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December 14, 2009

Apple delays iMac orders as reports of display issues rise

Filed under: General, apple — admin @ 9:16 am

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Apple has reportedly delayed shipments of its 27-inch iMac model to resellers as reports of screen flickering issues have grown.

Apple authorized resellers have reported delays in shipments of new 27-inch iMac models due to reports of display problems. Reports of flickering screens and yellow-tinged displays have become more common around the Internet, so much so that a Web site has been created to catalog reports of issues from users.

According to the Apple iMac (Fall 2009) Issues blog, out of 678 respondents, nearly half have had problems with flickering displays. The author does note that the numbers are part of an “unscientific survey” and should not be considered representative of all iMacs sold.

The blog also reports that Apple resellers have been told of delays of 2 weeks, allegedly in order to give Apple time to replace the graphics cards on the 27-inch iMacs. The iMac model in question comes in either dual-core or quad-core formats and contain the AMD ATI Radeon HD 4670 or 4850 model graphics cards.

Computerworld reported that multiple U.S. resellers report delays of anywhere from five days to two months.

AppleInsider noted in late November that users were reporting issues with the 27-inch model, with some receiving dead computers and others receiving models with cracked displays. Issues of stuttering when playing flash content were also common and were fixed for some by an update in early November.

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November 19, 2009

Macs not all that for reliability

Filed under: General, apple, microsoft — admin @ 8:39 am

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A survey of 30,000 laptops has found one in three machines die within three years and netbooks do even worse, suffering 20 per cent more hardware failures than larger laptop machines.

Apple is fourth placed for reliability behind, in ascending order, Sony, Toshiba and in first place Asus. To be fair to Apple there’s not much in it - 15.6 per cent of Asus machines are expected to malfunction within three years, compared to 17.4 per cent of Apple laptops. Worst performer is HP - 25.6 per cent of its machines are expected to break within three years.

Firmly in the middle is Dell with an expected failure rate of 18.3 per cent, Lenovo with 21.5 per cent and Acer with 23.3 per cent failing within three years.

It seems for laptops, as so much else, you really do get what you pay for. If you buy a nice cheap netbook then just over a quarter, 25.1 per cent, are expected to fail in three years, compared to 20.6 per cent of entry-level lappies. Premium machines on the other hand suffer only an 18.1 per cent failure rate.

The research, from SquareTrade which flogs extended warranties, found overall 31 per cent of machines will fail within 36 months - which is worse than most consumer electronics.

The company noted that netbooks have only really been around in volume for about a year - so it will be interesting to see how their reliability performs over the longer term.

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August 29, 2009

Hackers serve up pre-release malware to Mac fanboys

Filed under: Antivirus, Malware, apple — admin @ 8:01 am

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Virus slingers are taking advantage of the release of Apple’s Snow Leopard operating system by offering malware from sites touting operating system upgrades.

Dodgy sites supposedly offering Snow Leopard were rigged to push an Apple-specific DNS changer Trojan, detected by Trend Micro as JAHLAV-K. The malware is a MAC OS X mountable Disk Image file (.DMG) that comes contaminated with various malicious scripts, as explained here.

Users infected with the Apple specific malware would find their internet connections redirected to phishing sites and other fraudulent endeavours. Some of these bogus sites hosted scareware (fake anti-virus) packages.

Fake sites offering the Mac malware were in operation in the run-up to the release of Snow Leopard on Friday. There are more details in a blog on Trend Micro’s website, here.

A similar attack, detected earlier this week, offered malware in the guise of Foxit PDF Reader software for Apple Macs. The pirated version “Foxit Reader for Mac” comes loaded with the Jahlav Trojan horse, anti-virus firm Sophos warns.

Foxit Reader is not yet officially available for Apple Macs. When it does come out, prospective users ought to use the official Foxit website, Foxit advises.

“While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, we are not happy about the recent malware attacks masquerading as our Foxit Reader,” said George Gao, vice president of sales and marketing at Foxit Corporation. “Foxit has always striven to insure that our solutions are secure for our users, and remains committed to address any Foxit product security issue in a professional and timely manner.”

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