Week in Apple: Siri data usage, the Mac Pro's future, and more

This week's top 10 Apple posts included a wide mix of topics such as Siri's data usage, a review of Acorn, a hands-on with Pixelmator 2.0, the iPhone 4S's potential battery issues, a Siri outage, where the Mac Pro is going, and more. Need to catch up? You've come to the right place.

"Siri, how much data do you gobble up in a month?" Ars investigates: Siri, the virtual assistant built into the iPhone 4S, requires an active Internet connection in order to perform tasks for you. In today's data-capped world, might that push you over your monthly data limit?

The seed of something great: Acorn 3.1 reviewed: Looking for an inexpensive image editor on the Mac? Acorn falls just short of greatness, but it's still an excellent app for casual designers.

Apple pushes back sandboxing deadline as devs struggle with tradeoffs: Apple has given developers a few extra months to move their apps to use Lion's new sandboxing functionality. Beginning March 1: no sandbox, no Mac App Store. And although there are security upsides, there is one major downside: serious feature compromises for some well-known apps.

Apple now has third piece of mapping puzzle, but what's the full picture?: Apple now has its hands on three important mapping technologies, and those pieces could paint a picture of the future of maps on iOS: fully augmented, three-dimensional, and photo realistic.

After seven years, Apple open sources its Apple Lossless Audio Codec: Six years after independent developers reverse-engineered the format, Apple has open sourced its code for its lossless audio format, ALAC.

Stale Mac Pro lineup has pro users concerned: A recent rumor suggests Apple is considering discontinuing the Mac Pro. Though the small niche of demanding users may feel a sting, the move could have far reaching affects on Apple's perception in the enterprise.

Hands-on: Pixelmator 2.0 adds value with "healing" tool, Lion compatibility: Added vector and retouching tools, including a "content-aware" healing tool, complement improved type capabilities, a few UI tweaks, and Lion compatibility. Its $29.99 price makes it a great image editing value, too, worth serious consideration.

Apple: iPhone 4S battery issues due to iOS 5 bugs, update coming: Apple has publicly acknowledged that some iPhone 4S users get reduced battery life. The problem is due to "a few bugs" within iOS 5; an update to address those bugs will be available soon.

In-store pickup, self-checkout likely coming to Apple Store near you: Wouldn't it be nice if you could order a Mac online, pick it up at your local Apple Store 12 minutes later, and check yourself out via your iPhone?

Server outage: Apple's Siri apologizing to iPhone 4S owners: Was Apple's Siri experiencing technical difficulties? It certainly seems so across most carriers in the US on Thursday afternoon.

We hope you have a great weekend, everyone!

Microsoft confirms app store in Windows 8

Microsoft has begun talking about Windows 8 in general terms, reprising a blog-based strategy that it used in the year-long run-up to Windows 7.

Microsoft kicked off the "Building Windows 8" blog on Monday, almost exactly three years after the debut of

a similar blog, "Engineering Windows 7," that the company used to beat the drum.

Both blogs were launched by Steven Sinofsky, the president of Microsoft's Windows and Windows Live division.

Yesterday, Sinofsky essentially confirmed that Windows 8 will support an app store when he listed it as the title of one of 35 teams working on the operating system.

Although Microsoft has publicly discussed a few bits of Windows 8, it has said nothing about integrating a download store with the new OS until now. Several Windows bloggers, however, reported finding signs of one in leaked previews of the OS several months ago.

Sinofsky's disclosure of an app store in Windows 8 would not be a surprise Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group who two months ago said, "It's clear that Microsoft will on some level go to an app store in Windows 8."

The question Baker had then was whether Microsoft's app store would be a curated market -- the approach Apple has taken with its iOS App Store, and to a lesser extent, the Mac App Store for systems running Mac OS X.

Baker thought not. "I think there will always be ways for retailers and OEMs to participate in software sales. Microsoft is fundamentally a good channel partner," he said.

The term "App Store" is a bone of contention between Microsoft, Amazon and Apple, with the first two arguing that the description isn't worthy of trademark protection. Apple has disputed that.

In January, Microsoft asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) to deny Apple's trademark application, arguing that because the term is generic, competitors should be able to use it.

According to documents published by the USPTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, both Apple and Microsoft have hired linguistic experts to argue that "App Store" is not a generic term (Apple's position) and that it is (Microsoft's).

The last document posted by the Appeal Board was an early-April request by Apple for oral arguments.

Amazon and Apple have been battling in federal court over the term since March, when the latter accused Amazon of trademark infringement. Amazon uses the term "Appstore" to describe its Android-only download market.

Sinofsky listed a total of 35 teams that are working on Windows 8, and some of his labels hinted at other core changes, ranging from a hypervisor -- or virtual machine manager -- within the client edition to improvements in Windows Update, Microsoft's consumer update service.

