Friday February 10, 2006

- MacBook Pro: ready to ship? - Eric - 21:58:54

Bryan has just sent us a screenshot that could confirm that Apple is ready to start shipping the first MacBook Pro as announced in January.



As shown on the image, it is the high-end model, without any option and to be sent to a US customer. If there is no new delay, he should have his MacBook Pro in his hands in less than 2 weeks.
If you have also ordered a MacBook Pro, especially if you are not located in the USA, please let us know if the order status has been updated too.

[translation by Eric]

- iMac Core Duo problems: a summary - Yoc - 15:23:46

In previous news, we have mentioned the different problems encountered by iMacIntel Core Duo users. The first problem noticed was related to a non-responding keyboard issue, the second was video bug especially annoying when using FrontRow. Apple has acknowledged the last problem and claims to be working on it. This could explain why many users have seen their order for an iMacIntel Core Duo postponed by 2 weeks.
It seems that those 2 problems are only software-based issues and could be solved via a firmware update .
So we could expect Apple to quickly release an patch or an update dedicated to iMacIntel Core Duo OSX version; if not one might have to wait till 10.4.5.
Regarding the video bug, it seems that it preferentially affects iMacIntel 256MB VRAM shipped with OSX.4.4 build 8G1171, than those shipped with the previous build 8G1165: more on this firmware update .

But the "bug list" is not closed...
Today, we have learned than many iMacIntel Core Duo owners are complaining about the poor Airport data transfer speed between their Airport station and their iMacIntel. Hereafter is a report from Ric on this topic:

Hello,
It seems that many iMacIntel have problems with Airport performance, personally the data transfer speed drops by more than 50% compared to my physical connection. (from >400KB/s to 135KB/s in wireless mode).
It seems that I am not the only one; and the problem might find its root in the iMacIntel hardware leading to a rather poor Airport compatibility. Apple has changed the chip managing the wireless connections (from Broadcomm to Atheros), and the new chip is not working properly in the iMacIntel and as a consequence the data transfer speed drops down.

In addition, the last Airport firmware (6.3) should be avoided as much as possible especially if you have such computer model.
There are many discussion subjects opened related to this issue
- MacFixit:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1111
http://www.macfixit.com/

- And also here:
http://www.girr.org/mac_stuff/network_speed.html

Here again, the problem should be solved by a firmware update, but Apple should react quickly to avoid that the first iMacIntel becomes the "bugged computer".

Regarding the OSX.4.5 update, Appleinsider claims that it should solve another annoying problem with audio outpur faced by PBG4 DDR2 owners.

[translation by Eric]

- When Linux gets inspired by Mac OS X - Yoc - 02:43:28

Novell has just presented the next version of their NLD (Novell Linux Desktop). The Novell distribution is based on SuSE Linux. Multimedia management has been developed for this release, particularly support for the iPod Nano (thanks to a mp3 player which was developed in-house and has been released as OpenSource), as well as cameras where in a few clicks photos can be published online.
But the biggest surprise is the new graphic interface which uses OpenGL to create effects which you are all too familiar with, like window transparency, switching desktops using a large rotating cube, or creating a thumbnail view of a window.



We recommend that you watch both of the following videos from Linux Edge to understand the new graphic environment:
video 1
video 2

[translation by jwa]