APPLE'S CHANGE LOG FOR iOS 5 BETA 4

Apple on Friday released the fourth beta version of its iOS 5 operating system, and this one brings about plenty of goodies that developers have been waiting for. The fact that the update can be applied over the air is a huge addition, of course, but there’s plenty more to be found buried within iOS 5 beta4 for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPad, iPad 2, and third and fourth-generation iPod touch. Wondering what’s new in this build? Apple’s full change log for iOS 5 beta 4 follows below.

Accounts

• When creating an iCloud account you can use any Apple ID provided it is a full email address and not a MobileMe account. If you have a MobileMe account, you can copy data from that account to an iCloud account to use during testing. You can find more information on iCloud at: http://developer.apple.com/icloud
• When setting up an iCloud or MobileMe account using the setup assistant and leaving Find My iPhone on, it might actually turn Find my iPhone off after the setup. Please verify in Settings/Mail, Contacts, Calendar/YourAccount that Find my iPhone is toggled On after leaving the setup assistant.
• It is recommended that you disable Bookmarks on multiple accounts. If they are enabled, the results might be undefined.
• FIXED: In this beta the option of “Choosing a security question” is not working during an iCloud account setup.

AirPlay

• Starting in iOS 5, video content in applications and websites are AirPlay-enabled by default.
• iOS 5 supports AirPlay of video via AV Foundation.
• Switching into AirPay Video while using mirroring will leave the screen black but the video is still playing.

Apple TV

• Apple TV Software beta enables users to mirror the contents of an iPad 2 to an Apple TV (2nd generation) using AirPlay. This beta software also enables Photo Stream on Apple TV so users can access photos stored in iCloud. Apple TV Software beta is being provided to test the latest AirPlay functionality with your iOS 5 apps and web sites. If you wish to install Apple TV Software beta on your device, you must first register your device UDID in the iOS Developer Program Portal.
• There is no new build for AppleTV for beta 4. Please continue using the build provided with beta 3.

Audio

• Using voice chat in iOS 5 requires setting the kAudioSessionMode_VoiceChat mode on the Audio Session, or setting the AVAudioSessionModeVoiceChat mode on the AVAudioSession object.

Calendar

• All MobileMe calendars were duplicated after turning calendar syncing off and back on.
• FIXED: Restoring from a Seed 1 backup or earlier will cause MobileMe/iCloud calendars not to sync. Subscribed calendars will show up in Calendars but none of your event calendars will appear in MobileCal. To workaround the problem please remove and re-add the account.
• If SnowLeopard isn’t syncing your calendars on iOS device and you created a calendar or reminders list using a previous iOS 5.0 seed, change the name of that calendar or list on the iOS device and then let it sync.
• In this beta Birthday calendar is temporarily disabled for Web apps and Windows and will be available in a future release.

Contacts

• NEW:In MobileMe local contacts are deleted instead of be being merged.
• In this beta Import/Export vCard is disabled from Action menu and will be available in future release.

GameKit

• Match data for turn based matches is currently limited to 4 KB of data.
• When both Wifi and 3G are disabled (i.e. in Airplane mode) sometimes GameKit can cause the connection in a local Bluetooth match to fail.

iBooks

• iBooks 1.2.2 may fail to display some text or images in books. Please update to iBooks 1.3 in the App Store.

iCloud Backup

• As this is beta software, it is recommended that you do not use the iCloud services to store any critical data or information. If you enable iCloud Backup, automatic backup with iTunes when syncing will be disabled. We suggest you also manually back up your device with iTunes. It is strongly advised you upgrade to this version of the iOS 5 beta in order to continue backing up your devices and preserve previous backups.

