Top Apple Rumors, Bricks, Low Price, NVIDIA 283
Vigile writes "With the news that Apple will be releasing new MacBook products on October 14th, speculation has begun on what exactly those new products will be. Tips of a manufacturing process involving lasers and a single 'brick' of aluminum are catching on, as is the idea of a sub-$1000 netbook-type device. More interesting might be the persistent rumors of an NVIDIA chipset adoption that would drastically increase gaming ability, allow MacBooks to improve their support for OpenCL and take advantage of the new Adobe CS4 software with GPU acceleration. Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?"
Hooray for NVIDIA (Score:5, Funny)
Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:4, Insightful)
God knows that gaming graphics is the only reason left why I'm still hanging on to the PC platform...
Are first-person shooters and indie games the only reason left why you haven't already moved to the Xbox 360 or PS3 platform?
Re:Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:5, Insightful)
I own a PS3 and I still prefer PCs for shooters and gaming. I just like the interface better.
Though maybe that would change if I just forced myself to play them on consoles more.
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I dunno. If you are going to play "shooters", then why
not use a platform where you can actually hold a gun,
point it at things and shoot?
???
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same reason I don't go to a gun range... I'm a crappy shot.
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You don't have to worry about the trigger pull, the weight of the
gun, the length of the gun or keeping the gun steady during recoil.
Not to mention the danger of injury or loss of life...
Whippersnappers! (Score:5, Funny)
Keyboard AND Mouse? Duke Nukem 3D? That's not old-school! Why you young pups, I remember when mouselook was just a crazy gleam in a programmer's eye. You think aiming sucks with an analog stick? Try using the freaking number pad.
And I remember REAL old-school first person shooters, the ones where we ran around the backyard pointing sticks at each other going "pew pew" and arguing over who got hit first.
I guess I should add "get off my lawn."
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Because you lose the ability to control your movements accurately, and you end up with a rail shooter. Aiming and shooting is all well and good, but putting the movement controls on the same gun would is a pain in the ass. The only solution would be something like the Wii nunchuk combined with a one-handed gun adapter. Which would actually be kinda cool, but it hasn't been pulled off quite right yet, and either way it limits you to Wii graphics, which are nowhere near what PS3/360/PC capabilities are rig
Re:Mac vs. PC vs. Xbox 360 vs. PS3 (Score:5, Funny)
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As a side note on the topic of control interfaces (though not to the parent specifically), I personally "prefer" the gamepad. It's comfy and in some titles like RTSes (!) I actually do VERY well with it (shockingly, I might add). However, both the 360 AND the PS3 support keyboards and mice, it's the games that don't. The onus is on a game company
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Semantics. Almost every single game for the PC (and I dare say every shooter) in the past 8 years has used the mouse/keyboard for controls. And relatively few console games (even shooters) support that scheme. The poster wasn't bitching about the consoles not supporting mouse/keyboard; the stated preference is perfectly inline with the PC/Games vs. Console/Games control mechanisms.
Hell, the SNES had a mouse.
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Well for one reason, I like to get customized models for my games. You can't really do that on a console.
Moreover, most of the games I play are mods on the Source engine. Fortress Forever [fortress-forever.com], Eternal Silence [eternal-silence.net], Zombie Panic [zombiepanic.org], etc. They're free, I can make maps for them, and I can download other players' maps and customizations.
So far the only console game that has even made an attempt at this is Unreal Tournament 3 [wikipedia.org], but I'm no fan of UT and I don't own the PS3.
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So, no, that's not the reason I haven't even considered purchasing a console. Though, the wife broke me down and I allowed her to get a Nintendo Wii... which is now collecting dust
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Consoles are good party gaming machines. PCs are serious gaming machines
Then which are good indie party gaming machines? Or ought "indie party gaming" not exist?
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Consoles are good party gaming machines. PCs are serious gaming machines
Then which are good indie party gaming machines? Or ought "indie party gaming" not exist?
There's a big difference between what ought to be and what is.
