News of the week according to Guy

Please copy and paste the question you’re going to comment on into the “reply box” so we all know what you’re talking about.

News of an Apple Clone brings frenzy to the Internet
(except it may all be fake)

Earlier this week, news of a small South Florida-based computer sales site called PsyStar announced that were taking orders for a mini-ATX based tower computer. Not exactly breaking news, except this company announced that you could have pre-loaded as an OS Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, OR Apple’s Macintosh OS X. Originally called the OpenMac, this computer had specifications that exceeded the Mac mini and as a base unit came close to the iMac at about half the price if you ordered it with OS X pre-installed. After the news hit a few large social media sites, PsyStar.com’s site went dark, leading some to believe that Apple had lowered the boom on it. As it turned out, their servers were most likely just not able to handle the load.

When it came back on, the OpenMac had been renamed to the Open Computer and another model had been added, the Open Computer Pro which had available Intel’s Core2Quad processors making it on paper significantly better than even Apple’s very own high-end iMacs for much less. How would this company be able to do this? Well, by not exactly using their own tools but using various tricks as laid out by the robust OSX86 community that has been doing this for years. This was the first time however, that anyone had offered computers for sale with OS X using those tips. Also, it turns out that they never asked for permission to use any of these tricks probably because the authors released them under a no commercialization clause.

Uncharacteristically, there was little to no official word from Apple on this. You would think they would come down on them like a ton of bricks, but maybe Apple knew something that the rest of the bloggers didn’t know yet. Like it may all be fake.

Psystar.com is listed as being owned by two Florida residents named, Rodolfo and Roberto Pedraza who also run another website called Floridatek.com. While this in itself is not proof of any wrongdoing, the address listed for Psystar mysteriously changed at least three times over the last few days after Gizmodo sent local teams and discovered that the first address was residential and the second was another company that had no idea who or what Psystar was. Psystar’s online payment processor PowerPay pulled their services from the company and at this time they are using eBay’s PayPal service. They are quoting at least an eight day delay in shipping saying that they weren’t prepared for the onslaught of orders and will fill them on a first come/first serve basis.

Q: Is this legit?

Q: Would you be willing to take a chance on this company with all the weirdness that has happened in the last few days?

Q: Do you find it odd that the makers of the utilities to subvert Apple’s EFI lock are mad because someone subverted their “not for sales EULA”?

Apple jumps to number four in US sales over Toshiba

Apple’s 1st quarter 2008 sales of 1.01 million computers was enough to leapfrog them over Toshiba to be the number four computer reseller in the United States with 6.6 percent of the market. Dell (31%), HP (25%), and Acer (9.1%) have little to worry about since their total sales was vastly more than any figure that Apple could dream of though Acer may be looking over their shoulder at this point. While US sales represents somewhere between 1/4 to 1/5 of total worldwide sales, Apple’s share of the global market barely registered at 1.5 percent. On the other good news side, Apple’s growth year to year in computer sales far exceeds the rest of the market.

Q: Could Apple conceivably pass Acer at some point this year in US sales?

Q: What could Apple do to increase their global presense?

Safari Updates kills browser bug

The bug used to exploit a MacBook Air at a recent computer security conference has been eliminated by the latest Safari update version 3.1.1

Apple has released updates

Apple has released updates for iTunes, QuickTime, and Front Row. According to Apple, “iTunes 7.6.2 “provides bug fixes to improve stability and performance,” QuickTime 7.4.5 “includes fixes that enhance reliability, improve compatibility with third-party applications, and address security issues,” and Front Row 2.1.3 “provides improved iTunes 7.6.2 compatibility”.

Q: When will Apple release an update for Front Row that will allow users to use iTune content without having to have the application running?

New York City halting Macs sales due to WiFi problems

A problem with Apple computers accessing the New York Department of Education’s wireless networks is freezing the school board’s orders for the computers. The issue seems to revolve around the new iMacs shipping with Leopard, but could surface in other Leopard-imaged machines. The DOE is currently in discussion with Apple to resolve the problem.

A spokesman said, “We’ve been having numerous problems with our new iMacs running Leopard, which Apple has now officially acknowledged in an email from our sales rep, and on the webpage for purchasing hardware,”

Board members may still order Macs, but those orders will be held until the issue is settled.

NBC wants their TV shows back on iTunes except…

NBC has stated that it wants to be able to put its TV shows back on Apple’s iTunes Store, but under its own terms some of which Apple has shown very little flexibility in the past.. NBC would like to have more flexible prices, similar to what Apple has allowed the Movie Studios to do. This is in itself probably not a deal breaker, certainly movies on iTunes shows that and Apple has little recourse in NOT allowing it because of this. The real kicker is that NBC wants Apple to tighten its DRM so that NBC purchased content cannot be played on iPods.

NBC chief digital officer George Kliavkoff had this to say: “We’d love to be on iTunes. It has a great customer experience. We’d love to figure out a way to distribute our content on iTunes. We have film distribution with iTunes so yes, we do talk to Apple.”

What most of the video content providers seem to fail to understand is that iTunes does not exist as a real big money maker for Apple, but as a conduit for content for iPods which is where Apple makes most of it revenue in the digital media world.

Q: Why does NBC believe its content is so important to iTunes that Apple would bend over backwards like this?

Q: Would Apple allow NBC to pretty much hang themselves in sales by letting them set their own prices and would many iTunes users be willing to pay up to five dollars for an episode of TV content?

Q: Would Apple ever be willing to forgo content for iPods to makes sales in iTunes even for a popular content provider?