MacRumors

Develop offers an interesting teaser from its forthcoming interview with former vice president of game publishing at Microsoft Ed Fries, who notes that he was personally tasked with appeasing Apple CEO Steve Jobs after Microsoft acquired game developer Bungie Studios in 2000. Bungie had been a prominent game developer for the Mac platform, but Microsoft's acquisition enabled it to scoop up Bungie's Halo project and turn it into an Xbox exclusive.

"As soon as we announced we bought Bungie, Steve Jobs called," Fries said.

"He was mad at [Microsoft CEO Steve] Ballmer and phoned him up and was angry because we'd just bought the premier Mac game developer and made them an Xbox developer."

Fries goes on to note that Microsoft and Apple reached a deal that saw Microsoft help port a handful of PC games to the Mac platform. As part of the deal, Fries appeared on-stage with Jobs at Macworld New York in 2000 in order to reassure Mac users about the partnership between Microsoft/Bungie and Apple.

"Anyway, we did this deal with Apple where we'd port some PC games to the Macintosh and help Peter Tamte create this company to do it, and I had to go to a Mac developer conference and get on stage and talk about this whole new partnership. It was a pretty strange time."

Despite the promises of continued cooperation, Halo for Mac was ultimately delayed until December 2003. Fries left Microsoft in 2004, and Microsoft spun off Bungie in 2007 with Microsoft retaining the rights to the Halo franchise, although the two companies have continued to collaborate on Halo projects.

Our sister site TouchArcade is following the story of iDOS, a new emulator application that appeared in the App Store earlier today which allows users to run DOS and even Windows 3.0 on their iOS devices.

Late last night iDOS was released. Based on DOSbox, an open source DOS emulator, iDOS is a universal app that has PC keyboard support, mouse support, multiple screen modes, and more.

While the full capabilities of the emulator are still being discovered, the $0.99 application already boasts an impressive set of features. It is unclear whether Apple's approval of iDOS was in line with the company's broadened guidelines and whether it will continue to be offered in the App Store as news of its capabilities begins to spread.

iDOS is compatible with iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, and requires iOS 3.1.2 or later.

Update: Apple appears to have pulled iDOS from the App Store.

Yesterday, we noted some early benchmarks for Apple's newly-revamped MacBook Air models, comparing performance of the new machines to earlier generations of the MacBook Air, the current 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the iPad. The Geekbench benchmarks included in the report, however, only tested processor and memory performance, omitting any benefit that might be gained from the graphics hardware and flash storage used in the new models.

Macworld has now published a more thorough set of benchmarks, offering a somewhat more real-world assessment of overall performance using its Speedmark 6.5 benchmarking suite and examining all four standard configurations of the new MacBook Air. Among the most interesting observations made in the study is that the new 13-inch MacBook Air actually slightly outperforms the current-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro, a machine that offers a significantly faster 2.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor as compared to the MacBook Air's 1.86 GHz version. This comes despite the MacBook Air with its standard 2 GB of RAM being tested against the MacBook Pro with 4 GB of RAM.

The report also points to the significant improvement for the new 13-inch MacBook Air over the previous-generation models, particularly on processor-intensive tasks despite the older models offering equal or faster processors. Macworld attributes this difference to processor throttling imposed by Apple on the earlier models to deal with heat issues, something the company appears to have solved in the new models to allow the processors to run at closer to their full capacity.

When first released in 2008, the MacBook Air suffered from issues with heat, and Apple's approach to fixing the problem was to slow down the processor when things started to heat up, usually during processor intensive tasks. So even though you might have a 1.86GHz processor in your MacBook Air, it might be running much slower at times when you could really use the faster speed.

Looking at our benchmark results, it appears that these latest MacBook Air models (even with processor speeds that are slower than their predecessors) are running closer to their specified speeds, and therefore outperforming the "faster" processors that they replace.

Apple's 11-inch MacBook Air of course does not match the 13-inch model's performance in most areas, due to its slower 1.4 GHz processor, and of course neither machine is able to challenge the 15" MacBook Pro running a higher-end Core i5 processor, but the new 13-inch MacBook Air at least seems to be a worthy competitor to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, as well as the MacBook.

