SaudiMac

This is an update to this story of an Apple user in Saudi Arabia who was frustrated with Apple’s distributors in Saudi Arabia for 2 years.
1. We at SaudiMac tried to contact Arab Computers (Apple’s authorized distributor in Saudi Arabia) as well as GlobalStore (An Apple Premium Reseller in Riyadh) and it’s been a month now and neither of those two companies responded to our emails regarding Mr. Talal’s MacBook Pro.
2. Talal told me today that he just received a call from Apple Executive Relations in response to his e-mails to Steve Jobs. She told him that his MacBook Pro will be replaced directly by Apple when he comes to Canada next month.

Talal also took the opportunity to raise his concerns regarding Apple IMC and how they are giving Apple a bad reputation. She assured him that Apple is aware of these concerns and they are working hard on a solution for IMCs.
We learned a few things from all that, first of all, if the local Apple Service Center offered bad service you can still raise the issues to Apple Inc directly and they will most likely respond to you. Also Apple Inc is aware of the issues with Apple IMC and hopefully they would consider launching “Apple Saudi Arabia” and directly sell Apple products.

Apple just released the latest update their Mac OS X Leopard. The latest update, 10.5.4, includes general operating system improvements and security updates. The security updates also addresses security issues with Mac OS X Tiger. More information regarding the security update can be found on Apple’s site.
The update can be installed from the software update or downloaded from Apple’s site.

Apple’s next OS X will be called “Snow Leopard”, here are some links with information about the new cat:
Apple’s official Snow Leopard site
Myths of Snow Leopard 1: PowerPC Support
Myths of Snow Leopard 2: 32-bit Support
Snow Leopard confirmed to be Intel only

No news about Arabic Localization, Leopard added Russian, Polish and Portuguese Localization. Let’s hope for Arabic Localization with this release.

Mohammad Milyani blogged about a new Apple store in the holy city of Mecca, called i.zone.
Blog post - in Arabic.

Apple posted the WWDC 2008 Keynote Address by Steve Jobs on their website. You can watch it streaming in either normal or HD quality through this page.

Apple also posted the Keynote Address as a downloadable podcast through iTunes. Click here if you have iTunes installed.

Apple released multiple updates for it’s applications, it includes:
Quicktime 7.5 which fixes some security issues.
iMovie 7.1.2 - addresses general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.
iDVD 7.0.2 - supports general compatibility issues, improves overall stability, and addresses a number of other minor issues.
As usual, those updates are available from the Apple Software Update tool.

So much for that plan. iPhone Atlas confirmed that the new 3G iPhone that will be released July 11th 2008 will require an in-store activation instead of the regular iTunes based activation.
The goal is to slow the market for unlocked iPhones. But that will mainly effect countries without an iPhone deal, like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman and others.
Personal estimation: Saudi Arabia will get the iPhone in 2009.

According to the specifications of the new 3G iPhone. The iPhone will not have any Arabic language support at all.

Language support for English, French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Danish, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Russian, and Polish

Which is odd considering that the iPhone should be released in 3 Arabic speaking countries; Egypt, Jordan and Qatar. And there will always be a potential for other Arabic speaking countries that have an interest for the iPhone.
Over 200 million speak Arabic compared to any of the other languages listed, Arabic is a major language. Will Apple release a late update to add Arabic support or will they just ignore the Arabic language like they did with the Mac OS (first party Arabic localization) and iPod all these years?

View Larger Map

The 3G iPhone will be available in more than 70 countries. 22 will get it on July 11th 2008. You can see the full country list here. What is missing are most of the GCC except Qatar who will get the iPhone from Vodafone. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are one the biggest mobile communication consumers in the region and it is strange that this market is being ignore. Did Apple only initiated contract deals with Europeans companies like Orange and Vodafone and didn’t deal with the regional ones such as Zain or Etisalat? Or will those countries just get an unlocked iPhone?

Map via TUAW.

With less than two hours to go until the WWDC 2008 Keynote, here are some sites with live updates from the Keynote:
Mac Rumors Live
Live Coverage from the Mac Observer
Engadget Live Coverage
Apple Gazette live coverage
Audio Stream from iPhoneAlley
We will be back after the Keynote with news on what will be announced.