Apple news blog

Reuters reports on information from Apple’s supply chain indicating that touchscreens for the company’s long-rumored tablet device are in manufacturing and that production of the device’s casing, which is reportedly aluminum, will begin next month. …

AppleInsider reports on information from a source claiming that Apple is looking to acquire significant quantities of LED camera flash components, sparking speculation that the company is planning to add flash capabilities to its camera on the iPhone…

Imagination Technologies today announced the launch of its PowerVR SGX545 graphics IP core, a new, high-end addition to the company’s SGX series already used in the iPhone 3GS and third-generation iPod touch. In comparison to the SGX535 used in Appl…

The Apple Menu’s Recent Items menu has a Clear Menu command, which clears out all the entries in that menu. But what if your want to clear just one category — just Documents, for example?

You can clear just one type of Recent Items by going to System Preferences » Appearance, and temporarily setting the ‘Number of recent items’ for the category you want to clear to None. That category will be cleared out, and then you can reset it to the number of items you usually keep (the items previously there will not reappear). This works for in 10.6 and probably earlier, but I never discovered it before.

(If you have the Recent Items Stack in your Dock, and you clear the category that the stack is currently showing, it will disappear, although it will still take up a Dock space. In other words, it’s a Stack with nothing in it. If you click on that empty-looking space, your Dock may restart — at least mine does. Don’t be alarmed; no harm is done.)

I have a few applications launch on start up that include menu bar icons (Delibar, Dropbox, Adium, etc). I noticed their placement in the menu bar related to their on-boot order. Even when ordered them in my preferred order in the Login Items tab of the Accounts System Preferences panel, I couldn’t get the icons to come out in that order due to application launch times.

Tonight I created a simple Automator script that adds a pause (the Pause action in the Utilities (10.6) or Automator (10.5) Library) before launching an application. For example, I added a seven-second pause before launching Dropbox, so that it’s menu bar icon would load after that of Delibar.

I then call the delayed launcher(s) in the Login Items panel to control the load order.

[robg adds: Another alternative, as covered in this hint, is to put all of your login items into an AppleScript, and use timing an…

So many times, we need to create passwords, whether it be for an Internet forum, online banking, email, or any number of other scenarios. If you’re like me, it soon becomes tedious to create a strong password, and I’ve caught myself spacing out while considering the possibilities. OS X’s built-in Keychain app has a great little tool to generate passwords, but that only works within Keychain Access, or when creating a new user account (that little key icon next to the password field). That is, until now…

Enter the good folk at CodePoetry.net — they created a small (free and open source) application, Password Assistant, that will launch the same window that Keychain Access uses to generate passwords.

Just drop the application anywhere you’d like, and when you launch it, you are presented with the options to create a password of varying styles (memorable, lett…

Independent software developer Alex Roberts today announces Mercury 2.0, a visually distinct weather application for iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Get visual weather information wherever you find yourself in the world. With up to the minute temperature and conditions; forecasted temperatures; precise sunrise and sunset information; and user defined locations. Mercury gets out of your way with a clean and elegant interface, and shows you exactly what you need to know.

The Daily News of Palo Alto, California reports that Apple has filed planning documents there for a new retail store that the company is calling “a new prototype for the company.” While Apple’s name has not been officially associated with the projec…

Macsoftex today announces iTost 1.1, their collection of Russian toasts for iPhone and iPod touch. Since ancient times the ability to beautifully toasts admired and respected people. Master toast or toaster – a key figure for any celebration. It was he, with toast, parables, and life histories leads the table and creates a cheerful mood of celebration. In order to learn how to speak beautifully toasted, not necessarily be a philologist or a professional toast-master, to be observed.

Quapps Interactive today announced Bunny Bang 1.0, their new game for iPhone and iPod touch. Bunny Bang is a fast paced action game that sees you solve codes in order to save Bunny. You have 60 seconds to solve the code and prevent the explosion. When you have selected numbers our number watcher will inform you if you have any correct numbers or if any are in the correct positions. It is then up to you to figure out the combination before time runs out and save the bunny from rabbit stew.