Macintosh - page 9

Image via Hardware Zone
The hottest tip on the rumor wires right now is that Apple does have really interesting Mac hardware on the way, as I’ve been known to suggest on a few occasions. Even Apple, at its conference call last week, was willing to acknowledge that it had a “future product transition” coming this quarter.

But the rumor circulating through the Intertubes this week goes further. It claims that Apple intends to use non-Intel silicon on its upcoming Macs. Not for the CPU, which will remain Intel, but for the rest of the chipset. While this rumor has slightly more credibility than it would if Apple had not recently purchased PA Semi or if AMD and VIA weren’t pumping out chipsets like crazy. And as AppleInsider notes, such a move could help Apple to differentiate based on silicon. Everyone else is using Montevina, and Apple could have something unique. It sounds like good judgment.

Except it’s a waste of time and money. Worse, it’s a losing strategy. After all, Apple doesn’t need to differentiate on silicon. Industrial design and software is enough. To read why, click through.

UPDATE: Apple’s stock is being punished because of concerns about Steve Jobs’ health, plus the company’s cautious guidance about Q4. Jobs didn’t participate in the earnings call, leading analysts to ask whether he is OK. Apple CFO, Peter Oppenheimer dodged the question. As Wired.com reports: “Andy Hargreaves, consumer electronics analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, said the lack of response from Oppenheimer regarding Jobs’ health only adds to investors’ doubt. “Not addressing Steve Jobs’ health perpetuates the fear that it’s a real problem,” Hargreaves said.”

Well, Apple just had another record quarter, with earnings jumping by 31 percent and revenue by 38 percent. The company sold more Macs in the third quarter than it has at any point in company history. It is performing better as a company than it ever has, and in a down economy.

So how does Wall Street respond? By knocking the stock price down by more than 10 points. Why? Because Apple’s guidance, or “made-up numbers to please whiny Wall Street analysts,” is below where the analysts believe it should be. Now, this might seem like rational behavior. If Apple is below Street consensus, the company must be headed for unanticipated trouble, right?

No. Not at all. Apple always sets expectations low and then jumps way beyond them. Take this quarter. Apple set earnings guidance at $1 per share. Analysts pegged it at $1.10 per share. Instead, they managed $1.19 per share. And the same thing keeps happening as far back as you can look. As Andy Zaky notes, Apple does this all the time, and they always beat their own guidance and the Street consensus, too. It’s just how they roll.

So why is it obvious to everyone except Wall Street traders that Apple always understates its guidance? Power is one hell of a drug, I imagine.

Picture via Imageshack

Thanks to blogger Cory Bohon at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, we bring you news that Mac Mix has some serious discounting available on bundles of Mac software. You can choose your own mix of titles from a set of 28 productivity, web tools, image & video, system enhancement and entertainment packages. Discounts range from 10% off any single title up to 75% off a bundle of twelve. The 500th purchaser will receive all 28 titles for free.

Boingo, the popular wireless hotspot provider, has released a lightweight application for Macbooks running OS X 10.4 and later. According to internal usage reports from airport Wi-Fi networks operated by Boingo,   Wi-Fi connections from MacBooks and PowerBooks have been increasing steadily. As of January 2008, nearly 20 percent of airport usage comes from Mac laptops, an increase of 30 percent since January 2007.

“With our GoBoingo! software for MacBooks, you are now just one click away from enjoying Wi-Fi service at hotspots around the world,” said Dawn Callahan, vice president, consumer marketing, Boingo Wireless.

The lightweight authentication tool automatically determines whether a hotspot belongs to a Boingo roaming partner and helps users log on to the Internet with their Boingo accounts in a single click. Less than 1 MB, the tool installs quickly and stays in the background until the Boingo member needs to log into a Wi-Fi network.

Update: For a well-reasoned rebuttal to at least my views on design, check out Leigh’s counter-post once you’re done reading here.

I’ve been alluding to this for a few months now, but let me repeat: The Mac is poised for innovation over the next few years on a scale that we haven’t experienced since the initial move to OS X in the previous decade. After five years of focusing on new categories like the iPod and the iPhone while gradually improving its Mac product line, the company has now freed up the resources to strengthen its core and highest-revenue business: Macs. And at the same time, new technologies are emerging to take the Mac to the next level. To read why, click through.

