MacRumors

CNBC reports that Microsoft has made a hostile takeover bid for Yahoo for $44.6 billion in stock and cash.

"We discussed a number of alternatives ranging from commercial partnerships to a merger proposal, which you rejected," Microsoft told Yahoo in a letter.

"While a commercial partnership may have made sense at one time, Microsoft believes that the only alternative now is the combination of Microsoft and Yahoo that we are proposing," it said.

Microsoft's press release provides some more details:

Our lives, our businesses, and even our society have been progressively transformed by the Web, and Yahoo! has played a pioneering role by building compelling, high-scale services and infrastructure, said Ray Ozzie, chief software architect at Microsoft. The combination of these two great teams would enable us to jointly deliver a broad range of new experiences to our customers that neither of us would have achieved on our own.

We've had reports of several Apple Stores setting up their MacBook Air displays overnight, confirming that today (Friday) is the retail launch of the MacBook Air.

New York City's 5th Avenue store is open 24 hours and they had their MacBook Airs back on display as of midnight. They were not yet selling MacBook Airs, however.

Individual store stock may vary, so readers should contact their local stores for availability.

Meanwhile, iFixit provides a detailed disassembly of the MacBook Air. The breakdown takes the MacBook Air down to its components, and shows off how to remove the internal hard drive.

A few interesting notes:

- A hard drive swap is definitely possible, but it's no longer a trivial procedure as in the MacBook.
- iFixit expects that 3rd party replacement batteries will be available soon.
- Same multi-touch controller chip as the iPhone and iPod touch.

In possibly one of the more ambitious outlooks for Mac market-share increases, Gartner is forecasting that Apple will double its market-share in the US and Western Europe by 2011. The reason for the dramatic increase is said to be two-fold: Apple continues to do well in its Macintosh unit and competitors aren't meeting Apple's competitive pressure.

Apple is challenging its competitors with software integration that provides ease of use and flexibility; continuous and more frequent innovation in hardware and software; and an ecosystem that focuses on interoperability across multiple devices (such as iPod and iMac cross-selling).

Gartner also predicts that by 2012, 50% of traveling workers will use devices other than notebooks. Gartner cites new "Internet-centric pocketable devices at the sub-$400 level" as a primary threat to the notebook in this arena. Notably, the iPhone fits this description.

Despite hopes for an imminent release, it appears Mac OS X 10.5.2 is not yet ready for public consumption. Last week, Apple released a couple of seeds with "no known issues", but apparently has continued to work on the latest Leopard release.

Today, Apple provided developers with the 9C27 and the seed notes indicate that there are still no known issues.

Apple released the first Mac OS X 10.5 update (10.5.1) only 3 weeks after Leopard's initial launch. 10.5.2 has been particularly anticipated as it introduces a some interface changes along with the usual bug fixes.

Of note, the just-released MacBook Air ships with a version of Mac OS X 10.5.1.

Update: No known issues in the latest seed.

- MacRumors forum member desenso posts a complete unboxing video of the new MacBook Air.
- Macworld posts their review of the MacBook Air and makes an interesting point about the seemingly small weight difference that makes the MacBook Air appealing:

One reason I loved the 12-inch PowerBook G4 was that it crossed some hard-to-define weight barrier, one I hadnt even been aware of until I started using a laptop that crossed it. The 12-inch PowerBook was so small and light that carrying my laptop around with me became an afterthought. Instead of lugging a 15-inch PowerBook from place to place, I could idly hold the 12-inch model in one hand. The MacBook Air takes that easy feeling to an extreme

- The MacBook Airs were reportedly pulled from the 5th Avenue NYC Apple Store for now. They will likely return on Friday which is the official retail launch of the MacBook Air. Video of MacBook Airs at 5th Ave store.
- For those who are need to fit their applications into their 64GB or 80GB MacBook Air might find some use in the Xslimmer application that was included in a recent software bundle. Xslimmer strips down applications to reduce file size but does not impact functionality. Update: Trimmit is a free alternative.
- The custom Intel CPU that powers the MacBook Air may be coming to PCs.
- Gizmodo reposted the MacBook Air tear down photos and video.

Ongoing discussion in our MacBook Air forum.

The first of the pre-orders for the MacBook Air are starting to trickle in, but with the bulk of early-orders expected to arrive on Friday.

The 5th Avenue Apple store in NYC already had the MacBook Air on display, and even had an SSD version of the MacBook Air. A couple of users have posted their first impressions from that encounter: brief hands on with SSD, another first impression. Most Apple Stores are expected to have display models starting Friday.

Due to the high level of interest in the MacBook Air, we've created a new sub forum: MacBook Air Forum for readers to post their questions, impressions, photos and discuss Apple's newest laptop.

Other threads of interest: U.S. Readers waiting for deliver, European readers waiting for delivery.

More unboxing photos at UneasySilence.com.

Apple has added to its website with a new subsection dedicated to video tutorials called "find out how." The section includes video tutorials for Mac OS X, Photos, Movies, Web, Music, and Documents.

In all, over 30 short tutorial videos are presented along with many additional text tutorials. The videos present an addition to Apple's guided tours of Mac OS X Leopard and iLife 08. Similarly, Apple posted a guided tour for the iPhone even before its launch, which in turn helped early adopters become experts with the device.

