You can almost hear Steve Jobs flipping out right now. Psystar, notable for its efforts to sell generic PCs with Mac OS X pre-loaded, has just released something called Rebel EFI. It’s software that allows you to instal Mac OS X on generic PCs without having to Hackintosh said PC. (Hackintoshing isn’t for the weak of heart!)
Update: Psystar’s site is down but here are the installation instructions if you managed to grab the trial version in time. Anyone manage to get it to work yet?
Mac users will need to wait a little longer until Apple officially supports Windows 7 through Boot Camp. A support document published today indicates that Apple Genius will be able to help you sometime before the end of the year. No worries though, many, including our own Nicholas, have already found out that even beta versions of Windows 7 currently run fine through Boot Camp. If you run in to a snag, a bit of Google’n or a local 13-year old can probably resolve your problem.
iFixit has torn up the new iMac to reveal the delicate inner workings of both the machine and its attendant Magic Mouse. Obviously the biggest issue here is removing the massive piece of glass on the front, a process that requires a spunger, suction cups, and a sense that life is futile and electronics should be destroyed on camera for the edification of an audience.
Nokia has filed a compaint against Apple for infringing on its GSM, UMTS, and WiFi “standards,” which is as absolutely vague as it sounds. While Nokia states that forty vendors have licensed its patents in these areas there is no mention of the specific instances of infringement and, given that GSM, UMTS, and WiFi are the defacto standards for GSM-based phones across the board it’s hard to tell what Nokia’s real problem is here.
I love companies like Disney. They seem to think that just because they want something some way, it’ll happen. Take for instance their latest scheme. Instead of allowing you to “buy” their movies on DVD, Blu-ray, or even VHS, they are going to allow you to buy access to their content.
You have to love the game that Apple plays. The company never puts anything on sale and all its products generally stay at their MSRP until new models are available to replace them. Well, because of yesterday’s new products, today is lucky day. (if you’re in the market for a new Mac, that is)
For weeks – months even – analysts have been telling Apple to make a netbook for the masses, a $299 junker designed for those who surf the web on the couch, their Cheeto-stained hands scrabbling for the TiVo remote while they incessantly refresh Reddit and hope against hope that their Craigslist Missed Connection emails them back. The Air, they said, was too expensive, designed for the frou-frou quiche-eaters of Silicon (V)alley while the MacBook Pros were too overpowered for the likes of Flyover Sally and her sad-eyed brood of younglings. They needed to sell something to the masses, something solid, American, and corn-fed.
Well, now Sally, the quiche-eaters, and the Cheeto dude – and the rest of us – have the new MacBook. It offers a bit less power and peformance than the Pro line, a little more of the styling of the Air line, and sells right at $999, a magic marketing number that is neither North of $1000 (before taxes) and South of corporate financial suicide.
[UPDATE - Added battery test.]
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Imagine if it were your job to race to the Apple store whenever anything came out, and then as soon as you step outside, to just hurl it against the wall and take pictures of the fragments. Well, that’s pretty much iFixit in a nutshell. Sure, they use screwdrivers and stuff, and take it apart all neat-like, and have nice cuticles, but basically they’re exploding the latest and greatest device for your entertainment.
Hey, it’s not like I have a problem with it. Otherwise I’d never know what those new MacBooks look like on the inside.
For $19 you can get an Apple Remote that looks like an unibody MacBook Pro with black buttons and a different layout. Clearly the Internet has been waiting for this all morning.
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Gadzooks, a new MacBook! Yup, Apple has re-designed the entry level MacBook, and it’s now made of “rugged polycarbonate that withstands the rough and tumble of everyday life.” LED backlit, too.
I certainly don’t want to cause a panic, but EVERYBODY PANIC! APPLE DID SOMETHING!
Yes, new iMacs are here. For prompt shipping, please send your wallet to…
Apple
1 Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014
…with a Post-It note saying “Send iMacs! Please! Hurry!”
In return, you’ll get one of the following:
Here it is: the new Magic Mouse, a single button mouse (with a software-controlled right click option) and a touch sensitive top surface that allows you to touch the mouse to pinch, scroll, and drag, just like a trackpad. The mouse uses two AA batteries and lasts 4 months on one change.
It costs $69 and is available at the end of October.
RIP Mighty Mouse name. It’s now called the Apple Mouse.
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Just like the rumor stated, Apple refreshed the Mac mini lineup today. The smallest Macs now sport faster 2.26GHz or 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo CPUs, 2 or 4 GB of RAM, and either 160 or 320 HDD. There is also a $999 1TB option but you must forgo the optical drive. Apple must be paying attention too because OS X server is now an official option. Prices are still the same as the previous options with the base model starting out at $599. Read More
Huh, look at that. The Store on the Australian Apple website has the standard “We’ll be back soon” message while the American Store is still up. Maybe Fake Steve Jobs is right and Apple really does a have bunch of new products set to come out today…
[thanks for the tip, Aaron]
[Update] The US store is now down too. Prepare for new Apple products.
Today could be a big Apple day. John Gruber and Dan Lyons both think that we might just see a plethora of new Apple products today. Exciting, I know. These new models would include new iMacs, plastic Macbooks, Mac Minis, 2nd generation Mighty Mouse that isn’t called a Mighty Mouse, and some sort of multitouch desktop gadget thingy. Yeah, all that is suppose to come out today even though Apple doesnt’ have a press conference on the books and Steve Jobs knows I don’t really want to work that hard today. Yeah, we talk.
The Q4 numbers are in for Apple and they’re good. Quite good. Really good.
The company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share. Apple’s own earnings projections for Q4 were $1.23 a share, but they always put them laughably low. Analysts’ projections expected them to be around $1.42 a share, but some were looking for numbers as high as $1.60 a share. Apple beat all of those, easily.
Apple sold 3.05 million Macs in the quarter, up 17 percent from a year ago. They also sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, a 7 percent growth from a year ago. Both of those are record sales numbers, CEO Steve Jobs notes.
I’m not about to knock myself out for noting the 800th iMac rumor of the past few weeks, so here’s the deal: people “close” to Apple now aren’t sure whether or not Blu-ray will wind up on the next iMac revision. Blu-ray may be on Mac Pros, and maybe then only as a build-to-order option, but that’s enough “maybes” to bore a slug.
Oh Snow Leopard, you have made my day. Remember when updates used to be in the hundreds of megabytes? Your unified architecture has slimmed down apps and updates so much that they are only a thousandth the size now.
Or it could be that it’s just a tiny patch to fix an uncommon but problematic hard drive error (since it’s only 22KB more for Leopard). Either way, the update is there. Been having hard drive issues? This may just fix it.
Yesterday, word got out of Apple’s new iFrame standard, which purports to expedite video editing by keeping the video in “the same format used on a computer.” Really, it’s nothing but a resolution and wrapper. So why am I losing my mind over it? Because the way iFrame is being positioned and propagated is misleading and harmful to consumers. Oh I know, what an alarmist, right? It’s just a video format! But with personal video becoming more and more ubiquitous and invading class after class of gadgets, these former trivialities are becoming more important by the day.
And for once, we are actually gravitating towards a couple unified standards in both encoding and resolution — and then Apple butts in with this ugly stepchild of a format.
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