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The iPod nano has proven to be extremely successful for Apple and has helped contribute to the iPod's current dominance of the portable media player market, but whether or not the company will apply that same logic to the iPhone has been a source of debate for quite a while. Recently, rumors of Apple preparing a low-profile iPhone have surfaced again, in part due to an apparently leaked iPhone XSKN Case.

The case, if real, is clearly aimed at an iPhone considerably smaller than the one available today. The device appears to give up some of its screen real estate in order to accomplish the tinier size, and since Apple is silent on the subject this is nothing more than speculation at the moment. There's a lot of incentive for Apple to produce a tinier device – the release of RIM's recent Blackberry Storm shows that other manufacturers are taking notice of the iPhone and want to directly compete with it, and feature-for-feature modern smartphones are differing less with each generation.

Apple's not as ahead of the game in phone technology as they are in mp3 player technology, so this is an obvious route for them to take. Whether or not this is real remains to be seen.

Apple has finished polishing the last details for its Mac OS X 10.5.6 update, making it available for public consumption via its Software Update utility today. The update improves Safari compatibility with Web proxy servers, offers improved reliability of Time Machine with Time Capsule and fixes a bug that could cause Time Machine to state the backup volume could not be found.

In addition, MobileMe subscribers will finally get nearly instant synchronization of their contacts, calendars, and bookmarks in every device linked to their accounts and online at me.com – instead of having a lag of as long as 15 minutes. A full list of the issues addressed with 10.5.6 can be found here. As usual, the latest update can be downloaded from the software update mechanism in Mac OS X or from the company’s website as a standalone file.

Could the iPhone transcend the smartphone market and enter the realm of handheld gaming consoles? Apple certainly thinks so, with the company’s John Geleynse recently claiming the phone could be a next-generation handheld gaming device. Calling it a potential rival to both the DS and the PSP, Geleynse's words aren't that much different from Apple's general point of view, which lends credence to the claim that Apple may try to push the device as suitable for a gaming experience.

Certain Apple stories this month in the U.S. will have an EA hosted “Games Sneak Peak” event, which will apparently outline where the iPhone (and iPod touch) could be headed in terms of gaming. The idea is truly novel – you have a single device that can handle your phone calls, email, geo-location, scheduling, music playing and more, then add “console” gaming on top of it. It certainly sounds appealing.

On the flip side of that, if you look at the design of any existing handheld console, you'll see that their developers put a lot of faith in having ample hand room and plenty of buttons to toy with. The iPhone is a sleek but tiny device, and Apple might have a very hard time convincing people that it's also a “handheld console”.

Update: According to EFiX creators, Art Studios Entertainment, this product was launched by distributor EFiX USA without authorization and thus plans to sell “Millennium” machines capable of running OS X have been shut down just hours after they were announced.

Back in September, EFiX finally began shipping their so-called USB dongle that lets many generic PCs run Mac OS X. Now, even with Psystar struggling against Apple in courts for outright selling Mac clones, it looks like the company is taking things one step further and plans to offer customers a solution for creating their own OS X-running computers.

The EFiX Millennium 4 will reportedly be targeted at the performance crowd, sporting a Core 2 Quad processor overclocked to at least 3.8GHz, 4GB of memory, a 10,000RPM hard drive and a GeForce 8800 GTS graphics card in an Antec P180 case. Priced at $1,899 (not including the additional cost of a $199 EFiX dongle), the system will reportedly offer up to 90 percent the performance of a top-end Mac Pro for less than half the price.

Unlike Psystar, the company hopes to avoid a legal response from Apple by leaving the installation of OS X up to the end user, which I’m not sure how good of a tactic it will be considering it’s illegal to sell a product expressly designed to allow customers to infringe copyrights – then again, it’s precisely the validity and scope of Apple’s EULA which has recently been brought into question. Stakes are high in the Apple vs. Psystar case and the outcome will certainly have an effect on EFiX latest efforts as well.

Apple has released new firmware updates for their “late 2008” notebooks, which have been plagued with a handful of problems lately, from video issues to problems with third party memory modules. This is the second firmware update issued for the new unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros, following one issued earlier this year to addresses an issue where trackpad clicks were not recognized.

