Well I finally bit the bullet and purchased a MacBook, though with some hesitation. Don't mention the fact that Apple charges outrageous premium pricing for the black model or I will drop into a fetal position and throw a tantrum. But I have to admit the white motif is growing on me, and the design is simply beautiful.

Enjoy the MacBook pR0n. Visit my Flickr gallery for more photos.

A new study conducted by PiperJaffray shows that iPhone is already gaining iconic status, with more than 85% of 500 students surveyed having knowledge of the iPhone. Even more surprising, 25% of of those same students show an interest in purchasing the iPhone, despite its steep $500 entry price point. Hey, 500 out of millions of unsurveyed students can't be wrong. Expect a sharp increase in teenage prostitution to follow.

Source: AppleInsider

Apple disclosed total iPod sales volumes to date, revealing that over 100 Million units have been sold since the little white music player that changed the world was first launched.

Apple today announced that the 100 millionth iPod® has been sold, making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history. The first iPod was sold five and a half years ago, in November 2001, and since then Apple has introduced more than 10 new iPod models, including five generations of iPod, two generations of iPod mini, two generations of iPod nano and two generations of iPod shuffle. Along with iTunes® and the iTunes online music store, the iPod has transformed how tens of millions of music lovers acquire, manage and listen to their music.

Congratulations Apple.

Source: Press Release

Just when you thought your three month old Mac Pro was safe from obsolescence, Apple pulls the rug out from under your workstation. Today the company announced its long awaited dual quad-core system based on Intel's new "Clovertown" Xeon processors. That's four cores on a single die, totalling eight cores, for those of you whom are math challenged. I barely use the full potential my single quad core Mac Pro offers, let alone 8 bloody cores! Still, I can see real world applications for video professionals and science fields.

If you want one be prepared for sticker shock. The "entry level" 8-core model starts at $3,298. Fortunately standard dual-core models based on Intel "Woodcrest" Xeon remains available starting at a reasonable $2,200.

Jump to the link.

For those who have never been to or beheld the spectacle of an Apple Store opening, you really should watch this video to get an idea of the experience at these gala events. Lines that span a quarter mile...people camping out at midnight to be first in line...the feeling of euphoria as your turn in the queue arrives to finally enter the store. Amazing.

Be on the look out for several celebs shopping amongst the crowd, like James Woods and Kevin Bacon, to name a few.

What happens when a fetish becomes obsession, then turns into a life consuming preoccupation that drives friends and family away, compelling you to alter your physical environment, modeled after your Apple addiction? You turn your dwelling into an Apple store, of course!

I applaud this fellow’s creativity, it really is brilliant. But, still. Jesus!

Apple.co.uk has inadvertantly listed the upcoming 8–core Xeon Mac Pro. We’ve heard rumors to this product’s impending release, but this is the first confirmation, coming from Apple no less.

Somewhere in the halls of Apple UK, an employee’s ass is being handed to him, along with a pink slip.

Who can forget this charming ad from a red-eyed pothead Ellen Feiss, endorsing Macs, as part of Apple's ill fated "Switch" campaign. I've seen this ad so many times and yet it continues to make me laugh each time. *sigh*

Ah, Sweet memories of advertising gone wrong.

Be still, my heart. Apple seems to have taken an usually long time baking this operating system release. Which means either this was a major development effort incorporating a slew of innovative new features, or merely a strategic ploy based on timing and opportunity. I hope it's the former and not the latter. So little of Leopard's features have been show publicly the OS remains shrouded in mystery? Will it live up to the hype, or lack thereof? The silence is deafening.

Source: ThinkSecret

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, OSX, Leopard

For those of you that don't like Apple Mail.app, and don't want to downgrade to Thunderbird, a new open-source project is underway that promises to to with Thunderbird what Camino does for Mozilla; bring the application into full Quartz goodness. The software is called Correo (don't ask what the name stands for or where it came from), and although it's still in the Alpha stage of development (version .01), this app looks very promising and may in fact become a great option for Mail-hungry Mac users. Much work lies ahead and this app is nowhere near ready for prime time, it doesn't even have a preferences feature yet. But it's worth downloading simply to test and contribute feedback to the developers.

