GPS is certainly a useful technology that had helped many in finding their ways around, tactical warfare, tracking in unknown places and also in police investigations. Short name for Global Positioning System, it’s uses is unlimited. Harnessing the power of the satelitte, multiple products was invented and manufactured for the sake of the GPS.

If you are interested with the latest gadgets, you would be looking out for the best GPS product out there too. In my opinion, if you are looking for GPS gadgets that solely caters for routing cabpability, the Garmin 660 would do the job. However, upon reading most of the garmin 660 reviews, I found out that despite this device being powerful and best in the market, it is quite comes with a big price tag and comes with no multisegment routing capability.

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Contestants

Steve Jobs & John Sculley

What’s it all about?

Chairman Jobs battles CEO Sculley for control of Apple

Who started it?

Fed up with Jobs meddling in various projects, Sculley strips Jobs of all executive power

How did it end?

Jobs attempts a boardroom coup, but it backfires and he ends up resigning instead

Who won in the end?

Apple hits trouble after Sculley leaves, and four years later Jobs makes his return in a blaze of glory

Contestants

Apple & Microsoft

What’s it all about?

Control of the entire personal computer industry

Who started it?

Microsoft rips off the Mac OS

How did it end?

Apple’s failure to license the Mac OS leaves the industry wide open for Microsoft

Who won in the end?

Despite the success of the iMac and iPod, Apple still has only 5 per cent market share, compared to Microsoft’s 90 per cent.

That was disastrous for Apple, yet the Mac Operating System was still superior to Windows and Apple could have triumphed if it had followed Microsoft’s path in licensing the Mac OS to other computer manufacturers.

Bizarrely enough, it was actually Microsoft supremo Bill Gates who tried to convince Apple that it should license the Mac OS. In early 1985, months before Windows was released, Gates wrote a now-famous letter to John Sculley. It was a long letter, containing several carefully argued points, but Gates’s ultimate conclusion was that – “Apple should license Macintosh technology to three-five significant manufacturers for the development of Mac-compatibles”.

According to Owen Linzmayer in his book, Apple Confidential 2.0, Sculley didn’t even bother to reply to Gates’ letter. That was it – Apple’s stubborn determination to go its own way left the market wide open for Microsoft to license Windows to every computer manufacturer on the planet, and left Apple boxed into a tiny market niche that it still struggles to break out of even today.

Frankly, after a cockup like that, Apple’s lucky to still be around at all.

So near, and yet so far. That could be Apple’s corporate motto. It missed out on the handheld computing market with the Newton, and the early success of the PowerBook was tarnished by fiascos such as the PowerBook 5300.

Yet none of those disasters hold a candle to Apple’s biggest mistake – handing over the entire personal computer industry to Microsoft in the mid-80s. This was the result of two spectacularly bad decisions.

Before the Macintosh came along, Apple had something like 25 per cent of the personal computer market all to itself, thanks to the success of the Apple II computer. That compares with its current market share of just 5 per cent (and that’s on a good day).

Apple had high hopes for the Macintosh in 1984, because its slick graphical interface was far more advanced and easy to use than anything in the PC market. But when Microsoft announced its plans for its own graphical Operating System, to be called Windows, Apple knew that it might have a fight on its hands. Windows seemed to copy many features from the Mac Operating System so Apple was ready to send in the lawyers (conveniently overlooking the fact that Apple executives had actually swiped the idea for the Mac itself from a research project they had seen at Xerox).

There was a problem, though. Microsoft’s
Word and Excel programs were crucial pieces of software that the Mac would need if it were to succeed in the business market. If Apple sued Microsoft then Microsoft might retaliate by killing off the Mac versions of Word and Excel. That would leave the Mac dead in the water.

So, in November 1985, just a few days
after Microsoft had released Windows 1.0,
Apple CEO John Sculley signed a deal with Microsoft. The deal was that Microsoft would continue to develop Excel exclusively for the Mac, with no Windows version for at least a year. In return, Apple gave Microsoft the right to use ‘derivative’ elements of the Mac Operating System and its interface, such as its windows, icons, and menu designs.

Sculley now says he intended that agreement to only apply to Windows version 1.0, and that Apple’s lawyers screwed up by actually drafting a more open-ended agreement which also allowed Microsoft to copy the Mac interface in future versions of Windows as well. In effect, Apple handed its technological crown jewels to Microsoft on a plate.

The first version of Windows, released in 1985 wasn’t much of a success, but as versions 2.0 and 3.0 were released Microsoft managed to smarten it up so that it became a genuine rival for the Mac Operating System. Apple then tried to sue Microsoft, starting a court case that dragged on until 1995, but the open-ended nature of that original agreement meant that appeal after appeal went in Microsoft’s favour.

