News for Wednesday, 13 December 2006

The site Roughlydrafted posted an article about the Greenpeace reports we just mentioned in our preceding news item, which accused Apple to be the bad pupil of the computing world, as far as environment is concerned.
According to Roughlydrafted, Greenpeace in their communiqué voluntarily fustigated Apple on a biased way. Here are their main arguments:
- the communiqué is contradictory to the data obtained in the report the ecological association ordered.
- the most criticized tetrabromobisphenol A (TBBA), would not be carcinogenic the way it is used, that is to say insided of a computer, and isn't even one the product that were banned by the selective european RoHS directive.
- on the contrary, given its flame retarding effect, this product probably saved many lives, 280 a year in the United States according to a study.
The site's conclusion is that, while Greenpeace labs are quite good, transforming the reported information really isn't really a good ad for the association.
We don't have an opinion here, others will give theirs. Yet it is true that Apple has become a very appetizing company given its exposed situation. Any information about them get a very good visibility.

After they denounced Apple as an un-ecological company in August, Greenpeace once again criticize them in their latest classification.
Apple has simply reached a 14th and last position. Here's their comment:

Apple went down to the 14th, last position, after an already not very brilliant performance in our latest classification (10th rank). Unexpected and disappointing on behalf of a brand that's identified as a modern and design outsider... While other bad pupils managed to gain a few ranks, Apple didn't move an inch and didn't change any of their practices.
The company results are bad in almost every area: Apple totally ignores the precaution principle, communicate no schedule about any elimination of the PVC and made no committment to substitute other materials to their bromine based flame retarding systems. As for proposals of trading in obsolete products or recycling, once again there's still naught. The only action taken by Apple is publishing the amounts of recycled electronic garbage.
If you wan't Apple to react, please go to the new site : www.greenpeace.org/france/apple

Even if we're fans, we'd still like to see Apple ranking far better in this classification.

Dell has launched its first Blu-Ray-based notebook. This option is expensive (950$).
Now, it also shows that Apple has to get prepared, but Cupertino will have to fix many issues before making it possible:
- The display should support 1080p, so LCD panel with a resolution of 1920x1080, something not currently available for Apple notebooks, even with the 17" MBP.
- The computer needs to get the HDCP hardware chips (for being able to play commercial HD video in full option).
- Last but not least, Apple will need a slot-in BD drive model, and so far only tray-based models are available for BD drive.
Of course, not all users need a BD burner in their notebooks, and for sure it is for the time being a niche market, but as for GPU manufacturers and their high-end model, it is a flagship aiming to demonstrate the diversity of Apple hardware.

While we were mentioning its future release 2 days ago (Appleinsider) expected for Q1 2007, the first 18x DVD burner from Pioneer is already available in Japan.
The DVR-A12, the high-end model of the future series, only available as the box version including a software bundle, is priced less than 90$.
It can burn DVD+/-R at 18x, double layer DVD media at 10x, CDs at 40x and CD-RW at32x.
OEM version of this burner should be available next year.

Microsoft has released new updates for Office X and Office 2004. Unfortunately, all links are broken. If you try to get those updates via the integrated Mac Office updater, it does not detect any of those updates.
So, either those updates have been displayed while not being ready, or have been quickly removed for unknown reasons.

Source: Appleinsider

According to a survey conducted by PiperJaffray among twenty Apple Specialist retailers, shows that 25% of consumers purchasing a Mac, are "New-to-Mac" or "Switchers".
This is of course an estimate but for sure it is a fairly good percentage, especially taking into account the huge increase of sales for all apple notebook models, making 2006 probably the best year ever in apple's business history.
This is to serve this new community of New-to-Mac users that our forum has a dedicated category named "Switch"; a place where switchers can ask questions and get answer directly from our team or from forum members.