wyldeone writes "In an interview with the New York Times, Steve Jobs confirms reports that the recently-announced iPhone will not allow third party applications to be installed. According to Jobs, 'These are devices that need to work, and you can't do that if you load any software on them.' In a similar vein, Jobs said in a MSNBC article that, 'Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.'"

48 hours have passed since Steve Jobs's MacWorld keynote and the reality distortion field is beginning to wear off. Lists of the drawbacks of the announced iPhone are sprouting all over the Net (and there is the occasional defense by true believers). Now narramissic writes, "The iPhone may be poised to take over the high-end cell phone market, but is it a market worth taking? Not if an InStat survey from July is any indication: Of 1,800 consumers surveyed, just 21 had spent more than $400 for a cell phone. Prices for the iPhone, admittedly more of a handheld computer than a cell phone, start at $499 for the 4G-byte version with a required two-year contract with Cingular. So, is Apple pricing it right? Analysts quoted in this article seem to think Apple's going to have a hard time getting the 1% of market share that Jobs called for."

lucabrasi999 writes "It appears that Apple may be running out of items that they can prefix with the letter "i". Cisco is suing Apple over trademark infringement. Cisco claims to own the rights to the "iPhone" trademark since they purchased Infogear in 2000. Infogear filed for the rights to the trademark in 1996."

eldavojohn writes "The Month of Apple Bugs (MOAB) is well under way with a startling bug released Monday. From the description: 'Application Enhancer (APE) is affected by a local privilege escalation vulnerability which allows local users to gain root privileges.' APE is the same software used to deploy fixes during 'The Month of Apple Fixes' (MOAF). I know it's confusing but MOAB came first and MOAF was a developer's answer to the bugs — after all, the purpose of posting bugs is to have them identified, confirmed and eradicated. The article talks about potential remote root access by an intruder. Note that this is third party software that all of the bugs seem to be stemming from. I guess Apple has made a fairly secure system but they can't expect all third party developers to follow the same rigorous standards."

An anonymous reader writes "Bogus prototypes, bullying the press, stifling pillow talk — all to keep iPhone under wraps. Fortune's Peter Lewis goes inside one of the year's biggest tech launches. One of the most astonishing things about the new Apple iPhone, introduced yesterday by Steve Jobs at the annual Macworld trade show, is how Apple managed to keep it a secret for nearly two-and-a-half years of development while working with partners like Cingular, Yahoo and Google."

Steve Jobs kept his audience rapt at the MacWorld keynote today. He rehashed the announcement of the iTV, now called Apple TV, and announced the iPhone, a revolutionary phone/ipod/wrist-computer that had MacWorld attendees sitting on the edge of their seats. Retailing for $499 (4 gig)/$599 (8 gig), it has to be seen to be believed. It uses a touch screen with a new form of input control, runs OSX and many standard applications, and connects to the internet via WiFi. It has a camera, functions as a movie player, a music player, and can send emails and photos in the middle of a phone call. From the Engadget coverage: "'[OSX] let us create desktop class applications and networking, not the crippled stuff you find on most phones, these are real desktop applications.' He's quoting Alan Kay - 'People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware.' 'So we're bringing breakthrough software to a mobile device for the first time.'" Seriously, go check this out. They're going to print money with this thing.

An anonymous reader writes "After much anticipation, some backpedaling, a bite of hope, and a delayed release date, TiVoToGo Mac Edition is here. While there have been some unofficial hacks, those solutions have not been ideal for everyone. With support for transferring shows and burning to DVD/iPod, TiVoToGo is bundled as a part of Roxio's Toast Titanium software that will be announced tomorrow at Macworld."

An anonymous reader writes "With Macworld set to start Jan. 8, InformationWeek has a detailed comparison that pits Mac OS X against Vista. According to reviewer John Welch, OS X wins hands down. The important point: he doesn't say Vista is bad, just that technically speaking, OS X remains way ahead. Do you agree?"

coondoggie writes to mention a Network World article about a focus on corporate users at the upcoming MacWorld Expo. Along with the consumer announcements (iTV, iPod stuff), there will be several elements dedicated to introducing IT pros to Apple hardware. From the article: "The show has really evolved. For a long time it was a consumer-oriented show and those of us who are from the enterprise space - there weren't very many of us - would use it as a place to meet and compare notes ... Now Macintosh in the enterprise is becoming more recognized and there are tracks that are specifically for us enterprise people. We don't have to sneak off anymore."

woof69 writes "After dropping OS X support for Premiere some time in 2003, Adobe is bringing it back in the new Adobe Production Studio. The new software includes After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere Pro, Encore DVD, and Soundbooth, and will be available for Apple's Intel-based computers in mid-2007; an updated version of the Windows suite will ship at the same time. Does Final Cut have a fight on its hands?"

das writes "On the same day as the launch of the Month of Apple Bugs (MOAB) (blog), Landon Fuller, a programmer, Darwin developer, and former engineer in Apple's BSD Technology Group, has launched an effort to provide runtime fixes for each MOAB issue as they are released. A fix has already been posted for the first MOAB issue."

