Microsoft Corp.'s Macintosh Business Unit today announced the official availability of Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac at the Macworld Conference & Expo 2008. Office 2008 for Mac is significantly enhanced to provide a simplified user experience that helps beginners and longtime experts alike deliver professional documents that are compatible for co-workers and friends on Macs and PCs. The suite provides the Office tools Mac users rely on, with a Mac-like approach and style. In addition to Office 2008, the Mac BU Web site, Mactopia (www.microsoft.com/mac), features a dramatic transformation to provide an even more resourceful hub for all things Mac BU.

A few years ago, one of the biggest weapons in a Mac user's arsenal for any Windows vs OS X debate was that Apple's operating system was more secure than Microsoft's. However, the statistics compiled by ZDNet (which are shown in the table below) tell a very different story for this year. Combined, Windows XP and Vista saw a total of 44 flaws, whilst Max OS X experienced 243 - over five times more. Overall, Macs had 234 highly critical vulnerabilities compared to just 23 for Windows, although admittedly Mac OS X had no extremely critical flaws, whilst Windows had four. This would seem to suggest that the tables have turned a little, which could well be linked to the fact that Macs have become more popular over the last couple of years and as a result there is a greater incentive to hack them.

Apple today announced that it sold (or delivered in the case of maintenance agreements) over two million copies of Mac OS X Leopard since its release on Friday, far outpacing the first-weekend sales of Mac OS X Tiger, which was previously the most successful OS release in Apple's history. Sales included copies sold at Apple's retail stores, Apple Authorized Resellers, the online Apple Store, under maintenance agreements and bundled with new Mac computers. Leopard is the sixth major release of Mac OS X and is packed with more than 300 new features.

Just one day after its release, Apple's new OS X Leopard has already been hacked to work on standard Intel-based computers. Admittedly it isn't guaranteed to work 100% yet, and is more than likely illegal in some way, but all you need to give it a try is a patched DVD image, a zip file with a patch and a USB flash drive. After that you're just three easy steps away from running the new operating system on your Intel PC (SSE3 and later) but unfortunately there's no AMD support available yet. As many PC owners have a slight dislike for Macs this may not be too appealing to everyone, but you can take a look at the procedure here.

Apple's latest iMacs suffer seem to suffer from a graphics card problem that causes the computer screens to lock up. Numerous discussion threads on Apple's support forums report that, while the iMac display becomes unresponsive, the Mac itself appears to work normally. Apparently indicating the fault relates to the iMac's ATI Radeon HD card. iMac users suffering the screen freeze can get their Mac working again with a hard restart. Some users claim the fault appeared after they had installed recent software drivers (v1.1) for the Radeon HD card -- others claim that restoring the iMac to factory settings fixes the machine. While Apple is alleged to be aware of the issue, no fix for the flaw has yet been made available.

Apple has issued a warning to Boot Camp users that their beta software is on track to expire this month. The company's latest tech support posting for the software warns: "As indicated in the license agreement for Boot Camp Beta, the Boot Camp Beta program expires when Mac OS 10.5 Leopard becomes available publicly in October, 2007." The note explains that the license to use Boot Camp Beta 1.2 or earlier expired on 30 September, requiring users to upgrade to Boot Camp 1.4, which will work a little longer. The Boot Camp 1.4 license is set to expire when Mac OS X 10.5 is made available to the public. Apple has not yet disclosed a date for this release. "To continue using Boot Camp at that time, upgrade to Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard," the company warns. Previous reports have indicated Apple may release a version of Boot Camp for use with Mac OS X 10.4, but the company's existing technical support warning offers no information as to such future plans

Apple's next version of the Mac OS X is reportedly close to being a release candidate, and some analysts believe the company is on track to meet its self-imposed deadline of shipping Leopard next month. Developers received the latest pre-release of the OS, called 9A559, Friday evening, just hours after receiving two minor updates of the previous build 9A527, AppleInsider, a site for Mac enthusiasts, reported. Build 9A559 contained only a couple of known issues, and may be the first of several release candidates, AppleInsider said. The last release candidate graduates to "Gold Master," which is the version that's shipped for duplication and retail packaging. An Apple spokesman on Wednesday confirmed that 9A559 was the latest build, but could not confirm whether it was a release candidate. Leopard's official release number will be Mac OS X 10.5. For Apple to meet its promise of releasing Leopard to consumers sometime in October, the company would have to finish the current testing process within three weeks, and some analysts expect the company to meet the tight schedule.

