Slashdot Mirror

Martin Kallisti writes "Apple has released new PowerBook models whose improvements include faster processors (up to 800MHz), better resolution, 1MB of L3 cache and 32MB of video memory. Also, a new computer looking much like the old iMacs, called the eMac, has seen the light of day. It's primarily targeted at the education market, and boasts a 700MHz G4 processor and a flat 17" monitor. " As Troc pointed out in another submission, the eMac will be available only to profs/teachers, students and higher education institutions.

kwerle writes "I have just received my new iPod, and am now faced with the issue of how I should hook it up to every stereo I own. For the car, I could just get one of those cd-to-cassette converters, but that just doesn't...feel right. What experience have you had with mp3/cd player transmitters (like this one from Arkon or the MK-90)? Any suggestions?" Don't forget about the iRock Update: 04/24 07:46 GMT by C : Errors in the URL for the iRock have been fixed. My apologies.

Juanvaldes writes "Apple posts $40 million profit for the second quarter on revenues of 1.5 billion up 4% from this quarter last year..." I thought Apple was dead. Hm!

pinqkandi writes "Apple purchased Zayante, a big name in the FireWire/i.Link/IEEE 1394 community. Apple hopes to increase its FireWire presence with this purchase, or, in their own words, 'By acquiring Zayante, Apple is extending its commitment to FireWire as the premiere, high-speed digital interface solution.' Interestingly enough, Zayante works a great deal with Windows FireWire integration ... Windows-compatible iPod anyone?"

pinqkandi writes "Apple released a list of topics to be covered at Steve Jobs Keynote at WWDC, May 6th, 10:00 am. Most notable is a demonstration of the next Mac OS X version, 'Jaguar.'"

pinqkandi writes "Apple released a list of topics to be covered at Steve Jobs Keynote at WWDC, May 6th, 10:00 am. Most notable is a demonstration of the next Mac OS X version, 'Jaguar.'"

RemiT writes "Steinberg plans to release a Mac OS X version of Cubase SX, their next generation of professional digital music production software. Indicated release date is after the end of Q2 2002, finally making good on Steinberg's commitment to support Mac OS X. (I wonder how long it will be before Mac stalwarts like Moby are using Mac OS X in concert...)"

batobin writes "Looks like Apple is expanding their grasp on the film editing industry with their new release of Cinema Tools for Final Cut Pro. It enables FCP 3 to better manage film and 24 fps high density video. The product is expected to ship in May."

mattvd writes "Keeping with thier promises from a few weeks ago, Apple has released thier Bluetooth software for MacOS X today. More info about the release is in the KnowledgeBase. Apple is also selling a D-Link USB Bluetooth Adapter."

mattvd writes "Keeping with thier promises from a few weeks ago, Apple has released thier Bluetooth software for MacOS X today. More info about the release is in the KnowledgeBase. Apple is also selling a D-Link USB Bluetooth Adapter."

mattvd writes "Keeping with thier promises from a few weeks ago, Apple has released thier Bluetooth software for MacOS X today. More info about the release is in the KnowledgeBase. Apple is also selling a D-Link USB Bluetooth Adapter."

patpro writes "Apple has just released a security update for Mac OS X. It includes Apache 1.3.23, OpenSSH 3.1p1, PHP 4.1.2, rsync 2.5.2, and sudo 1.6.5p2 (among other things). For the moment it's available only via the Software Update pane in System Preferences, but it should be available later at the Apple Downloads Page."

Johnny Mnemonic writes "Apple is asking for feedback specifically from PC users about why you might be considering a Mac purchase, or if you recently purchased a Mac for the first time, why you made the switch. A good opportunity to sound off about your Apple peeves, but also a chance to let Apple know what you think they're doing right. The Mac OS X feedback page, originally from the Public Beta, is still up and accepting feedback, also."

Johnny Mnemonic writes "Apple is asking for feedback specifically from PC users about why you might be considering a Mac purchase, or if you recently purchased a Mac for the first time, why you made the switch. A good opportunity to sound off about your Apple peeves, but also a chance to let Apple know what you think they're doing right. The Mac OS X feedback page, originally from the Public Beta, is still up and accepting feedback, also."

