Some Lion users plagued by black-screen bug

A number of early adopters of the OS X 10.7 Lion upgrade are running into a fairly severe bug. What happens is that Macs will crash with a black screen, which requires a forced shutdown. Some systems may show kernel panic messages on-screen, but the majority of them just have a black screen. The issue seems to happen specifically when certain graphics events are happening such as manipulating images in applications, or triggering interface elements when graphics events are occurring. In addition, it happens when systems are woken from sleep.

Most systems that appear to be affected are 2010 MacBook Pros running a Core i5 or Core i7 processor and with Nvidia 330M graphics, but some iMac systems have also been affected. The problem appears to be an issue with the handling of the Nvidia graphics card, either in the drivers or in the firmware of the card, and may be rooted in how the systems are handling the switch between the onboard and discrete graphics chips in these dua-GPU systems. Affected users have found that if they force their systems to run on the integrated graphics chip then the prevalence of the crashes lessens, if they happen at all.

After a lengthy thread in the Apple discussions surfaced regarding this issue, Apple has claimed to be looking into it, and has asked people for crash reports and other details of the problem. We hope an active investigation will yield a quick fix, but for now the following suggestions may help:

1. Run on either integrated or discrete graphics
   Unfortunately Apple's system preferences have the option to either enable GPU switching or run on the discrete GPU at all times. While doing the latter may be beneficial for some people , if you install the GPU management tool gfxCardStatus, you can force the system to run on the integrated graphics at all times, which should force the system to avoid using the Nvidia drivers. While a few people have still reported crashes when doing this, others have mentioned this has seemed to fix the problem for them.
   
   
   Do keep in mind that gfxCardStatus may not always prevent the system from triggering a GPU switch, especially during start-up or sleep events, so even with using it to manage your GPU usage you may still experience the black-screen bug, but it should hopefully lessen the prevalence of this problem.
   
   
2. Disable Sleep modes
   Since the problem happens for some people when waking from sleep, for now try turning off sleep modes for your system. Go to the Energy Saver system preferences and disable both the display sleep and system sleep to keep the system running in a more consistent state and hopefully avoid any GPU-switching behavior.
   
   

If the problem happens to you, pressing the power button to restart the system may seem like the initial and only approach. While this is the case for a true crash where a kernel panic occurs, if the system is just in a prolonged hung state then some other options may also work. These include to wait it out for a few minutes to see if the system starts responding again, but in addition you can try triggering some display activity by pressing the Shift-Control-Eject key combination on your keyboard. If you have an external monitor available, then try attaching that to your system (or detaching it if you are already using it), which should spur a configuration change.

A final option is to enable screen sharing in the Sharing system preferences, and then use a second computer (if available) to attempt to share the affected Mac's screen. If you are able to share the system's screen, then you can safely shut down or restart the Mac.

New MacBook Air with OS X Lion roars in the distance, but many questions remain

A MacBook Air equipped with OS X Lion is definitely on the way. When the Air gets here, however, is anyone's guess.

Apple has long promised that OS X Lion, the latest in the long line of OS X operating systemoverhauls, will arrive in July. Now comes word that a new line of Lion-powered MacBook Air laptops is set to follow close behind. According to John Paczkowski of All Things D, the third-generation Airs will hit shelves sometime late next week, and come equipped with a range of niceties, including the new high-speed Thunderbolt port.

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At the same time, Paczkowski writes, Apple will "winnow down" its configuration options to 128GB and 256GB of flash storage. Over at 9 to 5 Mac, Mark Gurman saysconsumers should expect four models altogether – two 11-inch MacBook Airs, and two versions with 13-inch screens. Each one of the laptops should ship with Sandy Bridge chips, giving the new Air models a performance boost over the others.

RELATED: Amazon tablets mix best of Kindle and iPad: report

Waiting for a cosmetic overhaul? Don't hold your breath. (What? You wanted it to get even skinnier?) No "noticeable exterior changes" are in the works, Gurman says.

So what's great about Lion, anyway? Quite a lot, actually, including FaceTime functionality, full-screen apps, AirDrop – which will let users wireless transfer files over Wi-Fi, from one Lion-enabled computer to another – and best of all, improved Multi-Touch performance. If you've got an iPhone, you probably have a pretty good idea of how Multi-Touch works: move your fingers across the interface in different ways; watch the machine respond.

But Lion, Apple says, includes "more fluid and realistic gesture responses, including rubber-band scrolling, page and image zoom, and full-screen swiping." There's an interesting little run-downover on the Apple site, and it's well worth watching – especially if you have not yet mastered the "two-finger scroll." That should go nicely with the new MacBook Air – whenever it gets here.

Not a Mac guy? No worries. Windows 8 is looking pretty slick, too.

New Apple MacBook Airs Next Week?

Are you waiting on a new MacBook Air? You might have to wait a little bit longer. According to AllThingsD an announcement won't come until next Thursday or Friday.

Many Apple-watching blogs said that the new machines would be announced this week, but according to an AllThingsD source, "the rumor sites are off by a week."

9to5Mac reported earlier this week that there are four new MacBook Airs in the works, two with 11-inch screens and two with 13-inch screens. Apple will allegedly release a base model and an upgraded version of both sizes. According to AppleInsider, the laptops will come standard with 4GB of RAM.

Other specs rumored to be included in the new MacBook Airs are Sandy Bridge processors, new high-speed Thunderbolt ports, backlit keyboards, and memory configuration of 128GB or 256GB. AppleInsider also claims these laptops will ship with Apple's new operating system, Mac OS X Lion.

It's also been rumored that an upgraded white MacBook and a new line of Mac minis will debut soon. 9to5Mac claimed a few days ago that there will be three new Mac minis: a standard model, a server model, and a third version with a faster processor that can be custom built in Apple's online store.

Four new Mac Pros could be coming soon, too. 9to5Mac maintains that Apple will launch these devices toward the end of July or the beginning of August. There will reportedly be a new server model and the 16-core version of the machine will supposedly get a revamped enclosure.

Apple has not commented on the rumors.

MacBook Air coming next week with socketed 128GB SSDs

If you’re like me, you’re probably getting tired of the constant ping-ping of MacBook Air launch dates. It’s coming this week, it’s coming nextweek, I just want the darned things to ship already.

There’s been rumblings that the next-generation MacBook Air would arrive this week (alongside Lion) but hopes were dashed when Tuesday and Thursday came and went without the telltale “We’ll Be Right Back” post-it note appearing on store.apple.com.

AllThingsD’s John Paczkowski now reports that the third-generation (3G?) MacBook Air will indeed arrive next week on either Thursday (7/21) or Friday (7/22). The new Airs are expected to rock new Intel Sandy Bridge processors, high-speed Thunderbolt ports, backlit keyboards and128GB and 256GB SSDs.

Yes, I said 128GB SSDs. Even in the 11-inch model.

In addition to dropping the previous 64GB SSD configuration, Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via Electronista) believes that Apple has configured the new Air with a minimum of 4GB RAM “to improve Lion’s performance.” Kuo also writes that the Air SSDs will still come on socketed micro SATA modules (like the current model) noting that they won’t be soldered on the motherboard as was previously rumored.

Some pundits have suggested that Apple might be waiting until after its Q3 2011 earnings announcement — which happens on Tuesday, July 19 – to launch Lion and the 3G Airs. The rationale is that Apple would push the announcement until after the earnings call just in case something went wrong with the launches. If true, this would be unfortunate because it would mean that Apple didn’t have much faith in its new products.

Image: iPad-site.net

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There was much speculation that not only would Mac OS X Lion's release date be today (Thursday, July 14), but so would the release of new MacBook Airs and new Mac Pros, as well, but it seems not be the the case.

There was much speculation that not only would Mac OS X Lion's release date be today (Thursday, July 14), but so would the release of new MacBook Airs and new Mac Pros, as well, but it seems not be the the case.

Mac OS X Lion's release date thus remains a mystery, as do the rest of the release dates. This version of OS X is versioned 10.7, and was covered in detail at this year's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), along with iOS 5.

It's been quite a while since the last OS X refresh. That was Snow Leopard, all the way back in August of 2009. Although the July 14th rumored date for a release has come and gone, there seems to be a sort of deadline ahead: Apple will release its earnings on July 19th. Most are speculating that a Mac OS X Lion release date would most likely be prior to that date, as well as the MacBook Air and Mac Pro refreshes.

Mac OS X Lion achieved Gold Master status on July 1, 2011, so it should be appearing anytime soon. The new version will bring many features already included in Apple's iOS to the Mac. For example, it will include an easily-navigable display of installed applications. The first developer's preview of Lion was released on February 24, 2011 (11A390) to subscribers of Apple's developers program. Other developer previews have been released since then. Lion Preview 4 (11A480b) being released at WWDC 2011.

