Apple computer sales in the U.S. rose 38 percent during the second quarter, more than triple that of top PC maker Hewlett-Packard, researchers said Tuesday.
Gartner said U.S. Apple PC shipments rose 38.1 percent during the second quarter, compared to the same period in 2007. The Cupertino, Calif. company shipped nearly 1.4 million PCs in the U.S., up from 1 million units during the second quarter of 2007, Gartner said.
Read more about Apple’s jump in marketshare after this jump.
Apple released the OS X 10.5.5 update in the US on Monday afternoon to immediate acclaim as an all-out assault on bugs. Despite initial skepticism, even TUAW, which was first to the tape, acknowledged the release notes are “quite detailed.”
Gizmodo provided a laundry list of items addresed in the update, with MacWorld shortly touting 30 bugs fixed in the new software. Not six hours later, ComputerWorld upped the ante to 70 bugs fixed.
Security experts are finally satisfied the “Dan Kaminski exploit,” referring to the researcher who disclosed a critical flaw in DNS that made it much easier than originally thought to “poison” the cache of DNS servers, or insert bogus information into the Internet’s routing infrastructure, has been fixed.
Apple also updated Mac OS X’s implementation of BIND (Berkeley Internet Name Domain), the open-source DNS software maintained by the Internet Software Consortium (ISC), to keep it current with an early-August version that ISC released to solve performance issues that had shipped in the original fix for Kaminsky’s vulnerability.
The update also fixes a number of non-security flaws, according to the release notes. iCal and Mail both received more than half a dozen fixes, Time Machine got slapped around a bit, and MobileMe even came in for some love.
See the complete list of adjustments after the jump.
Electronics retail giant Best Buy Monday announced it would acquire Napster for $121 million. The Minneapolis-based company told Cult of Mac the move wouldn’t harm its growing relationship with iTunes owner Apple.
“Our relationship with Apple is strong and will continue to be so,” said Susan Busch, Best Buy Corporate PR Director.
The acquisition of the digital music service would become “a platform for accelerating our growth in the emerging industry of digital entertainment, beyond music subscriptions,” Best Buy Executive Vice President Dave Morrish, said in a statement.
As part of the acquisition, Best Buy gains Napster’s 700,000 subscribers, its online platform and mobile technology. Napster CEO Chris Gorog and senior management would stay on. The retailer will keep Napster’s headquarters in Los Angeles, where it employs 140 workers.
Best Buy could use Napster to attract consumers still unsure of digital music.
“They might be able to find a business in bringing in late-adopters or stragglers into the online music market by virtue of their breadth of products and service,” Mike McGuire’s Gartner’s media analyst, told Cult of Mac.
McGuire said that while iTunes and Napster may have been rivals when they first arrived on the digital music scene, Napster has never been a threat to Apple. This may be why Best Buy emphasized it will still sell the Apple iPhone.
In May, Napster took a swipe at iTunes, announcing it would sell 6 million DRM-free songs, calling it “the largest major label MP3 catalog in the industry, but also the largest library of independent music available anywhere.” McGuire, however, saw the MP3 effort as “something a bit more than an afterthought, but not much more.”
Photo courtesy: Tronick
Another survey seems to confirm Apple products are immune from the general economic malaise hurting consumer spending. Consumers planned to buy more Mac laptops and desktops for the back-to-school period as well as over the next 90 days, according to a a survey by ChangeWave released Monday. This compares to the No. 1 PC maker, which consumers said they would buy fewer.
Also, the August survey found the release of Apple’s iPhone 3G is having a “halo” affect on other products. ChangeWave found 17 percent of consumers said the new iPhone made them more apt to buy a Mac.
Eight percent of the 4,416 mostly-U.S. consumers said during the critical back-to-school season they would buy an Apple product online compared to four percent who said they would buy less from Apple’s Web site, for a four percent overall gain for the Cupertino, Calif. company.
