Macworld May 2014

Despite all that it does well, the Apple TV has room for improvement, which is why I’ve been closely following the rumors of an Apple TV revision that have been circulating in recent months. What might Apple have up its sleeve for the newest version of its set-top box? The undisputed champions of the current video market are cable and satellite providers, which are trying to insert themselves into the video-watching process through on-demand streaming, customer authentication requirements, and even their own set-top platforms. So in revamping the Apple TV, does Apple want to work with those cable and satellite providers or work around them? One advantage of working with the cable companies is that Apple would need to negotiate with only a handful of businesses, rather than having to…

For Macs, faster is always better, and you can try many things to get the most performance. But what can you rely on? We looked at some common claims. 1. More cores always means better performance. We ran benchmarks on two 2012 Mac Pros, one with 12 processing cores running at 2.4GHz and one with a quadcore processor at 3.2GHz. With an impressive MathematicaMark score of 5.70, the 12-core’s result was twice that of the quad-core. The 12-core Mac Pro also finished the Cinebench CPU test in half the time of the quad-core Mac Pro. In contrast, however, the 12-core Mac Pro posted slower times than the quadcore system did in our iTunes-encode, Aperture, and file-compression tests. While some pro apps can benefit from multiple processors, most consumer programs don’t…

Combatting worries that Apple’s days of innovation might be behind it, CEO Tim Cook recently spoke to the Wall Street Journal and reiterated that Apple isn’t sitting on its hands. While the early-February Journal article focused on Apple’s repurchasing $14 billion of its own stock in the span of two weeks, Cook also teased that something mysterious is in the pipeline. “There will be new categories. We’re not ready to talk about it, but we’re working on some really great stuff,” Cook said. This isn’t his first time promising new products. In April 2013, during Apple’s second-quarter financial conference call, he mentioned “the strength of our incredible ecosystem, which we plan to continue to augment with services, our plans for expanded distribution, and the potential of exciting new product categories.”…

Continued strong iPhone and iPad sales, surprisingly good Mac results, and a rising Chinese market gave Apple a healthy start to its 2014 fiscal year. According to its late-January earnings report, Apple ended the first quarter with a $13.1 billion profit on revenue of $57.6 billion. That compares to $13.1 billion in profit on $54.5 billion in revenue for the same quarter last year. (To be precise, profits were down, from $13.078 billion in the first quarter of 2013 to $13.072 billion this time.) Analysts had predicted $14.09 per diluted share, but earnings per share actually rose 5 percent to $14.50. iPhone sales: With 51 million handsets sold (a new quarterly record), iPhone sales were up approximately 7 percent over last year’s first quarter. That result is no doubt thanks…

Several weeks after Steve Jobs posed for the cover of the very first issue of Macworld, he changed his mind. He didn’t want to be on the cover anymore. So David Bunnell, the founder of Macworld, used one of the oldest tricks in publishing: He lied and claimed that the magazine was going to the presses. “I said, ‘Steve, it’s too late. The magazine is off to the printer; it’s on the presses as we talk. There’s nothing we can do about it,’” said Bunnell as he told the story to a crowd attending the Mac 30th Celebration (www.mac30th.com) on January 25 at the Flint Center (the site of the original Macintosh introduction) in Cupertino. In truth, the entire issue hadn’t yet shipped to the printer. The Mac isn’t the…

IF IMITATION IS the sincerest form of flattery, might the folks in Cupertino be pleased with the latest version of North Korea’s homegrown operating system? Version 3.0 of Red Star Linux boasts a radical refresh of its desktop design, one that closely resembles Mac OS X. The Korea Computer Center, based in Pyongyang, began developing Red Star about a decade ago. Version 3 appears to have been released in the middle of last year. The world has gotten its first look at version 3 thanks to Will Scott, a computer scientist who recently taught at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, North Korea’s first foreignfunded university. Scott said that he bought the operating system at a KCC dealer in the capital city. Most North Koreans are unable to access…