MacCore-12-3-07- Show 52
Source/Links
* Introduction
V News
V iPhone Unlocking in Europe
V France: Orange
* Orange will be selling the iPhone for 399 euro along with a choice of four plans ranging from 49 euros to 119 euros per month. All plans include unlimited internet and visual voicemail. Customers who don't wish to subscribe to those particular plans can instead pay 549 euro and use another Orange plan
* For 649 euro, customers can purchase an iPhone with no required contract or obligation to Orange. The iPhone itself, however, will still need to be unlocked.
* With all options (399, 549, 649 euro), any customer may unlock the iPhone for an addition 100 euro during the first six months. After six months, the iPhone may be unlocked for free in accordance with French law.
V Germany: T-Mobile
* The first SIM-unlocked iPhones went on sale in Germany on November 21st with a considerable (600 euro) premium causing the phone to cost 999 Euros.
* Apple then unlocks the iPhone through iTunes. (Apparently it's not that hard.) iPhone's IMEI number is recorded and sent to Apple. After 24 hours Apple's database is updated and once you connect the iPhone to iTunes, the iPhone is automatically unlocked. The firmware remains at version 1.1.2 after the unlock.
V AT&T says 3G iPhone on the Way
www.macworld.com—index.php
* AT&T Chief Executive Officer Randall Stephenson announced last week that Apple would announce a 3G version of the iPhone in 2008. He said he did not know how much the phone would cost, saying that Steve Jobs would set the price for the new iPhone.
* We all expected this would come at some point - is this simply an educated guess or does he have actual info? Apple kept AT&T out of the loop quite a bit with the last iPhone.
V Apple Acknowledges some Hard Drive Problems in MacBooks- Are You Backed Up?
www.informationweek.com—showArticle.jhtml
* Seagate 2.5-inch drives manufactured in China with a firmware revision of 7.01. The drives use a serial advanced technology attachment (SATA) interface. To see if you have the drive, Open System Profiler and look for the revision number under the Serial-ATA. If the machine is using the Seagate hard drive, with the 7.01 firmware revision number then you'll want to make sure your data s backed up and contact Apple for instructions on how to proceed. So far, Apple has not taken any official action but Apple spokesman Cameron Craig said the company was aware that there might be a problem.
* What's gong on with Seagate- is this a fluke or is their quality control taking a turn for the worse? I only buy Seagate drives because of their reputation for quality.
* Allison- what's your backup plan?
V Rumors Surge of Ultra Portable MacBook
www.appleinsider.com—piper_ups_likelihood_of_ultra_portable_at_macworld_comments_on_iphone.html
* Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster believes that the likelihood of an ultra-portable MacBook is about 85% at Macworld San Francisco.
* Is this something you'd be intersted in?
* Speaking of Macworld... I'll be there.
V Features - Geek Holiday Gift Guide
V Our Geek Gift Ideas (Round 2)
V Katie- Great Laptop Bag. I Love Brenthaven - Varies
www.brenthaven.com
* I'm a big fan of the Brenthaven bags, but there are others out there. I have one of their Messenger Bags as well as a sleeve that I used inside my BackPack. Right now I've got my eye on one of their Backpacks thinking that would be the perfect bag for Macworld. These bags offer solid protection, a lifetime warranty, and the people who work there are really nice folks.
* Allison- GeekToys - USB Missile Launcher and Helicopter- $30 each.
www.thinkgeek.com—86b8www.thinkgeek.com—91d2
V Katie-Samson - Zoom - H2 Handy Recorder $200
www.samsontech.com—productpage.cfm
* As a podcaster I'm looking for something that I can use to record audio on the road and the Zoom H2 has gotten some great reviews. This would be perfect for taking to Macworld for interviews or an impromptu podcast or doing interviews at Apple special events.
* Allison- Fast Lens for their Digital SLR, something like an f/1.4 or f/1.8, - Price Varies
V Katie- TiVo HD- $299.99 plus monthly Service
www3.tivo.com—boxdetails.do
* I LOVE TiVo. What I love most about the new HD TiVo is that is has support for CableCard so I don't have to have that dumb box from the cable company, can record two shows at once, can record in HD, and works with TiVoToGo. My only advice- check out the subscription plans fully before you buy, they have a dozen different options and they change occasionally according to different specials they run.They have some holiday packages going on now.
* Allison- Blueant Supertooth Handsfree Speaker - $70
www.myblueant.com—supertooth-light-bluetooth-handsfree.htm
V Katie-Apple One-to-One Service - $99 a year
www.apple.com—onetoone
* Great for the new mac user in your life. They have personalized training sessions covering digital photography, building a website, using the iLife suite, making home movies, creating presentations, and general Mac 101 and iPhone 101. Let Apple do the training so you don't have to!
* Allison- Second Monitor - Price Varies
V Katie- Elgato Turbo.264 - $100
www.elgato.com—index.php
* External USB Dongle that will accelerate the conversion of video to H.264 and frees up your processor to do other thing. I'm in the process of converting a lot of old family videos into digital format. I also have a lot of my own content that I want to put on my AppleTV and this would be a great time saver.
V Allison- XKCD T-Shirts (Allison likes the Sandwich one) - $17
xkcd.com—149
* Also check out Insanely Great Tees
insanelygreattees.com
V What NOT To Buy
* Allison- HD-DVD and BlueRay DVD Players
* Katie - iPhone (don't shoot me!) unless you know what your recipient's current cell phone contract status is.
V Listener Feedback:
V Tony:
* I was thinking about buying Canon HV20 with mini DV for the holidays but with Panasonic's new SD5 AND Canon's HG10 out now. I'm confused about what HD camcorder to buy. I know they all work in IMOVIE 08 now. I don't want to buy a something and next year its old. Whats the new trend in formats now.
V Joseph
* I was a PC user and have switched over to MAC.  Are there MAC
equivalence to PC's defrag, scandisk and cleanup?
V Jonathan
* I don't know if it was something on my end.. or your end.. but I just received ALL of your episodes since 2006 ;-).
* I recently switched my feed, this is probably the cause of the problem. Sorry, it won't happen again! :)
V Contact Us
* Visit our Website www.themaccore.com
V Call our Voicemail Hotline: 206-203-CORE (206-203-2673)
* Please don't forget to introduce yourself at the beginning of your comment and then pause and leave your email address at the end.
* Send us an email: themaccore@gmail.com (you can attach a standard audio file to your email and we'll try to play it on the show.)
* We're on Twitter
* Review us on iTunes!
* Support the show.
www.themaccore.com—index.html