Mac Pro Update Soothes Audio Processing Issues

The Achilles’ Heel of the latest and greatest Nehalem-based Mac Pros seemed to be their trouble handling audio processing—even playing a song in iTunes reportedly caused overheating and sacked performance. Mac Pro Audio Update 1.0 offers sweet relief.

According to MacWorld, the new update, which rolled out last week, seems to help the matter both in terms of cooling temperatures and reclaiming processing power.

In a series of tests, they determined that installing the update resulted in a significantly quicker Aperture import and Compressor encoding with the machine simultaneously running iTunes—19% and 16% improvements, respectively. After the update, the Mac Pro’s CPU was also running 30 degrees cooler and sucking less power from the CPU and power supply.

The update is currently only for Snow Leopard machines, so Leopard users, who have also reported the problem, will have to wait a bit longer to get things sorted. [MacWorld]

Written by: Kyle VanHemert

Apple Might Have More Control Over Ebook Prices After All

More details coming out about Apple’s deals with book publishers, and it looks like Apple might have more leverage over prices than expected. The NYT says that “Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers.”

Three people “with knowledge of the discussions” told the Times that Apple’s provisions allow it to discount books that hit the bestseller list—maybe down to $9.99, after all—with $12.99-$14.99 as simply a ceiling, that way Apple can compete with bookstores and Amazon’s Kindle that push bestsellers at a cut rate. And if publishers sell a hardcover at a discount, Apple wants to be able to cut the price on their ebook counterpart as well, even if it doesn’t go all bestseller.

Given that the reason publishers were giddy over dealing with Apple was the opportunity to set their own prices, if this report’s true, it sounds like they’re interested enough in creating a viable threat to Kindle that they’ll sell themselves a little shorter than they’d wanted to, just to give Apple a strong foothold in the market. Yep, this is going to be a dirty, dirty fight. [NYT]

Written by: matt buchanan

Apple Offering Free Hard Drive Replacements For MacBooks Bought Between 2006 – 2007

MacBooks bought between 2006 and 2007 could be eligible for a free hard drive replacement, with Apple dodging a guilty admission, stating that “a very small percentage…may fail under certain conditions.”

If you own a white or black MacBook bought between 2006 and 2007, with either a 1.83GHz, 3Ghz, or 2.16GHz processor and 60GB, 80GB, 100GB, 120GB or 160GB, you may be in luck. Or out of luck—as you have to prove the hard drive actually has failed.

The offer is open until August the 15th of this year, or three years after the MacBook was purchased. Now all Apple has to do is address the faulty iMac problem, and we’re gold. Oh, and these eight issues with the iPad…[Reg Hardware]

Image credit: TheYoungThousands

Written by: Kat Hannaford

Get six Mac apps absolutely free

Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch–or free software for Mac users? The new MacHeist bundle includes six solid apps, all of them yours for the downloading.

More:
Get six Mac apps absolutely free

Apple to ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard Aug. 28

August 24, 2009 6:27 AM PDT
by Jim Dalrymple

Apple will ship its newest operating system to customers a little earlier than expected. The company said Monday that Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be available this Friday, August 28.

(Credit: Apple)

 
Apple made it clear from the beginning that Snow Leopard was not as much about adding new features as it was about refining the code in the operating system.

For instance, according to Apple, 90 percent of the Mac OS X code has been worked on for the Snow Leopard release. This isn’t just application code, it also includes working on the Finder, making it more responsive.

Apple says that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous operating system and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed. No doubt this has to do with the refinements in the operating system, but Snow Leopard also only supports Macs with an Intel-based processors, not the older PowerPC processors.

As for speed increases in Snow Leopard, Apple said that its Mail application loads messages twice as fast, Time Machine does its initial backup 80 percent faster, and the included 64-bit version of Safari is up to 50 percent faster.

Snow Leopard also supports Exchange Server 2007. This means that you can use Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal out of the box with Exchange.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard will cost $29 as an upgrade for Leopard users. For Mac OS X Tiger users, the Mac Box Set, which includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09, will cost $169.

Apple had said at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June that Snow Leopard would go on sale in September, though more recently some tech blogs had been bandying about an August 28 date.