While just a passing mention of the iPhone, Australian IT has an interesting note from Japanese mobile carrier DoCoMo’s CEO, Masao Nakamura:

“I’m very interested” in partnering with Apple to offer the iPhone in Japan, Mr Nakamura said.

As with other countries, the primary question of what to do about 3G networks and a non-3G iPhone still remains, but it’s interesting nonetheless. The full article is available here.

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Those prolific wireless accessory producers at QuickerTek have a new offering that will be of interest to those of you who will give up your PowerBook when it’s pried from your cold, dead hands: the nQuicky for PCMCIA PowerBooks. The nQuicky pops into your PowerBook’s PCMCIA slot and enables 802.11n wireless access for speeds of up to 300 mbit/sec and three times the range of 802.11g, according to QuickerTek.

The card isn’t shipping until late June, but is available for pre-order now for $149.99. Not cheap, but if you’re looking to stave off dropping some serious dollars on a new notebook, this could buy you some time.

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New York Magazine has a very nice piece on Steve Jobs and the iPhone. If you aren’t familiar with the history of Jobs and Apple, this is a great biography, and even if you are familiar, it’s among the best-written histories we’ve encountered. This iPhone-relevant passage is particularly interesting:

Apple’s competitors, by contrast, find the prospect of the iPhone terrifying. “The entire fucking Western world hopes that it’s a case of imperial overstretch,” says the CEO of one of the planet’s largest communications companies. “But everybody is quietly saying, er, what if people want to buy a $500 phone? What if, er, people have been waiting for a device that does all these things? What if this thing works as advertised? I mean, my God, what then?”

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Our friends over at Tom Bihn sent us word of their latest release, the Zephyr laptop briefcase:

SEATTLE, WA — June 13th, 2007 — TOM BIHN, a designer, manufacturer,
and retailer of laptop bags, backpacks, messenger bags and briefcases,
has introduced the Zephyr, a new medium-size briefcase with “smart”
pockets, pouches, and dividers for quick access and organization, as
well as the option for adding the TOM BIHN Brain Cell hard-sided laptop case as a highly protective interior compartment for a laptop computer.

The Zephyr has a highly professional appearance that, for all its organizing features, also looks compact. Made from 1050 denier ballistic nylon and 500 denier Cordura, the Zephyr (http://www.tombihn.com/page/001/PROD/TBP/TB0720) is available in
several color combinations, including Black/Steel/Olive, Black/Steel/Steel, Black/Hunter/Steel, Black/Black/Deep Blue,
Black/Black/Crimson and more.

Smart organizing features of the Zephyr include:

– A horizontal zippered pocket designed to fit DVDs or small electronics.
– A vertical zippered pocket to provide quick access to a cell phone.
– A diagonal, open-top pocket perfect for a plane ticket or any
similarly sized accessories.
– A large, zippered front pocket under the front flap that extends
almost the width length of the bag, and behind that pocket, a large pouch that features 3-D pockets for a PDA, cell phone, and pens, plus one of several small “O” rings that offer a place to attach either a key snap or a TOM BIHN Organizer Pouch.
– Ample area in the rest of the pouch for storage of gear
– A main compartment that unzips low on the sides, exposing a
“bellows” that permits easy access to the depths of the bag, and
that is completely padded by 1/4″ (6mm) closed-cell foam to protect contents and maintain a sharp look.
– Three hard plastic file dividers inside the main compartment that
make organizing papers a snap, and
– Clips for attaching the optional Brain Cell hard-sided laptop case,
so the Zephyr can be turned into a sophisticated and highly protective
laptop briefcase.

The asymmetrical front flap of the Zephyr closes with a sturdy 1-1/2″
side-release Duraflex Warrior Buckle and has three outside pockets.
The comfortable handles are constructed of Ballistic nylon and are rolled around high-quality, 0.5″ thick Poron(r) foam. The handles lie naturally together at the top of the bag. The unique TOM BIHN
Absolute Shoulder Strap can be added if Zephyr owners choose to carry the bag as a shoulder bag.

The Zephyr is available now for $140 from Tom Bihn. Stay tuned for the PBZone review in the coming weeks.

