9to5 Staff

This is the kind of thing we hate to report but since we’ve got so much vested in Apple…(we know his health is his own business – this is more what we’d like to think) -but here goes from Gizmodo:

According to a solid source, Apple misrepresented the reasons behind MacWorld and Steve Jobs’ keynote cancellation. The real cause is his rapidly declining health. In fact, it may be even worse than we ever imagined:

Steves health is rapidly declining. Apple is choosing to remove the hype factor strategically vs letting the hype destroy apple when the inevitable news comes later this spring.

This strategic loss will be less of a bang with investors. This is why MacWorld is a no-go anymore. No more Steve means no more hype. Saying they are no longer needing [MacWorld] is the cover designed by the worldwide "loyalty" department.

This source has repeatedly been 100% correct before. Those times, however, were always related to news and images of unreleased Apple products. I can only hope that, in this more personal matter, it is absolutely wrong and this just means that Steve Jobs is retiring according to his plan.

While Steve Jobs’ health is nobody’s business—not the press, not investors, not the public—we believe that there’s a line between saying "no-comment" and plainly misleading—once again—the public.

According to our Deep Throat’s report, the fact seems to be that, whether or not Apple had other reasons to pull out of MacWorld, they weren’t the only ones, and they certainly weren’t the same ones used for not putting Steve Jobs through the ordeal of a two-hour presentation.

Ooooof.

OK, OK.. so we aren’t exactly telling you to go put a cheap SSD in your high end MacBook Air…but well, we are just leaving it out there.  Poorly-branded Low Cost PATA SSDs from RunCore are now shipping in the following varieties:

The unashamedly named 1.8-inch Low Cost Zif PATA SSDs can be sealed in a corrugated box and shipped off to your place of residence for $69.99, $119.99, $199.99 or $389.99 depending on size (16/32/64/128GB, respectively).

This "low cost" upgrade promises to boost computer performance vs. the traditional 1.8” HDD by more than 400% with read/write speeds up to 75/40MB/sec.

 

Yeah, the speeds are good-not-great and the quality takes second fiddle to cost.  But someone said something about there being a recession on and why not choose the place where you store your important data to cut costs?

via Engadget

HP this week updated its MediaSmart home server, which has many services Mac users would love to take advantage of.  Centralized iTunes music database for the home, picture sharing, even file sharing over the Internet.

Apple should (have done) do something like this too, right?

We heard in August that Apple had some plans to expand the Time Capsule platform to include a lot of this functionality and more.  We aren’t sure if this device will be shown at Macworld but here’s what we’ve heard:

• The device will tie in MobileMe with an Apple built-in Dynamic DNS system.  For instance, if your MobileMe account was "9to5mac", your domain name would be "9to5mac.me.com".  This is how you’d reach your filesystem throughout the Internet.  Your media would also reside here.
• Built in AFP filesharing for Time Machine backups and centralized file stores.  Technically, you could even do backups on the road.
• iTunes shared library database for not just music, but also video.  Access over the Internet to all of your media.
• Photo database and tie in with with MobileMe.
• Sharing media with iPod Touch and iPhones both over the Internet and while at home.  AppleTV as well.
• The box will be based on the Time Machine platform (ARM), not a more expensive Intel/Leopard Server configuration.
• Current Time Machine networking functionality built in.  Plugged into the Cable or DSL modem directly.
• Lots of power saving features like turning off hard drives when not in use.
• Multiple hard drive configurations would be made available with RAID 5 redundancy.

Speculation at the time was that Apple was deciding whether or not to just put all of these services in "the Cloud."  The issue is that there was just too much media to move and ISPs weren’t going to be too happy to be pushing around all of this data.  Not to mention the server farms Apple would have to build out to store and back up (additional to what they have now). 

We’d like to see a hybrid where files are stored locally, but certain, more important data was backed up to the cloud.

A quick 9to5mac.com/Toys (feed) report:  Amazon.com offers the Transcend 64GB JetFlash V20 USB 2.0 Flash Drive, model no. TS64GJFV20, for $78.39 with free shipping. ($1.22/GB). That’s the lowest total price we’ve seen by far for a 64GB USB flash drive.  They usually come in way over $150.  This one is usually $180.

You can use this as a slow but effective boot drive or even as a Time Machine backup.  You can also offload a lot of music, movies or photos that are filling up your hard drive.   This is actually the same size as the original MacBook Air’s high end SSD drive. 

