Tuesday March 07, 2006

- WWDC 2006 will take place in August!! - Lionel - 22:12:40

Source : WWDC

This is a news that my make developers unhappy if they were planning to take some holidays this summer... This year the WWDC will take place from August 7th till 11th.
This is a quite surprising news, especially when August is considered as a relative "low activity" month before the usual rush of September/October with the start of the school year.
We think that this change has probably to do with some hardware/software announcements that required more time to be achieved, so in order to present and release at the same time those new products, Apple has postponed its WWDC. If you want to have a more precise idea, look at Intel's CPU roadmap, and search for a processor that will be released in Q3... ;)


[translation by Eric]

- Defect Airport Express: the weekly report - Lionel - 14:16:07

As mentioned last week in our last news related to this issue, a large number of Airport Express are "dying" after 13 months of activity; one month after the end of the warranty. Of course, we are collecting less reports about this 13 months "dying" line due to the introduction date of the APX.
The new series of reported dead APX is now after 17-18 months!!
Hereafter are 2 reports received in a single day:
From Orlin :

As I have seen it on different web forums, I am not the only one having problems with APX. Mine died this morning when I woke up - no more green LED.
I bought this APX in around June 2004 from the French AppleStore and it is of course not covered by the warranty anymore :(
I will contact them to report the issue anyway.

After calling the AppleSupport, Orlin told us that his APX will be exchanged as it was still under warranty because it was bought at the same time than his notebook and its dedicated Notebook AppleCare extension program. In this case, the APX is covered for the same period of time without additional cost (3 years).

A second report from Jérôme: is there some light at the end of the tunnel?

I have also experienced a problem with my APX after 17 months.
First, I contacted my local Apple reseller who told me that there was no chance to get a new one for free, neither to get it repaired. He told me to call the Apple Customer service...".
So, I called them and I got the same type of answer: the product is not covered by the warranty, so not exchanged. But when I mentioned that macbidouille.com/hardmac.com were reporting an abnormally high number of APX dying after 13 months, then I was told to wait... after couple of minutes, I have been given a number (customer satisfaction code?) to be added to the defect APX that we be sent back to Apple by my local reseller.
Three days later, my local reseller called me: my new APX had arrived! and it was a free standard exchange!
Thanks you Apple, for an APX bought in September 2004!

So if you have had problem with you APX after 13 or 17-18 months, try to contact Apple Customer Service to get your APX exchange free of charge :)


[translation by Eric]

- A Benchmark of the Mac Mini Core Solo on Ars Technica - Lionel - 12:13:33

Were you just waiting for a real Benchmark of the Mini Core Solo to make up your mind ? Here you go with ArsTechnica.
First things first, it smoothly reads 480p and 720p HD but it can't do the same with 1080 without dropping frames.
As for sheer power, the CPU's more or less worth a G4 1.67 GHz - with a far better memory access.
3D results require some interpretation. Open GL tests in software mode - when the CPU does the job - show better results than the Powerbook G4 1.67GHz. However, hardware mode - when it's up to the graphic cards - show that the GMA 650 is twice as slow as a Radeon 9700 Mobile and just a bit slower than MacMini G4 age old Radeon 9200.
But really, you should go and read the review!

[translation by Greg]

- PPC G4 7448 in a PowerBook - Lionel - 12:08:23

Source : XLR8yourMac

One could think that the PPC G4 had reached its end of life as a notebook processor; but it is not the case.
A company, Daystar, is proposing to install the last version of the PPC G4 aka 7448 featuring 1MB of L2 cache and clocked at 1.83GHz in PowerBooks.
BUT.... only the PBG4 1.67GHz can be updated with this processor, the previous model do not support it. So even if the larger memory cache as well as the speed bump will ensure a real increase of performance, this offer will be limited to a small number of users.


[translation by Eric]