Apple news blog

Line at Apple Store Chicago, IL today by wowk1234
Fortune reports that the iPhone 3G is still a scarce item to find. Lines continue to form at many stores, and as of this morning, 21 states were sold out of the iPhone.<p class=”quote”…

Apple seeks not only damages and any profits Psystar has earned, but also a recall of all Open Computers sold, according to a copy of the complaint seen by CNET News.

Apple has quietly released a 1.1.5 firmware upgrade for the iPod Touch. The 1.1.5 firmware remains a free upgrade path for firmware 1.1.4 users who chose not to upgrade to 2.0 ($9.95).

The 2.0 upgrade was released over the weekend an…

In April, we reported that a company called Psystar was offering the first Mac clone. Using off the shelf PC parts and a modified version of Mac OS X Leopard, Psystar promised a cheaper alternative to an Apple Mac.

Despite some initia…

This week, I installed iTunes 7.7 so that I could remotely control iTunes with my iPod touch. After updating iTunes, every time I play a title that includes an umlaut (like ä, ü or ö), iTunes damages the ID3 tag, and I get “Die ƒrzte” instead of “Die Ärzte,” for example.

I wanted to downgrade back to version 7.6.2, but it wasn’t as easy as just copying the app from my PowerBook to my main Mac. Then I had the idea that it’s possibly a matter of the ID3 tag version. When you select a track and open the track info, you can see the version of the ID3 tag. For me, most of my tracks had an ID3 Tag v2.2.

I selected all tracks and converted the ID3 tag (via the Advanced » Convert ID3 Tags menu item) to the latest version (2.4), and that did the trick! Now playing a title with umlauts doesn’t damage the ID3 tag. I don’t know what Apple did that causes iTunes to have a problem with umlauts — nor do I know if I’ll have to convert the ID3 tag version for all new tracks …

If you switch between Excel for the PC and Excel on the Mac (either 2004 or 2008), you probably know that there are many differences in the keyboard shortcuts between the two platforms. To make switching back and forth more seamless, you can use Excel’s ability (or the system’s) to remap keyboard shortcuts on the Mac to match those on the PC (or vice versa, of course). However, there’s an undocumented but often-used keyboard shortcut that seems immune to these solutions — the keyboard shortcut for “edit in cell.”

On a PC, you can edit the current cell’s contents by pressing F2; on a Mac, it’s Control-U (F2 copies the cell’s contents). I much prefer the simplicity of F2 over Control-U, however, it doesn’t seem possible to customize this shortcut. This “edit in cell” command doesn’t appear in any of Excel’s menus, nor does it appear in the list of all commands in the keyboard shortcuts section of Excel’s customization dialog. Google searching didn’t turn up any simple soluti…

If you want to save an image in Safari with the iPhone 2.0 software, simply touch it and hold. A dialog will appear that offers Save Image or Cancel. Choose Save Image, and the image will be stored in your iPhone’s photo library, and will be transferred to iPhoto on the next sync.

When entering a web or e-mail address in Mobile Safari, you can now tap and hold on the <em>.com</em> button to get a pop-up with .net, .edu, and .org. Note that you must have firmware version 2.0 for iPhone or iPod touch to make this work.

If you need to remember what a screen message looks like — whether it is a warning, a pop-up, or even a setting you don’t want to forget — try this.
First, use Command-Shift-4 to grab a screenshot of the region (press the Space Bar to just capture the window if you want). OK, a lot of users know that already. However, once you’ve grabbed the screenshot, slip it into iPhoto, and create an album named something like Warnings or Apple Messages, and you’ve created your own memory reminder tool.

I have used this trick for mail settings, internet connection speed tests, my wireless settings, questions I have when I go to a One on One appointment, and general reminders of other various settings. Try it, and you’ll never again have to guess “Now what did it say?”

Veiosoft plans to release software on July 28 that will unleash more of the computing power inside Apple’s wireless handhelds. The $7 program distributed through the AppStore will allow any Mac, Windows or Linux machine to recognize an …