iMessage for the Mac

Apple is working on a new Operation System which will be released in summer 2012. The name of the new System will have the name OS X Mountain Lion and one of the new features will be iMessage. Other features such as the Reminder, the Notification Center as well as the Game Center will sound familiar for those who use iDevices such as the iPhone, iPad or the iPod Touch. I personally wished for iMessage on the Mac after the release of iOS 5. For me it was kind of a logical step to have iMessage on the Mac as a chat system that will combine the world of the Mac with the mobile world.

Having a chat function on a computer isn’t that new and text messages is also something we are familiar with. Many of us might have used already some online service to send a text message online.

Well and after Apple released iOS 5 with the iMessage I had a deep feeling that it will come to the MAC as well and I am glad that I was right. For those of you who want to get a sneak peak Apple released a BETA which you can download today to test the new iMessage on your MAC.

What you might need will be of course an iClod account, but if you have many Apple products you may have an iCloud account already. So download it, enter your Apple ID and test iMessage. I did it and it is working just fine.

If you are interested here is the link:
http://www.apple.com/macosx/mountain-lion/messages-beta/

I did test the new feature and must admit I enjoyed it very much to use my computer to send messages to my friends. For me it is a great feature and you should at least check it out.

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

I never had the privilege to meet Steve Jobs, but I think that he truly changed the world. I saw many other posts, watched some YouTube Videos and read Facebook updates and this are the two quotes that, in my opinion, comes the closest to say good bye to a brilliant man.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” – Apple Inc., 1997

Steve changed the World, not just with the products we enjoy today. I wish Apple will continue being brilliant, different and will surprise us also in the future with great innovations, a future unfortunately without a Steve Jobs.

My deepest condolences goes to his family. His wife and kids. I am very sorry for your lost.

iPhone 5 release date October 4th, 2011?

Apple was presenting last June the new stuff they were working on. One was, at the time, the new OS Lion. I was writing about the new OS and also wrote a little “first impression” post, which you can find here. But Apple also announced some more cool things, like the new iOS 5, a system called iCloud and this was leading, in my opinion, to many speculation about the iPhone 5 release date as well as the new MacBook Pro design changes. I was reading many articles, comments and rumours about the two devices. Some were just fantasy, some had great and logical arguments but all of them were nothing but rumours. I liked the story about an Apple employee who lost his new iPhone 5 in a coffee shop and also the debates on various forums when the new MacBook Pro will come. Maybe late 2011, early 2012 or maybe summer 2012?

MAC OSX Lion – my first impression

 

The new OS from Apple is now available in the Apple App Store, as mentioned in my previous post. I had a chance to play around a bit and would like to share some of my experience. First thing first the new OS looks fantastic. The upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion toke a while, but I had no problem to install the new OS even on a MacBook from June 2009.

But let us talk about some of the new features. I will try to keep it short and will list just mention a few such as Mail, Address Book, iCal, Gesture and Mission Control.

The new Mail
Apple learned of course allot from the iPad and iPhone as well. I heard before Lion was released, that new Mail would look a bit like that. So I opened Mail and was checking it out. Nice feature is that you can “Hide” and “Show” all your Mailboxes. In the next column I have all my Emails listed and the last column has a preview of the Email I selected. But now there is one very cool feature I would like to mention here.

The new MAC OSX Lion, released on the 20th July 2011

This morning I thought, hey 10 more days and July is over, when will Lion be released? So I checked the Apple website and saw that Lion is finally available in the Apple App Store. I must admit, that I was a bit disappointed that I haven’t gotten an Email from Apple, even if I have signed up for more information regarding Lion, but hey, it is finally there.

You can download the new MAC OSX Lion direct from the Apple App Store. The size is 3.5 GB, the price is US$ 29.99 and also important to know is that you need to purchase the OS just once, even if you have more than one computer. But don’t forget to check if your MAC fits the requirements before purchasing the new OS.

Apple recommends to backup your files before installing Lion. You also have to make sure that you have the latest version of Snow Leopard on your computer.

One very important application of the last Snow Leopard update is