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Apple recently announced AppleCare for the iPod - $60 for a two-year warranty.

Apple quietly patches MPEG-2 component bug
A MacNN reader reports that Apple has quietly patched the MPEG-2 Component expiring bug that we reported on Monday. Users must login to the Apple Store and visit the software download purchases section to download the updated Component. Versions are available for QuickTime 6.3 and QuickTime 6.4 (in the same download).

iTunes actually did have stuff by Radiohead. Unfortunately their label had worked out a deal with them where they weren't allowed to distribute their music that way. Hopefully they'll work out their problems soon.

Ahahahaa!

Okay, I really like Mac OS X and own a couple macs.

But I nearly can't believe the flaming pro-Mac fanatics I've seen on Mac sites in particular. I mean, if you dare to even point out how Apple could've done something better you'll get scorched. For examples, see comments at MacSlash or the comments in stories at MacNN. Okay, I haven't linked to any specific examples, but look someday when someone says something negative about a Mac, take a look!

I can feel a big commentary fight coming on this post :)

Pro-MACs on my left, pro-PCs on my right.

I think Rush Limbaugh might take offense at being placed on the Left.

Why not just have Apple (or any online service) provide recording studio time and some advertising?

There is a good reason why Apple computer will not pursue such a venture.

I check all these daily:

MacInTouch
MacNN
MacMinute
MacFixIt
Mac OS X Hints
MacSurfer

Great software update resources:

VersionTracker
MacUpdate
OS X freshmeat

Other great sites:

O'Reilly Mac DevCenter
O'Reilly Mac OS X Page
Apple Mac OS X downloads
Apple Third Party Products Guide

Developer sites:

Mac OS X Developer Home Page
Mac OS X Developer Documentation
Darwin
OpenDarwin
fink

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when Apple only has something like 5% of the overall market?

Umm.. Apple has a 3% desktop market share in the US, less worldwide.

... these /. mac fags should go get their own site and leave real enthusiasts/nerds alone.

Okay. I'll bite. Dear Mister Troll sir...as to us having a site of our own...we do. In fact we have several from which to choose. And, pray tell, what in your tiny little troll-like mind leads you to believe that Mac users are all of a particular sexual orientation of any kind at all? Or that mac users don't qualify as nerds? And by some strange twisting path of logic that we don't in some way belong here?Newsfalsh! The mac now not only sports a command line environment, but you can set your environment to your shell of choice!

I know, I know, please don't feel the trolls. Move along. Move along...

Um, MS has quietly made an acquisition of company Creature House that produces an amazing raster and vector drawing program, namely Expression 3. Check out the discrete notices at the bottom of both pages.

The product is^H^Hwas available for Wind and MacOSX. Now they will just put a new sticker to the Wind version, kill the MacOSX version (unles the MBU somehow salvages it, unlikely as it will definitely be touted as a revolutionary 'new' thingie) and re-implement some core features in .NET so it crashes like hell.

Never ceasing to amaze, can't they just implement anything themselves?!?! For God's sake!!!

It seems I read about this problem a month ago on macnn.com. It seems the 15 inchers are the only ones effected.

Apple is trying to get a handle on this problem - if you have a FW hard drive and have experience the bug, post it over here
http://discussions.info.apple.com/webx?13@@.599b4a 59/84

There's a good thread over here with a lot of angry people in it :) If you have a F/W hard drive, if it's at all important - I would recommend keeping it away from Panther during installation, start up or shut down, or log in. If it's really important stuff, I'd either not install Panther or keep the hard drive unplugged altogether until a fix is forthcoming.

-- james

So unless you REALLY know the bottom line on the what the number is, stop making things up and stating them with an air of authority. But of course, if you did that, then this wouldn't be /.

Actually I did get that number from a credible analyst. And I have read the same thing from more than one source, making it common. But this being slashdot I didn't feel like digging up the links and providing an academic posting that you seem to demand. Normally if I have the time (which I didn't earlier today) I would've. Funny, I new that somebody would trollcomplain about it.

So what I did do was provide a conservative estimate which is a time honored tradition when scratch-padding numbers like I was doing.

But as can be seen by this profit might be even be better than what I stated. But a possible worst case scenario is their $.35 "take", and suppose (worst case) $.25 operating costs (bandwitdth, employees, marketing, additional software licensing, office space, phones etc.) that would leave $.10, which makes my original analysis a credible ball park figure.

