Want an update on Snow Leopard (besides torrent information)? We’ve just gotten word that 10A250 is the most recent build floating around Cupertino while 10A246 is the most recent stable build. Apple will be sending out a big developer seed before the end of the month. At that point, Apple should have an announcement on further developer seeding.
Cupertino called in a lifeline today to tell us that iLife GM’d (Golden Master) yesterday and was sent to the DVD printers and should start shipping en mass on Monday. Faces and Places are very close to being on your computer.
Don’t have a Camera with GPS capabilities (and not pleased with the 2 megapixel iPhone snappers)? Nikon’s Coolpix P6000 13.5MP Digital Camera is the camera that Apple showed off during the iPhoto demonstration.
Update: Apple says ships "in January"
Links to Amazon Affiliate Store and prices below.
iLife ’09 $79
iLife ’09 Family Pack $99 (up to 5 licenses – screw you Brady Bunch!)
The Box Set – which includes iLife ’09, iWork ’09 and a Leopard license
Single License: $169
Family License: $229
One of our readers writes in to ask why we haven’t been covering all of the new seeds of Snow Leopard hitting the torrents (with pict – above). We haven’t really been keeping track of this but a quick search on one of the torrent sites does brings up a recent (the most recent?) release of Snow Leopard. For those out there who want to get a head start on next quarter’s OS of choice, you know what to do…we guess.
The rumor du jour coming out of Tom’s Hardware is that Apple is going to replace the current Mac Mini’s Core2Duo with a dual core Atom 330-type processor. This is kinda like going to the garage and having having your BMW 328 engine replaced with that of a Toyota Corolla. The 1.6GHz Atom 330 Processor which is in the ION platform is slower than even the current Mac Mini.
So, unless Apple is going to be turning the Mini line into a low priced Net-top set of devices, it wouldn’t make sense to put a slower, cheaper processor under the hood. Even with dedicated NVIDIA 9400N graphics and all kinds of tricks, that thing would chug.
Check the benchmarks, the Duallie Atom 330 is rated at less than 2/3rds the speed of the Pentium D circa 2005-2006 for most tasks. This is great when sold at $30/chip and put into a $300 Netbook to run a browser on XP or Linux, but definitely not aimed at the $600-$800 Mac DESKTOP market. A Pentium D isn’t even as fast as the current Mac Mini’s chip so the slowdown would certainly be noticeable.
They are backtracking a bit saying that this could go into the AppleTV. While this makes a lot more sense (with NVIDIA/ION we might see full 1080P capable AppleTVs) we aren’t sure we expect to see this any time soon. Plus, we expect the AppleTV to move to the ARM platform soon.
Or a netbook.
Come on, don’t tell us you aren’t a bit tempted to get one of the many cool new Netbooks hitting the market and throw your official copy of OS X on there. One option for those of us who want to jump into this world is the EFi-X USB dongle. TestFreaks got their hands on one and went to town with it…What was their conclusion? (BTW, the video is just the unboxing – go to their site for the full review)
http://www.viddler.com/player/b9cb58b4/
Their Conclusion?
I have had the opportunity of reviewing a multitude of items over the past two years and the EFiX is one of the most unique and exciting products that I have encountered. It works as advertised and could not be any simpler to install and setup. Using a store bought copy of Leopard, I was able to get up and running in under an hour. By using recommended hardware from the hardware compatibility list the user can build a Mac as powerful as even the highest end Mac Pro models.
The EFi-X USB V1 seems to be an evolving product as the makers add new features with each subsequent firmware upgrade. If you want to build a machine capable of running OS X, Windows and Linux on one platform, then the EFi-X USB V1 is the solution.
