MacShrine

Firstly, I just wanted to apologize to you - the readers - for the lack of updates. We’ve been been talking with a design firm for the past week about something secret, which has kept us rather busy…

Over at TheStreet.com, Troy Wolvetron claims that Apple has filed a trademark for the brands “Mac Pro” and “MacPro”. The trademark was actually filed in the New Zealand’s Patents/Trademarks Office; to stop people like us from finding it. The filing was classified as:

computers; computer hardware; computer software; computer peripherals; notebook computers; laptop computers; tablet computers; computer servers; handheld computers; mobile computers; hard drives; audio speakers; speakers for computers; radios; cameras; video cameras; telephones; mobile telephones; personal digital assistants; electronic organizers; electronic notepads; magnetic data carriers; telephones; mobile phones; computer gaming machines; microprocessors; memories boards; monitors; displays; keyboards; computer input devices; computer cables; modems; printers; parts and accessories for all the aforesaid goods

The name will probably be used for the new Intel-based PowerMacs expected early next year. I just hope this doesn’t mean that the iMacs will be simply called “Mac”.

I found this rather engaging article last night and thought it may interest some of you. It focuses around Steves new position as the largest shareholder at Disney and how he might use his new power to gain control of the company. Let us know your thoughts.

MTV Networks and Apple today announced that hit television programming from MTV, MTV2, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and The N is now available for purchase and download on the iTMS. The new content features top-rated favorites such as “Punk’d,” “South Park,” “Dora the Explorer,” “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Laguna Beach.” Apple states in the press release, “Nickelodeon’s “Dora” is the first preschool program available on iTunes, while Comedy Central’s “Stand-Up” is iTunes’ first stand-up comedy program, and MTV’s “Laguna Beach” and “Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Gauntlet 2” are the first reality-based titles available on iTunes.” With the addition of these 14 shows from MTV Networks, iTunes now offers over 40 TV shows for $1.99 per episode for viewing on any computer with iTunes or on your new iPod video.

The efforts by the Windows community so far have proven to be useless, but that doesn’t mean “other” people have given up. The folks at Red Hat are already planning support for the new Mactels. They will work on a new boot loader that works with the new EFI BIOS on the Mactels. The only flaw in their plan though is that they don’t have any Mactels to test it on yet… On another note, other Linux users may be glad to hear that the KDE team plan to support the Mactel platform by providing libraries with their upcoming KDE 4 release. The power of open-source development, eh!

For years users have been selling their old music players on eBay, but just recently with the launch of the iPod video, users are starting to sell pre-loaded iPods filled with music and video. A 60GB iPod video loaded with 11,800 songs, with a starting bid of $799. The iPod alone would cost about $400. Such sellers are making money from copies of content they purchased. Though on the surface that might seem the same as selling pirated copies of CDs and DVDs, the legalities aren’t clear-cut, say experts in digital copyright law. But it doesn’t really matter anymore, eBay has caught onto this and will now cancel any auction selling pre-loaded players.

Apple is expected to release the first external builds of the next Mac OS X update (10.4.5) this afternoon to developers. AppleInsider reports that two of the most recent builds are rumored to have appeared as “Mac OS X 10.4.5 build 8H3″ and “Mac OS X 10.4.5 build 8H5.” While the specific fixes and enhancements planned for the update are unknown, Apple is reportedly asking that its developers and partners put weight on Safari, Core Graphics intensive applications, Quartz Composer, and the Mac OS X Dock. The build apparently weighs 15MB and the expected public release date is unknown. We would naturally expect Apple to release the update in PowerPC and Intel form.

At least 34 errors have been found in Intel’s new Core Duo chips, used by Apple in the new iMac and MacBook Pro. Apparently this is quite normal so nothing to worry about, the old Pentium 4 has 65 known errors and Intel have no plans for correcting them either.

