Buy a Psystar, And You're On Your Own

Something really crazy almost happened today. I was within two clicks of buying a Psystar Open Comptuer with Mac OS X installed. We've had fun with their name, and we've questioned their legal footing, but when I saw comparable MacPro specs on a $1500 configuration, it was almost enough to "add  to cart." My mind was imagining editing our videos here in half the time, without a care in the world. And after all, no matter what happened with Apple and Psystar, I would be safe. I mean, what are they going to do, take the computer back?

And then I got to the last portion of the FAQ's page: Psystar is not responsible for any legal repercussions brought upon you due to your use or involvement with the Open Computer and/or OpenPro.

Saying something, and having it be the law are two different things, but it's just the kind of clause that really takes away the warm fuzzies of getting a "Mac" at half the price. I'll pass.

Could Psystar Pull This Out?

We've kept a close eye on the Psystar vs. Apple proceedings over the last six months. However, a fairly large development slipped under the radar: The judge has ruled that Psystar can argue Apple abused copyright laws. Sure, there's a big gap between ruling they can bring up copyright abuse, and having them actually prove it, but it's quite a win nonetheless. 

It's hard to imagine that this little company that seems to have curiously deep pockets for this case, could fundamentally change how people use/buy OS X if they are successful. For better or worse, OS X could be found on every flavor of PC under the sun, if Psystar wins.

What do you think? Do they have a chance? Does the argument even make sense?

TDL Live This Week: 12/8-12/15

In case you missed it live, here's a look at our weekly roundup of Apple news, presented, as always, in a serious fashion:

Apple deletes Mac antivirus suggestion

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10111958-83.html?tag=mncol;txt

Apple removed an old item from its support site late Tuesday that urged Mac customers to use multiple antivirus utilities and now says the Mac is safe "out of the box."
"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," Apple spokesperson Bill Evans said.
"The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box," he said. "However, since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, running antivirus software may offer additional protection."
Apple's previous security message in its KnowledgeBase, which serves as a tutorial for Mac users, was: "Apple encourages the widespread use of multiple antivirus utilities so that virus programmers have more than one application to circumvent, thus making the whole virus writing process more difficult."
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Confirmed: iPhone Coming to Walmart By the End of December, Regularly Priced
http://gizmodo.com/5103986/confirmed-iphone-coming-to-walmart-by-the-end-of-december-regularly-priced
Store representatives at multiple locations confirmed to the publication that employees are training to sell the handset, which will hit shelves by the end of the month. This will make Walmart the second non-mothership retail chain to sell the iPhone, and by far the largest. But what about all the $99 4GB model nonsense? It hasn't been confirmed, and still doesn't sound that likely.

Some analysts still say that the $99 iPhone will probably happen eventually, but others are specific enough to claim that a Bentonville, Arkansas location will sell the discontinued 4GB model in addition to the 8GB and 16GB versions, which have been confirmed at their normal $199 and $299 prices.

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Google Earth Browser Plugin for Mac OS X

http://db.tidbits.com/article/9918?rss

Mac users now have access to the Google Earth Browser Plugin. Some Mac users have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the plug-in since it was introduced for Windows in May 2008 and for the iPhone in October 2008. The plug-in is compatible with both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs, and works in both Safari 3.1 and later and Firefox 3.0 and later.

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Microsoft to release 'Softwear' retro clothing line

http://www.macworld.com/article/137391/2008/12/microsoft_softwear.html?lsrc=rss_main

Microsoft says it’s a “clothing line that taps the nostalgia of when PCs were just starting to change our lives,” and that it aims to “showcase the DOS days of the software company that now connects over a billion people.”

