Apple

Programmers have mostly overcome a crucial hurdle to releasing a beta version of Chrome for the Mac, printing support, but several Windows 7 features won't make the cut for the present 4.x version of Chrome.

The Mac printing support is now added, according to the Google browser's issue-tracking system, though there are "minor remaining issues" and the new features aren't yet distributed with the software.

Google has cited Mac printing support as one holding back a Mac version of the browser. Mac support is important for the company's ambitions to spread the browser and its fast-Web philosophy to mainstream users. The Linux version, while less mainstream now, also is important since it's the foundation of Google's Chrome OS project to build a browser-based operating system for Netbooks.

But on the Windows side of the shop, a number of planned features to support Windows 7 were pushed back to the next version Chrome on Wednesday. That includes support for showing thumbnails of open tabs on the task bar, showing "jump lists" for quick actions such as links recently or frequently visited pages, pinning thumbnails to the task bar, and overlaying a download progress status bar on the Chrome icon.

The present beta and stable releases that Google issued Monday, Chrome version 3.0.195.27 (download for Windows only), are members of the 3.x family. The developer preview is in the 4.x family (download for Windows or Mac OS X). The Windows 7 features had been slated for the 4.x series, but now are planned for version 5, according to the issue-tracking system.

The change doesn't indicate the features have retreated into the distant future, though; Chrome version numbers change relatively rapidly, as evidenced by the move to version 4 in just over a year.

Also pushed back to the 5.x series is built-in support for discovering when Web pages have RSS feeds, one of Chrome's most-requested features. Its absence is ameliorated by a Chrome sample extension for RSS, though.

Extensions remain a work in progress. New ones are arriving steadily, and existing extensions such as Lastpass for filling in passwords and forms and AdSweep for blocking ads is progressing. But Google recently switched interfaces, dropping the use of a toolstrip across the bottom of the browser with pop-up "moles" in favor of browser actions, small icons along the top of the browser.

In a surprise announcement, Adobe Systems said Monday that Flash programmers now can bring their applications to Apple's iPhone, a domain of high interest that's been off limits for the programming technology.

Because of Apple restrictions, though, Flash isn't coming in the form in which most people experience it, a Web browser plug-in. Instead, programmers will be able to change Flash applications into native iPhone applications using Adobe's Flash Professional CS5 developer tool, currently in beta testing, then offer their programs as an Apple App Store download.

"This is a great first step in the right direction," said Heidi Voltmer, Adobe's product marketing manager for Flash.

The approach spotlights the tension between Apple, which controls the iPhone tightly in an effort to ensure a good user experience, and others, which want a place on the premier mobile device on the marketplace today.

Chroma Circuit is a Flash game now available as a native iPhone app.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Adobe's back-door approach still is a significant move for the company, though, which wants to ensure that Flash is a major foundation for Internet-based applications. Programmers familiar with Flash could find the Adobe method an easier way to bring their applications to the iPhone world if they're not experts in coding for the phone and its close cousin, the iPod Touch.

Apple didn't immediately comment for this story.

Some Flash Professional CS5 beta testers are taking advantage of the technique, including BlueskyNorth, Breakdesign, FlashGameLicense.com, Muchosmedia, PushButton Labs, and Bowler Hat Games.

"With the ability to create applications for iPhone in the Flash Professional CS5 beta, I don't need to learn a new programming language or the plethora of development tools that inevitably come with it," said Josh Tynjala, founder of Bowler Hat Games, in a statement. "Instead, I'm able to spend more time exploring ways to make my games like Chroma Circuit more fun on mobile devices like the iPhone and increase my business revenue."

Adobe's ultimate goal remains the same: to get Flash on the iPhone integrated with its Safari browser. "My view is there is only one Web," said Chief Technology Officer Kevin Lynch in an interview. Adobe demonstrated the Flash applications at its Max developer conference in Los Angeles Monday, where Lynch gave the keynote address.

Flash Player 10.1, due in beta form later this year and final form in the first half of 2010, is spreading to just about all the other smartphones out there: Google Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Palm WebOS, and Nokia Symbian.

Why not the iPhone, too? "The Apple iPhone SDK (software developer kit) license terms do not allow runtime interpreted code, so Adobe is not able to deliver Flash Player in Safari on the iPhone without support from Apple," Adobe said in a statement.

Voltmer didn't comment on the state of present discussions with Apple to build Flash Player directly into the iPhone. But she did say people visit Adobe's Web site looking for it.

