The Wall Street Journal has reported on some ‘breaking’ news, in regards to an upcoming iCloud update Apple will announce at WWDC 2012:

Apple Inc. is preparing an upgrade of its online service iCloud that includes new photo-sharing features, according to people familiar with the matter.

The new features, expected to be announced at Apple’s world-wide developer conference beginning June 11, will allow iCloud users to share sets of photos with other iCloud users and to comment on them, these people said. Currently, users can only store one set of photos in iCloud through a feature called Photo Stream, which is designed to sync those photos to other Apple devices, not share them.

Apple is also working on a new feature that will allow iCloud users to sync their personal videos via iCloud, these people said, as well as allow users to access “Notes” and “Reminders”—two of its apps for jotting down quick thoughts—throughiCloud.com. Currently, those items have to be accessed via apps for those features.

The photo-sharing feature sounds like Instagram, but for Apple iOS devices. As for the syncing of personal videos to iCloud, that would be pretty awesome. Once would think this would be limited to WiFi only, and also brings into question the need for storage upgrades for iCloud. All of these features are expected to arrive as part of the expected iOS 6 (codenamed ‘Sundance’) announcement at WWDC, notes their sources.

It was noted last week beta.icloud.com went live prematurely, and exposed the aforementioned Notes and Reminders app icons on iCloud.com.

Quoting from the source:

Apple has made it clear that professionals could lose the optical drive in favor of the wildly popular Mac App Store for software installations. [...] For those few who still need an optical drive, Apple has been selling a USB Superdrive since the first-generation MacBook Air launched.

The current prototype unibody casings going through test production have spaces for a charging port, two USB ports, two audio in/out-sized ports, and the batterymeter on the left side. The right side is said to have cutouts for two Thunderbolt-sized ports, an SD card slot, and another USB port. 

Regarding MacBook Pro’s Retina display, it is being quoted as “definitely the most important Mac innovation in years”:

Sources familiar with software strings left behind in OS X Lion 10.7.4 and MountainLion betas say that this Retina Display MacBook Pro features multiple Retina resolution modes, so users are able to adjust the sharpness and image sizes to their liking. Unlike Mac display settings of today, these Retina Display settings will not be marked with numbers/resolution sizes, but with descriptions such as big, small, or optimal, according to these software-based findings.

Lastly, USB 3 will finally make its way to the Mac:

Apple has long been testing Macs with USB 3 ports, but it sounds like the new MacBook Pro will be the first to actually sport the next-generation connector. [...] While third-party USB 3 cards and Hackintoshes have run “Super-Speed” USB 3 and have shown up in the System Profiler previously, sources familiar with Apple’s software strings in 10.7.4 and 10.8 betas also have provided evidence for USB 3 Macs coming soon.

While there is no word on release dates or pricing from the supply chain sources, it is speculated that Apple will unleash the 2012 MacBook Pro at WWDC in June.

Here is what he’s written:

I receive lots of questions either by email or twitter about the 5.1.x untetheredjailbreak.

Here are some answers :

• The poll about releasing now or waiting for 6.0 ended with a 64% / 33% to release ASAP. Where is the link ? ETA ? How much % done ? etc.As I said earlier in twitter, there’s still a lot to do to have a user friendly and well tested tool to install the jailbreak on end users devices. Expect a release in a couple of weeks.
• Will it be compatible with my <any random iOS device> ?It will be compatible with any device running iOS 5.1.1 except iPod 3G, iPhone 3Gs and ATV3 (right now, may change in a near future, nobody knows).
• Why is it so slow to release now that the iPad 3,1 has been demoed ?There are 16 different devices out there to work on and to test. It takes time.
• May I be a beta tester ?No, sorry. Only really trusted people (that can be counted on one hand) could have access to the jailbreak. I don’t want any leak to happen.
• What if I offer you 1,000,000$ ?That doesn’t change a thing.

  Be patient, it’s gonna happen. See you my friends.

  ~pod2g

We can expect more and more updates, as they test all devices that run iOS 5.1.1. Earlier, we told you about pod2g’s blog update with his new jailbreak F.A.Q. Pod2g says his new jailbreak should be out in a couple of weeks. We still have no real details on what the final jailbreak tool will be called, what it will look like, or it’s ease of use. In the past pod2g and The Chronic Dev Team have given us a single click jailbreak tool, so hopefully this new jailbreak will be that simple, as well.

This new jailbreak will support iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad, iPad 2, the new iPad, and iPod Touch 4th gen, on iOS 5.1.1. No support for iPhone 3GS or iPod Touch 3rd gen in this new tool. The later 2 devices can already be jailbroken, untethered with Redsn0w.

One way that people are doing this is digging up and publicizing “lost” tape.

