MAC PATCH FOR 31 VULNERABILITES

[CNET-News.com, November 28, 2006] Apple Computer on has released a security update for Mac OS X to repair 31 vulnerabilities, including a zero-day Wi-Fi hijack flaw. Apple's Security Update 2006-007 includes fixes for flaws in Apple's own code as well as third-party components that ship with the Mac OS X operating system, such as Perl, PHP and OpenSSL. Several of the vulnerabilities could allow full system compromises, according to Apple's security alert. However, Apple's update does not address all publicly known flaws in the operating system. Over the past few weeks bug hunters, as part of an initiative called the Month of the Kernel Bugs, have published details on several new vulnerabilities in Mac OS X. One of those was tagged "highly critical" by security-monitoring company Secunia. "Apple hasn't fixed any of the bugs published during the Month of Kernel Bugs, except for the AirPort issue," said "LMH," the code name of the security researcher who started the Month of the Kernel Bugs. "Apple users are still exposed to any potential risks related to those unpatched issues." The security hole in the AirPort driver software affects Macs that shipped with Apple's original AirPort card, Apple said. An attacker nearby the computer could commandeer a vulnerable system by sending it a malicious network packet, according to Apple's alert. Other flaws addressed by the Apple update could let Macs be compromised through malicious sites, rigged compressed files or malicious font files, Apple said. The update also fixes four flaws in the Mac OS X Security Framework, the worst of which could crash Macs or display expired security certificates as still valid, Apple said. The Security Update 2006-007 for Mac OS X client and server software is available from the Software Update pane in Mac OS System Preferences, or Apple's downloads Web site. Apple recommends Mac users install it.

GREAT FEATURES ON MAC OS 10.4 TIGER

[PC Authority, May 2, 2005] The Mac OS X 10.4 client codenamed Tiger brought some 200 new features, notably Spotlight, Apple's new desktop search technology, on its release last Friday. The server version of Tiger is also due to ship, according to Apple. Spotlight searches the contents and metadata of files to help users find anything stored on their Mac -- such as emails, contacts, appointments, images, PDFs and documents -- and organises and displays the results. Built into the Mac OS X core, Spotlight also updates results whenever files change. "It's the holy grail of search on the desktop, and Apple got there first," said Kevin Langdon, owner of Crywolf Computers, an Apple reseller, and director of the Apple Specialists Marketing Cooperative. Two other key features of Tiger, Dashboard and Automator, will catch the attention of developers as well as Mac users, according to solution providers. Based on standard web technologies such as HTML and JavaScript, Dashboard serves up a menu of desktop accessory application 'widgets' for speedy access to information like stock quotes, weather, airline flights, units of measure, currency conversions and a phone book. Tiger comes with 14 widgets and third-party developers can build new widgets that users can add to their Dashboards. The Automator application allows users to choose from a library of more than 100 automated, repetitive tasks and create customised workflows, which can be saved and shared. Developers also can expand the library by designing more tasks and workflows. "Probably the [Tiger] feature we get the most questions about is the three-person iChat. That seems to be the most anticipated feature among our customers," Langdon said. The iChat instant-message and audio/video conferencing application -- designed to work in tandem with Apple's iSight Webcam -- lets users hold audio conferences with up to 10 people and video conferences with up to four people in a 3D virtual conference room. Participants in a video conference appear on-screen just as if they were seated around a table, with their reflections even showing in the tabletop. The new iChat also brings improved picture quality via support of the new H.264 video codec. Other highlights of Tiger include an updated Safari web browser with a built-in RSS reader; Mail 2, a new version of OS X's mail application; QuickTime 7, the latest version of Apple's multimedia player; iCal 2, an upgraded calendar application; and Font Book 2, an enhanced font management utility that now supports libraries for installing fonts on the system or network. Apple also sharpened Unix-based OS X under the hood. Tiger brings native 64-bit application support; Core Image and Core Video engines to support new image and video processing applications; improved Windows compatibility so OS X users can more easily access a Windows-based home directory and authenticate against Microsoft's Active Directory;advances to OS X's Unix foundation; Xgrid distributed computing software; and Xcode 2, a new version of Apple's developer tools suite for OS X. "We work a lot with video professionals, so a lot of people are really looking forward to the core image and graphics engines that have been rewritten for Motion [Apple's motion-graphics design software] and the better performance they'll get out of that," said Gary Dailey, president of Daystar Technology, an Apple VAR. "I think that over the next six months, as Tiger really gets out there, that [Apple's user base] is going to grow exponentially," Langdon said. "I definitely see more people that aren't traditional Mac installed-base customers."

