Mac

iMac

Om Malik:

While rest of the crowd was taking time playing around with the iPad Mini, I spent my time with both the 27-inch and 21.5-inch models of the new iMac. And after 10 minutes, I knew I wanted one. First, the display screen, while not eligible for Apple’s Retina label, is drop-dead gorgeous. The color and the contrast is amazing. The dreaded reflections are almost nonexistent. You cannot resist the urge to reach out and touch the screen and flick things around much like on an iPad.

I agree completely. You just won’t believe your eyes when you see this new iMac.

JK Rowling: ‘The MacBook Air changed my life’

In a rare product endorsement, Rowling proclaimed, “The MacBook Air changed my life.” She added, “I’ve written everywhere, including some very strange places.”

When’s the last time you heard anyone say, “That piece of shit Windows PC changed my life”?

Perfection

Tell me if you’ve heard this one: “Steve Jobs never would’ve let [PRODUCT/SERVICE/INCIDENT] happen.”

That declaration has distorted the way the press writes about Apple and how it operates. The claims of his alleged perfectionism and ability to “sweat the details” didn’t just elevate the CEO to “best thing since sliced bread” status, it mutated the perception of the company for industry insiders and the public. […]

Apple hits new high in PC shipment market share

Apple’s share of the U.S. market rose to 13.6% for the third quarter on the strength of the back-to-school market, which is typically drives Apple’s best performing quarter. The figure allowed Apple to maintain its comfortable hold on the third position in the U.S. market behind HP and Dell and marks Apple’s best performance in recent years in beating out the company’s 12.5% share in the third quarter of 2011.

iPhone, iPad and the Mac. Good news all around for Apple these days (By “these days”, I mean the last decade).

Apple 1 doesn’t sell at auction

Christie’s announced the auction in August, and at the time the firm expected the Apple 1 to fetch US$127,000. When the auction ended, however, the price hadn’t met the reserve of $80,000, resulting in no sale.

Apple TV update

Among the things we like in the new Apple TV software (in addition to the obligatory stability and performance fixes) is the ability to easily save multiple iTunes accounts and switch between them, support for Shared Photo Streams and AirPlay broadcasting from Apple TV to other devices

Sounds like a huge update.

OS X 10.8.2

You can download it from the Mac App Store.

Apple product names

Interested article from Marko Savic on how Apple names its products.

An Amazon Apple TV competitor

However, the location of the announcement and its proximity to Hollywood has some speculating that there may be more. One of the possibilities being raised is more content for Amazon’s Prime Instant streaming service. Of course, there’s another option: What if Amazon announced a streaming video device to compete head-to-head with Apple TV, Roku and Google TV?

Apple TV

Analyst Andy Hargreaves said this morning that he believes an “Apple Television would be ‘extremely unlikely’ in the near term.” Not that I disagree with his assertion, but the way he arrived at it is a bit sketchy to me.

He came to the conclusion after a meeting with Apple’s Eddy Cue. Basically Cue said Apple will enter a market when its damn good and ready and there are problems with the current television setup. These are the same things Steve Jobs said publicly about television, so there is really nothing new there.

We also don’t know what “near term” is. Next week, next month, two years from now. Hargreaves note just seemed odd to me and not based on anything factual.

Mac G4 table

The twin-brother to the G3 line, Crunching Numbers G4 is also custom-made and individually hand-crafted from retired Macintosh G4s and up to 70% reclaimed materials. Because the reclaimed materials can vary in shape and size, the different combinations make every table we create truly one-of-a-kind.

Cool.

Apple releases Mountain Lion v10.8.1

The update contains the following changes:

  • Resolve an issue that may cause Migration Assistant to unexpectedly quit
  • Improve compatibility when connecting to a Microsoft Exchange server in Mail
  • Address an issue playing audio through a Thunderbolt display
  • Resolve an issue that could prevent iMessages from being sent
  • Address an issue that could cause the system to become unresponsive when using Pinyin input
  • Resolve an issue when connecting to SMB servers with long names
  • Address a issue that may prevent Safari from launching when using a Proxy Automatic Configuration (PAC) file
  • Improve 802.1X authentication with Active Directory credentials

Retina Mac Apps

This site keeps track of all the apps that have been optimized for Apple’s Retina display.

More details on the Apple TV

Apple aims to make it so viewers can watch any show at any time via a cloud-based DVR that would store TV shows online. The service would be designed so viewers could begin streaming a show minutes after it began airing live.

Where do I pay?

Apple TV for live broadcast television

Matthew Panzarino:

Apple has begun talks in preparation for a set-top box device that could be used to watch live TV as well as view other content, reports Jessica E. Vascellaro and Shalini Ramachandran at The Wall Street Journal.This would apparently be a new direction that would let Apple get a stronger presence in the living room It would involve them getting deals with cable providers, which the report says has not happened.