Google has released Update Engine, an open source (released under the Apache license) software update framework for Mac OS X.

Of course, there’s already a very successful software update framework known as Sparkle, developed by Andy Matuschak. Judging by this comment in his Twitter stream (“Update Engine looks much better-designed and engineered than Sparkle, though a little clunkier in a few minor ways”), he’s already impressed with what he sees.

In an announcement on the Google Mac Blog, engineer Greg Miller says: “Update Engine can update all the usual suspects, like Cocoa apps, preference panes, and screen savers. But it can also update oddballs like arbitrary files, and even things that require root–like kernel extensions. On top of that, it can update multiple products as easily as it can update one.”

So what’s the difference between this and Sparkle? As I understand things (someone correct me if I’m wrong), Sparkle sits inside each app that uses it, and is used by that app to update itself. Update Engine runs separately and independently, and uses a system of tickets to remember which apps it should monitor and when they should be updated. And, as Miller explains, it can be used to update anything, not just apps but also prefpanes and the like.

New today from the Mac devs at Google is Top Draw, an experimental image drawing app.

I’ll let them explain it in more detail: “The Top Draw scripting language leverages Apple’s Quartz and CoreImage rendering engines for graphical muscle. In addition to the drawing commands that are supported by the HTML canvas tag, there is support for particle systems, plasma clouds, random noise, multi-layer compositing and much more.”

It doesn’t do very much, so don’t download it and expect it to suddenly start editing photos or creating beautiful logos for you. It takes text input and renders images based on it; and for kicks, it can set the result as your desktop background, or act as a screen saver.

Still, fun to play with if messing with JavaScript is your thing. Indeed, still fun even if you have no clue about JavaScript and just want something different on your desktop.

What should we expect to hear from Apple Tuesday when it releases its fiscal fourth quarter numbers? Analysts offered Cult of Mac a preview of sorts, providing what they think CEO Steve Jobs will say tomorrow.

The overriding theme will be how Apple confronts the economic downturn which seems to be striking at the heart of the company’s consumer-oriented buyers.

Too loud, too tinny, not any good. Our fault? No, way. Rusted rockers Metallica are blaming the iPod for ruining their sound, specifically the rattle and hum on latest effort ‘Death Magnetic.’ Fortunately, the WSJ is on the case (love the stipple portrait of Rick Rubin):

“The battle has roots in the era before compact discs. With vinyl records, “it was impossible to make loud past a certain point,” says Bob Ludwig, a veteran mastering engineer. But digital technology made it possible to squeeze all of the sound into a narrow, high-volume range. In addition, music now is often optimized for play on the relatively low-fidelity earbuds for iPods, reducing incentives to offer a broad dynamic range.”

Making Metallica’s clatter barely listenable on an iPod.
For better or worse, iPods have changed the way we listen.  The first time I really heard Mick Jagger singing backup on “You’re So Vain” it was on a secondhand first-generation iPod.

Anybody else?

When it rains, it pours. Apple shares took a battering Monday as two more financial analysts downgraded the company amid mounting worries how spending cuts will hurt the Cupertino, Calif. company.

Morgan Stanley analyst Kathryn Hubert slashed her target price for Apple stock to $115 from $178, sending shares down 14 percent to $110 by noon.

Hubert also downgraded the company to “equal-weight from “overweight.”

Another analyst Monday joined the growing chorus voicing caution about how the economic downturn may finally be catching up with Apple.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Mie Abramsky downgraded Apple shares to “sector perform,” shaken by last week’s numbers indicating consumers were holding off purchasing Mac laptop and desktop computers.

Abramsky also trimmed his target price for Apple shares to $140 from $200 and cut his fourth quarter expectations. The analyst said Monday Apple is likely to report earning $32.8 billion, slightly off of $33 billion previously projected. The RBC analyst also lowered his prediction for 2009 to $40 billion from $42.5 billion once expected.

Nitrozac is an artist and co-founder of GeekCulture, a high-tech humor web site, thriving online community and, according to the artist, purveyor of fine propeller beanies. She says she’s always wanted to take contemporary technology subjects and render them in old style media, and has been offering her acrylic and oil paintings on canvas by auction since December 2007. “I love working with digital images on my Mac, but there is something extremely satisfying about creating with paint and a canvas,” she adds, and describes her paintings as “based on my work at the The Joy of Tech. The subject matter will usually be geeky and techy; the people, places, and things that make up geek culture.”

