News - page 2321

Sort-of-UPDATE 3: And for anyone wondering whether the games featured in this post really do use true isometric projection, Adam Banks discusses this in a blog post.

UPDATE 2: At the time of writing (10:51 GMT+1), EDGE has now been pulled—again—from the App Store, this time on a worldwide basis. We now have a fuller story on this development.

UPDATE: I spoke to David Papazian of Mobigame, who told us that during discussions with Langdell, with the aim of settling amicably, Langdell not only proposed conditions unacceptable to Mobigame, but also stated the company had set out to copy one of EDGE’s most popular titles, Bobby Bearing. When Mobigame mentioned Marble Madness, Langdell even claimed his 1986 effort was actually completed before 1984’s Marble Madness and that Atari’s game is the clone. (I myself interviewed Marble Madness creator Mark Cerny a year or so back, and given the nature of how that game came to be—it actually started life as a mini-golf game—I find it hugely unlikely that this could be the case, even when you don’t take into account the two or more years between the games’ release dates.)

During investigative conversations between Mobigame and Bobby Bearing’s creators, questions have been raised as to rights ownership, with the game’s creators claiming they own the rights, not EDGE Games; furthermore, they do not consider Bobby Bearing and Edge similar games, which, having played both, I entirely agree with. Even on a superficial basis, there’s little similarity, bar the viewpoint.

Compromise was almost reached in May with Mobigames saying they’d rename their game Edgy in some territories, but discussions broke down, culminating in Langdell registering that trademark himself in the USA. Here’s hoping the ‘macho posturing’ doesn’t lead to Edge being removed from the store again. The $4.99 effort is one of the finest titles we’ve played this month. [Edge App Store link]

Oh, how we all love you, Tim Langdell. You sit there on the IGDA (International Game Developers Association) board, and boast about your 30 years of experience in the gaming industry. And yet you seemingly spend your life suing the crap out of anyone with the audacity to use the word ‘edge’ in gaming, due to trademark ownership relating to your videogame company, EDGE Games.

For this reason, Mobigame’s Edge was pulled from the App Store in May (it’s now returned), and Langdell now has his sights set on console game Edge of Twilight (no, we’re not kidding, sadly). Unfortunately, he’s also not quite done with the Edge iPhone game.

On Twitter, Mobigame reported “Tim Langdell is threatening us again… is this love?”, and a report on FingerGaming notes that Mobigame’s David Papazien says Langdell’s now not only affirming his rights to the Edge trademark, but claiming Edge ripped off an ancient EDGE game, Bobby Bearing. Sorry for the italics, but this statement actually make me nearly choke on my cup of tea.

I’m somewhat oldish, and I remember playing Bobby Bearing. (I also remember paying ten quid for the cassette version and discovering that the idiots at EDGE had shipped it entirely without sound—thanks, Tim!) In fact, here’s a screen grab, taken from C64 gaming website Lemon64:

And here’s Edge, taken from the Mobigame website:

On the face of it, you might, if you hadn’t actually played the games, argue that Langdell has a point. Both games use an axonometric projection viewpoint, commonly referred to as ‘isometric’ in the games industry. Also, both have you controlling a small geometric character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions.

But wait! I’m sure I’ve seen something like this before somewhere…

Oh, look! A game with an axonometric projection viewpoint, where you control a small geometric  character around a blocky, retro-oriented videogame world where you can move reasonably freely in several directions! From 1984! Plus, when you actually play Edge, you realise how little it has in common with Bobby Bearing (and, indeed, Marble Madness) anyway…

Having done some digging, it wouldn’t entirely shock us to discover that Langdell’s aggression and, well, ‘jerkness’ are in part down to Bobby Bearing Remix for iPod touch being on its way. But with Edge already being available and great, the fab Marble Madness due soon for Apple portables (and Atari’s iPod touch games being rather good) and Bobby Bearing these days being slightly less fun than being repeatedly punched in the face by someone wearing an extra-large boxing glove stuffed with a brick, we’d suggest, Tim, that you put your energy into actually making your old, tired IP into a decent game, rather than suing the perceived competition. And here’s another free tip: just try suing Atari over Marble Madness. (No, really, please do, because it’d be really funny and we’d love to see you try.)

The MacBook Air is thin, sexy machine, but you wouldn’t want one smashed into your chest during a car accident.

