Apple and tech lowdown for Week 7

The new Intel iMacs have been reported to have a "video tearing" issue when using Front Row and there are accounts of "odd behaviours." The blog ConsumerMachine is the "official" website that talks about the video tearing issue and the latest news about it. Apparently, the issue is software related. The new build of the software seems to fix the video tearing in Front Row. Apple is said to be already investigating this. If no other problems arise, I just might get the Intel iMac soon. (Mac OS 10.4.5 has just been released. I'll see this will fix the video tearing problem. ConsumerMachine readers confirms that the latest OS X update does indeed fix the video tearing and other video-related issues.) TUAW is asking readers whether their Macs feel 'zippier' after upgrading to Mac OS 10.4.5. There has been a lot of reports from users that there is some noticeable 'zippiness' after upgrading and applications open faster.


Mike Wendland of the Detroit Free Press says "Apple (Intel) iMac is simply the best." He made a video of simultaneously booting up an Intel iMac and a G5 iMac, showing the Intel iMac booting up much faster. He doesn't go into any benchmarks or show any graphs. According to Mr. Wendland, the Intel iMac is faster and more nimble. Period. He also boldly proclaims the MacBook Pro runs cooler and has a longer battery life. He really is sticking his neck out on this one since even with the MacBook Pro officially shipping, Apple's website does not mention how long the battery life is. All they say is that "battery life will depend on the configuration and use." How vague is that?

According to Tom Yager of TechNewsWorld.com, the iMac "rates as the ideal desktop," commenting of how easy it is to use the iMac. Just drag, drop, connect, and use. He liked how easy it was to transfer the files from his Powerbook and how much of an eye-candy the 20-inch iMac is. He added that if the iMac shipped with either Windows or Linux, he wouldn't even touch it.

The Star Online, a Malaysian online tech magazine, also reviews the 20-inch Intel iMac. Chris Chong gives a positive response to Apple's latest desktop offering but advises pro users to wait until the next release of the iMac.

It's one of those Mac vs Dell comparison. George Ou of ZDNet says that the Dell is the better deal. But Dan Frakes of Macworld says Ou is spouting nonsense and does his own comparison. (After the announcement of the start of shipping and speed bump of the MacBook Pro, Dan Frakes did another piece updating his comparison chart. It now shows the MacBook Pro is very, very price competitive. Ou couldn't help himself and had to write another piece that tries to offhandedly brush-off the omissions he made when he did his comparison. The follow-up article was a response to Dan Frakes' own MacBook Pro vs Dell comparison on February 13. The thing with Ou is he again conveniently ignored the updated comparison Dan Frakes did, which showed the Dell Inspiron 9400, after coupon rebates, being cheaper by $18. But, pre-coupon prices, the MacBook Pro is actually cheaper! Dell's price also does not take into account the software that has to be bought or downloaded in order to make it useable and protected against viruses and other nasties. )

Deep Thought has its own price comparison with "iMac vs The World" series. Part one of the series compared a 17" Gateway Profile with a 17" Intel iMac. The Gateway Profile is about $200 more expensive than the iMac Core Duo, and that's without the software! The iMac wins this round.

Apple's shipment of desktop and portable PCs is said to hit the 10 millionth mark this year, benefiting Taiwanese companies such as Foxxconn Electronics, Quanta Computer, and Asustek. It's reported that 6 million of the projected 10 million will be portables.

Top 10 things every Mac switcher should know. It's funny but still manages to get the point across: Switching may not be that easy for some.

Know what the dual-core processors are and what they aren't. Learn what the hype are all about.

Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post says it doesn't pay to upgrade from iLife 05 to iLife 06. By the way, upgrade for iLife 06 is now available for download.

Though Dan Pourhardi calls iWeb a "piece of crap," a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald likes it, calling it "loads of fun for ordinary folk who want to get their stuff up on the web, to communicate and build an online community."

Apple's resource of Universal applications for the Intel Macs. Currently, there are 705 applications listed as of February 14, 2005, 3:28PM. A list of Web 2.0 products and services. Currently, there are 117 listed resources. And if you have there's something you want done but don't want to browse through growing list of Web 2.0 applications, just go to the "I want to..." list, type in what you want done, and it will try to help you locate the application that will do the job. The 122-page guide to the iPod can be downloaded for free from iPod Garage.

