Not Logical

Death of an eMac (Part 3)

As I Post this I am getting my third Logic replacement in my eMac from Apple. Lets face it, I am not to hopeful at this point of this one turning out and better from the first two. I also seems that Apple keeps pushing back the new IMac (just hope the IPhone is worth it). So it may be the end of summer 2007 before their are any major updates here at the "This Mac Line". I am going top leave you on this note:

Subject: New Imac's

Thought:
It seems that Apple is in IPhone mode. I don't think we will see new IMac now till around the one year mark (i.e. Paris Expo). I also think this will be the norm from here on out, with once a year updates. I also think that Apple in the next couple of years will drop the IMac all together in favor of the Mac Mini as a comsumer model and the Mac Pro, for high end user.

In the news Today 3/26/07

Apple TV - iResQ today announced that they have begun offering Apple TV storage upgrades. Apple released their first versions of the Apple TV with a 40GB hard drive and iResQ is offering several different levels of hard drive upgrades, including a 80gb for $209, A 120gb for $259 and a 160 for $299. As a option, you can also get the 40GB hard that came wit your Apple TV, drive put into a Firewire/USB case for $39.

The Sims 2 - Aspyr Media today announced that it will be publishing The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff for the Macintosh. It will be the first Sims 2 “stuff pack” to be released for the Mac and contains dozens of must-have items for The Sims 2. The company also plans on releasing other The Sims 2 stuff packs in 2007, with The Sims 2 Glamour Life Stuff coming in summer 2007, followed by The Sims 2 Happy Holiday Stuff in fall 2007.
The Sims 2 Family Fun Stuff will be available in April for $19.99.


Mac OS 10.5 (Leopard) on track - In a report Friday Digitimes.com posted a story saying that, Apple postpone the release of the new OS till October to allow Apple to make Leopard support Windows Vista through an integrated version of its Boot Camp software.

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu downplayed the report, saying his checks showed that Leopard was nearing completion, and should be released in the spring, or during the company's June quarter.

"Our sources indicate that Apple's latest beta build has made noticeable improvements in stability and functionality from previous builds, and that Apple is likely one or two upcoming builds away from reaching 'final candidate' stage to be released for manufacturing," AppleInsider reported him as saying.

Wu expressed concern however on the so-called "top secret" features within Leopard, saying the company should soon publish them so they could be adequately beta tested before release.

The Run around from Apple

Death of an eMac (Part 2)

Well after a couple of weeks of living with a computer that is freezeing every fifteen minutes, and the hope that Apple would do me right. Well I got the run around. So I have taken this matter in my own hands. Early today I filed a Complaint with the Better Business Bureau:

Thank you for using the Better Business Bureau's Online Complaint System.
Your complaint has been assigned case # 265452.
Correspondence regarding this complaint will be emailed to :
Please print a copy of this for your records.

Filed on : March 26 2007

Filed by :
Emory Savage


Filed against :
Apple Computer
1 Infinite Loop Stop 84-2c
Cupertino CA 95014-2083

Complaint Description:
In early 2006 Apple Computer started the "eMac Repair Extension Program for Video and Power Issues" .After taking My computer to the Apple Store in Columbus, Ohio I have gotten nothing but a Run around for when it will be fixed. I was quoted anywhere for two weeks to four months, and several times was told steps to get this issue fixed. One of the steps was to Call Apple care for what, I was told would be a "Global parts search" two weeks after taken in for service. When I called to take this step the person was very rude and I was told " I would just have to wait. This, to me, is just another run around. I need this to be settled.

Your Desired Resolution:
When I talked to Apple 3/14/2007 I was told that, and I quote "Have the people are getting the eMac fixed and half are being replaced" I would like eather one done in a timely fastion.

This case will be reviewed by a complaint specialist at the Better Business Bureau, and then forwarded to the business for their response. It is our policy to allow the business 30 working days to respond to your complaint. You will be notified when the business has responded.

More back on this when I get more Info.

New Mac designs on the way but when....

From: Macrumos.com

Appleinsider claims that the next version of Apple's iMac will showcase "striking new industrial designs aimed at leaving both competitors and onlookers smitten."

