MetroMacs Kansas City blog…

Just a quick reminder for our current and potential clients. We will be closed on July 3rd so that we can get a head start on the holiday weekend. Actually, we just like three-day weekends : ) As always, existing managed service and retailer clients may submit Apple Support Requests at any time and will be responded to dependent upon client urgency.

Did you know MetroMacs turns one year old this month? Yep, it’s true! Along with Apple, we are growing daily and we are so very much appreciative our client’s support during the past 12 months.

Our Mission

We strive to provide and implement the very best in Apple Technology & Support Services for the greater Kansas City area and Metro based Mac users, professionals and businesses. Some of the key components for our success consist of a key focus and dedication to Apple platform, superb customer service, extremely intelligent and consultative technicians, first time fixes and very fast response times. MetroMacs offers an expert team of Apple Certified Technicians and experienced IT professionals. Whether you want to schedule a time to drop off your computer, have us pick it up or come out to work on-site… We are here to assist with any of your Apple related support issues or maybe you just need some help in purchasing a new Mac, we can help with that that too!

“Officially” founded and Incorporated in 2008 by Shane Blanchett and based out of Shawnee, KS after well over 14 years of hands-on professional experience supporting the Apple Macintosh platform within the Apple Developer, residential, and business communities. MetroMacs continues to constantly keep up to date on the latest technology trends and the best Apple support solutions around. We love building relationships with other local area businesses and strategic partnerships in order to help provide an even higher level of service. Now starting in our second year, we are well on our way!

Have a safe and happy 4th everyone!

Shane Blanchett

Symptoms

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected. If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within three years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

What to look for:

Distorted or scrambled video on the computer screen

No video on the computer screen (or external display) even though the computer is on

Specific products affected:

MacBook Pro 15-inch and 17-inch models with NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processors

MacBook Pro (17-Inch, 2.4GHz)

MacBook Pro (15-Inch, 2.4/2.2GHz)

MacBook Pro (Early 2008)

These computers were manufactured between approximately May 2007 and September 2008

Additional Details

Quick Note: Apple released iTunes 8.2 today which adds support for the upcoming iPhone Software 3.0 release. It was accompanied by a recommended maintenance / security update for QuickTime 7.6.

Additional Details

It’s that time of year again when the myriad of Mac Geeks, Apple fanboys, tech bloggers, industry insiders and your local Kansas City based Apple aficionados start churning the rumor mill in anticipation of the what Apple has in store for the current spring and upcoming summer months.

As most of you probably know by now, Apple is set to release the next major update for Mac OS X this summer under the name Snow Leopard or 10.6. A much leaner and more refined version of the current Mac OS X Leopard revision. One industry insider has it set to release on June 8th, 2009 during the start of WWDC, Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference.

Personally, this seems way too soon in keeping with the latest beta seeds that are out there which indicate a fair amount of bugs left and final testing yet to be performed. I tend to favor the notion that we will be given an official release date during WWDC, as well as a full rundown of what we can expect to see once the system is declared a Golden Master release. Besides , June 8th is on a Monday and Apple has been sticking to releasing new software and updates on Tuesdays; just as the media industry does with movies, CDs, video games and other software titles. Of course lets not all get complacent and expect this to always be the case even though Apple appears to be developing a predictable product release time frame of which can be good for a variety of reasons.

In the coming weeks you can expect us to fully cover both the Snow Leopard Client & Server editions with a special emphasis on the new server services that are in store.

Now on to the iPhone, first of which is the new 3.0 version of the software rumored to be released July 17th. Very little of you already know that MetroMacs is an official ADC (Apple Developer Connection) member, we’ve been testing 3.0 ever since the first beta was released several weeks ago. While we cannot get into many details covering the 3.0 software we can state that so far the beta experience has proven to be excellent and well on track to a July release date. Why, you may ask, are we a developer connection member? Well, this summer we plan announce some exciting new services that are very specific to the Apple iPhone / iPod Touch. Stay tuned for soon to be released details.

Moving on to what’s in store for the iPhone hardware wise. It’s already happening, AT&T stores are now offering refurbs, instead of new units, in an effort to run the supply channel dry. A very typical practice and common business sense when a new Mac or product is getting ready to be released. This is where it all get’s interesting and exciting, at least for me that is. It begs to ask, how is Apple going to make us fall love the iPhone all over again? For most it’s gonna have to be enough to fork out another $200-300 every year – that’s for sure.

With the iPhone 3.0 software and if most or any these new hardware predictions are accurate, you’ll most likely spot me in line once again at our local Apple Leawood store. It’s just the Mac Geek in me that drools and longs for the latest in Apple technology/packaging materials. It’s safe to say that we can expect Apple to announce new iPhone hardware during the week of June 8th at the WWDC. I wouldn’t expect any new iPhone’s to be released till the first part of July in keeping with last years tradition.

Here is the current rundown:

Speedier processor and more RAM
Source: Daring Fireball; Apple iPhone Apps; MacRumors; WeiPhone

This is pretty obvious: Any hardware upgrade typically receives a performance boost. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has historically been one of the most accurate with Apple rumors, and his sources tell him the next iPhone will have a 600MHz processor (up from 400MHz). That would make the next iPhone 1.5 times as fast as the current one. Also, a recent job listing reveals that Apple is hiring a low-level iPhone programmer who is familiar with the ARMv7 Cortex mobile processor, which is much faster than the current iPhone’s ARMv6-based chip. As for memory, we’d expect Apple to increase RAM to complement the processor upgrade.

