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Mac developer to ditch Mac for iPhone

Pangea Software's Brian Greenstone was interviewed by The Guardian this week at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. During the interview, Brian revealed that his company would no longer develop software products for Macs and would instead focus entirely on the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms.

Like many other iPhone application developers, Pangea Software is finding plenty of money to be made in the iTunes App Store. The company has earned $1.5 million on iPhone and iPod Touch application sales in the iTunes App Store, a figure that Greenstone points out makes Mac development earnings … Read more

When 5 percent equals 20 percent

A lot of companies have torn down the PC Berlin Wall and now allow employees to use Macintosh computers as well as PCs. Apparently, this creates some interesting dynamics for PC support people.

From what I've heard, most organizations settle in at approximately 95 percent PCs, and 5 percent Macs. Seems like a small and manageable percentage, but here's the rub. According to some services vendors and PC administrators I've talked to, a large portion of the Mac users are executives--CEOs, COOs, chief legal counsel, etc. These folks get top priority and can be very demanding, so … Read more

Have Mac, need wireless access point

This week in London I remembered one of the remarkable things that Mac OS X and the Apple hardware provide: wireless access.

By this I'm not referring to the ability to access the Internet through the Mac's WiFi hardware, but rather, the ability to provide wireless access to others using one's Mac. I used it this week to get WiFi access on my iPhone while in my hotel room, so that I'd only have to pay for Internet access once (through my laptop), and avoid Apple's/AT&T's substantial roaming data charges.

For … Read more

Psystar adds new Mac OS desktop

Psystar has decided to not let a legal battle get in the way of its product road map.

The company introduced the Open(3) Wednesday, which as the name implies is the third model that Psystar has shipped with Mac OS X preinstalled. As you may also recall, Apple has not taken kindly to Psystar's decision to ship such a product, and the two companies are currently exchanging legal briefs and arguments over whether Psystar has a right to sell Open Computers with Mac OS X.

Psystar's Open(3) is basically the same product as the Open Computer that it replaces, … Read more

Hands-on with the Dell Adamo

One of the most buzzed-about new laptops of 2009 is Dell's Adamo, a high-end, ultrathin 13-inch model that starts at $1,999 and shares a design sensibility with the MacBook Air and the HP Voodoo Envy 133.

After teasing the system at CES 2009, Dell formally announced its online availability starting March 17, and we've managed to get our hands on a preproduction version of the hardware to bring you our initial impressions.

At first glance, the Adamo, is a stark break from Dell's recent laptop designs, built into an aluminum case with unibody construction, similar to the current MacBooks. The model we have is black (Dell calls it "onyx") and a white "pearl" version is also available. The back of the lid and the keyboard tray are split between brushed metal and a fingerprint-attracting glossy finish.

About 0.65 inch thick, Dell claims this is the thinnest laptop in the world. It's certainly thin, but going toe-to-toe with the MacBook Air, the true "thinnest" title is open to interpretation. The tapered Air is thinner at its narrowest point, but slightly thicker at its widest point. In either case these are both very slim systems.

Picking up the Adamo, we were surprised at how heavy it felt. At a hair under 4 pounds, it's certainly lightweight, but based on the size, we were expecting something closer to the 3-pound MacBook Air.

Dell is pitching the Adamo as a "luxury brand notebook design for the luxury conscious consumer," which may not seem like the most timely of ideas, considering the current economic climate and the resultant growth in low-cost Netbooks. While the timing may be unfortunate, products such as this generally have long, multiyear production cycles, from concept to release. … Read more

Without Steve Jobs, is Apple Sony?

Updated at 5:20 a.m. PDT with Phil Schiller keynote info.

When it was first announced that Steve Jobs was taking a leave of absence I was interviewed for an ABC affiliate about the prospects of Apple without Jobs. What would happen? Would he be missed? Was Apple vulnerable?

Sadly, I can't say that I came up with any earth-shattering sound bites. I said Apple would be fine in the short run; it had a roster full of talented executives, including a rock-star head designer (Jonathan Ive), and that the company's product road map was planned out into the future--presumably with Jobs' stamp of approval.

That said, no one could replace Steve Jobs, pitcher extraordinaire, a Sandy Koufax on the marketing mound, if there ever was one.

The fact is, no one can create a reality distortion field like Jobs. And ultimately, I said, that's what Apple would miss most, especially after Apple's senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller, hadn't done much to inspire the faithful with his ho-hum keynote speech at MacWorld 2009.

However, little did I know that Jobs' absence would be felt so acutely in the release of the company's latest products, though I probably wouldn't categorize the new Mac Mini, updated iMacs, and third-generation iPod Shuffle as premium releases for Apple.

While the new releases may be a step up from Apple TV, which just hasn't been able to find a broad audience, they're not the iPod Nano or a new MacBook or iPhone OS 3.0. But what's a little disconcerting is how the products, particularly the Mac Mini and iPod Shuffle, landed with a bit a thud. Sure, they got a ton of publicity--and publicity is good--but a lot of it ranged from neutral to negative.

… Read more

Despite iMac boost, Mac sales still set to decline

As expected, February was not a good month for Mac sales.

Piper Jaffray has analyzed a month's worth of NPD Group data on Apple's Mac sales during February, and is projecting that Apple will sell between 2 million and 2.2 million Macs during the first calendar quarter of the year, which ends in a couple of weeks. That's the same number it was working with based on January's NPD figures, and the estimates would range from a 13 percent decline to 4 percent decline compared to Mac shipments in Apple's first fiscal quarter of … Read more

Modder turns MacBook logo into LCD display

How's this for customization?

Computer modder Eddie Zarick has tricked out the Apple logo on the back of a MacBook with a fully functional secondary LCD display that can be used to make the Mac all glowy and psychedelic and stuff. You can, for example, use the lit-up logo to showcase cool images or video or run the iTunes Visualizer.

Watch the video below to see the striking effects, and if that isn't enough for you, you can bid for the 13-inch used computer on eBay, where, as of this writing Sunday night, 14 bids had been placed, … Read more