Ahead of Apple’s 3rd Quarter earnings report due later this month, fans of the Cupertino, CA computer company have reason to believe Big Mo is on their team, according to reporter Charles Jade at Ars Technica. Citing information available from the web metrics firm Net Applications, Jade reports significant increases in market share for both Mac OS X and Apple’s Safari web browser over the past year. Based on recent trends, the percentage of Mac OS X users should break the 8% mark in July, having gained nearly 2 full percentage points in the past year. Intel Macs posted gains as a percentage of Macs in use as well, possibly accounting for much of the reasoning behind Apple’s decison to make its Snow Leopard OS update, due in the spring, an Intel-only affair.

Software developer Information Appliance Associates (IAA) leaps to the head of a line of design entrepreneurs helping Blackberry smartphone users “Macintoshify” their handhelds with the release of PocketMac Mac Themes for Blackberry. Counting on the likelihood that there are many, many Mac users who have and intend to keep using Blackberry mobile phones, the San Diego-based software maker is selling what the company claims is the first tool to transform the look and feel of a BlackBerry into a miniature Macintosh.

Available for a number of models of the Research in Motion (RIM) smartphone (with support for the Blackberry Bold on the way), PocketMac replaces the standard icons and images of the BlackBerry with those of original, yet very familiar Mac-like icons, complete with familiar colors and backgrounds, to create what some are calling a MacBerry.

“I’m a passionate Mac user. I love my Mac and I love my BlackBerry,” says IAA CTO Terrence Goggin. “We created the PocketMac MacTheme [because] all of our customers love the BlackBerry but they preferred something that reminded them of home… their Mac.”

Increasingly cartoonish rap star Kanye West has been savagely bashed for showing up two hours late to his own 3 a.m. set at the giant Bonnaroo music festival the other weekend. He finally responded to his critics via his blog last night, and in so doing, coined the wimpiest tough guy catch phrase ever:

But this Bonnaroo thing is the worst insult I’ve ever had in my life. This is the most offended I’ve ever been… this is the maddest I ever will be. I’m typing so f***ing hard I might break my f***ing Mac book Air!!!!!!!!

Oh! Run for your lives! He has a MacBook Air and he’s typing REALLY HARD on it! But not hard enough to break it, thanks to Apple’s superior design and engineering!!!!

I’m seriously trying to come up with a wimpier way to express rage as expressed through communication style: “I’m tapping my index finger so hard against my iPhone that I am probably going to misspell some words!!!1!” “I’m so furious that I may just wait a few days to confirm the details of our acquaintance on Facebook!!!!!” “I’m writing you this Christmas Card in such a rage that I might forget to include my BEST WISHES TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!!!!!!1!”

Congratulations, Apple. You just set the benchmark.

Thanks, Adam.

Since I first got an iPod, way back when Discmen roamed the earth, my fondest wish has been that I could use it as a quasi-remote control for my stereo. I could point it at a set of speakers, scroll through my music library, press the center button, and — BOOM! — music would pour forth.

Besides a few experiments with an iTrip, however, this has been wishful thinking. Until, perhaps, the next few weeks. MacRumors claims that the Read Me file for a developer release of the imminent iTunes 7.7 will finally make this dream real (well, provided you have a computer hooked to your stereo):

Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.

It’s pretty typical Apple to offer a few unannounced features on major operating system upgrades, but this one is incredibly welcome. Using the WiFi built into the iPhone and iPod Touch is a natural for this, and it’s much more convenient than using the (let’s face it) fairly inadequate Apple Remote. I just hope it will work with Front Row and AppleTV…

Photo by John Pettit

Software retailer MacHeist, well-known among software buyers for its bundle deals, says it is offering Parallels for the “lowest price ever,” at $49 or $39 for previous MacHeist customers.

Parallels Desktop software for Mac is a Mac System Utility that allows users to run Windows and Linux side by side on Mac OS X without rebooting.

A bug in the OS X 10.5.3 update creates trust issues with the reliability of some Time Machine backups, writes Baltimore Sun reporter David Zeiler. Hourly system backups to some Mac Pro machines are inconsistently met with the vague error message

which leaves the option of staring at the screen or clicking the OK button and pretending the failed backup doesn’t matter.

MacRumors has had a discussion thread going on this topic since the end of May, and the support forums on the Apple website show a question on this topic that remains unanswered after 69 replies.

A simple fix may help in some cases, according to blogger David Alison. Run the Console application in your Utilities folder, and select All Messages on the left. Then start searching using the box in the upper right. All Time Machine activity is logged under the process name of “backupd”, so searching for that will pull up all the relevant logs. If you’ve got an open backup that’s listed as “In Progress,” even though Time Machine is not running, try deleting that to see if it allows your backups to continue.

