MacRumors

As noted by ItsAllTech, Apple has released the first followup beta release to iOS developers. iOS 5 Build 9A5248d was just released this evening. The first changes noted include:

- Wireless syncing has been enabled for Mac OS X computers

WiFi Syncing

In iOS 5.0 beta 2, wireless syncing is now available for the Mac. It requires iTunes 10.5 beta 2 and OS X 10.6.8 or Lion. You will see an option to enable wireless syncing when you connect your device to iTunes with the USB cable. It is recommended you perform your initial sync with a cable after restoring your device.

Wireless syncing is triggered automatically when the device is connected to power and on the same network as the paired computer. Or, you can manually trigger a sync from iTunes or from Settings -> General -> iTunes Sync (same network as paired computer required). Be sure your device is plugged into a power source when performing Wireless syncs.
If you find issues with apps, media and/or photos synced to your device, you can reset then resync. From Settings -> General -> Reset, choose Erase all Content and Settings. Then reconnect to iTunes and sync again.

In this beta, iTunes may incorrectly report Photos as "Other" in the capacity bar. Photo syncing otherwise works as expected.

iTunes 10.5 beta 2 and Apple TV Software beta 2 has also been released.

iFans has release notes. Summarized here:

- iTunes 10.5b2 can’t sync iOS 5 Beta 1 devices
- iOS5 Beta 1 devices can’t iMessage iOS5 Beta 2 devices and vice-versa
- WiFi sync now works with OS X computers; it has to be enabled in iTunes 10.5 beta 2 first
- OTA updates have been released, though none are currently available
- iCloud has a new logo in the Settings.app
- You can now backup to iCloud or the computer when setting the device up
- If no notifications are available, Notification Center shows the text “No New Notifications”
- Stock widget in the Notification Center is now off by default
- Stock wallpapers are back, but are the same that were in iOS 4
- General speed improvements, kills bugs that were present in iOS 5 beta 1

Video of Wi-Fi Sync from iPhoneDownloadBlog:

We'll post updates as we hear more.

Earlier today, we noted that LaCie is preparing to roll out its first Thunderbolt-enabled Little Big Disk external hard drives, although the initial models will be limited to higher-end SSD-based devices.

iLounge now reports that slow roll-out of Thunderbolt and the lack of consumer-based options may be due to high pricing for incorporating the technology, an issue that appears to also be affecting third-party peripherals compatible with Apple's AirPlay streaming technology. According to the report, the inclusion of Thunderbolt or AirPlay compatibility can add as much as $100 to the price of these devices, limiting their ability to address mainstream consumer markets.

Our sources have described the AirPlay technologies as considerably more expensive to incorporate than Apple's standard docking Made for iPod/iPhone/iPad Dock Connectors, and noted that Apple is very heavily pushing developers to adopt the wireless technologies despite the costs involved.

We similarly have learned that the price of the components required to add a Thunderbolt port to an external hard drive is roughly equal to the cost of a low-end hard drive itself, a high cost that one developer has suggested will limit Thunderbolt's near-term use to products aimed at the professional market.

For the time being, announced Thunderbolt products do seem to be coming in at price points above those typically within range of mainstream consumers, as evidenced by Promise's 8 TB Pegasus RAID R4, which briefly appeared on Apple's store priced at $1399.95 before being pulled. That price is only $100 more than for Promise's current 8 TB RAID offering, but it remains to be seen just how quickly Thunderbolt will be able to make its way into more mainstream products.

iLounge suggests that there may at least be some hope for price drops for AirPlay devices in the relatively near future, noting that Philips earlier this week debuted AirPlay-compatible speaker systems with price tags as low as $229, a new floor in what has until now seen the feature primarily limited to higher-end receivers.

Bungie has posted on their official blog an interview with iOS developer Daniel Blezek who has been working on porting Marathon to the iPad. Blezek has been working on this project for some time but there were initially questions about the legal issue related to distributing Marathon's original level packs.

Based on notes from the interview, however, it seems that this is now a Bungie-sanctioned port.

For many, Marathon will invoke a wave of nostalgia; for others, this will be the first experience with the seminal Mac FPS. I hope all players appreciate Bungie's commitment to their fans. It's not every company who would support bringing a 16 year old game back to life!

Marathon is a first person shooter developed by Bungie Software for the Macintosh in 1994. It was a Mac exclusive launch and was released shortly after Doom first debuted for the PC. Bungie later went on to be acquired by Microsoft and released the popular Halo game series for the Xbox. Halo was originally developed for the Mac as well, but the release was delayed after Microsoft's acquisition.

The iPad version of the game has reportedly been submitted and will be released for free.

A new video promoting a theretofore unreleased Skype for iPad app and demonstrates a stylish interface and video chat capabilities. The video, allegedly posted to Skype's YouTube channel and then quickly removed, was captured by Twitter user @trackizmy1 and reposted by RazorianFly.

