The Mac Professional's Resource
Those of you that have followed Mac rumors since before blogs ruled the Internet universe are probably familiar with ThinkSecret. Started by Nick Ciarelli, ThinkSecret quickly became one of the most trusted sites on the Internet for timely and accurate news about Apple and their upcoming plans. ThinkSecret became so good at what they do that they became tangled in an Apple lawsuit over the release of some of that insider information and the site’s intent on keeping its sources a secret when Apple and the MIMH lawyers came to investigate.
A settlement has been reached in the dispute, and as a result, ThinkSecret will no longer be published, but their sources remain safe. We wish Nick and the rest of the ThinkSecret crew the best of luck as they pursue other endeavors.
— Joe Fahs
Recently, many users of Intuit’s Quickbooks software for Mac were bitten by a software bug that resulted in the complete loss of data in some users’ desktop folders. There have been varying reports on the severity of the bug, but it is another in a long line of security and functional concerns in various Intuit products for the Mac. This wouldn’t really bother us that much, but Bill Campbell, Chairman and former CEO of Intuit, still sits on Apple’s Board of Directors.
Yesterday, Intuit announced they would be releasing an iPhone friendly version of Quicken to the masses as part of its Quicken Online product. Quicken Online will be web-only, so there should be an almost zero chance that they can do damage to your iPhone, but the good folks at Intuit tend to surprise us with their feats of ignorance, so won’t be taking any bets, even with those odds.
— Joe Fahs
Popular Mechanics 10 Worst Gadgets of the year special featured what some my say is a surprising entry when they highlighted Apple TV right along side Microsoft’s Zune. Many people were quick to point out that Apple and iTunes are still leading the video download market. We agree that there are things that Apple TV can do better, and shouldn’t be called a bad product simply because the market is still emerging. That opinion is backed by some new analysis from ABI Research which states many devices have struggled but the “increased availability of content should help the market grow”. From that standpoint, Apple is in a good position.
While Apple TV is a market leader, we still believe they can improve upon things. At this point, the storage is a joke. 200GB would be a good start for the base model and 500GB for the top of the line. Some may say this is overkill because movies can also be streamed from a Mac, but storage is cheap. Another big improvement would be more content not linked directly to iTunes. YouTube is a good start, but Apple should use some of their billions in cash to make a deal with the networks to stream their shows or to get the NetFlix Watch Instantly function to work, or to, well, Steve has that vision thing, so I am sure he can come up with something.
— Joe Fahs
Last week, with little fanfare, Apple released GarageBand 4.1.1. Along with the usual promises of stability improvements, the update now allows users to create their own custom ringtones. Any song in GarageBand can be the source, so anything GarageBand will play can now be used on your iPhone, including songs from your iTunes library. Users on the Internet were surprised to learn Apple has allowed you to create ringtones from songs they have purchased from the iTunes Music Store. With this feature available, anybody who shells out for iLife doesn’t need to pay Apple an extra dollar to convert a song from their Library into a ringtone.
One can only imagine how long it will take for the RIAA to complain, but many phone manufacturers have allowed custom .mp3 and .wav ringtones for years, so we’re happy to see the iPhone finally catch up in that regard. Who knows, maybe MMS messages will be next.
— Joe Fahs