The new designs are said to be sleeker and slimmer than the current iMac designs, however, the new looks may only be deployed on the 20" and 24" models, leaving the 17" model's future uncertain.

now where did we here this before. In my February 21, 2007 and I quote:

Apple changed the inside by going to Intel Core Duo processor, why not give a polish to the outside. Some have been pointing to the update after this, in the second half of the year, and this could be true. However, this brings us back to the IPhone. If you think that Apple has been pushing it before the release, just wait till it comes out. Apple may not want to keep anything from stealing the thunder away from the IPhone so this may also bring a redesign sooner then later. I will even go as far as saying that if the redesign is not in the next update; it may not come till next year.

Ok I may have called the new design but when will they be here. Well in the same February 21, 2007 post I answered that also:

Will it be around the time of and will the new hardware have it? The answer is your guess is as good as mine. However I can see an event, between March 20th and April 15th, where they roll out all the desktops at once, with different ship dates and, well by the way they all ship with Leopard and ILife 07.

Well from http://www.apple.com/go/nab/register/

Please join us for a special presentation at NAB in The Venetian Hotel and Casino on Sunday, April 15, at 11:00 a.m. Seating is limited for this invitation-only event.

Well Only Time will tell.

Apple’s, eMac repair program may not get your eMac repaired.

Death of an eMac (Part 1)

So there I am, a couple of weeks ago and my eMac start acting crazy. First: The dock at the bottom of the screen starts to freeze whenever I use it. Then when coping a large file and the display sticks, while the file continues to copy, text sometimes looks like it is Chinese. So I gave Apple a call and talked to a very nice guy. He took my info. and looked it up took the serial number for the computer, and checked to see if the computer came under the “eMac Repair Extension Program for Video and Power” (link)

The next part is best told in the post I made at Apple.com:

I went to the Apple Store in Columbus Ohio (03/12) with the eMac they told me the part I need was on a 4-6 week back order and I was told I would be lucky to have it fixed by July 4th (No Joke), that’s a lot more then 4-6 weeks so I don't know what is going on.

I was told, because they did not know how long it would be, to take it back home with me and they would call me when the part came in. I think this is got me worried about how long it was going to take.

I guess it is just wait and see.

So what was I to-do, well at the beginning of the same thread was this post:

However even though Apple will correct this issue theres still a major road bump... The part needed, the logic board, well it's been discontinued. So what will happen is the Authorized dealer will need to 'try' to order the part regardless from Apple. This took about a month for my particular case... Anyway what will happen is, Apple, after exhausting all hope of attaining a Logic Board will give you a straight trade for a new 17' iMac Superdrive! (Link)

So next day, on the phone I called Apple Support. Now here is the where it gets even more strange. First, why did I call so soon? Well lets face it, Apple is going to do everything they can to fix it, which is cool, but I don’t want to wait 3 months to find out they would have switched it out for a iMac after a couple of weeks. So after I called an asked if the logic board was discontinued and if Apple was still doing the switch. I was told that I would have to call back in a couple of weeks and they would do what they call a “global parts search” and they could tell me more then. I asked what my chance of getting the computer fixed sooner then I was told. He told me that some were getting their computers fix and some were getting a new iMac. This brings up a lot of questions.

1.What is this some sort of sick Apple lottery? Could you imagine a group of people standing around the Apple store, hold their repair receipts waiting to see if their computer is repaired or if they get a iMac.

2.If the logic board is discontinued should they already know this, and if is why is the part listed as “Back ordered”?

3.Next, if the part is not discontinued then why would it take up to three months to get?


My guess is that this will not be the last time you here about this subject from me. Till then I wonder where I put that lucky rabbits foot of mine.

More Info. as it comes in.

e.savage

Up and coming

Look back this weekend for the article:
"Death of a eMac"
and a very special up and coming event. You will not want to miss it.

Look what I found on the internet

Macworld UK is reporting that supplies of certain Apple products appear restricted overseas but will ship in quantity within weeks. The publication speculates that the pattern of drought may be indicative of significant product launches in the near term.

Some specific products affected by the backlog include "all models of Mac mini, the entry-level combo drive iMac, the mid-range MacBook Pro, entry-level and black MacBooks, all models of iPod nano, and the iPod HiFi."

Macworld UK expects that new product launches could arrive by month's end. However, it should be noted that supplies of Apple products in Europe have historically run dry in advance of those in the United States.

On a related note, AppleInsider has been told to look out for new product announcements during the first half of April.

Well if it is true, then I called it. In a post just made on 2/18/07:

However I can see an event, between March 20th and April 15th, where they roll out all the desktops at once, with different ship dates

So I can't wait to see if this comes true.

