It's been a long-debated topic as to the pricing (and availability) of Apple's next operating system release: Mac OS X 10.6 - a.k.a. Snow Leopard. However at the annual Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco Apple has (if you'll excuse the pun) let the cat out of the bag and announced that Snow Leopard will be available in September for $29 (if you're upgrading from Mac OS X Leopard), with Family Packs for up to 5 computers costing just $49 - again, if you're upgrading from 10.5.

Long-touted as 'just' a behind-the-scenes update, Snow Leopard features support for Microsoft Exchange, a re-written Finder and an all-new QuickTime player with hardware acceleration and built-in YouTube uploading. There's also a tonne of new developer technologies to allow developers to handle multi-processor machines with Grand Central, and an all-round speed increase for all the OS components.

Apple's official web pages have yet to be updated with the pricing details or more information beyond the original holding pages, however in today's WWDC keynote Apple confirmed dates, pricing and some more features - as well as confirming that Mac OS X Snow Leopard is indeed going to only run on Intel-based Macs.

If you're running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on an Intel machine, the options are between a Mac Box Set (featuring Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09) for $169 or 5-User Family Pack which brings you the iLife, iWork and Snow Leopard package for $229.

If you're wanting to stay up to date on everything at WWDC, be sure to stop by our good friends at TUAW who're covering the conference throughout this week.

One of the selling points of the Palm Pre is that it can sync with iTunes just like an iPhone can, minus the ability to play old DRM-protected purchases from the Apple store. The thing is, that amazing iTunes support comes from a hacky workaround where the Pre passes itself off as Apple hardware when it's connected. It won't show up in iTunes as a "Palm Pre," it'll show up as an iPod.

What can Apple do about it, though? An escalating battle to break the hack could require Apple to release firmware updates, which is always annoying for users, or could be fixed on the software side with an iTunes update. The newest release of iTunes, 8.2, reportedly doesn't break Pre's syncing support.

What will the outcome be? Do you think we'll see a lawsuit, a firmware or iTunes-side fix from Apple, or something completely different?

According to May numbers from analytics service StatCounter, Opera is once again the most popular mobile browser in the world, narrowly overtaking the iPhone's built-in Safari browser. Of all the webpages that were loaded in mobile browsers in May, Opera had a 24.6% share to the iPhone's 22.3%. Nokia came in 3rd with 17.9%.

Opera started the year ahead of the iPhone browser, but Apple's product passed it in February. Although they're both mobile browsers, we're comparing two very different products here.

Opera is supported on a huge number of devices from different mobile carriers worldwide, while Safari only runs on the iPhone. In effect, the competition doesn't tell us as much about which browser is the better product as it does about how popular the iPhone is compared to other devices.

The visualizer that is built in to the latest versions of iTunes used to be called Magnetosphere before Apple bought it and rebranded it simply "iTunes Visualizer". Strangely, the number of visualizers that iTunes ships with now is very small, probably in accordance with Apple's declaration that their new visualizer is the last visualizer you will ever need. While I like looking at Magnetosphere, for my tastes it isn't responsive enough to the actual music that is playing.

If you're also left a little cold by the iTunes Visualizer, you might want to check out UsingMac's list of "funtastic" iTunes visualizers. In particular take a look at Fountain Music and Cubism as examples of visualizers that really respond to the music that is actually playing.

There have been plenty of "Apple stupidly rejects app X" posts over the last couple of months. The reason for rejection may vary, though usually it's blamed on inappropriate content - which makes no sense if you take a listen to some of the albums for sale through iTunes.

What makes even less sense is Cartier (yes, the fancy-pants watch, jewelry, and knick-knack people) threatening to sue Apple for trademark infringement.

Apple didn't develop the apps in question, but since they allowed the apps into the store and possibly profited from them that gives Cartier all the legal ammunition they need to release the hounds. It doesn't matter that Apple's 30% take may have netted them ten or twenty bucks in this case.

What does matter is that Apple has deep pockets. Who can afford to pay damages - Apple, or the guy who skinned his watch app with a Cartier Tank? Apple, of course.