For example, old Apple corporate videos, created to fire up sales people at conferences and meetings long forgotten, are suddenly appearing. One video shows Jobs portraying FDR rallying the troops against the menace of IBM. Another shows Jobs acting in a Ghostbusters-themed video.

And “lost” interviews with Jobs are popping up and being exploited. Magnolia Pictures is distributing a 70-minute “lost” interview with Jobs in movie theaters in 19 cities. Another interview, touted as lessons learned from Jobs’ so-called “wilderness years,” is also making the rounds.

Jobs’ comments on various things are being referenced in the service of banal punditry. His statements, for example, are being used to predict that Apple won’t ship a 7-inch iPad because Jobs said he hated the idea. (Yeah, right. He also said nobody reads anymore. That was just a few years before he launched a long-term initiative to take over the publishing industry.)

And Jobs’ career is used and abused to validate advice about management and product design.

One widely mis-represented quote by Jobs, who himself was paraphrasing Picasso, went something like this: “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.” (By “copying,” Jobs and Picasso meant going through the motions to ape something without fully understanding it. By “stealing,” they meant fully understanding and “living” an influence, and making it part of who you are as an artist.)

Another thing that happens to great artists is that the value of their work suddenly goes up when they die. And that’s what has happened to the trade in Steve Jobs-generated ideas and content.

As in the art world, Jobs’ untimely death has created a speculative bubble in all things Jobs. That’s the only reason this stuff is emerging.

None of this content was “lost.” The guy was a CEO. He did things that CEOs do. He made sales videos. He granted interviews with the press. All this was recorded. And it’s been sitting around ignored for years because it didn’t have any value.

When Steve Jobs died, some people sensed a shameless once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get money or attention from bringing these recordings out.

I have three problems with participation in the exploitation of Steve Jobs:

1. It’s out of context

Jobs tended to say things that were right for the moment, that were expedient and helpful to whatever his objectives were at the time.

Those goofy videos were meant for a specific and very small group of people for a very narrow purpose.

For the second half of his career, Jobs was very disciplined in what he said publicly, and why. Comments in an interview, now consumed posthumously as the man’s “beliefs,” were often narrowly constructed to promote developer acceptance of a platform or consumer acceptance of a product or to create FUD about a competitor.

If we want to learn something from and about Steve Jobs, we should learn about contextualizing communication.

2. It’s tasteless

The death of Steve Jobs was tragic. He was at the top of his game, the pinnacle of his life. For so many people to come out of the woodwork to exploit his name, and less than one year after his death, is tawdry and shameless.

If we want to learn something from the life of Steve Jobs, we should try to avoid bad taste.

3. It’s unfair 

Jobs was remarkable in part because he never stopped evolving. He always kept growing as a CEO, a technology visionary, a leader, a family man and a human being. To reach into the past and highlight and surface old content is unfair to the man he became.

Jobs was always an interesting person. But the very best Jobs was the final one, the person he became in the last years of his life. If we want to learn from Steve Jobs, let’s learn from the man he evolved to, not the man he evolved from.

Enough with the “lost” corporate videos, interviews and the shameless exploitation of Steve Jobs.

There’s so much to be learned from the life of Steve Jobs. But publishing out-of-context, tasteless and unfair material from the past is nothing more than a demonstration that we haven’t learned.

If we want to learn from and be more like Steve Jobs, let’s reinvent the future, not dwell on the past.

After many beta releases on the Developer Center, Apple has just released OS X Lion 10.7.4 to the masses this afternoon via Software Update. The update weighs in at 729.6MB and fixes the horrible bug in OS X 10.7.3 that stored passwords in plain text, along with many other stability improvements among other things. It also includes Safari 5.1.6. Full release notes:

• Resolve an issue in which the “Reopen windows when logging back in” setting is always enabled.
• Improve compatibility with certain British third-party USB keyboards.
• Addresses permission issues that may be caused if you use the Get Info inspector function “Apply to enclosed items…” on your home directory. For more information, see this article.
• Improve Internet sharing of PPPoE connections.
• Improve using a proxy auto-configuration (PAC) file.
• Address an issue that may prevent files from being saved to an SMB server.
• Improve printing to an SMB print queue.
• Improve performance when connecting to a WebDAV server.
• Enable automatic login for NIS accounts.
• Include RAW image compatibility for additional digital cameras.
• Improve the reliability of binding and logging into Active Directory accounts.
• The OS X Lion v10.7.4 Update includes Safari 5.1.6, which contains stability improvements.

Apple has continued to release fixes and improvements to Lion, even as it’s worked to get OS X Mountain Lion — the company’s next major OS release — ready for a late summer launch. Mountain Lion brings many features over from iOS, including Notification Center and heavy iCloud integration. Mountain Lion is currently being tested by those apart of Apple’s paid developer program.