This time, however, the updates also cover MacBook Air systems. As usual, Apple didn't provide a whole lot of detail about the issues that are corrected by the firmware updates, but apparently they are aimed at improving the sensing and accuracy of the MagSafe Power Adapter indicator light and the battery charge indicator lights, and overall improve the stability of the MacBooks.

The updates should be popping up in Software Update as you read this, though you can also visit Apple’s download section to get the files manually.

Not long after the courts decided to dismiss Psystar's Antitrust claims against Apple, the “underdog” company has switched tactics. Now dropping some of their riskier assertions of anti-competitive behavior, particularly antitrust issues, Psystar is once again going after Apple on copyright grounds.

Specifically, the company alleges that Apple's EULA is dangerous, due to the company controlling both the software and the hardware, where normally the hardware has little or nothing to do with software EULA. They claim this gives Apple a loophole that allows them to abuse the DMCA and improperly increase the scope of its copyright. In this instance, Psystar is trying to get the courts to say that creating clone Mac hardware doesn't count as a hit against anti-circumvention laws.

Even though Psystar's tactic has changed, their goal is the exactly the same: an injunction against Apple’s behavior.

Problems with Apple’s newly redesigned MacBooks continue to crop up. The new laptops, which have already run into problems with the trackpad and have had issues with video performance, are apparently also becoming unstable after being upgraded with third party memory modules – even from reputable vendors like Kingston and Crucial.

Reinstalling the original RAM returns operations to normal, as does purchasing the more expensive memory upgrades from Apple itself, but international users with no access to an Apple store are sadly out of luck. Separately, users are reporting problems with putting the computer to sleep or awaking from sleep, where the notebook will wake up and go back to sleep repeatedly until the battery is dead.

As for the previously reported issues with video performance, The Inquirer claims it has confirmed that the new MacBook Pro’s Nvidia 9600M GPU suffers from the same so-called “bad bump” problem that plagued “significant quantities” of their graphic chips earlier this year, triggering recalls of previous MacBook Pros as well as a number of notebooks models by Dell, HP and others. Nvidia of course denies the claims, as this could spell a lot of trouble for them if the investigation proves accurate.

Since it was released back in 2007, the iPhone has proved to be a major hit, with Apple selling more than 10 million handsets worldwide in roughly a year and vaulting past RIM in the global smartphone market. One of the most important features that came with the 3G update earlier this year is its global positioning systems (GPS), but at least one country is not benefiting from the addition due to strict government regulations.

Specifically, the Egyptian government believes that GPS functionality could be a military security risk and therefore has forced Apple to eliminate the feature in order to sell their device in the region. Egyptian blogger Ahmed Gabr brought this issue up in an article and talks about how the measure does not make any sense due to the fact that Google Maps “works flawlessly” in Egypt, allowing unregulated access to views of “places you’re not supposed to see.” Not that the Egyptian government is alone in its desire for control, anyway, with China Mobile reportedly negotiating a stripped-down version of iPhone sans Wi-Fi and 3G functionality.

The iTunes AppStore has been an undeniable hit for Apple and the company certainly isn’t shy letting people know people about download numbers every time a big milestone is reached. Back in August Apple announced it passed the 60 million download mark a mere month after their application marketplace went live, at a rate of 2 million downloads per day, and now that number has grown to 300 million.

The news comes in the form of a couple of ads placed in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. The ads highlight some of the applications available for the iPhone, but the print on the bottom reveals both the 300 million figure and also that the AppStore now offers more than 10,000 iPhone and iPod touch applications. Quite an achievement, indeed, yet we are left wanting to know how many of those applications were free versus paid downloads.

Newer sources are backing last week’s reports that Walmart will begin carrying the iPhone later this month. According to both Reuters and Bloomberg, store representatives at several Walmart locations have confirmed that the iPhone is due by the end of December and that sales training is already in progress.

The $99 4GB iPhone model hasn't been confirmed, though, and that rumor is looking more unlikely now with a clerk from a Vacaville store suggesting that the phones will be the same 8GB and 16GB models sold elsewhere. Moreover, Mac Rumors claims they have received training material and advertising from a source connected with Walmart that lists only the 8GB iPhone 3G.