According to market researcher NPD, Apple’s iWork has suddenly emerged as the primary competitor to Microsoft Office, taking the No. 2 spot in office suite sales during the 2005 calendar year. The firm said Apple grabbed a 2.7% unit share, while Corel took only 1.6% share with its WordPerfect Office suite, reports CNet News.com. Meanwhile, Microsoft maintained its dominance with nearly 95% of unit sales. “Apple’s share is particularly impressive considering that iWork runs only on Macs, which account for a small fraction of computers, said NPD analyst Chris Swenson. “Apple’s success for iWork has been pretty surprising.”

The board of Pixar Animation Studios, the digital animations company, is set to meet tomorrow to approve the company’s $7bn (£3.9bn) takeover by Disney. The all-share deal will make Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, around $3.5bn and the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs created Pixar in 1986 when he paid $10m for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm, owned by Stars Wars creator George Lucas. Despite the impending takeover of Pixar, Robert Iger, the chief executive of Disney, pledged in November that “animation is, and will remain, at the heart and soul of Disney”. Congratulations Steve and let’s hope we see many more great movies over the coming years!

Preliminary data from iSuppli has revealed that on top of the $873 worth of materials for the new iMac, the machine carries $25 in manufacturing and test costs, for a total price of $898. iSuppli noted that the cost estimate is for the iMac itself and doesn’t include other items included with the computer like the keyboard, mouse and documentation. The Intel Duo Core chip apparently costs nearly $300, ouch. Let’s hope that in the end, the switch to Intel will be worth it.

So first we had the issue last week when we discovered that iWeb produced ugly code. Today we find that iPhoto’s new Photocasting feature gives ugly code as well. Steve told press at his Keynote: “We use industry standard RSS so that anyone can subscribe. You do not even need a Mac”. But early tests showed that the feature fails to work with some feed readers because it deviates from common RSS practices. Get your act together Apple!

The wonderful folks at RadicalBreeze have just announced PictoGrab 1.0, a utility for quickly downloading pictures from any website in an automated fashion. Just drag a URL from your web browser and drop it onto PictoGrab, hit Grab, and all of the pictures from that website will be quickly downloaded to any folder you like. PictoGrab takes the tedious task of manually saving a batch of pictures from a website and makes it simple, quick and fun. A single user license costs $14.95, which might seem a bit much for a tiny app, but it really does speed your life up.

The paranoid folks in the Apple kingdom will be pleased to know that iTunes now requires permission to turn on the new MiniStore feature. What is this MiniStore: It basically provides an interface to the iTMS whilst in your library. Requires iTunes v6.0.2 to use it.

AppleInsider reports:

Apple will no longer offer its Final Cut Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Motion, and DVD Studio Pro audio and video applications as standalone products, and come March will choose instead to sell them exclusively as part of the $1299 Final Cut Studio production suite. In February, Apple will begin taking orders for a universal version of Final Cut Studio called “Final Cut Studio Universal,” which will ship in March for $1299. The company also appears that it will continue to market a PowerPC-only version of the suite under the name “Final Cut Studio 1.1.”Apple will also offer $49 crossgrade upgrades for its other Pro applications, Aperture and Logic Pro 7.1. For users of Logic Express 7.1, the upgrade will cost only $29. There is so far no word on plans for Shake, Apple’s $2999 advanced digital compositing software.

The Australian iTunes Music Store now includes artists from Sony/BMG. Tracks are $1.69, the same price as tracks from other labels. Albums are typically $16.99, although some are higher than this. Along with the release comes a special page called The Latest and Greatest, which includes a selection of newly-added Sony/BMG albums. iTunes Australia launched on 25 October 2005, however Sony’s entry into the Australian store was long delayed due to disagreements over the pricing model.

Apparently the iPod boombox was meant to be announced along with the iPod radio last week at Macworld, but the whole keynote was taking too long so Apple decided to release it this week at NAMM (a music product show). Same goes with the “Asteroid” GarageBand breakout box. This does sound rather plausible since Apple does like to do “small announcements” at various expos throughout the year.

Reports have come in that the reason the MacBook Pros are shipping in February is not because of delays in Intel lead times, but in fact there are some nasty software issues still to fix. First off, putting the MacBook into sleep mode causes the mouse pointer to freeze upon awakening and you’ll need to do hard reset. Second, although the battery for the MacBook is at over 6000mAh, it would appear the battery life is worse than that of the Powerbook G4 which was 4600mAh. Let’s hope Apple gets fixing these errors - otherwise can we expect a March release?

