MacCore- 5/22/07- Show 36
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Untitled #1
V Introduction
* Welcome back.
V News
V Apple Updates MacBooks
* Apple updated its MacBook consumer notebooks with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors now 2.0 and 2.16 GHz, with a standard 1GB of memory and larger hard drives in every model.
The MacBooks are shipping today and available in three standard configurations:
White 2.0 GHz, 1GB SDRAM, 80GB Hard Drive and Combo-drive- $1,099
White 2.16 GHz, 1GB SDRAM, 120GB Hard Drive and 8x Double Layer Superdrive- $1,299
Black 2.16 GHz, 1GB SDRAM, 160GB Hard Drive and 8x Double Layer Superdrive- $1,499
V iPhone receives FCC Approval
biz.yahoo.com—fcc_apple_iphone.html
* Apple received the required approval Thursday from the Federal Communications Commission for its upcoming iPhone. This is a standard certification process that any cellular phone must receive before hitting the U.S. market, means the iPhone's launch can now proceed as planned. Aside from the announcement of approval no other details about the iPhone were leaked.
V Apple Reports Second Quarter Results
www.apple.com—25results.html
* The Company posted revenue of $5.26 billion and net quarterly profit of $770 million These results compare to revenue of $4.36 billion and net quarterly profit of $410 million, in the year-ago quarter. Apple shipped 1,517,000 Macintosh computers and 10,549,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 36 percent growth in Macs and 24 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter.
* Most profitable March quarter in Apple’s history,
V Apple Marketshare Numbers
www.bloomberg.com—news
* Bloomberg provided March 2007 marketshare numbers from the NPD Group. It revealed that for March 2007, Apple was ranked 4th for notebook sales (9.9%), 5th for Desktop sales (7.7%), and #1 for MP3 Player Sales (68.9%).The MP3 marketshare, however, was a decline for Apple, who lost marketshare to SanDisk and Creative.
V iPhone and Apple TV Software Updates Coming
www.macrumors.com—apple-iphone-and-apple-tv-applications-and-updates-to-come
* During their Q2 COnference call, Apple said that they are adjusting their accounting method to allow them to develop new software features and entirely new applications and incorporate them into the iPhone and AppleTV without having to charge users. Apple said that periodic updates and enchantments will be provided to Apple TV customers at no charge. Apple is mentioning this during their financial call in order to avoid the issue earlier this year where they had to charge $1.99 for their 802.11n enabler.
V Steve Jobs announces "A Greener Apple"
* Apple has been criticized by some environmental organizations for not being a leader in removing toxic chemicals from its new products, and for not aggressively or properly recycling its old products.
* Apple has completely eliminated the use of CRTs in 2006 removing the lead contained in those monitors. A typical CRT contains 3lbs of lead where the third generation iMac has less than 1 gram.
* Apple products met both the spirit and letter of the European Union restrictions on cadmium, hexavalent chromium and brominated flame retardants years before the restrictions went into effect.
* Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of arsenic in all of its displays by the end of 2008.

Apple plans to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of mercury by transitioning to LED backlighting for all displays when technically and economically feasible.
* Apple plans to completely eliminate the use of Polyvinal Chloride and Brominated flame retardents in its products by the end of 2008
V Final Cut Studio 2 Now Shipping
* Apple has now started shipping Final Cut Studio. The new bundle incorporates Final Cut Pro 6, Motion 3, Soundtrack Pro 2, Compressor 3, DVD Studio Pro 4.2, and Color. Apple ProRes 422 format was also introduced with Final Cut Studio 2, which is a new post-production format which claims "uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes."
V Apple ProCare, One to One, and Personal Shopping
* Apple has announced three new services in their Apple Retail Stores.