It's a good thing Cartier was successful with their threat. Maybe now they can go after Adobe for allowing users to Photoshop images of Tank watches.

[via the Register]

Eucalyptus, a gorgeous eBook reader for the iPhone, was initially rejected from Apple's application store for the most absurd of reasons. See, Eucalyptus' extensive library of great literature comes from Project Gutenberg, an open source book project, and one of the books in Gutenberg's library is The Kama Sutra. Apple apparently objected to this during the review process, despite the fact that other approved readers like Stanza and Amazon's Kindle can also access the book. So can Apple's Safari browser, because Project Gutenberg's books are all available through its website.

Fortunately, this mistake didn't stop Eucalyptus from eventually making it into the app store, where it's now available for $9.99. Buying the app gets you an extremely slick UI, great page-turning animations, and an organization scheme for books that works a lot like iTunes does for music. I actually totally buy into the Eucalyptus marketing pitch, which is that, for the price of one book, you can have 20,000 books in a great-looking reader.

After I posted about the Baby Shaker iPhone app controversy, we got an email from the developers of a fart-soundboard app called Crudebox, telling their story of rejection from the App Store. Fart apps were the early targets of public outcry when Apple first started vetting software for its app store. They're obscene! Why do some get in, while others are rejected?

When Apple rejected Crudebox twice because it was too offensive, the developers decided to take a different approach. They reskinned the app as "Prudebox," leaving all the original sound effects -- farts, yawns, burps, vomiting -- in place, but replacing slime with flowers and bunnies. They also made some changes to the names of their sound effects: "Wet Fart" became "Big Toot."

Surprise! Prudebox, an app with the exact functionality of Crudebox, was accepted to Apple's app store. This might not be the most egregious example of arbitrary rejection we've ever seen from Apple, and it's not really a life-changing application, but one could make a slippery slope argument. Is a Big Toot really that much more acceptable than a Wet Fart?

If you're interested in having Prudebox for yourself, Alkali Media has a promo code that will get one randomly selected commenter a free copy. Sound off!

Apple's policy of approving every iPhone app that goes into its store has led to delays for developers and plenty of controversy whenever a questionable app makes it through the process. The latest stir was over a "baby-shaker" app that was available in the store from Monday to Wednesday of this week before Apple pulled it, according to The Examiner. Apparently, the object of the game was to see how long you could listen to the crying of a cute illustrated baby before you would shake your iPhone to make it stop.

People were understandably upset. The app got quite a bit of news coverage before Apple was finally able to pull it, and there's been no comment so far about how it got into the app store in the first place. It's really hard for me to see the pro-baby-shaker side of this story. Even if you feel like it's just a game and people should lighten up -- after all, so many video games involve killing -- it still doesn't make sense for Apple to have let it pass, considering the much less offensive apps that have been removed from the store.

It's fine for Apple to have policies about what kind of apps they will and won't approve for sale on iTunes. It's their platform, after all, so they've got every right to decide what gets put on the store's virtual shelves.

But I need some help with this one.

You've seen those pens with the sex kitten in the barrel? Tip the pen and giggle like a schoolboy as her clothes go floating away. They're harmless, and hardly what most people would classify "excessively sexual content."

So if you were to, say, turn that concept into an iPhone app it would be equally harmless, right? Apparently not.

Peekababe, we're told, was rejected on precisely those grounds. Check it out for yourself on YouTube. Now convince me that the images presented are in any way more lewd than, say, the lyrics of 2 Live Crew. Seriously.

If I can buy Me So Horny or any of their other tracks with less publishable titles in the iTunes store, how can Apple justify banning an app for images that you can find in any Sears catalog or plastered in the front window of a Victoria's Secret?

It's time for some consistency, Apple. If you allow audio tracks laden with lyrics that compete with scenes from a Vivid Video release in the iTunes store, it doesn't make sense to block an app that amounts to a slightly rude bachelor party favor.

Thanks for the tip, Tom!

Starting April 7, Apple's long-standing policy of selling every song in the iTunes Store for 99 cents is reportedly going to be shaken up. Hot tracks will go up to $1.29, and some less-than-hot selections will drop to 69 cents.

