Oh No! The Horror!

Today is Avie Tevanian’s last day at Apple! (For those who have no clue who I’m talking about, he’s the Chief Tech Officer at Apple)

According to the SFGate, he’s leaving to purse “other interests”, like he’s got anything other then the Mac to be interested in…

Blizzard released a patch today to bring WoW up to 1.9.3, this patch, also turns it into a universal binary. So, if you play WoW and you’ve got one of the new x86 iMacs… get to patching, then when Blizzards lets you log in to play again (after the maintenance window is done) you’ll be playing with a native client (and then post somewhere what kinds of fps you get, settings etc..) err… of course.. that’s assuming that things will actually work after this weeks scheduled maintenance.. which hasn’t been the case for the last month or so… so maybe you better just plan on playing tomorrow

Apple had their quarterly conference call last night.. announced the best quarter in company history, beat analysts expectations (again)..

Apple posted revenue of US$5.75 billion and a net quarterly profit of $565 million, or $.65 per diluted share, in this 14-week quarter. These results compare to revenue of $3.49 billion and a net profit of $295 million, or $.35 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter.

And so what happens? why, of course, because its Apple we’re talking about, the stock drops in price… /sigh/

Oh well.. it’ll go back up

Yesterday (Friday the 13th!) A very interesting thing happened…

Apple became worth more then Dell!

At the close of market, this is how it looked:

Apple up 1.2989 to 85.75, Market Cap: $72.13B

Dell down 0.15 to 30.55, Market Cap: $71.97B

Not bad.. think we should call up Mikey and tell him that its time to close Dell and give the money back to the stockholders? (for those that don’t get the reference, in an interview Michael Dell was asked what he would do with Apple, and he said close it down and give the money back to shareholders)

Wonder how that crow tastes?

Oh..where to start, where to start..

New Hardware goodies:

x86 based iMac, using a dual core processor… available today, same screen sizes (17″ and 20″) new ATI x1600 video cards… Price point seems about the same as for PPC based iMacs.

Powerbooks are extinct, they have now become “MacBook Pro”.. ugh.. hate the name.. but, the specs look good, also a dual core chip..15.4″ screens with the same resolution as my 17″ iMac (1440×900)…these don’t ship till Feb… if someone wants to get me one as a Anniversary/Birthday/Valentine’s day present, I won’t complain..otherwise I’m waiting till the x86 based Power Macs come out (WWDC maybe?).

Favorite new feature on the x86 Macs introduced today? The magnetic power adapter on the Macbook Pro.. If someone trips over the cord, it just gets pulled out of the machine without (hopefully) damaging anything… very Shiny..

New Remote Control for iPod, has a built in FM Tuner.. nothing else on the iPod front.

New Software Goodies:

iLife 06 – Update iApps.. some nice new features that further integrate with .Mac.. and a new iApp.. iWeb.. to make building and publishing a website easy (as long as you use .Mac for all your hosting needs apparently)

iWork 06 – Minor updates nothing major.

10.4.4 – will be released today.. no news on what kind of goodies are packed in it, except for more widgets

Quicktime 7.0.4 – Wasn’t mentioned at the keynote that I know of, but is available now in software update..appears to be minor fixes and improvements

Ummm…I think that’s everything..pretty good stuff announced, I’ll have to watch the streaming keynote later after Apple posts it.

Steve is starting his Keynote speech now, and the Apple Online Store is down…that can mean only one thing!

We get new goodies! New Goodies!

Shiny!

Yesterday, Apple released another incremental update to OS X. Lots of bug fixes and changes… so far, no problems here… except for the update resetting my Mighty Mouse back to a single button mouse… everything else has gone smoothly.

Here’s the blurb from Software Update:

It includes fixes for:

– AFP, SMB/CIFS, NFS and FTP network and file services

– AirPort and Bluetooth wireless access

– Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, and RAW camera support

– disc recording when creating and burning media

– .Mac sync services

– Spotlight indexing and searching

– Dashboard widgets: Dictionary, Flight Tracker, Stickies, and Unit Converter

– Address Book, AppleScript, Automator, Dictionary, Font Book, iCal, iSync, Mail, and Safari applications

– Disk Utility, Keychain Access, Migration Assistant, and Software Update

– compatibility with third party applications and devices

– previous standalone security updates

For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n301984

Everyone go update!

So, as everyone (who doesn’t live in a cave) knows.. a few weeks ago Apple introduced a revised iPod, with video playback capabilities.. I hadn’t said anything on it yet, because I was reserving judgement until I had a chance to see one in person. Yesterday, I was able to swing by the Apple store and take a look.

My first thought is that the screen looks big.. comparatively – I realize its only like 2.5 inches.. but because the iPod itself is so thin and narrow.. the screen looks bigger then it is.

The picture is also better then I expected for the screen size.. would I want to watch a full length movie, or even an episode of Lost on it? Nope.. I suppose it wouldn’t be bad for watching some of the short clips everyone gets emailed from time to time..but.. I think it’d be more work to get the clip onto the iPod, then it would be to just watch it on your computer.

I think the ability to hook the iPod up to a TV for video playback is good..I don’t think the demand is there to watch a lot of video on a 2 inch screen.. so.. this iPod will not be at the top of my want list.. of course, if someone were to buy me one, I wouldn’t refuse =0