Apple Recalls 1.8 Million Batteries

www.ft.com—c2eab782-3394-11db-981f-0000779e2340,_i_rssPage=6700d4e4-6714-11da-a650-0000779e2340.html

Apple has issued a recall for 1.8 million PowerBook G4 and iBook G4 Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) batteries that used technology from Sony. Batteries with the Sony technology (used in Apple, Dell, and Sony laptops, among others) have recently been catching fire, with Dell recently recalling 4.1 million batteries. The batteries can pose a safety risk as some users have complained of minor burns and property damage from burning or bursting batteries. Apple says it has received nine reports of batteries overheating, including two reports of minor burns from handling overheated computers and other reports of minor property damage. No serious injuries were reported.

The recall effects a variety of machines manufactured from October 2003 and August 2006, but does not effect the MacBook or the MacBook Pro, as they contain different battery technology.

For a full list of the affected models, please visit Apple's Support Website.

support09.apple.com—index.html

First Apple Laptop Fire Reported in Japan

Japanese authorities reported the first case in Japan of an Apple laptop catching fire and ordered Apple to investigate the trouble involving the faulty Sony batteries and report back within a week. An Apple laptop overheated and caught fire in April according to the the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry. The user sustained minor burns after the computer caught fire

apnews.myway.com—D8JQ16OG0.html

Airline May Restrict Use of Apple Laptops Due To Recall

A spokesperson for Australia-based Qantas airline said the company was seeking further information on the precise risk posed by the batteries in Apple PowerBooks and iBooks, and whether they posed the same risk as Dell's recently recalled 4.1 million batteries.
"We have put limitations on Dell computers and at this stage we are awaiting further information from Apple," said the spokesman. Qantas said that Dell notebook users could only use their laptop on a plane on battery power, or with the battery removed and the unit plugged into the power outlet.

Apple, Dell and Lenovo Work Together to Develop Battery Standards

www.appleinsider.com—article.php

In the wake of Dell's recall of 4.1 million Lithium Ion and Apple's recall of 1.8 Million batteries and multiple embarrassing incidents of both Dell and Apple laptops catching fire, Apple, Dell, and Lenovo will be holding a summit next month to develop lithium ion (Li-Ion) standards.

Followup: Mac Hackers Admit Deception

news.com.com—1606-2_3-6101573.html

SecureWorks has admitted that the MacBook they hacked into at a security conference had been modified. SecureWorks researchers demonstrated hacking into a MacBook at the Black Hat conference in August. The company has posted a disclamer on its website highlighting the fact that the demonstration at the conference was done on a modified Mac.
"Although an Apple MacBook was used as the demo platform, it was exploited through a third-party wireless device driver - not the original wireless device driver that ships with the MacBook. As part of a responsible disclosure policy, we are not disclosing the name of the third-party wireless device driver until a patch is available,” states the company.

www.macworld.co.uk—index.cfm

Apple spokesperson Lynn Fox says:
"Despite SecureWorks being quoted saying the Mac is threatened by the exploit demonstrated at Black Hat, they have provided no evidence that in fact it is. To the contrary, the SecureWorks demonstration used a third party USB 802.11 device not the 802.11 hardware in the Mac a device which uses a different chip and different software drivers than those on the Mac. To date, SecureWorks has not shared or demonstrated any code in relation to the Black Hat-demonstrated exploit that is relevant to the hardware and software that we ship."

Apple Settles Lawsuits With Creative for $100 million

www.apple.com—23settlement.html

Apple® and Creative Technology, Ltd. announced a broad settlement ending all legal disputes between the two companies. Apple will pay Creative $100 million for a paid-up license to use Creative's recently awarded patent in all Apple products. Apple can recoup a portion of its payment if Creative is successful in licensing this patent to others. In addition, the companies announced that Creative has joined Apple's "Made for iPod" program and will be announcing their own iPod® accessory products later this year.
"Creative is very fortunate to have been granted this early patent," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "This settlement resolves all of our differences with Creative, including the five lawsuits currently pending between the companies, and removes the uncertainty and distraction of prolonged litigation."

Settlement seen as smart move:

www.appleinsider.com—article.php

PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster dubbed the one-time payment a "drop in the bucket," explaining that it represents just 1.1 percent of Apple's total cash holdings
"If Creative had been able to win any favorable rulings in the five outstanding lawsuits, Apple could have faced headaches including: further appeals, product injunctions, future and historical royalty payments, etc.," the analyst wrote. "Considering $100 million represents 1.1 percent of Apple's $9.2 billion in cash, we believe the settlement will prove to be the right course of action."

