Digital Trends
Renegade Macintosh clone maker Psystar stirred up a hornet’s nest by offering unauthorized Macintosh clones in the form of low-cost computer systems with altered version of Mac OS X on them, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the southern district of California. In its petition, Psystar cites the current economic conditions as the primary reason for seeking bankruptcy protection, rather than the company’s pending legal action with Apple.
According to filing unearthed by The Mac Observer, Apple and would-be Mac OS clone maker Psystar have been forced into mediation talks by the judge handling the parties suits against each other. Apple has sued Psystar alleging copyright infringement for putting Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware, along with claims of trademark infringement and unfair competition. For its part Psystar sued Apple, claiming the Mac maker engages in unfair competition and violates antitrust law by not allowing others to ship Mac OS X on third-party hardware.
“In its bi-annual ‘Taking Stock With Teens’ survey obtained by The Mac Observer, research analysts Michael Olson and Gene Munster found that of 518 students, the number of kids owning an iPodhad risen dramatically. 56% said they owned an iPod, compared to 40% as reported in the company’s Fall survey. The next closest competitor in the current survey was Sony, which was chosen by 14% ofdevice owners, followed by iRiver at 7% and Rio at 5%. 17% of respondents said they owned others brands, including Dell and Creative.
But it was numbers of those planning to buy in the near future that were just as interesting: Of the 59% of students expecting to purchase a device within the next year, 70% expect to buy an iPod. While that number was the same in the Fall survey, only 46% of students were looking to buy a device at that time.”
“The suit was filed in San Francisco Superior Court last Thursday by two former Apple resellers, one of whom, Joe Weingarten, is the head of the Apple Resellers Association, which represents some 70 resellers across the United States. Also taking part in the action are three named Mac users.
According to an interview with Weingarten on the The Mac Observer, a Mac Web site, part of the reason for the suit is Apple’s deteriorating relationship with some of its dealers. “
“With the update, customers can now use a growing number of third-party DVD burners that create high-capacity, 8GB DVDs that store the equivelant of 72 hours of music or three hours of video. It is also possible to copy unencrypted DVDs and disk images without re-compressing to fit on a single-layer DVD.
This update supports a lot more double-layer drives,” Adam Fingerman, Director of Product Management at Roxio told The Mac Observer in an exclusive interview. “Among them are a variety of NEC drives, LG, Sony, TEAC. We have qualified and verified six of the double-layered drives.”
“We’re consuming almost all of those drives that are being made,” Stan Ng, Director of iPod Worldwide Product Marketing, told The Mac Observer. “So we’re putting them in iPod minis as quick as we can get them and trying to get them out as quickly as possible.
“The four gigabyte, one-inch drive is a new technology and is really on the cutting edge” he said. “(The manufacturer) is ramping up production to high volumes as soon as possible.”
As the battle heats up for online music services, 2004 stands to be a deciding year for the increasingly competitive market. While iTunes continues to carry a strong lead, Chris Gorog, chairman and CEO of Roxio (Napster’s parent company) warned music industry representatives to “stay-off the Apple platform” at the recent Midem International Music Fair in Cannes, France, according to the Mail & Guardian.
Gorog backed up his remark by explaining that more music players are compatible with Napster and predicting that its $9.95/month business model for unlimited streaming downloads will prove more popular than Apple’s 99 cent a-la-carte service.
The change is being seen by industry watchers as Apple’s way of straddling the fence, pleasing all customers and preparing for a day when dual-format drives will be standard fare in both Macintosh and Windows PCs.
With the addition of the 17-inch flat-panel iMac, introduced this past January, Apple has switched to a dual-format DVD drive, or what is known in the computer industry as a ‘SuperMulti’ component. The 15-inch flat-panel iMac continues to use the Pioneer drive.
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