Pros:
Plug and play simple
Works as advertised
Firmware being constantly improved by makers
Obviates the need for hacks when installing OS X on a x86 system
Can triple boot OS X/Windows/Linux environments
Cons:
Works with only certain hardware
| Grades: | |
| Overall |  |
| Design | |
| Performance | |
The day after he’s been put in charge of the day-to-day work at Apple, Tim Cook is getting a lot of media attention. Here’s a quick rundown:
The genius behind Steve Jobs – Fortune
Is interim CEO on a trial run at Apple? MSN
Apple’s Cook Pushes Staff in Lieu of Jobs’s Magic – Bloomeberg
Tim Cook: A Steady Go-To Guide for Apple – Businessweek
When Steve Jobs Met Tim Cook – WSJ
Why Apple is in safe hands with Tim Cook – TechRadar
According to the NYTimes:
Two people who are familiar with Mr. Jobs’s current medical treatment said he was not suffering from a recurrence of cancer, but a condition that was preventing his body from absorbing food. Doctors have also advised him to cut down on stress, which may be making the problem worse, these people said.
Looks like a prescription for R&R. Be on the lookout for a fattening man in a black mock turtleneck in Tahiti.
Update: WSJ concurs. Can we stop the cancer talk now? Enjoy your time off Stevo.
Steve Jobs is Still Fine berating sites like Gizmodo for producing their news from anonymous sources.
to this where he said he’s known for weeks that Steve Jobs is ill from an anonymous colleague in the industry.
Not good.
Thanks alleyinsider
Steve Jobs sent the following email out to employees today:
Team,
I am sure all of you saw my letter last week sharing something very personal with the Apple community. Unfortunately, the curiosity over my personal health continues to be a distraction not only for me and my family, but everyone else at Apple as well. In addition, during the past week I have learned that my health-related issues are more complex than I originally thought.
In order to take myself out of the limelight and focus on my health, and to allow everyone at Apple to focus on delivering extraordinary products, I have decided to take a medical leave of absence until the end of June.
I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for Apple’s day to day operations, and I know he and the rest of the executive management team will do a great job. As CEO, I plan to remain involved in major strategic decisions while I am out. Our board of directors fully supports this plan.
I look forward to seeing all of you this summer.
Steve
We wish Steve well in his recovery. AAPL is down 8 points in after hours trading.
It looks like Apple is pretty serious about keeping Hackintoshes off of the street (ever heard of Psystar?). According to his Twitter post, Wired reporter Brian X. Chen is revealing that Wired is getting sued by Cupertino for releasing a video on how to make a Hackintosh. That is a pretty bold move on Apple’s part considering there are literally hundreds of sets of instructions out there on how to do this. Lifehacker alone seems to post a new one every week.
The original Post is now currently down but Gizmodo currently is hosting a copy of it. What do you think about this turn of events?
UPDATE: he’s released another Twit (the twit) saying that it wasn’t a suing, perhaps Apple just asked nicely?
The Mac is almost 25 years old. This is really remarkable in today’s technology/branding landscape. This one product has held on for so long while so many others have come and gone. What will a Macintosh look like in another 25 years? If we look purely at specs and compare the original Mac 128K with today’s base model 24" inch iMac (we feel that the iMac line is closest to the original idea) we get a pretty crazy machine – below:
| 1984 | 2009 | 2034 | |
| Screen | 9 inch B&W | 24 inch color | 64 inch (3D?) |
| RAM | 128K | 2GB | 32TB |
| Disk Storage | 400K Floppy | 250GB Hard Drive | 64PB (SSD?) |
| Processor Speed | 8MHz | 2.4GHz | 720GHz |
| Weight | 16lbs | 25 lbs | 36 lbs |
| Networking | Appletalk 230Kb/s | Ethernet 1Gb | 4Tb/s (Wireless?) |
| Power Consumption | 60 W or 205.2 BTU | 120 W | 240 W |
Of course a lot of this would never happen. How do you see the Mac of 2034?
Macrumors today reignited the long standing and falling rumor that Apple was readying a interface overhaul. If you want to know what 10.6 Snow Leopard interface elements will look like, all you have to do is look at iWork.com.
