News for Friday, 22 July 2005

Many HD manufacturers won't make their products platters, but buy them from specialized subcontractants. One of them, SDK, announced they initiated production of 1,8" platters based on Perpendicular Recording technology.
Those platters may hold up to 40 Go data against 20 for those using the current technology.
Knowing that it's possible to put as much as 3 in a 1,8" HD, Apple might soon be able to offer an iPod (video ?) of a capacity up to 120 Go, that wouldn't be thicker. iPods thinner than the current ones, still retaining high capacities, would also be possible.
It's not uninteresting to notice that those HDs that are essentially made for digital music players became the beating heart of this market. There are less competitors, and the number of sold units increases at fast speed. Because of that Seagate last quarterly sales were impressive, for instance, as they gained the market for 1" (iPod mini), and one part of that of 2,5" HDs for Apple laptops.

When Apple results were announced, we learnt that global Mac sales have increased by 35% as compared to last year. The global PC market figure has also been communicated ever since, 16.6%. Our favorite manufacturer did twice better than the overall market thus increasing their market shares, after it had diminished for a long time then reached a fragile flat level.
According to Needham & Co cabinet, this is the iPod halo effect, which might have resulted to 400,000 people switching from PC to Mac.
Helped by viruses, spywares and such Windows plagues, the iPod could attract in 2006 1.2 million people from the PC world to the Mac. That's something we've been experiencing widely in our French forum.
[Upd.] According to MacWorld, Apple's market share is now of 4.7% in the States. Apple's goal of going back to 10% is now far more realistic, and seems within grasp now.

Long after Hitachi who's now reached 500 Go, Westen Digital now sells a 400 Go HD. It's immediately available, in SATA 150 and has 16 Mo cache.
Now that a competitor exists on this segment, one might expect that 400 Go price will soon drop significantly.

It's been increasingly hard to publish Mac news those days. Apple press communiques almost all talk of a single subject, the iPod.
Of course this public favorite product still sells better and better; of course, they serve the Apple brand and increase the company shares value.
Yet for MacUsers from the pre-iPod times, boredom is at hand. We'll even regret more the mediatic embargo Apple still maintain about their computers ever since they announced their switching to Intel. Knowing that that company roadmaps are almost as secret as the recipe for baking cakes, Apple could have seized the opportunity to communicate on their machines to come, and thereby help their faithful clients whose confidence has been hurt more than ever. But it would seem Apple shows no more respect to those who remained true to the brand in the darkest times, than to developers who too often have to throw away the code they developed during hundreds of hours of hard work.
So, with no news of the Mac, let's eat more iPod. If you're not fed up with it, we posted [with comments in French] some pictures taken during the Apple event of July 7th in Paris.
http://www.macbidouille.com/article.php?id=195

Les DVD+/-R/RW dramatically impaired the DVD-RAM market which have been downsizing much as a consequence. This media still has the preference of some people for its real flexibility in backups.
It's probably for this small market that competitors have deserted taat NEC sells the first burner that may burn those medias at 16x. It will also burn DVD+/-R at 16x, DVD+/-RW at 8x, DVD+R DL at 8x, DVD-R DL at 6x and CDs at 48x.
Only little issue for those who still have big stocks of medias, the ND-4550 can't burn DVD-RAM at 2x and 5x.
It will be available next October and shall be compatible with LightScribe.

Thx to Arnaud via our friend André Sterpin for the link.
Iff one day your PowerBook out of warranty displays something like that,

be prepared to cancel your holidays if you wish to pay Apple's very expensive repairings.
Yet, if you have a very good equipment and a surgeon touch, you might try and repair it yourself as on the following page:
http://www.angelfire.com/hero/amdpx/powerbook.htm
To do so requested fixing the solder of a very tiny connector's leg, under the microscope.


Congratulations for this splendid result Apple would have charged at least 800 euros by changing the whole motherboard.

X86Secret comments upon an information about AMD problems with their "PR" (press representative), who seems to be quite bad. Here are two significant quotations:

...According to them, if AMD has so much trouble to have press comments on their products and to promote them correctly, it would namely be because of those PRs, that are quite inefficient all around the world. Only a few samples distributed, no questions answered directly, no information before a product is launched...
...In France, it's quite the same. AMD doesn't give a shit of what journalists may want...

Our friends in the Mac press will probably think every company with an initial A in their name acts the same.

Nissan will offer in Japan a car radio & GPS device that's compatible with the iPod. Integration has gone very far, as the iPod will be controlled from the tactile screen of that device.
This will come at a cost, though, as this product will be worth over 2,500 Euros without the iPod. It is quite common for a GPS equipment, while the prices of mobile devices such as those from TomTom dropped significantly those last months.
As a matter of fact controlling the iPod remains a feature of high end car radio products.