SAN FRANCISCO—Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit (Mac BU) announced during the 2010 Macworld Expo more information about the upcoming Office 2011 for Mac, and users are excited despite the lack of details. Scheduled to be released before the holiday season this year, the revamped Office suite is bringing more parity than ever to the Mac version while still being as Mac-like as it can be.
Apple released a long-awaited and surprising update to Aperture, addressed a long-standing audio-CPU bug affecting Nehalem Mac Pros, and told iPhone developers to steer clear of using location data just to serve ads. Meanwhile, Google released a new Chrome beta, and Opera bragged about an iPhone version of Opera Mini 5. Developer Erica Sadun explained the inner workings and potential benefits of Voice Control for the iPhone. And associate editor Jacqui Cheng is covering Macworld Expo 2010, even though our readers didn’t really expect much.
The iPhone is currently available with just one data plan: $30 per month for “unlimited” data attached to a minimum two-year contract—though AT&T Mobility CEO Ralph de la Vega believes some users should be charged more.
The iPad, on the other hand, offers two pre-paid, no contract plans: $15 per month for 250MB, or $30 per month for unlimited data. During the introduction of the iPad, Apple CEO Steve Jobs indicated that 250MB should be more than enough for practically anyone, and many watchers took exception to this claim, noting that they use plenty of data on their iPhones already and the iPad is sure to be much worse.
SAN FRANCISCO—It’s no secret that the Omni Group, makers of well-respected Mac software like OmniFocus, OmniGraffle, and OmniWeb, has decided to go all out for the iPad. The company made the decision to go iPad or bust the minute the device was announced and has been working feverishly ever since then to start making iPad versions of some of its most well-loved apps. This isn’t just another software company hopping on the latest gadget bandwagon, however, something we learned from chatting with CEO Ken Case at the Macworld Expo. Omni is working on investing in the future of multitouch.
Entertainment. That was the number one priority during the first “Feature Presentation” (also known as: “The Not-a-Keynote Keynote) at Macworld Expo 2010. It was hosted by New York Times tech writer David Pogue, who mostly delivered, despite some awkward points during the show. Surprise appearances from the Autotune the News gang (also known as the Gregory Brothers) and Star Trek: The Next Generation/Reading Rainbow star Levar Burton saved the day, even though their appearances were more about keeping the crowd chatting than focusing on tech.
Apple will begin testing $1 TV episode pricing beginning in April, according to industry executives familiar with the plans. The launch is expected to coincide with the launch of the iPad, and may serve to prove that the change is a viable one for hesitant networks.
Google has reportedly bought Aardvark, a Q&A-focused social search service.
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TechCrunch
Virtualization is a key enabling technology for the modern datacenter. Without virtualization, tricks like load balancing and multitenancy wouldn’t be available from datacenters that use commodity x86 hardware to supply the on-demand compute cycles and networked storage that powers the current generation of cloud-based web applications.
Apple TV software is now at version 3.0.2. No one seems to know what’s fixed, but we hope it fixes a bug that says the hard drive is full even when there’s nothing on it.
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MacRumors
We’ve been talking about gaming mice a little bit in the past few weeks, and one of the ways gamers judge the quality of their mice is by the DPI: dots per inch. You see a high number, and you think you have a good mouse. Does that number mean anything in terms of actual performance?
