Apple - page 74

The problem with having yuppie customers is they are so quick to sue. The class-action lawsuit against Apple over scratched nanos strikes me as petty and greedy — even though I own a nano (scratched, natch) and am probably eligible to join.

Digital-Lifestyles has a summary of the suit:

More details about Jason Tomczak’s class action against Apple for releasing defective iPod Nanos have emerged on The Inquirer’s site.In the action, started in a San Jose district court, Tomczak alleges that the iPod Nano’s easily-scratched screen renders the display unreadable and thus breaches state consumer protection statutes.

Tomczak alleges that Apple kept on shifting the Nanos even when they knew that there were problems with the design and by failing to recall the MP3 players, the company “passed the expense, hassle and frustration of replacing the defectively designed Nanos along to class members.”

The plaintiff alleges that with Steve Jobs whipping the Nano out of his pocket in a TV advert, Apple led consumers to believe the machine was durable.Tomczak argues that even this simple act could lead to a scratched screen, claiming that the resin used in the product was not as thick and strong as in previous iPods.

The plaintiff wraps up his case by alleging that Apple knew about the dodgy quality problems before release but, “fierce competition on the digital music industry” compelled them to release it anyway.

From the heart of Japan’s youth culture — Tokyo’s trendy Shibuya district — Flickr user Purpin describes how Apple is advertising the iPod nano:

As part of their rather unique advertising campaign, huge iPod nano posters now adorn the platform walls of Toyoko Line Shibuya Station.

As you depart the train you’ll be faced with a stream after stream of 1:1 iPod nano cutouts, in which you can pull off and take home. Obviously, I helped myself to a few as well.

Needless to say, with its tens of thousands of people passing through Shibuya station daily, those iPod cutouts won’t last very long.

Fortunately, I was lucky enough to be able to catch a glimpse of the staff furiously “refilling” the empty spaces with new cutouts in between the waves of departing passengers (I took the pictures after the evening rush. I can only imagine how busy these guys can be during rush hour!).

Much to my suprise, I later realised that these cutouts weren’t made of cardboard but of plastic, and are very rigidly built too. On the reverse side were the URL and QR Codes of a site where you can download iPod nano wallpapers for your mobile phone.

Having living somewhere way out from Tokyo, I was very lucky to be able to get my hands on these cutouts AND witness those “refillers” in action. Hats off to Apple and their wonderful advertising.

Update: Apple Japan has more pix of the nano promotion, which give a good idea of its placement in the subway.

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The New York Post notes the similarities between Eminem’s new iPod ad and a 2002 spot for Lugz footwear.

(Like the ads, the Post story bears a similarity to my blog post here on Monday).

Anyway, according to the Post, the Lugz ad was created by New York animation house Psyop on behalf of unnamed ad agency. The Eminem ad was made by TBWA, Apple’s longtime agency.

The Post reports:

“Justin Booth-Clibborn, executive producer for Psyop, said his firm has endured its share of copycats and there are no plans to “make waves.” Still, he admits that even he was struck by the similarities.

“Of all the times that things look like our work, it is the most strikingly similar,” he said.

A posse sticker of your favorite CEO, courtesy of Victor Agreda.

Apple’s at it again. New pro lineup:

Power Mac: Dual-core PowerPC chips across line. Two models: Dual and Quad, which features two dual-core processors, up to 2.5GHz per core. Four PCI Express slots, and “wicked-fast workstation graphics” that can power up to eight Cinema Displasy! Eight! Starts at $2,000; top-of-the-line starts at $3,200.

PowerBooks: Higher res displays (1440-by-960 on the 15″), longer battery life and SuperDrives as standard. $1,400-$2,500.

Aperture: Pro touch-up and archive photo tool. Supports RAW. $500. Not really a Photoshop killer; more like iPhoto on steroids. Get this — it requires Dual 2GHz G5 or faster, 2GB of RAM, 5GB of HD space for ap and tutorials (not counting giant RAW files), and ATI Radeon X800 XT card or better! No worries about it getting pirated: who has the hardware to run such a beast?

