New and Noteworthy: No PowerBook G5; Apple's missed opportunity; iMac supply limited; more

PowerBook G5 not coming soon In an article discussing the new iMac, Apple VP Greg Joswiak tells CNET that although "cramming a G5 into such a tight space can be seen a step toward a G5 notebook...it would be tougher to build the current chip into a laptop than it was to get it in an all-in-one. 'The challenges of cooling a G5 in a Powerbook design are significantly greater,' Joswiak said, noting that a PowerBook is less than half as thick as the new iMac, leaving far less room for cooling tricks." More.

Apple's missed opportunity? A CNET opinion piece claims Apple "missed the opportunity to stay way ahead of its PC manufacturing competitors by not including Wi-Fi as standard and by failing to catch the early-adopter personal video recorder wave by including a TV tuner card." However, the article also incorrectly asserts that the iMac doesn't include "a software option to turn this machine into a full Wi-Fi access point," even though Mac OS X has had such capability built-in, via Internet Sharing, for several years. More.

iMac supply limited initially According to the Mac Observer, initial supplies of the new iMac will be quite limited: "Independent dealers say that the flow of new iMacs will be a 'trickle' when they initially become available in mid-September. TMO was also told that the 17" model will be most [the] readily available unit in the beginning, and that 20" models will be virtually non-existent when the iMac G5 first ships in mid-September." More.

iPod/iTunes news from the Keynote Although most of the Web's Paris Expo coverage has focused on the new iMac, Apple also used the keynote to make two other significant announcements:

• The iPod has captured 58% of the digital music player market over the past two months (since June).
• The iTunes Music Store will be available to consumers in all European Union countries beginning in October. (It has sold over 100 million songs since its debut, including 5 million in Europe in the eight weeks since it opened in Germany, France, and the UK.)

Let Word Do It A member of the Microsoft Word development team writes an interesting blog entry about default settings for Word, criticized by some people for "over-correcting": "It makes no sense, whatsoever, to think in terms of some mythical 'average' user. What does make sense is to think in terms of the defaults that will satisfy most users...No matter what we do, however, there is no way to satisfy everybody. There will always be people who curse Word, and, unfortunately, the people doing the cursing will always be louder than the people who are busy using Word to get their work done." More.

Previously on MacFixIt:

• Disappearing cursor in Safari, Classic (#3)
• QuarkXPress 6.1 Network File Corruption
• More positive Apple repair experiences
• Apple unveils iMac G5
• Utilities Updates: BBEdit 8.0; Jiggler 1.1; Skype 0.8.0.2; more
• New and Noteworthy: FileMaker 7 Advanced now available; Apple says 5 million songs sold through iTunes Europe; more

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