Happy Halloween to MacLife.com readers! We don’t have any particularly spooky things featured in this edition of the daily recap (unless you’re a Mac Pro fan), but there are plenty of treats in store for you with Plex 2.0 now in the App Store and some iOS 5 technology reportedly making the leap to OS X Lion one day soon. Here’s what’s making news for this final day of the month, better known as October 31, 2011.
MacRumors is reporting that the Apple Store iOS app may soon get a refresh that will “allow consumers to utilize self-checkout for purchases of accessories and other shelf-stocked items at the company’s retail stores.” Such self-serve purchases would be charged to the customer’s iTunes Store account, rather than having to deal with traditional paper or plastic payment methods. It sounds like the equivalent of other retailer’s self-checkout aisles, which are usually manned with one staff member to make sure customers don’t walk out without paying -- although how Apple will handle it is anyone’s guess.
On Sunday, Steve Jobs’ sister, the writer Mona Simpson, published a moving eulogy to her famous brother as part of an op-ed contribution to The New York Times. The lengthy and emotional missive ends with the disclosure of Jobs’ last words as he was surrounded in his home by his wife, children and sisters. “Before embarking, he’d looked at his sister Patty, then for a long time at his children, then at his life’s partner, Laurene, and then over their shoulders past them,” Simpson writes. “Steve’s final words were: OH WOW. OH WOW. OH WOW.” Definitely worth a read for any Jobs fan!
9to5Mac is reporting that “sources familiar with the future of Mac OS X” have let slip the company’s plan to bring both AirPlay mirroring and the iMessage feature to OS X Lion in a future version. This probably won’t come as a surprise to anyone who uses other once iOS-exclusive features like FaceTime on the Mac, but it will definitely make these new iOS 5 features even more compelling for those of us who use them daily.
It wasn’t a quiet weekend for the Plex gang, who released a major new 2.0 update to their iOS and Android clients, as well as sparkling new versions of the desktop client and server (which are now separate applications) for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. The highlight of the new release is myPlex, a cloud-based solution for queueing up web-based media for later viewing from any available client, along with zero-configuration access to all of your remote media. The $4.99 universal Plex iOS app is available on the App Store now, and the desktop components can be downloaded free of charge from the company’s website.
With the advent of high-speed Thunderbolt and its promise of offering peripherals traditionally reserved for PCI-equipped tower computers, many are wondering what Apple plans to do with the Mac Pro, the last remaining system in their product lineup without Thunderbolt. According to AppleInsider, the company may well put the Mac Pro out of its misery for good, according to “people familiar with the matter” who claim that Apple management has been debating pouring resources into a new version of the desktop computer as far back as May of this year. Many believe the Mac Pro is destined for oblivion regardless, as desktop computers make up an ever-smaller portion of the company’s revenues -- with notebooks making up 74 percent by comparison. Here’s hoping we’ll see at least one last Mac Pro with Thunderbolt, just for old time’s sake...
Oh, and hey, Apple: It’s the last day of October! Where’s our stinkin’ iTunes Match…?
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marypotter
November 06, 2011 at 7:05pm
apple store have become more popular ,many of my friends are using this brand ,because of the beautiful design!
Ichabod
October 31, 2011 at 5:08pm
Aww, I'd really be disappointed if they dropped the Pro from their lineup. I really don't want to have to resort to a PC for my next desktop (don't need another laptop, I want to maximize computing power :D)
Well, this is what was thought about the Apple Airport (or apple TV, I forget which product) when the product numbers were removed from the database, I hope it's a similar situation.