The device will supposedly go on sale at Walmart beginning on December 28 for $197, narrowly beating Apple and AT&T;'s $199 price.

Rumors about the iPhone hitting Walmart at a discount price have been circulating for some time, and The Boy Genius Report is bolstering those rumors today, saying it received a tip that the giant retailer will be reviving the 4GB iPhone model for just $99 with the standard two-year contract. The handset would be functionally identical to existing 8GB and 16GB versions and presumably offered with the same monthly price plans available now.

True or not, the idea of selling affordable 4GB iPhone 3G makes sense and should have mass appeal, considering not everyone needs to carry their entire music and video library with them at all times. The site cautions that this should be taken strictly as a rumor for now due to an unproven source, but indeed some Walmart training materials have been seen in the wild. Moreover, it's not unusual for the giant retailer to secure a special version of a product to sell at an extremely attractive price – though conversely Apple is not known for giving its retail partners any special treatments.

Apple has had its share of problems in the recent past over their marketing claims that the iPhone 3G is “twice as fast for half the price” of its predecessor, from ads being pulled in the UK to lawsuits being filed against the company for allegedly misleading customers as to what the device is truly capable of.

Sure, many of the complaints levied against the company are questionable (to say the least) but Apple’s latest response regarding this particular matter is quite interesting, with the company essentially saying that anyone who takes their ads literally is a fool.

Perhaps they are right to some extent, it’s no secret that companies tend to ‘stretch the truth’ in their advertisings, but when the statement is believable enough (twice as fast, half the price) and supported with a misleading simulated video showing the product in action, you might be pushing it. Apple has already moved to dismiss some of the iPhone 3G lawsuits filed against them, but this one in particular alleging the company falsely advertised the handset's performance is still alive and could be one interesting case to follow.

Safari is growing in popularity, according to recent figures, with estimates putting the browser as breaking a 7% share. That may seem like a small figure, but it truly wasn't that long ago when even Firefox was below that mark. As the biggest “alternative” browser, Firefox is continuing to grow as well. Safari's growth is coming primarily at the expense of Internet Explorer, which has now dipped below 70% for the first time in many years, falling far from the peak of 95% it held in 2002.

Safari goes hand in hand with Mac OS X, so watching growth of that browser is a good indicator of Mac growth as well. It's not entirely accurate, as you certainly aren't forced to use Safari on a Mac and Safari is available on Windows as well. The small discrepancy between the amount of Mac OS X users and Safari users can likely be attributed to people using other browsers on the Mac, but it still goes to show that the browser is doing well.

For many years anti-virus suites have primarily been found and endorsed on Windows platforms only. While they certainly existed on Linux, Mac OS X and even cell phones, it was rare to see them in action and even rarer to see a virus that threatened people enough to warrant such suites in the first place. The increased popularity of OS X is changing that, and for the first time since its release Apple has recommended that Mac users install anti-virus software.

Rattling off a list of anti-virus suites available on the Mac, Apple has encouraged “widespread” use of the programs, claiming it'll make virus writing a more difficult process. Realistically, though, what we see here is a change in the perception that Apple has about their own software in the world today. Typically, they work hard to avoid saying anything negative about Mac OS X, but admitting that users might need an anti-virus suite to stay safe is admitting that the OS is vulnerable after all – something numerous security researchers have been saying for a while.

This year has seen a number of viruses for Mac OS X find time in the public eye. While still not on the monumental level of viruses found on Windows, even Apple is now admitting that the OS alone is not enough to protect a user.

Apple has acknowledged two graphics issues with its new line of unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, and while a software update may remedy at least one of them, Apple is reportedly investigating whether the second one is software or hardware related (Nvidia must be crossing their fingers right now).

The lesser problem presents itself in the form of wave-like video distortions while scrolling in web browsers playing HD content, and since the distortions do not appear while running Windows, it is most likely just a Mac-specific driver issue. The second and more severe problem, however, causes the screen to go black after just a few minutes of gaming, while the system locks up and the audio enters into an infinite loop – leaving no option but to reboot the machine.

