News for Friday, 20 August 2004

Chris informs us that the kit iPodYourBMW should be available in Germany around October for a price between 150 and 200€.
If any of you has some additional information regarding the availability of the kit in other countries, please feel free to tell us =)

iPecador provided us with some price comparison for Motion between US store and French AppleStore :

I have just checked the website of Apple USA, and noticed Motion been advertised on the front page for 299 USD without taxes. I then browsed to the french website and saw Motion for only 289 EUR, VAT included. Seeing this, I fired up my tiny Calculator.app in Panther in order to calculate the exchange rate between US Dollars and Euros: converting the US price and then adding the 19,6% sales tax/ french VAT, I noticed the Euro-US Dollar to be more than fairly accurate, since the converted price tag for Motion should be 292 EUR. Bravo Apple! Maybe they will at least offer us somme coherent prices in Europe.

Until now, prices for Apple products have most always been higher on this side of the Atlantic. We shall soon see if things do change, for hardware as well.

Cram75 sent us a few pictures of the new magnetic mounting system of the "new" iSight (what makes it new being the new mounting system). Cheers to him.

The new clips are one piece, not two: The iSight mounted with the magnetic bracket. The mounting bracket (the magnet being placed at its bottom):

As usual, many of you guys pointed out that the Apple Store was closed for a few moments.
Well, it turns out one of the changes is the possibility to select theNVidia GeForce 6800 DDL, for connecting one (or two) 30" Apple Cinema Display(s).

According to a poll on iPodLounge, 42% of iPod 4G users are reporting sound issues with their units, even after having the unit exchanged for a new one. For now, Apple has been mute about this issue. The numbers sure are high, but their objectivity can be argued so let's hope this won't become a pin in Apple's ... ehhh ... foot.

Kurt shows us a new way to get that Apple mouse open, much like you would open a shellfish. Details (in French, but I'm sure you'll get the gist) available in our forums :
http://forum.macbidouille.com/index.php?showtopic=86857

David wanted to share with us a little utility he discovered. Sidetrack enhances the functionalities of your iBook or PowerBook by replacing the default OS X driver. Sidetrack gives the possibility to emulate a scrollwheel by setting an outer border of the pad as a slide zone : just slide your finger up or down that zone and you'll make a webpage scroll, for instance.
You can grab it here : http://www.ragingmenace.com/software/sidetrack/
I have been using this for quite a while now :)

[kurisu adds: Let's not get all excited. This type of function has been available for almost a decade on x86 laptops. Alps is the leader in trackpads manufacturing and those "tricks" were always part of the original design. Let's give credit when it is due : those were first introduced (I mean the drivers, coz most of the trackpads on your Apple laptops are from Alps anyway) on Windows lappies.]