Two years ago, Tristan Schaap joined Apple’s Platform Technologies Group as an intern. During his 12-week stint with the Core OS division, he worked on a project to get a piece of Mac OS X running on an ARM processor, says a report by iMore. Most people were not aware of this project until recently, when the Netherland’s Delft University of Technology made Schaap’s thesis available to the public.

Schaap’s project was very specific – he worked with Darwin and ported it to a Marvell ARMv5te processor. Some of the ARMv5 code was present in Darwin and his job was to get it to work in both single-user mode and multi-user mode.

His report doesn’t say why Apple assigned him this project, but as OSNews points out, it’s possible Apple wanted to test his mettle and introduce him to the company during his 12-week tenure. Technically, Apple couldn’t use his code because the project’s Marvell ARMv5 processor is not found in any Apple hardware. It even predates the Samsung ARMv6 core which powered the original iPhone. Also, it’s highly unlikely Apple would assign an important project like the OS X/ARM port to an intern.

Speculation about an ARM-based MacBook Air gained momentum after Microsoft announced that its new desktop OS, Windows 8, will support ARM hardware. This opens the door to ultra-portable notebooks and tablets with exceptional battery life and all the features of a full desktop OS. Whether this strategy will be successful, remains to be seen as Microsoft’s last gamble to bridge tablets and PCs, a project with the codename Origami, failed miserably.

[Via AppleInsider]

Apple intern thesis bears on porting Darwin to ARMv5 chips originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Enyo is an application development platform created by HP for webOS. It’s open source and based on web standards like JavaScript. Best of all, it can be used to create apps for other platforms like Android and iOS.

The first Enyo-based app for iOS, FlashCards To Go, was unveiled last month when HP announced its timetable for releasing webOS to the open source community. Created by developer James Harris, the iPad title is a full-featured flashcards app that has a strong webOS look and feel. It’s available for US$3.99 and works on any iPad running iOS 5. The flash cards app is also available on Android and both a Mac OS X and BlackBerry version are under development as well.

First Enyo app makes the iOS leap originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple and the New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) both received criticism last year for a sweetheart deal in which Apple paid less rent per square foot for the Grand Central Terminal retail store space than other tenants in the facility. Well, the deal is starting to pay off for the MTA as expected, since the popularity of the Apple Store at Grand Central Terminal appears to be improving sales for other retailers.

While the trend is based on data from only one nearby restaurant, it’s expected that the Apple Store is attracting business to other stores and restaurants in Grand Central Terminal as well. Crain’s New York Business says that sales at Michael Jordan’s The Steakhouse N.Y.C. have increased by 7 percent in the last seven weeks. A co-owner of the restaurant, Peter Glazier, says the improvement in sales isn’t just because Apple displaced another high-end restaurant, Metrazur. “The jump only happened after Apple opened,” according to Mr. Glazier.

Apple not only pays less rent than other tenants, but does not contribute to a revenue sharing agreement that most of the other tenants of Grand Central do. The MTA believed that the flagship Apple Store would attract significant numbers of new customers that would benefit the other tenants and the entire facility as well. For every 1 percent increase in sales for the terminal’s retailers, the MTA stands to gain $500,000 in rent due to the revenue sharing agreement.

If the experience of Michael Jordan’s The Steakhouse is an indication of increased sales across the board, then the Apple agreement will certainly pay off dividends to the MTA.

Apple’s Grand Central neighbor sees sales increase originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Get the Qmadix

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Puzzlejuice adds all kinds of bells, whistles and fun to the “word game” genre. The equally excellent 7 Little Words (free) goes in the opposite direction, boiling wordplay down to its core. It offers just seven words and a series of letters (in groups of two or three at a time) to spell them with.

7 Little Words is one of those games that’s super easy to play but fiendishly difficult to master. There are 50 puzzles in each of the game’s pack (each with their own set of seven words and grid of letters to choose from), and you have to make guesses for each word from clues like “bunny food” (CA-RR-OTS), or “make dirty” (SO-IL).

It’s a “pure” experience, in that there’s no timer, no extra points…no points at all, in fact. It’s just you, some letters, and the words you need to make with them. 7 Little Words a very “Zen” experience, yet there’s a lot of pleasure to be had in sitting down, thinking hard, and hopefully coming up with the words you need.

The game comes with 50 puzzles, and extra packs can be bought for 99 cents each (more have been added since we last looked at 7 Little Words, as well as a new shuffle option). If you like crossword puzzles or just word puzzles at all, 7 Little Words is worth the download for sure. It might frustrate you a little bit (seriously, some of the puzzles will have you forehead slapping when you finally figure them out), but most word game fans like a good challenge anyway.