I assume that Fortune magazine has enough of an "air of authority" for you? I certainly did not make up what they said

No matter the case, that warm space under the rock over there awaits you.

Apple's patents are defensive. They never, ever use them.

Oh really?

• Apple sues Unova

Apple hasn't always licensed its patents to free software projects:

• No blanket TrueType license granted to the FreeType project, though admittedly no threat of suit
• Fear of an Apple patent suit kept spring-loaded folders out of Nautilus, but the record doesn't show any refusal

According to Apple CFO, Fred Anderson, the company quadrupled iPod sales in the last (non-holiday) quarter, selling 304,000 units for revenue of $111m.

With WindiTunes available and a holiday quarter coming up, I think we can safely say that iPod profits will go a long way to cover any operational iTMS costs.

Now, how to go about getting them to sell my band's music on the store? Since we don't have a label, the split of sales would be a bit different, I'd assume there would have to be a different deal structure worked out. Does anyone else here on /. have an indie band, and have you tried to deal with iTunes? Any experiences/comments would be most welcome...

If your an indy band without a label you can try CD-Baby they have cut a deal so that indy artists can go though them to seel on ITMS. You can read about it here and here.

You could contact CD-Baby to find out more.

How about with OSX? Granted it's a small monopoly, but only Apple makes the Mac. (Tired analogies about only Toyota making Camrys to /dev/null--Toyota doesn't make a Camry that can't use the gasoline in a Chevy.)

Since you are some kind of crazy MS zealot, you were blinded by the fact that I didn't even say it was OK for Apple to do what they did. Instead, you have an unhealthy protective reflex for your MS leaders.

Since you're some kind of Jobs worshipping, black turtleneck wearing, smug nutcase Mac fanatic (see how productive name calling is?), you didn't get that it's ironic for the usual legion of faithful Apple apologists to be blind to the fact that Apple is doing exactly the same thing that Microsoft would be virtually tarred and feathered here for.

That said, I haven't seen where it says that the AAC format will be kept secret. It looks to me like AAC is just as proprietary as any other MPEG format. Also consider that it's a major feat to store every song in multiple formats, just so that windows people will be happy, especially when AAC has been shown to be of a superior quality.

Both MPEG layer 3 and AAC are standards that are open (for a fee). What's not open, and not likely to be open, given that analysts have reported that Apple's intent is to leverage iTunes is to sell iPods, is the DRM associated with AAC. Why would Apple, unless legally compelled, license its proprietary DRM extensions to AAC to Creative or the like and damage its (yes, it is) lockin?

Steve Jobs.

The songs are encoded in 128kbps in AAC format and "some of the sound better than CDs because we went back to the master copies."

MacNN has live coverage of the announcement.

The following just appeared on macnn.com:

Dell cluster vs. Apple cluster; redux
Tuesday, October 14, 2003 @ 12:05am

MacNN reader Dave Shroeder writes: "The University of Texas just rolled out a $38M Dell/Linux cluster that will achieve 3.7 Tflops, not even yet at full capacity. Compare that to Virginia Tech's $5.2M Apple/Mac OS X cluster that achieves 17.6 Tflops, constructed in 3 months." Several readers followed up on the pricing and cost issues involved: [updated]

"The $38M total was NOT for a single supercomputer. Please correct this information immediately. It was announced inFebruary for a total package that included:

The establishment of the new Institute for Computational Engineering & Sciences (ICES) at UT, including:
four new endowed faculty chairs in ICES at UT additional funding for the research endowment and the visiting scholars endowment in ICES
the completion of construction of the ACES building (the 4th floor) for use by ICES and TACC

and the establishment of a terascale distributed computing infrastructure at UT, hosted by TACC, including: two supercomputers at TACC (the cluster you refer to, and the other IBM system)
two massive storage systems at TACC
three leading-edge components to increase UT's networking infrastructure
increases in operations funding over five years for ICES and TACC

The original author also followed-up on the his note: "The 17.6 Tflops figure is Rpeak (theoretical max performance). LINPACK Rmax (maximum achieved performance), the measured benchmark by which rankings are judged, will be announced at a session on November 18 at Supercomputing 2003.

