9to5 Staff

We’ve been playing with Tweetie 2 for the iPhone for a bit and have to say really makes Twittering easy.  Somehow atebits has added a lot of features without taking away the simplicity of the original app.  

One small catch: If you’ve already downloaded Tweetie, you’ll have to buy it again. (It is worth the upgrade) Get Tweetie 2 here -$2.99 (App Store Link).  

BTW, follow 9to5mac on Twitter here.

Photoshop.com, the online, Flash-based version of Photoshop has made its way to the iPhone.  Of course the iPhone version doesn’t use Flash and isn’t quite as robust as the desktop or web counterparts.  That being said, it does offer some nice touches including:

• Basics: Crop, Rotate, and Flip
• Color: Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black and White
• Filters: Sketch, Soft Focus
• Effects: Vibrant, Pop, Border, Vignette Blur, Warm Vintage, Rainbow, White Glow, Soft Black and White

I’ve installed the application and it performs fairly well.  Strangely, it doesn’t appear that you can edit your online photos from the app.  You can edit photos in your library and upload them to your account but not the reverse.  Once it is uploaded, you’ll need to go to the Flash based Photoshop.com to continue to edit.

Also, I would have like to have seen some Level/Auto-level options.  Otherwise, great product!

Get the iPhone app here (App Store link) free.  More info from Adobe and screenshots below.

Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone: Edit and share from anywhere

Photoshop.com Mobile for iPhone lets you quickly and easily edit and share your photos with simple gestures directly on your iPhone. Photoshop.com Mobile is like having your entire photo library in your pocket without wasting your phone’s valuable storage space.

Photoshop.com Mobile is your iPhone companion to Photoshop.com, your online photo sharing, editing and hosting resource. Create a free Photoshop.com account to upload and store 2GB of photos online.

MORE FUN ON THE RUN
It’s now easy to improve photos on your iPhone. Choose between a variety of one-touch Effects, or simply drag your finger across the screen to quickly crop, rotate, or adjust a photo’s color. Get artistic by applying Filters like Soft Focus or Sketch. Never fear. Photoshop.com Mobile lets you undo and redo changes until you get just the picture you want, and we always save a copy of your original photo.

Top edit features
• Basics: Crop, Rotate, and Flip
• Color: Exposure, Saturation, Tint, Black and White
• Filters: Sketch, Soft Focus
• Effects: Vibrant, Pop, Border, Vignette Blur, Warm Vintage, Rainbow, White Glow, Soft Black and White

SHOW ON THE GO
Photoshop.com for iPhone gives you complete access to your entire online photo library directly from your Photoshop.com account. Relive the memories and laughter with your friends and family anytime, anywhere. Show off all of your favorite photos with instant slideshows. It’s like keeping thousands of photos right in your pocket!

Just enough time to squeeze out a short pot-pourri of some of the chatter that’s breaking now in the East Coast morning, and the key take away today says Apple stock’s exploding while the company continues to predominate the smartphone biz.

Read on for just why Apple’s eating the smartphone industry’s lunch; how the company’s stock’s shooting up despite economic woe; Apple’s not playing nice with the indie labels over iTunes LP; an Apple patent filing’s given Tim Berners-Lee’s W3C a three-month headache (but that’s all over now); and if you’re an iPhone jailbreaker then Do Not Upgrade to iPhone OS 3.1.2 – just don’t, alright? Oh, and a couple of product news announcements….

AND a nice new video clip telling you more about the amazing currently Mac-only Eigenharp, get on.

Apple eats a smarter lunch
Ignore all previous predictions. Ignore all previous predictions. We have a new prediction – from analysts – and it’s likely to be the key prediction for Apple iPhone market share for as much as 24-hours!

Canalsys has pulled together NEW figures and these show Apple’s iPhone has grown market share worldwide by 700 per cent inside a year. That’s right, it’s exploded from 2 percent share last year to 14 percent now, Canalsys say. RIM and Nokia have more, but “everyone else is getting crushed”, a report says.

(Google’s Android has 2 percent share right now, and we think we may see a similar explosion there. And Windows is an also ran, lumped in with ‘everyone else’.

Read it here

Apple growing, growing, growth
January this year saw Apple stock at $82.33, and if this scribbler had any spare cash, he’d own some stock (he doesn’t), now we’re looking at $190 – up 130 percent in nine months. And the stock’s on the rise this morning.

