Cult of Mac

In July, Apple noted that an upcoming ‘product transition’ would affect future profit margins, prompting speculation. For once, such speculation has started to fade, but now rumors regarding the new MacBook are beginning to surface: an aluminium case, LED backlit display, multi-touch. Does that sound like anything to you?

Is Apple going to ditch the ‘Pro’ from MacBook Pro and streamline its laptop range, leaving just a ‘standard’ MacBook (with different screen sizes and minor tinkering possibilities under the hood), and the Air for people who happily set fire to 50-dollar bills? (Clearly, they would once have lit their cigars with said bills, but you’re not allowed to smoke anywhere in the free world these days.)

Obviously, this is idle speculation, but such streamlining would make sense. Run SuperDrives across the new MacBook range, and position the low-end model at an aggressive price-point, but with roughly the grunt of today’s mid-range MacBook (albeit with some extra toys), and then beef up the mid- and top-ends with larger screens and a graphics card, but slice their price-tags, too.

According to resellers we’ve spoken to, laptops are the Apple hardware that continues to outperform the market and expectations, and so if Apple really does want to make a play for market-share, this could be the way to do it.

Update: As Gruber just pointed out, Apple was likely referring to the new iPods introduced last week and the guidance was for the quarter about to end. But what the hell—I still have an inkling that the laptop line-up is going to change rather dramatically over the coming months. So there.

The percentage of iPhone 3G speed tests with extremely slow outcomes has been cut in half since Friday’s release of 2.1 software, according to Test My iPhone administrator Donovan Lewis.

Prior to Friday’s software update, 3G download speeds registering in the very-pokey 100 – 300kbps range accounted for 10 – 11% of all 3G speed tests done using the iPhone performance utility. Since then, results in the 100 -300kbps range account for just 5.37% of all 3G download tests. The site has registered over 250,000 3G tests since its inception. It also provides EDGE and Wifi testing and includes upload and download assessment, as well as testing for non-iPhone connectivity.

“We’re seeing an overall more consistent kbps score and the number of 3G tests where the user scored a real low 100kbps – 300kbps is down,” Lewis told Cult of Mac, adding, “I think that’s a real big improvement overall.”

Others have reported generally satisfactory reactions to the improvement with app handling and system crashes since loading their phones with the new software. How is 2.1 affecting your iPhone experience? Let us know in comments.

There’s a bunch of iPhone/iTouch apps that offer some sort of sketching functionality. It was only a matter of time before people started sharing some of their sketches online, and my favorite gallery so far is the Flickr iPhone Sketches pool, which contains some real gems (like Luis Mendo’s untitled sketch, above, and Waiting by Pepita P.) There’s loads more:

iPhone art pool

If, like me, you like the idea of drawing during dull moments but are rarely organized enough to carry around a sketchpad and a pencil, iPhone artwork is probably the next best option.

Got some iPhone artworks you’d like to share? By all means post links in the comments. A URL on a line of its own gets auto-linked. Let’s see whatcha got.

Picture used with permission from Luis Mendo

Apple has filed a patent application detailing a method of “pairing a sensor and an authorised garment”, such as “running shoes, shirts or slacks” in hopes of deterring what the company has determined is a disturbing trend toward people “[taking] it upon themselves to remove the sensor from the special pocket of the [iPod-linked] Nike+ shoe and place it at inappropriate locations (shoelaces, for example) or place it on non-Nike+ model shoes.”

Apple sells the Nike+ iPod Sport Kit as a tool for storing data about your workout on your iPod, allowing you to track and analyze your progress toward fitness perfection. As one commenter on Slashdot said about the $30 sensor, “you can also share your workout stats with others, help build community, etc – sort of the antithesis of the “isolated runner with headphones on” kind of thing. Very Web 2.0.”

Under the patent Apple has applied for, companies like Nike could authorise their garments by burying an RFID chip inside it, requiring that chip to activate the sensor. No longer would you be able to use the sensor you paid for with any shoe of your choosing.

Via Slashdot

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.   

Wanna build an iPhone robot? Of course you do. And the people at BattleBricks have got everything you need.

You need two iPhones for this trick, thanks to the robot’s ingenious control system. The robot is controlled via a simple Google Web Toolkit app. The iPhone in your hand is used to issue commands; the iPhone attached to the robot displays coloured squares in different shades of grey, and an on-board light sensor watches what it’s showing; one shade says “turn right”, another “turn left” and so on.