Kevin McLaughlin writes for Channel Web, an IT Channel News source, Microsoft’s biggest hiring spree in eleven years has been looking to fill spots in its Mac Business Unit.

In a recent post to the Office for Mac Team blog, Craig Eisler, general manager of the Mac Business Unit, announced the hiring campaign and highlighted the unique place the group occupies within the Microsoft galaxy. “We are the brightest, coolest, and most interesting business unit at Microsoftif we do say so ourselves,” Eisler said in the blog post.

Office 2008 for Mac has been selling “really well” since its launch in January, according to Sonny Tohan, CEO of Mac Business Solutions, an Apple specialist based in Gaithersburg, Md.

“Microsoft finally started taking advantage of some of the core technologies and user interface features in OS X,” Tohan said, and Apple partners worldwide see the changing landscape in Redmond as evidence of the robust health and continued emergence of their preferred platform.

The addition of support for Exchange in the iPhone and the coming proliferation of 3rd party iPhone apps should keep Microsoft’s Mac Business unit busy for the foreseeable future. “Microsoft needs to compete in a space of growth since the PC market is in a state of decline, and I’m sure they’re looking at writing applications for the iPhone,” according to George Swords, marketing manager at PowerMacPac, an Apple solution provider in Portland, Ore.

Photo by MrHappy via flickr

For years, one of the more compelling arguments in the debate between PC and Mac users held that Macs are more secure. With hackers worldwide dreaming up viruses and Trojan horse programs designed to crash hard drives and compromise personal data, Microsoft and security software manufacturers struggled to keep PC users safe by constantly releasing software updates and security patches for Windows operating systems.

Mac users surfed happily along the Internet’s boundless realms, content in the knowledge that Apple’s tiny OS market share was little incentive for hackers and malicious social engineers. As the universe of Mac users continues to grow, however, that sense of security may begin to prove false.

By the time this message posts, I might have already put in an order for a brand-new MacBook Pro. And, like any good Machead, the prospect of new hardware makes me miserable. After all, my old PowerBook G4 is incredibly obsolete, and I’m used to its idiosyncrasies. But I can’t deal with the idea of something spendy, flashy and new that’s behind the curve. I’d rather be way behind the times than just a few minutes off the mark.

This is the tremendous irony of loving Apple. The company’s computers are more elegant and functional than any other devices on the market, even without OS X. Unfortunately, Apple does such an amazing job adding features over time, that even a three month-old Mac can look a little long in the tooth. Now, I know this is meaningless quibbling. There will always be a great reason not to upgrade. New software, new I/O, new GPU, new processing architectures. But that’s particularly unlikely these days. The current MacBook Pros have multi-touch, very strong graphic processors, high-end Core 2 Duo chips, 802.11n, ExpressCard, MagSafe, and Mac OS X Leopard. That’s a set-up that will rock for years to come.

On the other hand, the following technologies should become relatively ubiquitous and economical in the next two years: SSD, mobile quad cores, WiMax, USB 3.0, ExpressCard 2.0, eSATA, DDR3 RAM, LTE, Blu-Ray, DisplayPort, ray-tracing graphic acceleration. I’m sure I could come up with others if I tried hard enough.Intel is supposed to release a few new Core 2 Duos for mobile with the launch of its Centrino 2 platform on July 14, and the most promising aspect is lower power consumption with a faster front side bus. Which doesn’t mean Apple will have new hardware on the 14th — Steve usually waits a few weeks.

The point being, I’m terrified of Apple taking the wraps off a new set of MacBooks and MacBook Pros the second that I invest, and I’ve lost the ability to accurately predict when the company will jump. Everyone knows the anxiety of the Apple early adopter – what on earth can be done for the agony of the late adopter? Anyone else dealing with the same pain?

Image: AP, via Guardian UK

Today’s rumors that Steve Jobs may introduce an incremental update to OS X called Snow Leopard at his Worldwide Developers Conference keynote provide a powerful reminder of just how effective the project to replace the Classic Mac OS has been. Buzz on the wires has it that Snow Leopard would be for Intel processors only, completely abandoning the PowerPC platform that Steve Jobs inherited at Apple in 1996. Some have even speculated that Carbon and the last pieces of the original Mac OS toolkit could be similarly discarded in the release. If all that is true (and the latter part is particularly hard to swallow without bricks of salt), it officially marks the death of the Macintosh OS at the hands of its proud successor, OS X.