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Argentina-based OpeniMac now selling Mac clones

http://www.macworld.com/article/137388/2008/12/openimac.html?lsrc=rss_weblogs_macuser

Mmeet Argentina-based OpeniMacwho, besides clearly angling for a trademark lawsuit, is also going ahead and selling Mac OS X-based computers at prices that undercut Apple's own offerings.
Well, in Argentina, anyway, as the country doesn't have its own Apple Store, online or brick-and-mortar. But if you live in the U.S., the prices aren't really cheaper than buying a comparable Mac.
The company bills its product line with the tag “Benefits of a Mac. Price of a PC.” Two models are available: the "OpeniMac" is a $990 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo machine that also sports 2GB of memory, a 320GB SATA drive, SuperDrive, ATI Radeon HD PRO, and even a 6-in-1 memory card reader.
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Apple was 5th busiest retail site on Cyber Monday

http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/12/07/apple-was-5th-busiest-retail-site-on-cyber-monday/

While its competitors were offering deep discounts to pull in recession-battered customers, Apple (AAPL) had already ended its Black Friday sale and by Monday was back to charging its usual premium prices for laptops, desktops and MP3 players.
Yet its online store still managed to grab the No. 5 spot in comScore’s ranking of the top 20 most visited retail sites on Monday Dec. 1, handily beating not only Dell (DELL) and Hewlett Packard (HPQ), but such full-fledged retail outlets as Best Buy (BBY), Toys “R” Us and Circuit City .

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LEARN SPANISH IN ITUNES U

From Portales: beginner’s Spanish to the advanced A Buen Puerto: Fast Forward in Spanish, you’ll find a variety of Spanish course material from the Open University on iTunes U. And once you’re conversant in Spanish, you could sample the German and French language courses, as well.

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Grey Lines Mar MacBook Air Displays

http://db.tidbits.com/article/9910?rss

Some MacBook Air users have been reporting the appearance of grey horizontal lines across the screens of their late 2008 models. Discussion threads on the issue began in early November 2008 on both Apple's discussion forums and the MacRumors forums. There have been slight variations in the description of the issue, but most accounts agree the lines are grey or white, horizontal or slightly angled, granulated or pixelated in appearance, and are very subtle. Overall the lines are said to give the screen the appearance of a piece of parchment or recycled paper. Also, the lines are said to appear at the initial boot; they do not develop over time.

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Rosetta Becomes Optional in Snow Leopard?

http://www.macrumors.com/2008/12/08/latest-mac-os-x-10-5-6-seed;-rosetta-becomes-optional-in-snow-leopard/

Separately, we've heard that the newest version of Snow Leopard makes Rosetta an optional installation. Rosetta is Apple's PowerPC emulator for their Intel Macs, allowing Intel Mac owners to run legacy software that has not been upgraded for the Intel platform. This news comes shortly after an announcement that IBM had purchased Transitive, the company behind Rosetta's technology. The final release of Snow Leopard is also rumored to require an Intel Mac, thereby being the first version of Mac OS X to drop PowerPC support.

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Three Apps Define Apple's Mobile Platform
http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/app_store/three_apps_define_apples_mobile_platform.html

News Commentary. Last week, Apple announced that the App Store had 300 million downloads and 10,000 applications. Three apps matter more.
It's not so much what they do but what they mean. These three applications define App Store, supported by _oc="null">iPhone and iPod Touch, as an emerging mobile platform. Right now, Apple has created the leading contender to replace the PC as the platform people use most.

The apps:
Amazon Mobile

Google Mobile App

Obama `08

Number of applications does not a successful platform make. Volume is important, but the sticky quality of applications/services and the ability to make real money matter more.
All successful platforms share a few common traits:
They have at least one killer application people really want

They make available a breadth of useful applications

Development tools and APIs make it easy to create good applications

Third parties make lots of money
There is a fifth attribute not common to all successful platforms, but unique to some: They make customer engagement easier, a quality that some connected gaming devices/software and some Web 2.0 platforms imbue.

