Exciting news from Plex, the media center for Mac OS X that won my heart a long time ago. The devs have announced that they’ve integrated Apple’s new video decode acceleration framework into the latest build. In English, that means all h.264-encoded video—and there’s a lot of it out there—can be sent to your GPU for decoding, giving your CPU a bit more breathing room. It should make for significantly better 1080p video performance. → Read More
Still using BitTorrent? Using a Mac? Want to try out a leaked beta of Microsoft Office 2011? Clearly you see where I’m going with this. → Read More
Steam for Mac is 100 percent official. Valve just released a statement saying it plans to launch it this April. The first games available will be Left 4 Dead 2, Team Fortress 2, Half-Life (and expansions), Counter Strike, and Portal. Portal 2 will be the first game released for Mac and PC simultaneously. Pretty big news, yes. → Read More
One of the most frustrating things about using a projector is setting up all the cords. You have to connect the video, probably the audio (at least in a business setting) and get the whole thing up and running. If you have a Mac, life gets even more complicated due to the lack of an HDMI or DVI port, which is the industry standard for projectors. InFocus is fixing all that with their new DisplayLink wireless technology. → Read More
Apple has just announced its Q1 2010 earnings, and as expected, they’re very good. I’ll get to the numbers in a second, but perhaps more notable are two Steve Jobs quotes in the release:
“If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it’s surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company.”
and
“The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we’re really excited about.”
I think we all know what that means. → Read More
Unless you’ve been living offline for the past year, you’ve undoubtedly heard and/or seen “I’m On A Boat,” Lonely Island’s mock hip hop song/video. Today brings a response to it in the form of a group of Apple fanbois rapping about their love of using Apple products. They even have one character autotuned up, just like T-Pain in the “I’m On A Boat” version. No word on if they used the I Am T-Pain iPhone app to get the effect, but a major plus if so.
It’s pretty standard stuff: Love Macs, love iPods, love iPhones — hate PCs, hate Zunes, hate drivers and viruses, etc. Fairly well made, this isn’t nearly as bad as the Bing Jingle, but it’s still a little cringe-inducing. Sample line: “I’m pluggin girls, you at work pluggin in devices.” → Read More
It’s an Apple pie. Get it? [Geek Crafts via technabob] → Read More
Yesterday, there were a number of stories suggesting that a beta version of Chrome for Mac was due in early December. These stemmed from CNET’s Stephen Shankland digging around a Chrome Extension Google Group page where Nick Baum, a Chrome Product Manager, made what seemed to be a very clear comment. “The earlier you switch, the more time you will have to polish your experience for our Beta launch in early December,” Baum wrote two days ago. But as we all know, sometimes team members talk out of place, and in doing so, set expectations too high. So is a beta version of Chrome for Mac really due in early December?
We asked Google about it and here’s what they had to say, “As I’m sure you know, we generally don’t comment about timelines for releasing specific features or products. But we’ve been quoted a few times saying Chrome for mac should be out by the end of the year.” I was then pointed to an Reuters article from September that quoted Google’s Product Management Vice President, Sundar Pichai, as saying that Chrome for Mac would be released by year’s end. → Read More
Remember those Microsoft ads from a little over a year ago, the ones with Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates trying on shoes? Of course you do; it’s all the Internet talked about for days. I present to you this shocking photo: Seinfeld using a Mac! → Read More
It’s been some time since I’ve written about Plex, the Mac-specific fork of XBMC that, well, is fantastic. It seems Snow Leopard somewhat borked the application, but the latest release is all fixed up. Have a peach. → Read More
You can almost hear Steve Jobs flipping out right now. Psystar, notable for its efforts to sell generic PCs with Mac OS X pre-loaded, has just released something called Rebel EFI. It’s software that allows you to instal Mac OS X on generic PCs without having to Hackintosh said PC. (Hackintoshing isn’t for the weak of heart!)
Update: Psystar’s site is down but here are the installation instructions if you managed to grab the trial version in time. Anyone manage to get it to work yet? → Read More
The Q4 numbers are in for Apple and they’re good. Quite good. Really good.
