Iljitsch van Beijnum, an avid fan of Apple products, wrote an opinion piece for Infinite Loop journal on Ars Technica which delved into why the next major OS X release's delay shouldn't be taken so lightly. Just last week, the official word on OS X 10.5, codenamed "Leopard," was to be delayed all the way until October 2007.

 

Despite Apple's consistent drive for a "spring release," Leopard won't make an appearance until fall of 2007. This proves that the speculation of the Mac OS revelation at the 2007 WWDC does signify that it's already in its polishing stages.

But Beijnum's concern isn't about its delay - he is far more concerned about the detrimental effects of the delay could do in relation to what Leopard could offer and what the current marketing strategy that accompanies the product. For the most part, the OS - as he says - comes with a feature set much needed by the Mac user community. iLife and iWork are claimed to be coming in Leopard-only versions.

Apple used to be the secretive product shipper: always being able to keep everything safely tucked in their closet until the big release date. This has always allowed Apple to slap giants like Sony and Microsoft with their new product releases. That character has been struggling to retain itself recently, with information leaks left and right before a product could even be put to production.

Unfortunately, the Mac community isn't such a forgiving crowd. There are those that don't even see a need for Leopard, and could care less about the release delays for 10.5. Tiger, according to them, is a safer bet to stay with instead of having to stave off months from purchasing a new Macbook.

It is possible that Leopard could be a disappointment to many once it releases, due to lack of HD support and hardware resolution independent support. Who, after all, is to say otherwise? Demonstrations are only slated for WWDC attendee eyes and most screenshots have either been debunked or unsatisfactorily rumored to many OS X users. So is the delay of Leopard really much of a big deal? Feel free to discuss.

Apple recently filed a patent on what could be some kind of total home entertainment system that will read music and video from just about every medium from iPods, computers or stand-alone DVD players.

The device may be an enhancement to the already-released Apple TV or may also be an entirely different device in itself. It was also speculated that the device may record media or stream data similar to a Slingbox.

The patent says that this Apple concept is segmented - divided into different modules - and has a central hub coordinating the exchanges. Of course, the user will be able to call the shots in a multitude of ways. Theories that a mouse and keyboard, a remote control or the iPhone can be used to direct everything have surfaced, although no confirmations have been made.

If Apple follows its innovative tradition of allowing third parties to create products that will enhance the system, firms will be likely to get in a rush to capitalize on this market opportunity. Still, everything's still just a patent at this point and a lot of modifications may still be made. We'll keep you posted for new developments. If you want to read more about this new Apple brainchild, follow the read URL.

The poor guy who blew from boredom to stardom within minutes in Digg is now being hounded by Linux and Apple command line weavers for his apparent limited knowledge. In his opinion piece at the Apple Matters blog, he questioned the intuitiveness of Apple's Mac OS X when he committed a fatal mistake of deleting a directory vital to the Unix kernel.

While Matthew Bookspan could be excused for being in a rush to delete his /usr directory, the fact that he did use third party programs (NO-IP, to be specific) to provide above average user access otherwise unavailable, turns tables against him. But even then, we can't see the relation of his mistake to the the Mac OS X intuitiveness question.

Still, it should be apparent to anyone that there are things in your computer that just shouldn't be touched. Well, okay, that's not the entire truth: you can touch those sensitive folders, but only when you do have the technical knowledge or expertise to do so. In short, if you don't know what you're doing, don't do it.

But granted Bookspan learned his lesson, new computer users should also be vigilant on what they're doing, what effects it would lead to and who the action will affect. And because the Mac is slowly squeezing into the corporate world, new Apple users should heed our advice.

Yesterday's news about Best Buy starting to sell Macs again may just be the first in a number of Apple-related changes coming to the Best Buy stores scattered around the U.S.

MacNN reports that the deal, which will see Best Buy increasing the number of their retail locations stocking Macs to about 200 by this fall, may also mean new Apple-centric boutique layouts at Best Buy stores.

Analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray believes that while the increase in Mac stocks at Best Buy retail stores will not affect Piper Jaffray's current outlook for Mac sales, the strengthening relationship between Apple and Best Buy will bring "higher visibility, including boutique-like Apple stores in some locations."

"We believe Apple's store within a store at Best Buy will be much different compared to the current pilot store rollout, which was a table with Apple products on it," said Munster in his research report. "The difference is we expect some (smaller number) of these 200 stores will have walled-off Apple stores, while others will have improved layouts."

"What is clear, you won't wander around Best Buy to shop for Apple," he continued. "A good way to think about Apple & Best Buy is the Coach or Chanel store within a store concept at Nordstrom."

We've seen one too many iPhone analysis articles now. What's with all the hype? It's all needed, though, for the fate of millions of Apple company investors and employees rely on the success of this spotlighted product.

The latest news on the iPhone hype has financial researchers assuring Apple investors that iPhone, iPod and Mac sales would continue pushing the company forward. iPod holds a 24 percent share on the world market for media players, a figure thought to rise by half a percentage point. Mac sales is seen to go up by the upcoming launch of the Mac OS X Leopard.

But all this hype on the iPhone could give rise to a dilemma for the giant electronics company - the iPhone could rival the iPod. It may seem silly knowing as how both products are by the same company, but iPhone could greatly affect iPod sales and thus, the financial health of Apple.

Other factors that would greatly affect Apple money health are negative issues on the iPhone - if they are to come. The analysts warn against negative news, delays, quality or usability issues - these can all easily damage Apple reputation and it's stock.

Truly, we sometimes cannot picture such so-so things as rumor and delays to affect something as tangible as money and stocks. But they are highly correlated. Such is the business of the finance world.

Some people like older systems better than the new ones and sometimes they're right - there's only so much you can do on new systems, you don't always need that much power to get the job done.

