February 22, 2007, 3:52 PM PST
Help wanted: An Apple security expert
Posted by: Robert Vamosi

According to a post on the Bugtraq newsgroup, Apple Inc. has a job posting for a security expert. The winning candidate would "help provide guidance on security topics to all groups across Apple, and help teams design security into new cutting-edge features and technologies," and also "help analyze potential security issues and work with groups across Apple for timely resolution." Apple has come under increased scrutiny by the criminal hacker communities in the last year, and it was the target of January's "A month of Apple bugs." In 2006, Apple issued more Mac OS security patches than in previous years. More telling is the requirement that the candidate "create training for development teams on security concepts and coding practices." This sounds like Bill Gates call a few years ago for Trustworthy Computing at Microsoft.

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January 09, 2007, 12:45 PM PST
A first peek at the new Office 2008 for Mac
Posted by: Elsa Wenzel

Windows users are expecting to find the new Microsoft Office 2007 software in stores by the end of this month. But Mac users will have to wait until the second half of the year to get the new Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, which won't look much like their Windows-only counterparts. Microsoft is calling the new set of software Office 2008 for Mac.

As shown in these early screenshots from Microsoft, Office 2008 for Mac lacks the new Ribbon toolbar that's laced throughout Office 2007 for Windows. However, that might be good news for Mac users who don't want to confront a steep learning curve when running the new software.

Among the highlights of Office 2008 for Mac is the new, widgetlike My Day application. It displays a schedule and lets you track and color-code items in a list without requiring Microsoft's Entourage personal information manager.

Word's new Publishing Layout offers basic desktop publishing tools for designing newsletters and business brochures. Microsoft says that Word will better display previews of work in progress. Office 2008's Office Art 2.0 will use the new graphics engine found in Office 2007 as well as Mac's graphics abilities. With household account balancing in mind, Excel's new Ledger Sheets is built to crunch numbers without requiring that you rely on memorized formulas.

Unfortunately, as with the new, Office 2007 file formats, you'll need to take extra steps to open and edit documents between the old and new Mac versions of Office. Tools to allow older Office software to read the new, 2008 files are not expected to become available until a few months after the public release of the software package. Beta tests of the file-conversion download may become available this spring.

Will Apple loyalists buy Microsoft software for their Macs? There are plenty of alternatives to Office. In the meantime, rumors abound that iWork '07 will include a new spreadsheet application, making the package a stronger foil to Microsoft Office.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs did not announce expected updates to the popular iWork and iLife suites during his Macworld keynote address. Nor did he mention the Leopard operating system.

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November 13, 2006, 9:01 PM PST
The unofficial eight-core Apple Mac Pro
Posted by: Daniel A. Begun

CNET Labs might be ahead of Apple's product release cycle, and we likely violated our Mac Pro's warranty, but we just had to see what the Apple Mac Pro could do when populated with a pair of Intel's brand-new, quad-core Xeon 5355 processors.

Today marks Intel's first official day of the quad-core processor era with the release of quad-core processors for enthusiasts (the Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700) and for servers and workstations (the Intel Xeon 5355)--and Intel was kind enough to supply CNET Labs with a pair of 2.66GHz Xeon 5355 processors. As the Xeon 5355 is pin-compatible with the Xeon 5160 processors that came installed in our Mac Pro, we proceeded to swap out the two dual-core processors with the new quad-core processors. (We highly advise you not to try this at home! The Mac Pro case is not designed to allow the end user to perform CPU surgery--and we've got the cuts and bruises to prove it.) With the pair of Xeon 5355 processors installed, we booted the system back up and were greeted with eight active processing cores in both the Mac OS and Windows XP via the Boot Camp Public Beta. With the transplant successful, it was time to run our benchmarks...

Even though dual-core processors have been around for a while now, you'd still be hard-pressed to find many mainstream applications that can efficiently take advantage of both processing cores at the same time (typically referred to as a multithreaded-application). Double that number to four processing cores, and the list of supported multithreaded applications gets even shorter. Double it again to eight...and you get the idea. Some professional multimedia and scientific applications, however, are designed to take advantage of as many processors as are present--and performance will scale accordingly, based on the number of processors available.

