News for Monday, 5 January 2009

On several occasions, we had spoken about the annoying problems found on Macs with the 1,5 TB Seagate disks. An update of their firmware has since regulated these problems. It is considered to be sufficient so that Data Robotics that markets storage solutions intended for the professionals, has withdrawn its warning about these disks and regards the new ones as reliable.
As a reminder, this update is available since November 22, and it is necessary to make a request to the after sales service at Seagate to have the right to download it. This new firmware is SD1A.

We do not want to add anything else:

Dear Apple Community,
For the first time in a decade, I'm getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.
Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.
I've decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.
As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.
Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause -- a hormone imbalance that has been "robbing" me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.
The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I've already begun treatment. But, just like I didn't lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple's CEO during my recovery.
I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple's CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.
So now I've said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.
Steve

Tomorrow, the MWSF Keynote will take place at 10h00 PST (18h00 CET), marking the beginning of the last MWSF officially sponsored by Apple. Only the WWDC will still remain as the only 100% Apple-sponsored yearly event. It will also be the first keynote delivered by Phil Schiller, instead of Steve Jobs who seems to have enough of such exercise. This is possible, as according to our source, Steve Jobs announced recently in rather rude words, that such sponsored event are simply outdated and the company should stop spending money in such show.
However, according to the last rumors circulating on the web and from our sources, this keynote might be the moment chosen by Apple to introduce numerous new products and upgrades:
- New iMac powered by Intel Quad Core CPU and NVidia GeForce 9400M
- New Mac mini based on the GeForce 9400M, in a slick all metal enclosure, and with an option for 2 hosting 2 HDs.
- New MacBook Pro unibody with a non-exchangeable battery
- Refreshment of the recently released MacBook models
- Launch of on-line iApps (or web-iApps) from the iLife Suite
This is most likely too much announcement for only 1h30 of keynote, especially if one considers that Phil will most likely come back and comments the sales of iPhone, iPods and Mac hardware units from the last quarters, as well as the market share of Apple and Mac OS X.
We are of course ready to provide a live coverage of this Keynote, and our team member moose is currently flying towards SF. This keynote will give many information about the future policy to be followed by Apple: If Phil Schiller introduces several new products, then it will clearly mark the transition from Phil to Steve, reactivating rumors about his health. It is also possible that Phil will only provide a summary of the last 12 months of Apple’s activities and products, and new products might only appear on the Apple Store during the usual updates on Tuesday or Wednesday.
With the number or expected products, the truth will most likely between those 2 options, but this keynote will for sure give us a lot of information of the new Apple’s way to communicate to its current and potential customers.

Our friends from the AMUG published an interesting test of the Sonnet Tempo SATA Pro ExpressCard 34.

This card is composed of two independent SATA ports based on a Marvell 88SX7042 chips which is considered as the high-end converter from PCI Express to SATA. In facts, performance levels are extremely high and very interesting for many users, as one can reach with a RAID 0 volume 177 MB/s and 199 MB/s in writing and reading mode, respectively.
During the course of this test, the AMUG noticed a problem that could make many Mac users upsets. The recent EFI update released for the Unibody MacBook Pro used for their test have dramatically affected the performance levels of the tested cards and changed the measured data transfer speed significantly. While results prior the EFI update were identical to those measured with MacBook Pro from the previous generation, after the EFI update, performance dropped by 38 to 61% (in specific conditions with a RAID 5 volume). It seems that this is a bug related to the EFI 1.6 update, and that Apple will have to acknowledge it and fix it as soon as possible.

The news of a patent filling by Microsoft describing the means of payment according to usage for its software must have been written with the wrong ink. We have just learned that this patent application has been rejected. Some of the terms are too fuzzy, and other part of the request are already covered by other patents. Microsoft has the choice between accepting this refusal or making a modified request.