Cult of Mac

If a Japanese warlord from the Sengoku period had an iPhone, this is the case they’d protect it with. It’s handmade with special lacquer and gold dust, takes a craftsman four weeks to make, and costs a cool $1,000. It’s so special, it has its own protective case — that’s right, a case for the case.

Japan’s SoftBank BB has just started offering a series of five handmade iPhone cases called the Japan Texture line.

Designed with the help of a historian, the cases are inspired by the rich pageantry of the Sengoku period (1467 to 1615).

Each case comes in a swank wooden box, and includes a historical booklet and its own protective pouch.

Via CrunchGear.

Pretty convincing  pictures and a video of the upcoming iPod Touch with a camera have surfaced. The pictures and video show clearly the camera and microphone first hinted at in dozens of cases for the device.

Posted to a blog by Maxim Radio talk hosts Covino & Rich, the pictures and video show a prototype device with a distinctive red motherboard and a cracked screen. The blog has published several images of the device.

The prototype was a “durability test phone,” the blog’s tipster said, and was likely tossed out. It was purchased from an iPod parts dealer. According to the tipster, who claims to work with Apple:

-to show it’s real. If you look at the board, it states Apple 2009 very clear. The 2nd gen AKA iPod touch out now, has 2008 on it. They haven’t revised the 2008 touch. I will compare them in pic in a sec.

-BTW, these phones NEVER leave Apple and this one left but it was a durability test phone, so that’s why the screen is all gridded off and cracked.

-The side by side picture is the inside of the current gen vs the 3rd gen (one coming out in September).

-I acquired this from a guy that I buy parts phones and iPods from. I believe he’s a recycler in ***********, so what most likely happened is that Apple threw this away and he some how got it and sold it for parts.

iPhone 3GS users are significantly more satisfied with their device than Palm Pre users are with theirs, according to two reports published Friday by industry analysts RBC IQ / ChangeWave.

82% of iPhone 3GS users reported being “very satisfied” with the performance of their device, while just 45% of Pre owners reported as high a degree of satisfaction. 38% of users said the iPhone 3GS exceeded their expectations, whereas only 18% of Pre users were similarly surprised by the awesomness of their purchase.

Other interesting data points unearthed by the August surveys included news that more than 40% of iPhone 3GS buyers upgraded from prior versions of the Apple smartphone. Among first-time iPhone buyers, 18% switched from Motorola, 11% from Nokia, 9% from Research In Motion, 8% from Sanyo and 6% from Palm.

The 3GS may have bright holiday sales prospects as well, with nearly three in five respondents (57%) indicating they are likely to purchase the iPhone 3GS for someone else in the future.

Not surprisingly, AT&T was at the top of the list of things iPhone 3GS users dislike about the phone, with 55% of users citing it as a negative factor; only 8% of Pre owners reported complaints about Sprint, currently the exclusive network for US users.

Released in June to high praise and glowing reviews, the Pre was dubbed the smartphone most likely to challenge iPhone’s domination of the market segment. It would appear the Palm engineers have quite a bit more work to do on that score.

[NationalPost]

Here’s a clever way to use Twitter to get attention for a new iPhone app — get Twitter users to tweet about a MacBook prize giveaway.

Taptaptap is giving away a $6,000 custom MacBook to a lucky follower of the company’s Twitter stream, drawn at random.

The competition is hotting up as Twitter users retweet the details and the promotion spreads virally. More than 10,500 people have entered so far, less than a day after the competition opened.

To enter, users must follow Taptaptap’s Twitter stream, and then broadcast details of the competition by updating their Twitter status with the competition URL: https://tweetblast.taptaptap.com. The winner will be drawn at random on August 27.

The competition is to promote Taptaptap’s new app called Convert, a unit calculator that costs $1 (launch special).

The winner will get a brand new ColorWare Stealth MacBook Pro — a limited edition MacBook Pro that’s been customized with a soft-touch, matt black coating. Only 10 made, says ColorWare, and worth $5,999.

If you enter, keep an eye on your Twitter account. The winner will notified with a direct message. If they don’t respond within a week, a new winner will be chosen.

We’ve all been in this situation: you’ve just found a great video you want to share with a roommate or you’re at the coffee shop trying to work on a document with a co-worker, but the McGyver-like book/newspaper viewing stand just isn’t cutting it. Well, Agent18 may have the solution with its StandHear travel stand for iPod and iPhone users.

