The rumors have been swirling for months that the new iPhone (we’ll call it the iPhone 5 for now) was due to arrive at some point in October.  Now all the tech blogs are speculating that the iPhone 5 will debut the week of September 9th.  IMore reported that Apple has scheduled a special event on September 12th.  AllThingsD has noted a significant spike in Apple’s prepayment for inventory components, which seems to point to a big product launch.

The London 2012 Olympics are here, and I know a lot of us don’t have time / free schedules to watch the games live, so here are a few apps for iPhone to help you track what’s happening in the Games:

London Official Results App for the Olympic and Paralympic Games – Free

NBC Live Extra – Free

London 2012 Spogger (I’m not making this name up) – $1.99

For me, I think the highlight of the Olympics will be this moment:

Apple launched OS X Mountain Lion today via the App Store.  Mountain Lion is available for download for $19.99.

Before rushing to purchase and install, please please please do the following:

1.  Make sure your machine(s) and software are compatible. Apple’s list of approved machines can be found here. You can use Roaring Apps to see if your applications are compatible before you install Mountain Lion.

2.  For companies and users with several machines, if you are absolutely itching to try out Mountain Lion, please install it on a non-essential machine.  That way if something breaks, your workflow won’t come to a grinding halt.

3.  NOTA BENE: Once you have installed Mountain Lion, you pretty much can’t go back.  Apple has removed OS X Lion from the App Store, and when you purchase Mountain Lion, Apple removes Lion from your “Purchased” list.

Macworld has a good install guide for Mountain Lion if you feel comfortable doing the install yourself.  If you’d like to arrange a consultation with one of our expert Mac techs, please feel free to contact us!

Just wanted to let all our users know that one of our favorite backup and cloning solutions for Mac, Carbon Copy Cloner, is now a commercial product. Per the information on Bombich software’s site, anyone who sent a donation prior to today, July 24, receives a registration code for CCC 3.5.

For those of you using CCC that have not donated in the past, you can continue using any version up to and including 3.4.6 as long as you like without purchasing a license. But in order to to get a 3.5 license, you will need to pay $29.96. This rate is good through August 12, when the promotion ends, and the price increases to $39.95.  Per the Bombich site, versions before CCC 3.5 are not guaranteed to work with Mountain Lion.

It’s mid-summer and I know everyone is out there snapping away whilst at the beach, or the lake, or the pool. Instagram is great and all, but I just wanted to share a few of our other favorite photo apps.

Poladroid

Unfortunately, Poladroid was rejected by Apple so this great app is only available for desktop. It’s still a lot of fun to use, though, and you can run the same image through the app several times and get different effects (see example below). The final image saves as a hi-res jpeg with a Polaroid-like border. Poladroid is a shareware, so please donate to this awesome project when you download!

 Hipstamatic

I love my Holga, but I don’t have as much time as I’d like to get into the darkroom to develop and print. Luckily, I stumbled upon the Hipstamatic app a few years ago. Hipstamatic really replicates the unpredictable nature of a Holga or a Diana camera.  In fact, it’s pretty much like having a Holga built into my iPhone. Hipstamatic is available on the App Store for $1.99.

Snapseed

And then there’s Snapseed. This fabulous app is available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac desktop. You can run any photo through it and make it look absolutely out of this world amazing. I love old vintage postcards so I ran this photo (see below) that I took in Colorado through Snapseed and was able to get a similar effect. There are so many creative adjustments and enhancements that you can make with Snapseed. It’s really worth trying out on your iPhone or iPad for $4.99, and once you get addicted, you can buy the desktop version for $19.99.

Apple has set July as the month in which OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 will be released, but it has not announced the exact date.  There have been numerous reports that Apple is going to launch the new operating system on Wednesday, July 25.  9to5Mac reports that Apple Stores in the US and abroad have planned overnights for Tuesday, July 24.

We’re running out of days in July, so it seems highly plausible that July 25 could be the launch date.

Our head tech, James, found this post a while back and I’ve been meaning to share it.  iHelp Blog found an interesting workaround to get Calendar and Address Book with iCloud on OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8.  As you all know by now, iCloud is only meant to work on a Mac with OS X Lion 10.7.2 or later, or on an iPhone, iPad, or iPad touch with iOS 5 or later.

**WARNING! NOTICE! DISCLAIMER! This workaround is not for the inexperienced NOR do we make any claims that it works seamlessly.**

Hello Dropbox Pro users! Did you wake up this morning to find that your Dropbox automagically supersized overnight?  This is good news for our clients, us, and, well heck, everyone out there who uses Dropbox: Dropbox Pro now comes in 100 and 200 GB plans, but at the price of the original 50 GB and 100 GB plans.  AND for our users who need even more space, a new 500 GB plan is now available!  Dropbox has all the plan info spelled out on its pricing page here.

In a world of ever-increasing file sizes and the need for more hard drive space, Dropbox is a great service to have. For Mac users out there in the New York City area who need help with storage, offsite backup, sync services, and cloud storage, feel free to contact us here at Need Mac Help about options. One of our knowledgeable Mac consultants can help you sort out the best solution for your home or work environment.