Skype for iPhone supports voice chat, voice calling, and instant messaging but does not include a native iPad client, instead running in pixel doubled mode.

Update: TUAW confirms details of the new Skype for iPad app in an interview with Skype VP Rick Osterloh. There is no estimate of when the app will be available.

Since Apple and Intel introduced the Thunderbolt high-speed connectivity standard back in February, users have been waiting for third-party manufacturers to deliver compatible peripherals taking advantage of the significant speed boost over existing mainstream interfaces.

At the Thunderbolt debut, prominent external hard drive solution provider LaCie was one of the first to commit to the new connectivity standard, noting that it was planning to release Thunderbolt-enabled versions of its Little Big Disk external hard drives.

SlashGear today posted a hands-on video with the Thunderbolt-enabled Little Big Disk, showing off an SSD-based version packing two 160 GB drives. LaCie's setup saw two such drives daisy-chained in a RAID 0 configuration with a 24-inch display tacked on at the end of the chain, all connected to a Core i7-based MacBook Pro. The drive setup was able to handle impressive read speeds of over 825 MB/sec and write speeds of over 350 MB/sec.

The first demo was a raw speed test, reading and writing to the drives with 4GB files. As you can see in the video, the MBP was able to write at up to 352.5 MB/s, while read speeds reached 827.2 MB/s. The company told us that the same setup had hit 870 MB/s peaks in their own testing.

The second test was playing back three simultaneous video files stored on the drives, each coming in at 1080p Full HD resolution. Again, as in the video, playback was stutter-free whether windowed or full-screen. We were also able to scrub back and forth through the clip - with the two others running in the background - with no lag or pauses.

SSD models of the Little Big Disk with Thunderbolt are due to ship this summer ("a question of weeks from now", according to the LaCie representative), but pricing has not yet been released. More budget-friendly models based on traditional hard drives are also in the works, although LaCie has yet to offer a release timeline for those models.

There has been some debate over whether Apple will be providing web app functionality for iCloud services such as Mail once the transition from MobileMe is complete, and while we had previously noted that it appeared that at least some of the web functionality was likely to make the transition, Apple has posted a new transition guide (via TechCrunch) confirming that the web apps will continue to exist with iCloud.

Will I be able to access iCloud services on the web?

Yes. Web access to iCloud Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and Find My iPhone will be available at icloud.com this fall.

Apple also confirms that the existing iWeb publishing, Gallery, and iDisk services from MobileMe will not be making the transition to iCloud. Some of these functionalities will, however, be replaced and/or enhanced with the already-announced photo and cloud services in iCloud.

All existing MobileMe services will continue to be available through June 30, 2012, although some such as syncing of Mac Dashboard widgets, keychains, Dock items, and System Preferences will become unavailable if users transfer their existing MobileMe accounts to iCloud before that deadline. Other MobileMe services not transitioning to iCloud such as iWeb publishing, Gallery, and iDisk will continue to be available until June 30, 2012 regardless of whether users maintain their existing MobileMe accounts or transition them to iCloud.

Apple is preparing to release new "Mid 2011" Mac Pro models, according to 9 to 5 Mac who cites internal Apple documents reportedly mentioning options ranging from six to sixteen processor cores. According to the source, Apple has begun putting together product manuals for the new Mac Pros, which are said to begin shipping in late July or early August.

Following a report from earlier this week that claims that Apple is gearing up to launch a new Mac Pro in late July or early August, a reliable source tells 9to5Mac that Apple has referenced a mid-2011 Mac Pro in multiple internal documents.

The late July/early August timeframe for the new Mac Pro release was first reported over the weekend by CNET's Brian Tong, whose sources had previously accurately pinpointed the latest iMac release within a small window six weeks ahead of time.

The primary question surrounding a Mac Pro release within the rumored timeframe is just which processors Apple will be using. A 16-core configuration would almost certainly come as a pair of 8-core processors, and 8-core Sandy Bridge processors of the server class used in the Mac Pro line aren't scheduled to appear until the fourth quarter of this year as Intel's Xeon E5 line. While Apple has been known to receive early access to Intel processors in the past, it seems ambitious to suppose that Apple would have that much advance access to be able to ship new Mac Pros by early August given Intel's production plans.

One intriguing report from M.I.C gadget surfacing last weekend claimed that Apple will be using a "unique CPU" in the new Mac Pros. Intel has in the past provided custom processors for Apple, pushing out a specially-designed mobile chip for the original MacBook Air back in 2008. M.I.C gadget does not, however, have a track record for Apple hardware records, so the reliability of the claim is unknown.

Earlier this month, new references to unreleased iPad models were discovered in iOS 5, but the lack of any mention of unreleased iPod touch models led to some concern that Apple might not be planning an update to the popular line this year.