What is more tight lip then Steve Jobs, ever tried to ask someone at Aspyr Media about an upcoming game.

Back in the good old days you could go to the Aspyr website and it was all there. If you went to the lets say, look for the Sims. You were directed to a mini-site, where you could see more info on the game. Already own the game, just a click on the support tab a there was a list of the updates and add-ons you can download. Back on the main Aspyr webpage was a link to those games in development. Now it seems Aspyr has become like, well Apple. Their new motto should be: We will tell you when we want you know. What happened to build up?
After EA came out with The Sims Life Stories this story appeared on the Inside Mac games website:

The PC version of The Sims Life Stories hit store shelves last Friday and brought with it official confirmation of an upcoming Mac version. In the press release dealing with the PC version Electronic Arts announced that Life Stories for Mac is "coming soon." Developed by Aspyr Media, the game introduces a unique storyline complete with romance, dramatic twists, and unlockable content.

But as of this writing (3/4/07) there is no mention of the game it on the Aspyr website. So what is the big secret? EA has already let the cat out of the bag, but when I wrote them the only answer I got was “ we don’t comment on products yet to be announced”. This is not CIA work, this is a porting of a game that is out for PC. What is the big deal? Even Apple Inc. it’s self has been pushing MacOS 10.5 for a year, and look at the buzz around that. But ask Aspyr if, the seasons pack is coming to The Sims and Aspyr acts as if you want them to give away a trade secret.

A question asked on Inside Mac Games:

With Seasons on the way to PC. My question is this going one of those that don't make it to Macintosh?
This seems like a major expansion pack, not one of those mini-packs.
So what do you think the chances of this one making it to us.

Aspyr Answer was:
There will be more Sims stuff for the Mac in 2007 than any previous year, so don't worry, there will be lots of new things to play with

What does that mean?
1. With 3 different Life Stories
2. Season add- on pack out for PC and I am guessing another in the works
3. 3 mini-packs still not out for Macintosh and another on the way for PC.

A better question is what is not coming to Macintosh? I am guessing 80% of the above list.

The answer may be with boot camp from Apple becoming more and more stable the next game I buy for my Macintosh may just be a PC version.

Apple Posts

Apple has seeded Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard build 9A377a to developers.

Build 9A377a of Leopard Reaches ADC Members
Apple has very recently seeded Build 9A377a to developers via the ADC website.

The new build comes with the following notes;

Known Issues:

Setup Assistant
Upgrades from previously Leopard releases are broken in this seed. Please migrate your user or do a clean install
Setup Assistant sometimes says "No versions of Mac OS X were found" if you try to migrate your user from another volume. A Restart will resolve this issue
Some users may not be able to backup their system during installation
Migration installs aren't transferring data from iCal
Users are sometimes unable to migrate their user from previous installs
Taking pictures during Setup Assistant may not work correctly

Time Machine
User may not be able to enable Time Machine using the dialog that appears when connecting a drive
Snapshot browser may show graphics corruption for some users

Safari
Loading a webpage sometimes hangs Safari. Delete "~/Library/Caches/com.apple.safari/__CFURLCacheDefault.db" will resolve this issue
Frequent crashes when playing QuickTime movies

iChat
Audio / Video chats will not work with machines running previous Leopard seeds. A/V Chats with Tiger are OK.

Spotlight
Changes made to files after the initial Spotlight index will not be reindexed
Privacy option in the Spotlight Preference Pane currently does not work

Finder
Dragging files from network volumes and disk images to their local machine may fail under certain situations
Screen Sharing currently can't be initiated from the Shared browser in the Finder Sidebar
Volumes may not show up in the Finder Sidebar in certain situations

Sharing Preference Pane
When adding a Shared Folder, a Shared Folder may not be created. Restarting will resolve this
Can't disable Bluetooth Sharing

QuickTime
Graphics corruption in the 'Export' window
HD movie trailers may not play audio in certain situations

Input Methods
When selecting a new Input Method in the International Preference Pane, system may hang for several seconds and the IM menu may not appear until after restarting.
Candidate window does not appear with the Japanese Input Method

Miscellaneous
Software update preferences automatically reset resulting in extra update notifications
When adding a printer you may need to select 'Add Printer' twice before the printer window appears
Applications running under Rosetta may not launch on restored Leopard systems (using ASR and TimeMachine, for example). Opening Terminal and running 'sudo update_dyld_shared_cache' will fix this issue
Some PowerBook G4's may panic when in Sleep mode or when waking from Sleep
User may be unable to write to a USB drive connected via Airport Extreme. Workaround is to click the 'Remember password in my keychain' option when connecting to the drive.
Videos purchased through the iTunes Store do not play in iTunes
Photobooth's window is empty when launched
Users may not be able enable FileVault in certain situations.


