feature was embraced by many iOS users, and for some has become the most useful feature in Apple’s latest release of iOS. Many don’t know it, but OS X actually includes this same feature. In this video, I’ll show you how to find it and set it up.