Webmonkey thinks iTunes sucks. And gives 10 reasons to bolster the case for saying so, including serious gripes about the infelicity of its library management, slow performance and its demands on system resources.
We agree with the complaint that iTunes refuses to let you take music off your iPod and put it in the library while almost every other music app out there manages to handle that task. And we’re resigned to the inevitability of iTunes for iPhone and iPod updates, but maybe there are better apps for managing a collection of digital music, like Songbird and Amarok.
Is the meteoric rise in demand for Apple’s iPhone cooling off? BMO Capital is the latest to issue a projection of slower production of the handset for the first fiscal quarter of 2009.
BMO’s Keith Bachman Thursday reduced his estimate for first quarter iPhone sales to 5.6 million from 6.6 million. At the heart of the prediction is 2 million of the 6.9 million units sold in September went into inventory.The analyst said due to that “channel fill” it will be difficult for the December quarter to compare to the 6.9 million handsets sold in the quarter ended September 30.
The analyst said the December quarter will bring 5.6 million iPhones sold, down from 6.6 million previously projected. Still the number is expected to be a 15 percent increase in end-user sales over the 4.9 million sold in September.
Plenty of people are tut-tutting today about the lavish “transition agreement” outgoing iPod guru Tony Fadell signed in order to spend more time with his young family and act as special adviser to Steve Jobs during the coming year. And surely $300K per year in salary, with stock options worth upwards of $8 million makes the worst economic downturn in 50 years seem like something a 39 year-old guy might survive.
But reports filed with the SEC indicate Apple reimburses Steve Jobs for expenses traveling on the company’s private Gulfstream jet to the tune of 2/3 Fadell’s annual package per quarter, and even that number is well down from the amount the company was spending on the corporate jet just one year ago.
Puts the whole financial crisis thing in perspective, doesn’t it?
In an emailed response to another user disappointed in the performance of the glass trackpad on his new MacBook Pro, Steve Jobs said, “Software Fix coming soon,” according to MacRumors.
We reported on the possible dustup over quirky trackpads on Monday, noting the growing number of threads related to user concerns about it in Apple’s discussion forums. In comments to our post Cult of Mac readers, on balance, haven’t seemed to find it much of an issue, but if a software patch is indeed forthcoming, that should be good news to all who have been bothered by the problem.
If you’re looking to pick up an iPhone cheap, you may want to avoid any opportunities that arise for you in Russia. It seems there’s an increasingly popular scam there where people want to quickly unload their iPhone with a nearly discharged battery in order to quickly raise funds for a train or plane ticket. They show you the phone with an Apple logo that lights up momentarily when the power button is pressed and say, “just charge it and you have an iPhone!”
Not surprisingly, the insides look something like what you see in the gallery below, complete with a steel plate to give the fake phone some heft, and batteries to produce the lit-up logo. At least the fake Rolex watches tell time, don’t they?
So this has popped up in the feeds this afternoon, and after my initial excited clicking all I can say is “Oh.”
Because it really isn’t a proper keyboard, it’s a tiny clip on thing that does little more than recreate the built-in software keyboard in plastic. The typing’s slow, and all thumbs anyhow.
Not exactly hot under the collar to see this movie, since by most accounts it is a rom-com gone wrong, but Zack and Miri Make a Porno is a hotbed for Apple product placement.
The trailer features an ailing iBook, showing us exactly how desperate our two young friends are for cash. The movie also has a part for Justin Long, “Get a Mac” Apple adman as a gay porno star, leaving at least one person to suggest the actor is an Apple endorsement, too.
Nearly 25 percent of Japan’s music fans use Apple’s iTunes software, compared to 19 percent of the U.S. online population, a media measurement firm announced Tuesday.
The iTunes application, used by iPod and iPhone owners to purchase and organize digital music, found 23.7 percent penetration of the nation’s Internet users, according to comScore. Globally, 11.2 percent of the world’s Internet users prefer iTunes, the study found.
The UK had the second largest percentage of iTunes fans with 23.4 percent penetration coming a close second to the gadget-hungry island nation.
The U.S. was ranked third with 19.6 percent reach of iTunes. France and Germany completed the top five iTunes countries, the company reported.
Dead Macs. You see them sometimes. Upended in a trash bin or shopping cart. Pilfered for parts, poked and prodded by scavengers who have left just the most useless innards behind.
Xgoes.mob is the first iPhone-only porn cam site.
Those who have tried the subscriber service are reluctant to give it the thumbs-up due to sluggish loading times and the quality of the flesh on offer.
For more hot scrolling action: here’s the site (uh, NSFW).
Is the exit of Tony Fadell, labeled the “Father of the iPod,” a signal Apple has larger plans for the device now partially eclipsed by the iPhone? Yes, say Apple experts.
“We believe this is the second major indication of the future of the iPod as a mobile computing platform,” Andrew Murphy, analyst at Piper Jaffray, told Cult of Mac Tuesday.
The introduction of the iPod Touch was the first tip Apple was moving toward greater mobile computing, Murphy added.
