A few months back, Microsoft launched their $300 million ad campaign in its attempt to attack Apple and take back some of the market share that they have lost to Apple. Well in another attempt by Microsoft to battle Apple’s surge in the computer industry, Microsoft has opened up their “I’m a PC” store for the holiday season. The “I’m a PC” commercials were a direct attack on the Apple “I’m a Mac” commercials. And Microsoft felt that their “I’m a PC” commercials have really hit home with consumers, so they went ahead and made all types of “I’m a PC” merchandise. Good stuff Microsoft! But honestly, who would want any of these merchandise?
Last night, Apple released the Apple TV 2.3 software update, which has gotten many Apple TV users excited. Even Olivia Munn is uber excited about the Apple TV 2.3 software update. With this update, Apple addressed several key issues with the Apple TV as well as added new features to Apple TV. These new features and fixes include:
- Music can be streamed via AirTunes to Airport Express speakers or other Apple TVs in your house.
- Apple TV can now learn other remote controls and use them in addition to the Apple Remote.
- Playlists in iTunes that contain Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and Music Videos can now be seen on Apple TV.
- Support for volume control in Music.
Users can update their Apple TV by accessing the “Update Software” menu option in the settings of the Apple TV.
Mac OS X 10.5.6 may be well on its way as new seeds show that the patch has no known glitches. Although build 9G35 only had a few problems to address, Apple has said that the patch will touch on synching as a whole, DVI output issues, SuperDrive, and downloading playlists. The patch hopefully increases the performance of the MobileMe and the automatic sync process. In addition, Apple is hoping that the patch would fix any glitches with emails that are partly or entirely in non-Latin language. Apple is hoping to focus on over 80 applications for this patch. A release date has yet to be announced, but these seeds indicate that we should be expecting them soon.
The folks at the iPhoneSavior stumbled upon this Apple iPod ad with a familiar sight on it, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road from their popular album of the same name. Could this be a sign that the The Beatles music will finally make it onto the iTunes store? Is this a print ad in the works that will be released as soon as the Beatles give the OK? Or could this just be fan art or a hopeful Beatles and iPod fan? Either way it is a cool piece of artwork, and I already have every Beatles album on CD.
British newspaper Telegraph wrote an article about 50 Fact You Might Not Know About Barack Obama and one interesting fact was that Barack Obama uses a Mac. Apparently, the one application he uses the most is the Mac chat client iChat. With the iChat client, Barack Obama is able to have video chats with his family wherever he goes. The iChat application keeps Barack Obama in constant contact with his family. As far as the iPhone, Barack Obama said he is more of a fan of the RIM Blackberry. That I do not mind as I too am a Blackberry user. Barack Obama and I have so much in common.
After months of rumors, complaints and speculation (my own skepticisms), AT&T has confirmed that 3G tethering will be coming to the iPhone. Ralph De La Vega President and CEO of AT&T Mobility has confirmed in an interview at the Web 2.0 summit today that AT&T is currently in the works with Apple to bring the 3G tethering option to the iPhone 3G. Personally I was a bit skeptical because the 3G bandwidth is already being shared by so much, I don’t see how they can possibly accomodate full scale web surfing from notebooks! There are are 2 ways to tether to the 3G network right now; Netshare and iModem. Netshare has been removed from the app store and iModem is exclusively to jailbroken iPhones.
A couple of weeks ago, we posted a report in which Mac Mini shipments to retail stores were discontinued. When the report came out, people were concerned about the fate of the Mac Mini. There was some speculation that Apple has discontinued the Mac Mini, which has yet to receive an update since 2006. Well, one concerned consumer decided to take action and decided to send a concerned email to Bob Mansfield, Apple’s newly-crowned Mac hardware engineer chief. This is what the customer had to say regarding the email:
“I got a prompt reply by phone from an Apple executive care person essentially giving me no new information but assuring me that Apple knew the mini was a popular machine and to be patient,” the customer told AppleInsider. “I certainly appreciated the contact, and I think it was a nice way of letting me know that rather than bug their head guys.”
So apparently, from this response, the Mac Mini isn’t dead yet. We just have to be patient. As we already know, Apple has no plans for new products for the upcoming holiday season. The next chance for Apple to showcase an updated Mac Mini would be MacWorld San Francisco on January 5-9, 2009.
The Urban Spoon app is a pretty useful fun app, it helps you locate a place to eat by giving it a shake, then the iPhone’s locator finds nearby restaurants. The novelty of this app quickly wears off however. I’m a fan of the app Around Me actually and I was a bit surprised to see the promo for Urban Spoon in a new Apple iPhone 3G commercial recently. I’m guessing Urban Spoon paid them off…so what’s for lunch?
Recently, there have been reports that confirm there has been some issues with the new glass trackpad on the new unibody Apple Macbooks and Macbook Pros. Apparently, after several clicks, there have been moments in which the trackpad would fail to respond to a click by a user. Although it only takes a few moments before the trackpad works properly again, Apple has announced that they are working on a new software patch that would address these trackpad issues. This software patch should work on both Macbooks and Macbook Pros as they both have similar designs. A release date has yet to be announced. Please stay tuned for more information.