POWER MAC G5s

SUPER PERFORMANCE from MAC G5

Apple-Macintosh has unleashed the world’s fastest* personal computer—the Power Mac® G5 —featuring the world’s first 64-bit desktop processor and the industry’s first 1 GHz front-side bus. Powered by the revolutionary PowerPC G5 processor designed by IBM and Apple, the Power Mac G5 is the first personal computer to utilize 64-bit processing technology for unprecedented memory expansion (up to 8GB) and advanced 64-bit computation, while running existing 32-bit applications natively. “The 64-bit revolution has begun and the personal computer will never be the same again,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “The new Power Mac G5 combines the world’s first 64-bit desktop processor, the industry’s first 1 GHz front-side bus, and up to 8GB of memory to beat the fastest Pentium 4 and dual Xeon-based systems in industry-standard benchmarks and real-world professional applications.” Delivering the industry’s highest system bandwidth, the Power Mac G5 line offers dual 2.0 GHz PowerPC G5 processors, each with an independent 1 GHz front-side bus, for an astounding 16 GBps of bandwidth. The line also features the industry’s highest bandwidth memory (400 MHz 128-bit DDR SDRAM with throughput up to 6.4 GBps); the industry’s fastest PCI interface available on a desktop (133 MHz PCI-X); and cutting-edge AGP 8X Pro graphics capabilities, all within a stunning new professional aluminum enclosure featuring innovative computer-controlled cooling for quiet operation. The PowerPC G5 processor is a result of the strategic relationship between Apple and IBM. At frequencies up to 2 GHz, the PowerPC G5 introduces 64-bit processing technology to desktop computing, while also running 32-bit applications natively. The PowerPC G5 processor architecture is based on a completely new execution core that features massively parallel computation for an unprecedented 215 in-flight instructions, full symmetric multi-processing, two double precision floating point units and an optimized Velocity Engine™. The PowerPC G5 chips are fabricated in IBM’s $3 billion state-of-the-art semiconductor facility in East Fishkill, N.Y. The new Power Mac G5 is the world’s fastest personal computer based on SPEC® CPU 2000 benchmark results and leading professional application performance tests when compared against 3.0 GHz Pentium 4-based systems and 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon-based systems: In the SPEC CPU 2000 independent testing comparing the Power Mac G5 against leading 3.0 GHz Pentium 4-based systems and 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon-based systems, the Power Mac G5 won three out of four key benchmark tests. All tests were run with the same industry standard GCC 3.3 compiler to insure a fair comparison; Single processor tests results show the Power Mac G5 an impressive 21 percent faster than the 3.0 GHz Pentium 4-based PC on SPECfp_base2000, which measures single processor floating point performance, and 10 percent slower on SPECint_base2000, which measures single processor integer performance; and Dual processor tests results, which determine the fastest personal computer since dual processor systems are faster than single processor systems, are a clean sweep with the Power Mac G5 beating the 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon workstations by an incredible 41 percent on SPECfp_rate_base2000, which measures the total floating point throughput of the system, and edging out the same system by three percent on SPECint_rate_base2000, which measures total integer computation throughput. In addition to outperforming Pentium 4- and Dual Xeon-based systems in industry-standard benchmarks, the Power Mac G5 ran significantly faster than Pentium 4 and Dual Xeon-based systems on performance tests of the most popular applications for creative professionals: On a test of 45 commonly used actions, Adobe Photoshop ran twice as fast on the Power Mac G5 than on 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon workstations; Logic Audio on the Power Mac G5 can play nearly 40 percent more tracks with reverbs applied than Cubase SX running on a 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon workstation; and Genentech Blast runs up to five times faster on a Power Mac G5 than on a 3.06 GHz Dual Xeon workstation. Complementing its computational power, the Power Mac G5 provides leading-edge expansion with dual 1.5 Gbps serial ATA interfaces; the industry’s fastest PCI interface available on a desktop with a 133 MHz and two 100 MHz, 64-bit PCI-X slots; and AGP 8X Pro graphics capable of supporting the power and thermal demands of high-end professional graphics cards. The Power Mac G5 comes standard with either the NVIDIA GeForceFX 5200 or the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro graphics card. As a build-to-order option for unprecedented 3D design, visualization and gaming, the Power Mac G5 line also features the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro—a workstation-class graphics card featuring per pixel and vertex shaders, and providing an astonishing fill rate of 3 billion textured pixels/second. The Power Mac G5 delivers industry-leading connectivity and high-performance I/O for creative professionals with Gigabit Ethernet, FireWire® 800, two FireWire 400 ports, three USB 2.0 ports, dual display support, optical digital audio input and output, analog audio input and output and a headphone jack. The system also supports 54 Mbps AirPort® Extreme wireless networking and is Bluetooth ready for wireless connections to a host of Bluetooth-enabled peripherals. The Power Mac G5 features a stunning new anodized aluminum alloy enclosure, designed to meet the needs of the most demanding professionals. The new enclosure is built around four independently controlled thermal zones for advanced airflow management, with fans in each zone that are individually controlled based on a sophisticated combination of thermal and power monitoring, resulting in the Power Mac G5 running two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4. The G5 enclosure also features an easy-to-open access panel allowing quick access to internal components for tool-less installation of memory, hard drives, optical drives or an AirPort Extreme card. Front and rear handles allow professionals to rapidly and safely move Power Mac G5s when and where they need them, and front-mounted FireWire, USB2, and headphone ports provide convenient access for popular peripherals.

