Applelinks Tech Web Reader II - Monday, June 2, 2008
Solid-State Drive Prices To Dive (Think MacBook Air)
Apple's .Mac service may become "Mobile Me"
Why Macs Still Aren't Right For Most Businesses - Opinion
Analyst: Atom-based Apple in months, Chinese iPhone in 2008
The Mac Night Owl: Will Apple Lose Its Cult Following?
Solid-State Drive Prices To Dive (Think MacBook Air)
CNet's Brooke Crothers reports:
Future versions of the MacBook Air will pack larger-capacity but lower-cost solid-state drives, emblematic of the next generation of flash storage that will make a quick descent from current stratospheric pricing.
Today, a consumer pays dearly for a solid-state drive (SSD). For example, for only 64GB of SSD storage on the MacBook Air, a consumer must pay a premium of about $1,000 over the 80GB hard disk drive model.
But the cost per megabyte of solid state drive storage will drop as notebook PC makers like Apple switch to solid-state drives with capacities above 100GB based on multilevel cell (MLC) technology. Adoption by notebook PC makers is expected to start in the third quarter, according to industry sources.
For the full report visit here:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-9956136-64.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Apple's .Mac service may become "Mobile Me"
Ars Technica's Charles Jade says:
Via MacRumors, a pair of discoveries have been found in the latest iterations Mac OS X and the iPhone SDK that suggest Apple's .Mac service is about to undergo a long overdue transition into something that people might actually use. Dmitry Chestnykh of CodingRobots first found evidence of the apparent rebranding in 10.5.3 with multiple instances of placeholders like this one in iCal....
You can check it out at:
http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/05/30/apples-mac-service-may-become-mobile-me
Why Macs Still Aren't Right For Most Businesses - Opinion
Fortune Small Business's Jonathan Blum says:
First, you should know that I'm no Apple fanatic. I've used the gear steadily since the Reagan era; the early Apple II and the computer-as-Cuisinart lookalike that was the original Mac were both college tools of mine. But overall, I have found Apples, as lovely as they are for certain applications, just not worth the hassle for most small businesses.
Still, even I have to admit that the latest Apple line of desktops and laptop computers is flashing some serious small-business form. Apple computers now run on the same basic electronics guts - Intel chips and the like - as any PC using the Microsoft operating systems. Peripheral support for Apple is strong: Every gadget vendor wants a piece of that sexy iPhone/iPod pie. And though plenty of software is still not supported on the Mac (more on that in a moment), it's now possible to get just about any Windows program up and running on an Apple computer.
[Editor's note: fascinatingly, the article goes on to report that one smallish consulting company determined that they could switch to Macs for roughly half the const of upgrading to new Microsoft servers. Aside form that, many of the author's caveats about the Mac seem to be subjective nitpicking, althoug the one about a dearth of USB ports is solid and fair. Why, oh why, can't Apple just include a decent number of USB ports on its machines?]
For the full report visit here:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/29/smallbusiness/macs_small_biz.fsb/index.htm?section=money_latest
Analyst: Atom-based Apple in months, Chinese iPhone in 2008
AppleInsider's Aidan Malley reports:
A new research note by Lehman Brothers calls for an Apple device with an Intel Atom processor within 12 months, and expects the iPhone to reach more than one billion potential customers before the end of 2008.
Analyst Ben Reitzes makes the prediction based on Intel chief Paul Otellini's talks at a Lehman-hosted telecoms conference, where the semiconductor company head notes that he has been "positively surprised" by the take-up of the Atom by the market.
For the full report visit here:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/05/30/analyst_atom_based_apple_in_months_chinese_iphone_in_2008.html
The Mac Night Owl: Will Apple Lose Its Cult Following?
One common definition of a cult is, “a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing.” Some might feel that Apple’s customers, particularly the ones that have been around for a decade or two, can be considered a cult.
Here's the URL for today's commentary:
http://macnightowl.com/2008/06/newsletter-444-preview-will-apple-lose-its-cult-following/
Notes: You can also access our new RSS feed, available at:
http://www.macnightowl.com/rss
Or our new Atom feed at:
http://www.macnightowl.com/atom
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
| 
|
|
|
|
| |