Lion was first introduced at the "Back to the Mac" keynote in October 2010, when some of the new features were announced. In February os 2011, Apple updated its website with still more details, and other features were announced at the WWDC 2011 keynote or on Apple's Mac OS X Lion Web site after the keynote. Apple website says there are over 250 new or changed features in Lion, including:

• Address Book now has an iPad-like user interface
• AirDrop – Lion-to-Lion direct file sharing via Wi-Fi Direct, with no wireless access point required.
• Address space layout randomization – Address space layout randomization (ASLR), a security technique that puts important data in unpredictable locations, making it harder to target known weaknesses, is available for 32-bit applications, and "has been improved for all applications", in Lion.
• Auto-correction behaves similar to iOS devices, with an iOS-like popup box.
• Auto Save – As in iOS, documents in applications written to use Auto Save will be saved automatically so users don't have to worry about manually managing their documents.
• Emoji support – Apple has added a new Emoji font commonly used in chat to express ideograms.
• Exposé in the Dock, a way of activating Exposé for a single application from the Dock, a feature added in Mac OS X 10.6, is altered. One must now double-tap with two fingers on a dock icon to initiate single application exposé, or simply right-click or control-click and select Show All Windows.
• FaceTime now comes bundled Mac OS X.
• FileVault now offers full disk encryption added security with XTS-AES 128 data encryption. Support for FileVault on external hard drives has also been added.
• Finder improvements – Finder search offers suggestions, files can be grouped by various attributes, and one can now merge files under two folders with the same name – a prompt will appear asking whether one wants to replace or keep both files.
• Font Book 3—Font Book 3 now provides more flexible displays of character glyphs supplied by a particular font face. Duplicate font files are now flagged with a warning icon, and can be fixed automatically or resolved manually.
• Full-screen apps – Native, system-wide support for full-screen applications. Supporting applications display a new button at the top right of application window, this button opens applications in full-screen mode.
• High-quality multilingual speech voices – users can download new high-quality voices in more than forty languages and dialects.
• iCal has an updated user interface, an annual view, and support for a full-screen view.
• iChat now has support for logging into Yahoo! Messenger. Users can audio- and video-chat with other iChat users using their Yahoo! accounts.
• Languages/Localisation – Arabic, Czech, Turkish and Hungarian are added as full system languages, to make the total number of twenty-two languages available in Mac OS X.
• Launchpad – An application launcher that displays an iOS-like icon grid of installed applications. It features the ability to make multiple pages and group apps into folders that function the same as folders in iOS.
• Mac App Store – An application store built in the image of the iOS App Store. Like in iOS, it will provide ways for shoppers to discover apps, one-click installation of apps, and one-click updates of all or selected installed applications. Despite being announced as a future feature of Lion, the Mac App Store was released for Mac OS X Snow Leopard on January 6, 2011 as it was bundled with the Mac OS X 10.6.6 update.
• Mail 5 – Uses an iPad-like user interface, has a fullscreen-optimized view, uses chronological "Conversations" to organize messages, and supports Exchange 2010.
• Mission Control replaces the "All windows" Exposé feature. It gives an overview of all running applications just like "All windows" but groups windows from the same application. At the top of the screen it gives quick access to the Dashboard, Spaces, and running full screen applications.
• Multi-touch gestures – Similar to iOS, additional gestures performed using a multi-touch input device (e.g. Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad) will allow the user to scroll, swipe to different pages, and enter Mission Control. While this is not the first official multi-touch support for Mac OS X, it has been expanded; other frameworks, such as Lux, have already created multi-touch support.
• Multi-User Screen Sharing—The built-in Screen Sharing feature now allows remote users to log into a separate user account from the one that is currently logged in. That means that while one user is logged into a machine, a second user can login to the same machine remotely, seeing their own desktop and user environment.
• Preview gains several features, including full-screen support and the ability to sign a document just by holding a signed piece of paper up to the camera.
• QuickTime re-incorporates some features from QuickTime Pro. New features cited include Copy/Paste, Insert Clip, Crop Video, Rotate Video, Resize, Trim, and more Export options.
• Recovery Partition – Apple has introduced a recovery partition that includes utilities generally found on the OS X discs. This partition will allow the user to restore their computer to its original factory state.
• Resume – Applications resume in the same state when re-opened.
• Safari has a full-screen mode and includes the WebKit2 layout engine.
• System Information – This feature is a re-design of "About This Mac" and has been completely altered with new views which display graphical information on displays, storage devices, memory usage along with other hardware information.
• Terminal has extra features, including full screen mode.
• TextEdit gains a new graphical toolbar with font selection and text highlighting. The new TextEdit also supports Apple's new automatic file saving and versions technologies.
• Versions – Time Machine-like saving and browsing of past versions of documents for applications written to use Versions.
• Vertical text – Mac OS X Lion supports vertical layouts for East Asian languages.