Late last month, Apple released the second beta of iOS 6.1 to developers, testing out new features and bug fixes. Apple has now released the third beta of iOS 6.1 to developers with a build number of 10B5117b, as opposed to the build number of 10B5105c on the second beta. The beta includes features for developers to include new features into their applications to integrate iOS Maps, as well as fixes for boarding passes in Passbook and changes in Safari.

Apple normally releases two to three betas prior to releasing iOS updates to the public, however, it is also likely that Apple is being more strict after SVP of iOS Software, Scott Forstall was ousted from the company in regards to issues with Siri, Maps, and personal problems with other executives.

Alongside the iOS 6.1 beta 3, Apple also released a beta of the Apple TV software, as well as Xcode 4.6 Developer Preview 3. Developers who are registered can download the third beta on Apple’s Developer page. Developers can also retrieve the beta via Software Update on their iOS device if they have a previous version of the beta installed already.

{Via MacRumors}

Earlier this month, Apple seeded the first beta of iOS 6.1 to developers that included new features allowing developers to integrate iOS Maps into their applications, as well as fixes for boarding passes in Passbook as well as changes in Safari. Now, Apple has seeded a second beta of iOS 6.1 to developers with a build number of 10B5105c, as opposed to the build number of 10B5095f for the first beta of iOS 6.1. it is unclear what changes the second beta has brought to the update.

It is likely stability improvements for the iOS Maps and Passbook features. It is unclear exactly when Apple will release iOS 6.1 to the public but Apple will likely identify other bugs and include them in the final update, perhaps even releasing another beta before finally releasing it.

Alongside the second beta of iOS 6.1, Apple also released a beta of the Apple TV software, as well as Xcode 4.6 Developer Preview 2. Developers who are registered to receive these updates can go and download the beta software through Apple’s Developer page.

{Via MacRumors}

On Friday, AllThingsD reported on new statistics about the widespread use of Apple’s newest OS X update, Mountain Lion. The report mentioned that roughly 48 hours after the public release of OS X Mountain Lion, about 3% of total web traffic is coming from the latest Mac software.

Analytics firm Chitika conducted the research to come to this conclusion, estimating that Mountain Lion’s web traffic percentage increased from 0.25% before the public launch. This was likely the developer previews of Mountain Lion running prior to the release.

Moreover, based on Apple’s June 2012 announcement that there are currently 66 million Mac users in the wild, we can infer that 2.11 million Mac users downloaded OS X Mountain Lion in the past 48 hours,” Chitika said. “Using this figure, if we assume that 90 percent of these users paid to upgrade, OS X Mountain Lion generated $38 million in revenue for Apple in the past 48 hours.

It is unclear exactly how this compares to last years installation figures, which brought in one million downloads of OS X Lion on the first day of release.

With Retina Macbook Pro sales still increasing steadily and the company’s Up to Date program running, many users are either buying the MacBooks with Mountain Lion preinstalled or getting the update for free. OS X Mountain Lion brings key features to the desktop platform and blurs the lines between its mobile counterpart, iOS. Features such as Notes, Reminders, Notification Center, iCloud, and Dictation make OS X very similar to iOS.

{via MacRumors}

On Monday, a report from Bloomberg suggested that Apple is expected to release a thinner Macbook Pro at this year’s upcoming WWDC 2012. Rumors that Apple would be discontinuing the 17” Macbook Pro and introducing a thinner model have been on the web for quite some time, but no credible sources have produced any solid information as to when the public would see the new Macbooks.

According to the report, the new thinner models of the Macbook Pro would be adopting a number of features from the current Macbook Air, including the flash storage in order to give it a faster startup time and help to extend the battery life. The Macbook Pro line has not had a redesign since 2008, but has received upgraded internals, including the new i5 and i7 chips from Intel.

Bloomberg also mentioned that Apple may announce the release date for the latest OS X Mountain Lion that the company issued a developer preview of earlier this year. Apple has focused its attention on making its products as portable as possible, first with the iPhone, followed by the iPad, and did the same with the Mac starting with the Macbook Air. Apple’s WWDC conference, when the thinner Macbook Pro is expected to be announced is going to be held from June 11-15 in San Francisco.

{via MacRumors}

It’s here again. Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2012) is back and is scheduled for June 11. Apple announced early Wednesday that WWDC 2012 would be held from June 11 through the 15 in San Francisco, as it is every year. Tickets for the conference sold out in under two hours this year, beating out WWDC 2011 tickets sales which sold out in under twelve hours.