iCloud Storage

• During the iOS 5 beta period, any documents stored on the servers might be purged periodically before GM. Therefore, it is highly recommended that you do not store any critical documents or information on the servers.
• If your application is using the NSMetadataQuery class, you must set a predicate, even though the predicate itself is ignored.
• The Foundation framework doesn’t include the team ID when looking for an app’s mobile documents container. The Team ID must be included at the beginning of the identifier string passed to theURLForUbiquityContainerIdentifier: method.
• In this beta, the setSortDescriptors: method of NSMetadataQuery is not supported.
• In this beta, if you want to use iCloud, you have to manually specify various container identifiers (your application’s Display set) within an Entitlements file for both of your Mac OS X and iOS projects.
• There are issues using the Cloud Storage document API in conjunction with protected data which can lead to data corruption.
• In this beta, document-based applications cannot always detect when files change, move, or are deleted out from underneath them.
• NEW: In this beta, file presenters (objects that adopt the NSFilePresenter protocol) do not receive some of the messages that they’re supposed to receive, especially:
• presentedItemDidChange
• presentedSubitemDidAppearAtURL:
• presentedSubitemDidChangeAtURL:
• You can workaround this by implementing the relinquishPresentedItemToWriter: method and checking to see if the writer actually wrote when your file presenter reacquires. You can also use FSEvents to observe file system changes
• 
  
• In this beta, messages about changes to files in a directory are not getting delivered to objects that adopt the NSFilePresenter protocol.
• While reporting a bug related to the iCloud storage interfaces, please include the logs collected during your debugging session. To generate these logs, you must install a special debug profile on your device.The debug profile can be obtained from http://connect.apple.com. This profile enables the generation of debug logs that are needed to diagnose any problems using iCloud storage. The instructions to collect the logs are:
• Install the profile. (The easiest way to do this is to mail it to yourself and open the attachment on their device.)
• Reproduce the bug.
• Sync with iTunes to pull the logs off your device.
• Attach the logs to your bug report. You can find the logs in ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/DeviceName/DiagnosticLogs.
• These logs can grow large very quickly, so you should remove the profile after you have reproduced the problem and pulled the logs for the bug report.
• 
  
• NEW: File names in iCloud Storage are case sensitive.
• iMessage
• NEW: iMessage beta 1 will be unable to communicate with iMessage users on beta 2 or later.
• iTunes
• The version of iTunes that comes with beta 4 cannot sync devices that have the beta 2 software installed. To avoid this problem, do the following:
• Sync any devices that have beta 3 installed to the version of iTunes that came with beta 4.
• Upgrade iTunes to the version that comes with beta 4.
• Connect the device and install the beta 4 software. (Understand that you might see a failure to sync error when you first connect the device.)
• After installing the beta 4 software, restore from your the backup you made in step 1.
• Videos purchased from the iTunes Store do not play on a 2nd generation AppleTV over AirPlay with iTunes 10.5.

Location

• NEW:The startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges method of CLLocationManager does not cause applications to be resumed or launched in the background for significant location change updates. However, if a backup from a previous software version (where an application was monitoring significant location changes) is restored to the device, significant location change monitoring will continue to cause that application to be resumed or launched in the background.

Mail

• NEW:Forwarding a message with attachments included does not attach the file and the message compose screen does not change from “Loading….”
• Music Library
• NEW:Some songs are missing their album artwork after changing the device library via syncing.

OpenGL

• NEW: In iOS 5.0 beta 4, several OpenGL extensions have been moved from the APPLE namespace to the EXT namespace, causing some API to be renamed. The altered extensions are EXT_color_buffer_half_float,EXT_occlusion_query_boolean, EXT_separate_shader_objects, EXT_shadow_samplers, EXT_texture_rg, EXT_debug_label, and EXT_debug_marker.

OTA Software Update

• NEW: If you are doing a OTA software update from beta 3 to beta 4, you will need to re-sync your photos with iTunes.”

Personal HotSpot

• NEW:In this beta iPhone 4 device cannot join personal hotspot even if it is on due to a non functional WiFi tethering on these devices.

Photo Adjustments

• If you apply red-eye adjustments in iOS, and import your image into the iPhoto seed build, the red-eye adjustments will not appear on that image in iPhoto. As a result, subsequent syncing of your image back to the iOS device from iPhoto will not show the red-eye adjustments.

Settings

• FIXED: In this beta FaceTime icon is missing in Settings on the iPhones.

Simulator

• NEW: Location services are not functional in iOS 4.3 simulator running on Mac OS 10.7 with Xcode 4.2.

Springboard

• Push and local notifications for apps appear in the new Notification Center in iOS 5. Notification Center displays notifications that are considered “unread.” In order to accommodate push and local notifications that have no “unread” status, developers can use their application badge count to trigger a clearing of notifications from Notification Center. When an application clears its badge count (by setting it to zero), iOS 5 will clear its notifications from Notification Center.
• NEW: iOS 5.0 terminates VoIP applications that are resumed in the background for incoming network traffic with extreme frequency. Developers are encouraged to make sure all incoming data is read from VoIP sockets to avoid this condition.

