Last week-end, we went to a shop that was demonstrating the iPod Hi-Fi. If we were not really amazed or attracted by Apple's marketing campaign about this product; seeing the product and touching it did not make us change our mind. The iPod Hi-Fi looks like a big box on which an iPod dock would have been added. Regarding the audio quality, the iPod Hi-Fi is designed for Techno, R&B or modern music not for classical music. In addition, we think that the sound is not well distributed in the space.
The we went to another shop,
DegriffMac where a similar product was also demoed.
Surprisingly, its design looks like being "Made by Apple"; something that it is hard to imagine for the iPod Hi-Fi.
This product features a subwoofer located at the base, while the speakers are on the top encompassing the iPod dock. Speakers look like some Altec's products. If this "iPod column" does not deliver as much sound power as the iPod Hi-Fi; its design and its better audio rendering might make it a better deal.
This is a news that might generate long discussions in the Mac community.
Apple has joined the BAPco consortium. And?
Well, the goal of the BAPco consortium is to evaluate the performance of different hardware solutions running Windows. Among the members of this consortium one would not be surprise to see Microsoft, Intel, AMD, ATI, Nvidia... but Apple!?
The famous PC benchmark applications such as SYSmark 2004SE and MobileMar have been developed by this consortium.
So the real question is: Why did Apple join this group?
There are plenty of answers of course, from the fully supported virtualization with MacIntel to a Yellow box Mac OS X, or a benchmark applications that might run natively on different platforms.
If Apple officially support virtualization with the upcoming Leopard, one can already imagine the marketing campaign that will be launched by Cupertino, and entitled: "Windows runs faster with MacOSX"
Yesterday, the European Commission has officially released its concerns regarding some Microsoft Vista integrated functions that might not be in line with the March 2004 ruling. As with the previous antitrust ruling, the EC might launch action that would prevent Microsoft to sell Vista in EU.
As a result yesterday, Apple stocks (AAPL) went up by 3.59% following market share analysts’ recommendations.
