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Ireland gets the iPhone, Australia gets mad
Today it was revealed that the iPhone will be making the jump over to Ireland.
On March 14th, Apple and O2 will be launching the superstar handset on the emerald isles, and most everyone is pretty thrilled by the news.
Well, everyone except the Gadgetroos over at Gizmodo Australia, who wonder why Apple has yet to take the iPhone down under:
"For those of you not up to date with your geography and population
statistics, According to Google, Ireland has an estimated population of
4,109,086 as at July 2007" they note.
"Australia, on the other hand, has an
estimated population of 20,434,176. That's roughly five times the
population of Ireland, which in my head equates to roughly five times
the number of iPhones Apple could sell if they hurried up and released
the iPhone in Australia."
The new king of the cursor?
When the Macintosh made its big debut in 1984, one of the most unique and impressive features was an input device known as a "mouse."
The ball-powered peripheral was used to move the cursor around the screen and navigate the MacOS. This new way of navigating through a computer helped to make the MacOS the standard for easy-to-use and navigate software.
While it's not as revolutionary as the mouse, could the new MacBook trackpads and multi-touch features bring back the Mac's reputation for cutting-edge navigation tools?
Somewhere along the line, Apple lost its way in the world of the mouse. As PC-makers adopted a two-button mouse and the right-click became common practice, using the mouse to navigate Windows got far easier. Apple, however, didn't quite go for the multi-button philosophy.
Instead, Mac users were subjected to a number of clumsy and sometimes painful mice and performing simple tasks in the MacOS become unnecessarily tedius.
Eventually, Apple got on board and in recent years, the multi-button mouse became commonplace. In the laptop field, however, Apple stuck to its stubborn one-button ways and OS X again became a bit of a pain to navigate.
Now, it seems that Apple may be back on top. The multi-touch trackpads bring a whole new way to click. Hopefully, the touchpads will catch on and users will be able to pinch, rotate, and swipe around OS X as easily and nonchalantly as they right-click on desktops today.
iPod sales take a hit
For the first time since... well... ever, analysts are predicting that iPod sales will down from last year's quarterly numbers.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster forecast between 9.5 and 10.3 million iPods will be sold over the first three months of 2008. That will mark a six percent decline over the same period in 2007.
This is actually seen as good news, given the dire predictions which were going around. Still, it means that sales of Apple's star attraction may finally be starting to taper off.
You knew it had to happen eventually.
I don't think anyone expected the iPod bonanza to go on forever. There are only so many people who will buy an MP3 player, and you can't keep up record numbers forever.
This isn't great news for Apple, particularly on Wall Street, but let's put it into perspective. The hit which the company will take isn't anything compared to the dark days of the 90's, and there's still very strong Mac and iPhone sales to rely on.
Still, if this means that the iPod is falling back to earth, who will become Apple's new star? Will the iPhone become the big seller, or will a new line of next-gen Macintosh computers follow the MacBook Air and put the "Computer" back into Apple Inc?
New iTunes, Quicktime
This one is for both Mac and PC users. New versions of Quicktime and iTunes fix some issues with Apple TV and bring the movie rental service to everyone.
A few other bugs are also fixed, though none of them appear to address any security flaws.
As always, you can get update through Software Update of via the Apple Support Downloads page.
The Apple event that wasn't
Perhaps it's the quiet before the storm. Or perhaps we're all just a bit spoiled from a fast start to 2008, but Mac news has been pretty slow as of late.
When there's not much to do, imaginations run wild, news-hunters sniff a little harder, and rumors get a bit more consideration.
Perhaps that's why a rumor about a special Apple event in New York City featuring rock band Linkin Park got legs and ended up getting blown just a bit out of proportion.
When whispers of a possible connection between the band and Apple first surfaced, people expected the biggest. Was this the much-anticipated event? Was Linkin Park going to be the special musical that Steve Jobs rolls out to cap off any big announcement the company makes?
Not exactly. It turns out Linkin Park did play in New York, and it was an Apple function, but nothing to get the geeks in a lather. The band simply played a show at the SoHo Apple store as a warm-up for a bigger gig at Madison Square Garden.
Sometimes, the hype machine can get a bit out of control. Especially in the era of blogs, twitter, and 24-hour news feeding frenzies. This definitely won't be the last time a loud buzz turns into a red herring.
But hey, at least it spices up a slow news cycle.
Shufflin' on the cheap
If you've been thinking about getting a second iPod for trips to the gym or short rides on the subway, good news: Apple has lowered the price on the iPod shuffle to $49.
For scarcely more than the cost of a new set of earbuds, you can score yourself a tiny little clip-on music player. If 1GB is not enough, Apple will also be offering a 2GB model for $69. If you've ever tried to jog with a hard disk-based player (such as the current iPod video line) you understand the benefit of flash-based players and the appeal such an affordable iPod offers to HDD-pod owners.
And business users, Apple has something for you too...
Welcome news for anyone charged with managing a Mac media storage bank: the company has updated Xsan, it's storage area network software.
New features include the ability to access multiple SANs at a single time as well as support for third-party RAID storage products.
Time for another security rant
It seems once every five or six weeks, an event, report, or posting comes along that leads us to the always volatile subject of Mac security. It has been a while since the buzz on the Mac DNSchanger trojan died down, so I guess we're about due for another one.
Mac security is a touchy subject to say the least. The mere mention of the concept of Malware makes the fanboys roll their eyes and laugh in disgust, which causes the security guys to roll their eyes and laugh in disgust, which causes me to get dizzy from following everyone's rolling eyes.
