Macgasm

At a lunch in Sydney today, CEO of Netgear Patrick Lo had some harsh criticism for Apple and Steve Jobs. Citing Android’s recent overtaking of the iPhone in U.S. market share, he predicted that Apple’s closed approach would ultimately play out like so many battles before. Just as VHS overtook Betamax, Windows overtook Mac, and TCP/IP overtook proprietary networking protocols, Android will overtake iOS, said Lo.

“Right now the closed platform has been successful for Apple because they’ve been so far ahead as thought leaders because of Steve Jobs. Once Steve Jobs goes away, which is probably not far away, then Apple will have to make a strategic decision on whether to open up the platform,” said Lo. “Ultimately a closed system just can’t go that far … If they continue to close it and let Android continue to creep up then it’s pretty difficult as I see it.” Lo continued his assessment of Jobs’ stance on Flash. “What’s the reason for him to trash Flash? There’s no reason other than ego,” he said.

Lo also said Netgear had seen a boom in sales of its Wi-Fi network booster product due to the trend of people taking their iPads with them into the bathroom.

Wow.

If market share were the only important thing, then I suppose Lo is correct. Eventually the thing that is cheaper and less restricted will be in more places. It’s logical. It leaves out other factors such as usability, user satisfaction, ease of use, and so on, all of which Apple is able to accomplish precisely because of its ‘closed’ nature.

And the kick ‘em while they’re down comment about Jobs going away? I have a feeling Netgear is going to be doing a bit of damage control on that one.

Article Via Sydney Morning Herald

This morning, Active Storage unveiled the ActiveSAN, a 1U, rack-mountable unit that some were hoping would be a viable alternative to the now-discountinued Xserve.

Sadly, I’m not sure this is it. While the ActiveSAN is Xsan compatible, and runs on Intel silicon, the software is Linux based. And while Linux servers keep the world turning and satellites in orbit, Mac OS X Server users probably won’t be switching to Linux just to gain a rack-mountable solution.

Xsan is cool. It really is. But the number of customers using Xsan is far outweighed by the number of customers using the other things the Xserve can do — AFP, mail, web and more. While I’m sure the Xsan crowd is excited this morning, the rest of us are a little … underwhelmed.

Writing about Apple often means spending as much time on unannounced, unreleased products as actual, real products.

The iPad 2 may be the most hyped future product that I can recall in recent years. Rumors keep coming in from all over the place, and not a day goes past when I don’t get asked what I think about it. I know several people waiting for the device, unwilling to purchase the current iPad, based on these rumors alone.

So what makes people so excited about what Apple might announce?

In short, people love Apple. A lot of customers view the company as more than just a company. Which, while a little scary, helps get people really worked up about dropping serious cash on devices.

When it comes to mobile devices, the possibilities seem more wild. We all expect the new iMacs to be basically the same as the current ones. However, mobile devices feel like the wild, wild west. Innovation is more fun when you can stick it in your pocket.

Apple has a knack for surprising customers, but in a world of prototypes left in bars and leaks from China, the company is having a harder time keeping things under wraps until Steve (or Tim Cook, these days) is ready to announce it. While leaks take some of the magic out of announcements, they only inflate the hype building up to them.

Inevitably, the iPad 2 will disappoint some people. Rumors over-inflate people’s expectations. That’s why AAPL has a tendency to sink after product announcements. That’s why people always complain about whatever Apple releases, no matter how sweet it is.

And that’s why iPad 2 rumors need to be read with a grain (or a pile) of salt. I really don’t think we’re going to see a 10-inch Retina display this spring. The iPad 2 also won’t include a rocket engine or cure cancer.

But it will be a great product. Once it is announced. Until then, don’t get too wrapped up in the hype.  You’ll just end up sad in the end.

Photo Credit: Engadget

The end of ordering for the Apple Xserve is today, and there may be a solution waiting to be announced. Macgasm’s own Stephen Hackett explained some of the issues when the announcement was made.

One thing to add to his thoughts on why Apple pulled the Xserve. Look at it from Apple’s perspective. They have to keep a production line open to manufacture the rather few units that they will sell. They need to put out more iOS devices, laptops, and desktop computers than they need Xserves. Being able to convert that manufacturing line to put out these products will allow them to make more of them more quickly.

If Apple uses their existing Mac Mini and Mac Pro manufacturing lines to quickly build an order from a customer, it’s much simpler and definitely more cost-effective to replace the outer case, as with the Mac Mini Server, and put in the additional cards, memory or other options as is the case with the Mac Pro Server. This allows Apple to keep their costs down while still providing a solution to customers. Don’t get me wrong though—it still does suck that there is not a rack-mountable form-factor for the Mac.

So the Xserve is going away, and there is a potential solution. What does this mean for OS X Server in general? There has been significant speculation, particularly from the OS X Server mailing list, on this topic.

I don’t see OS X Server going away for quite a while. I say this because OS X Server is essentially the same basis as OS X Client. It doesn’t take nearly the resources to develop OS X Server since the majority of the code is the exact same as OS X Client. Surely it doesn’t cost Apple that much to continue to develop Server.

