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I don't doubt that. I'm sure that 95% of Mac users that use Bluetooth never experience any problems with it at all. Maybe the other 5% just suffer from some strange combination of being unlucky, or aren't using Apple designed Bluetooth devices (I was unable to use that mouse properly for a good month before I found that hint), put more traffic over Bluetooth than the average person, or put their MacBooks to sleep instead of shutting them down (the forum linked in the story has that as quite a common theme).

The problem is we're not just making this shit up to be difficult, and without any kind of comment from Apple those with problems get worried that the good people at Apple may take your approach and go "I've never had any problems, so you must be doing something wrong". All I want is them to either say
1) "Yes, we know there's a problem and we're trying to figure out how to fix it. Be patient." or
2) "We can't find this problem but we believe that you're not just lying, here's a logging tool that you use when it fails that will give us an idea of what was happening."

If you look at the comments that Phil Schiller made yesterday, Apple's taking the position that they don't "mean" to brick it, but it just "might happen" anyways, which of course is total bullshit. At least they're not shooting themselves in the foot immediately by saying that they're deliberately trying to brick 'em.

Now my question is, what exactly do they need to update that would cause such brickage.

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

1) Only buy the system when it has been recently updated.
2) The cheapest one are probably most worth it, 24" iMac is an exception.
3) Don't add any options.
4) DON'T BUY THE FUCKING BLACK MACBOOK.
5) Use education discount, free iPod, ADC student / other pay ADC if possible.

And your other desktop system are probably not close to the iMac in design, quality and expandibiliy sure.

- Integration features: I want my phone to "guess" my location based on cell towers, wifi access points and show a 'you are here' in Google Maps.

Both Steve Jobs and Greg Joswiak have indicated they have a "neutral" stance on 3rd party hacking that's related to native application development. The area they have problems with is SIM unlocking.

I'm Canadian, I've been paying AT&T for a while (they make it a PITA too when you don't have a U.S. credit card). I don't have an issue paying AT&T money given how crappy our data plans are in Canada so far anyway.

Now, I've unlocked my phone, and am even happier. Sure, I'll be disappointed when future modem firmware updates break the unlock, but frankly, I expect it. There are no guarantees with hacking. But I also expect the hackers to overcome new firmware changes within a matter of days, unless there is a major software change to the way the iPhone firmware works (not likely).

Yes, and I suppose rumor and speculation about possible upcoming Apple products is what this page is for :-)

That's what this page is for.

Magic Apple iPhone glass never breaks.

$250 is an expensive repair job. It's half the price of the 4GB phone. Plus another $30 for a loaner. Break it twice and you've bought a new phone. AT&T isn't dumb enough to be offering insurance on the thing either. If it were a rare occurrence, I'm sure AT&T would be happy to take your $5 a month. As it is, you break it, you're f#cked.

Reminds me of the people here: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=500

This was reported on MacRumors on Monday.

As a previous poster said, if that $90 in 2-3 years is a deal-breaker, you shouldn't buy an iPhone in the first place. Of course, by the time you actually need to replace the battery, Apple's price will have gone down and/or cheaper 3rd party replacements will be available.
Also, it would appear that Apple is using a high-end (and therefore expensive) battery in these things. All of the reviews confirm an extremely long battery life. So, I'm not sure that $90 including labor and shipping represents price-gouging at all (I guess that's the charge being made in this story, since it's never been a secret that the iPhone battery is not user-replaceable).

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/05/07/atandt-brandin g-iphone-and-revenue-sharing/ talks about a rumour that Apple demanded a share of monthly AT&T revenues from iPhone subscribers, and is getting this - apparently Verizon refused this.

Not too surprising then that the iPhone is locked to AT&T, despite it being sold without subsidy - possibly the only GSM phone ever sold at full price while remaining locked, which is a nice earner for Apple but really doesn't help customers. Anyone who travels outside the US will soon realise the pain of not being able to swap in a cheaper GSM SIM card (just a few dollars for prepaid accounts in most countries) to make cheaper calls outside the US...

With engaget reporting 38%, reuters is reporting 2% are having problems..

http://www.macrumors.com/c.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fnews .yahoo.com%2Fs%2Fnm%2F20070702%2Ftc_nm%2Fapple_dc_ 1&t=1183358102

with tags like "Haha" and "Awesome" on this story,
It's not hard to see where the bias is.

I'm sorry, but that's hearsay...

The iPhone is a GSM phone meaning it has a SIM in it and in one way or another will be accessible. At least if this thread is be belived.