“We have a great WWDC planned this year and can’t wait to share the latest news about iOS and OS X Mountain Lion with developers,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “The iOS platform has created an entirely new industry with fantastic opportunities for developers across the country and around the world.”

This year’s conference will likely focus on OS X Mountain Lion, which is due for release later this summer, and iOS 6 which will probably appear during the conference in the form of a developer preview. Apple mentioned in their announcement that they would have about 100 technical sessions for developers, with over 1,000 Apple engineers to help attendees of the event.

The time frame for the event isn’t very surprising, when considering the fact that Apple typically holds the conference during this time of the year, in order to announce its product releases chronologically; Mac OS X release, iOS with iPhone, iPod and then the iPad at the beginning of the following year.

WWDC is Apple’s premier event, of which other events eventually derive, such iOS 6 and the Apple’s iDevices following up the announcement a few months later. Developers who currently hold tickets to the event may encounter higher than usual prices on flights and hotel bookings, not only because of the massive increase in flight purchases, but because of the U.S Open golf championship being held in San Francisco, as well as the slew of vacationers who head west during this time of year.

{via MacRumors}

On Thursday, Apple announced the newest version of the Mac operating system, OS X 10.8. The newest version is being called ‘OS X Mountain Lion’, up from the current OS X Lion running on Mac computers. Apple has made a preview version of OS X 10.8 available to registered developers and will release the final version, with over 100 new features later this summer.

The release will likely be in late August, as usual, and will begin to ship with MacBooks and iMacs during the initial education sales and beginning of the school year, when Mac sales typically increase. SVP of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller commented on the release, saying:

The Mac is on a roll, growing faster than the PC for 23 straight quarters, and with Mountain Lion things get even better. The developer preview of Mountain Lion comes just seven months after the incredibly successful release of Lion and sets a rapid pace of development for the world’s most advanced personal computer operating system.

Apple launched OS X 10.7 Lion during their “Back to the Mac” event, bringing a number of iOS features back to the Mac in order to blur the lines between the two devices. With OS X Mountain Lion, Apple is pushing iOS integration to a whole new level, integrating a number of apps, including Messages (replacing iChat), Reminders, Notes as well as Game Center and Twitter integration.

Apple has also incorporated Notification Center from iOS 5, allowing the Mac to keep track of all notifications in one place. Prior to this integration, users would have to rely on third-party software like Growl for notifications. The Cupertino-based company has even brought over AirPlay mirroring, allowing users to mirror their Mac screen on their HDTV through the Apple TV.

The developer preview of Mountain Lion features the all new Messages app which replaces iChat® and allows you to send unlimited messages, high-quality photos and videos directly from your Mac to another Mac or iOS device. Messages will continue to support AIM, Jabber, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk. Starting today Lion users can download a beta of Messages from www.apple.com, and the final version will be available with Mountain Lion. Reminders and Notes help you create and track your to-dos across all your devices. Game Center lets you personalize your Mac gaming experience, find new games and challenge friends to play live multiplayer games, whether they’re on a Mac, iPhone®, iPad or iPod touch®.

It is very likely that if Apple were to release a television set, the mirror system would be more integrated between iOS and Mac devices. Apple has even went as far as to rename Mac OS X to just OS X, like they did from iPhone OS to iOS.

By integrating iCloud deeper into the Mac platform Apple is blurring the difference between iOS and OS X. The company is challenging the very basic traditional ways of computing and embarking on a new territory of true Cloud computing.

On Monday, Apple released iOS 5.1 beta 3 to developers for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch, adding on the previous beta versions released late last year. Apple released iOS 5.1 Beta 2 on December 12 with Build number 9B5127a. The current beta now uses build number 9B5141a.

iOS 5.1 beta 3 restores a sought after feature by many users, Enable 3G. The Enable 3G toggle allows users to completely shut off their cellular data, something that is currently unavailable. iOS users who use WiFi at work and home, experience heavy battery loss due to the fact that 3G and WiFi are running simultaneously. With this new feature, users can simply switch off 3G and use WiFi and can switch on WiFi just as easily. Apple noted under the toggle feature, that “3G offers faster data speeds but uses more battery power than EDGE”.

