First Hand Reports on WWDC’s Leopard 9A466

With WWDC in full swing, few first hand reports of Apple’s Mac OS X Developer Build of Leopard have been leaked. The reason for this is that beyond the keynote, the remainder of Apple’s conference is under a strict non disclosure agreement. A few tidbits, however, have been posted publicly online:First Hand with LeopardOne blogger posted these positive impressions

• Mail is really great, seems super fast• Spotlight much more responsive, no pauses as you type• Safari seems faster and now has that styled text editor as in FireFox (used in blogger for example)• New Finder, not as new as I had expected, seems solid and sensible.• Coverflow everywhere, yeah, whatever..• Quickview is useful I think, certainly seems fast.• Time Machine looks like it works really, really well.The blog post, however, has since been removed. Meanwhile, a few forum posts (unverified) report the following about the new Leopard beta:

• Completely new mail client. Much faster, better calendar support, keep notes• Stacks are fantastic.• Dock works fine on the sides, 3D but the icons are sideways (proper) with shadow. Looks awesome on the side.BenchmarksA Geekbench submission benchmarked new Developer Preview of Leopard on a 3.0GHz Mac Pro (Score 5335), which didn’t show a substantial difference compared to results from similar configurations on Mac OS X 10.4.9.Requirements?This post lists the requirements of Leopard that are listed in the ReadMe that comes with the developer’s preview:

• an Intel processor or a PowerPC G4 or G5 processor• a DVD drive• built-in FireWire• at least 256 MB of RAM for a Power-PC based Mac and 512 MB for an Intel-based Mac (additional RAM is recommended for development purposes)• a built-in display or a display connected to an Apple-supplied video card supported by your computer• at least 6 GB of disk space available, or 8 GB if you install the developer toolsAs a developer build, this may or may not reflect the final requirement set for Leopard.-Eric

Steve Jobs declares 2007 to be “one of the most exciting” in Apple’s history

During last week’s conference call in which Apple announced preliminary 4th Q earnings, Mr. J apparently also declared 2007 to be “one of the most exciting new product years in Apple’s history.” While we already know about some things like the iTV, we don’t have much else to go on but unconfirmed rumors of iPhones and 6G wide and/or touchscreen iPods.

For now, the real significance here is Steve’s bragging about 2007’s lineup. In the past he’s declared ‘the year of the notebook’ or ‘the year of HD’ but he typically did that nearly mid-way through the year when most of us knew it already anyway (Update: my bad, I thought he made those announcements at WWDC, not Macworld), but that was at least while they were launching product. Now he’s just strutting Apple’s stuff. Here’s to looking forward to finding out what they have up their sleeve. -Eric

Steve Jobs’ tough options

This week’s ouster of William W. McGuire as chairman and chief executive of UnitedHealth Group Inc. provided an inescapable sign that no executive is too big to be toppled by the stock option scandal – despite having many fans in the boardroom and on Wall Street.

That news also could rekindle a question: Is Apple Computer’s iconic CEO Steven P. Jobs truly safe?

“I don’t think there is anybody who is too big, too important or too rich to go to jail. That applies to Steve Jobs as well,” said Paul Hodgson Sr., a senior researcher for the Corporate Library. “If he has done something wrong, he has got to go, regardless of the situation.”

But, Hodgson added, “I haven’t seen enough evidence either way that Jobs is involved or completely uninvolved in this situation.”

Trading on Wall Street suggests investors believe Jobs will weather this crisis. After tumbling as low as $50.67 in mid-July, Apple’s stock is up nearly 50 percent. It got a boost this week when the company reported quarterly earnings that easily topped forecasts.

So far, the widening national scandal into whether companies rigged stock options to give executives and employees a head start to profits has entangled at least 140 companies, including dozens in Silicon Valley.

This week, the top two executives of Harford County encryption company SafeNet Inc., CEO Anthony A. Caputo and President Carol D. Argo, resigned as a result of a probe into options. So did the chairman and founder of computer chip supplier KLA-Tencor Corp.

Consulting firm Sapient Corp.’s co-founder quit as chief executive and co-chairman in a broad management shake-up. And last week saw the abrupt departures of two well-known Silicon Valley CEOs: George Samenuk of McAfee Inc. and Shelby Bonnie of CNet Networks Inc. McAfee, a leading maker of computer antivirus software, fired its president, Kevin Weiss.

But UnitedHealth’s McGuire is the biggest head to roll in the corporate scandal so far. Under McGuire’s guidance, the Minnesota company’s stock climbed more than 50-fold, performance that some investors hoped would insulate him from the scandal.

Like McGuire, Jobs is seen as an integral part of Apple – the visionary and image-maker who rebuilt Apple into Silicon Valley’s fourth-biggest company. Barely two weeks ago, Wall Street analysts sighed with relief when Apple disclosed that an ongoing internal review had concluded that Jobs was “aware of” stock options abuses but didn’t do anything that would force him out.

The company said Oct. 4 that it found “no misconduct” by current managers, but it did point the finger at two unidentified former executives. Jobs also apologized for the abuses that “happened on my watch” but were “completely out of character for Apple.”

Apple’s terse and vague disclosure left many unanswered questions about Jobs’ role and the tainted options he received. Some experts have challenged the company’s spin that “he did not benefit” from tainted options he received, triggering one critic to call for Jobs to cough up $85 million in income. Shareholders could ferret out evidence they could use against Apple in court.

And still looming is the worry that federal investigators could reach darker conclusions about Jobs’ role than the company did, experts say.

Jonathan Moreland, director of research for InsiderInsights.com, said Apple failed to relieve his anxiety.

“How many people feel relieved when they find out they have a tumor?” he asked. “You only feel relieved when you find out that the tumor is benign or at least treatable.”

Anxiety about whether Jobs’ fate has been simmering for months. In late June, Apple disclosed that its internal review had uncovered “irregularities” in the prices of options granted to Jobs and others.

Apple has yet to detail which of Jobs’ two options grants were tainted.

Most of the suspicion has centered on one of the largest grants in U.S. corporate history: 40 million options, adjusting for splits in the stock price, in January 2000.

If Jobs’ grant had been pegged to the price on the day he was appointed permanent CEO – rather than a week later when Apple’s stock hit a monthly low – his immediate paper profit on the options would have been $168 million less.

A month after Apple’s initial warning, the company said it probably would have to restate profits since the fall of 2002, news that sent its stock tumbling 8.6 percent in the next few days.

Days later, media reports also spotlighted suspicious options grants made under Jobs’ watch to top executives at the Pixar animation studio, which was sold to Disney in May.

Apple’s former general counsel Nancy R. Heinen also reportedly has retained criminal defense lawyers since she stepped down in May.

Former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey L. Pitt complimented Apple’s disclosure Oct. 4 from a “big-picture point of view,” saying it quelled much of the uncertainty for investors grappling with how to price the stock.

ScreenRecycler – use iMac, MacBook or even a PC as Display for your Mac

Most Mac users have a spare computer sitting right next to their main computer on their desk. ScreenRecycler now enables you to use this spare computer as second display for your Mac. You can even use an idle machine for that purpose.Just start ScreenRecycler on your Mac then connect to ScreenRecycler via VNC from your old machine.
Watch the video. -Eric

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