Apple

Beatles Songs For iTunes?
After years of throwing squadrons of lawyers at each other, the big Apples – Apple Inc and Apple Corps – kissed and made up a few months ago and now it looks like they can’t stop the love.
Yesterday, record company giants EMI Group PLC announced that it planned to unveil “an exciting new digital offering” with Steve Jobs and the gang at Apple, leading pundits to conclude that The Beatles’ music catalogue is finally about to be made available through Apple’s iTunes online music store.
Spinning the expectation-o-meter right up to eleven, EMI revealed that their chief executive, Eric Nicoli, and Apple head honcho Jobs will be holding a news conference today, which will be supplemented by a “special live performance.”
The Beatles have famously refused to sign up to iTunes and other online music services for years, and many expect the download charts to be instantly filled up with the Fab Four’s songs as soon as their catalogue becomes available.
Of course, the fact that the story broke on April Fool’s Day has led some to think it might be a bit of a jolly wind-up wheeze, so I guess we’ll have to wait to see if the scheduled 1pm conference happens or not.
Mind you, if it is an April Fool’s it’s a pretty crummy one compared to Google’s TiSP Toilet wireless network one.
2 April, 2007
Complete My Album Launched By Apple iTunes
As is often the case, there’s been rumours circling for a long time about the possibilities of Apple launching an add-service for iTunes, to give credits for tracks purchased.
Today they’ve announced it’s for real. The new Complete My Album will give iTunes users 79p credit per track for each track on an album that they decide to purchase, if they’ve bought the tracks individually first.
To illustrate, a user who’s already purchased three 79 pence singles and decides to buy the corresponding £7.99 album would be able to download the remaining songs to complete the album for just £5.62, without having to pay for the same tracks again.
Well done for Apple for launching this, but frankly, it only seems right anyway.
There’s two caveats. Customers only have 180 days from the purchase of the first track to buying the whole album, and it doesn’t looks like it’s going to be all albums as they’re referring to “qualifying albums.”
The music industry don’t really have an option in increasing the likelihood of punters buying more music from them. Complete My Album is just such a offering. As to whether people will be tempted into buying those extra tracks from the album, that they purposely didn’t buy when they were originally buying the track is quite another matter.
29 March, 2007
Novell Linux Mocks “I’m a Mac” TV Adverts
Novell have done a great collection of spoof ads of Apple’s “I’m a Mac” series, you know, the ones that had a UK launch in January this year.
While playing to the same music and video style, it mocks the self congratulatory styles and adds a third character … Linux. Rather than the obvious blokes, it uses a woman to represent Linux.

(more…)
26 March, 2007
Apple TV Starts Shipping
After weeks of speculation and one official delay by Apple last month, Apple has now announced that they are shipping the Apple TV unit from today.
From its name, you’ll guess that it’s an Apple unit to be connected directly to a TV, giving the chance to listen and watch content via the iTunes software. The WSJ, who have had it for the last 10 days, is reporting that the unit can only be used with Widescreen TVs, as there isn’t support for 4:3 screens – a surprising limitation. They also report another limitation – the screen can only be connected to the Apple TV via HDMI cables or component jacks.
To get the most out of it, the diminutive Apple TV (it’s only 8 inches square) cannot be used as a stand-alone unit, but must be used in conjunction with either a Mac running OSX, or a PC running XP – both of which need to be running iTunes 7.1 or later. The direct to Internet connectivity is currently very limited, only giving access to film trailers and the like.
(We wonder if the lack of support for Windows Vista is a deliberate move).
Related to that, we recently noticed when we installed iTunes on our latest PC, that it already has support for Apple TV built in to it in the Preference settings (see image).
Getting around the different forms of content is done by the Apple Remote, so a keyboard/mouse combination is not required.
The content gets to the Apple TV via cabled-Ethernet, or WiFi, running at the yet-to-be-ratified 802.11n, which has a theoretical maximum speed of 540 Mbps.