The LA Times is reporting that most songs will probably stay at the current 99 cent price, and that the lower price could be used to promote new artists. Meanwhile, some classic artists with consistent high sales might end up at the higher $1.29 price.

If you're a fan of obscure bands, this could work for you by lowering prices at the end of the long tail, saving you money on your hidden gems. On the other hand, popular songs wouldn't be popular if they didn't have a lot of fans -- fans who could get angry at having the price jacked up suddenly after years of paying one price for a track, regardless of popularity.

Good news for everyone, though: tracks at all price points are reportedly going to be DRM free and playable on any mp3-playing gadget.

You probably know that installing a copy of the new iPhone 3.0 firmware that you grabbed off a torrent site is illegal, but you should also know that it's a royal pain in the butt. Users on iPhone forums are discovering the hard way that a copy of 3.0 is no good unless you're a registered developer, so it can be unlocked on your device. Otherwise you're in for a world of hurt, with hacky workarounds that require you to turn off your Internet connection every time you want to use your phone with iTunes.

Once you've gone to 3.0 without registering, it turns out to be really hard to go back. Users having trouble downgrading back to the current version of the firmware are all over iPhone forums, annoying legitimate developers (or their friends -- each dev can apparently sign up 100 devices) with questions about restoring to the old version. Meanwhile, the iPhone just throws a bunch of errors at them. I'm sure a way to restore will pop up soon, but if it doesn't, you could be holding a brick until the official release. Is it really worth all this trouble to avoid waiting a few months for copy and paste?

Note: Gizmodo has a step-by-step guide to downgrading.

Enthusiasts love leaks, and early Windows 7 builds aren't the only OS that beta testers are sharing with the P2P community. Yes, Apple's upcoming Snow Leopard is starting to spread on popular torrent sites as well.

Currently, there are at least two builds. 10a190 was first to be appear (on The Pirate Bay, Mininova, and Demonoid), and now 10a222 has surfaced on Demonoid as well. No, you won't find the links to the files here, especially after Apple's full frontal legal assault on Wired the other day.

If you're brave enough to download it, keep in mind that these are still alpha builds, and may be extremely buggy. Some downloaders have stated as much, and caution others to be patient and wait for a later build.

But hey, where would the fun of playing with a leaked OS be if it was totally stable?

The iPhone App Store may be filled with games, productivity apps, and umm... other utilities. But up until recently there was one thing that you couldn't find in the App Store: web browsers that would compete with the Safari browser that comes with the phone.

But over hte past day, at least four alternative web browsers have shown up with prices ranging from free to about $2. The browsers add features like a full screen mode with no toolbars to an algorithm that compensates for your shaky hand.

All the browsers are still based on WebKit, which is Safari's rendering engine. So it doesn't look like we'll be seeing Opera or Firefox for the iPhone just yet. But it's a start.

[via Engadget / image via Gizmodo]

If you're using Safari as your default browser, you may want to change your RSS feed handler. As reported by developer Brian Mastenbrook, there's a major flaw in Safari that could allow an attacker to directly access files on your hard drive.

Apple users can simply change their default RSS reader. Windows users, on the other hand, are advised to use a different browser for the time being.

The problem has been acknowledged by Apple, though there's currently no information as to when a fix is coming. It'll be interesting to see if they respond as quickly as Microsoft did to the unseen IE threat.

[ via jkOnTheRun ]

It's been almost 17 months to the day since Apple last made significant (paid) updates to their flagship iWork productivity suite, but the company has announced that iWork 09 is now available.

All three iWork applications have seen updates, and Apple has also announced an iWork.com Public Beta allowing users to view and comment on iWork documents.

Among the changes to the desktop applications, Keynote allows you to animate objects automatically, whilst the Smart Move option allows you to slickly animate objects between slides. Pages, the iWork word processor, now ships with a built in 'Full Screen' mode for full-focus writing, and outline mode for project organization. There's also another 40 templates for your documents in this new version. The Numbers spreadsheet application allows you to categorize data far more quickly than in previous versions, includes an enhanced function browser and a formula list to quickly jump around your documents.

iWork '09 is available for $79 from the Apple Store.