Sprint Rolling Out 4G LTE in Over 100 More U.S. Cities

Only days before the iPhone 5’s release, Sprint has announced that it’s expanding its 4G LTE to more than 100 cities throughout 2012.

Sprint Rolling Out 4G LTE in Over 100 More U.S. Cities

Sprint started rolling out its 4G LTE service on July 15. Currently, Sprint offers 4G LTE connectivity in 19 cities in the United States,

including Houston; Atlanta; Baltimore; Dallas; Athens, Georgia; Calhoun, Georgia; Carrollton, Georgia; Newnan, Georgia; Rome, Georgia; Fort Worth, Texas; Gainesville, Georgia; Granbury-Hood County, Texas; Huntsville, Texas; Kansas City, Montana/Kansas City, Kansas; Manhattan/Junction City, Kansas; San Antonio, Texas; Sedalia, Montana; Waco, Texas and St. Joseph, Montana.

The new 4G LTE offerings will now spread further across the U.S., entering cities like Boston, Chicago and New Orleans.

“We are committed to delivering a cutting-edge network as quickly as possible, one that provides a greater level of reliability and speed to our 3G and 4G customers,” said Bob Azzi, senior vice president of Network for Sprint. “We know our customers depend on their mobile devices as their primary source of communication, business, connectivity and entertainment. We want to deliver a network that delivers mobile access, productivity and entertainment at a highly competitive price point.”

Sprint’s complete list of cities to receive the 4G LTE network in the coming months can be found here.

Sprint, which obtained the iPhone for the first time last fall when the iPhone 4S was released, could likely be preparing for the iPhone 5’s release in two days. The iPhone 5 is the first Apple smartphone to have 4G LTE connectivity.

 

Apple iPhone 5 and New iPods: Announcement Today in San Francisco

Today, after months of rumors and speculation, Apple will announce its next iPhone – the iPhone 5. Starting at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook is expected to take the stage and detail the new features of the phone.

Apple iPhone 5 and New iPods: Announcement Today in San Francisco

Thanks to those rumors (which we gathered together here) we have an idea of what Cook might just reveal. Numerous reports have revealed that the new iPhone will have a larger, 4-inch display, a new dock connector, a faster processor and LTE for faster data speeds. Purported photos of the phone have also leaked over the last few months, indicating that the phone will have a different design than the current iPhone 4S model.
Follow ABC News’ iPhone 5 Live Blog Here, Starting at 1 P.M. ET. 
When it comes to the software, the new iPhone will run Apple’s iOS 6, which the company detailed in June at its Worldwide Developers Conference. iOS 6 has a whole host of new features, including Apple’s own homebrewed maps app (which will replace Google Maps), Facebook integration, and a new passbook app, which organizes airplane tickets, coupons and other passes you might have.

YouTube is not preloaded with the new software, but earlier this week Google released a new iPhone YouTube app.

The iPhone 5 has been rumored to go on sale as early as today following and start shipping on Friday, Sept. 21st. The iOS 6 software will likely be released around the same time and will be available for previous versions of the iPhone via a download.

Demand for this version of the iPhone is one of the strongest in the history of the phone. Sites like Gazelle and Glyde, which buy older iPhones, have seen a huge surge in traffic over the last few days as people look to unload their phones in preparation for the new one. Some analysts predict the company might sell over 10 million phones within the first month of being on sale. Apple noted on its last earnings call that it saw a significant downtick in iPhone sales last quarter as consumers wait for the new phone.

In addition to the iPhone, Apple is also rumored to announce new iPods today, including a new iPod Shuffle, a redesigned iPod Nano and a new iPod Touch.

Apple is not expected to discuss the its smaller version of the iPad today. According technology sites and ABC News’ own sources Apple will hold another event in October to release the so-called iPad Mini.

ABC News will be live at the event at 1:00 p.m. EST / 10:00 a.m. PST. You can follow our live blog here. Stay tuned for our continuous coverage throughout the day.

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 : Mountain Lion Downloads Top Three Million

Apple today announced that downloads of OS X Mountain Lion have exceeded three million in four days, making it the most successful OS X release in Apple’s history. With more than 200 innovative new features, Mountain Lion — the ninth major release of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system — is available through the Mac App Store as an upgrade to Lion or Snow Leopard users for $19.99 (US).

OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 3 Million Download in 4 Days

Safari 6 Brings Omnibar, Offline Reading List, Do Not Track, and More to OS X Lion

Right alongside the freshly launched OS X Mountain Lion, Apple has released Safari 6 for OS X Lion users. Users can download Safari 6 from Software Update via the  Apple menu.

The Omnibar, which Apple calls the “Smart Search Field”, is the biggest visible change, it combines the URL bar with the Search bar allowing for a much cleaner minimalist user interface that more closely resembles Google Chrome. The Omnibar is worth the update alone in our view, but there are a handful of other nice features that are also great like Offline Reading List, which saves complete web pages for reading later when you don’t have an internet connection, a Do Not Track option for enhanced web privacy, the Password Pane management tool for web logins, Baidu search for Chinese users, and a bunch of fixes and performance enhancements.

If you’re not upgrading to Mountain Lion today, do yourself a favor and at least get Safari 6.

OS X Mountain Lion is Now Available, Download Now!

OS X Mountain Lion has been released by Apple. The major update to Mac OS provides over 200 new features, including iMessage support, Reminders, Notification Center, Notes, Game Center, extensive iCloud integration, and much more.

OS X Mountain Lion is Now Available, Download Now!

