Apple is rumored to have quietly ceased support for OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, having once again left the aging OS out of its latest batch of security upgrades. Speculation that Snow Leopard was being put out to pasture began again on Tuesday, after Apple failed to patch the platform while rolling out updates for Mavericks, the latest version of OS X, along with Mountain Lion (10.8) and Lion (10.7).
Apple finally settled the iPad trademark case in mainland China, paying Proview $60 million to put the issue to rest. Now it looks like Cupertino will be coming under fire from another target: a Chinese chemical company is suing Apple over a Snow Leopard trademark. Jiangsu Xuebao claims to have filed the electrical equipment trademark protection back in 2000.
This week Apple has been reported to be sending out an offer which includes a free install DVD for their operating system Mac OS X Snow Leopard - this in order for users to then upgrade to Lion and have access to their premiere cloud storage service iCloud. This offer has been reported by MacGasm where the three steps to make this process a reality start with an email sent out to people already working with Apple's MobileMe. Have you gotten your email yet?
If the operating system on your MacBook is several years behind because you're not the sort to buy updates, Apple is giving away one of its more recent updates for free. Apple is sending out updates, for users who sign up, to Snow Leopard. That isn't the most recent update. Snow Leopard was released in August 2009.
If you refuse to update to Mac OS X Lion from Snow Leopard for the time being, you may still be able to take advantage of Apple's iCloud. This news comes from a message that one developer received after he upgraded his MobileMe account to the iCloud but attempted to access it via a machine still running OS X Tiger. The message indicated that the minimum requirement for compatibility with the iCloud is Mac OS X Snow Leopard version 10.6.9.
If you haven't updated to the new Mac OS X Lion just yet, then you might want to get a new OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard update before you make the plunge. Apple has just released a version 1.1 supplemental update for 10.6.8 that replaces the previous version and aims to improve the transition from Snow Leopard to Lion.
Apple has released Safari 5.1, bringing Mac users still running OS X Snow Leopard - as well as Windows users - up to date with the version of the browser bundled in OS X Lion. The updated version includes Reading List, allowing links and pages to be saved for later review, together with Resume, which can automatically reopen all previous tabs when you restart the browser.
Apple's MacBook Pro refresh last week didn't get a press event with huge fanfare, but it's arguably the most important update to the notebook range in some time. Bringing in Intel's 2011 Core processor range across the board, and spicing up the larger models with AMD discrete graphics, the new versions may look the same but they promise a huge leap in performance. The high-end 15-inch MacBook Pro arrived on the SlashGear test bench last Thursday and we've been putting it through its paces ever since. Could this really be the best notebook around? Check out the full review after the cut.
Looks like we should all brace for an Apple update; according to World of Mac’s sources, the Cupertino company is readying to release Mac OS X 10.6.3. The latest developer build of the update – 10D558 – went out recently, with the accompanying notes left unchanged; the sources “continue to insist” that it’s almost ready for a general release.
In an unforeseen twist to the Apple/Psystar “clone Mac” legal wrangles, the upstart clone maker has apparently inked a settlement deal that will only be called upon should all of their appeals fall flat. The deal calls for Psystar to pay an as-yet unspecified amount in damages to Apple as well as cease pre-installing OS X onto their computers; however it may not prevent sales of OS-free machines, onto which customers would then be free to load OS X onto themselves using Psystar’s Rebel EFI software tool.
There's a lot to like about Sony's VAIO X ultraportable - its indecently-skinny build, the engineering intelligence that went into its design, and its lengthy battery life just to name a few things - but if you're less than inspired by Windows 7 then how about a Mac OS X version? That's not one of Sony's official options, but insanelymac forum member Asama took it upon himself to throw OS X Snow Leopard onto the VAIO X himself.
To do so he used the hacked together build of Snow Leopard that's been put together for the Sony VAIO P, reasoning that many of the components used in that don't-call-it-a-netbook machine were the same as used in the VAIO X. Happily it installed quite merrily, though as expected the WiFi doesn't work. Where fixing that in the VAIO P is a case of taking out the wireless card and swapping in a different one, it's a more arduous task on the VAIO X since so much has been soldered into place in the name of space-saving.
With Snow Leopard happily padding around hundreds of thousands of Macs around the world, it comes as little surprise to hear that Apple are already a few weeks into development of OS X 10.7. Sign of the upcoming OS refresh has been spotted in the change log of the open source "launchd" framework: a new entry for Mac OS build number "11A47" has turned up, and going by Apple's general nomenclature for build codes, that points squarely at OS X 10.7.