Click here to learn more about Correo and download

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mac, Mail, OSX

Believe it or not, I don't own a laptop. I generally have little need for a portable, as most of my work in done primarily in front of a workstation (actually two in fact). But on the odd occasion a laptop would be a welcome accessory. So I began researching various PC laptop models on the market today, notably Apple, and came away surprised. Apple is really behind the market. Dell and other PC vendors are offering portables for as low as $599, which include a 15.4" widescreen display, while Apple is charging $1,099 for its consumer portable (MacBook) that only offers a confined 13.3" widescreen. Now, I wouldn't buy a Dell Inspiron or HP Pavilion notebook to save my life...they're junk! But a gulf exists between these two products that leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Granted, Apple's products have always been premium priced. So this is nothing new. And historically you get much higher quality components in Apple's machines which makes the higher sticker price worth the premium. But in this case it is the weak specs that have me alarmed. If Apple is charging me over a grand for a MacBook, so be it. But at least give me the same 15" widescreen display that I would normally get from a bargain basement PC laptop for crying out loud!

At this point I can't justify spending so much for so little, and intend to hold off for a while before making a purchase. Hopefully Apple will revamp its portable line soon, bringing it to more competitive terms.

Technorati Tags: MacBook, MacBook Pro

AppleInsider has posted some really great shots (from behind the giant Bell glass display case) of the iPhone on display at MacWorld.

Link

Apple finally launched its much rumored mobile phone at MacWorld yesterday, immediately triggering a massive worldwide drool-fest among gadget freaks. While it has been widely known that Apple has had such a product secretly in development for at least two years now, the device itself remained shrouded in mystery. Some analysts speculated the device would prove to be nothing more than a relatively simple inexpensive iPod phone, while others expected more of a Blackberry style Smartphone, done in a sleeker package. Both camps got it wrong…and right. iPhone isn’t what anyone really expected.

When I first gazed upon images of the iPhone I was immediately awestruck by its unique industrial design, which oddly resembles a PDA more than a phone. We’ve come full circle back to tablet style form factors with large screens again. Didn’t see that coming. At the same time I was also slightly disappointed. As amazingly slick looking as it is, I have a great deal of reservations about typing on a flat screen display in place of fixed keyboard input. Hardware buttons offer good tactile feedback when entering text. The idea of tapping on a smudge prone screen with my fingers doesn’t exactly fill me with delight. Whether it will work or not remains to be seen since we have yet to see this scheme in action other than well staged product demos.

But Apple may be onto something with software based input. And God knows the Operating System alone will move this product in massive volumes. Everyone is talking about this device, and everyone seems to want one.

The next few months are going to be grueling!

Nothing fills me with greater joy than watching one company pull the rug out from under its competitor the moment that adversary is about to step into the spotlight. That's exactly what Apple is about to do to Microsoft on the eve of Vista's launch. Now, keep in mind that Apple, or rather Steve Jobs, has stated publically that its next operating system (OSX Leopard) will ship sometime in the second quarter of next year. Microsoft meanwhile will ship Windows Vista to consumers in January. Well guess what? Apple is going to sucker punch Microsoft by launching OSX Leopard early in January at Macworld San Francisco. How do I know this? A few reasons.

• Steve Jobs loves to surprise the industry with his legendary "One more thing" product announcements. And nothing will give him greater pleasure than trumping Redmond by stealing publicity away from Microsoft with a surprise launch of Leopard.
• Apple is running out of dot releases. The latest system update to OSX Tiger is version 10.4.8. Now unless Apple plans on adding further incremental digits onto its builds, I don't see how they can protract one further dot release another 7-9 months.
  


• Apple has recently been turning up the heat on Mac developers in an attempt to cajole them into getting their apps released for Leopard at the earliest possible date. I've received two emails from Apple's Developer Connection program over the last couple weeks that boasted the benefits of supporting Leopard, and encouraging me to learn more about the new OS. This coincides with recent preview builds of Leopard to developers. Coincidence? Maybe.
  

