Betrand Serlet, father of Mac OS X and former SVP of Mac Software at Apple, purportedly retired to go back to academia and science, yet now rumor is spreading that he might just have a secret new startup in the works.

Business Insider's Seth Fiegerman reports:

Business Insider has learned that Serlet has spent much of the time since his departure from Apple working with at least two other former Apple employees to launch a cloud computing startup in downtown Palo Alto called Upthere.

We have since learned that this is a reference to Serlet (the brains behind Mac OS X) and Roger Bodamer, a former VP of product operations and development at Apple who previously worked at Oracle.

It sounds like they're hooking up with some serious design and engineering talent, and are looking to do something insanely great when it comes to cloud.

What remains to be seen is how UpThere will relate to or be different from existing services like Apple's iCloud, Google's Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive and independent services like DropBox, and whether any of those old Apple ties still bind...

Interesting, to say the least.

Source: Business Insider

Apple has released iOS 6 beta 2, and so redsn0w has been updated to version 0.9.13 dev 2, with support for many bugs and crashes. If you're a jailbreak developer it's probably a good idea to start updating your apps and tweaks as soon as possible to add iOS 6 compatibility. Follow along for a complete walkthrough.

Disclaimer: This release of redsn0w is meant to be a developer release and not a general release to the public. Just as you should expect bugs in a beta version of iOS, you should also expect them in beta jailbreak tools. This release does not install Cydia and is meant only for developers. If you aren't a developer, we advise you stay away.

How to jailbreak iOS 6 beta 2

1. Download redsn0w 0.9.13 dev 2 from our downloads section.
2. Save the iOS 6 beta 1 firmware file (IPSW) from Apple's developer portal somewhere on your computer that's easy to find.
3. Put your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch into DFU mode. If you don't know how to do this, you can check out our guide on how to put your device in DFU mode before continuing but we are assuming most jailbreak developers should be comfortable with DFU mode by now.
4. Now open redsn0w and click Extras

5. Now click the button that says Select IPSW. Navigate to the IPSW for iOS 6 beta 1 that you saved in step 2.

6. Once you've selected the iOS 6 beta 1 firmware file go back to the main screen of redsn0w and click Jailbreak.
7. Now make sure Install SSH is checked and continue.

How to perform a tethered boot

Your jailbreak will be tethered so once the jailbreak process is complete you'll need to perform a tethered boot with redsn0w.

1. Place your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch back into DFU mode.
2. From the main screen of redsn0w select Extras again and then Select IPSW one more time.

3. Navigate to the iOS 6 beta 1 file again but this time select Just Boot from the Extras menu.

Once your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch finishes booting up you will be jailbroken on iOS 6 beta 2. Keep in mind this does not install Cydia. You can use the SSH method to install and test your apps and tweaks. You can also use this method to install Cydia if you'd like. But again, we advise only jailbreak developers use this version of redsn0w and the general public wait for an official release after iOS 6 drops this Fall.

Additional resources:

• How to install iOS 6 beta with Xcode or iTunes
• How to manually update to iOS 6 beta 2 over the air
• How to jailbreak iOS 5.1.1 with Greenpois0n Absinthe
• iMore downloads section
• Jailbreak help and discussion forums

BrowserChooser is a jailbreak tweak available from Cydia that will let you set Google Chrome for iOS as you default iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad browser -- something Apple won't let you do.

Here's how to install BrowserChooser and make Chrome your new default web browser.

How to install and set up BrowserChooser for iPhone and iPad

• Launch Cydia

• Tap on Sources

• Tap on Edit
• Tap on Add

• Type in the repo address in the box that comes up rpetri.ch/repo
• Tap on Add Source

• Tap on Return to Cydia
• Tap Done
• Tap the repo you just added to see BrowserChooser in the list of apps

• Tap on BrowserChooser to install it


Tap on Respring when it has finished installing

How to set Google Chrome as your default iOS browser

<li>Launch Settings</li><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-117839" title="BrowserChooser 8" src="http://cdn.tipb.com/images/stories//2012/06/BrowserChooser-8-620x465.jpg" alt="BrowserChooser 8" width="512" height="384" /> <li>Scroll down and tap on the new entry for BrowserChooser</li> <li>Tap on Chrome to set it as the default browser (as opposed to Safari)</li> 

Now that Chrome is set as your default browser, tapping links anywhere in iOS will open them in Chrome and not the stock Safari browser.

How to switch back to Safari as your default iOS browser

• Launch Settings

• Scroll down and tap on the entry for BrowserChooser
• Tap on Safari to restore it as the default browser (as opposed to Chrome)

So there you have it, a simple way to change your default browser and enjoy the power of Google Chrome the way it should be on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. if you give it a try, let us know how it works for you!