Most people aren't going to have a computer set up in such a way that it's a good fit for party gaming. In general, the screen is small and the location is set up for 1 person to sit at it comfortably.
I would say that console gaming ought to be opened up much more to independent developers (as WiiWare is starting to, and, I think, XBLA, though I know much less about it), but with things as they (largely still) are, "indie party gaming" isn't a b
HP Pavilion Slimline and Mac mini (Score:2)
There's a big difference between what ought to be and what is.
I'm familiar with the is-ought problem [wikipedia.org]. So how do I work to change "ought" to "is"?
Most people aren't going to have a computer set up in such a way that it's a good fit for party gaming. In general, the screen is small and the location is set up for 1 person to sit at it comfortably.
One of my co-workers uses an HP Pavilion Slimline [hp.com] at work. It isn't much bigger or much more expensive than an Xbox 360. (Mac mini is even smaller, roughly the size of a Wii console.) And like an Xbox 360 or a PS3, a PC can be hooked up to an HDTV through the VGA port or (using a $40 scan converter) even an SDTV. So why don't more HDTVs have a Windows PC or a Mac mini by them?
but with things as they (largely still) are, "indie party gaming" isn't a big genre.
So if I develop and sell copies of a party game fo
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So if I develop and sell copies of a party game for Windows and Mac OS X, will I find a large market of HTPC (home theater personal computing) enthusiasts and few competitors?
Few competitors? Probably. Large market? Not from what I've seen.
So far as I can tell, HTPCs are largely of interest to us geeks—and only accessible to geeks of greater-than-average income (or debt, depending on the level of financial good sense). I think they're gaining some traction, but by and large, if your average person is going to have something connected to their television besides a DVD/VCR, cable/satellite box, or Big 3 game console, it's going to be a cable/satellite-company provided DV
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Game controllers are terrible for anything more complicated than tetris or the original super mario bros.
When did platformers surpass the capabilities of a gamepad? Super Mario Bros. 3? Super Mario World? Super Mario 64? Super Mario Galaxy? And sometimes when you have friends visiting your home, you want something uncomplicated. Besides, keyboard and mouse mean you have to buy more machines and more copies of the game in order to fit more than one player.
Also, consoles are for children.
More than likely, there are children in your family.
Re:Hooray for NVIDIA (Score:5, Insightful)
For the love of God, man, use a comma!
Re:Hooray for NVIDIA (Score:5, Funny)
<shatner>"For, the, love, of, God, man, use, a, comma!"</shatner>
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll buy apple... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'll buy apple... (Score:5, Funny)
I'll buy apple... ...when leopard freezes over!
SNOW Leopard comes out next year. Start saving your pennies. :-)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/snowleopard/ [apple.com]
Are you trying to explain the joke? Or announcing you didn't get it? ;)
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Wooosh (n) Sound made when something flies over your head.
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Leopard... Hell...
Tomayto tomahto.
LEAK! This year's "ONE MORE THING" (Score:5, Funny)
Apple will announce that due to the financial crisis, they've been able to purcase Iceland. However, it will be rebranded as iCeland. Steve Jobs was apparently very fond of their homogeneous population.
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Re:LEAK! This year's "ONE MORE THING" (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think I've ever heard Bjork described as "homogenous" before.
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Homogenic, yes.
Homogenous, no.
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Don't forget Sigur Ros! I swear those guys are elves or something....
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Apple will announce that due to the financial crisis, they've been able to purcase Iceland.
Great! perhaps that means that Gordon Brown will use anti-terror legislation to seize control of all the Apple Stores in the UK and hand out free MacBooks to disgruntled savers.
(Apparently my money is safe, but its now in Holland - hope they don't put it all into tulip futures)
Or put another way (Score:5, Funny)
Apple will soon be selling pre-bricked laptops.
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"Your Macbook portable computer comes from the factory pre-bricked. To unbrick your computer, or wake it from brick mode after inactivity, simply press the power button above the keyboard."
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Apple will soon be selling pre-bricked laptops.
Ha! Dell's been doing that for years!