This is a really significant achievement, and not because I’m nostalgic for MultiFinder. This officially marks the conclusion of the most patient, incremental, and down-right conservative campaign of change ever waged by one Steven P. Jobs. At a WWDC much like this one, just 10 years ago, he began to wage that war. Next Monday, he will have won. The Mac is dead. Long live OS X. To read why and how this happened, please click through.

Rahul Sood, the CTO of HP Gaming and founder of Voodoo PC recently celebrated his birthday, and a friend gave the over-clocking king a MacBook Air as a gag gift. Not one to look a gift-horse in the mouth, Sood used the Air as a knife, cutting his birthday cake quite nicely.

<Mock-Serious Voice>No word from Apple yet on why it kept the Air’s cutting features under wraps for so long, but it’s a classic “under-promise, over-deliver” move in the Steve Jobs mold, so I guess we shouldn’t be surprised to find such major functionality down the road.</Serious>

Rahul Sood via Gizmodo

A few months back we reported many Mac users were experiencing problems with WiFi maintaining connections. These connection drops seemed to be mysteriously tied to large file transfers. The issue became so bad that the NYC school system stopped all orders for new Macs until the issue was fixed.

I’m happy to report that for at least this user the issues seem to be resolved. For the past three days I’ve been seeding and leeching “The Cult of Mac” and “The Cult of iPod” by our own Leander Kahney with no interruptions in WiFi service. I’d love to hear if anyone else is still having problems.

Very interesting cover story in BusinessWeek about soaring demand for Macs inside of companies. In some ways, this is an inevitable outgrowth of the success of the iPod. Sales of the iPod goose home sales of Macs, and once you’ve got a Mac, you never want to work in Windows again. Writer Peter Burrows says it well:

But now the call is coming from mainstream users, people who may have started off with an iPod, then bought a Mac at home and no longer want a “Windows-by-day, Mac-by-night” existence.

This may be a sign of hope for all of us Mac users-in-exile. I work in an all-ThinkPad office, and dream of getting to live an all-Mac life. But since we’re consultants, we use the same machines that our clients do. What does that mean? Buy more Macs, corporate world! Then we can ditch Windows for good!

Filed under: Still Speculating, just not wildly.

My inept Photoshop skills aside, Leander’s post below and the prevalence of the OSX86 project and similar efforts really speak to a single problem within the Macintosh lineup: The Tweener. That is, the Mac that is in between the Mac Mini and the MacPro. Apparently there are a WHOLE lot of folks who are desperate for this machine. Why it doesn’t exist is a mystery. Not only is there apparently a huge market for this kind of machine, there is an even larger market for “Certified Mac” after-market parts.

It’s a wonder that being the “Salesy” part of a duo that built their first computer in a garage, Steve doesn’t seem to get that enthusiasts want a computer they can “tinker” with.

As always I am gratuitously soliciting your comments as to what you’d like to see in this machine. My specs follow after the break

Filed under: Pure, Wild Speculation.

John Gruber, writes today in Daring Fireball, an article about Adobe CS4 and the fact that while it will be 64bit on Windows it will only be 32Bit on the Mac. He writes (as usual) a simply wonderful analysis on the topic (well worth the full read), pointing out that lack of Carbon support in Leopard is making it difficult for Adobe (as well as some other cross platform vendors) to develop applications for both Windows and the Mac using the same code base.

John Gruber, Daring Fireball:

… the degree to which Apple pulled the rug out from under Adobe’s feet at WWDC 2007 last June. When Leopard was first announced at WWDC 2006 nine months prior, it included full 64-bit support for both Carbon and Cocoa.64-bit.

Carbon wasn’t promised to be coming “sometime”, like with, say, resolution independence. It was promised for 10.5.0. And it existed developer seeds of Leopard up through WWDC 2007 had in-progress 64-bit Carbon libraries, and Adobe engineers were developing against them. Several sources¹ have confirmed to me that Adobe found out that Apple was dropping support for 64-bit Carbon at the same time everyone else outside Apple did: on the first day of WWDC 2007.

If Apple had shipped Leopard with the 64-bit Carbon support promised at WWDC 2006, Photoshop CS4 would run in 64-bit mode on the Mac.

I’m not rushing right out to get my tinfoil hat, but this coupled with the new Aperture plug-in framework, really starts to make me wonder. The only question which remains is how might Apple augment its current suite of products to more fully take on Adobe (remember, in the software space, Apple grows as much by acquisition, as by innovation).
My bet, they acquire Corel, but I’d love to hear your ideas.

