News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
Nearly eleven years ago, Steve Jobs casually killed off pen-based computing initiatives at Apple. Now, it seems, he's bringing them back to life. If a job posting at apple.com is any indication (and it probably is), the company is looking to invest pretty heavily in pen-based computing sometime in the not-too-distant future, and it's looking to find some pretty high-powered talent to run it.
Matthew JC. Powell | Apr 2, 2008
Yet again this morning the blogosphere is alight with the news that a Mac has been hacked. Those safe-as-houses, indestructible, impregnable, unsinkable Macs have been shown yet again to be riddled with holes so big and so obvious a child could drive a truck through them. Yet again the long-suffering Windows apologists take heart, poke their tongues and say "nyeah" while they download today's patches for their systems. The cause of this derision? A hacking contest in Canada.
Matthew JC. Powell | Mar 28, 2008
The CEO of Mozilla, John Lilly, has had some choice words to say about Apple's methods for increasing the market penetration of Safari on Windows. It's an undesirable user experience, he says. It's a security flaw, he says. It undermines the trust between users and developers, he says. Does he have a point, or is there something else on his mind?
Matthew JC. Powell | Mar 26, 2008
Apple is reportedly contemplating, for its iPhone customers at least, a change to its iTunes business model that would allow customers unfettered access to the iTunes Store. It would fund this by adding a premium to the price of the devices, and that premium would then be divided between the major music labels based on their market share. Up until now, Steve Jobs has been vigorously opposed to similar models offered by other download providers. The problem is ...
Matthew JC. Powell | Mar 20, 2008
Hasn't Bill Gates gone yet? He announced like a year ago that he was leaving Microsoft and heading off into the world of philanthropy. Since then he seems to make another farewell address somewhere every couple of weeks. He's done more farewells than Kiss at this stage, and unless he shows up at the next one wearing giant platform boots and face makeup, I'm going to be very unimpressed. His most recent tearful goodbye to the technology industry he has dominated for the best part of his life came at a breakfast presentation to the Northern Virginia Technology Council ...
Matthew JC. Powell | Mar 14, 2008
I ordered a photo book from Apple the very day the service was made available in this country. The saga that followed revealed a few easily fixable bugs in the system and a few options that maybe ought to have been thought of beforehand. Since I know Apple likes to get advice, I thought I'd offer a hand.
Matthew JC. Powell | Mar 12, 2008
It's unusual for Australian Macworld to revise its ratings on a product we've reviewed. For that matter, it's unusual for us to have a product on hand long enough to do so. However, such a time has most definitely arrived regarding the Lexmark X9350 all-in-one printer/scanner/fax/copier with wireless networking capabilities. When I reviewed the product a year ago, in the 02.2007 issue, I gave it a 4.5-mouse rating. As with many of our reviews, that was based on a few weeks' usage. I've had more time with it now, and boy, have I changed my mind.
Matthew JC. Powell | Mar 5, 2008
Within minutes of Apple's announcement in the wee smalls of Wednesday that the MacBook and MacBook Pro lines of portable computers had been updated with Intel's latest and greatest "Penryn" processors, based on a brand new 45-nanometer fabrication process that very nearly defies the very laws of physics, the rumour sites were abuzz with the news that these machines would be superseded sometime later this year. It has to be some kind of record. The source of the rumours was someone at Intel, who reportedly told someone else that in a few months Intel will be replacing "Penryn" with "Montevina" and by this time next year doesn't expect to be selling any more Penryn processors.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 29, 2008
Now that the Blu-ray Disc versus HD-DVD stoush has been declared a non-starter (without the market ever really having much of a say in it) does that mean that the future of content delivery has been decided? Hardly. Battles are still raging on a number of fronts and few surrenders are to be found. Concessions, however, are many. For example, 20th Century Fox has released a number of DVDs in the USA which include "digital copies" of the main content. This may seem an odd sort of terminology since the DVD itself is a digital copy. But the emphasis in that terminology should be not on the word "digital" but on the word "copy". The "digital copy" is a version of the film optimised for use on devices like Apple TV and iPod touch. I specify those devices because, in the case of Fox at least, the copy is still protected by Apple's FairPlay digital rights management (DRM) technology, just as if it had been downloaded from the iTunes Store. Which means it won't play on any non-Apple devices.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 22, 2008
This morning Apple very quietly and discreetly announced that it was discontinuing the Xserve RAID, and that units currently in the channel are the last that will be sold. It made this announcement so quietly, in fact, that as I write this at 2pm there has still not been a press release. In its place Apple will be selling RAID systems manufactured by enterprise vendor Promise via its online Store, and Promise's RAID systems have already been certified for use with Apple's Xsan distributed storage product.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 20, 2008
Listen — do you hear that? That distant pounding, gradually building and becoming more insistent? That is the sound of a thousand terrible things headed this way. Are you scared yet? You shouldn't be. Yet. But you should at the very least understand that the days of not having to worry about problems like security and viruses and Windowsy stuff like that just because you're on a Mac are soon to be over, if they aren't already. This is far from being an entirely bad thing. For one thing, every user of the internet with an awareness of -- and tools to combat -- malicious software is one less point of weakness for the bad guys to target.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 15, 2008
Former Apple CEO Gilbert Amelio once famously remarked that "I thought I was leading a company; I didn't realise I was leading a cult". If he thought that job was difficult, imagine what it must be like for Steve Jobs. Where Amelio was leader of the cult, Jobs is the object of its worship. Think of it as the difference between being the Pope and being the Messiah — I know which I'd take. Name another CEO, company founder or Chairman who is expected — indeed, required — to change the world on at minimum an annual basis. Michael Dell? Bill Gates? Steve Ballmer? Rupert Murdoch? Robert Iger? Samuel Palmisano? Does anyone even know who he is? All of these people have great responsibilities and a duty to shareholders to drive their companies. Jobs's burden is different. He is expected somehow to be a few steps ahead of the world, living in the no-too-distant future, bringing tomorrow to us today. Which is not to suggest he is the only person in the computer industry expected to innovate. Google, Amazon, eBay ... any number of companies innovate and do so successfully, What's different for Apple and its CEO is the expectation that it can happen on demand. If anyone but Apple had released a product as successful and groundbreaking as the iPhone last year they'd still be dining out on it. Apple is already copping criticism for not having a 3G version out yet. Compare it to, for instance, Paul McCartney. Some decades ago McCartney wrote some pretty darned good music. Now he's in his 60s and puts out the occasional listenable bit of work. It's not amazing, but it's pretty good and leaves most contemporary "music" for dead. But because it isn't as good as the Beatles it may as well be rubbish. No-one else has to be compared with the Beatles.
Matthew JC. Powell | Feb 13, 2008
Yeah, your iPhone has access to that high-speed cellular data network. But admit it: you use Wi-Fi whenever you can, right? Why, these days I’m tempted to walk into every McDonalds I pass and log in for free Wi-Fi just because I can! 3G may beat EDGE, but Wi-Fi beats both.