The company posted revenue of $9.87 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.67 billion, or $1.82 per diluted share. Apple’s own earnings projections for Q4 were $1.23 a share, but they always put them laughably low. Analysts’ projections expected them to be around $1.42 a share, but some were looking for numbers as high as $1.60 a share. Apple beat all of those, easily.
Apple sold 3.05 million Macs in the quarter, up 17 percent from a year ago. They also sold 7.4 million iPhones in the quarter, a 7 percent growth from a year ago. Both of those are record sales numbers, CEO Steve Jobs notes. → Read More
You probably know by now that at least some of us here at pretty high on the Zune HD—look at the lengths I went to get it up and running!—but I recognize that not every Mac owner is going to jump through hoops just to be able to use the device. But maybe, just maybe, Microsoft is finally ready to do what so many people have asked it to do: make a Mac version of the Zune software, thereby enabling all the Mac owners out there to use the portable media player a little more easily. → Read More
As we noted yesterday, version 3 of Google’s Chrome web browser is now available for PC users. But in an interview yesterday with Reuters, Google revealed a couple of interesting tidbits about the project.
The first is that while Chrome currently has just under 3 percent of the browser market currently, a year from now, they’re planning to have at least 5 percent. More importantly, 2 years from now, if Chrome doesn’t have at least 10 percent share, Google will be “exceptionally disappointed,” Chrome Engineering Director Linus Upson told Reuters. And Google’s own internal projections for the browser are even higher, apparently. → Read More
It’s finally happened. After months, nay years of waiting, the Blackberry desktop manager is finally coming out for OS X. It’s currently in beta, but it says version 1.0.0, so it is coming — although the current version appears to have leaked. → Read More
Are you ready for Windows 7? Remember, you need go out and get a really nice computer with a nice monitor and lots of hard drive space – basically you’re going to have to get a Mac. Don’t worry, though. It’s easy to switch.
Parallels is essentially a virtual machine that can run almost any version of Windows. The $100 software and hardware solution lets you drag everything from your old Windows PC to your Mac and then run almost all your apps natively under OS X. Viola! → Read More
I was talking just yesterday about RuneQuake, my favorite mod for the original Quake game. That led me on a trip down memory lane, complete with reminiscences about RocketArena, epic capture the flag battles, and how much fun first person shooters used to be. I IM’ed a buddy asking if he’d like to join me for a game of nQuake, to which he pointed me to QuakeLive. I pouted a little at how insensitive he was: QuakeLive doesn’t work on Linux, so I didn’t bother clicking over there. Oh if only I had! On Tuesday an update was released that brings QuakeLive to Linux and Mac! → Read More
I’ve had a half dozen or so longer posts about Apple brewing in my head the past couple of weeks. There is no shortage of controversy surrounding the company right now thanks largely to the hugely popular and hugely unpopular aspects of the iPhone. But Jason Calacanis’ post yesterday entitled “The Case Against Apple-in Five Parts” serves as a great springboard for bringing up a lot of it.
The Backstory
While my story with computers doesn’t go back quite as far as Calacanis’, our stories are pretty similar. He said that 6 years ago he made the switch to Apple products after a 20-year affair with Microsoft. I made the same switch 5 years ago after a roughly 15-year affair with Microsoft.
Regular readers may have heard this already, so forgive me if I’m repeating myself, but in the 1990s I loved Microsoft products and hated Apple stuff. I grew up on DOS, installed Windows For Workgroups because I thought it was cooler than regular Windows 3.1, bought Windows Bob, made my dad take me to the midnight launch of Windows 95, bought Windows 98 the day it came out, actually bought and used Windows ME, and bought Windows XP the day it came out. I could fill that timeline in with many other pro-Microsoft details, but let’s just say I was hooked. → Read More
Years ago, I read an article in 2600 describing a system that would track down your stolen laptop. Presumably it was all open source software, I can’t remember. GadgetTrak, which is a company that can track down your stolen gadgets, including Mac/PC, iPhone, BlackBerry, and WinMo phone, has a fun success story that’ll kill a few minutes. → Read More
Launching in September for the Wii, DS, PC and Mac is a childhood favorite of mine, Waldo. Yes, the striped sweater wearing dope is making his triumphant return to the world in the form of a videogame. The question is: where the hell has he been for the last 21 years? I’d like to buy him a beer. → Read More
