Apple's Leopard OS Could Add Significantly to Company's Bottom Line
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The new Apple operating system is expected to bring in at least $140 million between its launch this Friday and the end of the year.
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The security features introduced in Apple&#39;s Leopard operating system need work. That&#39;s according to security experts who have been putting the new version of Mac OS X through its paces since&#160;the upgrade was introduced&#160;last Friday.Leopard introduces a number of important security features to the Mac, but they are often implemented incompletely, leaving users vulnerable to attack, said Thomas Ptacek, a researcher at Matasano Security, who Monday wrote a detailed assessment of Leopard&#39;s security.&quot;They&#39;ve done a really good job of robbing Microsoft advocates of their talking points,&quot; he said. But, &quot;I don&#39;t see anything that they&#39;ve done out of the box, where it&#39;s really any more resistant to attack than Tiger was,&quot; he added, referring to the previous update to Apple&#39;s operating system.According to Ptacek, two of Apple&#39;s key security enhancements -- Sandboxing and Library Randomization -- are great ideas that are imperfectly applied within Leopard.Take Library Randomization. It&#39;s a new feature that&#39;s supposed to make it hard for some of the most commonly used computer attacks like buffer overflows, where the attacker takes advantage of a software bug to place code somewhere in the computer&#39;s memory where he knows it will be run. Microsoft developed a similar technology for Vista, called Address Space Load Randomization. Library Randomization makes it much harder, if not impossible, for the attacker to know where to place this code, reducing the risk of attack.The problem is that Apple did not randomize all of the parts of the operating system that it should have, according to Ptacek. In particular, Apple&#39;s Dynamic Link Library has not been randomized.Security researcher Dino Dai Zovi said he&#39;s used this library in several of the Mac exploits he&#39;s written over the past few years. He has taken advantage of the fact that this library is not randomized, he agreed with Ptacek&#39;s assessment that this feature, as it&#39;s implemented in Leopard, would simply make things a little more difficult for attackers.Sandboxing is another feature that could ultimately make Mac OS X more secure. Sandboxing restricts software running on Mac OS so that even if it&#39;s hacked, it can&#39;t do things that it shouldn&#39;t, such as add new software to the computer. The problem is that Apple hasn&#39;t sandboxed many of the most commonly attacked applications such as the browser, mail client, or instant messaging software, Ptacek said.And the programs that have been sandboxed have not been walled off as thoroughly as they should be, he added.For example, the Quick Look file viewer has been sandboxed, but only to restrict network access. The software can still be misused to write malicious files where they will be automatically launched, Dai Zovi said. &quot;Most of the things that were sandboxed were network services,&quot; he said. &quot;Increasingly these days IM, e-mail and Web surfing are where most of the attacks are coming from, not directly on your network.&quot;Independent consultant Rich Mogull said that his biggest problem was with the Leopard firewall, which he said suffered from a confusing interface that made it very difficult to control access to individual services on the Mac. &quot;It was very complicated and very hard to get the right settings,&quot; he said.Worse, when he installed Leopard, he found himself suddenly without a firewall. &quot;It turned off my firewall when I upgraded, despite that being a default setting.&quot; he said.Like Ptacek and Dai Zovi, Mogull said he had been expecting more from Apple with the Leopard release, but he agreed that the new security features were a step in the right direction. &quot;I think that Apple has started down the right path but they are not as far as they communicated that they would be,&quot; he said. &quot;The firewall is the big negative; they really messed that up.&quot;Apple declined to comment in detail on its new security features. Company spokesman Anuj Nayar said via e-mail that &quot;Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users.&quot;Ptacek said that it is great that Apple has begun adding these security features even when the Mac has not been the target of a widespread worm or virus outbreak. &quot;I&#39;m impressed that when they didn&#39;t have to do it, they went after low-level features that no one will understand,&quot; he said. &quot;I like the direction they&#39;re headed. I&#39;m just saying that they&#39;ve got a long way to go to catch up with Microsoft.&quot;&#160;
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With just one week left before Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard becomes available, you can now take a guided tour of some of the newest features of the operating system.
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(InfoWorld) - Apple will show off new MacBook Pro notebooks along with a full demonstration of the next operating system, Mac OS X 10.5 (a.k.a. Leopard), at next month's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), a Wall Street analyst predicted Wednesday. PiperJaffray analyst Gene Munster rejected rumors that Apple will tout its iPhone at the conference, which opens June 14 in San Francisco. Instead, Apple will launch the new cellular phone in late June. At WWDC, Munster wrote in a note to investors, CEO Steve Jobs and crew will flesh out the remaining undisclosed features of Leopard, announce updated or new MacBook Pro models, and perhaps unveil a revamped iMac desktop lineup. "We believe the Street would react positively to such product announcements," he said. Munster's forecast didn't exactly come from left field. Apple has already promised that Leopard, once scheduled for a spring release but now shooting forÂ October,Â would be feature-complete by WWDC. Developers, in fact, are to receiveÂ beta copiesÂ of the new operating system at the conference. Nor is the MacBook call a long shot. Just last week the Cupertino, Calif. computer makerÂ tweakedÂ the MacBooks by boosting hard disk capacity and bumping up processor speeds, clearing the way for an upgrade to the pricier Pro models. Analysts, pundits, and bloggers have for weeks been hyping the idea ofÂ LED-backlitÂ MacBook Pros using the new Intel Santa Rosa chip set. Although neither Apple or AT&TÂ have spilled an iPhone launch date, Munster figures it will come after WWDC. That means there's little chance sales will boost Apple's bottom line for the quarter ending June 30. However, during the next three months, Munster predicted Apple would sell approximately one million iPhones at an average price of $550 each. But because Apple plans to account for iPhone revenues over the life of each phone's contract, the company will see only $27.5 million in recognized revenues for the quarter. Munster also pegged the September quarter as the time frame for a widescreen iPod -- essentially a stripped iPhone. "Expect Apple to launch new widescreen iPods with the iPhone's multi-touch technology at a price-point below the iPhone's $499," said Munster. "Like $399." PiperJaffray maintained its Outperform rating for Apple shares, with a price target of $140. On Wednesday, Apple closed $112.89, down 65 cents or 0.57 percent, for the day.
