Tuesday February 07, 2006

- iPod nano 1GB - bad_duck - 16:55:27

The AppleStore was closed for a short time in order to update the iPod nano models. The iPod nano 1GB is now available for 168.99 euros.

At the same time, the price of both iPod shuffle, 512MB and 1GB, has dropped to 79 and 109 euros respectively.

[translation by Eric]

- Who will be the billionth song purchaser? - Yoc - 14:41:45

Apple is organizing a special event to celebrate the billionth song purchased from the iTunes Music Store.

if you're the lucky grand-prize winner who downloads the billionth song from the iTunes Music Store, you'll receive a 20-inch iMac, 10 60GB iPods, and a $10,000 iTunes Music Card to jumpstart your digital music collection.

This webpage is not available on European iTMS yet.

[translation by Eric]

- iMac Core Duo: designed for gamers? - Yoc - 14:36:04

Source : InsideMacGames

Powered by the ATI X1600 and its Intel Core Duo processor, we would expect the iMacIntel to be faster for games than the iMacG5, or even some PMG5. Today, one can see the impact of the new hardware thanks to the la version Universal Binary version of Unreal tournament 2004. Results are quite clear: the iMacIntel is up to 40% faster than the iMac G5 2.1 GHz for this game!

We will have a more define idea when more games will be ported to universal binaries, but for sure it is encouraging for both game developers and mac users. One could also compare the results obtained with similar hardware between a MacIntel and a PC, in order to evaluate if OpenGL is optimized or not on OSX and if ATI drivers for OSX are really getting the best out the GPU ...


[translation by Eric]

- Classic on a Mac Intel - Yoc - 14:27:48

It is now common knowledge that Classic does not run on the Mac Intels (MacBook Pro and iMac Core Duo). The main reason is the need to emulate a Power PC processor.
However, a solution is on the way with Sheepshaver. This soft makes it possible to run Mac OS 7, 8 or 9 on a Linux PC through Intel emulation, or natively on a Mac PowerPC. Quite naturally - most of the technology was already there - a MacIntel version has recently come out.

As its developper does not have one of these new machines, however, tests so far have only been performed through remote connection. So if you feel ready to jump in, you'll be the very firsts to actually test this application's usability. Reading the README is a must and feedbacks will be more than welcomed for the project to go ahead. One more thing: the emulator will require a Mac ROM in order to run.

[translation by Greg]

- News on Universal Binaries from Adobe - Yoc - 08:09:56

Source : Macenstein

Adobe published a FAQ about the universalisation of their products.
Because there are many changes necessary to add support for the Intel Macs, Adobe does not plan to update the current versions of the CS suite or the ex-Macromedia products. Users of Intel Macs will have to wait for the next revision to benefit from an optimized version.
Knowing that the major updates arrive every 18-24 months, Adobe CS version 3 might arrive a few months after the PowerMac Core Duo, which will be after the end of 2006, and in the beginning of 2007. The case is even more dire for After Effects, which was last updated only 1 month ago!

[translation by jwa]