That’s what happened to this MacBook Air above. It was sitting in a man’s lap when the airbag went off and crushed it into his chest, bending the lid like a Taco. Amazingly, the computer still works, but it left a MacBook-shaped mark on the man’s chest. The man is lucky — the MacBook Air is thin enough to slice through bread and human flesh (see the pix after the jump).

“He does have a bruise that matches the leading edge of the MacBook Air,” says Dana Stibolt, president of MacMedics, the Maryland repair shop that’s attempting to fix the machine.

Stibolt says the man had the MacBook Air open in his lap as he sat in the passenger seat. When the car was involved in a serious smash, the airbag deployed and “pushed the top edge of the MacBook Air (where the camera is) into him, and then kept pushing from the bottom of the hinge area effectively crushing it on his chest,” says Stibolt. Ouch!

The picture on the screen – which looks like a black-and-white mountain — is the pattern of the broken LCD.

Stibolt is hoping to replace the screen — the rest of the computer seems to work fine. More at MacMedics.

Apple has disabled AT&T tethering in the latest iPhone beta released to developers on Tuesday.

The iPhone OS 3.1 beta 2 disables a popular tethering hack for the AT&T network. The hack works on iPhone 3.0, even though AT&T does yet officially support it.

The hack enables data tethering (and sometimes MMS)  by altering the iPhone’s IPCC carrier files. It’s easily enabled by visiting sites like BenM.at using mobile Safari on the iPhone.

AT&T has promised tethering later this year, but has yet to release details. The company is expected to be enabled in late summer and cost about $15 extra.

Thanks QuickPWN.

Image credit: Randy Stewart

And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They’re quite aware of what they’re going through.
– David Bowie

One day, people may point to an article published Monday at PCMag.com (perhaps the preeminent Windows-foucused tech magazine around) by long-time Apple-baiting columnist John C. Dvorak, as a signal for the storming of Microsoft’s figurative Bastille.

“If I was going to buy a new laptop this minute, a MacBook Pro is probably what I’d get,” are words almost no tech watcher of the past 20 years would ever figure to come from Dvorak, the smart, engaging veteran columnist who has taken over the years a nearly perverse glee in stirring up the bee hive of Apple loyalists in tech journalism.

But that’s exactly what Dvorak had to say after seeing first-hand “all these whiz-bang features” of his son’s brand-new MacBook Pro that, he said, “make me realize that I have fallen behind.”

But don’t go thinking Dvorak has fully consumed the kool-aid or that his enmity for Apple will abate completely anytime soon. The real reason he’s kindly disposed to an Apple product at this point, aside from “that hard aluminum unibody that makes the thing feel like a rock,” is a piece of software his son required, DEVONthink, which organizes and sorts PDF files into manageable database blocks – and has no Windows-based counterpart. “It’s about as close to a killer Apple app as anything I’ve seen since VisiCalc in the late ’70s,” he gushed.

Of course no Dvorak piece would be complete without a pointed jab at something Apple, and he dutifully reported his son’s experience at the Apple Store as something akin to “a car dealership in the ’70s, with layers of various salespeople, each trying to screw you.”

“I actually think that the Apple Stores are barriers to sales, and people only buy Macs because the machines have clearly moved ahead in genuine usefulness,” he wrote, saying, “overall, it’s a pathetic indictment of the entire PC scene.”

Well, perhaps it’s a reach to tar the entire PC scene with the same brush, but clearly change is in the air and more and more people such as Dvorak’s kid are coming around to just how far Apple machines have moved ahead.

It’s at least a bright sign that someone like Dvorak has finally noticed.

If you’re looking for an interesting portal into the iTunes App Store’s 65,000+ titles with as little risk as possible, www.appgiveaway.com may be a resource worth checking out.

The website, which launched this spring and is gaining traffic steadily, posts descriptions of 5 – 8 apps per day in different categories (games, entertainment, utilities, business, etc.) and gives promo codes away randomly to users who register and indicate their interest in particular apps.

The site was originally conceived as a marketing vehicle for app developers, with the enticement for iPhone and iPod Touch users who like the idea of possibly getting a paid app for free.

“We seek out developers and they also find us,” said Al Lijee, an AppGiveAway spokesman, adding, “Developers have been kind and posted us in forums and are linking back to us from their websites.”

Posted apps currently get between 40 – 70 people registering for promo giveaways, Lijee told Cult of Mac, and the site gives away around 30 codes for each app it features.

