News Roundup for November the 4th

November 4th, 2008 by SJC | Filed under News Roundup.

It looks like today’s roundup is going to be more along the lines of a corrections and clarifications piece because, boy, have we ever got a lot of things wrong lately. First up is the whole “new iMacs and Mac Minis” saga. Apple widdled on that particular bonfire of rumours when they told MacWorld’s Jim Dalrymple, “Our holiday line-up is set.” Do we ever feel stupid now. But I think I read in the Mac Rumours forums that spokesman Bill Evans had his fingers crossed.

Next there’s the answer to the Papermaster question. Turns out that he’s replacing Tony Fadell as head of the iPod division. Quick, someone rig up a cluster of 10,000 Nanos so Max doesn’t look too silly. (And a big “hello” to all our new supercomputer-savvy readers.)

More good news for Apple as data from internet metrics firm Market Share shows Safari usage has risen slightly from 6.37% to 6.65% of recorded users.

Italian premo-hacker Piergiorgio Zambrini has been at it again, this time managing to crash the iPhone. (Hey, I’m always getting Mobile Safari to crash. Does that make me 1337?) Zambrini’s secret is apparently a special video with a particularly malicious audio track. Unconfirmed reports suggest it’s Mariah Carey’s Glitter.

More bad news for Apple as data from internet metrics firm Net Applications shows Mac usage has fallen slightly from 8.45% to 8.21% of recorded users.

In legal news, it looks like Apple and Psystar will be duking it out in court next November. But don’t think the lawyers will be sitting around with nothing to do until then. Oh, no. Because first Apple’s being sued over faulty memory slots. In the PowerBook G4. It’s going to be heard just as soon as they’ve finished dealing with all those Apple I owners whose cases have come down with woodworm.

And it looks like even more legal storm clouds are brewing on the horizon. Some users have been reporting problems with the all-glass trackpads in the new MacBooks. I hope for Apple’s sake that Russia’s Presidential puppet Dmitry Medvedev isn’t one of them. In post-Soviet Russia, faulty trackpad clicks you. Or something.