Read it here

iTunes LP – major labels only
We’re with the indies on this one – how can Apple reinvent the album format when it’s charging labels $10k just for the right to offer an iTunes LP package? And the indie labels make COLLECTIBLE music releases, what’s with the iTunes team on this? Got to get some indie label experience higher up the chain in there. The future of music isn’t about the majors, we promise you…

Read it here

W3C sidesteps Apple over widget-patent
Forgive our lack of clarity on this – here’s the deal. Apple filed a patent on remote updating, which impacted the W3C’s attempt to create a standard for widgets into a three-month hiatus while the heads who helm the web tried to figure out how they could avoid a clash with Cupertino. Seems they’ve found it and the secret’s in careful wordology.

Read it here

iPhone update sends smartphones back to jail
Most iPhone and iPod touch users really should install the newly-available 3.1.2 software – but you jailbreakers really, really should wait. Seems the software once again breaks compatibility with the latest jailbreak tools, as the cat and mouse game between Apple and iPhone freedom-seekers continues.

The update does contain a new baseband version in order to fix the issue, therefore if you have an unlocked iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, do not update until there is confirmation from a trusted source, like the iPhone DevTeam,” a warning over at CultOfMac reads. “If you’re planning to jailbreak, you should wait as this firmware version is currently incompatible with the latest jailbreak tools.”

Read it here

Product Links

EMC Updates Retrospect Backup for Apple Macintosh OS/X

Eye-fi coming to UK (hurray)
 

The wonderful Eigenharp (below)

Apple’s iPhone has won the accolade of ‘Dream Phone” in the Mobile Choice Consumer Awards in the UK, while on another matter China Unicom today confirmed itself to be in talks with a view to offering WiFi-enabled iPhone models in China.

Mobile Choice says of the iPhone 3GS, “No phone in the history of mobiles has demanded more headlines and column inches than the iPhone.” Perhaps that’s why readers voted for Apple’s product, while the mag’s editorial staff named LG its ‘Manufacturer of the Year’.

Apple’s smartphone’s closest competitors in this category (which made the shortlist) included nothing from RIM or Palm, they were:

Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
Nokia N97
Samsung i8910 HD
HTC Hero

Meanwhile, news emerged from China this morning that China Unicom is currently negotiating a deal with Apple under which the computer company would potentially manufacture iPhones that are compatible both with WiFi and the Chinese-made WAPI (wireless) standard.

China Unicom subsidiary manager, Yu Yingtao, confirmed the news, warning WiFi iPhones won’t be available until the end of the year. Bear in mind, local telecom law forbids iPhones using WiFi in China, suggesting this rule may be subject to change.

Warning, warning: The latest Snow Leopard bug seems to threaten all your data, and it seems back-up has become essential, while Apple explores if the bug is just an isolated outbreak or a more serious matter.

There’s been a series of complaints across the last month of incidents in which users start their Macs up as normal only to find they’ve logged in as ‘Guests’ on their machine – with all the files and data held on their Mac in their own user account seemingly deleted.

A series of posts on Apple’s Discussion forums presently describe the problem. Here’s one description taken from these: “A day before the crash there was no Guest account folder in the /Users directory. Just prior to the crash a Guest account folder appeared in the /Users directory on my start-up disk (not the partition my home folder is stored on). Post crash that Guest folder has disappeared again.”

Seems the Guest account is created by default.

We’re still sifting through this information, but here’s a link to a Cnet report which may offer some kind of salvation. How to restore Lost home folder after logging in as guest in Snow Leopard. (Good old Cnet, this report was published last month, but we hadn’t heard about it or the problem, so we figured many of you may also benefit from knowing about it.)

The problem isn’t noted as patched within Apple’s most recent )S X 10.6.1 update.

Links to the relevant Discussion threads we’ve tracked down so far..

Discussion One
Discussion Two
Discussion Three

If anyone out there knows more on this, or can suggest any way to deal with lost data, or avoid it, share it with the rest of the community in comments.
 

You have to spare a thought for the plight of those poor flash memory vendors, not only are they in a market where the spot price goes up and down, but Apple’s greedy shoppers just can’t get enough of Cupertino’s shiny new flash-based toys…iPhone, iPods nano and touch, SSD drives for Macs, future tablets, yadda-yadda-ya…

News today claims there’s a shortage of flash memory components caused by (you guessed it) Apple gobbling up huge quantities of production from the top tier makers.

This is causing Taiwan’s memory module makers to diversify their NAND flash supplies to minimise procurement risk, tells Digitimes. That’s because the major makers – Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Micron and Hynix Semiconductor “favour demand for Apple devices,” the report explains.