Twitter

• NEW: When tweeting your location from Safari and exiting before the location can be established, the location arrow will stay in the status bar. The arrow can be removed by killing Safari from the task switcher.

UI Automation

• NEW: Instruments overwrites the loaded automation script, even if another program is editing it.
• The play and record buttons in the Automation instrument script editor may not work properly after targeting an application that was launched by a trace session and has ended. They may also not work if you target an application that was suspended. If you run into this problem and it persists, you may need to close and reopen the trace document to get back into a functional state.
• When capturing actions into a script using the Automation instrument, interfaces with web views or table cells that contain a high number of off screen elements may take an extremely long time before returning with an expression.
• The lock() and unlock() functions of UIATarget have been replaced with the lockForDuration() function.
• FIXED:Instruments overwrites the loaded automation script, even if another program is editing it.
• Starting in iOS 5 beta 2, you can now trigger the execution of an UI Automation script on an iOS device from the host terminal by using the instruments tool. The command is:
• instruments -w -t 
• When using the cli instruments for UI Automation you can now target the default Automation Template and pass the script and results path into the tool as environment variable options. For example:
• instruments -w -t /Developer/Platforms/iPhoneOS.platform/Developer/Library/Instruments/PlugIns/AutomationInstrument.bundle/Contents/Resources/Automation.tracetemplate -e UIASCRIPT

MICROFT'S OFFICE 365 LEAVES BETA

After making its beta debut last year, Office 365 is officially ready to spread its wings and offer its productivity web app wares to the business-minded masses. For $6 per-user, per-month small businesses get access to Microsoft Office Web Apps, Exchange, SharePoint and Lync video conferencing and can take advantage of the suite's integration with WP7 once Mango lands. Larger, enterprise plans start at $10 per user while adding support for desktop Office products and Lync VoIP solutions as you climb the pricing ladder.

RUMOR: WINDOWS 8 RTM SLATED FOR APRIL 2012

Earlier rumors placed the release to manufacturers (RTM) of Microsoft's Windows 8 OS as Q2/Q3 2012, but new sources are saying that timeline has moved up and the release will include Windows 8 x86, ARM/SoC and Server all at the same time.

Sources are saying Microsoft will release the RTM in April 2012 with a beta (not pre-beta) coming around the time of Build in mid-September. If this turns out to be true, expect the release candidate in early January.

We do know from various leaks the Windows 8 team has finished milestone 3 and is well on their way to the next one. We also know from previous Office and Windows disclosure patterns that if/when the team does offer a target delivery date, there will likely be several months of padding built in to make sure there will be no publicly measurable slippage. As a result, I’m betting that summer 2012 RTM target we originally heard about might have included that padding, giving more credence to a real internal April 2012 RTM date.

MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 MOVES TO PUBLIC BETA FOR SMALL BUSINESSES AND ENTERPRISE

Back in October 2010, Microsoft announced Office 365, the company’s first cloud-based productivity software product and, some would say, a direct response to Google Apps. On Sunday, Microsoft announced that Office 365 would now be offered as a public beta to both small businesses and enterprises.

The small business beta is open for companies with up to 25 employees who need a solution that doesn’t require an IT staff, but still offers essential email, calendar, and website services. There is also an enterprise version for any size organization looking for more features and control, Office Professional Plus, Active Directory, and high-end archiving. Once an account is activated, which may take 2-4 weeks as part of the beta, users will have 30 days (from activation) to decide whether they would like to purchase the service or not.

Small business owners are billed month-to-month starting at $6/user while those enrolling in the enterprise program have four plans to choose from starting at $10/user/month for the E1 plan. Currently, only the E3 plan, which begins at $24/user/month, is available in the public beta. All four (E1-E4) are described below.

GOOGLE OUT OF CR-48 LAPTOPS; CHROME OS TO DEBUT THIS SUMMER

Google has sent out all 60,000 of the CR-48 netbooks it ordered to testers. The CR-48 is a test netbook Google had manufactured to test their cloud Chrome OS. With 60,000 potential testers the OS should be solid when it arrives this summer.