Johnny Mnemonic writes "Apple is asking for feedback specifically from PC users about why you might be considering a Mac purchase, or if you recently purchased a Mac for the first time, why you made the switch. A good opportunity to sound off about your Apple peeves, but also a chance to let Apple know what you think they're doing right. The Mac OS X feedback page, originally from the Public Beta, is still up and accepting feedback, also."

Johnny Mnemonic writes "Apple is asking for feedback specifically from PC users about why you might be considering a Mac purchase, or if you recently purchased a Mac for the first time, why you made the switch. A good opportunity to sound off about your Apple peeves, but also a chance to let Apple know what you think they're doing right. The Mac OS X feedback page, originally from the Public Beta, is still up and accepting feedback, also."

micah_lanier writes "I noticed that the new iPod hardware version was mentioned, but for all of us current owners, version 1.1 of the iPod firmware is available and was released alongside the new hardware. It adds all of the new improvements from the recently-released iPods (but not the 10 GB drives and laser engravings)."

rschroeder writes "Apple updated several products at MacWorld Tokyo tonight (or tomorrow morning). A $499 10-gig iPod, with, get this, custom laser engraving on the back, ($49 extra) and vCard support. They also announced a $49 USB bluetooth module, shipping in April, with beta drivers availble today. Among other tricks, Jobs synced a Clie with a mac via bluetooth. Also a new 23" (1920x1200 )Cinema Display. Jobs also said they're raising the price of the iMac due to LCD and RAM cost increases. All this courtesy MacMinute.com's live coverage." Maccentral has several stories about Jobs' keynote at the convention.

rschroeder writes "Apple updated several products at MacWorld Tokyo tonight (or tomorrow morning). A $499 10-gig iPod, with, get this, custom laser engraving on the back, ($49 extra) and vCard support. They also announced a $49 USB bluetooth module, shipping in April, with beta drivers availble today. Among other tricks, Jobs synced a Clie with a mac via bluetooth. Also a new 23" (1920x1200 )Cinema Display. Jobs also said they're raising the price of the iMac due to LCD and RAM cost increases. All this courtesy MacMinute.com's live coverage." Maccentral has several stories about Jobs' keynote at the convention.

ajw1976 writes "David Coursey of ZDNet reviews iMovie in his 'Month on Mac' series. It's a pretty a good article that tells how easy it is to create a movie and burn a DVD." A lot of people seem to think home movies/photos/music (the Apple "Digital Hub") is the killer app for consumer Macs these days. iPhoto has a long way to go, but iTunes works great, and I've heard little but good about iMovie.

pinqkandi writes "Network Computing recently ran an extensive shootout of video streaming servers, in areas from setup to quality to buffering times. The free, open source Darwin Streaming Server, which streams QuickTime content, edged out costly and closed source Windows Media & RealVideo streaming systems." Well, it edged out Real. It blew Microsoft away.

pinqkandi writes "Network Computing recently ran an extensive shootout of video streaming servers, in areas from setup to quality to buffering times. The free, open source Darwin Streaming Server, which streams QuickTime content, edged out costly and closed source Windows Media & RealVideo streaming systems." Well, it edged out Real. It blew Microsoft away.

A user writes "Apple Remote Desktop provides remote administration and viewing for Macs. It works back to Mac OS 8.1, over the Internet, provides remote software updates, system checks, screen locking and more. Sweet." Sweet indeed. I could use this for my home network (right now consisting of five Macs, going on six). The cost is $299 for 10 clients, $499 for unlimited clients.

rtphokie writes "Apple is doing something it swore it wouldn't do when it began opening its 28 retail stores according to a C|Net article: stocking its own shelves first. The author made random calls to Apple stores and Apple retailers to support the claim."

pinqkandi writes "Terra Soft Solutions just released their new GVS 9000, a dual G4/1GHz 2U rack system. With Mac OS X and Yellow Dog Linux pre-installed, along with the Black Lab clustering suite, these boxes pack quite a lot of power. $3,839 + shipping." Another user adds, "As an added bonus, now you know where to go to find Linux users who look like Cindy Crawford." Yes, well.