If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Interesting)
If they sell a laptop for $800, as rumored, then who's going to buy a Mac mini for $600+?
Of course, they could probably sell the mini for $400 and still make 40% profit. It's basically a laptop with the most expensive part of a laptop (the screen) left out.
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Insightful)
All I want for Christmas is a Mini with a Blu-ray drive. An integrated screen is a detriment to an HTPC.
-Peter
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Makes more sense to expand the iTV to support a Blu-Ray drive and offer it in black.
Sorry, but the mini just doesn't fit for me. It looks out of place unless I hide it behind the TV
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:4, Insightful)
I really like having a general purpose computer hooked up to my TV.
You know you can't add codecs to an AppleTV without voiding the warranty, right? And it doesn't have the horsepower to decode anything good in software anyway. Blech.
Seems way more important than the color to me. But if you're really hung up on it, buy a skin: http://www.skinit.com/devices/miscellaneous/apple_miscellaneous [skinit.com] (You can do "custom" and select all black.)
-Peter
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That may be enough for me to cancel my cable subscription.
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Because I want a DVR, not a streaming box.
Wait for ture2way before getting a apple drv as... (Score:2)
Wait for ture2way before getting a apple drv as the cable co have mess cable card v1 up real bad.
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:4, Informative)
There have been rumours of the mini getting cancelled for years. It might finally happen. The notebook market seems to be leaving the desktop market behind anyway.
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Insightful)
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The Mac Mini is for the 'I can't afford a laptop' market, and this is growing steadily smaller.
And there's nothing for the 'I want a regular desktop' market. Which is most of the market, in the part of the market where there's actual competition. Nobody buys all-in-one PC, which is why the so-called "iMac killers" don't sell... the only reason the iMac sells as well as it does is because if you want OS X and reasonable performance for a reasonable price... well, there's no alternative.
machines (Score:2, Interesting)
A 500 buck cheap laptop today IS a cheap "all in one" from just a couple of years ago or so, which means it is perfectly fine except for most uses except extreme high end new games (mostly). You can still run a full size monitor and keyboard and a real mouse from them. Bonus extra screen and built in UPS that lasts for hours, not minutes!
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Apple doesn't WANT to play in the cutthroat competitive part of the market. They're quite happy taking the premium customers and leaving the "I want it as cheap as dirt no matter what" market to Dell et al. Which is smart: Apple is not a supply-chain-efficiency-trumps-all company like Dell / Walmart.
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The Mac desktop market has been left behind because Apple hasn't had a decent desktop since, oh, 1997 or so. The Mac mini is at best a quarter-hearted bone tossed to the market to avoid being completely left out.
Re:If they sell a laptop for $800... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll still buy mini's. I love the things. I've got 8, mostly still 1.25 and 1.42Ghz G4's that I've picked up off ebay. I have one hooked up to my 32" LCD TV as a media center (basically an Apple TV before there were apple TV's) and then use the others as a cheap rendering grid for Final Cut and Blender. Best part is they take up a shelf on my book case and don't drive up the powerbill that much nor heat the den as bad as the quadcore. (used to heat a bloody 1 bedroom apt with the thing.)
At work we've bought mini's to replace all the point of sale and desktop units. Worked out well since they already had monitors/touchscreens and keyboards and mice that were all USB.
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
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Someone who doesn't want a built-in screen and keyboard?
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Someone who doesn't want a built-in screen and keyboard?
If someone like me, who doesn't want a built-in screen, and who was still upgrading his old G3 (Originally G3/233, finally G4/533 with 768MB and a Radeon 9200/128K) right up to the month before the mini came out because he didn't want an iMac, is asking "who's going to buy it for that price"... maybe that's not such a good answer any more?
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Perhaps not a good answer for you? A lot of people are using them as servers. I still plan to get two of them.
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A lot of people are using them as servers.
I suspect that's what mine's going to end up as, eventually.
But it cost more than my mini-ITX box, and it's not as good a server.
And that's sure as hell not the desktop market.
