illa romza

Ive used Macs for 20 years with no antivirus software; never had a virus
Only heard rumours of any out in the wild-like sightings of bigfoot
Never seen a huge Microsoft type hoopla over some new virus-of-the month crisis

* Apple: No longer flying under the radar

No, my friend, you are wrong. it's not Bigfoot.
It's the Chupacabra! Well..., at least the McAfee version. :D

I'm hoping for something a little more than a slicker LG Chocolate that syncs with iLife.

Hs anyone seen the Synaptics Onyx? It's only a prototype, or is it?

http://www.synaptics.com/onyx/

Now this seems like the iPhone to me. I want an easily cleanable, hard to scratch touch screen, impeccable voice recognition, an onscreen clickwheel, and great text to speech, ala Alex from the Leopard demo to read me my e-mail while I'm driving to work, and iChat. Not asking for much am I?

I am also waiting for the day when Steve, while showing a new portable product, has the battery die on him. He plugs in the charger and makes the usual sheepish excuses about how this wasn't supposed to happen and stalls for about a minute to explain some of the other new features. He then picks up the unit and announces that while he was talking the unit has 80% of it's charge due to a new battery they are introducing today.

It's the Toshiba "Super Charge Battery"
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/gadgets/toshibas-60second-charge-battery-037558.php

Now if they can only make the batteries not ignite. Shoot, I seem to have misplaced my Flying Car keys.

...Maybe I can get a 500GB SSD in there by the time it's released, then I'll have all I want (for now).

I've had a 360GB SSD on order for my 11" MBA for about two months. At times, I've been told it would ship within 4 days; more recently, i was told it would ship by April 4. I suppose if it becomes available now I'll elect to wait til i can get the improved MBA and put the bigger SSD in it. It sure would be comforting if apple would offer those bigger drives as BTO. And I'd place a high premium on a lighted keyboard. Give me those things, and as you say, then I'd have all i want (for now).

Well, if any of this is true, I'm going to take a pass on this one.

First of all, I'm not really interested in buying movies. It's not the same as music, with movies one view is all it takes and I'm pretty much done. There are exceptions but they are rare - even rarer now considering the stuff studios are putting out these days. If the rumored price points stick, I can't see the value in downloading something that's likely going to occupy too much space on my drive and even more likely to be erased or burned to DVD - if burning is allowed. Counting up the time to download (ugh), the time to burn it to DVD (if it simply doesn't end up being erased altogether, permissable burning or not) for a movie I never had any intention on keeping in the first place and potentially coughing up about 15 bucks just so I get to join the movie download revolution just isn't adding up in my book.

Worse is if the movie is sub-DVD quality, and I have a bad bad feeling it will be. Ratcheting up H264 to DVD quality (or preferably better - much better) is going to make the download time way too long. In as much as Apple was originally competing with file sharing when it entered the music download biz, it had the advantage of offering consumers a consistent, great sounding, high quality sound file which in itself was desirable where songs that bounced around file sharing networks at the time weren't always so blessed. If Apple really wants to repeat the iTunes miracle again, they have to pull off the same thing with movies. In other words, an experience that is equal to or preferably better than the present DVD experience.

Unfortunately, I don't think that's Apple's intention this time around. My guess is that they are getting their rather sizable and feared (if your Sony, lol) foot in the door now before other online movie dot coms saturate the market and worse, much worse - bring their MS WMV DRM along with them. Apple can establish itself now and pander to the iPod/iTunes faithful and not find itself marginalized for selling online movies in the future by MS and it's C:/Windows/Windows_only/Windows_proprietary/DRM.

But not for me. I still think the online movie biz just isn't ready for prime time, and as a competitor or alternative to Netflix and the terrestrial-based movie rental outfits, far from it. But we'll see. I don't want to poo-poo something sight unseen, and maybe Apple has a surprise or two up it's sleeve - but I doubt it. We simply need better bandwidth than what we have in this country now for this stuff to really fly.

There are no BDXL notebook drives yet.

Just preempting any claim that there's no place for optical drives because "BD is obsolete".

Even DVDs and CDs are not obsolete. They are mainstream distribution media.

Optical drives at not at all at "floppy time".
Regardless of whether or not there are BDXL notebook drives, do you really think Apple's issue with Blu-Ray is the size the discs can hold? :rolleyes:

I'm not about to sit here and list off reasons why an internal optical drive is useless today. It's pretty clear that if Apple were to keep the optical drive in their machines they would've upgraded to Blu-Ray a long time ago but they haven't so it's quite clear that they have the intentions of removing it in all of their notebooks in the not so distant future.

Was It really necessary to kill him?
No

Anyone who is trained with a hand gun, is told to shoot to kill. This scum deserved to die.

Did anyone else notice what the guy who wrote that article said.
"My home DSL connection clocks in consistently at around 4.9 gigabits per second - fast by American residential standards - and it still took me five hours to download a movie from Unbox."

