News for Friday, 18 July 2003

According toSiliconvalley, Apple "Witch" ad campaign didn't quite move Windows users to the Mac. To uphold this constatation, they reckon Dell and HP market shares have been raising continuously, while Apple's levelled around 3%.
This question we'd asked many times to some Apple France leading members. Switch they said was sucessful with the general public and especially portable users, as this is THE Switch machine. On the other hand this new consumers line hid in some way the important losses on the professional users segment, which were disappointed by the G4 lack of evolution.
Let's now hope for the future that the whole line new set up will incitate users from the Wintel world to come and see how's the weather like here. One could even dream Apple's market share could roughly double within the three next years. If Apple forgot to have people pay for the iApps another two years, this would be a good means to go that way.

After AppleStore briefly closed, Apple made available a standalone version of the Soundtrack musical software, that's usually available with Final Cut Pro only. This sowftware intended for professionnal users (357 euros) is a numeric sampler, quite easy to use, used for sonorization of iMovie or Final Cut Pro video productions.
It is delivered with 4000 free samples. See Apple site for more details: http://www.apple.com/fr/soundtrack/

As you all know, Philips uses terrible pressure in order to get DVD+R/RW to win over DVD-R/RW. These two formats are supposed to be equally compatible for home DVD readers. CDR-Info let out an article which dismantles this allegation. In their comparative try outs, DVD-R was compatible 96,74% of the time, whereas DVD+R only reacherd 87,32%. This difference is quite significant enough to influence the choice of a format against another.

Thanks to Hany, an assidious MacBidouille reader from Italy :)
According to tests that he conducted on his G4 Dual 867, Jaguar can be rewritten to manage N processors .
Here are the steps he toke :
First of all, he took the XNU sources from Apple's ADC site (XNU being lthe Kernel, the core of the system), then modify the file /xnu/osfmk/conf/MASTER.ppc (the source is here), and at the heading "pseudo-device cpus", he replaced the value 2 by 64. That's it ! He then compiled the whole thing and inverted the two kernel with kswap.sh and then rebooted his Mac. Obviously, the performances measured by XBench and Cinema 4D are the same. But by using "hostinfo" in the Terminal, here is what you can read :
[hany@MacG4Dual ~] > hostinfo
Mach kernel version:
   Darwin Kernel Version 6.6:
Thu Jul 17 20:45:52 CEST 2003; hany:BUILD/obj/RELEASE_PPC
Kernel configured for up to 64 processors.
2 processors are physically available.
Processor type: ppc7450 (PowerPC 7450)
Processors active: 0 1
Primary memory available: 512.00 megabytes.
Default processor set: 62 tasks, 198 threads, 2 processors
Load average: 0.00, Mach factor: 1.99
If you would like to try this out, and find out up to what value this varaiable can go, here is some help for the Kernel recompilation.
One thing is sure however, as long as we don't have 64Bits CPUs, we cannot be sure of this manipulation. Indeed, HostInfo does nothing but seek what is in th variable. It doesn't mean that the whole system is ready for N processors (N>2).
By the way, is there anyone who can lend us 64 G$ processors for a week ? It is for a good cause ! ;))

Here's Dominique nice littlke story :

I ordered a d-link usb-bluetooh module on the [French] Applestore last night for 59 euros delivery included ; I made a mistake using "one-click" button(I've quit then come back to the site that had retained the info of my first visit) and I received two order confirmation messages(with two different order numbers). I called the hotline right away but they couldn't cancel proceeded shipping, so I received the two packages in my mail box this morning. I called back the hotline as we'd acknowledged in order to be authorized to send back one of the packages and the refund of the corresponding 59 euros. They answered that, as a commercial gesture, Applestore was OFFERING me the second module which I could keep, while they'd still refund me with the 59 euros ! Thank you Applestore!

Don't think their generosity would extend to let u get two G5s though...

Magma just announced a new PCI extension chasis. By taking up 1 slot internally, it offers 7 others. It then allows a G4 to have 10 slots and 9 slots on a G5.

It is a pity that it isn't PCI-X compatible. The card to be installed inside the Mac is a PCI format, its band-width is thus shared between the 7 slots. Note that it is possible to have in option, a bay supporting up to 8 3.5" hard drives.

Apple has made available online 2 presentations of iSight by Danika Cleary, who is "its mother" (Thanks Tony)

http://stream.qtv.apple.com/1 and http://stream.qtv.apple.com/2
There are plenty of things to learn, such as the different ways to fix iSight on your monitor.

Another striking example showing predominant Apple position concerning technology and innovations. Philips will soon release a new mp3 reader, with some technological aspects really similar to the iPod :
- the device is black, but is covered by a glass giving it a glossy aspect (typically Apple, it appears with the cube)
- it has a 15GB hard drive
- its size and weight are slightly higher compare to the iPod (19,9 mm vs. 15,7, et 167 g vs. 158)
- the screen has a similar size
The only extra point for Philips device is its capacity to record mp3, from the audio input plug or from the integrated phone. However neither FireWire, nor AAC supports.
But the most surprising thing is the amazing technology patented by Philips, and named SuperScroll…. Thanks to that innovating technology, it is possible to navigate through the menus exactly as with the iPod. Even the police used in Philips device is almost identical… You can go to Philips web site to watch the demo and make our own idea.
Now we still have to compare the price when it will be available.
[Follow up] KasparRapak just mentioned to use that he already talked about that mp3 player in our forums. This device is already available in the FNAC catalog with a price of : 549 Euros. So the last mp3 reader from Philips remains more expensive that the iPod (499 Euros). If the the recording function is useless for you, so there is no reason to buy this device instead of the iPod. Even if you are using a PC, since USB2 is also available on the Apple iPod.