First there was the Diamond Shuffle, at a mere $40K.

Then there was Swiss manufacturer DEOS’s Diamond Earbud covers, which you could have for a paltry $4500.

Comes now, however, the new champion of conspicuous consumption – iPhone division, the Kings Button iPhone mod, in which Austrian jeweler Peter Aloisson will encrust your device in three kinds of 18-carat gold (white, yellow and rose) and 6.6 carats of diamonds, for the “What Financial Crisis?” sum of $2.5 million.

Kind of makes you wistful for I Am Rich, doesn’t it?

Via Gizmodo, via AllTechnoBlog

Image: sausurau

Japanese cell phone users are simply ahead of their time, according to a report at Wired, which counts the Apple smartphone’s relatively pedestrian toolset and a strong dose of cultural bias against non-Japanese brands to explain why Apple’s provider partner Softbank is now giving away 8GB iPhones to customers who sign a two year contract in the country where gadgets rule.

For example, while many Japanese are heavily into working and playing with video and photography on their cell phones, the iPhone has virtually no video support and a camera that could be described as eccentric, at best. In addition, many Japanese enjoy TV tuners built into their cell phones, while YouTube and the Ustream app can hardly be said to offer content with mass appeal.

Nokia and Motorola have also famously failed in Japan, so Apple is not without company, but in a country with extremely competitive cellular rate plans, Softbank’s monthly rates are seen as too high in comparison to others’ offerings.

It’s odd to think that in the US and in many parts of the rest of the world, where Apple sold over 10 million iPhones in 2008, the device is seen as a status symbol, even an indicator of too-much coolness, while in Japan, “carrying around an iPhone would make you look pretty lame.”

Engadget, among others, today has been flouting the little piece of filmmaking above as an advertisement for the Blackberry Storm prepared by New York advertising agency Guava, but rejected by RIM as too confrontational.

We’d add, having seen the Blackberry Storm in action, “off the mark” as well.

Apple is apparently refusing to cover the cost of repairs to some MacBook Air notebooks, even though the devices are under warranty, according to a report at Engadget.

Some MacBook Air owners who embraced the device in its original iteration (Rev.A) have found that over time, with normal use, the hinge fitting the screen to the body of the laptop becomes irreparably loose, sometimes even catching and cracking.

Discussion about the problem first hit the Apple Support fourm back in Feb. 2008 and appears to be well documented, though as an official matter Apple says it is not a “known” issue.

The Engadget report relates a case in which “Apple did the repair for free, but only after we escalated the issue to a manager, who let us know how very nice of them that was.” Apple classifies the damage as “accidental,” and thus not covered under the normal warranty. The hinge repair costs around $800.

Let us know in comments below how widespread this problem might be among Cult readers and whether you think you’d have what it takes to get an Apple Repair manager to cover repairs to your broken MacBook Air screen.

In a bid to cloak trade secrets, both Apple and Mac clone-maker Psystar are asking a Calif. court for a protective order. The legal move is designed to prevent disclosures during an upcoming discovery period ahead of a Nov. 9 trial.

In an 18-page proposal before Northern District of California Judge William Alsup, the two companies lay out restrictions on expert testimony, as well as access to software. The data would be marked “CONFIDENTIAL” or “CONFIDENTIAL – ATTORNEYS’ EYES ONLY.”

Among the steps both companies propose to prevent either gaining a market upper hand, both Apple and Psystar can object to technical experts who must sign a one-year ban on working for competitors.

Should recording artists receive larger royalties from songs sold in digital format, such as by Apple’s iTunes? That’s the question before a California court as rapper Eminem sues recording companies for a larger portion of the revenue pie.

The lawsuit has taken two years to make it to trial, but already lawyers for the rapper have elicited that recording labels are paying less to sell digital songs.

With digital sales, recording companies, such as Universal, no longer have distribution costs, according to a plaintiff’s witness, a former executive at the recording firm.

Photographer Lisa Wiseman , who describes herself as “addicted to Polaroid film,” snapped a series of pics with her iPhone in everyday settings she called “the new Polaroid.”

About them she says,”These images are the evolution of the Polaroid: they were all taken with my iPhone camera. Because the iPhone is becoming a ubiquitous and trendy accessory, on-the-go picture taking is now the norm.