Her latest work is titled, “The Introduction,” a painting of Steve Jobs unveiling the MacBook Air at Macworld 2008, shown above. Click through in the gallery below to see some of her past work.

If there’s one thing the British like complaining about more than the weather, it’s the transport system.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise to find the App Store bulging with apps for people on the move. Here are just a handful of my favourites…

There’s Alistair Stuart’s Trains, giving near-as-dammit live information from UK station departure boards: essential for people five minutes walk away from the station door, and whose train ought to be leaving in four minutes.

And there’s Ian Smith’s LondonCam, a highly rated app that displays the latest image from any of more than 80 traffic cams that monitor London’s busiest roads and interchanges.

Traffic UK provides real-time traffic updates for the area around your current location, or for any place you care to name.

And TubeStatus is one of several London Underground monitoring apps, providing timely warnings of line closures and service disruptions. Which, as any Londoner will tell you, are many and varied and frustratingly frequent.

Chloe & The iTunes Babysitter from Jason Bedell on Vimeo.

OK, this one might divide the audience somewhat.

Here’s Jason explaining how the iTunes visualizer has saved his day, kept his daughter quiet, and enabled him to do some work. You can hear the relief in his voice as he says: “Steve Jobs, thank you.”

Is this the best concept in babysitting since, um, TV? Or is she a little young for Apple cult indoctrination?

Do share your opinions in the comments.

Disney star Vanessa Hudgens plays peek-a-boo with the paps from behind her iPhone on the streets of Beverly Hills. Not surprisingly, after a few steps Hudgens needed to see where she was going and dropped the stance.

The iPhone, however,  continued to protect and serve as she speed dialed her mom (or therapist?)  for solace.
Funny, it doesn’t look like she was having a bad skin day, maybe she just wants to get in on the game of match the celeb with the cell phone.

On Sept. 20, Apple opened its North County store in Escondido, a San Diego suburb. Reader Scott Bernard writes in to let us know that the event had a very special guest: a quite convincing “PC” impersonator who posed for pictures with the gathered Mac faithful as he distributed “Mac Unfair to PC” leaflets.

Not everyone got the joke. Notes Scott:

We couldn’t hear much of what he was saying, because there was one of those actual CRAZY Apple people in line behind us, yelling in the direction of PC. Crazy guy had NO IDEA that PC was an actor, and he was apparently completely unfamiliar with the “I’m a Mac” ads. Scraped from my week old memory:

Crazy guy: “W- w- w- Windows SUCKS!”

*everyone in line ignores crazy guy, who we thought was just trying (and failing) to be funny*

Crazy guy: “WINDOWS SUCKS!!!”

*we start wondering if this guy is crazy, because he actually sounds angry now*

Crazy guy: “In 1997, Jeffrey Dell said he would shut down Apple, and, and…”

*now we all KNOW he is crazy, especially since it was MICHAEL Dell who he is apparently trying to refer to*

Crazy guy: “Jeffrey Dell said-!”

PC: *walks over to Crazy guy* “Sir, sir, it’s OKAY. I’m playing a CHARACTER. I’m really a Mac guy. It’s OKAY.”

As Scott notes, he doesn’t have the exchange on video, largely because the iPhone has no video recording capability. You hear that, Apple? Think of what you’re denying your base!

Apple also recently opened a shop in nearby Carlsbad, but PC didn’t make the trip. Apparently, lovers of sensible ties and cheap hucksterism prefer Escondido. Click through for a shot of the North County T-Shirt and another pic of PC on duty.

The return of the Lightsaber application to the app store is one to be hailed with much fanfare. Star Wars fans everywhere rejoice, and in the three days that the application has been on iTunes it has received over 1,400 reviews with an average four star rating.

Our night of watching the presidential debates was put on hold to test the rereleased application. Shortly after unsheathing my saber I was viciously attacked by an insidious villain! The ensuing epic battle (I’m on the left) was caught on video by horrified onlookers:

Testing Lightsaber Unleashed from Dean Putney on Vimeo.

Ultimately, we loved the new Lightsaber Unleashed. For those every day around-the-house epic battles, there’s really nothing like a good free Lightsaber application. We loved the built-in theme music, the accelerometer was quite accurate with our strokes, the different colors were great, and it really felt like we were holding lightsabers. Our only critique is that we often met our peril to an accidentally retracted beam (if you tap the screen with your saber drawn, you’re brought back to the menu screen).

