With Intel’s new processor announcements slated for the International Solid-State Circuits Conference starting February 7th, it would seem that it’s about time for Apple to release a new top of the line MacBook Pro as the announcements usually seem to coincide (and it also coincides with MacWorldl Expo. The MacBook Pro is 242 days since the last release, somewhat over the average of 200 days.
Apple’s iTablet expected in March/April 2010
December 12th, 2009According to analyst Yair Reiner, Apple are going for an iTablet launch in late March or April.
Apple’s iPhone App Wall
June 9th, 2009TechCrunch has some photos of the very cool iPhone App Wall at WWDC. Every time you buy an App an angel gets its wings (or at least, its icon bounces).
Apple sponsored Community eWaste recycling
May 27th, 2009Apple Australia are sponsoring some Community eWaste recycling events, 6-7th June 2009 in Perth and 27-28 June 2009 in Brisbane. Those in Victoria can drop items off at Byteback
Apple packaging chandelier wins award
May 12th, 2009Pictures of an award winning chandelier made from old Apple laptop styrofoam packaging. Bonus points if you can identify which products they were from 
via Make.
Apple in trademark dispute over MacPro
March 27th, 2009The Australian reports that Apple is contesting a ruling by the Trademarks Office in the New South Wales Federal Court that MacPro Computers (Aust.) Pty Ltd has the right to use the name “MacPro” as its intellectual property. MacPro Computers have been in business since 1983, whereas Apple registered the trademark in Australia in May 2006 after registering it in New Zealand in 2005
Mac OS X Server AFP high CPU load problem
March 8th, 2009This discussion thread over on Apple’s forums documents a large number of system administrators who have their AFP (Apple File Protocol) creating a high CPU load and thus making the server unusable for their users.
Suggested workarounds which have anecdotally provided varied success (including none 
) include:
- Turning off Spotlight on client machines
- Turning off Spotlight indexing on the shared volumes
- Executing
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleShareClient -dict-add afp_wan_threshold -int 1000
defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.AppleShareClient -dict-add afp_wan_quantum -int 131702on all 10.5.x client Macs.
- Installing Security Update 2009-001 which states
Description: A race condition in AFP Server may lead to an infinite loop. Enumerating files on an AFP server may lead to a denial of service. This update addresses the issue through improved file enumeration logic. This issue only affects systems running Mac OS X v10.5.6.
The problem was originally posted with respect to Mac OS X 10.5.4 on 29th of August 2008, and still seems unresolved for many people. And people wonder why it’s hard to argue that Mac OS X Server belongs in the data centre.
Apple revises Mac Pro, iMac, Mac mini, Airport Extreme and Time Capsule
March 4th, 2009Apple have revised the iMac, Mac Pro and Mac Mini.
The Mac mini now sports FireWire 800 (woohoo!) instead of FireWire 400 and also the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, and is touted as the “World’s most energy efficient desktop computer”, using only 13W when idle (possibly because it doesn’t have a screen? It now has a mini DisplayPort and mini DVI connectors, and 5 USB connectors.
The Mac Pro now comes with Intel’s Nehalem processor at 2.93GHz, and Apple’s claiming up to 2.4x performance over the previous 3.2GHz Mac Pro model.
Meanwhile, Airport networking is now supported in 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands simultaneously on Airport Extreme and Time Capsule, along with providing a guest networking mode to provide internet to your visitors without having to reveal your password to them.
Can Apple survive another great quarter?
January 25th, 2009The Macalope asks “Can Apple survive another great quarter?”
To put it in context, Daring Fireball reports that Sony Projects have recorded a US$3 Billion loss, and Nokia profits have dropped 69%.
Apple T-shirt quilt for sale on US eBay
December 14th, 2008The Unofficial Apple Weblog reports that there’s a quilt made from old Apple T-shirts up for sale on eBay. Winning bid is US$384.
Time to practice my sewing!
via Andrew.
