News

OS X 10.7 Lion is now out. Nothing seems to be really compelling to me, but then again, I'm not an Apple user. It's a $29.99 upgrade for those who want to take the step forward. Here's one review I came accross. It's really in depth if you're interested in reading the whole thing.

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For now, I'll tell you that after spending a lot of time with OS X Lion--the client--there are some issues, as I mentioned. It isn't sterling. The Launchpad implementation feels awkward on OS X. Some of the new features, like full-screen apps, take some getting used to.

For the most part, Mac users are going to embrace Lion. There's a learning curve, but that's to be expected. Apple has always pushed and challenged their users to embrace new technologies, often for the better.

Even with its flaws, I'm still psyched about Lion. It's a nice affordable update packed with more than 250 new features that sells for only $29.99.

http://www.informationweek.com/byte/reviews/personal-tech/desktop-os/231001740

Apple fans can rejoice with all of the new features that Apple is bringing to its products. But, what's suprising to me is that it's all new features to existing stuff. iCloud could be argued to be new, but it's really revamped Mobile Me. No new Earth Shattering products this year I guess, but there is a lot of good funtionality that will be added to everything they already make.

What's interesting is that Apple is forcing users who want to upgrade to Lion, to first purchase Snow Leopard. Not a bad idea for revenue, but they're making their customers pay for software updates. I think only Apple is allowed to get away with that....

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20069336-17/apple-unveils-icloud-shows-off-features-of-lion-ios-5/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20069379-37/leopard-users-must-purchase-snow-leopard-before-lion/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20

We wish Steve the best of health, but he is taking another medical leave. Maybe the company should focus on the products instead of the CEO. Apple is a great marketing company.

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This time around, the 55-year-old Jobs did not give a time frame for his return. Here's the text of his e-mail to employees, provided by Apple this morning:

Team,

At my request, the board of directors has granted me a medical leave of absence so I can focus on my health. I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company.

I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Apple's day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011.

I love Apple so much and hope to be back as soon as I can. In the meantime, my family and I would deeply appreciate respect for our privacy.

Steve

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20028675-37.html

Apple has been ordered to pay quite a bit of damages to a company called Mirror Worlds LLC. The patents cover displaying digital documents. Apple has extensive software patents and use them to bully other companies. Now they are on the receiving end. Still, software patents should not exist. It goes against the spirit of the Constitution and against the innovation that takes place in the information technology field.

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Apple Inc. is challenging a jury verdict last week in which the computer maker was ordered to pay as much as $625.5 million to Mirror Worlds LLC for infringing patents related to how documents are displayed digitally.

Apple asked U.S. District Judge Leonard Davis for an emergency stay of the Oct. 1 verdict, saying there are outstanding issues on two of the three patents. Apple said patent owner Mirror Worlds would also be “triple dipping” if it were able to collect $208.5 million on each of the patents.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-04/apple-challenges-625-5-million-mirror-worlds-patent-verdict.html

Yes, it is true; thanks in large part (if not completely) to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), it is now explicitly permitted to jailbreak iPhones. Your warranty is still gone, but you don't have to worry about infringing the DMCA.

Read more about it here.

Apple users rejoice! You can buy the iPad starting on the 3rd of April, if you live in the USA. Initially, the WiFi only model will be released. The 3G version will be debuting later in the month.

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iPad will be available in Wi-Fi models on April 3 in the US for a suggested retail price of $499 for 16GB, $599 for 32GB, $699 for 64GB. The Wi-Fi + 3G models will be available in late April for a suggested retail price of $629 for 16GB, $729 for 32GB and $829 for 64GB. iPad will be sold in the US through the Apple Store (http://www.apple.com), Apple's retail stores and select Apple Authorized Resellers.

The international release is scheduled to be in late April. If you don't live in the USA, be prepared to wait a few weeks while all the Apple people torment you with how great the device is... We at ASE Labs don't think it will be, great, that is...

Press Release: »http://www.aselabs.com/news.php?id=6416

Apple is targeting the maker of the Google Nexus One, HTC, in a lawsuit over 20 patents.

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Apple today filed a lawsuit against HTC for infringing on 20 Apple patents related to the iPhone's user interface, underlying architecture and hardware. The lawsuit was filed concurrently with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) and in U.S. District Court in Delaware.