Remember a few years ago when you could buy a 64MB USB drive for about the same cost?  Get it now before the price goes back up.  To find this in other stores, click here.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepartim-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B001F0W444&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

More details emerged today about Dell’s new Adamo laptops.  If you check the ol’ Google cache, you’ll see all kinds of fun stuff lurking in Dell’s website.  350 pages in all.  Here’s what we now know:

• The name "thirteen" strongly suggests a 13 inch screen perhaps with higher resolution than Apple’s
• Regular DisplayPort (not mini) is the video interface because they are selling  Displayport to HDMI and VGA adapters
• 2.5 inch hard drives, not 1.8 like the MacBook Air. Also external options
• It will have built in optical – BluRay or DVD

 

Honestly, as long as it doesn’t have Vista on it (and is hackintosh friendly), it has a shot at being successful, unlike Sony..

Engadget Via Electonista.

As expected, Walmart announced they will be selling iPhones with a big fat $2 discount.  No surprises there.  Best Buy actually has better prices on iPhones.

The big news comes to us from 9to5mac.com/toys where the fabled $99 iPhone comes to us in refurbished 8Gb form direct from AT&T with free shipping:

With activation of new voice and data plans, AT&T Wireless has several refurbished models of the iPhone 3G on sale, with prices starting at $99. With free shipping via 2-day delivery, each is $50 off our mention from earlier this week and the lowest total price we’ve seen. Sales tax is added where applicable. It features compatibility with AT&T’s 3G network, built-in GPS navigation with Google Maps, enhanced enterprise support, a 3.5" touch screen, at least 5 hours of talk time, and more. Note that a $36 activation fee applies. The deals:

• Apple iPhone 3G 8GB in Black for $99
• Apple iPhone 3G 16GB in Black for $199
• Apple iPhone 3G 16GB in White for $199

If you don’t have one already, you might want to hop on over and get one before the stocks dry up.

There is probably some witty thing to say about the fact that Chinese manufacturers are already cloning an as yet (and probably never) revealed product.  No wonder Apple is so secretive about its products.

via Gizmodo

Sony’s slowly pulling the curtains back on their new laptop. What we’ve gathered so far is pretty interesting. On the one hand it has a 1600×768 resolution on an 8 inch diagonal display.  Apple has a difficult time putting 1600 pixels on a 17 inch diagonal display.  We’ll wait until we see it, but have a feeling there will be some squinting involved.

Also, it will be running Vista on a 1.33Ghz (probably Atom) processor.  Have fun with that…

Likely, this thing will not be taking any MacBook Air marketshare.

Don’t let the news of Steve Jobs passing on Macworld let you down this holiday season.  Apple is doing really well.  A few news items combine to spell out a very successful holiday quarter.  First of all, portables are outnumbering desktops globally for the first time in history (iSuppli).  This is nothing new for Apple who has been seeing this for over a year in their Mac line.   Apple’s strength is in laptops.

The interesting thing in the overall PC industry is that low margin netbooks have taken most of the desktop marketshare which has resulted in the aforementioned marketshare gain in laptops.  Apple, as you are probably acutely aware doesn’t make netbooks and starts their laptop pricing at $1000.  Add to this the news that Apple sells 7 of the top 25 laptops on the Amazon best seller list.  Amazon, as the top global retailer in electronics, is a bellwether for the industry.   The top laptops (according to Apple 2.0):

• 7 Acer netbooks
• 7 Apple MacBooks (average $1500)
• 4 Asus netbooks
• 2 Samsung netbooks
• 2 MSI netbooks
• 1 OLPC (One laptop per child) XO laptop
• 1 Lenovo Ideapad laptop
• 1 Toshiba Satellite laptop (at $599)

Yep, except for a $600 Toshiba, every PC is a netbook and averages UNDER $400/ea with razor thin margins.  Conversely, the average MacBook is three times that price and a healthy margin for Apple.

Laptops are now the biggest part of the PC world (according to iSuppli), but desktops are still a force to be reckoned with.  Don’t worry.  Apple is also cleaning up in this department, selling 4 of the top 5 desktops on Amazon. 

