Everyone's excited about the look and feel of Apple's Mac OS X Leopard and why not? The new OS is looking sleeker than ever and insiders are raving at how easy it is to set up.

   

Wired reports that they ran it on a Quad Core Xeon Mac Pro and Leopard went right on the prowl. These screens show some of what you can expect and it does look sweet.

The preview version doesn't have the final code but most sources say that Leopard has been impressive so far. The animations, the dock and the translucent toolbar are all contributing to giving the package that space-age look and the eye candy just has people's heads turning. DVD burning and Time Machine still haven't been tested, but that just leaves enough to have something to look forward to come launch date.

It should be remembered that Apple just recently released its Safari browser for Windows for beta testing. However, the said browser is having some difficulties as around six bugs have already been detected just hours after that. The Cupertino-based company now wishes to inform its user base that Safari has been upgraded to 3.0.1.

Like we said, there are at least six known bugs to the new browser. Despite that, Apple just highlighted three separate security vulnerabilities that will be taken care of by the update. And they are:

• CVE-ID: CVE-2007-3186 (Available for Windows XP or Vista)
• Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to arbitrary code execution
• Description: A command injection vulnerability exists in the Windows version of Safari 3 Public Beta. By enticing a user to visit a maliciously crafted web page, an attacker can trigger the issue which may lead to arbitrary code execution. This update addresses the issue by performing additional processing and validation of URLs. This does not pose a security issue on Mac OS X systems, but could lead to an unexpected termination of the Safari browser.
• CVE-ID: CVE-2007-3185 (Available for Windows XP or Vista)
• Impact: Visiting a malicious website may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution
• Description: An out-of-bounds memory read issue in Safari 3 Public Beta for Windows may lead to an unexpected application termination or arbitrary code execution when visiting a malicious website. This issue does not affect Mac OS X systems.

See the rest of the update and after the jump!

As most Apple fans know, the Apple WWDC is going pretty strong. A lot of people have their own thoughts about the iPhone and Mac OS X Leopard, but no amount of speculating beat first hand information.

Mac Rumors was lucky enough to get some details from those who attended the WWDC and were able to get some details about the Leopard. In addition, they also gave some of their impressions on the product which were quite insightful. Consistently, the people who saw it have been raving about the new mail system that Apple implemented.

Another thing that was pointed out by one of the attendees is the fact that Spotlight has been tweaked so that it has become "much more responsive." Another thing that was pointed out was that "Safari seems faster and now has that styled text editor as in Firefox." For those who are worried about the requirements of the said OS, don't fret, the readme on the copies handed out clarified everything (it's no Vista in terms of memory requirements).

System Requirements:

• an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 or G5 processor
• a DVD drive
• built-in FireWire
• at least 256 MB of RAM for a Power-PC based Mac and 512 MB for an Intel-based Mac (additional RAM is recommended for development purposes)
• a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer
• at least 6 GB of disk space available, or 8 GB if you install the developer tools

That said, it looks like the Mac OS X Leopard is primed and ready to hit the ground running. Hopefully it will be everything and more Mac users wish it to be. Keep checking back here for more updates on the WWDC and the products featured there.

In this year's World Wide Developers Conference, Apple announced the winners of the Apple Design Awards. This award, which was first handed out a good 12 years ago, is said to "recognize technical excellence and outstanding achievement in Mac OS X software design and development."

The Apple Design Awards has seven categories in which software developers, whether independent or otherwise, can take part in. The categories include: Leopard Application, User Experience, Developer Tool, Game, Scientific Computing Solution, Dashboard Widget, and Student Product. The winners of each category are as follows:

• Leopard Application:
• Delicious Library 2.0 (alpha) by Delicious Monster
• User Experience:
• Coda 1.0 by Panic Inc.
• Developer Tool:
• CSSEdit 2.5 by MacRabbit
• Game:
• World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade 2.0 by Blizzard Entertainment
• Scientific Computing Solution:
• Papers 1.0 by Alexander Griekspoor and Tom Groothuis
• Dashboard Widget:
• BART Widget 1.0 by Bret Victor
• Student Product:
• Picturesque 1.0 by Zac Cohen

Each of the said applications are pretty well-known among the Apple community and have really changed the computing landscape in its own way. For the listing of the runner-ups and a description of each program, click on our read link. Be sure to keep checking back here for the latest Apple updates.