"We can sit by and watch competitors steal our patented inventions, or we can do something about it. We've decided to do something about it," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "We think competition is healthy, but competitors should create their own original technology, not steal ours."

Steve Jobs thinks competition is healthy when no one has a product that can compete with Apple. Suddenly, the Nexus One comes out (which isn't even that great), and Apple gets in a bind. What say you about this?

Press release: »http://www.aselabs.com/news.php?id=6107

All models of the Mac Lineup have just been refresh. Mac Pro, iMac, and the Mini have been updated. The Pro looks like a beast of a system, but it pretty expensive.

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Let's look at the new Mac Pro first: priced at $2,499 for the quad-core version and $3,299 for the eight-core version, those Intel "Nehalem" Xeon processors run at 2.93 GHz, and the interior of the machine has been cleaned up to make physical expansions easier. On the green front, it meets the new Energy Star 5.0 requirements that will go into effect later this year.

The new iMac desktop is a 24" machine that is priced at $1,499, the cost of Apple's previous 20" iMac. The 20-inch is now $1,199. The 20" is powered by a 2.66 GHz processor; the 24" has processor speed options of 2.66 GHz, 2.93 GHz (for $1,799), or 3.02 GHz (for $2,199). The 24" comes with a 640GB hard drive and 4GB of RAM expandable to 8GB; the 20" comes with a 320GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM expandable to 8GB.

The legal battle between the Mac clone maker and Apple continues. Psystay has some legal means to continue the fight. Apple has deeper pockets, so they'll win based on passed performance of the American legal system.

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Psystar, in its amended complaint, accuses Apple of copyright misuse, as well as unfair competition violations based on its alleged copyright misuse. Judge Alsup, in citing a previous case--Practice Management Information Corp v. American Medical Association--notes in his order:
Copyright misuse does not invalidate a copyright, but precludes its enforcement during the period of misuse." Practice Management, 121 F.3d at 520 n.9. Moreover, "a defendant in a copyright infringement suit need not prove an antitrust violation to prevail on a copyright misuse defense." Id. at 521.
While Judge Alsup found in Psystar's favor by allowing the company to continue its counterclaim with a misuse of copyright argument, the Mac clone maker failed to win on all of its arguments. He denied Psystar's motion to amend its claim that Apple's conduct with respect to its intellectual property is "unfair," threatening or harming competition.

Steve Jobs is having some health problems and that is the reason that he won't speak at Macworld. Hopefully Steve will regain good health soon. Steve has suffered from a bad form of cancer for years.

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The startling admission that Apple and Jobs knew several weeks ago that health concerns had become his number one priority calls into question the company's handling of Jobs' absence from Macworld. There are no hard-and-fast guidelines that dictate how companies are supposed to handle health concerns, the way strict guidelines dictate the handling of material financial information.

But it's clear to anyone with a pulse in the tech industry that a health-related reason for a Jobs-less keynote would be a huge blow to Apple's stock. Apple representatives refused to answer questions about Jobs' health when the news first surfaced in December, insisting that the only reason Jobs would be absent from the keynote was because the company was done with Macworld.

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Speaking exclusively to MCV, the company confessed that its new marketing campaign encourages consumers to buy iPod purely “to play our games” – and even marked the device out as a real threat to Nintendo and Sony’s handheld efforts.

Greg Joswiak, head of iPod and iPhone marketing told us: “It’s not just the screens that are superior to DS – it’s the graphics capability, the computing power and the App Store distribution model.

“I had an analyst tell me in September – and he was right – that the DS is the past of gaming devices, and iPod Touch is the future of gaming devices. It certainly has our competitors scrambling in what they’re going to do in reaction to this. This product is capable of so much more, and there’s a tremendous synergy we have with the iPod Touch and game developers.”

Linky.

Spoken like someone who truly has no grasp over the gaming industry. Seriously, there are so many hilarious, out-of-touch-with-reality statements in both quotes above that it will be nothing short of EPIC when they fail at it. I give them a year before they give up on the idea, if not less. At the very least, however, it may put a cap on Apple's current elitist attitude over every market they compete in.

