The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

The day that Apple killed Atom support with the release of 10.6.2 was a sad one for many in the hackintosh community. Just as many expected, however, Atom support has returned; and no, Apple had nothing to do with it.

InsanelyMac forum member teateam has developed a replacement kernel for installation on Atom-powered, hackintosh netbooks. Keep in mind that this is bleeding-edge stuff here and not for the faint of heart. Nevertheless, this development bodes well for those of you running your own version of a MacBook mini.

[via Macworld]

CIO.com has posted an article (single-page reprint here) covering one company's foray into the app development scene. Recently, clothing retailer Gap held an app development contest. The goal was to develop the "best" app to represent the retailer on the iPhone or iPod touch. Gap partnered with Mobclix, the mobile ad exchange operator (more here), to come up with the contest for the best Gap-branded iPhone app.

The contest ran for three months and had 100,000 400* submissions. While the winning entry isn't available for download on the App Store yet, and Gap doesn't currently have a release plan, CIO.com has a list of 5 attributes that contribute to a quality iPhone app. One of my personal favorites is the consideration for how far to stray from Apple's UI guidelines. On the one hand you have an easy-to-use app that everyone can understand, but on the other hand you have to consider how "similar" you want to be to everyone else.

I won't spoil the fun and tell you all of the different attributes, but if you want to check out the winning app, you can see the submission video in the second half of this post.

Mobclix contacted us to correct the count of the number of app submissions.

[via Macworld]

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Google is making some big announcements today during their Chrome OS press event. In addition to the official announcement for Chrome OS they also let another little tidbit of information loose:

"Just this year alone in Chrome, there's tons of new stuff coming. Before this year gets over, we'll have 3 more announcements to make. Chrome for Mac will be ready, very close to launch."

That's some pretty good news for those of you out there who are running the developer preview and are looking forward to integrating Chrome into your daily browsing.

Ever since upgrading to Snow Leopard, the one remaining 32-bit niggle I have has been with Growl's preference pane. Today, however,* Growl has released v1.2 of its famous application notification system with, among other things, 64-bit support.

While most of the updates in 1.2 are "behind the scenes," the biggest user-facing improvement is in the upgrade to 64-bit. What this means is that for Snow Leopard users, selecting the Growl preference pane does not require Preferences.app to re-launch in 32-bit compatibility mode.

In addition to the Growl preference pane, GrowlMail and GrowlSafari have been updated to 64-bit and are now Snow Leopard compatible. Further, the Growl framework has been re-written in Cocoa dropping support for the Carbon-based API.

You can see the full list of changes over at Growl's version history page. Growl users should have received a notification to download the update. Alternatively, you can head over to Growl's homepage and click "download" to get your ticket to the notification express.

*Several readers have pointed out that version 1.2, while the current version, wasn't released today but in fact has been out for several weeks. Our apologies.

Excel nerds rejoice! What you see above is the result of a laptop reliability study conducted by third-party warranty shop Squaretrade. The study looks at over 30,000 notebooks over the course of 3 years to determine the final reliability statistics. The results may not surprise you; for instance, netbooks fail 40% more often than premium laptops and Apple's MacBook line has above-average reliability.

The report itself is fascinating to read and the graphs are simple to understand. Also, it is nice to see an independent study confirm what I've known for years: HP makes low quality laptops. A note of personal interest, had I purchased a Vaio all those years ago rather than a Presario, I might never have switched to Mac.

[via Engadget]

We've been saying it for years, but everyone thought that we Mac-heads had a chip on our shoulder from the once-sour relationship with Microsoft. Finally, however, the truth has come to light; a group manager from Microsoft has gone on record and admitted the source of some of Windows 7's prettier bits and pieces.

Simon Aldous sat down with PCR for an interview and when he was asked to comment on the agility of Redmond's latest operating system, he had this to say:

"What we've tried to do with Windows 7 – whether it's traditional format or in a touch format – is create a Mac look and feel."

While I am glad that people at Microsoft are finally accepting the superiority of OS X, it still stung a little when Simon started to backtrack saying that Vista was more stable than OS X.

Update: It looks like the Windows team had a few things to say about Simon's earlier remarks, noting that "his comments were inaccurate and uninformed." It is, in my opinion, difficult to deny that the OS X Dock has had a positive impact on how people use their computers -- whether they be PCs or Macs. That being said, I'm glad Microsoft didn't take this one lying down.

[via Engadget]

For those of you in Canada, good news. The cell carriers Telus and Bell have announced pricing and availability for the iPhone 3G and 3GS. In addition, Rogers will be announcing an update to its pricing.

Telus is offering four plan levels with three extras each to chose from, for a total of twelve different plan options. Each plan provides subsidized iPhone pricing of $99CAD for the 8GB iPhone 3G (black), $199CAD for the 16GB iPhone 3G S (black/white), and $299CAD for the 32GB iPhone 3G S (black/white).