An iOS 4.1 bug discovered in our forums late last week has been gaining significant attention for its ability to allow users to bypass the built-in passcode protection on the iPhone to view contacts, call histories, and voicemail. While the bug does not permit full access to the iPhone's functions, as the home and lock buttons remain mostly non-functional, users have also reported being able to activate music functions and voice control while in this mode.

The passcode bypass is performed by attempting to place an Emergency Call to a non-emergency number (such as "###") and quickly hitting the lock button on the top of the iPhone after placing the call. The iPhone immediately opens up to the Phone application, offering full access to contacts and other phone-related information.

It is unclear whether the issue exists in developer builds of iOS 4.2 currently being distributed by Apple, as some users have reported that they have been able to replicate it under iOS 4.2 while others claim that they can not. Complicating the assessment is a lack of information from these sources regarding which builds of iOS 4.2 they are running.

Update: Wired received a statement from an Apple spokeswoman, who noted that the bug will be fixed in iOS 4.2 next month.

An Apple spokeswoman contacted Wired.com with a response regarding the security flaw: "We're aware of this issue and we will deliver a fix to customers as part of the iOS 4.2 software update in November."

Microsoft today announced that Office for Mac 2011 is now officially available, offering consumers a number of new features in the company's flagship productivity suite.

According to Wilfrid, three-quarters of all Mac users have Office installed on their machines. "That's the vast majority of Mac customers counting on Microsoft for a critical piece of their computing needs," he says. "Mac users need Office because it helps them work with the Windows world."

Wilfrid is proud of that statistic, which he says highlights the importance of the relationship between the two companies. Today the relationship takes another step forward as Microsoft releases Office for Mac 2011, the company's productivity software suite tailored for the Mac operating system. Mac users can now install the latest versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and, for the first time, Outlook. Office 2011 is available in 13 languages around the world, and by November the suite will be available in more than 45 countries.

Microsoft's Office for Mac site offers a tour of the new suite, as well as highlights of the changes included. One of the most significant changes is the replacement of Entourage with Outlook for managing email, calendars, and contacts. Outlook is included with Home & Business versions of Office 2011.

With today's launch, Amazon is offering significant discounts on Office for Mac 2011 packages:

- Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 - Single License ($109.99)
- Office Mac Home and Student 2011 - Family Pack (3 Licenses) ($129.99)

- Microsoft Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 - 1 Pack ($174.99)
- Office Mac Home and Business 2011 - 2 License Pack ($239.99)

Note: Purchases through these links financially benefit this site.

Update: Apple has also sent an email to customers on its mailing lists informing them of the Office 2011 launch:

Apple today updated its Apple Store application for iOS devices, adding several new features including location awareness to allow users to check in for appointments at their local Apple retail store.

What's new
- Add engraving and gift wrapping to select purchases from the Apple Online Store
- Reserve products for pickup at an Apple Retail Store
- Check in for Apple Retail Store appointments and call up quick help within stores (iOS 4 required)
- Add Apple Retail Store appointments directly to iCal
- View your upcoming Apple Retail Store activity on a map
- Ability to recognize you when you arrive to an Apple Retail Store and offer you a personalized set of services (iOS 4 required)

The in-store location integration was detailed at the last minute by MacStories, which revealed that Apple has rolled out a pair of applications for its retail store employees called Concierge and Scout. The new applications allow employees to check in on the queue of customers holding appointments and assist managers with deploying staff throughout each store.

The report, which includes a number of screenshots, also describes the process by which a customer arriving at an Apple retail store receives a notification of an upcoming appointment, offers to check in the customer, and displays a photo of the employee assigned to assist the customer to aid in recognition.

In addition to location-awareness, the revised Apple Store application offers support for the newly-launched iPad engraving (as well as iPod engraving) and holiday gift wrapping.

As Boy Genius Report notes, the updated application also now allows users the option of reserving a white iPhone 4 at select retail store locations. It is unclear whether their appearance is imminent, but Apple has stated that it expects them to be available by the end of the year and appears to gearing up to support their availability.