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Steve Jobs participating in ad song selection
http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/12/08/jobs.picking.ad.songs/
Apple CEO Steve Jobs is himself involved in picking the songs used incompanyadvertising, a musician claims. Lars Iversen, a member of The Asteroids Galaxy Tour, notes that when "Around the Bend" was chosen for an iPod touch TV ad, a company representing the band -- Synch -- first got in touch with Apple, and then participated in a direct meeting with Jobs. The executive is said to have picked the song to use at this meeting, expressing particular enthusiasm for the music.

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HERE WE GO AGAIN... APPLE TABLET IN 2009?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10118470-37.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=News-Apple
Earlier this year CEO Steve Jobs implied Apple was watching small-device categories like tablets and Netbooks to see if they actually take off as a mega-trend, but in the meantime the company had other priorities. Mac tablet rumors stretch back for years, and in the past Jobs has quickly shot down talk of an Apple-produced competitor to Amazon's Kindle, which has been interpreted as a sign Apple was doing just that.

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Adobe and Belkin back out of Macworld, IDG not concerned
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/12/08/adobe-and-belkin-back-out-macworld-idg-not-concerned
IDG World Expo isn't too concerned, or so it claims. A spokesperson issued this statement:

While Adobe has decided to shift its focus at for Macworld this year, the company will still be actively participating in the event -- several members of the company's product team will be involved in Macworld tracks, including a full day of CS4 demo sessions with Adobe evangelists on Wednesday, January 7.

Every year we see a certain percentage of exhibitors pull out of the event for their own business reasons. In this economic climate, it shouldn’t be a surprise to see this. The important thing to understand is that Macworld Conference & Expo 2009 will be similar in size to last year’s event and attendees will continue to visit nearly 500 great Mac product vendors on our exhibit floors.

TDL Live This week: (12/1-12/8)

It's the Cyber Monday edition of TDL Live! After dealing with some site load issues (thanks Cyber Monday...) TDL Live was a hoot. No aluminum foil was harmed in making this episode:

Show Notes:
A coming of age for YouTube
http://news.cnet.com/a-coming-of-age-for-youtube/
YouTube has announced it will auction off search terms as part of an ad program, called Sponsored Videos, designed to enable anyone to expand the viewership of their videos. YouTube also said last week it obtained rights to post full-length movies produced by a large film studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. What this means is that YouTube has given up on the idea that user-generated content can be a successful standalone business.

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Psystar case reveals Apple's shaky e-mail retention policy
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2008/11/19/filing-apple-employees-responsible-own-lawsuit-record-keeping

According to a recent legal filing (see page 7) in the Psystar vs Apple antitrust case, Apple employees are responsible for maintaining their own documents such as emails, memos, and voicemails. In other words, there is no company-wide policy for archiving, saving, or deleting these documents.

This could pose a problem in the event of a lawsuit. In recent years, companies have been fined millions after failing to retrieve old emails and other files required as evidence.

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Microsoft modifies Zune subscription model

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4AJ21420081120

the software company's modified subscription plan would allow owners of Zune to keep 10 tracks per month, which has an estimated value of $10. The users can also add those tracks to their permanent collection.

The company said agreements have been signed with the big four music labels -- EMI Music, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group -- and also with a few independent distributors.

A Zune Pass would allow the user to download music and the downloaded content can be shared among up to three PCs and three Zune devices, the company said.($14.99/mo)

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MacBooks slow down with battery removed

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/11/21/macbook.slow.wo.battery/

Apple's newer MacBook range continues to exhibit an unusual design behavior that slows the system down when the battery isn't attached, testing by Gearlog confirms. Although only publicized in a support article from August that predates the late 2008 refresh, the unibody systems deliberately throttle back the processorwhen relying only on AC power.

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THE Black Friday Deals at Apple That Weren't

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Simpsons Rag On Apple

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Linux successfully ported to the iPhone, iPod touch

http://www.macnn.com/articles/08/12/01/linux.on.iphone/

Devteam member planetbeing has successfully reverse-engineered the iPhone and iPod touch platforms torun the open-source Linux 2.6 kernel. The port is still in the beginning stages of development, with limited functionality that lacks support for the touchscreen, sound, accelerometer, baseband and wireless networking. When the device is powered-on, OpeniBoot gives the choice of booting the iPhone operating system or a separate mode for the Linux kernel.