Full instructions can be downloaded from the BattleBricks page. There’s exciting video to watch too.

And if you should happen to build your own robot, do let Cult of Mac know, so we can share your creation with the rest of the Cultists.

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.

• Devon Kelly and friends literally make a song and dance about Mac OS X’s spinning rainbow of doom: https://bit.ly/1LZ8oZ #
• Apple rejects Podcaster from the App Store for, er, no discernible sensible reason – https://bit.ly/3a66nC (Hat tip: Daring Fireball.) #

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.

For a while Spore seemed to have gone the route of Duke Nukem’ A game often hyped, frequently shown, and never delivered, but Sunday September 7th I finally got my copy of the God of God Simulators. Follow me after the jump to see if it was worth the 3-year wait.

One common problem I’ve noticed is that recent switchers from Windows to OS X don’t expect to encounter problems. At all. In many cases, they’ve heard so much good stuff about OS X that they expect it to be good stuff all the way through.

I make a point, these days, of saying to potential switchers: “Macs can break, you know. They do break. They can drive you crazy.” And the potential switchers look at me like I’m mad and say: “So why switch then?” And I reply: “Because it will happen far less frequently than it does with Windows, and most of the time recovery will be quicker and easier.” Note that: most of the time.

Anyway, Asraf Sani has a disappointed tone in his voice when he writes about the artistically interesting graphics failure that hit his iMac running Leopard last Friday. The colourful light show made it unusable, but at least the screenshot controls were still working, enabling Asraf to grab a few snaps for his Flickr stream.

Should we celebrate graphic failures on our Macs? I think we should. Every cloud, silver lining, all that.

Picture used with Asraf’s permission

Here’s a neat hack from the team at BBC Radio Labs, a research and development team looking at new ways to broadcast and distribute radio content:

Team member Matthew Wood explains his thinking thusly:

“Here’s what I was thinking: all my music is in iTunes. iTunes, via an Airport Express, plays out through my Big Speakers. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to use it to find out what this week’s Thinking Allowed is about, or to enjoy some rough dubplate pressure from 1Xtra? … Simply, the app grabs programme information from /programmes and re-presents it to iTunes in its native tongue: DAAP.”

In short, Matthew’s code grabs the BBC’s Flash-based online radio service and hooks it up with iTunes, ending the need for using horrible Real Player (and therefore browsers or Dashboard widgets that depend on it). What a neat idea.

It’s not very consumer friendly yet, but it’s pointing in a very attractive direction.

I don’t often read Windows sites, let alone link to them, and even then not when I think they’re rightly criticising Apple or Mac OS X. But in this case, I think it’s justified.

Ed Bott got a surprise when he upgraded to iTunes 8 on his PC running Windows Vista. Not only did he get iTunes 8, he also a QuickTime update – and that’s fine, because the installer told him that was going to happen, and he continued with the upgrade knowing what to expect.

Or so he thought.

But on further investigation (see the annotated gallery), it turned out that the upgrade process also installed a bunch of other things: Apple Mobile Device Support, Bonjour, and Mobile Me. And on top of those, a couple of drivers, one of which is a known cause of serious crashes.

Ed’s post isn’t a complaint about the software itself (although the crash-causing driver is a pretty annoying problem). What he’s most annoyed about is the manner in which it was installed. If Apple wanted to install all this extra stuff, it should at least have the courtesy to tell him so first.

This is precisely the sort of behavior that Microsoft, Real, and many other Windows software companies got into trouble over back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I can remember people getting hugely angry with Windows software that tried to sneak its way into your computer.

Perhaps Apple is doing it this way because it thinks Windows users are accustomed to it. But think how you’d feel if, next time you ran Software Update on your OS X Mac, it told you there was one upgrade available and then started to install six different things? Wouldn’t you be suspicious? Wouldn’t you be just a tad annoyed?

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.

Simon Royal asks: Are G3 Macs still viable work machines?.

His answer is a resounding affirmative, but then you’d expect that of an article at Low End Mac. Simon’s a writer, too, so his requirements for a work machine are pretty minimal: just a word processor, most of the time.

