a.ameri writes "Apple Insider is reporting that Apple will announce computers based on IBM's 64 bit PPC 970 processor in the upcomming WWDC and will market them as G5. The new Power Mac G5s will sport a completely new motherboard design utilizing DDR 400 RAM as well as AGP 8x graphics, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0, sources said. "In the box" connectivity among the news systems is based on Hypertransport which provides 64-bit addressing and will replace Apple's multilevel bus architecture found in current systems. Initial offerings of the Power Mac G5 are said to boast 1.4 to 1.8GHz, single core PPC 970 processors, with the possibility of a dual 1.8GHz chips shortly thereafter."

BWJones writes "The CD baby! site contains notes taken from the indie music meeting recently held at Apple. Interesting statistics revealed were that there are about 500k songs/week being downloaded from the iTunes Music store and that 45% of songs are being purchased as albums. Other interesting items of note are that Apple is treating everyone as equvalents in that all labels receive equal treatment with the same deal, the same agreements and you work with the same team of people. What's more is that Apple cuts a check EVERY MONTH which is huge for the smaller labels." Wired has another story about iTunes which notes that what Jobs taketh away, the community is bringing back.

jgoeres writes "June 5th is the 26th Anniversary of my first favorite fruit-flavored computer. In honor of this, the Baltimore Sun is running Part One of a two-part interview with Steve Wozniak. When The Woz speaks, I listen. Perhaps it's blind hero-worship, but he seem to embody everything good & stable that his partner lacks. Don't forget to give the man props for his mad Tetris sk1llz, too."

chrisbw writes "According to this Apple press release, Final Cut Pro 4 will be available a 4 p.m. on June 14. It has a pretty impressive suite of new features; I for one can't wait to get my hands on it!"

Suppafly writes "As reported at boingboing, iCommune creator Jim Speth whipped up a little application called 401(ok) that combines a few hacks to restore internet-wide sharing to iTunes 4.0.1. You can download the app from SF.net." As one might expect, it is basically a port redirector.

billatq writes "I love Mac OS X, but I'm also a fan of running Gentoo Linux because of its powerful package management system. A Debian-style system (fink) is already on Mac OS X, but now it seems that Gentoo's Portage is going to be available for it. Gentoo's announcement can be found on their web site. I can't wait until we see what the Gentoo team has prepared."

Anonymous Cow writes "This PDF from Motorola states that all future processors from Motorola will have rapid I/O (page 32). Further down (page 34) it claims that that Motorola has got a dualcore PPC processor in development. No launch dates are given." It also notes that they could achieve 3+ GHz, without significant increase in power consumption.

kalel666 writes "Apple has a big event planned for Thursday in Cupertino with hundreds of representatives from smaller indie music labels."

Nexum writes "MacCentral has the scoop on the entire iTunes Music Store being powered by Apple Xserves. Is this the first really big implementation of Apple's server hardware? I have to admit, that even being a big Apple fan I didn't think that the Xserve hardware would be powerful enough for the severe pounding that the iTMS must have been getting. This seems like great news for Apple being able to show that they can be a real serious force in the server arena, to which they are practically a total newcomer to." I wouldn't see any reason to doubt that hardware and Mac OS X software could handle iTMS. I mean, it's heavyweight hardware, and Unix software. Still, good to see actual examples of Xserve sites in the wild.

drunkentiger writes "Ripped right off their homepage: In a recent Slashdot article, someone asked if it were possible to create a fully-featured bootable Linux LiveCD for the Macintosh. We thought this was a great idea. So today, we are releasing two full-featured LiveCDs for the PowerPC: one with KDE 3, and another with GNOME 2. Take a look at the KDE LiveCD running MacOS X in a window via Mac on Linux. LiveCDs can be downloaded here or from these mirrors."

chrisbw writes "According to this press release, Apple has announced iSync 1.1 and Quicktime 6.3. iSync adds support for more phones (including USB), as well as syncing Safari bookmarks!" Software Update has QuickTime 6.3 now, and iSync 1.1 is available via the web site.

Anonymous Cow writes "From The Register: 'Speculation that Motorola may soon cease to be a supplier of processors to Apple may be premature. The chip maker yesterday said it had successfully implemented low-k dielectric materials in its 0.18 micron silicon-on-insulator (SOI) processors, bringing an estimated 20 per cent speed bump to the PowerPC line. Motorola expects to roll out the process on its 0.13 micron chips this month...'"

no_demons writes "Jonathan Ive, the man behind the iMac and the iPod, has won the first Designer of the Year award from the Design Museum in London. The Independent has the scoop, and BBC2 has the documentary on Wednesday, June 11th."

theloki42 writes "Apple has slashed the prices of the PowerBook G4 line, with the lowest now costing a measly $1599."

We don't usually post announcements of this sort, but with MacHack just weeks away, and me speaking at it again this year, I figured I'd remind readers of Slashdot's Apple section about it. It's in Dearborn, MI near Detroit, and I gotta say that I've gone to many tech shows, but this is a good show. For those of you who saw my Keynote last year, my talk this year promises to be at least as incoherent, except that THIS year I might actually talk about the Mac! Other speakers are far more qualified. ;)

JerryKnight writes "FingerWorks, the inventor of TouchStream keyboards such as the LP, is taking pre-orders for a drop-in replacement for the keyboard in a 15" PowerBook G4 that is pretty much the same thing as the LP. Now the beautiful PowerBook can be completely smooth. Words fail to express the enthusiasm felt by me and hopefully anyone else who has used these keyboards. No word on availability. List price: $259." It's called the MacNTouch. Hm.

memoryhole writes "It seems Apple has come out on top in recent Consumer Reports surveys regarding technical support and hardware failure. Way to go Apple!"

K-dog writes "Apple has posted a firmware update for the slot loading combo drives in Xserves and PowerBooks. 'This update installs new firmware on PowerBook and Xserve Combo drives. The update prevents Combo drives from intermittently failing to eject discs. It's recommended that you install this update to ensure that your Combo drive avoids this problem.' It's kind of ironic that I spent an hour on the phone with Apple trying to get one of our new 12" PB to eject!" I have a new-ish PowerBook G4/867, with a Combo drive, and it reports, "This hardware does not require this update." I wish Apple would be more specific about what systems this is actually for. Or maybe what the problem is.

honestpuck writes "I've seen a fair number of books for OS X and they range in target audience from the raw beginner such as Mac OS X for Dummies and Robin William's Mac OS X Book through to those for technical readers such as Mac OS X In A Nutshell (IAN)." Read on for honestpucks' review of the new edition of Todd Stauffer's Mastering OS X.

An anonymous user writes, "Bare Bones, makers of BBEdit, 'celebrates 3650 days of saving your ass' (according to the new t-shirt) with the the BBEdit Anthology, a limited edition autographed CD with every final commercial release of BBEdit, plus the free versions as 'bonus tracks.' Liner notes are included." It's $250, comes with a BBEdit 7 license, and only 1,000 were produced. OK, the price is a little steep, but it's a collector's item. And the company is also offering a 10% discount on any product orders through June 30, so it is only $225! I still remember the first time I saw BBEdit, a Mac text editor, and I thought, "what, like a word processor?" Some things never change ...