The 2-ounce gadget offers multiple angles for viewing a video or document, plus provides a headphone splitter so that you don’t have to share an earbud. Once done, you can quickly fold up the stand (it’s a half-inch thick and 3-inches wide and tall.

The StandHear travel stand costs $24.95 (there is a 30% off back-to-school coupon) and is available in white or grey.

[Via Agent18]

Much has been said about the super-handy Flip digital video cameras. These well-designed, inexpensive cams have gotten plenty of favorable reviews.

But the question is whether they’re worth having when the iPod gets video capability.

The Flip model we tested is ripe for iPod comparison: the 8G UltraHD records two hours of video and is slightly cheaper than an 8G iPod Touch, with a price tag of $199. It shoots 720p (1,280×720) high-definition video.

So, should you wait to see what’s behind door no. 2 or stick with the Flip HD?

Full review after the jump.

An authorized Apple reseller in Portugal has started selling new cases for the upcoming, camera-equipped iPod Touch and iPod Nano.

Promai’s Jivo TPA cases look for the most part like the new cases out of China, but for one important detail: the placement of the headphone jack on the iPod Touch.

Look carefully at the Portuguese pix, and you’ll see the headphone jack has moved to the top, like the iPhone’s. But in the Chinese cases, the headphone jack is at the bottom, like current models. I’m inclined to put more faith in the Chinese cases, whose makers say they have good intelligence about Apple’s new offerings.

Hot off the Chinese forums are three new pictures of a prototype iPod Touch — or are they?

Certain details do look right. The iPod Touch has a metal backplate, like its predecessor. And the camera on the back is in the center of the device, not offset to one side like the iPhone’s — a detail first reported by Cultofmac.com.

However, there’s no microphone next to the camera — a feature indicated by the new cases Chinese manufacturers are already making for the device.  Also, the Touch is pretty beaten up for a new device, even if it is a prototype.

Fake or not, something very like this is just a couple of weeks away. A new iPod Touch and iPod Nano, both with cameras, will likely be released at an Apple press event on September 8, and will cost $199/$299/S399 for 16/32/64 GB models.

As well as pictures, the new iPods will also likely be able to capture and edit video, and send clips via email, Mobile Me and YouTube.

All the forum pictures after the jump.

Today’s daily deals include a 2.26GHz Intel Mac mini for $649, a 75% “blowout” on Mac gear, an 8GB iPod touch for just $160 and many more.

Details on these and other bargains can be found on the CoM “Daily Deals” page.

It’s Friday and it’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

APP OF THE WEEK

QuadCamera: Top serial-shots ‘toy’ camera with vivid effects and various layouts. Would like higher output res. 5/5 $1.99 http://is.gd/2bzLs

iPolygon: Top-notch twist-based Breakout, played from within a polygonal shape. Three different modes. 5/5 $0.99 https://is.gd/2afgK

Whoiser: Efficient client for accessing whois info. Spindly font, but good landscape view & mail ability. 3/5 $0.99 https://is.gd/2atfA

OldCamera: Mono camera effects. Great results, but prefs a bit awkward & you can’t use pics from Photos app. 4/5 $0.99 https://is.gd/2bAet

ToyCamera: Like OldCamera but with vintage/saturation colour effects. Randomiser a nice touch. 3/5 $1.99 https://is.gd/2bAFr

Critter Crunch: Action puzzler, resembling a souped-up single-player Magical Drop. Fun & plenty of depth. 4/5 $1.99 https://is.gd/2fk82

DrawRace: Top-down racer. Draw racing lines before races start. Good concept/multiplayer; frustrates quickly. 3/5 $0.99 https://is.gd/2gGGE

Although some people still stamp their angry little feet while moaning that Apple handhelds aren’t ‘proper’ games consoles, developers don’t care. Most complaints seem to stem from the lack of tactile controls, but this week’s batch of games shows how a decent developer can get around such perceived shortcomings.

iPolygon is essentially Breakout, but played from inside polygonal shapes, and the twist-based mechanic is more fun and makes for more frantic gaming than the typical approach seen in most clones and evolutions of Atari’s ancient coin-op. Similarly, DrawRace takes Super Sprint and makes you draw your route before the race starts and then watch the outcome. I found it pretty frustrating in terms of difficulty, but there’s no getting away from the innovative nature of the app.

However, my favourite apps of the week instead deal with another iPhone shortcoming: the rubbish camera. I’m stuck with a 3G for now, and the camera isn’t great. But with some apps installed, it becomes an interesting ‘toy’ camera, along the lines of a Lomo. Of this week’s trio of apps, all from Takayuki Fukatsu, QuadCamera is my pick. The app takes four to eight shots in quick succession, applying user-defined effects while it does so, and although output resolution is lower than I’d like, there’s no denying how much fun the app is. (Long-time Cult of Mac readers will know that Giles agrees.)

I suspect that even when I get my mitts on a 3GS with its video capabilities, I’ll still be drawn to the low-tech charm of QuadCamera.

Follow iPhoneTiny on Twitter, or visit iPhoneTiny.com

Apple’s Board of Directors is meeting next Tuesday to discuss possible replacements for Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Schmidt resigned two weeks ago because of increased competition between Google and Apple. One of the leading candidates to replace him is Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, who has acted as CEO during Steve Jobs’s medical leave. Cook has ben praised for Apple’s performance during Jobs’s absence, and is tipped as his successor. But as the Journal notes:

The board has been criticized for a lack of independence from Mr. Jobs. Half of the company’s six outside directors have served for at least a decade, which some governance experts say is too long to maintain their independence from the CEO of a company.

“The biggest danger is that the board will be unable to truly take the perspective of the shareholder and will feel beholden to the CEO or unwilling to confront the CEO,” says David Nadler, a corporate governance specialist with Oliver Wyman Consulting.

Independence from the CEO has not been one of the characteristics of Apple’s board in recent history. Jobs had most of the board replaced shortly after he returned to the company in 1997, and since then has recruited friends and allies like former vice president Al Gore or Oracle CEO Larry Ellison.

Whoever the board chooses to replace Schmidt, it is not going to be someone antagonistic to Jobs.

As CoM’s Pete Mortensen has noted, the current board is light on tech folks, but because of Apple’s wide-ranging businesses interests (from cell phones to online media), there’s not a lot of people in the Valley Apple’s not in competition with. Pete likes John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems. “He’s an incredibly bright guy, a brilliant manager, and he really gets tech and telecommunications without being an Apple competitor in any meaningful sense. Additionally, he has a reputation for remarkable ethics, both personally and across his organization — Cisco was one of the only organizations in Silicon Valley that didn’t have stock backdating issues a few years back. He also gets business customers in a big way.”

Multimedia designer Federico Mauro‘s got Mac on the brain: his Flickr stream is a constant source of quirky, Mac-related designs and spoofed ad campaigns.

His vision of what’s really inside your Mac Pro includes a feet-on-the-desk work environment that includes a mini-golf area, plus Apple logo topiary in the garden and a well-populated pool, where a couple of those bathing beauties appear topless.

Hit the jump for more of his designs — including the modern designer’s workbench and a game of Tetris played with Macs — plus few words about why he does it.

Google Chrome 4.0 Beta  is the fastest webrowser on the planet, CNet claims.

In benchmark tests, the new Chrome beta smoked Safari, rendering JavaScript 34% percent faster.

“It completed the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark in just 657ms. Only 4 per cent faster than its PC brother, sure, but 34 per cent faster than Safari 4.0.3, which scored 886ms on the same 2.0GHz Intel MacBook.”

In the same test, Firefox version 3.5.2 on OS X scored 1,508ms and Opera 10 beta 3 scored 5,958ms, CNet says.

JavaScript rendering is important because developers are using it more and more to add bells and whistles to websites. CNet cautions though that the software is alpha, and will be retested against Safari when the final version ships in several months.

And while speed is important, the browser is nowhere ready for public consumption. “Chrome for Mac is still riddled with bugs,” says CNet. “Big ones, like those spiders in Eight Legged Freaks, only even more hellacious.”

Apple is planning a special media event for the week of September 7, MediaMemo reports, citing “multiple music industry sources.”

But Apple won’t tell anyone exactly when the event is. Apple always holds keynote presentations on Tuesdays, so the likeliest date is September 8.

Apple has held a keynote event every September for the last four years to introduce its consumer-focused holiday offerings, typically new iPods and new versions of iTunes.

At this event though, Apple could be introducing several things:

* Cocktail: The presence of multiple music execs suggests a music focus. Apple’s rumored Cocktail project is a secret skunkworks rethink of the LP for the digital age. But it is rumored to be part of the secret tablet project though…

* The Tablet: Many expect the fabled Apple tablet as early as September.

* New iPods: New iPod Nano and iPod Touch with cameras. This seems the most likely.

* iTunes 9: The next version of iTunes is tipped to get Blu-ray, social software support and iPhone app organization. Also seems likely.

