Katie MarsalA recently accurate tech website claims that Apple's long-awaited iMac refresh will appear next week. Also, Apple's latest iPhone developer kit adds enhanced OpenGL 3D support, downloads have appeared for a Boot Camp update, and Common Criteria security tools are available.
The wait for refreshed iMacs could be over before the end of April, according to a rumor circulated Thursday by Geeksugar.
The female technology site refers to "Apple tipsters" who say the update is due next week and will most likely appear on Tuesday, as with most Apple updates. While short on details, the news outlet adds that the sources correctly identified this year's MacBook revision a day before it appeared and also says that processor speeds and hard drive upgrades are the primary candidates for improvement.
Apple is known to be developing a Penryn-based refresh of both the iMac and its Mac mini cousin for the spring, delivering the cooler-running and faster processors to systems that haven't been updated since August of 2007.
iPhone SDK update adds OpenGL ES emulation
Apple this week issued its fourth beta edition of the iPhone SDK for third-party developers.
The update is described by Apple as enabling OpenGL ES graphics to run directly from the iPhone Simulator software, saving developers the trouble of attaching a live iPhone or iPod touch to test software using the mobile 3D graphics standard.
No other major additions are reported as accompanying the release, which is free for registered iPhone developers.
Boot Camp Update 2.1
Apple on Thursday released three updates to Boot Camp, each of them targeted at improving support for different Microsoft operating systems.
Version 2.1 is available for users running Windows XP (215MB), Vista 32-bit (228MB), and Vista 64-bit (236MB). The update is required before Windows XP users can install Microsoft's Service Pack 3 update.
Users must run the update from their Boot Camp partitions.
Common Criteria Tools for 10.5
Also released this week are Apple's Common Criteria Tools for 10.5 (103KB).
The utility lets IT managers and other security-focused users assess whether a Mac OS X Leopard system meets minimum security requirements for use in certain data-sensitive conditions, such as US Federal Government offices or information security firms.
Malcolm Owen
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128 Comments
Its about time Apple decided to update their Windows drivers!
I just hope they really did do full graphics updates and such... won't find out till I get home from work.
They should be updating their Windows drivers as often as their OS X updates. Quite sad that this is the first update since Leopard came out. I've been running other drivers for my MBP graphics so that I can correctly have my screen ratio displayed when not in a 16:9 app, among other things (like InputRemapper for my fans.)
I agree - I've been using hacked nvidia drivers for a while which has caused a few black screens on startup (which was marginally better than the random crashes I had with the Apple-provided drivers)...
Apple should make a policy of updating at least the graphics drivers every few months - new graphics drivers come out almost weekly improving the performance of games etc...
May 6 is the following Tuesday, is the 10th anniversary of the release of the iMac - wouldn't a product refresh make more sense on that date?
Apple's strategy can be looked at this way:
update the portable line in Q2 (Jan - Mar), then update iMac line in Q3 (Apr - Jun). Note that Apple introduced the MacBook Air in Jan so in essence, it was a FULL portable refresh.
I think there's a good chance that the Mac mini will be updated on the same date. As was the case in August 2007.
I want Blu Ray in my iMac.....