The Mac Professional's Resource
Mac OS X 10.5.2 is shaping up to be one of the most highly anticipated dot releases of Mac OS X in the last few years. 10.5.1 was rushed out quickly in order to take care of some nasty bugs, and it seems that Apple is taking its time with 10.5.2 as it looks refine a number of features within the operating system including Time Machine and Stacks.
In the last few weeks, a number of news outlets have said we can expect to see a significant speed boost in Safari. Recent nightly builds of WebKit, which anybody can download here, show dramatic improvements to javascript execution, in large thanks to some some tweaks in the javascript libraries among other things. If you can’t wait for 10.5.2, try downloading webkit and sampling things out yourself.
— Joe Fahs
As the news media focuses in on Super Tuesday and what all of those in-play delegates mean for the fortunes of the free world, Apple decided to sneak in a few updates to their lineup, adding a 16GB iPhone and 32GB iPod Touch. These updates are nice and show that Apple probably bought a generous portion of flash memory, but I think people would rather see the price come down than the storage going up.
— Joe Fahs
I am not one of the people who thinks that Mac OS X is so inherently secure that people using Macs will never have to worry about a virus. Apple, like every other computer manufacturer, has security issues, but I do think Apple does as good a job as any at identifying these vulnerabilities and taking care of them. However, it is annoying to read about how every new malware threat demonstrates how you have to be careful even if you are running Mac OS X. And more importantly, how you should think about buying some security software to make sure you are safe.
The latest report comes from Sophos, which takes things up a notch by stating that cybercriminals are finally starting to target Mac OS X. And we all know that one a cybercriminal gets involved, things are 10.736 times as dangerous because they are looking to steal your money, not just make life annoying for you. And it’s not just your Mac that could be vulnerable, but your iPhone and iPod Touch! And if you think Linux makes you safe, think again! The criminals are catching on!
Like we’ve stated before, you should take computer security seriously, especially with identify theft becoming such a huge problem. However, the same rules apply to most any computer user out there. Be careful with your names, passwords, credit card information, and anything you download from the internet. We do want to thank Sophos for being so concerned, but the next time they want to warn people about cybercriminals, they should quote some people besides their own software engineers.
— Joe Fahs
A new report from Websiteoptimization.com mentions how iTunes surpassed RealPlayer for the number of unique visitors during the middle of 2007. We file this under “Why Did It Take This Long”. With iPods being installed on so many PCs, iTunes is available to just as many users. Although it is nice that iTunes streaming media has growth, you can see from the numbers that stand alone streaming media player growth overall is fairly flat. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the real streaming growth is on the web, and Flash is still king in that arena. We hate to kick Real Networks while they’re down and their stock can be bought for less than some of the items at Starbucks, but we have to wonder how they plan on staying relevant in the future.
— Joe Fahs
During Steve Jobs’ keynote, we had some questions about Apple’s iPhone numbers. After all, saying Apple sells 20,000 iPhones a day is stretching the truth a little — a large portion of those were sold during the first week. Still, from the amount of iPhones we see every day, there is no reason to believe that Apple is missing its sales targets… or is there?
Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research is trying to figure out what happened to 1.4 million iPhones. That number comes from the discrepancy between the number of iPhones Apple has said it sold and the number of iPhone activations AT&T claimed for the quarter. Toni Sacc (writing Sacconaghi multiple times is going to get annoying and I miss the Sopranos) estimates that even if 20% of iPhones were purchased to be unlocked, that still leaves almost 700,000 uncounted for.
So, are the analysts on to something, or is this another case of Apple trying to kick people when they are down? Toni Sacc says that 20% of iPhones going to people SIM unlocking their iPhones is a “generous” number because the iPhone 1.1.3 jailbreak has been out only a few days. But anybody who follows the iPhone knows people have been trying to hack it since the first day. And in AT&T’s Q3 conference call the company estimated at least 15% of iPhones were being sold to be unlocked. Back in those days, hacking the iPhone was a much more dedicated affair, and the device was still new.
The process to unlock the iPhone is much easier these days, so we wouldn’t be surprised if the percentage of people buying one to unlock it has gone up significantly in the last three months. The percentage of people unlocking iPhones would have to hover around 30%, but we know there is a a huge black market in China as well as Singapore, India and a lot of other places. And, even though the iPhone has been officially blessed in several places in Europe, the exchange rate still benefits people who buy them here in the United States. All of those numbers add on to the “unofficial” sales numbers.
It is possible that Apple has a huge warehouse somewhere with a million iPhones, or they were counting units shipped to stores, but not yet sold (a method the video game console manufacturers like). We surely wouldn’t be surprised to see another iPhone price drop before the end of the year; some say a price cut is imminent. I am not going to buy into this conspiracy just yet, but I’ll definitely keep listening to what Tony Sacc has to say, and maybe that is what he really wanted in the first place.
— Joe Fahs