ziomal.biz

First Apple built personal computers, then portable media players, and now the company is manufacturing cell phones. Apple also has its own branded set-top box -- Apple TV -- and its iTunes store is one of the biggest e-commerce marketplaces for music and videos in the world. What's next for Apple? What product categories might the company in Cupertino leap into? Car navigation? Video games? Or perhaps something a little closer to home, like an e-book reader or a tablet? Are there any technology sectors that Apple could really up-end?

Things have quieted down in the Apple-focused blogosphere after the storm of news coming out of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference last week. Despite the slowdown, there's still a few notable developments. Mozilla's Firefox 3 release seemed to find a spot on most every tech blog site. Also, Apple's OpenCL has taken a solid step toward becoming an industry standard that might help make Apple CEO Steve Jobs' comments about taking advantage of multi-core processors a reality. And oh yeah, Apple announced that it has served up 5 billion songs on iTunes.

Months ago, stories about Apple talking to Volkswagen about a joint project fueled speculation about the possibilities of something that could only be called an "iCar." Apple officials, however, were and remain tight-lipped about any motor vehicle branded with their company's logo. However, the speculation has led to lots of rumors, and MacNewWorld couldn't help but wonder how much of it was based on real possibilities that an iCar design could be in the works.

Apple has been given a failing grade by Climate Counts, and was placed at the bottom of a list of 12 electronics companies also ranked by the organization. Climate Counts ranks companies on their practices to reduce global warming on a scale of zero to 100, and Apple was given a score of 11, some 66 points behind sector leader IBM, which scored a 77. In the second annual Scorecard, Climate Counts evaluated 60 companies in nine different categories. The companies are rated on publicly available information in regards to their own approach, efforts and policies to reduce global warming.

Based on 10,099 notebook and desktop computer owners who contacted customer support between January 2006 and January 2006, Consumer Reports found Apple to be No. 1 in technical support. Lenovo came in second for notebook computers, and Dell was second for desktops. Apple's tech support solved the problem more than 80 percent of the time, according to the report. This was much higher than the typical 60 percent achieved. Apple's Genius Bar solved the problem 90 percent of the time, and the assistance is free.

News of a $400 Mac clone on the market spread like wildfire this week -- only to be supplanted by suspicions that the offering may well be a giant fraud. The first inkling that something was wrong came when a message appeared on the Web site of the mysterious vendor, Psystar, stating it could not take orders over the phone but only via the Internet. The Web site has been online, then off, and then on again, ever since news of the phenomenal bargain reached critical mass on Monday.

It may be some time before any Apple news rivals the iPhone software development kit or the MacBook Air, but it's nonetheless been a busy week for Apple-focused bloggers. Apple updated its Airport Express WiFi mini router to the faster 802.11n standard, delivered a new version of Safari, fixed dozens of security weaknesses, and saw Mac sales shoot through the roof in February. Plus, while Adobe might want to work out an iPhone Flash solution all by its lonesome, it probably can't.

The iPhone software development kit has been dominating the world of Apple-focused bloggers this week, in no small part due to an Apple announcement that its SDK was downloaded 100,000 times in a mere four days. In other blogging activity, Microsoft delivered its first update to the Office 2008 for Mac suite, Apple got sued over its iTunes/iPod model, enthusiasts cracked open a Time Capsule to insert a bigger hard drive, and the question remains: Is SlingPlayer coming to the iPhone?

The biggest Apple news this week is the company's unveiling of its iPhone software roadmap and software development kit, which will let third-party developers create standalone applications for iPhone. In other news this week, bloggers mulled over insights from Apple's annual meeting for shareholders, tore apart the Time Capsule, figured out that Hollywood has been slow to deliver movies to Apple, and are talking about 3G iPhone delivery predictions. iPhone 2.0 Software Apps and the Enterprise.

The long-awaited -- and perhaps overdue -- refresh to the MacBook Pro lineup finally came Tuesday morning, and along with it, a laptop surprise: Apple beefed up its consumer-grade MacBooks too. The announcements set the Apple-focused blog world on fire, with some commenters noting they were just happy to see the MacBook Pro holdouts finally get something they could spring for. As if new laptops weren't enough, Apple became the No. 2 music retailer in the United States. Then on Wednesday, the company sent out invitations to reporters for an iPhone event.