Was Apple investigating the idea of Mac OS X iPads, or MacBook Airs running on ARM chipsets?

In 2010, Apple’s Platform Technologies Group (a subdivision of the CoreOS department) spent some time working on a project to port the Mac OS X Darwin kernel to the ARMv5 chipset architecture — the same family of chipsets that currently powers iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

Here’s a snippet from the project, titled Porting Darwin to the MV88F6281, subtitled ARMing the Snow Leopard:

The goal of this project is to get Darwin into a workable state on the MV88F6281 processor so that other teams can continue their work on this platform. The project has three major milestones:

1. Getting the buildsystem into shape, so that it can build the kernel and kexts.
2. Building and booting the kernel into single user mode.
3. Booting the system into multi-user mode.

The project was only made public several months ago. While iOS also uses the Darwin kernel, this project involved Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and was left for the CoreOS teams to continue. Since Mac OX X 10.7 Lion has since shipped, as have newer generations of iPad and MacBook Air, without any sign of MAC OS X on ARM, it’s unknown if this project is still ongoing or has since been put on the shelf. However, the author of the paper is now a full-time employee at Apple, working as a CoreOS Engineer.

While some might find the idea of a Mac OS X iPad intriguing, Tablet PC, which put full Microsoft Windows on a tablet, never gained any traction in the market. It, like Mac OS X, was simply not designed for a multitouch user interface.

Microsoft, to their credit, is currently working on Windows 8, which will have both a Windows Phone-like Metro user interface optimized for tablets, and a more traditional Windows 7-like interface for desktops and laptops.

Instead of making MacBook Airs with ARM processors, Apple decided to take iOS software “Back to the Mac” instead with OS X 10.7 Lion.

Given Apple’s preference for simplicity, and the huge sales they’ve achieved with iPad, it seems unlikely they’d deviate from their current strategy. Indeed, there has been more speculation of late that Apple would continue to move iOS towards the Mac, as opposed to moving the Mac to ARM.

However, Mac OS X once ran on Power PC chips, yet Apple had it secretly running on Intel chips at the same time. It only makes sense for a company as forward thinking as Apple to have ARM-compatible builds of OS X in the development labs.

SO while neither an OS X tablet nor an ARM MacBook Air seem likely, it’s interesting to see further evidence of Apple keeping the Mac platform nimble.

UPDATE: For those curious about the group, kernel, and chipset referenced above, here are the descriptions from the project introduction:

About the Platform Technologies Group

As it was described by a manager: “We do the plumbing, if we do our jobs right, you never see it.”. The Platform Technologies Group, a subdivision of the Core OS department, works on the embedded platforms that Apple maintains. Here, platforms are brought up and the embedded kernel and lower level support for the platforms is maintained.

What is Darwin?

Darwin is the lower half of the Mac OSX operating system. It includes the XNU kernel which is based on the Mach microkernel, and the userland.

What is the MV88F6281?

The MV88F6281 is an ARMv5te compatible processor from Marvell. It is based on their custom Sheeva core, which is designed to be like the ARM926EJ-S core from ARM. It has all the features youʼd expect from a modern CPU, including several high speed SERDES lanes, a Harvard L1 cache, and 128kb of unified L2 cache.

Source: Delfte University of Technology

Following up on the education event in New York, Apple has posted an instructional video for the new iBooks Author app available in the Mac App Store.

The video goes over some of the default templates Apple has included, as well as some of the more fluid user-interface elements like drag-and-drop, widgets and deep customization options. One thing I noticed was the built-in accessibility options Apple has included, which makes creating books that people with disabilities can read and experience much easier. You can also preview your book on the iPad to make sure it looks just the way you want it to look.

All in all, the video is very educational and details most of the functionality included in iBooks Author. Check it out!

