901am » Apple

Wired’s iTablet Demo with Digitized Magazine Content

Arnold Zafra — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:29:19 +0000

Wired Magazine’s parent company Conde Nast seems to be taking the rumored iTablet PC seriously. A couple of days ago, the company was convinced by All Things Digital’s Peter Kafka to share a video demo of Wired’s iTablet PC.

The video doesn’t say much about the iTablet PC, but you can fairly observe how cool it’s going to be especially during the part where the iTablet PC’s capability to handle animated and interactive graphic was shown.

Wired’s plan about this concept seems to be all so real, that the company also revelead that they are currently working with Adobe to prepare previous issues of Wired magazine for its migration to digital format.

Sounds like fun, right? Anyway enjoy the video for now. It’s the closest thing you could ever get to the rumored iTablet PC from Apple. Who knows this might give Apple the idea and finally decides to push through with its Tablet PC – or is it already?

The Genius of Droid’s Geeky Marketing

Mike Abundo — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:33:49 +0000

For weeks, I’ve been hearing Apple fanboys pan Verizon’s Motorola Droid ads as too geeky and unappealing for the mass market. I’ve been hearing fanboys claim that nongeeks can’t understand “open development”, that they’d be scared off by images of stealth bombers. Then I read an essay by Paul Graham about the abuses of the iPhone app store, and I suddenly realize the genius of Verizon’s nongeek-alienating marketing strategy.

At least we know now what it would take to break Apple’s lock. You’d have to get iPhones out of programmers’ hands. If programmers used some other device for mobile web access, they’d start to develop apps for that instead.

How could you make a device programmers liked better than the iPhone? It’s unlikely you could make something better designed. Apple leaves no room there. So this alternative device probably couldn’t win on general appeal. It would have to win by virtue of some appeal it had to programmers specifically.

The value of today’s smartphones is as much in the applications as it is in the hardware. By very specifically targeting geeks and apparently alienating normal people for now, Verizon is building developer and influencer loyalty. More developers using the phone means more cool apps for the phone; more influencers using the phone means more viral buzz about the phone. More than the iPhone’s shiny mass marketing, those two factors will slowly but surely lead to greater market share.

It’s a strategy almost as stealthy as the stealth bombers in the second Droid ad. As history shows us, wherever the geeks go, normal people eventually follow.

So go ahead, Apple fanboys. Call Android phones “too geeky”. Such anti-intellectual complacency will hasten the iPhone’s developer exodus and eventual downfall.

Shazam Goes Encore on the App Store

Arnold Zafra — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:24:12 +0000

Shazam, which the company CEO claims to be the most popular music apps in the world has just been updated with Shazam Encore. Promising to make it even easier for iPhone and iPod touch users to learn more about the music they love listening to, Shazam Encore offers several new cool features functionality.These new features include – improved speed for tagging trackings and learning about music, enhanced music recommendations, user-generated music charts to keep you up to date with new tracks, improved music search by artist, album or track and drive and tag feature. The last feature makes it easier to discover songs currently playing on the radio as soon as you place your iPhone or iPod Touch on an in-car dock.

“We have listened to our iPhone and iPod touch users and have created a new app which answers their requests to take them on an enhanced music journey that will change the way music lovers experience and learn about music,” says Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher.

In addition to the new features of Shazam Encore, you can still enjoy the features you loved with the original app including music moment sharing, tracking music journey, personalizaing tags and storing pending tags.

Shazam is available at the iTunes App Store for $4.99. Here’s the link to the iTunes App Store, in case you want to buy it.

vis Music Ally

Apple and EMI Team Up to Bring an apple USB Loaded with Beatles Songs

Arnold Zafra — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:00:04 +0000

Apple in collaboration with is releasing an Apple-shaped USB loaded with 14 Beatles stereo titles. Included in the USB are all the remastered visual elements of the CD’s originally containing the 14 Beatles songs. In addition, the USB will also be loaded with 13 mini-documentary films about the Beatles’ studio albums, replicated UK album art rate photos and other notes.

The special USB boasts of 16GB capacity capable of holding contents in FLAC 44.1 Khz 24 bit and MP3 320 kbps formats. The USB supports both PC and Mac too.

How limited is unlimited? We’re talking of around 30,000 Apple USB.

The Apple USB will be released to the UK market on Dec 8, followed by the U.S. release the next day. It will set you back for $279.99.

Amazon Should Not Worry About Nook, But with the iPhone Instead

Arnold Zafra — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:09:54 +0000

It looks like Amazon should not worry about the upcoming Barnes & Noble’s Nook ebook reader but with the iPhone instead. According to a report by analytics research company Flurry, book apps for the iPhone have overtaken previous most downloaded category – game apps.

Beginning September, one out of every five new apps that launched in the iTunes Apps Store were actually ebooks which can be read by many ereader apps available for the iPhone. This was not the trend from August 2008 to August 2009, when the top downloaded apps belong to the games category.

Flurry further predicts that this trend will continue and it might come a time when iPhone apps will take Amazon Kindle’s market share in ebook sales.

Amazon’s woes could have been aggravated if the rumored Applet Tablet comes into reality. The good news is, should the Apple Tablet push through, some Apple insiders are saying that it will not be geared for ebook reading but rather as a portable media device.