You need to read stories about the App Store from Apple. This one details that Apple is not allowing a certain comic book from appearing in the store. The comic book is violent and such, but so is all the R rated movies on iTunes and the like. Apple needs to step back and let people use their device the way they want and stop this crazy APPLE MUST APPROVE EVERYTHING stint it is on.

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Apple recently took an axe to Murderdrome, an electronic comic book in its App Store that the company deemed too violent. Murderdrome, created by the United Kingdom-based Infuriouscomics, had been created especially for the iPhone. Apple turned down Infuriouscomics' application to put the comic in the App Store.

I'm sorry, but news sources such as CNET have really lost credibility when they post crap like this. The article compares service update system's uptime on the internet from Apple, Canonical (Ubuntu's maintainer), and Microsoft. Basically it is taking pings from a site like Windows Update and comparing which update service has better uptime.

Fine, it's a stupid metric, but whatever. Where the crap starts to spread is the title of the article: "Microsoft ahead of Apple, Ubuntu in OS update reliability." Right of the bat, it looks like Microsoft's updates are more reliable than the other two providers. So if you glance the title and not the meat (as most IT managers do since they are lazy), you take that Microsoft provides better support... That's the first point.

Here's the entire article:

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A company that measures Internet service reliability has given Microsoft the top score in a test of operating system update services.

Microsoft's Windows Update was available 100 percent of the second quarter of 2008, Pingdom said in a blog posting Friday. Apple's service was down 2 hours and 34 minutes, with 99.9 percent uptime, and Canonical's Ubuntu version of Linux was down 1 day, 5 hours, and 45 minutes, for 98.64 percent uptime.

"Microsoft wins this one hands down," Pingdom said. It noted that Ubuntu's service also is available through mirror sites, however.

The company tested the three services every five minutes.

Microsoft Windows Update was available 100 percent of the time, but at the end of the article, Pingdom noted that Ubuntu's service is available from mirror sites. So, I guess that Pingdom doesn't really care how the OS handles updates through the internet (Ubuntu's update service was never down due to the amount of mirror). They picked Canonical's mirror to judge this really useless statistic.

If you just glance over the article, you will see that Microsoft wins, hands down! CNET has really gone downhill recently. These "news stores" look more like paid posts. Even the comments on that story are saying the same thing. Sorry CNET, you keep losing credibility.

AT&T has released the pricing for the new iPhone. Without a contract, it costs $600 for the least amount of memory. That is the base price. Getting a contract decreases the initial cost, of course.

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AT&T will begin offering the iPhone 3G phones at its retail stores beginning July 11 at 8 a.m. local time. AT&T is the exclusive iPhone carrier in the United States. Under its offering, the lower price will be available to only customers who purchased an iPhone before July 11, or are activating a new customer line with AT&T, or are eligible for an upgrade at the time of purchase. Customers also are required to sign a two-year contract. AT&T customers who are not eligible for an upgrade discount can buy the iPhone 3G for $399 for 8GB model, or $499 for a 16GB version, under a two-year contract. Customers who purchase the phone without a contract would pay $599 for 8GB or $699 for a 16GB.

Apple still has problems when selling its products to people. People still can't use the iPhone without hacking it for other networks. No CDMA version either.

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Few people who pay even scant attention to the technology industry could claim to be shocked by the introduction of a faster iPhone earlier on Monday by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Apple has sold 6 million iPhones since June 2007, Jobs said, and will likely sell a few more once the new model arrives on July 11 with a faster networking chip, GPS capabilities, and a software upgrade that's an IT manager's dream for a mobile device.

The GPS in this model makes it worth it. I'll look into how much the plans cost for the new phone. I've got a GPS/PDA already, but I'd rather have one that has a data plan I can use with my laptop.

The new MacBooks sport the new Intel 45nm chip running at 2.1GHz and 2.4GHz for the normal MacBooks. The standard MacBook features 1GB of RAM and uses the Intel GMA graphics. The 13.3" model starts at $1099 (which is the sweet spot for me). The MacBook Pro is really coming together well, though. This beast runs at least the 2.4GHz CPU and scales up to 2.6GHz 6MB cache part with a standard of 2GB of RAM. It features Nvidia 8600 graphics at either 256MB or 512MB, depending on the model. It is too bad that it starts at 15". That's too big for me.

http://www.apple.com/

Grab the latest updates for your Mac. Head over to the downloads section or fire up Apple's Software Update.

