mac

Why Apple should release a touch-screen Mac

Apple is one of the major leaders in the multitouch space and yet, the company's desire to bring a full-fledged touch-screen device to store shelves has stopped with the iPhone. In fact, the most it has done in bringing multitouch to its computers is offering the functionality in the track pad on its MacBook Air.

But simply offering multitouch on a trackpad isn't enough to make consumers want to flock to Apple products instead of HP or Dell machines. Instead, Apple needs to embrace the fact that many people prefer touch-screen technology and create a Mac that offers the same basic functionality found in the iPhone.

Innovation has been a key to Apple's success over the past decade and without it, the company would be nothing more than another computer vendor. But by releasing a Mac that eclipses the functionality of the tablet PC and fully harnesses the power of multitouch in a way that no one has seen before, Apple can create the computing world's first iPhone-like success.

And in the process, Apple could single-handedly propel the computing market forward into a new era where vanilla products are the exception and establish itself as the de facto leader in innovation.… Read more

Oz falls hard for the Mac

In the US, Mac sales are growing three times as fast as PC sales. The Australians, however, are putting us to shame. In the land "Down Under" made famous by Men at Work, Olivia Newton John, and Crocodile Dundee, Mac sales are growing at six times the industry average.

With Mac sales growing 52 percent in Australia in Q2 2008, Australia is officially the world's fastest-growing Mac population.

Oy, mate! Throw a little of that Mac on the barby!

Intel lists new processors for ultra-portables

Intel has listed new low-power processors for upcoming ultra-portables from Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Lenovo, among others.

The chipmaker also listed its first mobile quad-core processor, the QX9300, which runs at 2.53GHz and comes with 12MB of level-2 cache. The processor is priced at $1,038.

The 45-nanometer low-power processors will go into ultra-portable notebooks like the new ThinkPad X301 announced this week, and HP 2530p also rolled out on Monday. The next version of the MacBook Air is also rumored to be using one of these chips.

The SL9400 and SL9300 processors have a thermal envelope of 17 watts, … Read more

Why is Spotlight using 98% of my MacBook Air CPU?

UPDATED: August 19, 2008 7:42pm

Problem solved. It was a hanging process that got triggered when I installed a new VPN client. The weird thing was it could only be killed via the command line and didn't show up in the Activity Monitor

This MacBook Air goes from decent, to bad, to terrible, back to decent and now into the ridiculous.

Even when running zero applications there are pieces of Apple software that are doing very strange things. The latest issue is that Spotlight is somehow using 98% of my CPU horsepower and the total percentage used is … Read more

Is Apple the only company that can do no wrong?

Japan is investigating the possibility of overheating iPod Nanos, according to a report. The country's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry is looking into three reports of overheating iPod Nanos starting fires and confirmed that Apple had two other cases of something similar occurring.

The iPod Nano overheating allegedly happened during 2005 and 2006 and so far, there haven't been any reports that the same issues persist.

It should also be noted that back in 2006, Apple was included in a long list of companies that had computer battery issues that were also sparking fires.

But Apple's problems have stretched far beyond battery problems. The company is facing trouble over its utterly crappy MobileMe, has dealt with concerns over faulty "first-generation" devices, and has consistently delivered less than what we're looking for in iPhones. All the while, Apple still thinks it's necessary to remove applications from its App Store with nary a mention as to why.

Amid all those problems (and many more that I didn't recount), Apple's satisfaction rating is the highest in the business, sales are stronger than ever, and there are no signs of either slowing down at any time.

So what's the deal? Why is Apple given a slap on the wrist, while other tech companies would pay dearly for similar offenses? If you ask me, it has nothing to do with the products and everything to do with Apple's marketing machine.… Read more

Microsoft gets paid twice as Vista users downgrade to XP

In a clear indictment of Microsoft's Windows strategy, new research suggests that up to a third of all new Windows Vista machines get downgraded to XP, either by the hardware vendors like Dell, or by customers.

That is a massive number. Ironically, it's a number that works to the short-term advantage of Microsoft's top and bottom lines, but it still represents a vote of "no confidence" in Microsoft's Windows strategy.

Microsoft's only hope at this point is that customers will forget Vista as rapidly as they did Millennium and ramp up anticipation for … Read more

MacBook Air to get new Intel chips?

Apple's MacBook Air could be getting a fresh new look--inside at least--in the coming weeks.

Rumors of new Apple notebooks have been all over the place this summer, given the length of time since the last redesign of the MacBook and Intel's new Montevina chips. But Phone News believes that the MacBook Air will also get a new Penryn chip that will improve performance at the cost of battery life.

The MacBook Air's performance doesn't really compare to that of the rest of the MacBook lineup, but it was designed to be thin and light, not … Read more

Apple's MobileMe suffers more downtime

Apple's MobileMe suite of Web services suffered another outage Monday that affected an unknown number of its users.

Of the included services, Mail was inaccessible for approximately two hours. Earlier in the day we had received scattered reports from users who were unable to access their mail. Those reports were later confirmed both through Apple's MobileMe status ticker and Twitter's real-time search tool. For those affected, all other aspects of MobileMe were reportedly up and running.

Monday's problems centered on a lack of access to Mail on three fronts: through the Web, on the iPhone, and … Read more

The Linux desktop, Macs, and barking dogs

Gregory (Scotland Yard detective): "Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" Holmes: "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." Gregory: "The dog did nothing in the night-time." Holmes: "That was the curious incident."

That comes from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Silver Blaze, a Sherlock Holmes short story. I've been plowing through all of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories over the past month and was struck by this famous dialogue last week, especially as it pertains to the Linux desktop.

There are, of course, the constant reports of how easy Linux is to install and use on the desktop. Then there are the more pragmatic posts like this one from Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, calling out a few things Linux needs to succeed on the desktop (device drivers, applications, and power management are his suggestions), despite its otherwise strong credentials.

And yet the dog isn't barking. Few are buying. Why?… Read more