A new NPD report says that 12% of US households now own a Mac of some kind. That's a nice gain -- just a year ago, back in 2008, the same stat was at 9 percent, so Apple has made nice jumps just in the last 12 months. But before you start crowing about Apple's impending superiority, here's another fact that might have you thinking twice: of those households, a whopping 85% also own a Windows computer. In fact, 66% of those Apple households actually own three computers or more. So many more Apple owners own more than one computer, and of those, it's pretty darn likely that one of them is still a Windows PC. That's certainly the case at my house (I own a Mac mini, a MacBook, and a PC), and I bet it's true for lots of you Mac users as well.

There is good news for Apple in terms of iPods however: 63% of Apple-owning households also have an iPod on hand, though I'd question whether that's chicken or egg: do they own an iPod because they owned a Mac or vice versa? Additionally, Apple users are more likely to have navigation systems in their cars, they're more likely to earn over $100,000, and they're likely to have twice as many gadgets as other users -- 48 gadgets on average for Mac owners, compared to 24 for the average consumer household.

While those stats are interesting, none of them seem super surprising -- Apple has a reputation for high-end gadgets, and so anyone who seeks out their products is going to pick up some other gadgets as well.

For pro photographers who care about color fidelity on a laptop screen, there's good news from Rob Galbraith on the revamped MacBook Pro line: the new laptops offer improved color performance, which Rob's review describes as "better colour accuracy than any Apple laptop we've profiled since...2001." Color accuracy, display evenness and grayscale viewing are all noted as excellent; the only sore spots are viewing angle and the grating lack of matte screen options for anything but the 17" top model. He notes that TechRestore may begin offering matte-screen replacements for the smaller units soon, for those who can't tolerate the glossy glare.

Not everyone is satisfied with the MBP screens, however. Designer Louie Mantia of the Iconfactory has a bone to pick with the screen quality of his new 13" unit; it's sporting a 6-bit display, which has been an issue with color-sensitive professionals for years now. To add insult to injury, the Apple store sold Louie the wrong DisplayPort adapter for his external display, and nobody at Apple HQ is willing to give him an answer on whether or not an 8-bit panel is even an option (hint: it's not, sorry about that). One could argue, as he does, that a 'Pro' machine ought to have a professional-quality panel... but that campaign's not likely to get much traction in the halls of Cupertino.

Via Apple Hot News

Well, we're still not sure our iPhones are safe to use, and now comes word from Australia that our brand spanking new glossy screens might be hurting us as well, through bad ergonomics.

An HR advisory from Queensland University of Technology suggests that:

"Reflections and glare on high gloss monitor screens and their relation to the angle of the monitor screen, could cause the operator to adopt awkward postures when viewing the monitor screen and using related equipment. These reflections on the screen can be from internal and external sources such as the overhead lighting and/or position of windows.

Awkward postures adopted by the operator may in turn lead to an injury."

Of course Apple has moved to high gloss screens on every laptop except the 17" MacBook Pro, and the matte screen option on that laptop costs an extra fifty bucks. The iMacs are also only available with glossy screens.

Of course there are other health hazards associated with having Apple equipment, such as a tendency to have panic attacks or heart palpitations when you learn you can't update your iPhone cheaply through AT&T. At any rate, there is one advantage to those glossy screens. You'll be able to clearly see your pained face as you try to stretch into position to avoid those reflections on those mirror-like screens. So there.

Thanks to one of our readers who tipped us to this happy news via this web site

It was just a few days ago we were talking about hacked MagSafe connectors, and now a lawsuit seeking class action status claims the innovative connectors are a fire hazard and a risk to life, limb, and property.

As an example, here's a link to some Flickr images of what is claimed is a melted MagSafe connector.

The complaint, filed last week in San Jose, California says that eventually the cord will fray from heat or wear, with a resulting danger of fire and injury. The suit, filed by plaintiffs Tim Broad, Naotaka Kitagawa and Jesse Reisman says Apple is aware of the problem and has done nothing about it.

The suit also claims when people demonstrate the problem to Apple, the company suggests they buy another $80.00US cable. Actually, we reported in August that Apple was replacing damaged or worn cables if they were not subject to abuse.

Apple has not commented on the lawsuit. It will be interesting to watch this one wind through the courts.

The power connector was introduced at Macworld in January, 2006. It has not always received positive reviews, even at the Apple Store.

Consumer Reports continues to shower praise on all things Apple it seems. In a report in the June issue, the Magazine says Apple won the top three places in the 13 inch laptop derby. The unibody MacBook was in first place, followed by the MacBook Air, with the white plastic MacBook in a solid third place.

