As Apple's MacWorld Expo draws near, more reports have been made regarding mysterious versions of MacBooks sporting a new "metallic-grey color" and were described to be distinctively  "thinner" than the laptop's usual models.

Is this our first glimpse into Apple's introduction for the MacWorld Expo next year? More details at the full article.

One of the selling points of Apple's new Leopard is that it can work on older machines, and that Mac fans who are holding on to their legacy Power Macs can have a reason to rejoice once the Leopard OS gets released into the market. However, can Leopard really live up to its promise and run on an 8-year-old Power Mac G4 with AGP Graphics? Engadget tried to install the newest iteration of the OS X, and here's the verdict.

To cut the long story short, Leopard DOES work on an 8-year-old Power Mac, using only 5.9GB of space upon installation (that's without all the extraneous stuff such as drivers, etc). The question now is, what are the Leopard applications that work on an old machine, and what doesn't?

The new File Stacks and fans user interface worked, as well as Coverflow, Youtube, Quick Look, and Spaces and Expose. However, the machine choked on equally-important stuff such as DVD Player and Front Row.

All in all, it was a decent performance on a fairly old machine, and gives people reason not to throw out their legacy machines... at least, not yet.

 

The cat's out of the bag, folks. Apple has just sent out a press wire announcing that their much-awaited Mac OS X version 10.5 Leopard is now being readied for sale this Friday, October 26, at an expected retail price of US$ 129. Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 is further expected to host a total of 300 new features - we've listed some of the more interesting ones below:

• Stacks: A new way to easily access files from the Dock
• Redesigned Finder: Lets users quickly browse and share files between multiple Macs
• Quick Look: A new way to instantly see files without opening an application
• Spaces: A new feature used to create groups of applications and instantly switch between them
• Time Machine: An effortless way to automatically back up everything on a Mac.
• Improved Parental Controls
• The complete Boot Camp release: Previously available only as a beta, making it possible to run Windows natively on Intel-based Macs
• Web Clip: Bringing anything that a user wants from a web page to Dashboard as a live widget
• New Photo Booth features: helping users create animated iChat buddy icons or fun effects and backdrops with still or video images
• An enhanced Dictionary with Wikipedia built in: Allows users to access up-to-date information
• A newly updated iCal with multi-user calendaring based on the new CalDAV standard
• An updated version of Front Row, making it even easier to play music or watch movies, TV shows and photos on a Mac using the ultra-simple Apple Remote.
  

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 will require at least 51 2MB of RAM, and is designed to run on any Mac computer with an Intel, PowerPC G5, or G4 (867 Mhz or faster) processor. Set your calendars, and double-check with your resident Apple stores.

FastMac, a company specializing in upgrades for Apple products, announced that it plans on releasing the first 2X Blu-Ray burners for the Powerbook, iBook and MacBook Pro, iMac, and MacMini computers.

The new optical drives can read, write, and re-write to single and dual layer Blu-ray media up to 2x speed. The new component can also read and burn DVDs at 8x speed in single layer and 2.4x speed in dual/double layer modes.

In addition, it can rewrite both DVD-R and DVD+R at 4x speed. If for some reason you need to burn a CD or CD-RW, the new drive can also burn at 8x. Here's a short list of the different systems it is compatible with:

• iBook G4
• iMac G5
• iMac Intel
• MacBook Pro (17-inch)
• Mac mini
• PowerBook G3 Pismo
• PowerBook G4 Titanium (667 Mhz or higher)
• PowerBook G4 Aluminum

If you plan on picking up the FastMac Blu-Ray Drive, it is going for US$ 999.95. It comes with a one year warranty and a 30 day money back guarantee. If you want to know more, click on our Read link below.

The Danish government through the Consumer Complaint Board is applying pressure to Apple to have the California-based company cough up some compensation for owners of the iBook G4 who experienced trouble because of design flaws in the laptop.

Frederik Navne, lawyer for the CCB, describes the model's flaw as "it is a bit like a person dying a little bit every time he breathes because the cells break down." Thousands of customer testimonies claim that their iBook abruptly powered down after an average of a year's use, then never booted back up.

The CCB points to the problem as that of a defective logic chip's breakdown. According to independent electronics examiner Delta, the chip has flawed solders that deteriorate with activity. Once the solders wear out, power is unable to pass and what's left of the computer is a blank screen of death with a noisy fan.

Denmark now demands that the company admit that the product is defective in and out of the country and apply measures to correct it in the soonest possible time.

