News for Tuesday, 23 May 2006

Our pals from Kodawarisan have decided to customize a MacBook. Here's the baby, also known as the Ichimatsu MacBook :

It shows at least that the keys are easily replaceable!

Last Friday, our friends fromMacgénération learned that Pascal Cagni, Vice President and General Manager Apple Europe, had sent an e-mail to all Apple Centers, in which he described future changes in Apple policies regarding the Apple Reseller network.
We have obtained a copy of this e-mail from different sources and we have also learned that it has "driven many AppleCenter managers into madness".
In summary, Apple announced in this e-mail the introduction of a new program named "Apple Premium Reseller". This program will replace the previous 17 year old program which assigned the name of "AppleCenter" to official Apple Resellers.
Without going into details, there are not too many changes. Among the more significant changes are::
- it will be required for the AppleCenter wishing to apply to the new program to be located in a mall or a commercially active area with a high traffic of potential customers. It will no longer be allowed to be located in a quiet street or low traffic area anymore...
- it is no longer required to have an "Apple Store" design.
This is quite a change, because we know that Apple has been pressing all AppleCenters to get them to renovate their shops into a more uniform "Apple design". We think that the future opening of Apple Stores in France and in Europe could be the reason for such a change as Apple would not like to have AppleCenters mixed up with their Apple Stores.
Additionally, the future Apple "Premium Reseller" will not have the right to associate their name with "APPLE". Only the use of the Apple logo will be allowed.
This is the logo of the future Apple "Premium Reseller" program:

The program will start on October 30th, the deadline date for current AppleCenters to adapt the new rules or to close down.
PS: Do not get it wrong, we are happy to see future physical Apple Stores to be finally opened in Europe, including France, but we also think that Apple is (on purpose or not) destroying the AppleCenter network that has supported Cupertino and Mac users during the difficult years, and seems to be not really rewarded for this work by Apple when prosperous years are back.
JCJ

Increw is working on Speedit, the extension that allows the monitoring of the Core Duo. Doing so, he found some useful stuff:
- To start with, the removal of the battery from a MacBook Pro blocks the CPU's clock at 1GHz. No way to go beyond. While this is obviously not a step aimed at increasing the autonomy, there is still no clue as to why it has been implemented.
- Some Core Duo seem to be bugged in such a way that the thermal diods won't work. While this is not a real handicap when working, it can have serious conequences such as preventing emergency shutdown in case of overheating. Intel has proposed an update. Apple should do so as well.
- The latest SMC update had the folowing consequences: a higher rotation speed for the fans; the CPU's temperature down from 5 to 10C; the voltage of the CPU was modified; and the cooling system's temperature threshold was lowered, with cooler but noisier machines as a consequence.
We would definitely welcome more information from Apple about these updates and what they do, instead of using them blindly as we do now.

Couple of months ago, we were the first to report a reliability issue affecting the Airport Express Base Station (APX).
So far we have collected over 250 reports of defective APX from readers located all over the world. We have been able to draw the following conclusions:
- 95% of the defective APX are from countries using 220V as standard electrical voltage.
- Defective APX have all been manufactured by Foxconn in 2004 and 2005.
- Decoding APX serial number: i.e. HS430129R4N means: APX station built by Foxconn during the 30th week of 2004, weekly product number is 1233, and Apple product number is A1088.
- an APX station usually dies after 13-14 or 16-18 months.
- The product number of dead APX is A1088 for 220V-based countries, and A1084 for 110V-based countries.
Up to date, only users with an active AppleCare (for another Apple hardware) have been able to get their defective APX replaced free of charge. For most defective APX owners, AppleSupport has replied by either denying the issue, or claiming that the problem was so far unknown, whereas the dedicated subject on Apple's forum is the most visited one among all Airport topics... without mentioning all websites that have reported the issue for weeks.
Facing the increasing number of APX failure, we have decided to launch a worldwide campaign to record the serial number and all possible information related to defective APX in order to determine if the issue is due to faulty components, or rather originating from a design mistake which would then dramatically change the warranty.
So, please enter references of your dead APX using the following recording webpage:
>> http://www.macbidouille.com/apxdefect.php <<
(please, submit your references even if you have already sent them by e-mail to me)

On the website http://tattiebogle.net/ one can find a driver allowing the use of a Xbox360 gamepad on a Mac running OSX.

If the GUI might look minimalist, the driver is excellent, the “force feedback” feature is even supported! In addition, this driver is available under the GPL licensing, so if you wish to improve it...

Intel seems to be speeding up CPU release to compete with AMD offers.. According to recent rumors, the Xeon WoodCrest should be released on June 19th.
We expect Apple to use this CPU in both Xserve and Powermac. Indeed, Quad processor computer based on Intel processor could only be built with Xeon WoodCrest.
Hereafter is a summary of the expected introduction price (price per unit for 1000 ordered units):
5110: 1,60 GHz: 209 $
5120: 1,86 GHz: 256 $
5130: 2,00 GHz: 316 $
5140: 2,33 GHz: 455 $
5150: 2,66 GHz: 690 $
5160: 3,00 GHz: 851 $
All Xeon WoodCrest feature 4MB of L2 cache, have a TDP of 80W; FSB of entry models will be set to 1033MHz, higher-end ones will be clocked to an unprecedented 1333MHz (for Intel).