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The 10 Million Mac Year

Written on September 30, 2009 by Charles Jade and 21 people have commented

With the end of September comes the end of fiscal year 2009 for Apple. While the company won’t be releasing the numbers for another two weeks or so, consensus estimates from Wall Street for the fourth quarter will fill in the blanks, as Apple always beats estimates. For 2009, during what is arguably the worst [...]

Apple’s Untapped Marketing Tool: Price

Written on September 18, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 16 people have commented

Apple’s advertising is clever, visually attractive, hip, and funny. It does a great job of showing off what its products can do, and how your life could change as a result. What Apple ads don’t talk about is money. As someone who’s already more than willing to part with my little disposable income in order [...]

Nano Ad Screen Goofs?

Written on September 15, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 32 people have commented

With the new iPod nano featuring a built in video camera, Apple’s latest commercial really highlights how easy it is to use. Entitled “Nano Shoots Video,” the spot makes it look super easy and trendy to shoot video, but does the commercial really tell the truth?
Looking at the structure of the iPod nano, the camera [...]

Snow Leopard Malware Targets Apple Users

Written on September 01, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 33 people have commented

Not that any TheAppleBlog readers would ever try to acquire software in a less-than-legal manner, but just in case you know someone who would, tell them to watch out for web sites claiming to bear Snow Leopard gifts.
Like the Adobe Photoshop CS4 and iWork ‘09 before it, Snow Leopard now has a super-special malware edition [...]

ATI Returning to Mac With 4000-Series Graphics Cards

Written on August 31, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 7 people have commented

Poor NVIDIA — it looks like your honeymoon with Apple is over. There hasn’t been an official announcement from Cupertino yet, but a glance at the customization options for high-end iMacs (the ones that use discrete graphics) and Mac Pros reveals that ATI Radeon HD 4000-series cards are already available as new configurable alternatives to [...]

OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Officially Available Today

Written on August 28, 2009 by Liam Cassidy and 15 people have commented

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Today, Apple officially launches the latest milestone update to its Mac OS X operating system. “Snow Leopard” is the fifth major update to the operating system since it was launched in 2001. Apple has spent the last year tweaking and refining just about every line of code [...]

Snow Leopard: The Installation Process

Written on August 27, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 21 people have commented

In addition to the numerous refinements that Snow Leopard brings, among the first you’ll notice is an easier installation experience. Some options that experienced Apple users have come to know and love have been changed or relocated, resulting in an experience that is far less intimidating than installing Microsoft Windows.
Traditional OS X users may be [...]

Slay Sync Services Dragons with Spanning Tools

Written on August 26, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 2 people have commented

Who doesn’t battle the Apple Sync Services dragon on a semi-regular basis? Here are a couple of examples from Apple Support about how to resolve problems with this very useful yet unfortunately flawed feature:

Mac OS X 10.5: Resetting the SyncServices folder
Sync Services: Advanced troubleshooting for contact and calendar syncing

There are even more support articles around [...]

Macworld Expo is Dead: Long Live the Macworld Expo

Written on August 24, 2009 by Dave Greenbaum and 8 people have commented

A Macworld Expo without Apple is like ordering a decaf, non-fat latte – what’s the point? This is old news, right? Not really. For many, this time of year is when the discussion about going to Macworld begins. IDG has already started some of its marketing push. Will Macworld 2010 [...]

Apple Shipping Snow Leopard on Friday August 28

Written on August 24, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 25 people have commented

Looks like the rumor mill was spot on this time, as speculation that Mac OS X Snow Leopard would ship earlier than its anticipated September street date have proven true. Apple announced this morning via a press release that 10.6 will go on sale Friday, August 28th (yes, that’s the end of this week, you’re [...]

Sequel Pro 0.96 Released

Written on August 20, 2009 by Andrew Bednarz and 6 people have commented

The open-source project team that released Sequel Pro 0.95 three months ago has just released 0.96. The update adds polish to the application, making working with it more pleasurable — if you can ever call working with databases pleasurable.
They’ve also added some new core functionality and optimized the backend. To me, this feels like more [...]

Lack of Netbook, Price Hurting Apple in This Year’s Back-to-School Market

Written on August 19, 2009 by Charles Moore and 53 people have commented

There’s more evidence that Apple is missing the boat on a substantial market opportunity due to its stubborn stonewall of the small, inexpensive netbook phenomenon. Steve Jobs may have expressed his dismissal of the device category last fall, and acting Apple CEO Tim Cook took the same line by contending that the netbook experience suffers [...]

Why Small Business Owners Need a Mac

Written on August 19, 2009 by Matthew Bookspan and 24 people have commented

Small business owners have it hard, especially in the current world economic climate. They have lots to do, not enough resources, staff, and time to get it done. For many small business owners, computers are only one more thing to worry about. It doesn’t have to be that way.
For the past few months, I’ve been [...]

Does Apple Still Need Microsoft Office?

Written on August 18, 2009 by Mark Crump and 42 people have commented

On August 6th, 1997, Steve Jobs stood on a stage in Boston and announced that Microsoft had purchased $150 million in non-voting stock and promised to continue to develop Office for five years. While the crowd reacted as if had he announced his love of Pabst Blue Ribbon, it’s one of the moves that’s widely [...]

Incoming! New Twitter App for Mac That Only Lets You Search

Written on August 14, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 4 people have commented

At first, I thought this sounded like only half an idea. There are already some great Twitter clients in the Mac software space, most of which have integrated search functions built right in, so how does Incoming! carve out a niche by offering search alone? What I found out was that depending on your Twitter [...]

Microsoft Dishes On Future of Office for Mac

Written on August 13, 2009 by Darrell Etherington and 9 people have commented

So far we’ve had to sit back and watch while Office 2010 news for PC users rolled in, but the MacBU over at Microsoft has finally come through with details of when and what Mac users can expect regarding the industry-dominating productivity suite, announced at a press conference this morning. They also detailed some changes [...]

Five More Apple Retail Flops

Written on August 13, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 10 people have commented

As we discussed yesterday, there have been quite a few instances where Apple’s retail plans have been re-evaluated or changed to meet the needs of the business or traffic in the store. Without further ado, here’s the final installment of my Top 10 Apple Retail Flops. If you missed the first half, you can read [...]

Mac TV Tuner Roundup: Eight Tuners to Tap Into Your TV

Written on August 12, 2009 by Peter Venero and 21 people have commented

Whether our intentions are to have the latest in-vogue gadget for the sake of usability purposes or to just stay ”trendy”, the point is that we’re always on the hunt for the latest and greatest. To that end, I’m happy to share with you a round-up of the TV tuners available today for the Mac [...]

Five Apple Retail Flops

Written on August 12, 2009 by Chris Ryan and 30 people have commented

As Microsoft proudly ventures into the retail world that has already seen quick entrances and exits by other vendors like Gateway and Dell, many Apple fans are looking towards the new Microsoft stores with mixed feelings.
Some of the more dedicated fanboys are quick to call Microsoft a copycat (and perhaps rightly so), but one thing [...]

How Long Do You Expect Your Macs to Last?

Written on August 04, 2009 by Charles Moore and 60 people have commented

How long should a Mac last? Mac360’s Alexis Kayhill posed the question recently, and it got me thinking on the topic, especially since Alexis framed her column around the experience of a co-worker who had purchased a new unibody MacBook (on her recommendation) only to have Apple upgrade the 13″ unibody to Pro status with [...]