The second reason I say this is that Apple does have hardware platforms that are capable of running OS X Server. The Mac Mini server is capable of doing a signifiant number of things despite its hardware limitations of 1TB of hard drive space, 8GB of Memory, and Core 2 Duo processor.

The Mac Pro Server offers a much larger array of options: up to 32GB of Memory, up to four 2TB hard drives, dual optical drives, and a RAID Card. This allows IT departments to customize what they would like. The Mac Pro Server does offer an advantage over the Xserve by allowing a RAID option to be RAID5 with an online-spare. This means that should a drive fail, the spare will automatically come online, and the RAID array will be rebuilt automatically. If a drive failed with the Xserves, it would just be degraded until the failed drive was swapped out.

As an alternative to both of these methods, there is always the option to put OS X Server on an iMac as well. Yes, it will have a screen, and it is not as nice to store, but it can still be an option for some environments.

The final reason I argue that OS X Server isn’t going to go away is that there is still a market for OS X Server. Sure, you can configure OS X Client to do everything you need to. But taking this approach is a kludge and can be rather cumbersome and a hazard to support and maintain.

Overall I don’t foresee OS X Server disappearing in the near future. It could potentially be that at some point in the not-too-distant future OS X Server and OS X Client will be combined. Although, potentially by that time everything will be running on iOS and we’ll have an iOS Client and iOS Server. Imagine an Apple TV running iOS Server… talk about speed.

Photo Credit: Apple

According to a new report by Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo of Concord Securities, the iPad 2 won’t have a Retina display.

However, Kuo does expect the display on the new model to be a third thinner and have anti-reflective properties.

Currently, the glass over the iPad’s LCD not only smudges easily, but shows reflections quite clearly, making it difficult to use the device in direct sunlight.

Devices like Amazon’s Kindle do not suffer from this issue, and it is unclear if an “anti-reflective” display would ditch the glass and reflective coating like the optional matte display on Apple’s MacBook Pro, or the company has something else planned. Currently, Apple’s Multi-Touch technology is built into the glass panel.

A matte display would be a welcome addition to the iPad, at least for me. I use devices outside a good bit, and the iPad really is difficult to use in direct sunlight.

In addition to details about the display, the report discusses iPad 2 features, including a dual-core processor and graphics chipset as well as the camera currently found in the iPod touch, not the higher-end sensors found in the iPhone 4.

What do you want to see in the iPad 2? Let us know below in the comments!

Article Via Mac Stories

A company named Active Storage is teasing the above image for several days. According to 9 to 5 Mac, the company is about to unveil a hardware replacement for the Xserve, which Apple is discontinuing in just a few days.

If that’s accurate, it would mean system admins could run OS X Server — with Apple’s blessing, perhaps. While I don’t think whatever is under that sheet can run OS X Server, it could be setup to run virtual OS X Server boxes. I really don’t know what to expect. All I know is that a Mac Pro (or the Mac mini) is no match for an Xserve, especially in an enterprise environment.

While the idea of Apple recommending a third-party hardware solution may seem strange, it wouldn’t be the first time. Back in February 2008, Apple discontinued the Xserve RAID and now recommends the Promise RAID to its customers.

I guess we’ll all find out soon enough. In the meantime, I’m going to go hug the Xserve hanging in my network closet at the office.

Article Via Mac Rumors

We’ve featured Todolicious on the website previously in a review. Susan loved it, but you should probably read her review in its entirety.

Today, Mustacheware has put Todolicious on the Mac App Store for free. The program will only remain free today, so you better jump on the promotion.

If you haven’t heard of Todolicious, it’s a very elegant and simple to-do list application for your Mac. It lacks the bells and whistles of a Things or OminFocus, which can be a good thing for most of us.

Sometimes to-do/GTD apps get a little bit too complex for most of us, and Todolicious’s simplicity is a breath of fresh air.

Go get it before the promo expires!

The web is going mobile whether we want to admit it or not. Facebook might not classify the iPad as truly “mobile” just yet, but as more and more tablets come to market, they might be forced into changing their opinion pretty quickly.

I take my iPhone and iPad on the go with me, and use both interchangeably. iOS users aren’t the only ones who have noticed that the world is going mobile though. The W3C has also noticed, and they’re now working on a standard document for touch-based web apps. For now, touch-based applications are synonymous with mobile applications, but moving forward, we might start seeing this segment of web apps find their way to the desktop. But that hasn’t stopped the W3C from putting together a draft for touch-based web apps.

According to the abstract:

The Touch Interface specification defines a set of low-level events that represent one or more points of contact with a touch-sensitive surface, and changes of those points with respect to the surface and any DOM elements displayed upon it (e.g. for touch screens) or associated with it (e.g. for drawing tablets without displays).

The W3C draft, edited by Doug Schepers, focuses on things like pressure controls and gestures, using Webkit and Safari as a backdrop for the document. I just want to be painfully clear, this is a draft, and it is very far away from becoming finalized.

But the good news is that we might start seeing some standards in place for these touch-based web apps in the future.

You can read the draft on the W3C website.

Article Via Electronista
Header Photo Credit: W3C Blog