Briefly: iMac demand skyrockets, Tiger features, more...
Apple's Consumer Macs a Hot Ticket
Demand for Apple Computer's new all-in-one iMac G5 has risen sharply over the last 3 weeks, according to information gathered from internal company data. The surge in demand is currently far exceeding available supply of the computers, and shows few signs of slowing, leading insiders to believe the iMac is poised to become a hot seller this holiday season.
The company's iBook consumer laptops are also in strong demand after being refreshed last month. However, the iBook remains a G4-based computer and will likely see a supply and demand balance before G5-based iMac, due to constraints associated with the G5 microprocessor. Apple's remaining computer hardware offerings appear to be in good supply entering into November.
Tiger Tidbits
With recent seeds of Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system, sources have noted several key enhancements for troubleshooting applications that unexpectedly quit on the user.
"If an application unexpectedly quits in Tiger, a dialog box appears, asking if you wish to relauch the application," says one source. "Many people evaluating the new seeds realize this. But maybe what they don't notice is that if the application immediately quits again, a new dialog asks if the user would like to 'Try Again' with the application's settings temporarily reverted to their default state." This feature reportedly works nicely in the pre-released builds and is being received warmly by the developer community.
Meanwhile, multiple sources have reported on the presence of Tiger's Spoken Interface (VoiceOver), which apparently kicks on in the pre-released builds when a user fails to provide required system input.
"Just wanted to let you guys know that after setting my machine to install the new build of Tiger, I left my desk for a while," one source explaind. "When I came back it had finished and was at the start screen waiting for me to setup my Mac. I'm not sure if this is default, but I think after it waited a certain time without input it started speaking, because when I got back to my desk it was speaking to me telling me what to do."
Sun Swipes Apple Director of Server Software
Sun Microsystems has hired a new vice president of marketing for its Solaris operating system, luring Tom Goguen from Apple Computer, CNet News.com is reporting. Goguen had worked for Sun on the Solaris OS in the 1990s and most recently returned to company on Monday. At Apple, Goguen was director of server software in the company's Worldwide Product Marketing group.
Demand for Apple Computer's new all-in-one iMac G5 has risen sharply over the last 3 weeks, according to information gathered from internal company data. The surge in demand is currently far exceeding available supply of the computers, and shows few signs of slowing, leading insiders to believe the iMac is poised to become a hot seller this holiday season.
The company's iBook consumer laptops are also in strong demand after being refreshed last month. However, the iBook remains a G4-based computer and will likely see a supply and demand balance before G5-based iMac, due to constraints associated with the G5 microprocessor. Apple's remaining computer hardware offerings appear to be in good supply entering into November.
Tiger Tidbits
With recent seeds of Apple's forthcoming Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system, sources have noted several key enhancements for troubleshooting applications that unexpectedly quit on the user.
"If an application unexpectedly quits in Tiger, a dialog box appears, asking if you wish to relauch the application," says one source. "Many people evaluating the new seeds realize this. But maybe what they don't notice is that if the application immediately quits again, a new dialog asks if the user would like to 'Try Again' with the application's settings temporarily reverted to their default state." This feature reportedly works nicely in the pre-released builds and is being received warmly by the developer community.
Meanwhile, multiple sources have reported on the presence of Tiger's Spoken Interface (VoiceOver), which apparently kicks on in the pre-released builds when a user fails to provide required system input.
"Just wanted to let you guys know that after setting my machine to install the new build of Tiger, I left my desk for a while," one source explaind. "When I came back it had finished and was at the start screen waiting for me to setup my Mac. I'm not sure if this is default, but I think after it waited a certain time without input it started speaking, because when I got back to my desk it was speaking to me telling me what to do."
Sun Swipes Apple Director of Server Software
Sun Microsystems has hired a new vice president of marketing for its Solaris operating system, luring Tom Goguen from Apple Computer, CNet News.com is reporting. Goguen had worked for Sun on the Solaris OS in the 1990s and most recently returned to company on Monday. At Apple, Goguen was director of server software in the company's Worldwide Product Marketing group.
Comments
OH NO! the you've got mail thing might begin nonono noooooooooooo
"If an application unexpectedly quits in Tiger, a dialog box appears, asking if you wish to relauch the application," says one source. "Many people evaluating the new seeds realize this. But maybe what they don't notice is that if the application immediately quits again, a new dialog asks if the user would like to 'Try Again' with the application's settings temporarily reverted to their default state." This feature reportedly works nicely in the pre-released builds and is being received warmly by the developer community.
I seriously can't wait for this feature
Originally posted by Louzer
It just sounds like they have "Speak the alert text" like in 10.3. Wouldn't call it a big deal.
VoiceOver is much more than that.
Originally posted by JLL
VoiceOver is much more than that.
Yes, I know voice-over is much more than that. That's not my point. I'm just saying it could be just speaking like it would on X.3.5 (or OS 9). That's the way "Speak the alert text" option works. After a period of time, it'll read the text in the front dialog. And this is what I was offering as what could be happening here, rather than VoiceOver, because they didn't seem to say that anything else was talking...
Originally posted by Big Mac
It seems to me that this particular feature of VoiceOver is nothing more or less than what existed in OS 9. I did not actually notice it was gone from OS X until now. A nice addition for those who need it, but otherwise. . . Now if Apple created or licensed some new, high quality voices, that would be something to write home about.
Two things:
VoiceOver, just from the description, does more than just read the alert text back to the user (at least it reads like it's actually explaining what needs to be done). This is probably an option just as spoken alerts are now.
What I really yearn for in VoiceOver is for different voices (higher quality and other languages) to be included.
Highly-hyped features of newer OS versions leave the whole OS looking bad when they're only available to a subset of users (ad copy in Spain usually have huge features highlighted and then in small type things like "* Only available in the U.S. of A.", which is awful marketing and just barely out of "misinformation" territory).
VoiceOver should have (at least support optionally downloadable) voice packs for either all languages or the major languages supported by OSX. Even more, the API for creating voices should be open.
VoiceOver should also have an API whereas all programs can support languages (that is, a program defines the language it's working on for the program itself and separately languages can be defined for specific content windows, like chat windows or web pages -the latter can be pulled from HTML itself, too- ).
I have hated in the past to have people retorting that seemingly important features fool on their face when they're not supported outside USA.
Things that come to mind (other than TTS and Voice recognition themselves, I should clarify) are iTunes Music Store, iPhoto Printouts and albums (alba?), Sherlock Channels.
And don't even get me started on Apple's insistence that the rate between the dollar and the Euro is 1:1 because then I might get physical..
Greets
Eduo
Originally posted by eduo
And don't even get me started on Apple's insistence that the rate between the dollar and the Euro is 1:1 because then I might get physical..
And don't get me started on how people seem to forget that Euro prices include VAT
Originally posted by JLL
And don't get me started on how people seem to forget that Euro prices include VAT
Cheapest iBook
Apple Store U.S. : $999
Apple Store Spain: 905EUR
No VAT in either.
$999 to EUR= 776 EUR
So no. VAT has nothing to do with it. We talking 20% over U.S. price BEFORE VAT.
You still have to add VAT there, 16% in Spain. 1050 EUR with VAT
This was verified in three minutes having three tabs (US Store, Spain Store, Google calculator..
Eduo