I looked through some of his older posts, and while none of them are quite as obvious about how shallow and uncaring he is you can tell that he probably doesn't include the whole story. For example, he likes to argue with his neighbors (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=978345&highlight=) I'm guessing that we only got half the story in that thread. Sounds like he was pretty rude in an Apple store. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=644656&highlight=) and one quote from that thread:
plus parking in a handicapped spot. (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=928429&highlight=) So based on past examples of his attitude here, I think this is really the way he thinks, not just an attempt to troll.
You may certainly be right about this. On the other hand, I have encountered several trolls whose shtick (signature behavior) is identical to shallow and uncaring attitude. And the sense of entitlement is just typical for the trolls that were "born" in 2008 when the recession started.

My only complaint about apple is their overprotective nature regarding the iPhone ! It's perhaps the single biggest reason why people are reluctant to switch! Many of my friends feel that paying a premium and not being allowed to do what they want is a deal breaker! I understand that apple needs to protect it's user experience but as an advanced user I find myself becoming more frustated at the lack of flexibility!

I believe that this aspect will be apples biggest problem! I mean ... Just let me do what I want ! I am even willing to click a pop up that says you might f up your phone and have to restore it if you do this !

I applaud the developers for taking a stand! It's a great platform! But has fundamental flaws that need to be fixed before it can be truly great !

I think actually I'm going to fill in some feedback forms for apple saying just that! I encourage all of you to do the same !!!!

Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain!

...sorry, couldn't resist.:)

you're quite welcome...

It'll be the fact that that is funny that keeps me in good spirits for the future.

"I'm not a fascist. I'm a priest. Fascists dress up in black and tell people what to do. Whereas priests... more drink?"
Father Ted

Hopefully, (and it's what I'm clinging to) it's 'these islands' (Churchill) that'll finally make them ask what they did it all for. I believe we are immune as a group of people (assimilated though we be) because we'll always laugh in the face of adversity. History tells us that even if 'they' invade us they soon escape (or join up) because 'we' (who aren't aspiring fascists or fascist fodder) are content to treat political occupation as if it were one big joke.

long may the Joke continue.

(anyone watched V for Vendetta yet?)

I still don't understand why nobody has managed to make a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, esp. Microsoft Excel. Apple's iWork is fine, but clearly not enough and of course there is no Windows version. Google is too obsessed with the cloud and ad thing and didn't make Google Docs a local app for Windows / Mac / Smartphones with Dropbox like cloud capabilities. :(

So Microsoft can continue to be fed with its Windows / Office monopolies for the foreseeable future.

jeez, thats about 10x what i would have expected.

a lot of people I have talked to thought that it was "crazy" to expect people to wait 30+mins to download a movie.

couldn't apple develop something into itunes that lets you watch while it is downloading? is this possible?

Hopefully it doesn't turn out to be another device like the Apple hi-fi. What a let down that was!

So we will get movie service from iTunes, a new iPOD NANO with a metal scratchproof case, a new Airport extreme with Audio and Video OUT... no hi-def for sure... and a bump in processor speed for the whole line.

Am I really leaving anything out?

We'll see next week. The hype always just creates this big let down for me. Hopefully my negative attitude will bring me happiness, regardless of what is presented.

WHY SUCH A LONG WAIT???

Imagine if Numbers was a real competitor to Excel. Then Apple would really be sitting pretty. ;)

If you are going to make a claim like that you really should provide a source.

http://www.acsh.org/healthissues/newsid.442/healthissue_detail.asp

http://www.eco-imperialism.com/content/article.php3?id=68

http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2010/04/25/john-stossel-explains-how-environmentalism-kills-millions-of-people/

Rumored maybe, but not "widely expected". I only expect the high end Mac Pros to have Woodcrest, I can see the low end having Conroe easily.
Yeah, OK, "rumored" then.... but there are more "rumors" that it'll be Xeon (Woodcrest) rather than Core 2 Duo (Conroe).

In fact, I think "Chinese Wispers" might be more appropriate! :confused:

Only on UNOPENED product. If you've opened it, you gotta pony up 10% restocking fee, if you bought from apple. They will refund money if there is a price drop in that timeframe, though.

o *****.... i knew for a fact that there was gonna be some sort of catch!!

but 10% restocking fee??? isn't that a bit too much?

so what do you think, is new ipod literally worth procuring with the sacrifice of 10% restocking fee, when the only difference is the brighter screen, 1.5 more hr of video play time, search function, ....etc??

i'm confsed!!

Microsoft is still doing very well. They're making the best products they ever have done and as a customer I am very pleased with all of my Microsoft purchases.

All great products and deserve to be class leaders if they are not already. I can't think of another company (including Apple) that has put out such a fantastic range of very good products.

You forget one thing neiltc13.... not many people seem to share your views:

� Zune Desktop Software.... way more people prefer the iTunes ecosphere (which isn't perfect either mind you).

� Zune Hardware... This is clearly a product flop... just like M$ and it's PlaysForSure DRM. Apple's iPod after 10 years still blitzes the portable music device market.

