512 Pixels

Apple support article #ts2948:

Learn what you can do if you experience one or more of these issues with the hinges on your MacBook Air.

• Unable to close lid completely.

• Broken or cracked plastic near one or both of the hinges.

• More than one inch (2.54cm) of free play while opening or closing the lid.

• Lid falls freely into closed position from a 30-degree open position. (From a closed position, open the lid approximately 30 degrees and let go.)

You can take your MacBook Air to an Apple-Authorized Service Provider or Apple Retail Store for evaluation and repair if necessary, even if your product is out of warranty.

If you previously paid for a repair for hinge-related issues that were not caused by accidental damage, you may be eligible for a refund. Contact Apple for more information.

This is a 180-degree change from the old policy, which marked any hinge issues as accidental damage, despite claims that the hinge on the first-generation MacBook Air suffered from a design flaw that could lead to a catastrophic failure of the hardware. This is a good move on the company’s part.

CNET:

Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system, released Friday, by default loads with a 32-bit kernel, despite running 64-bit applications.

While Mac OS X version 10.6 ships with a number of 64-bit native applications, the kernel itself defaults to 32-bit, unless the user holds down the “6” and “4” keys during boot time, at which point the 64-bit kernel is loaded. Only Apple’s X-Serve products, using Snow Leopard Server, boot into a 64-bit kernel by default.

“For the most part, everything that they experience on the Mac, from the 64-bit point of view, the applications, the operating system, is all going to be 64-bit,” Stuart Harris, software product marketing manager at Apple Australia said.

Harris said that at this stage there were very few things, such as device drivers, that required 64-bit mode at the kernel level but the option is available.

“But we’re trying to make it as smooth as possible, so people don’t end up finding that ‘oh, that doesn’t work’ because it’s not available yet,” he said.

Mac OS X Automation has quite a collection of downloadable services available. Nice stuff.

by Stephen M. Hackett

I have the coordinates to Memphis tattooed on my left forearm. I get asked about it almost everyday, and usually the response I get is goes something like this:

Why would you get that tattooed on your arm?

My answer is simple — I love Memphis. It’s a great city.

I’m not talking about the postcard platitudes that include sweet tea, BBQ and Elvis. Those type of niceties keep us distracted from the real issues.

I’m talking about the Memphis that I’ve come to know over the last few years that is excited about change. The Memphis that St. Jude, the Memphis Zoo, the Pink Palace and FedEx are proud to call home. The Memphis that gets together to help build skateparks, bike paths and community gardens. The Memphis that cheers when a corrupt mayor steps down. The Memphis that looks at our children’s futures with hope instead of despair. The Memphis that treasures Shelby Farms and wants to clean up playgrounds in Orange Mound.

Loving Memphis doesn’t mean ignoring its problems. Crime is high and our schools are bad. There’s corruption in both city and county governments that keeps them from doing any real work most days. We have an extremely high infant mortality rate and poverty is plaguing thousands. We have gangs who threaten our youths’ futures. Memphis is a malnourished, sick city.

Organizations like the Salvation Army (the people behind the Kroc Center), Memphis Union Missions, BRIDGES, the Greater Memphis Greenline, the Hope and Healing Center, the Children’s Museum of Memphis, Christ Community Health Services and countless others are already tackling issues and fixing problems.

But things won’t change — no matter how many great organizations we have — until citizens get mad and get things done. We need to be willing to get over our pride and our anger and go do something. We need to tell our leaders in City Hall what we want and fire them when they don’t deliver. We need to feed the homeless and stop fearing people who don’t look like us.

Most importantly, we need to get over the notion that Memphis’s problems are unique. Memphis’ problems aren’t that unlike problems other cities face, no matter how many people want Memphis to be different — and thus, hopeless.

So Memphians, I challenge you to find something in this city you can love and get behind. Make this city yours. If you can’t do that, if you can’t get past hating this city and the people in it, then step aside. We don’t need you or the negativity you spread. Memphis can’t take it anymore.

And those of us who love it here won’t take it anymore, either.

