9to5 Staff

Pretty much as anticipated:

Mini Specs
iMac Specs
Mac Pro Specs

Simultaneous dual band N and G for Time Capsule and Airport Extreme

Looks like today is the day.

The bad news: No event means nothing revolutionary, just upgrades.

Update: Macrumors forum member Mr.X posted the following more realistic but less exciting specs for Mac Pros:

ATI RADEON HD 4870 graphics card [So much for NVIDIA love affair]
MAC PRO 2.26_8CX/6X1G/640/GT120/SD-USA
MAC PRO 2.66QCX/3X1GB/640/GT120/SD-USA

All part numbers listed below:

Engadget’s anonymous tipster threw out these slightly unbelievable specs on the soon to be new Mac Pro: 

The Mac Pro will come in eight-core configurations from 3.0GHz to 3.6GHz and 16-core configurations in 3.6GHz and 4.0GHz flavors, and it sounds like it’s going to be even funkier on the video tip — our tipster says it has two regular DVI ports and a mini DisplayPort. Sure, okay. It’s also apparently a bit lighter than the current model, at 35 pounds instead of 42.

Only 35 pounds and 16 cores?  Who can’t get excited about that?  While these are unbelievable, Apple, in the past, has had access to new Intel hardware before anyone else.

 iMac’s
MB417LL/A – IMAC 20" 2.66/2GB/320GB/SD/MSE/KB-USA
MB418LL/A – IMAC 24" 2.66/4GB/640/SD/MSE/KB-USA
MB419LL/A – IMAC 24" 2.93/4GB/640/256/SD/MSE/KB-USA
MB420LL/A – IMAC 24" 3.06/4GB/1TB/512/SD/MSE/KB-USA

GRAPHICS CARD
MB999LL/A – ATI RADEON HD 4870 512MB

http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/newPlayers/universal.swfvia MDN

Hardmac and OneMoreThing.nl (via Macrumors) are reporting on new iMac and Mac Mini specs to be released tomorrow.

The new iMac models and their corresponding references:
– MB417: Entry level model
– MB418: "Mass market" model
– MB419: high-end model
– MB420: ultimate model
– one 20" model, three 24" models
– 20" 2 GB DDR3 memory, 24" 4 GB DDR3 memory (max 8 GB)
– 1x Display port
– Intel Core 2 Duo (not a quad core): 2.66 Ghz, 2.93 Ghz and 3.06 Ghz

For the Mac mini, the references are the following:
– MB463: entry-level model
– MB464 high-end model
– 5x USB
– 1x FireWire 800 – 1x mini DVI – 1x Display port – Nvidia chipset (like the newest MacBook)
– starting at Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 Ghz
– 1 or 2 GB DDR3 memory (max 4 GB)
– 120 GB hard disk (max 320 GB)

Is this the next gen Mac Mini? The video looked rounder at the top but we’re not going to be debunking spyshots for awhile.

We are just providing this for your consideration. We largely think Apple will move in the ARM direction for their ultra small portable devices this year. These images are from a company who are using similar hardware and are able to charge $299 for this device.  Obviously this is a little boxy for Apple’s taste but the internals would be comparable.    Specs and more picts below:

Also, notice in the video they talk about the iPhone and how this device "will play iPhone games".

 The specifications

Both Amazon ($387 for 1TB) and the Apple refurb store are selling Time Capsules at steep discounts this week.  Apple doesn’t usually discount its current products nearly as sharply as this.  So why is Apple chopping prices?  Is it the economy? 

We think they are going to see a bit of an upgrade this month.  Sure, the 1.5TB/750GB point makes sense, especially with drives at up to 2TB starting to hit store shelves.  But we’ve heard there might be some more to it than just that.  Our sources informed us a few months ago that Apple was experimenting with caching Apple software updates on the Time Machine devices.  That would not only save some bandwidth (your whole office/family would only need it to be downloaded once), it would also make the updating process much much quicker on each client machine because the download would be local.

Software Update caching has been available on Leopard and Tiger server for years but this kind of easy setup/low cost of entry would put the software update caching in many more hands.  There is nothing to indicate that current Time Capsules wouldn’t be able to add this type of functionality with a firmware update.

World of Apple and My Apple Guide are both calling March 24th as the day we’ll finally see some new hardware from Apple.  Rather than discuss the track records of these sites, let’s just hope shall we?  Oh, and we’ve been hearing roughly the same time frame without specific dates.  It is about, um, time.

Via Engadget

For those of us with a fond memory of older Mac OS’s, the iPhone is bringing the nostalgia back big time.  We talked about the Mini vMac last week.  There is another group called the ‘MacOS iPhone Project‘ who are doing the same kind of work.  They look to have a working app out shortly.  More screenshots below from their site:

This was the first sign of our success, it took many weeks, but we got there.

This is where we ran into one of our biggest issues, the cursor, it sound simple, but apple didnt make it easy for us.

I wonder why that happend? Is there code stolen from the Qemu project? OH NOES!!! We would like to thank the Qemu team for creating something this good and open source.

