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news of 2004-03-18

Three products Apple should have made...

... by now, if I were in charge and a very large group of people with the money to buy enough of the items. I know, I know. But I wonder if some of you agree with the things I would want Apple to release.

1.) The cMac
The 'consumer' (or 'cheap') Mac is built to sell. A pizza box with a footprint of a closed 14" iBook, containing the cheapest viable and available processor (probably about a 800 or 900 MHz G3 processor right now), 128 or 256 MB RAM (expandable to 640 MB RAM), a 30 GB harddrive and a Radeon Mobility type of graphics chip as well as a CD-ROM or Combo drive. VGA connector. FireWire, Ethernet and USB. The cheapest model's price could be as low as 399 USD.

2.) The ePad
This small pad is a mix between a tablet PC and a Newton-style PDA aimed at education. Running Mac OS X (not a 'light' version) off of an iPod-type 20 GB harddrive, this device has a transreflective TFT display running at 800*600 pixels. Home folder synchs with your Mac at home (FireWire) and an additional USB port allows the connection of a keyboard to make longer text input easier. Footprint about half-a-12"-iBook. Price: Lower than an iBook.

3.) The iServe
The iServe is your home's central box. Connected to the LAN either via Ethernet or WiFi, the iServe is not only your home server but is also connected to your home theater and home stereo system and TV cable. Comes with Bluetooth, a Bluetooth remote as well as a Bluetooth keyboard with integrated touchpad, so you can surf on your large screen TV or video beamer. TiVo meets Mac meets server. Of course all of its media can also be streamed throughout the house through Ethernet or WiFi. Price: Depending on options...

Which of those do appeal to you? Which don't? Hit the link below the article to drop me a line...

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-03-18 at 19:35 CET ]
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Apple wins 3 design awards

At Ce'Bit 2004, Apple has won three times the iF design award 2004. For both the 15" and 17" PowerBook as well as the iSight FireWire camera.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-03-18 at 19:11 CET ]
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FileMaker Pro 7 First Impressions

Just a small look at it, really. Looks nice, behaves well, opens old databases just fine. We'll have to look deeper into the new features, of course, but for old-time FM-users, it should be said that an update should be absolutely painless from our perspective.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-03-18 at 15:19 CET ]
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MacDevCenter about Speech

This article talks about what you can do with your Mac and Speech. It's quite impressive. Completely forgets about anyone who doesn't speak the American variant of English or even (gasp!) German, French, Spanish or Japanese, but it's still impressive. It's also impressive that Apple seems to have put a lot of energy into this forgetting completely about the fact that the world isn't English speaking. Well, so do we here at macnews.net.tc - our page is in English - but while you can easily copy our articles and more or less translate them through Google or Babelfish, you can not use the Mac's Speech features easily while speaking another language. End of rant. Still a good article. ;-)

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-03-18 at 14:33 CET ]
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AppleInsider: 4th gen. iPod

This AppleInsider article expects Apple to release a new iPod in April (iTMS' birthday) that not only has a colour screen but also some sort of video output. In line with this, also a new version of iTunes is expected.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-03-18 at 00:34 CET ]
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Apple preparing PowerMac introduction?

Apple's homepage today reflects the power of the PowerMac G5. While this is not exactly news, it would perfectly fit to prepare the introduction of even faster models using the new PowerPC 970FX, which is rumoured to make its entrance in less than a week.

[ written by fryke™ on 2004-03-18 at 00:27 CET ]
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