512 Pixels

Lesa Snider King:

For 25 years, a very loyal and passionate Mac community has descended upon the halls of Moscone Center in San Francisco, CA to see, hear, and learn more about the computers they love. By announcing their departure from this beloved show hosted by IDG, Apple is sending a message to the entire community–professionals, hobbyists, media, Mac User Groups, and even IDG themselves–that they care nothing for the community who supported them through thick and thin.

If you’re attending the Macworld Expo keynote on Tuesday, Jan. 6, you can send a message to Apple by remaining silent during the 2009 keynote. While Phil Schiller is on the stage, let there be no applause, no whistling… just utter and complete silence.

I mean, come on. Apple isn’t conveying that they don’t care about the community. Yes, it is sad. Yes, it will be lame not to see Uncle Steve every January, but Apple now has the freedom to host events whenever they (and the products announced) are ready. Gone are the days of “This new Mac is shipping in only 8 weeks!”

San Francisco Chronicle:

Later on, Sculley confided to me and to my partner, Bart Rhoades, that the first Macworld Expo had saved Apple. He complained that Jobs and his team were so burned out from getting the Mac out the door that they had accomplished virtually nothing since. Users were clamoring for more memory, a hard drive, faster boot-up, a color monitor and other enhancements. Macintosh sales had started off with a bang, thanks to the 1984 Super Bowl commercial and to the Mac’s ease of use and graphic capabilities, but by 1985, sales had slowed considerably.

When they left, they had a renewed sense of urgency. I often wonder, had Jobs bothered to show up at the first Macworld Expo, if he, too, might have regained his focus.

Instead, Jobs got into a power struggle with Sculley. By the end of May, he was sacked as the leader of the Mac division.

It’s fairly common knowledge that the Macintosh was almost a one-hit wonder, but it’s interesting to see how the Macworld Expo was a part of the outcome of the infant platform.

[via Daring Fireball]

Flickr user charles_mangin:

Transplanting the innards of a G4 Cube into the body of a Mac Plus.

It’s as awesome as I hoped it would be.

[Via Newton Poetry.]

British comedian Peter Serafinowicz has come up with the “Mactini.” [Via Gizmodo.]

Dave Girard for Ars Technica:

I don’t want to seem like I’m completely ripping Parallels Desktop 4. There is no doubt that this is a great program feature-wise, and in a few months, when the code is polished, it will be an easily recommendable upgrade. As it stands, though, I just can’t suggest that people make the jump unless they are prepared to deal with some problems. It really is a shame that the bugs are so significant, since the Parallels programmers managed to get quad-core working for non-server Windows clients where VMware couldn’t. But launching too early has obviously come at a steep price.

Ouch.

Since I’m tied to Windows at work for one program (yes, at an Apple-Authorized Service Provider), I have to deal with this. I have a MacBook Pro with Vista on it via BootCamp, but use VMware Fusion to tap into it when needed. It gets the job done, but I know people who swear by Parallels. But from that review alone, I’m glad I’ve stuck with Fusion.

ClickOn Detroit:

Beset by falling revenue, Detroit’s newspapers announced Tuesday that they plan to offer only three days of home delivery and will push their online editions instead, making the city the largest in the nation to have its daily papers undergo such a makeover.

“We’re here because we’re fighting for our survival,” Hunke said at a news conference. “We’re also here because we have an absolute resolve to not only save but rethink and rebuild two of the greatest newspapers in this country.”

Another sad day for journalism.

AppleInsider:

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, one of the most outspoken figures on all things Apple, told clients on Wednesday that Steve Jobs’ absence from this year’s Macworld Expo signals “the beginning of a shift in leadership roles” at the company.

“Steve Jobs remains CEO of Apple, however, yielding this year’s Macworld keynote to Phil Schiller, along with the participation of Tim Cook and Phil Schiller at the October event is, in our view, a clear message that a leadership shift is underway,” he said.

Interesting. But I don’t think Jobs is going away anytime soon.

