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Apple To Spend $10 Billion On Innovation, Expansion In 2013
Apple's Share Price Swoon: It's Not Apple's Fault, It's Ours
Build an OS X Boot Disk The Really, Easy Way
Dictation Commands for OS X & iOS
MacWrite and MacPaint A Software Coral Reef?
Apple's Mac Problem - Retina Anticipation And Good Tablets
Why Are Mac Sales Plummeting? Apple Gave Up On Innovating
Why Apple Doesn't Care That iPads Are Cannibalizing Sales Of Macs
Why the End of the Apple Bubble Is Bad For Pretty Much Everyone
Microsoft Blasts PC Makers: It's YOUR Fault Windows 8 Crash Landed
Is the Second Time the Charm for the Controversial New Mega File-Sharing Service Site?
Apple To Spend $10 Billion On Innovation, Expansion In 2013
Appleinsider's Daniel Eran Dilger reports:
This year, Apple will spend $10 billion investing in its future. That's a huge increase over last year, and it obliterates the popular notion that the company is drifting off into a highly competitive market with no real plans for innovating in the future.
For the full report visit here:
http://goo.gl/jfmZT
Apple's Share Price Swoon: It's Not Apple's Fault, It's Ours
Reuters columnist James Saft says the problem with Apple's 10 percent-plus stock price swoon for investors, lies not in Apple but in ourselves, and provides a timely reminder that there are a lot of - idiots out there, in this context a panting hoard of trend-following investors who drove its stock price so far above a reasonable valuation.
Saft says Apple is a great company making great products, with an outstanding record of creating new markets, enjoying margins closer to those of a software company than a consumer giant, with more than $130 billion in cash reserves and a historically unique franchise, but great company notwithstanding, it can't be counted on to grow and profit in the future at similar rates to the past.
Saft says it isn't about the death of Steve Jobs, either, noting that Jobs, great as he was, was over-rated by investors.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://goo.gl/gU4Fm
Build an OS X Boot Disk The Really, Easy Way
Lion Disk Maker Is An Application Programmed With Applescript That You Can Use With Mac Os X 10.6, 10.7 And Os X 10.8 To burn a DVD or build a bootable drive from Mac OS X Lion or OS X Mountain Lion Installation program. As soon as you launch the application, it tries to find the OS X Install program with Spotlight. Then, it proposes to build a DVD or create a bootable install disk. Its the easiest way to build an OS X Installer in a few clicks.
To burn the DVD, youll need a SuperDrive and a writable DVD (single layer, 4,7 GB for Lion, or dual-Layer, 8,5 DVD-R). To build a bootable disk, youll need an 8 GB (minimum) USB thumb key drive, a USB or Firewire drive or an SD-Card.
Note well: Lion DiskMaker will erase the volume or the drive you chose, according to the options you chose. Don't forget to backup your data first.
The OS X Install application is automatically erased after you upgrade to the new version of OS X. If you need to download it again, open the Mac App Store, then open the Purchase page. Youll be able to download Mac OS X Lion Install again.
The best time to use Lion DiskMaker is when you just finish downloading OS X from the Mac App Store. Create your disk with Lion Disk Maker , then install OS X.
If OS X came pre-installed with your Mac, there are two ways to get the OS X installer.
- If you already purchased OS X on the Mac App Store (and therefore have a valid copy of OS X Install application), you can download the latest installer from Mac App Store first. This installer is compatible with Macs pre-equipped with your version of OS X.
- If you did not purchase OS X, but want to get an Install disc, there is a way to get the InstallESD.dmg file for your Mac. The method is not really easy though. Check Macworld for the full story. After you got the InstallESD.dmg file, use it to build your key or DVD with Lion DiskMaker.
If you don't have the complete OS X Install app and just kept the InstallESD.dmg file, Lion DiskMaker will allow you to select manually an InstallESD.dmg file.
Lion is also still available from Apple, but but you have to call Apple Supprot to get it. The price is US$20 and it will be delivered as a redeemable code that you can use in the Mac App Store, so you'll need a Mac running at least 10.6.8 to use the code.
Apples' U.S. Sales Support number is 1-800-692-7753. Users outside the US should check Contacting Apple for support and service page.
