Tuesday April 03, 2007

- Santa Rosa in May - New MacBooks and iMac in June? - Lionel - 15:22:55

Source : Digitimes

According to reports from notebook-dedicated components manufacturers, the new Intel notebook platform Santa Rosa should enter mass production in April and hit shelves mid-May.

Since the transition to Intel CPU, Apple has been upgrading its notebook models following tightly the availability of new CPUs; so new models of MacBook and iMacs might be unveiled from that date.
The Santa Rosa platform will bring a faster bus (800MHz), a new chipset 965 Express series, and the Robson technology. We can predict that Robson will not be supported by OS X before Leopard, so in June Steve Jobs might unveil OS X 10.5 Leopard along with a lot of new hardmac models.
For sure the WWDC 2007 is going to be an exciting event.

[translation by Linathael]

- EU's Probes Against iTunes Might Support Apple in Europe - Eric - 14:23:22

Source : Les Echos

The French business magazine Les Echos reports that the EU has launched investigations and already sent charges related to the iTunes Store, and especially concerning the agreement between Apple and Music Majors considered by the EU as violating the rules prohibiting restrictive business practices.

Jonathan Todd, the European Commission spokesman, declared:

"Consumers can only buy music from the iTunes online stores in their country of residence and are therefore restricted in their choice of where to buy music, and consequently what music is available and at what price..."

This decision from the EU is the consequence of a complain filed in 2005 by a UK consumer group "Which?", and denouncing the higher price paid by British consumers (0.79 pound = 1.16 Euro) for purchasing a music track from the UK iTS while consumers from the France and Germany would only pay 0.99 Euro.

It is well established that the iTunes Store only came to Europe months later its introduction in USA due to the negotiations between Apple and Music Majors, including all the different policies they had in different EU countries. So, if Apple was originally planning to launch a Pan-European iTunes Store, it simply could not do it mostly due to Music majors; probably waving the "Legal aspect" flag while they were probably afraid of having Apple operating a Pan-European iTS from Luxembourg.

As published by the Belgian newspaper "Le Soir", the first official comment from Apple to address the last EU charges follows the same strategy:

"Apple has always tried to operate a single pan-European iTunes stores accessible by anyone from any member state. But we were advised by the music labels and publishers that there were certain legal limits to the rights they could grant us"

- Garmin Now Mac Compatible - Lionel - 13:17:53

Thanks to Pascal for the info.

The Garmin company has released two Mac OS X compatible utilities:

- Garmin POI Loader 2.0b
- Garmin WebUpdater 2.0.0.1 Beta

It is now possible to update Garmin GPS devices, from the NUVI family for example, in Mac OS X.

The utilities are available for download here:

http://www.garmin.com/support/blosp.jsp

[translation by jwa]

- Blue Laser-based Burner for US$500 by the End of the year? - Lionel - 10:13:58

Source : Digitimes

While the war between HD-DVD and Blu-ray is far from being over, both competitors only have 2 ways to force the consumer market to choose their side.
The first one is linked to video content and film industry, and relies on the availability of the movies on either HD-DVD or BD media, and this is directly driven by the agreement of each Movie Majors with one of the two competitors. Consumers are currently trapped by such system, and would need a standalone player of both blue-laser type to be able to watch all available movies in HD format.
The other way is of course the cost of the blue laser player, and we should expect new models by the end of the year with a target price set below the marketing limit of US$500, while featuring higher specifications than models currently available.

[translation by Linathael]

- D-Link Drafted 802.11n-based Product: 11 Years Warranty - Lionel - 10:12:06

Source : Clubic

While all Mac are now using 802.11n wireless system, the PC world is moving slowly into the same direction. But for D-Link, the transition is not going fast enough, and to promote drafted 802.11n-based product, the company decided to extend its warranty to 11 years. And this extended repair program does not cover only 802.11n products to be announced, but also those currently available!
Apple should follow such a move and launch an extended warranty for the Airport Express base station, with its average lifetime of 20 months...

[translation by Linathael]

- Burn Double Layer DVD at 16x - Lionel - 10:10:39

Source : Digitimes

The DVD+RW Alliance has finalized the specifications for burning DL DVD+R at 12x and 16x, paving the way for manufacturers to launch new DVD burners compatible with this new feature. It will give a new marketing argument to support sales of DVD burners while justifying the premium price for 16x DL DVD+R-enable models.
Red laser-based DVD does not want to die...

[translation by Linathael]

- How to Cool Down the Apple TV - Lionel - 10:09:34

Last week, Digitaltrends published a serie of thermal image of the Apple TV taken at different time and in different conditions.


For sure the Apple TV is hot, and releases a quite important amount of heat, they could measure up to 45°C on the top side of the case.
To cool it down, MacFixit identified 3 possibilities:
- force the Apple TV into sleep mode, however launching iTunes on the "Master" computer with which the Apple TV synchronize all audio and video content will awake it.
- do not synchronize the Apple TV with any computer, simply use it to stream audio or video content, but then you will have to leave a computer one...
- use component cables instead of HDMI.

Another simple way is simply to unplug your Apple TV when not in use, you will save energy in addition.

[translation by Linathael]