Filed under: Software Update , Apple If you’ve been waiting with bated breath to dual-boot Windows 7 on your Mac, your time has come. File under ” better late than never “: Apple has now updated Boot Camp with support for Windows 7 . With separate downloads for 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Windows 7, the download also requires an authentic copy of Windows 7 or Windows 7 upgrade, and is only supported on more recent Intel-based Macs; no Macs produced before 2007 will support Windows 7, as outlined in this Apple support page . If you’re upgrading your Mac’s other side from Windows Vista to Windows 7, you’ll first want to download and install the Boot Camp Utility for Windows 7 , which “safely unmounts the read-only Macintosh volume on Microsoft Vista.” Let us know in the comments if you have any issues with the update. [Hat tip to MacRumors and the Apple Support RSS Twitter feed] Boot Camp updated: now supports Windows 7 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Boot Camp updated: now supports Windows 7 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 19 Jan 2010 21:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

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Anyone recall as far back as October, when Apple promised it would update Boot Camp by year’s end to support Windows 7? Turns out, they might have been fibbing. According to AppleInsider , Apple is likely to miss their self-imposed year-end deadline for officially supporting Microsoft’s Windows 7 under Boot Camp, pending any last-minute, New Year’s Eve updates that seem unlikely at best. Back in October, Apple wrote in a support document : “Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp.” As it turns out, Windows 7 already runs quite well under Boot Camp, at least on our 15” MacBook Pro 2.63 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo. We were able to wipe our former Windows XP installation and install Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade Edition) without too many hitches. The only hiccup we’ve seen for now is some occasional funkiness with the trackpad driver, but otherwise the Boot Camp drivers included with Snow Leopard work just fine. AppleInsider queried an Apple support representative to find out if Cupertino had any last-minute Software Update surprises in store for us, but the rep said that his division — which fields Boot Camp-related questions — had received no update on the situation. The rep also believes that the Boot Camp update is still undergoing tests, and said it was “very unlikely” that such an update would surface in the next 24 hours before the curtain falls on 2009

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Yesterday, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially gave its stamp of approval to 11 of Apple’s patent designs, covering everything from the MacBook Pro to the iPod classic and even elements of Mac OS X itself. The news comes courtesy of Patently Apple , who reported a total of 19 newly granted patents for Apple Inc. on Tuesday, 11 of which focused on industrial designs. Among the industrial design wins for Apple’s portable devices: Patent D606,751 for the iPhone’s cover, originally filed in the second quarter of 2007; Patents D606,967, D606,965, 606,966 and 606,968 covering the iPod classic, three of which were filed in 2007 and one this year; and Patent D607,003 which covers the iPod classic graphical user interface, original filed in the third quarter of 2007. Apple’s most recent MacBook Pro design also gets a nod, with Patents D606,988 and D606,989 filed in the second quarter of this year. Mac OS X’s Exposé and Stacks features also won two patents, D607,001 and 607,005, originally filed in the third quarter of 2007. Perhaps the most notable patent in the batch is the one granted for the “Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) Shield with Cantilever Spring.” Many consumer electronic devices include components that emit electromagnetic radiation, so EMI shields are common used to prevent such radiation from disturbing the other components. Apple’s new patent aims to solve one big problem with traditional EMI shields, which usually cuts down on the space available in devices with curved housings (or when placed against curved surfaces)

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Apple has announced that official Boot Camp support for Windows 7 will be coming by the end of this year. According to a knowledge base article on Apple’s support site, " Apple will support Microsoft Windows 7 (Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate) with Boot Camp in Mac OS X Snow Leopard before the end of the year. This support will require a software update to Boot Camp. " Of course the compatibility of Windows 7 means that some initial Intel Mac models will not be supported, mainly the following models: – iMac (17-inch, Early 2006) – iMac (17-inch, Late 2006) – iMac (20-inch, Early 2006) – iMac (20-inch, Late 2006) – MacBook Pro (15-inch, Early 2006) – MacBook Pro (17-inch, Late 2006) – MacBook Pro (15-inch, Late 2006) – MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2006) – Mac Pro (Mid 2006, Intel Xeon Dual-core 2.66GHz or 3GHz)   If you have already purchased Windows 7 and are wanting to run it on your Mac, we have found that Windows 7 does in fact run on some newer models like the unibody MacBook Pro. However, some features like the Multi-Touch trackpad are a bit finicky. You can also run Windows 7 in virtual machine software like VMWare Fusion or Parallels Desktop . Via MacRumors    

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You didn’t think Apple would let the Windows 7 launch day go by without taking a few jabs at the company did you? Two of the new ads talk about the migration users will have to endure when moving from XP to Windows 7, and suggest that users might as well just get a Mac. The third reminds us of all the promises Microsoft has made to their customers over the years. Plus PC gets a swanky 80s hairdo.      

