So here we are, just past the six month mark since Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard was sprung last August 28, and I’m still using OS 10.5 Leopard. I have lots of company. The NetApplications HitsLink Market Share data for February 2010 shows that Leopard is still the most widely-used OS X version, with a 2.21 percent global market share compared to 1.8 percent for Snow Leopard, and good old OS 10.4 Tiger still hanging in at 0.72 percent. Why the Procrastination? So, why the procrastination about upgrading? It’s certainly not the cost holding me back. Snow Leopard is the cheapest Mac OS version upgrade in history, other than complete freebies. Well, for one thing, Leopard works so darned well, and making a major OS upgrade always involves time investment and the hassle of upgrading at least some of your software and utilities (more about that in a moment), and I’ve been short of spare time the last several months. I also tend to be of the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” persuasion, and haven’t been convinced there’s anything Snow Leopard has to offer that’s a genuine must-have for me. Some of the improvements — things like a more responsive Finder rewritten from scratch in Cocoa, faster Time Machine backups, a more powerful version of the Preview application — sound like welcome tweaks, but nothing I find compelling. Stuff like enhanced Microsoft Exchange Server support for Mail, iCal, and Address Book have zero appeal for me since I don’t use that service or any of those features, preferring third-party alternatives. Nor do Snow Leopard’s Safari upgrades fizz me much since I favor other browsers with Safari being my fourth or fifth choice, if that. Bitten Once… There is also the bitten once; twice shy factor.

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You need not risk $20 million in alimony to find deleting compromising text messages from your cell phone useful. That’s the premise behind Tiger app, a nod to philandering putter Tiger Woods, an iPhone application that erases indiscreet SMS messages, forever, right after you’ve read them. You can set a text “life span,” then those texts

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Something old, something new, something borrowed, nothing Big Blue. How big a fanboy are you? Big enough to hold your wedding in an Apple Store? Joshua and Ting Li are! The 5th Avenue store in New York City was host to their wedding on Valentine’s Day, and the service was conducted by a pastor dressed like Steve Jobs—who even quoted Jobs in the ceremony. We really shouldn’t be surprised. After all, the Apple Store Dating Blog was started back in 2008 so it just seems natural that after people spend enough time dating there, marriages are going to follow. We’ve got the video below for you, and still pics are available at the aptly-named trashyyetclassy.com . No word on whether he was a Tiger or a Leopard on the honeymoon, and whether it was completely wireless. We are pretty certain that neither Lisa nor Newton were invited. Maybe Apple TV will have exclusive clips. But not in Flash format.

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  Whether you’re sending an email in Gmail, finding directions to that fancy restaurant using Google Maps, or pretending to be a part of the latest microblogging craze with Google Buzz, the G-word is everywhere. Well, it turns out that there is also a whole library of Google web applications and services stacked up behind the everyday services you may have come to take for granted. Most of the mega company’s services are either full blown web applications readily available to the public, or secretly tucked away behind a door in the Google Labs. However, even those wearing their Public Beta scrubs are readily available to play with. We’ve gone and picked through fifteen Google services you may not have heard of before, but can definitely benefit from. Try them out, and if you have any suggestions of ones we may have missed, leave a note in the comments. Never miss another important headline News Timeline If you’re tired of missing out on the week’s most important headlines, set Google News Timeline as your browser’s home page and you’ll never be out of the loop again.

