Apple news blog

Canadian cell provider Rogers Wireless will put most of its emphasis in the next few weeks on the BlackBerry line and music phones, according to a roadmap slip from BGR. The details confirm the launch of the BlackBerry Kickstart and add …

Apple recently made claims of enhanced environmental awareness, after demonstrating the iPhone 3Gs new potato starch-based packaging, while Greenpeace noted the device itself was “not green”, as with the first device. …

Of all the products that Apple could do, a smart TV makes the most sense. It would be like the AppleTV, but without a separate box to hook up. All the functions of the AppleTV would be built into the new Apple TV. …

A new patent application (as detailed by AppleInsider) by Apple reveals that Apple has been working on the ability for iPhone and iPod touch owners to wirelessly stream content from their at home iTunes library for use on the road.

A…

In, Leopard, it’s possible to make a keyboard shortcut for contextual menu items — for instance, for the Show Package Contents entry in the Finder’s contextual menu.

This feature can be quite handy in other programs as well, such as Mail or iTunes. In those two programs, I use it for the commands to move messages or songs to mailboxes or playlists. The key is to create a shortcut in Keyboard Shortcuts tab of the Keyboard & Mouse System Preferences panel with the name of the playlist or mailbox you want to move an item into, and choose the appropriate program as the Application.

Note that this will only work if your playlist (or mailbox) name is not already a menu item somewhere (so your “Close Window” playlist is out). If you have more than one playlist (or mailbox) of the same name, the fi…

If you’re using Time Machine to back up Macs to a Time Capsule or networked hard drive, each backup is contained in a single sparse disk image bundle (.sparsebundle) disk file. When your backup contains weeks’ or months’ of data, if that single file is lost or damaged, you’ll obviously lose all of your backups. It is therefore quite important to back up the sparse bundle and test the backup! Here’s one way to do that that, though there are many other methods available:

1. Copy the sparse bundle back to your Mac (and then remember to exclude it from Time Machine’s backups, using the Options button in the Time Machine System Preferences panel).
2. Use Disk Utility’s Repair Disk feature on the mounted .sparesebundle to insure that it’s in good shape. This should be quite fast when run on the local copy of the sparse image bundle.

If Disk Utility doesn’t find any issue…

I have noticed something interesting: When visiting certain Apple websites (MobileMe sites in particular) on the iPhone, the URL is modified, with /iPhone/ being interjected. Thus the iPhone is being recognized as the originator, and the site is tailored accordingly. The problem here is that you don’t necessarily get to the site you really want.

For example, if you want to go to me.com, you don’t get to log in there, but rather you get a page advertising MobileMe. Obviously Apple is trying to tell you that you have direct access to MobileMe through other means on the iPhone. This doesn’t help if the MobileMe feature you wish to avail yourself of doesn’t work on the iPhone, such as sending from MobileMe aliases or viewing subscribed calendars.

Now I’ve noticed another instance of where this acts to your disadvantage on the iPhone. If you create a private webgallery (i.e., have it not listed in your main we…

I have notice that my iPhone running v2.0 will remember the volume for headphones and speakers independantly. For example, if you have headphones connected and set the volume to 50%, then remove them and set the volume to 100%, when you reattach the headphones the volume returns to 50% and vice versa. This also works on an iPhone 1st generation running v2.0. I do not know if this was a feature in v1.0, however.

[robg adds: This works in both phone mode and iPod mode; the onscreen display when setting the ringer volume level even tells you that you’re setting the headphone ringer level when you’ve got headphones plugged in.]

Rechargeable diNovo Edge Keyboard, Mac Edition features slim design, optimized Mac layout, PerfectStroke key system.

Logitech has announced the Logitech diNovo Edge Mac Edition, the newest addition to Logitech’s line of diNovo keyboards and the first diNovo keyboard specially designed for the Mac. “We’re truly delighted to offer discerning Mac …