Richard Glaser writes "Members of the Apple University Executive Forum are working on a project called the Higher Education Mac OS X Lab Deployment Initiative. The web site has our goals, what we've found so far, pointers to areas of ongoing exploration, and a forum where registered members can ask questions and share their findings. We have created a list of resources and tools (including RsyncX, an implementation of rsync with HFS+ support). Apple has recently placed several links to our site from the education area of their web site; we are pleased with this evidence of support of the work we have done so far."

Jager writes: "You can download the new starwars trailer here. Enjoy." Seemed to me as if Lucas was worried about the "love story" emphasis in the previous teasers, and wanted to make sure people knew there would be plenty of zapping and slashing.

Eric Zelenka writes "Apple has released a new document called 'Integrating Mac OS X with Active Directory.' This document describes how you can use the information stored in Microsoft's Active Directory to authenticate Macintosh users and provide file services and home directories for them on Mac OS X Server. It is available for download from the Mac OS X Server web site." I want my Mac OS X box to self-destruct if it comes into contact with a Microsoft server; does Apple have a document for that?

Eric Zelenka writes "Apple has released a new document called 'Integrating Mac OS X with Active Directory.' This document describes how you can use the information stored in Microsoft's Active Directory to authenticate Macintosh users and provide file services and home directories for them on Mac OS X Server. It is available for download from the Mac OS X Server web site." I want my Mac OS X box to self-destruct if it comes into contact with a Microsoft server; does Apple have a document for that?

asv108 writes "It seems that people are finding new uses for their iPod. According to this story in Wired, a Dallas area CompUsa employee caught a teenager transferring a fresh copy of Office for OSX to his iPod from a store demo machine."

Therlin writes "For the first time the first technical Grammy given to a PC Company, and that company is Apple. From the original Macintosh with its built in recording capabilities to iTunes and iPod, Apple has stayed ahead of the game." See Apple's Press Release for the official spin.

moofman and TheAJofOZ write in that Java 1.3.1 Update 1 is available for Mac OS X. The new release offers text, mouse, and printing improvements, as well as better overall stability and compatibility. Mac OS X 10.1.3 is a prerequisite. Get it via Software Update, or download it from Apple. For more information, check out the developer release notes.

moofman and TheAJofOZ write in that Java 1.3.1 Update 1 is available for Mac OS X. The new release offers text, mouse, and printing improvements, as well as better overall stability and compatibility. Mac OS X 10.1.3 is a prerequisite. Get it via Software Update, or download it from Apple. For more information, check out the developer release notes.

moofman and TheAJofOZ write in that Java 1.3.1 Update 1 is available for Mac OS X. The new release offers text, mouse, and printing improvements, as well as better overall stability and compatibility. Mac OS X 10.1.3 is a prerequisite. Get it via Software Update, or download it from Apple. For more information, check out the developer release notes.

Pzykotic writes: "Apple today announced a new category to their yearly Apple Design Awards: 'Best Mac OS X Open Source Port' for individuals or collaborations. The winners will be announced at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California, during the week of this May 6-10. Winners receive an 'Ultimate' (Dual 1 GHz/GeForce4 TI/DVD-R/etc) Power Mac G4 system with an Apple Cinema Display."

chobee tells us that Apple and Genentech have released an implementation of BLAST, a popular bioinformatics tool, for G4s running Mac OS X. The blastn tool of Apple/Genentech BLAST, used for finding similarities between nucleotide sequences, has been optimized to deliver up to five times the performance of the standard implementation, using the power of the Velocity Engine on the G4. Source code and binaries are available.

chobee tells us that Apple and Genentech have released an implementation of BLAST, a popular bioinformatics tool, for G4s running Mac OS X. The blastn tool of Apple/Genentech BLAST, used for finding similarities between nucleotide sequences, has been optimized to deliver up to five times the performance of the standard implementation, using the power of the Velocity Engine on the G4. Source code and binaries are available.

GlobalEcho writes: "Developers associated with Darwin are beginning to think about package management and source building. At issue is whether something like dpkg, RPM or *BSD's ports could suffice, or whether they are all just way too mid-90's. Jordan Hubbard himself (now of Apple) weighed in with his opinions (user and passwd 'archives'). Apparently he thinks it is time for something more advanced, and he gives some ideas about what that might look like. Does anyone else have good ideas?"

