VNC Viewer proves a hit on the iPad

RealVNC provides remote access and control of Mac OS X, Windows, Linux or UNIX computers from an iPad with VNC Viewer

Iphone 4 - powerful, easier to use, and more indispensable than ever

When creating iPhone 4, Apple designers and engineers didn’t start with a clean sheet of paper. They started with three years of experience designing and building the phones that redefined what a phone can do. iPhone 4 is the result of everything they’ve learned so far. And it’s all contained in a beautiful enclosure a mere 9.3 millimeters thin, making iPhone 4 the world’s thinnest smartphone.

Engineering Class

All the breakthrough technology in iPhone 4 is situated between two glossy panels of aluminosilicate glass — the same type of glass used in the windshields of helicopters and high-speed trains. Chemically strengthened to be 20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic, the glass is ultradurable and more scratch resistant than ever. It’s also recyclable.

Retina Display

The 960-by-640 backlit LCD display boasts a pixel density of 326 pixels per inch, making it the highest-resolution phone screen ever. To achieve this, Apple engineers developed pixels so small — a mere 78 micrometers across — that the human eye can’t distinguish individual pixels. That makes text remarkably sharp and graphics incredibly vivid. IPS technology also provides excellent color and contrast from almost any viewing angle.

Apple Safari 4 final: no top tabs, performance updates for 10.6

Apple has released the final version of Safari 4. With it, the company has delivered a number of subtle changes from the earlier betas and told us what to expect out of Safari when Snow Leopard ships in September.

One of the bullet point announcements during Bertrand Serlet's talk about Apple's software innovations in Leopard and Snow Leopard was the immediate release of the final version of Safari 4. The browser has been in beta since February of 2009 and introduced a number of user interface changes that proved to be highly contentious.
The most polarizing of these was the decision to place browsing tabs pointing upwards and invading the title bar area. This, plus the decision to remove the loading progress bar, set off the Safari userbase, but some of those tweaks have now been changed.
With the final version of Safari 4, Apple has changed both of these, opting for middle-ground compromises. On the tab situation, Apple has merely updated the visual appearance slightly and returned the tabs to their original home beneath the bookmarks bar. Many people find this arrangement much easier to digest, as it again draws a better distinction between the coordination needed to move the whole window or reorganize you tabs.
On a less-discussed point, Apple has changed the location of the option to leave the tab bar on at all times. You can now tweak this behavior via the View menu (Show/Hide Tab Bar).



The second big change is to the loading progress indicators. In the betas, Apple opted to remove the progress bar that loaded behind the address text box, and instead chose to move to a spinning indicator on the tabs themselves. In the final version, this is replaced by a loading widget attached to the right half of the address bar. This version is much more visible compared to the spinners on tabs, as they would sometimes appear to get lost in the color contrast of the spinner itself and the background color of their tab. The new indicator you see above to the right is much more obvious, but still lacks the precision of letting the user know exactly what percentage of the page has already loaded.


Along with this loading indicator, Apple has reinstated the "stop" button, which was absent from the betas. Prior to version four, Safari had included an "innovative" dual-purpose stop/reload button that changed context depending on the state of the browser. When that was removed from the fourth version, many users were confused. Apple still included a reload button, positioned to the right side of the location bar, but it was now in a weird spot and non-configurable by standard Cocoa toolbar processes. The new progress loading indicator, however, displays in this same area and adds in a small button marked with an "X" which can be used to stop the loading of a page.
Conveniently, this is in the exact same location as the reload button. In a sense, the original functionality has been revived, albeit in a slightly less configurable or user-friendly fashion.




On future fronts, Safari 4 has been tweaked to offer a few additional features for users of 10.6 Snow Leopard, launching in September. Bertrand Serlet gave a short demo on a new feature dubbed "Crash Resistance." This is a feature seen in a browsers like Google Chrome which run browser plug-ins like Flash in their own process.
This means that if a plug-in (Flash for example) misbehaves and crashes, your browser will not crash as a result. The only effect will be that the small area where the plug-in was loading will turn white and contain a brick plug-in icon. Bertrand mentioned that browser plug-ins were, by themselves, the single largest instigator of crashes in OS X.
The final update that Snow Leopard users will see is additional performance gains in Safari. One of the big updates in 10.6 is that many of Apple's applications will be running in full 64-bit mode which will allow them to access more memory, and in certain circumstances do certain types of calculations a lot faster. Serlet quoted a full 50 percent improvement in JavaScript speed (as judged by the Webkit project's SunSpider benchmark) over the 32-bit version of Safari 4 when run in 10.6 and 64-bit mode.

iPhone 3G S announced: $199 16GB, $299 32GB, August in India

As endlessly predicted, Apple's unveiled a new iPhone today at WWDC, the iPhone 3G S -- the "s" stands for speed. Although it looks almost exactly like the 3G, it's much, much faster -- some tasks are almost four times faster. Data speeds are upped to 7.2Mbps HSDPA, and the camera is now a 3 megapixel unit with tap-to-autofocus and auto white balance -- and just as expected, it now supports 30fps VGA video recording with editing features. You're also getting a built-in compass, Nike+ support, and a new battery that offers 5 hours of 3G talk time and 9 hours of WiFi internet use. There are some surprises, too -- holding down the home button now enables a new voice control interface that lets you do everything from make calls to control iTunes, and Apple's touting a new "fingerprint-resistant oleophobic coating." New and end-of-contract pricing is set at $199 for 16GB and $299 for 32GB when it goes on sale June 18th Stateside and in 80 more countries in August -- and the current 8GB 3G will remain on sale for $99, effective immediately. You'll have to pay a bit more if you're mid-contract, though -- $299 for the 3G and $399/$499 for the 3G S.

Iphone 3G S hits the India market on August 09

Apple releases iPhone 2.2 update

Apple released a hefty update for the iPhone on Thursday night.

The 2.2 software update is available through iTunes, and it's packed with lots of goodies. Apple released its 2.1 software update in September.

(Credit: Apple)

Apple released a hefty update for the iPhone on Thursday night.

Some of the highlights of the update center on GPS and Google Maps. For example, version 2.2 includes Google Street View in Google Maps, which allows users to see a 360-degree view of locations taken with cameras mounted on Google's cars. It also added walking directions in Google maps with information on public transportation stops.

In addition, the iPhone can now download podcasts over the air using a Wi-Fi or 3G network. Previously, users had to download podcasts into iTunes on their computers and then sync their files. Now iPhone users can also turn off the auto-correction on the virtual keyboard, which I must say is a nice alternative to allowing the iPhone to guess what you're trying to type.

Other improvements include a bug fix for scheduled e-mail fetching, improved stability and performance for the Safari Web browser, improved phone quality to reduce dropped calls (hooray!), and improved sound quality in visual voice mail messages.

But there are still lots of things missing--for example, cutting and pasting. And the iPhone still doesn't support MMS messaging nor does it have GPS turn-by-turn directions.

Apple unveils updated MacBook

Apple CEO Steve Jobs recently revealed MacBook’s updated version. The update brings new features to the laptop including Nvidia graphics, a glass multitouch trackpad, solid state drives, LED backlit display, a thinner casing, a bit of price reduction and more cool features.