The unit has a 40Gb hard drive that Apple says can “store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination of each and is capable of delivering high-definition 720p output.”
It’s with some amazement that we’re seeing official Apple comments about a product coming from someone apart from The Steve, to that end Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing enthused that “Apple TV is like a DVD player for the Internet age—providing an easy and fun way to play all your favourite iTunes content from your PC or Mac on your widescreen TV.”
Apple tell us that it’s shipping from today, priced at £199 in the UK and $299 in the US.
Apple TV
21 March, 2007
iPod – The Missing Manual: Review (80%)
Another in O’Reilly’s missing manual series, this covers the iPod and its companion program iTunes.
Although most of the information can be had elsewhere, it’s useful to have a single source where everything’s in one place. Forgotten how to reset your iPod? It’s in the Missing Manual.
Some sections are genuinely useful, especially the Power of Playlists. It describes how to set them up and even gives links to software and on-line services which may make your life easier, including things like shared playlists and what other people are listening to.
The book is US centric and the iTunes sections assume you live in the US and can purchase TV shows and such like (which us Brits can’t do yet), but it’s still a useful reference.
The sections on photos and video are reasonably complete and help users manage their photo collection on and off an iPod and convert video for iPod use. There’s also a good section on the other features available on the iPod so you can manage address books, calendars etc.
At around £14/$20 it’s not the cheapest book out there, but it should be the only iPod book you’ll ever need.
Verdict
Value – 72%
Information – 88%
Overall – 80%
Buy at US Amazon $12.59
Buy at UK Amazon £9.23
The chapters are: –
Meet the iPod
Bopping Around the iPod
In Tune with iTunes
The Power of Playlists
Shop the iTunes Store
Videos Everywhere
Picturing Your Photos on the iPod
Other Stuff the iPod Can Do for You
iPod Out Loud
What to Do When the iPod Isn’t Working Right
Advanced iPodding
15 March, 2007
EU Comments Add Pressure To Apple iTunes
The heat on Apple to open up their iTunes/iPod combination went up another notch following an interview with Meglena Kuneva, the European Union’s Consumer Protection Commissioner.
In the interview with German weekly magazine Focus, published today, she poses the following question, “”Do you think it’s fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod?” It’s followed by a couple of words that are going to make uncomfortable reading for Apple, “I don’t. Something has to change.”
Music bought on the Apple iTunes online shop cannot be played on any other music player, apart from Apple’s iPod.
Kuneva is carrying out a review of the eight basic laws which govern cross-border consumer rights.
Pressure has been building for quite a while against Apple, with the latest, most significant one being in January as the Norwegian Consumer Watchdog, declaring iTunes to be illegal.
Previous actions have been, the approval of France’s ‘iTunes Law,’ after Apple narrowly avoided the French courts over their FairPlay DRM back in 2004.
Apple leader, Steve Jobs, wrote an open letter at the start of last month, entitled “Thoughts on Music,” where he said he’d drop DRM “in a heartbeat,” but was hamstrung by the content owners not allowing him to do so.
Meglena Kuneva – EU site
12 March, 2007
Friday Snippets: Mobile Web; Palm iPhone Rival?; iLaunch Launched
Three Quarters Of Consumers Naffed Off With Mobile Web
According to a study by the Online Publishers Association, only a quarter of punters who have used the mobile internet were chuffed with the experience, with the biggest complaint being tardy load times.
The report also found that 76% of UK consumers were able to access the web from their phones with more than half of that total connecting to the internet.
Find out more mobile related facts here: online-publishers.org
Palm Hire Ex-Apple Hotshot Designer
We still can’t work out if they’re going to be bought out or not, but the New York Times is reporting that Palm may be planning their answer to the iPhone after hiring former Apple computer engineer, Paul Mercer.
