mac

And to think Microsoft used to be popular with the developer crowd...

Not anymore. A recent report from Evans Data shows fewer than one in 10 software developers writing applications for Windows Vista this year. Eight percent. This is perhaps made even worse by the corresponding data that shows 49 percent of developers writing applications for Windows XP.

Such appreciation for history is not likely to warm the cockles of Microsoft's heart, especially when Linux is getting lots of love from developers (13 percent writing apps for it this year and 15.5 percent in 2009). The Mac? I don't have any equivalent data via Evans Data. But the Mac OS has rocketed by 380 percent as a targeted development platform, Evans Data told Computerworld.

The numbers don't get much better for Vista in 2009: 24 percent (compared with 29 percent for XP). That's a big step up from 8 percent, but is it a sign of momentum to come or just a temporary stopgap while developers wait until Windows 7?

Nor has Microsoft made it easy to develop Vista applications, according to an article in ITJungle.com:… Read more

Some Apple devotees wouldn't dream of questioning the Steve Jobs-sanctioned threeway between their Mac, iTunes, and their iPod. But the truth is that there are other fish in the sea when it comes to finding a Mac-friendly MP3 player (in fact, there are some great iTunes alternatives for Mac, too).

Maybe you're shopping for a player with an FM radio, a larger screen, better sound quality, or maybe you're just short on cash. Whatever your motivations, here's a roundup of our favorite non-iPod MP3 players for the Mac.

If you have a Mac laptop beginning with the PowerBook G4, one feature you may or may not know about is the Sudden Motion Sensor. If you drop your computer or it is suddenly exposed to strong vibrations, the Sudden Motion Sensor will park the hard drive to reduce disk damage--even before your laptop hits the ground. When the sensor detects your computer has returned to a stable state, it "unparks" your hard drive and you can continue computing.

What's fun about this feature is that some savvy developers have made apps that take advantage of the … Read more

Mac freak that I am, it is with shame that I admit that it's all Apple's fault that Mozilla had to issue another Release Candidate for Firefox 3. No, it won't have any impact on the final release date, which is still scheduled for June 17. But it makes me ashamed that the Mac, and not Windows, had the last-minute problem.

Sniff. Sniff. There. Now I feel better.

As for any of you out there who have yet to download Firefox 3, please do so. Now. Yes, you can wait until Tuesday for the final release, but … Read more

Updated at 12:30 p.m. PDT on Wednesday with links to the newly debuted release candidate.

If you were planning to host a Firefox 3 launch party this week, keep that bubbly on ice a bit longer.

Mozilla on Wednesday released Firefox 3 Release Candidate 3. Windows and Linux users won't likely feel a thing; the new browser is considered stable on those platforms.

The extra release candidate addresses some lingering issues on the Mac OS X operating system. The changes are internal.

The previous test version, Firefox 3 Release Candidate 2, can also be downloaded for Windows, … Read more

Notice any similarities between the Hewlett-Packard Voodoo Envy and its thin rivals, the Apple MacBook Air or ThinkPad X300? Yes, they're all very thin. But look inside and you'll see more common features.

To deliver reasonable processing power at low power the Voodoo Envy opted for the same special low-power processors used in the Air: the Intel SP7700 and SP7500.

You won't find these processors listed on Intel's processor pricing page. They were designed originally for the MacBook Air and use a special 22mm x 22mm package and have a thermal envelope of only 20 watts … Read more

Updated 3:44 p.m. PDT: Apple PR formally issued the press release in question that went out inadvertently earlier Monday.

Apple quickly retracted a few Mac OS X 10.6 tidbits leaked out by its Canadian subsidiary following the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, but the Internet misses nothing.

Scores of sites picked up on a press release that went out from Apple Canada and was pulled at some point after it went live. According to the release, Snow Leopard--which Apple CEO Steve Jobs confirmed is the code name for 10.6--will focus more on improving the basic plumbing of … Read more

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is expected to cover the parallel tracks of Mac and iPhone software development, but the company may have another aspect of parallelism to discuss next week.

Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang, in an interview earlier this week, suggested that Apple might have plans for Nvidia's CUDA technology as part of the WWDC festivities next week. CUDA is a programming technology that allows software developers to take advantage of the unique parallel processing characteristics of graphics processors such as Nvidia's GeForce 8600M, found in the MacBook Pro. Nvidia released a beta version of CUDA for Mac OS X … Read more

If you want blow-by-blow coverage of Apple CEO Steve Jobs' keynote address on Monday, make sure to pay us a visit before 10 a.m. PDT for our live report.

I'll be inside Moscone West on Monday morning, where we expect Apple to unveil a new iPhone and talk more about the next version of Mac OS X at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. We'll be posting live updates every few minutes from the conference hall, and will have photos of the new iPhone and anything else that gets introduced Monday morning as soon as humanly (or networkly) … Read more