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Security Update 2007-009 (10.5.1) is recommended for all users and improves the security of the following components:

Core Foundation
CUPS
Flash Player Plug-in
Launch Services
perl
python
Quick Look
ruby
Safari
Samba
Shockwave Plug-in
Spin Tracer

If you have an unlocked iPhone, don't update it. You may brick your phone.

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Apple said today that a firmware update to the iPhone due to be released later this week "will likely result" in SIM-unlocked iPhones turning into very expensive bricks. "Apple has discovered that many of the unauthorized iPhone unlocking programs available on the Internet cause irreparable damage to the iPhone's software, which will likely result in the modified iPhone becoming permanently inoperable when a future Apple-supplied iPhone software update is installed," said Apple in a statement issued this afternoon.

Yeah, this was expected... New iPods based on the iPhone's interface have been released. Apple also dropped over 5% yesterday because of price cuts!

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As for the iPod Touch, Apple watchers had speculated for days that Apple would unveil an iPod similar to its new mobile phone. Though slimmer than the iPhone, the iPod Touch features a similar multitouch interface, built-in Wi-Fi and the Safari Internet browser. Like the iPhone, the iPod Touch can play YouTube videos. It will retail for $299 or $399, depending on the memory installed. One thing the iPod Touch can't do that the iPhone can: make or receive phone calls. Jobs said Apple will begin shipping the iPod Touch this month.

This is an interesting story. Apple may be putting OSX on the iPod. They could combine the iPhone interface and remove the phone part of it. That would be an interesting iPod.

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But Apple makes another mobile device. It's called the iPod. And if the persistent rumors are fulfilled Wednesday during the latest episode of The Steve Jobs Show (a product presentation at San Francisco's Moscone Center), the iPod is about to get a whole lot more powerful. A wide-screen iPod that looks an awful lot like an iPhone seems like the most likely bet for the sixth generation of Apple's ubiquitous music and video player line. It also seems very likely that those new iPods will run the same stripped-down version of Mac OS X found on the iPhone, something even Jobs himself hinted at during a meeting with Apple employees on the eve of the iPhone launch.

Apple has released an update to its iPhone. Version 1.0.1 is ready.

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Safari's security model prevents JavaScript in remote web pages from modifying pages outside of their domain. A race condition in page updating combined with HTTP redirection may allow JavaScript from one page to modify a redirected page. This could allow cookies and pages to be read or arbitrarily modified. This update addresses the issue by correcting access control to window properties. Credit to Lawrence Lai, Stan Switzer, and Ed Rowe of Adobe Systems, Inc. for reporting this issue.

You need to sync to iTunes to get the update... of course.

If anyone is waiting on a huge line for this iPhone, you are stupid. Wait till the device is cheaper.

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"I do have trepidation about switching from Verizon to AT&T, but I figure Steve Jobs wouldn't have made the deal if he couldn't back it up," she said. "Verizon has one of the largest networks, but AT&T has the iPhone." The 36-year-old, who owns a graphic design business with her husband, said she needs the iPhone for e-mailing, Web access, and sending and receiving files--all functions she could easily do with another device like a Treo or BlackBerry, which are already sold through Verizon Wireless. But as a Mac user for more than a decade, she admits she is drawn to anything created by Apple and Apple CEO Steve Jobs.

I don't care what people say about ICC profiles. I hate them. They may be fine for photos and such but when ICC profiles are being used for images in layouts, they are horrible. I had tons of trouble with the .MacX theme in Safari.

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Unlike the prevailing browsers on the Internet--Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Mozilla's Firefox--the Apple browser supports different ways of encoding images that can mean richer, deeper colors. With the beta version of Safari now on Windows, Mac OS X users aren't the only ones who'll be able to see the difference. However, Apple won't keep that edge for long. Mozilla's forthcoming Firefox 3 browser, due to ship in beta form this July, likely will include support for richer color, said Vlad Vukicevic, a technical leader at Mozilla and a photo enthusiast. Together, the moves could help boost the Internet beyond the orbit of the sRGB color scheme, a broadly supported but limited standard initially introduced by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. But it's not likely that Web photography will achieve sRGB escape velocity until the dominant Internet Explorer also follows suit.