* One to One costs $99 and setups a personalized training session to help new mac users create digital content on their mac. Sessions include Digital Photography, Building your own website, Podcasting, iPod and iTunes, Moviemaking, getting started with your Mac, getting started with Apple TV, Presentations using Keynote and Pages, Mac 101 setting up contacts, email, video chat and instant messaging, and creating recordings in GarageBand
www.apple.com—onetoone
* The Apple ProCare program costs $99 and for users who purchased Pro-care prior to May 2, 2007 have access to the new One to One membership for the duration of their membership. Procare includes complete setup of a new mac, priority service on repairs, advanced genius bar reservations, a yearly tune-up, Fast-trak for for quick questions at the genius bar, and a consultation on creating a backup solution.
www.apple.com—procare
* Personal Shipping is a free service that allows users to schedule an appointment to come into their Apple store and have a dedicated employee assist them in finding the mac solution that works best for them.
www.apple.com—personalshopping
V Class Action Lawsuit over MacBook and MacBook Pro Screens
www.engadget.com—apple-macbook-macbook-pro-screens-subject-of-class-action-lawsu
* There is now a class action lawsuit brought by MacBook and MacBook Pro owners who claim Apple falsely advertised the quality and capabilities of the displays used in the Intel notebooks. According to court documents, Apple claimed that the MacBooks were capable of displaying "millions of colors" and offer views "simply unavailable on other portables." The plaintiffs charge that in reality the computers are only y capable of displaying the "illusion of millions of colors through the use of a software technique referred to as 'dithering,' which causes nearby pixels on the display to use slightly varying shades of colors that trick the human eye into perceiving the desired color even though it is not truly that color." As a result, the displays are only capable of displaying 262,144 colors without dithering, as opposed to millions advertised. Some believe this would explain why within weeks of purchase, a flood of customers reported that their MacBook and MacBook Pro displays appeared "grainy" or "sparkly," according to the complaint.
V Microsoft Releases XML File Converter 0.1 Beta, Office 08 on track for late 2007
* Will convert .docx and macro-enabled .docm files to Rich Text Format. The Beta release expires 12/31/07. Early reports say there are significant issues with the converter and there are some issues with preserving formatting. The current version is Word only but Microsoft anticipates releasing Excel and PowerPoint converters later this summer. The final version of the converter will be releases 6-8 weeks after Office 2008.
* According to Amanda Lefebvre, marking manager or the Mac BU, they are still on track to release Office 2008 in the second half of 2007.
V Security flaw in Adobe CS3
www.adobe.com—apsb07-11.html
* When you install Adobe Version Cue CS3 on Mac systems that have the Mac OS X personal firewall enabled, the installer turns off the firewall to correctly set up Version Cue Server but does not turn the firewall back on at the end. This creates a potential security vulnerability.
V Amazon.com to sell DRM Free Music
www.washingtonpost.com—AR2007051600379.html
* According to the Washington Post, Amazon.com said earlier this week that it will release a digital music store later in 2007 that will have millions of songs free of DRM. EMI group has already jumped on board and Amazon has said that the store will include more than 12,000 music labels but didn't say whether other major labels besides EMI would participate.
V Apple Notifies iTunes Partners They Can Publish DRM-Free Music
* In late April, Apple sent out notices to their itunes partners who provide music content on the iTunes store to let them know they would soon be able to offer DRM-free music and music videos to their customers. The new format offered to EI seems to be available to any other publisher who is interested.
V iPod Shuffle Price Drop in the UK
www.macworld.co.uk—index.cfm
* Macworld.co.uk reports that Apple has cut the price of the iPod shuffle in the UK by £6.
The new price is £49, down from £55.
V iTunes News (make this brief)
www.apple.com—15itunes.html
V McCartney/Beatles on iTunes
* Paul McCartney's new album "Memory Almost Full" is available for pre-order on iTunes. According to an Apple press release, McCartney's full catalog of 36 solo albums will be available on iTunes later this month. One can only speculate if the Beatles are next.
* In a billboard.com story, McCartney said that a deal to make the Beatles music available online is "virtually settled."
www.billboard.com—article_display.jsp
* Movies in Europe
* According to Apple's Vice President for Europe, Pascal Cagni, Apple plans to start selling movies through the European iTuens store before the end of the year.
V Disney Releases iTunes Figures
www.appleinsider.com—disney_sells_23_7m_tv_shows_2m_movies_via_itunes.html
* Earlier this month Disney reported that it has sold around 23.7 million TV episodes and 2 million movies. By contrast, Disney reported that viewers have watched nearly 92 million ad-supported TV episodes via the ABC.com website and 91 million shows on the DIsney Channel website.
V 10.4.10 Seeded to Developers - A first
www.thinksecret.com—0705macosx10410.html
* Spple released the first seed of Mac OS X 10.4.10 to developers last Friday. This will be the first version of Mac OS X to see a ninth substantial update since release. According to notes accompanying builds 8R205 (PPC) and 8R2205 (Intel), Mac OS X 10.4.10 will, the update fixes issues with mds and network home directories, and an issue with the BSD Kernel. In addition, the PowerPC build corrects a problem with JavaScriptCore.