Fadell, who joined Cupertino in 2001, was a senior vice president in the iPod division. He’ll become an advisor to Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The decision, made with his Apple Human Resources executive wife Danielle Lambert, was to “devote more time to their young family,” Apple announced.
Former IBM vice president Mark Papermaster will take Fadell’s position, a move Murphy believes means more emphasis on hardware.
“Papermaster’s experience in chip design and his replacement of Tony Fadell shows Apple focusing on mobile devices and possibly doing their own chips for the devices (iPods and iPhones),” the Piper Jaffray analyst wrote in an e-mail to Cult of Mac.
President Dimitry Medvedev governs Russia from what looks like a Mac Book Pro, if photos released by the Kremlin are any indication. Something about a guy with an open shirt, no tie and a manageable pile of papers running a country doesn’t look right to me. It looks like the Russian government uses plenty of PCs, if the equipment in the background is any indication.
Medvedev, not new to the Apple world, has been also seen with an iPhone, before it was available on the local market.
Tony Fadell, Apple’s Senior VP of the iPod division and the man who first brought the idea of a small hard drive-based music player to the company, will step down shortly, according to the Wall Street Journal. He joined the company in 2001, setting up the first iPod engineering team and overseeing its design.
According to the Journal, Mark Papermaster, the IBM VP that is being sued by Big Blue to try to stop him from working for Apple, will take over the role. This all makes sense — Steve Jobs has publicly stated that Apple bought PA-Semi in order to develop systems on a chip to power iPods and iPhones, and Papermaster is a total guru of the POWER architecture upon which PowerPC chips and, in turn, PA-Semi’s silicon, are based.
Fadell is one of Apple’s least-known legends, even though he should be credit more than anyone else with creating the iPod. It’s a shame to see him go, but Apple tends to be a place where people burn out fast, and Tony rose incredibly quickly from contractor to SVP in five years.
With refreshed Apple iPod and notebook computer product lines having hit the shelves in the past few months we wouldn’t exactly call it a lump of coal in our stocking, but some people are bound to be disappointed there will be no new products from the company in time for holiday gift buying.
Apple spokesman Bill Evans said, “”Our holiday line-up is set,” according to a report today at Macworld.
The official word out of Cupertino would seem to quash a host of recent speculation regarding the MacMini, AppleTV and even the iMac, which was already juiced with new processors in the spring.
Seems logical Apple would feel comfortable with the lineup it has in place going into what promises to be a nervous retail season amidst what some are calling the worst economic downturn in 50 years.
Erratic behavior with the glass trackpad on new Mac notebooks appears to be a growing concern for some Apple customers. A buyer emailed Steve Jobs over the weekend complaining the trackpad on his new MacBook Pro was not registering physical clicks consistently and received a telephone response from Apple support indicating the company is investigating the matter, according to a report today at AppleInsider.
A survey of the discussion forums on the Apple website indicates nearly 100 threads have been opened in the past week on the subject of “trackpad problem” for the new unibody aluminum notebooks, with most users complaining the trackpad does not always register a click when it should, while some also report the pad loses all functionality at its outer edges, and several believe the sensitivity of the trackpad leads to erratic, unpredictable behavior.
With any new product there is bound to be something of a learning curve while users become familiar with its capabilities, and the new trackpads certainly have been designed to support a wide range of two, three, and four-finger gestures that could be causing some users confusion and frustration.
I asked my colleague Pete Mortensen, who wrote glowingly about his new MacBook a couple of weeks ago, how he’s finding life with the new trackpad. “I actually do get some of those issues some of the time – not always, but sometimes,” he says, noting, “it’s worst in the bottom edge dead center. Moving up a little or millimeters to the side fixes it.”
How about you, dear reader? Have you found the new trackpads quirky? And if so, do you think it’s something you’ll get used to, or does Apple have a production issue on its hands?
I asked Pete if the trackpad behavior made him long for his 12″ PowerBook G4 and he replied, “I don’t miss my 12″ G4 at all!”
Apple may have cut by 40 percent fourth quarter production of its flagship iPhone handset, a Friedman, Billings, Ramsey analyst said Monday.
The drop in production would be far deeper than the 10 percent cut previously anticipated.
“Our new checks indicate that iPhone production could fall more than 40 percent sequentially in the 4Q,” FBR’s Craig Berger wrote in a note to clients.
The drop in production shouldn’t be interpreted as a dip in iPhone demand. In October, Apple reported shipping 6.9 million iPhones during the third quarter.
However, the lowered production may signal “no market segment will be spared in this global downturn,” wrote Berger.
16-year-old Nick Fala runs a thriving repair business for all things Apple from his parent’s home in Westerville, Ohio.
At age 10, he started repairing Macs for friends and relatives. After the iPhone debut, he had enough customers to start a business. Now his company NF Technology Services, fixes Apple computers, iPods and iPhones for corporate clients as well as his aunt, cousins and neighbors.
Not bad for a kid who probably just got his driver’s license.
If you’re going down under, or know someone who is, have them pick up an iPod for you. The free fall of the Australian dollar has made it the cheapest place to buy one.
