Brand: MacNews

Money.com has named Apple’s iBook as the best new laptop of 2001. “The latest iBook may well be the best all-around computer Apple has ever made.” The publication also praised the iBook’s high screen resolution, sturdy design, and built-in FireWire port.

In another sign that worldwide economic conditions will only get worse before they get better, Sony and NEC today both issued earning warnings. Sony cut its full year earnings a staggering 89 percent, to just US$84 million, while NEC announced it now expects to lose $1.25 billion this year, after forecasting a profit of $550 million back in April.

Koingo Software today announced the release of Password Retriever 2.1 — a password storage and retrieval application for the Mac. Version 2.1 offers a number of new features and bug fixes and is available for download now.

Out of Germany today, Material Arts founder Stefan Leuker pre-announced FlexiSheet, a multi-dimensional spreadsheet application, which will be released as a Technology Preview in October 2001. An exact release date for the Technology Preview and pricing information for FlexiSheet is not yet available. More information can be obtained from the Material Arts web site.

Our friends at VersionTracker note the release of Nisus Writer 6.0.3 — a multilingual word processor for the Mac. Version 6.0.3 fixes a bug in which, if you have a multi-column document with headers and/or footers, the headers and/or footers would neither print nor display in the Layout Page window.