2011

As 2011 comes to a close, it’s interesting to look back on Apple’s accomplishments throughout the year.

In this video, Cult Of Mac takes a look back at the top Apple events of 2011.

Last week, we asked you to vote for your choice of the best iOS apps of 2011. Big thanks to everyone who contributed. Here are the results.
Let’s go through the list in detail; at the end, we’d like you to vote on the best app of the year, for inclusion in Cult of Mac’s annual Best of 2011 list. Let’s go!

There’s over half a million apps on the App Store at this point, but that’s not to say that apps can’t still stand out from the crowd. Choosing the cream of the crop, though, can be a daunting and contentious task.

That’s why we need your help. A week from now, we’re going to announce our ten favorite iOS apps of 2011, then later in the month declare our vote for the best app of the year. Hence this poll; we need you to tell us which app you think qualifies as the best of the best.

Following their annual holiday tradition, Apple has just published iTunes Rewind 2011, their list of their own personal best apps and games across twenty-one categories. And as usual, there’s some surprising choices.

Having rocketed to the top of the book charts in October following the death of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson’s authorized Steve Jobs biography has quickly become Amazon’s best-selling book of 2011.

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 introduced new recovery features available through a combination of new hardware and software. One of these new features is called Lion Internet Recovery which will allow you to start your 2011 MacBook Air or Mac Mini directly from Apple’s servers.

The recovery process starts when the Command+R option doesn’t work or when you install a brand new blank hard drive.

Here is a tip that will let you force your 2011 or later Mac to launch Internet Recovery on startup.

Earlier this week Microsoft released updates for the Mac versions of Office 2004, 2008, and 2011 that address some issues with security, stability, and reliability. Users of these versions of Microsoft Office are encouraged to update their software.

We don’t know about you, but personally we are more excited about the next version of iOS than we are the next version of  the iPhone. The iPhone 4 is fairly adequate and meets most of our needs, but iOS has a lot of room for improvement. WWDC 2011 is just around the corner and we know that Apple will be announcing iOS 5 there so here is a round-up of the current rumors surrounding the next version of iOS.

Apple last update for iwork.com was released in January this year. Users were notified via e-mail, that enhancements to iWork.com Apple’s public beta online service for iWork ’09 users had been released.

This announcement came out of the blue at the time regarding a service that has definitely been off the radar for a long time and in beta for longer than I can remember. It’s future isn’t clear considering the pace at which Apple is deploying features on it. Perhaps that will change this year with the rumored release of iWork ’11 and the imminent release of Apple’s iCloud services at WWDC 2011 next week.

(Update: Looks like we were right to be skeptical. GigaOm has since corrected their post to say they mistakenly published an old press release.)

In what we hope is a return from his medical leave of absence, Apple has apparently just confirmed that Steve Jobs will be the official keynote speaker at this year’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference.

Yeah, I said Sinbad! Apparently it’s an old joke that everyone has a “I-met-Sinbad-at-Macworld” story, after all, he’s been coming to Macworld since 1985. Well since he was going to be here anyway, they asked him to get on stage and give a keynote, and I’m glad they did because it was fantastic.

If you think 2011 is going to be the year that Intel’s Light Peak standard homogenizes the connections of your iMac into one tidy standard, think again… according to LaCie, it’snot even close to being ready for prime time.

“Intel has been the driving force for this technology. What we know for sure about Light Peak is that we know how to spell it,” LaCie’s senior engineer Mike Mihalik told PC World. “And that it’s intended to be a high-speed interface and it will support almost any protocol for transferring information from A to B.”

What;s the problem? Well, even though Light Peak will, in theory, obviate all other types of connections, including USB 3.0, it’s still just a lab experiment… despite the fact that Intel said it’d be in shipping products this year.

“Development needs to continue and we need to debug before we can turn the technology into a product,” reports Mihalik.

This is depressing news to guys like me, who assumed Apple’s reluctance to embrace USB 3.0 was due to their intent to leap frog directly to the more flexible Light Peak standard. They may still do just that, but it looks like we’ve got a couple years yet before we see it.

Microsoft’s official Office for the Mac blog has announced a list of places where you can buy Office for Mac 2011 at discounted prices during Black Friday and Cyber Monday weekend. The prices are pretty good during the US Thanksgiving holiday weekend at various retailers, but Amazon has the best price of all.

• Best Buy and MacMall (US): $20 off Home & Student 1-pack for $99 (regularly $119 ERP) and $20 off Home & Student Family Pack for $129 (regularly $149 ERP).
• Amazon (US): $40 off the Home & Student 1-pack for $79 (regularly $119 ERP) and Home & Student Family Pack for $109 (regularly $149 ERP).
• OfficeforMac.com (US): $20 off Home & Student Family Pack for $129 (regularly $149 ERP).

Office for Mac 2011 has gotten favorable reviews and performs better than previous versions. If you are interested in upgrading from an older version Thanksgiving weekend will probably be your best opportunity to get a good deal.

Macworld may not have an official Apple presence anymore, but Macworld 2011 is shaping up to be one of the biggest years yet for the show when it hits January 26th in San Francisco: according to IDG General Manager Paul Kent, it’ll be over thirty percent bigger than ever before.