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MacFixIt has a writeup on an issue that it seems many owners of the latest 15-inch MacBook Pros–those featuring LED-backlit LCDs–are suffering from. The problem generally occurs when the MBP is running with the LCD at less-than-full brightness, leading to a flickering display.

If you have this issue, we recommend going to your local Apple store or calling AppleCare, though some are suggesting that all of the new LED LCD MBPs have this issue to some degree, with some just being better than others or some owners letting it go unnoticed. Apparently a model of Sony VAIO with a similar display issue (and also using an LED LCD) was able to be fixed with a BIOS update, with no complicated hardware fix necessary. Fingers crossed a software solution can be found in this case, too.

If you’re having an issue with your new MacBook Pro, or have been dealing with Apple on this issue, drop us a line at editor (at) pbzone.com, or leave a comment here.

Filed under: MacBook Pro News, Troubleshooting | 1 Comment »

We don’t link to just any reviews here on the Zone, but no site does reviews like Ars Technica, so when we saw their new look at the just-released Santa Rosa 17-inch MacBook Pros, we had to pass it along.

A few of the observations worth noting: if you can handle the higher-res screen, it’s worth springing for; the conventional LCD in the 17-inch model seems to have no different quality versus the 15-inch with LED LCD, though the battery life in the 15-inch model with LED LCD is significantly improved; overall performance is improved significantly by the faster FSB, but the OpenGL performance seems worse with the new NVIDIA graphics card.

We’d been told to expect some more consistent brightness and color with the LED-backlit LCDs, so it’s somewhat surprising to hear that no one can tell the difference, but most of us will probably be content to enjoy the great battery life. As for the OpenGL performance, the reviewer suspects it could be an issue with the drivers, leaving open the possibility that the performance could improve significantly with a future software update. While the review is very informative, we had to share one part that had us laughing:

If I was planning on fathering more children, I probably would be less inclined to use this as a laptop.

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Our friends at Other World Computing sent us this release on their new memory offerings for the MacBook Pro line:

June 15, 2007, Woodstock, IL — Other World Computing (OWC) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today that it is offering 4.0GB Memory Kits for Apple’s new recently announced MacBook Pro 2.2GHz and 2.4GHz models, which began shipping on June 5th. OWC Memory options of up to 3.0GB are also available for MacBook 13.3” and previous MacBook Pro 15” and 17” models.

OWC memory upgrades meet or exceed Apple’s electrical and mechanical design requirements. OWC is an Apple Developer Connection Premiere Member and maintains an active state-of-the-art test lab to ensure the highest product quality and reliability. OWC Memory Customers are ensured a lifetime of high-performance, reliable operation backed with OWC’s Money Back Guarantee and Lifetime advance Replacement Warranty.

OWC, an expert in the Mac memory market, has nearly two decades of experience providing memory module upgrades for Mac computers. OWC has conducted independent memory benchmarks on MacBook and Macbook Pro laptops, which show how important memory is for customers employing high-memory intensive applications, such as audio/video, photo, 3D modeling, and other applications.

From these tests, OWC recommends customers upgrade with either one module or matched pairs – whichever best fits their budget and provides the most total memory. Whether interleaved or not, all memory increases provide overall performance gain.

“OWC is all about maximizing performance and impressively, we’ve found there can be better performance attained even between 2.0GB and 3.0GB memory configurations than the benefit of getting a new system with a faster processor,” said Larry O’Connor, President, OWC. “More memory makes a tremendous difference, as our real-world testing illustrates, and the up to 4.0GB supported in the new MacBook Pros is yet further benefit beyond just the processor speed bump.”

The OWC 4.0GB Memory Upgrade Kit is available immediately, priced at $219.99 (configured as two 2GB memory modules). Additional savings is also available for customers who take advantage of OWC’s trade-in program, which provides $50 cash back for the trade-in of two 1GB modules.

For more information, check out the OWC MacBook memory page.

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Crunch Gear has a review of the HTC Touch, a member of the iPhone-killer cadre. The phone gets high marks for being easy and fun to use, quality screen, and fast WiFi, but the reviewer doesn’t believe it’s really appropriate to think of it as being a threat to the iPhone, with a release date in the fourth quarter of this year and the still-unpleasant Windows Mobile operating system.