The actual plans from Telus do not change with respect to the iPhone you choose. The prices begin at $50CAD for 150 minutes and 500 MB data and move up to $100CAD for 500 minutes and 3GB data; all plans include a 36-month contract term. Additionally, all plans include mobile tethering with the iPhone. All plans excluding the entry-level $50CAD/mo. plan include an option for unlimited messaging.

Bell has also announced their pricing and availability; actual iPhone pricing is the same as the Telus offering ranging from $99CAD for the 8GB iPhone 3G to $299CAD for the 32GB iPhone 3G S.

Bell's monthly plans start at $55CAD and include 300 minutes with 1GB data (tethering included) and increase up to $95CAD including 500 minutes with and 3GB data. As with Telus, all plans include a 36-month contract. Unlike Telus, however, the Bell plans include unlimited Wi-Fi at any Starbucks location.

Not one to be left out of all the press buzz, Rogers may be announcing a new plan for $95CAD/mo. An anonymous tipster reports that the Rogers plan will include 700 minutes and 1GB data with tethering included. The plan will also feature unlimited messaging.

Things are definitely heating up in Canada for iPhone users. Each provider is offering a little something different in terms of minutes, data, and extras. As always, don't forget to consider your coverage area, which iPhone in Canada has helpfully compared for you here.

While I don't live in Canada myself, I am definitely jealous of all the competition going on. I would love to see three US carriers with the iPhone all competing for my pocketbook.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in, and iphoneincanada.ca for the in-depth coverage.

Former TUAW colleague David Chartier over at Finer Things in Mac has noted something interesting about the innocuous iWork '09 file format. What he found may surprise you.

An iWork '09 file created from Pages, Numbers, or Keynote actually lives a secret life as a ZIP archive. This trick isn't a new one; the most common example of archive trickery by Apple is probably the iPod/iPhone software bundle which uses ZIP as a container format. Previous iWork versions actually created folder-like bundle files by default, which made them tricky to upload to cloud storage or email to collaborators.

In the case of the new iWork files, changing the file extension to .zip and expanding the archive reveals the as-expected XML document and plist files (for the document and its formatting) as well as a little PDF surprise -- a preview version of the file. What this means for you is that you can send an iWork file to a friend or co-worker and regardless of their operating system choice or installed software base, they can "view" your document by unzipping it and opening the PDF.

On Windows, you would simply change the extension to .zip and open with your favorite un-archiving utility. Given the kludgy-ness of this process, it doesn't surprise me that Apple isn't promoting it. However, it would be interesting to see the folks in Cupertino release an iWork viewer for the Windows users in our lives (other than the extant iwork.com sharing service).

[Via Download Squad]

If you're rocking the Mac mini -- or any other Mac, for that matter --as a media center, then chances are pretty good that you've had some tough times following the upgrade to Snow Leopard. Anticipating such problems, some of us held off upgrading to Mac OS X 10.6. Now the wait is over.

Shortly after Elan discussed the details of a workaround for Plex, a new release has been let loose on the web. Plex 0.8.3 was announced earlier this week with improved Snow Leopard compatibility as well as several other fixes and new features. For users of Apple's latest OS, the biggest new feature is probably the integration of the Candelair driver which returns Plex to the days of Apple Remote compatibility.

Other notable improvements and new features include:

• Fixed an issue with MKV playback over the network
• A problem with the media server crashing has been fixed
• Video playlists work again
• A new feature where downmixing 5.1 surround audio to 2.0 stereo audio has multiple dynamic range compression options. In other words, surround audio will not be as "quiet" when played through headphones.
• New handling of quitting/suspending commands that includes a new scheduling feature.

The new release of Plex means I can finally stop holding my breath and upgrade my Mac mini to Snow Leopard. It is available now, for free (!!!) right here. Anybody else ready to upgrade to SL now that the Plex release is out? Once my mini is upgraded, rest assured that Plex will be the first thing I install.

[via Macworld]

VMware Fusion 3 features highly improved Snow Leopard support. Most notably, Fusion now sports native 64-bit compatibility and support for the 64-bit kernel. What this means for the average user is improved performance for both the host and guest operating systems.

Further, with support for OpenGL 2.1 and DirectX 9.0c Shader Model 3, gamers will now be able to play more demanding 3D games without the use of Boot Camp. Fusion 3 will also work beautifully with Microsoft's latest operating system by enabling the full Windows 7 experience, side-by-side with your Mac via Unity, complete with Windows Aero and Flip 3D.

VMware Fusion 3 is available for pre-order now and will be on store shelves October 27. Suggested retail price is $79.99US and on the day of launch upgrade pricing of $39.99US will be available for existing customers with previous versions of VMware Fusion.

I use Fusion 2 when I'm at my home office and while the performance has been good, I am really looking forward to Fusion 3's 64-bit support. Any other Fusion users out there, how will you make use of VMware's latest foray into the desktop virtualization game?