Both the Cinebench and PyMOL tests use all available processing cores and hit 100-percent total CPU utilization on every configuration we tested. We saw a 31-percent performance increase on the Mac OS X version of the Cinebench test from the two dual-core chips to the two quad-core chips. Although we doubled the number of cores, we didn't see twice the performance. This is for a few reasons: The quad-core chips are actually running at a slower speed (2.66GHz) than the dual-core chips (3.0GHz). Also, the extra cores introduce some additional computational overhead to the overall workload. Additionally, our "octo-core" rig is our own unsanctioned rig, and therefore isn't benefiting from any of Apple's special sauce, such as firmware and driver updates to better optimize the system for the additional cores.

Our multimedia multitasking test performs a QuickTime encode in the foreground while iTunes is simultaneously encoding in the background. On systems with two or fewer cores, this workload typically saturates the total CPU utilization at 100 percent. With four cores, the system hovered around 40-percent CPU utilization, but dropped to about 23-percent when using eight cores. Interestingly, the actual performance gain we saw between four and eight cores was less than 10 percent. To truly see a significant benefit from the additional cores while performing multiple tasks, you will have to perform a massively multitasking scenario--something we unfortunately did not have time to do for this story.

Our iTunes and Quake 4 tests are more representative, however, of what you are likely to see with most mainstream applications in a nonmultitasking scenario. The results for both of these tests (as well as with other apps, not shown here, such as Photoshop CS2) indicate that what influences the speed of these tasks is primarily CPU speed. Four cores running at 3.0GHz consistently outperform eight cores running at 2.66GHz. (Note that iTunes is better optimized for the Mac OS, and Quake 4 is better optimized for Windows XP.)

It will be interesting to see how long it is before Apple migrates the Mac Pro over to the new quad-core Xeon chip and makes an eight-core system publicly available. But unless you do work normally relegated to high-end workstations, perform massively multitasking workloads, or just want the bragging rights, eight cores is definitely overkill...at least for now. As more applications become available that support multithreading across multiple processing cores, the benefits of quad- and octo-cores will be realized.

System configurations:

Intel QX6700: 4 cores @ 2.66GHz, Windows XP
Windows XP Professional SP2; 2.66GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700; 2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz; 256MB ATI Radeon X1900; 74GB Western Digital 10,000rpm SATA/150

Mac Pro: 4 cores @ 3.0GHz, Mac OS X
OS X 10.4.8; 2x 3.0GHz Intel Xeon 5160; 2,048MB DDR2 FB-SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB ATI Radeon X1900; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm SATA/150

Mac Pro: 4 cores @ 3.0GHz, Windows XP
Windows XP Professional SP2; 2x 3.0GHz Intel Xeon 5160; 2.048MB DDR2 FB-SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB ATI Radeon X1900; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm SATA/150

Mac Pro: 8 cores @ 2.66GHz, Mac OS X
OS X 10.4.8; 2x 2.66GHz Intel Xeon 5355; 2,048MB DDR2 FB-SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB ATI Radeon X1900; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm SATA/150

Mac Pro: 8 cores @ 2.66GHz, Windows XP
Windows XP Professional SP2; 2x 2.66GHz Intel Xeon 5355; 2,048MB DDR2 FB-SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB ATI Radeon X1900; 500GB Seagate 7,200rpm SATA/150

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October 13, 2006, 8:29 AM PDT
Escape trendy iPod colors, stay on Bono's good side
Posted by: Lindsey Turrentine

Oh yeah, and do good, too. Today, Apple snuck onto its store (but not without some speculation) a special edition, fire-engine red iPod Nano branded with the "PRODUCT(RED)" logo on the back. Apple donates $10 from each sale to the Global Fund to fight AIDS in Africa as part of the (RED) campaign, which Bono and friends created "to engage the private sector in the fight against AIDS in Africa."

The red Nano seems to be no different from its 4GB pals (in pink, blue, green, and silver) and costs the same. And, dare I say this, it looks a lot hotter than the iPod U2 of yesteryear.

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October 12, 2006, 11:32 AM PDT
iPod beauty school
Posted by: James Kim

iPod accessories magnate DLO has just premiered its Care Kit for iPod, a "three-step scratch and cleaning solution" for the world's most popular player. Packaged like a product you'd find in Sephora, the $30 Care Kit includes a daily cleaner, a fine scratch remover, and a heavy scratch remover. Additionally, you get a few cleaning cloths, including one with microfibers). The kit claims to get most scratches out of worn and torn iPods (but not their metallic backside) and preserve the pure complexions of new iPods-- after all, these are chemicals we're talking about here. This stuff has "iPod infomercial" all over it.

We just got some; we'll test it out and let you know how well it works.