GlobalEcho writes: "Developers associated with Darwin are beginning to think about package management and source building. At issue is whether something like dpkg, RPM or *BSD's ports could suffice, or whether they are all just way too mid-90's. Jordan Hubbard himself (now of Apple) weighed in with his opinions (user and passwd 'archives'). Apparently he thinks it is time for something more advanced, and he gives some ideas about what that might look like. Does anyone else have good ideas?"

nbvb submitted what I'm pleased to say is our first apple.slashdot.org story. We'll be posting more news for our sizable Apple population there in the future. Anyway, He says "Apple today released Mac OS X 10.1.3. Be sure to click your "Software Update" and "Install" buttons! (Hey, if we can get an announcement every time a new point rev of a development kernel hits the FTP sites, can't we hear about Mac OS X?)" As usual, user reports of the new release have been both positive and negative.

MacBoy writes "The folks over at ResExcellence have a great interview with Benjamin Herrenschmidt, kernel guru for the PPC/Linux camp. He offers up some history of Linux on Apple and PPC hardware, and some discussion on Apple's current and past contributions to the open-source and Linux communities. He makes some interesting comparisons of Linux on PPC vs. Intel hardware, such as the ease of getting important patches into the kernel on PPC compared to Intel. It's an interesting read, especially if you are amoung the many who covet the new Dual-CPU GHz G4 Macs and want to know a little more about the PPC/Linux community."

MacBoy writes "The folks over at ResExcellence have a great interview with Benjamin Herrenschmidt, kernel guru for the PPC/Linux camp. He offers up some history of Linux on Apple and PPC hardware, and some discussion on Apple's current and past contributions to the open-source and Linux communities. He makes some interesting comparisons of Linux on PPC vs. Intel hardware, such as the ease of getting important patches into the kernel on PPC compared to Intel. It's an interesting read, especially if you are amoung the many who covet the new Dual-CPU GHz G4 Macs and want to know a little more about the PPC/Linux community."

A huge number of readers submitted the new Dual Ghz Power Mac that Apple has announced. Includes a Geforce 4 and assorted other bells and whistles that will ring and blow for the Mac Junkie. They start at $3k and seriously make me want a Mac.

Don Negro writes: "Found this on Apple's Developer site. A solid overview of the OS X kernel - what bits are Mach, what bits are BSD - and a good level a detail. This is the first installment. As they say in the introduction 'Only you can prevent kernel panics.'"

As promised chrisd back with his report from the expo floor at MacWorld and a brief note about what Linux can learn from the Macintosh. Walking the show floor at MacWorld, I'm beginning to feel a little sorry for people who are Windows boosters. Where do they go for their community? The Mac folks have MacWorld and WWDC, we have LinuxWorld, O'Reilly and Usenix, but they have what? Comdex? There is no MicrosoftWorld. Whether this is a result of their size or what, I couldn't tell you. But there is a similar feel that the "Linux Faithful" and "Apple Faithful" share and that is that we are clearly part of a user and developer community.

Yesterday, I reported on the Jobs keynote and his ability to expand his reality field to encompass and entire ballroom. Today, do people still feel energized by his talk? Some were still pumped just to a part of the show, gasping and oo'ing and enjoying the melodrama of it all, but the next day there was a collective vibe of "well, was that it?". This is not to say that they were disappointed by it, but they perhaps wanted something more. The rumors had been flying for months about a flat screen iMac, and since that was what Apple brought forward, it was going to been seen as an evolutional, and thus anti-climactic, step, even if it was daringly packaged.

Many noted that they were expecting a speed bump for the G4 towers, but with Seybold coming up in February, many expect Apple to announce their tower update then to a more professional audience.

At the Tuesday keynote "The Power of X", Phil Shiller and Avie Tevanian talked about OS X and what it means to apple and to the future of the Macintosh platform. Apple is stressing how stable and crash proof OS X is and what this can means to the "Apple Faithful". They discussed the kernel, the media layers, security and the user interface and how it all works together. What they've done with their BSD derived core is really impressive. As part of the keynote, Tweak Films showed off an OS X based deep ocean wave visualization app that they assert they ported from Unix in weeks, with significant functionality gains.