Over the last several years, Creative has been focused on head-to-head competition with the iPod and it appears that the company is now embracing the iPod eco-system as a way to grow revenue," he said. "We see this as a subtle admission by Creative that iPod does in fact dominate the MP3 player market and more may be gained from 'coopetition' than direct competition."

CrossOver Mac Public Beta Released

www.codeweavers.com—cxmac

CrossOver Mac allows you to install your favorite Windows applications and games on Mac OS X. The CrossOver Mac product is currently available for free as part of 60 day public beta test and can be pre-ordered for $39.99, a $20 savings from the advertised price of $59.99. Codeweaver's solution differs from solutions like Apple's Boot Camp and Parallels Desktop in that it does not require a copy of Windows to run the Windows applications. Also, applications will be able to run side by side with their Mac OS X counterparts, whereas virtualization solutions must be contained within a "Windows window" or the machine must be rebooted in the case of Boot Camp.

Due to the nature of the software, only specifically supported Windows applications can be launched. Codeweavers maintains a compatibility list with over 2000 applications.

3 New Get A Mac Commercials Posted

www.apple.com—getamac

Accident

Angel/Devil

Trust Mac

Apple Maintains iPod Dominance/ Dell Pulls out of MP3 Market/ Zune Photos Leaked

www.itworld.com—060817appleretains

Apple Computer Inc. continued to lead the U.S. digital music player market in the second quarter with a 75.6 percent share. SanDisk Corp. followed Apple in the second quarter ranking with a 9.7 percent market share, according to the NPD Group, while Creative Technology Ltd. took third with 4.3 percent of the U.S. digital music player market.
The NPD Group does not include mobile phones with built in music player functions in its figures.

Despite attempts to compete with Apple on features and price, however, Dell has consistently struggled to find significant marketshare for its players. Evidence of resignation in the company's approach began in February of this year when it discontinued all its hard drive-based players in favor of the lower-end DJ Ditty flash player. Last week, Dell removed the DJ Ditty and most references to it from the company website. Users reported that no Dell-branded players remain in the monthly catalog.

A digital media player, confirmed to be Microsoft's upcoming Zune device, has turned up in photos and documentation filed with the FCC.
The filing, published by Toshebia, indicates the model will have a 30 GB (Hard Drive), 7500 Songs, 4.8 oz., Audio Files: MP3, WAV, AAC, MP3 VBR, AIFF. Video Files: MPEG-4, H.264.
According to a draft user manual accompanying the filing, Zune will include a 30GB 1.8-inch Toshiba hard drive, 3.0-inch low temperature polysilicone TFT LCD display, high qualify FM tuner with RDBS, headphone jack and USB 2.0 connectivity.
The user manual further indicates that Zune will be powered by a rechargeable Li-Ion battery, include mechanical switches for all control surfaces and feature a Wireless LAN module manufactured by Taiyo Yuden.

YouTube Taking on iTunes?

yahoo.reuters.com—articlehybrid.aspx

YouTube Inc. said it is talking with record labels to post thousands of music videos online, aiming to move beyond being a site for sharing home videos to a provider of mainstream entertainment like Yahoo and others.
YouTube is negotiating for rights to post current and archive music videos on its site, and said any commercial model it decides on will offer the videos free. Warner Music Group Corp. and EMI confirmed to Reuters that they have been in discussions with YouTube.

Photoshop CS2 9.0.2 Released- then quickly pulled.

www.macfixit.com—article.php

Last week Adobe posted an update to Photoshop CS2 -- version 9.0.2. The release was pulled shortly thereafter because it causes a significant issue with Mac OS X 10.3.9 systems that prevents printing.

If you are having problems, it its best to uninstall Photoshop completely, then re-install it from original media and re-apply the 9.0.1 update. Photoshop CS2 can be uninstalled by deleting the following files:
• Applications/Adobe Photoshop CS2
• ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS2 Settings
• ~/Library/Preferences/Adobe Photoshop CS2 Paths

Humor: iPod Prompts Airport Scare in Ottawa

www.canada.com—story.html

A suspicious package found in an aircraft washroom on a flight from Chicago on Tuesday afternoon brought out Ottawa police canine and bomb-disposal units. A member of the crew found the package about 4 p.m.
The plane landed safely and was isolated away from the terminal. Passengers were taken off the plane and questioned by police while experts investigated the 'package. Police issued a statement Tuesday evening saying the suspicious package 'has been identified as an electronic device commonly known as an iPod.' "