Technorati Tags: Apple, Leopard, OSX

Apple keeps finding more ways to drive me into bankruptcy. First they nickel and dime me with repeated assualts from iPod rollouts. Then they introduce the Mac Pro. Now comes a beefed up MacBook Pro running Intel's latest mobile processor; Core 2 Duo. This release seems to be watered down as upgrades come; aside from a new processor under the hood, nothing significant has changed over the previous models. Even pricing remains the same.

My biggest concern is the much maligned heat issue that some users complain to be so hot, the laptop can literally be used as a portable grill top. If these machines run cooler and more reliably than its predecessor, then I might bite the bullet. As it is now I don't own a Mac portable at all, in no small part to issues I keep reading about. We'll see

Check out the new MacBook Pros here.

Technorati Tags: Intel, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Core 2 Duo

Dozens of happy new Windows based iPod users found an unexpected surprise in their iTunes playlists; a Windows virus!

Granted, this is old news by now but in light of the totally hilarious nature of this story, I simply could not let it pass without posting something. Believe it or not, this incident truly was merely an unfortunate accident, and not as nutsack conspiracy theorists suggest...a deliberate act. According to the news wire, a batch of 5.5 generation iPods were inadvertently infected with a Windows virus, while in manufacturing, during (ironically) quality control testing when docked with a host PC which was apparently infected with a virus. The infection, both on the test PC and as well as attached iPods, went unnoticed until large quantenties of said iPod units had already shipped.

Perhaps Apple should begin selling downloadable copies of McAfee Anti-Virus from the iTunes Store. What next...rootkits on every iPod nano?

Technorati Tags: Apple, iPod

Apple has begun emailing .Mac subscribers (myself included) announcing a soon to be released makeover that will transform the tired .Mac mail interface, as we know it, into a Web 2.0 clone of OSX Mail (based on AJAX of course). I'm not sure a desktop UI is well suited as an embedded interface, but we shall soon find out. Considering I access my .Mac account through Mail as an IMAP account it really makes little difference to me. But hey, you do it your way...I'll do it mine.

Technorati Tags: Apple, Mail, .Mac

iTunes 7 is with little doubt the best "new" application Apple has released in quite some time. But as early adopters (like yours truly) soon discovered, this release is a roach motel of bugs and software glitches. Some of which can be downright critical. One issue in particular struck a blow below the belt to any iPod user; after installing iTunes 7, podcasts can no longer be played back on your iPod. Any attempt to play recently downloaded podcast in your playlists results in crashing the iPod. The only workaround to this problem is to pre-play the track within iTunes on your Mac or PC. Then and only then will the audio file successfully playback without failure. Imagine having to do that with every audio file in a podcast playlist that contains nearly 50 feeds? Yeah, lots of fun that is.

Another issue I experienced deals with iTunes best new feature: Coverflow. Coverflow, for those of you that don't know, is a new way to view and interact with your music library; displaying a horizontal animated side-scrolling CD cover interface that works much like a Roldex. With this visual interface, one can navigate through their music library in much the same metaphor as a bookshelf filled with Vinyl records. After using this feature for a few weeks now I am completely hooked! I often find myself thumbing through music I haven't played in a long time or nearly forgotten about. Best of all, iTunes will grab album art for any albums you've burned off of CD. Well, most albums anyway. Coverflow is ingenious!

Unfortunately, as iTunes 7 was clearly a release that was rushed out the door, Coverflow doesn't work very well. It's slow to navigate, and more often than not CD album art fails to load in system cache without reading from disk. Scroll quickly from left to right, or vice versa, and the only music you'll hear is the sound of your hard drive crunching away as it fights like hell to keep up with Coverflow's demands. Sigh.

Thankfully Apple seems to have addressed most of these issues with the release of iTunes 7.0.1, available as of today. Coverflow is still a bit sluggish at times, but at least in a more tolerable state than before. So far I can report no problems.

Download iTunes 7.0.1 from within System Update (Mac) or click here (Windows)

Apple unveils new Intel Core 2 Duo (Conroe) based iMacs, including a new 24" widescreen whopper that retails for $1,999. In addition, prices have been slashed across the product line, and the entry level model can now be had for a mere $999. Not a bad deal.

