You know what I hate about QuickTime? Its lack of support for additional media formats, that's what I really hate about it, especially since I like the way it handles those few formats supported, and I think Apple would do a great job by turning it into a more versatile product. Anyway, I am sure they won't make QuickTime play DivX files anytime soon, as they won't add support for losless formats to the iPods, either. OK, no big deal, let's leave these aside and talk about QuickTime 7.6 now, shall we?

Released less than a day ago, QuickTime 7.6 comes with the following new features and improvements:

Video:
- Improves single-pass H.264 encoding quality
- Increases the playback reliability of Motion JPEG media

Audio:
- Improves AAC encoding fidelity
- Audio tracks from MPEG video files now export consistently

Application Support:
- Improves compatibility with iChat and Photo Booth

Security:
For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website.

As usual, Apple also claims that this update "increases reliability, improves compatibility and enhances security," and you can easily install it using the Apple Software Update application.

Back in early 2007, when MacWorld hosted the pre-release of Apple TV, I was extremely disappointed. This had nothing to do with my "love" for most things related to television, because back in 2007, I expected to see something better than the Apple TV. In fact, I considered this product so dull, that applying the Apple logo on such a thing looked like a blasphemy in my eyes. Even more, I wasn't the only one completely against this new product, but time managed to prove we were all wrong...

Despite the fact we only had one second version of the Apple TV, with a 160 GB hard drive so far, sales were extremely strong. In fact, this also took Apple by surprise, and now I think the time has come for a serious hardware upgrade. After all, 160 GB is far from being enough these days, and two years without any major hardware update is suicide for such a product in today's world.

According to acting chief executive Tim Cook, "there was a tremendous tickup year over year [for Apple TV]. In fact unit sales were up over 3 times vs the year-ago quarter. However let me be clear, we still consider this a hobby." A multi-million dollar hobby, that's cool.

Even more, Cook said "It Is clear the movie rental business is working and there are more customers who want to try it. We will continue to invest there, because we believe there is something there for us in the future," but concluded by saying that "given the venture capital outlook and stuff, I continue to believe that it will be a hobby in 2009."

So sales go up 3 times, and this is "a hobby." Blew me away with that one, I can assure you! If you have some piece of Apple TV around, please go ahead and enlighten me - does it look like a hobby to you? After seeing where the iPod is headed, I guess they should leave that one as a hobby, and take Apple TV seriously!

As most of you know already, Apple's iWork is a suite of applications containing Pages, a word processing and desktop publishing application; Keynote, a presentation package; and Numbers, a spreadsheet application, so you can go as far as considering it a worthy competitor to Microsoft's Works suite. The interesting part is that, from now on, you won't need to have any iWork serial number to run the program!

No, Apple didn't turn iWorks into a freeware, although that would have been great, and we're not going to get into "WaReZ territory" here, either. Just think about this - why would you look for the iWork serial number, when you don't need it? There's a really funny answer to that, because you need this serial number and you don't, so let's clear things out, shall we?

This is official, so here's the excerpt coming right from Apple.com:

"Though retail versions of iWork '09 no longer come with serial numbers, you will need a serial number if you are using the iWork '09 trial version and decide to purchase the fully-functional version of iWork '09.

To upgrade to a fully-functional version of iWork '09, open any of the trial applications. Click the "Buy" button and enter the requested information. An email will be sent to you with the serial number you need to upgrade.

Note: If you are using the trial version of iWork '09 and then purchase a retail box, you will not need a serial number. Install iWork from the disc that came with your retail box to begin using your fully-functional version of iWork '09."

Cool, finally, some decent approach to retail boxed software. After all, you got the box, why bother entering the serial, too? We all know locks/serial numbers are not going to keep thieves/crackers at bay, so... thumbs up for this one, Apple!

If I think well, apart from these mobile platforms we're going to talk about today once again, Apple and Google don't have any products that go head to head. Well, the iPhone and Google's Android aren't exactly going head to head, either, since we're talking about a 6 to 1 score here! So far, we had a few encounters with the topic, but despite this, no sales figures were available. Now, things have changed...

...and I don't know if I should be happy or sad, because I highly appreciate both Apple and Google, but 6 to 1 is nothing less but pure ownage! Just think about this - according to Morgan Stanley's research notes, T-Mobile USA probably sold some 300,000 touchscreen G1 handsets since its late October launch by the end of last year, while the research firm had a estimation for the same period of 1.75 million iPhone 3G units sold through AT&T only, which is almost 6 times greater than the estimation of G1 units sold mentioned above!

This doesn't really mean that Android is destined to fail, but the carrier providing services for the handsets had a great impact on buyers' choices, since AT&T's 3G coverage is much better than T-Mobile's, and if we go outside US, it's enough to say that the iPhone is currently officially available in no less than 70 countries, while the G1 only made it to the United Kingdom...

Closing this article, all I can say is this - despite the fact iPhone managed to crush the Android-based G1, this was like hunting rabbits with a rocket launcher. When both handsets will fight having about the same advantages, that would be a great time to return to this subject, but until then...we must accept facts the way they are, since - most of the time - life ain't fair.

This is already history, but let me remind you that the MacBook Air features a 13.3-inch widescreen LED display with built-in iSight camera, a multi-touch trackpad, some Intel Core 2 Duo processor of your choice(not that many choices available, anyway), black LED keyboard, ambient light sensor, micro-DVI port, magnetic latch closing, 1.8-inch HDD or SDD drive, 802.11n wireless, Bluetooth 2.1/EDR, 5 hour battery life, optional external SuperDrive and 2 GB of memory. Well, that's what it still features, because it seems a new MacBook Air is on its way...

According to a Taiwanese site, Apple is working on a new MacBook Air, and its main feature - at least from what they seem to know so far - is the size of the screen - 15 inch.

Oh, wait! There's even more! Of course that these are not groundbreaking news, but logical deductions - at least from what I can tell - but it is also said that the new MacBook Air will be powered by Intel's "latest" ultra-low voltage Core 2 processors.

If someone would ask me, seeing a larger MacBook Air with FireWire and an optical drive is what I dream about, and I can bet I am not the only one without any chances of losing, only that, sometimes, our will doesn't seems to be the same with Apple's...