We’ve looked at some of Apple’s greatest blunders in this feature, but let’s not forget some of the reasons why you’re reading this mag in the first place.

The Mac OS

Whether it’s the now-retired ‘Classic’ Mac OS, or the shiny new OS X, the software at the heart of the Mac is what makes it great. Panther (OS X version 10.3) proved that Apple can still come up with innovative features, such as Exposé, that leave Windows trailing in its wake.

The iMac

Okay, so Apple went a bit far with the hippy nightmare that was the flowery iMac, but the sheer cuteness of the iMac ensured that it sold like hotcakes and spawned a thousand semi-translucent plastic imitators. Its success saved Apple from nearextinction in the late 1990s.

It’s a very good time to be a Mac user. The iPod has made Apple one of the coolest companies on the planet, and Apple’s British-born design guru, Jonathan Ive, was recently named by the BBC as one of the greatest influences on current British culture.

Apple is one of the few computer companies that’s been making money in recent years and with the new G5 processor and OS X both shaping up nicely, the stage is set for Apple to continue the winning streak that began with the introduction of the iMac in 1998. It’s a nice way for Apple to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the very first Macintosh computer, launched back in January 1984.

But things haven’t always gone quite so smoothly. The Mac’s 20-year lifespan has been a real roller coaster ride. There have been staggering successes and humiliating flops, savage boardroom battles and – in the late 1990s – a collapse in sales that saw Apple staring death in the face.

As with most technologies there is a competition between different digital video formats and it’s important to make the right choice. By far the most popular recording format is MiniDV, which can contain 60 minutes of footage on a small tape. Digital8 is another popular choice, especially for owners of old analogue Hi8 tapes, because these can be played in a Digital8 camcorder and transferred to computer for editing. MicroMV is Sony’s latest tape format, but its lack of compatibility with Mac computers rules it out for iCreate readers – rumours that Sony will stop producing MicroMV camcorders next year are beginning to circulate. A newcomer to the market is DVD recording technology, but camcorders that use this are bigger than MiniDV models and it is a cumbersome format that doesn’t quite live up to its promise. We are also seeing a collection of camcorders that record to the new 512Mb SD cards but these only record 11 minutes of footage and the high cost of the cards makes them prohibitive for the time being. Our advice is to stick with a MiniDV camcorder.

Three new iBooks are now available: a sole 12-inch model, which features a 1GHz G4 processor for £799 and two 14-inch models, one with a 1GHz G4 processor and the other with a 1.2GHz G4 processor, priced at £899 and £1,049 respectively.

Aside from the speedbump, the new iBooks can now hold double the amount of memory and a build to order option allows a SuperDrive to be added to the 14-inch models for the first time.

With both Panther and Apple’s iLife ’04 suite of applications demanding more and more power in order to run, faster iBooks were a necessity. Now, with enhanced power and performance, the ability to install double the memory and new graphics cards, it is possible to run professional applications like Soundtrack, Final Cut Pro and Logic.

More information and pricing details can be found at either www.apple.com/uk/powerbook or www.apple.com/uk/ibook

Five new PowerBooks are available: two 12-inch models, differentiated primarily by a choice of Combo or SuperDrives, sporting 1.33GHz processors; two 15-inch models, both with 1.5Ghz G4 processors; and a 17- inch model featuring a 1.5Ghz processor.

All SuperDrive-equipped models now burn at 4x speed and a host of build to order options are available, including the ability to add up to 2Gb of memory to the 15-inch and 17-inch models, faster hard drives and more memory to the graphics card. The 12-inch PowerBook keeps its relatively underpowered NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5200 graphics card.

Most interestingly of all, however, is the fact that each model features a substantial price cut. The 12-inch models are £250 and £300 cheaper respectively, the 15-inch models are £400 and £250 cheaper and the 17-inch model is £400 cheaper.

Do you need a software where you could rip your favourite movie in a DVD right into your computer. However, as there are so many similar software out there to choose from, which would you choose? Some might just cause scrambling effect when you copy the DVD movie to your hard drive. You would not want that, do you? You would certainly want a software where it would perform that action without lost of quality, high ripping speed and easy to use (preferably one click). The DVD Ripper Software Review at alldigitalguide.com features softwares where you would fulfil your needs in that. Furthermore, their featured softwares are able to remove restrictions of your DVD, split your DVD into 2 DVD-5 discs or compress your DVD into a 4.7M disc. Wonderful!

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