* Steve Jobs: Will Jobs make his first public appearance since returning from medical leave?

Maybe all of the above?

Gizmodo’s Brian Lam talked to a high level source who claims to have seen and handled prototypes of Apple’s upcoming tablet.

* The tablet is real (we already knew this though — CoM’s sources have also confirmed it).

* 10-inch screen.

* Looks like a giant iPhone with the same Home button and a shiny black plastic back.

* Two editions: One with a webcam and one for education.

* Will sit between iPod/iPhone and a MacBook, costing $700 to $900.

* Will also function as a secondary screen and/or a touchpad for iMacs and MacBooks, like this 7-inch external USB monitor form MiMo.

* It’s been under development in one form or another for six years, but the first prototype was built at end of 2008. Time to market is 6-9 months, pegging the device’s release date this holiday season.

But just as Lam — who is a great reporter and a straight-shooter – was was about to get to the juicy bit — what OS the tablet will run — his iPhone dropped the call. Classic!

Writes Lam: “My call dropped on some windy road off Skyline Drive. Fucking AT&T.”

UPDATE: I contacted Lam, who said his source didn’t know the tablet’s OS. It’s the biggest secret surrounding the device, he says. Entrepreneur and ugly dog-lover Jason Calacanis just tweeted it runs a modified version of the iPhone OS, citing a developer. Maybe. Here at CoM, we like the idea it’ll run Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Outlook is coming to the Mac, Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit said on Thursday. The next version of Office for Mac will replace Entourage for Mac with a new application – Outlook for Mac.

Is this good news or bad? I hate Entourage, but I hated Outlook on Windows even more when I had to use a PC. In fact, Outlook is my second-most hated program of all time, right behind Lotus Notes.

Outlook for Mac will be included in Office 2010 for Mac, which Microsoft said will be ready for the holidays next year. (Apple has promised better Exchange support in Snow Leopard. It’s likely that Microsoft announced Outlook so far in advance to discourage current Entourage users from switching to the new Exchange-compatible version of Apple Mail coming in Snow Leopard).

It will include:

* A new database and Exchange protocol. Database supports Time Machine backups and Spotlight searching — finally!!!!

* Better cross-platform collaboration and calendering.

* Built from the ground up in Cocoa to offer better performance, better OS X integration, and get this, “make Outlook beautiful,” said said Eric Wilfrid, general manager for the MacBU.

No word on whether Outlook for Mac will be compatible with PST files exported from Windows versions of Outlook, which are a bear to import into other email programs.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is reducing the number of versions of Office it offers from three to two. Alongside the Standard Edition, it is now offering Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac Business Edition, which bundles Entourage Web Services Edition and Microsoft Document Connection for Mac.

It will be sold alongside the current Standard Edition for the same price: $399, or $239 to upgrade. It is available to some customers today as a download or on Sept. 15. in shrinkwrap.

Link to Microsoft’s press release.

Today’s gadgets seem perfect for any iCowboy (or iCowgirl) lookin’ to rustle up some deals on Apple gear. For those packin’ an iPhone, we have a leather iPhone holster. If you need some accompaniment on those long cattle drives, there is a $40 deal on iPod speakers from Logitech. Finally, it gets dusty out on the range, so we also have 60 percent off on screen protectors.

For details on these and many other bargains (maybe even a cowboy dictionary) you can belly-up to the CoM Daily Deals page.

There’s a pair of great but fake videos making the rounds of the Apple tablet. Two videos posted to YouTube supposedly show the tablet running the iPhone OS on some kind of development hardware. The hardware controls — volume, the home button — are on a separate hardware box wired to a large touchscreen screen. So it’s not the genuine hardware, but something like a breadboard.

It looks great. The device can run multiple Apps simultaneously. App windows are tiled on top of each other and can be moved around on the touchscreen. The App bar runs the full length of the screen at the bottom like the Dock in OS X.

But unfortunately it looks totally fake to me. The up-close, grainy video just seems too constrained. Whoever shot the video doesn’t want to show too much — just enough to tease the viewer. If it were a real spy video it’d be much less Blair Witch.

UPDATE: As reader Gene points out in the comments, it’s interesting because it shows how the tablet might run current iPhone/iPod apps: “Fake, but gives us a good idea for dealing with the fixed size of iPhone apps on a larger screen: basically, every app becomes a dashboard widget. Simple, and apps don’t have to be resized!”