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Another nail in OS X 10.4 Tiger’s coffin was recently hammered in a  post by Mozilla Foundation’s Josh Aas. Support for Tiger Already Terminated Aas reveals that development support for OS X 10.4 Tiger was terminated as of September 2009, but much of the code required to support 10.4 was left in the tree in case the developers wanted to reverse that decision. The point has arrived that a final decision to either restore 10.4 support or remove the (large) amount of 10.4-specific code from the next iteration of Mozilla’s Gecko browser engine must be made. He presents the not unreasonable case that the developers want to take advantage of advanced technologies in later OS X versions and retaining OS 10.4 support has been a hindrance, as workarounds consume valuable time and effort. 25% of Mac OS X Firefox Users Still Running OS 10.4 Aas concedes that approximately 25 percent of Firefox’s Mac OS X users (roughly 1.5 million) are still running OS 10.4, but would continue to be supported by Firefox 3.6 until it reaches end of service several months after the next major Firefox version release (built on Gecko 1.9.3) later this year. Cold comfort and a mighty short time window for those of us still running Tiger, the last OS X version that supports G3 Macs and G4s slower than 867 MHz. I’m hoping to get at least two or three more years of production service out of my two old Pismo PowerBooks running OS 10.4. Aas counters that in the past Mozilla hasn’t lost appreciable market share after dropping support for a Mac OS X version, making the fair observation that they’re typically one of the last vendors supporting older Mac OS X releases

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Filed under: Retail , Apple , Holidays In some more bright, shiny, and happy Apple news for this first day of 2010, Computerworld is reporting that Apple’s online store took top honors for customer satisfaction in terms of the holiday shopping experience at a computer or electronics manufacturer’s site. The numbers from Michigan-based ForeSee Results showed Apple’s satisfaction rate at 82%, four percentage points higher than those in 2008. The market research firm measures customer satisfaction by surveying more than 10,000 visitors to the top 40 retail Web sites as ranked by annual sales revenue. The two closest computer and electronics sites to Apple were Newegg.com and TigerDirect.com , posting scores of 81% and 80%. Dell and HP came in at 79% and 78%, respectively, while the least satisfying shopping experience was provided by Circuit City’s Web site at 73%. While Apple led computer and electronics Web sites in terms of satisfaction, the company wasn’t even in the same ballpark as Amazon.com . The online shopping giant grabbed a whopping 87% customer satisfaction rating in ForeSee’s survey figures. Other companies that were ahead of Apple in the rankings were Netflix (86%) and QVC.com (83%). The ForeSee report also notes that the biggest retailers are getting both larger and better, at the expense of smaller online retailers

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Filed under: Retail , Apple , Holidays In some more bright, shiny, and happy Apple news for this first day of 2010, Computerworld is reporting that Apple’s online store took top honors for customer satisfaction in terms of the holiday shopping experience at a computer or electronics manufacturer’s site. The numbers from Michigan-based ForeSee Results showed Apple’s satisfaction rate at 82%, four percentage points higher than those in 2008. The market research firm measures customer satisfaction by surveying more than 10,000 visitors to the top 40 retail Web sites as ranked by annual sales revenue. The two closest computer and electronics sites to Apple were Newegg.com and TigerDirect.com , posting scores of 81% and 80%. Dell and HP came in at 79% and 78%, respectively, while the least satisfying shopping experience was provided by Circuit City’s Web site at 73%. While Apple led computer and electronics Web sites in terms of satisfaction, the company wasn’t even in the same ballpark as Amazon.com . The online shopping giant grabbed a whopping 87% customer satisfaction rating in ForeSee’s survey figures. Other companies that were ahead of Apple in the rankings were Netflix (86%) and QVC.com (83%). The ForeSee report also notes that the biggest retailers are getting both larger and better, at the expense of smaller online retailers. The big boys on the block can offer larger discounts, free shipping and better customer support that can’t be matched by the small fry

