Monday, June 19, 2006
News
Foxconn Sternly Denies iPod Sweatshop Claims
Edmund Ding, spokesman for Foxconn — a chief maker of iPods — said there were huge discrepancies between the truth and the claims in the report, which he said seems like a vicious attack on the company.
Schools Pulling The Plug On Macs
Balto. County to use only PCs; some say move will hurt design students.
50 Cent Negotiating With Aple For Branded Line Of Home Computers
Rap star 50 Cent is entering the world of technology and is currently in negotiations with Apple's CEO Steve Jobs to produce a line of affordable home computers to inner-city residents.
In An iPod World, Does Quality Matter Less?
In a data-compressed era where instant gratification seems to trump fidelity at every turn, does quality still matter?
Two Point Conversions: Mac Shareware Numbers
Friend Or Foe?
Film exex want to tap into Jobs' savvy but worry about his growing clout.
Opinion
Let iTunes Be iTunes
If the copyright holders decide that they want songs to be moved freely between different brands of players, then so be it. Otherwise the protesters should focus on the sweatshop and leave the Apple music system alone.
Review
Sidetrack
Why is Apple holding back the source code of the Mac OS X's kernel? This source code has always been open for all to see and use, until the shift to Intel.
John Siracusa has two theroies: either there are major changes to the kernel in Leopard, so Apple doesn't bother with publishing the source code to Tiger's kernel, or there is a major change in the Macintosh platform strategy this coming WWDC.
I think the reason is a bit simpler: Apple might well be imitating Sun's StarOffice/OpenOffice.org strategy, which is only open-source the previous release, while close-sourcing the latest version as a competitive advantage.
Going this route will force Apple to, more or less, put in new development in the kernel for every major release of Mac OS X. Which may also be why Apple has moved from a 12-month to a 18-month cycle, while maintaining a 12-month cycle for the applications that sits on top of the operating system (i.e., iLife and iWork.)
But, nevertheless, be prepared come August.