Also, after the jump, screenshots of the same device have been posted to the MacRumors forums. One of the screenshots shows the “About” screen. The device runs OS 3.0 and has a memory capacity of 120GB. The model number is N/A and the serial number: W8922DP91SO.

I ran the serial number through Chipmunk International’s serial number tool, which returns details of the hardware’s specs, manufacture date, the factory it was made in, and so on. This serial number wasn’t found in the database.

Apple’s been getting a lot of flak lately for its heavy-handed App Store policies – a direct consequence of its new-found status as a market leader, says author Graham Bower.

For years, Apple capitalized on its underdog status, able to skirt the rules because it was always coming in second.

But now that it dominates with products like the iPod and iPhone, it’s getting the same kind of grief that dogged Microsoft for years.

Bower, who lives in London, has just published a fascinating new book called Secondonomics: How Coming Second Can Be a Winning Strategy, which is about the advantages of coming second. Contrary to popular belief, winner doesn’t take all. Take for example what happens to the first penguin into the water versus the second. Which one gets eaten?

Apple figures large in Secondonomics. Bower argues that Apple has gotten a lot of passes because of its underdog status.

“The Mac has a big advantage over Windows because it’s the second most popular desktop OS,” says Bower. “It’s not targeted for viruses as much, and it’s not targeted for anti-trust cases. Can you imagine Microsoft getting away with hooking something like MobileMe so tightly into their OS?”

Hit the jump for a fascinating IM interview with Bower, who’s a smart cookie. Bower has a lot of insight into Apple, coming second, the challenges Apple faces as it becomes bigger, and Steve Jobs’s psychological need to be an underdog.

After Canada’s Rogers Wireless told Gizmodo “There is no 8GB 3GS iPhone,” the website has turned up a photo of the company’s internal sales system showing that low-and-behold, there is an 8GB iPhone 3GS after all.

Reportedly sent by a Rogers’ employee, the photo of the system shows an 8GB 3GS priced at $74 — the same price as the current iPhone 3G that it will likely replace ($99 – $25 customer discount).

Earlier this week, Rogers told Gizmodo that a webpage showing the new phone was a “mistake.” Gizmodo now suspects it was lied to.

“This is the second such internal reference to a 8GB 3GS to come from Rogers in as many weeks, not to mention their recent website fiasco, where an 8GB 3GS was listed in a feature comparison chart, then deleted as ‘a mistake,'” says Giz. “None of these leaks stand alone as totally convincing, but three unconnected reports? That’s a little too much to ignore, even for a skeptic.”

Apple is getting serious about getting green.

To make sure that its massive new data-center is energy efficient, Apple has just hired a top eBay executive and leading expert in the “greening” of cloud computing facilities.

Apple has picked up Olivier Sanche, eBay’s Senior Director Data Centers Services and Strategy, according to the Green Data Center Blog.

Based in San Francisco, Sanche has helped make eBay’s massive global operations carbon neutral since 2007. Most recently, he helped oversee the construction of eBay’s newest data-center, which will meet the highest green standards when it goes online in 2010.

“This new center is built to meet LEED Gold standards,” Sanche writes on his LinkedIn profile. “We broke ground in late-2008 and we are on track to deliver state-of-the-art efficiencies in cooling and power management.”

It looks like Apple needs someone of Sanche’s stature for its fast-growing cloud computing operations.

Apple is building its own huge data-center in North Carolina. The billion-dollar facility will reportedly be 500,000-square-feet and will serve as Apple’s primary East Coast data-center. In 2006, Apple bought a giant 107,000-square-foot facility data-center on the West Coast, in Newark, Calif. The new North Carolina facility will be nearly five times the size of Newark operation. Ground is expected to be broken later this month.

Data-centers are huge power hogs. Google puts its data-centers as close to power plants as possible, just like Las Vegas is next to the Hoover Dam. McKinsey has projected that data center emissions will overtake those of the world’s airlines by 2020.

At eBay, Sanche helped to green a massive data-center operation. The auction company runs more than 15,000 servers worldwide to support of 84 million eBay users. Sanche says the company has been carbon neutral since 2007 thanks to a combination of conservation, solar energy, facilities management and a high-quality carbon offset program.

Sanche is also Vice Chair of the advisory council for The Green Grid, an industry consortium that promotes energy efficiency.

Via 9to5Mac.

Philip Schiller, Apple senior vice president and recently the company’s public face at product launch events and conference keynotes, is on a roll. In fact, some might conclude he’s replaced a significant portion of Apple’s PR department, given the press he’s received lately for personally addressing issues with the much-maligned iTunes App Store.

