Macworld 2008: Add to your iPhone; handsfree talk

Besides printers, scanners, and networked storage solutions, which you always expect to find at Macworld, the focus this year seemed to have shifted towards new 3rd-party peripherals revolving around iPhone. Dozens of new headset, headphones, and docking options have recently become available to support Apple's new flagship product.

Macally, a long time provider of Mac peripherals, offered Tune Pro and FlexTune. Designed for the iPod, TunePro is an audio minisystem with a flat-panel appearance and includes an alarm clock—perfect for the nightstand; FlexTune is a small but very versatile charger and speaker set for both iPod and iPhone. What was interesting about the latter was the way the speakers could slide laterally so the iPhone could be rotated to landscape mode for video viewing, to minimize the device's footprint on an office desk.

Skullcandy offers creative designs that appeal most to a younger crowd. They recently introduced the iPhone FMJ headset. They also offer full-featured wireless headphones. Most of their prices are under $100, except for the high-end phones, which retail for $169.95.

Ultimate Ears offered four models of high-quality headsets for iPods and iPhones: the Custom, the Triple.fi, the Super.fi, and the Metro.fi for the style conscious.

I briefly stopped by Xtreme Mac as well, and saw a wide variety of good-sounding, aesthetically-pleasing docking stations, speakers, and clock radios, most notably the Luna X2 and the Tango X2. They also offered nearly a dozen varieties of cases, pouches and protective covers for iPods and iPhones.

One of the more interesting presentations I attended was from Altec Lansing, who said their new T612 iPhone dock and speaker system (Click on the image at left for a closer look.) is the first to be "Apple certified", meaning Apple agrees to sell them in Apple stores. Apparently such certification is difficult to attain, as Apple has very tight engineering standards regarding specific emissions and GSM shielding. Capable of both desk and wall mount, the sound is very rich and clean. It is also backward compatible with dockable iPods.

Macworld 2008: Some software and audio odds and ends

Some MacWorld miscellany, beginning with four operating-system/software entries:

Improvements to MS Office. I said earlier in the week I'd say something about the new MS Office 2008. The features are more or less in parity with the Office 2007 product that's been out for a year, now. Entourage plays better with Exchange Server, to address concerns about corporate distribution, and I was assured by the lead developer for Word08 that the "Normal" file, a file that holds all of your custom stylesheets translates fully from older versions. The only other thing to note here is that with Office08, virtually every major Mac application suite has made the transition to Universal Binary code base and is Intel-native. That means there's no longer any need for Rosetta, the built-in code translator between G5 Mac processors and Intel Windows processors.

A new Windows on Mac option. Another interesting entry in the "virtualization" competition comes from Codeweavers, who were demoing their "Crossover" product. Crossover allows someone who wants to switch to Mac and still protect their Windows software investment to actually install and run their legacy Windows programs natively in OS X; no virtual disk image or Windows OS is required. The downside is that this capability has to be customized by Codeweavers for each legacy Windows application. Consequently, the company has concentrated on a limited list of only the most used Windows apps to date, like MS Office, Access, Visio, etc. (You'll find the list of supported apps at http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/.) The result is very fast and responsive. If you use those apps, this could be of real value.

MacWorld 2008: Will Macs Become Less Secure?

With Mac sales up, and many new users coming to the platform, will malware writers begin to seek fresh targets? I asked the chief technologists at security companies Intego and McAfee what they saw as the primary threats to the Mac platform, both today and looking ahead.

While both agreed that Mac OS X is solid when it comes to security, they also fear that malware attacks on the Mac are inevitable—it's just a matter of when.

According to George Heron, the chief scientist at McAfee, 35% of the malware currently threatening computer users has been discovered in the past two years. In 2002, there were about 100 new detections a week. By 2007, that number had skyrocketed to 2000-plus. That's probably because the profile of cyber-criminals has changed. It's not about impressing your fellow geeks with your virus-writing prowess anymore. Today, money rules in the cyber-underworld, with malware going after financial information, credit cards, and bank accounts. Large, well-organized, highly sophisticated hackers design spam and phishing scams on a massive scale, largely operating out of China, Brazil, Russia, and the Middle East, according to Heron. More Macs in the marketplace means a growing profit opportunity in a highly profitable industry that steals billions worldwide.

Intego's Jack Nahan told me that the biggest threats to Mac users going forward are phishing, trojans, and ID theft. The two most interesting and insidious to date have been a scam where the user is invited to download a supposedly friendly new piece of anti-virus shareware called "Macsweeper" (it installs a trojan), and a "screen scraper" app that comes off the Web and never resides locally. It just copies whatever is on the user's screen (including banking information) and returns it to the scammer.