Demand is expected to climb 81 per cent this year, though manufacturers are conservative about investing in further production facilities just yet. Oh, and as Apple’s impact is felt across the market, prices are climbing up up up (well, by up to 14 percent on some modules).

Wonder what Apple’s beginning to stockpile all that memory for, eh, eh?

Poking through the edges of the Mac news web this morning we’ve unearthed a few choice morsels we figured we should, you know, put out there…

Read on for Apple’s release of the latest Epson printer drivers, the Obama administration welcomes company’s recent environmental moves while the head of the US Chamber of Commerce (71) shows whose interests he represents, Adobe’s latest security warning – and it’s a doozy, the addition of two thousand books now made available on iPhone and a really rather spiffing book takes a good close look at the iPod and its impact on product design, read on…

(Oh, and UK readers should maybe watch for The Times newspaper tomorrow, which will carry an REM-branded iTunes card offering 10 free tracks from the band).

Apple ships latest Epson drivers

Psst! Got an Epson printer – then be sure to download Epson Printer Drivers 2.1 through Software Update. It’s a huge 288MB download available in multiple languages which will only install (a) if you have an Epson printer active and (b) if you’ve made it to running Mac OS X 10.6.1. Best move on right now, or go see…

Read it here.

Obama welcomes Apple climate protest
In the administration’s first comments on the row, the energy secretary, Steven Chu, welcomed the mass defection from the right wing Chamber of Commerce by California’s PG&E, Exelon, Apple and others. “I think it’s wonderful,” he said, “I think companies like that are saying we have recognised the reality. They are saying we can’t be a party to this denial and foot-dragging.” In other words, this shit is real people, it’s not just liberals in sandals any more….

Read it here

Chamber of Commerce head leaves body out the sand
Not a bunch of liberals? Well, that’s not how the septuagenarian (he’s 71) head of the Chamber of Commerce sees it. Thomas Donohue, isn’t listening, despite the huge frisson running now through corporate America. "We are not changing where we are," he said. "We’ve thought long and hard about what is important here and we are not going anywhere."

So what’s important to the Chamber? Why, the ‘conomy, of course, or perhaps the interests of its top tier members, many of whom are pretty well-known for being fairly carbon unfriendly. And, of course, Microsoft and IBM sit on the Chamber’s board. This one’s gonna run and run we fear, unlike the environment…

Read it here

Adobe security warning
Adobe is warning of a security hole in Adobe Reader and Acrobat 0.1.3 for Windows, Macs and Linux. The company says the hole is already being actively exploited, though attacks are limited to (ahem) Windows systems (tell me that’s not so…)
Stay careful a while longer as Adobe promises a patch by October 13. Be careful out there…

Read it here

Or read it on your iPhone
We’ve been saying rather a lot about eBooks lately, possibly because they’re shaping up to be an essential element of Apple’s marketing bid for its all-new tablet (assuming that device transpires to be real, and not chimera or unicorn)…
…interesting news today then that Questia Media has added another 1,900 copyrighted books to its digital collection, which can be accessed on an iPhone or iPod touch using Questia’s software, which now offers you a window into s 76,213 full-text books and over 2.7 million journal, magazine, and newspaper articles.

Read it here

Change by Design
We’re strangely interested in a triple book review today. This leads off with a title called Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. In it the chief exec of IDEO says design isn’t just what comes after the product has been visualised, but should be central to the product design all along.
Look, he says, “Design’ is no longer a discrete stylistic gesture thrown at a project just before it is handed off to marketing. The new approach taking shape in companies and organizations around the world moves design backward to the earliest stages of a product’s conception and forward to the last stages of its implementation—and beyond."
Other titles mentioned in this report include, ‘Design-Driven Innovation’ and ‘A Fine Line’. While not especially ‘Apple-y’, if design floats your boat, then these may be worth a look-see…

Read it here

Do swing by later for the next chapter in 9to5Mac’s constantly-updated window into Apple’s world.

Apple’s having a stellar year with JD Power surveys. The iPhone took the crown in both the consumer and business categories again in their bi-annual survery (though the battery didn’t fare well).  From JDPower (via PED) 

• Apple ranks highest among manufacturers of smartphones used primarily for personal reasons, with a score of 811, and performs particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features and physical design. LG (776) and RIM BlackBerry (759) follow Apple in the rankings.
• Among customers who use their smartphones primarily for business purposes, Apple ranks highest with a score of 803, followed by RIM BlackBerry (724)."