First, of course, came his extensively re-printed email reply to Daring Fireball’s John Gruber, setting the blogger straight on the chain of events surrounding the iPhone dictionary app Ninjawords’ path to App Store approval.

And while Schiller did not — so far as we know — personally respond to Tech Crunch writer Michael Arrington’s very public abandonment of the iPhone, he did reach out personally to Steven Frank, the highly regarded developer and co-founder of Panic, who had previously made his own frustrations with Apple and the App Store publicly known.

Back when he was The Man at Apple, Steve Jobs was known to send people personal email from time to time, with such mail inevitably making its way to public attention and, more often than not, garnering Jobs and Apple invaluable attention and promotional good will. It was one method by which the company grew into its current status as one of technology’s two or three biggest powerhouse brands while maintaining a sense of being smaller than it really was, of being personal and approachable even when, in fact, it was neither.

Schiller’s carrying on of the strategy should be seen, in any case, as a good sign, an indication that, as he put it in his email to Frank, “we’re listening to your feedback”. And while, as Frank wrote about his exchange with Schiller, “technically, nothing specific has actually visibly changed,” the goodwill Apple cultivates is invaluable when a senior vice president reaches out personally to people who publicly complain about the company.

The last, best words in the matter may also be Frank’s: “communication will solve this problem — not silence.”

If you’ve been inspired by David Hockney’s iPhone paintings or the New Yorker cover, you know that doodling on your device can be more difficult than it looks.

At least if you want results that don’t completely suck.

Enter a blog called fingerpainted.it, headed by freelance web designer Benjamin Rabe. He and a band of 11 creatives, including prolific iPhone artist Matthew Watkins, share tips, artwork and tutorials.

The how-tos show just how much dexterity and thought go into these mini-masterpieces; Luis Peso’s demonstrative cat sketch in the above Layers app tutorial has about seven steps.

A lot of the art is done with the Brushes app, but artists use a variety of tools including Layers, Jackson Pollock, Kandinsky Lite, Photofx. The tutorials show you how to start with Kandinsky, move to Pollock and end up with something entirely different, like this vibrant iPhone work by Patricio Villarroel.

While there are plenty of places to ogle iPhone art — flickr groups especially — fingerpainted seems to give the most info on how to get from art-icapped to art.

Amid tight security, Apple shot a TV advert for an unreleased product at Jax Truckee Diner on Tuesday afternoon.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures or even a description of the mystery product. Because of the security, no photographers or reporters were allowed on set. Filming took place on Tuesday afternoon.

“Apple found us, they’re trying to show us as a hip and cool spot for the 20-something crowd,” Jax on the Tracks owner Bud Haley told the Sierra Sun newspaper.

Of course, rumors that Apple is about to release a Web tablet are reaching fever pitch. Many think the tablet will be announced next month in time for the holiday season; but conflicting reports say the tablet will be launched early next year.

But if Apple is already shooting ads for the new product, chances are its release is imminent. After all, the probability of leaks are much greater when products are sent to outside partners like advertising agencies.

Jax Truckee Diner is a classic 1940s-style diner next to the railroad tracks in downtown Truckee, California.

The question is, why would Apple put a Web tablet in a diner? Perhaps to show a crowd of hip 20-somethings sitting around a booth, playing digital 45s before watching a streaming MTV video and then ordering waffles over WiFi?

UPDATE: I called Bud Haley, owner of the diner, who in a roundabout way confirmed the shoot, and said it was “exciting.” Unfortunately, Apple has him tied up in a confidentiality agreement, and he couldn’t/wouldn’t say if the ad was for a new product or an existing one.

“As you can imagine, I’ve got to be careful and confidential,” he said. “I can’t say anything about it, I’m afraid. I’d love to give you more info, but I can’t. No comment is the best comment.”

Asked if his afternoon yesterday was exciting (I was desperate), Haley said: “Obviously, anything where Apple is involved is exciting. But I still can’t tell you anything. Sorry.” Haley has taken several calls from reporters and was very patient and gracious. He’s a good sport and is handling the nosy questions very well.

Here’s what Jax looks like inside:

iPod/iPhone fans are always in search of the perfect speakers to blast their favorite tunes in the most comfortable, affordable and longest-lasting way. While the search for that holy grail continues, Logitech early this morning provided two new entrants – one boast near ’round the clock music and another promising portability but with booming bass.