If you have an iPod touch or an iPhone, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t have this application installed. Let’s have some impromptu lightsaber duels!

Here’s hoping that Apple’s feverishly-anticipated “Brick” project is the world’s first all-screen laptop — like this mockup of the OLPC version 2 by designer Yves Behar.

There’s slim chance, of course, but I for one would love a computing device like this: A hybrid iPhone-meets-Macbook-Air that would put hot netbooks like the EeePC to shame.

Apple’s “Brick” would be a hybrid laptop/tablet/ebook that dispenses with a physical keyboard and trackpad in favor of a virtual, adaptive UI that blends multitouch, gestures and its own orientation to switch between different modes:

Laptop — When the Brick is held horizontally with the two screens at an angle, the bottom screen turns into a virtual keyboard and touchpad. There’s no tactile feedback for touch typists, but never mind, corrective text handily makes up for the myriad errors. The top screen acts like a regular laptop screen, except that it also is touch sensitive, and is responsive to multitouch gestures like double-tap to zoom, pinching and scrolling.

Tablet — When the two halves are opened fully they snap together in the middle to make a tablet with a continuous touch-sensitive screen. This mode is best for surfing the web, browsing and editing photos, and displaying mind-altering music visualizers.

eBook — Like laptop mode but held vertically. Each screen transforms into an electronic page for easy reading. Displays eBooks, eMags or specially laid out websites. Readers navigate by swiping the screen to turn the pages.

Tabletop — Like tablet mode but for two people. When an onscreen button is pushed, the screens are oriented for two users sitting opposite each other. Great for collaborative tasks and especially games.

And why’s it called “Brick”? Because it smashes Windows!

More pictures after the jump.

Inspired by Computerworld columnist Mike Elgan.

Sonic Lighter is slightly different to all the other iPhone virtual lighters; it checks in with the GPS and pings a remote server with the device’s location at the moment the app was started.

The result: a Google Map covered with little red flames, every one of them an instance of Sonic Lighter getting all lit up.

And the map has few surprises: big swathes of red flames across North America, Europe and Japan. But hold on, what’s that, up there? In the Arctic Ocean, hundreds of miles north of the Chukchi Sea, itself north of where Alaska and Russia kiss? It’s a single, solitary Sonic Lighter ignition. Maybe it’s a member of Sarah Palin’s crack squad of Russia-monitoring sniffer dogs. Or maybe it was just some guy on a plane. Either way, we salute you, most-northerly Sonic Lighter user. You should get a prize, or something.

(If anyone’s taken their iPhone to the north or south poles, and has some interesting iPhone pics to prove it, please contact the Cult.)

(Via Gruber)

The sharp-eyed folks at iphone savior spotted a MacBook Pro cameo on the season premiere of The Office.
In it, receptionist Pam appears in the Scranton branch from New York via iChat video.

While it’s easy to understand that Office followers — wry code monkeys and creative types alike — would appreciate the nod, Dunder Mifflin seems so much more PC than Mac.

How many places like that use MacBook Pros?

An apparent shift by iPhone 3G buyers to lower-priced 8GB models reportedly prompted Apple to trim by 4 million the number of handsets it will build for the rest of 2008. Cupertino will order 14 million to 15 million phones instead of 18 million analysts first projected.

Pacific Crest’s Apple analyst said Friday “supply-chain checks” found since mid-September Apple is not meaningfully resupplying AT&T stores that have sold down their inventory of 8GB iPhone 3Gs.

The first unlocked iPhones may be selling through Apple’s online Store in Hong Kong, according to a report this morning in at a Singapore-based blog. Techgoondu is reporting online shoppers at the Apple web site in Hong Kong are beingn told “”iPhone 3G purchased at the Apple Online Store can be activated with any wireless carrier. Simply insert the SIM from your current phone into iPhone 3G and connect to iTunes 8 to complete activation.”

The 8GB is HK$5,400 ($695) and the 16GB is HK$6,200 ($798). Ouch. Shipping is free, and they are supposed to ship “within 24 hours”. Apple’s warranty for the iPhone 3G is local only – “Warranty service is restricted to the country where Apple or its authorized distributors originally sold the iPhone.”

Honk Kong-based carrier Three enjoyed a brief two and a half month exclusivity deal with Apple and recently sweetened its iPhone rate plane to include “free unlimited wifi.”

MacBook update fever has the Mac community in its grip, and everyone’s talking about or leaking images of possible new MacBook designs.