Apple today unveiled an all new all-in-one iMac line featuring gorgeous 20- and 24-inch widescreen displays encased in elegant and professional aluminum and glass enclosures. The entire new iMac line features the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and a new, ultra-thin aluminum Apple Keyboard, built-in iSight video camera for video conferencing and iLife '08, making it the ultimate digital lifestyle desktop computer for both consumers and professionals. The 20-inch iMac now starts at just $1,199, $300 less than the previous 20-inch model, and the 24-inch iMac starts at just $1,799, $200 less than the previous 24-inch model.

Last month, techPowerUp reported that Apple had accidentally listed an 8-core Mac Pro on its website, and although it was quickly removed, the new machine genuinely has been launched now. The new Mac Pro comes with either two quad-core 3.0GHz "Clovertown" Xeons or two dual-core "Woodcrest" Xeons running at up to 3.0GHz, and it will also accommodate up to 3 terabytes of storage with up to 16GB of RAM. When it comes to graphics cards you can chose between an NVIDA GeForce 7300GT (up to four of those actually), an ATI Radeon X1900XT or an NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500. The most basic model starts at $2,200, but if you want the 8-core version with 3TB hard drive space and 16GB of RAM you'll be spending at least $10,292 - and even then you only have a 256MB GeForce 7300GT. At least the shipping's free.

This comes just after the release of Adobe's new Photoshop CS 3, which is likely in an effort to attract any professional image editors who are looking to upgrade with the new software, although it could quite expensive if you like to have the best machine available.

Yeah, you could see a Mac Pro with whopping 8 CPU cores at the British Apple Store this morning. After they realized the mistake (or did it happen intentionally?) they took the wrong offering down.



The story behind that is quite simple. When the current Apple Mac Pro was introduced in August last year it was quite a performer around the Macs. Featuring two Dual Core Xeons (Xeon 5100 aka Woodcrest, up to 3GHz, 4 MByte shared L2-Cache), support for up to four PCI-E graphics cards (no SLI or Crossfire though) and a solid storage/network base it was very competitive compared to the PC workstations as well. But soon afterwards (in mid November) Intel revealed the Quad-Core-Xeons ('Clovertown').
Now it's finally time for Apple to unveil something new - obviously a Dual Quad-Core workstation, this time hopefully with full SLI or Crossfire support.
To add another theory, Apple will reveal a Quad-Core desktop Mac at the same time. At the moment the iMacs are based on Core 2 Duos (Merom) and that's it. I think there is plenty of room for a Kentsfield Mac...

If you're a Mac user and worried about your beautiful new MacBook Pro getting shot in the streets, then you will be pleased to hear that you shouldn't have a problem. In a rather bizarre event in Brazil, a mugging victim managed to protect himself from being shot by letting his MacBook Pro come between himself and the bullet. Fortunately for him, it worked a treat - but unfortunately for Mac haters, the laptop also survived. Despite a nice hole in the front of the notebook, the machine still functions (to a certain extent at least), but it is not recommended that you try this at home. Perhaps they could integrate that into the next Mac vs PC advert?

DivX Labs released Dr. DivX for Mac OS X on Friday last week. Though the Beta 1 transcodes a lot of video sources to the DivX container format it is still missing some features compared to the Win32 build.
Of course you will need to install DivX for Mac in order to let Dr. DivX heal your patient.

With Microsoft's Windows Vista released and being integrated into today's PCs at full speed, Apple can't be expected to just sit around and watch Windows get PC sales. We could possibly see a refresh of everything from the Mac Mini to the Xserve. Apple workers have confirmed one important thing though- a black iMac. The 20" and 24" versions will have a nice black paintjob, similar to the black Macbook and the black iPod Nano. Mac Pro's could get upgraded to eight-core models, and we may see a low-priced 15" Macbook. There are also rumors of new iCinema displays with HDMI ports that support HDCP content.

A sketchup of what the new iMac might look like:

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.

MacWorld San Francisco, CA - Axiotron, Inc. together with its strategic partner and exclusive US Distributor Other World Computing (OWC) today unveiled the ModBook , the first ever Mac OS X tablet computer solution on January 9th, at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco. Initial suggested retail prices begin at $2,279.

LaCie today introduced the first external Blu-ray burning solution for Mac OS and Windows called the LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drive. LaCie's d2 Blu-ray Drive is addressed to proffessionals or video editors who need to distribute HD content while retaining quality of picture and sound. The drive does not support playback of protected BD-ROM movies. LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drives come with full-featured Roxio software including Roxio Easy Media Creator 8 for Windows, and Toast 7 Titanium for Mac - both with new support for Blu-ray. The drive also comes bundled with a 50GB BD disc from Panasonic. LaCie d2 Blu-ray Drives are available immediately online and widely available via LaCie's specialized dealer network later this month at the suggested retail price of $1149. In addition to Roxio burning software, drives ship with CinePlayer 3.4 for HD playback on Windows.