Randall C. Kennedy of InfoWorld:

Mac OS X Snow Leopard is truly an underwhelming release, one that borrows most of its “new” ideas from Windows Vista. Meanwhile, Microsoft continues to drive OS evolution forward, introducing a raft of truly innovative features with Windows 7. The new Taskbar puts Apple’s clumsy Mac OS X Dock to shame, while its enhanced support for multicore CPUs means that even non-optimized code gets a boost – no Grand Central Dispatch tweaking required.

I’ve often referred to Windows 7 as “Vista R2,” an incremental follow-up release that was mostly about righting the wrongs of its predecessor. Viewed in these terms, Mac OS X Snow Leopard is more like a service pack: a collection of bug fixes and minor functional enhancements that, quite frankly, should have been in the original release. As such, Snow Leopard is nothing to get all excited about; it’s not worth even the modest “upgrade” price Apple is asking.

This dude wins “Jackass of the Week” hands down.

Most of the features he claims Apple has copied from Vista have been around way before Snow Leopard, but have merely been tweaked in 10.6.

Most of what’s new in 10.6 is under the surface — things like Grand Central Dispatch — and aren’t going to blow away users right now. Apple’s simply laying the foundation for the future.

Is Microsoft doing that with Windows 7?

Well, Snow Leopard is here. I — like millions of other users — upgraded my Macs yesterday to 10.6.

Snow Leopard is a curious release. It doesn’t introduce a lot of end-user features, but rather, is a refinement of what was already there — for the most part.

Installation

After 9 years, Apple has changed the install process for OS X. They’ve simplified it, which is pretty surprising considering how easy it was before. This PDF on Apple’s site outlines the new process. One thing that bugs me is that by default, Snow Leopard doesn’t include Rosetta, which allows PPC apps to run on Intel machines. Apple’s obviously closing the door on PowerPC Macs with this release, but turning off Rosetta this early seems rash. It’s an optional install I recommend for everyone.

The install didn’t seem any faster than Leopard’s.

Speed Increases & Hard Drive Space

Snow Leopard sure feels faster, especially on my 2.93Ghz iMac, which sports the 256MB NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 video card. My MacBook Pro also feels faster, but not by as much. Apple claims 10.6 is faster than 10.5 in most things, and so far, I agree.

One unusual thing about 10.6 is that Apple claims most users will regain several GB of hard drive space back — mostly due to re-working the way printer drivers are stored and using some fancy math.

I didn’t get a dramatic amount hard drive space back like some users have reported, mainly because on my iMac I don’t have any printer drivers installed, and on my MacBook Pro, I always have all of them installed, since I’m out and about all day in and out of businesses and schools working on Mac stuff.

Exchange Support

Even though I work for an Apple-Authorized Service Provider, our backbone is Exchange. And while that’s been great on the iPhone, it’s meant we have to use Entourage — which blows. Exchange in the built-in apps is great, and works just the way it should, with the exception of push mail, which seems flaky at best. My iPhone will usually get the email minutes before my computer does, leading me to believe that Mail is actually fetching those messages. Lame.

Regardless, it does make the Mac a much more viable option for business customers. It’s an ingenious move on Apple’s part.

Refinements

Almost all of the nit-picky problems I had with 10.5 (and even older versions of OS X) have been resolved. Here’s Apple’s list of changes and tweaks — it’s long, but shows just how much attention these guys put into this release. Snow Leopard may not boast a bunch of big changes, but it can boast tons and tons of little ones.

Under the Hood

Snow Leopard is about the future. Apple has laid the groundwork for a next-gen OS that uses hardware in new ways to get things done more efficiently. While this doesn’t translate into headline-making improvements most users would get excited about, it’s the most important thing about Snow Leopard, by far.

There’s been a lot of complaining online that Snow Leopard’s kernel remains in 32-bit mode by default. The short explanation is that if Apple moved to a 64-bit kernel by default, it could exclude all Core Solo and Core Duo Intel Macs from booting the new OS. Of course, Apple could have shipped two versions of Snow Leopard, but that makes things more confusing than even having a PPC and an Intel version, like they did with Tiger.

Even in 32-bit mode, Apple’s applications (and other 3rd-party apps) can and do run in 64-bit mode, giving them ability to run faster and access more RAM. (As a side-note, Snow Leopard Server does run in 64-bit mode, it seems.)