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Yup. That's what my Mini is used for. Makes the perfect personal server. They don't take up much space, can easily connect into your existing KVM, are inexpensive, and still provide enough horsepower for most moderate-use server purposes.
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I wish I had your discretionary toy budget.
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MBP for meetings, $800 laptop for starbucks
No, no overlapping at all.
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Most people are ill equipped to fill up a 40G drive, nevermind 1TB.
Those of us that can easily fill up a 1TB drive, find ourselves
wanting a lot more. So the mini isn't as bad as one might think
at first glance. There are far better things that Apple could do
with the line besides replicate the System76 Sable.
A Quad core mini would be my personal first choice. Add a video
chipset that has onboard h264 acceleration (although with the
quad you might not need it).
An appletv that can go toe to toe with the popcorn h
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If you could stick a decent video card and a 5.25" hard drive in the mini, it might be worth $600. With Intel Integrated Graphics Disaster and a laptop drive, it's not. With a 16x PCI-E slot and a larger hard drive it'd be a bit less "mini", but not by much, and it'd paper over the gap in the product line nicely.
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Go tell it to everyone else.
In the "it fits inside the footprint of a VCR or DVD player" category, it's VERY price competitive.
It also does well against the larger Vista machines selling at places like Costco and BestBuy and will be more than adequate for that sort of user.
If you are "more demanding", a Sable really isn't going to cut it either.
If you are "more demanding", ultimately the only thing that will suffice is building your own box from scratch.
Any brand name Windows PC that fits your requirements
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Who the hell uses 5.25" hard drives these days? If you use a Quantum Bigfoot, you deserve every kind of data loss and corruption you get.
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Who the hell uses 5.25" hard drives these days?
Ah, sorry, I meant 3.5". Flashback to 1985. Sorry.
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Those of us that can easily fill up a 1TB drive, find ourselves
wanting a lot more.
A Quad core mini would be my personal first choice.
I see your Mac Mini, keyboard, and display sitting on a large desk supported by four or five heavy duty server cases holding a dozen hard drives each.
(I've thought the same, and I have those server cases.)
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FYI (Score:5, Informative)
OpenCL is NOT a typo.
See HERE [wikipedia.org]:
OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is a language for programming heterogeneous data and task parallel computing across GPUs and CPUs. It was created by Apple in cooperation with others, and is based on C99.
The purpose is to recall OpenGL and OpenAL, which are open industry standards for 3D graphics and computer audio respectively, to extend the power of the GPU beyond graphics (GPGPU).
Apple has proposed OpenCL for Khronos Group where on June 16th 2008 Compute Working Group was formed for the standardization work.
OpenCL is scheduled to be introduced in Mac OS 10.6 ('Snow Leopard').According to the press release:
Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. OpenCL is based on the C programming language and has been proposed as an open standard.
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Thank you. I did a double take myself until I goggled it. It's frustrating when posters assume new technology is automatically known by everyone. Don't they know the tinfoil impedes our clairvoyance abilities?
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Re:FYI (Score:4, Informative)
OpenCL is NOT a typo.
See HERE [wikipedia.org]
Please update the fine summary to include the above informative link.
Shot in the arm (Score:2)
Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?
I got my tetanus booster shot yesterday, with my usual side-effects (kind of like having the flu.) I can tell you, a "shot in the arm" for NVIDIA doesn't sound too good right now. :-)
"Brick"? ORLY? (Score:2)
A perfect prediction (Score:2, Funny)
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Just type "import antigravity [xkcd.com]"
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incorrect logical operator.
Apple will release such a notebook AND thousands of people on the internet will start writing about how disappointed they are.
Shot in the arm? (Score:5, Insightful)
" Will NVIDIA's ailing chipset business get a shot in the arm next week?"
They'll need it since they just got a swift kick in the a@@ [apple.com]
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What the hell does the American Automobile Association [aaa.com] have to do with this?
Plausibility? (Score:3, Insightful)
The other rumors seem markedly more plausible. 800 would be about the expected pricepoint for Apple's answer to the netbook(whether it will actually use atom and SSD or just be a low end macbook, I have no idea).
