Archived Links for April 2008

04.23	MacNN	Apple’s music and retail revenue grow, Staff: Music products and services made up 36-percent of Apple’s second quarter, while revenue in the company’s retail stores grew dramatically, with over 33.7 million visitors to its 208 stores over the quarter.
04.23	MacNN	Education grows 35%, Macs generate 59% revenue, Staff: Educational revenue growth was revealed to be 35-percent, which Apple says is the highest growth rate it has seen.
04.23	Electronista	MS locks ex-MSN Music users out of purchases, Staff: Microsoft late yesterday stirred controversy by telling former customers of its shuttered MSN Music service that it will shut down its license activation system for the service by the end of August.
04.23	Apple Matters	Why You Should Think Twice Before Going the "hackintosh" Way, Aayush Arya: Lately, the issue of Mac OS X being locked to Macs and being able to run it unofficially on non-Apple hardware has been getting a lot of attention.
04.23	Macworld	Apple: 200,000 iPhone developers so far, Peter Cohen: Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer revealed that the company has signed up 200,000 developers for its iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) release thus far.
04.23	Macworld	Record laptop sales drive $1.05B Apple profit, Jim Dalrymple and Philip Michaels: Strong demand for Macs driven by record laptop sales helped Apple turn a $1.05 billion profit for its fiscal second quarter.
04.22	MacNN	Apple’s Web traffic grows 13 percent, Staff: According to new data from Nielsen Online, Web traffic to the Apple Inc’s sites collectivly grew 13 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2008.
04.22	MacNN	Apple cracks down on UK iPhone clones, Staff: Apple is coming down hard on UK vendors of iPhone clones, reports say.
04.22	Electronista	Ballmer: Yahoo profits won’t change Microsoft offer, Staff: Microsoft’s acquisition offer for Yahoo -- now valued at $43.2 billion -- will not rise, regardless of how well the latter company has done in its latest quarter, according to Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.
04.22	Low End Mac	Using the Aluminum iMac: Color Me Impressed, Frank Fox: Well color me impressed. These things are great fun to use.
04.22	Apple Matters	Is The Time for Clones Now?, Hadley Stern: The last time Apple openly accepted, nay even legally licensed clones, the company was widely seen to be on its death bed. Having ignored the pleas of Bill Gates before he created Windows, Apple continued on happily creating closed hardware and software systems.
04.18	MacNN	Apple shares up 4.5%, earnings due, Staff: Shares of Apple Computer Inc. are up $6.51 to $161 near the end of trading on friday, representing a gain of 4.21 percent.
04.18	Electronista	AT&T cuts 4,600 jobs, Staff: Only a day after its landmark deployment of Surface computing, AT&T on Friday said in an SEC filing and public comments that it would cut 4,600 positions from its workforce.
04.18	MacNN	Safari users to be blocked from PayPal?, Staff: Users of Apple’s Safari web browser may be blocked from making PayPal transactions in the future, according to a white paper from the latter company.
04.18	Electronista	Google beats analyst estimates for Q1 2008, Staff: Google today posted its first quarter profits, thoroughly outpacing Wall Street analyst estimates, which were based on the effects a slowing economy would have on sales and earnings.
04.18	Apple Matters	The Non Existent Glaring Hole in the Mac Lineup, Chris Seibold: If there is one constant refrain among the Mac elite it is that there exists a hole so in the Mac line. Where, these people wonder, is the upgradable Mac? The Mac Pro is too much for the average guy, the Mac mini isn’t enough and there is nothing in the middle.
04.18	Macworld	Apple and the homebuilt Mac community, Rob Griffiths: I recently chronicled my adventures building and using a homebuilt Mac. Now it’s time to step back and opine on how I think homebuilt Macs impact Apple’s business...and ask you, our readers, what you think Apple should do about this community.
04.18	Ars technica	Apple patents frickin’ lasers on your frickin’ head, Chris Foresman: Apple continues to apply for novel patents that may or may not have much practical application. A series of recent patent fillings shows Apple paving the way for all the cool kids to wear lightweight and comfortable head-mounted displays, or HMDs, with frickin’ lasers.
04.18	MacUser	PayPal tells Safari it’s not wanted, Dan Moren: What. The. Hell. Paypal. So, just you ragged on Safari for not having anti-phishing features, you’re going to block them from your site. We have a word for that, but it’s not printable on this blog, so use your imagination. No, worse than that. There you go.
04.17	BusinessWeek	The World’s Most Innovative Companies, Jena McGregor: Apple tops BusinessWeek’s 25 "Most Innovative" list.