Changes in Leopard Since 9A343

Spotlight
- Performance optimizations
- More powerful search queries

iSync Plug-in Maker
- Fixed Package format : Installer packages created with a prior version must be regenerated with this new version of iSync Plug-in Maker.
- Added support for Modem Script bundles : A new pane has been added to edit the Modem Script settings of a phone. The export options now allow to export a Modem Script bundle along with an iSync Phone Plugin. (Limitation: exported Modem Script bundles are not yet supported by Leopard)

Miscellaneous
- Address Book enhancements for taking pictures
- Safari compatibility for rich text editing
- Updated Sharing Preference Pane with additional options for sharepoints and access controls. Shares are acessible through the Shared icon in the Finder Sidebar

What's New (since Xcode 3.0 Developer Preview 5)

Xcode
• When you select Help -> Xcode News a new dialog box appears. The content for this dialog box is drawn from the ADR website and shows
current developer-related news and information. A check box allows you to prevent the dialog from reopening on subsequent launches. To
prevent it from opening at all for Xcode 3.0:
defaults write com.apple.Xcode XCSuppressSplashForBuild -array 3.0
• When creating a new file or adding a file to a project, Xcode will no longer automatically add that file to a Copy Files build phase when instructed to add that file to a particular target. Instead, files must be added to Copy Files build phases using drag-drop. (Exception: When adding a file to a target which contains only a single Copy Files build phase - and no other build phases other than Shell Script build phases, i.e. the target's whole purpose is to copy files to that one location - then files added to that target will be added to the sole build phase.) This fixes a scenario in which files (such as private header files) can incorrectly end up being built into a product in an improper location.
• A significant problem was fixed that involved a failure to close Xcode projects when their project windows closed. The project objects would
remain in memory, increasing memory usage and causing problems if the project were to be reopened.
• New projects created from the Xcode C++ templates have a default setting in their targets' debug configuration that activates the libstdc++
debug mode. The libstdc++ debug mode provides extensive run time error checking of the C++ library use. This does negatively impact both
code size and run time and thus is not recommended for release targets. To deactivate this feature for debug targets, remove
_GLIBCXX_DEBUG=1and _GLIBCXX_DEBUG_PEDANTIC=1 from the Preprocessor Macros setting in the debug target info preprocessing settings.
• Command-line tool to open a file in the editor: A command line tool /usr/bin/xed allows you to open existing files, create new untitled or
named files, and pipe text from standard input into Xcode's editor. You can use this as your EDITOR shell variable for command-line operations
on text. See man xed for details.
• Open Quickly: Open Quickly now will find symbols (at the point of definition) as well as files: command-shift-D and type a symbol name, and you'll go there. When searching for files, Open Quickly now correctly searches the User Header Search Paths.
• You can now duplicate Targets and Executables.
• Inspector windows will now successfully close in response to command-W.

Document Management
• We are now taking advantage of new Cocoa default behavior and underlying support. Text documents are auto-saved so changes are not lost if
Xcode crashes; this may cause interesting interactions with tools that change the backing text files on disk while they are open in Xcode. Files
deleted from a project are now moved to the Trash rather than being deleted outright. When deleting items from a project, Xcode will no longer
offer to delete system frameworks, libraries, headers, or any other files outside your project root.

Workspace
• The Workspace now allows you to perform Build, Clean, and other arbitrary Actions on directories in the Workspace. You define the actions in a sheet invoked from the Workspace toolbar icons. Results of the actions are shown in standard Xcode build result windows. This allows the
Workspace with its embedded (or separate) editor to be used as a development environment for makefile-based, script-language, or HTML-
based projects.
• Automator workflows are now available in the Xcode menu; they will migrate elsewhere in the next seed.

