Apple Archive

Apple today announced the long awaited iPhone, a device that I predicted about years 1.5 ago that it would happen (I won't forget how a fellow editor from a Mac site emailed me to say that I am crazy after reading my blog back then). But the iPhone is real, and it's public information now. So based on the little we know about the device so far, let's see how it stacks up against its smartphone competition.

At the MacWorld conference in San Francisco, After the usual words of praise about the iPod+iTunes and the smoothness of the transition to Intel, Apple announced several new products. Surprisingly, nothing was said about new Macs or Leopard. The keynote speech started at 17:00 GMT. Read on for the details.

With some 24 hours until Apple CEO Steve Jobs takes the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco to kick off Macworld Expo, Think Secret presents a compilation of information we have received and reported over the last number of months concerning Apple's anticipated announcements.

The buzz is swelling in anticipation of consumer-side announcements from Steve Jobs' keynote address that will kick off the annual Macworld Expo here. Will it be the iPod phone or the iTV digital media server (name change is also expected)? Only Jobs and a select cadre of Apple execs know for sure. However, after the keynote hubbub settles and attendees wander onto the show floor, a revised sense of the Mac market may come into view. Among the booths filled with professional and consumer photo and video content creation tools and iPod gear - all expected and familiar Expo fare - will be an invasion of software and hardware solutions solidly in the small and midsize business camp.

"In the street's imagination, Apple is Jobs. Or perhaps the other way around: Jobs is Apple. Whatever. This theory is still all about Jobs cracking the whip in Cupertino and speaking the Mac gospel to the public at the annual Macworld Expo and Apple Worldwide Developer Conference keynotes. But is that right? Is this personal identification necessary for the continued success of Apple?" Elsewhere, Apple's top five business decisions.

Apple Computer gave Chief Executive Steve Jobs 7.5 million stock options in 2001 without the required authorization of the company's board, the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Records purporting to show that a full board meeting had taken place to approve the remuneration, as required by Apple's procedures, were later falsified, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The report comes after Apple shares fell as much as 6 percent on Wednesday on a report in legal trade publication The Recorder that federal prosecutors were looking at 'apparently falsified' stock option documents in their probe of Apple's previous grants. Update: Apple released new information about its allocation of stock options on Friday, defending CEO Steve Jobs following speculation that a key document had been forged.

"I have tested, and continue to run in a production setting, two instances of Windows 2003 Server hosted by Parallels Desktop, running on OS X Server 10.4.8 on a 3 GHz Xserve. To skip to the punch line, it works, and it's as fast as all get-out. Parallels does not stretch the truth when it claims near-native performance; Xserve is capable of knocking off any two-socket Netburst (Pentium 4) Xeon server going back at least two years. Compared to Xserve, those Intel boxes eat more electricity and give off more heat than they give back in capacity for work."

A pair of security researchers has picked January 2007 as the starting point for a month-long project in which each passing day will feature a previously undocumented security hole in Apple's OS X or in Apple applications that run on top of it. The 'Month of Apple Bugs' project, currently slated to begin on Jan. 1, is being orchestrated in part by a security researcher who asked to be identified only by his online alias 'LMH'. This is the same researcher who in November ran the 'Month of Kernel Bugs' project. LMH's partner in this project is Kevin Finisterre, a researcher who has reported numerous bugs to Apple over the past few years. As with the kernel bugs project, Apple will be given no advance notice with the Month of Apple bugs, LMH said.

"Apple researchers have built a full working prototype of a Mac tablet PC and three Companies in Taiwan are now costing a product for a potential launch in mid 2007. Sources in Taiwan have said that the focus has been more on the home and the education environment than the enterprise marketplace. Several months ago I was told that Apple was exploring a neat new device that is basically a touch screen that links to various source devices including a brand new media centre that Apple is planning to launch next year. The Mac tablet has been designed to handle third party applications such as home automation software that will allow users to control lighting, audio, entertainment devices and security feeds. It also acts as a full blown PC has wireless linking for a new generation of Wireless Hi Fi speakers that are currently being tested by Apple."

Hon Hai Precision Industry Co Ltd has secured contracts from Apple Computer for 12 million mobile handsets that also function as music players, the Commercial Times quoted industry sources as saying. Apple will launch the mobile handsets in the first half of next year, the newspaper said, without providing financial details of the contract.

Mac OS Forge has been reopened after being redesigned. The Apple's team guided by Kevin Van Vechten has also announced the immediate availability of Darwin 8.8.1 (corresponding to Mac OS X 10.4.8) which represents the first full release supporting both architectures.

Apple has updated its line of MacBook laptops, equipping them with Core 2 Duo processors. "At just one-inch thin, the new MacBooks are up to 25 percent faster than the previous generation and feature a built-in iSight camera for on-the-go video conferencing, Apple's MagSafe Power Adapter that safely disconnects when under strain, and the iLife '06 award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications."

Amith Singh writes about the Trusted Computing Module found in Intel Macs. "Regardless of what the media has been harping on for a long time, and regardless of what system attackers have been saying about the 'evil TPM protection' Apple uses, Apple is doing no TPM-related evil thing. In fact, Apple is doing no TPM-related cryptographic thing at all in Mac OS X. Yes, I know, there has been much talk of 'TPM keys' and such, but there are no TPM keys that Apple is hiding somewhere. More specifically, Apple simply does not use the TPM hardware. In Apple computer models that do contain a TPM, the hardware is available for use by the machine's owner. Of course, to use it you need a device driver, which Apple indeed doesn't provide."

The NASDAQ stock exchange will not de-list Apple, as long as the company files its overdue quarterly report with the U.S. SEC, Apple said in another filing Friday. Apple - which had appealed NASDAQ's previous de-listing notice - said the exchange will allow its shares of stock to continue trading on condition that Apple files its tardy 10Q within two months. "On October 24, 2006, Apple received a written notification from the staff of The Nasdaq Stock Market stating that the Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has granted the Company's request for continued listing on The Nasdaq Stock Market, subject to the condition that the Company shall file its Form 10-Q for the quarter ended July 1, 2006, and any required restatements, by December 29, 2006," Apple said in Friday's SEC filing.