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Aside from the iOS 6 jailbreak yesterday, Monday was generally what we in the biz refer to as a “slow news day” — a good time to soak in some smaller stories that might otherwise have fallen between the seat cushions of rumors and bigger stories making headlines across the tech community. Won’t you sit back and enjoy a handful of those crumbs with us now…?
Crash Your OS X Mountain Lion App with One Simple URL
Did you know that typing a simple URL could bring a OS X Mountain Lion application to its knees? As first noted by a community bug report on Open Radar, typing “File:” (no quotes) immediately followed by three slashes (“///”) will crash whatever application you’re using at the time. Don’t believe us? Go try it yourself right now… we’ll wait. (pause) Okay, ready to continue as a true believer? Strangely, the bug does not exist in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard or even OS X Lion and developers using the latest OS X 10.8.3 beta are claiming the bug is not fixed there, either. While certainly not damaging or even earth-shattering, it is a curious bug for someone like Apple. Just be careful not to type it into Console.app, or you may find yourself in a repeating loop you can’t get out of!
Tweetbot for iOS Adds Inline Image, Vine Support
MacRumors reported Monday that Tapbots has updated its Tweetbot for iPhone/iPod touch and Tweetbot for iPad Twitter apps, adding support for inline images and videos shared from Flickr or Vine, complete with native controls for the latter. Twitter links can also now be opened directly in 1Password or Chrome rather than Safari, along with better support for muting tweets including URLs. If you actually received two updates to each app on Monday, you weren’t alone: Apparently the first version 2.7 included a startup crasher bug, which was quickly squashed and submitted as version 2.7.1.
Digital Publisher IGN Acquired by Ziff Davis
Best known for its popular gaming websites, IGN announced Monday that it has been acquired by digital media publisher Ziff Davis, which will see IGN.com and sister sites 1UP, AskMen and UGO join the new parent company’s offerings, which include PCMAG.com, Geek.com and Toolbox.com. The press release made no mention of News Corp., IGN’s previous owner who has been working hard to divest itself of such internet-based assets in recent years, but Ziff Davis appears to be a more fitting home for the websites in the first place.
15-Year-Old Develops Free iClouDrive iDisk Replacement
Are you a former MobileMe user who misses the convenience of iDisk? If so, a 15-year-old Mac app developer in New Zealand named Sebastian Hallum Clarke may have just what you’re looking for. iClouDrive is a free app licensed under the Zibity Software License for OS X Lion 10.7.2 and later (including OS X Mountain Lion) which uses a free or paid iCloud account to create a sync folder in your Mac’s Home folder — anything copied there will be magically whisked away to iCloud, where it will be available from any other Macs you have access to, even while the original system is offline. Clarke’s web page has all the details.
The Verge Hires CNET Writer Who Resigned Over CBS Flap
Two weeks after he resigned from CNET over the Dish Hopper “Best of CES” award controversy with parent company CBS, tech journalist Greg Sandoval has found a new home. In a blog post on Sunday, Sandoval announced that he has accepted an offer from The Verge to become a senior reporter, where he’ll report for duty (pun intended) in about two weeks. In explaining how he came to the decision, Sandoval revealed he has received “a written guarantee from management that nobody from the business side of the company will ever have any authority over my stories,” noting that “long before I arrived, The Verge committed itself to editorial independence.” Seems to be a happy ending for a weeks-long drama at long last.
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