As more builds for the 10.5.3 update for Mac OS X are seeded to developers (the latest is Build 9D34, released today) for final testing, the closer this thing comes to pop up via Software Update. And it seems to be a big one, with over 200 fixes (and some performance tweaks to the kernel - always appreciated) and likely to weigh in between 300mb to half a gig.

About time. Can’t let Psystar be the one to fix Leopard.

The last big update (10.5.2) was released in February. According to developers, this new one will focus on Time Machine and Back To My Mac, and on a great number of built-in features like Spaces, Installer, Mail and a lot of others. Granted, most of them have already been distributed piecemeal via smaller updates on many successive Tuesdays since Feb, but the whole shebang, along with the newest stuff, is coming out in Leopard 10.5.3.

I daresay it might pop-out before or just after Steve’s WWDC keynote early June, and it might have some goodies in it that would tie-in with whatever new stuff he’ll be announcing then. Oooh.

Psystar, that maker of those uber-controversial Mac clones, has created something else we never thought would see the light of day: Mac OS X Service Pack 1. Well, sorta.

Aside from its brazen hardware cloning, it installs Leopard onto these Frankenstein machines, in direct violation of provisions of the Leopard EULA that forbid 3rd party sales and installs of the operating system. Not cowed in the slightest by Steve & His Legal Eagles, now it even has the cheek to actually improve on Leopard by fixing some inherent problems in the OS, including glitches in Time Machine, Keyboard Viewer and various other niggles.

Beginning this Monday the various patches, bug fixes and workarounds will come preinstalled in shipping units, but existing users can download the bunch, which constitutes what is essentially Service Pack 1, from the Psystar website. Some fixes are specific to their hardware, like one that repairs conflicts between Apple’s Airport Extreme router and the Realtek network card that ships with the Psystar boxes, while some actually improve on Leopard, like support for new versions of Java and adding international standards for networked devices.

Oooh. Now we’ve seen everything. Whoever these guys are, they’ve got big ones, don’t they?

In the meantime, we wonder why Apple hasn’t lowered the boom on these cheeky bashi-bazouks. It’s gonna be fun when it finally happens, that’s for sure.

(Via InformationWeek)

The little mouse that could, did.

Generate a lawsuit that is. Apple Inc. and CBS are being sued by a Maryland-based company called Man & Machine for use of the name “Mighty Mouse” for Apple’s innovative little input device. Apparently Man & Machine had dibs on the name as it pertains to input devices, as in waterproof and chemical-resistant industrial-strength mice.

It’s a very circuitous story, actually. I thought naming Apple’s new mouse after the super-rodent we all know and love might result in legal tussles, but when they never materialized I figured Steve took care of it ahead of time. And he did. Apple bought the rights to the name from CBS, who had owned it since 1955, for their new benippled, buttonless wonder.

Then, suddenly, out of a blue sky swoops in Man & Machine, coming to save the day. Apparently they came out with their hospital/lab-friendly version of Mighty Mouse more than a year before Apple’s version, and they now claim that the name, in the context of computer peripherals, belongs to them, thereby compelling themselves to sue both Apple and CBS for the injustice. Man & Machine wants to block Apple’s use of the Mighty Mouse name and get some cash for their trouble. (I think we all know why they took this long to sue, don’t we?)

If they succeed, any suggestions on a new name for it? Mightier Mouse? Rodent Roller? Mouse-k-Steer?

(Via 9to5Mac)

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has made the Time 100 Most Influential List again in the Builders & Titans category, hitting No. 82.

Quoting from the Time piece about Jobs by Barbara Kiviat:

Steve Jobs is great at playing the countercultural icon. He’s a college dropout who once backpacked around India looking for spiritual enlightenment, and he takes only $1 a year in salary. There are righteous battles to fight, and with Macs and iTunes and iPhones, Jobs fights them, taking on the entrenched megaliths that try to dictate our tastes in computers and music and mobile phones.

But don’t let the black mock turtleneck and denim trousers fool you. More than anything else, Jobs is a canny CEO who knows how to sell product. Steve Wozniak was the technical genius behind the first Apple computer; Jobs saw the marketability. He now presides over a company with $24 billion in annual sales and 22,000 employees. Jobs, 53, is revered by tech and design geeks, but the world’s business-school students may have the most to learn from him. Apple’s stock has shot up more than 70% over the past year, thanks to Jobs’ strategy of focusing on his most profitable customers and coming up with new things to sell them—the ultra-thin MacBook Air most recently—rather than just chasing more market share.

Jobs may be a celebrity CEO, but he doesn’t jump out of airplanes or traipse around Africa with bundles of cash. He is always in character and always on message, so much so that when late-night TV parodies him, he’s invariably rolling out some new iProduct . Jobs gets called mercurial, egomaniacal, a micromanager. If that sounds a little like a CEO doing his job, maybe that’s because he is—and a mighty fine one.”

See the Time 100 listing here.

You are what you make.

Some guy rendered Steve Jobs‘ face using Apple products. For the big picture, click here.