Same industrial design as previous models

Source: WeiPhone; Daring Fireball

Revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, orientation sensor, and Google maps

Source: Apple iPhone Apps

The camera will work with the GPS, compass, orientation sensor and Google maps to identify what building or location you have taken a picture of. We at first had difficulties believing this ability. However, such a “feature” is technically possible. If the next generation iPhone was to contain a compass then all of the components necessary to determine the actually plane in space for an image taken. The GPS would be used to determine the physical location of the device. The compass would be used to determine the direction the camera was facing. And the orientation sensor would be used to determine the orientation of the camera relative to the gravity. Additionally the focal length and focus of the camera could even assist is determining the distance of any focused objects in the picture. In other words, not only would the device know where you are, but it could determine how you are tilting it and hence it would know EXACTLY where in space your picture was composed. According to our source, Apple will use this information to introduce several groundbreaking features. For example, if you were to take a picture of the Staples Center in Los Angeles, you will be provided with a prompt directing you to information about the building, address, and/or area. This information will include sources such as wikipedia. This seems like quite an amazing service; and a little hard to believe, however while the complexity of such a service may be unrealistic, such is actually feasible with the sensors onboard the next generation iPhone.

Overall, this has been very sketchy with no clear reports on much in store here. However, I did run across a statement regarding the outer metal support band might be removed or re-engineered to allow for a hidden uni-frame. One thing to keep in mind, if a new camera is in store or video chat capabilities are in store, then Apple will most likely need to implement some external changes in this arena as well.

Storage options increased: 16GB and 32GB
Source: Daring Fireball; Apple iPhone Apps

$200 and $300 price points to be maintained
Source: Daring Fireball; Apple iPhone Apps

Apple is not in the business of offering free iPhone software upgrades without releasing a new piece of hardware for us to buy. Being such, we can probably expect some of the 3.0 features to only work on a 3rd generation iPhone, which some have dubbed the iPhone Pro, which is a 32GB top of the line model sporting a new 3.2 mega-pixel camera with video capabilities.

Video-recording and editing capabilities
Source: Engadget; MacRumors; BusinessWeek

Some developers have published screen captures of a video interface discovered in iPhone 3.0 beta. A major complaint about the current iPhone is its inability to record video, so it would be surprising if Apple didn’t deliver this feature. We would give this rumor a higher rating if there were evidence of video-editing capabilities. Currently, we haven’t seen any.

Sleeker design
Source: Apple iPhone Apps

Nothing solid regarding any potential design changes. Apple is known to stick with a working design as long as it provides an exceptional user experience and proven satisfaction.

1.5 times the battery life of the current models
Source: Apple iPhone Apps

I think most can expect to see some advancements in this area. Almost a given really.

OLED screen
Source: Apple iPhone Apps; Register Hardware

Somewhat likely if this option significantly improved battery life which it should. The only issue is money and Apple has been trying to cut production costs on the iPhone. Maybe once costs come down.

Glowing Apple logo on the back
Source: Apple iPhone Apps

Could be cool, but that’s about as far as this idea will go.

Discontinuation of the metal band surrounding the edge of the device
Source: Apple iPhone Apps

Possible but not very likely.

Rubber-tread backing
Source: Apple iPhone Apps

Can’t see this happening at all either.

That about sums it up for now. While this article may not have provided any practical knowledge, it is always fun to document these rumors and see if any of them come to fruition.

iTunes U students. Free iPhone Application Programming courses offered from Stanford U as iTunes podcasts. http://itunes.stanford.edu/

There is only one major thing I care about in a new Safari 4 beta: Does it use the same style of separate process models that Google Chrome uses? For many reasons I feel this is key and it does appear that Apple is working overtime refining webkit (Safari’s browser engine) to compete with the upcoming Mac version of Google Chrome.  Obviously, there are still several issues to be worked out under the hood – after all this is a beta release.

Overall, my experience with the new look and feel has been -  I LOVE IT!

Just from my initial use and from similar reports there are two BIG problems with Safari 4 beta right now:
- The entire browser stands still when one site is slow/hung
- When one site gives rise to a crash, the entire browser goes down.

Browsers these days are becoming their own “OS” in many respects with the emerging web app technology Apple is gearing towards with MobileMe for example.

Follow us on twitter to receive our blog post updates and other news here at MetroMacs.

We are pleased to introduce our new and improved blog which is designed to provide you with the latest Apple insider tips and tricks as well as changes going on here at MetroMacs. To keep things interesting from time-to-time we will be publishing our own product reviews and other cool stuff. You’re welcome to post feedback or comments related to any of our posts. As well as testimonials from previous service experiences.

To date our client base has been growing rapidly and we couldn’t be more excited about this. If you are new to MetroMacs and considering our services we hope you’ll give us a try. 

Why you should hire an Apple consultant.

For existing retainer and managed-service clients we now have a direct support center that provides you with access to our remote and other managed services. In some cases we are able to resolve issues without the need to stop by which can save you billable time and money. This is very helpful if you need a server user added or any other routine administrative tasks perfomed. We can also monitor that status of your Mac OS X Server remotely as well as receive status alerts which can be very helpful in a emergency situation and on preventative measures. Our remote service utilizes “VPN” which in plain english allows us to connect to your local network from ours via a secure internet “tunnel” connection so there is no worry about security.

Current clients that refer a friend or small business to us and they end up becoming a client will receive one free hour of billable time to use for any of our consulting, training, and support services. There is no limit on the number of clients and the time will never expire so take advantage of this today! 

Shane Blanchett

MetroMacs – CEO / Consultant