For a very long time, the Mac was adopted by home users, especially beginners or multimedia professionals, but lately a lot of people started to arrive from other platforms, especially Windows. We call them "switchers," but most of you probably know that already. The interesting part comes with the fact that, lately, enterprises also started to switch to Macs, and we're not talking about small companies, since IBM is one of the largest in the IT industry!


<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right->IBM's pilot program at IBM Research, called "Mac @ Watson," outlined in a document that became public, is all about evaluating the MacBook Pros as replacements for the Windows-based ThinkPads currently used by IBM researchers.

This is the list of reasons for looking forward to replace their own ThinkPads with Apple's MacBook Pros:

- Alternative to Microsoft Windows
- Less prone to security issues
- Widely used in the academic world with which Research has close ties
- Many new hires are more comfortable with the Mac and lately asking for it
- Growing Mac community in Research and within IBM that finds the development environment on Mac more convenient
- Growing acceptance of the Mac as a consumer and business oriented client platform
- WPLC strategy includes significant investments in achieving the Mac platform parity

Since October 2007, 24 people at IBM research got MacBook Pros, and after being asked about their experience, only 3 said the Mac provided a worse experience than their Windows-based laptops, while 18 said it was "better or best." In the end, this is all that matters - customer satisfaction, but when we're talking about enterprises, I think that seeing IBM starting to use Macs would be a huge step forward for Apple, don't you agree?

Remember the great iPhone deal in Germany? Well, ladies and gentlemen, today I have to tell you about a new excellent deal on the iPhone, but this time it's happening in the UK. Unfortunately, we're talking about a limited promotion, and a smaller price cut, but this is good news, anyway, so let's see what do we have here, shall we?


According to Mobile Today, the localized version of the 8GB iPhone will sell in the UK for £169, down from a previous £269, so basically Apple and its UK wireless partner, O2, will sell the iPhone for only $333, compared to its current $399 price tag, in the US.

Unfortunately, it seems the 16GB iPhone will remain at £329, about $645, but the price cut of the smaller model revives the rumors regarding the upcoming 3G iPhone.

Considering the above, I guess the US users should also expect some cuts in the near future, but I can't really tell. If you're in the US and you know something, or at least if you want to say something about this, please feel free to drop us a comment, we're here to listen, and we're anxious to hear your opinion!

Nothing is perfect, not even Apple's products(fanboys, don't kill me, please!), but there's something we all get to learn, sooner or later. It's easy to make mistakes, it can be pretty hard to straighten things up, but the hardest part is to admit your mistake. As a short side note, I've seen some companies solving various issues lately, with software patches, but without official acknowledgement of the problems. Well, Apple just recognized its Penryn-based notebooks have a problem...


Since the new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros started shipping, back in February, a lot of users started to experience flickering and graphics corruption during Web browsing(pictured above) or media playback, and reports on the official Apple forums say that playing video files in QuickTime is often affected by flickering, or "washed out" graphics.

For example, one user was saying that "When I am watching the Video Tutorials for any of Apple products my QT flickers dark and light, not to the point where I can't see the video, but to the point where it is annoying. Anyone else having this problem? This is on a 4 day old new MacBook. I have the most recent version of QT installed."

In an email sent to a customer, Apple formally acknowledged the problems, saying "Apple has received reports similar to the behavior you are describing and we are investigating those reports. Further information will come in the form of a Knowledge Base article, Software Update, or Software Release."

Well, it's good to know they admit there's a problem, and let's hope they'll also manage to fix it as soon as possible. Until then, stay close to us, because we're close to those news that you need to know, so if you are not subscribed yet to our news by email...you know what to do!

These days, everyone seems to say something about the future iPhone. The effect of these rumors are that people end up on the official Apple site most of the time - some to check the latest news from the Cupertino company, and others to finally meet the iPhone (we must admit there are still people who don't know much about the iPhone, no matter how notorious it may be already), so seeing Apple.com as one top hardware website is no surprise. The interesting part comes when I tell you that Apple.com was the most popular site of all hardware manufacturers' sites in the world, even though the Cupertino company is not the largest hardware manufacturer!


According to Nielsen Online, Apple's official website had no less than 57 million unique visitors during February, and the average visitor spent over one hour on the site, placing it in the first place of that top, too.

In the website traffic top, Apple ranked ahead of HP, Dell, Sun, Gateway and IBM, while visitors spent over 50 minutes on the Zune official site, ranked 9th in the previous top, followed by IBM, Dell, and Netgear, all with less than 30 minutes spent on an average by a visitor.

No matter how much I enjoy visiting Apple.com, I consider the statistics above pretty impressing, especially since Apple's market share is not that large yet, but I think it's only a matter of time and adjusting prices to various markets. After all, being so popular, Apple only needs to come up with more popular pricing in the emerging markets to ensure absolute success. What do you think?

The iPhone, as it is, can't be considered "the best smart phone in the world," but it surely has its unique capabilities and, above everything else, Apple managed to turn its first mobile phone into the most notorious smart phone in the world, and I guess most of you agree with that. If you don't, you can drop a comment below, of course, but first let's find out about an iPhone ten times better in terms of storage and battery life(!!), shall we?


Unfortunately, we can't speak of such a device yet, but the new form of digital storage technology currently under development at IBM could, at least according to the semiconductor giant's claims, provide 10 times the storage capacity and battery life of handheld gadgets, as the iPod or iPhone!

IBM's "racetrack" memory is said to store data inside the walls that exist between magnetic domains - those arranged on the silicon wafer's surface, in this case. According to IBM, the future implementations of this technology could lead to portable media players able to hold half million songs, or even more, run with a single battery charge for weeks and, best of all, have lower production costs than today's models.

Stuart Parkin, the leader of IBM's research team at the centre in San Jose, California, said "The promise of racetrack memory - for example, the ability to carry massive amounts of information in your pocket - could unleash creativity leading to devices and applications that nobody has imagined yet."

So...are we supposed to wait for another decade or so until this technology becomes reality? Let's hope not, but since the racetrack memory could lead to "three-dimensional micro-electronics', breaking with the tradition of scientists trying to fit an ever greater number on transistors on an ultra-thin piece of silicon shaped like a wafer," probably this is only the beginning...