Wednesday October 03, 2007

- Microsoft Introduces New Zunes - Lionel - 16:06:02

After the average success of the first generation of Zune, Microsoft released the second generation of its digital music player to directly compete with Apple iPod models.



There are several models, to compete with iPod classic and iPod nano, as their prices are almost identical to Apple units. The largest Zune (US$249) sports a 80GB HD, while the small Zune models are based on flash memory with 4 or 8GB storage space (respectively (US$149 orUS$149).
The question now is: will the new model be more successful and how long will Microsoft keep supporting this device before dropping it?

PS: they really look ugly, even SanDisk models look better


[translation by Linathael]

- MacBook Pro Santa Rosa on the Refurb Store - Lionel - 10:12:26

Apple currently offers MacBook Pro 15" and 17" from previous and current (Santa Rosa) revision on the Refurb Store. Yesterday, several units of 15" MacBook Pro Santa Rosa 2.4GHz were available (but not for a long time). So be curious, and do not hesitate to visit several times per day the Refurb Store as good deal usually does not remain available for a long time.


[translation by Linathael]

- HTC Touch: A Success Thanks to the iPhone? - Lionel - 10:10:54

Source : Electronisa

The Smartphone HTC Touch is a success too. While being less technologically advanced than the iPhone, and running Windows Mobile, it remains an attractive model, and HTC announced to have already shipped 800,000 units.



Its success might also be linked to the long gap between the announcement of Apple iPhone and its availability. In addition, the HTC Touch is not exclusively linked to a carrier, so its potential customer reservoir is larger than for the iPhone.
This new business model for advanced mobile phones that Apple is trying to develop/impose to carriers might be in the future the main breakdown for iPhone development. Apple might be willing to reproduce with the iPhone the same ecosystem than between iPod and iTunes. However, Cupertino created the market for digital music player and online shops, while mobile business was already on place before the iPhone. So this business model might simply not be valid for this market. By locking the iPhone tightly to defined carriers, and not making application development an easy process, Apple might be preventing the real growth of the device and its broad adoption.

[translation by Linathael]

- Leopard Around the Corner - Lionel - 08:57:21

Several readers reported to have seen their hardware shipment dates postponed without explanation for couple of days. It applies to all hardware models, not only notebooks or desktops. Now all shipments are announced from October 8th. So our yesterday's prediction for an official release next Friday, October 5th (10.5) might have been a right guess.

[translation by Linathael]

- No Valve's Games on Mac: It is Apple's Fault - Eric - 08:50:02

Source : Kikizo

In a very interesting interview, Gabe Newell Valve's co-founder, explain why the famous game company developing games such as Half-Life and its famous Counter-Strike mod de Valve, did not release Mac version of its flagships. From the explanation, it appears quite clearly that Valve tried many times to get Apple involved, but despite getting

Well, we tried to have a conversation with Apple for several years, and they never seemed to... well, we have this pattern with Apple, where we meet with them, people there go "wow, gaming is incredibly important, we should do something with gaming". And then we'll say, "OK, here are three things you could do to make that better", and then they say OK, and then we never see them again. And then a year later, a new group of people show up, who apparently have no idea that the last group of people were there and never follow though on anything. So, they seem to think that they want to do gaming, but there's never any follow through on any of the things they say they're going to do. That makes it hard to be excited about doing games for their platforms.
....
I just don't think they've ever taken gaming seriously. And none of the things developers ask them to do are done. And as a result, there's no gaming market there to speak of. We'd love it if they would get serious about it. But they never have, and can't even follow trough on any of their commitments for game developers.

He then even went on, and acknowledging that current Mac are so good compared to PC that it makes it even more non-understandable to have not commitment from Apple to get seriously into game and support their development:

We've seen no evidence that they are able to follow through on even simple programs in the game space. It seems bizarre to me because it's like one of the biggest things holding them back in the consumer space. If you look at a Macintosh right now, it does a lot of things really well compared to a Vista PC, but there are no games. Why, I don't know. If I were a Macintosh product manager, it would be pretty high on my list, and a problem to get taken care of, as probably the number one thing holding them back with consumers.

I personally think for now years, that PC development and current monopoly was driven by games, as it defined the early adoption by customers, when PC moved from corporate to home. Apple while understanding this (I guess) never took the right decision to benefit from it. While game stations are getting popular, it appears clearly that both console- and computer-based games will live together, without having one dominating the other.
Apple should invest more energy and resources in games, and stop thinking short term with game development. We know today, that the fast porting titles available via Cider are only valuable for some old games, while this technology can not help for recent games, which are running really poorly (such as Battlefield 2142). Apple should really consider that a home computer is a unit for both creativity and entertainment, meaning also to play games. If Apple does not act quickly, Mac game development will end, and Mac users will run games via BootCamp; this is already what my 2 girls are doing with their iMacs at home (except for The Sims)

- X800XT Mac Edition Available - Lionel - 08:48:16

After the Radeon 9800, the Radeon X800XT Mac Edition is back on the market and available.
To have the fastest Mac-dedicated AGP graphic card to be installed in a PMG5 AGP, it will cost you US$299 (VAT excluded). The card will sport 256MB GDDR3, and will come with a 3-years warranty.
Additional information: http://shop.ati.com/product.asp?sku=3170810

[translation by Linathael]

- New Article: Drive+Play - Ewok - 06:15:40

Gotchi has written a step by step article on the installation of the iPod controller and remote screen from Harman Kardon. The screen is integrated in the dashboard and the iPod sits in a dock, all powered by the car. A comparison with the Ice>link solutions and the BMW integration is made at the end of the article.

[translation by jwa]