9to5 Staff

We don’t have to tell you that in Safari you can enable Show Develop menu in menu bar (Prefs/advanced) then go to Develop/Useragent iPhone to get free wifi on your MacBook do we?

Update: The fine folks in the comments have pointed out that yes, you will need to have an AT&T iPhone account to do this.  Is there anyone left who doesn’t?

Update 2: OK, the easiest way to do this is to download a MAC address spoofer and once you legitimize your iPhone, change your MacBook Airport MAC address to be the same as your iPhones.  This is much quicker and easier than typing the URL sent by AT&T.

Via Engadget

 ChangeWave has issued a warning that Mac sales may feel the credit crunch in the coming quarters – but once again expressed the research firm’s confidence Apple will come out of the dip with a smile on its face.

ChangeWave’s Paul Carton writes, "Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer estimated Apple’s sales would come in between $9-10 billion for the December quarter – well under the $10.7 billion that had been anticipated. He also said earnings per share would fall between $1.06 and $1.35 – also far less than the Street’s $1.67 consensus estimate.

In our September PC spending survey of 4,262 consumers, we found Apple’s real problem wasn’t Mac sales over the previous 90 days – sales looked good. The problem was the outlook for Macs going forward."

Carton warns that consumer electronics sales may bear the brunt of tightened belts and economic malaise across Christmas this year, and Apple’s conservative guidance may – for once – be completely accurate. Peter Oppenheimer characterized Apple’s reduced outlook as being "prudent" for these difficult economic times.

“We may get buffeted by the waves a bit, but we’ll be fine,” said Steve Jobs. “Apple just reported one of the best quarters in its history, with a spectacular performance by the iPhone—we sold more phones than RIM…We don’t yet know how this economic downturn will affect Apple. But we’re armed with the strongest product line in our history, the most talented employees and the best customers in our industry – and $25 billion of cash safely in the bank with zero debt.”

ChangeWave warns that Mac sales are Apple’s Achilles Heel: "Mac visibility is the number one issue for the company and that’s where our survey results show Apple is most vulnerable – caught in the fierce headwinds of the accelerating economic downturn – Apple investors can expect a continued bumpy ride for the stock until consumers start spending again," Carton warns.

Despite such concerns, the researcher refuses to lose sight of the long-term positive for the computer company. "Once the economy does start coming back, our ChangeWave surveys are clear about the long term outcome. Apple will continue to expand its already dominating lead over the rest of the consumer electronics industry," the researchers warn.

With the MacBook range upgrade under our belts the Mac web is beginning to consider Apple’s next move, and it looks like iMac customers may choose to defer their next purchase for a few weeks – as some claim an upgrade to the system’s due to debut in November.

Veteran Mac industry watcher Dennis Sellers at Macsimum News speculates: "I’m pretty sure that we’ll see an iMac and Mac mini update on Tuesday, Nov. 11."

He also suggests Apple will introduce a powerfully-upgraded Mac Pro and a revamped range of Cinema Displays in January. The latter systems will offer LED screens, built-in speakers and iSight cameras, he surmises – not unreasonably given Apple’s recently introduced display for its laptops.

Naturally, his suggestions generated immediate conversation, with one reader suggesting Seller’s has the dates right, but the products wrong – new Mac Pro for November? We have seen Apple upgrade its pro machines in November before, admittedly – and Xserve seems to need a little love at this point…

The Mac Pro is long overdue for an update. It’s been 294 days since the last one. The iMac on the other hand, is well under the average time for an update. We’ll see how this plays…

Here’s Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak’s ad for clothes and clobber from ScotteVest…(thanks to..).

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/+lfS7hWLvgg]

Upstart, questionably legal, Psystar is now shipping Mac clones with built-in Blu-ray and NVIDIA 9800GT graphics cards.  For those of us with some gray hairs, this might bring back the memory of Power Computing, the Texas-based original Mac clone maker that vexed Apple over and over again back in the 1990’s by releasing computers that out-specced Apple’s own. 

Power Computing was also able to utilize technologies like VGA connectors and off the shelf power supplies and cases to sell lower prices than Apple’s own computers.  At the same time, they were also able to get the fastest PowerPC chips into the machines months ahead of Apple’s.   Therefore, their machines constantly out-performed Apple’s and cost less.

