Apple delays Leopard. iPhone on schedule

Apple made a statement Thursday that OS 10.5 Leopard would not be released at WWDC as originally planned

The date slipped according to an Apple statement because, 'we had to borrow some key software engineering and QA resources from our Mac OS X team"

Gruber says his inside sources say the PR spin is true and Mac OS X developers have had to shift focus to iPhone OS X development. And don't forget they were likely on Apple TV OS X development prior to that.

Just seems to me, Apple could have pre-planned the projects better and brought new developers to their OS X team in the infant stages of iPhone OS X development. My bigger concern is Apple's apparent shift in focus from Mac OS X development to pushing their consumer electronics projects.

I can understand Apple's financial incentive for the iPhone focus

Had Apple released Leopard in June Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicted Apple would have sold 9 million copies in 2007, bringing in $456 million in revenue. (I get 1.16 billion for 9mil times $129).

By contrast if Apple can sell just 3 million iPhones in 2007 (they are forecasting 10 million by 2008) the could potentially realize earnings of approximately 1.5 billion

BootCamp Beta expires on September 30, 2007 and Boot Camp assistant would no longer work, meaning you couldn't install Windows, resize the Windows’ partition or remove a Windows installation from your system. I would expect a Boot Camp update from Apple that extends the Beta expiration date.

MacUser asks the obvious question... what about iLife '07? Rumors are that it will have many Leopard dependent features.

The Octo Mac has arrived

The specs

Two Quad-Core Intel Xeon “Clovertown” processors running at 3.0GHz. Rumor has it that these chips, Xeon X5365, are exclusive to Apple for now.

Other specs remain more or less the same

Up to four drives and 3TB of storage

Eight DIMM slots for up to 16GB of RAM

Two drive bays for SuperDrives

Four PCI Express slots.

3 Graphics card option

NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT (standard)

ATI Radeon X1900 XT

NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500

With four PCI Express graphics cards the Mac Pro support for up to eight displays simultaneously

Performance may be hindered by limited memory bandwidth. In a Macworld article they quote Photographer Lloyd Chambers, "Memory copy speed is at best 2.9GB/sec on the Mac Pro, in spite of Apple’s highly misleading claims of 21.3 GB/sec"

It's currently uncertain if the bottle neck is a symptom of Intel's current Xeon 5100 (dual-core) and 5300 (quad-core) platforms or a flaw in Mac OS X memory handling. Let's hope for the latter.

BareFeats did their tests against the quad-core and found similar issues

Octo Speed Tests

Their results backed up Lloyd's findings that, "OS 10.4 (Tiger) does not know how to deal with so many cores. The problem is that the OS does not know that it should keep a thread on the SAME core instead of swapping it around to any one of the 8 cores. When a thread moves to a different core-group, the cache has to be reloaded on the new core." ... "When this thread/core shift happens repeatedly, it makes the cache ineffective and floods the memory bus with activity."

The 100 Million iPod March... ok April

Apple hit a major milestone for iPod sales on the 9th announced they had sold the 100 millionth unit

The feat was achieved in just 5.5 years making the iPod the fastest selling music player in history

In a press release from Apple singer John Mayer is quoted as saying, “Without the iPod, the digital music age would have been defined by files and folders instead of songs and albums. Though the medium of music has changed, the iPod experience has kept the spirit of what it means to be a music lover alive."

MGM Flicks roar onto iTunes... more like meow

MGM became the 4th major studio to offer movies for sale on the iTunes store. The others are Disney, Paramount, and Lions Gate

Current titles appear to be older tiles. Apple calls these "library" titles. The initial MGM offerings include, “Dances With Wolves,” “Mad Max,” “The Great Train Robbery” and “Rocky".

iTunes has sold over 2 million movies to-date and with MGM on board they have brought the total number of movies currently available on iTunes up to over 500.

New Apple ads

New AppleTV ad featuring Jack Black's "School of Rock" being played on a Mac, an iPod, and an AppleTV.

Apple TV Ad

3 new Get a Mac Ads

Flashback, Mac and PC as kids. Some things never change.

Get a Mac Ads

Computer Cart, 4 "PCs" on an IT cart. DLL error, fatal error, etc.

Stuffed, a ballooned Hodgeman (ala Violet Baurgarde) talks about all his useless bundled cripple-ware

Airport Extreme Basestation Update

7.1 firmware update for the AirPort Extreme Base Station

Airport Firmware Update

Includes general fixes, compatibility updates, and security improvements

More Apple TV Hacks

RSS and other Plug-ins, apparently surprisingly easy to create. Need a hacked Apple TV to install. Promise in one hack successful in booting an Apple TV from and external USB drive.

Video games on Apple TV via video game emulation for NES, SNES, N64, and Sega Genesis game console

Official response from Apple seems to be, "hack away" just don't expect us to support you and you probably have voided your warranty.

Sling Media was working to get their SlingBox working with the Apple TV. For Apple TV, you’d use the component pass-thru on a Slingbox Pro with HD Connect to remotely view, or listen, to your content.

Apple may have bigger "media center" plans

An Apple patent for a, "Multi-media center for computing systems," has recently been published

The patent is for a module controller element that would act as a conduit between multiple devices and programs, offering a consistant UI experience (FrontRow)

The module controller can be controlled by software on any compatible device -- including computers, remotes, and "media-player with remote control capabilities".

Media playback would be controlled through plug-in software modules

Rumors of 6G iPods before 2008

The rumor mills a buzzin' that Apple will bring a full screen, wide screen, wifi enabled video iPod to market just in time for the Holidays.