Consumers said, in general, they planned to spend less on electronics over the next three months. ChangeWave found 34 percent of consumers said they would spend less on electronics, compared to 15 percent that indicated they would spend more on electronics. The findings are 13 percent lower than a year ago.
Confidence in Apple products differs from overall PC buying plans. Desire to buy an Apple laptop rose two points (34 percent) with plans for an Apple desktop rising by three points to 30 percent. This contrasts with a decline in plans to buy a PC.
When it came to the top two PC sellers – HP and Dell – the retail reticence was pronounced. Plans to buy a Dell laptop within the next 90 days fell 4 points while future desktops rose by 3 points. U.S. consumers said they would buy fewer HP laptops and desktops, compared to July.
It should be noted that much of HP sales are coming from outside the United States. On Friday, Gartner analyst Alfonso Velso told Cult of Mac that Apple was particularly susceptible to any economic downturn that affected consumer spending. However, only recently had the research firm detected rumblings of any blowback from the economy. Gartner placed Apple as the sixth-largest PC maker. MetaFacts had earlier said Apple ranked fourth in laptop sales.
A film that looks at the evolution and culture surrounding the Macintosh has been selected to the shortlist of the 2008 Naperville Independent Film Festival which takes place next week.
This is the first time the film, a documentary called, ‘Welcome to Machintosh’, has been screened in the US since new interview footage with original Apple co-founder Ron Wayne was added to the movie. Click here to watch the trailer on YouTube.
That exclusive interview was added just before the movie’s European premiere at the Globians Documentary Film Festival in August. The documentary mixes history, criticism and Apple idolatory into an exploration of the early years of Apple as seen through the eyes of Apple employees, engineers, resellers and supporters.
While there has been much speculation about webkit powered Chrome and the possible implications for Apple’s Safari browser, we think the shot Google fired last week was across a different bow altogether.
Follow us after the jump where we discuss how Chrome has it’s sights set on Windows and why Apple couldn’t care less if there’s ever a Safari v4.0.
Apple was the sixth-largest desktop PC vendor worldwide in 2007, shipping just over 3 million computers, research firm Gartner said Friday. The numbers were unexpected, one analyst said.
“We were pretty surprised by the 2007 figures,” Alfonso Velso told Cult of Mac. The 2007 sales figures were 26 percent higher than 2005 when Gartner had estimated Apple shipped 2.5 million desktop computers.Velso said the sales jump is due to Apple products, as well as some missteps by rivals.
“They are riding a crest of good products and design,” the analyst said.
Velso said Gartner had also received anecdotal evidence problems with Dell customer service also sent college students to Apple.
However, Apple faces difficulty keeping up with other PC makers as companies increasingly turn to India, China and other emerging markets to balance lower sales elsewhere due to the economic slowdown. Gartner said just 1 percent of Apple sales come from emerging markets.
Both Dell and HP have experienced success selling low-cost computers to emerging markets as sales in North America, Europe and Japan either shrank or experienced slower growth. Apple doesn’t play in the $400 market, the Gartner analyst said.
The research firm also hinted that Apple could be especially hit by the global economic slowdown. Because its sales are weighted toward the consumer rather than business, sales for Apple could be volatile, according to the report.
Apple’s reliance on designing and manufacturing the hardware and software means the computer company spent $1.1 billion on designing and purchasing custom components. Other PC makers spent far less — $32 million on design and $92 million on purchasing –œ because they dole out work to Asian companies.
Earlier this week, research firm MetaFacts announced Apple was the fourth-largest seller of consumer notebook computers, with 8 percent of the U.S. market.
Flickr image courtesy: Capitan Giona
American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu adjusted estimates downward for Apple sales and profitability in 4Q 2008 and FY 2009 Friday, based on reduced visibility in the computer maker’s supply chain.
“Our supply chain checks indicate a mix shift towards low-end and mid-range Macs as it appears that more affluent consumers may be feeling the effects of a tighter credit environment,” Wu wrote in a report to clients.