More details at:
http://goo.gl/qt4eD
LDM is donationware. If you like it, you can make a small (or huge
) donation via Paypal or other meansFor more information, visit:
http://liondiskmaker.com/
Dictation Commands for OS X & iOS
OS X Daily has posted a tutorial glossary of Dictation commands that will work in both OS X and iOS, so long as the Mac, iPad, or iPhone supports Dictation.
You can check it out at:
http://goo.gl/q1Uxn
MacWrite and MacPaint A Software Coral Reef?
threads2.scripting.com blogger Dave Winer says he asked a programmer friend , aged 28, if he knew what MacWrite and MacPaint was. He didn't, even though Winer says he's a very smart, well-educated guy with a computer science degree. Winer contends that asking whether a computer literate perosn knows about MacWrite and MacPaint is like asking a person with an English lit degree if he's heard of Shakespeare.
But if you don't MacWrite and MacPaint were the two apps that shipped on the original Mac when it was released on January 24, 1984 - MacWrite to write with and MacPaint for painting. They were extremely limited by today's MS Word and Photoshop standards, but at the time when very few people had ever used a graphic app before also something of a miracle compared to the tools that we were using before.
Winer thinks that had the Mac shipped without MacWrite and MacPaint, it's of doubtful that there would be a Mac today, suggesting that software evolves like a coral reef, accreting new layers built on one anohter to create a thriving ecosystem.
And while no one uses MacWrite or MacPaint today, in a sense we all do, all the time.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://goo.gl/wiQ1j
Apple's Mac Problem - Retina Anticipation And Good Tablets
TechCrunch's John Biggs commenting on that Apple's Mac sales being down 21% year-over-year and 16% for the quarter observes that while 4.1 million Macs sold in Q1 2013 is nothing to sneeze at (especially in the current snake-bit PC market), it's still nearly a quarter year-over-year loss.
Biggs deduces that Apple's primary Mac problem right now is a dichotomy between Retina devices - ergo: the MacBook Pro with Retina Display - and the rest of the Mac line, plus the fact that die-hards wont buy desktop Macs because the new Mac Pros havent been announced and potential iMac buyers were hoping for Retina screens. Laptop fans are better off with a range of Retina and non-Retina alternatives still available but other innovations such as touchscreens and convertibles are still unavailable.
In short, the current Mac line-up is bifurcated. On one hand you can lay out a few thousand for a laptop with a beautiful screen and on the other hand you lay out a few thousand for monitor with lower resolution. There is no clear escape here, and so customers aren't buying.
Biggs doesn't believe slow-uptake Windows 8 has much to do with the Mac sales decline, but thinks Apple's own tablet line-up does, with many casual users evidently seeing a tablet to be as good as a laptop for their purposes. Ergo, by building such solid mobile devices, Apple could be cannibalizing its own Mac sales, an the only thing that might change that would be some real laptop innovation.
(Or even catch-up with the PC Ultrabook feature sets. Ed.)
For the full commentary visit here:
http://techcrunch.com/2013/01/23/apples-mac-problem/
Why Are Mac Sales Plummeting? Apple Gave Up On Innovating
DigitallTrends' Jeffery Van Camp says that while Tim Cook has plenty of excuses for the alarming 21 percent decline in Mac sales last quarter, ultimately, it's Apples stagnant computing product line that's to blame.
Apple sold 1.1 million fewer Macs than it did last year (4.1 million compared to 5.2 million in 2011).
Van Camp observes that just about every laptop on the market today has many of the design trademarks of Apple's MacBook line: island-style keyboards, aluminum frames, clean lines, and so forth with Intel liking the MacBook Air line so much that it spent hundreds of millions creating the Ultrabook, which began as the Windows 7 equivalent of the Air: super thin, fast-booting, and sleek, while desktop PCs have basically disappeared in favor of All-in-One computers that ape the iMac.
So why has Apple's Mac business suddenly dropped by more than 21 percent while Windows PC sales during the last three months of 2012 only fell by about 5 percent.
Van Camp notes that most new Windows 8 laptops have a touchscreen, and many have other fancy features like the ability to convert into a tablet (eg: Lenovo Yoga),are all thin, light, and many of them are well designed. Except for the Retina display MacBook Pros and periodic speed bumps, Apple has been standng pat.