Greenpeace has at last responded to Apple’s protest move to spurn the seemingly fossil fuel lobby backed US Chamber of Commerce, praising the computer company for “doing the right thing”.

In a note published to the Greenpeace USA website, the campaigning group terms the walk-out as highlighting the environment-driven “split in Corporate America.”

The campaigners now see different targets, saying, “At issue is the US Chamber of Commerce’s use of funds to oppose climate change legislation. Apple has done the right thing, and IBM and Microsoft should think different too.”

They continue: “Many companies with high-profile climate positions must be shifting a little uneasily in the boardroom right now. Staying silent on this issue is definitely not showing the leadership Apple and others have shown by speaking out.”

Calling on all technology companies to bite the bullet and work to save the planet so many of the technologies they develop are currently number-crunching in research labs worldwide and finding to be at threat, they note that both Microsoft and IBM sit on the Chamber of Commerce board.

“Now is the time for IBM and Microsoft to speak out against the position of the Chamber — or do what Apple did, and leave,” Greenpeace states.

They note that making a public statement – or even public actions in terms of product design is one thing, but that by financially supporting the biggest government lobby group in the US, Microsoft and IBM aren’t ‘being the change’.

The Chamber spent $488 million between 1998 to 2007 on lobbying. “That kind of money buys a lot of influence in Washington’s corridors of power. The Chamber hasn’t been shy about its position either. In August it stated it wanted to put the science of climate change on trial.”

The memorandum continues: “Yesterday the Chamber questioned Steve Jobs’ personal judgement in deciding to leave. Rather than lecturing Steve on innovation, the Chamber should be focussing the innovation needed to reduce emissions and the jobs this will create.

“In the growing public spat between Apple and the Chamber we are definitely cheering for Steve. But he could do with some more heavyweight support.

“Which other IT executives are going to match Apple’s bold move? The stakes have never been higher for the climate. Apple’s move will throw an uncomfortable spotlight on any company that stays on in the Chamber but doesn’t act to change its policies.”

So, it looks like Apple’s moves to go greener have pretty much won support from Greenpeace, which originally targeted the company in an attempt to convince it to make such change. Apple responded.

Via: Cnet

CNET reports that the Intel Lightpeek demonstration that was shown on a hefty Hackintosh last month isn’t as far off as originally anticipated.  Speaking to Taiwanese optical networking company, Foci Fiber Optic Communication, they found that Light Peak  cables and other fiber-optic components are right around the corner.

"We plan to have our pilot run ready by the end of November 2009, and ready to be in mass production in the beginning of year 2010," said Janpu Hou, the company’s vice president of business development.

That meshes with Engadget’s sources who said it would be on the Mac Platform in mid-to-late 2010.  They also mentioned that "Intel was pretty high on Light Peak for devices that needed maximum connectivity in the smallest amount of space, like an iPhone — or, say, a tablet."

We’ve popped some video demos below.

iPhone update 3.1.2 (241.7MB) is out today with the following fixes:

• Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone to not wake from sleep
• Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart
• Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video streaming

You’ll get a carrier file update after the initial installation.  Also, if you are AT&T tethering or Jailbroken, you might want to hold off.  The update is also available for the iPod Touch.

EA Mobile has confirmed a version of its extremely popular Rock Band game for the iPhone and iPod touch.The news first emerged during an Electronic Arts presentation at the CTIA mobile trade show yesterday. Just like its console siblings, the iPhone version will offer downloadable tracks, alongside Bluetooth multi-player features designed to support up to four players.

TechCrunch informs that on the iPhone game play seems set to reflect that of its console kin, the notes flow down the fretboard in the same way, with guitar pick-shaped buttons presumably there to play notes.

“We’ve seen it in action and can confirm that is the real deal, with gameplay almost identical to the console version including the ability to play with up to three additional players via Bluetooth,” reports Mashable.

The game matches everything you’d expect from the console version, including graphics and terrible howling mistakes…only difference is you aren’t using any instrument other than your iPhone (or voice).

The app comes with 15 songs – familiar tracks from past and present – with 5 additional songs that you can unlock as you complete the World Tour, as well as options to buy more.

Mashable informs you’ll get:
-Single player
– Multi Player over Bluetooth
and Facebook Connect integration.

Here’s another – larger – image, then pop over to Mashable to take a closer look. We think it looks pretty good…

From earlier story
We’ll update this story later on when we learn more about the iPhone game, pausing only to reflect the last time Rock Band made it big on the Apple users agenda was on release of The Beatles Rock Band game.

