iOS 5 Preview

Accessibility side, Apple has added several elements, such as activating the flash of the camera for new notifications on the iPhone 4 or backplane dedicated to accessibility issues. Apple also proposes to change the behavior of the vibrator for calls only. Besides the continuous vibration by default, you can now choose between five vibration proposed by Apple, but also create new ones.

Apple has integrated the system with a vibration pattern generator custom. By tapping the screen, tells iOS when the buzzer is active. We can make a short tap or hold your finger to adjust the duration of vibration, while the intensity depends on the strength of tapping.

Other customization offered by Apple with iOS 5, the creation of custom gestures for use with "adaptive accessories. By default, a horizontal zigzag opens a menu, but the user can register new gestures. A priori, these actions will activate a specific function, but integration does not seem complete: once the action is recorded, IOS does not use it.

Since iOS 4.3, iPad used in development are entitled to a series of additional actions to manage the multitasking. Using four or five fingers can move from one application to another (shift to the left or right), show or hide the recent applications (sliding down or up) or quit an application by squeezing four or more fingers.

In the current beta version of IOS 5, these actions are available to all users and they are enabled by default. We can turn them off in the Settings, under "General", which will be useful for the (few) applications using more than three fingers at once.

MindManager 9 iOS Update in June

MindManager is a tool for creating mind maps. Mindjet, the publisher has scheduled the release of a major update for June 23 next. In this Program, we could find a new presentation mode, an option to quickly add an item, the import and export Office documents and iWork or dynamic content. By purchasing a license of MindManager today, you are eligible for free to version 9. The update will cost $ 129 otherwise.

To accompany this new release, Mindjet propose two applications in the App Store, iPhone (5.49 €) and one for iPad (6.99 €). These applications will be compatible with documents created by the desktop version and incorporates Dropbox for file transfers.

Mac OS X XProtect Update Date Check

The site Macworld gives a tip to force Snow Leopard to check his list of definitions of malware is updated and the check itself. The handling is first to open the Security pane of System Preferences, then in the General tab, uncheck then recheck with the option "Automatically update the list of safe downloads.

As this panel does not indicate the date of last update of this information (associated with this panel does not outright mention this new option). This requires running a command in the Terminal.

Copy and paste this and press the command line:

more / System / Library / CoreServices / CoreTypes.bundle / Contents / Resources / XProtect.meta.plist

In our case, before touching the election, the date returned was that of 26 May, after handling in preferences, the terminal indicates that the last update by Apple file malware of today.


need to check every day what is happening in this file, remember that the malware in question - MAC Defender and its variants - is not a virus, but an application masquerading as something it is not. But until a panel of preference may be more informative, it's always good to take a trick.

Microsoft unveils Windows 8 Part.IV

As for the management of the autonomy of the iPad and responsiveness, precisely because they are unmatched IOS "cut the fat" over "real" multitasking, and a start in record time. What happens when the hard drive goes into tablet mode on Windows 8? What happens to excel, always in the background when you go on reading a magazine? Better yet, what happens if the file open in Excel was stored on the external drive when passing in tablet mode? So many questions that need answers, and we do not know for the time actually little more on this new version of Windows. Microsoft still has time to perfecting his copy and gives all the answers by the system output. However, it seems to introduce here a long transition during which it has perhaps more ways: you cannot take the train when it left the station.

Although the two modes do not live in total isolation: thus it is possible to live a touch application and pre-Windows application 8 to the screen by the method of sharing discussed above. One imagines, too, although Microsoft has not demonstrated that the keyboard can be used with older applications. As such, the touch-sensitive layers of Windows 8 is not a simple overlay, and wait to see the other features that Microsoft will unveil in the future to measure the interpenetration of two worlds. Nevertheless the two approaches, as presented, go together. While it is easy to see that this approach may provide to Microsoft, it is much more difficult to see the benefit to its users. And ultimately, it's still good to them that are: no one will do the update for the sheer joy of giving pleasure to the editor.

As John Gruber points out, this has been the undeniable success of the Apple iPad is well made clean slate. Pages, Numbers and Keynote have been totally redesigned for the touch interface, and this is what works. The simplicity of the iPad also reflects the disappearance of the management of files and their backup. The impossibility of making a direct port of an application for Mac OS X to iOS ensures that third party developers think their application specifically for IOS, which contributes to the strength and consistency of the platform. Microsoft has not had the fortitude to abandon what made his fortune so far, this may well be a shot in the future too heavy to drag.

Microsoft unveils Windows 8 Part.III

After all, the software giant is on familiar ground: Windows itself has not he started his career as a simple wrapper for MS-DOS before finally, after many years, for committing patricide in engulfing its venerable ancestor? The method has already worked once, why would it not therefore possible to repeat the process?

There are still major differences between the transition, and paradigms MS-DOS/Windows windows / touch: in the first case, there were not two very different types of machines that have been associated with each interface. This is the biggest problem for Microsoft: Do we imagine that users of Windows 8 on desktop applications will support the new touch less powerful than those on shelves and x86 bothering with old menus and windows, do if only for the honor and advantage of using Excel to the old one? He should still see the thing for measuring the ineptitude: tap on the title menu, tap on the menu item, draw a line on the screen with your fingertip to move or resize a window, and that 'happens to the "rollover", actions that are initiated by the hovering, when there is no pointing device? The very notion of having an anti-virus running on a shelf today may raise eyebrows more than one user iPad.

However, we can consider Microsoft's proposal as a "best of both worlds," and the idea as such may seem attractive: the same machine could be adapted to your consumption patterns, and move from one mode to other seamlessly. In this case, Microsoft is going even further than what Apple provides with Mac OS X Leo, compared to merely take a few visual and behavioral IOS surface. The Tablet PC would become media when you need it and vice versa. But summarize the experience of a tablet media such as iPad Touch the only interface would be very simplistic. The iPad made changes much more profound in the user interface and operating system: more file management, even more backup while Windows 8 is always the good old records and other DLLs.

(Cont.)