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Apple Now Accepting iPad Apps, Planning “Grand Opening” of iPad App Store

Apple is now accepting iPad apps for a “grand opening” of the iPad App Store, according to an email just sent to registered developers.
“iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today,” the email says.
There’s no details about when the store’s grand [...]

Security Expert: “Mac OS X Is Safer, But Less Secure”

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Tech site H-Online has an interesting story today, quoting security expert Charlie Miller about his forthcoming talk at the CanSecWest conference next week.
He says OS X is full of security holes. There are lots more than in Windows, he claims.
And yet: OS X is a safer system to use. Why? Because, in the words [...]

Apple Devotes Entire Home Page To Jerome York Obituary

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If ever you needed a sign that Apple was a different kind of technology company, this is it.
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Coming Soon: Steve Jobs, the Sitcom

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Twitter ejects Apple username squatter, reserves it for Cupertino’s use

Apple tends to focus its energies to making news and product announcements on its websites, but they’ve been experimenting a bit lately with integrating their PR machine with social media… mostly by putting up official iPad videos on their own YouTube channel, as well as pushing word of new Quicktime trailers through Twitter.

But 9to5Mac just noticed something interesting that may hint at Apple’s future plans for the popular Twitter micro-blogging service. Over a year ago, someone took over the twitter.com/Apple username… but now, in the wake of the iPad announcement (in which the iPad out-tweeted Obama’s state of the union address), it looks like that squatter’s been evicted.

Even better? You can’t sign up as Apple. This isn’t just a case of an account name being deleted: Twitter is clearly reserving the Apple account for Cupertino.

Of course, this could just be on Twitter’s own initiative, but it makes sense: Apple surely knows that Twitter is an amazing marketing and branding tool, and they’re presence on the site can only amplify the buzz about their company.

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About the author

John Brownlee

John Brownlee has written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Berlin with a charming girlfriend against whom he is currently enjoying a thirteen game cribbage winning streak, and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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7 comments

    It makes sense for the username to be reserved for Apple. What doesn’t make sense is for Apple to not use it yet. How can a technology company not tweet in this day and age?

    Oh… sorry to be the one to point it out… it’s not “they’re presence on the site” but “their presence on the site”. Common mistake.

    Twitter usernames are locked if you don’t switch away from them before you delete an account. So it could still be under the control of the original account holder.

    I agree with Jaime’s comment.

    Why arent Apple on Twitter already, when companies like Dell are using twitter very effectively, and driving millions of additional pounds in sales per year via the service?

    It really does surprise me that a company like Apple, with their vast marketing an PR departments arent using twitter yet.

    What’s Apple going to tweet? Tweet about daily updates on their secret projects? LOL.

    Dell are generating millions of pounds of additional sales because they ‘tweet’? I think you are deluded Andrew.

    I would have more respect for Apple if they refused to use Twitter…

    I’m tempted to be a grammar dick, but I won’t be. I’m sure it’s just a typo.

    I can’t believe Apple is just now getting onto the social media bandwagon. I guess they don’t need extra PR help when we salivate like dogs over every product announcement they make. We do all of the leg work for them.

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