Apple boot camp is one of the features the Intel Macs have been boasting, allowing a Macintosh to boot into Windows. A very fine example of this was found in a Macintosh store. For the low price of 1900 Euros, a customer can buy himself an iMac with Windows Vista Ultimate pre-loaded on it. The iMac has a 24" screen (1080p resolution), Core 2 Duo, 1GB of DDR2, and a 7300GT, among other features. The copy of OS X 10 Tiger has iLife 06 and Frontrow pre-installed.

While Cisco is busy worrying about whether or not Apple will get to use the iPhone name, Canadian telecommunications provider Comwave is threatening to take legal action against Cisco if they do not change their own iPhone's name. Comwave has owned and been offering an iPhone service since 2004. The president of Comwave claims that "there has been a Comwave iPhone for years, and, (according to)Canadian law on first use, iPhone is ours". Comwave claims that both Cisco and Apple should have thought of other names for their various telecom devices.

So everyone has been looking forward to a small MacBook Pro, but those who has ever seen the size of the 15 inch MacBook Pro mainboard, knows how small it is. Most of the space is taken up by the slot loading optical drive and battery. So what to do? Just place the optical drive on the bottom of the notebook and add a sensor which knows when you are turning the device upside down. This may sound very stupid, but it might not be as crazy as you think. If anyone can pull this off, it is Apple. I am sure all future Mac(sub)Book Pro owners will agree.

While Apple is expected to charge around $500 for their revolutionary new iPhone, independent firm iSupply did some investigating into how much this thing is really worth. The 4GB model "only" costs $229.85 in terms of raw hardware costs, though after OS X is installed, configured, and licensed, the device cost is estimated at $245.83. The MSRP of the 4GB model is $500. The $600 8GB iPhone costs $280.83 to produce. If these figures are close to what Apple is really paying, once the iPhone begins shipping (and once it gets an FCC ID, if it hasn't already done so), it will earn Apple a lofty sum of money for each sale. And if the iPhone doesn't catch on due to an obscenely high price, Apple will have plenty of room for price cuts. The phones will be carried by Cingular later this year.

Early rumors stated that Apple was going to charge people who own a copy of their latest operating system, Macintosh OS X 10, $5 to run 802.11N technology. Apple will only be charging users $1.99 to run 802.11N compatible hardware. While most people would complain that these costs should have been factored in with the cost of the actual operating system, Apple claims that the "nominal fee" is to ensure that Apple complies with various regulations in the USA.

Apple Inc, (formerly Apple Computer Inc) has reported that its profits surged 78% in the three months leading up to Christmas, most strongly influenced by huge iPod sales. In Q4 2006 the company managed a net profit of $1bn, equating to $1.14 per share (Wall Street was only predicting 77 cents), compared to $565m over the same period in 2005. During the final quarter of the year, Apple sold 1.6 million computers and 21 million iPods, up 28% and 50% respectively. This is obviously great news for Apple, leading to a 5% rise in share prices - the company will now be hoping for similar success with its new iPhone, which is expected to see huge profits.

Apple may be set to share its closely guarded FairPlay DRM for the first time, with Netgear's EVA8000 Digital Entertainer HD one of the first players. At CES last week Netgear's new media player was shown playing songs which were downloaded via iTunes, which has led to speculation that Apple is finally willing to let other companies use its protection. It is still possible that Netgear actually hacked the iTunes software to let the device play the songs, but Netgear refused to comment saying that its technique came from a "secret source." If Apple shared its protection it would be likely to get more downloads via iTunes, but there is the possibility that sales of iPods could fall if other devices also work with the software.

In an interview with the CEO of Apple, found here, Steve Jobs explains that the iPhone will not have any third-party applications. While the iPhone uses a copy of Mac OS X, Steve Jobs made sure that users could not install custom content for several reasons. The first is profit. Steve having complete control of what can and cannot go on the iPhone means that things like ringtones and songs have to be allowed by Apple to go on the iPhone (various premiums might be charged). The second and hopefully more important reason is security. If the iPhone could accept third-party or homemade applications, it could potentially be used to take down AT&T (service provider for iPhone). Finally, the iPhone is limited for the same reason iPods are: Macintosh sells products that they know work, and want them to stay in working condition for as long as possible.

Apple finally unveiled their iPhone at Macworld. Too bad they forgot one critical step: getting it licensed through the FCC. And of course, any cell phone that isn't approved by the FCC is not allowed to be sold or distributed in the United States of America. Add this to the recent lawsuit from Cisco over the iPhone name, and chances are it will be a long time before Apple gets to sell it's iPhone to the general public.

On December 18th, 2006, Cisco released a set of Skype compatible wifi phones, basically claiming the iPhone name. Cisco and Apple had been talking about who should rightfully get to use the iPhone name since then. When Apple unveiled it's iPhone at Macworld this year, Cisco sued. Cisco wants to halt all sales of the Apple iPhone.

