a multi-tasked stream of consciousness or perhaps just emails to myself
Apple has added two more exclusive offers for .Mac members — a free coy of ArcSoft’s PhotoStudio X and a 20 percent discount on ArcSoft’s Panorama Maker… [MacMinute]
You can easily now find the free stuff for .Mac right on your iDisk. If you keep it mounted and synced just go to the software folder then into Members Only. It’s all there…
It has been confirmed that Steve Jobs will deliver the keynote address for Macworld Conference and Expo San Francisco 2004. “This is the biggest Macintosh community event of the year and we’re looking forward to a great show,” said David Korse, president of IDG World Expo. “We are thrilled that Steve is going to kick off Macworld with a keynote address.” The keynote address will begin at 9:00 am PST on Tuesday, January 6. [Spymac]
Good news for Mac Watchers… A Steve Keynote always means new stuff! Just a matter of how much…
About Mac OS X Update
Delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for Mac OS X v10.3 “Panther” and is recommended for all users. [Mac OS X Hot Downloads]
Apple today released Battery Update 1.1, which enhances the performance of the battery… [MacNN]
…in Software Update.
Forbes has posted an online poll and article looking at the best and worst Apple television commercials of all time… [MacMinute]
Advertising Age magazine has named Apple its Marketer of the Year in a special report published this week. “The genius of Apple is that its brand has come to embody a lifestyle,” wrote Alice Z. Cuneo, who said that while Apple remains an underdog in the computer business, the company “resonates with consumers across generations and international boundaries.” [MacCentral]
Rolling Stone has published an interesting interview with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, in which he shares his views on the music industry and Apple’s position in it… [MacMinute]
As expected, Virginia Tech’s “Big Mac” supercomputer cluster, built with 1,100 Power Mac G5s, officially ranks third among the world’s 500 most powerful supercomputers… [MacMinute]
Great idea for a great product…
iPodrocks.com is Apple’s latest effort to win the hearts and minds of teen consumers interested in its iPod digital music player. It’s a new Web site and a fierce bit of guerilla marketing that combines high-impact graphics and animation along with several popular music tracks, and is chock full of creative ways that teens can try to convince their parents of how much they want, need and deserve an iPod this holiday season. [MacCentral]
They’re hoping in 2006 to be where we were in Jaguar, basically. That’s what they’re hoping. Obviously we’re going to have a few more releases before 2006 so we’d be way ahead of them by then. But that’s what they’re hoping for, and maybe they’ll do that. They have a lot of people to work on it, but it’s a rough row to hoe. [SeattlePi via anil]
As an administrator, when you think of automating tasks, you naturally think of scripting. James Reynolds shows you how to apply a variety of scripting languages to automate your workflow on Mac OS X. [O’Reilly MacDevCenter.com]
“Most of the money goes to the music companies,” admitted Jobs.
“We would like to break even/make a little bit of money but it’s not a money maker,” he said, candidly.
So now we have it on record: the music store is a loss leader. Jobs said Apple would pay its dues to the RIAA, then seek to make money where it could, from its line of hardware accessories. When the conversation turned to rivals such as eTunes and Napster, Jobs said: “They don’t make iPods, so they don’t have a related business where they do [make money]” [The Register]
Dance Monkey Boy!!
An avid Mac fan has taken the infamous Monkey Dance Boy video of Ballmer and repurposed it as an iPod commercial. The finished product is exceptional. (Caution! Stay close to volume controls.) It’s complete with glowing sweat-stained Ballmer pits and maintains the same enthusiasm present in the original video. [The Register]
If this is true, this would make Apple the defacto leader of digital music.
A story appearing in today’s New York Post claims that McDonald’s is close to announcing a deal with Apple, whereby the fast food giant will give away up to 1 billion songs from the iTunes Music Store. Pepsi and Apple recently announced a deal with Apple to give away 100 million songs to customers. According to The Post, both Pepsi and McDonald’s are paying Apple’s regular retail price of 99 cents for each song. The article notes that “a spokesperson for Apple declined comment, and a representative of McDonald’s was unavailable for comment.” [MacMinute]
Amazing results…
In an interview with C|NET, Steve Jobs says that the .Mac renewal rate was 86-87%, a stunning figure. Jobs points out that many critics claimed that no one would pay the full $99 price for Apple’s suite of web services, but it turns out just the opposite is true. The renewal rate, he says, is “unheard of, higher than almost anybody’s. We’ve built ourselves the beginnings of a pretty good Internet services business.” [dotmac.info]
“It’s perfectly technically feasible to port Panther to any processor,” Jobs said at a meeting with financial analysts. But Jobs said the company is happy with IBM’s PowerPC family of chips and feels the performance is “quite competitive.”
“Right now we don’t see a compelling need to switch processor families,” Jobs said. “We have all the options in the world, but the PowerPC roadmap looks very strong.” [CNET News.com]
Apple delivers what’s probably the most polished desktop operating system available today. [eWeek]
If you can’t get enough Mac news… Watchster is for you. Gathering news from over 100 Mac sources 4 times an hour, it’s an impressive portal.
Much of the information content of Apple’s iTunes Music Store is provided by Muze Inc., a source of entertainment product information for music, books, videos and games. And the company’s founder and CEO, Paul Zullo, feels that the online music experience will only improve in the days ahead. [MacCentral]
Good quick read…
I suppose this is the now mandatory post on Panther… 😉
I upgraded our home machine last night without a hitch. All our user settings came over and having enabled Fast User Switching, we are very happy in general. Finder performance is much improved, which is worth the cost of entry in my book. Exposé is by far the coolest thing going. I can see using it continuously throughout all apps. I love how there is a key for the computer, (active apps) the active app itself and a quick shot to view the desktop. The new UI tweaks will take a bit to adjust, but certainly not difficult, in fact things seem to be designed to make life more efficient, even if at first you don’t agree, given how it used to work.
Junk Mail handling looks excellent and Mail has been designed to automatically pick up cues from filters you may use on the server level. Threading is a killer addition as is the ability to handle personal certs. I’ve signed up for mine… have you?
Minor gripe… I cannot get symbolic links working like I had previously to share our iTunes library across users. I used to run a symbolic link from the local iTunes folder to an external drive which allowed both users to share a library and playlists so any new music that was added became immediately available to both. For some reason I can’t get the right access privileges enabled to move or copy the Symbolic link from the drive to the user directory. At least not yet…
I tired to do a fast user switch while iTunes was playing and the music played until the Finder came into view on the second user. When I switched back, I noticed that iTunes had elegantly paused the music and I picked up exactly where I had left off.
All in all a terrific update. Even with a nit or two. I can’t wait to upgrade my powerbook… but I have to wait for my office to clear it. Very tempting sitting here with the discs…