MacNN Reviews VMware Fusion 3

MacNN:

The single largest addition to the setup process is the integration of a clever Migration Assistant tool. Much like Apple’s software of the same name, it’s meant to transfer an existing system to a new one – in this case, to create a VM on a Mac from a Windows PC. It’s relatively painless as it actually uses Bonjour zero-configuration networking to find the Windows computer on the local network and make the conversion. We would definitely take heed of VMware’s advice to use Ethernet for the process, however, as this is not a quick process: with the OS alone taking several gigabytes and likely many apps and documents to bring over, Wi-Fi will simply be too slow and unreliable. It’s also a good idea to have a large amount of space free as the finished VM will likely involve more than the total amount of disk space used by the Windows system.

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Droid vs. iPhone

Joshua Topolsky:

If you must compare the DROID to the iPhone, then know that the Android platform still has a ways to go before the experience of using the phone is as seamless as the one Apple has created — but also know that Apple has a long way to go before its messaging, email, and customization can match what Google is offering. Both products have very distinct strengths and weaknesses.

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The Hobby

Macworld, in their look at Apple TV 3.0:

Perhaps Apple is content with Apple TV never being anything more than a front-end for the iTunes store. Or perhaps Apple is well aware of its device’s limitations and is hard at work on a new version with upgraded hardware and improved support for the rest of the stuff that’s out there on the Net.

It’s sad, really. The Apple TV could have been awesome. Instead, consumers are opting to install a Mac mini, which can do everything the Apple TV can do plus a whole lot more. Of course, Apple makes more money off of the Mac mini than the Apple TV, so maybe this whole thing is designed to sell Mac minis.

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Wired Having Tablet Mock-Up Contest

Wired:

Even though many anonymous sources have described Apple’s tablet as a “larger iPhone,” you’re unlikely to win if all you do is re-size a photo of an iPhone. That would be yawn-inducing. Challenge yourselves artistically, have some fun and make a compelling device worthy of all the hype.

Honestly, the artwork with the story is more compelling than any of the ones entered so far.

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RIP, iMac G5

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Many, many non-iSight iMac G5s died after having capacitors on their logic board fail like these little guys. This machine joined their ranks today, after getting dropped off at our shop for repair.

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Moto, on Design

The New York Times:

Motorola’s Droid is the first phone to use the latest release of Android, called Éclair, which features free turn-by-turn directions from Google and sophisticated speech recognition. The biggest problem was the balance between design, which was once a Motorola hallmark, and the phone’s performance. “When you are trying to make something small and powerful, everything is a tradeoff,” Mr. Osterloh explained. “You have to iterate the design thousands of times to get it right.”

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iTunes 9.0.2 Breaks Pre Syncing

PreCentral:

Here we go again. Apple has updated iTunes to version 9.0.2 and Palm Pre sync is dead again using webOS 1.2.1, despite Palm’s Hurculean efforts to spoof nearly every aspect of USB identification known to mankind. As with previous breakages, iTunes does launch when you connect a Pre with Media Mode, but it doesn’t appear as a device on the sidebar.

Palm needs to get over this and build a good, cross-platform syncing solution to interface with iTunes, instead of having their hacked-together solution break every time Apple updates their software.

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Quality vs. Quantity

John Gruber:

Is the App Store popular because the iPhone is great? Or is the iPhone great because the App Store is popular? There’s a big difference between those two arguments. The latter is the argument Microsoft has long made regarding the advantage of Windows: Windows is great because Windows has the most software and most developers.

[…]

But my interest remains, as ever, in the quality of the apps, not the quantity. Let’s say that when the dust starts to settle in this market, Android winds up with far fewer total apps than iPhone OS, but they’re of generally higher quality. That would make Android the Mac to the iPhone’s Windows. I would switch to that platform. (Feel free to substitute WebOS for Android in the above hypothetical.)

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