Although this was launched yesterday and briefly mentioned in our news, the news about Apple's Apple TV was largely overlooked due to the iPhone. The Apple TV itself is intended to be a wireless link between your PC (specifically iTunes) and your TV, and was originally referred to by many sites as iTV. Using the latest wireless technology, 802.11n, users can download their music and TV shows (presumably this doesn't have to be directly via iTunes) onto their computer, and then synchronise it with the Apple TV much like you would with an iPod, with the media being transferred to the built in 40GB hard drive. The unit will be plugged into your TV using either a HDMI or component video cable and you can watch whatever you want, with a remote control to allow you to select what you want to watch. The price will be $299 and it should be released in February.

Everyone has been waiting for this one - the Apple iPhone. It actually uses a wide screen display and touch screen with multi finger gestures. The device will run Mac OS X. 8GB memory serve as storage for your iTunes, contacts and all the usual data. You can also take pictures using the 2 megapixel camera and it is very thin: 11.6 mm. You can listen to your music through the speaker or use normal head phones. The display is incredibly dense: 160ppi. The device has sensors which detect if you put your ear to the phone, what kind of light sitation you are in and if you are holding the iPhone horizontal or landscape. The device uses quad-band GSM + EDGE. So no 3G/UMTS services, but it has WiFi and bluetooth.

Taiwanese MP3 manufacturer Luxpro has stated that they are planning on suing Apple for $100 million. Luxpro was originally sued by Apple on claims that it was copying the design of Apple's iPod Shuffle. Luxpro countered the claims by saying that the prominence of its logo and a series of "easy-to-operate features" were adequate differentiation. After winning an appeal against Apple, the company now plans to move onto the offensive. In a press release, the company stated that it would be suing Apple for 100 million USD. The figure is to receive compensation for Apple's earlier lawsuit in which Luxpro claims they lost valuable market opportunities and a large amount of product orders.

A serious exploit in Apple's QuickTime has been exposed by the "Month of Apple Bugs" project. The exploit affects both Windows and Mac based versions of QuickTime 7.1.3 and earlier. The exploit could potentially allow a hacker to remotely launch what QuickTime thinks is a movie which could then be used to hijack your PC by deleting or encrypting your files for a ransom. Apple doesn't have a patch for this serious exploit yet, so the safest measure to take would be to remove QuickTime from your computer if this proves to be genuine. The project should provide evidence to the public that Macs suffer numerous security flaws and it isn't only Windows based computers.

Apple is set to face yet another lawsuit, this time over the supposed monopoly that the company has in portable media player sales and online music downloads. The lawsuit against Apple claims that by linking its iTunes software to the iPod, other companies are unable to compete because of the difficulty created by the copy protection methods used in music downloads. Songs downloaded via Apple's music store can only be played using iTunes or on an iPod, with songs bought on other sites being difficult to play on iPods because Apple uses its own copy protection. Apple controls about 75% of music online music downloads.

For those of you who don't know about the Apple stock option scandal: Steve Jobs, in 2001, was granted 7.5 million stock options without the proper authorization of the Apple board of directors. However, it has recently come to light that the scandal is much more serious than initially thought. Someone had falsified the documents that make Steve Jobs look like he had authorization for those stock options. The Securities and Exchange Commission is weighing whether or not to take action against Apple and/or any of the individuals involved, and whether or not Steve Jobs himself could be in trouble is unclear. Steve Jobs returned all the stock options before exercising them.

Apple recently patented a wireless "hybrid" mouse that would lower power consumption. It would be a low powered mouse by only turning on the optical tracking feature when absolutely necessary, leaving a manual scroll wheel to do the rest to save power, making the mouse "hybrid". It would use bluetooth tech to be a wireless mouse. There is no mention on how Apple plans on deploying the mouse (replacing the current Macintosh mouse with this one or selling it as an extra), and there is no specified release date.

On Christmas day, there were a lot of gifts of iTunes store gift cards, and Apple iPods of various flavors. Unfortunately, there were too many new Apple products for the iTunes server to handle. The iTunes server crashed when faced with over four times the regular volume of traffic. And so, anyone trying to get into the iTunes store will have download slowdowns of up to 20 minutes, and quite possibly an error message preventing them from even entering the store. Apple was not available for comment on the situation.

The new gadget from Apple, the iPhone, should be available sometime in January. However, Apple may run into some serious patent/copyright issues. Several Canadian and American businesses have already trademarked iPhone, and Canadian service Comwave has offered it's iPhone service for a long time. How Apple will react to this, and what Comwave's reaction is, only time will tell.

Information on Apple's iPhone leaked

Some specs from about the upcoming Apple iPhone have found their way onto the internet. The Inquirer has a link to a video supposedly discussing the new iPhone and some of its features. The most important details you might be interested in are that it will have independent batteries for both the phone and MP3 player, a touch screen and 4GB and 8GB versions priced at $249 and $449 respectively.