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September 28, 2006, 7:38 AM PDT
Microsoft Zune official pricing ($249.99) and availability (November 14)
Posted by: James Kim

The Zune really is coming soon. After some wild speculation that had the Zune priced anywhere from $99 to $300, the Microsoft Wi-Fi MP3 player's price has officially been set at $249.99. No doubt affected by the iPod's $249 price tag, the Zune will hit stores in the United States on November 14 (a huge week for holiday tech toy announcements).

Other details include an odd Microsoft "point" system where users pay $1 for 80 points--79 points will buy you a song at the Zune music store (points can also be used in the Xbox Live Marketplace). And $14.99 per month will get you a Zune Pass, an all-you-can-eat subscription. Out of the gate, the Zune will have several accessories, including the $100 Zune Home A/V Pack (includes a dock, a remote, cables, a sync cable, and an extra battery), the $80 Car Pack (a car charger and an FM transmitter), and the $100 Zune Travel Pack. Since the Zune will not ship with a wall power adapter (only USB), we recommend getting one of the kits or the adapter ($30) itself. All accessory components will be available individually as well.

Get more details here.

Source: Reuters

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September 27, 2006, 3:10 PM PDT
Apple releases iTunes 7.0.1 update
Posted by: James Kim

Apple has quietly made available an update to iTunes 7. Version 7.0.1 "addresses stability and performance issues with Cover Flow, CD importing, iPod syncing, and more." Hopefully, the "and more" part deals with the many issues that a horde of iTunes 7 users have been complaining about since its initial launch on September 12. Though I haven't personally experienced major issues (see my review here), I have witnessed iTunes 7's bugginess on Jasmine France's PC and have read many testy comments on Apple's crowded forums. We'll update our review if we notice any improvements in performance or stability.

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September 13, 2006, 2:21 PM PDT
Apple's iTV: promise and peril
Posted by: John P. Falcone

It's rare that the notoriously secretive Apple ever gives a sneak peek at a forthcoming product. But that's exactly what the company did at yesterday's press event, giving a guided tour of the "iTV" (the device's developmental codename). Scheduled to be available in the first quarter of 2007 for $299, the iTV is little network media box that will stream all of your iTunes-based media--including music, movies, TV shows, podcasts, and photos--from your PC or Mac to your HDTV and home audio system. The goal is to let you enjoy all of that content on your big-screen TV and home-theater system while you're parked comfortably on the sofa, rather than having to be hunched over your computer--or having to jury-rig A/V cables from your laptop to your TV. Indeed, the iTV is essentially a video-enabled Airport Express.

A veritable army of wonks and pundits have been salivating at the concept of such a "Home iPod" for years; take Steven Johnson's August 22 article at Slate.com: An iPod for TV: how Apple could make it work, for example. But before the Apple faithful pop the champagne corks and declare the company the new king of consumer electronics, let's look at the unanswered questions--and potential shortcomings--of the iTV. Is it really the über-media box that everybody's been waiting for? Here are several issues that give us cause for concern--along with our suggestions on how to address them.

File compatibility and media support: how extensive?
What we know: The iTV will stream anything you buy at the iTunes store--music, movies, and TV shows--as well as most of the other media that you use iTunes to access, including ripped music, photos, and video and audio podcasts.
What we'd like to see: We'd assume that any video you've already imported or transcoded into an iTunes or iPod-friendly format will be able to stream as well. But it'd be nice to drop the transcoding step altogether and just be able to point the iTV to a directory on our computer's hard drive, where we can stream all of our video files already encoded in standard formats--DivX, AVI, WMV, QuickTime, and the like--straight to the TV. Yes, some of these files could indeed be pirated, but that was always an unacknowledged key to the iPod's success: it let you enjoy the fruits of your illicit gains (a hard drive full of ripped MP3s) while giving you a path to the straight and narrow (paid, copy-protected downloads via iTunes). While we've got the wish list out, it'd be great to see support for Rhapsody. There's no way that'll happen, so how about a flat-fee iTunes music service instead? (See Pricing, below.)