Learn more.

Over the Labor Day weekend I and a fellow Mac fanboy decided to pay a visit to our nearest Mecca to all things Apple...the Apple Store located at Keystone, in Indianapolis. The store was oddly vacant when we first arrived at around 10:00 AM on Monday, but a couple hours later we returned after some shopping and a bite to eat. The store had suddenly become packed with customers during our absence. It was a madhouse!

My friend (actually a client of mine) purchased a Mac Pro with 23" Cinema Display, which is an upgrade to his existing G5 iMac. I think he was jealous of my Mac Pro with 20" Cinema and thought he would upstage me by getting a larger display. Curse him!

I will say this about the staff at this Apple store; they are absolutely well trained and on the stick in customer relations.

View my photos on Flickr.

Some spy photos taken from the floor of the Moscone Center, where workers are setting up for next weeks World Wide Developers Conference, are quickly circulating around the web. The image reveals a banner depicting a 64bit processor icon. This could be further evidence that Apple will announce the much anticipated Intel-based professional workstation at the event. Not that any further verification is needed, as we know almost for certain the Mac Pro (the official name for Apple's PowerMac successor) will be unveiled. The reference to 64bit could also have something to do with OSX 10.5, codenamed leopard. We shall soon see.

Apple has quietly added three new TV spots to its current nationwide ad campaign called "Get a Mac". As before the ads show the same two characters who symbolically represent a PC and Mac, played by actors John Hodgman and Justin Long, respectively. These particular ads I find much more humorous than the previous roll, especially the Out of the Box sketch. Funny stuff. See the ads here.

Ever since Apple ported OSX to the Intel x86 architecture, bootleg copies of the PC-compatible OS have flowed through peer 2 peer networks like a pandemic virus. In fact, an entire community of PC "Mac users" was born almost overnight, devoted to the cause of running OSX on mainstream PC hardware.

Being the curious lad that I am, I have longed to experience first hand how OSX 10.4 Tiger performs on generic PC hardware. All in the name of research of course. As I'm sure you have already figured out, I'm quite a Mac fan. However I still remain largely a PC user. Much as I love Apple and Macintosh platform as a whole, I still have a parallel affinity for the PC side of the computing market. Windows XP, despite its numerous flaws, is a viable and fairly reliable platform that I use daily, right alongside my Mac. It's not politically correct to endorse Windows or Microsoft, but then again I've never been politically correct.

(Behold...the ancient Dell Dimension 8100...in all its...uh, glory?)

Apple is offering a special thirty-day money back guarantee on its popular Mac Mini system, allowing anyone to "test drive" a Mac...worry free. If you don't like the Mini, you can return it at the end of the 30 day trial period for a full refund. How about that?

This is another smart move by Apple. As cheap as the Mini is, there are still those who fear the unknown. Many PC users I speak with that are Mac curious always voice the same concern..."What if I don't like it?" This should resolve one more hurdle. Of course, once the new Intel-Macs start arriving, the entire Mac vs. Windows argument will be gone forever, as those systems will be able to dual boot both operating systems.

There were several minor injuries and one person was taken to a hospital with a leg injury, fire Battalion Chief Steve Wood said during a 1 p.m. news conference. In all, 17 people were treated, the majority for heat- or diabetic-related problems, he said. Thousands of Henrico County residents and/or taxpayers stood in a half-mile-long line as dawn broke while others waited in cars parked nearby or milled about not far from the entrance to RIR. One official estimate put the crowd at 5,500. Other observers estimated more than twice that. Many had come prepared with books, snacks, umbrellas and chairs. The first car arrived at 1:30 a.m. By 6:30 vehicles were backed up on Laburnum Avenue about a half mile to Carolina Avenue.

A few years ago Apple struck a rather large deal with the Henrico County school district in Virginia to provide iBooks to all Middle-school students. The district decided to sell off 1,500 of these aging iBooks at a blowout price of just $50 per unit. The people you see in the photo were waiting in line to buy them as soon at the gates opened. The line was more than a half mile long!

By the way...is that Dale Coffing in the foreground?