Friday, March 30, 2007

Apple's iPhone will be released on June 11 | News.blog | CNET News.com

"Ever since Steve Jobs' keynote at the Macworld Expo in January, we've known that the iPhone is being released sometime in June. But we haven't known exactly when.
Now Cingular is confirming that the release date will be June 11. A customer service manager at Cingular (we called 800-947-5096 and were transferred to sales) gave us that date late Thursday, but, alas, said he didn't have any additional information beyond that.
That date is no coincidence. It's the first day of Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, scheduled to be held in San Francisco from June 11 through June 15. (Incidentally, the agenda includes a focus on Leopard, the next generation of OS X that's supposed to be released sometime in the second quarter of 2007.) "

Apple Gets Behind the Album Format with New Offer

"Apple is throwing its weight behind the music industry's efforts to protect the album format by allowing fans to buy complete digital albums without having to pay again for songs they already own.
The record industry is keen to maintain the profitable album format, which is under threat as users of Web-based music download stores, such as Apple's iTunes and Napster, prefer to buy individual songs rather than whole albums.
Apple said on March 28 that iTunes is introducing a 'Complete My Album' service that offers customers who want to turn individual tracks into an album a 99-cent credit for every song they have already purchased from the album.
For example, if a customer had bought three 99-cent singles and decides to download the entire album with a listed price of $9.99, the customer would only have to pay $7.02.
Fans will only be able to take advantage of the discount within 180 days after first buying the songs, Apple said. "

Monday, March 26, 2007

Nike Ipod




"In an interview with AP Nike President and Chief Executive Mark Parker said that Nike "plans to make all its running shoes compatible with its Nike+ technology by the end of the year".

Currently only available for one of the company's trainers the Nike+ system allows runners to track their time, distance, pace, and calories burned with the Apple iPod.

"I won't get into specific dates or executions, but you can expect to see some of these new Nike concepts at retail this calendar year", Parker said."

Friday, March 23, 2007

PC World - Review: Apple TV Just Plain Works

"To say that Apple TV is the world's best media streaming device could be considered faint praise, the tech equivalent of calling someone the world's tallest midget. After all, most previous versions of these devices, which take music, video, and photos from your PC and play them on your TV and stereo, have been very reliable, easy to use and generally shunned by the buying public.
Apple has managed to rise above that kind of failure with its typical mantra: Keep it simple and make it pretty. Setting up our $299 Apple TV was a breeze, and anyone who's used an iPod will be instantly familiar with its extravagantly attractive interface."

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Elton John Music coming online on Apple iTunes

"Elton John Music coming online on Apple iTunes
Famed musician Elton John has revealed that he would soon be making his entire catalogue of more than 30 music album available for digital download.
This would be the first this all of his songs would be made available for sale on the net legally. The catalogue features more than 400 songs.
Elton has already released some of his more recent work online in the United States but this upcoming release would feature all of his songs from his 40 years of career."

Apple '1984' ad mashup markets Barack Obama, not Macs

"A remix of the classic Apple Inc. '1984' television advertisement has political tongues wagging, Sen. Barack Obama's campaign issuing denials and YouTube Inc. scoring more than 600,000 views.
Rather than pitch a new-fangled computer, the 74-second video (see below) replaces the droning Big Brother of the original with images and words from Obama's rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.). And when it ends -- after the hammer tossed by an updated female athlete wearing, what else, an iPod, smashes an immense screen -- it's a revamped Obama campaign logo left standing, not the iconic Apple trademark.
The tagline of the mashup: 'On Jan. 14, the Democratic primary will begin. And you'll see why 2008 won't be like '1984.'' "

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Strong Mac sales expected this quarter

"Via Jeff Gamet at The Mac Observer, interesting prognostications are coming from research and investment firm Piper Jaffray concerning this quarter's Mac sales. It turns out that Wall Street is expecting around 1.45 million Macs to be sold this quarter, compared to 1,606,000 last quarter. While a decline in sales may seem disappointing, the first quarter of the calendar year is normally weak, as it's after the holidays end and before the educational buying season begins. Last year, 1,112,000 Macs were sold during the first quarter of 2006, so an increase of 400,000 Macs sold would actually be quite startling. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster thinks it might be even more startling than that. "

Apple seeks to seize digital TV marketMSNBC.com

"The battle for control of the digital home reached a milestone on Tuesday as Apple began shipments of the Apple TV, the latest device designed to allow users to download, nuts store and play internet content on their televisions.
The devices could be in customers' hands as early as this week, according to people who said they had received emails from the company informing them that their Apple televisions had shipped. "

Friday, March 16, 2007

Matt Groening Apple Ad




http://homepage.mac.com/mbishop/PhotoAlbum30.html

Apple TV To Kill 30-Second ?

