Xbox 360: Australia March 2 2006

XB360INFO.com has an article suggesting that March 2 2006 will be Australia's 'green circle' day. Yay. Prices are also quoted, $50 more than I predicted here, but as I feared, the exchange rate hasn't been our friend recently, and Microsoft will be hedging I guess.

The fairly early launch is very pleasant, considering I was reading an article on IGN recently where Microsoft couldn't commit to any quarter (!) of 2006.

Sony Music CDs infect Macs, too!

(via digg and macintouch) I was very concerned about the nastiness being employed in the music world thanks to Sony BMG kicking off the rootkit wars, but was confident I was immune, thanks to almost exclusively using Macs.
Well the good times are over friends, Macs are no longer immune -- however the SHIFT key still looks to be your friend on Windows (to stop AutoPlay) and it appears you still had to run an Installer on the Mac side too (owing to not having AutoPlay).
This really stops me buying CDs (not that I bought many), though I'm loving the iTunes Music Store, but guess what? Sony BMG's not on that!
I'd love to see Sony BMG's market share and revenue drop this and future quarters, just to prove a couple of points...

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SE K600i/K608i/V600i now Mac-supported

If you download and install Mac OS X 10.4.3, released this week you will no longer need to modify iSync or Address Book. All three versions of the phone are now supported by Apple. (Information from apple.com, and tested with my K608i and iMac G5.)

Australian iTunes Music Store opens

Again this is old news. The store has been open for a week now and has food much damage to Australian credit cards. Given the lack of Sony, it has an excellent range, interface, and is very fast. It's worth getting a prepaid card for the free tracks alone (last week's was Shadowland by Youth Group and was excellent). I highly recommend using a shopping cart and prepaid cards, otherwise it can get dangerous! :-)
I must say I feel for the New Zealanders who missed out. Along with the Sony issue I hope that gets resolved, though the chances of either soon is remote.

iMac Software Review

There is so much installed on my new iMac, over 20GB, that I haven't got through it all yet.
I spent most of my time in Front Row, the new fullscreen media application. It is very simple to use, which unfortunately translates to some simplifications. Dig beneath the surface and you can see it's just a frontend. An excellent example is the DVD playback. Front Row offers no way of controlling Zoom (a feature of Tiger's DVD Player), however if change the Zoom setting manually it holds for Front Row.
Another nice thing I discovered is that you can start a Music playlist, then exit to the menu and select Photos and have a video and music slideshow (hint: since the iMac has TV out with an adapter you could record this instantly to tape or DVD!)
Movie trailers come up really well, King Kong was an awesome example of this, however the movie poster interface was a bit sluggish for me.
I was a little disappointed by the lack of streaming radio and no visualiser mode in the Music mode.
No doubt Front Row will be refined and I expect to see in iLife '06 come January.
As for other software, almost everything was pre-installed, except for Apple X11, which stopped OpenOffice.org from working out of the box. More when I've had more of a play.

Back to Blog: The new iMac G5

Well I'm almost done with uni, and so have time to blog again. Let's start with Apple's new iMac G5 that I received yesterday.
Firstly, it's a very nice box. The hardware itself is excellent, though the Mighty Mouse did take and Apple still force you to turn on the right mouse button yourself. The remote control is also very nice to use, working not only in Front Row, but also to sleep and wake the computer and change the volume from the desktop. Unlike my iBook the fans haven't disturbed me so far and the speakers go very loud. The widescreen display is also excellent, for both desktop use and movies. It has a decent viewing angle horizontally, which was a problem I had with DVDs on my iBook. If you can get your hands on one (they're in very short supply) it's worth it. (By the way, I have the 17-inch model.)