News for Thursday, 31 August 2006

Our partner, www.yourmacstore.com is now proposing liquid cooling system Koolance Exos-LT Silver for Powermac G4. It could be a way to replace the original noisy air-based system found in some Powermac G4. There are kits for every PMG4 revisions.
Direct link to the store: liquid cooling system

Couple of years ago, we would have added [Rumors] in the title of this news, but we have checked with our sources, so it is real information; except that we do not know if the announcement will be for next Thursday, Apple Expo or later.
- Apple distributors in Europe do not have iMac in stocks. It resemble the usual situation before a revision.
- It was originally reported that Steve jobs will not deliver a Keynote at Apple Expo. He will indeed not be in Paris; but a Keynote will be organized in cupertino and relayed in London at Apple Europe HeadQuarter, where journalists have already been invited. There are not relay organized at AppleExpo so far.
- Apple should be massively present at Photokina where Pro-dedicated announcements are expected (Cologne, Sept 16th-Oct 1st)
[update] MacBook Pro are also EOL?
A report from a french student who wanted to buy a MBPro thanks to the Special Deal "MIPE":

Yesterday, August 30th, I have placed an order for a MB Pro 2.0GHz via the Special Deal "MIPE" from the French AppleStore Education. Today, while checking the status, I have seen that my MBPro was not mentioned anymore in my chart; but the other products I have ordered were still there on the list. So I have tried to add a new MB Pro to my current order, but I was unsuccessful.
So I called the French AppleStore (0800-046-046), and I was told that Apple ran out of stocks for the MBPro, the expected shipping delay is 3 to 5 weeks.

So here we go: new iMac, new MBPro and as we already mentioned a upgraded Mac mini Core Duo only.
The Apple Expo might be really exciting this year, even so Steve Jobs is not physically present. It would be nice if they installed a relay of the Keynote directly in the AppleExpo Conference Center.

The AppleStore in Rome should not open before February 2007. The reason? The Moll Roma East where the AppleStore will be located is not finished yet.
Photos are available on http://www.setteb.it/content/view/805, hereafter is one of them:

As with the Mac mini G4, Apple seems to have upgraded the Mac mini models without much emphasis, as reported by SuperG:

I have ordered a Mac mini Core solo with 1GB of RAM last Saturday to use it as a server, and what a surprise when I received the box!
My Mac mini has been upgraded:
- Core Duo 1.66GHz instead of Core Solo 1.5GHz
- HD 100GB instead of 60GB
- and a SuperDrive instead of a Combo!
Thanks Apple !
On the box, the specifications are those of a Mac mini Core Solo...

We doubt it is a mistake, probably the first samples of revision for the Mac mini models.

Micron announces to have manufacture first samples of DDR2 RAM modules of 16GB. To reach such capacity, RAM modules is based on the 36x2x2Gb "twin-die" stack configuration (72 chips).
The expected availability is end of 2006, probably in small volume and for a huge price... around US$15,000 per module...
But one should not think that there is no market for such RAM modules, if not now, in the future for sure. In 1995, I remember to have acquired a 16MB RAM module (MB not GB, this is not a typo) for a PowerMac 7200, the price was around 600€. At that time, such RAM capacity was considered as humongous (not to say useless).

http://www.macbookrandomshutdown.com/ federates MacBook users facing the... well, random shutdown problem, thus trying to pressure Apple into doing something about it. Very little is known about the source of this problem so far. While software can no be ruled out yet, suspicions are increasingly directed toward a hardware issue such as CPU overheating: the Core Duo comes with internal probes, one of which can shut down the laptop in case of a dangerous overheating.