IPOD OWNERS HAVE LEGITIMATE COMPLAINT

By Alyce Lomax The wildly popular Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) iPod is seen as the answer to flagging sales of the company's core computer products. However, today news agencies mined a nugget of class action lawsuit news out of Apple's quarterly regulatory filing, shedding a slightly less positive light on the iPod. As of late December, a series of class action lawsuits had been launched in California. The iPod may be infinitely cool, but the lawsuits imply some customers thought Apple exceedingly uncool about the gadget's lithium battery. Apple's had an extremely successful renaissance based on the hip iPod, bringing to mind the possibility that the company might become a new name in consumer electronics. During its first quarter this year, it sold out of iPods; there are reportedly about 2 million of the gizmos out there, keeping users up to their ears in tunes. Controversy, however, has been building behind the scenes. In January, MTV News reported rumblings of customer dissatisfaction regarding juice. Despite Apple's claim that the iPod contains eight hours of battery life per charge, some customers reported that as time wore on, they only got a fraction of that; some also said that the problems began after the one-year warranty expired. According to MTV, a young man named Casey Neistat claimed that Apple's only solution to his problem was for him to buy himself a new iPod or pay dearly for the repair. Last fall, he launched a website that contained a video of himself spray painting the words, "iPod's unreplaceable battery lasts only 18 months" throughout New York City. Talk about some "power to the people" press. Since then, Apple offers a better solution than supposedly blithely suggesting customers replace the whole iPod; it now offers a $99 replacement battery or a $59 extended warranty. However, some still grumble that common sense should have ruled over Apple's well-known design tendencies. For example, some argue that a less aesthetic vehicle juiced by old-fashioned AA batteries would have been better, sort of like the Sony (NYSE: SNE) Walkman, an earlier generation's answer to portable music. If the lawsuit flies, one can imagine a hefty price tag for Apple to repair or replace juiceless iPods launched prior to its new plan. More than that, Apple has come between avid iPod users and their music. That in itself may yet prove costlier to the company. Want to talk about iPods and Apple? Have you had any similar problems with your iPod's battery? Key up the Apple or Apple User's Group discussion boards to talk about the company and its products with other Fools. [Alyce Lomax does not own shares of any of the companies mentioned; however, she is a longtime Macintosh user.]

