New and Noteworthy: Apple's Okamoto talks WWDC 2006; Switching To The Mac: A Guide For Windows Users; more

Apple's Okamoto talks WWDC 2006 Macworld UK quotes Apple's worldwide developer relations chief Ron Okamoto, who says that 40 per cent of developers attending WWDC 2005 (Apple's best-attended developer conference yet) "had only worked with Mac OS X; they were only here because of OS X." "He confirmed that Apple will show developers"the next big thing" at the event ? a major release of its Mac OS X operating system, currently called 'Leopard'. Okamoto stressed what the preview and conference together means for developers: 'Our engineers will be there, the people who actually write the code,' he explained." More.

Switching To The Mac: A Guide For Windows Users TechWeb has a 9-page guide for users switching from Windows to the Mac. "There are plenty of good reasons to consider a Mac. Most of Apple's current desktop and laptop models are shipping with Intel Core Solo or, more commonly, Core Duo processors, putting to rest the longtime stigma of 'overpriced and underpowered' that critics attached to many Macs. And the release of new products like Boot Camp and Parallels that let you run Windows on a Mac mean that switching is no longer the one-way street it was a few years (or even a few months) ago -- which makes the idea of moving to Apple and Mac OS X much easier." More.

The Wireless Factor: A Challenge to the iPod Walt Mossberg reviews a wireless music player that he thinks might legitimately rival the iPod. "How do you dislodge Apple's mighty iPod music player, and its popular iTunes music service, from their total dominance in the digital-music market? Numerous hardware companies and music services -- most backed by Apple's historic rival, Microsoft -- have tried, and failed, with all sorts of approaches. [...] Today, a small New York City company called MusicGremlin Inc. is rolling out a fresh approach to denting the iPod hegemony: the wireless music player. Its new $299 Gremlin portable player has built-in Wi-Fi wireless networking, so it can download songs from an accompanying subscription service directly, without requiring the use of a personal computer." More.

Previously on MacFixIt

• Apple releases Bluetooth Firmware 1.2.1 for PowerPC-based Macs
• MacBook Pro: Melting or bursting batteries; Incompatibility with projectors; more
• Active Directory: Extremely slow mobile account login
• Microsoft Office 2004 11.2.4 (#2): Only directly updates PowerPoint and Entourage; Problems installing; Full list of enhancement
• Getting banking sites to work with Safari

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