Despite the fact that the MacBook Air or the iPods are more popular than the Apple TV, this one may have a hidden potential, estimated to be huge by the analysts. I guess you probably heard about this already, but let me remind you that Apple's latest digital video recording patent filling is boiling hot, as we speak. Do you see the link?


Basically, the third generation of the Apple TV is expected to have DVR capabilities, so for only a small difference in manufacturing price, Apple's niche media hub business may turn into a solid source of revenue, some say it may worth even a few billion dollars annually!

American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu said the DVR features that may arrive in the next generation of the Apple TV can help moving from just a "hobby" to serious business:"We estimate AppleTV to be a very minor contributor today at ~0.3-0.4 percent of revenue or $100-125 million annually. We believe adding the ability to watch and record live TV could turn this into a billion dollar, if not multi-billion dollar business."

Since these are only rumors based on a patent filling, there's still a pretty long road to the DVR-enabled Apple TV, but I think this must happen by the end of the year. If you have a different opinion, please feel free to share it with the rest of us, don't be shy!

While the ATI Radeon 2600 XT is no longer a last generation video card, it seems Mac Pro computers using it had a lot of issues because of them. Please don't get me wrong - from a hardware point of view, those cards are OK, but Apple's video drivers didn't quite fit them well, so mass system instabilities were noticed(nothing special with that, I got into such a thing lately on my Windows PC too, after updating my video drivers). These being said, it's obvious everyone having a Mac Pro with a 2600 XT video card was expecting a software update...


...which finally arrived less than a day ago, when Apple announced the update for the Mac Pro computers using the Radeon HD 2600 XT video card. Basically, this update is about solving the previously reported system freezes, but Apple didn't specifically listed which problems are being solved by it.

The 792KB update can be downloaded from here, where some additional information is also available. Unfortunately, I don't think "It updates the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card firmware on all of the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics cards in the Mac Pro to improve system stability." is enough when talking about "useful information", but I guess we'll have to live with it...

After a few delays, Apple's Time Capsule is finally here! It took a while, but let's hope all previous problems that caused the delay have been solved, and everyone will have a smooth ride backing up their data on this handy wireless network-attached storage device. Just think about the fact that the Time Capsule was introduced in Steve Jobs' keynote speech on the 15th of January, so it's good to see it shipping, after almost one month and a half, don't you think?


If you don't remember about the Time Capsule, then let me refresh your memory a little... Basically, we're talking about a 802.11n AirPort Extreme router that has a built in server-grade hard drive. This device works with Apple's Time Machine software to help you perform automatic wireless backups of one or multiple Macs running Mac OS X Leopard.

Currently, on Apple's site you can find the 500GB Time Capsule, priced at $299, as well as a 1TB setup, sold for $499. To find out more about the device and, maybe, order your own, feel free to visit the official product page, here.

Fortunately, it seems Bubble Bash wasn't quite Apple's surprise for this Tuesday, and I say it this way because, to be honest, it was simply something too small for them. The good news arrived less than a day after the game for iPod, as the new MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, something everyone has been waiting for a while already...


Basically, it's all about moving to the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors, so you won't get to see any MacBook or MacBook Pro as thick as the MacBook Air, but there's plenty of time for this to happen. These being said, let's check the technical specifications of the latest MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, shall we?

The MacBook has the same pricing, starting at $1099 for the non-Super Drive white base model, and $1499 for the BlackBook, but processor speeds start at 2.1GHz for the base model, and 2.4GHz for the $1299 and $1499 ones. The storage solutions used are 5400rpm "classic" hard drives, starting at 120GB for the base model, and going up to 250GB for the BlackBook. At last, all models get 2GB of memory, apart from the entry-level MacBooks, still having 1GB of memory in the default configuration.

The MacBook Pro got a few extra features, when compared to its younger brother, with processor speeds starting up at 2.4GHz, and up to 2.6GHz. The new 2.5GHz, the default one installed on the 17-inch models, has 6MB of L2 cache. The 17-inch MacBook Pro has a LED backlit screen option, hard drives range between 200GB and 300GB, and the video adapter is using the NVIDIA 8600GT chipset, starting at 256MB of video memory. Last, bot not the least, the new MacBook Pros have a multi-touch trackpad like the one available for the MacBook Air users.

The MacBook Pros are priced between $1999 and $2799, but these are the prices for standard configurations. If you want to go higher, I am sure that's not a problem...

All MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops are shipping with Mac OS X Leopard and Apple's iLife application suite, adding some extra value to your purchase, as it always happened with Apple's desktop and portable computers.

Only a week after its introduction, the MacBook Air is one of the hottest topics of the IT world. A lot of people love it (I am one of those, I must admit), maybe some of these already got one, and would do anything to defend the image of their favorite laptop, others are trying to bury it, using the price as one of their best weapons, while others simply sit back and enjoy the show...

Soon after its introduction at this year's MacWorld Expo, during a keynote that a lot of voices on the Internet claimed to be way below the expectations, most people started to claim that the MacBook Air is too expensive. Well, they may be right, especially since the ones that may be delighted to use the MacBook Air (I am talking about students here) have a pretty limited budget, in most cases, but I am sure that, in the long run, it may be worth the price.

We only have to wait a little longer to see some serious price drops for the solid state drives, because a MacBook Air with a SSD would be great, but a price tag of $3,100 is completely out of this world, especially since you only get 64GB of storage space on your new Apple laptop for the price...

Other people said the Air will have heat problems, and the only way to go is to grab the SSD model, but... where's the truth? The truth is that, first of all, everyone expected Steve Jobs to announce the iSpaceship, and that isn't possible just yet, and second, being given all this "love-it-or-hate-it" crowd gathered by the MacBook Air, this laptop will only get more and more popular, at least in the news, if not with users all over the world.

After all, the iPhone has shown the way for the a lot of mobile phones that followed it, and maybe that's exactly what the MacBook Air is all about, with its MIA optical drive and "it's-not-here" Ethernet port, leaving only the wireless communication as a link to the outside world. My only fear is that, this time, the MacBook Air may be one step too far ahead...