If you haven’t subscribed to Apple’s iPhone emails, The Unofficial Apple Weblog has the highlights from a recent message from Apple. Most of it is just a reminder of how to keep your Mac optimized to take advantage of the iPhone’s features, useful if you’re known for–ahem–falling behind on the ol’ iCal.

For those Apple fans that are so hardcore they need to know which factories in Asia are making their beloved products, AppleInsider has word that reports of Foxconn making the iPhone are not true.

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If you’ve been a Mac fan for any length of time, you’ve probably read Walter Mossberg’s Wall Street Journal column on technology, which is widely syndicated by other newspapers. Well, during a recent speech at an event hosted by The Chronicle of Higher Education (of all places), Mossberg pulled out an iPhone he’s using for an upcoming review and offered a few comments on the device.

“I don’t know whether I’ll give it a good review or not,” he said, noting that he will use the phone for the next couple of weeks before writing his review. “I can already see some things I don’t like about it. I see some other things that I do like a lot about it.”

“I can tell you that in the first hour [the on-screen keyboard] works a little better than I thought, but I’m still not sure it works as well as a regular keyboard — and the first hour is not a very fair test, so I’m going to keep going at it.”

It’ll certainly be interesting to see what conclusion he comes to on the keyboard after extended use and getting comfortable using it. For the full article, check out this page.

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If you watched yesterday’s WWDC keynote, you might have been a little confused by Steve’s comment that the iPhone doesn’t just go on sale on June 29, it goes on sale on June 29 at 6 PM. The audience chuckled, but there was some confusion over whether or not Steve was just kidding around or if this really was going to be an evening release.

Luckily, the Crunch Gear crew have looked into it and confirmed Steve was just kidding. iPhones should be available from AT&T shops and Apple stores from when they open.

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Our friends at Fastmac sent us word on their latest offering:

Fastmac today announced the availability of an Airport Extreme compatible
802.11n wireless card upgrade for Apple MacBook, MacBook Pro & Mac Pro
computers. Based on an IEEE 802.11n draft specification, the new wireless
card achieves data transfer rates that are nearly 5 times faster than
existing 802.11g cards with up to twice the range. The plug & play card
requires no 3rd party drivers and is 100% compatible with Mac OS X 10.4
Tiger and the forthcoming Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. The card can be
purchased and installed either as a Do It Yourself (DIY) kit or via a
same day mail order service provided by Fastmac directly. Fastmac’s
802.11n Wireless Card Upgrade is available now, with special introductory
pricing that starts at $59.95. Each card carries a 1-year warranty and a
30 day money back guarantee.

Fastmac’s Airport Extreme compatible 802.11n wireless card is built
specifically for Apple’s 1st generation (2006) MacBook & MacBook Pro
computers. Fastmac replaces Apple’s original Airport Extreme card with a
100% compatible, plug & play internal 802.11n wireless card that is 5
times faster than the previous 802.11g card with up to twice the range.
The difference in speed and distance is instantaneous and literally
levels the playing field between older and newer MacBook & MacBook Pro
computers (in terms of wireless performance). Fastmac includes all
necessary tools and instructions required to open the MacBook. 24-hour
installation services are also available for an additional $89.95. Using
a box in the mail service provided by DHL, Fastmac will pick up the
customer’s MacBook or MacBook Pro, install the upgraded 802.11n card and
return ship the computer back to the customer, all within 24 hours.

Fastmac’s 802.11n wireless card upgrade can also be combined with a hard
drive upgrade to obtain an almost new MacBook or MacBook Pro. Upgrade
pricing starts at $119.95 for a 160GB 5400 RPM Serial ATA (SATA) hard
drive featuring 8MB data buffer cache and a 3 year warranty. Data
transfer and Mac OS X installation services are included at no extra charge.

Compatibility

Fastmac’s Airport Extreme compatible 802.11n wireless card is built
specifically for Intel based Apple iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac mini &
Mac Pro computers. The upgrade requires Mac OS X 10.4.8 or later with
Apple 802.11n enabler and an Airport compatible 802.11b/g/n router such
as the new Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. More information about
Fastmac’s Airport Extreme compatible 802.11n wireless card is available
via the following product page: http://www.fastmac.com/ncard

For more information, check out the Fastmac product page.

Filed under: New Products, MacBook News, MacBook Pro News | No Comments »