Update: The option to reserve a white iPhone 4 is no longer accessible through the Apple Store application.

Reuters reports that Sony Corp's stock rose nearly 3 percent on Tuesday due to reports of a possible Apple acquisition of Sony. Speculation about Apple making a major acquisition has been in full force since Apple's latest financial results revealed a cash stockpile of $51 billion. Steve Jobs also hinted that he anticipates using the cash for strategic opportunities in the future:

"We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along, that we can take, that we're in a unique position to take advantage of because of our strong cash position"

Those comments, of course, resulted in analysts generating a long list of potential acquisition targets for Apple including EA, Netflix, Disney, Facebook, Adobe and even Sony. As far as we can tell, there has been no credible source pinpointing any actual intentions from Apple surrounding these companies.

As Apple's cash position grows, there will certainly be more speculation about possible large acquisition targets. One analyst even projects that at their current revenue growth rate, they will hit nearly $90 billion in cash reserves by 2012.

Back in July, a rumor surfaced claiming that Apple would begin offering engraving on the iPad, much as it does with its iPod line. The rumor claimed that the offer could be set to launch as part of the holiday shopping season push.

Right on time, Apple has just launched free iPad engraving, allowing customers to add up to two lines of custom text to the rear of any iPad ordered through the company's online store. The engraving option bumps the shipping estimate from "within 24 hours" to "1-3 business days", but allows gift givers an easy way to personalize their gifts.

The iPad is also part of Apple's holiday gift wrap program, allowing customers to have their iPad orders packaged in custom gift boxes for an additional $5.00.

Apple has accelerated Mac OS X 10.6.5 developer builds with build 10H563 being delivered only 4 days since the last one (10H562). The build number was incremented a single digit and incorporates no known issues.

The previous build included a new Combo updater suggesting they are preparing for release. Apple has previously been seeding Mac OS X 10.6.5 builds as quickly as one-week intervals. This latest release 4 day turnaround suggests development is winding down.

10.6.5 could represent the last point upgrade to Snow Leopard as Apple has already announced Mac OS X 10.7 Lion for delivery in Summer 2011.

As reported earlier this month, Microsoft has released software allowing Mac users to synchronize media with a Windows Phone 7 device. Microsoft had held a media event earlier this month to officially unveil its Windows Phone 7 operating system along with several handsets to be available over the next few months through a number of carriers.

Now available from the Windows Download Center, the application requires Mac OS 10.5 Leopard or higher and provides the following functionality:

Windows Phone 7 Connector lets your syncronize your favorite music, videos, photos and podcasts from iTunes and iPhoto to your Windows Phone 7, so you can take your media with you wherever you go.

Though no mention is made in the description for the beta Connector application, it's unlikely that any DRM-protected content purchased from the iTunes Store can be synchronized to a Windows Phone 7 device.

9 to 5 Mac points out that a growing number of users are reporting problems upgrading their iPhoto installations to the newest version included in the new iLife '11. According to the report, users are finding some or all of their photos disappearing following the upgrade process.

Specifically, some people are losing some or all of their photo libraries when upgrading. Also, iPhoto '11 drops support for older AppleTVs as well as photo calendars.

Apple's Discussion Forums are lighting up with people who are losing data..

Suggested steps to take for those affected by the problem include repairing permissions and rebuilding iPhoto libraries. Of course, backing up the existing iPhoto library before upgrading is the most reliable method for ensuring that photos are not lost.

Update: The report regarding iPhoto '11 not working with older Apple TVs appears to have been a single instance which was resolved by the user, not a general incompatibility. The loss of photo calendar support is also a temporary issue.

We've reported a couple of times over the past few days about the imminent opening of Apple's North Carolina data center and rumors that the company is already considering doubling the size of the facility.

All Things Digital has continued digging into the story and discovered a photo posted to the official Flickr page of Catawba County, North Carolina showing a schematic of the facility containing two buildings instead of the single building that exists today. The image, which dates from July 2009, suggests that Apple has intended to double the size of the existing facility all along, rather than the decision being a recent one.