"Apple might well kill the 30-second TV commercial. The new Apple TV device that ships sometime this week will allow easy transmission of TV shows purchased on iTunes -- sans commercials. While some experts aren't convinced that Apple TV will be as big a hit as iPod, this could change how people watch television.

'There's no question that one of the problems with the traditional 30-second TV ad is digital video recorders,' says Tim Wilson, a general partner with Partech International, a venture-capital firm. 'The whole market is under threat from TiVo-like functions. And it's going to get easier to avoid commercials with Apple TV.' "

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Glide Promises To Make Any Phone An iPhone - Yahoo! News

"On Thursday, media sharing service TransMedia plans to release its Glide Sync and Glide Mobile software for Mac users, finally fulfilling its promise to make desktop files available across different operating systems and devices.
'Mac users will be able to access all of their Macintosh files, whether they're documents, photos, music, videos, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, from their cell phones,' says TransMedia chairman and CEO Donald Leka. 'Effectively, we're turning every major cell phone on the market into more than an iPhone, before the iPhone comes out. From that phone, not only will you be able to access everything, but you will also have significant capabilities to edit, manipulate, and create files on that phone and then have it reverse synchronize back to your Mac.'
In other words, Glide gives supported phones music and video playback capabilities that are comparable to those of a video iPod. The difference is that files are streamed from Glide's hosted service instead of residing on the mobile device."

MacFixIt - Apple releases iPod Reset Utility 1.0... again?

"Today Apple posted an ostensibly new package to its software download page dubbed 'iPod Reset Utility 1.0,' which will restore first and second generation iPod Shuffles back to their factory settings when iTunes is unable to do so. The tool can solve a problem where iPod Shuffles appear dead or refuse to mount.
Confusingly, however, the company already released a package called 'iPod shuffle Reset Utility' last year, and later updated it to version 1.0.1.
Though it is not explicitly stated, this 1.0 release apparently supersedes the original 1.0 and 1.0.1 iPod shuffle reset utility versions, as the original shuffle reset utility was only labeled for use with first-generation iPod shuffles. "

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Exclusive Video Leaked: iPod Firmware Coming, Enables Cover Flow - Gizmodo

"A little birdie told us that a firmware update for iPods is coming soon, giving you that same Cover Flow view that you've grown to love in iTunes now. See it in action, right here."

Lily Allen slates Apple's iTunes tactics - iPod/iTunes - Macworld UK

Lily Allen slates Apple's iTunes tactics - iPod/iTunes - Macworld UK: "British singer Lily Allen has accused Apple of bullying musicians into providing exclusive content for iTunes.
Her comments were made in a radio interview. She stated: “They won't advertise your album unless you give them extra material,” according to a report in the Wall Street Journal .

Allen claimed Apple pushed her to quickly produce a new version of a song for sale on iTunes, so she planned to give them a “rubbish remix'.
Apple shuns the typical pay-for-placement system used by high-street music retailers, which sees labels pay for good in-store placement of albums. Apple claims its stance enables it to make unbiased music recommendations. Apple iTunes VP Eddy Cue wants customers to feel that advice on music is “coming from someone who really liked it versus someone who was paid to say they liked it,” according to the Wall Street Journal report. "

Friday, March 9, 2007

3pointD.com » Blog Archive » New Apple Store in Second Life?

