Apple updates: Psystar, environment, FireWire and advertising
When we write stories here at Blorge, we often find there are minor developments in the subsequent weeks which are worthy of reporting but don’t justify a full post to themselves. Here are some updates to recent stories from our Mac channel.
Last week, we wrote about Apple’s case accusing hardware firm Psystar of selling machines running Leopard without permission; the case is going through mediation in an attempt to avoid a full-blown court hearing.
At the time it wasn’t clear who had come up with this idea. A lawyer for Psystar has now revealed that the court itself pushed the sides to try to resolve the case in this way. That likely shoots down any theories that one side felt its case was too weak to be worth pursuing to the bitter end. Indeed, Psystar has confirmed it’s keeping open the option to ask for damages rather than simply getting the go ahead to continue selling the faux-Macs.
Another recent story compared a survey showing a public perception that Apple is the most environmentally friendly tech brand with Greenpeace reports that rank it less green than several rivals. My colleague Ronald A Carson has since written about some of the flaws in Greenpeace’s rankings, most notably the failure to compare big-name PCs with unbranded machines.
We also discussed the pros and cons of Apple’s decision not to include Blu-ray drives in the new MacBook line. Yesterday, Ronald has covered the surprisingly strong reaction to the removal of FireWire sockets from the new MacBook and MacAir models (made with the one-piece ‘brick’ casing). There are even reports that threads on Apple’s official forums that contain messages attacking the decision have disappeared. It’s not clear whether Apple has intentionally removed such criticisms, or if there are more innocent explanations such as offensive material in the thread.
Finally, we covered the ongoing war of words between Apple and Microsoft, with an Apple exec saying Vista’s woes had been a sales boost for Macs, and a Microsoft official saying the added financial costs and technical limitations of buying a Mac amounted to an ‘Apple Tax’.
This week, the barbs crossed over from the media world to TV screens, with Apple launching two new editions of the “I’m a Mac I’m a PC” series. They directly attack Microsoft’s apparent reluctance to mention Vista in its own ads, and suggest the firm is spending too much on marketing and too little on improving Vista.
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