A writer, Ted Hodges, is proud to say that he does his writing on an Apple Lisa. Yes, that Apple Lisa, the machine that, while innovative for its graphics user interface, was priced ridiculously high at US $10,000.

Ted proclaims that there are some benefits of the Lisa that you just can't have on a newer computer system. On the Lisa, you don't have to save from time to time. You can turn off the computer anytime you want, even when there are programs running. It does not crash, and whenever there are power break outs, you don't have to worry about your work not being saved.

Of course, the Lisa has its quirks. It's very slow, it doesn't support color, it can't really use any other software except for the 7/7 suite, and it can't go online. But you can only expect so much from a system that came out during the '80s. Back then, the Lisa was a revolutionary thing, a powerful personal computer with a graphical user interface (GUI), targeted towards business consumers.

Some may like working on old systems, some would rather die than use anything else than the latest computer build. But being able to use these machines for real work is really what matters; a thing that Ted Hodges just proved with his beloved Lisa.

Analyst John Dvorak recently expressed his huge skepticism regarding Apple's upcoming iPhone mobile handset, saying Apple cannot hope to compete in a crowded marketplace like the cell phone industry.

In his column on the site Market Watch, he said that the hype on the iPhone is essentially unfounded due to the fact that nobody outside the development team really knows how the machine works and what features it has.

He cited that there's really nothing new with the strategy employed by Apple in this scenario, pointing to heavy advertising and customer loyalty as the tools in use. He said that Apple did just that with the iPod and it enjoyed tremendous success. However, the playing field is very different with the iPhone as power players tread the industry. The mp3 player was little more than a vacuum when the iPod was launched.

He cited Apple's PC sector as the more logical point of comparison than that of the iPod's case. The PC industry where Apple pioneered with the Macintosh, Microsoft has dominated the Cupertino-based company leaving only five percent of the market to Steve Jobs and his boys. Dvorak said the same thing may happen in the mobile phone venture.

Dvorak also suggested that if Apple wants to stay in the game longer, they should come up with a dozen or so variants of the iPhone because after three months, the analyst says, interest will be on the downward spiral.

To read the full commentary issued by Dvorak, follow the Read link.

The internet started getting massively popular more than a decade ago, and with it came a lot of nice nuances that aimed at giving users that whole digital multimedia experience which was all the rage those days. The age of internet entertainment was indeed heralded, but internet TV didn't catch fire as fast as other Media.

Of course there were a lot of reasons why web TV came later than web radio and web games. Technical issues such as slow bandwidth, licensing gridlocks and the lack of available resources were among the factors that slowed down the dawning of an age. Nowadays, however, the world works a bit differently. Almost everyone can afford broadband connections and Youtube found a way around the licensing knot to tear the market wide open.

Admit it or not, YouTube may be the single, most powerful force that changed the way we think about internet TV and videos. By bringing in users who upload videos for other users, it created a viable network wherein just about every imaginable video. Everything from cartoons to porn was there and it was very easy to access.

Apple followed up with its launch of fifth-generation iPods that can play videos as well as acquire them by purchasing them from the online iTunes market set up by Apple. Podcasts were also conceived and now, anyone with enough time and tech savvy can do a broadcast to the web en route to iPods of millions of owners.

And that's not all, with the Apple TV coming up, a seamless bond between the computer, the home entertainment system and the iPod can be forged. Networks are also getting into the act with Al Gore's "Current TV" which features a hodgepodge of professional and amateur content that can be seen on cable channels and its website.

Dan Hett wrote a very informative essay tackling the digital age of entertainment and its implications. He also extrapolates on what the future holds for digital entertainment and who we can expect to play key roles. To read the entire discussion, follow the read URL.

Podcasts are truly catching people's attention. You may listen to books, radio shows, school lessons and others, all with your media player and/or PC. This is why firms are learning to use podcasts for corporate functions such as meetings, staff announcements and maybe speeches of the company bigwigs to be heard by the employees.

The Social Media Forum for Internal Communicators, being held in London, is a forum dedicated in engaging employees through new technology. Researchers say that most firms still hold "improving employee engagement" as a top item in their To Do agenda.

Now, most of us who are part of the labor force may cringe at the thought of the boss being our daily chat pal. That would be like talking about work 24/7 while already living it. But the Media Forum says that some of the new social media communication tools such as blogs, podcasts and videos are catching on because employees can filter them through Really Simple Syndication (RSS).

Podcasts are also deemed to be more popular to employees, because they could listen to downloaded company news at a leisurely pace. With the help of blogs, that are accessible to the staff via intranet, workers may also give feedback as much as they want, and not be inhibited by the public setting of a corporate meeting.

Not only employees but also investors and customers benefit through company podcasts. Well then, it's nice to hear that technology is again being used to advance the society, the way it should be used.

  

Way back last June, we talked about how Miglia would give Mac users a HDTV treat thanks to its nifty contraption called TVMini HD. Now that Apple TV is all geared up for its mid-March release, reports abound that Apple is planning on buying Miglia to add DVR capabilities to Apple TV and iTunes.

Apparently, the makers of the Miglia mini HD had been talking with the Cupertino camp, and from the looks of it, the talks have been friendly (and profitable perhaps?). According to Blackfriar's Carl Howe,

The fact that the Miglia TVMini HD+ is an external USB device allows Apple to integrate the function without having to send the Apple TV back to the FCC for recertification. But why buy the company though? Well, you're going to need some serious software integration on the iTunes end to recognize the Miglia device and use it properly. That's not exactly in Apple's interest if Miglia remains completely independent.

He does have a point with that. But for now, nothing is concrete which means that this topic is very open to speculation. We'll update you for further developments about this tidbit.