It's not immediately clear how easily Flash applications translate to the iPhone, and most folks won't get a chance to try it until the beta is released publicly later this year. There are some limitations, Voltmer said.

For one thing, the Flash software must be written in ActionScript 3, not the earlier ActionScript 2. For another, they can't use video because of Apple restrictions, she said.

There also could be practical limits on memory, processing power, and graphics. Last year's PC running Flash Player has a lot more computing capability than a modern iPhone 3GS.

The iPhone and iPod Touch have some features that are well-suited to mobile gaming, though, and programmers will be able to use them. That includes the multitouch interface and accelerometer that detects device orientation, said Adrian Ludwig, a Flash team member at Adobe.

Updated at 1:48 p.m. PDT with further comment from Adobe and no comment from Apple.

Adobe developer tools let Flash programmers turn their applications into native iPhone software. This is a Flash game called Chroma Circuit.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Two prominent Web-based programming advocates have left Mozilla for Palm, arguing that the time has come to use browsers to bypass Apple's controlling role in mobile applications.

Dion Almaer and Ben Galbraith, who help run the Ajaxian site for elaborate Web interfaces and who worked on Mozilla's Web-based Bespin tool for collaborative programming, announced their move to Palm on Friday.

Palm is a logical place for them to go. The Palm Pre has won accolades as a competitive mobile phone, and its foundation for applications is a WebKit-based browser, meaning that Palm programs are essentially Web programs.

"I will be joining Ben, my best friend, partner in crime, and fellow Ajaxian, as we take a new role as directors of the Palm Developer Relations team. We will have the responsibility of the developer experience with Palm. We will be trying to create a rich connective tissue between the company and the Web developer community that we love," Almaer wrote on his blog.

Web-based programs are typically slower and less capable than alternatives that run natively on a computing device. But they have one big potential advantage: written once, they can run on any device with a browser and hardware up to the task.

Although Galbraith and Dalmaer are excited by the possibilities of Web applications and the new era of mobile computing ushered in most notably by Apple's iPhone, Galbraith appears to be concerned about the control Apple exercises over the applications people can use on their phones.

"Clearly, a revolution in hardware is taking place, and it doesn't take a prophet to work out that the future of computing lies along this new trajectory," Galbraith said. "However, my enthusiasm for this amazing new world is tempered by some unfortunate decisions made by some of the players in this space. It seems that some view this revolution as a chance to seize power in downright Orwellian ways by constraining what we, as developers, can say, dictating what kinds of apps we can create, controlling how we distribute our apps, and placing all kinds of limits on what (we) can do to our computing devices."

He didn't mention Apple by name, and I don't want to put words in his mouth, but who else besides Apple could Galbraith be referring to? The programmers and Apple didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Apple exerts its control to try to give iPhone users a simple, stable, and useful experience. But that control can be at odds with what programmers and users want, as was most clearly illustrated in Apple's rejection of the Google Voice application--though Apple said it hasn't actually rejected the application.

Meanwhile, as it did with its Latitude location application for the iPhone after Apple rejected a native version of that software, Google is working on a Web-based interface for Google Voice. It also offers a Web-based Gmail application for the iPhone.

What's curious is that the Palm Pre, the Google Android operating system, and the iPhone OS all use a browser based on the WebKit project, and Apple is among those working hard to advance the state of the art for Web application programming through its WebKit work. So there is some philosophical agreement along with the differences.

Google released an update for Chrome to fix compatibility problems with Snow Leopard on Monday, which along with other fixes shows the gradually maturing state of the Mac OS X version of the browser.

Chrome 4.0.203.4 for the Mac is only a couple notches up the version ladder than the version 4.0.203.2 it replaces, but there are some significant changes in the developer-preview software. For Snow Leopard compatibility, programmers fixed a garbled text bug, said Jonathan Conradt, a Chrome engineering program manager, in a blog post Monday.

Google began Chrome on Windows but has been gradually moving it to Linux and Mac OS X. Those versions so far are still only developer-preview incarnations not ready for prime time yet, though I find myself gradually slipping over to Chrome on my Mac system now that it's getting mature enough for me. I suspect a beta version isn't far off.

Google is fleshing out some basic features, though. One user-interface tweak enables support for command- and shift-clicking.

Another feature coming to the Mac is support for the tab-to-search feature in the omnibox. That lets you perform a site search directly from the address bar by typing a URL, for example news.cnet.com, then the tab key, then search terms.