The discovery also raises the question of the size of the current facility. Public disclosures regarding the facility have always referred to it as a 500,000 square-foot project with a price tag on the order of $1 billion. Consequently, rumors of a doubling of the data center's size assumed that that would bring the facility to a total of one million square feet. It seems possible, however, that the publicized figures in fact referred to the total project with both buildings completed, and thus the current building set to begin operation may only be 250,000 square feet.

Update: One MacRumors reader has performed a rough overlay of Apple's schematic with Google Maps satellite imagery of the area, determining that each building contains a footprint of roughly 500,000 square feet.

Update 2: A building schematic included on an assessment report for the property appears to show that the initial building includes just over 500,000 square feet of space in three separate components, surrounded by just over 140,000 square feet of "masonry patio" aprons for loading bays and other functions.

Primate Labs publishes initial benchmarks for Apple's new 13-inch and 11-inch MacBook Air, comparing the new models to earlier generations of the MacBook Air, the current 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the iPad.

There are two ways you can look at the new 11-inch MacBook Air; it's either a much smaller but slower MacBook Pro, or a much faster but larger iPad. The 11-inch MacBook Air is small enough that I'd consider bringing it instead of an iPad, but I'd worry it's not fast enough (or have enough screen space) to be my primary laptop.

The 13-inch MacBook Air is a much more straightforward produc; it has 80% of the processor performance of the latest 13-inch Pro, making it an acceptable substitute for users looking for a slightly more portable Pro.

The report emphasizes, however, that Geekbench only measures processor and memory performance, leaving out what is expected to be significant overall performance improvements over earlier generations due to the use of the NVIDIA GeForce 320M video card and flash storage across all models.

A CNET report regarding a hiring spree by several customer service call center companies in the mobile phone business has been generating renewed speculation since late Friday that Verizon may be staffing up to support an early 2011 launch of the iPhone on its network.

The hiring companies, Salt Lake City-based Teleperformance and Kennesaw, Ga.-based Ryla, are hiring at facilities around the country, with Ryla advertising for 1,700 positions in Indiana, California, Virginia, and Colorado.

Though few of the job postings specify which company the new employees will be taking calls for, Teleperformance's Careerbuilder post says employees in Pennsylvania will field calls for a "major wireless cell phone service retailer."

The report also points to a Fresno Bee article on Ryla's hiring in Clovis, California, which is said to be in support of "a Fortune 50 cellular/telecommunications company that expects to increase its marketing and sales", a designation that would appear to limit the possibilities to AT&T and Verizon.

Teleperformance has worked with both Verizon and Apple in the past, which when considered along with size of the hiring surge, has obviously led to speculation that the new positions are set to support a Verizon iPhone. Several mainstream newspapers have claimed in recent weeks that a CDMA-based iPhone is set to launch on Verizon early next year.

During last week's media event, Apple demoed a few early features of Mac OS X Lion which will be released in 2011. While Apple focused on a few particular features (Mac App Store, LaunchPad, and Full Screen Apps), readers have noticed a few other user interface changes coming to Apple's next operating system.

One rumor that was posted ahead of the event predicted that Mac OS X 10.7 would be getting iOS-inspired scroll bars. During the event, Apple showed off new versions of their Apps with these new scroll bars in place. Like iOS, the scroll bars disappear when not in use, but reappear during scrolling or with mouse movement.

Meanwhile, one reader who had accurately predicted these changes also reveals that in Mac OS X 10.7, users will be able to resize windows from any corner.

ALSO you can now resize the windows from any corner, again, works nicely.

Currently, windows are only resizable on the bottom-right corner of the windows.

A couple of other new features that Apple glossed over during the presentation was "Auto Save" and "Apps resume when launched". As a result of these new features, it appears that Mac applications are no longer depicted as launched or unlaunched in the Mac OS X Dock:

This actually represents a big shift in Mac OS X's representation of apps. The typical "light" indicator under each launched application is gone from the Mac OS X Lion dock. Apple's implementation of instantly resuming applications when launched may blur the lines between launched/unlaunched, though the distinction still remains important when talking about multitasking.