And what about iPods?  iPod numbers were supposed to be flat this year?  Perhaps, but higher priced iPod touches are the top 2 items on Amazon and 3 of the top 6.  Only one 120Gb Zune stops Apple’s lineup from owning the whole top 10 list in this category.  iPod touches are great news for Apple in other ways because they sell videos, music and apps down the line from itunes.  They also increase Apple’s market share in web browsing.

Oh, and that other product line?  The iPhone?  Yeah, it isn’t doing too bad either.

Merry Christmas to those who asked Santa for more Apple tablet type products in 2009.  These aren’t our words…they are Apple’s:

The Mac OS X software team is looking for an exceptionally talented software engineering manager to lead Apple’s Core OS Network Authentication and Security team. This team is responsible for the development and support of key networking infrastructure for Mac OS X. Specific areas of responsibility include VPN, 802.1X, and related Internet protocols, network security protocols and applications, and network configuration management. The software developed by the networking team runs on a broad spectrum of platforms, including Macs and Windows, and from servers down to a growing number of embedded devices including iPhone.

 

It frankly doesn’t get any more clear than that. (originally from September)

The Archos 5 and 7 have TI OMAP ARM processors running at 600Mhz.  Notice how fast they browse websites (with Flash)?  Oh, and 10 hours of video playback? Imagine these devices with further optimization and some additional speed, iPhone Mobile OS X, App Store, 720P HD resolution and half as thick due to using flash instead of a hard drive and you might have something special. 

 Not enough?  How about a WWAN connection?  Just sayin’…

iFart has hit the top paid app spot and has recieved over 13,000 purchases on Dec. 22nd. according to MR.  That means $9200 went directly into developer Joel Comm’s pocket. 

Joel’s climb up the "ranks"

12/14 – 841 units – #76 overall
12/15 – 1510 units – #39 overall
12/16 – 1797 units – #22 overall
12/17 – 2836 units – #15 overall
12/18 – 3086 units – #10 overall
12/19 – 3117 units – #9 overall
12/20 – 5497 units, – #4 overall
12/21 – 9760 units  -#? overall
12/22 – 13274 units, #1 overall

Interesting.  These facts bring in a wealth of reactions.  Good for independent app developers.  Green with envy for a dumb app.  Also, the number two app Sim City costs ten times as much.  That means it has approached $100,000/day in income.  Oh, and Apple is taking in a few bucks as well.  The App store is certainly the technology breakthrough of the year.   Thoughts?

ifart  Mobile (iTunes Link)

 

This is just kinda weird…How can you have such low budget actors with big budget special effects?

The iPhone awhile back became the most popular camera phone on Flickr, beating out even rivals with 5 Megapixel cameras.   It is now far and away the leader. (sure you can combine all of the Nokia phones and have a much closer race – but stick with us here)

Today CNet shows that it is quickly becoming one of the most popular cameras overall.  Quite a big acomplishment for the 2 megapixel, flashless, zoomless device. Next month, the iPhone should only be behind the Canon Rebel XTi – which will only be heading south in favor of Canon’s new, upgraded XS, XSi lines.

There is something to be said for having a great interface and an app environment that let’s you easily integrate your content with other services.  It also doesn’t hurt to have only one product instead of 40 like Nokia or in the camera category, Canon.

We were pretty sure we’d see upgraded iMacs introduced at Macworld, but according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN) via Digitimes:

.. sources inside the component supply chain as saying that Apple plans to launch a new iMac all-in-one PC in the first quarter of next year, and the company’s sole manufacturing partner, Quanta Computer, is gearing up to supply monthly shipments of around 800,000 units during the first quarter of 2009.  According to the paper, the new iMac will start shipping in January next year. Quanta declined to comment on client relationships, the paper added.  In addition to Apple, Quanta is also manufacturing all-in-one PCs for Sony and NEC.

 

"New" is much more interesting than upgraded video and processor.  However, much can be lost in translation -including our interpretation- and Steve Jobs isn’t presenting, so we aren’t going to be "bringing a change of underpants" to the keynote.

 

XSKN appears to be Apple’s designated iPhone Nano PR agency at this point, releasing Photos of the, until now only rumored, device (we still don’t buy it btw – imagine trying to type on that sucker).  Perhaps Apple’s lawyers are too busy body-slamming Psystar.

More shots below…

Gizmodo got another shot:

Macrumors posted a mockup last night:

Apple today released some server side updates to the MobileMe platform as well as a 10.5.6 Mail.app fix.  The MobileMe Serverside updates include:

On the Mail.app update, some users may experience issues with Mail after updating to 10.5.6.  If so, run Software Update and you should see the fix.  Otherwise, you can download it directly from Apple.