The MacBook Pro won’t be available to the public until February, but it also seems that even Apple couldn’t get their hands on one. The following images from the MacBook Pro image gallery clearly show they in fact used a Powerbook G4.

On the first pic, Apple has added the infrared and not included it in the reflection. Has anyone checked if this is even a 15.4″ screen?

Secondly, you can clearly see the Powerbooks hinge whereas the new MacBook Pro uses a magnetic system.

Apple Computer’s bet on its founder and two-time chief executive Steve Jobs has paid off for investors. Now it is about to pay off for Jobs. Jobs exchanged worthless options on a split-adjusted 55 million shares for 10 million shares of restricted stock three years ago. The shares, Jobs’s entire stake in Apple, are right now valued at $808.6 million.

“It’s a bargain,” said Chuck Jones, a fund manager at Atlantic Trust Stein Roe in San Francisco. “I’d gladly pay him another $808.6 million to have him create another $65 billion in market cap.”

Shares of Apple, based in Cupertino, California, rose $2.88 to a record $83.74 in trading Wednesday afternoon. An analyst at UBS Securities raised his target for the shares to $100 from $86.

Seems even Microsoft is now trying to cash in on Apple. The Mac Business Unit at Microsoft decided to do a first and make a Mac-only keyboard. The only catch with the keyboard is that it doesn’t have the Apple symbol in the “command” key. The reason is that Apple does not license the use of the symbol to Microsoft, “Apple controls the licensing, It’s their trademark.” The wireless keyboard also will come with a mouse specially designed for the Mac. Slated to debut this summer, they will be sold for about $100. Prototypes are on display under glass at Microsoft’s booth at Macworld this week. Microsoft is developing special drivers exclusively for this new set so you can actually use the function keys.

I’ve a bit of a soft spot for this application, DiscBlaze is an easy to use CD/DVD burning. Version 6.1 brings “universal” compatibility (in other words you can use it on your Mactel) as well as small bug fixes. Although it doesn’t have high-level features that Toast has, such as data spanning and the burning of an audio DVD, it is far better than the “burn folders” feature in Tiger and provides a much more personal experience than Toast. The price however is a little steep at $29.95. You can tell that RadicalBreeze has put a lot of effort into making this app cosmetically perfect, but the lack of some high-end features which users may expect means we would recommend you guys wait for the next major upgrade, version 7. Still if you download the demo and really like it, buy it now and get the cheaper upgrade price for v7! Also good news for Windows users, you can get DiscBlaze for Windows for under $20.

Apple developers who hired out a “Developer Transition Kit” are now able to swap them in for a new 17″ Intel iMac. The new “DTK Exchange Program” rewards early developers who began transitioning their code early. Developers have until 5:00PM PST on March 31st 2006 to process their exchange requests. Only developers who ordered a DTK system from Apple between June 6th 2005 and January 10th 2006 may participate in the DTK Exchange Program. We can see lots of happy developers

The U.S. Patents and Trademarks office has revealed that Apple filed the trademark “Mobile Me” on January 5, 2006. MacOSXRumors reports:

The descriptions cover several domains so we can say it could be for anything that has to do with mobile phones and their related services, including a music streaming service for mobile phones. The company is rumoured by several analysts to be preparing to enter the mobile phones market this year. Apple has already made a first step to the mobile phones market with a partnership with Motorola (announced two years ago) and resulted in the release of the ROKR which has iTunes.

So much news today, fun fun. Microsoft has done something magic and made the “Windows Media for QuickTime” plugin a free download. With “Windows Media for QuickTime” by Flip4Mac, you can play Windows Media files (.wma and .wmv) directly in QuickTime Player and view Windows Media content on the Internet using a web browser. I suppose we better say “Thank you!” to the big Microsoft or else they’ll delay our “universal” copies of MSN Messenger and Office from March to never.