As a result, he estimates Apple will earn $5.29 per share on sales of $32.8 billion in 2008, down from a previous estimate of $5.34 on $32.9 billion. Estimates for fiscal 2009 now show the company earning $6.15 per share on revenue of $38.8 billion, down from $6.35 on $39.2 billion.
Wu trimmed is price projection for shares of Apple common stock (AAPL) to $205, down from $220. In late trading Friday AAPL shares were trading down $3.49 on the day at $149.16.
Apple has released iPhone 2.1 firmware as promised at Tuesday’s Keynote event in San Francisco. This highly anticipated software update is supposed to fix a host of bugs and provide performance enhancements that should dramatically improve the iPhone user experience, according to Apple.
Among noticeable upgrades, users should see improved cellular network connectivity, significantly improved battery life, dramatically shorter iTunes backups, improved fetching of e-mail and faster installation of third-party applications. The update also adds a repeat alert up to two additional times for incoming text messages, adds an option to wipe data after ten consecutive failed passcode attempts, and adds Genius playlist creation in iTunes.
Does your iPhone seem bigger, better, faster, more with 2.1 firmware? Let us know in comments below.
UPDATE: One year on, and my view of the platform for gaming has changed somewhat—read Why Apple is Right to Pitch iPod touch as a Games Console to Beat the DSi and PSP Go.
The iPod touch segment of Let’s Rock was particularly notable for Apple’s attempts to position the device as a major gaming platform. “It’s the best portable device for playing games,” claimed Jobs. Apple’s website now calls iPod touch the ‘funnest iPod ever’, and talks about its ‘hundreds of games’. This emphasis on gaming, along with the demonstrations we’ve seen from various developers, appears to be positioning iPod touch alongside Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS, rather than talking about mobile gaming as though iPod touch has any relationship whatsoever to a certain smartphone and cell-phone gaming in general.
There are arguments in favor of this belief. Games have proved phenomenally popular on the App Store. They’re also cheap, relatively plentiful, and simple to get on to your iPhone or iPod touch. Also, crucially, Apple’s solution betters Sony’s and Nintendo’s by allowing updates to games—something owners of the abhorrent DS port of The Settlers no doubt wish were true of their platform.
The problem is, iPod touch is only ever going to be a niche concern in the gaming space. Find out why after the break…
Photography, magic and music-making. Like the iPod before it, iPhone is becoming a cultural icon with creative innovators exploring unusual diversions for the device.
Magic master
Multimedia magician Marco Tempest (he’s on TV with his ‘Virtual Magician’ series in 52 countries) was an early mover. He created a video which appeared to be software running on an iPhone and queued for ten hours to buy one the day it launched in the US. Within ten minutes he’d installed the clip, which he used to entertain the crowd with a series of illusions.
Among other visual tricks, this made it appear the device was being used as an X-ray machine and an electric razor. Watch the amazing video:
More about Marco, after the jump.
The cult of Mac is growing as Apple emerges as the key computer for US consumers, amongst which it is now the fourth-ranked computer manufacturer, according to new research from MetaFacts.
Brand loyalty, the report claims, is at an all-time high with Apple’s chain of retail stores pulling customers through the doors – and selling Macs, MacBooks, MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros in particular, the researchers claim in their latest Apple Profile Report 2008.
It gets better, “Like the camel slipping its nose under the tent, Apple is reaching into American households as the second or third Home PC,” said Dan Ness, Principal Analyst at MetaFacts. “Where Apple shines is
as the third PC, ranking fifth with 8 per cent of third Home PCs, and ranking fourth in notebook PCs, also at 8 per cent of the installed base.”
And whether that Mac is a first, second or third home computer, what households do with their machine is very different. They’re used to make websites, create graphics and “personal activities”, the report explains – probably while the Windows box gets used for checking email, playing games, and cranking up peoples scores in MMORPG games online. Or something.
Mac users are public, too, this report explains. Seems 21 per cent of Macs are used in public – double the public usage of your WIndows machine – and potentially marking Apple’s ascendancy as a laptop maker.