The new beta 3 is now available on Apple’s iOS developer program portal and is available to developers to download via OTA update. Apple also released Xcode 4.3 Developer Preview 3 and Apple TV Software Beta 2, as they have with all other beta updates in the past. It also appears that Apple has posted a new API to help developers flag app content that should not be backed up. The addition of these two new features and other security updates may not be the last of the updates, just yet.

iOS 5.1 introduces a new API to mark files or directories that should not be backed up. For NSURL objects, add the NSURLIsExcludedFromBackupKey attribute to prevent the corresponding file from being backed up.

With a beta 4 or the final release, Apple may add more features to help conserve battery life and improve stability.

Find My Mac, one of the features in Apple’s iCloud service went live for developers today as part of the beta testing. The service was added to the Developer Preview 4 that was released following Apple’s annual WWDC Conference. Find My Mac is essentially Find My iPhone on a larger platform and operates the same way.

Find My iPhone relies on GPS signals in order to locate a missing iPhone. The iPod, however, relies on the device to connect to a WiFi network. Through the WiFi connection, the user can then locate the missing device from the web or another iOS device. Find My Mac uses the same process in order to locate missing Macs and relies on the WiFi connection.

If a Mac is located using Find My Mac, users can send a message, remotely lock the screen, or even wipe out the entire hard drive on their Mac. Find My Mac is expected to be released to the public with the final release of iCloud this Fall and may be integrated into the Find My iPhone application and eventually iOS 5.

{via MacRumors}

Creator of Instapaper, Marco Arment said he wouldn’t call the new feature a competitor to his service until it syncs with iOS devices. With Instapaper’s big draw being its ability to stay in sync across multiple platforms, this was a reasonable statement to make. Problem is, that cross-platform syncing is now part of Reading List too.

A tipster has told 9to5Mac that Macs running the latest developer preview of Lion does actually sync with iOS’ Mobile Safari thanks to MobileMe bookmark syncing and, presumably, bookmark syncing through iTunes.

Using the new developer preview of Lion and an iPad the tipster discovered a new bookmark folder labelled Com.Apple.ReadingList. Inside are the contents of, you guessed it, Safari’s Reading List on the Mac.

What this means for Instapaper in the long run remains to be seen, though Arment has recently begun adding a social element to the service, presumably to stave off any competition that would arrive.

He probably didn’t expect it to come from Apple, or via Safari.

Itsalltech created a large list of all of the features released to the developers in the latest updates and we can already see that we’re getting many more UI changes as well as stability updates, than the upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. Here’s the list:

– New options in System Preferences>Mission Control
– There is a new animation when logging into the computer and displaying the desktop (seems buggy at this time)
– New Reminders menu in iCal
– New next desktop button in Dashboard space:
– New options when right-clicking (this appears to be buggy at this time):
– Compatibility to external displays has been improved (especially in Mission Control)
– There is now a Mission Control app
– Finders toolbar has been slightly updated:
– Desktop wallpapers have been updated (and new ones have been added);
– Reading List has been enabled in Safari:
– New changes in Mission Control: can add desktops right from Mission Control by clicking + button, close spaces from Mission Control, Mission Control no longer displaying text Desktop 1? etc., when hovering over desktop thumbnails, magnification of thumbnails are seen
– Scrollbars now change color depending on the background (black background=light scrollbar and vice versa)

Apple is expected to further discuss Mac OS X Lion in depth, come this June, during it’s annual WWDC conference held in San Francisco. Lion is pegged for a Summer release, similar to the release of Snow Leopard which arrived in late August of 2008.

What is interesting today as I review the last week is that a lot of the headlines are the same, or at least similar.

The iPhone has been hacked again. But this time it’s iPhone OS 4.0 that’s the victim. The iPad has been launched in the US and that also has been hacked. If you remember it was hacked before it was actually released!

AdMob advertising is now set to turn very firmly towards Android, but not for the reasons that AdMob intended. Most likely now because people developing for the iPhone have iAd from Apple to look forward to.

The iPad is selling well, and as we predicted Apple are having problems keeping the supply lines stocked.
Also Apple has upset a few people with changes to it’s Developer Contract… and caused a few ripples with some of it’s OS 4.0 features…

And the iPad review I think is the best of all at the end of this article.

iPhone hacked again!

