apple

Apple working on MacBook video fix

Apple has acknowledged video problems with the latest shipment of MacBooks and MacBook Pros.

Early customers of the Penryn refresh of the Apple notebooks had complained of flickering images during a QuickTime video playback on MacBooks and MacBook Pros shipping with the latest version of Mac OS X Leopard, according to our colleagues over at MacFixIt. Several discussion threads have sprung up over on Apple's user forums, and some customers report that Apple has now acknowledged the problem and is working on a fix.

MacFixIt reports that fix should come with Mac OS X 10.5.3, currently in … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 702: Design to annoy

Yes, Microsoft has come clean and admitted that it designs User Account Control, those little pop-ups that happen when you install software for instance, which were in fact designed to annoy you. They hoped it would make software better. We don't think it worked. Also, Rafe gets Blockblustery, and we take on Virgin Media's load of bollocks. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 702

Psystar’s OpenMac Apple clone is close to a cease and desist order http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/14/ psystars-openmac-clone-is-close-to-a-cease-and-desist-order/ http://www.macrumors.com/2008/04/14/ openmac-promises-399-headless-mac-but-not-from-apple/

Vista’s UAC security … Read more

The '500,000-song' iPod isn't surprising

IBM researchers have reportedly demonstrated technology that will increase hard drive capacity 100-fold, as well as offer major improvements in energy consumption (leading to much longer battery life) and better reliability. Production is estimated in seven to ten years.

The reports summarizing the researchers' findings, which were published in Science (subscription required), use the shorthand "500,000 songs on a portable MP3 player" to describe the advance.

Today's iPod lineup contains no product advertised to hold 5,000 songs, so I'm not sure where the 500,000 figure came from. In fact, the current highest-capacity iPod is 160GB, … Read more

Mac OS X seller (not Apple) disappears after reports

An entrepreneurial Mac vendor has gone offline just hours after it was discovered selling Mac OS X Leopard desktops from a company not named Apple.

MacRumors.com, along with many others, noted one of those too-good-to-be-true deals from a company called Psystar on Sunday night and Monday morning. Psystar, until just now, had been offering $554 "Open Mac" desktops on its Web site with Intel processors, 2GB of memory, a DVD drive, and a copy of Mac OS X Leopard.

The thing is, Apple's software license for Leopard, and any version of Mac OS X, requires that … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 701: Doughnut for your hate

Flickr-haters get free doughnuts. If that's what you get for hating, sign us up! Also, Gartner hates on Windows, and no one gets any doughnuts for that. Europe rejects plans to criminalize file-sharing, offering doughnuts in the form of broad exemptions for fair use, and Network Solutions gets a big, fat doughnut hole for putting ads on your subdomains. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 701

Mike Please keep doing the show.

Windows is ‘collapsing,’ Gartner analysts warn http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9916717-56.html http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;1870375122;fp;;fpid;;pf;1 http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8428… Read more

The problem with Windows.

Poor Microsoft.

No, really.

OK, stop that. Stop that snickering.

OK, well, just a little snickering. Go ahead.

OK, done now?

OK.

But, look, they really have a tough job. Apparently -- and who could have predicted this? -- there's a cost to being everything to everyone. The Macalope doesn't envy them. They have a gazillion different users with a gazillion different requirements and hundreds (thousands?) of hardware manufacturers they have to get their software to satisfy those requirements on.

Suddenly the Apple method of making the whole enchilada doesn't seem so bad now does it?

So, … Read more

Bringing the family together with iCal

After years of trying to figure out how to keep track of an ever-growing array of events and to-dos, my wife and I finally settled on iCal, Apple's calendaring program. iCal syncs seamlessly with my Zimbra (work) calendar, and easily syncs with my wife's iPhone, where she inputs most of her appointment data.

The result? Pure bliss. No more, "But you didn't tell me you'd be out of town on that day!" Gone are the days of (blame-free) accusations like, "Why did you schedule soccer practice right in the middle of Greta's … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 700: Merger-mania!

Yahoo and Microsoft bring Google, AOL, and News Corp. into the ring for a pretty awesome merger-mania that we sincerely hope involves the gratuitous use of Spandex. Sunday, Sunday, Sunday on Pay-per-view! That darned RSA conference continues to scare the sneezes out of us by demonstrating how taking down a national power grid is trivially easy. (Insert nervous giggle here.) We guess it's good to know? Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 667

Yahoo-Microsoft buyout brawl, one-two punch with a swift comeback punch http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9916001-7.html http://www.news.com/8301-13953_3-9915835-80.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120776803032602423.html… Read more

Thinner 3G iPhones planned for WWDC?

A tradition unlike any other: the 3G iPhone rumor on the Internet.

Today's rumor, courtesy of Daily Tech, actually has a fair amount of detail. According to what it heard from a little birdie, Apple plans to stick with the 8GB and 16GB options for the 3G iPhone, as well as the pricing for those models, and announce the new phones at the Worldwide Developers' Conference in early June.

The new iPhones, however, would be about 2.5 millimeters thinner than their predecessors, and have a slightly different exterior finish that's less "plasticky," according to Daily … Read more