Month of March , 2005

Accoding to AppleInsider, Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 update is ready for release as soon as this week.

Anonymous sources indicated us that a new build of Tiger has been seeded early this week.

Yesterday, AppleInsider claimed that Apple was preparing to launch its iTunes Music Store in Australia.

ThinkSecret (among other sites), reports that Adobe has accidentally leaked details of the next release of its core business product, Creative Studio 2.0.

As promised, we're resuming the publication today, starting with a brief sum-up and commentary to catch-up with the latest news since late last week.

MacosXrumors is taking a short break, we'll resume the publication by early next week. By the way, Happy Easter!

Apple has just released a firmware update for the iPod through Mac OS X' Software Update utility. This update, named "2005-03-23" brings the following improvements, according to the description provided by Apple :

Although Apple has still not officially announced a release date for Mac OS X Tiger, today, Amazon has started a mail-in rebate for Apple's forthcoming operating system major release.

Regular price for Tiger is $129.99 while Amazon offers $35 of mail-in rebate which brings the price to only $94.99. It is probably the first time a major release of Mac OS X is sold for so little (if we don't count the Mac OS X 10.1 release which was free).

The rebate starts today on

On Tuesday, AppleInsider and PowerPage have filed appeal in recent Apple trade secrets suit. Apple recently won the right to subpoena these sites.

Café Macs has posted some notes on the latest seeded build of Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 update, numbered 7W82.

A search in the U.S. Patents and Trademarks office database reveals that Apple has filed, on March the 8th, a trademark for its iPod shuffle logo

Apple has made available a security update for Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther), numbered "2005-003", through the Software Update utility. This update brings the following changes, according to the description provided by Apple

As promised by Apple in February, after the release of new iPods and iPod minis, the iPod Camera Connector is now available

According to ThinkSecret, Apple acquired Schema Software, a company based in Vancouver, BC, earlier this month.

Apple has just made available two updates through the Software Update utility. The first weights 21.8MB and updates of Keynote to version 2.0.1 while the second weights 28.3MB and updates Pages to version 1.0.1.

Article removed at the request of Apple Legal.

Insanely Great Mac has reported earlier this week that there is a reference of the PowerPC 970MP in a document available on IBM's web site.

Credit Suisse First Boston brokerage firm released yesterday some figures it expects for Apple, for this quarter.

AppleInsider has recently brought us a lot of interesting news, here is a sum-up

Last week we reported that several sources had informed us that Mac OS X "Tiger" 10.4 was possibly running late. We had confirmed reports of several key components of Tiger being reported late by Apple developers or others close to Apple. Following our article, there has been discussion by the Mac user community over our claims.

Microsoft announced today on its web site that it plans to drop support for the Mac OS X client for MSN services. The company will stop supporting the Mac client, beginning May the 31st. The company invites its customers to use the web-based interface alternative to use its paid Internet services.

As reported on News.com, a California court Judge has announced today that Apple has the right to subpoena PowerPage's mail records so as to determine the sources who have leaked information from Apple. NFox, the mail provider of the Mac enthusiast site will have to provide these records to Apple.

UPDATE: AppleInsider and ThinkSecret will have to reveal their sources as well. More

According to ThinkSecret, Apple will release speed-bumped eMacs and iMacs by mid-April.

The new eMacs should reach speeds of 1.33 to 1.5Ghz and have improved graphic chips, according to the site, while new iMacs should be boosted to 2Ghz. No other hardware improvements are reported though.

A reader has reported us some interesting hints which suggest Apple is planning to use multi-core processors in its future PowerMacs and has already adapted its developer tools' utilities to this new architecture. We tested the hints and we provide two screenshots in this article.

An article on Engadget reports on the release of a product from LuxPro at CeBIT 2005, which looks really identical to the iPod shuffle. Its maker has even called it Super shuffle.

The Blu-ray Association and Apple have announced today that Apple is joining the Board of Directors of the consortium.

AppleInsider reports that Apple is planning to increase the minimum amount of memory that comes in standard with every Mac, in an effort by the company to improve the Macintosh user's experience.

According to MacRumors, Apple has seeded Mac OS X Panther 10.3.9 update build 7W77 to developers.

A MacRumors reader hints possibility that Apple, one day, releases computers that have more than two processors.

As reports USAToday, Sony is planning to release a new line of 9 flash-based digital audio players this year.

According to PowerPage, Apple is currently working on a mini-laptop running a stripped-down version of Mac OS X.

It was recently rumoured that Apple has considered to include an iPod dock on the Mac mini's case and that the Mac mini was already technically equipped to have it.

MacBidouille has reported, yesterday, that an article on IBM's site is was mentioning the existence of a PowerPC 970GX processor in the PowerPC G5 family.

Microsoft has posted an update for Office 2004 on its web site, updating the office productivity suite to version 11.1.1.

Today, Sony announced it names former CBS executive, Howard Stringer, as CEO, replacing Nobuyuki Idei who was the CEO of Sony for about 10 years.

Although not in crisis, the company struggles to revitalize its position in the consumer electronics market, while competition is becoming cheaper and stronger.

ThinkSecret reports that Apple should release some minor software updates in the coming weeks while it is also readying revision updates to its iSight webcam.

Newsweek reports that Motorola will release its long-awaited iTunes compatible phone as soon as this week.

Readers report that Apple has added three new Tiger related categories on its software download section: Automator Actions, Dashboard Widgets and Spotlight Plugins.

With March well on its way and the number of issues reported in recent seeds still quite high, we are starting to wonder whether Apple can make it before the end of H1 2005.

Apple has won the preliminary ruling against ThinkSecret, PowerPage and AppleInsider.

Apple's shares (AAPL) have closed down today, after Napster raised its guidance for the fourth quarter.

Almost two months after the Mac mini introduction at MacWorld Expo, Intel has showed at the IDF (Intel Developer Forum - San Fransisco), a prototype of mini-PC concept, based on its next generation Centrino architecture, code named Napa. It is not really a big surprise, but this prototype really looks like Apple's Mac mini.

Late last week TheRegister reported that electronics engineers have noticed some components in the Mac mini that could be used to integrate an iPod dock on the Mac mini.