The company never realized their full potential.  Unfortunately, they were really a victim of their own success.  The conventional wisdom at the time was that half of Power’s customers were new to the Mac platform.   The downside of that is that the other half were cannibalizing Apple’s sales.  This obviously wasn’t sitting too well with Apple.  Was Apple’s hardware team to blame?  Was there too much bureaucracy at Apple to beat the streamlined Power Computing cloners?  Was Apple R&D not properly being accounted for in the licensing scheme?

Then Apple aquired NeXT to build the new MacOS…and we all know what happened..erm…next….

Apple and new interim CEO Steve Jobs ended the cloning in September 1997 when they bought Power Computing for $100 million in Apple stock.

So does this leave Apple in a similar situation now?  Will they have to buy out Psystar? Not really…

Although there are some similarities between then and now, there are also significant differences.  First of all, you can get a BluRay drive for your Mac Pro as well as adding a 9800GT video card…which is about as easy as buying a clone and setting up the Mac OS on it.  Psystar isn’t going to hit the high end customer like Power Computing did.

Also, since the Mac platform is now run on Intel based chips, just about any PC can run the MacOS.  You don’t really need a special Psystar box if you have some technology skills.  You can shop around or build your own Hackintosh that will blow away any Mac Pro for less than Apple, and even Psystar, charges.  But it takes time, skill and effort.

The market that Psystar could serve isn’t that big.  The low end, low tech skills crowd that Apple has little interest in servicing may find some usefulness in Psystar’s offerings.  At the same time, these customers will of course have to hope that Apple doesn’t release updates that kill Psystar’s EFI workaround or that their hard drive doesn’t need reformating or replacing.  With Apple threatening lawsuits and threatening to change EFI so that Psystar’s machines no longer work, most of the low tech crowd will probably stay away.

Apple could kill the clone makers by sending their expensive army of lawyers after them (like they have) or they could kill them by offering a midrange Mac at a price point that makes sense based on the platform.  Don’t expect a change of gameplan anytime soon.

Power Computing‘s farewell ad.

Halloween is only 3 days away…

Via Powerpage

Sonos this morning introduced its own music control software for the iPhone, an application which does indeed emulate some of the core features of the device – prompting talk of a sea change at Apple over music apps.

Apple has been known to reject applications which duplicate some of its own core iPhone features – Mail, Safari and iTunes all exist on the device with no competing applications generally allowed to take up residence there.

This morning’s news from Sonos suggests a change in the game. For a start, Sonos has moved to embrace Apple’s device as a powerful, WiFi-enabled remote control, suggesting that company itself seeks a more holistic place for its solutions within ecosystems created by other manufacturers.

The move to produce an iPhone app could mark a sea change among manufacturers focused on creating an infrastructure for the digital home. Until now, solutions such as Sonos and the Apple devices that fill this gap have generally failed to integrate together. With Sonos and Apple now finding a way to work together, the hint is that the future of such systems will depend on a universal remote control – the iPhone, iPod touch, or some other system, should a viable one emerge.

What stands in the way of such an event is Apple’s reluctance to open up its systems to other music-based solutions developers – until now, such offerings have generally been rejected as Apple won’t allow the apps generated to take a place on the App Store.

Mark Mulligan at Jupiter Research notes the introduction of the Sonos application could mark a sea change in Cupertino, “The Sonos app has numerous overlaps and indeed it creates a new, self-contained iTunes-like environment within the device when active. So that’s a big step forward, enabling Apple to stride into the digital home on the back of other companies technology and investment.”

Is Apple preparing to open up to others for music? And just how far will it go to ensure its technologies, including iTunes, hold a central place in the future evolution of the digital home?

Sonos has introduced iPhone software which controls its products and also adds support for Pandora and Last.fm.

Sonos Controller for iPhone is available for free download from the App Store and allows users to control the Sonos Multi-Room Music System. 

Simply pick a room, pick a song and hit play. Play the same song in every room in perfect synchronization, or play different songs in every room. Browse by pointing and flicking.

The Sonos Controller for iPhone also promises direct access to music services including Last.fm, Napster, Pandora, Rhapsody, SIRIUS Internet Radio, 15,000 plus radio stations, shows and more. The software also offers users control over their entire music collection located on any computer on their home network, a Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive and even a Time Capsule.

