Back in late 2006, a modder claimed to be the creator of "world’s first carbon fiber MacBook," and to accomplish his goal, he used a MacBook and a $20 Carbon Graphix vinyl sticker. It is funny to mention it, but when I heard that Apple may finally build some carbon fiber MacBooks, I suddenly remembered about that early attempt, since I wrote about that story back then, although BindApple was not up yet. Back in 2006, it was a custom carbon fiber hood for the MacBook, now we're talking about a carbon fiber body, as you're going to see right away...

While everyone went crazy about MacBook Air's size, it seems Apple is not entirely happy with it. No, it's not the fact they have taken away the optical drive, although I am sure there are plenty MacBook Air users who wouldn't mind having at least a DVD-ROM drive... it's all about the weight! Yes, you got that right - despite the fact Apple's MacBook Air was, for a period, world's thinnest laptop, it still has a weight problem, in its creator's eyes...

Usually used in the aerospace, sporting, and racing industries, carbon fiber made its way into the computing world, with Sony and Voodoo PC starting to deliver lightweight notebooks using this material. If they can do it, why not Apple?

Current reports are claiming that moving from a custom carbon fiber hood to a factory carbon fiber build can cost a bit, but the new MacBook Air would go down from 1363 grams to 1263 grams. Well, one chocolate less... not such a big deal, if you ask me, but it's Apple's call, not mine!

For now, this is only a rumor, but we may see it turning into reality sooner than expected. Anyway, no MacBook updates remaining this year, that's clear - Apple said it, but since they didn't say anything about next year...

For some, it may be boring hearing about iPhone statistics again, and again, and again, but while I am not crazy about such things, either, today there's something you have to hear. After all, you don't see such reports being posted in the "Hot News" area of Apple.com, right? OK, so we know "why," and now let's check exactly "what," shall we?

First of the iPhone statistics pushed forward by Apple says the iPhone became the top handset in the US, leaving Motorola's RAZR in the dust. When talking about numbers, it is interesting to mention that the mobile phones market, overall, is cooling down rapidly, and the iPhone could also feel the impact of that, probably in early 2009.<-250x250 Square - right-> For now, things are still looking incredibly nice for Apple, despite the general tendency.

Next, we have a report that's a bit older, but it's surely worth being mentioned - Apple is second global smartphone producer! While the economy is going down the drain, the smarthpone market is going up, with a total of 39.9 million smartphones shipped during the third calendar quarter of the year, for a 28 percent increase over last year's totals. Amazing, isn't it? And Apple managed to climb into second position, leaving behind companies with decades of experience in the field!

Just as a final hint, it seems over 70% of those who want to get a new laptop in the coming months are thinking to grab a MacBook, at least in the US, where the study that came up with these results has been conducted. That's no big surprise, considering that most new laptops now come with Vista, and lack support for Windows XP... and I don't have to tell you anything about the customer satisfaction provided by Microsoft's latest OS, do I?

About a week ago, we were talking about IBM vs Apple for the first time, and back then, it was more about a rumor, than something certain. Shortly, Mark Papermaster got a full year's salary promised by IBM for a very simple task - do nothing, simply stay away from Apple. That's a very tempting offer, but it seems Mr' Papermaster had other plans already, and now this entire story becomes really interesting...

...since on the 4th of November, Apple issued a press release announcing that "Mark Papermaster Joins Apple as Senior Vice President of Devices Hardware Engineering." If you don't like reading press releases, here's the interesting part of it all:

"Apple® today announced that Mark Papermaster is joining the Company as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering, reporting to Apple CEO Steve Jobs.<-180x150 Small Rectangle - right-> Papermaster, who comes to Apple from IBM, will lead Apple’s iPod® and iPhone™ hardware engineering teams. Papermaster has 25 years of product and technology experience, and was previously a vice president at IBM.

Apple also announced that Tony Fadell, Apple’s senior vice president of the iPod Division, and his wife Danielle Lambert, vice president of Human Resources, are reducing their roles within the company as they devote more time to their young family. Fadell will remain at Apple as an advisor to the CEO. Lambert will depart the company at the end of this year after a successor is in place."

OK, so what about IBM and that lawsuit they had in store for Mark? Just this - Friday evening, Federal District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains ordered that Mark Papermaster "immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc until further order of this court," and that's it.

For now, Apple's response is "We will comply with the court's order but are confident that Mark Papermaster will be able to ultimately join Apple when the dust settles," and I must confess this story is pretty strange to me. Anyway, sooner or later, "his Steveness" will grab Mark Papermaster to join Apple, I am sure of that!

Hmm... it seems the global economic cooldown(some may even call it "freeze") starts to affect Apple, too, although most analysts are expecting that demand for their products won't drop anytime soon. I won't get into details, but everything seems to be great for Apple when looking at those numbers (sales, market share, revenue), apart from a few facts, as you can find out below...

First of all, one sign of "recession" at Apple, if I can put it this way, is lack of innovation. No, I am not talking about the latest iPods or Macs, I am talking about the upcoming ones. What about them? Well, Apple says that its "holiday line-up is set," so there's no room for rumors here. All hardware updates for 2008 have been made, see you next year for some fresh Apples. This Christmas, you won't have <-125x125 Button - left->any brand new, shiny ones, as you probably expected, but that's life, after all - you can't always get what you want.

Second and last in today's not-so-good Apple news, it seems plans for a whole new triple-decker retail store in New York City have been cancelled by Steve Jobs himself. Back in 2006, Apple signed a 15 year lease for 21-25 West 34th Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues, and previous reports shown that Apple was to build a huge retail store across from the Empire State Building.

Now, it seems the space mentioned above will be put up for sublease, but no confirmation from Apple is available yet. All they said was that "no announcement about that location" has been made. Well, that's what they usually do, keeping things hidden...

Founded back in 1889, and incorporated 22 years later, we can say IBM is an ancient company, at least when compared to Microsoft or Apple. Although it is known to be the largest IT employer on Earth, IBM's total revenue has fallen behind Hewlett-Packard's since 2006, but managed to remain the most profitable IT company on the planet. Although last year IBM was second largest software company in the world, I don't think the IBM name and corporate identity are as strong as Apple's, and that's exactly what we're going to talk about today - IBM vs Apple!

These being said, let's think about IBM vs Apple for a while - IBM doesn't manufacture any media players, as far as I know, and they don't even sell mobile phones, so where's the battle between these two giants? Well, this is a very interesting story, since it seems IBM offered one of its execs one year's salary just to stay away from the Cupertino-based company! Really interesting story, don't you agree?<-250x250 Square - right->

The story goes like this - Mark Papermaster, one of the 300 Spartans at IBM(excuse me, 300 elite managers) resigned to take a job at Apple, he ended up right in a middle of a lawsuit. Why? IBM filed a 10-page complaint on the 22nd of October, claiming that Papermaster's access to trade secrets, product pipelines and technological innovations going to Apple wouldn't be good at all. Apart from that, he would violate the non-compete clause signed with IBM.

Getting back to what I was saying earlier, the link between IBM and Apple isn't yet obvious, but hear this - Papermaster is VP of IBM's Blade Development unit, so he's in close contact with Apple - Xservers and chips for mobile devices are something that would really take some advantage of his experience with IBM.

What IBM did to keep Papermaster was to raise his salary and offer a full year's payment just to stay away from Apple. While the lawsuit may not probably stop the man from moving to Apple, the raise should. After all, IBM is still going strong, and he's been there for more than most Apple's iPod users have lived on this planet... but who am I to judge? Seeing this IBM vs Apple battle over a man, and not market share, was very interesting, and I think this may be only the beginning...