“If you look around at a Starbucks or cybercafé, you might think the whole world’s gone to Apple,” said Ness, “Mac users are very active and use their notebooks in more locations than Windows notebook users.”
Wait, there’s more – brand loyalty, “More than four in five (81%) of households with Apple as their primary Home PC plan to buy the same brand – Apple – for their next Home PC,” said Ness.
All this action in the consumer market, is it any surprise that the long tail effect Apple executives hoped for four or five years ago when they began visualising it has now begun taking place?
The company gets put down a lot for not focusing sufficient attention on the enterprise markets. Perhaps it didn’t – once – but for the last few years of Apple market expansion, the company’s executives have known that consumer demand would eventually become an enterprise market driver.
Think about it – do you recall when you moved jobs and were once excited about the technology you got to use because it would be better than what you could afford at home? Nowadays when you start a new job its not uncommon to live in abject fear (OK, slight trepidation) of the dated system you’ll end up working with…it’s not at all uncommon for workplace technology to be less advanced than the tech company workers have at home.
And as Apple’s consumer market share grows, so too does the demand made on enterprises to offer workers the equipment they are already familiar with.
And that’s the long tail Apple execs set in motion with the iMac in 1998.
Among the little-noticed aspects of Steve Job’s “big event” in San Francisco yesterday, Apple’s “greening” of the iPod line may have the most far-reaching effect on its business and on the technology industry in general. Electronics companies have been long derided by environmentalists for using toxic chemicals and materials and Jobs made a public promise to phase out PVC and BFRs from all of its products by the end of 2008.
Today, Greenpeace, a leading environmental advocacy organization is congratulating Apple for leading the electronics industry toward a more earth-friendly future. “Greenpeace congratulates Apple for phasing out harmful chemicals in its new, much greener iPods,” said Greenpeace International campaigner Casey Harrell. “It shows – once again – that there is absolutely no reason why a high-performing electronics product needs to be toxic in order to be popular, effective and affordable – these are the cheapest iPods yet,” Harrell also explained.
The new line of iPods announced yesterday are all free of terribly toxic chemicals such as PVC, BFRs, mercury and use arsenic-free glass. Greenpeace acknowledged the upgrades indicate Apple is serious about meeting the commitments of its environmental policies, but also urged the company not to become complacent.
“We hope that this is only a teaser of what is to come with all future product announcements, from iPhones to Macs,” said Harrell, adding, “What we’d really like for Christmas is to see Apple remove toxic chemicals from all its products, and announce a free, global recycling scheme. Now, that would make a very tasty green Apple indeed!”
Via MacWorld
After yesterday’s announcements from Apple, there followed the usual flurry of reactions from various analysts and journalists. This was swiftly followed by a reaction to the reaction, with some parties suggesting that negative grumbling regarding Let’s Rock was somehow unfair on Apple, and that expectations had once again been driven by a hype machine and rumor mill on overdrive.
Some of the negative vibes yesterday no doubt arrived from the much-reported ‘fact’ that Apple actively urged journos to cover the event, claiming it would be a “big deal”. Clearly, there’s some truth in the possibility said ‘fact’ might be a big fat fib. However, does that make the cynical, dismissive and unenthusiastic response to Apple’s event null and void? Put simply, are we, as writers and commentators on Apple and its output, being too hard on Steve and co.?
‘No’ and ‘no’ are my answers to those questions, and for three reasons. First and foremost, Apple is an innovator. And while the company clearly isn’t going to reveal an iPhone at every event, that doesn’t mean we should ever expect run-of-the-mill. The day that happens, Apple is doomed and may as well sell to Dell.
Secondly, iPod has been the line that’s made Apple the powerhouse it is today. As Pete noted, indication that Apple’s fed-up with the media player business or unable to innovate means others are going to start playing catch-up. I can’t have been the only person to see the new nano and think ‘Zune’, and that’s a dangerous position for Apple to be in.