With claim and counter-claim then speculating music from the band would be made available through iTunes at the time, former Beatle Sir Paul McCartney said: “We were having problems with iTunes – well not iTunes, EMI was the problem – with downloading, which we’d like to do because that’s how a lot of people get their music.

“We’ve kind of bypassed that [download problems] because now you can do it in ‘Rock Band’," he added. "I always liked that, when you’re told you can’t do something and suddenly there’s a little route round the back."

We’re not expecting The Beatles to be part of the iPhone version – at least not in this iteration, but interesting to reflect, nevertheless.

MacRumors caught TomTom’s car kit showing up again in Apple’s European online stores today.  This time, it no longer includes the $99 App but is still priced around 99 Euros/Pounds.  The car kit works with the iPhone 3GS or 3G and enhances your iPhone’s GPS performance with an additional GPS chip, speaker and antenna. 

If you ask us, $100 for a glorified car mount + another $100 for the app seems a bit steep, considering you can pick up a full, standalone TomTom for around $50.

Full information below.

There’s a few choice tidbits shooting around the Web today, figuring we’d be acting somewhat churlishly if we didn’t let you in on these morsels, we’ve put them all together inside this easy-to-digest short section….

Read on for why Steve Jobs is the most influential person in the technology industry, AT&T promises iPhone tethering (eventually); a handy tip to control QuickTime X playback speeds; why Apple looks set to profit in this year’s back-to-school sales and a new research app for the iPhone from no less than the American Institute of Physics.

Steve Jobs is tech
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been named the most influential individual in the global technology industry, topping the silicon.com 2009 Agenda Setter’s list. It’s the second time Apple’s boss has made it to the top of the tree in ten years of the list, he’s the only person ever to have achieved this.

Selection is chosen by an expert panel. "There are few companies which continue to astound with product innovation. Steve Jobs’ Apple is still shiny and sweet," said one of those judges.

Read it here.

AT&T can’t yet connect
Good news first, bad news second: We all now know AT&T will now allow VoIP apps like Skype to pass calls through its network – that’s the good news: The bad news is that the giant US carrier and current exclusive iPhone partner won’t yet enable tethering (so you can use your iPhone to get your Mac online using 3G) over its network.

Why? ”Tethering remains unavailable. For tethering, we need to do some additional fine tuning to our systems and networks so that we do deliver a great experience,” a spokesman said.

Read it here.

Sexing up QuickTime X
Rob Griffiths has the trick – and while it’s not as flexible as the previous version, it seems that Option key’s worth exploring just about every time you try to do anything.

“Hold down the Option key before clicking either the Fast Forward or Rewind button. With the Option key held down, the first speed you’ll see will be 1.1x, and each subsequent click will increase the rate by .1x, up to a maximum of 8x.”

Read it here.

Apple at school
We’ve heard reports suggesting iPhone may account for most of Apple’s growth in the just-gone quarter, but as PC sales generally decline there’s good news in a recent NPD report exploring the education market.

See, while desktop sales are slow, laptops are the only sector experiencing growth. And, from memory, Apple pretty much dominates the laptop sector in US education.

And while Apple faces new competition from netbooks (hence its development of the Apple tablet, which won’t be a netbook, but something that’s nice to use and, erm, better), the company seems set to at least secure Mac sales this quarter.

“Notebooks seem to be recession proof and this back-to-school season was no exception," said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.

Read it here.

iPhone gets physics(al)
We’re strangely excited at this move to bolster Apple’s mobile products and their facility to education and research markets. After all, education is in Apple’s DNA.

So, The American Institute of Physics has used MarkLogic Server to launch its new mobile e-Reader application, iResearch. iResearch was developed to provide the AIP community of researchers, comprising physicists, engineers, scientists, and students, with mobile access to valuable physics journal content. It offers articles on various topics, ranging from biological physics to atomic quantum fluids.

Users may navigate through journals online and then select articles they wish to read. Once the PDF file has been delivered to the device, users can save it to read at their convenience when they are offline.

Read it here

Pop back later for 9to5Mac’s constantly-updated window into Apple’s world.

NVIDIA has fallen on hard times it seems both due to licensing issues with Intel and manufacturing issues with their integrated chipsets.  ZDNet is reporting today that Intel has forced NVIDIA to halt development of its future chipsets for Intel processors, specifically Core and Nehalem series – which Apple use.  We reported on this back in August.

In a somewhat related note, NVidia has stopped making chipsets for AMD because in-house ATI has been taking all of that business. 

