Brand: MacNews

Today’s edition of USA Today features a glowing review of Apple’s new iBook. “I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the new iBook. It’s versatile, reliable and obedient — it did just about everything I asked it to do, without complaint or conflict.”

IBM expected to announce later today the T220, a 22.2″ that features a 9 megapixel resolution. In contrast, Apple’s 22″ Cinema Display boasts a resolution of just 1.6 megapixels. The monitor presently has limited applications, however, given that standard Windows (or Mac) icons, which are generally just 32×32 pixels, will be difficult to see on the monitor. Additionally, the monitor requires a special computer to handle so much data, although it does offer a glimpse of what’s to come for future displays.

3Com has reported an enormous US$518 million loss for its fourth quarter, or $206 million excluding charges. Analysts had been expecting a loss of around $192 million. Revenue for the quarter met revised estimates at $468 million. In an effort to return to profitability, 3Com has already laid off 40 percent of its workforce. The company now anticipates being profitable in about a year, provided market and industry conditions do not deteriorate further.

The Register has published reviews of two new Mac OS X books: Learning Cocoa, from O’Reilly Press (three-out-of-five rating) and Mac OS X: The Complete Reference, from Osborne/McGraw-Hill (two-out-of-five rating).

Maxtor today announced volume shipments of the Personal Storage 3000DV, a FireWire storage solution designed for video editing and graphics-intensive gaming. The 3000DV features a 7200 RPM 60GB hard drive as well as a new FireWire bridge that enables the drive to outperform its predecessor by up to 56 percent. The 3000DV carries a US$379.95 price tag.