Applelinks Tech Web Reader - Wednesday, April 2, 2008
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Hitslink Operating System Market Share for March, 2008 Stats
Apple Awesome Market Share Gains
Hitslink Browser Share On The Mac for March, 2008
Browser Market Share for Firefox 3.0 Growing Rapidly
Analyst: Apple's U.S. Consumer Market Share Now 21 Percent
Apple Blossoms - Analyst Raises Sales Forecast 350% For '09
Apple Sued Over 'Inflated' iMac Claims
Apple Sued for "iMac Deception"
Mac OS X 10.5.3 Reaches Developers
Cracked MacBooks: Looking More Closely Underneath We Find...
Apple MacBook Air Review - It's The Supermodel Of Laptops
MacBook Pro review - It's A Laptop That Just Feels Right
Elevate your MacBook
Cubans Rush To Buy Electronics
Google Lets Users Take Apps Files Offline
The Mac Night Owl: Five Bogus Reasons to Ditch the Mac
Hitslink Operating System Market Share for March, 2008 Stats
Hitslink have posted their monthy roundup of operating system market share.
Windows (all sorts) has a 91.57% share, while the Mac OS has climbed to 7.48%, or if you include the iPhone, 7.63%. No other OS comes even close to having a single full percentage point of market share.
You can check it out at:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=8
Apple Awesome Market Share Gains
Hitslink has also posted figures for Operating System Market Share Trend for Mac - May, 2007 to March, 2008, and notes:
Apple's market share gains in December for the Mac and iPhone are impressive. However, for the last days of December, the numbers are nothing short of spectacular.
In short, Apple has gained a full percentage point of mraket share over the interval of the survey, from 6.48% in May, 2007, to 7.48% in March, 2008.
You can check it out at:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=9&qpcustom=Mac&sample=5
Hitslink Browser Share On The Mac for March, 2008
Hitslink reports that:
The browser battle on the Mac is between Safari and Firefox. Safari dominates, but Firefox has a much larger share on the Mac than Windows. However, Firefox share has been relatively stable, gaining .56% of total market share since November, 2007.
Show Share of All Users Using Any Combination of:Operating System
Search Engine
On Mac OS computers, Safari enjoysa a 73.33% share, with Firefox in second place at 24.16% and now-discontinued Netscape at 1.67%. No other browser has more than half a percentage point of share.
For more information, click here.
Browser Market Share for Firefox 3.0 Growing Rapidly
Firefox 3.0, which is still in public beta, cotinues gaining market share according to data compiled by Hitslink, which comments:
"The beta version of Firefox 3.0 registered 0.28% total share in March and is climbing rapidly. This indicates that the beta is stable and is being used as a primary browser."
I can attest that I find Firefox 3 completely satisfactory for routine browsing, and like it a lot better than Firefox 2.
To read more, click here.
Analyst: Apple's U.S. Consumer Market Share Now 21 Percent
Apple 2.0's Philip Elmer-DeWitt says:
The iPhone gets the most press and the iPod sells in the largest quantities, but it's the Macintosh that really drives Apple's growth, says Gene Munster.
In the second installment of a multipart report on Apple's "3 Cylinder Engine," Piper Jaffray's chief Apple analyst looks at the Mac business over the next couple of years and likes what he sees. In particular:
...After Apple introduced the Intel Macs, Mac sales grew 37% in 2007, more than double the industry-wide rate of 15%....
In the consumer market... he estimates the Mac's share is now 10% worldwide and an impressive 21% in the U.S.....
.
To read more, click here
Apple Blossoms - Analyst Raises Sales Forecast 350% For '09
The New York Post's Brian Garrity reports:
Apple Inc. could see an explosion in iPhone sales over the next 24 months thanks to international expansion and the addition of new lower-priced models, influential company watcher Gene Munster predicted yesterday..
Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray, is forecasting Apple will sell a whopping 45 million iPhones by 2009, up 350 percent from the company's previously-stated goal of 10 million devices in 2008.
While he acknowledged that most investors view the call as "outrageously aggressive," he noted that Apple's iPod sales jumped 409 percent between fiscal 2004 and 2005
For the full report, visit:
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04012008/business/apple_blossoms_104540.htm
Apple Sued Over 'Inflated' iMac Claims
The Register's Drew Cullen reports:
Apple, the world's most successful brand, is being sued by a Los Angeles law firm for "deceptively" marketing the new 20-inch iMac
Kabateck Brown Kellner says the monitor is "vastly inferior to the previous generation it replaced", not that you would know it from Apple's "grossly inflated" claims.
According to the law firm, Apple told consumers both the 20-inch and 24-inch iMacs displayed "millions of colors at all resolutions":
Indeed, the new 24-inch iMacs display 16,777,216 colors on 8-bit, in-plane switching (IPS) screens, as did the previous generation of 20-inch iMacs. But the new 20-inch iMac monitors do not even come close, displaying 98% fewer colors (262,144).
For the full report, visit:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/01/apple_imac_class_action/
Apple Sued for "iMac Deception"
PRNewswire reports:
Apple deceptively marketed its new 20-inch iMac in a way that grossly inflated the capabilities of its monitor, which is vastly inferior to the previous generation it replaced, according to a federal class action lawsuit filed today by Kabateck Brown Kellner, LLP.
According to the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Jose, Apple is deceiving consumers by concealing that the new 20-inch iMac monitors are inferior to the previous generation's and those of the new 24-inch iMac. In addition, the monitors are incapable of displaying "millions of colors," despite Apple's marketing claims.
Apple's newest iMac - an "all-in-one" desktop computer that combines the monitor into the same case as the CPU - was unveiled in August 2007.
"Apple is duping its customers into thinking they're buying 'new and improved' when in fact they're getting stuck with 'new and inferior,'" said Brian Kabateck, Managing Partner of Kabateck Brown Kellner. "Beneath Apple's 'good guy' image is a corporation that takes advantage of its customers. Our goal is to help those customers who were deceived and make sure Apple tells the truth in the future."
To read more, click here.
Mac OS X 10.5.3 Reaches Developers
ITWire's Stephen Withers reports:
Apple has seeded Mac OS X 10.5.3 9d10 to developers, embodying over 70 fixes from the current version.
It appears the update is wide ranging. AppleInsider reports changes have been made to Core Animation (memory leaks), Dashboard, Dock, iCal (memory leaks, alarms and syncing) Installer, Mail (alarms), Preview (PDF handling), Spaces, Spotlight (indexing) and Stacks.
For the full report, visit:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/17424/1151/
Cracked MacBooks: Looking More Closely Underneath We Find...
The Guardian says:
Apple's being evasive about what's under the lower front right-hand side where cracks occur... but we found out.
Over the weekend we noted that there's been what you could call an issue with cracks occurring on the casing of Apple's low-end MacBook laptops - frequently on the right-hand-side of the lower side.
We asked Apple about this, putting four five questions:
what structure is below the lower right-hand side of the MacBook casing (hard drive, power converter, etc)?
is Apple aware of MacBook case cracking as a product issue?
is Apple taking any action in its manufacturing to reduce the incidence of this cracking?
does Apple have any idea why this cracking might occur?
is there any manufacturing process reason why this cracking might occur (eg finish line of a mould, etc)?
Apple's response? "If a customer experiences an issue with their MacBook they should contact AppleCare."
To read more, click here.
Apple MacBook Air Review - It's The Supermodel Of Laptops
Adelaide Now's Chris Oaten says:
Apple's MacBook Air isn't for everyone, so let's save some time with a quick Q&A.
Hands up, all of you who travel a lot, or who don't travel a lot but want a stunning, sexy laptop to score some style points with.
