MacRumors

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.

According to preliminary data from NPD, Apple reportedly achieved 14 percent of the U.S. retail PC market share in February 2008, up from 9% just a year ago. This represents 60 percent unit growth and 67 percent revenue growth year-over-year.

Mac Notebook sales were up 64% year-over-year and Mac Desktops up 55% year-over-year, with strong sales of the MacBook Air this February.

Unfortunately, historic NPD data is not publicly available. Previous reports of Apple marketshare have been gathered with very different methods so are not directly comparable. The trend, however, is consistent with reports of Apple's growing popularity.

In 2001, Apple launched their retail store initiative with the slogan "5% down, 95% to go", referring to market share.

DigiTimes is reporting that Intel will be set to launch its mobile quad-core processor, the Core 2 Extreme QX9300, in the third quarter of this year.

The processor will carry a hefty price tag at US $1,038 in thousand-unit quantities, and DigiTimes says Intel does not expect demand to really pick up until the second half of 2009. Intel had previously demoed the chip at their Fall Developer Forum.

While the processor looks to be the first quad-core mobile CPU, its adoption will be limited due to its higher-than-average thermal design power of 45 Watts. Other elements of the processor promise to be surprisingly full-featured compared to its desktop counterparts: 2.53 GHz, 1066 MHz front side bus, and 12 MB L2 cache.

A new Apple patent application reveals that Apple has been working on some unique approaches to incorporating touch interfaces into future iPhones and MacBooks.

Apple introduces the idea of a double-sided translucent touch surface. This touch surface would be sensitive to touch on both sides. When placed as the bottom half of a traditional laptop...

... it could function as a multi-touch keyboard including the use of multi-touch gestures. When the user closed the laptop, however, the other side of the touch screen could act as a multi-touch overlay to the screen -- giving the device a tablet-like form factor.

Apple also explores the possibilities of incorporating a similar translucent touch pad to offer a mobile phone with similar capabilities.

Adobe announced that Microsoft has licensed Adobe's Flash Lite software for use in their Internet Explorer Mobile browser and in future versions of Microsoft Windows Mobile phones. Microsoft has also licensed Adobe's PDF Reader software.

The Flash Lite 3.x browser plug-in for Internet Explorer Mobile on Windows Mobile will provide users with access to rich and interactive web content created using Adobe Flash technology. As the most popular and ubiquitous format on the Internet today, Adobe Flash powers many rich and engaging web sites, applications and animations. Adobe Reader LE will allow Windows Mobile users to easily and reliably view and navigate rich PDF content using innovative features developed to improve document readability on smaller screens.

The lack of Adobe Flash support on the iPhone has been a frequently mentioned criticism. Steve Jobs recently addressed this issue, claiming that Adobe's Flash Lite was not flexible/powerful enough, while full-fledged Flash would not perform well on the iPhone. Jobs claimed "there's this missing product in the middle" between Flash Lite and Flash.

A recent report, however, claims that the reason for no Flash support on the iPhone is not a technical one. Instead, Adobe reportedly is interested in Apple also adopting their PDF reader for the iPhone, but Apple won't concede. Apple is presently using their own PDF renderer in the iPhone.

Apple updated the Airport Express today:

Apple today updated its AirPort Express mobile base station with 802.11n to deliver up to five times the performance and twice the range of the previous model*. Priced at just $99, AirPort Express is the worlds smallest 802.11n-based mobile base station. It can be plugged directly into the wall for wireless Internet connectivity and USB printing at home or easily brought on the road for wireless freedom wherever there is an Internet connection. AirPort Express features AirTunes, which works seamlessly with iTunes to give users a simple and inexpensive way to wirelessly stream iTunes music from a PC or Mac to any room in the house.

As expected, the new Airport Express adds 802.11n networking. The price remains $99 and is available immediately.

We had heard reliable reports that Apple will be launching a new version of their Airport Express next week, likely on Tuesday. Apple Retail stores should have stock of the new Airport Express by mid week. The new model will be priced at the same price as the current model ($99). Though details have not been confirmed, it appears the upgrade will most likely include support for 802.11n wireless networking.

MacGeneration points to an prematurely updated description at the Swiss Apple Store that describes 802.11n Wifi support.

The Airport Express currently supports 802.11b/g networking only. 802.11n offers greater performance, more range, and improved reliability over the older Wifi standards. Apple has been including 802.11n in their computers since early 2007.

Airport Express allows you to stream your music from iTunes, share a printer wirelessly, and share your internet. More details about Airport Express itself at Apple's site.