The only thing that MIGHT surprise me is if the SIM card is different, but then again, wouldn't we have heard about a different SIM chip specification by now?

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/06/01/apple-using-st eganography-in-itunes-plus-songs/

You've been reading "various reviews" by people who've probably never touched an iPhone, much less scratched one or used one long enough to reasonably critique it.

Tonight four major papers' tech columnists, who've had review units to (ab)use for weeks, released their reviews.
All four of them disagree with your evaluation; saying it doesn't scratch, and stating that the virtual keyboard is at least usable and can be as quick and easy as a physical thumbboard once you get used to it.

While I also think Apple has focused a lot recently on the iPhone (for good reason), they did update their Mac Pro line recently. Furthermore, if you notice on sites like http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/, every long drought has brought about a significant update. New enclosures, processor generation jumps (i.e. G4 to G5).

I would be more concerned if there wasn't a notebook update. Desktops are "dying" so to speak for consumers which is where Apple targets. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/06/22/appl e_snatches_14_percent_of_may_notebook_sales.html Apple notebooks updates come out about the same time as other PC manufacturers (in terms of shipping actual product and not just announcing).

This push for the iPhone will in fact help Mac users and possibly standards users. If the iPhone is very successful, Safari / web standards compatibility will be a requirement. I don't have to keep wondering when the top hit list will ever change over (http://webkit.org/projects/compat/hitlist.html). More services will open up for the Mac; for instance, push IMAP instead of proprietary Blackberry protocols may become standard which would allow desktop apps to take advantage of. Better synchronization support for OS X. H.264 may become a "de facto" standard which would stop the Windows Media only sites I keep encountering. There are many reasons for you to care about the iPhone as a Mac users that aren't directly related to the phone.

People who just tend to focus on Mac OS X are missing the bigger picture. I may not get an iPhone but I understand and do care about its success. And its coattails may not be limited to just Apple. Everyone benefits from a more open and standards based web. It might just take an iPhone like phenomenon (or hype machine) to nudge webmasters and other parties in the right direction.

IMO, that doesn't seem like a good choice for Mac 3D gamers. DaveWick79 was clearly incorrect in saying the Radeon X1600 was the iMac's best GPU, but I agree with what I think is his point. A gamer that's satfisfied with playing simple or older 3D games will be fine with a Mac with X1600 or 7600 GT graphics (for now). Most gamers that like to play the latest 3D games would rather have the option of choosing a GeForce 7900 or 8800 with the option simply upgrading the graphics card for the next few years.

This phone will live or die depending on how easy to use the mult-touch gizmos and UI are for the public. Period. People aren't going to abandon the familiarity of their iPod clickwheels and cellphone numberpads for something that's not as or more intuitive. Whether or not the iPhone is easy enough for them to ditch both of those remains to be seen, but even Uncle Walt seems to think it'll take some getting used to.

... thought some mac fanatics thinks a shitty graphic card is good: macrumor comment.

Also you shouldn't but macs who haven't been updated for long since their prices are almost always fixed until the next update. You can see when a modell where last updated here: http://www.macrumors.com/

Anyway, here goes the current situation:
Mac Mini, not updated for long, integrated Intel graphics, rumor says it will be discontinued.

Macbook, recently updated, integrated Intel graphics, sucks for gaming.

iMac, not updated for long, intel/ATI X1600 or nv7300/7600 GT graphics in 24"-model, price/performance ratio suck, wait for next update, buy close to it and you will probably get a decent value.

Macbook Pro, recently updated, Nvidia 8600M GT graphics, mid-range card in a laptop, one of the better ones in a laptop you can get atm. Decent price, good buy currently.

Mac Pro, no major updates for a while, stock card is quite crappy thought you can replace it (you can actually have four graphics cards in the mac pro, I doubt it will help gaming thought), expensive so don't buy it unless you want quad/octo xeon cores and need all the upgrading options.

What you can expect in the future:
iMac update real-soon-now(tm).

Mac Mini scrapped and eventually replaced by something else.

Eventually a Mac Pro update, some people think it won't happen until the next chipset version thought, which is quite long into the future by computer time measures.

... thought some mac fanatics thinks a shitty graphic card is good: macrumor comment.

Also you shouldn't but macs who haven't been updated for long since their prices are almost always fixed until the next update. You can see when a modell where last updated here: http://www.macrumors.com/

Anyway, here goes the current situation:
Mac Mini, not updated for long, integrated Intel graphics, rumor says it will be discontinued.