The spat with Intel isn’t a done deal but it is considered a big enough risk that NVIDIA is halting Nforce integrated chip investment until the issue is dragged through the courts in 2010.

Intel claims that its four-year-old chipset license with NVIDIA doesn’t cover the Nehalem or Core series of CPUs. NVIDIA naturally disagrees with this and as a result is that both parties will fight it out in court sometime in 2010.

Almost all of Apple’s low to mid-range product line use NVIDIA chipsets but recent issues mentioned above had the long term relationship in question. 

 Intel will likely be the big winner in this one as they make competing chipsets that will likely find their way into future Macs and PCs.

Adobe has this afternoon posted a video detailing some of the new features it is developing for Photoshop.

Hosted by the company’s Photoshop genius, Russell Brown, the video is available online now – the only catch is, it’s only presently accessible through Facebook. (Adobe should do the world a favour and shove it up on YouTube, we think).

The video shows a selection of features as demonstrated at Photoshop World. These include a new warp tool, Painter-style brushes – which aim to emulate the features found in Corel’s flagship Painter product, and much more.

A new Warping technology is also pretty interesting. Basically this means that by locking down certain parts of an image an image editor can alter other parts without altering the overall subject. The illustration shows what can be done with a man’s arms, which can be moved around the subject’s body….

While the company isn’t claiming these features will be found in future version, Photoshop CS5, or any future version, Adobe is presenting the video as a taste of what kind of work it is conducting inside its labs.

Meanwhile, it is interesting to reflect that the current iteration of Photoshop (CS4) is currently available at over $100 discount through Amazon, $586.49 rather than the $699 list price.

And if you’re a Photoshop user then we think it’s pretty possible you may be interested in today’s stunning deal for a Canon large format printer, also from Amazon – $499 rather than the c.$1,600 list price. We think it’s a great deal.

Via: British Journal of Photography.

Google Street View is now available to iPhone users in Canada, using the Maps application.

The service should now be available in Greater Toronto, Montréal, Metro Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary and other major Canadian cities. The data should be available in both the iPhone browser and the Maps application, starting from today.

The company has also made a few tweaks in the overal usability of Street View, including inclusion of a “report a problem” link, through which users can report mistakes and inaccuracies, for example when a building has been knocked down or a name has changed. The company hopes to resolve each such edit within a month.

The company is also expanding Maps data, including work to introduce directions for cyclists.

Street View provides users 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street level views within Google Maps. Google collects these images using special cameras and equipment that capture and match images to a specific location using GPS devices. Faces and license plates are blurred before the panorama images are served and become viewable in Google Maps.

Google Chrome for Mac should be ready in a “couple of months”, former Apple board member and current Google CEO, Eric Schmidt has said.

(Note: This of course refers to the browser, as referenced in the para second below, where Schmidt refers to browser speed.)

Schmidt appeared this week with Google co-founder Sergey Brin to discuss the state of the technology and search markets, and projects including Chrome and Android.

"I see a lot of Macs in this room, and a lot of very sophisticated people are using Macs now,” affirmed Schmidt. “We need to get a version of Chrome out for that, which we’ll have in a couple of months. The key to browser strength is speed.”

Google had intended Chrome for Mac to appear in the first half of 2010, but it may at least ship before Christmas.

The company claimed Chrome adoption rates to be exceeding internal targets, but that slowness in introducing a Mac version had slowed uptake.

Via: WSJ

Walt, who is usually a huge Mac fan, says Windows 7 is a worthy competitor to Apple’s OS X Snow Leopard:

In recent years, I, like many other reviewers, have argued that Apple’s Mac OS X operating system is much better than Windows. That’s no longer true. I still give the Mac OS a slight edge because it has a much easier and cheaper upgrade path; more built-in software programs; and far less vulnerability to viruses and other malicious software, which are overwhelmingly built to run on Windows.

http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/microPlayer.swf

TechCrunch reports that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has, as of yesterday granted the trademark "Mighty Mouse" to a computer peripheral company not called Apple, Inc.  That means Apple will probably drop the moniker of the mouse (which had both its fans and detractors) or end up paying Man & Machine a hefty price.

For over 5 years, [Man & Machine] says that it has used the name for its line of mice that are “rugged, hygienic, waterproof.”

News that a new mouse (and keyboard) were on the horizon came last week when the FCC leaked, for split second, pictures of the devices.  Apple will likely choose a new name for its pointing device.  But what will they call it?