I actually don’t like product announcements like this. It makes my 18-month-old PowerBook and G5 look feeble and decrepit. Damn Apple!

“This is my brand new handmade (my wife made it) mac sweater!” writes Sigalakos
on Flickr. “Based on the previous sweater featured here in flickr (sorry i can’t find a link to that). This is a more indie approach with short sleeves.”

The previous Happy/Sad Mac sweater Sigalakos refers to seems to have been removed, but there’s a pic and some details on TUAW.

The new iPod ad starring Eminem bears an uncanny resemblance to a 2002 ad for Lugz, a brand of hip hop footwear.

The two ads share the same concept and execution, the same color palette, and the same graffiti-style motion graphics superimposed over the live action.

Coincidence? Or same advertising company?

A new Automator action converts video for the new iPod in one easy step — much easier than most of the other convoluted techniques out there.

It converts .mov and .dv files, and requires Quicktime Pro ($30).

(Via Jim Heid)

Victor Agreda, Jr. , who normally posts over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, kindly posted some predictions over here about Apple’s announcement in New York Wednesday, saving me the trouble.

Victor writes:

“The PowerBooks will get iSights, as will Apple LCD monitors. We’ll see a sort of iPhoto Pro, but mostly it’ll be a cataloging tool with great RAW support.

Also some other software surprises, and of course, the updates to the G5 towers (dual core dualies, yeah baby!).

You heard it here first for some reason.”

About the anticipated updates, analyst Rob Enderle said: “Apple is very good at getting people revved up into a frenzy to buy something from the company even if they’re not sure what.”

There’s an odd moment in Eminem’s new iPod ad for Apple that seems to illustrate his contempt for either Apple or advertising.

As the ad starts, Eminem’s singing his hit Lose Yourself while a silhouette dancer wearing white earbuds prances about. But suddenly, at the ad’s midpoint, Eminem shouts, “Move it out!” and shoves the iPod dancer aside. The dancer flies out of the frame.

The gesture’s appropriate for a rap video, but not an iPod ad. It’s odd that Eminem got away with such a thing — shoving the figure representing the buyer out of the picture. It undermines the whole ad.

See for yourself. Watch the ad here.

The ad has a history, of course. Eighteen months ago, Eminem sued Apple for allegedly using Lose Yourself without his permission. I seem to remember him making noises about “selling out” at the time. Obviously he changed his mind, but I wonder if the shoving is his way of trying to maintain his dignity?

On Flick: This graduate stuck an Apple logo on top of his graduation cap.

The big flaw in ThinkSecret’s fun-spoiling story that next week’s special event will about PowerBooks and Power Macs, is that Apple doesn’t hold special media events for these kind of upgrades.

Incremental upgrades of existing products are usually ushered in with a press release, or a Macworld mention at best.

Oh, and now ThinkSecret’s saying it is about the iPod, but not the video iPod. New iPod–but not video–on next week’s itinerary.

Sorry, but I’m not convinced.

Paul Gillibrand’s Apple brunch. It’s the full monty!

Se the full Flickr set, including the interactive plan.

(Via Fscklog)

Apple will introduce a major product on October 12 — and it may be the long-awaited video iPod.

The company on Tuesday sent out invites to an event at the plush California Theater in San Jose, where Steve Jobs and Bono introduced the U2 iPod last year.

“Join Apple for ‘One More Thing…'” the invite says, refering to Steve Jobs’ famous line before he unveils a major product.

The invite gives no clue about the product, but AppleInsider — a somewhat reliable rumor site — says it’s a video-capable iPod.

The new iPod will be 60 Gbytes and sport a large, high-resolution color screen.

“The release of the iPod video is expected to be accompanied by a ‘major update’ to Apple’s iTunes music store that will include a significant number of music videos and other short video content,” AppleInsider says.

