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!