Changewave continues the glut of iPhone data with this month’s installment from their user surveys.  Check the pretty tables below:

Don’t forget about the 27% of other category which is down from 29% in Sept. and June.

 

 

Uh oh, this doesn’t bode well for future quarter of iPhone sales

But alas, where it really counts – in customer satisfaction, the iPhone really destroys the Storm.  Which really isn’t news at all.

From Changewave:

Bottom Line

The smart phone market is now dominated by two companies – Apple and Research In Motion. According to our survey results, the Apple iPhone trails the RIM BlackBerry in terms of current market share – but the iPhone has experienced strong growth since its inception and explosive growth since the release of the 3G model in July 2008.

Going forward, RIM is showing a surge in momentum due to its slew of new product launches – and appears capable of giving Apple a strong challenge in 2009. But the real test in a cutthroat market is how satisfied consumers actually are with their new models.

In this survey, we found the BlackBerry Storm’s satisfaction rating to be middle-of-the-road – lagging behind the average rating for other RIM BlackBerry models. It’s not that the BlackBerry Storm is a bad phone. It’s just that the initial launch has glitches which have resulted in a mediocre satisfaction rating.

Competitive pressures may have caused the Storm to be launched before it was quite ready for primetime. But if RIM can rapidly fix its initial glitches and bugs, the survey shows that this new offering – along with RIM’s other recently released models – will provide accelerated momentum for RIM in 2009.

Third party functionality keeps adding more and more features to the iPhone.  HP has just introduced (Store Link) a new app that lets you print your pictures to an HP printer.

From HP:

HP iPrint Photo is a free downloadable software application that allows you to quickly and easily print 4" x 6" photos. Images stored on your iPhone or iPod touch can print on most HP networked ink jet printers connected to a local WiFi network. Wireless printing is a fun extension of the iPhone / iPod touch’s easy photo capture and viewing experience.

It will be interesting to see if Apple releases some universal printing standards or if Printer manufacturers will have to each produce their iPhone application.

 

http://www.hp.com/united-states/consumer/digital_photography/free/software/iprint.swf var so = new SWFObject(“iprint.swf”, “iprint”, “560”, “280”, “8”, “#ffffff”); so.addParam(“quality”, “high”); so.addParam(“wmode”, “transparent”); so.addVariable(“startMovie”, “6”); so.write(“flashcontent”);

Download instructions

The HP iPrint Photo application is available as a free download from Apple’s "App Store" which is easily accessible from your iPhone, iPod touch or iTunes on your computer. You can download HP iPrint Photo in just a few moments directly to your iPhone or iPod touch or to your computer, then manually sync to your handheld device.

In order to install HP iPrint Photo to your device via a computer, Apple iTunes application must be installed and in use, and your handheld device firmware must be version 2.0 or higher. To access the latest version of iTunes, visit the download site at:

www.apple.com/itunes/download

.

How to use HP iPrint Photo

Once you have loaded HP iPrint Photo to your handheld device-you are ready to go. It’s only a few simple clicks to print your photos from anywhere within the range of your wireless network.

1) Click on the HP iPrint icon

2) Choose the photo album where your picture is stored

3) Select the photo

4) Select the "Print" option in the lower portion of the screen

You should now be printing a 4" x 6" or 10 x 15 cm photo from your HP Inkjet printer*. Note: If this is the first time printing to a specific printer, select the desired printer from the list of available printers. You will not be required to complete this step again in order to print additional photos on the same printer.

Supported Network Environments:

HP iPrint Photo leverages Apple’s Bonjour technology to automatically identify HP wireless printers or other supported HP printers available on your network. HP iPrint supports industry standard WiFi environments (including Apple Airport, Linksys, D-Link, Netgear…).

HP iPrint Photo Support:

Get

support for HP iPrint Photo

.

*HP iPrint Photo defaults to print borderless 4" x 6" (American standard) and 10 x 15 cm (European standard) photos. If your printer has a separate photo tray, it will be automatically selected. Otherwise the default will be the printer’s main paper tray.

Printable version

Kids out there, go ask your parents before hitting the read link on this one.  iBoob is still getting denied by the apple store even though it doesn’t use real models and doesn’t show anyone nude.