Refactoring
• There is a top-level Edit menu command to modernize your code to new Objective C 2.0 features. Refactoring allows you to accept or reject
offered refactorings on a file-by-file basis.
• The Extract Function / Method transformation will have the newly generated functions return values where appropriate.
• Renaming: Refactoring now supports renaming typedef type identifiers. Refactorings that rename classes also now rename categories and
protocols associated with those classes. Refactorings that rename files now reflect the file name changes properly in the SCM repository.
• A new checkbox in the Move Up refactoring allows you to move up instance variables and their accessor methods.
• A new "Move Down" refactoring has been added.

Snapshots
• The Snapshot backing store is now mounted in /tmp due to restrictions on the overall path length of mount points, which caused mounting to
fail for users with usernames greater than 8 characters.
• Snapshots are now stored in a dynamically-created sparse disk image, which by default is located in a cache in the user's home directory but
which can be relocated at will. The user can add password protection to the snapshot cache as desired for data security, and mark Spotlight to
not index the mounted volume.

Project Find
• RegEx find now finds multiple matches on the same line.
• Project Find for Symbols is working again.
• Find Definition searches now supports Ends With.

Debugging
• Arrays and STL data types visible during debugging: C arrays, NSArray types, and STL containers can now be viewed directly in the debugger
Variables view and in Data Tips. The first 10 elements are shown, and buttons allow you to see the next, previous, and last 10 items.
• The Run Log menu item has been removed from Windows > Tools. The unified log in the Debugger now acts as a Run Log, the gdb console, and
standard IO window.

Text Editor
• Inter-word movement is improved in identifiers.
• Code Completion:
- Now completes the "most likely" completion inline, like Mail, Terminal, and other applications. Accept the offered completion with Tab, or
invoke the classic completion menu with Option-Escape. Keys to cycle through completions and jump to the next argument placeholder are
detailed in the Edit menu. Code completion works for filenames in #include statements and build settings in .xcconfig files.
- Now prefers certain case-sensitive completions more favorably, which should allow you to, for example, enter 'nsarr' and have it completed
to NSArray and also have "Fl" complete to a local variable 'Floatation' rather than 'float.'
- Code completion of functions with multiple parameters now adds a space after the comma separating parameter
- Auto-completed text is now all drawn in gray (rather than some gray, some black, some selected, some not). This makes the behavior when
cancelling a completion more intuitive.
- When using 'Next Completion', the inserted text is colored as plain text, rather than gray. This should help imply that the test is in no way
temporary. Additional editing operations cause the text to be colored according to your syntax coloring preferences.
• Syntax Coloring:
- The Xcode Default color theme is much more readable than in previous versions, and there are a number of new themes. Both uncolored and
syntax-colored text are placed on the Pasteboard for copy and text drag operations.
- The source editor's word selection and navigation algorithms have been tied to syntax coloring, so wrapping will not break identifiers.
- Comments in preprocessor macros are now colored as comments.
- C syntax appearing in preprocessor macros is now colored appropriately.

Indexer
• Objective-C 2.0 @property syntax is now scanned by the indexer, and properties are registered in the index for refactoring, navigation,
modeling, and searching.

Source Code Importer
• Common language keywords are now excluded from the Spotlight index for source files, so searching for common English words like "while" and "for" will not hit every C source file.

Documentation Viewer
• The documentation window has a new user interface for searching, which is inspired by Mail. In place of the status view that displayed the
current search criteria is a button bar that contains four groups of search options: search type (API, Book Title, Full-Text), doc set scope (All Doc
Sets or Selected Doc Sets), language filter (All Languages or a user-defined set of languages), and match type (Starts With or Contains). Placing all of the search options in one control clarifies what the current search criteria is and makes it easy to change search options. Selecting a
different search criterion refreshes the search results, expect when searching in Full-Text mode. In Full-Text mode, with the cursor in the search field, press return to initiate the search. The control for switching to TOC browse mode is now a toolbar item. When in TOC browse mode, the search criteria bar fades away as none of the search options apply to TOC browse mode.
• Documentation Sets for Xcode's Documentation Viewer are now updated via an RSS feed.
• Xcode's Documentation Preferences allows you to specify additional locations for Xcode to search to find and load documentation sets.
• The Documentation window has a new pop-up menu (in the lower left corner) that gives access to commands that act on documentation sets. It
also includes a New Subscription… command to let you subscribe to documentation RSS/Atom feeds.
• A 'Get Documentation Set Info' command has been added to the action menu at the bottom left of the documentation window. It displays name,
identifier, copyright, feed URL, and other information about the selected documentation set. Using the action menu at the bottom-left of the
documentation window, you can set the frequency that documentation set subscriptions will be checked for changes.
• In the documentation viewer, selecting a class in the class navigator pop-up that doesn't have documentation opens the source file of that class in an editor window. Before this change, selecting a class that doesn't have documentation has no effect.