Thirdly, we have to remember that Apple is the one that, to some extent, drives the hype. There were the huge posters, in-your-face security, and ubiqutious secrecy. For relatively minor updates to its product line, Apple could have put out some press releases. Instead, it invited the world to watch and listen while Steve Jobs paraded his company’s products on stage to much fanfare. So, sure, the rumor mill might be a snowball gathering speed down a shockingly steep hill (before it hits us squarely in the face with a wet splat), but remember that Apple’s the one that starts the ball rolling.
In the week since Apple announced its “Let’s Rock” event, the organization’s spokespeople have assured all observers that this would be a really critical launch, with bigger news than just a refresh of the iPod product family.
Well, apparently Apple and I have very different definitions of “big news.” Because all the organization delivered was more of the same:
The business sense side of me is saying that Apple has another winner. The designer side of my brain really likes the subtle changes that Apple’s design team has brought to the the product line (except for the ugly iPod classic — hate the use of aluminum there). But the Apple fanatic in me can’t help but me incredibly disappointed by this morning’s activity.
Just how perfunctory was this round of updates? Consider this: The event has been done for 30 minutes, all the new models are available for purchase on the Apple Store, and Apple still hasn’t updated its own website to announce the product launches (EDIT: It went up as I finished typing. STILL). Apple has never gone this long without getting its main site up-to-date.
Now, none of us should be surprised by any of this; after the launch of iPhone 3G, AppStore, and the fiasco called MobileMe, it’s little surprise that Apple hasn’t been able to devote many resources to doing more than making slightly curvier cases for the iPod line. But Apple has trained us to expect the best, particularly when they say it’s really time to pay attention. Today, it completely missed the mark. I can’t recall an Apple launch event this underwhelming since the launch of the iPod HiFi and iPod socks. It’s this year’s model, and nothing more. It’s the entire iPod product line as afterthought to the iPhone.
And that’s not good. The iPod family is Apple’s highest-revenue business, and any indication that the company is bored with the media player business or unable to innovate beyond bringing iPhone features to iPods is going to mean a rough time in the market. It’s certainly not impossible to do so, Apple’s just in an unfortunate liminal space between the launch of a new business and the adaptation of another. The new nanos, in particular, felt oddly anacronistic. Why go to all that trouble to design such a wildly different case for this revision and then still use the same old clickwheel? Why, in the name of all that is holy, would you copy the horizontal interface on the right, screen on the left interaction found on the flash-based Zune? Why launch nine, count them, nine new colors in a single day when this is a clear incremental upgrade while the company works on a touchscreen nano for the near future?
Honestly, the biggest news today is that the iPod touch has dropped in price by $70 and has external volume controls. It’s the future of the product line, and Apple needs to drive its adoption rapidly while the pre-2007 iPod outlook gradually ramps down.
In the mean time, I sincerely hope that we’ll see new Mac announcements on a not-too-distant Tuesday. The entire product line is just begging for processor upgrades, and they’ve been suffering while Apple has put so much attention on the iPhone this year. Not to mention which, it’s high time that Apple brought out a true Home Theater Mac for the living room — AppleTV and Mac mini aren’t cutting it.
One thing stuck out about the build-up to Let’s Rock. It wasn’t the hype, nor people expecting the absurd (such as an all-powerful unlocked 128 GB iPhone for about $5), but Apple actively encouraging the media to attend. The event, we were told, would be a ‘big deal’. As it turns out, even fairly modest expectations were barely met, and I think it’s pretty safe to say most people left distinctly underwhelmed.
iTunes was first up, with Jobs routinely talking shop (lots of songs, lost of podcasts, and lots of NBC, who came crawling back to a distinct lack of rapturous applause). The app itself is now at version 8, but with seemingly few major changes: there’s a grid view, a Genius playlist that makes me think Apple’s been getting all jealous of last.fm, and iPhoto-style scrubbing over artists, but that’s about it.
The iPod classic’s clearly loved about as much as the Mac mini. This icon of Apple’s resurgence over recent years was pretty much dismissed, and the line knifed to a single model, 120 GB. 30,000 tracks fit on it, apparently, but that’s 10,000 fewer than on the 160 GB version that’s now like the dodo.
Things were better in the realm of the nano, even if the rumor mill had revealed most of the details. The new model resembles the second-gen model, but has a raft of new features, including voice recording, an accelerometer, and the amusing ‘shake to shuffle’ feature. The rainbow colors are arresting and presumably caught rivals out, who’ve largely been following Apple into muted-color-land.
As for the iPod touch, it got the predicted price-drop, weight-loss, volume control and speaker, along with a tag-line to make English teachers wince (“The funnest iPod ever”). New games were also on show, with Real Soccer 2009 rather depressingly dumping a D-pad and buttons on the screen, cunningly making it so players obscure the screen while playing. Woo. (How I wish the Belkin rumor hadn’t turned out to be a hoax…)
So, yeah, I’m rather wishing I’d spent the past hour doing something a little more productive and exciting, like fashioning a lint ball from my office’s windowsill that really needs dusting.
I know, I know—I’m usually the first to complain about people getting all pissed with Apple events letting them down. However, this time Apple was the one telling us we were going to see something big, when all we got were skinny things we already knew about anyway.
Via our Twitter stream, we ran ongoing commentary on Apple’s Let’s Rock shenanigans. Below is a (somewhat) edited tweet-style stream-of-consciousness from the event.
Steve Jobs took the stage this morning for Apple’s “Let’s Rock” event, bounding into the lights like a rock star himself. My grandmother would say he looked svelte, but most importantly, he seemed energetic and strong.
We’ll be back later in the day with a full reaction and analysis of Apple’s news, but the big news is Steve looks ready to keep on truckin’.
All eyes and ears of the Apple universe are tuned to San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, where, in a few hours, Steve Jobs’ “Let’s Rock” event gets underway. Will it be just a music announcement focused on a refresh of the iPod product line and a new version of iTunes with bigger, better bells and whistles? Will Steve Jobs himself – and his state of health – become the story?
Lonnie spoke yesterday about these questions and more with Talking HeadsTV’s Justin Young:
Is Apple’s ONLY Debuting iPods And iTunes At “Let’s Rock?”
Will Steve Jobs’ Appearance Trump Any News At iPod Event?
Speculation surrounding this morning’s ‘Let’s Rock’ Apple special event remains intense, with Digg’s Kevin Rose at the center of the vortex of leaked data, or so it seems.
Overnight we’ve picked up a few more details on what to expect, thanks to MacRumors, who tell us that not only will the iPod nano see a shape-shift, returning to the long and thin look of the first two generations, capacity will rise to 16GB.
Apple’s also expected to introduce nine different colours for the nano, adding purple, yellow and orange to the existing pink, silver, black, blue, green and Product (RED).
Less is known of the iPod touch, which is expected to see a price cut to bring it into line with the cost of an iPhone—and seems unlikely to see a capacity increase, MacRumors also claimed – though far less is known of the iPod touch than of the iPod nano upgrade, other than some suspicions that new features could be enabled in future generation devices, cameras or a microphone, for example.
To recap Rose’s claims, Tunes 8 is expected to offer a Grid View, Genius Playlist recommendations, a new Visualizer (based on the Magentosphere visualiser) and support for HD TV show downloads from iTunes, a feature currently only available to the Apple TV.
iPhone and iPod touch users are also hoping for iPhone Firmare 2.1, which it is hoped will introduce true push support for MobileMe, more stability in 3G connectivity and an end to widely-reported cases in which iPhone user’s applications and iPod features become unavailable. iPods of all stripes are anticipated to see price reductions, as Apple grapples to deal with an increasingly saturated music player market.