The show floor itself was bouncy fun. For me it was a nice change from the austerity of a Linux exposition and it's focus on sheer functionality, capability and commerce. Large exhibitors included Alias|WaveFront, Adobe (not having anyone at this conference arrested, I noted), FileMaker pro, Microsoft and a number of other software development houses. As I walked the floor, I made a mental note of applications that were available for both Windows and the Macintosh. The reality is that there isn't much that is specifically for the Mac intosh, with the obvious exception of the hardware from apple, with all the vendors one ends up asking, what is unique here?

What Apple has that is unique, and sadly Windows and Linux both lack, is cohesion. Everyone with devices and software for the Mac seem to work so well with each other and the OS. We should strive to emulate that cohesion whenever practical for open source software. Before, the apple story was cohesion without stability or power. Now, with BSD at it's core, you can bet that Apple will be able to attack Windows, SUN and Linux on the power front. A year from now it will be interesting to see how many people are running apache to serve pages from their Apple machines, and I will be unsurprised if someone is giving an apache serving presentation at the next Apple WWDC.

Please note that I have posted some pictures of my trip to MacWorld, with some pictures of the new iMac and of the keynote.

MrGHemp writes "The new iMac with a flat panel has been offically announced, and can be seen on the Apple website. According to Steve Jobs the top 3 things we asked for were put into this new design. 1. Flat Panel screen 2. G4 processor 3. Superdrive (DVD burner on one of 3 models)... Apple also announced other new products like a 14' display on some iBooks, and iPhoto - the iTunes of digital photos." It's definitely unique looking ;) Update: Slashdot author ChrisD was there and has a report too. Linux and the Macintosh are very different things. I don't want to bore anyone with poor analogies, but when Macintosh has glitz, Linux has power. This isn't about Linux though, it just kept on striking me how much Linux lacks in the desire department.

Steve Jobs is terrific at just that, Creating Desire. This is no surprise to us, for sure, but nothing drives it home as much as sitting in the audience and watching him speak. I could tell you how wonderful an orator he is, and how groovy his products are, but I really want to hear what the Slashdot user communtiy has to say about that. I want to talk about what Apple is doing technically.

First: The new iMac is very attractive. It's cool, it's neat. It will be a very popular machine. It's got a good price/feature spectrum and it looks like a pretty decent machine for the consumer. It isn't, in the end, a machine for the linux die-hard, but that's okay. It's slick, it ships with a bunch of very decent apps to manage your digital media. I want one, it's a cool machine. I don't know what I'd do with it (which is the problem), but it's cool looking. It's not particularly a good deal, I mean, you can pick up 200$ 15" tft displays at Fry's and lets get real, the G4 (Excepting the velocity engine stuff) isn't that fast of a chip at any available speed compared to the x86 world. But boy, this is one slick machine. But we know that already from the previous story. I do worry about it overheating, as I did flash back to the cube's cracking problems a bit.

Second: Photoshop for OS X will be coming out "soon". That was the big news. They had a very impressive working demo, I hope to learn more tomorrow on the expo floor.

Third: iPhoto is a decent cataloging program, and one designed to be used easily and generate more revenue streams for apple in the form of booklets and print costs. But it looks very polished and useful.

Superdrive: You'll see the superdrive in the new imac finally, which is nice. Note that this is not the superdrive that everyone remembers from the 80s' :-)

That's about all. The keynote was terrific, but in the end, not so outstanding. I'll post pictures soon. I'm sure a lot of /. regulars will be doing the same. More Tomorrow!

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Pictures of what would appear to be Apple's forthcoming PDA, the "iWalk" have slipped onto the net, and this time they don't seem fake, as evidenced by the quicktime movies also included. Those interested can check out the pictures here, apparently courtesy of SpyMac."

pinqkandi writes: "Saw this come along the MacHTTP discussion list; some one got an Apple Lisa 2 running a web server. Quite an impressive feat. Be quick to check it out - they expect to shut it down about 8am CST on 1/2/02."

RyanG asks: "So I'm looking to get a new laptop and have found myself very tempted by Apple's iBook for a variety of reasons like cost, performance, size, etc. Now I know Steve Jobs once touted the Mac/OSX as the (future) premier platform for Java development but I'm curious to know what people think of it in practice? I'm particularly interested in hearing from people who work with JSPs and Servlets."

We've had a number of posts noting that Boston.com's digitalMASS has a very decent article on Apple's OS X, BSD and Jordan Hubbard.