No contract iPhone in China; Mac App Store search in 10.6.6, iCal alerts on me.com
No-contract iPhone in China
In a bid to compete more aggressively with rivals China Mobile and China Telecom, China Unicom said Saturday that it will immediately begin offering customers the option of a contract-free 8GB iPhone 3GS for 3,999 yuan, or roughly $600 U.S. dollars.
Monthly services plans for the handset will reportedly include between 33 yuan ($5) and 58 yuan ($9) in complimentary phone expenses each month, depending on the customer's choice of service plan.
Mac OS X 10.6.6 Mac App Store search
Apple plans to include some rudimentary integration between its upcoming Mac App Store and the next maintenance release of Mac OS X 10.6, according to discoveries made a MacGeneration forum member.
Mac OS X 10.6.6, due for release in the next few weeks, will offer users the option of searching the Mac App Store for applications when it runs into an unsupported file type for which no application has previously been assigned.
As can be seen in the French-language screenshot above, attempting to open a file with an ".mkv" extension in build 10J537 of Mac OS X 10.6.6 displays a dialog box which says, "There's no application set to open the document [filename].mkv. Search the App Store for an application that can open this document, or choose an existing application on your computer."
In this case, the ".mkv" extension stands for a Matroska Video File and searching the Mac App Store — due to launch on January 6th — would return applications capable of opening the file, such as VLC player for Mac.
Calendar Alerts Now Available on me.com
Apple announced Thursday that its new MobileMe Calendar web application now includes the ability to set and edit alerts to remind you of upcoming events.
"Like the calendar alerts you can already set on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC (with Outlook), they will be displayed on whichever device you're using to remind you that an event is about to start," the company said. "You will also receive the alerts on the web at me.com as long as you have the Calendar web application opened in a browser window or tab, even if you are viewing another web page."
12 Comments
I confess i always assumed the calendar events were active on MobleMe but good to hear they are now. When stuck on a PC for any reason I always use Safari and MobileMe now.
For some reason I was thinking that apps like VLC would not be making it into the App store as its mainly designed for paid-for apps, not open and free apps like VLC.
As to the reminders through mobileme, is it possible to set it so it emails you just in case you're not on a computer than can access me.com? Having to leave the browser on a particular page (even if wasn't blocked) seems like a good way to miss a reminder if the tab is closed for any reason.
I still can't get my iMac's calendar and the one on my wife's iMac to sync properly. We have a family pack MobileMe and I have spent hours on the phone with Apple support. I wish they would just make the basic functions work before adding bells and whistles.
I would like to see MobileMe become a free service. A lot of the services are redundant or can be found for free.
Loved the iChat features thou, and I'm sure FaceTime will add some value. However, at $120 and how often I used the service, it didn't make sense to renew.
Something still feels a little off with it. It almost seems like 3rd party software, even thou it's integrated into OSX just fine. Maybe it's the community or lack there of. If more people had accounts, I might have renewed. A free service would attract more. Maybe have paid upgrades? Let developers add modules or services to the platform?
For some reason I was thinking that apps like VLC would not be making it into the App store as its mainly designed for paid-for apps, not open and free apps like VLC.
As to the reminders through mobileme, is it possible to set it so it emails you just in case you're not on a computer than can access me.com? Having to leave the browser on a particular page (even if wasn't blocked) seems like a good way to miss a reminder if the tab is closed for any reason.
Well, technically they said they wouldn't allow free trials, only full retail apps, right? It shouldn't actually matter what the apps cost (or don't), as long as they are full versions.