As you all know Apple pushed out a Developer Preview of iPhone OS 4.0 on Thursday. It was hacked within hours. It’s clear that the hack was using an existing flaw in the OS, and it’s likely that this flaw will be plugged before the official release. However, the jailbreak method has not been made public yet just in case Apple don’t plug the hole and it can be used for a more significant OS update.

iPad hacked

We reported the week before last that “legendary” hacker Geohot had cryptically announced on his Twitter feed, and also on his blog, that he had potentially hacked the iPad. Since the iPad’s public debut this has been confirmed. Although again, it is not public yet. Other hackers have taken this and run with it, and we have seen videos and images of Cydia (an app that provides an alternative App Store to Apple’s) running on the iPad also.

iAd excites some iPhone Developers

As part of iPhone OS 4.0 Apple has introduced iAd. It’s an in-app advertising system which is native to iPhone OS. And is scheduled to be launched as part of iPhone OS 4.0 in the summer. Because it’s designed by Apple for iPhone OS the generally quality of the integration into iPhone apps promises to be more seamless than offerings like AdMob. And also more ambitious; offering videos which can be watched while your currently running app pauses, if you choose.

I would also guess that advertisers will be more thoroughly vetted than AdMob’s, and as such overall developers and customers can expect slightly higher quality ads. This may result in slightly better revenue for developers too. Whilst developers are still getting 60% of the revenue generated from Apple for ads their apps serve up. The same as from AdMob. I think we’re going to see more premium ads running through a system which Apple holds the reigns of. Expect a lot of developers to jump ship when this comes along, and AdMob to become more dependant on Android and jail-broken iPhones for business.

iPad selling like hot cakes

The iPad has indeed been selling in the 100’s of thousands. We were up to half a million units less than a week after launch when Steve Jobs was able to announce that figure on stage at the iPhone OS 4.0 event. Steve also confirmed that they were having problems keeping the supply line stocked and were working on that.

Apple causes Adobe, Unity and a few others some consternation

The iPhone OS 4.0 developer preview was made available for download right after the “sneak-peek” event last Thursday. In order to get it you had to agree to a new Developer contract. The key part of that developer contract was a clause (Clause 3.3.1) which now restricts what tools you can use to produce iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad apps.

Taken literally it means that things like Adobe’s upcoming tool in CS5 which can produce native iPhone apps from Flash apps is now not allowed to be used to produce products for sale through the iPhone App Store. Technically it also means that hugely successful and popular middleware developer tools like MonoTouch and Unity cannot be used either.

There has been a lot of hot debate in the last few days about how all this will pan out. Adobe have even started talking to government agencies in the US saying that this move by Apple will damage their business model. It’s all got rather ugly.
Steve Jobs has even taken to answering a few emails on the subject. With this to say :

We’ve been there before, and intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform.

The bottom line in all this is Apple don’t want Flash on iDevices. There are varying views on why. But from my point of view it’s simply that Flash offers a layer of abstraction away from Apple’s OS that makes the overall experience on iPhones a resource hog, and not something Apple want’s to endorse. There is also some truth to the argument that Flash apps don’t play well with a touch interface as it stands right now. That’s a fault of Flash and not the iPhone OS.

Obviously Unity and other’s are concerned as this rule technically hits them too. I wouldn’t worry about that too much though. Unity and MonoTouch are incredibly successful and I am sure Apple will work with them to find a way they can co-exist on the iPhone OS platform.

This new rule is all about Apple keeping control of it’s eco-system and then administering a level of quality from a clearly defined set of rules which gives them authority over what is allowed on their devices. And it’s all about quality. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Apple also sent some ripples through Social Gaming this week too

Also in iPhone OS 4.0 is the exciting and mysterious Game Center. Some people were concerned that this Apple driven Social Network for gaming, with some very similar features to those networks offered by OpenFeint, Ngmoco and Scoreloop (and also some similarities to XBox Live’s gaming network) would be a death blow for existing iPhone and iPod Touch social networks. This is not the case at all. We have spoken to all those existing networks this week and all have said unreservedly that they welcome Apple’s move, look forward to working with them, and augmenting what Apple offer where necessary, including offering cross platform networking to Android and other networks… So panic over there.

Apple (AAPL) shares just keep on rising:

As of today’s roundup Apple’s shares are at another all time high of $241 each. This is no doubt off the back of all the iPhone OS 4.0 announcements, and iPad sales success. But it’s rumoured that this week Apple will also launch updated portable computers too… It’s certainly a super busy time for the elves in the various Apple workshops around the world!

If you haven’t read it yet, pop over to Ars Technica for their in depth iPad review: The best iPad review so far. If you haven’t; got an iPad, and haven’t read a review yet.

This is the one to drool over : [arstechnica.com]

Let us know your thoughts below. Did we miss anything?