Apple to play integral role in Best Buy Mac sales

post from "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed on 25 June 2006 12:01:00 PM. © "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed

Pasted Graphic 3 Apple will staff Best Buy locations selling its computers with its own employees in a similar fashion as the company has done with its displays at many CompUSA stores.

The Apple-badged workers, or Apple Solutions Consultants (ASCs), will train Best Buy employees in using and selling Mac computers and assist them in selling the systems to customers, but all sales will officially be logged by Best Buy, sources told Think Secret.

Best Buy PR director Lisa Hawks declined to comment to Think Secret regarding details of the company's agreement with Apple. The retailer's announcement last week stated only that Macs would be sold by Best Buy employees that have undergone training by Apple.

Best Buy, the number one U.S. consumer electronics retailer, last sold Macs across its stores in 1998. In late 2003 the company tested the waters selling Macs again in some of its stores but pulled the plug on the pilot program in early 2004.

Beginning this past May, Best Buy tried its hand at selling Macs once more in a handful of southern California locations. The experiment is said to have been met with a much warmer response this time around and should be expanded to a number of Best Buy locations this fall, according to a recent Morgan Stanley analyst report.

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eMac repair program announced

post from "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed on 25 June 2006 11:55:00 AM. © "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed

Pasted Graphic 2 Apple has announced the eMac Repair Extension Program for video and power issues—no power, no video—applies to units that exhibit specific video or power-related issues. The program covers 1 and 1.25GHz eMacs sold between approximately April 2004 and June 2005 in the following serial number ranges:

??• G8412xxxxxx - G8520xxxxxx
?• YM412xxxxxx - YM520xxxxxx
?• VM440xxxxxx - VM516xxxxxx

??To take advantage of the program, affected users must take their eMac to a local Apple Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider (AASP), or call a local Apple contact center.

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Newest Leopard Screenshots Confirmed Fake

post from "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed on 25 June 2006 11:46:00 AM. © "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed

Pasted Graphic 1

Well... for all of you who got your knickers in a twist over the supposed new screenshots of Leopard last week, the author of the blog they appeared on has confirmed they are 100% fake, and that they were created using Photoshop. I read through all the comments on that blog after the pics were released, and not surprisingly, many people did in fact call the photos fake. But... there were quite a few people who were not so quick to dismiss them and made numerous statements supporting the fact that they might just be the real deal.

Anyway, I guess it just goes to show you that you really do need to be careful about the information you receive, from any source, and that you should always do your own research before believing what you see and read.

If you want to check out the original blog site where these images were first posted, you can view it here.

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Sudden Shuffle Death

post from "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed on 25 June 2006 10:44:00 AM. © "My Mac Blog" RSS Feed

Pasted Graphic A PC World story at Yahoo News reports that Apple is replacing iPod Shuffles under warranty when they display the 'flashing orange and green lights of death'.

550 posts on Apple's Shuffle discussion boards have discussed the issue. It appears to be the signal for hardware failure, but the display-less Shuffle, of course, can't give any error codes. The MP3 player will not play after this occurs.

Apple's policy is to replace all products under the standard 12-month warranty and Shuffles have been replaced without question when this has occurred.

Apple documents suggest the flashing lights indicate a 'generic error'. However, some Shuffle owners have reset the player successfully by downloading the latest version of the Shuffle iPod Updater. However, this does not appear to work in all instances.

Apple has not officially commented. The company continues to sell around 1 million 512MB and 1GB Shuffles per month, according to analysts' estimates.

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Apple's Leopard has its eye on Redmond

For the second time in as many years, Apple Computer is looking to outshine rival Micrsoft Corp. in the inevitable battle between the two companies' software operating systems.

There's still over a month to go before Apple will take the wraps off Leopard, the next version of Mac OS X, but already the rumor mills are abuzz over a couple of purported screenshots that depict some long-rumored features of the software.

Leopard is due to hit the market about the same time as Microsoft's Vista, and sources say Apple has been keeping a close eye on the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant. They say the Mac maker has been developing a handful of features for Leopard that will specifically rival those available to Vista users -- some will make the cut for Leopard's release while others may not.

One of the rumored features is said to be OS-level integration of a geographical mapping technology, similar to Microsoft's Virtual Earth. In recent months, Microsoft has made several acquisitions aimed at bolstering its Virtual Earth division, including a buyout of Vexcel Corp.

According to sources, Apple has been working on a similar approach, but modeled after Google's Maps feature. The technology will presumably allow Leopard users to scour the globe through satellite imagery and whisk up driving directions on the drop of a dime.

Another rumored feature of Leopard -- one which appears to be shown in the unauthenticated Leopard screenshots -- is the unification of Apple's Address Book and iCal applications into a single app. Interestingly, the two screenshots making the rounds on the Web this week indeed show a revised Address Book icon that also displays a date. This is coupled with the absence of the traditional iCal icon in the Mac OS X Dock.

Still, the juiciest rumors surround Apple's Boot Camp and where the company may or may not take the technology. Although sources did not explicitly say that Boot Camp would be transformed into a complete virtualization solution, they did say the technology is being groomed as a rival to Microsoft's Virtual PC Express.

In March, Microsoft released an "Early Release" of Virtual PC Express, saying it would allow users "to run an operating system as a host (such as Windows XP Professional) and run another operating system as a guest in the virtual machine (such as Windows 2000)."

"This Early Release does not support Windows Vista since Windows Vista has not yet been released," Microsoft said. "When Windows Vista Enterprise ships in late 2006, it will include Virtual PC Express, which will support Windows Vista as a host operating system (as well as additional enhancements such as support for 64-bit)."

Feature specifics aside, there have been some other rumblings about Leopard. In very much the same way Microsoft decided to market its next-generation OS under the name Vista (rather than its code-name "Longhorn"), Apple is also rumored to be mulling a "more marketable" name for its next-generation OS. However, it's unclear if Apple will ultimately go through with the change.

Apple plans to unveil Leopard for the first time at its World Wide Developers Conference, which runs from Aug. 7 - 11 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif.

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