Analysts, soothsayers and philosophers of all stripes seem to have achieved a consensus decision in recent days that new MacBooks are unlikely to make an appearance at this event. However, Apple’s publicity people have been urging media to attend the show, which implies that all Apple’s secrets aren’t yet out in the open…that the company has also organized a European media event in London boosts such expectation.
Perhaps that one more thing could turn out to be an all-new version of the Apple TV, now equipped with a digital TV receiver, DVD player and larger hard drive? At least one report speculates on such a possibility.
Crews working at the front of Yerba Center for the Arts.
SAN FRANCISCO — There’s a lot of busy bees preparing for Apple’s special “Let’s Rock” event on Tuesday.
Two days before Steve Jobs hosts a special press event, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is humming with Apple staffers, TV crews and scores of security guards. See the pictures below.
A crew of three or four hung a huge silhouette iPod poster over the Center’s facade, while half-a-dozen Apple staffers watched from the curb, fussing over the details.
The center is lousy with Apple security guards. There’s a guard posted at every one of the center’s half-dozen doors — back and sides. The guard pictured below stood inside a door at the back, which appeared to be securely locked. Apple seems to be taking no chances that nosy bloggers might break in for a sneak peek of what Jobs is going to announce.
Around back, several Apple staffers were busy setting up computers in an office at the rear of the center.
At the side, there’s already a large satellite TV truck parked on Third Street (again, carefully guarded). A San Francisco police officer has parked his patrol car at the back of the TV truck. Presumably, SFPD will be stationed there for the next two days.
Though Apple has held special events at the Yerba Buena center before, the preparations for Tuesday’s event seem more elaborate than just a new iPod nano would warrant. I may, however, be imagining things. I’ve got a bad cold, and I’m as high as a kite on DayQuil.
An Apple security guard at the back of Yerba Center for the Arts.
Apple PR pulled out the big guns this week and invited, nay “encouraged” tech and entertainment media luminaries to pack the Yerba Buena Center for Steve Jobs’ “Let’s Rock” in San Francisco on September 9th.
The now-familiar rumors and speculation, with “leaked” photos and drawings that precede these Apple “events” have been flying back and forth for weeks, and soon enough we’ll see how all the pieces fit together. Join us on Tuesday as we twitter the proceedings.
We invite you to follow along with us as the morning unfolds, using the keynote bingo card below to keep track of both likely and rumored items that could appear during the presentation.
Writer Scott Gilbertson has a very cool Mac netbook that cost him only $550.
It’s got a slick black case, weighs nothing, gets hours of battery life and runs Leopard, the latest version of Mac OS X. It’s not a MacBook Air.
It’s a hacked EeePC — a tiny liliputer , as they’re now called, fresh from Asus, a Tawainese manufacturer best known for PC motherboards.
Gilbertson’s netbook is the device Mac fans have wanted for years: A low-cost cousin to the beautiful but pricey MacBook Air.
It runs like a champ but has a couple of quirks (one big one) and may not be strictly legal, though Apple’s never going to prosecute unless these machines are sold commercially. Hit the jump for details.
What appears to be a genuine spy shot of the new iPod nano has surfaced on MacNN (heavily Photoshopped and disguised for some reason) before it got picked up and surfaced for the wider public in this AppleInsider thread.
As rumored, the new nano appears to be taller than the current model, with a rounded body and screen. Presumably, the screen is designed for the iPod to be tilted to watch widescreen movies in landscape mode.
The device is expected to be unveiled at a Steve Jobs “Let’s Rock” special event in San Francisco next Tuesday. But fear not — there’s likely to be other surprises. Apple PR is telling journalists the event is a “big deal,” which implies there’s more than a tarted-up 2G-looking iPod.
BoingBoing guest blogger Lisa Katayama has tracked down an amazing work by Japanese cartoonist Mitsuru Sugaya, recounting the story of the founding of Apple from the 1970s to about 1984. The full series of comics is on uagaya’s web page, and it must be seen, if only for the scene of young Woz speaking to an octopus alien via Ham Radio.
Sugaya via BoingBoing