Exposed: the 5G iPod. Informit.com dissects the 5G iPod and replaces the screen with that of the PSP.

More roadkill under the iPod's Click Wheel. Telegraph and The Independent report the demise of Sony's Walkman Bean less than six months after it was released. Sony will discontinue the Bean in April. Both reports look into the speed of which "new" digital devices become obsolete. Obsolescence is attributed to the pace of innovation and to inability to compete with other companies.

"The sounds of the piano was cut by an eerie silence. Thomas watched dumbfounded as the events slowly unfurled right in front of him..." A suspense-thriller? Hardly. Thomas Beller of the New York Times recalls his experience as his iPod fell through his pocket and fell onto the subway tracks. Read his light-hearted account of what he did and of the aftermath. The story is filled with drama, comedy, action, and a twinge of incredulity at the end.

New shows are added to the iTunes Music Store. The shows are: "Schoolhouse Rock," "Saved By the Bell," and "The Biggest Loser." Sports Illustrated swimsuit videos are now also available.

Seagate announces a 12GB hard-disk drive measuring at 40mm x 30mm x 5mm. Why would this matter? Smaller iPods, of course.

Nearing the 1 billionth song download and with prizes at stake, Macworld reports that in ten days 30 millions songs were sold. That's a download of 3 million songs per day.

In early 2004, Daphne Kalfon decided to join a contest in making a love song about the Mac. She composed and arranged the "I Love My Mac" song using GarageBand. Then weeks later, she won the contest. She posted the song in Macjams. Then on March 2005, a fan of the song from Switzerland translated the lyrics into German. A Swedish version is also avaiable with Japanese and Italian translations in the works. The song is now available on iTMS and Daphne Kaflon promises that if the song reaches the top 10 song downloads list she will donate 10% of the proceeds to music download charity.

Warner Music saw a near one-hundred percent increase in quarterly profits as compared to the previous year, mostly fueled by a surge in sales of digital music particularly from the iTunes Music Store.

Researchers from Columbia University found out that iTMS shoppers tend to download music that are popular and that has been downloaded by a lot of people.

Amazon and Google are going up against Apple's iTunes Music Store. (Update: Amazon plans to sell their own brand of digital music player that will be pre-loaded with songs and to also have a subscription-based music download service. Insiders say that the service and the device could be launched as early as summer. Amazon could have an advantage as the one to challenge Apple with its huge customer base. But The Street.com columnist Tony Wolverton downplays the threat Amazon poses to Apple, saying among other things the subscription model Amazon plans to have has had a hard time gaining acceptance from the consumers and Apple's iPod-iTunes compatibility is very hard to beat.)

Victory Records's founder says that the iTunes Music Store cheapens music and urges other recording labels to pull out of iTMS. Victory Records refused to put any of their music into Apple's online downloading service. Their boss, Tony Brummel is demanding a cut from the sales of the iPods and kickbacks. If you think that's stupid and greedy, the Recording Industry Association of America claims copying music from your CD to your computer and iPod is illegal; it is not considered "fair use." This means they want people to buy a CD for their car or CD player and another for copying into a PC or an iPod. Some more stupidity: the British are blaming the death of a Australian woman bicyclist to the iPod. Apparently the woman was wearing headphones while riding her bike and she didn't hear the truck the killed her coming. This shows an utter lack of common sense in both the victim, the authorities, the victim's friend and the newspaper that reported this. A Boston Herald writer says that Apple's iTMS is committing suicide because of greed and lack of customer focus and he is waiting to jump in the Google Tunes bandwagon as soon as it leaves.

BBC is going full steam ahead in bringing their contents as podcasts, like radio programmes and music shows.

Mercedes-Benz Mixed Tape number 10 is available. Download here. BMW has also gotten into the free downloads bandwagon with their BMW Audio Books. Be sure to allow pop-ups in Firefox for these downloads.

Apple sends out a poetic warning to would-be hackers as OSx86 Projects reports of Maxxuss releasing a patch for the hack of Mac OS 10.4.4. (Update: OSx86 Projects just got served a notice of DMCA violation. Their forums have been taken offline until further notice. No word of who filed the complaint for the DMCA violation. Another site, Win2OSX.net was compltely shut down).