A majority of the Windows 8 teams had no corresponding group during Windows 7's development, while some of the latter's -- including Media Center and Applets and Gadgets -- don't appear in the Windows 8 list.

Microsoft has been mum about a release schedule for Windows 8, but the timing of Sinofsky's return to blogging -- three years and one day after the start of the similar effort for Windows 7 -- may hint at a parallel timetable. If that's the case, Windows 8 would launch in October 2012.

The company will reveal more about Windows 8, and perhaps release a preview version of the OS, at its Build conference, which will begin Sept. 13 in Anaheim, Calif.

1 million copies of OS X Lion already sold

Apple is off to a roaring good start with sales of its newest operating system. On Thursday the company announced that it had already sold 1 million copies of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion since it went on sale Wednesday morning. Already the company is saying that “users are buying Lion faster than any other OS release in

Apple’s history.”

Now, Apple didn’t offer any numbers back when Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard was released in August 2009 that can be looked to for a comparison. But the pace of Lion sales does indicate that the way it’s delivering the new OS is going over pretty well.

Apple has chosen a nontraditional way of distributing a major desktop OS release: through the Mac App Store, which officially opened for business in January. Of course, for most Apple customers, buying software that way isn’t all that new: For the past three years the iOS App Store has been hooked up to the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

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Final Cut Pro X under fire from professionals

Final Cut Pro X fails to impress advanced users, in what may be regarded as an uncharacteristically negative Apple product launch.
Apple introduced Final Cut Pro X, the upgrade for its editing software. Many have welcomed it with open arms, calling it revolutionary and much-welcomed update, but there are also some very legitimate complaints. For the most part, these criticisms come from professional film editors, many of which won’t affect the

average user.
The New York Times’ David Pogue outlined the main issues in detail, which you can find here if you want a thorough look at what extremely advanced Final Cut Pro buffs will likely be frustrated by. In short, however, the missing elements are the absence of multicamera editing, external video monitoring, and EDL and XML imports/exports. The backup application disk is also gone. Many users are incensed by the inability to move former Final Cut Pro projects over the new version for further editing as well.
Industry veterans’ opinions run the gamut and include everything from praise for the product as well as extremely harsh rejection (Walter Biscardi of Creative Cow’s comment “All in all the worst product launch I’ve ever seen from Apple or pretty much any software manufacturer” has been making the rounds). Perhaps most revealing are the user reviews, ranging everywhere from one to five stars, but ultimately pinning Final Cut Pro X at two and a half stars – certainly not the initial impression Apple was hoping for.
And just to add intrigue to insult, Apple is being accused of censoring some of its user reviews from the Mac App Store. 9to5Mac noticed shortly after the launch, as particularly unflattering comments continued to roll in, there were suddenly no reviews available for Final Cut Pro X. All other products in the Mac App Store didn’t experience any such glitch, making the absence this particular user feedback enough to raise a few eyebrows. They’ve since returned, but it’s enough to make you wonder if Apple’s seriously feeling the heat.

 The company isn’t exactly used to ill-received product launches (see: Steve Jobs’ outrage over MobileMe’s failure).

Apple back to school promo hands out $100 app store credits

Apple is offering a lighter, less tangible back to school promo this year with a credit to its app store. Will students be disappointed when comparing Apple's promo to Microsoft's Xbox? 

Apple has announced that it is switching up its back to school promotion this year. Instead of getting a free iPod Touch, this time students will be offered a $100 gift card to buy apps with. The $100 app store credit comes with purchase of a Mac with Apple education pricing during the period of time

between the months of June and September 2011. The qualifying Mac can be bought at an Apple retail or online store, as well as your campus’ store. The credit can then be spent on the Mac App Store, the iOS App Store, iTunes or the iBookstore. It may seem as if the company is cutting back with its $100 Back to School Card when you compare this to the monetary value of past promotions. Last year they offered an 8GB iPod Touch with a value of $199. We’ve pointed out that Microsoft is also doing a back to school promotion this year which you’ve probably seen commercials for already. It seems like a better deal; any student who purchases a Windows 7 computer worth over $699 gets a 4GB Xbox 360, worth $199. You could arguably find a Windows PC with similar specs for $100 cheaper than the low-level Macbook, even with the Apple back to school pricing. Couple those savings with the $200 value of the Xbox—double the Apple gift card—and the numbers make it seem more logical to go with a PC. Even with those savings in mind and high sales (popularity) still for the Xbox 360, Apples’ new promotion is probably a smart move. According to VentureBeat, apps are better for APple than its old iPod deal since “the company will recuperate at least 30 percent of any purchase made using the credit.” Plus, the variety of software available in the app store seems more practical than a gaming system. We’ll see how it all plays out at the end of the promotion when September rolls around.