Source: Apple

No doubt there will be a lot of questions about iBooks Author, and in anticipation of many of those, Apple has posted a FAQ in their knowledge base to address some of the most common. Entries include:

How can I distribute my work? How do I publish my book on iTunes U? How do I publish my book on the iBookstore? I’m an educator. Is course material I create and provide to my students as part of a tuition-based course considered a work I’m selling? I’m an educational institution. Are course materials that I may provide to students as part of a tuition fee considered a work I’m selling? I’m an author (or publisher). Can I distribute this work on my own website? Can I distribute works created with iBooks Author as part of a product or service that charges a subscription-based fee?

iBooks Author for Mac OSX can create eBooks for digital distribution through the iBookstore and is made to work with applications like Pages, Keynote and Word.

• Free – Mac App Store Link

Source: Apple

On a Mac and wondering how to get free ringtones for your iPhone? We all know you can purchase or create ringtones in iTunes but… they can be limited in functionality or selection. Luckily GarageBand, which is part of the the iLife suite, has the ability to create ringtones built right in.

The process isn’t too difficult and you can fine tune them however you like; including fade ins, fade outs, splicing sections together, and more.

After you choose the song you want to use, you’ll need to drag it into GarageBand. For iLife 11 users, you’ll need to do these steps first. If you’re using an older version of iLife, you can simply skip to the next section.

iLife 11 users, do this first

If you want to use a song that was purchased from iTunes (a .m4r file), GarageBand is picky about you dragging those in as of iLife 11, so you’ll need to change the format from .m4r to .mp3 before dragging it in.

1. Drag the file from iTunes you’d like to use for your ringtone to your desktop.
2. Change the extension from .m4r to .mp3
3. Finder will prompt you asking if you’re sure you want to change it. Click use .mp3
4. Now move on to the next section.

Making a ringtone

1. Drag your song into GarageBand, you should see something similar to above (if GarageBand opened a virtual keyboard, just x it out). I also go to the counter and change it to time instead of measures (located on the bottom). That’s up to you. It’s just personal preference.

2. Now expand the view by clicking the tiny scissor icon in the bottom left hand corner of GarageBand (it’s the third icon from the left in most versions of GarageBand.

3. The expanded view should look like the screen above. This view allows you to highlight and cut sections out as well as finer tune your selection.

4. Now comes the Apple loop part, next to your play/pause/forward controls to the right, you should see the button above. Click it and you will now see a yellow bar that you can adjust appear above your song in the top section of GarageBand.

5. Simply slide this bar back and forth to select the portion of the song you’d like to make a ringtone out of. You can increase and decrease the length by dragging it at the beginning or end as well. Just make sure it’s under 30 seconds total.

Those are all the steps to create your ringtone, the video also explains a few more options as far as fading in and out as well as cutting and splicing so be sure to check that out as well.

Import your ringtone into iTunes

Now all that’s left to do is to send the ringtone to iTunes.

1. At the top of GarageBand click Share.
2. Next select Send ringtone to iTunes
3. iTunes should pop open and import your ringtone automatically.
4. Now just sync your iPhone and the new ringtone and you’re done!

That’s all there is to it! You can create as many ringtones as you want this way without paying any additional money. If you run into issues, check out our TiPb forums for more help and suggestions!

[Daily Tips](http://www.imore.com/tips] range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Trying to figure out how to easily add holidays and sports schedules into the iPhone or iPad Calendar app? Lucky for us Apple actually solved this problem quite a while ago for Mac iCal users. Simply subscribe to Apple’s already built calendars and you’ll be all set. Read on to find out how!

Sure, you can manually add calendar subscriptions right on your iOS device, but finding them and tapping them all in can be a pain. iCal on Mac makes it simple, and if you’re already syncing, it can save you some time and effort!

1. First, open iCal on your Mac.

2. Next, from the top menu choose Calendar and then Find Subscriptions.
3. Your web browser should open and direct you to Apple’s iCal calendar downloads page.

4. From here you can browse from many calendars. Choose the one you want and click Download next to the calendar name.

5. Your computer will ask you what program you want to open the file with. iCal should be highlighted. If it’s not, select it and tap Ok.

