Back in March 2001, when Apple shipped the first official release of Mac OS X, the bundled web browser was the then cutting edge Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.1 with its highly standards compliant and fault tolerant Tasman rendering engine.
During the usually consumer-focused keynote speech at MacWorld last month, Steve Jobs surprised the audience by spending a fair chunk of time talking about the new Xserve G5s and XRAIDs and their enterprise-friendly features.
While I was configuring my partner's new iBook G4 the other day, I was musing over the list of software that just had to be installed on her laptop to get it up and running.
Earlier this year, at its World Wide Developers Conference, Apple unveiled the latest incarnation of Mac OS X, version 10.3, code-named Panther. Based on the feedback of people with access to the various developer seed builds of the OS, it looks as if Apple will easily meet and probably even beat its stated release date of "before the end of this year" (which most people took to mean the next Mac Expo in January). In fact it is looking more likely that it will be announced at this month’s Apple Expo in Paris that shipments will commence in mid-October.
Of all the software Apple has been involved with over the past 20 years, FileMaker Pro must stand out as one of its greatest successes.
If you see a Mac user this week with a barely concealed smile on their face, they're sure to have heard about the long-awaited big news at Apple's recent World Wide Developers Conference.
One of the most frequently voiced criticisms of the Apple Mac is that it is a computer for people who value form over function.
Excluding IBM, Apple had prior to 1997 one of the worst cases of "Not Invented Here" syndrome the industry had ever seen.
At MacWorld in January Apple surprised the audience by releasing two new pieces of software that provide direct competition to the already dominant offerings from Microsoft.
As a self-confessed laptop lover, it was great to hear Steve Jobs say during his keynote speech at MacWorld San Francisco that 2003 was going to be the "year of the laptop". To back it up he announced the arrival of two additions to the professionally orientated PowerBook range.
Sometimes we Mac users don't know how easy we have it. This point was clearly made to me the other day when I lost over an hour (and more than a little hair) configuring a Windows 95 machine to print to a HP LaserJet 4M+ over the network using TCP/IP.
Apple has long prided itself on being the only computer manufacturer that creates the “whole widget”.
A few months ago Apple began its "Switchers" advertising campaign in the US aimed directly at Windows users.
A fortnight ago Apple told the faithful at its Paris expo that from January 2003 new models will no longer be able to boot the classic Mac OS. People who still need to access classic applications on these new machines will only be able to do so from Mac OS X's classic compatibility environment.
One of the selling points for spending money on information technology in any company is that it will allow people to be more productive by removing the need to do repetitive tasks. However, the traditional problem with implementing solutions that do this for complex tasks (ones that involve the use of several specialist applications), is that the applications themselves tend to operate in closed worlds that force the user to manually link everything together.