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Most probably, if the rumor is true, is that some die-cast part will have a small detail cut by a CO2 laser. That's standard industry practice and not so expensive, at least not for a notebook computer.
Stamping, drawing, etc. (Score:4, Insightful)
Right. Nobody makes mass-produced items by machining them out of solid metal. It's too slow, and you waste too much metal. That's what die-casting, drawing, and stamping are for. Laptop cases are thin enough that die-casting is probably overkill. Drawing or stamping is more likely, followed by a punching step. There might be a role for a laser if very small holes have to be made or some surface engraving is desired.
The NextCube case was a magnesium casting, which was sort of silly for a desktop device.
A cute idea for the case modding crowd would be industrial origami [industrialorigami.com]. This little-known technology works much better than you'd expect. It's a fun experience to take a flat, prepunched plate and hand-fold it into an electrical outlet box.
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Your comment suggests that you've seen this stuff in the flesh. Do you work with/for them, or have things made this way become generally available?
Raising the bar for stock gfx is a positive move (Score:2, Interesting)
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They like they fact that with a console you plug it in, turn it on and play.
It will be a while before the PC gaming industry can offer that.
My predictions. (Score:2)
A netbook with a dual core Atom for only $399. Software available through Itunes and will have the option to use the iPhone as a modem via bluetooth or WiFi.
The mini will be gone. Apple will introduce the Apple Brick. It is a bit bigger than a mini but will have a PCI-E slot to allow you to upgrade your video.
Of course I am totally making this up so if you don't agree who cares.
But if I am right, all bow before the all knowing LWATCDR.
Notebook-sized iPhone? (Score:2)
How about an iPhone that's remounted inside a 9x12" notebook case, only a few millimeters thin with a bigger battery and a 1600x1200 pixel multitouch screen? Not a "Mac", but an actual iPhone (including phone), with iPhone UI and OS, but configured to feature the apps and data network, and the same iPhone telephony SW just left "off to the sides".
Price it at $500, and it won't compete with either iPhones (or iPods) or the low-end Mac notebooks. But it will give a desktop audience for the iPhone platform, wi
Re:OpenCL? (Score:4, Informative)
You can browse /., but not Wikipedia? "OpenCL [wikipedia.org] (Open Computing Language) is a language for programming heterogeneous data and task parallel computing across GPUs and CPUs. It was created by Apple in cooperation with others, and is based on C99."
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Thanks, that was highly informative. Like an idiot, because it involved graphics, I ignorantly assumed it involved OpenGL.
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No more prone to warranty service than every Dell I've ever had the displeasure of being asked to look at.
But people like to look closely at Apple for failure so they can bash them. More so than even Microsoft it seems.
To paraphrase Jon Stewart (Score:3, Funny)
If you're defending Apple's hardware reliability by comparing it to Dell's...
"We're in bad shape, fellas."
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Do you have any stats to back up your claim that Apple is more prone to failure than any other manufacturer?
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Nvidia? That'd be just awesome. I can't think of any other way to make Apple hardware (already more prone to need warranty service than any other manufacturer's product that I can name) any less reliable.
Apple consistently has high high customer satisfaction [yahoo.com] year after year. I'm typing this on a MacBook Pro I've had for almost 14 months and the only tyme I've taken it down to an Apple store, there are 4 within half hour's drive, was when I got it. Some software I ordered with it was old. I have not had a
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Re:Ick... BLOB (Score:5, Insightful)
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I love how people throw this sort of thing out when they must know it's just not true.
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html [apple.com]
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ [apple.com]
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/internet/webkit.html [apple.com]
Apple use and contribute to open source, and OS X is largely an open source OS with a proprietary front-end.
Criticise Apple for real stuff, you've got plenty of choice. Don't make stuff up and preten
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too busy doing wget on apple.com and going though the dl with a fine-toothed comb looking for clues
Historically, store.apple.com has tended to be more prone to product information leakage than the rest. You may want to focus your search there.