Apple

Apple bumped .Mac’s storage to 1 GB (1024 MB for those wondering if they’d correctly count). They also released Backup 3. I’ve been keeping my email allotment steady at 100 MB, but that’s been feeling a bit constricting, especially when Gmail is now allowing more that 2.5 GB and my web host gives me 5 GB. However, I really like using Apple’s Mail.app (Gmail does have POP, but that’s not adequate because I can’t do server side email management that way) and my web host’s webmail package, SquirrelMail, isn’t all that bad, it’s just not all that good, or at least not as good as .Mac. ...

Earlier this week, Apple released iTunes 5 and the iPod nano. I didn’t write anything about either because I’m not particularly impressed by either. I’m even less impressed with the iTunes phone aka Motorola ROKR. I should say something though. iTunes 5 This is perhaps one of the most pathetic iTunes’ “upgrades” yet. No, it wasn’t worthy of a first digit number change. 5.0 doesn’t have to follow 4.9 either. They could have continued with 4.10. There’s even an implicit acknowledgment of this by Apple illustrated by the lack of a color change in the icon. Every other first digit change brought a new number. I love green, but it’s getting stale. ...

I’m not as surprised as much as I would have been prior to the Macintel announcement, but I still didn’t expect to see this happen. Apple is making a multi-button mouse with a scroll interface, the Mighty Mouse [Amazon link]. It doesn’t look to be a wheel, but a little nub. Apple’s site mentions rolling though. Mighty Mouse offers 360-degree scrolling capability, thanks to its Scroll Ball, perfectly positioned to roll smoothly under just one finger. I’ll need to get one for myself to play with (because I doubt I’ll like it more than my Logitech MX1000) so I can figure it out. Is it a mini trackball? A nub? Please let it not be a nub. My finger hurts just think about them. What’s really interesting is that it’s not a generic three-button mouse. Apple seems to have jumped headfirst by including side buttons, which act as a fourth button. At $50, it has the same suggested retail price as a Logitech MX518 but will likely stay at that price unlike the Logitech, which can be had for $40 right now. At any rate, this is likely to satisfy many people that have been crying for years for an Apple branded multi-button mouse. The downsides are the price, no fancy optics, and lack of a bluetooth version (big boo for that one). Hopefully Apple will start offering an option to switch out the regular mouse for this on new systems (for a discounted price of $20 or so) or even be so bold as to make it the standard mouse for Powermacs, leaving the single button for the iMacs and eMacs. Update: It even makes noises when scrolling. Cute! Update 2: Amazon has it available for pre-order.

Found via Slashdot, Apple is using DRM to keep parts of the OS from working on unauthorized computers. The Slashdot story includes links to a wiki on x86 Mac OS X, which in turn pulls its information about the TCPA/TPM DRM from this FAQ. The problem is that the site is titled Against TCPA (which is also their domain name). It’s not exactly an unbiased source, to say the least. I want to find a slightly less paranoid breakdown of the technology. ...

Apple released new iBooks and Mac minis. All in all, the updates were really minor. The good news is that all Mac models now sport at least 512 MB of RAM. That’s pretty much the whole of the update for the minis. The iBooks on the other hand, have been bumped to 1.33 GHz and 1.42 GHz. They’ve also moved up to Radeon 9550s in lieu of Radeon 9200s. Oddly enough, the 14″ also gained 9 MHz for its bus apparently. This is the only Mac I’ve read of ever to have a 142 MHz bus. That might be the only thing to make this round of revisions memorable.

Along the lines of their other recent moves, like buying Flickr, Yahoo! has acquired Konfabulator. Longtime Mac fans should recognize the product and its author, Arlo Rose, for his role in creating Kaleidoscope. Recent Mac fans should recognize the debacle surrounding Apple’s creation of Dashboard. This brings the immediate benefit of making Konfabulator free. Previously, the framework itself cost $20 to register. When comparing Konfabulator to Dashboard, the price difference (Dashboard being free with Tiger) gave Dashboard the edge. Yahoo! effecting this price change will have a dramatic effect upon its market share. Mac users will feel free to compare it directly to Dashboard without feeling obligation. As for Windows users, the new Yahoo! association should bring lots of attention. Those two effects should stimulate Widget developers into developing for Konfabulator again. That’s a good thing because as I write this, there is still no working package tracker. Very lame. ...

I stick up for Apple in most cases. This time, they’re on their own. I’m going to bash them for a couple mistakes Right Here, Right Now I must admit after having used NetNewsWire so long, I’d gotten used to its somewhat loose connection with iTunes. It would download new episodes and dump them into iTunes (allowing me to specify genre and playlist). I used only the genre option, using Smart Playlists to find two types of podcasts. Listened to and not listened to. This was done by a smart playlist that collected all files with the genre podcast with a play count of zero and another that did the same except looked for files with a play count of at least one. ...

Apple, as part of its new podcasting initiative, has added extra metadata for iTunes to use. Naturally, when you touch any existing “open” standard as a corporation, you get a shitstorm of criticism. That’s not to say that sometimes it’s not deserved, but a lot of the time resentment forces out more criticism than is necessary or real. Dave Winer and Edd Dumbill both had some beefs. I know, I know. It’s a real shocker that Dave is pissed. Edd seems to be a little more balanced, but still misses some important points. ...

I woke up this morning and was alerted to the availability of the much discussed 4.9. Really, it’s the most feature-rich update to iTunes I can remember since version 4 debuted with the iTunes Music Store capability. Every release since has been pretty lackluster. iTunes 4.8 added the capability to play music videos, but really, there haven’t been any really compelling new features added, in my opinion. I’ll be taking screenshots later as well as reviewing how I’ll be using it. Really, this should have been iTunes 5.0, but maybe Apple has some other really compelling feature(s) to add beyong this, but I doubt it. Here’s a breakdown of what iTunes has added starting with iTunes 4.0. ...

This is a strange predicament that I’ve been placed in. Normally, I agree with what most Mac pundits say. However, many of them are being over-confident and taking Steve’s word for gospel. They’re not doing any analysis or technical reviews of the transition. Rather, they believe the marketing hype otherwise known as a keynote. One of the primary concerns was the ability to run PowerPC software. This was addressed with a slick piece of software called Rosetta. Slick though it may be, it’s still emulation. In other words, it’s slow. To put that concern to rest, Steve told us it was fast enough. Fast enough? What kind of vague bullshit is that? I can let that go because, as I said before, keynotes are marketing hype. What’s sickening is the way in which evangelists are parroting this as if it was the result of some kind of scientific study. ...