"An anoymous reader just sent me a link to this YouTube video of a replica, built in the virtual world of Second Life, of Apple’s glass cube store on New York’s Fifth Avenue. Keep in mind there were earlier reports of an Apple store in Second Life, but those didn’t show anything half as elaborate as the build on display in the video, which also features fairly high production values for machinima. I’m in Austin at SXSW and can’t get into Second Life very well on this laptop in this hotel, so I can’t go check out what’s at the old location, and there’s no location given for the store in the video. However, the video does end with production credits, and they don’t give any indication of whether or not Apple is actually involved. The video is credited to metaverse services firm AxisVR LLC, which advertises a number of interesting services but doesn’t provide a client list."

Apple Adding H.264 Hardware Decoder Chip to Macs? - Page 3 - Mac Forums

"H.264 encoding is prohibitively slow, even on Core Duo machines. I believe Apple has some sort of vested interest in making H.264 the standard of encoding in the upcoming years, (especially since the ipod doesn't play divx which is, imho far superior). If they want to do this they need to make it easier on the machine. Heck, my 5.5G ipod plays H.264 SO much better than my loaded PB, its rather sad, really... however even my Treo plays 800x600 divx flawlessly, and it looks basically the same, at smaller file sizes, and much faster endoding to boot!"

Apple's iPhone ad: Hello, this is white America calling... | BlogHer

"Woman of (an)other Color enumerates her thoughts about the Apple iPhone TV commercial, which is a series of clips from movies where the actors say 'Hello?': 'I can't get over the 'history of american cinema saying hello' tactic as my reminder that people of color can never really be American, especially not an American 'classic' (unless they are racistly portrayed of course).'
You can read the rest of the piece and see the TV ad at her blog."

Apple May Use Flash Memory For Notebooks - Hardware Technology News by InformationWeek



" Apple Inc. may sell zippy notebook computers later this year that use the same type of fast memory as music players and digital cameras, driving down prices of hard-disk drives, an analyst said Thursday.
The maker of the popular iPod music player and Macintosh computers hopes to introduce so-called flash memory in small computers known as subnotebooks in the second half of 2007, Shaw Wu, an analyst at American Technology Research who has a 'buy' rating on Apple shares and does not own any stock, said in investor notes Wednesday and Thursday.
A shift to flash memory in place of much slower hard-disk drives would eliminate one headache for consumers: lengthy start-up times when turning on computers.
Apple of Cupertino, California, already uses flash memory in its iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle music players. Flash memory is lighter, uses less power and takes up less space than hard-disk drives.
Wu, who was among the first analysts to forecast the unveiling of Apple's iPhone music player/phone earlier this year, cited unnamed industry sources as the basis for his report."

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

iPodNN | Prudential: Apple to rise on Leopard launch

"Apple is likely to experience significant growth due to an early launch of Mac OS X Leopard alongside Adobe's March 27th release of Creative Suite 3, according to Prudential Equity Group. The firm upgraded Apple's stock to 'Overweight' from 'Neutral weight' based on an expected late March launch of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and Adobe's Creative Suite 3 -- 1-2 months ahead of Wall Street expectations. "

ClickPress | Keyspan Enhances TuneView Remote for Apple iPod

"Keyspan announced that updated firmware is now available for its 'TuneView for iPod,' a powerful remote with color LCD screen and 2-way RF connectivity that allows you to browse and manage an iPod® throughout your house or office.

'Users have been telling us how much they appreciate TuneView,' explained Ridenhour, president of Keyspan. 'They have also contributed a variety of ideas for making TuneView even more useful.' "

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Mac Rumors: Apple Mac Sales Grew Over 100% In January

"According to Pacific Crest Securities (reported by AppleInsider), Mac sales grew over 100% year over year during the month of January.

The firm based its numbers on recent NPD data which had implied that 'year-over-year growth in Mac unit sales accelerated in January to 101 percent, up from 55 percent in December.' More specifically, Mac notebook sales jumped 194% year over year in January."

Apple Culture

"Apple presented at Goldman Sachs' Technology Investment Symposium on Tuesday, leaving a taste of company culture on at least one analyst.

What cultish commitment to design fascism did they display this time?

"Apple's unusual culture is embedded enough into Apple to virtually ensure a continuing string of breakthrough products beyond iMac, iPod, OS/X, and soon the iPhone ...," wrote GS analyst David Bailey in a research note."