Apple Archive

Apple could soon control 5 percent of the desktop computer market, Morgan Stanley predicts, thanks to the success of the iPod. Elsewhere, Apple released Mac OS X security update today.

The Mac Mini isn't just competition for Shuttle computers and mini-tower PCs. It's also competition for the much smaller embedded development boards that many users are building custom applications around. Peter Seebach takes a look at the Mac Mini as an embedded development platform.

Nicholas Ciarelli is an excellent journalist. Too bad. The poor kid's liable to be bankrupt before he's old enough to buy beer. All because he's very good at what he does; and because he does it on the Net.

An Apple developer noticed a cryptic mention of the PowerPC 970MP processor while using Apple's MONster utility. Update: Everything Apple has even more evidence.

"This potential threat to first amendment rights and Apple's crackdown on Web sites that, in general, love the company and its products, do nothing to bolster Apple's image. In fact, the company's success of late has yielded accusations of bullying and potentially unlawful business tactics, not to mention complaints that songs purchased from its iTunes music service, the dominant digital music store, don't work with music players other than its own. To some, that might sound like its neighbor to the north," says Forbes.

Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh, died yesterday at 61. He headed the project from 1978 up to 1982, when he was forced out of Apple. Since then, he worked on several different products to introduce 'humane computing', but is still best known for his contributions to the Macintosh. Read his story here.

Apple Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer was a featured presenter on Thursday at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium, held at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa in Phoeniz, Ariz. During the half-hour session, Oppenheimer answered questions about the iPod's "Halo" effect, the importance of the Mac mini, Apple's continued retail efforts and other issues facing the company.

With the latest crop of iPods, Apple is no longer including a FireWire cable in the box. The music players will still work with FireWire, if a cord is purchased separately, but only a USB 2.0 cable comes with the device. The move is part of a gradual shift on Apple's part to standardize the iPod on USB, which is far more common in the Windows world. Nonetheless, some Mac owners were rankled by the move, saying that as recently as a year or two ago many Macs didn't include a USB 2.0 port. My Take: Just bought (a previous generation for cheap) iPod Mini yesterday. It's a truly nicely done product. The FW option seems better than the USB on my 2 year old Powerbook, as it has USB 1.1 instead of 2.0.

"Over the past year, I have advised readers who are fed up with the plague of viruses and spyware on Windows PCs that one way out of the mess is to switch to Apple Computer's Macintosh. There has yet to be a report of a successful, real-world virus for the Mac's current operating system, and there is little or no known spyware for the Mac." says Mossberg.

Apple has to fight off three of the biggest PC companies, sick of the security bugs that plague Windows, wanting to license the Mac operating system. My take: Embrace it my child, don't fight it off.

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said that Apple retail stores are having a very hard time keeping up with demand for the new Mac mini and iPod shuffle. Elsewhere, C|NET News.com has a two-page report on the much-anticipated PowerBook G5 and the fact that it will take a while to materialize in the market.

"Apple's DVD players are subject to restrictive rules laid out by greedy Hollywood studios that don't really care if they piss off Apple's customers, since that's Apple's lookout. However, I've just discovered, to my amazement, that Apple imposes its very own restrictions on its DVD players over and above those imposed by the studios: that's right, Apple voluntarily treats its customers worse than the studios say it has to" says BoingBoing in their editorial. VLC does not seem to be a stable idea either (v0.8.x doesn't play my VCDs where v0.7.x could, and many times DVD audio and picture are out of sync).

One of the most talked-about video codecs in the last year, H.264, will make its debut in QuickTime 7 this year when Apple ships Mac OS X Tiger. One feature that makes H.264 particularly noteworthy is its ability to deliver the same quality of video as you see on a DVD, for example, at up to half the data rate. Another is H.264's ability to smoothly scale from very limited bandwidth applications like 3G cell phones all the way up to HD-quality video, and everything in between.

Apple has anounced faster Powerbooks. The 12" gets up to 1.5GHz with a 64Meg GeForce 5200 and the 15" and 17" get an upgrade to 1.67 with a Radeon 9700 with 64Meg for the 15" and 128 for the 17". They all now come with 512 MBs of RAM, a laptop-drop sensorand a scrolling trackpad. For almost a year now *Book users used SideTrack's solution for scrolling, read how this new Apple announcement affects their company. Regarding the new Powerbooks, the screen resolutions have remained the same throughout the board. Elsewhere, the WashingtonPost reviews the Mac Mini.