� Windows Phone 7... Yes, Windows 7 is a significant improvement over any previous boost phone OS from M$... a shame that they had to really copy the whole "multi-touch" concept from someone else. But M$ has a long way to catch up with Apple and Google with their offerings and as yet, it would suggest that Apple and Google are still better than M$.

� Windows 7... It's a LOT better than anything M$ has released in the past. All credit to them on this one. But it's uptake hasn't really been all that good though and Microsoft continues to do the "value-add" model by charging more for greater feature sets across it various Windows editions... Too many choices for people that don't understand. Just make one version and price it at $99 and they'll get a much better uptake.

� Office 2010... Yes, it's WAY better than any offering from other companies (for Excel at least). Not sure that Office 2010 is necessarily better than Office 2007 though.

� Office 2001 for Mac - Yes, especially Outlook 2011 for Mac. There was never any reason why Microsoft could not have upgraded it's old Classic Mac version of Outlook 2001 all along rather than develop it's Entourage product which in my opinion was always Microsofts half-assed way of limiting Mac Support in an attempt to marginalise the Mac platform. Guess what? It hasn't really worked so now Microsoft have realised that the best approach is to try and embrace the fact that Apple's Mac OS isn't going away anytime soon so it might as well support it properly.

� Xbox 360 - It's a pretty good product, but compared to the other two 7th generation Game Consoles (PS3/Wii), XBOX trails in third place in all markets except the US where it is second behind Wii.

� Xbox Live - Still an immature product (along with Sony's and Wii's equivalent!). I don't think ANY of the current offerings are that good really but Microsoft has a LOT more experience in internet technologies so you'd expect that Microsoft should be able to come up with something that is better than it is.

Microsoft's problem is that it struggles to actually invent something that appeals to consumers in a way that allows them to command a higher price until the market matures. Technology is a tough market to be in because most technology products fall in value dramatically when a product matures, and margins become very thin and in many cases unsustainable. The only real way to make a lot of dosh in technology is to continually be innovative and invent something new that captivates people. Simply copying someone else all the time won't cut it.

Apple started it's revolution with the iPod well before most other MP3 players came out and so it commanded a higher price (therefore profits) than conventional music devices of the time (CD Discman, Minidisc etc) had. Then just as all the me-too players jumped on the bandwagon, Apple move onto it's next innovation... iTunes Store... then iPhone... then App Store... and now the iPad.

When Microsoft goes back to it's heyday and starts being innovative like Apple and Google are now, they'll again start making a lot more money again.

[Gates interview]

Indicating the iPhone or the rumored mobile phone capabilities in Zune?
That's not speculation, a Zune phone is part of their stated plans (http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=internetNews&storyID=2006-09-14T213034Z_01_N14304886_RTRIDST_0_OUKIN-UK-MICROSOFT-ZUNE-PHONE.XML).

Now there's 100GB BDXL. There's plenty of time for Blu-Ray to keep on living on notebooks.

True, but I doubt Apple will put them in their machines and/or peripherals. I'd love to keep a third offsite backup of my information with BDXL, and I can with 3rd party hardware.

I think one of the biggest things holding me back though is the price of the discs.

I hope they bring back the backlit keyboard.

Same here! 100% same here!

I have been holding back on buying a 13" Air for the backlit keyboard and Thunderbolt.

If I get both it'll be a definite buy. If I get just TB, then I may just consider the MBP.

I pity the children of the future when I think back to how I am my friends used to swap Video's, CD's and Computer games with each other, as we only had enough Birthday/Christmas money to afford to buy so much, so we had great fun and enjoyment swapping what we had between friends.

In the same way my elderly mother goes to her weekly meeting and they all bring books they have read in, so others can read their books when they have finished with them. Not everyone can afford to buy new every time.

you are focusing too much on the physical items. maybe bc i like to live simple/minimal....but nowadays too many people want so many physical possessions. to me, less is more.....

While my gut wants to side with MS on this one, there's a simple test of whether App Store is generic or not.

Before apple created the App Store within iTunes, was the term in use (and specifically "app store", not just "app")? Possibly more importantly, before they applied for the trademark was any company selling apps and calling it by that term?

It probably comes down to prior art - if it truly is a generic term, then someone should be able to provide the example of X used the term in 19XX, before the trademark was filed. Anyone here able to provide an example of the term being used before Apple filed for it?

Yay! Somebody who understands the question!

It's so funny watching people write "well windows/office/word is generic" (although nobody does that with Apple/pages/numbers/keynote). Clueless! :rolleyes:

You'll find Microsoft's reason to sue Apple is here (http://phone.microsoftplatformready.com/Dashboard.aspx). Guess Microsoft is protecting itself from a legal butt kicking by being preemptive.

You mean this one, a single card, running FarCry at 3840 X 2160 almost two years ago. Since this was almost two years ago, I'm sure its a little dated. :)

http://gizmodo.com/#!5277116/asus-mars-gtx-295-smoothly-running-far-cry-at-3840-x-2160-pixels
Single card? Do you even know what SLI is? Did you even read the article? :rolleyes:

I'm still waiting.