The site says a video-cpable Airport Express is also in the works.

The quExp widget is handy for keeping track of the enourmous amounts dropped at the Apple Store, as Macfeber’s Roger ?erg notes.

Artist David Ellis specializes in installing turntables in unlikely places, like tree trunks.

Ellis’ Drum Painting Project mixes analog record players with speakers made of cow, deer, and sheep hide.

Here’s a surprisingly affective music video for a song called Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground) by the band Granddaddy.

Made on an Apple II, it consists only of the lyrics scrolling across the screen in ways that illustrate the song.

Here’s the best teardown pictures of the nano so far, courtesy of Japan’s PC Watch.

The iPod nano is flying off store shelves, says Wall Street bank Piper Jaffray.

As reported in Forbes:

Available for six days, the music player is seeing high demand, based on a survey of 20 Apple retail stores, Piper Jaffray said. “No store that we checked with had black 4-gigabyte nanos in stock.”

In the New York Times, Dacid Pogue says the nano will effect Apple’s market share of MP3 players. Writes Pogue:

Apple’s market share won’t stay at 80 percent. It’s about to go up.

If you doubt it, then you haven’t yet handled the iPod Nano: a tiny, flat, shiny wafer of powerful sound that Apple unveiled last week. Beware, however: to see one is to want one. If you hope to resist, lash your credit card to your wallet like Odysseus to the mast.

Spotted on Flickr, a homemade iPod speaker system from someone called ianbrown42 (surely not the great Ian Brown):

“These are remote iPod speakers I scratch-built for my wife’s iPod shuffle. It’s all scientific glass and aluminium construction. The sub-woofer is an inverted glass dome, and a fresnel lens from a rail-car. The guts of the thing is borrowed from a stock computer amp, whilst the speakers themselves are Apple Pro’s.”

“You can see from this alternate view that the tripod legs are made from aluminium garden trowles, polished up.

You can see the CD player I used to test it in the bottom right corner – this thing is huge, and weighs a ton (15 kilos).

The sound is pretty good, as you would expect of apple speakers, but the sub-woofer thumps a bit. Overall a fun project!”

From Pixel y Dixel in Madrid, a striking image of a lamppost and flags.

3000 x 2000 version here.

The Mac Compact Belgium website claims to showcase “the most important collection of Belgium.”

“You could grow this collection!” says the mysterious collector. “Phone me 0472 26 39 90”

Here’s a bigger picture.

(Via LinkMachineGo)

The new ShuffleArt website offers several custom vinyl stickers for the iPod Shuffle. The stickers are for sale, though the ‘pre-order now’ button doesn’t seem to be working.

The site joins PodSkinz, which provides some really stunning iPod sticker art from dozens of artists and designers. (No Shuffle stickers, though).

And then there’s Japan’s Shuffle Sticker Uploader, a BBS boasting dozens of home-brew designs and a downloadable template.

Hit the “Next 5 posts” button at the bottom of each page to see all the designs. There are dozens of pages — I ran out of patience before seeing them all. Because of the site’s huge bandwidth, older designs are stored at the Shuffle Art Archive, where there are more than 200 Shuffle sticker designs.

(Via Cool Hunting)

Marking Steve Jobs’ 50th birthday today, artist Tomi has created a Lego version of the Apple CEO delivering a keynote speech.

The limited-edition Lego Jobs is portrayed onstage clutching an iPod and an iPod shuffle. His image is projected on a backdrop behind him — just like a real Macworld Expo keynote

The figure is limited to 300, and will go on sale at midnight tonight (ET) for $17. See the PodBrix site.

Tomi’s last figure — a silhouette from the iPod ads — sold out in 10 hours, according to the site.

Spotted in the car park at Apple HQ.

Says the photographer: “Great car, right attitude — this driver’s got class!”

Update: In the interest of preserving the driver’s privacy, I removed the link to the original picture which clearly shows the license number. Thanks Davinder.