Techzone

Introduction of Ilife ‘09 with updates all of the apps in iLife and iWork ‘09. There’s also the unibody Macbook Pro with a new updated battery which provides 60% more battery life. Let’s see how that tests out in the real time tests. iWork ‘09 goes online at www.iwork.com where you share your documents. Free in beta and will be charged later once the dust settles down. And iTunes goes DRM Free. That’s that… no new mac mini line, iPhone nano et al… Thanks to the rumor mongers for keeping us excited though… Continue reading for the Keynote updates

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Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season
with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote
set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even
publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

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According to a previously reliable source, Apple misrepresented the reasons behind Macworld and Jobs’ keynote cancellation. Allegedly, the real cause is his rapidly declining health. In fact, it may be even worse than we imagined:

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Cygnus, a small Indiana company, has sued the Big Three of Tech — Microsoft, Apple, and Google — claiming that it holds the patent on a common file preview feature used by browsers and operating systems to show users small snapshots of the files before they are opened. Cygnus’s owner and president, Gregory Swartz, developed the technology laid out in the patent while working on IT consulting projects. The company is looking for "a reasonable royalty" as well as a court injunction preventing further infringement. Cygnus applied for its patent (# 7346850) in 2001. It covers a ‘System and Method for Iconic Software Environment Management’ and was granted by the US Patent and Trademark Office in March of this year.

Although the atmosphere surrounding this year’s MacWorld has been rather downbeat from Apple’s standpoint and one of why Apple decided to exit a major marketing event like MacWorld. Macworlds are not going to be the same as they once were without Steve.

However, stealing the rumors for this year’s MacWorld are reports of the launch of iPhone Nano. Leading Apple fan sites like MacRumors have released conceptual photographs (the one above) of an iPhone Nano. Labeling these rumors as doubtful, serious doubts are being cast about the likelihood of such a device.

On Wednesday, the French courts ordered Apple to come away from the monopoly of supplying iphones only to Orange.

At the time we published that article, Apple hadn’t yet responded to
the news. However, in an e-mail, company spokesman Alan Hely said that
Apple is deeply disappointed by the council’s decision. The iPhone, he
said, has created “vigorous competition among handset makers and
carriers that benefits all consumers. Our partnership with Orange has
enabled us to deliver unprecedented value to French consumers.”

BBC announced that a version of the iPlayer that works on the Mac and Linux computers is now available.

The iPlayer is the BBC’s online media player that lets viewers stream programmes for up to seven days after broadcast or download and watch them for up to 30 days.

While streaming had previously been available to Mac users, downloading had not. When the iPlayer first launched it was criticized for only being compatible with Windows XP. The new version of the iPlayer was written with Adobe’s AIR platform.

The product is currently in public beta with a final release expected in February 2009.