But a bit more digging by iFans has in fact turned up a reference to an unreleased iPod touch model designated as "iPod4,2". The current iPod touch is designated "iPod4,1".

Up until now, only mentions of “iPod4,1,” the current iPod touch model, have been discovered in iOS 5 property lists. However, some snooping by iFans forum user shamrock has indeed yielded mention of an unreleased iPod touch model: “iPod4,2″ in the file /System/Library/LaunchDaemons /com.apple.fairplayd.N81.plist

What's more interesting is the use of the "iPod4,2" reference instead of "iPod5,1", suggesting that Apple considers the new model to only be a minor update to the existing iPod touch. Apple briefly used this naming convention once before in its iPod touch line when an "iPod2,2" reference showed up in iOS 3.0 betas in early 2009. No such product was ever released, however, as all of the third-generation iPod touch models released later that year carried the "iPod3,1" designation, which had also been found in the iOS 3.0 code. Consequently, it is possible that Apple could still have an "iPod5,1" in the works as the next update, but no signs of such of a device have yet been found in iOS 5.

To find an instance of Apple actually shipping an "X,2" product as a minor update, we can turn to the iPhone where Apple dubbed the iPhone 3G as "iPhone1,2", considering it a minor update update over the original iPhone despite a redesigned case and new 3G compatibility, among other changes. The iPhone 3GS released the following year interestingly warranted a major new "iPhone2,1" designation despite a nearly identical external appearance to the iPhone 3G, although the device's internals were significantly upgraded.

Update: TUAW notes that this iPod4,2 reference is also in iOS 4.3, not just iOS 5.

Update 2: TUAW has retracted its earlier claim of the iPod4,2 reference being present in iOS 4.3.3. The reference does in fact appear to be new in iOS 5.

According to Digitimes, Apple's notebook supply chain will "run in full gear starting" in July in order to meet production of the new MacBook Air models. Apple is said to be expecting to take delivery of over 8 million* MacBook Airs in the 3rd quarter. According to Digitimes, this represents a doubling over the previous quarter.

Shipments of parts and components for MacBook lineups totaled an equivalent of 2.2-2.4 million MacBooks in June, and orders for July are likely to top 2.7-2.8 million units, said the sources, noting that the increase is in line with Apple's previous strategy to ramp up deliveries prior to the launch of new products.

The sources also reaffirmed what has been expected -- that the new MacBook Air will feature OS X Lion and support for the Thunderbolt interface.

Note that this contradicts previous rumors that Apple had already ramped up MacBook Air production. The July ramp-up seems more likely if you are to believe that the MacBook Air will ship with OS X Lion. OS X Lion has not yet seen a final Golden Master build yet. In order to pre-install OS X Lion on MacBook Airs, Apple would presumably have to hit this milestone. Note that separately we have heard that Apple is tentatively targeting the 3rd week of July for the MacBook Air launch, but that this date could always change.

*Update: Digitimes' 8 million MacBook Air Q3 estimate is questionable since this represents twice as many Macs (all kinds) Apple shipped in Q2 2011, casting doubt on the specifics of this report.

Apple is in the process of posting videos from the WWDC 2011 on iTunes and Apple's developer page. The video page was updated briefly yesterday, but the videos were never posted but we have confirmed that they are available on iTunes.

The sessions include videos and matching slideshows for 109 different sessions, covering App Frameworks (32 sessions), Core OS (13 sessions), Developer Tools (20 sessions), Graphics, Media and Games (24 sessions), and Internet and Web (19 sessions.)

Videos can be accessed in either SD or HD by registered developers by visiting the Development Videos page and clicking on "Log in to iTunes" on the bottom left.

As hinted at earlier this week, Apple has now released Mac OS X 10.6.8, the eighth maintenance update for Snow Leopard, via Software Update. The update offers a number of fixes implemented since the release of Mac OS X 10.6.7 in late March.

The 10.6.8 update is recommended for all users running Mac OS X Snow Leopard and includes general operating system fixes that enhance the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac, including fixes that:

- Enhance the Mac App Store to get your Mac ready to upgrade to Mac OS X Lion
- Resolve an issue that may cause Preview to unexpectedly quit
- Improve support for IPv6
- Improve VPN reliability
- Identify and remove known variants of Mac Defender

For detailed information on this update, please visit this website: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4561.
For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222.

The public release is the same Build 10K540 that was seeded to developers one week ago.

Direct links for the various downloads on Apple's support pages include:

- Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update (474.2 MB)
- Mac OS X 10.6.8 Update Combo (1.09 GB)

- Mac OS X Server v10.6.8 Update (542 MB)
- Mac OS X Server v10.6.8 Update Combo (1.27 GB)

- Security Update 2011-004 (Leopard) (256.4 MB)
- Security Update 2011-004 (Leopard Server) (499.8 MB)

- Server Admin Tools 10.6.8 (255.9 MB)

Thanks to MacUpdate for the heads-up!