Macbook, recently updated, integrated Intel graphics, sucks for gaming.

iMac, not updated for long, intel/ATI X1600 or nv7300/7600 GT graphics in 24"-model, price/performance ratio suck, wait for next update, buy close to it and you will probably get a decent value.

Macbook Pro, recently updated, Nvidia 8600M GT graphics, mid-range card in a laptop, one of the better ones in a laptop you can get atm. Decent price, good buy currently.

Mac Pro, no major updates for a while, stock card is quite crappy thought you can replace it (you can actually have four graphics cards in the mac pro, I doubt it will help gaming thought), expensive so don't buy it unless you want quad/octo xeon cores and need all the upgrading options.

What you can expect in the future:
iMac update real-soon-now(tm).

Mac Mini scrapped and eventually replaced by something else.

Eventually a Mac Pro update, some people think it won't happen until the next chipset version thought, which is quite long into the future by computer time measures.

I don't know if someone already has mentioned, but I think Safari is a smokescreen. Real intention might be to bring back OPENSTEP to Windows, or the Yellow Box on Windows. Just like Intel version of OS X was secretly maintained at Apple, it would appear that OPENSTEP was alive and well at Apple. That Safari runs on Windows implies that other Cocoa apps can run on Windows as well. I don't know what this means in grand scheme of things, but one benefit Apple could have is to attract third party developers.

There were rumors and discussions on this since 2005.

Well, Safari is native Cocoa with Windows. Cocoa has been ported to Windows under project Dharma. We have known that Safari will be ported to Windows since 2005.

http://www.macrumors.com/2005/12/07/dharma-cocoa-y ellow-box-on-windows-again/

Agreed - the browser marketshare thing is just a front for getting millions of people to beta test their application development framework - YellowBox for Windows is back. Next year you can have real applications on the iPhone (and Mac, and Windows).

There have been rumblings about this for some time. It's a great move on Apple's part. Between Parallels, Boot Camp, and now this Apple is making it easier and easier to consumers to switch.

It's not a watermark (there may be a watermark as well, but no one has found one yet).

Actually, people already have found that Apple isn't using a watermark or steganography technique, either:

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/06/01/apple-using-st eganography-in-itunes-plus-songs/

The file differences are why some originally thought that Apple might be using steganography. It turns out, though, that the AAC data is 100% identical and that the differences were a result in different metadata (modification dates) in the files:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3696625 &postcount=123

So, Apple is indeed not using steganography or other hidden watermarking on the files.

It's not a watermark (there may be a watermark as well, but no one has found one yet).

Actually, people already have found that Apple isn't using a watermark or steganography technique, either:

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/06/01/apple-using-st eganography-in-itunes-plus-songs/

The file differences are why some originally thought that Apple might be using steganography. It turns out, though, that the AAC data is 100% identical and that the differences were a result in different metadata (modification dates) in the files:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3696625 &postcount=123

So, Apple is indeed not using steganography or other hidden watermarking on the files.

People have done that:

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/06/01/apple-using-st eganography-in-itunes-plus-songs/

That's why they thought that Apple might be using steganography. It turns out, though, that the AAC data is 100% identical and that the differences were a result in different metadata (modification dates) in the files:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3696625 &postcount=123

So, Apple is indeed not using steganography or other hidden watermarking on the files.

People have done that:

http://www.macrumors.com/2007/06/01/apple-using-st eganography-in-itunes-plus-songs/

That's why they thought that Apple might be using steganography. It turns out, though, that the AAC data is 100% identical and that the differences were a result in different metadata (modification dates) in the files:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3696625 &postcount=123

So, Apple is indeed not using steganography or other hidden watermarking on the files.

suggesting that Apple is competitive on the low end is just ludicrous. I'd call the low end $500-$1000. Apple's not even in that market.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=31067 6

Is welcomed when trying to figure the best date to buy new Apple hardware...

The installed base of Macs is estimated to be between 10% and 15% of the market. That value follows from the sales numbers established in market share, amortized across the 5-7 year functional lifespan of the average Mac.

If you are refering to the earlier Slashdot story about how Mac really has a much higher share because they last longer, that was a very "creative" calculation that assigned that Mac had at least 5 year lifespan vs 2 years (!!) for PCs based on his one anecdotal experience and some subjective reasoning as only "proof".