This was the first test of the cursor, accessing menus.

Our System Properties, just as if you viewed them on a Macintosh SE.

This is our main disk (image). Plus some stuff OS X added when we created it and then mounted it.

MacPaint, our favourite mac classic applications, dragging works quite well.

MacDraw, I could sit for hours playing with this, wish I could add text :(

No journey back in OS History is complete without looking how far Calculator has come.

Now, its time to shutdown (or restart). This is where it currently crashes, and the iphone will hang for a few minutes and then return to the home screen.

We’ve all seen this before.  Leading up to a hardware refresh, little things start happening that seem to indicate that a release will come any…minute..now.  Todays news is that 10.5.7 has kext files referring to Intel Nahalem (Core i7) processors (via AI)  This would seem to indicate that Apple’s hardware refresh will happen in concert with 10.5.7.   Nahalem chips are likely to be the muscle (CPU) behind Apple’s next generation Mac Pros.

This is just the latest of many signs.  NVIDIA iMac and Mini driver popped up at the beginning of the year – and videos of possible new Mac Mini hardware surfaced last week.   Don’t forget that Apple’s 20-inch Cinema Displays were recently EOL’d without a replacement named.

Plus we’d heard a few weeks ago, along with others, conveniently, that ‘Late March’ was the target for a hardware event.  Last year Apple had its enterprise iPhone event on March 6th – something to consider only if you believe Apple is moving to a yearly update schedule.

Judging by your comments on our previous Hackintosh posts, you aren’t going to like this one, one…little….bit.  CNet writer David Carnoy insists that Apple needs to roll out a Netbook or bad things will happen.  These things include: everyone on the planet will install OSX on a Dell Mini 9, Apple is going to lose marketshare, and Apple customers will defect. 

While we certainly fall into this group, except we are rolling our Hackintosh with an HP Mini — soon to be an ASUS 1000HE, Carnoy is certainly falling on deaf ears in Cupertino.  That is not to say Apple lost a sale of a MacBook or iPhone (we have both), it is just that Microsoft lost a sale of XP.  More and more, it seems we aren’t alone here.  Yes, the market has spoken…loudly.  People want a small laptop Mac and when we say small, we don’t mean "impossibly thin but with traditional footprint – starting at $1800".

Do you really think Apple cares about the rocketing Netbook segment?  The bad news for you Apple/Netbook fans is that they don’t.  They don’t follow market pressures.  To quote El Jobso:

"There are some customers [Netbook demographic] which we chose not to serve.  We don’t know how to make a $500 computer that’s not a piece of junk, and our DNA will not let us ship that. But we can continue to deliver greater and greater value to those customers that we choose to serve. And there’s a lot of them."

This isn’t some new thing with Apple either.  People have been clamoring for a ‘normal Mac desktop’ for years.  You know, something like a Mini with a 3.5" hard drive and the ability to open ‘er up and add some RAM and upgrade the HDD without using a putty knife –  for $400.  Yes, of course, if Apple had done this, they would have sold millions and gobbled up marketshare – and at the same time slightly cannibalized their high margin Pro, Mini and iMac lines.  They would have also attracted more developers to the Mac platform and saved a whole lot of money on lawyer bills fighting Psystar as well. But it isn’t to be.

So Apple’s answer to the Netbook?  They are watching this very closely for now, but if you need something in the next few months, buy an iPhone…or a MacBook.  Obviously there is a huge gap between there that the netbooks fits happily into.

The larger issue is: Apple doesn’t do ‘normal’ or ‘status quo’.  They just don’t.  Everything they do has to be different in some way.  It has to be revolutionary. 

Some say it is their DNA, others say it is their CEO – we think it might be something more rational like their insistence on +30% margins.  Either way, regardless of what you want, you aren’t going to get a Mac Netbook.  If you want one, go get a ASUS and get to work and slap some Apple stickers on there to make yourself feel better.  You might be able to upgrade the MacOS on it later, you might be stuck with Leopard for the rest of its life.  That doesn’t seem too bad considering the operating system you are lifting off of there is likely going to be Microsoft Windows XP – which is like six years old already.  Especially when you consider that if you get 3-6 years out of a Netbook, you will be very lucky.

That’s not to say Apple won’t release some insanely cool portable device in the near future.  In fact, we expect to see an Apple portable device based on an ARM Cortex processor by WWDC.  But this thing won’t be a Netbook, at least in the traditional sense.  It will be different and of course be revolutionary.  It will be impossibly xxxx and amazingly xxxx. And you will want that too.

Engadget is covering an issue that appears to be happening more and more frequently since we first heard about it a few months ago.  The hinge on the original MacBook Air seems to weaken with continued use and, for some, cracks and breaks.  Apple is telling most customers that fixing this problem will cost $800 (ouch) and it (surprise!) might be a better idea to buy a new one.  If you get the right customer satisfaction manager, you might be able to slip one by, but it appears to be Apple’s official policy to turn away customers and not acknowledge this as a known issue or flaw.