Tab-to-search also works with Amazon, Google, Google News, and Yahoo, The New York Times, but not Bing yet. I search a lot, and this saves me one step and waiting for a page to load just so I can click in its search bar.

The tab-to-search feature has arrived on Chrome for Mac OS X, too.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

The most annoying issue I've found--and let me know if I'm missing something obvious here--is that I lose the file-upload dialog box while using Gmail with Chrome on Mac OS X if I switch away from the application while halfway through. If I don't attach a file immediately, that tab's instance of Gmail becomes useless because I can't get back to it.

Performance still is an issue with the Mac version, though. I was pleased to see some work on new-tab creation speed, with programmer Mark Mentovai using various changes to work the time from 1-3 seconds down to a fifth of a second.

Google is working hard to spread Chrome, though it has small market share at present. It's now installed as the default browser on some Sony laptops, as Endgadget noticed in July with the Vaio NW, and I heard about earlier in August.

Google has been advertising the browser as well and is at work making it the foundation of its Chrome OS.

Apple began shipping Snow Leopard on Friday, but the true importance of the Mac OS X update likely will emerge well afterward.

That's because Mac OS X 10.6 begins a longer-term Apple attempt to get ahead by cracking a problem facing the entire computer industry: squeezing useful work out of modern processors. Instead of stuffing Snow Leopard with immediately obvious new features, Apple is trying to adjust to the new reality in which processors can do many jobs simultaneously rather than one job fast.

"We're trying to set a foundation for the future," said Wiley Hodges, director of Mac OS X marketing.

Apple shed some light on its project, called Grand Central Dispatch, at its Worldwide Developer Conference in June, but most real detail was shared only in with programmers sworn to secrecy. Now the company has begun talking more publicly about it and other deeper projects to take advantage of graphics chips and Intel's 64-bit processors.

The moves align Apple better with changes in computing. For years, chipmakers such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices had steadily increased the clock rate of their processors, and programmers got accustomed to a performance boost with each new generation. But earlier this decade, problems derailed the gigahertz train.

An Apple manager has become a co-chairman of the group standardizing HTML, giving the company a higher-profile role in a crucial time for development of the language used to build Web pages.

The World Wide Web Consortium's HTML Working Group had been led by IBM's Sam Ruby and Microsoft's Chris Wilson. Wilson has stepped down and is being replaced by two others, Paul Cotton, who manages Microsoft's Web services standards team, and Maciej Stachowiak, who manages Apple's WebKit WebApps team, according to an e-mail announcement by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee.

"Why three co-Chairs?" Berners-Lee asked in the note. "Clearly, there is a lot of work to do. Sam, Paul, and Maciej bring particular skills to the job (whether it is Maciej's experience with WebKit or Paul's with Working Group processes)."

Indeed, the two new co-chairs arrive during a crucial time. The W3C stopped developing HTML with version 4.01 in 1999, focusing instead on a very different standard called XHTML 2.0 that ultimately met its official demise in July. Browser makers, meanwhile, went their own way with a group called WHATWG, short for Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group.

WHATWG's work ultimately grew into HTML 5 as the W3C embraced HyperText Markup Language once again. It's got a number of features to make the Web a better foundation not just for static Web pages but also for more interactive Web applications. For example, one Web storage lets Web-based applications store data on a computer, helping Web applications work even when a network connection isn't available.

The standardization process is complicated, though, with a complex back-and-forth between the standards group and browser makers trying new features on their own.

Meanwhile, Microsoft only began HTML 5 discussion in earnest earlier this month.

And Aaron Boodman, a programmer involved with Google's Chrome browser, suggested on the HTML 5 mailing list, "I would like to propose that we get rid of the concepts of 'versions' altogether from HTML. In reality, nobody supports all of HTML 5...Instead of insisting that a particular version of HTML is a monolithic unit that must be implemented in its entirety, we could have each feature (or logical group of features) spun off into its own small spec."

An Adobe Systems executive is trying to calm Photoshop users who were alarmed to hear an earlier but still widely used version of Photoshop isn't supported on Snow Leopard, the new Apple operating system arriving Friday.

Photoshop Principal Product Manager John Nack on Tuesday published Adobe's FAQ about its Creative Suite support for Snow Leopard, aka Mac OS X 10.6, that said the current CS4 version from October 2008 is the only one that's supported. The comments quickly took on panicky and angry tones among people who thought their older CS3 version of the software wouldn't work on the new operating system, so Nack followed up on Wednesday with a new post to clarify that CS3 would work, albeit with some caveats.