Hell is other people’s karaoke, or maybe it just seems that way if you’ve had too much to drink.

An inebriated man in Seattle got himself kicked out of a sing-a-long bar for heckling — so fast he left his Mac behind.

Here’s how the sorry tale is recounted on the Seattle Hill Blog police blotter:

“A man contacted the police complaining that a tan American Eagle bag which contained “a Mac laptop and several novels” had been stolen from inside the Crescent Lounge. The man was extremely inebriated and had been thrown out of the bar after cursing at patrons performing karaoke. Police and staff could not find the bag.”

Who’s sorry now?

Via Seattle Hill Blog:

What it is: Daisy Disk is Mac utility software that, sadly works only on machines running OS 10.5 and later, because it’s the kind of thing that could make you want to investigate your hard disk daily.

Why it’s cool: The interface is just plain awesome. Daisy Disk scans any mounted disk and displays it on a beautiful sunburst map, where segments mean files and folders, and are displayed proportionally to their sizes.

The map is easy to read and navigate and lets you quickly preview any file and reveal it in Finder to delete.

It’s essentially like running the Mac’s built-in disk utility on your volume, but where’s the fun in that?

Where to get it: Download a free 15 day trial version or buy it outright for $19.95 from the secure online Daisy Disk store.

Screenshots after the jump.

[Thanks mustardhamsters]

With new rumors about the much anticipated Apple tablet hitting Monday, it seems fair to ask how one is supposed to decode the storms of speculation that have long whirled around the company and its products.

Some thrive on rumor and innuendo about Apple – the largely well-regarded Macrumors attracts over 6 million unique visitors per month, AppleInsider nearly a million – and with Apple’s penchant for absolute secrecy over its design department and product development it’s no surprise whispers and baseless fantasy comprise much of what passes for “news” about Apple.

If Apple really is coming out with a tablet in October, or AT&T really is going to open tethering to the US iPhone market in September (a persistent rumor AT&T continues to deny with respect to both price and timing), does it benefit anyone to know about it now? And if it turns out there is (again) no tablet, or that tethering comes tomorrow for free (you wish), how does that affect the way one is supposed to receive the next rumored news item about what they’re up to in Cupertino?

These questions are one small aspect of the larger debate about the ways news and journalism are changing in the Internet age. Traditional news organizations have been cutting resources for true investigative journalism for years, in favor of selling ads and eyeballs with cheap sensationalism, in part because it often seems that’s what the public wants, but also because it’s easier to publish a rumor than it is to get at the truth or to take time to think about and craft a well-reasoned opinion piece.

Monday’s rumor about the Apple tablet originated with a report at the China Times, which is no tabloid sheet, and appears to be based on information about companies high up in the Apple supply chain that a respectable news organization would be able to source and confirm before printing as news. Do standards of journalistic ethics prevail at major news organizations in Asia? Have budgets for investigative journalism survived the impulse to feed the public’s insatiable desire for knowing what the future holds?

The answer to such questions holds the key to understanding how to receive a report about what Apple has up its sleeve. What you believe comes down to whatever you can know for yourself and who you can trust to tell you the truth. Ultimately, no one really knows until the lights come up at the next Apple “event” – and, after all, anticipation is more intoxicating than feeling you already know what’s coming.

When boy meets girl in comedy 500 Days of Summer, he’s wearing an iPod. She hears The Smith’s “There is a Light that Never Goes Out” emoting from his headphones and they’re off.

That’s nothing new: the iPod crops up in plenty of movies. But this may be the first time a director used one to coach actors.

Director Marc Webb, who comes to the big screen from the music video world, gave actors Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel iPod Minis to help them prep.

Webb packed the devices with songs that he listened to while breaking down the script. The actors also had a playlist designed to  convey the mood he was going after on each day of shooting. Deschanel told the WSJ she particularly liked day 44, dominated by Regina Specktor.

UPDATE: According to today’s reports, Apple will not recall iPod Nanos in Korea, but exchange faulty batteries.

An Apple Korea spokesman denied the recall, telling  Joong An Daily the problem iPod Nano products were sold between September 2005 and December 2006. These products are no longer being sold in any of Apple Korea’s stores.

Apple will recall first-generation iPod Nanos in Korea after complaints that faulty batteries cause the MP3 devices to overheat and explode.

Since December 2008, four users filed complaints with the the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards over bugged iPod Nanos — three of them were for battery meltdowns while recharging.