"It may also be worth pointing out that the $38M figure is for the 5-year life of the project at UT, while the $5.2M figure is the initial cost of the asset itself at VT, and does not include operational money. The dollar amounts aren't directly comparable.

"In fact, based on all the responses I've gotten, this story, as posted, probably isn't very accurate. It might be better to link to both of the articles, mention that the numbers are just theoretical max performance and that "real world" numbers will follow. One could imagine that Apple is bound to make a good showing in price/performance, but the price/Tflop figures are not accurate because the prices include different things."

An additional artical at MacNN.

"Sends other UNIX boxes to /dev/null


"My PowerBook G4 is now running every major UNIX app that we had on our Suns, AlphaStations, and SGIS - and running them faster."

here ;)

Plus Apple laptops currently make up 30% of new laptops, the closest competitor is dell at 24%

where are you getting this figure? the best i can find is 7%.

> Where the heck did you get that from?

Any history of Apple Computer.

Or worthless web drek from google:

Steve Jobs was such a Beatle fan that he named his company after the record label.

Ohh, let's!

Gates Foundation - Charity or Strategy?
Microsoft Marketing Brings New Business and New Skeptics
Microsoft Donates "State of the Art" NT Systems To Mac Stalwart, Dartmouth
Defying a Microsoft World View
Special Report: MS Settlement under fire
COMMENTARY ISSUED ON OPEN SOURCE AND THE MICROSOFT DONATION IN SA
Your taxes are paying for the pricing practices of a proprietary monopoly.

I hate to break it to you, but the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation isn't Microsoft. They are completely different entities.

And a change of pace:
SuSE Linux Donates Software to Allentown, Pennsylvania Schoolchildren

Two things I have heard - you need to have a credit card with a billing address in the US. I could tell my powerbook that I lived in the US (versus Canada, where I really live) and plug in my brother's credit card, and all would be well. But it's a hassle. The second thing - supposedly if you buy in the US and then move to, say, Canada -- your music will stop working if you update your billing address to non-US.

FWIW - I could be wrong; I haven't tested any of this.

PS - iTunes in Canada this fall?

I recall that Microsoft's Mac OS software division recently had a contest called "Ms. MoXie". I hope this guy doesn't get sued ;) (For info on this past event, see this page.

the 2x2GHz should be even better...

Your neighbour of course. The guy who brags about his $5K new ultra-fast machine which will bring his to new heights of web-surfing, tax-crunching and e-mail-sending pleasure.

Oh, and people who do a lot of video encoding. If I can encode my video at 35fps instead of 29 fps, that is a large difference. It gives me more time to make sure I have tweaked all the settings nicely to give the best encode for the filesize.

"Even if the G5 was undeniably faster by a great margain, I doubt that fact would sell more than a few hundred units."

They already have 100,000 pre-orders. Of course I don't expect this rate of orders to stay steady. If you look at military enrollment statistics in Canada (and probably other countries affiiated with Britain) during the first world war, there was a large wave of fanatics joining in at the beginning and then reality set in and the numbers became more realistic.

"So I want to know how it compares to the G4. Because most of your sales aren't going to be from people who want to buy the fastest desktop computer. It's going to be from people who want to buy the fastest Apple."

I'm not entirely sure what you're implying here. Are you saying that the G4 might be faster than the G5? I find that hard to believe.

Btw: One thing that almost makes me cry is that the FSB on the 2 GHz G5 machines is faster than the CPU clock speed of my iBook. (Sniffle ... )

Google for it.

At one point in the article they are speaking to the rep from the Software and Information Industry Association:

Thompson said customers need to have realistic expectations. He urged buyers to ask themselves two questions before plunking down cash for software: What is it that I want this software to do? and Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?

Make sure that your expectations are appropriate to what a product is marketing, he said.

My question would be: is how the product is marketed what is covered in the ads, or what is stated in the EULA? Ads tend to imply lots of bizarre things, but what software really does or doesn't do won't be revealed until you read the EULA. Most of the time the EULA states that the software isn't guaranteed to do anything, including harming you and your data.

Read the EULA, that's where appropriate expectations about the software should be set. Not in the marketing.

At one point in the article they are speaking to the rep from the Software and Information Industry Association:

Thompson said customers need to have realistic expectations. He urged buyers to ask themselves two questions before plunking down cash for software: What is it that I want this software to do? and Am I going to use this software as it's been marketed?