The issue exists under both Windows and Mac OS X, suggesting it could be a hardware problem, more specifically a thermal issue. Apparently some users have been able to mitigate the problem after installing alternative drivers for the notebook’s Nvidia graphics card and using a separate tool called SMCFancontrol to tweak the system’s fan speed.

The company is not offering customers exchanges until the issue is better understood, but those who have somehow managed to get their system swapped out for a new one claim the problems have disappeared completely, which fortunately suggests the flaw could be limited to an early batch of the notebooks. It’s a shame they let things like this slip, though, and it certainly isn’t the first time.

Apple has released a new QuickTime update, which will be of particular interest to owners of MacBook and MacBook Pro unibody computers because it fixes a widely publicized issue where some users were unable to play legally purchased movie files from iTunes on external displays.

You see, Apple’s new mini DisplayPort enforces HDCP protection. But while the scheme is intended to prevent digital copying of high definition content, several users were complaining last week about being unable to playback standard definition iTunes movies over a mini DisplayPort to VGA connector. According to notes provided with the update, QuickTime 7.5.7 addresses this issue, meaning that current SD movie content purchased or rented on a Mac should playback unrestricted.

You can download this update via Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update) or by visiting the Apple support website.

It’s pretty rare to find Apple products selling for anything other than full retail price, but the company plans to host a special “Black Friday” sale in its online and retail stores to kick off the holiday buying season. Though short on details, a teaser running on the vendor’s website promises “dozens of great iPod, iPhone and Mac gift ideas.”

In addition, Apple has internally announced that retail store employees can match prices of other authorized retailers, which is particularly interesting since Best Buy is already offering discounts of up to $150 off on current Macs. Apparently, price-matching has always been Apple's policy but it sounds like the company wanted to make it crystal clear to its staff ahead of the holiday season.

Apple has released an update for the Apple TV digital media receiver, bringing the firmware up to version 2.3. The patch is available solely through the device’s built-in update feature and consists of four main improvements, key among which is the ability to stream music from the media device to either other Apple TV units or Airport Express speakers.

Apple has also added the ability to use third-party remote controls with Apple TV. You can still use the official remote, and of course, if you have an iPhone there is an excellent Apple-provided Remote application as well. Finally, the two remaining new features include the option for playlists that contain a mixture of various audio and video formats as well as the ability to adjust volume in the music section.

It is important to note that as with all other Apple TV firmware updates, running the update will remove any non-Apple TV software as well as unofficial hacks or tweaks made to the device.

In recent past Apple has been praised as a company that has at least verbally opposed DRM. More weight was given to their supposed DRM stance when they began offering some music from EMI without copy protection on iTunes. When it comes to hardware, however, Apple still seems to be in step with the industry. It's been discovered that Apple's new MacBook lines include full HDCP support, a technology intended to “ensure” that content being played back is only being played on “authorized” displays.

You can see an example of the technology in action here. The DRM-protected content refuses to play, due to an external projector attached to the machine being “unauthorized” to play it. In the future, Apple says, all of their hardware will support this feature. This could make keeping and playing back DRM-protected content even more cumbersome than it is now, with people finding themselves locked in not only to a particular machine, but to a particular display as well.

As the amount of HDCP-aware content increases you can expect more people to encounter this kind of issue as well. HDCP has been a controversial technology since its introduction years ago, though to date there has been very little fallout because of it. That could soon be changing.

The next major release of Apple’s operating system, dubbed “Snow Leopard,” is slated to come out next year. No specific date has been actually set for the launch, but when announced at the WWDC event back in June, the company said that Mac OS X 10.6 would be available in about a year. Now, however, a leaked slide from a recent presentation suggests it could be sooner.

Specifically the slide presented by the director of Apple’s Unix Technology Group, Jordan Hubbard, shows Snow Leopard will ship in the first quarter of 2009 – sparking speculation that the company could show off a near finalized copy at January's Macworld Expo and follow up with an official release a couple of months later.

Rather than emphasize revolutionary new features, Snow Leopard is said to focus on performance and stability, with Apple particularly mentioning it will be optimized for multi-core processors and that should also enable “breakthrough amounts of RAM.”