04.17	MacNN	Macs better than PCs at Vista, Staff: Popular Mechanics says that Macs run Windows Vista better than PCs designed to run the operating system.
04.17	Electronista	Yahoo, Google expanding alliance?, Staff: Yahoo is likely to expand its Google AdSense project after initially positive results, say sources speaking to the Wall Street Journal.
04.17	Mac Night Owl	When Apple Says No, Sometimes They Mean Yes!, Gene Steinberg: A normal part of child psychology is that, if the parent asks for something, the response will often be the opposite of what they expect. This is part of the process of establishing the child’s own independent personality. Now I wouldn’t say that Apple’s strategy shows a childlike veneer, but they certainly have long-term marketing goals that may often seem inscrutable.
04.17	AppleInsider	Mac shipments suspended from NYC Schools over WiFi flaw, Prince McLean: Scheduled delivery of Apple computers to schools run by the New York City Department of Education have been temporarily suspended due to problems related to connecting to the DOE’s wireless network infrastructure.
04.17	MacUser	Embarrassing Microsoft music video was a "spoof", doesn’t make it any less embarrassing, David Dahlquist: The tech world was up in arms over Microsoft’s tasteless, unfunny, and just plain painful "Rocking Our Sales" by "Bruce ServicePack and the Vista Street Band" video that circulated internally through Microsoft and found its way onto YouTube.
04.16	Low End Mac	Open Computer: The First Macintosh Clone in a Decade, Alan Zisman: In the news this week: a small Florida-based company, Psystar offered customers what it promised were Mac OS X compatible PC clones for $399.
04.16	Low End Mac	Photoshop Version History, Matt Pearce: Photoshop began life as a program called Display that was made to display grayscale images on a monochrome display. Photoshop has grown to support layers, filters, brushes, text, 3D objects, video, and much others.
04.16	MacMegasite	Apple Switcher Ellen Feiss’ film to air online, Mike: TheDigitalLifestyle will be doing a one-time only broadcast of the film "Bed & Breakfast, featuring Ellen Feiss of Apple’s "Switch" campaign.
04.16	Mac Night Owl	A Fast Look at Bogus Apple Inc. Issues, Gene Steinberg: In recent days, I’ve commented about some issues that have gotten a fair amount of press lately. Like some of the silly arguments in our presidential campaign these days about who is "elite" and who isn’t, I regard some of the most blatant spin that emerges from some tech pundits these days as completely wrongheaded. Some of it may even represent a manufactured controversy of one sort or another, but that’s for you to decide.
04.16	MacosXrumors	Is Psystar a Vapor Company?, Alexandros Roussos: A yet unknown company called PsyStar has been widely exposed to the media this week since it started advertising an unofficial Mac clone offering on its web site. But all this could turn into the biggest vapor announcement of the year.
04.16	AppleInsider	Apple snags 6.6% share of US PC market in first quarter, Katie Marsal: Mac maker Apple Inc. enjoyed strong retail sales during the first calendar quarter of 2008, boosting its share of the US personal computer market above 6 percent, according to a report released Wednesday by market research firm Gartner.
04.16	AppleInsider	Report waves caution at shadiness of would-be Mac clone maker, Slash Lane: A brief investigation into Psystar Corporation reveals the self-proclaimed Mac cloner maker to have no operating history prior to this week, and further suggests the company may be little more than one-man basement operation.
04.14	Apple Matters	The Genius of Apple Stores, Hadley Stern: We have written critically here in the past about Apple Stores (and you readers have responded with 100s of comments). This was during a time when Apple stores were first coming out, and there were some growing pains. But as I type this from my local Apple store in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts I have nothing but good things to say.
04.11	MacNN	Mac OS, iPhone a "threat" to MSFT dominance, Staff: Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is being labeled a threat to Microsoft’s platform dominance, with the operating system’s new features such as Spaces, and the Mac’s ability to run Windows, being cited as symptoms of the effect.
04.11	Electronista	Microsoft: Vista UAC intended ’to annoy users’, Staff: One of Windows Vista’s design features was deliberately implemented "to annoy users," a Microsoft executive admitted yesterday at the RSA 2008 conference in San Francisco.
04.11	Electronista	Microsoft exploring Apple-like retail shops?, Staff: Microsoft is seriously investigating the prospect of opening a self-branded set of retail stores, according to a new claim.
04.11	Low End Mac	Windows XP Is Faster, but Mac OS X Is Superior in Many Ways, Dan Knight: Scott Hansen, an artist and musician in San Francisco, has provided the most honest assessment of the differences between Macs and Windows PCs that I’ve read, and his conclusions are sure to disappoint some Mac partisans.