Most of the tutorials seem to be mainly aimed at the beginning Mac user, so questions not immediately answered by Apple's site may be more satisfactorily answered in our Guides or Forums.

Apple appears to be trickling out their software updates, with another update issued through Mac OS X's software update today. iWeb 2.0.3 is now available through your Mac OS X Software update and is simply described as addressing compatibility with Mac OS X. iWeb is part of the Apple iLife suite of applications which also include iPhoto, iMovie. GarageBand and iDVD.

Yesterday, Apple introduced updates to the iWork '08 application suite, and is expected to also release Mac OS X 10.5.2 shortly.

Apple announced today that the MacBook Air is now shipping, as we previously reported. The first MacBook Air shipments are expected to be arriving tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Apple also announced that the Apple TV update that introduces a competely refreshed version of the Apple TV interface "is not quite finished". The free update has been delayed for "another week or two".

Apple announced both products at Macworld San Francisco 2008.

Despite persistent rumors of MacBook Pro updates, we've yet to see the rumored Penryn, Multi-touch trackpad MacBook Pro revisions. However, there appears to be ongoing evidence that the MacBook Pro updates are imminent.

The current MacBook Pros which were released in June carry a system identifier label of "MacBookPro3,1". One reader notes that an application called MiniBatteryLogger provides public battery tracking logs, and recently revealed an entry with an identifier of "MacBookPro4,1". "MacBookPro4,1" is presumably the identifier for the unreleased MacBook Pro revisions. The author of the application states that the identifier is obtained automatically from the system, though there are no guarantees that it wasn't faked.

However, this same new "MacBookPro4,1" identifier has also been found in the latest developer seeds of Mac OS X 10.5.2 from Apple. In contrast, the public version of Mac OS X 10.5.1 does not contain the "4,1" identifier.

In many ways, all this does is verify what we have presumed to be true... that MacBook Pro revisions are coming, and soon enough that the Mac OS X 10.5.2 will support them, but it's still somewhat reassuring for those waiting patiently for the new MacBook Pros.

Update: We've received confirmation that the battery log information came from an Apple IP address, so it is believed to be authentic.

Apple is presently offering only two mass storage options for the MacBook Air: a traditional 80GB 1.8" hard disk drive (HDD) and a $999 64GB 1.8" solid state drive (SSD) upgrade. Those interested in upgrading the capacity of their MacBook Air drives may have to wait as long as 2009 to get significantly higher sizes.

In its pursuit of thinness, the MacBook Air uses a 1.8" single-platter 80GB HDD which measures only 5mm high. While larger capacity 1.8" drives exist, they use double-platter designs which result in an 8mm height. This extra 3mm explains why the 80GB drive is the only HDD option available for the MacBook Air.

Technology, of course, marches forward, but the last we've heard about higher capacity single-platter HDDs came from Toshiba in September 2007. At the time, Toshiba had prototyped a 1.8" HDD that fits 120GB on a single platter, but this drive is not expected to come to market until 2009.

Those who can afford the Solid State Drive (SSD) may be in in some luck, as Samsung did announce (in Jan 2008) that a 128GB SSD drive is coming in the "first half of 2008". This 1.8" drive multi-level cell flash drive will be produced in the 1.8" 5mm high size, although the announced interface (SATA) is not the same as that used in the MacBook Air (PATA). Pricing has not yet been announced on the 128GB SSD drive, but will certainly carry a significant premium.

The MacBookAir.com domain is now in the hands of Apple. MacRumors.com had registered it ahead of Macworld in anticipation of the MacBook Air release. As promised, we handed it over to Apple when asked. However, this does demonstrate that Apple does not necessarily register domains of upcoming products even when they are freely available. Curiously, our MacBookAir.com domain registration actually triggered a number of actual MacBookAir domain registrations by Apple.

Meanwhile, Looprumors claims that Apple Stores will be revising their store's window and floor displays on Thursday night in preparation for the MacBook Air. While this conflicts with earlier BoyGeniusReport claims of a Tuesday/Wednesday launch, we've also heard confirmation that this Friday is the target day for MacBook Air displays/demos at Apple Retail Stores.

A Friday launch would also correspond with the arrival of MacBook Airs to those who ordered it immediately after the keynote address.

Apple has released a number of updates for the iWork '08 suite today.

Keynote 4.0.2
This update primarily addresses performance issues while playing or exporting presentations.

Pages 3.0.2
This update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.

Numbers 1.0.2
This update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X.

The updates are available directly from Apple or through your Mac OS X Software Update.

Previous reports of shipments may have been premature, as the first customers who ordered the stock (1.6GHz/80GB) MacBook Airs immediately after the keynote are now getting shipment notifications for the latest Apple laptop. Calls to retail Apple Stores reveal that MacBook Airs have not yet arrived at retail locations.

Meanwhile, the earliest ship date for customers who upgraded to the Solid State Drive (SSD) remains February 6th, 2008.

Apple announced the MacBook Air exactly two weeks ago at Macworld San Francisco.

Update: AppleScoop points us to the MacBook User Manual (PDF) posted by Apple.