The guys behind the Mac OS X application, Tubular, has announced that they have released Beta 3. Tubular? What in blazes is that? For the uninitiated, this little fella is basically a Mac OS X client application for the streaming, downloading, and converting of YouTube videos for your computer and iPod. Now isn't that nifty?!

More than a month ago, the Tubular team said that they would be releasing it by the end of 2006 if everything works according to plan. Well, for now, us frequent YouTube strollers would have to wait. So as we'll be really prepared when it comes out, Tubular requires Max OS X 10.4 or higher, 800 MHz G4 processor, and a high speed Internet connection (300 kbps or faster).

So back to Tubular Beta 3. To those lucky people who are testing it, all you have to do is start up Tubular and check for updates. Beta 3 fixes a couple of issues:

• Tubular does not save custom window size - FIXED
• Watching a video will cause the sidebar on the left to stop working - FIXED

Aside from the heads up about Beta 3, we'll also hook you up with a video demo of some of the app's features.

Remember a few days ago, we had an article about the bug that allows malicious users to control a fully patched OS? Some people may take pride in this, but Apple Corporation certainly doesn't think it's worth glorifying. Especially with MacWorld Expo just around the corner...

In this light, Apple recently released a new batch of security updates for Mac OS X. There are 31 updates, all of which seem impenetrable. Then again, those malicious hackers may see this as just another update. They may even be thinking that it would be easy to circumvent these.

At any rate, the abovementioned bug was the first target of the new security updates. Dubbed as the Apple Type Services (ATS), the security patch zaps the bug by performing what Apple calsl "additional validation". There's also AirPort, an update concerning eMac, iBook, iMac, PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4, and Power Mac G4 systems. Accordingly, this aims to stop attackers in close proximity from sending maliciously-crafted information elements.

The rest of the updates, their descriptions and objectives can be viewed via the Read link below.

Mobility is what the Apple Remote offers for those who live day-in and day-out with their Macs. The remote lets you do things even if you're 10 ft away from your Mac. But, like any gadget, it can only do so much -- unless some really cool software comes along and liberates you from its limitations. Now, imagine your Apple Remote integrated with any Mac - yep, any Mac - and with just IR receivers on USB G3, G4, G5 & the new Mac Pro. Also, imagine that you can import and export application profiles which you can share online. It's now possible with mira.

Basically, mira allows you to personalize the control of your Apple Remote. It's like "easy" made "easier". It comes bundled with over 40 profiles for popular programs which you can easily change according to your own settings. Where you used to only open Front Row, with mira you'll have a giant menu that you can view across the room. The software application allows us to control any program even without knowing how to create scripts.

mira comes with a host of other features which you can check at Twisted Melon, but meanwhile you can check out some of the application's screenshots here.

 

The glass-made Apple Store located on 5th Avenue in Manhattan has been aptly dubbed as "The Cube" because of its structure. The pet name might have stucked very well to the mind of Apple higher ups and brought back memories.

Why? Because there are talks and speculations that Apple Cube is being resurrected. Not that site in Manhattan, take note but the real Apple Cube Power Mac G4. Based from these purported patent images, the new design addressed several issues its predecessor faced. It will have two removable sides for the easy access and upgrade of components such as hard drive, memory and PC cards.

The overheating problem was also not forgotten, ergo, the innovative heat sink mechanism. Here, you can opt to insert a separate cooling fan but you can also work without it in some cases.

Apple Cube was originally released in July 2000 and sold only around 150, 000 units.

 

Both Dell and Apple had issued a recall for their defective batteries as a response to the never-ending saga of the exploding batteries these past month.

For Dell, a recall of notebook batteries for models which includes Latitude D410, D600, D610 and D620. Under rare conditions, these batteries could possibly overheat, and are being replaced by Dell. As for Apple, they confirmed that a number of lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating under rare circumstances. The affected batteries were sold worldwide from October 2003 through August 2006 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4, and 15-inch PowerBook G4.

However, the next issue would be how long before these battery replacements arrive? One customer with a Dell D810 and an Apple Mac Book Pro commented that Apple was able to deliver the battery replacement less than 3 days after the request was filed (considering the request day was a Sunday). Not too bad. But he can't say the same thing with Dell. The guy is still waiting for the replacement. It's been 16 days or so since he filed for a request.

We wonder how long it took before other affected laptop owners receive their replacement batteries - or are they still playing the waiting game?