Enterprise

The WSJ today reports that the big announcement that Cisco's been hyping all week is actually a faster router.  While that may not be as exciting a s a new tablet device (or it may be depending on your tastes), it will hopefully have some effect on Apple customers.  The WSJ profiled AT&T and specifically their wireless (read:iPhone) customers who are the major catalyst for new broadband:

AT&T, meanwhile, said the 100-gigabit backbone Internet network would support growing wireless and wired data and traffic "for years to come." In particular, AT&T has dealt with the explosive growth in wireless data, primarily driven by the Apple Inc. iPhone, among other smart phones.  The router "allows us to serve volumes of traffic that we need to serve," said Keith Cambron, CEO of AT&T Labs.

AT&T has stated that they are working hard on bringing up their wireless speeds but first must upgrade their backhaul.  That's where the Cisco CSR-3 would come in handy, delivering much more data over the same lines.

Unless you've been hiding in a cave, you'll have known that Apple was having serious issues with that gorgeous new 27-inch iMac that they released for the holidays last year (but got pulled during the holiday shopping season).  Up until now, all Apple's PR machine could muster was:

An Apple spokesman said again this week that “the 27-inch iMac has been a huge hit with customers and we are working to increase supply to meet up with strong demand.” He added that production has continued while the company fixed the problems with flickering screens and yellow-tinted displays.

Now, according to Gizmodo, Apple has come clean on the matter with the following statement:

"We've addressed the issues that caused display flickering and yellow tint. Customers concerned that their iMac is affected should contact AppleCare."

They say that step one is admitting you have a problem.

Update: Businessweek got a less direct variation on this when Apple released the first firmware update

“While slight color variability is normal for LCD displays, customers who are concerned that their iMac has a yellow tint issue should contact Apple Care,” said Colin Smith, a spokesman for the Cupertino, California-based company. Apple released a software update today “to address the intermittent flickering reported by some customers.”

That Pennsylvania case of Administrators spying on kids' 1-to-1 loaned Macbooks using Apple Remote Desktop doesn't seem to be an isolated one.  Here's what happens in the Bronx (fast forward to 4:40 for specifics).  Would this be acceptable if it were only on the school's network?  

via Giz

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) has launched a call for economy in smartphone application design.

With Apple’s thousands of developers clearly in the company’s sights, RIM co-CEO Mike Lazaridis warned that the iPhone is a prophet of the bandwidth-challenged future.

He points out that carriers in US urban areas already face problems maintaining their network in the face of the deep data greed of the new data-centric smartphone generation.

In a slap of the wrist to Apple, he says, "Manufacturers had better start building more efficient applications and more efficient services. There is no real way to get around this,"

“If we don't start conserving that bandwidth, in the next few years we are going to run into a capacity crunch. You are already experiencing the capacity crunch in the United States."

Apple today released Mac Pro Audio update 1.0 that addresses the CPU overheating issues we talked about last month caused by playing audio.  The update is also available via Software Update.

Macworld starts tomorrow and we'll be on the floor looking at all of the new/upgraded products on display.  The event has decidedly less attention this year due to Apple's bypassing, but there is still no other gathering outside of Apple's own events with a bigger Apple audience.

Although Apple won't officially be here, we've been invited to check out Apple's subsidiaries who have rented hotel space near Moscone to show their wares as well.  

If you are coming to the event, you might want to check out the free iMacworld app for iPhone and iPod touch to help navigate the show floor space.  If you want to get in contact with us, shoot an email to macworld2010@9to5mac.com.

Some news from the Mac development realm today: OS X 10.6.3 build 10D548 was released to developers last night. 
From the seed notes:

Included in this update:

- Performance improvements for 64-bit Logic
- Addresses compatibility issues with OpenGL-based applications
- Includes changes to QuickTime X that increase reliability, improve compatibility and address security.
- Improves printing reliability and compatibility with 3rd party printers
- Respects the DNS server ordering as specified in Network Preferences
- Addresses an issue that causes background message colors to display incorrectly in Mail when scrolling
- Resolves an issue that prevented files with the # or & in their names from opening in Rosetta
- Resolves an issue that prevented files from copying to Windows shares
- Resolves an issue that caused machines using BTMM and the Bonjour Sleep Proxy to wake unexpectedly


Focus Areas

You hardcore Mac workstation users might want to cut the music when it's time to start rendering your big projects if the latest Ars tale is to be believed.   According to the story, Mac Pros exhibit a strange behavior when using iTunes, Quicktime or keeping USB audio interfaces plugged in:

The problem manifests as what has been described as excessive increases in power use and processor core heat when playing songs in iTunes, watching videos via Quicktime, or even when keeping USB or FireWire-based audio interfaces plugged in and active. While hardware monitors only report a small percentage of processor use, it can still cause performance decreases of up to 20 percent for other tasks.

Just saw this for the first time just now. It and the accompanying story are a bit over the top.

Here's a little interview with former Apple Senior Systems Engineer Edward Eigerman on what it is like to work at Apple and go to an Apple event without knowledge of what your own company is about to do.  

Interesting perspective to say the least (Bloomberg lady compares to terrorist org!?).  Eigerman now works as a technology consultant in the New York area. He is principal of Eigerman Consulting, Inc.