CR also named the 15-inch MacBook Pro as top laptop in the 14- to 16-inch group, and the 17-inch MacBook Pro walked off with the honors in the 17- to 18-inch category. The HP Pavilion publicized in the first Laptop Hunters ad from Microsoft came in 4th in the category behind Dell and Lenovo laptops. The Sony VAIO FW370 that was the star of the 3rd Microsoft ad came in 5th in the 14- to 16-inch category.

Apple also took the honors for best in tech support.

This won't bring smiles to the folks in Redmond, who are going all out to convince people that Apple computers are not a good value. It should be noted that none of the Apple laptops were rated a best buy, but they all scored the highest in each category and were recommended by the magazine. Of course Apple has repeatedly said they are not trying to win on price, but on quality, and Consumer Reports seems to accept that as the case.

I generally don't put a lot of stock in CR for some of its testing, but these high ratings for Apple laptops are just one of a continuing chorus of approval from the press and generally happy Mac owners.

Microsoft is really working hard to get potential Mac customers to either buy or stay with Windows-based PCs. After the initial "Lauren" ad -- see BusinessWeek's take on her choice of a poorly-rated HP model, and TechFlash & Apple 2.0 on her oddly extensive acting career for someone who supposedly answered a Craiglist ad for market research -- a new ad [YouTube link] in the series launched today.

Our new shopper, Giampaolo, looks at a Mac at a computer store and says it is "so sexy," but then adds that "Macs are more about aesthetics than they are about computing power." [Check Harry McCracken's detailed side-by-side of 17" laptop hardware comparisons to debunk the "Apple Tax" and performance arguments.]

He winds up with an HP laptop which is within the $1500 dollar budget Microsoft gave him. The model he chooses is a Pavilion HDX 16t. We hope he enjoys it!

It's a strange campaign. Microsoft is spending a lot of time and money promoting HP, while saying not much at all about the advantages of Windows Vista... which is, after all, the product Microsoft sells.

Is it effective? Is it giving you second thoughts about buying Apple products, based on cost considerations? (Is this a rhetorical question?)

The laptop is less than an inch thick, and weighs 6.6 pounds. It features a 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo process, 6 MB of L2 cache, GeForce 9600M GT video card, and supports up to 8GB of memory. The default configuration with 4GB of memory and a 320GB hard disk ships for the same price as before: $2,799.

The 17-inch MacBook Pro now features a non-removable battery with an estimated eight-hour life. The battery will also last for 1,000 cycles, according to the presentation. The battery is 40 percent larger than its predecessor, which allows for a greater charge and better life. The trade off, of course, is the fact that it's not user-replaceable.

Apple is touting the new MacBook Pro as among its greenest line of laptops ever. The new battery for this model has three times the life of older MacBooks, lasting up to five years, which for many may be the life of the computer. It also earns an EPEAT Gold rating, and it contains no arsenic, BFR, mercury, and less PVC.

There's a glowing article about Apple at Fortune today. Here was the stand-out line for me:

"Apple's philosophy goes like this: Too many companies spread themselves thin, making a profusion of products to defuse risk, so they get mired in the mediocre. Apple's approach is to put every resource it has behind just a few products and make them exceedingly well."

Consider Apple's product line. There are three laptops, the MacBook, the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. Even a potential customer who's never used a computer before can understand the distinctions just by hearing their names.

"MacBook" is obviously the basic laptop. The "MacBook Pro" is obviously a "better," or professional, model and the Air is somehow different than the two. Easy.

Not to pick on Sony, but look at their lineup of Vaio laptops:

1. Vaio UX Series
2. Vaio TZ Series
3. Vaio SZ Series
4. Vaio CR Series
5. Vaio FZ Series
6. Vaio NR Series
7. Vaio AR Series

What? Just reading the names, I can't surmise anything about the differences between these machines. Plus, there are seven models vs. Apple's three.

The same goes for desktops. Apple builds three; the iMac (a name nearly everybody knows), the Mac mini (obviously smaller and, one would assume, lower priced) and the Mac Pro, which follows the pro-level naming convention of the laptop line.

The iPod line is slightly more convoluted (if "convoluted" is even the right word) with four models

1. iPod shuffle
2. iPod nano
3. iPod classic
4. iPod touch

I bet the classic will eventually be replaced by the touch, once the cost of flash drives comes down.

The Fortune article is full of good stuff, so go and read it.

[Via MacDailyNews]

The Macbook Air is only a couple of hours old (to you and me, at least), and only a handful of people have even seen one, so let's pick apart its flaws! Just kidding. This post is meant to point out certain aspects of the little machine that may not be immediately obvious.

1. No user-replacable battery. Not the end of the world, for sure, but a nuisance, especially as your battery's life drops to four hours, then three, then ... (but that's a few years away, right?). Shades of the user-inaccessible iPhone battery commotion here.
   
2. Recessed USB slot will hinder certain peripherals. Prepare for a cottage industry of adapters to appear (much like those for the iPhone's headphone jack). Plus, there's only one -- expect small, streamlined & white USB hubs to appear soon.
   
