Much has already been written about Microsoft's foray into tablets, and the news keeps getting worse for Redmond. This week, a brokerage firm in Boston is writing off the Surface with Windows RT as a loser for not one, not two but three reasons -- only one of which is shared by Apple's market-leading iPad. Can you guess the other two? If not, read on to find out what they are.
AppleInsider is reporting that Apple's elves have delivered yet another beta of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 to developers on Wednesday in the form of build 12D32. The latest build is mostly noteworthy because it allows developers to now download such patches through the Mac App Store's Updates tab, rather than having to grab it directly from Cupertino's developer website. That means that new seeds will push a notification to the Mac App Store in addition to Apple's traditional email heads-up, which should make it easier on developers moving forward.
AllThingsD is reporting that Microsoft's Surface with Windows RT may be a flop only weeks after its debut, with Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton claiming the company is "likely to sell just 500,000 to 600,000" in the last three months of this year, a steep drop from the company's expectations of one to two million -- especially if they have manufactured three to five million, as widely reported. So what's to blame aside from lack of consumer interest? The firm blames it on a "lack of distribution," which is putting it mildly, given that Surface is only available at Microsoft Stores. However, the "mixed reviews" and iPad-matching price point "certainly don't help" either.
Popular news aggregator Zite is back this week with an all-new version 2.0 of its free, universal iOS app. The app is now smarter than before, serving up 40,000 different topics across every type of interest. Because of this, the Top Stories category now offers even more of what you love, all with a fresh coat of paint on top of it. Categories can now be reordered to your liking, and new Facebook integration can even pull interests based on your history with the social network. The new app is centered on discovery, and the first thing users will discover is a completely new icon featuring a cartoon owl as the app's new mascot. Zite 2.0 is now available from the App Store, and the company is promising updates for its other supported platforms next year.
The grand old man of Apple reviews, AllThingsD's Walt Mossberg, has weighed in on iTunes 11 this week, and he had largely praise for Cupertino's latest version. However, sandwich into his "Drawbacks" section is a little tidbit where Mossberg notes that "a feature that finds duplicate entries is missing," which has raised the ire of other longtime users as well. The good news is what comes next, as Mossberg notes, "Apple says it will soon be restored in a minor update of the program," which will also fix a bug causing some album covers to go missing while in album view.
Thanks to timeless classics like Charlie Brown, cartoons and Christmas go together like peanut butter and jelly. Seizing on this trend, the folks at MacPhun have released an update to their newly-free Cartoonatic Christmas app for the iPhone. Featuring 10 cartoon filters and nine soundtracks for your animated masterpieces, Cartoonatic Christmas also offers a 99-cent Premium version available as an in-app purchase -- but absolutely free for owners of the company's ColorStrokes app -- which adds three additional cartoon filters and no ads. Cartoonatic Christmas 3.1 is now available from the App Store.
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