Filed under pure, wild speculation”¦

Many Mac Pro’s since Leopard are experiencing interment signal drops with their Airport Extreme wireless cards. This issue was first brought to my attention only after I lugged my seventy-pound monster three blocks and hoisted it up on the counter of the Genius Bar.

“It’s a known issue with Leopard,” I was apprised and sent on my way, boat anchor in tow.

Not being content with a computer that’s price compatible with a mid-tier Hyundai, and similarly incapable of navigating the Internet with any reliability, I decided to dig into this a little bit deeper, what follows are my observations only.

#1. The problem seems to be especially active when Bittorrent clients are running.
With a BT client running I’m experiencing a drop at least every 15 minutes or so. I have segregated networks (a G only network, and a N only (5mhz) network) both are Airport networks. My Mac Pro and Macbook pro are the only two computers on the N network. When the Mac Pro drops connection the Macbook Pro does not.

The engineering answer to the problem of signal drop with a BT client active is that we’re pushing bits so hard and fast the silicon might be over heating, which causes signal loss on at the computer. I could believe this except:

#2. The problem doesn’t seem as active (with a BT client running) when the Network Preferences dialog is open.
Now this I discovered purely by accident. But If I leave my network preferences pane open (not minimized) on my second monitor, my signal doesn’t drop hardly at all. I have noticed a signal drop, but it is VERY infrequent. This suggests the problem lay in code, not in hardware.

Evil Speculation: Is there some connection intentional or otherwise between dropping wireless connections and the use of BT clients? Correlation does not equal causation but I have to wonder particularly in light of:
#3 I don’t seem to loose signal when we’re not running a Bittorrent Client.
I can’t go so far as to say that the signal drop problem doesn’t occur at all when my bittorrent client isn’t running, but after several days not running a BT client, I’ve yet to observe a signal drop. I also took steps to push bits as hard and fast as I could, downloading Linux distributions over HTTP, uploading thousands of photos over FTP. The signal seemed to stay rock solid.

So I’m back to Evil Speculation again: Is there something in code that is causing these drops to happen (at all or at least more frequently) when running Bittorrent clients?

I’d like to ask our fellow Cultists to run their own experiments. If you’re not having dropping problems fire up a bittorrent client (the problem happens with either BitRocket or Transmission) and download and seed a legal torrent (can I suggest Leander’s book?) and see if it starts happening. If you are experiencing the dropping problem: are you running a BT client in the background, does it go away when you stop?

If there are any bit-jockeys out there who can trace the actual code in memory, can we find a real connection, or is this just paranoid speculation?

Hipster thieves in Williamsburg are interested mostly in Macs, according to a couple of reports in Gawker. Burglars are lifting Macs, but leaving roommates’ Dells and other PCs behind (mostly). One commenter notes: “I’m hoping the roomate with the Dell arranged for the stealing of his asshole roomates Apple equipment.”Hipster Thief Of Williamsburg Wants Only Apple Products
Williamsburg Residents Getting Their iMacs Stolen Left and Right

You’ll notice soon that we’re adding a number of new contributors to our humble abode. We start this week with DJ Rizzo, a frequent commenter and Windows to Mac convert, a story he tells in his first post. Owing to WordPress weirdness, some of you already got to read it via RSS, but it just won’t appear on the main page, so I’m providing a link. Enjoy.

Read David’s story.

Or, “How I Learned to Stop Stressing and Love Mac OS X”
In an effort to help bruised and battered Windows users into the kinder world of Macs, I’ll be posting tips and stories garnered from my own switching experience. This first post is my own switcher’s story. And it all begins with I, your humble narrator, with my ears utterly closed to the Apple praise of a friend…

Greatest of all time.
I just got back from visiting a friend in San Luis Obispo, California, and he pointed me towards the Mac Superstore. I’d never heard of the place, and Apple has so thoroughly eradicated all unofficial Mac retailers that I didn’t think there were many left (sadly). But I decided to give the place a close look from the inside. What follows, here and on the jump, is a photo-tour to the coolest Apple store that the company doesn’t own – and maybe ever.

Best Doorstops Ever.
The experience at the MacSuperstore, founded in 1998 by Shane Williams, a graduate of Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo, begins before you even walk in the door. Since the weather is almost always sunny and calm in SLO, Williams and staff use vintage all-in-one Macs to hold the doors open to the faithful. I checked closely, and one door is propped by a Mac Plus while the others are SE/30s. The effect is inviting – and a bit disturbing. I last used an SE/30 in mid-1999, and it seemed pretty far from a doorstop then.

All the most interesting stuff is inside, however, so please read on.