MacRumors

Appleinsider is backtracking on their claims from last year that the Mac mini was set to be discontinued. According to the rumor site, they've received word to the contrary:

For the first time in nearly a year, however, people familiar with the matter tell AppleInsider there's new life in the Mac mini department, where a small team of engineers have recently been tasked with gutting the diminutive desktop and applying fresh internals.

The Mac mini is expected to accompany the rest of the Mac line to the new Penryn Core 2 Duo processors. Specs are expected to start at 2.1GHz with the same GMA X3100 graphics processor used in the current MacBooks. The Mac mini was last updated in August 2007.

MacScoop was first to predict Penryn Mac mini updates in the coming weeks. Apple is also expected to also refresh their iMac line with the latest Intel processors.

With the release of Safari 3.1, Apple has started pushing Safari to Windows iTunes users. This new distribution method offers all Windows iTunes users the option of installing Safari 3.1 even if they have never installed Safari before. Apple confirmed this to Information Week:

"We are using Software Update to make it easy and convenient for both Mac and Windows users to get the latest Safari update from Apple,"

While the practice has generated some debate, ZDNet points out that Apple previously announced this plan at WWDC in 2007:

"Jobs said that Apple plans to use iTunes as a distribution vehicle for Safari for Windows. He noted that there are a million downloads of iTunes a day, with 500 million of those [having gone to] Windows machines."

A new patent application from Apple details how to implement a 3-dimensional stereoscopic display. While 3d images have been around for years, Apple points out that computational power has advanced to the point where these true 3d images can be rendered and animated in realtime. Apple specifically explores the implementation of "autostereoscopic" systems that don't require the viewer to be wearing special glasses or goggles.

Apple believes its system addresses issues found in previous implementations of 3d and involves tracking the observer to ensure proper rendering of the 3d image regardless of where their exact position. Their system involves real time modulation of left/right sub images to be projected to the observer's left/right eyes individually. Apple also claims it can accommodate multiple observers to provide "a unique and personal 3D visual experience to each individual observer, with each visual experience (i.e., projected image) selectively being similar or different from the others, as desired."

As with all patent applications, we're uncertain when this will make its way out of the labs and into consumers hands, but Apple appears to be continuing to explore alternative interfaces for consumer use. What's interesting is that this is not the first time we've heard of Apple exploring stereoscopic displays. In 2002, Apple was said "to have other flat-panel technologies cooking in the labs, including stereoscopic displays."

After the release of today's Time Machine and Airport update, several readers report that Time Machine now supports backups to USB drives connected to your Airport Extreme basestation. This configuration essentially reproduces the functionality of Apple's Time Capsule product.

Apple had originally advertised these "AirPort Disk" wireless backups as a feature for Leopard, but this feature was removed prior to its launch. Speculation had suggested that it may have been due to some unresolved security issues, but Apple has made no official statements. While there had been workarounds published, today's update appears to officially restore this feature.

Apple has released a Time Machine and Airport update today. The 10.4 MB download for Mac OS X Leopard provides "compatibility improvements for using Time Machine with Time Capsule, as well as AirPort driver fixes."

Time Machine is Apple's automated backup solution that is included with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Time Capsule is Apple's network hard drive that works in conjunction with Time Machine to provide automated wireless backups.

Intel's aggressive advancement of their processor technology has made it difficult for the casual onlooker to keep up.

Intel first introduced their current Core microarchitecture in Q1 2006. This represented a significant leap forward over their previous Pentium M microarchitecture. Apple took advantage of this transition and delivered some of their first Intel Macs using the Core-based processors. The Core microarchitecture spawned many processor revisions which were known by their code names: Merom, Conroe, Woodcrest, and Penryn. Many of these processors have been used in Apple's Macs over the past 2 years.

On Tuesday, Intel provided the first official information about the Nehalem microarchitecture -- the successor to the Core microarchitecture. Intel plans on phasing out the Core microarchitecture starting in late 2008 with the introduction of Nehalem-based server processors. Laptop and desktop processors based on Nehalem are not expected until 2009.

While we've touched on rumored Nehalem features before, Intel has officially confirmed many of those details. The key new features in Nehalem are Simultaneous multithreading, QuickConnect, and tri-channel DDR3 -- all of which are expected to bring a significant leap forward again in processor performance:

Nehalam should pack one heck of a punch once it debuts in late 2008. Mainstream/desktop shipments won't appear until 2009, but Intel's redeployment of SMT, combined with its first integrated memory controller and new QuickPath Interconnect, should toss Nehalem performance clock-per-clock into the stratosphere.