DOUBLE SECURITY FLAW IN MAC OS X

By Robert Lemos,Staff Writer, CNET News.com May 19, 2004 Apple Computer got hit by a double whammy this week when a security researcher publicized a pair of flaws in Mac OS X that when used together could let attackers place a malicious program on a Mac and then run the file. The flaws could be used to create a virus that spreads through a Web link sent via e-mail messages. An attacker would have to also create a Web site with special programming. The discoverer, who uses the name "lixlpixel," claims to have notified Apple in late February and said the company never responded. News of the vulnerabilities had started appearing on security mailing lists, prompting the flaw finder to post details of the weakness to the Web. "Since these 'exploits' are on the rise and it's so easy to protect yourself--here you go," lixlpixel's posting said. Apple refused to comment on the vulnerability, except to publish a release saying that such reports are taken "very seriously at Apple and we are actively investigating this potential security issue." Apple has twice been criticized for its downplaying of security issues and its lack of response to the concerns of the security industry. Security information service Secunia rated the issue "extremely critical," on Tuesday, because online discussions have pointed out many different ways to exploit the flaws. Secunia recommended that Mac users avoid visiting untrusted Web sites and said Mac administrators and others avoid surfing the Internet while signed on to their networks as privileged users. Secunia verified the flaws in Apple's operating system by viewing malicious code using Internet Explorer for the Mac and Safari. More about this issue can be found in the advisories section of Secunia's Web site.

MAC POWER BOOK

WHY MAC WILL NEVER INCREASE ITS MARKET SHARE

By John C. Dvorak, PC Magazine] The Mac platform is essentially stagnant. That becomes obvious when you look at the declining market share numbers— not from research firms, but from the W3C, which monitors online activity. As of December 2004, the Mac share as measured by online activity was 2.7 percent (Linux is 3.1), with all the rest going to various flavors of Windows. I'm now convinced that this stems mostly from Apple's inability to make the Mac a commodity computer by pricing it to compete with PCs made inexpensively in China and selling with razor-thin margins. Here are the reasons Apple can't sustain its position. The company figures it has certain market niches locked down. This includes computer users in advertising agencies, news bureaus, and various professional organizations as well as creative artists and writers. I also count an odd, die-hard faction of true believers, but these people are inconsequential except in online forums, where they make a fuss whenever anyone discusses the Mac. They probably hurt the Mac community more than anyone by creating an unfair crackpot image that gets associated with the machine. CEO Steve Jobs' star persona makes the situation worse. His attention to the Apple flagship has been eroded by the success of Pixar, and more recently, by the iPod and iTunes initiatives. None of these has anything to do with the Macintosh. Keeping it on track is a full-time task—. Jobs cannot be in the computer business, the movie business, and the music business and make them all successful. You see the results. Market share for the Mac is crap. Much of the problem arises from the psychology created by the overpriced iPod. And Mac users who buy the players contribute to the problem by encouraging the company to maintain its high-margin death march. Apple, seeing it can still use strong marketing to sell high –margin, high-status items, will continue to think it can do so with the Macintosh. What goes on at Apple planning sessions when market-share issues come up? Some executives probably proclaim that three percent of this market is "huge!!" Others nod their heads in agreement. And indeed, three percent is huge. But at some point (which may have been reached already), declining market share creates a relative lack of interest, and eventually, discontinuance. The Amiga fell prey to this. I've been thinking about this marketing dilemma ever since seeing those w3C numbers, and I've concluded that the real problem with Mac marketing is a weird logical inconsistency that can only worsen the product's market situation. In fact, unless something changes drastically, I can't see the circumstances improving. Ironically, this logical inconsistency is also what makes the Mac great. There's a conundrum in choosing to go with simplicity versus complexity. Simply put, the ease-of-use and simplicity of the platform is killing it, because people cannot perceive that simplicity is ever worth MORE than complexity. Simpler should be cheaper. I made this argument years ago regarding the bloating of Microsoft code. It goes like this: Say you have two identical products on the market—word processors, for example. For the sake of argument, let's make these two, X and Y, almost exactly the same. But product X is written in tight assembly language, fits on a floppy disk, and takes up 30K of memory. Product Y is written in some high-level language, comes on a CD-ROM, and takes up 500 megabytes on your hard drive. Which will outsell the other? I argue that the packed CD-ROM always will, because the public will perceive it as a greater value. You're getting more for your money. I would go so far as to argue that the CD-ROM product could even run slower (which obviously would be the case), and you'd still have more people buying it. The 30K program could compete only by being cheaper! Now imagine the 30K product has tight, fast, bug-free code, but is more expensive. What would be the result? I'm guessing three percent market share. This is the dilemma Apple faces, and there is no way around it. The long-term consequences are obvious. Apple is the easy-to-use, less complex platform. Thus it should be cheaper, not more expensive. It's that simple. And why can't it be cheaper? Perhaps that's the question its users should ask.

