iPod shuffle colours... Apple today has revealed a little update for the iPod shuffle. Technology stays the same, but you can now get it in pink, orange, green and blue as well. Price stays at USD 79.

Labels: colours, ipod, shuffle

- posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 01:02 [article link]  0 comments

Really stupid idea. Apple? I first thought it was already April 1st and I had somehow missed Winter, but it seems this really _is_ part of a patent application: Apple wants to put the optical drive at the _bottom_ of the next, smaller, MacBook revision. This has to be one of the most stupid ideas ever to come out of Cupertino. Really: If the optical drive is _so_ unnecessary, I say just get rid of it altogether. But I happen to need it sometimes. You know: Rip an audio CD, burn a data CD - some users even use their Macs with iLife to create movies and music and the likes. They might need access to the drive as well...
(Edit: The link above seems to be down at the moment. Other info about the patent can be found here on AppleInsider, also with more pictures.) - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 18:44 [article link]  5 comments

The iPhone minus the reality distortion field: lukewarm? A few days have passed, and clearly, there was a *lot* of "babble" in Steve's presentation of the phone. Right now, there are a lot of unanswered questions that are surely important to us. For example: *If* the iPhone runs on a Samsung CPU, then the low-level OS part of the iPhone is not Mac OS X. Otherwise, Apple would have to release the source code according to the rules for BSD. Then, Apple (well, Steve Jobs) said that "you don't want your phone to be a 'platform', you just want it to work". He's quite wrong there. At least if you talk to the actual smartphone users of today. In fact one of the great things about smartphones is that they're not as restricted as "normal" mobile phones. An example: Palm could get away with a lackluster calendar application, because 3rd party calendar applications were so good - and available.
If you look at the iPhone from such a point of view, it's actually quite a bit less smart. The "smart" part about a smartphone is not only that it can do things like use webservices or handle E-Mail. Those features have been on dumb phones for years.
The info spreading now is that the OS takes about 500 MB on an iPhone's flash memory (which of course reduces the space for content), which quite clearly is not a *full* installation of Mac OS X. Clearly, some things are missing. Which ones? We don't know. Clearly, only the drivers have to be present for the hardware that is in it - unlike the full version, where you'll have drivers available for almost anything you can think of. The important thing is: The iPhone is going to be very restricted. It's not a "full computer in the palm of your hand" or anything. It's what Apple plus the carrier want you to have in the palm of your hand. That might be enough for you and me - we'll have to consider the pros and cons, I guess - but it's not a platform that appeals to the smartphone users particularly.
On the bright side: Apple can and will extend the iPhone's functionality. If only so we keep in mind that they can. ;) So an update following the release of the iPhone might add something really nice. Like an iChat application. One or the other useful widget etc. - Just don't expect the iPhone to be anything like "open". - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 17:47 [article link]  3 comments

Keynote stream(s) online... You can watch the streams here. One is the complete keynote, the other starts only with the iPhone's introduction (easily the most interesting part, anyway). - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 02:10 [article link]  0 comments

Microsoft announces Office 2008 for Mac OS X You can read the press release here about it. It's coming in the second half of 2007 and will be the first Universal Binary version of Office for the Mac. They've also announced that Microsoft's new XML-file format will find its way to Office 2004 in beta form this Spring. - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 02:07 [article link]  0 comments

MWSF 2007 Keynote Live Coverage You can re-read our live-coverage here on our reduced live-page. So, the iPhone has become true after all. 480*320 pixel, 4/8 GB PDA/phone running a reduced version of Mac OS X. It seems snappy on their demos, so that's good. Of course it only comes out in June in the US, at the end of 2007 in Europe and in 2008 in Asia, so we can't put it through tests just yet. But it _does_ look like the winning smartphone - even *if* its price is very high *with* a two-year contract. 499 USD for 4 GB, 599 USD for 8 GB version with 2 year contract. The important price will be _without_ contract, internationally. We simply don't know yet.
Then there's the Apple TV, formerly known as iTV. With a 40 GB harddrive, it sounds quite good as well.
I guess the only _real_ downer is that that's it. No Mac news. No software. No "One more thing...".

There's a new AirPort Extreme 802.11b/g/n base station though that looks like the Mac mini or Apple TV.
Steve Jobs also mentioned that Apple Computer, Inc. now was Apple, Inc. - a step already touted some year or two ago. And: Most of apple.com's footers still read Apple Computer, Inc. as far as I can see. It was a pathetic moment, cheesy, but utterly unnecessary, I'd say. Well: It should show us that the "Mac" is not the main focus of Apple anymore, what with "MacWorld" not being venue for any Mac news and everything. (And apple.com losing the "Hardware" tab in favour of the "iPhone" tab, which - to me - more clearly belogs to "iPod + iTunes" than the iTV does...) - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 16:32 [article link]  0 comments

Month Of Apple Bugs - And Fixes. So you've probably heard about the MOAB already. Maybe about the fixes, too. Anyway. The buzz among Mac users currently is that it's just not as hot as the two guys have tried to cook it up beforehand. What I'm interested in is how Apple's going to react. I sure hope they'll act promptly. - posted by Patrick Armbruster @ 21:37 [article link]  0 comments