V New Get A Mac Ads
* Genius
* Goose a Vista
* Party is Over
V Listener Feedback
V Christos on iMovie
* Hi thee I just listened to the the newist podcast version.
I heard you say you use imovie from Kaite. My question is if I
purchase via apple or any other source the dvi to video adaptor cable
for my mac mini to hookup a external vcr will imoive see the attached
vcr and allow it to be usd as a video capture source to allow me to
get onto my mac minis hard drive to digitize those old vhs video
tapes? Katie have a great trip to Europe as weel.
V Tyler on iTunes Subscriptions
* Hey i was listening to your podcast today and when you guys were
talking about the subscription itunes service and how they would
distinguish between the two i had an idea, what if they got all the
record companies to go the way EMI did and get rid of DRM for
purchased music but the subscription music will have the DRM
V Robert on MBP Quality Issues
* Overall, I'm really diggin' the MB Pro. But here's what gets
me – I paid about $2,500 for it, and the lid is slightly warped!
 
O.K., so I do a search on the Net and I find that this is a quite common
occurrence with most MB Pro owners – and they seem to be
quite "accepting" of this for no other reason it seems me than:
"that's just Apple and we just have to accept it."
… Huhhhh?
 
When I tried to exchange my PC here, they also said that Apple knows
about this, it's common -- and they would not exchange. Huhhhh?
 
What about all this stuff about Apple computer quality being better than the PC?!?!
… Again, if I paid $800 for a Gateway I'd be more understanding – but
$2,500??? It's pretty hard to swallow just for the "priviledge" of owning a MB Pro
don'tcha think??
V Software
V Battery Update 1.2
docs.info.apple.com—article.html
* Battery Update 1.2 updates battery firmware and addresses battery performance issues. The Battery Update 1.2 supports Macbook and MacBook Pros.
V Security Update 2007-004 v1.1
www.apple.com—securityupdate2007004v11universal.html
* Security Update 2007-004 is recommended for all users and improves the security of the following components:
V AirPort Extreme Update 2007-003
www.apple.com—airportextremeupdate2007003.html
* This update is recommended for all Intel-based Macintosh computers and includes compatibility updates for certain third-party access points configured to use WPA or WPA2 security.
V QuickTime 7.1.6
www.apple.com—quicktime716formac.html
* QuickTime 7.1.6 delivers numerous bug fixes, addresses a critical security issue with QuickTime for Java
V Pro Application Support 4.0
www.apple.com—proapplicationsupport40.html
* This update improves general user interface reliability for Apple's professional applications and is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro, Motion, Soundtrack Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Aperture, Final Cut Express HD, Soundtrack, Logic Pro and Logic Express.
V Microsoft Office 2004 11.3.5
www.microsoft.com—downloads.aspx
* This update contains several improvements to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. In addition, this update includes all the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.
V Skype 2.6.0.137
www.skype.com—helloagain.html
* New call-transfer feature that is exclusive to the Mac platform. Join public chats, chat typing indicator, Skype Prime, automatic updates, DTMF tones
V CrossOver 6.1
www.codeweavers.com
* Added support for installing a set of Windows-specific truetype fonts, software update features, Improved support on Leopard, additional support for applications, various bug fixes.
V 1Passwd 2.4.1
www.1passwd.com
* NEW Added support for Basic Authentication windows in Safari, Firefox, Flock, Camino, OmniWeb, DEVONagent, NetNewsWire, and WebKit. includes various bug fixes from previous upgrade.
V Deals
V Amazon.com discounts on MacBooks
* Amazon is offering a $75 mail in rebate on the newest MacBook Models
* 1.83GHz MacBook is listed for $919.99 after a $105 instant savings and $75 mail-in-rebate, down from $1099
* 2.0GHz model is offered for $1074.99 after a $150 instant deduction and $75 mail-in-rebate, down from $1299.
* 2.0GHz black MacBook model, but is alternatively offering a $100.99 instant savings, which reduces the cost to $1399 from $1499.
V 500GB USB 2.0 MyBook drive for $139
* Buy.com offers the Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive, model no. WDG1U5000N, for $138.95. With free shipping
www.buy.com—202418917.html
V Contact Us
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