20th ANNIVERSAY of APPLE MACINTOSH

By Graeme Philipson. The Apple Macintosh celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2004. It has been one of the most important machines of the computer revolution. It ranks with the IBM 360, the DEC PDP-8, the Apple II and the IBM PC as the most influential computers in history. That influence has been in its user interface and its design. These have evolved significantly but have always been pacesetters. Usually, anyway - the less said about the first Mac portable the better. The original Macintosh, released to great fanfare in January 1984, popularised the use of the graphical user interface. It also employed an integral design, with the monitor built into the computer. It was far from being the first to introduce either, as some people seem to think. Of the two, the graphical user interface (GUI) is by far the most important. The GUI was invented at Xerox's famous PARC (Palo Alto Research Centre) in the 1970s. At the time, it was characterised by what was referred to as WIMP - Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pull-down menus. The first commercial computers to use a GUI WIMP were the Xerox Star and Apple's Lisa computer, at a time when most machines used the dreaded command line. There is little doubt that the GUI has been one of the key developments in computing history. It made computers much easier to use and for 12 years now has been the standard operating environment across the IT industry. The Macintosh had a significant role in the widespread adoption of the GUI by showing mainstream computer users there was a real alternative. Microsoft Windows is essentially a copy of the Macintosh GUI. Apple even took Microsoft to court in the late 1980s but the case collapsed when it was shown that Apple had itself copied the design from Xerox PARC. But it took Microsoft more than a decade to catch up and even today the Mac interface is much more elegant than Microsoft's cumbersome Windows. The first Macintosh was tiny. Even in its day it was vastly underfunctioned. It had no hard disk and no means of connecting one. You could add an extra floppy drive. It had just 128KB of RAM, and just two applications programs, MacWrite and MacPaint. It had a small monochrome screen and the keyboard had no numeric keypad. The Mac attracted a lot of attention, not the least because of a TV ad, aired once during the 1984 Super Bowl - get the year - of a woman running at a screen with a sledgehammer and shattering the image of a Big Brother-type figure indoctrinating the faceless masses. The ad was a sensation and so was the Mac. Its initial shortcomings were soon addressed and for a while it looked as if the Mac would live up to its early slogan - "the computer for the rest of us". Apple released a low-cost laser printer - also invented at Xerox PARC - and the first piece of publishing software and overnight the desktop revolution was born. Within 18 months or so the publishing industry worldwide was stood on its head. But Apple blew it by refusing to license its technology, which limited the market and applications. Apple's market share is a couple of per cent. But now Apple is innovating again, with the iPod. Let us hope it does not repeat its mistakes of the past.

