Thursday, July 24, 2014

Apple : Mac OS X Yosemite Beta available to download for first million volunteers

Apple : Mac OS X Yosemite Beta available to download for first million volunteers

Mac OS X Yosemite Beta available to download for first million volunteers

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Mac OS X Yosemite Beta available to download for first million volunteers

Apple has, as promised, opened up a pre-release version of its forthcoming Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite software to Mac users who signed up to beta test the operating system.

Just yesterday the firm encouraged those outside the developer community to sign up for the public tests, with the first million sign-ups gaining access ahead of the expected October roll out.

Now, the successful applicants who registered can log into Apple's beta testing site using their Apple ID to gain a redemption code for the Mac App Store.

Right now, the beta site is be down for updates, which may mean Apple has been overwhelmed by the demand or it has already filled all of the available slots for the scheme.

Proceed with caution

Apple is advising those who gain access, to install Yosemite beta onto a secondary Mac, currently running Mavericks, or at least to make a time machine back-up of their current state before doing so.

Early reports suggest the operating system is already pretty solid, but bugs could cause programs to crash and various areas of the software to act in unexpected ways. Other areas, designed to work closely with iOS 8, will also not be functional at this time.

Have you downloaded the beta yet? Let us know your thoughts below. If not, check out our early hands on with Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite.

Industry voices: Apple's partnership with IBM: A potential game-changer for business ICT

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Industry voices: Apple's partnership with IBM: A potential game-changer for business ICT

No one ever gets fired for choosing IBM. It's one of the truisms of business. And indeed for the corporate IBM has always been the 'safe' choice. Received wisdom remains that if an IT administrator chooses an IBM system and something goes wrong, people will put it down to the nature of computing technology. People might grumble, but the incident will probably be forgotten.

Apple, on the other hand, is often regarded as expensive and if you aren't a designer or a show-off buying its products, is somewhat synonymous with 'spending more than you need to'. Big business doesn't routinely use Apple's consumer focussed products.

At first glance, it's hard to imagine a more unlikely partnership - Apple, the epitome of cool consumer electronics and mobile computing and IBM, the epitome of the opposite – an enterprise focussed software and services giant and the 'safe' choice.

However the partnership seems actually to be the result of a fantastic piece of gap analysis. Both companies need to broaden their appeal to grow, they don't compete, and together they drive accessibility and functionality into the hands of corporate - and probably SME - customers. It's a very clever deal.

It's all about mobility

Many businesspeople use Apple hardware, however integration with other systems hasn't been that successfully implemented. It has got better with the arrival of Microsoft Office on IOS, but it doesn't go much deeper, certainly not for the enterprise.

I don't think this announcement changes that problem, it sidesteps it. IOS devices are a window onto data or entertainment, with the added spice of IBM apps fronting enterprise services they can become a seriously useful business tool.

Someone asked me after I tweeted about this announcement if I thought it could be bad for Apple because they'd be seen as a hardware company. I think they already are. And now that Silicon Valley has realised that, nowadays, good hardware is harder to do than good software, it isn't a bad thing.

The partnership between two of the world's global technology giants will see Apple stepping up its efforts to transfer its dominance in the consumer market to the highly lucrative business user market. At the same time, IBM will bolster its enterprise offerings and gain a route to market for SMEs and its applications will become available via the App Store.

Big Blue as an Apple reseller

IBM will also become the first systems integrator to sell iPhones and iPads coupled with industry-specific "solutions" -- apps, services and other software -- to enterprises worldwide. Governments and several public sector organisations could have their heads turned by bespoke apps and business services on iPads and iPhones backed by IBM's famed big data and analytics expertise.

As things stand Apple enjoys enviable consumer, 'prosumer' and SME cut-through, while IBM enjoys huge market share in the enterprise arena. In short Apple brings the hardware and IBM brings the business ready software, so on paper it is a match made in heaven.

Traditionally one of the obstacles to businesses adopting iOS has always been a lack of enterprise-grade applications. The combination of IBM, its cloud delivery mechanism, and its understanding of enterprise-level support will certainly make it much more of a viable option for businesses going forward, Carrenza included, I think that is probably the same for most organisations.

  • Dan Sutherland is CEO of Carrenza, a Cloud service provider that blends IaaS and PaaS capabilities to make businesses better.

Apple will reportedly flush out the year with 12-inch MacBook, 4K iMac

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Apple will reportedly flush out the year with 12-inch MacBook, 4K iMac

Apple may have a very busy end of the year schedule with larger iPhones, thinner iPads, OS X Yosemite and now more rumors of 12-inch MacBook.

Sources have told 9to5 Mac Apple is working on a smaller 12-inch MacBook Pro featuring a much thinner and slightly lighter aluminum body and a Retina display to boot.

Supposedly Apple believes its new Retina MacBook will be another significant leap in the laptop industry.

In the past Apple has come up with novel designs for its notebooks, like the unibody MacBook Air first announced in January 2008. This design bled into Apple's larger MacBook Pro line up and eventually led to the company abandoning optical drives all together.

Seeing as there are so many laptops trying to emulate MacBook Air and Retina Pro's shape, Apple could cause another upheaval in the industry with this rumored thinner model.

Super high-resolution iMacs

The same sources also suggested that Apple is working on a new 27-inch iMac or standalone to feature the hardware makers' first 4K display.

9to5 Mac claims the pixel-doubling technology of the current 27-inch iMac and Thunderbolt displays aren't up to snuff, but that could change with Apple's next line of products.

If anything the sharper interface of OS X Yosemite provides evidence that the Cupertino company is already laying the groundwork for new Retina machines. On the apps-side Apple is also purportedly working on updates for iMovie and Final Cut Pro to get them ready to work with quadruple HD footage.

Optimized to the max

The last bit of titillating rumor surrounds Apple's plans to continue working on OS X Yosemite until the last possible second. Supposedly Apple will continue releasing updated Developer Previews from the first version it seeds on September 29 all the way to early October.

To get a sense of how close this will be to Yosemite's actual release, Apple will purportedly release a golden master build (the version ready for commercial distribution) sometime around October 10.

Also rumored for an October unveiling? The iWatch.

OS X Yosemite just released into a beta and its already showing a lot of promise from our hands on review. With a down-to-the-wire development process the final release could be something truly spectacular - or potentially filled with tons of last minute bugs.

  • The iPhone 6 should bring Apple's largest phone size to date
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