You can usually tell that there's an Apple event when the rumour mill of the interwebs surpasses fever pitch and moves straight to ludicrous speed. This past week has been all about the supposed Apple tablet, and it's no surprise - while some say that it'd be equally as niche as the Macbook Air, they also say it'll be as widely accepted as the Air has been as well. But with all the rumours out there, how do you separate the truth from fiction? Mashable has you covered in that area, with their succinct summary of (pretty much) every Apple tablet rumour.Also on the summary side of things is Cnet's summary of the changes in Snow Leopard, answering the common questions such as "Is it worth upgrading right away, or should I wait?", among others. It's definitely worth a read if you've just been ignoring all the Snow Leopard fuss up until now.
Bringing in teh lulz (sic) this week is the fact that Microsoft are waving wads of cash under iPhone developer's noses, enticing them to develop applications for the upcoming Zune HD. Apparently Gruber was contacted by an iPhone dev who made a Twitter client, who explained to him that Microsoft asked him to port his Twitter client to the Zune in exchange for "a bucketload of cash". A note to all my tweeps - if I catch you tweeting from a Zune, you'll be instantly unfollowed.
If an red circuit board is indicative of a "prototype device" at Apple HQ, then you'll also be believing the fact that secret spy-shots of the third generation iPod Touch are the real deal. I don't think anyone is surprised to note that the new Touch has a built-in camera, but the real crux of this story is the fact that no matter how much evidence you have, there will always be people on the internet who contradict you.
Also on the rumour mill these past couple of days has been news that Microsoft is planning to release their mail client of doom on the Mac. Thus far, Entourage has been a pretty poor imitation (in my opinion, and from what I've heard) of the mail juggernaut that is Outlook, but that could all change come 2010. Whether this matters at all to you is another question, because Snow Leopard supports Exchange our of the box - something not even Windows boxes can do.
Palm Pre users can now cry themselves to sleep after a poll revealed that iPhone 3GS users boasted a 99% satisfaction rating, something basically unheard of in the tech industry. The Pre, on the other hand, only managed to scrape a meagre 87% - as Jason Chen of Gizmodo put it when he reviewed the Pre back in June, "one last effort. A slow, but firm, shove of the chips. All in.* They flip. Full house. Respectable. Decent. Impressive even. But not the highest hand." Kudos for trying, Palm.
Those crazy Americans are at it again, this time from what is normally a sane source of news and all things Apple, the very Ars Technica. They're telling people to sue AT&T, not for craptacular service to rival Optus' own, but for delaying the launch of MMS on their network. You would think that better service and coverage would be a higher priority over MMS, for crying out loud, but hey - while in America, right?
Two of the best Mac OSX Hints I've ever seen include how to send Growl notifications to your Mac from a Linux box, and how to create always-editable playlists on your iPhone/iPod. The former is* great for monitoring server uptime, especially combined with the Prowl app which will push Growl messages to your iPhone, while the latter will allow you to have live-updating playlists on your iPhone/iPod that isn't the crappy "On-The-Go" one.
Remeber that DNS trojan a while ago? That one that would install itself as a "video codec" when you visited certain sites of, er, questionable reputation? Well, it's back in pretty much exactly the same form - down to the very same "video player/codec" package it sells itself as. Either you'll have to stay away from any unscrulpous-looking sites of questionable content, or you'll just have to find more, *ahem* reputable places to meet you needs, gentlemen.
Finally, 20 killer iPhone game designs is a must-read if you're planning on creating any kind of game for the iPhone. From fancy animated looks to the simple hand-drawn style we all know and love, it's a very awesome collection of some great games. Sure, they might not be the best games ever created, but bear in mind that we're talking about design here, not gameplay!
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