But it’s not all about Jobs. Over the past few years, the public has seen more and more faces on stage. Again, Munster:

“We believe that Apple’s executive team is one of its competitive advantages,” he added. “This management team, along with Steve Jobs, has been responsible for Apple’s product innovation.”

And that’s why even without Jobs, Apple will be okay. The near-failure of Apple after Jobs was fired was due to a lack of innovation, but with great minds like Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive, Apple will be fine when the day comes when Jobs is no longer at Apple.

Time’s managing editor, Richard Stengel:

Beyond his mastery of the issues, Obama revealed a more personal note: a slightly rueful sense that the world was tightening around him, that he would no longer be able to take a walk or shop for groceries. He seemed to be girding himself for the loss of being simply a regular citizen.

In addition to a lengthy article and interview, Time.com has some photographs of the President-elect in college and a section devoted to Obama-themed are found on Flickr. It’s a lot of material, but my favorite is a piece by Obama’s brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, about a basketball game with the President-elect.

Let’s cut to the chase. Cue Apple PR:

Apple today announced that this year is the last year the company will exhibit at Macworld Expo. Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, will deliver the opening keynote for this year’s Macworld Conference & Expo, and it will be Apple’s last keynote at the show,

Wait, what?

Today’s announcement has taken the Internet by storm, but not many believe it to be about Jobs’ health.

John Gruber:

If the only news were that Schiller was subbing for Jobs as keynote speaker this year, I’d be more willing to entertain rumors of Jobs being sick. But announcing that they’re done with Macworld Expo, period, full stop? That’s not something Apple would do just because Steve Jobs wasn’t up to it this year.

I agree. This is about Apple focusing it’s efforts on home-made events such as the ones this year announcing new notebooks and new iPods. When Apple throws an event, they can control everything, unlike at Macworld Expo. I think it’s a smart move finically and from a PR perspective. Having Schiller on stage this year is weird, but it seems more like a transition between “Stevenotes” and future Apple events. Besides, we’ve seen faces other than Jobs’ more and more recently, as when Jonathan Ive took the stage discussing the unibody MacBook design process. The end of Macworld Expo (as least as we’ve known it) does not mean the end of Steve Jobs’ presence at Apple, on stage or off.

I stumbled across this website last night that has screenshots of every graphical user interface I could think of, and a whole lot more. Highlights include Apple’s OS for the IIGS, BeOS, and Windows Bob. Seeing Bob brings back the pain.

The guy who hosts this site, Nathan Lineback, really hates Internet Explorer. So much, I wonder what it did to him when he was a kid.

Apple updated their MobileMe service today. Highlights include:

- Resolved an issue that could cause some contacts to temporarily disappear on iPhone or iPod touch when syncing with MobileMe over an intermittent network connection; iPhone Software 2.2 is required to take full advantage of this

• Contacts, calendars, and bookmarks on a Mac sync automatically within a minute of the change being made on the computer, another device, or the web at www.me.com; Mac OS X 10.5.6 is required

• The login page no longer removes your member name if you mistype your password

• Tabbing between login fields is now supported (on me.com)

This comes on the heels of the release of 10.5.6 earlier today. Highlights her include:

- Improves the reliability of AirPort connections, including improvements when roaming in large wireless networks with an Intel-based Mac.

Setting your iChat status to “invisible” via AppleScript no longer logs you out of iChat.

Includes graphics improvements for iChat, Cover Flow, Aperture, and iTunes.

Includes fixes for possible graphics distortion issues with certain ATI graphics cards.

Improves the performance and reliability of Chess.

That last one made me chuckle.

Newton Poetry:

NCX is an application designed by Simon Bell to mimic the original Newton Connection Utilities functionality in the pre-OS X days. As you can see from the home screen above, it offers tons of options for your Newton data, including backup, package installation, Newton Works import and export capabilities, and Mac keyboard functionality.

Being able to exchange data reliably with an OS X machine is the trickiest part about using a Newton these days.