It’s a rather news-filled episode this week with the recent Crunchpad weirdness taking over the first part of the show. Michael Arrington released information on the now halted project that places the blame squarely on their partner in the project. After some initial skepticism, Leo and crew come around to believing Arrington’s claims. Alex is well versed on the topic of tablets as he also began the process of producing one before finding it next to impossible to make at an affordable price.
Psystar has lost the initial round of litigation...
Apple released a slew of new products yesterday including a unibody iterations on the iMac and white MacBook, an up-speced Mac Mini and a new multi-touch enabled mouse, dubbed the Magic Mouse. This many big products aren’t usually launched without a keynote event, so these releases caught many off-guard.
The new iMac now come in 21.5″ and 27″ models. While 27″ sounds huge, Apple has moved to a 9×16 aspect ratio for their displays, so they are not really that much bigger, just wider. The line also received processor and...
Andy and Alex have both gotten their hands on the new camera-equipped iPod nano and the impressions are fairly positive. While the image quality takes a serious hit when moving quickly, walking and in low-light situations, the video looks great in optimal conditions. Overall, it seems to be a great addition to the device.
The camera-less iPod Touch receives a lot of attention with the group again reiterating that a camera equipped version will probably show up in the next few months. The technical differences between the 8Gb and higher-end...
Apple’s annual iPod music event happened today and in light of that fact, Leo and crew postponed the regular Tuesday recording of Macbreak Weekly to today and recorded it as the announcements were being made. This is an interesting take on event coverage and is much more interesting than reading live blogs. Of course, catching the recorded version isn’t nearly as exciting, so make sure to try and catch it live next time at live.twit.tv.
The special guest sitting in with Leo and Alex for the event is the author of the amazingly in-depth...
Okay Mac fanboys, buckle-up because Leo is crashing this thing. He is not too happy about the recently released Snow Leopard and he is not shy about letting everyone know that it doesn’t feel like a significant upgrade and it should have been rolled out as service packs. In fact, not only was it not a meaningful update to him, it broke many things in his daily work-flow. Alex and Andy are in defense mode though, so not everyone is unhappy about Apple’s latest OS release.
After getting the Snow Leopard discussion out of the way...
With Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard a mere 3 days away, it is a big topic this week. While Leo doesn’t want to spend too much time on it since next week’s episode will probably be nothing but impressions, Andy does speculate on the motivation for Apple to reduce the disk space imprint of the new OS. He surmises that it may have something to with Apple wanting to accommodate for SSDs, possibly for the forthcoming tablet. Also, don’t miss the Snow Leopard application compatibility Wiki.
Apple has released 2 new “Get a Mac”...
Merlin Mann is back after his 1 1/2 year absence as a regular on MacBreak Weekly, and it makes you realize how much of an asset he was to the show. If you aren’t aware of some of his personal projects, you will be doing yourself a favor to check out his productivity blog 43folders.com and podcast You Look Nice Today.
iPhone satisfaction is at an all-time high with a staggering 99% customer satisfaction rating. This is in stark comparison to other smartphones and notably the Palm Pre which has an 87% rating. These figures don’t...
The Google Voice app story continues to be a big issue in the tech world. The FCC is now involved and the latest development is the departure of long-time Apple board member, Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt. The speculation is that this is related to the FCC investigation, but Apple insists that this is just due to the converging markets of the two companies.
The Apple tablet seems almost certain at this point. Everyone agrees, it is coming before March, and many expect a September announcement with an October release. The rumored $699 –...
The tablet rumors are going strong again and the latest is that it could release as soon as September. The rumors are coming from a lot of sources, but the strongest is coming out of AppleInsider.
There is a lot of speculation about many aspects of the tablet with Leo surmising that it may come out with Verizon wireless service as has been rumored. The real meat of the discussion centers around the operating system of the machine. All 3 of the guys come to mutual conclusion that it will probably be a built-up iPhone rather than a stripped-down...
The tablet rumor is running rampant again and the guys are always happy to speculate on new products. Leo wants something with a keyboard and that is a common request from many wanting a small computing device.
After returning from China, Leo learned that AT&T had measured he usage to be 250Mb while overseas. The curious thing is that his iPhone reported only 100Mb of usage over that time. There is something strange going on with this type of discrepancy and with the usage amounting to over $800 worth of extra charges, this is not a small...
WWDC has come and gone, and as expected we got a new iPhone. The new iPhone 3GS is a deceptive update in that it looks almost identical to the 3G, but the internals are all new including a faster processor, a new 3 megapixel camera, built-in digital compass and many other new features.
There was a lot of news about Snow Leopard, the most significant of which is that when it releases in September it will retail for $29. With all the refinements and new technologies being incorporated this is an absolute steal.
The MacBook Pro line has seen updates...
Scott has received some juicy information about a potential future iPhone from an informant from within Verizon. There aren’t too many details, but obviously the information includes that it will be on Verizon and that it will be announced in June. The guys do speculate that this could be a power play by Apple to get better terms with AT&T.
iLounge has claims that Apple is planning an update to the iPod nano that would transition it to having a true widescreen display and a camera. Apple adding a camera to all their devices could...
With WWDC just 3 weeks away at this point the rumor mill is really starting to spin up. One of the bigger ones related to the iPhone is that it will feature a built-in digital compass. This will improve the iPhone’s turn-by-turn navigation by a great margin. There are also rumors of a better 3.2 Megapixel camera that will be capable of variable focus.
A new Zune commercial has come out that is another in a line that is a direct attack at Apple. They insinuate that it would take $30,000 to fill an iPod and a monthly Zune pass only costs...
This is a somewhat unusual episode. With many of the show regulars taking a pass this week due to it being Mother’s Day the only familiar voice is Alex Lindsay. Also on the show this week is Brian Daniel Eisenberg, Louis Gray, and Carlos Xavier. Another thing that makes this episode different is Leo takes audio input from the audience using TalkShoe. There must be something about TWiT or Leo that attracts inteligent, well spoken people because there is no insanity like there would be on other podcasts were this given a try.
The topics...
Quickly up-front Leo mentions the rumors that Apple is looking to aquire some other big companies. He mentions Twitter, but EA has also been rumored to be in Apple’s sights. Apple is very cash heavy and recessions are a great time for acquisitions, but Twitter just doesn’t make sense. With Apple making some serious waves in the gaming scene with the iPhone and iPod Touch the idea of them acquiring EA is interesting.
The first real topic to be covered this week is the rumor that Amazon will be introducing a new, larger screen Kindle...
