It’d be the most obvious leak in history, but the 10C531 build of OS 10.6.2 references the “MacBook Pro 6.1 and the MacBook Pro 6.1b.” All current MacBook Pros are strictly “5″ status.

Of course, this appears to be confirmation of the obvious, that Apple will be updating their MacBook Pro line to include Core i5/i7 chips following the white MacBook’s Pro-level spec bump last week. (Apple will need to adopt these new chipsets to stay competitive.) Now we just need an answer to the far more important question: When? [Foro Applesana via AppleInsider]

The Dev Team has struck again, negating the security work of the iPhone 3.1.2 update. Looks like it’ll work even if you’ve never jailbroken your phone before (though soon-to-be-released hardware may not?). Pwnage can be attained here. [Thanks, SE!]

Google CEO Eric Schmidt says Chrome for Macs is coming in a couple months, but if you’re impatient and only mildly adventurous, you can run it a surprisingly solid early version right now.

Google warns that the early access developer release “still lacks certain privacy features, and is not appropriate for general consumer use.” Fair enough, but if you’re just dicking around and want to get a feel for the interface and speed (which we like), it’s good enough now you can watch Hulu and do everyday without crashies (though you might see some weird drawing errors when there’s Flash involved).

You can also try the nightly builds of Chromium (the open source part of Chrome, essentially). Just don’t cry if you run into any bugs, ’cause we’re not even talking beta here, k? [Direct Download (DMG file), Chrome Dev Channel, Chromium Builds]

a recent survey by Retrevo ( a consumer electronics marketplace ) showed that 67% of Mac users would be willing to try out Windows 7 ………. if it was free. But look at it this way, how many users are willing to try out Linux Distros, which are also free?

These answers were based on users who primarily used Macs as there main PC. They were asked if Microsoft (hypothetically) provided a free copy to Mac OS users would they install it and try Windows 7 as their main OS?A surprising 67% of Mac users said they would.  However the Mac loyalists still proved themselves. A convincing 97% gave a resounding “No!” when they were asked if Windows 7 would make them switch to using it as their primary OS. However the fact that 67% said they would be willing to give it a try shows that they Mac users do have some interest in Windows 7, but seem to be rather shy about sharing it.

Since unibody MacBooks went Pro, Apple’s only had one polycarbonate model—a $999 13-incher. But Apple Insider now says the rumored “thinner, sleeker” plastic Macbooks have made it to manufacturing, and may arrive with possible new iMacs by mid-October.

Last month, an Apple Insider source said the MacBook update would also include a “restructured internal architecture”. It’s now believed that could include Apple’s latest internal battery technology.

Definitely a lot of maybes there, so don’t get too carried away. With that in mind, though, refreshed low(er)-cost MacBooks and iMacs would make sense going into end of year shopping season. And with it all supposed to go down any time between this week and mid-October, it might be worth waiting if you’re in the market for one…just in case. [Apple Insider]

Lots of ink has been spilled over Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, but it doesn’t just bring improvements for OS X on your Mac – there are plenty of reasons for anyone who uses Windows 7 on a Mac to switch.

First, Snow Leopard brings with it Boot Camp 3, the third version of Apple’s Windows-on-a-Mac software. Boot Camp started life as little more than a driver package allowing for the barest Windows functionality possible, but in subsequent versions it has picked up enough new features to make running Windows on a Mac almost as slick as, well, running OS X on a Mac.

Windows 7 support

Leopard’s Boot Camp 2 would install under Windows 7, but not without spitting out some scary-looking error messages. Windows 7 rectifies that issue for both 32- and 64-bit versions.

HFS read support

OS X has included read-only support for NTFS partitions since OS X started running on Intel processors, meaning that any work you do in Windows can be accessed and read while in OS X. Up until now, though, you couldn’t read files on the OS X partition from within Windows. You’d have to create a third FAT partition that both OSes could read, or store the files on a flash or network drive.

Now, Boot Camp 3 includes HFS read support – you can access any files on the OS X partition from within Windows. This goes for all supported versions of Windows, not just 7.

Tap to Click

Now you can tap your Mac’s touchpad to click on things. Sounds like something Apple should have implemented in the first place, right? Well, if the iPhone has shown us anything, Apple is great at holding back really basic features like copy-paste, picture texting, and tap to click and then adding them years later to great fanfare.

User experience

This last feature has nothing to do with Snow Leopard, but everything to do with how Windows 7 will run on your Mac. Intel Macs hit the scene in 2006, and almost all of them have at least a dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM. They all have processors capable of running all the Aero effects. Especially with a RAM upgrade, any Intel Mac from the very first Core Duo Macbook to the latest MacBook Pros will give you an excellent Windows 7 experience.

So, you spent $29 on Snow Leopard, and you’ve got a bunch of cash leftover. You could do a lot worse than buying a copy of Windows 7 for that shiny Mac.

[windows7news]

New iMacs aren’t just coming soon, they’ve been rolling out for two weeks, according to AppleInsider. They’re thinner and look more like the LED Cinema Display, with mystery features that make them the “most versatile ever.”

One of those features might be Blu-ray (uh, finally), and another might something “related to audio.” AppleInsider says they’ll be extending the “capabilities of at least one technology introduced on the Mac platform as recently as last fall,” which to us means either an LED display, or the unibody build. (Or hey, maybe it’s a super Mini DisplayPort.)

Whatever’s new, we wouldn’t be surprised for the new iMacs to follow the overall Apple trend of packing in more features for less money than before, like the recent MacBook Pro revisions. Supposedly, the announcement will come any time between next week and mid-October, depending on when marketing feels like it. [AppleInsider]

MMS for iPhone has been a much anticipated feature ever since it was dangled in front of iPhone owners during the iPhone 3GS announcement in June. AT&T has been under fire for delaying MMS rollout, and finally announced it was on the way earlier this month. Now we can report that MMS for iPhone is arriving this Friday, September 25th – specifically at some point “late morning” Pacific Time. AT&T shared the news via its Facebook Page this afternoon.

One of the most often used superiority claims that Apple users utilise against Windows is the apparent additional security that Apple Snow Leopard offers over Windows 7.  However, security experts have chipped away at the myth that macs are more secure than PCs.  These include a key mac hacker who has pointed out a key feature that makes Snow Leopard less secure than Windows 7.

Charlie Miller the winner of two consecutive hacking contests has highlighted that Snow Leopard’s ASLR (address space layout randomization), a security technology that randomly assigns data to memory to make it tougher for attackers to determine the location of critical operating system functions, is vulnerable .  He claims that unlike Windows 7, which features robust ASLR, Snow Leopard’s ASLR is half-baked.

“I hoped Snow Leopard would do full ASLR, but it doesn’t,” said Miller. “I don’t understand why they didn’t. But Apple missed an opportunity with Snow Leopard.”

Charlie claims that Snow Leopard does not properly randomize the heap, the stack and the dynamic linker, the part of Snow Leopard that links multiple shared libraries for an executable, making it easier to attack Snow Leopard via memory injection than Windows 7.

So why aren’t macs attacked more?  Charlie backs my theory that because the mac userbase is too small and that hackers can profit more from writing successful PC exploits:

“It’s harder to write exploits for Windows than the Mac, but all you see are Windows exploits. That’s because if [the hacker] can hit 90% of the machines out there, that’s all he’s gonna do. It’s not worth him nearly doubling his work just to get that last 10%.”