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We’re calendar geeks. Without iCal, we’d be completely lost. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. For one, we often wish there was a quick way to view dates on the calendar without having to switch over to iCal and break the flow of what we’re currently working on. A simple day/date display in iCal would come in handy for everything from scheduling deadlines to planning weekend trips with friends. DateLine is a donationware application that adds a lightweight calendar display to your Desktop and also gives you one-click access to iCal. Keep an eye on your calendar in DateLine’s horizontal window. DateLine runs as a standalone app, so the easiest way to include it seamlessly in your daily Mac regimen is to add it to your Login Items (System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items). DateLine’s interface is a resizable horizontal strip that displays the days and dates of the current month

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There are a few things that come up regularly for people who’ve recently switched from a PC to a Mac. We boil down the most common hurdles So you can clear them with ease.   1. My brand-new Mac came without a right-click mouse, so now I have to buy an external two-button mouse. Every Mac comes out of the box with the ability to right-click, but Apple made it especially confusing for switchers because right-clicking is always turned off by default. You have to make a trip to the Keyboard & Mouse System Preference to turn it on. If your Mac came with an Apple-branded mouse, you might not realize that you have right-clicking ability because the right-click button is not a visible button separate from the left-click button–it’s touch-sensitive. Plus, all Mac laptops have touch-sensitive right-clicking on their track pads as well. 2. Every time I launch Skype or Firefox, a white disk icon appears on my Desktop and disappears after a restart. You actually never installed those apps properly. To install many Mac applications, simply drag the application’s icon (located on that temporary white disk image, which has the file extension .DMG) to your Applications folder. Then you can eject the white disk image by dragging it to the trash, and it won’t come back again. 3

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Apple did pretty much everything they could to steal some of Windows 7’s thunder by announcing some pretty major hardware changes earlier in the week, but Thursday is here nonetheless, and that means Microsoft’s latest OS is on store shelves now, ripe for the picking. Question is, will Mac users be helping with the harvest? I’m getting a copy (might pick up a burger , too), but for me it’s a legitimate business expense, so the decision, even without an upgrade path (I’ve just been using the Windows 7 RC on my iMac, and don’t have an existing retail license), it makes financial sense for me to have access to a Windows machine. Maybe you’re in the same boat. The question isn’t really whether Mac users are also Windows users, since recent research on the subject seems to indicate that yes, there is in fact plenty of crossover . I’m wondering whether it might be the case that Apple fans not only buy Windows, but that we might also represent a big chunk of the early adopter crowd for this new incarnation. Everyone I know who is buying a copy of Windows 7, upgrade or otherwise, uses a Mac. It may not be their primary machine (yes, that does actually happen), but they have one nonetheless. Most of those people are planning on installing Windows 7 on a boot camp partition or a virtualized PC using Parallels or VMware Fusion. I know you’re thinking that I probably surround myself with like-minded people, and as a result have a lot of Mac-using friends, but that isn’t the case

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Despite some predictions to the contrary, the iPhone 3GS launched without a portable version of iMovie for editing of clips. Yes, you can scrub and trim video you shoot on the device in the native Camera app, but beyond that, you can’t do much. New app ReelDirector changes all that, for the relatively low price of $7.99. It sounds like a decent deal, but I decided to download the app and find out just what the first real video editing app for the iPhone was capable of. Might I be able to become the next film ingenue sensation with only my 3GS? Features First of all, let me tell you right off the bat: This isn’t just a warmed-over version of the built-in Camera app, like so many photo effect apps tend to be. It not only allows you to stitch different clips from your device together, it also allows you to use 27 different transitions between them, including various wipes and fades. You can also add text to your clips, including opening and closing credits and titles, and provide transitions for both.

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Apple’s Mac OS X v10.6 was released last Friday and for most of us the transition from Leopard to Snow Leopard went by without incident. However, we’ve spent part of last weekend scouring Apple’s discussion boards and support site for solutions to problems people have been reporting with the upgrade. Gray screen after Snow Leopard Installation read more

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