TUAW tip: hover the mouse pointer over a truncated file name in column view while holding down the "option" key and a tooltip will show the entire file name. Release the "option" key and the feature stays.

Some more tips. For hot spot users, Macsimum News posts the "Do's and Don'ts of Hot Spot Usage" from Rescuecom. The list aims to protect users from identity and security theft when in a public hot spot.

I am a big fan of Quicksilver and for me, it's an indispensible tool. But I know that I am fully utilizing all its features. 43 Folders explains what a trigger is and gives five examples to give a Quicksilver user a head start in using one of Quicksilver's feature. Dan Dickinson has a Quicksilver trigger tutorial up.

Micheal Gartenberg claims that the key difference between Apple and Microsoft is that Apple knows how to sell to the consumer who buys one thing at a time, while Microsoft only knows how to sell to big business. Another difference between Apple and other computer makers is that the competition focuses on features while Apple focuses on the benefits to the consumer. Apple also helps save marriages.

Apple Matters has a good piece on the five mistakes Apple made that Apple isn't repeating with the iPod. I highly recommend reading this if you have the time. Failure is not a bad thing as long as you learn from it.

Snapshots of John Krasinki and Jon Stewart in an Apple Store. John Krasinki plays Jim in The Office and Jon Stewart is well... Who doesn't know Jon Stewart. I wonder what happened to his iMac?

Apple Keynotes is a site dedicated to comprehensively list Apple Keynotes and made them available for download.

Apple Insider says that the new Intel Mac minis won't have the rumored integrated iPod dock. I do not see why this an integrated iPod dock is such a big deal. Putting a dock in the mini will drive the cost of the unit up. Why do you think Apple removed the chargers and Firewire cables from the bundled accessories in the latest iPods? Because it makes the iPods more expensive and it doesn't make sense to have more than one charger in a house that has 2 or more iPods. Removing the charger and Firewire cable, in my opinion, was a smart move by Apple since it made their iPods really competitive. They also report that Apple will have 17-inch MacBook Pros by June this year. One drawback might be that it will only have a 4x SuperDrive like the 15-inch since the 8x SuperDrive is too thick to fit in the very slim profile of both Mac Book Pros.

Dvorak is predicting Apple will move to Windows, saying that ditching Mac OS X and selling "jazzy and high-margin" computers to Windows users would be better for the company. I can't imagine the amount of emails he'll be getting. Paul Murphy from ZDNet thinks Apple's decision in switching to Intel would mean the ultimate demise of Apple and Apple should instead partner up with freescale. This guy is also the one that wrote the piece that said Intel cheapens Apple's Macintosh brand. I'm not putting up a link to the original articles since I consider these as create-a-lot-of -stink-to-attract-flies kinds of comments.

How to...
... make an Apple script.
... download movie trailers off Apple's Quicktime Movie Trailers site.

Access, the company that bought PalmSource last year, introduced the Access Linux Platform for Palm devices. The new platform will be compatible with existing Palm OS applications and Samsung has already expressed interest in using the platform. In the same article, PLDT will use an open-source product from Funambol to offer mobile e-mail to PLDT's users.

Speaking of Linux, the Mactel-Linux group has managed to boot Linux on a 17-inch iMac Core Duo.

Apple Matters calls for IT Managers to take responsibility for security breaches instead of blaming Windows. Goes on to say they better think hard of the alternative OSes available.

Read the Technologist's Manifesto.

Camino version 1.0 (stable version) is out.

One device that I would like to have is Panasonic's Toughbook Wireless Display thin-client. Saw this at Engadget It would be sweet if Apple made something like this. Then again I don't think that's ever going to happen.

Adult Swim "Fix" will go 24/7 on March 27, 2006.

Veoh: what happens when you cross the internet with television.

The US wants to extradite a bumbling nerd from the UK for hacking into the computers of the US Navy, Air Force, Department of Defense, and NASA. In his defense, the hacker said that it was not his fault that these US institutions were easy to hack. It was their fault because they were using Windows without adequate password protections or firewalls. If extradited, the hacker faces years in prison and fines amounting close to $2 million.