News for Thursday, 12 July 2007

Following a message sent by one of our reader, we have started investigating a potential problem with wireless Airport connection and Mac OS X 10.4.10:

for starters, I just jumped on the bandwagon (first Mac) I purchased a 17" SR MBP on Monday of this week (July 2) upon first turning it on it recognized my OLD netgear MR314 (b) router and was playing great with it, moved my wife's music to her account all the while downloading latest updates for the MBP. After install all the updates I decided to sit quietly and surf the web, so I untethered (no AC power) and sat down for a quick jaunt through the interweb, after about 10-15minutes or so no more surfing, check the "pie" symbol sure enough still "sees" the network but can’t communicate. So I check the discussion forums on www.apple.com/support sure enough looks like SR MBP's are having problems after updating to 10.4.10 with wireless while on battery.
So I come to you asking for some help, I haven’t see any Mac website news about this and I sure hope people are working to resolve this, I'm just looking for a solution, because I have a wife right now that cant understand why her $3000 laptop cant get online and I'm taking the brunt of the attacks.

When asking among the team about problem with wireless connection, it immediately became clear that there is an issue with Airport and the last version of OS X 10.4.10. Why it did not come earlier to our ears? Probably because it is a minor issue, but it might be a major pain for some users.
We have collected dozens, if not hundreds a reports confirming problems with Airport reliability after upgrading to 10.4.10. Tissue usually translates into unstable Airport/wireless connection. We can not draw a define pattern of the affected hardware, however you could summarize some points:
- It affects Intel-based Apple notebooks (MacBook and MacBook Pro, all revisions).
- It is wireless station-independent (Apple or third party modem/router/WiFi station)
- The problem seems to be even more frequent when running on battery than on DC.
There is currently only one way to bypass this problem, as explained by http://taisteal.atomiclemur.com: replace the IO80211Family extension by the one from 10.4.9.
do not hesitate to post comments and reports in the dedicated topic of our forum: here

As we recently reported it, the current price of RAM memory have reached historically low level, mostly due to Vista-driven hardware purchase expectations. "Vista" stocks of RAM are now getting empty and last quotations from the DRAMeXchange show that the tendency is now reverting. Since the beginning of July, the price of DDR2-667 chips, representing most of the production, rocketed 20% up, and could only be a beginning.
Current price of RAM modules in your shops should not have evolved yet, but for sure it will in a near future (about 2 weeks).

The success of the iPhone and the future revision of iPod models make Apple the main purchaser of NAND flash modules from the two largest manufacturers: Hynix and Samsung. Both companies try their best to satisfy Cupertino, and smaller purchasers might have their order postpone if Apple sends an urgent request.
If production of NAND modules is currently sufficient to ensure both low prices and worldwide needs, it might change in a near future with the launch of SSD in mass production. However, to make the SSD attractive and cost-efficient, NAND flash manufacturers will have to make then as cheap as possible, and one way to achieve it will be to boost NAND flash production to decrease the price of memory chips.

Apple updated iTunes (version 7.3.1, 34MB) and QuickTime (version 7.2, 53MB):

With iTunes 7.3, you can now activate iPhone service and sync it with your music, TV shows, movies and more. Also, you can now wirelessly share and enjoy your favorite digital photos from any computer in your home with Apple TV.
iTunes 7.3.1 addresses a minor problem with iTunes 7.3 accessing the iTunes Library.

QuickTime 7.2 addresses critical security issues and delivers:
- Support for full screen viewing in QuickTime Player
- Updates to the H.264 codec
- Numerous bug fixes

We finally get full screen viewing support in QT Player!