It is rumored that Google will be releasing the master to its manufacturing partners mid-summer for an early fall release on devices. This comes just in time for some publicity for the important holiday shopping season.

FIREFOX 4 IN LAST BETA?

For Mozilla's next browser version, let's hope eight is enough. The independent software foundation has just released Beta 8 of the heavily overhauled new version of Firefox. Firefox 4 sports a trimmed-down user interface (as has been the trend started with Google Chrome and followed by Opera and IE9 beta). The browser also makes some significant internal changes, with a new add-in system, a faster JavaScript engine, and lots more HTML5 compatibility.

To all this goodness, Beta 8 adds a simplified syncing setup, support for WebGL 3D graphics, and a redesigned Add-ons manager. Firefox director Mike Beltzner announced the beta release on a Mozilla Blog post yesterday.

Firefox's syncing allows users to automatically recreate their history, bookmarks, open tab sets, and passwords on other computers and smartphones. The new process automatically generates a short key that you enter when you want to add devices to your syncing account, similar to a lot of device's Bluetooth pairing setup.

WebGL is an open 3D graphics API related to the Khronos Group's similar OpenGL. It allows developers to create rich interactive visual environments inside a browser without the need for plug-ins like Adobe Flash, using the HTML5 Canvas element. Beltzner's blog post states that the beta's WebGL implementation supports "most modern built-in graphics cards."

On the add-in front, Firefox 4 Beta 8's Add-ons manager allows extensions and other add-ons to update themselves automatically, without that bothersome dialog when you start the browser up. The new design also makes it easier to find add-ons of interest, according to Mozilla's Jennifer Boriss. "The new Add-ons manager will be easier to use, sleeker, and faster than ever before," claims Boriss in a separate blog post. Taking a page from Google Chrome's playbook, the new add-on gallery appears in a browser tab page rather than a separate dialog window.

In the JavaScript benchmark wars, this version brings Firefox closer to the competition, but in quick-and-dirty runs of the Sunspider benchmark, Internet Explorer 9 Platform Preview 7, Google Chrome 8, and Opera still beat it handily. On a 3.16GHz dual-core machine, the scores were Firefox 4b8: 254ms, IE9PP7: 203ms, Chrome 8: 216ms, and Opera 11: 229ms. [PC Magazine]

ABOUT.ME OUT OF BETA; OPEN TO ALL

About.me is a relatively new service, but it’s already attracting boat loads of users. Since September, About.me has let people reserve personal profile pages, and has just opened up to everyone. It’s an incredibly simple concept — have your own profile page that has a short bio, links to your different social networking profiles and services, and most importantly, a super high resolution image of yourself. In addition to being a great personal landing site, About.me offers a great suite of analytics items to track how much traffic you’re getting and from where, etc. Over 400,000 people have reserved their profile page names on About.me since September. [BGR]

SKYPE 5 BETA FOR MAC AVAILABLE

Skype hasn't forgotten about all the Mac users out there. They have just released a beta version for their popular application for Mac. The big draw is still the group chat, just as in the Windows version that has been out for a few months now. But it also has been retooled to mesh more closely with the look and feel of the Mac OS. There is a new cover-flow like contact window and a new pop-out call control bar that can be moved anywhere on the screen or be kept open while in another program. It will even integrate your Mac address book and when you place or recieve a call it will mute your iTunes for you. This is still in beta, so some things may not work properly or not be in there at all, like Facebook integration. [Engadget]

NEW SEARCH ENGINE TO TAKE ON GOOGLE AND BING

Blekko is a new search engine that has launched in beta today.  The new engine will attempt to use human input to refine results. The Blekko.com site uses what the site calls "slashtags": a curated list of sites around a given topic. Users can create the sites, and also use them as a search modifier to only search within them.

"Bing and Google have hundreds of contractors that use web tools to refine this relevance data - classifying porn, spam, domain parks, ecommerce sites, fake 404's, markov-spam, official sites, and so on," Rich Skrenta, chief executive, wrote in a blog post. "As a 20-person startup, we asked ourselves how blekko could assemble this essential data," Skrenta added. "Hire contractors? Use Mechanical Turk? Elance? But - of course! - we know a much better way.... A way you can get orders of magnitude greater participation, while at the same time being very open about the process. Let the public in."

