News Roundup for November the 19th

Okay, everybody, we can breath again. A Judge in California has dismissed — pending another round of legal gymnastics — Psystar’s counter claim that Apple was really stinky for not letting everyone sell Macs and that it wasn’t fair and they hated them. To put this into a cinematic context, it’s the equivalent for them of that bit in Empire where the Falcon’s hyperdrive craps out. You remember that look on Hans’ face? That’s what the Psystar boys all look like right now.

So that’s okay then. Everything in all right with the world. Birds are singing, the sun is shining, and WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE! The RSPlug porn trojan is back and it’s meaner than ever. Run for the nearest shopping mall. Load up on guns and the major religious text of your choosing. The Mac is infectious and we’re all going to get it. Wipe that smug look off your face, Hodgman.

Ahem. Sorry.

Think positive. Okay. Oh, look, Mac sales have increased by 28% in October, compared to last year. Which is simple enough to explain. I mean, last year we didn’t have those funky aluminium brick MacBooks, did we? Wow, can you believe we used to live like that? No glossy glass screens. No glossy glass trackpads. No problems playing back protected content. It’s kind of like the Stone Age.

Also in positive news territory, it looks like OS X 10.6 ‘Snow Leopard’ — which just gets snappier each time I type it — is pencilled in for release in the first quarter of next year. Which means midnight on March the 31st in Apple calendar time, but that’s still only a little over four months away. I just can’t wait to get my OpenCL on. I’ll just spend the time until then staring at Apple’s redesigned support download pages. Boy, are they ever functional and pretty. Yes, that sound you heard was the bottom of the positive news barrel being scrapped. Me thinks it’s iPhone time.

Good news Bad news Good news, everybody: it looks like the iPhone has missed the totally made-up date for its debut in Wal*Mart stores. But the bad good bad news is that those same rumours say it could still appear in December. We’ll bring you more on this story in the future, unless something more interesting comes along.

Now, iPhone owners, has it got to the point where people aren’t showing your super-phone the attention and reverence it deserves? Could it be that just because every other tosser is carrying one it no longer has the impact it once did? Well, help and hope are on the horizon, with the speculation that Apple may release a Product (RED) version of the iPhone. And if that doesn’t work, you can always try yelling into yours in a fake American accent, even when you aren’t using Google Voice Search. (TOP TIP: Use Google Voice Search with a Bono-esque Oirish accent and 5% of your search results go to fight poverty among millionaire rock stars.)

Finally, we’ve got a couple of new releases. Page 12 of iTeam — our Apple-themed comic adventure — is up, and Flying Meat have announced the release of v4 of their — by which we mean ‘his’ — excellent wiki app, Voodoo Pad.