Recently in Apple Category

TechCrunch is reporting that Microsoft could be taking over the search on Apple's iPhone with the upcoming release of the next iPhone operating system. It's become obvious that Apple and Google are clashing these days in several areas including the mobile sector, and now with Google TV, with home entertainment.

Apple does not have search technology of its own and that's a big setback for a company that's repositioned itself the last few years from being primarily a computer hardware company. So what do you do when you don't want a rival to have a foothold in your territory? You turn to a lesser rival, at least in Apple's eye.

I haven't used one and I can't buy one yet, as I'm Canada, but I do have some thoughts on why the iPad will be a success.

It's a Consumer Device not a Geeks Plaything

I've read quite a few reviews on the iPad including the Wall Street Journal's Walter Mossberg's and Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow's and they both touch on the subject but don't quite nail it down.

I hate it when a perfectly good computer just sits around doing nothing. In this case it's my old Apple 12" PowerBook G4 with the following specs: Processor: 867MHz, Memory: 640MB SDRAM, HardDrive: 40GB Ultra ATA.

Why would I replace the beautiful Apple OS with Linux?

There are two reason. The first is that as soon as Apple decided to go Intel with their processor's they dropped support for the PowerPC version of the OS like a hot potato. I was none two pleased. The second reason is that I can do more with linux running on these hardware specs than I could running Apple's now unsupported OS.

Why Yellow Dog Linux?

It really wasn't a hard decision picking Yellow Dog. My research showed that this distro had the most up to date support for PowerPC processor based computers. Ubuntu also supports the PowerPC but not nearly as well as Yellow Dog.

Getting and Installing Yellow Dog

Installing Yellow Dog was actually quite easy thanks to clear instructions on its web site and an install process that is smooth. First you need to get the latest distribution for the PowerPC. For me that was downloading the YDL 6.2 single ISO from one of it's mirrors.The download is a 3.8GB file which took me about 40 minutes. I have a pretty fast connection. Once you've got the ISO you need to burn to a DVD. I did this on my Mac desktop. You can follow these basic instructions.

Once you've got the ISO burned to a DVD you can download the YDL v6.2 for Apple instructions for a quick and easy install. I went with a single boot with a total wipe of my previous Apple OS.

What Yellow Dog Looks Like When Installed

From left to right you see: The main screen running the Yellow Dog E17 desktop, Terminal and OpenOffice apps open and lastly FireFox with a screenshot of the new SpaceRef web site under development.

What's Next?

Well the laptop will be used to test various code I write and may be used on any expeditions I go on.

I also have an Apple Power Mac G5 which I'm looking to turn into a test server platform so I'll probably put Yellow Dog on it after I've backed up the data. But that project is for another weekend.

For some time now I've been wondering what to do with my Apple Power Mac G5. At the moment it's basically an iTunes server for my music and video. However that seems like a waste of a good powerful computer. So I'll be upgrading the computer and installing Linux, replacing Mac OS X, but I have to say I'm very disappointed in Apple. Here's why.

Having bought an iPhone as a consumer and being a developer I can see that the iPhone could have a great future and a potential significant impact on the landscape. I would not go as far as Read Write Web does in their article "Why Apple Will Dominate Next Gen Computing", but it is worth reading.

The powerful platform that Apple uses to create beautiful applications for MacOS and iPhone is now completely open. Over a decade in making, this Objective-C based stack is complete with interfaces for operating system, sockets, graphics, audio, motion control and UI components; just to name a few. The platform comes with complete iPhone simulator, XCode development environment and 1-click compile/build/deploy process. This platform is a game changer.

A premier venture capital firm, Kleiner Perkins, agrees. They sent John Doerr to announce the 100 million dollar iFund, a fund to focus on iPhone startups. Mr. Doerr is one of the most well respected venture capitalists ever. He called the release historical and even claimed that the iPhone is bigger than the PC. Think about this, he said: a device that travels with you everywhere and brings the world's information and applications to your finger tips. It is indeed a powerful thought.

In early July I attended the Apple WorldWide Developer Conference where I witnessed the announcement that Apple was transitioning to the Intel chip. Naturally this caused quite a stir. However after the initial buzz it was made clear that OS X would only run on Mac hardware with Intel chips. In my humble opinion that's a mistake. OS X is superior Windows XP so why not make it available for all PC's?? Sure you might lose some of your hardware market share, right? Well maybe not, I don't know if I buy that argument. Apple hardware sales are on the rise fueled by the iPod/iTunes craze and new Mac Mini. Just like iTunes fueled Apple's bottom line I think making OS X available for all PC's will help them as well. Anyway is yet another article on how the community is hacking the OS X to work on PC's.

More OS X on plain old x86 boxes: "

We don’t know whether Justin Nolan—who answered the call of UNEASYsilence’s recent OS X Intel challenge—used the same exact techniques as we saw before to do it, but it looks like he too has joined the elite ranks of those running OS X on his PC laptop (in this case a Vaio TR2A, how appropriate). Of course, these laptops won’t run Rosetta since none have SSE3, but if you want to talk straight up functional x86 OS X, this is your biz.

(Via Engadget.)

With a 45.5% increase from the same time last year Apple appears to be reaping the benefits of its iPod/iTunes fortunes. I also think the introduction of the new low cost Mac mini will boost these numbers up higher.

Fuzzy math in Apple harvest?: "Blog: Apple Computer saw its personal computer shipments jump considerably during the first quarter, as we reported Friday. The..."

(Via CNET News.com.)

Mark April 29th on your calendar if your an Apple user. That's the day the public will get its hands on Tiger the next major upgrade to the Mac OS X operating system.

It's a significant release with major improvements across the board including the Apple web browser Safari which while pleasing to the eye, has seen its market share drop slightly as Firefox, the independent browser, has stormed the market in the last six months. According to Apple, Safari is now faster than Firefox and also incorporates RSS into the browser, an important feature.