But what about the growing threat of so-called “netbooks”? Those tiny, cheap machines pioneered by Asus and now on offer from pretty much every PC manufacturer around.

ZDNet wonders if Apple will make something similar, or, more likely, reduce its MacBook prices to compete. (I don’t think that’s very likely, but anyway.)

The Apple Gazette declares a resounding no, saying that the netbooks are not affecting MacBook sales anyway. They are reducing sales of more expensive non-Apple Windows laptops, but not hitting Apple products that hard at all.

I’m inclined to go along with the Gazette’s view that reducing the MacBook prices by a little — getting them down to the $700-$800 range — would be sufficient to make sales soar once more. That said, I suspect it’s more likely that the machine will be much improved and stay at roughly the same price that it is now.

Personally speaking, the biggest hurdle to overcome is battery life. I still yearn for a good sized mobile machine that will last for the best part of a day without a charge, and none of the current netbooks, or the MacBook Air, will do that. And I know which of those I’d rather buy.

AC/DC guitarist Angus Young explains it very simply in his high voltage comments on a Telegraph story about the state of the music industry:

“We don’t make singles, we make albums.”

Well that’s one view, I suppose. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall during that interview. What else did he have to say?

• Jason Snell of Macworld on Apple potentially driving iPhone devs away: https://tinyurl.com/4ky4hr #

It’s… it’s like looking into the Eye of Sauron. If each application were a different Eye.

More at Gizmodo.

Excited Bristol Apple Store staff, preparing to let in the first customers

It’s hard to get the British excited about something, especially a new shop. But that does’t stop the staff at the shiny new Bristol Apple Store doing their level best to get the queue outside cheering and waving. A bit.

It has to be said: this store opening is unlike most others. Central Bristol ground to a halt this morning because an entire shopping mall, encompassing several surrounding streets, was opening for the first time.

The Apple Store was just one among 150 or so shops welcoming new customers. The opening ceremony for the mall included a MC on a cherry picker, shouting bad poetry and exhorting the crowd to spend and spend. And four drummers sat at four drum kits. The sound echoed around the streets and made the echos made the drummers sound out of time with each other. But nobody minded. Dancers and free runners danced and ran freely. And eventually, Mr MC man declared the Cabot Circus (warning: eye-wateringly awful web site) mall open. The masses flooded in to spend their money.

But that was only half the queuing for the Apple fans. The mall opening is over, and now they have to rush down a newly-opened street and start a fresh queue inside steel crowd barriers. And there they wait, for another 30 minutes, while Store staff do the usual whooping and cheering and getting people excited.

Just days before Apple is to present its fourth quarter numbers, another analyst is trimming its revenue estimates. BMO Capital’s Keith Bachman said Thursday “the weak economy has started to take a toll on Apple’s system’s business.”

Bachman lowered the target price for Apple shares to $180 from $190.

Read more about the target cut and how other analyst appear to agree after this jump.

The Sartorialist, aka Scott Schuman, occasionally shoots his on-the-street fashion stories using Mac stores as a backdrop.

Just in time for Milan shows, he snaps a fleeting fashionista in front of the blink-and-you missed it Apple reseller on Via Mercato.

The best thing about the otherwise unremarkable store in the city’s chic Brera neighborhood are the staff’s black T-shirts candidating Steve Jobs for mayor. Now that’s a statement.

People who claim to have seen production-ready versions of next-gen MacBooks and MacBook Pros in the US say new Apple notebooks will look more alike than ever before, according to a report in AppleInsider. While clear that its information should be viewed as rumor, the report cites sources with “a lengthy track record” and who have “been privy to early glimpses of some of [Apple’s] other hardware offerings.”

Both the new 13-inch MacBooks and 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pros will share aluminum enclosures, with the new 13-inch MacBooks for the first time matching their higher-priced cousins as if they were members of the same product family, according to the report.

The sources say Apple has made changes to the notebooks’ I/O ports in an effort to reduce their overall footprint. In particular, the FireWire 400 port appears to have been removed from the new MacBook Pro, leaving a backwards compatible FireWire 800 port. In addition, the new MacBook Pro is reported to be missing the 28-pin DVI-I (Dual Link) port, which has been replaced with what appears to be a mini-DVI port like the one found on the existing 13-inch MacBook line and iMac line.

If true, these emerging details would indicate Cult of Mac’s Craig Grannell was not so wide of the mark in his recent piece on Apple’s notebook roadmap.

Expectations for a mid-October product announcement remain high.