6. iCal will automagically open and show you the subscription link. Simply click Subscribe. You should now see the subscribed calendar in your side bar and the events should now be added to your calendar.
7. That’s it! Simply sync your iPhone or iPad and your calendars will come down. If you have MobileMe, it’ll do it by itself with no syncing required.

If you guys subscribe to calendars via Apple, which ones do you use? I find these especially handy for things like holidays and sports schedules as well as astronomy calendars. We live on the beach and sometimes I want to know what time the sun is setting. Sure I can use a weather app but it’s nice to be able to set alarms for nights I know I’m going to be around the beach area. How about you guys, any calendars you found that you think are especially cool?

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to news@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is here. OS X, the desktop counterpart to Apple’s mobile iOS, has taken iPad innovation “Back to the Mac” with this release, including the iPad home screen-like LaunchPad for app management, automatic save and resume, etc.

“Lion is the best version of OS X yet, and we’re thrilled that users around the world can download it starting today,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Lion makes upgrading a Mac easier than ever before; just launch the Mac App Store, buy Lion with your iTunes account, and the download and install process will begin automatically.”

It’s also the first time a major Mac OS X version will be distributed online, through the Mac App Store. Gigabytes of download will be an interesting challenge for those with multiple machines, but especially for those with slower internet connections or restricted bandwidth. (Never mind what the launch day rush might do to the internet in general — Apple servers have gone down during iOS releases in the early days.)

UPDATE: Apple has announced that Lion will be available “later this August” on a USB thumb drive for $69.

All that aside, we welcome our Mac OS X cousins to the goodness we’ve been enjoying for a while now in iOS. Who’s getting it?

[Apple PR, $29 - Mac App Store]

Apple has announced that Bertrand Sertlet, Vice President of Mac Software Engineering, is leaving to pursue scientific interests.

“I’ve worked with Steve for 22 years and have had an incredible time developing products at both NeXT and Apple, but at this point, I want to focus less on products and more on science,” said Bertrand Serlet, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Craig has done a great job managing the Mac OS team for the past two years, Lion is a great release and the transition should be seamless.”

He’ll be replaced by Craig Federighi, current VP of Mac Software Engineering. While this represents a change to the Mac group and not the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad group run by SVP of iOS Software Engineering, Scott Forstall, Apple has a history of bringing technology from Mac OS X to iOS X and vice versa. Also, since iOS and Cocoa Touch are based on Mac OS X and Cocoa, and Serlet played a pivotal roll in in the development of both, his contributions even to Apple’s mobile efforts have no doubt been immense.

Everyone at TiPb wishes Serlet a successful future! Video memories after the break!

[Apple PR]

Using the release version of Mac OS X 10.6.5 and curious how to re-enable network AirPrint for your iPhone or iPad? Apple seems to have us in limbo as to whether or not this feature will actually work when the final version of iOS 4.2 ships, but if you have the current iOS 4.2 GM software and aren’t afraid to get your geek on, you can get it working now. Follow on after the break to find out how…

Developer Steven Troughton Smith broke down the process on his High Caffeine Content blog, and it goes like this:

• Search the dark places of the interwebs for a pre-release developer build of Mac OS X 10.5.6. (10H542 is known to work).
• Migrate the following files to your Mac:
  • /usr/libexec/cups/filter/urftopdf
  • /usr/share/cups/mime/apple.convs
  • /usr/share/cups/mime/apple.types
• Go to Print & Fax in System Preferences and remove and re-add your printer
• Go to Sharing in System Preferences and enable printer sharing

He adds:

Basically, doing this should add the image/urf mimetype to your shared printer, and a new Bonjour field ‘URF’. Once you have those, it should work. Theoretically, there’s no reason someone can’t write a server application that broadcasts said Bonjour info and prints for you, so you don’t have to use files from a prerelease build. I would expect something like that to appear over the next few weeks.