Research Assistant
• The Research Assistant now handles all C APIs in the Unix man pages, section 3.
• The Research Assistant shows more complete availability information, showing the OS versions an API was available per architecture (ppc, i386,
ppc64, and x86_64. In the case of deprecation, it also provides information on substitute API or technologies.
• The Research Assistant now shows more information on deprecation and availability for 64-bit APIs.

Build System
• The Build Results window finally has a horizontal scrollbar for the viewing of long errors, warnings, and pathnames.

Build Settings Inspector
• Parallel Target Builds: A checkbox in the Project Inspector allows all aggregate targets in the project to build their dependent targets in parallel when possible. This means that you can build a short command-line tool while preprocessing your header files for your main application. This is especially useful on multiprocessor machines and while using Distributed Network Builds or distcc. NOTE: Using parallel target builds may reveal implicit dependencies that have been masked by the serial building of targets. Turning on parallel target builds may result in intermittent and hard-to-reproduce build failures due to one target needing the outout of another that has not yet been built. Inspect your project carefully and ensure that each target has its Direct Dependents set correctly before enabling Parallel Target builds.

Unit Testing Support
• 32-bit/64-bit Unit Tests: Unit Tests now run as many architectures as posible on the build machine. Unit tests on Intel will attempt to run the
32-bit PowerPC unit tests in Rosetta, and tests on 64-bit machines will run both 64-bit and 32-bit architectures.
• otest and CPlusTestRig are now four-way Universal executables.

Source Code Management
• SCM comparison operations are now done in a split view editor in Xcode itself, rather than in FileMerge.
• CVS repositories with broken symlinks in the repository itself would cause Xcode to be unable to perform any SCM operations in the repository.
The CVS errors from such broken symlinks are now being ignored.

Core Data Mapping Model
• The Core Data Mapping Model now has a tab to connect your data model directly to SyncServices.
• In the Core Data Mapping Model you may now set a relationship as its own inverse.

Linker
• There is a new static linker (ld) based on ld64.
- It is used for all four architectures.
- The new linker verifies all Objective-C code was compiled with the same garbage collection settings.
- The new linker supports wild cards in -exported_symbols_list files.
- The new linker synthesizes branch islands for final linked images (dylibs, bundles, and main executables). In those cases, the compiler
option -mlong-branch (aka -mlongcall) is no longer needed. kexts are not final linked images and may still need to be compiled with -
mlong-branch.
- There is a new option -why_live that can be used to determine why a symbol was not dead code eliminated.
- There is a new -rpath option for embedding search paths in linked images.
- There is a linker option -classic_linker which forces the old linker to be used.

CHUD
• There is an updated version of CHUD in this seed.

Santa Rosa motherboard on the way

Santa Rosa motherboard on the way, but you will have to wait till may.

So MacRumors.com is posting that Intel is getting ready to release the Santa Rosa motherboard.

TG Daily reports that Intel's next generation mobile platform, code-named Santa Rosa, is currently tracking for a May release.

The platform will feature many improvements over today's incarnation found in the iMac, MacBook, and MacBook Pro. While the processor will remain of the Core 2 Duo "Merom" variety and will top out at 2.4 GHz, the front side bus speed will be increased to 800 MHz.

Also, systems that use integrated graphics (MacBook, Mac Mini) will stand to see a big boost from Intel's latest graphics technology. The GMA X3000 will implement several important graphics features in hardware and support pixel and vertex shader models 3.0, whereas GMA 950 only supports pixel shader model 2.0. This improvement will no doubt be a boost for casual gamers and for Apple's desire to include even more impressive visual effects in their systems.

Lastly, Santa Rosa will feature Intel's flash caching technology, code-named Robson. The technology should bring better system performance, especially in the areas of battery life, system startup, and access of frequently used applications.

What? 2.4 GHz, I can get a 2.33 GHz already in the build to order option. So what does this mean? It Means that if you are looking for a true desktop, then $2600. 00 to $4000 is going to be your price range. That is the price line of the MacPros. This is the truly only Desktop Apple offers, don’t forget to add another grand for an over priced Apple display, and you will be good to go. As for the IMac, it seems that Apple will be sticking with the Laptop motherboards for now.