"The Sonos Controller for iPhone is another example of Sonos offering features and applications that make the system better, at no cost to our current or future customers," said John MacFarlane, CEO, Sonos. "Today’s announcement enables all of our customers to use a great personal product from Apple to control the world’s best multi-room music system."

The Sonos Controller for iPhone requires an iPhone or iPod touch and at least one Sonos ZonePlayer to operate. 

In conjunction with the new Sonos Controller for iPhone, today Sonos also introduced Sonos Software 2.7. This includes new support for a suite of music content including free access to more than 15,000 radio stations and podcasts from around the world, Last.fm and Pandora.

And here’s a video showing how it works, OK?

http://feedroom.businessweek.com/linking/index.jsp?skin=oneclip&fr_story=6539d1aea12aaa20a99df5f93bb006a62f2b2d47&rf=ev&hl=true

Wow, never in the history of product naming has something been so blatantly disingenuous.  I guess "F the cloud" and "the cloud is BS" were taken.

Think Product names don’t matter?  How about IBM Eclipse and Sun’s Java?

We know a lot of you out there are big Red (as in the camera) fans.  You’ll be pleased to know that Ja(nard)Red is starting the hype around the new Red product which will be the best camera that has or ever will exist.

Scarlet and Epic updates…
We will announce the new Scarlet and Epic programs on Thursday Nov. 13th. I want to say that no one has any idea how incredible this announcement will be.

Call this hype… please. I am quite sure that the announcement will be called a "scam". Should be a lot of fun to hear the reactions. I can’t wait.

Jim

What do you think it will be? 

Showing their prowess when deconstructing and then reconstructing MacBooks in stop motion with hip background music, Tech Restore let’s you see how easy it is.  Now go try this at home.

via Gizmodo

Frankly, we don’t know why we didn’t see this coming.  The iPhone has a pretty solid mobile 3D chip, loads of caching space, GPS and an awesome touch interface.  All perfect for a mobile version of Google Earth. 

The app is pretty solid but a little clunky to start up.  It does include Panaramio pictures, Wikipedia entries that are geotagged and bunch of other nice stuff.  We do get a pretty consistant crash when we try to move after a GPS lookup – your mileage may vary.

Get Google Earth for iPhone/iPod Touch (iTunes link)

Google Announcement

A few reviews:

GEarth Blog

C|Net

We were looking at Dell’s new $599 Macro Mini 12 Netbook with a 1.6Ghz processor and 1Gb of RAM running Vista(ouch)…thinking how much better that would be running MacOSX (or XP or Linux or Amiga or anything).  It is just basically the Air class parts in a much bigger, slower MacBook sized package.  Vista runs slow on computers twice as fast.  But that’s not the point.  It is $600 and it could run OSX.  Some people would be well served by this.

Just like the iPhone hacking put the iPhone in a lot more hands, hopefully some of this hackintosh stuff starts going more mainstream so that fewer people have to endure Vista.  Realistically, a lot of people just can’t afford a $1000 laptop.  If this demographic was better served by Apple, there’s be a whole lot more happy consumers.

Oh, BTW, with $25 Billion in the bank, Apple has enough cash on hand to buy Dell which is worth $22 billion today. 

So maybe Apple’s idea of making a high end only computer is slightly better than ol’ Dell’s.

Read Dell’s page

It isn’t ready for those whopping 12 markets where T-mobile has 3G yet, but it is growing ever closer as the the Dev Team is now knee deep in Baseband noodling. We expected a full Baseband neutering in weeks, not months.  Time to call your buddies in Hong Kong.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2069634&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

How about you Vodaphone users in the UK?  You are a little excited, admit it.

OK, for the noobs out there…the iPhone is tied to a network because there is a lock on the baseband in the 3G iPhone.  In the original iPhone this was hacked which allowed the iPhone to be distributed throughout the world and contributed to its success.  Most people think about 1/3 of the original 6 million iPhones (now probably more) were distributed through this means.

Until now, the 3G iPhone’s baseband hasn’t been able to be hacked because of increased security measures by Apple.  Now it looks like those will be circumvented as well.

This may not be as big a deal as last time however because you have to buy the iPhone with a plan in most instances AND it is available in many more global markets which will eliminate a lot of the demand. 