The agency prodded Apple to recall first-gen iPod Nanos; Apple agreed to accept the recall recommendation but refused further comment.

Reports of iPod Nano battery meltdown have cropped up before, Japanese government launched an investigation into battery snafus in 2008.

Ever had an iPod battery overheat and liquify? Any success in getting a replacement?

Via Korea Herald, WSJ

Word Flipper is an addictive, fast-paced word search game for iPhone and iPod Touch that just hit the iTunes App Store with update 1.1 and is bound to generate new buzz with some excellent feature updates.

One user describes it as “Sort of Boggle meets Dance Dance Revolution with a carnival twist!” but it really must be played to be appreciated.

Jamie Grove, Word Flipper’s developer, said, “I wanted to make a game that combined my love of word games with the fast-moving action available on the iPhone/iPod Touch,” which he’s done by incorporating innovative use of the iPhone OS accelerometer.

The new version also incorporates social media functionality, with achievement awards, global leaderboards, and integration with Facebook and Twitter.

Word Flipper (iTunes link) is available now on the App Store and sells for 99¢.

This is the latest in a series of keen, green-leaning Apple accessories, like the iPhone stands made of wood or the steampunk-esque iPod case.

Josh Darrah, an Australian graphic designer, crafted this iPod Mini case entirely in wood — with a nifty matching charger dock.

Darrah told Stuff he spent about four weekends to craft the case out of just $12 USD in materials — Australian red cedar for the main shell and Camphor Laurel for the click wheel and base.

He used screws instead of glue, making it a little greener (he did employ some double sided tape to secure the clickwheel).

More pics after the jump.

XMenu from the Devonthink people is one of those freeware apps that I recommend to every Mac user I meet. The latest update, version 1.9, is newly released and boasts visual refinements and a helpful new feature.

For the uninitiated, XMenu is a Menu Bar widget for getting to stuff quickly without leaving the app you’re in. What I like most about it is its flexibility. You can have six different shortcuts in your Menu Bar if you like, or just one if you prefer to keep things simple.

That’s what I do. I use the user-defined widget and throw aliases for useful files and folders into ~/Library/Application Support/XMenu – that way, I keep my Menu Bar uncluttered but XMenu still gives me quick click access to stuff like my todo.txt, my income and expenses records, and a handful of use-them-every-day folders.

If your Dock is overcrowded with folders or stacks that you don’t use because, well, because it’s overcrowded, then you should have a look at XMenu. This latest update adds a text snippets manager that works just the same as the user-defined widgets. Put some plain or rich text files in the right place, and XMenu will let you insert them into any app with two clicks.

People have been speculating about a Google OS for years, and finally it’s official. Chrome OS will be open source, free, and popping up on a netbook near you in about a year or so from now.

And do you think Apple’s worried? Nah.

Two weeks after an iPhone 3GS was dropped in a swimming pool while recording video, the phone is still frickin’ working says its owner.

“I’m talking to you on it now,” says Khena Kara, the iPhone’s owner, speaking from his home in Nashville, TN. “It’s still going strong.”

Kara’s iPhone 3GS gained internet fame after Kara accidentally dropped it in a swimming pool while recording a video. The iPhone kept recording as it sank to the bottom, and as he fished it out. “It still frickin’ works!” he says in surprise as he pulls the iPhone from the pool. Kara posted the footage to YouTube, and it spread fast on blogs and Twitter. It has now been watched more that 500,000 times.

But many questioned the video’s authenticity. Most notably, Mashable wondered whether it was real.

“Yes, it’s real,” says Kara of the video. “It was the pool in my subdivision.”

Above is a video still of Kara taken from the iPhone video right after it was fished from the pool. And below it is a new picture of Kara taken with the same iPhone.

The new picture’s metadata appears to back up Kara’s story.

In the unlikely event that you’ve been yearning for more browsers on your Mac, and in the even less likely event that you wish you could splash out money for one; well, sunshine, your prayers have been answered.

For iCab, the last Mac browser that still costs money, is still being updated and has just reached version 4.6.1. And it can be all yours for 20 bucks. (I’m wracking my brains, and I can’t think of any other browsers that cost money these days – not since OmniWeb went free. Shout if you know of another.)

The United States Department of Justice has taken the first baby steps that could eventually lead to an official investigation of the Telecom industry and the effects its exclusive carrier agreements have on consumer prices and choices, according to a Wall Street Journal report Monday.