MAC MINI AIMED AT THE MASS MARKET

[CNET News.com, January, 2005] After decades of being criticized for producing luxury items, Apple Computer is aiming squarely at the mass market with a new budget PC unveiled Tuesday. Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the new Mac Mini during his keynote address at the Macworld Expo here, promising the machine would help further expand Apple's audience beyond the Mac faithful. Jobs also confirmed several other high-profile debuts--including a tiny flash memory iPod--that have been grinding through the Mac rumor mills, prompting the secretive company to sue the alleged source of several information leaks. Many of the reports turned out to be true, with Jobs beginning the cavalcade of products by announcing the Mac Mini and the flash memory-based iPod. The Mac Mini is a tiny machine with a processor, hard drive and optical drive--you supply the monitor, mouse and keyboard. Jobs said the package will settle long-standing complaints that Apple extracts too high a premium for its products. "This is the most affordable Mac ever," Jobs said. "People who are thinking of switching will have no more excuses." The new Mac Mini will go on sale Jan. 22 and will cost $499 for the base model, or $599 for one with a bigger hard drive. The device marks one of Apple's boldest moves yet to expand PC sales beyond a loyal but limited market of Mac addicts. The iPod and Apple's iTunes music store have been responsible for a dramatic surge in Apple revenue, but to date there has been little evidence that those products have done anything for Apple's PC business. The new breed of iPod went on sale Tuesday in two versions--a 512MB model (enough memory for about 120 songs) for $99 and a 1GB version for $149. Both models work with a Mac or PC and have no display screen for navigating through a music library. Instead, Apple expects the players largely will be used in "shuffle" mode that serves up songs in random order. "iPod users discovered a new way to listen to their music...shuffle," Jobs said. "With shuffle you don't have to find your music; it's shuffled up for you." The new flash memory-based iPod Shuffle is Apple's latest bid to expand its portable music player business to more downscale consumers, following the wildly successful launch of the iPod Mini early last year. Jobs earlier derided flash-based music players as toys with limited functionality, but plunging prices for flash memory will allow Apple to produce a capable player at a suitable price. "We've taken a look at this market, and it's a zoo," Jobs said. "There's a zillion little flash players out there...and the products are all pretty much the same. They're trying to be as easy to use as an iPod, but they have these very tiny displays and a really tortured interface." Jobs took credit for dramatically reducing the market for flash-based music players by pushing hard-drive models downstream. "The iPod Mini worked," he said. But there's still an opportunity to grab digital music newcomers with inexpensive models, he said. "We'd like to go after the remaining mainstream flash market," Jobs said. In other iPod news, Jobs said Apple sold 4.5 million of the players during the final quarter of 2004, and he announced that Mercedes, Volvo, Nissan and others will follow BMW's lead in offering iPod adapters in new cars. "We believe we have just begun this era of digital music," Jobs said. "We're going to see some very healthy progress in the next year." In addition, Jobs confirmed iWork, a new software package that will take on Microsoft's Office in the Mac software market. The package will include Pages, a new word processing program developed by Apple, and an updated version of Keynote, a slideshow application Apple introduced two years ago. Like other Apple products, Jobs said one of the major advantages of iWork will be its integration with the Mac OS X operating system. "iWork is a product we've created from the ground up to take advantage of OS X," he said. The release of iWork marks another chapter in Apple's on-and-off partnership with Microsoft, whose Mac version of Office has long been the standard productivity package for the operating system, partly out of necessity. Apple's own AppleWorks package has achieved only modest market share, mostly in educational settings, and the company's FileMaker database software has never posed a significant threat to Microsoft's similar Access. Demonstrating Pages, Jobs and Apple Vice President Phil Schiller made it clear the application isn't counting on business letters and school reports as its sweet spot. Pages includes numerous tools for adding photos to documents and creating complex documents that look like professionally made brochures. "It's word processing with a sense of style," Jobs said. The iWork package will sell for $79 starting Jan. 22. Jobs also had more details on "Tiger," the next version of the OS X operating system, but he stopped short of setting a release date more specific than the first half of 2005. However, that will still be well before the next version of Microsoft's Windows, Jobs said as he revealed the slogan, "Long before Longhorn." Major additions to the new OS, officially known as Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, include Spotlight, Apple's entry into the growing desktop search market. Jobs said Spotlight will include the best new desktop search offerings from Google and Microsoft, thanks to the benefits of being integrated into OS X, which can automatically update search results as the contents of a Mac hard drive change. "When you build it into the core OS, you can do things you can't do with a tool sitting on the side," Jobs said. "You can find things on your system you didn't even know were there." Tiger will also include a new version 7 of the QuickTime video player, and Dashboard, a new interface that will allow Mac users to quickly switch between small applications such as a calculator, language translator or weather forecasts. "It's a place for widgets to live...to get your stuff, get in and get out," Jobs said before demonstrating a stock ticker applet displaying Apple shares. "Oh, we're down a little bit today," he said. "Well, we've still got a lot more to go in the keynote." Jobs also touted growing support for high-definition video in an array of Mac products, including the new QuickTime and an HD-ready version of Final Cut Express, Apple's hobbyist video editing application. "2005 is going to be the year of high-definition video," he said. Kunitake Ando, president of electronics giant Sony, joined Jobs onstage to promote the HD push, including a new Sony HD camcorder. "Steve said he is a great fan of Sony products--not all of them," said Ando, whose company competes with Apple in markets such as PCs and portable music players. "Together, we can really revolutionize the way we enjoy video at home." Rumored products that didn't appear in Jobs speech included "Asteroid," a supposed music instrument interface meant to hook into Apple's GarageBand software and the inspiration for several of Apple's suits against Mac rumor sites. Jobs also suffered a brief technical glitch when trying to demonstrate new OS X search features, but he recovered much more quickly and gracefully than Microsoft Chair Bill Gates did during his error-riddled Consumer Electronics Show presentation last week. "That's why we have backup systems here," Jobs quipped.