The Us + U Simple Swivel Case for iPad is beautiful and innovative. It has a soft, plush design. It's not leather but leather-like, but what I like most is the smart hand strap mounted on a swivel on the back. It rotates any which way you like, which makes it really easy to carry around.

All the requisite camera, port, and button holes are there, plus the Us + U Simple Swivel Case for iPad has a handy loop for storing the stylus pen of your choice (not included).

Loading your iPad into the Us + U Simple Swivel Case is easy and velcro keeps it securely in place. If you want to type more easily, there's a built in kick stand as well. (unfortunately, it's landscape orientation only.)

One interesting aspect of the Us + U Simple Swivel Case for iPad is that part of the purchase price is donated to charity. It's not a huge amount, but every bit really does make a difference.

The good

• Hand strap swivels 360 degrees for easy holding
• Integrated kickstand allows for better typing angles
• Loop makes it easy to store a stylus

The bad

• Kickstand is landscape only
• Hardware options mean slightly extra bulk

Conclusion

I highly recommend the Us + U Simple Swivel Case for iPad. They've really thought its design out well and it manages to pack a ton of features into a case that's still easy to carry around.

49.95 - Buy now

Now that Google's Chrome browser has hit the App Store, there's renewed consternation in geek circles over iOS' inability to set something other than Safari as the default web browser. (Unless you jailbreak, of course.)

The same thing happened when Sparrow for iPhone was released, yet couldn't be set as the default email client.

And when/if Google Maps for iOS comes to the App Store, no doubt many geeks will complain about the inability to set it, rather than Apple's iOS 6 Maps, as the default location handler.

We geeks don't just want to use things, we want to control how we use them. We want to be able to tap web links, or email addresses, or location markers, and have them open in something other that Safari or Mail or Maps. We want to launch Siri and have its natural language interface populate texts and make appointments and place calls in something other than Messages, Calendar, and Phone.

But here's the thing -- iOS isn't now, nor has it ever been, made or meant for us geeks. And we knew this from the start.

The iPhone, and later the iPad, were made for:

1. Steve Jobs.
2. Regular people, who make up the vast mainstream market.
3. Reticent people for whom previous computing devices were inaccessible and/or off-putting, who round out the vast mainstream market.
4. Enterprise and education people, who make up the bulk-buying market.
5. Geeks, who make up the niche influencer market.
6. [...]
7. Richard Stallman

When iOS 1 (iPhone OS 1.0) was released, it had almost zero geek-friendly features. Forget no multitasking, it had no third party apps. No cut, copy, and paste. No push. Nothing even remotely confusable with power features.

We knew this.

But we were charmed by the multitouch capacitive display and the delightful user interface, and so we threw aside our hyper-functional if frustrating geek phones and lined up in droves to buy it.

And then we started complaining.

We married the hot chic (or dude) who couldn't cook and, as soon as the honeymoon was over, we started wondering why there wasn't any dinner on the table.

Never mind it took 2 years for cut, copy, and paste. Never mind we have the App Store, we don't have side-loading. We have Pandora and TomTom and Skype, we don't have desktop-style multitasking. We have FaceTime, we don't have quick settings toggles. We have iCloud, we don't have document attachments. We have Siri, we don't have widgets. We have Notification Center, we don't actionable notifications. We have kiosk mode, we don't have multi-window mode. And we'll have Passbook and Starbucks cards and movie tickets, we won't have arbitrary NFC access.

It's the same reason I'm not getting my Files.app. And it's the same reason why, year after year, geeks feel iOS preview events like iOS 6 at WWDC 2012 are underwhelming, and while jailbreak remains popular to this day.

We're not Apple's target. We're a side benefit. We're icing.

Now I'm not saying we shouldn't complain, that we shouldn't keep pushing for just exactly the geek features we want. John Gruber should. Matthew Panzarino should. And I sure as hell will.

We should all absolutely keep every geeky feature request we can think of on Apple's radar. But we should understand what the priority of those features will be on that radar.

We should understand that iOS doesn't power geek devices made easy enough for mainstream users to employ. It powers mainstream devices made compelling enough that geeks want them as well.

One day, Apple may just enable default app selection on iOS. They'll figure out which stock apps they will and won't allow to be changed, and a way for App Store apps to identify which stock app(s) they can replace, and they'll handle the negative comments when non-Nitro browsers aren't as fast, or email clients don't have or didn't license push, or telephony providers drop calls.

Apple will get around to what we want when they can spare an engineer to both implement it and hide it from mainstream users, and provided it doesn't conflict with any of their more important priorities.

And we knew that when we picked it up.