A Mozilla Exec is complaining about how Apple went about the Safari release on Windows. They don't like the duopoly that Apple is predicting.

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In the speech predicting how Apple would grow its market share, Jobs showed a slide with Safari dominating almost a quarter of the market--a market shared only with a single other browser, Internet Explorer. Lilly says he doesn't believe that this was an omission or simplification, but instead an indication that Jobs is hoping to steal the users of Firefox and other smaller browsers in order to run a "duopoly" with Redmond. "This worldview that Steve gave a glimpse into betrays (Apple's) thinking: it's out-of-date, corporate-controlled, duopoly-oriented, not the-Web-thinking. And it's not good for the Web. Which is sort of moot, I think, because I don't think this two-party world will really come to be," Lilly said in his blog.

This is pretty big news. Apple has released a beta for Safari on Windows. No Linux solution yet?

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But the main impetus for bringing Safari to Windows may be the fact that Apple is also pitching Safari and Web-based applications as the way to write programs that run on the iPhone. So given that it is already pouring resources into the browser, trying to get more return on that investment makes sense, analysts said. Gartner analyst Mike McGuire said the decision to move Safari to Windows is about the iPhone "as much as anything." McGuire said Safari has some interesting features but added that it is not clear whether that will get it a spot in the Windows Start menu of most PC users.

At the very least it will allow Windows users to test websites with a proper standards browser.

Wouldn't it be great if Apple's Music Store said no to DRM completely? Some people think that will be the case eventually. Hopefully they are correct.

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Apple on Wednesday began selling unprotected MP3s from record label EMI. Shoppers have the option to purchase either a 256kbps AAC-encoded DRM-free song for $1.29 via iTunes Plus, or the usual 128kbps AAC-encoded DRM version for 99 cents. The move is important on many levels. For the first time, consumers can play music from Apple's iTunes on digital players other than the iPod. For Apple, offering DRM-free songs could hand the company some credibility in dealings with European regulators, who want the company to open up iTunes to third-party hardware makers.

EMI will offer non-DRMed music over Apple's iTunes Music Store. This is a great thing for consumers and should show the stupid music and media cartels that buying DRMed content is not what consumers want.

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Consumers who have already purchased EMI tracks containing Apple's FairPlay copy protection will be able to upgrade them to the premium version for 30 cents, EMI said. Full albums in DRM-free form can be bought at the same price as standard iTunes albums. "We are committed to embracing change, and to developing products and services that consumers really want to buy," said Eric Nicoli, chief executive of EMI. Nicoli cited internal EMI tests in which higher-quality, DRM-free songs outsold its lower-quality, copy-protected counterparts 10-to-1.

Your tv room is no longer safe from the computing monsters. Apple and Microsoft are encroaching on the TV turf.

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The two companies last week each revealed new pieces to their digital living room strategy, aiming to move beyond their core strengths. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates showed off Windows Home Server, a slimmed-down version of its operating system. It's designed to power a new generation of cheap and simple servers that can serve as a central household repository for photos, music, movies and more.

Microsoft's solution was terrible and I am unsure about the Apple solution.

Said By CNet News

Office 2008 for Mac, as the product is being dubbed, is a universal binary, the company said Tuesday. That means the software runs both on Macs with Intel chips and on those with PowerPC chips. In addition, it is compatible with the new XML file formats used by Office 2007 for Windows, which hits retail shelves this month.

Linky.
I certainly like how Microsoft is putting effort towards making Office 2008 compatible with both Power PC and Intel based Macs. It shows a level of caring Microsoft usually doesn't show (in that they would normally just support the newest whatever, forcing people to upgrade).

Apple has released their new Core 2 Duo iMacs. You can get the details on Apple's website.

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The fastest iMac ever, the 24-inch iMac provides professional performance along with the convenience of an all-in-one design. Like its 17-inch and 20-inch siblings, it features the new 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo processor with speeds ranging from 1.83GHz to 2.33GHz. The new processor delivers up to 50% more performance than the previous 20-inch iMac. It also doubles the amount of L2 cache, the twin cores sharing 4MB between them. The result? Turbocharged performance, making it easier - and more fun - than ever to work with digital photos, movies, music, and the web.