A survey of 62 countries found that an Apple iPod 8gb nano, measured in US dollars, cost $131.95 US dollars in Australia. That’s five percent cheaper than in Indonesia, where the same iPod would cost $138.47.
In Hong Kong, which used to top the cheap iPod scale, the same MP3 player now costs $148.36, almost exactly what it retails for in the US, $149.
Ok, so a “currency discount” of about 14% percent isn’t enough to warrant consumer electronics spending spree down under but it’s interesting to see how the iPod indicator/Big Mac idex on these prices fluctuates.
In this dark, puzzling British comedy starring Mackenzie Crook (Pirates of the Caribbean, the original The Office series) as a tube driver who has to kill someone to fulfill his dream, the plot twist is underlined in one of the final scenes when a Mac shows up.
Just a few days after announcing that Mac support for Netflix’s Watch Instantly service was on the way, the company has opened the door to its public beta here. With a quick install of Microsoft Silverlight 2.0, you’ll be good to go — not even a browser restart was necessary for me. I’ve been playing with it for about an hour now, and I’m really impressed. At least on my (admittedly brand-new) MacBook, it loads almost instantly, the video and audio quality is great, and the suggestions really do mesh with my taste. And none of the bizarre error messages I’ve seen in reviews of the older Windows version.
The site suggests that a 1.5 Ghz Intel chip is the minimum for Mac support. Anyone with an older machine had the chance to put this service through its paces?
Virginia Commonwealth University design student Kyle Buckner had an assignment “to create a pedestal to hold [a] ‘precious object’.”
We hope he received an A+ for the hand-carved wooden stand he created for his iPhone. Complete with Home Screen icon “leafs” that connect to a rod that spins inside the stand’s main arm, Buckner’s piece is made completely of wood, save for bits of plexiglass which connect each icon leaf to its “branch” on the stand.
Other World Computing, an Illinois-based technology company, announced today the availability of a new service that converts your existing Intel Core 2 Duo based MacBook into a tablet computer that lets you draw and write directly on the screen.
Called Modservice, for prices starting at $1300, OWC will convert your Apple machine into an Axiotron Modbook.
MacBook owners who want to convert their computer into a Modbook can also have OWC upgrade the base features of the MacBook for additonal performance and capabilities. Available services include memory upgrades up to 4.0GB; higher capacity and/or faster internal hard drives up to 500GB; and faster DVD and CD burning with a new SuperDrive. They offer a Hard Drive Data Transfer option so your data can be backed-up and reloaded after the Modbook conversion is completed.
The Modbook has the same input/output features of the MacBook, retaining the full range of MacBook connectivity options via 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 (two ports), FireWire® 400 (one port), Bluetooth 2.0 and AirPort Extreme Wi-Fi 802.11n.
Intended for artists, mobile users, students and professionals, the Modbook uses integrated Wacom pen-enabled digitizer technology to offer users unique flexibility and control over the creative process.
It should be noted pre-modded Modbooks are also available from Axiotron, starting at $2200.
Designer Gopinath Prasana has concocted this wireless MP3 player that would keep your tunes handy, no hands required. And despite the girly name, it looks pretty unisex.
The prototype metal bracelet has a blue inner band that fills with air for a snug fit and a multi-touch track pad for easy navigation.
Nothing to keep you from discreetly turning it up or down in front of your boss.
Apple’s continuing quest to develop in-house microprocessor design capabilities hit a roadblock today, when IBM filed suit seeking to block one of its chief design architects from joining the Apple team.
Mark Papermaster, IBM’s former vice president of microprocessor technology development, had hoped to join the company in November to begin working closely with Steve Jobs and other Apple executives shaping the development of proprietary processors for servers and handheld devices.
In a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, IBM attorneys described Papermaster as “IBM’s top expert in Power architecture and technology.” He most recently managed IBM’s blade server division and is also the author of several papers on chip development at IBM. The New York computer giant used to make PowerPC processors for Apple before the company switched to Intel’s processors in 2005.
CNet writer Tom Krazit penned a wide ranging article discussing the various possibilities Papermaster’s move to Apple could signal, from increased focus on ambitions in the enterprise market and cloud computing services, to continuing development of mobile platform processors begun with the company’s purchase of PA Semi earlier in the year.
In the end, he suggests “Papermaster’s hire might wind up as a partial solution to all those questions over what Apple should do with its pile of cash: give a chunk of it to IBM to make this case go away.”
Japanese mobile telecom provider Softbank announced Thursday it will offer iPhone customers a peripheral digital TV tuner slated for arrival by mid-December. With sales of the iPhone in Japan already looking to be only half what the company once expected, Softbank appears to be hoping the availability of high quality One Seg TV broadcasts will lure more buyers to the Apple phone in the saturated Japanese mobile handset market.
The device, with a footprint only slightly smaller than the iPhone itself, is expected to cost about $100 and will also feature the ability to extend the iPhone’s battery when connected to the iPhone by a dock connector.
Color me skeptical that the vaunted Japanese consumer’s love of gadgetry will make this a game changer for iPhone’s fortunes in Japan.