For more information on how to protect your computer (Mac or PC) and your information while online, check out these free resources on ConsumerReports.org:

• Cyber-security Central
• Best ways to stay safe online
• Best security software

And if you subscribe to ConsumerReports.org, you'll have access to:

• CR's latest Ratings of security software suites
• CR's latest Ratings of antivirus software
• CR's latest Ratings of antispyware software
• CR's latest Ratings of antispam software

—Thomas A. Olson

MacBook Air: Some closer looks

A Consumer Reports colleague (Joyce Ward) and I met privately with Apple reps Tuesday afternoon for a personalized demonstration of the MacBook Air and other products. It was fun to take a closer look at these new offerings, even if just for a short time.

They say the MacBook weighs three pounds, but it honestly didn't feel even that heavy when I held it in my hand—it seemed lighter somehow. The screen was bright, the keyboard a joy to touch, and the trackpad "touch" software had specific settings for one-, two-, and three-finger operation. One finger can click, drag, or double-click. Two fingers flip, rotate, magnify, or minimize images or web pages by using a "pinching" motion. Three fingers let you "slide" from page to page, image to image. This software utility is currently fully compatible only with the Leopard Finder, Safari Web browser (seen on a Windows XP machine at left), and most of Apple's "iApps." Expect third-party support in the future.

Of course, one of the first things that came to mind when seeing the MacBook Air was, "How's this battery deal gonna work?" In case you hadn't heard, the battery in the MacBook Air is not user-replaceable. As a long-time traveling laptop user, that worries me. I always found having the occasional spare battery to be a good thing, especially on those extra-long excursions.

Apple insists its batteries are absolute state of the art, hold a charge very well, and have a very long life. (The 17-inch MacBook Pro's battery lasted 5.25 hours in our latest tests.) Nevertheless, Apple will try to ease your worries with a Battery Replacement Program: Bring your MacBook Air to the nearest Apple store, and the techs will replace the battery (while disposing of the old one in an environmentally responsible manner). Total cost: $129, the same as a new battery you would replace yourself in other models. In addition, more and more airlines today offer laptop power ports on their planes, and both Apple and third parties sell adapters. So as time goes on, the need for having all that extra battery power handy is becoming less necessary. (It was unclear whether this Apple store program was a "while you wait" service, or a "drop it off and pick it back up tomorrow" sort of thing. Time will tell.)

Apple's goal with the MacBook Air was to design a sleek laptop without most of the tradeoffs associated with ultra-portables. The full 13.3-inch backlit LED screen with 1280 x 800 widescreen resolution bears this out, as does the standard MacBook keyboard and an oversize trackpad that supports the one-, two-, and three-finger multi-touch technology used on the iPod Touch and iPhone. Nevertheless, for power users, there are some tradeoffs: There's only one USB port, no Firewire, no DVD, and the custom battery.

Which led to my next question for the Apple folks:  What if you're on the road, your Time Capsule (seen at right) is at home, and your system has a meltdown? Low odds, mind you, but there it is, coming from a geek who can't be too paranoid. They recommended two solutions. The first, of course, is to carry that $99 external DVD drive and your install disk with you. Another possibility is to install, from that disk, a copy of the Remote Disk application on someone else's Mac (or PC!) with a wireless card. Then you can piggy-back on their CD drive and run the installer to restore your hard disk. Clever, but all you're doing is imposing on a friend's good will—sooner or later you'll have to connect to some physical media to restore your system.

Next up in our interview session was the "Time Capsule" wireless backup solution. Security was my main worry with this product, so I asked our Apple reps: Should I be concerned with potential man-in-the-middle attacks when wirelessly backing up your hard drive? Not necessarily. Time Capsule is essentially a full Airport Extreme base station (a fancy term for "wireless router") combined with a server-class hard drive. It supports all the wireless security protocols found in any other wireless router, including WPA and WPA2. That was the answer I was looking for, but it was still unclear how simple that would be to set up for the uninitiated. It's not normally much fun for those who do it for a living. All that wireless security is well and good, but sometimes to an old school guy like myself, there's nothing more secure than a good honest wire, and fortunately for me, Time Capsule has three gigabit-Ethernet ports included. (See image at left.) But of course, that does me no good with the MacBook Air, which has not a single Ethernet port built-in.

—Thomas A. Olson

MacBook Air, super-thin notebook, introduced

What may be the most talked about of Apple's four major product releases Steve Jobs introduced today is a new addition to the MacBook line called the MacBook Air. With a teardrop profile only 0.76 inches at its thickest point, it's the thinnest notebook computer ever. (You can get closer looks at the new MacBook Air by clicking on each of the embedded images.)

Apple didn't compromise much on features. There's a full-size, backlit keyboard, 13.3-inch screen, iSight webcam, large trackpad with multi-touch gesture support (similar to the iPhone's, which lets you use your fingers in more ways than the traditional tapping and sliding), plus a new magnetic latch.