Soon, Apple fans waiting for months on end to see big PC games get ported to their platform will be a thing of the past. Electronic Arts, the world's biggest game publisher is cooperating hand in hand with Apple to make porting that much faster.

EA COO Bing Gordon was with Apple CEO Steve Jobs as the two announced this exciting development at the Worldwide Developer's Conference hosted by Apple in San Francisco.  Big EA game franchises Command & Conquer 3, Battlefield 2142, Need For Speed Carbon and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix will be the first to ship on the Mac OS X platform followed by Madden NFL 08 and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 08.

To make the porting process easier, an engine called Cider developed by TransGames will be put into use. This will cut the development time significantly and keep Apple units in stride with their Windows counterparts.

TransGaming CEO Vikas Gupta says "traditionally Mac users had to wait to play the latest blockbuster games. "We're thrilled that TransGaming's Cider engine will dramatically decrease the time it will take to bring EA's hit portfolio of games to a thirsty Mac market."

With the Apple iPhone's release date (July 29) creeping closer and closer upon us, more details have been coming to light. Now the hype is bound to only become stronger with the release of the iPhone's specs. Steve Jobs and the rest of the guys at Apple better deliver on this product since a lot of people are expecting a lot from it.

Theories floating around the intarwebs regarding this product have been laid to rest with the release of its specs. It will have a sim tray for those who are worried about it. In addition, the battery life, while not that great is quite acceptable for a multimedia device. It's also going to be quad band and will have a storage capacity of either 4 GB or 8 GB.

Given that, the only thing we need to wait for is the price. We can't wait for its release to see if it really becomes the phone that most Apple fanatics want it to be. Be sure to check back here for more updates on the iPhone.

The full details await after the jump!

After fifteen months, the Camino Project has finally unveiled Camino 1.5. This is the latest and most substantial update to their Camino 1.0 web browser.

Some of the new features in Camino 1.5 include a built-in Mac OS X Spellchecker that works on every text field and added support for session saving. With the latter, Camino can now automatically load whatever websites you were visiting when you quit or when you suffer a crash.

RSS feed detection has also been added to the Camino browser. In Camino 1.5, an icon will appear on the location bar when a feed is found. Clicking on that icon and selecting a feed will send the selected feed straight to the user's default feed reader. Tabbed browsing has also been improved with new tooltips and navigation features.

Camino 1.5 runs on Mozilla's popular Gecko 1.8.1 rendering engine, the same engine used by Firefox 2. The browser is available as is a universal binary and runs natively on both PowerPC- and Intel-based Macs.

Version 7.2 of Apple's iTunes software has finally been released. This new version also supports Windows Vista, so those of you who don't run a Mac OS at home but have an iPod can still use it.

Perhaps the hottest feature in this new iTunes version is added support for "iTunes Plus", Apple's new DRM-free offerings. These DRM-free tracks cost an extra 30 cents but also boast higher-quality encoding. DRM-free tracks will start popping up on the iTunes Store today, if they haven't already.

Users will also be able to upgrade their previous iTunes Store purchases to their DRM-free versions as they became available. The installer (available for XP, Vista and Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later) can be downloaded for free by clicking on the "via" link below.

Mac owners will be happy to know that the Apple site has just released a free demo of a new plugin for your use, dubbed WiFind version 1.1.

This OS X-based plugin will allow users to see if their wireless network is locked or unlocked, and will also show them their signal strength - easing up the task of finding a good hotspot for their computer's WiFi connection.

This application is designed to work from your Mac's AirPort menu, for OS X10.1 and above. That's all for the moment - stick around in case we pick up other handy plugins in the near future. Enjoy!

Download: WiFind 1.1  demo

Apple Insider reports that the first pre-release builds of Mac OS X 10.4.10 have made rounds in Cupertino earlier this month, and is being readied for testing.

It is reported that Apple hopes to stabilize the software to the point where it can proceed to seeding copies of the software update to its Apple Developer Connection members by next week.

Apple last updated the Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger in March. At the time, Mac OS X 10.4.9 came with improved camera support, improved DVD playback, and enhanced Bluetooth support. For the latest update, the specific fixes are still unknown. However, most believe that an fix for an "audio-related issue" will be included.

Apple insider believes that this free time that Apple has to work on the current OS X 10.4 Tiger is due to the delay of OS X 10.5 Leopard to October.