So there you have it, a simple if not easy way to be able to AirPrint from iOS 4.2 GM to shared printer on Mac OS 10.6.5. If you try it out, let us know how it works for you!

[High Caffeine Content]

Tips of the day will range from beginner-level 101 to advanced-level ninjary. If you already know this tip, keep the link handy as a quick way to help a friend. If you have a tip of your own you’d like to suggest, add them to the comments or send them in to dailytips@tipb.com. (If it’s especially awesome and previously unknown to us, we’ll even give ya a reward…)

As part of the steady march towards iOS 4.2, Apple has released Mac OS X 10.6.5. Beta versions of this OS were said by developers to be necessary to enable iOS 4.2 iPhone and iPad AirPrint support for networked printers. Now, however, there have been rumors networked AirPrint support has been postponed or cancelled.

We’ll try it out with the iOS 4.2 GM but we likely won’t know for sure until the release version of iOS 4.2 hits, hopefully soon.

If you’ve updated to 10.6.5 and have iOS 4.2 GM, let us know if it works for you!

A new Apple patent was just revealed that suggests iOS (and the upcoming Mac OS X Lion) could have scrolling menus and toolbars The idea would be that users could bring up menus and toolbars that apply to whatever application they’re in, scroll through them, and select a command from the toolbar itself.

The patent also tells us that these toolbars could consist of text only commands or that icons could be used. To put it in simpler terms, it could change the way you interact with your OS. Right now in Mac OS X we use drop-down menus to save a file, open a document, or edit them. In iOS we use typically use pop-up menus. This patent implies that Apple may be looking at changing it up a bit. I’m not quite sure how I feel about scrolling through menus on a Mac or if I prefer the traditional solution (drop-down menus are easy to access), but I could definitely see this being an extremely useful feature in iOS. What do you guys think?

[via PatentlyApple]

Steve Jobs today gave a hint at the future of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, and that future is… iOS and iPad!

• Multitouch gestures
• App Store
• App home screens (with Folders)
• Full screen apps
• Auto save
• Apps resume when launched

It’s not going to be a multitouch Mac. Jobs says Apple tried it but vertical touch surfaces are tiring and don’t work. That’s why Apple has made multitouch trackpads for laptops, and Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad for desktops. That’s how they’re going to do multitouch.

Mac App Store won’t be exclusive but Jobs thinks it will be the best. Same 70/30 developer split, one click downloads, free and paid, auto instal, auto updates, licensed for use on all your personal macs.

LaunchPad will be the homescreen for Macs.

Mission Control will unify Spaces, Exposé, Dashboard, full screen apps.

Screenshots after the break. And check out Apple.com‘s new Mac OS X 10.7 Lion page for more.

We’ve already mentioned iTunes 9.1 and iPhoto 8.1.2, but yesterday and today Apple also released Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.3, VoiceOver Kit for iPod 1.3, and iPhone Configuration Utility 2.2.

For Mac and traditional iPod users, these will get you the latest, greatest bug fixes and software updates (with perhaps some iPad compatibility thrown into the former). For Enterprise IT admins, the iPhone Configuration Utility will now let you manage iPads as well as iPhones.

If you update any of the above, let us know how they work for you.

Apple has just released their second minor update to their latest desktop operating system, Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.2. While there are a lot of fixes for Mac users, iPhone users may want to pay particular attention to the “general reliability improvements” for MobileMe and iDisk. (And yes, the infamous “guest account” data deletion bug looks to have been squashed.

If you’re a Mac user and go for the immediate update, let us know how it works for you.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

PhoneView is a desktop companion that fills in the holes left by iTunes for any iPhone user on the Mac (sorry Microsoft faithful). Some of PhoneView’s features are as follows:

• Use your iPhone as a disk
• Play and export music
• Create, edit and save notes
• Search and save SMS/MMS messages
• Download camera photos
• Save voicemails
• View and export call history
• Play and save voice memos
• Export synced photos
• Export Contacts

We often see folks in TiPb’s forums looking for more syncing functionality than what iTunes provides. Could this be for you? PhoneView is available to demo for free and $19.95 to purchase a license. Be sure to check out this video for a quick tour of PhoneView’s features and functionality.