Daniel Spitler pleaded guilty Thursday to two felony charges related to the publishing of 120,000 AT&T customers' email addresses on Gawker.com. One other member of hacking group "Goatse Security", Andrew Auernheimer, was charged as well and is still in plea bargain negotiations. Spitler's plea agreement recommends a 12-18 month sentence.

According to reports and court filings, they wrote a script that guessed the ICC-ID numbers (used to identify the iPad's SIM card) and then queried AT&T's website until it returned an e-mail address. Spitler had been accused of co-authoring this software, called "iPad 3G Account Slurper."

The original breach occurred in June of last year. The hackers discovered a security hole on AT&T's website that allowed users to plug in a SIM card identifier called an ICC-ID, and receive back the email address connected to that SIM card.

More than 114,000 email addresses were disclosed including the personal email addresses of a number of high-profile political and business figures, though it appears no actual damage occurred beyond the exposure of the email addresses.

Back in March, cable provider Time Warner launched an iPad app that allowed subscribers to the company's TV and Internet services to access live TV from a number of channels via their iPads while on their home Wi-Fi networks. The cable company was forced, however, to quickly pull channels from several content providers who objected to the usage. Disputes with Fox and Discovery were resolved within weeks, while Time Warner filed suit against Viacom over the issue, claiming that its contract did allow the cable provider to broadcast channels such as Comedy Central, MTV, and Nickelodeon to iPads.

In the meantime, Cablevision launched its own iPad app bringing full access to the cable company's cable lineup as well as on-demand content. In the process, Cablevision took content providers head-on with statements laying out its position that such an offering was allowable under carriage contracts for the various channels.

Things had been quiet for the past several months, but a couple of developments yesterday and today are reigniting the debate. Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Time Warner and Viacom have placed their legal dispute on hold as they work toward a settlement.

The two companies said in a court filing made public Wednesday that they had reached a "standstill agreement," which put all the litigation on hold as of June 17. "In an attempt to resolve this and other litigation and potential litigation, the parties have entered into a standstill agreement," the parties said in the agreement.

The two companies are currently in talks over whether to return channels like MTV to the Time Warner Cable app, but it is unclear what the outcome of those talks will be, according to people familiar with the matter.

While there may be hope for some sort of resolution for Time Warner, Viacom has actually ratcheted up the pressure on Cablevision, as Reuters reports that Viacom has filed a lawsuit against Cablevision over its live TV app for iPad. The Wall Street Journal provides more detail on the lawsuit:

In the suit Thursday, Viacom said it is "committed to meeting consumer demand for broadband delivery of its programming."

"To this end, Viacom has reached reasonable agreements with several emerging and established digital media distributors so that they can stream Viacom's content and also provide an outstanding user experience.

"What Viacom cannot do, however, is permit one of its contracting partners, Cablevision, to unilaterally change the terms of its contractual relationship," it said in the lawsuit.

Apple's iPad has become a popular way for users to consume video, with streaming video services such as Netflix and Hulu experiencing strong success on the platform. Live television is yet another step forward for iPad video consumption, with some networks such as ESPN putting out their own apps for live video while cable providers such as Time Warner and Cablevision have been attempting to bring a breadth of channel offerings to their customers.

comScore today released a new report detailing its new metric for tracking web traffic by device and connection type. According to the data, Apple's iPad was responsible for 89% of worldwide tablet traffic in May, continuing to dominate the market it defined last year.

The iPad is currently the dominant tablet device across all geographies, contributing more than 89 percent of tablet traffic across all markets. The iPad's contribution to total non-computer device traffic is highest in Canada (33.5 percent). Brazil has the second highest non-computer device share of traffic coming from the iPad at 31.8 percent, although non-computer devices account for less than 1 percent of total traffic in the country. In Singapore, where non-computer devices comprise nearly 6 percent of total traffic, the iPad accounts for 26.2 percent of this traffic.

Calculations on comScore's data for share of non-computer traffic in the United States peg the iPad at a nearly 97% share, with Android taking nearly all of the rest of the market.

In the U.S., comScore finds that 53% of non-computer device traffic comes from Apple devices: 23.5% from iPhone, 21.8% from iPad, and 7.8% from iPod touch. Android follows in second place with over 36% of the market, nearly all from smartphones. comScore's report finds an interestingly wide variation in traffic patterns among countries, with Canada seemingly leading the way in iOS adoption, where Apple's platform is responsible for 83% of the non-computer device traffic.

iPad competitors, most of them based on Android, are continuing to flood the tablet market, but none have yet been able to break Apple's stranglehold. Upcoming high-profile tablet entries include HP next week and Amazon reportedly within the next few months.