The upgrade costs $19.99 but is available for free to Mac users who bought a Mac within the past month.

• Get Mountain Lion from the Mac App Store Now

Apple’s generous licensing terms allow you to install a single purchase of Mountain Lion on all of your personal Macs. If you don’t want to re-download OS X 10.8 each time on each computer, you can make a Mountain Lion boot installer from any USB drive or DVD.

Be sure to back up each Mac before installing, follow our simple guide on things to do before upgrading if you haven’t done so yet.

3 Simple Things To Do Before Installing OS X Mountain Lion

The release of OS X Mountain Lion is just around the corner (it’s official: July 25), but before jumping into the latest major Mac system update, you’ll want to do a few things. We’ve broken it down to a few simple essentials that are easy to follow:

Mountain OS X Lion Upgrade

1) Verify System Requirements and Check Compatibility

Almost all relatively new Macs will run Mac OS X 10.8. You can easily find out if your Mac will run Mountain Lion by comparing it against this list of supported machines:

• iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
• MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
• MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
• MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
• Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
• Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
• Xserve (Early 2009)

If you’re unsure of your make and model year, check on your Mac by doing the following:

1. From the  Apple menu, select “About This Mac”, then click on “More Info”
2. The model name and date will be shown, compare that to the list

All things considered, the system requirements for OS X Mountain Lion are fairly light, but there are some Core 2 Duo Macs that lose support and won’t be able to update. That can be frustrating, but it’s the price of progress. Remember that you’ll need at least 12GB of storage space available to install Mountain Lion, but realistically you should have more than that available to insure your Mac runs best anyway.

2) Check App Compatibility

If you’re already running OS X Lion (10.7) then you probably don’t need to worry much, but for those who are upgrading to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard, there’s a good chance that an app or two won’t work. This is due to new architectural requirements for the latest versions of OS X and unfortunately there are some developers who have gotten on board to update their apps yet, despite having years to do so (QuickBooks is a prominent example).

A good list of compatible and incompatible apps is maintained in a searchable database by RoaringApps, check it out here.

If you find apps that are incompatible with OS X 10.8 you can either find an alternative on the App Store, or consider holding off on the system upgrade until the developer gets their act together. Smaller developers tend to do this faster than larger software companies, so if you’re waiting for a large company it may take a long time.

3) Backup, Backup, Backup

This is probably the most important step when upgrading any OS and a Mac is no different. The odds of something going wrong are slim, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Your best bet is to use Time Machine and initiate a manual backup right before installing OS X 10.8 update. If you don’t have Time Machine setup and configured yet, what are you waiting for? Grab a cheap external hard drive and set it up as a backup drive now, Time Machine is completely automated and as easy as backups get.

Ready? Buy & Install

Once Mountain Lion is on the Mac App Store, it’ll be a $20 purchase and installs directly from the App Store. It takes about 30-45 minutes to install depending on the speed of the internet connection and it’s mostly automated, you don’t need to sit around babysitting the installer.

Remember, if you bought a new Mac recently, Mountain Lion is free for you.

OS X Mountain Lion Will Be Released Tomorrow, July 25

No more rumors or speculation, Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that OS X Mountain Lion will launch tomorrow, July 25:

“We’re thrilled with record sales of 17 million iPads in the June quarter,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We’ve also just updated the entire MacBook line, will release Mountain Lion tomorrow and will be launching iOS 6 this Fall. We are also really looking forward to the amazing new products we’ve got in the pipeline.”

That quote comes directly from Apple’s PR library ahead of the Q3 2012 earnings call this afternoon, and also serves to reiterate the release date of iOS 6 later this year, while also teasing for whatever “amazing new products” (new iPhone? iPad mini?) Cook is referring to.

OS X Mountain Lion Will Be Released Tomorrow, July 25

As we mentioned earlier in our recap of things to do before installing Mountain Lion, you’ll want to back up your Mac before installing OS X 10.8 on your Mac.

OS X Mountain Lion GM Released to Developers : OS X Mountain Lion

The Golden Master seed of OS X Mountain Lion has been released to developers. Golden Master (GM) builds are typically the release version of software, indicating that a public version will arrive very soon. The GM build is 12A269 for Client and 12S302 for Server.

Mountain Lion Golden Master

Registered developers can get a download code for Mountain Lion GM directly from Apple’s Dev Center, that code can be redeemed through the Mac App Store as usual. Developers can also download a new version of Xcode 4.4 development suite.

OS X Mountain Lion is versioned as Mac OS X 10.8, and includes over 200 new features, many of which are borrowed from iOS, including iMessage, Notification Center, Share Sheets, Game Center, Notes, Reminders, Dictation, and significantly enhanced iCloud integration.

Apple previously stated that OS X Mountain Lion would be released this July at a price of $19.99

Mountain Lion Default wallpaper in difference size for iPad, widescreen and desktop

Mountain Lion Default wallpaper in difference size for iPad, iPhone, Macbook, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro Widescreen and desktop

Mountain Lion Default wallpaper 2560×1440

 

Mountain Lion Default wallpaper 3200×2000

Mountain Lion Default Wallpaper 1920 × 1200

Mountain Lion Default Wallpaper 1680 × 1050

Mountain Lion Default Wallpaper 1440 × 900

Mountain Lion Default Wallpaper 1280 × 1024

Mountain Lion Default Wallpaper 1280 × 800

Mountain Lion Default Wallpaper 1024 × 1024 iPad

Mountain Lion Default Wallpaper 1024 × 768