Resolution: standard- or high-definition? Aspect ratio: 4:3 standard or 16:9 wide-screen?
What we know: The first movies available from the iTunes store will be at 640x480 resolution. That's identical to standard TV resolution but short of the 720x480 wide-screen EDTV resolution offered by DVDs. But the iTV offers only HDMI and component outputs--no composite or S-Video--which pretty much guarantees that it's going to be connected to HDTVs--and wide-screen HDTVs, at that.
What we'd like to see: Ideally, we'd like to see movies and TV shows at optimal HD quality: 1080p wide-screen with full Dolby Digital surround sound. Of course, that would entail massive file sizes and networking bottlenecks, even using the efficient H.264 video codec; opting for 1080i and 720p wouldn't save too much space, either. A good compromise would be 480p wide-screen: 720x480. Then the movies could be accurately advertised as "DVD quality," and still look relatively sharp on HD screens. But this transition--from 320x240 (the old iTunes video format) to 640x480 (the new iTunes video format) to a possible future high-res or wide-screen version--begs the urgent question of whether it's worth holding off on any video purchases until Apple unveils its ultimate video format. Otherwise, you're stuck in the same upgrade cycle we've all come to hate: buying the same favorite films on VHS, then LaserDisc, then DVD, then HD-DVD/Blu-ray, and so on--albeit with digital files rather than physical media. (See Pricing structure, below.)

Wireless networking protocols: 802.11 what?
What we know: The iTV will support connectivity to home networks via Ethernet and "802.11 wireless" networking. But Apple remained mum on which flavors of Wi-Fi it would support. The standard 802.11b and faster 802.11g are givens--but even at 11g speeds, video files can break up.
What we'd like to see: Rumors of support for 802.11n are already making the rounds. In addition to being backward-compatible with 802.11g routers and access points, the faster 802.11n standard would offer the potential for smoother video streaming, even at HD resolutions, and make the iTV a lot more future-proof.

Storage: PC-based or online?
What we know: Since the iTV doesn't appear to have any built-in storage (such as a hard drive), you'll still need a computer to act as a server for most media. That means you download your media to your PC first, then stream it to your iTV. It also means you'll need to keep that computer up and running when you want to watch anything.
What we'd like to see: Pulling media off a remote PC is the standard operating procedure for network media devices, but most of them are also able to stream some content--such as Internet radio--straight off the Web. Ideally, you'd even be able to make the purchase of a movie straight through iTV and start watching it as soon as the first few minutes buffer up on the networked PC, rather than having to run into the other room, click to download, then run back to the iTV to start watching. But that USB port on the iTV looms large: it could easily be tethered to an iPod (or an external hard drive) for PC-less storage. Even more enticing is the possibility that the iTV could eventually just pull large media files straight off the Web (the iTunes store) without the need for them to be first downloaded to the PC or Mac. Of course, you'd need superfast broadband speeds--true 5Mbps, 10Mbps, and 20Mbps throughput--become more widely available, rather than the pokey real-world 768K DSL and cable speeds that many of us currently have. (To wit: our first iTunes movie took about four hours to download.)

Pricing: à la carte or all you can eat?
What we know: The first slate of iTunes movies are currently priced from $9.99 to $12.99, though that could well change when and if additional studios enter the mix. Also, there's no telling if HD versions--if they're eventually added--would get a price premium. TV shows are generally $1.99 an episode and songs are usually just 99 cents, though some exceptions exist, such as "season passes" for certain shows and sports highlights. As we mentioned in the Resolution and aspect ratio section above, we seem to be going down a potentially problematic path where Apple could keep rolling out higher-resolution content periodically and forcing you to "buy" the same movie or TV show again and again, in order to get the best-looking image on your HDTV.
What we'd like to see: The option for a subscription model would be great. If not "all you can eat" for a flat fee, then the possibility of getting, say, all current episodes of five TV shows of your choice plus five movies a month--and maybe some music?--would be a nice start. Moreover, the ability to future-proof your purchases--getting an automatic upgrade to higher-resolution versions when and if they were released--would be another great option. The dream, of course, would be a "Netflix box"--pick any one of 70,000 movies to watch on demand, for a flat monthly fee. But given the fact that Hollywood makes billions on selling you the same content again and again, that option seems strictly relegated to the world of fantasy.

Studio support: anyone else besides Disney?
What we know: The iTunes Movie Store is launching with just a few dozen films, almost all of which are from Disney and its affiliated studio brands (so there's plenty of adult fare from Touchstone and Miramax, in addition to family-friendly movies). Apple CEO Steve Jobs is on the Disney board--thanks to the mouse's acquisition of Jobs-owned Pixar--so the entertainment giant was a natural fit for a launch partner. But other studios seem to be taking a wait-and-see attitude, afraid of cutting into their DVD revenue. They're also apparently scared of retaliation from Wal-Mart--the retail giant is the country's top seller of DVDs, and there's talk that it may retaliate against companies that put their movies online for fear of cutting into its DVD receipts. (The irony is that Wal-Mart supposedly loses money on DVDs, selling them below cost just to get foot traffic in the store for big ticket items.)
What we'd like to see: Obviously, the more content partners, the better. If Apple can demonstrate that its movie sales are as potentially lucrative as its TV downloads, it's a fair bet that other studios will join the fray.