It will still be nice to be able to plop another SIM into our iPhones when we go overseas (like before ;)

Three really good deals for Apple people out there from our Amazon partners…

The HP Laserjet M1319F Printer is a Laser Printer/Copier/Scanner/Fax for $99 with free super saver shipping.  It lists at $300 but is usually seen in the $200 range.  Laser printers have really come down in price over the past year.  Update: Stock ran out but you can still order for shipping when stock is replenished.  Choose the $99 option

Also, for you fatty (your words, not ours) Nano fans out there, get a new 8Gb nano for $120.  These don’t have that rounded screen that the current models have that can sometimes cause glare.  If you like the new models, Amazon also has those on sale for $135.

Finally…If you’ve been wanting to try out an Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com is now offering $50 off of the Kindle’s $359 price tag by simply entering the code OPRAHWINFREY at checkout.  Beware, dear reader, for Opera may just be helping Amazon to clear out inventory before the new Kindle arrives.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepartim-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B0016BCZWS&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=B0012S7GRY&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=B000FI73MA&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

From our friends down under…OK we laughed…but in reality, Windows Vista would love its biggest flaw to be momentarily spinning beach balls…

Is this more effective than the $300 million ad campaign?

Apple employees are following most of the Silicon Valley and giving money hand over fist to the Obama campaign compared to McCain’s.  The valley’s other behemoth, Google, is also lopsided toward Obama in employee giving.

Both Apple and Google (company, not employees) took up another traditionally liberal cause this week by supporting California’s No on Proposition 8 .  Apple  announced Friday that it would donate $100,000 to the No on Prop 8 campaign, which opposes a measure to ban gay marriage that California voters will consider a week from Tuesday.

Of note, former Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore, sits on Apple’s board.

Full list of donations by company below:

It looks like Google Maps is going to get a whole lot cooler in iPhone/iPod Touch 2.2.  Streetview will allow you to get that much up closer and personal with you surroundings.  Speed, of course, will be important to the amount of usefulness that this can provide.  Hopefully the network is up for it.

Oh, and still no cut and paste in 2.2B – and no word on Push notifications.

A big gallery o Google Streetmaps for iPhone

From the "who is who’s bi-…lapdog" category, comes a nice little apology from Intel for recent comments made by some of their own.  Remember last week, two Intel execs (Shane Wall and Pankaj Kedia) slammed the iPhone for not having an adequate browser due the the ARM platform being inferior to Intel.  Today, those executives’ boss, Anand Chandrasekher, issued the following apology:

Anand Chandrasekher issued a correction on comments made by members of his team yesterday at Intel’s Developer Forum in Taiwan. As general manager of the Group responsible for Intel’s ultra-mobility products, he acknowledged that Intel’s low-power Atom processor does not yet match the battery life characteristics of the ARM processor in a phone form factor; and, that while Intel does have plans on the books to get us to be competitive in the ultra low power domain – we are not there as yet. Secondly, Apple’s iPhone offering is an extremely innovative product that enables new and exciting market opportunities. The statements made in Taiwan were inappropriate, and Intel representatives should not have been commenting on specific customer designs.

Wow.  This leads us to believe that you sure could make a much better netbook with a ARM processor than an Intel one …we think.

…More from Tom Krazit

No real surprises here. Mossberg echos my thoughts on the touchpad and glossy screen.  Firewire RIP.  Otherwise a winner.

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/452319854

ARM is saying that an A8-Cortex based processor is likely to be used in upcoming NetBooks…soon.  iPhones, as we know, use an ARM-based Samsung S3C6400.  Next generation iPhones and iPod touches will likely be good candidates for the A8-Cortex architected processors as it is logically the next step up from the current designs.  The iPhone has used the current processor for over 15 months through both iterations.

Although many other handset makers use the ARM architecture and there are many possible companies building this type of device, Apple would certainly be a great candidate for expanding its ARM presence….especially since it acquired PA Semi, whose work with ARM processors are the reason they were acquired by Apple.  Apple is also rumored to be a recent ARM licensee.

Intel, ARM’s biggest competitor and also an ARM licensee, last week attacked the iPhone architecture and the "slow browser". 

Apple is rumored to be testing a device somewhere between an iPhone and a MacBook.  Oh, and Stevo dropped a few netbook-related hints at the last earnings call.

You see where we are going with this, right?  Right?