Mercer joined Apple in 1987 and was the lead designer of Version 7 of the Macintosh finder before founding a software tools firm called Pixo which was involved in designing the first version of the iPod user interface.
Described as, “the best of the best in this space,” by Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley forecaster, Mercer recently worked for Samsung to design their Z5 MP3 player, which went on to be a monster hit in South Korea.
New York Times
Apple launches iLaunch
Steve Jobs unveils new product-unveiling product:
“The iLaunch runs Keynote-formatted presentations in high definition through a built-in projector while displaying a 3-D rotating image of the product.
Voice-recognition software, Apple’s most advanced to date, can recite a speech highlighting the features of the device while injecting several clever digs at competitors.
Should a product demonstration experience a glitch or malfunction, the iLaunch boasts a complex algorithm that can automatically produce humorous and distracting quips.”
The Onion
9 March, 2007
FunkeeStory SMS Backup For Mac Treo Users
The Palm platform has traditionally enjoyed a lot of support from Mac users who can perhaps relate to the platform’s status as a great working product that isn’t as well known as it should be (or maybe it’s because it’s simply not Windows?!).
Anyhow, Mac based Treo users might well be interested in this lovely little app for backing up and storing text messages from a company called FunkeeMonk Technology.
Treo owners will already know that its threaded text message interface is the best in the business, but mustard keen SMS fiends often end up having to delete older conversations as the none-too voluminous memory of the Treo fills up.
The FunkeeStory application lets Mac users back up and archive SMS messages and conversations by installing a conduit and an attractive desktop viewing application.
The application retains the threaded chat views and also supports multimedia content, so photos, audio and video clips can be viewed on a Mac, or emailed out to friends.
All the messages are searchable and the program offers international language support.
Created by Mac fan Joe Goh, the program is available from the Funkeemonk website for $19.95 – FunkeeMonk Technology.
Windows backup options
We took a look around for something similar for Windows Treo users and came across the $10 Treo Desktop application which offers similar functionality but without a conduit.
Cheapskates on either platform can also use this free online converter sms2csv.php which does the job but is about as basic as it gets.
6 March, 2007
Ms Pac Man Hits The iPod
By way of a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the ever-popular Ms Pac-Man video game, Namco are releasing a version of it to run on fifth-generation iPods, made available to punters via the iTunes store.
The download is £3.99 in the UK, which would have got you forty plays of the arcade version when it was first released, in 1982.
To maximise your feeling of getting good value, not only do you get four maze designs and 256 maze levels, you also get retro art from the original arcade cabinet and a tutorial level. There’s also the four intermissions, or Acts, between the maze changes.
As ever, Wikipedia provides huge amount of info on Ms Pac Man including giving the Official Succession of Verified Ms. Pac-Man World Champions. These start in the year of the game arrival, with Rick Greenwasser of Kirksville, Missouri getting an impressive 130,300 and end with an amazing 933,580 racked up by Abdner Ashman at Apollo Amusements, Pompano Beach, FL on 6 April 6, 2006.
The straight Pac Man has been available on iTunes since last year.
Ms Pac Man on iTunes
1 March, 2007
Apple TV Delayed Until March
Apple has announced that their Apple TV product will be ‘a few weeks late.’
Observers aren’t that surprised by this as it was originally intended to be released in February and that’s pretty much run out. The new date is quoted as mid-March.
Apple TV will have a similar interface to their Front Row software and will play downloaded music and videos on a home stereo or television, playing it directly from an Internet connection or networked computer, either by wired or wireless networking, with 802.11n supported.
When it was launched at the start of January, Jobs described it as such, “Apple TV is like a DVD player for the 21st century—you connect it to your entertainment system just like a DVD player, but it plays digital content you get from the Internet rather than DVDs you get from a physical store.”
Apple hope to do the same for TV as they’ve done for digital music, although there’s been quite a lot of backlash against this idea.
The expected cost of Apple TV hasn’t changed £199 or $299.
28 February, 2007