The Final Word

Snow Leopard is a great update to OS X, and worthy for any Mac user. But as always, make sure any software you depend on runs on the new OS, or you could see some downtime. But if compatibility issues aren’t stopping you, go for it. Your Mac will run faster and leaner than ever.

MacInTouch has a page up dedicated to Snow Leopard issues found by readers.

There’s also a very lengthy page up on wikidot regarding Snow Leopard and third-party apps.

It’s this kind of stuff that makes me love the hardcore Mac population so much.

A must-watch for any geek.

From Mark Jardine at TapBots (the creators of the excellent Convertbot iPhone app) has written about their recent App Store rejection:

We’re no strangers to silly app rejection emails from Apple, but this one seems to take the cake (at least in our opinion). Convertbot 1.4 was rejected because our icon for Time is too similar to one of Apple’s default resource icons for History/Recent. They say users might get confused that our Time category might mean History or Recent. Now I might be able to understand if this happened when we first submitted Convertbot, but there have been multiple releases already so why is this a show-stopper now? It does worry me that our product has to be held back for another 1–2 weeks for something so trivial.

So what’s the plan? I need to redo the icon, I suppose. But Convertbot icons were meant to use as little lines/shapes as possible to identify the category. I feel that our current icon represents time as simple as possible. So how can we make Time different? What if it’s set at 9 o’clock instead of 3? Is that acceptable? The big problem here is the only way I can get that answer is by making the change, resubmitting the app, and waiting another week or 2 for Apple’s verdict.

Ridiculous.

Apple has previously stated that while Leopard users simply need to purchase the $29 DVD to upgrade their machines to Snow Leopard, Tiger users with Intel machines needed the $169 Mac Box Set to upgrade. As a bonus, those users get iWork ’09 and iLife ’09 as well.

It seems that the $29 Snow Leopard DVD can indeed update users still running Tiger, however.

Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal:

And, for owners of Intel-based Macs who are still using the older Tiger version of the Mac OS, Apple is officially making Snow Leopard available only in a “boxed set” that includes other software and costs $169. The reasoning is that these folks never paid the $129 back in 2007 to upgrade to Leopard. But here’s a tip: Apple concedes that the $29 Snow Leopard upgrade will work properly on these Tiger-equipped Macs, so you can save the extra $140.

Lifehacker mentioned this as well in their “Prep your Mac for Snow Leopard” piece.

Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky:

Here’s the thing about Snow Leopard, the single inescapable fact that hung over our heads as we ran our tests and took our screenshots and made our graphs: it’s $30. $30! If you’re a Leopard user you have virtually no reason to skip over 10.6, unless you’ve somehow built a mission-critical production workflow around an InputManager hack (in which case, well, have fun with 10.5 for the rest of your life). Sure, maybe wait a few weeks for things like Growl and MenuMeters to be updated, and if your livelihood depends on QuickTime you might want to hold off, but for everyone else the sheer amount of little tweaks and added functionality in 10.6 more than justifies skipping that last round of drinks at the bar – hell, we’re guessing Exchange support alone has made the sale for a lot of people. If you’re still on Tiger, well, you’ll have to decide whether or not you want to drop $130 on what’s essentially a spit-shined Leopard, but if you do decide to spend the cash you’ll find that the experience of using a Mac has changed dramatically for the better since you last upgraded.

My only argument is that the $130 Mac Box Set contains iLife ’09 and iWork ’09 as well. Since iLife requires 10.5.6 or higher, Tiger users aren’t getting shafted by any means.

AppleInsider:

Once rumored for extinction, Apple’s entry-level polycarbonate MacBooks are on the verge of a refresh that will solidify them at the base of the Mac maker’s notebook offerings for the foreseeable future, AppleInsider has learned.

People familiar with Cupertino-based company’s plans say the 13-inch portables are presently undergoing an industrial design overhaul that will see them reemerge in the coming months with a slimmer, lighter enclosure and restructured internal architecture to boot.

I think it’s time. The MacBook has been the same since 2006, and while very popular, has gotten a little stale

When Apple revamped the notebook line at WWDC with the 13-inch MacBook Pro, the white plastic MacBook seemed oddly out of place. For one, there’s only one model — why not offer a better (black?) MacBook at $999, with the white one sporting a Combo Drive at $799? A lower price on the bottom end of things makes sense with the economic times, but time will tell what is to come of the MacBook.