Listener Feedback

Play Voicemail from Michael- "MacPro is Really Fast"

Leonard - 8th Grade Student

I was at the Apple Store a couple weeks ago to visit the genius bar for technical support. I asked an employee about boot camp, and he said "You'll need to step to the side of this computer, because I need to log into windows myself". He restarted the machine, but had to type in a boot up password, a password to log into windows HD , and a Microsoft Windows XP password. He than said, "I can show you these three things", and showed me a movie trailer in Quicktime (apple...) iTunes (apple...) and a quick look at internet explorer. Thats all he could show me though. I guess they still aren't trying to market windows...Again, he said I could not touch the mac when it was in Windows mode...funny? :-)

Alan

Katie, you may want to look at the latest MacBook SMC firmware update
if you haven't already. Mine is a "week 20" and I've had none of the
problems mentioned by some people (mooing, whining, etc). So I was a little
hesitate on applying the update. But, after reading several posts in the
Apple discussion groups, I thought I would try it, mainly because of the
temperature change many people discussed.

I have to say, everything went fine, and it has a much lower temperature
overall. In heavy work mode, it ranges 6-9 degrees centigrade cooler, and
at idle, as much as 15 degrees cooler. After two days of heavy use, no
problems have occurred with the update.

Apple Event September 12th?

www.macrumors.com—20060831122800.shtml

Electronista claims that Apple may be holding a special press event on September 12th, 2006 based on an "official" email sent to Your Mac Life.

The date corresponds to the start of Apple Expo Paris which runs from September 12th to 16th. It has already been announced, however, that there will be no Keynote event for the Apple Expo.

Mac4Ever is also reporting that Apple will be hosting a September 12th Event which will take place in San Francisco and be streamed to London.

MacBidouille confirms that there will be a Keynote in San Francisco that will be relayed to London.

Business Week: iTunes Move Service Soon

www.businessweek.com—db20060831_806225.htm

Citing unnamed sources, Business week said Apple will charge $14.99 for new releases and $9.99 for older movies. o far, only one studio is reported to have committed to making its content available for the initial service launch- Disney. Fox Entertainment Group may join in later, as might independent Lions Gate Entertainment. However, their involvement is said to be contingent on other studios joining the iTunes bandwagon

Meanwhile, Wal-Mart acknowledged that it's talking with studios about starting its own download service but disputed that it is "dissuading studios from conducting business with other providers." Walmart is the largest reseller of DVDs, it will account for roughly 40 percent of the $17 billion in DVDs that will be sold this year. Earlier this year, the retailer threatened not to sell Disney's High School Musical after Disney initially released the film through iTunes.

Mac Mini Shortage Signals Impending Refresh?

www.appleinsider.com—article.php

A blogger who works for a colocation firm recently tried to order "a bunch" of the computers to use as Mac mini servers but was turned down. "I was told by the reseller (name withdrawn so they don’t get in trouble) that they can’t take big orders," the blogger wrote, "but after Labor Day they’d be able to ship plenty of the new model."
The same blogger in February reported on a similar instance in which he was unable to obtain a large order of Apple's then PowerPC-based Mac minis. Within days of the report, Apple introduced its Intel-based Mac mini line.

A European Apple store customer who ordered a single-core Mac mini desktop computer this past weekend was surprised to find that he was shipped a dual-core system at no additional charge.
Quietly slipping upgraded Mac minis into retail boxes designed for their predecessors is not new for Apple. Around this same time last year, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company began shipping 1.33GHz and 1.5GHz models inside retail boxes designed for 1.25GHz and 1.42GHz models. The updated models also featured several other under-the-hood enhancements.

No Keynote at Apple Expo, Paris, announcement at Photokina?

A spokesperson for the show organizer confirmed the lack of keynote to Macworld UK.She said, simply: "There will be no keynote at this year's show." Tisserand added that the decision not to offer a keynote was not taken by the company she represents.

www.macworld.co.uk—index.cfm

Jobs also failed to deliver a keynote speech at last year's Paris show, though he did visit the event to speak with journalists and introduce to the iPod nano.
Apple has seen significant marketshare gains in France in recent years, but the company is currently facing attempts by some members of the French government to force it to change the way iTunes sells songs, in order to make songs purchased work on any MP3 player.

Apple is to attend Photokina 2006 – this will be the first time the company has attended the Cologne-based photography show that takes place from 26 September to 1 October.
It is possible that the company will be focusing its attention on the next version of Aperture at the show. The UK press has received notification of a special Apple presentation happening at Photokina on September 25.