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Review of Mac OS X version 10.5 beta: Apple upgrades its operating system significantly, making it glitzier and easier to use.
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Appleâs Steven P. Jobs introduced an elegant new MacBook, and is betting he can mimic his digital music success with movies.
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Now that Apple Computer has its shitake mushrooms together, it apparently is being coveted by IBM. [Missing Links]
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The update to Apple's Mac OS X operating system, called Leopard, went on sale at the Apple Store in Tokyo on Friday evening, part of a global launch that will unfold around the world over the next 24 hours.
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Now it looks as if an additional function, coupled with a definitely major enhancement, will further boosts its popularity - and Apple&#39;s profits.
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Apple touts eleven specific features it says will make Leopard secure.
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âWith Leopard, Appleâs operating system widens its lead aesthetically and technologically,â states Ed Baig . Baig âmigrated to Leopardâ from Tiger âwithout pain on a MacBook laptop and my own iMac desktop; thereâs mercifully none of the software driver and other hassles associated with a Windows operating system upgrade.â Calling Leopard âone cool cat,â Baig praises Time Machine with its automatic backup and effortless file retrieval; the new videoconferencing features in iChat Theater; stationery, notes and To Do options in Mail; Cover Flow, Spaces, Stacks, and the ability to âhighlight and copy any portion of a Web page inside the Safari browser and turn it into a live Dashboard widget.â
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After a âswift and easyâ installation, Mark Kellner (Washington Times) found Mac OS X Leopard âsomething any Mac user will want to have.â âOffering better integration of e-mail with syndicated Internet news updates, a new backup feature likely to decrease the impact of hardware failures, and snazzy display features by the bushel, the $129 Apple Mac OS X Leopard upgrade is more than a reasonable purchase.â
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During his Macworld Expo keynote address on Tuesday morning, Apple CEO Steve Jobs introduced the MacBook Air Tuesday, a computer that the company billed as the world's thinnest notebook -- small enough to fit inside an interoffice mailing envelope. It's priced starting at $1,799.Sporting a silvery finish, the MacBook Air features a 13.3-inch LED-backlit widescreen display -- it saves power and provides "instant on" response from the moment you turn it on, according to Jobs. The device has a slightly wedge-shaped profile that runs from 1.2 inches down to 0.8 inches high. It weighs about 3 pounds, and sports a thickness of 0.16-0.76 inches.The MacBook Air also features a built-in iSight webcam and a full sized MacBook-style black keyboard. The keyboard is backlit, similar to MacBook Pros, and has an ambient light sensor that automatically adjusts brightness. The trackpad is also capable of recognizing multi-touch gestures, similar to using an iPhone or iPod touch.The MacBook Air features a 1.8-inch hard disk drive with 80GB of storage capacity standard. A 64GB SSD drive is also an option. The laptop is powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo chip running at 1.6GHz with 1.8GHz available as an option. Jobs noted that Intel was willing to engineer a new version of the Core 2 Duo specifically to Apple's specifications -- it's 60 percent smaller than others.Like the MacBook and the MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air features a MagSafe connector for power. It comes with a 45 watt power adapter. A flip-down door on one side reveals USB 2.0, Micro-DVI (to connect an external display) and a headphone jack. The MacBook Air also includes 802.11n-based wireless networking support and Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR.Apple estimates that with wireless networking turned on, the MacBook Air can get about 5 hours of battery life.No internal optical drive is included, but Apple will offer a $99 USB 2.0-based add-on. For users that opt not to get the optical drive, Apple is offering a new software feature on this machine called Remote Disk; it enables you to "borrow" the optical drive of another Mac or PC on the same network as the MacBook Air, to use for installing software, for example.Apple's frequently been in the crosshairs of environmental group Greenpeace in recent years. Jobs offered information about the environmental goals behind the MacBook Air -- it has a fully recyclable aluminum case, and is "the first" to have a mercury-free display with arsenic-free glass. All the circuit boards are BFR-free and PVC-free, and the retail packaging uses 56 percent less material than the MacBook packaging.
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Blog: Apple confirmed statements by Sun's Jonathan Schwartz that Leopard will use ZFS, correcting an executive who Monday suggested otherwise.
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Investor's Business Daily - 1 Apple&#39;s CEO unveiled a new version of the company&#39;s operating system, called Leopard, and disclosed top video game maker Electronics Arts will release new games for the Mac. But his highly anticipated address at Apple&#39;s developers conference offered few new details about the upcoming iPhone, which analysts think may be a boon for the company overall.
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Don Reisinger tackles Mac OS X Leopard and helps you decide if an upgrade is in order.  And while he can't stand "early and often" OS upgrades, his final recommendation may surprise you.
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âThe biggest tech story of 2007 occurred shortly after the new year when Apple announced the iPhone at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco,â writes Larry Magid  in his assessment of the tech innovations for 2007. And, Magid points out, Apple âalso came out with a new operating system last year called Leopard.â In fact, âunlike the lukewarm response to Vista, Mac users seem to be generally impressed by Leopard.â