Though 10.7.4 comes with Safari 5.1.6, Apple also released Safari 5.1.7 today. Safari 5.1.7 removes“Out-of-date versions of Adobe Flash Player do not include the latest security updates and will be disabled to help keep your Mac secure.” Safari 5.1.7 is available on Apple’s Safari download page, which means it’s possible Apple will post an edited 10.7.4 to include the 5.1.7 update.

Is this the last major Lion update?

OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client Combo)

OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client)

You might recall last week a video surfaced on the web of an Apple promotional film that depicted Steve Jobs as U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from 1944. Now, Michael Markman reveals the backstory of how his early Apple project has made its way to YouTube on his blog.

Markman was the creative director for Image Stream, an L.A. based AV company at the time. The WWII movie was created for the Apple International Sales Conference in the summer of 1984. Here is a snippet:

I called Chris in L.A. to outline what we were thinking. War movie. Stock footagefrom the D-day landings. Chaplin as Adenoid Hynkel hanging on the wall. Mac marketing team in cameo roles. And the topper: Steve as FDR. He said he’d start looking for a director (or maybe he had one in mind).

Glenn, Mike, and I marched into Steve’s office to give him the pitch. Pretty much the way I outlined it in the previous paragraph. Steve’s eyes were sparkling through it all. By the time I got to, “and you as FDR,” I had made the sale. In the binary universe of Steve Jobs, something is either a zero or a one. This was a one. Instantly. Definitively.

If you haven’t seen the commercial yet…you’re in for a very awkward surprise. Check out the jump to the Jobs part of the video below:

In a recent Tweet, Musclenerd, of The iPhone Dev Team, announced that an upcoming version of Redsn0w will allow iOS users to downgrade their firmware, with saved SHSH blobs. This includes iPad 2, The New iPad, and iPhone 4S.

This is pretty big news for jailbreakers. Previously, there was no way to downgrade to an earlier iOS 5. If you have SHSH blobs saved for a firmware earlier than iOS 5, you were in luck, but for newer devices that don’t support older firmwares, this was not possible. Musclenerd says this will work with A4 and A5 devices, so does this mean they have a working jailbreak ready to go for these newer devices?

Another big thing to note is that this was only previously possible using Pwnage Tool to create a custom firware, then restore in iTunes. Now, with this new Redsn0w that “stitches on the fly”, this process will be greatly streamlined. Could this mean thatPwnage Tool and Redsn0w will be merging into one super jailbreak tool? We’ll see.

There has been no release date for the new Redsn0w, but we’ll be watching this closely, and let you know this develops.

Apple introduced a new notification system in iOS 5 and has announced that a similar feature will be coming to the Mac in the Mountain Lion operating system this summer.

It’s possible that Apple will include syncing code in iCloud to share notifications across devices, for calendar alerts and new mail, or the notifications may be used for some other purpose.

Apple just released iOS 5.1.1 (build number 9B206) for iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone. As you can see from the release notes above, the 54.4 MB update includes: improved reliability for the HDR option when accessing the camera app from the lock screen and a number of other fixes for bugs affecting AirPlay video playback; the ability to switch between 2G and 3G networks on third-gen iPad; and, an “Unable to purchase” alert.

-Improves reliability of using HDR option for photos taken using the Lock Screen shortcut.

-Addresses bugs that could prevent the new iPad from switching between 2G and 3G networks.

-Fixes bugs that affected AirPlay video playback in some circumstances.

-Improved reliability for syncing Safari bookmarks and Reading List.

-Fixes an issue where ‘Unable to purchase’ alert could be displayed after successful purchase.

Adobe today begins taking pre-orders for its CS6 line of its popular line professional design products. Adobe combines 14 different individual applications, including its venerable Photoshop CS6 (free Beta download), Illustrator CS6, and InDesign CS6, in a variety of bundles.

United States pricing is as follows (matrix below): Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design and Web Premium for $1,899, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Design Standard for $1,299, Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium for $1,899, and Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection $2,599. Meanwhile, upgrades from previous version of CS5.5 range from $300 to $550 for the Master Collection.

However, Adobe now offers what is likely to be an even more popular pricing option, the Adobe Creative Cloud, which also offers online storage, versioning, and sharing along with all the Master Collection of applications. Starting at $29.99 a month for the first year for those updating from just about any version of Adobe CS3+, the Creative Cloud annual membership is $600 a year billed monthly or $75 a month on a month-to-month basis.

At those rates, Master Collection users would still be ahead of the $2,600 stand alone price after four years and would have access to all of Adobe’s online storage and some Creative Cloud specific options as well.

Adobe continues to offer savings of up to 80 percent off for students and teachers starting at thestandard bundle for $350 and Master Collection CS6 for $800

Adobe posted hundreds of CS6 feature and tutorial videos on its tv.adobe.com website and will have a live broadcast launch event at 10 a.m. PST.