There are only three ports on the right side: USB2, MicroDVI, and a headphone jack. (There's no Ethernet port for wired networking, but that's not really an issue with a notebook designed for extreme portability.) Apple says that the 1.6-GHz Core 2 Duo processor is 60 percent smaller than chips made for other models. The standard MacBook Air comes with an 80GB hard drive—or a 64GB solid-state drive for an additional $999. The standard memory configuration is 2-GB and Apple claims 5 hours of battery life. The built-in wireless capability supports 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR.

There's no internal CD/DVD burner; to use discs you need the $99 external MacBook Air SuperDrive which connects to the USB port. Also, a new custom application in Leopard called "Remote Disk" lets you wirelessly "borrow" other users' CD/DVD drives.

In keeping with Apple's environmental initiatives, MacBook Air notebooks have a fully recyclable aluminum case, displays that are mercury and arsenic free, and logic boards that are BFR and PVC free. In addition, the packaging has 56 percent less volume, to save trees.

The base model, which starts at $1,799, pairs a 1.6-GHz processor with an 80-GB Parallel ATA hard drive. A second model that features a 1.8-GHz processor and 64-GB solid-state drive starts at $3,098. Both ship in two to three weeks, but can be pre-ordered starting today.

Compared with Windows-based 13-inch slim-and-light notebooks we've rated (Consumer Reports' Ratings are available to ConsumerReports.org subscribers only), the MacBook Air is pricier and its hard drive is a bit slower and has a smaller capacity, but weighs more than a pound less. When compared with notebooks in the 3-pound range, such as the Sony TZ series 11-inch or Toshiba Portege R500 12-inch, its pricing is very competitive.

Macworld 2008: Preview

Apple goes into Macworld Expo, the annual party, love fest, and religious revival for the Cult of Mac, which opened today in San Francisco, following a year that's had a few fizzles (Apple TV, the first release of OS X Leopard, 10.5), one big hit (the iPhone) and under-the-radar sales growth of 40% for Mac desktops and laptops. The one adjective that no longer describes Apple is "beleaguered."

While analysts don’t see the same kind of explosive growth for Apple this year, they still hope a few compelling new products and services will keep the company on a growth track.

I do believe Apple will deliver. My first clue was this week's pre-event announcement of a new MacPro tower and XServe, powered by 8-core Intel Xeon processors, offering 2.3 times the speed and raw horsepower as the dual, quad-core 3.0 Ghz machines being sold only a month ago. If they couldn't wait one week to announce this, it often indicates they have so many other things to show us, there simply wasn't room in the Keynote program to hold it all.

Below is a distillation of predictions, hopes, and wishes from the amassed Mac pundits and bloggers for Keynote 2008:

Movie rentals in iTunes—Fox and Disney are reported as already signed on and almost everybody wants the "One More Thing" to be—at long last—the entire Beatles collection, made available at the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). (If that happens, no one will be crying over the loss of Universal.)

Improvements to iPhone: A 16GB, 3G model, with no limits on cell service provider—we can certainly dream, can't we? Also rumored is an iPhone SDK (software development kit), which would mean that there would be a market for third-party software. We might even see a demo of 3rd-party apps—something developers were clamoring for most of last year.

Office 2008—slam-dunk #2, as Amazon is already taking pre-orders. I expect someone from Microsoft will make the official announcement during the Keynote. (I'll write more on Office later in the week, when I get to see it for real.)

Leopard 10.5.2—this is almost a slam-dunk, as the Developers Cut is already making the rounds. There are at least 75 fixes and feature additions in the works, and this would be a perfect time to announce their deployment.

New Cinema displays with touch-screen and built-in webcam—possibly 24-, 27- and 30-inch models, an upgrade that is long overdue.

Blu-ray drives in some Macs—a rumor that is growing some legs, now that Blu-Ray seems to be winning the format war, and there is going to be a growing need to handle HD content.

Ultraslim notebook/touch tablet—this is the biggest rumor to make the rounds, and highly likely: Apple fills out its laptop line with an ultra-thin notebook, running on flash memory instead of a hard drive, sporting a 12-13 inch touch screen, which could possibly fold over to become a tablet Mac.

Final Cut Studio update—not likely, but definitely overdue, considering the plethora of new digital camcorders that have hit the market

Apple TV "2.0"—look for a "reboot" of this product, with new features, more storage, and built-in compatibility with iTMS movie-rental.

If you are not attending this year, here is a link to sites offering live blogging of the Keynote (SFW). Stay tuned!

—Thomas A. Olson

Thomas Olson, the Publishing Systems Administrator for Consumer Reports' Editorial, Design, Production and Pre-Press groups, has been a Mac enthusiast since 1984.