Adobe made comments today that they will be delivering a Flash client for the iPhone. According to Adobe's Chief Executive Shantanu Narayen, Adobe has downloaded the iPhone SDK and is planning on building a Flash Player for the iPhone and distributing it via Apple's iTunes App store.

"We believe Flash is synonymous with the Internet experience, and we are committed to bringing Flash to the iPhone," Narayen said. "We have evaluated (the software developer tools) and we think we can develop an iPhone Flash player ourselves."

The news comes a few weeks after Apple's Steve Jobs stated his reasons why Flash is not available for the iPhone. Jobs claimed that Flash Lite for mobile was not full featured enough, while the full version of Flash would not run well on the iPhone. Other reports have claimed the core issue preventing the release of Flash for iPhone is a licensing negotiation between Adobe and Apple over the iPhone's PDF renderer.

It's not clear how exactly Adobe would bring Flash to the iPhone, as there are several restrictions in the iPhone SDK that could prevent its release.

Financial Times reports that Apple is currently in discussions with music companies to allow customers to have unlimited access to the entire iTunes music library in exchange for paying a premium for its iPod and iPhone devices (presumably for the life of the device).

The plan sounds similar to Universal's Total Music plan in which the cost of music is embedded into the music player itself. Based on the wording of this article, it seems Apple's version of the plan adds the cost on top of the iPod or iPhone.

The negotiations are currently being held up due to disagreements in pricing. Apple is reportedly only offering $20 per device, while Nokia is playing almost $80/handset for a similar plan. Other possibilities appear to include a subscription based service for iPhone users ($7-8/month, for example) with the capability to keep up to 40-50 tracks/year even after the subscription lapses.

Historically, the Financial Times has been a reliable source of information with early details of Apple's plans to introduce iTunes Movie rentals well ahead of its release,

The new version of Safari (3.1) that was released today incorporates the latest HTML and CSS capabilities found in Webkit. While we previously featured the changes, they are worth repeating now that 3.1 is out.

CSS Animation - transitions, and animations allowing you to do CSS-based animations and Transforms. (example above from Surfin' Safari)

HTML5 Media Support - New 'video' and 'audio' tags that allow you to embed video/audio content easily. Example video embedded here.

Downloadable Fonts - instead of having to rely on common fonts available to browsers, you can link to actual font files within your CSS. For example, this html page takes advantage of web fonts and will render differently depending on which version of Safari you are using (more examples and explanation):

Other features include native getElementsByClassName and client-side database storage.

Apple has released a new security update for Mac OS X . Apple provides a support document detailing the changes

Security Update 2008-002 is recommended for all users and improves the security of Mac OS X. Previous security updates have been incorporated into this security update.

The update is available via Software Update or from the Apple Downloads page in the following versions:

- 10.5.2: Universal (50 MB)
- 10.4.11: PPC (68 MB)
- 10.4.11: Universal (103 MB)

- 10.5.2 Server: Universal (108 MB)
- 10.4.11 Server: PPC (82 MB)
- 10.4.11 Server: Universal (107 MB)

Engadget has posted an extensive gallery of photos from the upcoming iPhone 2.0 Firmware. Several of the new features have been detailed before. A few highlights from their experience:

- No contact search
- Calculator supports sideways orientation (see photo above)
- New button in calendar view doesn't do anything yet (screenshot)
- App Store present, but doesn't work yet
- Wifi networks can be ordered in preference (screenshot)
- Multi-select in Mail to move/delete. (screenshot)

Apple is currently seeding version 1.2 Beta to enterprise beta testers and select iPhone developers. The final version will be renamed "2.0" and released in late June.

Apple's Dutch iTunes store is running an ad that shows the iPod touch, starting at only 199 euro. This represents a 80 euro difference from the official price of the iPod touch which starts at 279 euro. Yooph.nl speculates that this could be a premature leak akin to Swiss Apple Store Airport Express specs. Indeed, none of the other iPods in the same store start at 199 euro, making it less likely to be a simple substitution error.

To further add to this being a true leak, we had heard rumors that both the iPod Touch and iPhone would be seeing US $100 price drops in the coming months -- though, those rumors also suggested Apple would the eliminate of the 8GB model, which is still listed in the ad.

The iPod Touch currently costs US $299 for 8GB, US $399 for 16GB and US $499 for 32GB.

Apple announced the release of Safari 3.1 today. The newest version of Safari incorporates the latest changes from Webkit to provide "the world's fastest web browser for Mac and Windows PCs".

According to Apple Safari loads web pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2. Meanwhile, Safari's Javascript is "up to six times faster than other browsers."

"Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface," said Philip Schiller, Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. "And best of all, Safari supports the latest audio, video and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience."

Safari 3.1 is available for download at http://www.apple.com/safari/ or via your Software Update.