Slashtags filter out so-called "spammy" sites, Blekko said, but depend on the individual creators to edit them and add new sites that crop up. Users can "follow" other slashtags and use them as filters, and also apply to edit them. The site also has a "global chatter" page which auto-tracks updates to the sites and to slashtags, and can serve as a sort of communication medium of sorts.

Blekko's initial goal, the company said will be to identify the 50 best sites on the Web for the top 100,000 search categories. Over time, the site will "auto-slash" queries. [PC Mag]

RUMOR: HULU PLUS CUTTING PRICE

Hulu Plus was announced back in June with much promise and a $9.95/month price tag.  Now it is rumored that Hulu will be cutting that price almost in half to $4.95/month.  With the service still in private beta a price drop isn't that unusual, but it may signal an impeding launch.

Hulu Plus promises users the ability to stream full episodes all season long in addition to full series runs.  Content will be accessible from the computer, iPhone, iPad, some internet connected televisions, Blu-Ray players, PS3 and the Xbox 360. [Geek]

WINAMP COMING TO ANDROID

Once the king of media players on the desktop, Winamp has been very quiet for a few years.  Now, they are coming back and have set their sights on the mobile market, specifically Android.  A new version of the media player has been released, in beta, for Android 2.1 and up.  It features a playback widget for the Android desktop and Last.fm integration.  But they don't stop there.  Winamp also adds the ability to sync and manage your libraries via USB or Wi-Fi.  You can download Winamp 5.59 beta through the Android Market or use the QR code below. [Engadget]

INTERNET EXPLORER 9 PUBLIC BETA RELEASED

Microsoft has launched a salvo against it's competitors today by releasing the public beta of Internet Explorer 9.

IE9 has been updated with a new user interface and design.  Taking cues from Windows 7, IE9 now allows for pinning of sites.  The have vastly improved the tab functionality and included One Box, where the address bar is also the search bar.  IE9 has finally added a download manager that works.

In addition to those changes, Microsoft has been hard at work, working on the performance of the browser.  While the beta is faster than the current IE 8, it is still slower than Chrome and about on par with Firefox 3.6. [Review at Engadget] [Download IE9 Public Beta]

GOOGLE WALKING NAVIGATION BETA AND STREET VIEW AVAILABLE FOR ANDROID

Google just keeps cranking out great new innovations.  Android, version 1.6 or higher, users can now access Walking Navigation (beta) and Street View navigation.

Walking Navigation offers pedestrians more robust options when walking from place to place.  It has a unique vibrate to turn feature and the map rotates with you as you turn the phone.  This is still in beta so some functions may still be buggy.

Street View navigation is what you are use to seeing on the desktop browser, brought down to the mobile phone level.  [Engadget]

UBUNTU MAVERICK MEERKAT BETA RELEASED

Canonical has released the a beta version of Maverick Meerkat (10.10), the newest version of their Linux OS.   The final version will be released in October of this year. There is a new photo manager, improved multimedia controls, better Ubuntu One syncing and more.

Ubuntu One, the Dropbox like syncing service has been improved.  It syncs personal files, settings, Music Store purchases and other users data.  It has a new easier to use single sign-in and the look and feel are much improved.

The Software Center has been improved as well.  The new center makes it easier to see the apps installed as well as see popular and recommended apps.

Shotwell has replaced the previous default photo manager and it's a step in teh right direction.  Other little tweaks include the volume control on the system panel.  The control now controls music player.  Rythmbox and other default apps have had their bug fixes, updates and upgrades.

Download Ubuntu 10.10

ANGRY BIRDS BETA COMING TO ANDROID MARKET FRIDAY

Rovio, the makers of Angry Birds, has announced they are opening up the close beta testing of their Angry Birds Lite for Android game.  The app will be available for download tomorrow, Friday September 3rd, for everyone.

Rovio wants to make it clear this is a beta test and the application is undergoing final testing before release and is presented "as-is" with no guarantees.

Trillian IM client now in Android beta

Trillian, the awesome multi-IM client, is now available for Android, though it is a beta version.  Trillian has been available on the iPhone for awhile now and has just now become available on Android.

Trillian has photo sharing capabilities, along with the ability to push IMs to your email if Trillian is suspended.

Trillian is a free download for devices running Android 1.6 or higher.  It's not available in the Market so make sure you allow your device to accept non-Market apps.