Apple approves 100,000th app, and then some

Andy Merrett — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:01:24 +0000

The road to application approval hasn’t always been smooth, with apps approved and then pulled, or outright banned on rather shaky grounds, but that hasn’t stopped Apple powering to 100,000 approved apps in the iTunes App Store.

The web site Appshopper.com has counted 102,485 approved applications and 93,659 available.

That’s a mind-boggling number, and unfortunately says nothing about the quality of those applications. Bear in mind that there are many variations on the same theme, and some (a lot) of them are complete and utter rubbish.

Wading your way through the mire to find the best applications isn’t easy, particularly as the user rating system in iTunes is often tainted by overly positive or negative feedback, and it’s just as easy to pick up a horrible piece of software from a big name company as from an independent developer working from his basement.

I’m far from convinced having this many apps in the store is a good thing — except for Apple, of course.

Apple to drive mobile gaming sales, says research

Andy Merrett — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:37:27 +0000

Wind back a few years and no-one would have named Apple as being influential in the gaming sphere. Mind you, no-one would have betted on them having a world class mobile phone, either.

Now, research from DFC Intelligence suggests that it’s Apple that could help to drive the mobile game market to $11.7bn annual sales by 2014.

Though they suggest that the likes of Nintendo and Sony will still lead the market, they say that these companies have peaked, while Apple’s platforms will be responsible for the bulk of market growth over the next five years.

Linked research found that 54% of North Americans and 69% of Europeans have played a game on their mobile phone in the past year, while 45%/36% have paid for an application.

Unsurprisingly, the App Store was the most popular service for making these purchases, and 15% of all users owned an iPhone or an iPod Touch — about half of those who own a Nintendo DS.

It’s clear that Apple is pushing the gaming capabilities of its mobile devices, particularly the iPod Touch, even though game applications account for just a quarter of total apps purchased on these devices.

Vodafone UK also gets the iPhone. Let the bun fight commence!

Andy Merrett — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:03:17 +0000

Great news for those who favour competition in the mobile marketplace — Vodafone UK will sell the iPhone alongside Orange and, of course, O2.

Again, the details are sketchy. All we’re told is that the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S will be available in the UK and Ireland “in early 2010″. That’s possibly a few months later than Orange will be releasing it, though we don’t have any juicy details yet.

Vodafone has had a bit of a love/hate relationship with the iPhone, with successive CEOs either praising or dismissing the handset. Nevertheless, you can be sure Vodafone is pleased to get a share of iPhone action in the UK’s competitive mobile space.

So, come early next year we could see a real price and deals war going on in the UK. About time, too.

Will we hear a similar announcement from T-Mobile in the next few days? It’s possible.

Hacked Macs: 43 Cents

Mike Abundo — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:45:21 +0000

Mac fanboys like to parrot Apple’s claims that Macs are more secure than PCs. This should come as a nice kick in the balls to those smug bastards. Apparently, those three-thousand-dollar desktop decorations are worth forty-three cents once compromised.

In a presentation Thursday at the Virus Bulletin 2009 security conference in Geneva, Switzerland, Sophos researcher Dmitry Samosseiko discussed his investigation of the Russian “Partnerka,” a tangled collection of Web affiliates who rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars from spam and malware, most of the former related to phony drug sites, and much of the latter targeting Windows users with fake security software, or “scareware.”

But Samosseiko also said he had uncovered affiliates, which he dubbed “codec-partnerka,” that aim for Macs. “Mac users are not immune to the scareware threat,” said Samosseiko in the research paper he released at the conference to accompany his presentation. “In fact, there are ‘codec-partnerka’ dedicated to the sale and promotion of fake Mac software.”

One example, which has since gone offline, was Mac-codec.com, said Samosseiko. “Just a few months ago it was offering [43 cents] for each install and offered various promo materials in the form of Mac OS ‘video players,’” he said.

“Video players”. Considering that Apple markets Macs as complete multimedia solutions out of the box, you’d have to be pretty dumb to fall for that one. Wonder what that says about Mac users.

Apple and Orange finally break O2 UK iPhone monopoly

Andy Merrett — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:42:14 +0000

Some countries that had the “privilege” of getting the iPhone early on, such as the US and UK, have been shackled to one telecoms company since the outset.

While AT&T may still have Apple fans tied up, there is at least some hope for UK users who either object on principle to exclusive deals (common though they are), or don’t like the O2 network because of its reliability or customer screwing tactics.

Orange UK has announced that it has done a deal with Apple to offer the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3G S on its network later this year (that’s a three month window to work with, though if it doesn’t arrive in time for the Christmas rush I’ll be very surprised).

Those who haven’t yet succumbed to an iPhone can now pre-register their orangey interest.

Orange claims it has the largest 3G network in the UK, despite not being as big overall as the likes of O2, Vodafone and T-Mobile. Don’t forget, though, that there are merger talks in the pipeline, which could mean that, one way or another, T-Mobile customers could also get their mitts on an iPhone.

Details on pricing, tariff and availability are yet to be confirmed, so we don’t know if there’ll be a contract-free option or whether we’re in for a healthy dose of competition.