The initial review looks to determine whether large U.S. telecom companies such as AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have abused the market power they’ve amassed in recent years, according to people familiar with the matter.

Largely moribund and hamstrung by internal politics and inefficiency during the Bush administration, DOJ under President Barack Obama has seen renewed relevance as an arm of the Federal government and has lately signaled business as usual could soon be ending for an industry left to its own devices during the past decade or more.

Many people have long decried exclusive carrier agreements that make popular gadgets such as Apple’s iPhone available only to consumers willing to sign multi-year service agreements with AT&T and likewise Blackberry’s Storm to those who’d sign with Verizon.

The Wall Street Journal quoted the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, Christine Varney, saying she wants to “reassert the government’s role in policing monopolistic and anti-competitive practices by powerful companies.”

Apple’s iPhone has recently become the most popular camera on Flickr, one of the Internet’s most well-regarded photo sharing social media sites.

Expressed in “percent of members” terms, the iPhone has lately bested two models of Canon’s EOS Digital Rebel, of which the XTi had long been the clear favorite choice of Flickr members.

UPDATE: Since this post was originally published, the Flickr site’s graph has been changed, and now shows the iPhone is the #2 camera among Flickr members, resting just behind the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi, which has apparently enjoyed a bump in popularity for which the previously published graph did not account.

[Thanks Rafael, for the heads-up on the graph change!]

Among popular camera phones, the iPhone has outdistanced its rivals since its release two years ago and recently widened the gap between its nearest competitor, the Nokia N95, by a huge margin.

The data is to be taken with a grain of salt as anecdotal and largely unscientific, but it is interesting to note such graphic evidence of popularity for a phone camera that had been denigrated by many as one of the most pitiable features of Apple’s popular smartphone.

Apple recently upgraded the specs on the iPhone camera, giving it a boost in pixel capacity and adding both variable focus and video capabilities, which should only increase its attractiveness going forward.

Spot the difference? One of these is a $30 iPhone Stereo Headset from Apple. The other is a $14 knockoff from the Philippines.

Thing is, the $14 copycat is as almost good as the original. It’s nearly physically indistinguishable. The sound is exceptionally good. And the microphone/remote works the same as it does on the genuine article.

Even the packaging is remarkably realistic.

Except there’s a few things that are off — a few minor details that give them away as fakes. Plus, they broke down after a week.

The audio manufacturer Shure is known for its excellent headphones, which makes it a favorite target of counterfeiters.

In May, Shure helped Chinese authorities bust knockoff shops run by two Shanghai companies that were making copycat Shure headphones. The raids uncovered large quantities of Shure E2c and E4c earphones, which sell for about $70 and $170 respectively, as well as headphones branded JVC and Audio-Technica.

Unlike copycats of yore, today’s counterfeiters are amazingly sophisticated and accomplished, turning out high-quality knockoffs that in some ways rival the originals. Flickr user digaderfox bought a pair of fake Shures on eBay last year, and documented the surprisingly high quality of the knockoffs on the photo site.

Apple is also is becoming a target of copycats, with amazingly good knockoffs of iPhones and headsets coming onto the market.

SEE ALSO:

Marvel At the Ingenuity of the Chinese iPhoney, iPhone Knockoffs Now Near Perfect

Copycats Target $30 Apple Earbuds, And These Are Perfect

Paul Applebaum, Shure’s Executive Vice President and General Counsel, said counterfeiters are increasingly sophisticated. Some are setting up convincing factory-direct websites, or hijacking U.S. eBay accounts to make it appear goods are shipped domestically.

Full interview after the jump.

Security video from Friday’s violent armed robbery at the Apple Store in Arlington, Virginia, has been posted to YouTube.

The Arlington police are cleverly using YouTube to broadcast crime videos with appeals for help from the public.

The latest video is from Friday’s robbery at the Apple Store Clarendon in Arlington, in which a female employee was shot in the shoulder and wounded. The 26-year woman is in hospital in serious but stable condition, police said.

In the security video, the employee is seen opening the back door to the store after the suspect rang the bell at about 10.15 AM. She is led back into the store at gunpoint, and was shot soon afterward. The suspect fled on foot.

Police describe the suspect as a thin black male, aged 35-45, wearing a dark baseball cap and light-colored shirt and pants.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Arlington County Police Department Tip Line at 703 228-4242.