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Using the ancient power of math, we’ve compiled a list of the top articles on the site for the year 2009. Join us as we travel back in time and remember the year of Snow Leopard, iPhone OS 3.0, our trip to the Mythbusters and iLife ‘09. 50 Things Every Mac Geek Should Know From historical facts about our favorite technology company to tips and tricks that’ll make even your hard-core Mac friends jealous.    100 Snow Leopard Tips, Tricks, and Features Once Snow Leopard landed on our machines we spent the first 24 hours diving into the updated OS and surfaced with 100 tips to help you get the most out of the new cat.    10 OS X Pranks That’ll Get You Beat Up–or Fired Apple may have taken down the pirate flag at Apple HQ, but that doesn’t mean its users don’t still enjoy having a bit of fun. Sometimes that fun is at the expense of others.    16 Tips to Become an INSTANT iPhone OS 3.0 Power-User iPhone OS 3.0 made the iPhone three-times better. It’s true, we had our top scientists research it. Anyways, here are some tips that made using iPhone OS 3.0 10-times better. Also verified by our team of top scientists.   20 Helpful iLife ‘09 Tips and Tricks Either you’ve purchased iLife ‘09 or it’s come bundled on your shiny new Mac. Either way, to help you get the most out of the Apple suite, check out our swanky tips and tricks.    iTunes 9 Tips and Tricks – Solve the Mysteries of the New iTunes The biggest update to iTunes since the introduction of the iTunes Music Store, iTunes 9 was released and most users were left scratching their heads trying to figure out how to use it. We though it would be nice to help those users out.    The 10 Coolest Things We Saw at the MythBusters Studio During an Adam Savage photo shoot at the Mythbusters’ M5 studio, we snuck away and took pictures of all the cool stuff. It was like we died and went to nerd heaven.     6 Pro Photographers Share Their Most Guarded Digital Secrets Photography may be leaving film behind, but it’s still rife with secret techniques and magical skills. We got six pro photogs to share their secrets.    10 Snow Leopard Features Not Mentioned at WWDC Because having a four-hour WWDC presentation tends to anger the developers, Apple left some of the coolest new features out of their presentation.

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Everyone knows that the newest iPhone 3GS is only available in 16GB and 32GB versions, while last year’s iPhone 3G is available in a $99 8GB model. So why does this label show an 8GB iPhone 3GS ? According to AppleInsider , a Hamburg, Germany customer who purchased a refurbished 8GB iPhone 3G instead found that the label on the box read “iPhone 3GS v2.2, 8GB” — which currently doesn’t exist. The model number (A1241) and part number (MB440DN/A) match the existing iPhone 3G, but the packaging references an 8GB iPhone 3GS. The label first turned up on a forum post discovered by Electronista . Of course, at this time the lowest-capacity iPhone 3GS is the 16GB model for $199 in the U.S. (with two-year AT&T contract), which makes the label a curiosity, but it also wouldn’t be a total surprise. The original 2007 model iPhone was bumped from 8GB to 16GB in early 2008, prior to the arrival of the iPhone 3G that summer. It’s also presumed at some point the 3GS will completely phase out last year’s 3G model. Back in August, rumors spread about an 8GB iPhone 3G when an internal memo from Canadian carrier Rogers Wireless started to spread. That rumor was then squashed as simply a formatting error on the carrier’s computer systems. It remains to be seen if the mislabeled iPhone 3G is a harbinger of things to come or simply a similar mistake. Apple is planning a special media event on January 26, 2010 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, where new products are expected, so we may not have long to wait…

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Section: Apple , iPod + iTunes , iTunes , Movie Rentals Seeing as how the end of the year 2009 is right around the corner, I think we should all be preparing to see a ton of lists like this in the near future. Apple has published their list of the best selling iTunes music, movies, TV shows, and apps from this past year so we can check it out and wish we were as rich as those who appear on this list. By visiting iTunes , you’ll be thrown into a world of outstanding music, wonderful productions, and extremely functional applications. With such a large user base, the sales from iTunes are extremely reliable in showing what was popular over the year, and much of the content is what you would expect. Amongst the top artists in music is Michael Jackson and the sad story of his death this year, as well as upcoming artist Lady Gaga, who has released hit after hit this year. Furthermore, you’ll find Hannah Montana and the Black Eyed Pears all over the top song charts. In terms of movies, you won’t be surprised to find the hit animated film Up appear on the “Best of 2009” list, as well as Twilight topping the “Top Sellers” list. Also not surprising is the amount of titles on the top application list that were created by Electronic Arts such as The Sims 3, Madden football, and Tiger Woods golf. This is only a glimpse of what you can find, be sure to fire up iTunes and check it out for yourself! Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell . | Comment on this Article »

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