These pieces are like comment grenades. You toss one up, and suddenly there's a hail responses. You get comments flaming the article, then you get comments flaming the flames, then you get comments flaming those who flamed the flames, and it just goes on and on.
So, without further ado, let's pull the pin...
This time around, it's a report by Sophos. The security outfit ran a survey which found that about ninety per cent of computer users believe that Mac malware will only get worse in the coming months and years. This is up from about seventy per cent last year.
The good news is that the spread of malware isn't determined by user surveys, its determined by where money can be made. Malware authors will target the easy buck.
The bad news is, the bad guys seem to be agreeing with the users. Last fall we had the first Mac malware surface. We also have tools like MPack which allow a single web page to target multiple vulnerabilities, platforms, and browsers and are becoming easier to obtain and deploy.
Still, there's hope. The malware writers are still just dipping their toes in. OS X has yet to prove itself as a big cash cow for the bad guys. As Graham Cluley at Sophos noted, user habits can keep hackers at bay and the crop of Mac malware small.
So, practice smart surfing. Make sure your system is updated, don't open suspicious downloads or attachments, and tell your friends and family to do the same.
Apple to buy Yahoo?
Well, someone had to bring it up eventually. Just about every other big name in the industry has been said to be in talks to strike a deal to save Yahoo from the clutches of Microsoft.
No, there's nothing to suggest that Apple wants to buy Yahoo. No secret whispers from connected parties, no flattering blog posts by executives, no public buyout offer.
Still, just for fun, let's examine what could happen if Apple were to add its name to Yahoo's ever-growing list of suitors.
There is, possibly, some reason for Apple to have an interest in Yahoo (at least as much as News Corp and AOL would have.)
For one, there's .Mac. Apple has been pushing the web service to Mac users for years now with limited success. An acquisition with Yahoo would instantly give them a foothold in the web services market and open up a whole new audience of both Mac and PC .Mac/Yahoo users.
There's also the advertising field. Apple loves to get into new markets, so long as they know that they can make money out of it. This was proven with the iTunes store. Advertising is a lucrative market, and Apple is just about the only company that could make the purchase without incurring a huge anti-trust headache.
There's also the possibility to tie advertising into other products. Perhaps an ad-funded free iTunes web service a-la Pandora.
A pipe dream, perhaps, but it makes just as much sense as a buyout by AOL or News Corp, doesn't it?
February event: Flash for the iPhone?
Add another possible event to the ever-growing Apple February rumor-mill.
One tech site now claiming that Flash support for the iPhone will be coming any day now. According to GearLive, Flash support is just around the corner.
This isn't much of a shock. In fact, it's surprising that it took this long. Adobe has been pushing mobile Flash for months, and it's not much of a secret that the company has been working with Apple.
Putting two and two together, and we get the possibility that Flash on the iPhone as well as an SDK could be among the things announced at Apple's rumored event late this month.
Possible, though Apple doesn't usually hold events unless there's some hardware to introduce as well. This could be the 3G iPhone Steve Jobs talked about last year. As we've already noted, however, that would be a rather curious move considering the fact that Apple just released the 16GB iPhone last week.
New update not just for Leopard
Apple has released an update for Leopard that includes both stability and security fixes.
If you don't have a copy of the latest OS X or a brand new Mac, however, don't think you're out of the woods. Several of the security patches in the Leopard update also concern Tiger.
The Tiger patches are being released as a separate security patch and can be had through Software Update or Apple's support site.
Office users also take note: tomorrow is Microsoft's monthly patch release. At least one of those patches will be for the OS X version of Office 2003.
upda
Major Apple event rumoured
Apple may be getting ready to stage another one of those mystery press events it has become so fond of recently.
Citing companies that are said to be helping with the setup, both AppleInsider and The Unofficial Apple Weblog are both reporting that the company is planning something for the end of February.
The purpose of the event is rumored to be everything from 45nm CPUs to the iPhone SDK to the 3G version of the iPhone (though I wouldn't expect that given the recent release of the 16GB model.)
Learn Segway polo, the Woz way
Polo is a sport for the ultra-wealthy. The old-money types who consider elegance and sophistication a cultural duty. Segway polo is a sport for the people who went to MIT and got made fun of by those guys.
Who better, then, to teach the official sport of Silicon Valley nobility than one of the all-time geek heroes, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak?
Woz is the star of a series of videos which teach the finer points of the game.
After that horrendous "if they mated" photo of Woz we posted last summer without being sued, MacInspector probably owes the Apple co-founder a favor or two. So here's the link.
Apple beefs up iPhone, Touch
One of the downsides of Apple's ultra top-secret philosophy on new products is that people tend to get stuck paying for something they wouldn't have bought one week later.
Such is the case for anyone who purchased an iPhone or iPod touch yesterday.
As you may have heard, Apple doubled the capacity for both the iPhone and iPod touch. For an extra hundred bucks, you can get twice as much storage capacity. A pretty good deal, unless you paid for the previous model.
Steve Jobs alleviated the last price drop by offering a rebate, but eventually these surprise launches may start to wear on consumers and make people reluctant to buy products in anticipation of an upgrade.
iPods don't really make your heart skip a beat
Good news: you can finally get grandma that pink Nano she's been wanting for the last three years. Science has proven that it won't kill her (well, unless it explodes in her pocket.)
A recent study by the FDA has concluded that the fears raised about MP3 players interfering with pacemakers were unfounded.
This story really dates back to last May, when a high school student from Michigan presented a study claiming that the iPod could cause as many as half of all pacemakers to malfunction.
An FDA researcher did a study in which the iPods were placed about 2.5cm from the pacemakers and found no ill effects. So while a new iPod may get granny mugged or struck by lightning, at least it won't tinker with her ticker.