Make sure that your expectations are appropriate to what a product is marketing, he said.

My question would be: is how the product is marketed what is covered in the ads, or what is stated in the EULA? Ads tend to imply lots of bizarre things, but what software really does or doesn't do won't be revealed until you read the EULA. Most of the time the EULA states that the software isn't guaranteed to do anything, including harming you and your data.

Read the EULA, that's where appropriate expectations about the software should be set. Not in the marketing.

Don't forget that RIM is the same company that received a U.S. patent for "A hand-held electronic device with a keyboard optimized for use with the thumbs"

Just ask Adobe and Macromedia for a real world view of how ludicrous software patents have become.

BuyMusic attempts to block Mac Users:

http://www.macnn.com/news/20350

If I read it correctly, the parent post wasn't complaining about pricing differences, but rather pricing change differences.

He was stating that Apple had dropped the price on the PowerBooks in the US and not Canada. In this case, unless the tarifs have changed, a price drop should occur in both countries, since the border charges etc are constant, and the price of the product itself dropped.

Now, as he pointed out later (after you'd replied), Apple did drop prices for the Canadian versions, too.

It should also be noted that the last time Apple cut PowerBook prices, they actually dropped the Canadian prices more than the American, so I guess it all works out in the end.

In typical Slashdot fashion, this is old news. Everyone had the link before the PowerPage... For instance:

MacMinute
MacNN
MacDailyNews

And every other half-baked Mac site. Good article though.

However, now that Apple is finally out in front on hardware (for how long? I'm guessing not very - in order to maintain a lead for any length of time you have to leapfrog by more than this) they're only just catching up on software. Doubt it? See MacNN's live wwdc 2003 coverage page which, while not still live for obvious reasons, is still there. Little tidbits like...

• Next Mac OS X new feature: Fast user switching. "Windows beat us to this, to be honest, but we're doing it nicer, though. A menu in the top right corner allows to you switch between users with our without passwords.
• Mac OS X has a built-in fax functions with a new Fax button on all print panels.
• Jobs then demonstrates FileVault, a new Mac OS X feature. It was requested by companies who lost notebooks/sensitive info. It secures your entire home folder, encrypts/decrypts everything in/out of the folder on-the-fly. It happens in the background with a single checkbox.
• Apple has added over 100 major new features. Mac OS X is the No. 1 Unix OS. He lists many of the Unix features of Mac OS X, including the latest version of Samba, which can be browsed in the Finder. Other features include IPSec-based VPN, better Active Directory support, a new Finder that is User-centric. All the user stuff is on the left (i.e., much like "bookmarks"). (Some of the UI stuff is neat here, but the rest of it is catchup.)

That's right, MacOSX is just now getting IPSec-based VPN, encryption, bundled fax support, and "fast user switching". All of which has been in Windows since Win2k. The VPN stuff has been available though not bundled since Win98, at least as a client.

Yeah I know, this looks like sour grapes. Actually I'm looking forward to a blue and white G3 someone is supposed to be shipping me soon so that I can play with MacOSX. I'm just not that impressed with anything but the GUI, is all. The POSIX environment is cute but I don't much care how one gets there. The hardware is certainly fast and Apple has not had a performance edge in a long time, so this is nice to see, but I suspect that they'll be surpassed completely in about a week. Opteron is due to go up to ~3GHz on this design, Athlon 64 has yet to ship but it should reach similar speeds before the end of its life. iTanic will be getting faster in the near future as well, though it's priced right off of the desktop; P4 reputedly has a little way to go before it doesn't work... And as this story illustrates, it is definitelt a worthy competitor to the G5 already.

However, now that Apple is finally out in front on hardware (for how long? I'm guessing not very - in order to maintain a lead for any length of time you have to leapfrog by more than this) they're only just catching up on software. Doubt it? See MacNN's live wwdc 2003 coverage page which, while not still live for obvious reasons, is still there. Little tidbits like...