APPLE HISTORY

Founded in a garage by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs and guided by Mike Markkula, Apple blazed the trails for the personal computer industry. Apple was formed on April Fool's Day in 1976. After introducing the Apple I at the Palo Alto Homebrew Computer Club, 10 retail stores were selling them by the end of the year. In 1977, the Apple II was introduced, a fully-assembled computer with 4K RAM for $1,298. Its open architecture encouraged third-party vendors to build plug-in hardware enhancements. This, plus sound and color graphics, caused Apple IIs to become the most widely used computer in the home and classroom. They were also used in business primarily for the innovative VisiCalc software that was launched on it. In 1983, Apple introduced the Lisa, the forerunner of the Macintosh. Lisa was aimed at the corporate market, but was soon dropped in favor of the Mac. As a graphics-based machine, the Mac was successful as a low-cost desktop publishing system. Although praised for its ease of use, its slow speed, small monochrome screen and closed architecture didn't excite corporate buyers. But, things were to change. In 1987, the Mac II offered higher speed, larger screens in color and traditional cabinetry that accepted third-party add-in cards. Numerous models were offered and widely accepted. In 1991, Apple surprised the industry by announcing an alliance with IBM to form several companies that would develop hardware and software together. All these eventually folded back into Apple and IBM , but the major product of the alliance was the PowerPC chip (see Apple-IBM alliance). In 1994, Apple came out with its first PowerPC-based PowerMacs, which proved very popular. Its PowerBook laptops were an instant success, and all subsequent models departed from the original Motorola 680x0 architecture to the PowerPC. Apple has stood alone in a sea of IBM and IBM-compatible PCs for more than a decade and a half. It has watched its graphical interface copied more with each incarnation of Windows and watched its market share drop simultaneously. In late 1994, Apple began to license its OS to system vendors in order to create a Macintosh clone industry, which pundits had been suggesting for years. However, a couple of years later, that was discontinued. In 1997, Apple acquired NeXT Computer, which brought Steve Jobs back to the company he founded and gave it a raft of object-oriented development tools, parts of which filtered down into the Mac OS X operating system. In 1998, Apple introduced the iMac, a low-priced Internet-ready Mac that was the first personal computer without a floppy disk. Self-contained in one unit like the original Mac, Apple sold 800,000 iMacs in a year, making it the fastest-selling computer in its history. Apple's subsequent models, including the G4 Cube and Titanium portable, are in a class by themselves. Apple continues to offer attractive alternatives to the Windows-based PC. EDITOR'S COMMENT: The foregoing is a very biased account of the history of Apple/Macintosh, and will be followed up with a more objective history. APPLE WEBSITE