OK, keep your hands up if all you really need a laptop for is business or basic personal software – email, Office, web browser, presentations, that sort of thing.
Keep those hands up if you consider battery life of about four hours is adequate for your needs (bearing in mind you'll rarely be very far from a power point, you office-hopping style maven you, so it's not that critical).
Great. OK. Now put your hands down if you reckon you'd be better off with a gimped screen and keyboard, as you might find on a smartphone pretending to be a computer.
One more thing . . . In Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, the human race was stereotyped by its fascination with the digital watch, which it regarded as "a pretty neat idea".
Put your hands down if you consider the compact disc to be a "pretty neat idea".
For the full review visit here:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23467850-5006364,00.html
MacBook Pro review - It's A Laptop That Just Feels Right
Adelaide Now's Chris Oaten says:
Owners of long-in-the-tooth G4 PowerBooks who have been holding out for the right time to update to a MacBook Pro should bite the bullet. The time is now.
Connect took delivery of the latest MacBook Pro recently along with the Air and consumer MacBooks to take a look at the product line-up and while the Air impressed with its sexy lines and the MacBook also stepped up a notch in overall quality and performance (and perhaps you noticed the price drop), it was the Pro model that impressed the most.....
The most appealing facet of the MB Pro is something that can't be measured in benchmarks. It just feels right, as a mature product should feel....
I expect the 38cm (15in) 2.6GHz MacBook Pro will enter the fray when, at some future date, there comes the argument about which of Apple's laptops were its best. It just feels like a classic. ...
For the full review visit here:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23467857-5006364,00.html
Elevate your MacBook
The Apple Core's Jason D. O'Grady says:
There's lots of ways to elevate an Apple notebook while you're sitting on the couch (I used to use a telephone book) but a desktop setting requires something a little more sophisticated.
MacBooks, no matter the model, can get a little tepid when used for extended periods on your lap. Apple has disclaimed as much, saying that the ubiquitous devices aren't supposed to be used on your lap (hence the advent of the term "notebook").
On a desk it's more about height. A MacBook sitting flat on a desk is too low for most people to use for extended periods of time and can lead to eye strain and neck pain....
For the full report click here.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=1484
Cubans Rush To Buy Electronics
Reuters' Rosa Tania Valdes reports:
Cubans crowded shops on Tuesday to buy DVD players and electric bikes that went on sale for the first time as new President Raul Castro moved to lift many restrictions in the one-party socialist state.
Stores were authorized to sell dozens of electric goods that were previously banned, including microwave ovens, flat-screen televisions and even computers...
Raul Castro succeeded his ailing brother Fidel Castro as president on Feb. 24, promising to lift "excessive prohibitions" on daily life in Cuba.
His government has since moved quickly to allow Cubans to buy cellular phones and stay at hotels previously reserved for foreigners....
Computers, which until now could only be bought in Cuba by government or foreign companies, were also supposed to go on sale but none had changed hands by Tuesday afternoon.
To read more, click here.
Google Lets Users Take Apps Files Offline
The Register's Richard Thurston reports:
Google is to give users access to Google Apps offline, meaning they'll be able to continue working if their Internet connection falls down.
Over the next few weeks, Google will start to enable users' accounts one at a time and it'll start with Google Docs. Offline access to Spreadsheets and Presentations will follow later.
Users will know if they are enabled to work offline by the inclusion of an offline logo in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
For the full report, visit:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/01/google_apps_offline_access/
The Mac Night Owl: Five Bogus Reasons to Ditch the Mac
I realize that there are a whole lot of subjective factors that go into choosing which personal computer to buy, and, also, which computing platform to use. Sometimes you’re forced into it, such as using Windows in an office environment that’s standardized on the platform and requires applications that are exclusive to that operating system. No doubt that are people who are required to use Macs, but have other priorities.
Here's the link to the story:
http://macnightowl.com/2008/04/01/five-bogus-reasons-to-ditch-the-mac/
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