UPDATED: According to @geohot on Twitter, blackra1n for Mac is now live.

ORIGINAL: When George Hotz released his all iPhone/iPod 3.1.2 jailbreak application for Windows, blackra1n, he was unsure whether or not he would write a Mac OS X version. According to a recent post on Twitter it seems as if he’s had a change of heart.

blackra1n for mac coming soon…actually reuses code…NSRunAlertPanel causing crashes…and can anyone blackify the purplera1n mac icon?

It would be nice if this upcoming Mac version includes an exploit for the new bootrom but the probability of that happening is highly unlikely. For the latest news and tips for jailbreaking/unlocking your iPhone, visit our iPhone Jailbreak/Unlock forums.

UPDATE: Official press release from Apple: Apple to Ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard on August 28

The Apple Store is back up, and as expected it’s brought the next generation of Mac OS X, 10.6 Snow Leopard, with it! Pre-ordering is now available for delivery by this Friday, August 28 in the US (international stores may only ship by 8/28).

At $29 for single user and $49 for a 5-user family pack, for Mac users, this is likely a no-brainer. We’re not sure what, if any, goodies will be in there specific to the iPhone of iPod touch, but with OpenCL (use GPU as CPU), Grand Central Dispatch (packetize processor tasks like network traffic), built-in Exchange ActiveSync support, QuickTime X, and a whole heap of refinements under the hood (hello, Cocoa Finder!), it’ll be worth it anyway. Find out more at Apple.com.

For everyone else, worry not, Windows 7 is still on track for October 22, Ubuntu Karmic Koala is set for October 29, and if you rock a different distro… well, you’ll likely have an update at some point too!

Apple has released Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.8, the latest updates and security patches for it’s desktop operating system, big brother to the iPhone’s OS.

While some previous updates have contained new iPhone-specific features, we haven’t seen any yet for 10.5.8, although some fixes will be of benefit to iPhone users on Mac. According to Apple Knowledge Base, these include:

• Improves overall Bluetooth reliability with external devices, USB webcams and printers.
• Improves iCal reliability with MobileMe Sync and CalDav.
• Addresses data reliability issues with iDisk and MobileMe.

If anyone notices anything else, let us know in the comments!

[via MacRumors]

We’ve just gotten word from TiPb forums that George Hotz has released his much anticipated Mac OS X version of purplea1n.

So you say you have an iPhone 3GS along with that jailbreak itch? Hit the link and get your download on. As always proceed at your own risk. TiPb and all of it’s staff take zero responsibility to any wrong doings that may occur while using the software.

[Thanks for the tip Matt74!]

iPhone 3.0 Beta 4 required iTunes 8.2 Pre-Release to install, and it looks like iTunes 8.2 Pre-Release requires… Mac OS Leopard 10.5.7 in order to sync notes now. Which, of course, is not yet available.

Previous iPhone 3.0 Betas have synced perfectly well under the current Mac OS release, 10.5.6.

A sign of 10.5.7′s immanent arrival? Perhaps. A more interesting question is what’s changed in note sync to require it where previous betas did not?

(via daveizzle on Twitter)

Apple Insider has been putting two and two together, based on web content and WWDC 2009 session info and coming up with:

Apple will leverage the popularity of the iPhone to deliver business users new Mobile Access services in Snow Leopard Server to securely deliver corporate email, contact, calendar, and intranet web services to iPhone and iPod touch users far more cost effectively than Microsoft Windows Server.

If you don’t mind Mac-centric geekery, check out the full article. Bottom line, however, is that anything that makes Apple invest more heavily in secure business-focused iPhone features, the better for everyone on all platforms.