For the record, the Rev 1 MacBook Air that has been floating around the 9to5Mac HQ doesn’t seem to have this issue, but the screen hinge has been getting a bit looser recently and now we are all paranoid as hell that the hinge is going to break.

From the Toys section:

Amazon.com offers the Apple Time Capsule 1TB, model no. MB277LL/A, for $387.92 with free shipping. (Add it to your cart to see this price.) That’s a $21 under our mention from earlier this month and the lowest total price we’ve seen. Apple’s Time Capsule is an 802.11n Wi-Fi base station with a built-in hard drive. That is a whopping/suspicious $112 off of a normally stable retail price of $499.

Of note, the 500GB version, model no. MB276LL/A, is also available for $259.31 with free shipping.  That is $40 off of retail.

A little rumor information as well: We’ve heard that Apple has been working on Software Update caching in future firmware updates to the Time Capsule. 

Finally, if you are just looking for a USB hard drive, Dell has a 1.5TB Seagate for $112 and Newegg has a 1TB model for $75 after $20 rebate.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepartim-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0012JJOQO&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepartim-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0012JHY7K&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

When it comes to Cloud computing, we are definitely Google Apps fans but many people who have a better eye for design than us are MobileMe’ers.  To them, Apple sent a warm email (cut below) this week announcing that MobileMe is finally able to Push email, calendar, etc. services out.  It has been a long recovery since the original MobileMe launch last year but it seems like everything is coming around.  Maybe we’ll consider migrating from Google Apps?  Nah!

Faster syncing with Mac and PC. Changes you make to contacts and calendars on your Mac (Address Book and iCal) or PC (Microsoft Outlook) are now automatically pushed up to the cloud every time you make an update. Likewise, changes you make on me.com, iPhone, or iPod touch are automatically pushed to your Mac or PC. As a result, your contacts and calendars update faster across all your devices. To take advantage of faster syncing, be sure you’re running Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.6 (Mac) or MobileMe Control Panel 1.3 (Windows).

via Giz

Update: The Dell deal is over, but as far as Netbooks go, we’d reccomend the Hackintosh friendly ASUS 1000HE which you can grab at Amazon for $374 with 1GB of RAM and a 160GB HD or $399 with 2GB of RAM.

If you were thinking about Hacking up a Dell or just riding with the more than useful Ubuntu Linux installed and wanted to get it at a Recession-friendly price, now is your chance.  From the Toys section:  Dell Home is selling the Hackintosh – friendly Mini 9’s in base configuration for $199 – for one day only.  That’s $100 off.  You’ll need to juice up the specs to at least 1GB of RAM and 16GB of Flash to have a respectable Hackintosh though.  Also of note, Amazon is selling the sleeker, thinner HP 1000 Mini series starting at $279 – which doesn’t have working audio drivers yet for Mac OS (you can use USB).

This Dell price point is significant, not only for us cheap bastards, but also because it is the same price as Negroponte’s OLPC.  Why not give a really sweet Ubuntu laptop with a video camera to a kid in a poor country.  Capitalism!  You win again!

A new app just hit the App Store that brings some pretty interesting funtionality to Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch.  Airphones (iTunes link) takes any sound that would be coming out of your computer and streams it to your iPhone or iPod touch and let’s you hear the sound through the built in speakers or headset.   That is as long as you are on the same wifi network.

Easy and simple, right?  It seems to get good ratings from overall happy customers.  We like.  Anyone want to report back on how well it works?

From the developer:

AirPhones is the next-generation solution to wireless headphones.  Now use your iPhone or iPod Touch to listen to any audio from your computer via Wi-Fi.   Experience DVD’s, desktop TV, web videos & radio, audio books, shared iTunes playlists and podcasts; from across the room, throughout the office or around the house.

Via Wired

Content providers are moving their content directly to the iPhone these days, bypassing iTunes and the other "middlemen".  The latest but certainly not the last to do this sort of thing is CBS Interactive with their aptly named TV.com application.  Right now the content is a little thin(selected full episodes from the CSI series, NCIS, Berverly Hills 90210, Star Trek: The Original Series, and MacGyver), but it isn’t hard to see all of CBS’s content ending up available on the iPhone. 

The free app is availalbe in the App Store for both iPhone and iPod touch.

From the developer:

The TV.com application allows you to search and access millions of videos no matter where you go.

Users with limited network connectivity may experience difficulty loading application pages or videos.

The news you didn’t want to hear.  Yes, Bernie Madoff is one of us.  A Mac user.  The Wall St. veteran turned Ponzi scheme crook is now being followed 24×7 by the paparazzi.  ABC’s 20/20 had their zoom lenses focused on his apartment this week.  And of course they find him at home (hopefully soon to be jail) on his Mac.  Zooms Below.

Via Macenstein – Why can’t you stick to good looking movie stars with Macs?!

Durrrr.  Maybe they should focus on the physical keyboard angle instead of the metaphors.

Via RIMarkable