"To the best of our knowledge, PS CS3 works fine on Snow Leopard," Nack said. "We have reason to expect that all meaningful issues of running Photoshop CS3 under Snow Leopard have been resolved. However, because we have not done the level of testing that true certification demands, we need to stand by our statement that we don't officially support CS3 on Snow Leopard."

This is the statement in the FAQ that got people riled up:

Q. Will older versions of Adobe creative software--such as Adobe Creative Suite 3 or Macromedia® Studio 8 Software--support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6)?

A. Older versions of Adobe creative software were not included in our testing efforts. While older Adobe and Macromedia applications may install and run on Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6), they were designed, tested, and released to the public several years before this new operating system became available. You may therefore experience a variety of installation, stability, and reliability issues for which there is no resolution. Older versions of our creative software will not be updated to support Mac OS X Snow Leopard (v10.6).

Wrote one commenter, "I understand that you don't want to waste resources, but I plan on upgrading to Snow Leopard, but cannot afford a new version of CS. At this point, I will not be out growing this version for some time. PLEASE don't leave thousands of us weekend warriors behind with version after version. True, the new tools are cool for the power users, but average folk just can't keep up on price!!! HELP - please support CS3 for a little while longer!!!"

And another: "The lack of CS3 testing is very disturbing. It was one thing for Adobe not to release CS4 in 64 bit for the Mac. I understand that recompiling the program in a different language is a major undertaking. OK, I can wait for CS5. But now, in what can only be interpreted as an attempt to force an upgrade to a program that doesn't even take advantage of the 64-bit programming in Snow Leopard, Adobe will not even test CS3 for Snow Leopard compatibility."

Nack denied that particular idea.

"This isn't some kind of ploy to force people to upgrade; rather, it's a recognition that resources are not infinite, and we need to focus our efforts on current and future technology," he said.

The upgrade from to Photoshop CS4 costs about $190; various Creative Suite collections that include other Adobe software packages such as Flash Professional, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver cost more.

HP now sells an HP 12C calculator app for the iPhone.

(Credit: Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

It looks like a fourth generation of my family is going to be introduced to the ways of reverse Polish notation calculators.

That's because my three-year-old son, an iPhone fan in his own preschool way, is about to be exposed to Hewlett-Packard's new iPhone application that fully emulates the company's 12c financial calculator. The $14.99 application is accompanied by a $29.99 emulator of the 15c scientific calculator, which is better at handling trigonometry and integration than mortgage payments and net present value.

All that's missing is the pocket protector-like iPhone case, my colleague Ina Fried cracked as she mocked my nerdish tendencies.

The World Wide Web Consortium is opening the possibility of pushing back against an Apple patent on software updates that Apple had refused to license royalty-free for use in a proposed Web standard.

The W3C announced June 12 that it's seeking prior art relating to Apple's patent No. 5,764,992--in other words, examples of the patent's technology in use that predate the patent itself. The patent, which Apple applied for in 1995 and was granted in 1998, involves this scenario: "a software program running on a computer automatically replaces itself with a newer version in a completely automated fashion, without interruption of its primary function, and in a manner that is completely transparent to the user of the computer."

The consortium, which oversees standards including the HTML for Web page publishing and the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image format, is working on a draft standard called Widgets 1.0: Updates that governs how Web-based applications can update themselves. Apple in March said it wasn't willing to include the patent's 30 claims in the royalty-free licensing requirements of W3C standards.

To deal with the patent matter while continuing with development of the standard, the consortium set up a patent advisory group (PAG).

"The PAG seeks information about software update systems available before June 1995 that offer a viable solution that may apply to the use of updates in Widgets," the W3C said about the prior-art search. "Such information could suggest ways to define a specification that can achieve the working group's goals without implementers infringing on the disclosed patent."

Finding prior art could help overturn the patent, but W3C spokesman Ian Jacobs said the consortium hasn't yet concluded what measures to take.

"There are lots of options once we have more information," Jacobs said. "One possible outcome, should we find prior art, is the patent might be re-evaluated. If it turns out there is prior art, that will be fodder for the next discussion."

Apple didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Work on the draft specification can continue while the advisory group deals with the patent, Jacobs said, but the patent does complicate matters. "Does it cast a shadow over the specification? The answer is yes, until we have a better sense over the scope of the patent."

Via Dion Almaer

Corrected at 5:15 p.m.: This story initially misstated which standards the W3C oversees. It oversees HTML, Portable Network Graphics, and others.