04.10	MacNN	MacBook sales enhance AAPL estimates, Staff: Due to stronger-than-expected MacBook shipments, J. P. Morgan Securities today raised its second quarter estimates for Apple, saying that the above factor made up for slower iPod and iPhone sales.
04.10	Electronista	iPhone beta hints stereo Bluetooth, GPS, more, Staff: Text strings in the latest beta of Apple’s iPhone 2.0 firmware point both to multiple new features as well as extra steps to prevent unlocking, according to explorations by a Greek iPhone unlocking site. In addition to references to 3G chipsets, the code also adds A2DP and "HeadphoneBT" entries that suggest support for stereo Bluetooth audio, in addition to the "HeadsetBT" mention for existing mono Bluetooth headset support. Bluetooth remote control is also an apparent option.
04.10	Electronista	Blockbuster to offer Apple TV rival this month?, Staff: Blockbuster today is subject to rumors which claim the movie rental house is developing its own networked media hub.
04.10	Low End Mac	That Old Mac Magic Isn’t Gone, but It Is Fading, Charles Moore: On Tuesday, Frank Fox posted a riposte to my recent column in which I proposed that some of the magic has gone missing from Major League Baseball and the Apple computer experience. Frank says that he couldn’t disagree more.
04.10	Low End Mac	Apple QuickTake Digicam Found, but How Can You Use It?, John Hatchett: When my boss discovered an old Apple QuickTake 150 camera, he immediately thought of me. Okay, I do own a couple of Newtons, a Pismo, and a Sage iMac, but does that make me the keeper of old Mac oddities?
04.10	Apple Matters	Apple Evangelism: Enough Already!, Chris Seibold: The story about Nathaniel is broadly analogous to the story of Apple. For those that remember there was a time, roughly 15 years ago, where Apple was oscillating between bankruptcy and buyout on a daily basis. For true Apple fans these were the dark years. Evangelism was felt to be the solution, the reasoning being that if only people knew the truth things would get better.
04.10	Mac Night Owl	The Great Search for Mac Software, Gene Steinberg: Do you remember the good old days, when there was virtually no Mac software at any local computer shop? Well, you’d think, what with Mac sales going through the roof, you’d find a rich selection at such dealers these days. But expectations and realities are far, far apart these days.
04.09	Low End Mac	Bringing a PowerBook 100 Back from Nearly Dead, Carl Nygren: If you read my article about my vintage Mac network, you probably know that my PowerBook 100s won’t work well.
04.09	Low End Mac	Apple’s MacBook Hits a Home Run, Ryan Nelson: Okay, I’ll admit one thing: I’m completely smitten with this thing. Since I received my 2 GHz MacBook a few days ago, it’s completely engulfed me.
04.09	Mac Night Owl	Apple Versus Microsoft: The Great War Enters a New Phase, Gene Steinberg: Here’s where we left off in the 1990s: Apple CEO Steve Jobs, then with the word "interim" ahead of his title, conceded that the operating system wars were over and Microsoft was victorious.
04.08	Mac Night Owl	Do Browser Wars Make Sense?, Gene Steinberg: Although I suppose you and I are pretty well connected and all, I am willing to bet that most of you don’t concern yourself about which browser to use. Macs come with Safari, Windows PCs come with Internet Explorer and the vast majority of users of either platform simply use the browser that ships with your computer, without worrying so much about finding a substitute.
04.07	Apple Matters	1080P, AKA Apple TV’s Downfall, Hadley Stern: I love my Apple TV. It streams all my music in an easy to use way. My kids can watch their favorite Lego Star Wars video for the umpteenth time (YouTube is my youngest sons idea of television). I can stream photos of just mentioned children to my TV. Watching video podcast rocks. But there is one downfall to Apple TV when it comes to video.
04.07	Mac Night Owl	The Apple Wish List, Gene Steinberg: You know, I’ve written thousands of words expressing my needs and desires for future versions of Mac OS X. Yes indeed, the interface and supporting components are the most important elements of your user experience. You can put the Mac OS on an ugly white box PC and still experience the joys of the Mac. In fact, that’s what happened in the last decade when Apple’s misbegotten cloning program nearly did the company in.
04.01	Mac Night Owl	Five Bogus Reasons to Ditch the Mac!, Gene Steinberg: I realize that there are a whole lot of subjective factors that go into choosing which personal computer to buy, and, also, which computing platform to use. Sometimes you’re forced into it, such as using Windows in an office environment that’s standardized on the platform and requires applications that are exclusive to that operating system. No doubt there are people who are required to use Macs, but have other priorities.