ens0niq writes "The first bug (a Quicktime rtsp URL Handler Stack-based Buffer Overflow) of the Month of Apple Bugs has been unveiled — as previously promised — by LMH and Kevin Finisterre. From the FAQ: 'This initiative aims to serve as an effort to improve Mac OS X, uncovering and finding security flaws in different Apple software and third-party applications designed for this operating system. A positive side-effect, probably, will be a more concerned (security-wise) user-base and better practices from the management side of Apple.'"

seamuskrat writes to mention that LoopRumors has a round-up of many of the different Mac rumors making the rounds for the next Macworld. Among the front runners are the ITV, iPhone, and Mobile OSX. From the article: "In an uncharacteristic move, Steve Jobs previewed this new digital lifestyle device and gave us a release timeframe of 'early 2007.' iTV will stream movies, pictures and more from your Mac or PC to your television wirelessly. We expect to see the 'hidden features' of iTV spelled out, and a release date announced, if not immediate availability at the keynote. Apple has said it will not use the name iTV for the product, so we can expect a new moniker for the media device."

theodp writes "Federal prosecutors are reportedly looking closely at stock option administration documents that were apparently falsified by Apple execs to maximize the profitability of option grants. While Apple has said CEO Steve Jobs did not profit from the stock-option backdating, Jobs has reportedly hired his own attorney to deal with the SEC and Justice Department."

VE3OGG writes "Apple Insider is reporting that Apple may very well be developing an embedded version of OSX. The report details what they believe will be the next step in Apple's future, which is extending its consumer electronics division. The first child of such a marriage between OSX and consumer electronic may be the oft-rumoured, not-yet-materialized iPhone — which it also asserts may well be released next fiscal quarter. It seems to be their opinion that with both the desktop and the phone running operating systems with similar underpinnings, 'expansive opportunities' would emerge."

An anonymous reader writes "A pair of security researchers has picked January 2007 as the Month of Apple Bugs, a project in which each passing day will feature a previously undocumented security hole in Apple's OS X operating system or in Apple applications that run on top of it. According to a post over at The Washington Post's Security Fix blog, the project is being put together by researchers Kevin Finisterre and the guy who ran November's Month of Kernel Bugs project." From the post: "It should be interesting to see whether Apple does anything to try and scuttle this pending project. In November, a researcher who focuses most of his attention on bugs in database giant Oracle's software announced his intention to launch a "Week of Oracle Database Bugs" project during the first week of December. The researcher abruptly canceled the project shortly after the initial announcement, without offering any explanation."

Udo Schmitz writes "As a follow-up to rumours from May this year, World of Apple has a screenshot showing Sun's Zettabyte File System in "the most recent Build of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard". Though I still wonder: If it is not meant to replace HFS+, could there be any other reasons to support ZFS?"

ernesto99 writes "MacHeist began selling a software bundle of ten highly sought-after OS X applications last week with the stated goal of raising the profile of Mac shareware developers. 25% of the money brought in goes to charity. The bundle sale will go down as possibly the biggest success in Mac shareware history, as total revenues are approaching $650,000 after only six days. But some observers, including Daring Fireball's John Gruber, have called into question the ethics of MacHeist. MacHeist advertises itself as 'The Week of the Independent Mac Developer,' yet the MacHeist organizers stand to make vastly outsized gains relative to the very developers they have championed. Gruber calculates that MacHeist will record double, if not triple, the profits of all ten participating developers combined. (In fact the promotion has done so well that the promoter-to-developers profit ratio now stands at about four to one.) In an interview, Delicious Library developer Wil Shipley defends his involvement in MacHeist, saying that the publicity and reach of MacHeist has already paid him dividends. The whole affair has created a heated dialogue, resulting in a direct clash among some of the biggest names in the Mac community."

SpartanVII asks: "I purchased a Mac roughly two years ago and have made the switch with a fair amount of ease. However, one thing that has troubled me is how best to backup my important data to an external hard drive. Right now, I have rigged up an Automator workflow that runs every night, but I have also seen software options like SuperDuper and Knox. Since the Automator workflow lacks much of the flexibility and features available with these apps, I am ready to try something else. What app have you come across that provides the best backup solution?"

richi writes "Two of Computerworld's top operating systems editors, a Mac expert and a Windows expert, compare notes on what Apple should reconsider as it develops Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Mac OS X 10.4, or Tiger, is (in their opinion) a noticeably better operating system than XP or Vista. But it is not perfect. OS X has its own quirks and flaws, and they set out to nail down some of the 'proud nails' for the next release." From the article: "7. Inconsistent User Interface. Open iTunes, Safari and Mail. All three of these programs are Apple's own, and they're among the ones most likely to be used by Mac OS X users. So why do all three of them look different? Safari, like several other Apple-made apps such as the Finder and Address Book, uses a brushed-metal look. iTunes sports a flat gun-metal gray scheme and flat non-shiny scroll bars. Mail is somewhere in between: no brushed metal, lots of gun-metal gray, and the traditional shiny blue scroll bars. Apple is supposed to be the king of good UI, and in many areas, it is. But three widely used apps from the same company with a different look? Sometimes consistency isn't the hobgoblin of little minds."