• Next Mac OS X new feature: Fast user switching. "Windows beat us to this, to be honest, but we're doing it nicer, though. A menu in the top right corner allows to you switch between users with our without passwords.
• Mac OS X has a built-in fax functions with a new Fax button on all print panels.
• Jobs then demonstrates FileVault, a new Mac OS X feature. It was requested by companies who lost notebooks/sensitive info. It secures your entire home folder, encrypts/decrypts everything in/out of the folder on-the-fly. It happens in the background with a single checkbox.
• Apple has added over 100 major new features. Mac OS X is the No. 1 Unix OS. He lists many of the Unix features of Mac OS X, including the latest version of Samba, which can be browsed in the Finder. Other features include IPSec-based VPN, better Active Directory support, a new Finder that is User-centric. All the user stuff is on the left (i.e., much like "bookmarks"). (Some of the UI stuff is neat here, but the rest of it is catchup.)

That's right, MacOSX is just now getting IPSec-based VPN, encryption, bundled fax support, and "fast user switching". All of which has been in Windows since Win2k. The VPN stuff has been available though not bundled since Win98, at least as a client.

Yeah I know, this looks like sour grapes. Actually I'm looking forward to a blue and white G3 someone is supposed to be shipping me soon so that I can play with MacOSX. I'm just not that impressed with anything but the GUI, is all. The POSIX environment is cute but I don't much care how one gets there. The hardware is certainly fast and Apple has not had a performance edge in a long time, so this is nice to see, but I suspect that they'll be surpassed completely in about a week. Opteron is due to go up to ~3GHz on this design, Athlon 64 has yet to ship but it should reach similar speeds before the end of its life. iTanic will be getting faster in the near future as well, though it's priced right off of the desktop; P4 reputedly has a little way to go before it doesn't work... And as this story illustrates, it is definitelt a worthy competitor to the G5 already.

I don't think the IBM procs have AltiVec

Updated every two minutes. Sort of.

Here. Exciting stuff

G5!!!!W0W0W0T0T00T00T01!!!!!!!!G5!!!!W0W0W0T0T00T0 0T01!!!!!!!!G5!!!!W0W0W0T0T00T00T01!!!!!!!!G5!!!!W 0W0W0T0T00T00T01!!!!!!!!G5!!!!W0W0W0T0T00T00T01!!! !!!!!G5!!!!W0W0W0T0T00T00T01!!!!!!!!

...at least according to Macnn's live coverage

Since the slashdot editors are probabally sleeping and won't see the million submissions concerning this till morning...The The G5 specs were leaked by apple. All of these links have the same info, they are on small sites, pick one at random to avoid slashdotting them. Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, . I'm posting anonymously to avoid karma up or down...

It might be best if people save their comments for the coming discussion in the morning, to avoid redundancy.

Apple put USB 2 (Full Speed) in their Powermacs, but instead called, and supported it as USB 1 (as the faster chipset, being more common is cheaper).

Consider me confused.

While new Macs, new iApps, and new user interface trinkets could debut here or at any other Apple event, this is the only time of year Apple really focuses on making geeky, developer relevant announcements. I hope this WWDC doesn't disappoint in that regard.

Favorite quote: "Some of the key customer requests for web browsing on the Mac require close development between the browser and the OS"

Hint to "the customers": Stop requesting idiotic features ;-)

Damn, I submitted much the same yesterday, but probably a bit too late. Next time. Thereâ(TM)s a complementary piece at MacCentral. Also, thereâ(TM)s a bit of discussion at the MacNN board, most of which centers around Safari being able to seamlessly spoof IE 5 and future versions in using bank sites, online purchase forms, etc that are putatively restricted to IE. In any case, given that IE was the most bloated and slow browser available for OS X, this is no big surprise after the release of Safari.

Nonetheless in the MacCentral story, Microsoft does state âoeMicrosoft and the MacBU continue to be committed to the Mac platform. We are excited about the new versions of products coming out like Office, Virtual PC, Messenger and MSN for Mac OS X. Our commitment hasn't wavered, it's just a matter of doing what's right to meet customer needs.â

Whoopie, MSN â¦

Apple does this; read any of their ads where they mention UNIX...

Um... They must have forgotten that with this ad.

It could be something as simple as a product naming/trademark issue.

It's not. Connectix paid FWB off to stop making SoftWindows so VirtualPC would be the only game in town. When MS bought VirtualPC from Connectix, this agreement was null and void from FWB's point of view. Apparently MS differs.

More info here.

Also the current Macs with PCI slots or ANY Mac that can run OSX with a PCI slot has been able to support USB 2.0 for almost a year.