Or call Detective Alan Lowrey at 703 228-4199 or Detective Michael Austin at 703 228-4241. Det. Lowrey can also be reached via email at [email protected] and Det. Austin can be reached at [email protected].

Full text of the police description of the crime and appeal for help after the jump.

Thanks Pancho.

Feel slightly bad for the folks at Marshall Aerospace out on the tarmac, using forklifts or putting planes together who got used to listening to ambient or Vegan-a-Go-Go podcasts while on the job.

Following the advice of a health and safety expert,  the 1,500 employees of the Cambridge, UK company have been banned from using iPods at work.

“There have been no particular incidents,” said an unnamed spokesman in a press release. “But on our site there are aircraft, forklift trucks and so on moving around – and we are a precision engineering firm. We feel that people should always be concentrating fully.”

He added: “We don’t get middle-aged employees wearing iPods but we do see employees in their 20s who listen to music while working.”

Comforting to know the young ‘uns won’t be distracted on the job.

What other professions should be banned from using iPods at work?

On Twitter, Eucalyptus author Jamie Montgomerie says his app is now saddled with a 17+ rating, a change he made after Apple requested that he do so. (And, oddly, the app is referred to as a game on its App Store page warning section.) You may recall that the app caused controversy when Apple rejected it, primarily for it enabling you to download the text from Kamasutra. Apple later relented, but now the app has all sorts of warnings on the App Store, as shown above.

Again, the problem isn’t so much Apple’s decision—although it seems heavy-handed for a text-based eReader that only grabs content from Project Gutenberg—but a lack of consistency. At the time of writing, Free Books (App Store link) is rated 12+, while Stanza (App Store link) is rated 4+, despite it providing access to Project Gutenberg and a bunch more content.

Here’s hoping Apple soon starts levelling the playing field for all, because it’d be a huge shame for a great piece of indie software to lose sales due to having a rating none of its similar competition has.

Eucalyptus is available for $9.99 on the App Store and comes recommended if you can deal with the kind of mind-warping infrequent/mild alcohol references, infrequent/mild profanity, infrequent/mild horror themes, frequent/intense mature/suggestive themes and infrequent/mild sexual content that Apple argues you’ll find in the text of classic out-of-copyright novels.

For all of its public perception as a great censoring overlord, the Chinese government leaves plenty of wiggle room for computer manufacturers, including Apple, to avoid complying with recently mandated strict Internet filtering requirements.

While foreign and domestic makers of computers running Windows will eventually have to ship their machines with controversial Green Dam Youth Escort software, other machines running Mac OS X or Linux, for example, will be exempt from the mandate, according to a report at Yahoo Tech.

An Apple sales representative in Beijing indicated Green Dam is not being bundled with Macs sold at the Apple Store there because the software, which blocks pornography and “sensitive” political content, is not compatible with the Mac’s operating system.

In addition, a Lenovo spokesperson confirmed its computers running Linux are also being shipped without Green Dam and said the Ministry of Industry and Information and Technology is not requiring non-Windows machines to come with the program.

A source connected with Green Dam developers said they are testing the software on non-Windows platforms but did not indicate when or if an OS X compatible update might be released.

Updated: Police have confirmed that a 26-year-old female Apple employee was shot in the shoulder and injured at the Apple Store Clarendon in Arlington, Virginia, during a “violent armed robbery” at about 10.15AM.

The suspect rang a doorbell at the back service entrance and shot a female employee as soon as she opened the door, the Washington Post reports. A police spokeswoman said it is unclear if the employee had words with the shooter or put up resistance to the robbery.

According to the Post, only two employees were in the store at the time, the shooting victim and another employee who was in the main showroom. The other employee called police as soon as they heard the gunshot. It’s unclear if there were customers in the store at the time, the police said. The shooting occurred about 15 minutes after the store opened.

The shooting victim was injured in the shoulder. The injuries are not considered life-threatening, police said.

The suspect is described as a medium build black male, aged between of 35 and 45, with facial hair. He was wearing a dark baseball cap, a light-colored shirt and pants. He fled on foot, carrying a handgun.

Security camera footage of the shooting may be released to the public to help the search, police said.

The store is located in the tony Market Common outdoor shopping district, which is considered a quiet, safe area.

“I think it’s a sign of the times, the economy, when you have someone desperate enough to rob an Apple store in an area like this,” said a shopper who was planning to buy a new MacBook.