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Mac web share hits 8.9% while Firefox tops 20%

http://www.electronista.com/articles/08/12/01/net.apps.share.nov.2008/

Net Applications has revealed both Apple and Mozilla bringing Microsoft's share of the web to historic lows for November. The Mac's usage share of the more than 40,000 websites tracked by the Internet firm has now reached 8.87 percent for the past month; the increase is a major jump from the previous record of 8.23 percent in September and is enough to have pushed Microsoft's Windows below 90 percent usage online for the first time in years.

Microsoft has also taken hits from rival web browsers. Usage of Mozilla's Firefox has topped 20 percent for the first time (up from 19.97 percent to 20.78 percent) and has been the largest single contributor to a decline in Internet Explorer share, which has again reached a years-long record low at just 69.77 percent of Net Applications' view of the web. The researchers attribute the spike partly due to the timing of special events like the US presidential election and to an extra number of days off helped by Thanksgiving, all of whom contributed to heavier web use.

Apple's Safari and Google's new Chrome browser have also supported the downfall of the Microsoft browser. Safari jumped from 6.57 percent in October to 7.13 percent in November while Chrome moved up slightly from 0.74 percent to 0.83 percent.

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BlackBerry Storm Doesn't Blow Away Reviewers

http://www.internetnews.com/mobility/article.php/3788061

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue tags the Storm as the "BlackBerry Dud", and is a bit miffed over the missing traditional QWERTY keyboard.
"It's like an iPod without a scroll wheel. A Prius with terrible mileage. Cracker Jack without a prize inside," Pogue seethed in his review last week.

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Blockbuster (BBI) Looking For Streaming Partners To Go After Netflix, Apple
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/12/blockbuster-looking-for-streaming-partners
Like rival Netflix, Blockbuster (BBI) is hoping to build itsnew streaming service into as many living room gadgets as possible. Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes,

Smart (if obvious) strategy, but Blockbuster is about a year behind Netflix (NFLX), which already has deals to build its streaming service into Samsung and LG Blu-ray players, Microsoft (MSFT) Xbox 360s, Roku Web video set-top boxes, and TiVo (TIVO) DVRs.
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More iPhones sold to females in Australia
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,24732123-5014239,00.html
APPLE'S iPhone has surprised the tech set by finding more homes in handbags than suit pockets.
Australian mobile phone companies confirmed more women than men were buying Apple's fancy iPhone, with one source saying up to 70 per cent of iPhone sales were to females.

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Apple offers free licensing for Mini DisplayPort spec

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2008/12/01/apple-offers-free-licensing-for-mini-displayport-spec

It turns out that the company is offering no-fee licenses to anyone interested in developing products that use the Mini DisplayPort specification.

Mini DisplayPort is an Apple-designed miniature version of the VESA-approved DisplayPort, which fully supports the protocol while offering a more compact connector.

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Macworld Expo early bird registration extended

http://www.macworld.com/article/137228/2008/12/expo.html?lsrc=rss_main

Registration for the upcoming Macworld Conference & Expo has been extended by one week, now ending on December 8, 2008.

The early bird registration gives attendees the opportunity to purchase their tickets early and save some money in the process. Prices vary from $25 for an Expo Only badge that gets you onto the show floor, to $1,695 for a Platinum Pass that grants you access to two Power Tools sessions, one Market Symposium, sessions in the Users Conference and MacIT Conference, access to feature presentations, keynote viewing, lunch, a party ticket and exhibit hall access, for $1,695.
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TDL Live This week: (9/1-9/8)

No, we weren't going to let a holiday stop us from bringing you the latest Apple news and rumors. If you missed the live show last night, here's your chance to get caught up: