BY/Cnet News
While this week was a quiet one for Apple on the product front, it was a big one for some of Apple's main competitors, one of which invested, while another divested, in businesses that Apple is involved in. Both moves are going to have a long-term impact on the mobile device and PC landscapes.
The week started out with Google making a surprise announcement that it was purchasing Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The move gives Google a big chance to strengthen its legal ground with Android. That's important given the litigation Apple has going against companies like HTC and Samsung and their devices that run on Android.
Just days later, HP dropped the bombshell that it plans to spin off its PC business, as well as discontinue its efforts with WebOS, the operating system it bought as part of its acquisition of Palm. While WebOS was no Android in terms of market share, or momentum, it's one less competitor in the mobile device market--something that opens the market up to Apple and others.
Read on to get the full week's highlights, and the answer to a reader question on where those free app cards are at Starbucks.
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Apple news of the week
Mac OS X 10.7.1 released
Apple gives Lion its first update with this release. You can read more details about it in our post, but the long and the short of it is that it fixes a handful of bugs. Mac users with a new model MacBook Air, and Mac Mini users, got a slightly larger version of the update, which fixed system-specific bugs.
iOS 5 beta 6 released to developers
Apple released another beta of its iOS 5 software to developers yesterday. This one was mostly a bug-fix update, but it also turns out it brings the phasing out of unique device identifiers (or UDID). That's basically the serial number that could be read by applications, and what was used by third-party analytics and advertising networks. TechCrunch spotted the note about it in Apple's NDA'd release notes.
Lion on a $69 USB drive goes on sale
For those without broadband, or without a thumb drive to make their own Lion recovery tool, Apple's now selling its own. The $69 stick, which is more than twice the price of buying a $29.99 copy of Lion from the Mac App Store, effectively takes the place of buying the software on an optical disc.
More renderings of Apple's new campus surface
Following the renderings of Apple's new headquarters released in June, the City of Cupertino released new renderings, including floor plans. Especially noteworthy is the subterranean theater, parking, and research and development lab. Oh yeah, and the whole thing is bigger than the Pentagon.
3G MacBook prototype pops up on eBay
OK, so this isn't an official Apple release, but over the weekend a MacBook Pro with a built-in SIM card slot and magnetic 3G antenna was briefly on eBay. The buyer posted pictures and a highly detailed description of the notebook, which was pulled down at Apple's request, right around when bidding was north of $70,000
While this week was a quiet one for Apple on the product front, it was a big one for some of Apple's main competitors, one of which invested, while another divested, in businesses that Apple is involved in. Both moves are going to have a long-term impact on the mobile device and PC landscapes.
The week started out with Google making a surprise announcement that it was purchasing Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion. The move gives Google a big chance to strengthen its legal ground with Android. That's important given the litigation Apple has going against companies like HTC and Samsung and their devices that run on Android.
Just days later, HP dropped the bombshell that it plans to spin off its PC business, as well as discontinue its efforts with WebOS, the operating system it bought as part of its acquisition of Palm. While WebOS was no Android in terms of market share, or momentum, it's one less competitor in the mobile device market--something that opens the market up to Apple and others.
Read on to get the full week's highlights, and the answer to a reader question on where those free app cards are at Starbucks.
************************************************
Apple news of the week
Mac OS X 10.7.1 released
Apple gives Lion its first update with this release. You can read more details about it in our post, but the long and the short of it is that it fixes a handful of bugs. Mac users with a new model MacBook Air, and Mac Mini users, got a slightly larger version of the update, which fixed system-specific bugs.
iOS 5 beta 6 released to developers
Apple released another beta of its iOS 5 software to developers yesterday. This one was mostly a bug-fix update, but it also turns out it brings the phasing out of unique device identifiers (or UDID). That's basically the serial number that could be read by applications, and what was used by third-party analytics and advertising networks. TechCrunch spotted the note about it in Apple's NDA'd release notes.
Lion on a $69 USB drive goes on sale
For those without broadband, or without a thumb drive to make their own Lion recovery tool, Apple's now selling its own. The $69 stick, which is more than twice the price of buying a $29.99 copy of Lion from the Mac App Store, effectively takes the place of buying the software on an optical disc.
More renderings of Apple's new campus surface
Following the renderings of Apple's new headquarters released in June, the City of Cupertino released new renderings, including floor plans. Especially noteworthy is the subterranean theater, parking, and research and development lab. Oh yeah, and the whole thing is bigger than the Pentagon.
3G MacBook prototype pops up on eBay
OK, so this isn't an official Apple release, but over the weekend a MacBook Pro with a built-in SIM card slot and magnetic 3G antenna was briefly on eBay. The buyer posted pictures and a highly detailed description of the notebook, which was pulled down at Apple's request, right around when bidding was north of $70,000