Daily iPhone App: 7 Little Words will cast a spell on you originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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You may want to keep both 5.6 and 6.0 versions. I used Pacifist, and manually reinstalled the 5.6 version side by side. Lots of missing features in the new utility. No way to tweak wireless options for Mode, Frequency, Multicast Rate or Transmit Power, and such a tiny window for port mapping list. An elegant interface, but at a price.

For a thorough review and pointers to stand alone updates, read here.

[crarko adds: Consider this a public service announcement. It also appears that AirPort Utility 6.0 only functions with the 802.11(n) compatible base stations, so that old AirPort Express you may have (like I do) is not supported. I've actually saved many older versions of the utility, even for the original Graphite (flying saucer) bases.]

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One of my favorite navigation apps for the iPhone, Where To?, has been updated to include more pictures, more reviews, and some videos of selected destinations.

Reviews and media are sourced from users and Google. The app features 700 categories of destinations, and more than 2,400 brands (e.g. In-N-Out Burger or Trader Joe’s). The app features augmented reality as a US$0.99 option, which uses the camera to superimpose directions over local scenery. The app has added direct links to GPS navigation systems Sygic, Waze, Navmii, Navfree and NAVIGON Urban (German App Store only). The app also supports TomTom, Navigon, MotionX and of course, Google Maps.

This latest version has added support for state National Parks in the US, Canada and Australia. The app itself operates in 10 languages, so it’s going to be helpful for users around the globe. I did a drive-around test and found it worked reliably and smoothly. I sent a couple of destinations to my Navigon app, and that worked flawlessly. I think the app is useful in your home town, but really comes into its own when traveling and looking for that special restaurant, hotel, or even the nearest pharmacy or hardware store.

Where To? version 4.1 is a free update for anyone who has version 2 or higher. Owners of version 1.0 will have to buy this latest version if they want the upgrade. The app is $2.99 and the augmented reality feature is another $0.99. Where To? 4.1 requires iOS 4.0 or greater. I’ve included some screen shots of Where To? in action.

Where To? for iPhone updated with more reviews, pictures, and now videos originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Soon after the 10.7.3 update to OS X Lion, people started finding subtle differences in the pointer icons for OS X (hat tip to Daring Fireball). Specifically, the link, grab, copy, and screenshot pointers have all been updated with slightly new iterations for the first time since OS X 10.2, released in 2002.

The link pointer features a slightly angled index finger rather than the traditional straight finger that’s been a staple of the icon since even before OS X, and the grab pointer has been updated to more closely match the “Mickey Mouse glove” appearance of the link pointer. The copy pointer features a more pronounced green gradient beneath the “+” symbol. The old pseudo-SLR camera icon for the screenshot pointer, which comes up after hitting Command + Shift + 4 and then tapping the spacebar, has been replaced with an icon that matches the icon for the Image Capture application.

Old icon, new icon, Image Capture app icon

Apple has also updated all icons with high resolution versions for Universal Access purposes, so the pointers no longer look badly pixellated when super-sized via the Universal Access settings in System Preferences.

Beware of comically large pointer

“The simplest explanation is that Apple only just now got around to increasing the resolution of these elements for the benefit of users who use the cursor-zooming Universal Access feature,” says Daring Fireball’s John Gruber. Indeed, these OS X pointer icons hadn’t been updated in nearly ten years. Gruber further speculates that this may be an initial step toward higher resolution “Retina Display” Macs, though he admits that we should “take my conjecture here with a grain of wishful-thinking salt.”

Many blogs must have skipped that last sentence, because overnight speculation over possible “Retina Display Macs” has been rampant since the updated pointers gained wider attention. But the simplest explanation that Gruber himself cites is the best one; the pointer icons are a very minor detail in OS X and a feature that remained completely static for close to a decade without anyone noticing or complaining. The updated icons aren’t terribly likely to have anything to do with forthcoming updated hardware.

OS X 10.7.3 includes new high-res pointer icons, rampant speculation ensues originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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In OS X 10.7, the four-finger swipe down toggles app Exposé for the app in the foreground. Except if you place the cursor on the icon of a running app in the Dock, in which case the four-finger down swipe toggles the app exposé of THAT app, not the application that is in the foreground.

If you swipe down again without selecting a window from the Exposé view, you are taken back to the app you were in before toggling Exposé.

[crarko adds: I'd love to test this, but my Lion system is still trying to finish installing the 10.7.3 update, which has already taken considerably longer than anticipated.]

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