 

CES 2008: iPod accessories abound

The big venue for all things Apple, including the company's iPod portable players, is MacWorld, which doesn't open until next week in San Francisco. But you wouldn't know it here in the 2008 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, which is overflowing with audio accessories and other gizmos that sport docks for iPod. CES officially opens on Monday, but here’s an early peek at a few of the more interesting iPod perches you’ll see on store shelves this year:

Wireless wonder: iLuv i399. One shortcoming of wireless Bluetooth technology is that its range is limited to 30 feet or less. So if you're listening to a Bluetooth music player with Bluetooth headsets, you'll have to stay fairly close to the player. i399 BluePina 2.1 Channel Hi-Fi Audio System (Click on image at right for a closer look.) claims to boost that range to 300 ft. using a technology called BluepinII. With the detachable BluePin II, you can listen to music on Bluetooth headphones or send music from another stereo Bluetooth device to the i399. It includes speaker phone capabilities for incoming and outgoing calls, an FM radio, digital clock display and an auxiliary line input for older iPods and other portable players. Available later this year for an undisclosed price.

Cute as a bug. The VestaLife Ladybug ($110) portable docking station doesn’t claim any special technologies, but it has one characteristic that’s bound to captivate any kid—and at least one adult—who plays with it: Its speakers fold out like the wings of an insect (Click on image at left for a closer look), cleverly revealing the dock for inserting your iPod. It also has input jacks for other portable players. A rear-firing subwoofer claims to add oomph. The simple controls have a soft-touch rubbery finish. Powered by two AA batteries, or an adapter, which may or may not be included). Available during the first quarter of 2008 in red and silver. There will also be a $125.00 Element Skateboards edition.

—Mike Gikas

Out with the old: The trade show season starts

With the peak buying season over for consumers, save for Superbowl-driven sales of flat-panel TVs, it's time for wholesalers and retailers to begin their buying spree, so store shelves will be full of new gear 10 or so months from now.

Their season opener is the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), a behemoth that opens on Monday and will draw hundreds of thousands of people to some 1.7 million square feet of exhibits in Las Vegas. While most of what's on display is electronics hardware of every description, what's creating buzz so far about the show isn't really gear. Instead, paralleling the evolution of consumer electronics itself, the news at CES is becoming less about hardware alone and more about intermingled bundles of content and compatible equipment.

Earlier this week, for example, Netflix, the mail-order DVD rental giant, previewed its big CES news by announcing plans to also begin delivering movies online to some LG-brand HDTVs using set-top boxes built by LG Electronics. [Jan. 4, 2007 UPDATE: A closer look at both companies' press releases reveals that LG will produce set-top boxes to deliver Netflix online content to "large-screen home theater HDTVs," not to just "some LG-branded HDTVs" as we originally and erroneously stated. —Ed.] The annual five technology trends to watch in 2008, from the Consumer Electronics Association, CES's organizer, are resolutely "soft," comprising retailing, radio, GPS services, and the CE production cycle. And the industry spokespeople invited to speak at a recent CES media preview were content types from Universal and Sony studios, talking about their plans for big displays and splashy showcase events at CES.

That's not to say the show won't overflow with new equipment, or that we won't report on it and the trends it embodies. Dean Gallea, Consumer Reports' test-program leader in computers, expects to see a continuing stream of smaller, lighter, and less expensive laptops. Mike Gikas, Consumer Reports' editor for mobile devices, will be looking at how small and capacious the new MP3 players are and how they’ll connect to other gear (he’ll also look at cordless phones and cellphones, though the latter has its own show later in the year). Jim Travers from Consumer Reports' Cars section will be looking at the next generation of GPS navigators, those runaway hits of the past holiday season, as well as other after-market automotive gear; his posts will appear both on this blog and our Cars Blog. And Jim Willcox will cover HDTV and other audio-video gear; he expects to see more examples of TVs that use OLED, a new technology that makes flat-panel sets look positively chubby, and of sets that use lasers as a light source. I'll also be at CES, and will weigh mostly on trends that transcend the categories above; examples are electronics recycling, content protection, and networking.

CES is only the first and biggest of the industry showcases early in the year. Just days behind, beginning January 12 14, is MacWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, the meeting of the Apple Macintosh tribe; Tom Olson, our computer database expert, will be blogging from that event. Late in the month comes the digital-camera trade show, PMA08, also in Las Vegas. Let the exhibits, the hoopla, and the buying begin.

[Jan. 4, 2007 UPDATE: The correct start date for MacWorld show is Jan. 14, 2008. We also neglected to mention that Consumer Reports' editor Terry Sullivan will be reporting from the PMA08 show when it begins Jan. 31. —Ed.]

—Paul Reynolds