Ask the Editors Live forum: Tom Krazit, CNET News.com staff writer Live!

Hi everybody, welcome to Ask the Editors. I'm Tom Krazit, and I'll be taking your questions about Apple for the next hour or so. I'll try to get to as many questions as I can, but I might not be able to answer all of them.

Feel free to ask about anything related to Apple, from Macs to iPhones. I'm not a Mac technical support expert, so I might not be able to help right away, but I'll try to point you in the right direction.

Let's get started!

Boot Camp is still a beta product, but most of the reports I've seen indicate that people are very satisfied with the performance of Windows XP on their Macs. Macs are basically the same as PCs these days, if you're just looking at the hardware.

The one thing that PC companies won't be able to match is Mac OS. Apple does a lot of interesting things with hardware, but the main selling point for a Mac is the way the Mac OS and the hardware work together. If you're thinking about a Mac, see if you can try out Mac OS first, then start making comparisons in terms of what hardware features you want.

Apple is a member of the Blu-Ray Disc Association.

http://www.blu-raydisc.com/

Intel was just talking about USB 3.0 last week.

http://crave.cnet.com/8301-1_105-9780794-1.html?tag=bl

It's designed to hit 4.8Gbps, way faster than firewire 800. It's not supposed to arrive until 2008, though.

Ultraportable notebooks (12-inch screens or smaller) aren't huge sellers but people love them, and it's always been a little surprising to me that Apple doesn't have one.

If Windows wasn't designed to take input from the touchpad the same way Mac OS does, I can't imagine that you'd be able to use the touchpad the same way when running Windows. I am not sure if that changes with leopard, but I would think Microsoft would have to build that into Windows for it to work.

It's hard to know for sure, but the Macbook hasn't been updated with a new design in a while. Intel is scheduled to release new notebook chips in the first half of next year, so Apple will probably have something new then, but they might also have new stuff before Christmas, I'm not sure.

if you need a new system, buy one. There's always something cool coming down the line if you can wait, but that's not always an option.

Might be integrated sound, there's no specific info here: http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html

Did you check CNET Reviews?

There's so much speculation about Apple, it's hard to really know what is real and what isn't. But I do know the company is very focused on making mobile devices Apple-style, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them and Intel come together on a MID/UMPC type of device like the one described in that link.

Sometimes you can tell when Apple's about to update something, like we were all pretty sure there were new iPods on the way this summer.

But you're right, there's always something around the corner. If you need something now, buy it. If you can wait, there will always be something more advanced--that's for Apple or any tech company.

I assume they'll have Leopard systems ready to go in both Apple stores and online when they're finally ready to ship, but we'll find out for sure when they announce the Leopard ship date.

If you download some of the unlocking software, you can get set up on Rogers, but Verizon uses a totally different network that doesn't use SIM cards. You'd need a different phone for Verizon/Sprint no matter what, and it can't be an iPhone.

Battery life? complexity? I'm not sure, but I know a lot of people would love that.

If i had to guess, I'd say battery life, but I don't know for sure.

Especially now that Apple's going with an EDGE phone in Europe, I thought they'd launch a 3G model there.

Version 2 will probably be out next year, Steve Jobs said in Europe that the 3G chipsets will have better power characteristics at some point next year.