News for Thursday, 28 July 2005

The first prototype of Intel Merom processor series passed its initial tests.
This dual core, short pipeline, 65nm processor is designed for notebooks.
Its carrier may begin at 2.5 GHz and it may be available by the middle of 2006.
Knowing that Apple doesn't need as much processors to launch a product as PC manufacturers, will Intel give Apple the opportunity to integrate these into Macs before PCs? It's highly probable.

Microsoft announced very proudly and enthousiastically the commercial name of its future OS will be Windows Vista.
After a careful research, we found out a reason that will justifiy this name. It's related to displaying delays in the collective transports in Lille where it means "VISualisation du Temps d’Attente" [VISualize the Time Awaited]. It actually took our friends using Windows some patience.
The official release date shall be June 28th, 2006.
As Apple release a new system every year or so, Mac OS X 10.5 should then be on its way, or perhaps as a welcome to first Intel based machines will it be Mac OS XI?
[Upd.] Some unexpected issue with Microsoft's plans? A company already uses the name "Vista" in the Internet area.
It's also based in Redmond btw...
Don't worry though, that kind of problems is adressed with paychecks. (source Canoë)

Two readers told us quite at the same time of a weird issue with Tiger. In both cases, symptoms are identical.

This doubles some lines in the Finder menus, and will cause some strange squares to appear in the windows. All the usual manipulations, zapping PRAM, Resetting Open Firmware, Repairing permissions... won't change anything.
Might have been corrupted preferences, yet the fact the same symptoms will show for two people at the same time renders that highly unlikely.
Looks more like an incompatibility with an installed software or a driver.
It will take a short time for the cause to be determined. Post in our [French] forums if you experience the same.
[Upd.] So, it looks like this menu doubling will occur if you activate the universal access option "VoiceOver". Its accidental activation is easy as it only takes pressing the shortcut Apple-F5.

Many of you want to know more on the Radeon 9550 that is now inside the iBooks.
It is actually a Radeon 9600 with slower frequencies. Its GPU runs at "only" 250 MHz.
The expected improvements over the 9200 should however be important. It is interesting to notice that this card does support CoreImage and CoreVideo. You'll be pleased for instance to see the wave effect upon installing a new widget.
Only problem with the arrival of this chip, it only has 32 MB of VRAM where we would have hoped 64.
But for an entry level notebook limited to the 1024x768 resolution and to video mirroring, it's not a dramatic issue.

The iBooks and Macs mini update was, as it had to be, minimalist.
But it was bound to be the case ever since migration to x86 was announced. Apple has no more reason to invest in research and development of new PowerPC products. And if we look at the improvements on the iBook, they consist in mere exchanging of components on the assembly lines. Even the Radeon 9550 is pin to pin compatible with the old Radeon 9200.
By avoiding any costly modification, Apple may hope to continue to earn money even if sales would drop. Because a July 2005 iBook is not more expensive to manufacture than its October 2004 brother. On the contrary, and in spite of 256 more MB of RAM, Apple could well earn more on it now than then.
As Mac aficionados, you will have to be patient to see big hardware modifications. But when they'll come, they'll be very important.
Let's say hello to these new models, which they may be the last PowerPC based iBooks and Mac mini.