Makes sense as it gives Apple time to

Let iPhone sales cool off

wait for flash memory prices to come down even further, 16GB or 32GB flash models?

NAB: Final Cut Studio 2

NAB has kicked off and Apple announced Final Cut Studio 2 which will be available in May

The package includes Final Cut Pro 6, Soundtrack 2, Compressor 3, Motion 3 and a new application called Color.

Highlights include:

Open Format Timeline which allows you to mix formats, mix resolutions and even mix frame-rates.

Apple's new ProRes 422 format for uncompressed HD quality at SD file sizes

FinalCut Server for digital asset management

Pricing: Final Cut Studio 2: $1,299 or $499 (upgrade). $699 to upgrade from FinalCut Pro. FinalCut Server is $1000 (10-client) or $2,000 (unlimited)

I will have a post NAB wrap-up show with Craig Severson (GruntMedia) and James Alguire (Stuff, Guts and Video)

Let Them Hear You Podcast Promo

Play promo

Let Them Hear You Contest

Full rules and list of prizes at, dancingwithelephants.libsyn.com

The following are the ground rules for the Let Them Hear You Contest:
1. Enter as many times as you like.
2. Each review must be 20 words or more and end with "R U Listening?"
3. No copy and pasting the same review for multiple shows.
4. No writing multiple reviews for the same show in multiple podcasting directories.
5. Since this is our contest, we have the final say on what we consider to be a legitimate review. Needless to say, "This podcast is really, really, really, really, really, really, really good." will not make the cut.
6. The podcast directory has to be recognized as a legitimate directory such as iTunes, Podcast Alley, or Podcast Pickle.
7. Each legitimate review counts as one entry in the drawing.
8. Two winners will be selected by random from the pool of legitimate entries. (1) 1st Runner Up and (1) Grand Prize Winner.
9. Entries must get to us no later than Friday, May 11, 2007 at 11:59 PM US Central Time.
10. This contest is open to anywhere you can make use of the prizes.
11. Alternative prizes will not be substituted.

Corrections and follow-up

To type ellipsis it's Option+; not Command

EMI DRM Free album will be at the higher bitrate and USD$9.99

Another option for recycling an old mac is Screen Recycler

screenrecycler.com

Locking your kids to one wi-fi network

Make sure they have non-admin accounts

The go to the Network section, in System Preferences.

Select AirPort and then click "Configure".

In the first tab, named AirPort, click the button called "Options...".

From the pop up dialog check the option labeled "Require administrator password to: Change wireless networks".

Lock the Network preferences.

This will now require an admin password in order to switch networks.

My Apple TV Photo Syncing issue discovered

I wasn't using the device right as pointed out by Derick

In the sources list it starts with a big Apple Logo, under that it lists the Mac authorized for Apple TV on your network. I say the Mac a had chosen for syncing. That is to streaming. The synced content is on the Apple TV and that source is the big Apple logo.

It only took me several days to figure that out.

You can also put the AppleTV to "sleep" by holding the Play/Pause button down for 5-6 seconds.

Review SRS iWow Plug-in

First heard of it from Ben, an SRS Product Marketing Manager, at the MacWorld Podcaster meet-up

Comment on the SRS iWow Plug-in for iTunes

SRS iWow!

Enhances iTunes music

Presets for Rock, Jazz, Classical, etc.

Settings for different speaker types and sizes. Adjust bass, does a great job bringing out more range.

Only USD $19.99, well worth if if you use small speakers (built-in) or headphones.

720 x 304 Resolution Video on an iPod

Listener Jeff reports success in getting a handbrake encoded a DVD at 720 X 304 resolution and a 2500 kbps bit rate to sync and play on his 5th Gen iPod.

720 x 304 is a Cinemascope 2.35 : 1 aspect ratio

He sent me a sample of his file and it worked on my iPod too. May be good news for podcasters looking to target Apple TV and iPod with one format.

Active Directory support in OS X

Listener Daniel is trying to sell bringing Macs into his corporate environment, but has hit a sticking point with IT wanting Macs to me able to interface with their Windows Active Directory server.

Use the Directory Access utility. Applications-->Utilities-->Directory Access

Can bind Mac to the AD domain

ADmit Mac from Thursby Systems

ADmit Mac

Apple has helpful info for IT managers in thei IT Pro section, "Integrating Mac OS X and Active Directory"

OS X Active Directory Integration

Koloroo iPod "Widgets"

KolorWheel USD$7.99

Koloroo iPod Widgets

Widget for picking color schemes. Use click-wheel to select a base color and then it suggest 4 additional colors with RGB values to make a scheme.

TipKalc USD$4.99

Tip calculator. Dial your bill total in the center and then it will display tip at 15% and 20%. The 4 corners offer bill split amounts with or without tip for from 2 to 5 people.

Both widgets are loaded on the ipod as a series of pictures and you then scroll through them to use the "apps". Very clever.

Quick Tips

From Max

Option+Click outside any application to hide it

From Erik, in Tiger

Apple+click on any icon in the dock it will do the same as the Show in Finder command.

Apple+Option+Click on any Application in the dock, except iTunes and iPhoto, it will hide all other application windows.

Rick wanted to know how to remove the attachment from an email in Apple Mail so he can keep the message, but save space.

Select the message and then go to the 'Message' menu and choose "Remove Attachments".

Using AirDisk on new Airport Extreme

Play comments from Jeff.