Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 14
Macrumors, citing this report on ZDNet's German sister site, says there's a "larger version of the iPhone" coming that will have an Intel Atom chip inside it. The device supposedly boasts a larger display, about 720 by 480 pixels. The confirmation came from an Intel executive names Hannes Schwaderer, who was speaking at, of all things, a BMW event.
Intel of course has been pushing this idea of the mobile Internet devices for some time, back to when Atom was still codenamed Silverthorn. I've been tremendously skeptical of the concept from the beginning because I don't think there's much call such a device in between notebooks and smart phones like the iPhone and Blackberry. But if anyone is going to pull it off, it's going to be Apple.
Plus, such a device would dovetail nicely with another bit of intelligence, this one an Apple job-posting seeking developers to work on Advanced Multitouch Displays. All in all, very interesting.
Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 14
Our correspondent in Boston Aaron Pressman got a tour of the new Apple store in Boston today and sent a few pictures. It's clearly a big space on three floors comparable I would say to the newest Manhattan store in the Meatpacking district.
Apple retail head Rod Johnson was on the scene. He said this store is the biggest Apple store yet. "We've yet to build a store too big," he says. The Genius Bar alone will be able to serve 1,000 people per day.
The idea in the layout is to separate new customers from from existing ones. The first floor is for selling Macs, and then existing customers upstairs for classes and Genius Bar appointments, buying accessories and so on.
More pics after the jump.
Continue reading "Pics from the New Boston Store"
Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 14
After about a month on the market, the results from researcher NPD are in. Among the companies selling consumer-grade Networked Attached Storage Devices, Time Capsule is proving to be far and away the market leader, besting companies like Netgear, Linksys, D-Link, and Buffalo Technologies. Steve Baker of market research firm NPD called it the "dominant product in its category," though exactly how dominant he wouldn't quantify. He said so far the market is rather small, amounting to about 5% of the size of the market for traditional external hard drives.
But there's another interesting fact: Time Capsule -- which combines both a wireless router and a NAS backup system -- is succeeding without eating into the success of Airport Extreme, which among 802.11n wireless routers has generally been at or near the top of NPD's list consistently for about six months.
Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 13
The New York Times says it will, by the end of the month offer a Mac-friendly version of its Time Reader software that has previously been available only on Windows. From where I sit it's about time. I generally like NYTimes.com and have just recently come to enjoy the Times File feature that allows you to save articles or reference later.
The service is based on Microsoft's Silverlight technology, which was also used on the PC version. And technically, it will be a beta-test version when released, and won't be completely as feature complete as the Windows version. But hey, it's progress. Subscribers to the dead-tree edition will get to install and use it for free.
Posted by: Arik Hesseldahl on May 13
While Apple is clearly slowly eating into Microsoft’s dominance of the corporate desktop Microsoft isn’t smarting too much for many reasons. One reason is that Microsoft is the biggest developer of Mac software outside of Apple itself, and as it happens, Microsoft’s Mac business is booming. Word came today from Redmond’s Mac Business Unit today is that Office for Mac is selling faster than any previous version of Office for the Mac in the in the last 19 years. Of course Microsoft won’t say exactly how many units it has sold. As a percentage of revenue it's not large enough that Microsoft would be required to break it out of its usual results, though I for one certainly wish it would. Also noted is that today is the day that Office for Mac’s first service pack, SP1, is being released.
Meanwhile, colleague Aaron Ricadela has a terrific story today on how many large corporations are skipping Windows Vista entirely. His lead example is General Motors whose top technology executive, Fred Killeen, says the company is considering waiting for Windows 7. Hey Fred? Ever tried a Mac?