Apple will be merging the look and feel of the MacOS with the Touch/iPhone look and feel. UI is evolutionary, not revolutionary (move to OSX from OS9 notwithstanding)
and you, of course, will love it…More below…
New System Preferences vs. old. You can even see some of the enhancements in the iWork Applications. These aren’t Leopardy feeling elements.
From 9to5mac.com/toys (feed): If you are loading up on storage in 2009, you might want to head over to Amazon who have a Seagate 1.5TB 32MB SATA Bulk/OEM Hard Drive ST31500341AS for $129. That is the lowest price we’ve ever seen for the largest capacity drive on the market. The device gets an average of 4/5 stars from Amazon reviewers and ships for free. These prices don’t often last for more than 24 hours at Amazon.
Or you can has a 1TB Hitachi for $80 after $30 rebate.
For another $30-$40, throw in a SATA Drive docking station, or perhaps something a little more burly.
We were pondering why everyone is doing backflips (including us) on how good Windows 7 is when it isn’t much better than seven year old Windows XP. We think this XKCD cartoon illustrates this.
Thanks Bob via Justin!
Our old friend Psystar is back in the news saying…
"Apple contends that because Psystar is ‘distributing computers with Apple’s copyrighted software loaded on them’ that ‘Apple is within its rights in asserting copyright infringement’," said Psystar in the papers filed Jan. 7. "Apple’s assertion that Psystar cannot distribute computers with Apple software (and that a purchaser could not use the same) would run roughshod over 17 U.S.C.," Psystar added, referring to the section of U.S. law that pertains to copyright.
Is all of this really necessary? Can’t Psystar just make PCs that are easily Hackintoshed with some simple instructions on how to do so with a link to a Leopard Install disk on Amazon? Is it that hard to make a Hackintosh? Is it worth all of the trouble?
They continue…
To make its point, Psystar claimed that it has purchased some copies of Mac OS X — which it preinstalls on the Intel-powered machines it sells under the "Open Computer" and "OpenPro" labels — straight from Apple.
"Psystar distributes computers with legitimately purchased copies of Mac OS loaded thereon," the company said. "Many of those copies [were] directly obtained from Apple. While Psystar complies with Section 117(b) of the Copyright Act, Apple attempts to usurp those limitations by telling Psystar and its customers that Apple — and Apple alone — will say ‘whether, how or by whom its software is … distributed or used’."
Meh.
Since Windows 7 was released, the hype has been pretty good (compared to Vista what wouldn’t?). Well, for those of you wondering if it works on VMWare on Mac, it does. And pretty well (again vs. Vista). More below…
Some notes: VMWare will want to do a Vista "automatic install" Don’t do this. You’ll need to do manual. Also, VMWare tools install without issue.
Total install time on base model 4GB RAM Unibody MacBook while running other programs : <30 minutes.
Won’t do an upgrade from XP or Vista without SP1
Idles at 15-30% of 1 CPU
It runs way faster than Vista – on the level of XP. Seems to be, dare we say…snappier™
The Denver Post (Via OPP) is outing Skype’s plans to port their mobile VOIP application to the iPhone. They cite the need to lower power as the number one barrier to entry. Whether this is Apple’s barrier or theirs wasn’t clear. Also not clear was whether or not the Skype would work over AT&T’s 3G network or only over Wifi. Optimism is low because Steve Jobs said at the launch of the App store that Apple (he) was not opposed to VOIP applications so long as they run over Wifi.
Although it wasn’t mentioned in the article, the application would likely work on Apple’s 2G iPod Touch which has voice in capabilities (with headset or 3rd party mic). Native Skype (brand) access could be the killer app for new iPod Touches (oh wait, they are already selling pretty well?).
The thing is, Skype is already on the iPhone. Truphone and Fring are already touting their Skype calling credentials and have been for awhile. Having a native, Skype branded phone capabilities would still be a big win for Apple.
Skype launched a new 2.8 Beta version of its software for Macintosh at Macworld that allows for screen sharing, Boingo access and other improvements.