As we said, the iTV definitely offers some impressive potential, but there are also enough unanswered questions and potential issues to give us pause. That brings us to the next point: iTV competitors and alternatives. There are already plenty of hardware solutions as well as online and cable services that deliver a lot of what the iTV is promising. We'll return soon to examine how they stack up against one another. In the meantime, feel free to add your comments in TalkBack.

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September 12, 2006, 1:49 PM PDT
Apple previews iTV network digital media player
Posted by: John P. Falcone

In the first quarter of 2007, Apple is set to debut a digital media player that can stream movies, music, and photos from networked PCs and Macs. In an unusual move, Apple CEO Steve Jobs provided a detailed preview of the product at his "Showtime" press conference, which also saw the announcement of new iPods, iPod Nanos, and the launch of full-length movie availability on iTunes. Dubbed iTV, the Apple digital media device will retail for $299 when it hits stores next year.

While the "iTV" moniker is just a temporary code name, the product's features were laid out in fairly explicit detail. Like other network digital media boxes, the iTV will stream video, photos, and audio from networked PCs--and perhaps straight off the Internet--so they can be enjoyed on a big-screen living room TV and home audio system. Unlike all of the previous competitors, however, the iTV will start out with several huge advantages: it will offer seamless integration with movies, TV shows, and music purchased from Apple's iTunes Store. Additional media content on the PC--such as digital photos, video and audio podcasts, MP3 audio, and, presumably, downloaded video files--should be able to be streamed as well.

The box itself looks like a thinner version of the Mac Mini--from a distance, it could easily be mistaken for a Netgear or Belkin network router. It interfaces with home networks via built-in Ethernet and 802.11 wireless and has an impressive bevy of audio/video connections: HDMI and component-video outputs, as well as analog stereo and optical digital audio out. The dearth of S-Video and composite outputs imply that the iTV will be aimed squarely at HDTV sets, while the digital audio output will enable full surround sound when connected to an A/V receiver. Finally, a single rear-panel USB jack is present as well, and Jobs was mum as to how it would be employed--but iPod connectivity is definitely a fair bet.

The little white box may be slick, but it's what users will see on the screen that's really important. Based on the previews at Jobs's press conference, the iTV's onscreen display and navigation looks just as polished and intuitive as that of the iPod, albeit optimized for the larger real estate of a big-screen HDTV--and with plenty of animated eye candy thrown in. The onstage demo had Jobs easily jumping in and out of menus and listings for movies, podcasts, music, and photos, just as simply as one would with the iPod--think Front Row, but with a lot more options. What's more, all of the iTV's onscreen navigation is handled with the same ultrasimple six-button remote that ships with current Macs.

As always, it's tough to judge an unreleased product based simply on a demo--especially a demonstration run by Apple's eminently enthusiastic and persuasive head honcho. That said, the iTV is easily one of the most promising developments in the network-media category that we've seen to date. Competing products have been hobbled by a combination of a lousy interface (nonintuitive, hard to navigate, and/or just plain ugly onscreen menus), underwhelming feature set (HD streaming and HDMI output are still comparatively rare), and lack of content. And it's that last point that may very well be Apple's ace in the hole. The company's iTunes store has been the leading online retailer for music and TV shows, and it's a fair bet that movies will be a popular offering as well. When the question, "Is it compatible with all the songs (or TV shows or movies) I've purchased from iTunes?" is asked, every other network media device has to answer "no;" Apple's iTV will be the first to respond with an enthusiastic "yes."

We'll have more information on the Apple iTV as soon as it becomes available, and a full hands-on review once it's released in 2007.

UPDATE: For a more detailed examination of the iTV--including its long list of unanswered questions--check out our follow-up blog, iTV: Promise and peril.

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September 12, 2006, 1:21 PM PDT
Design Steve Jobs's next wardrobe
Posted by: Rafe Needleman

For today's Apple iPod and iTunes announcements, Steve Jobs wore, not his typical black turtleneck, but a button-down brown shirt. But listen, Steve, as long as you're bringing colors back to the Nano line, how about adding a bit more hue to your own wardrobe? Here's a tip: Use GeekCulture.com's Flash-based Steve Jobs Dress-up game. (It's an old link, but it deserves another look.)

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