Well, my anecdotal proof is the exact opposite. The Mac users I know actually changes their Macs more frequent than most PC users I know. More focused on having the latest and greatest (either for design or for power). Most non-nerds and normal business PC users I know keep their PCs for a very long time.

Regarding the new unified theme: http://www.macrumors.com/2007/04/12/mac-os-x-theme -change-in-leopard-seed-9a410/

Oh, one more thing, also check the buying guide before buying anything apple. Many a first time mac user has been upset when they didn't realize how soon the next model was coming out and they just miss a big update.

"It's a great music phone, and I'm sure it will be fantastic and have an interesting user interface," Microsoft's Asia-Pacific head of smartphone strategy Chris Sorenson told press during a recent visit to Australia. "However, it's a closed device that you cannot install applications on, and there's no support for Office documents. If you're an enterprise and want to roll out line of business applications, it's just not an option. Even using it as a heavy messaging device will be a challenge," the executive added.

Or
http://www.macintouch.com/
http://www.macrumors.com/
http://www.thinksecret.com/

[They may not be 100%, but proably are pretty close]

No doubt adding these sites to their tracking would change the figures dramatically.

The macs haven't been rev'd in quite a while. I had hoped that revs would occur more frequently with the switch to intel, but it's simply not the case. And sorry, I don't count an additional option for 8-core on the Mac Pro a rev as much as it's another BTO option. Especially when they didn't change anything else on the machine.

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

mini is still at CD, not C2D. iMacs haven't been updated in over 200 days. macbook and MBP in 150. Compare that with the ONLY way to upgrade on the PC side - buy a new machine, and you begin to see the appeal of Vista over OS X when it comes to hardware sales. Finally, Tiger is on it's way out as well. So people are holding off on new Macs until they come pre-installed with leopard.

Would like to see the figures once leopard comes out ;)

This might get modded "Redundant," but I've seen so many arguments below about who copied whose idea, who's pretending to innovate, who is good, and who is evil, that I thought it would be helpful to point out:

EMI approached Apple.

They also said they would be fine with other stores doing it. Chances are pretty high that they also approached Microsoft, probably simultaneously, and that the details just took longer to hammer out and MS didn't want Apple to take all of the credit. Note the "may be close to signing a deal" language -- it takes a long time for big companies to get a deal signed.

-snarkbot

p.s. It is possible MS saw Apple doing it before they considered it, but that's a pretty damned quick turnaround time for a deal like this.

Forgot a URL for that. (And no, it is NOT flamebait.)

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=3495556 &postcount=432

under 5% of the market share and 150 million in
debt to ms - microsoft isn't worried.

http://www.macrumors.com/2006/06/01/mac-market-sha re-update/
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/web.whatnext/hit. miss/miss07.html

... until someone figures out how to load third-party codecs onto it.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=25089 1

Notice these people are still succesfully running programs from 1986 and 1988.

The GP was also talking about how some Apple operating systems (and new hardware platforms) make expensive pro apps (like Photoshop or Final Cut Pro) run as slow as molasses and require us to purchase (or pay large transition fees for) new versions of these apps. OS X "broke" Photoshop 6 (made for OS 8/9) by running it unaccepatably slow. Windows 95 didn't break Office 6 and Vista didn't break Office XP.

"Backward compatibility through the Apple line is less than stellar, and explains some of their past troubles with regard to market share. MS on the other hand have had some rational people in their midst who have always seen to it that backwards compatability rules. They almost never break backward compatability for any reason, and when they do it is because it is nearly technically impossible to keep. I can still run my DOS apps in XP."

Take a look at this long list of applications people are running that are many (~20) years old:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=25089 1

Notice these people are still succesfully running programs from 1986 and 1988.

I also, some time ago, found the website of a programmer who wrote a game on his Lisa machine (or may have been SE/30, I forget) which still runs properly on his OS X machine today with absolutely no modifications, same executable file and everything. I just spent 15 minutes looking for the guy's site but I had no luck. If anyone can find this please offer a link! It may actually have been posted as a /. article at some point in the past.

Apple confirmed the 802.11n fee at being $1.99.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=24561 7&page=3/

Vista builds back in September also installed 802.11n drivers on these machines http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=23697 2/

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=24561 7&page=3/

Vista builds back in September also installed 802.11n drivers on these machines http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=23697 2/

... that anybody who cares already knew about.

I meant the "next" version, not the currently shipping one. I seem to recall reading something that Shake has been discontinued and they're writing a successor from scratch.

Just Googled it, see this article about the future of Shake