Apple's up comming Hardware updates

Ok here we go, the first entry in this new blog. What a great subject to start with, when will we see new computers from Apple? After the Macworld expo this year, many were asking where is the new hardware. The answer in short is, When Apple is ready. Well I was never good with short answer so here is my take on things.

First is the rumors, and at the top of that list is will their be a redesign of the IMac, MacMini, and/or the MacPro. The Answer is yes, no, and maybe. Lets say 40% yes 50% no. The reason for this is a factor is the fact that the IPhone is on it’s way in June, and with the hype that Apple will have around this product. Apple may want give us a gift with a total redesign of it’s whole lineup. Also last year Apple changed the inside by going to Intel Core Duo processor, why not give a polish to the outside. Some have been pointing to the update after this, in the second half of the year, and this could be true. However, this brings us back to the IPhone. If you think that Apple has been pushing it before the release, just wait till it comes out. Apple may not want to keep anything from stealing the thunder away from the IPhone so this may also bring a redesign sooner then later. I will even go as far as saying that if the redesign is not in the next update; it may not come till next year.

Next is the Santa Rosa Mother Board. This is from Intel’s website:
Santa Rosa is the codename for Intel's fourth-generation Centrino platform for notebook PCs. Santa Rosa is believed to include new mobile versions of Intel's 965 Express and ICH8 chipset family with support for increased 800MHz FSB (front side bus) speeds and Intel's updated integrated graphics engine, the GMA X3000.
Will we see this soon in the IMac / MacMini? Well the MacMini may get this one in the next update. The MacMini has an integrated graphics engine, as well as the MacBook (Non-Pro). As for the IMac I would like to see a desktop processor in the new IMac, but I believe that has a 20% chance.

Speed Bumps and Video updates: This one is a given you will at-least see a faster processor and different video card. 128mb of video ram in the stock version will still be the standard, but once again a build to order version will have a 256mb, if you wish to pay premium.

The processor (or CPU) will be over 2.33GHz, as the build to option right now stands at 2.33GHz. So I would like to see 2.5GHz or 2.6GHz with a 2.8GHz build to order. I think this could happen. Looking across the Internet there are a lot of PCs in the 2.5 GHz – 2.9 GHz range, already out. Now some may say that the MacPro is already at 3.0 GHz, and this is true. However the IMac is the consumer model of the Macintosh line and with Apple always talking Market share, it seems to me that they would want to keep the speeds close to the consumer models in the PC world. Long time Macintosh user would and will disagree with what I just said, but lets face it now that the Macintosh uses the processor as a Dell, people will be looking at speed before switching and Apple knows it.

MacOS 10.5 (Leopard) / ILife 2007: I guess the question here is two fold. 1. When will they ship and 2. Will it be around the time of and will the new hardware have it. This is a hard one. MacOS X is very big at Apple and none are bigger then the new MacOS10.5 version. A lot of people have stated that the 10.4 version for the new Intel Macintosh line seemed like a hack. That it was not quite ready. Well now that the whole Macintosh line uses the Intel chips it seems that Apple will have a better outing with Leopard. To answer the first question, when will it be out? We go back to the roll out of the IPhone. I think no matter what Apple and its CEO Steve Jobs will want a buffer zone of, well just say, as a guess, of May 1st till July 30th where everyone is talking IPhone. As for the second question: Will it be around the time of and will the new hardware have it? The answer is your guess is as good as mine. However I can see an event, between March 20th and April 15th, where they roll out all the desktops at once, with different ship dates and, well by the way they all ship with Leopard and ILife 07.

Final thoughts:
The one thing no one has been talking about is that Apple Computer, is now Apple Inc. I think this is a major shift in thinking at Apple, and for a good reason. I think Apple wants to be more then a computer company. To that I say great, but I do think that Apple will no longer spread these computer announcements over many different events, I think it going to be more like, today we are updating are desktops, then a couple on months here is the laptops, with other stuff in between. What I said here today could be more then wrong. In the end Apple has it’s own time line, and for my part this is only a guess. Who am I, Just a person who has been using Apple since 1992. It doesn’t mean have some special insight on what Apple will do. It just means I know that any thing is possible.