My oldest Mac is a 600MHz Dual USB G3 iBook, which copes bravely with Tiger. It does nothing other than play music streamed from elsewhere, and does that job just fine. The only problem is that getting it started up and playing takes a while:

• press on/off button
• (make cup of tea while it boots, connects to network, launches iTunes)
• tell iTunes to connect to shared music
• (make another cup of tea)
• select desired playlist
• (look out of the window wistfully)
• start playing music

Apart from that, it’s fine.

What’s the oldest Mac you’ve got that does a decent job of something or other?

Ex-Microsoft CEO Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld break bread with a stereotypical American family in a second ad that attempts to rejuvenate the Windows maker’s image.

When Microsoft’s in a bind, this is the kind of advertising it comes up with. Something really risky and new.

My inability to do a simple task, like call up the international character palette, or even remember its (mostly) system-wide shortcut, is well documented.

That’s why I love something like Copy Paste Char; I’m so much better at remembering URLs. This simple web page will save me whole seconds every year.

I shall now paste in some celebratory glyphs, because I can: (Squiggles omitted — Ed)

(Whether or not they’ll show up properly in your browser, having been mangled in turn by TextMate, WordPress and the browser itself, is a whole nother question entirely.)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you can’t have failed to notice that iTunes 8 arrived to some fanfare earlier this week. I’ve been putting it through its paces, figuring out whether the new features are any good, and scoring them using our patented* rockometer.

More after the break…

* Not patented.

Cult of Mac has confirmed the newest version of Apple’s iPod Touch contains the hardware necessary to enable free or low-cost phone calls over wi-fi.

With 5 wires connected to the Touch headphone jack (instead of 4 on the previous model), the device now supports the external microphone included with some headsets, according to Kyle Wiens of iFixit, who fully dismantled an iPod Touch on Wednesday.

Speculation about the possibility of VoIP (voice over internet protocol – a method for making and receiving voice communication over a connection to the internet, as opposed to the cellular telephone network) on the iPod Touch arose yesterday when the specifications of new Apple headsets with external mics appeared to include support for the iPod Touch in addition to the new iPod Nano and the 120GB iPod Classic.

“”I’m very excited about the possibility of VOIP on [the Touch],”said Wiens. “Now we just need the software.”

The software may already be here, in fact. TruPhone, a venerable innovator in the VoIP field, already has an iPhone application in the AppStore. Apple has said it would not permit applications that run VoIP using cellular networks, but a purely wi-fi-based calling method could pass muster, making the iPod Touch a little less distinguishable from its iPhone sibling.

I was immediately intrigued by the new headphones announced at Tuesday’s “big event” in San Francisco. Initially, I was excited by the prospect of the new “in-ear” style that will retail for $79 when they begin shipping next month. I have always found the ear buds on Apple headphones quite uncomfortable, especially for wearing an extended amount of time. The new “in-ear” style seems promising, since they will feature separate woofer and tweeter drivers, which should make for a higher-fidelity listening experience than is available with the standard headphones.

The remote play/pause/skip and volume control available on these new optional accessories (a lower-fidelity version with standard ear buds, available now, sells for $29) is another handy feature, but possibly the most interesting development, which Steve Jobs and many analysts either glossed over or failed to mention entirely, lies in their built-in microphone. At yesterday’s keynote Jobs mentioned in passing that the headset mic will enable voice note recording with the new iPod Nano, which is certainly a value add to that device. But a check of the headphones’ specs on the Apple website indicates they are supported by the iPod Touch and the new 120GB iPod Classic as well.

When I got my first iPod 5 years ago, I longed for a mic/line in so I could record directly to the device and wondered why in the world Apple had passed up the opportunity to produce a cool digital recording device when it was sitting right in front of the design team from the very beginning. Has it finally come to pass?

As usual, the answer is unclear. Comments in a MacRumors forum thread suggest great interest among iPod Touch and iPhone users for the utility of an external microphone, both for the VoIP applications it could enable, as well as for the music recording possibilities (GarageBand Lite, anyone?) it creates. The company makes no claim these new headphones are supported by the iPhone, although it says that iPhone headsets (which also include an external mic) work with iPods.

Stay tuned: when the new high-end headsets become available I’ll be getting a pair to see if my dream of an Apple digital recorder has indeed come true.

Check out this gallery of images, courtesy of the Apple hardware experts at iFixit, who meticulously recorded their disassembly of the new device yesterday.

Of particular note in the new iPod Touch are the external speaker, support for Bluetooth, and support for an external microphone.

For more images and details on the disassembly see iFixit’s forensic report.