Apple did sell 47.8 million iPhones and 22.9 million iPads in Q1/13, and Mr. Cook professes to be unworried about iPads cannibalizing MacBook sales, but Van Camo notes that unless Apple plans to abandon the Mac altogether, it might do well to start worrying.
For the full commentary visit here:
http://goo.gl/NiOUl
Why Apple Doesn't Care That iPads Are Cannibalizing Sales Of Macs
Quartz's Christopher Mims notes that Apple's fiscal Q1/13 results show Mac sales are down 21% year-over-year, a much steeper decline that the 6% for overall global PC shipments, but Apple CEO Tim Cook, while observing that some of the weakness in Mac sales is due to the success of the iPad, espressed serenity, even calling this cannibalization a huge opportunity for Apple, and echoing the late Steve Jobs' assertion that someday PCs will be like trucks, needed by only some people, and only for heavy-duty tasks.
(But some of us like trucks, and PCs, although it's nice to have tablets too. Ed.)
For the full commentary visit here:
http://goo.gl/8RN5A
Why the End of the Apple Bubble Is Bad For Pretty Much Everyone
Reuters' Rebecca Greenfield notes that Apple's tanking stock doesn't just mean a lot of lost money for Apple employees and tech traders, but many of the rest of us as well, since with more than 5,000 mutual funds, closed-end funds and exchange-traded funds having a stake in Apple, nearly 17 percent of all individual investors owning Apple shares and many public and private pension funds likewise, and with Apple accounting for 10 percent of the entire Nasdaq and 5 percent of the S&P 500, it's very likely that whatever you or I have in your our 401(k)s (or RRSP's if we're Canadian), the run-up of Apple shares over the last few years has been powering our gains. So, with stock down more than 10 percent because of yesterday's "record breaking" earnings report, a lot of retirement funds and financial cushions are taking a hit, too. And, as the bubble continues to deflate, which Ms. Greenfield says investors expect will happen, so too will our retirement savings.
For the full report visit here:
http://goo.gl/MNSxJ
Microsoft Blasts PC Makers: It's YOUR Fault Windows 8 Crash Landed
The Register's Gavin Clarke says:
Microsoft blames PC makers for underwhelming Windows 8 sales over Christmas, The Register has learned. The software giant accused manufacturers of not building enough attractive Win 8-powered touchscreen tablets.
But the computer makers are fighting back: they claimed that if they'd followed Microsoft's hardware requirements and ramped up production, they'd have ended up building a lot of high-end expensive slabs that consumers didnt understand nor want.
For the full report visit here:
http://goo.gl/SktZc
Is the Second Time the Charm for the Controversial New Mega File-Sharing Service Site?
Last year New Zealand entrepreneur Kim Dotcom was arrested and indicted on piracy charges for his web site Megaupload, a file-sharing site that allowed users to store and share files. This week Dotcom upended the tech world by releasing Mega, a new and improved file-sharing service. Although Mega functions similarly to Megaupload, this time Dotcom offers users tighter privacy and automatic encryption.
Tech expert Karl Volkman of Chicago's SRV Network, Inc., weighs in on what the change means for users and for Kim Dotcom.
"The new site Mega, like Megaupload, utilizes cloud-based file storage, but with an encryption feature that secures user privacy," says Volkman. "Based on this premise, Mega cannot necessarily be held responsible for illegal downloads because it cannot see the content that users are sharing and storing."
U.S. prosecutors brought charges against Dotcom last year, arguing copyright infringement after filmmakers and songwriters lost millions of dollars in copyright revenue from illegal downloads on Megaupload. Dotcom maintains that Megaupload complied with copyright laws by removing pirated material when requested.
"Although the shutdown of Mega is possible, the new sites enhanced privacy features provide protection from hackers and government raids," Volkman continues. "Even if Dotcom's Mega gets taken down, we can be sure this isnt the last weve heard from him on file-sharing."
Karl Volkman, the Chief Technology Officer of SRV Network, Inc. in Chicago, Illinois, is an IT Professional with over 30 years of experience.
For more information on SRV Network, Inc. visit:
http://www.srvnetwork.com for more information
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