3. No Firewire port. Forget uploading digital video from a camera, or using those spiffy Firewire external hard drives.

Now, we're not ripping the MacBook Air apart here, just pointing out a few details you'll want to keep in mind if you plan to use it as your primary machine. Speaking of which, don't you love how the curved bottom makes it appear to be floating?

Perhaps its just a case of wishful thinking, but according to a survey highlighted in a recent article at the UK edition of Macworld, Apple Computer's sales of laptops have increased dramatically over the last few months due, in large part, to the public's demand and awareness of Apple products -- chiefly the iPhone. These trends are expected to continue and, according to the article, have an impact not only on Apple's bottom line, but on the PC industry as a whole.

The survey highlighted in the article was conducted by research firm ChangeWave and supports an earlier survey by the same company from a few months ago. It relates the following statistics:

Of the 3665 people surveyed, 28 percent say that if they intend to purchase a laptop in the next 90 days it will be a Mac. Also, an additional 23 percent say they'll purchase a desktop Mac. Apple scores high marks for customer satisfaction as well, according to the survey.

Of the people who purchased a Mac in the last 90 days, 86 percent report being "very satisfied with their purchase. The highest for any computer company. A fact that, according to ChangeWave, reflects a definite shift in the entire PC industry towards Apple and away from traditional market leaders like Dell.

What these statistics actually mean for Apple, and the PC industry as a whole, remains to be seen. Stats are great and if true, bode well for our favorite computer company. Still, in the interest of knowledge, let's conduct a little informal research ourselves, shall we? Two questions: Do you intend to purchase a laptop in the next 90 days and if so, will it be a Macintosh? If you've purchased a Macintosh in the last 90 days, how satisfied with it are you?

Bloomberg is contemplating the future of Apple laptops this morning. Specifically, flash-based laptops with no internal hard drives.

It has been suggested that Apple would use NAND flash memory chips in their machines, which are still much pricier than slim hard drives. Of course, NAND chip manufacturers are all for it: "It would be positive for flash memory makers in that new demand can be created from diversified applications,'' said James Song, an analyst at Good Morning Shinhan Securities Co. in Seoul.

It sure would be nice, as laptops could become much thinner (consider that the iPod nano is 80% smaller than a 80GB iPod), lighter and have less moving parts. Plus, we can already boot OS X from a usb flash drive, so why not?

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Hendrik Holtmann's smcFanControl, a free (but donation-friendly) program released under the GNU public license, just got upgraded to version 2.0. The new version, which now works with all Intel Macs, controls your fan speed while monitoring your computer's internal temperature.

The new version sits in your menu bar (unlike version 1.0, which was a regular dock-based application) and introduces fan setting presets and the ability to detect whether you're running on A/C or battery power. This is a great way to keep your Mac cool while controlling the noise from your fan.

Thanks, Mark Fleser.

Arik Hesseldahl of BusinessWeek writes today about his shock at seeing MacBook Pros used at a business meeting. Macs, he says, are a rarity in his world, which is a festival of Dells, Thinkpads and other PCs.

Hesseldahl relates his experience where a person's MacBook Pro caught the eye of some HP execs. "That notebook you've got there is a challenge to us," CEO Mark Hurd reportedly said. He promised to send someone down to see the MacBook owner to talk about HP notebooks and had some business cards dropped off.

MacBooks might not be de rigeur in Wall Street financial circles, but I'm surprised at how surprised Hesseldahl and the HP folk were to see people actually using them in work-related situations. Maybe these PC-folk just need to get out more.

MacNN reports that Hon Hai Precision Industry (aka "Foxconn Electronics") has won a new contract with Apple to produce a line of Mac notebooks. The actual notebook line in question is still unclear. MacNN notes that the company will ship about 3.2 million notebooks in 2007, of which the Apple order only makes up a part.

If the name of this manufacturing company sounds familiar, it's probably because of our recent story about Foxconn reportedly winning the iPhone handset contact. Foxconn has also built has had contracts to build has had TUAW stories about having possibly having had contracts to possibly build in a theoretical way only Mac Minis, Powerbooks and iBook G4s for Apple in the past.

Product recalls are certainly nothing new to the tech industry, but two significant PC players (Dell and Apple) having to recall a collective 5.9 million batteries has to sting just a little for Sony. Macworld is reporting that the Japanese company announced an estimate on the cost of said sting: between ¥20 billion to ¥30 billion (US$172 million to $258 million). The moral of this story? QA is a good thing.

Let's hope the upcoming summit in San Francisco on li-ion battery manufacturing standards - jointly held by the likes of Apple, HP, Dell and Lenovo - helps cut down on the exploding notebooks so we can all get back to our daily routines.