I see people using their iPhones to take spontaneous photos in the same carefree way that cheap Polaroid has been used in the past…Just like Polaroids had a specific size and look, iPhone photos are unmistakable because the technology limits them to a fixed size and resolution.” (NB: we’ve resized them here).

Complete album on her site.

Images (c)Lisa Wiseman

Via Notcot

You have to wonder if users of Apple’s MobileMe online service have a ‘kick me’ sign. For the second time this year, phishers posing as Apple sent e-mails asking for credit card information of MobileMe subscribers.

The e-mail warns MobileMe users their subscription is about to expire, but their credit card information needs to be updated. The message, which appears to come from Apple, asks e-mail recipients to click on a link.

However, the e-mail from “noreply@me” comes not from Cupertino, Calif. but a computer in the UK, according to Apple Insider. What’s more, the e-mail was composed on Microsoft Outlook Express and sends people to http.apple-billing.me.uk, which the news site described as a “sketchy URL.”

Despite grumbling by some shareholders about how Apple handled health news of CEO Steve Jobs, the acting head of the media company expressed confidence the firm will continue to succeed.

“I’m confident in the future,” operations chief Tim Cook told shareholders during an hour-long meeting at Apple headquarters.

In terms of market success, Cook’s comment appeared to be on mark. Sales of 9.7 million Macs in 2008 were triple that of anemic PC demand. The iPod, a maturing product many thought was nearing the end of its lifespan, sold 55 million units. The iPhone, a key product for Apple, exceeded expectations, selling 13.7 cell phones, trouncing Apple’s goal of 10 million handsets in 2008.

What may be the largest investor fraud committed by a single person may have been hatched on a Mac.

These are shots are from ABC’s 20/20 recent special about Bernie Madoff, showing him in his Manhattan penthouse whiling away the hours (without remorse, they suggest) on a MacBook Pro.

Called “The Hunt for Madoff’s Money” it aired on Feb. 20, but you can watch it online here.

Via Macenstein

The software keyboard on the iPhone has been seen as a dealbreaker for some consumers from the very beginning.

For example, when I interviewed blogger/developer Erica Sadun for a MacLife piece when the original iPhone came out, she told me under no circumstance could she take a phone without a tactile QWERTY keyboard seriously as a tool for business.

Many others have complained at various times about the inexact science/art of using the iPhone’s touchscreen keyboard and I must admit, as much as I love my iPhone, I avoid using it for tasks that require a lot of typing.

Now, however, there’s a simple little jailbreak app that takes a least some of the pain out of using the soft keyboard by adding a 5th row, giving users access to numbers without requiring navigation to a sub-menu. Access to symbols is easier, too — just hit the “shift” key and the numbers turn to symbols.

Say what you will about jailbreaking the iPhone, the “outlaw” development community keeps coming up with solutions that many an iPhone user has pined for since Apple’s first smartphone came to market in the summer of 2007.

Via Gizmodo

Steve Jobs missed leading an Apple shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday for the first time since his return to the company in 1997, but the founder and visionary CEO remains “remains deeply involved in strategic decisions,” according to director Art Levinson, who spoke to reporters at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California after the meeting.

Despite his absence from the meeting, shareholders sang Happy Birthday to Jobs, who turned 54 yesterday. Reporters were barred from taking laptops, iPhones or other communication devices into the meeting, but a few attendees were apparently able to sneak in wireless handhelds to post notes during the meeting, according to a report at Fortune.

Details on shareholder actions at the meeting after the jump.

Boxee software and data remains intact on Apple TVs, despite the appearance of having been wiped from the media center device by Apple TV’s latest software update.

“Boxee does run on the updated 2.3.1 software,” Andrew Kippen, Boxee media relations spokesman told Cult of Mac. “Each firmware update from Apple will normally erase non-Apple menu items from AppleTV,” he explained. “Boxee users simply need to re-apply the patchstick to add the menu item back.”

After the patchstick has been re-applied, user logins, media sources, preferences, etc. will be just as they were before the upgrade.

It’s taken almost eight months, but Apple seems to finally have the mobileme cloud services product firing on all cylinders after an update Wednesday.

A redesigned log-in page is the most obvious cosmetic change but a perceptibly faster UI and better integration among calendar/mail/contacts appears to bring the service up to a level worthy of the hype that accompanied its launch last July.

See the Apple support document for details and let us know in comments how you feel about mobileme. Is it worth $100 a year?

Japan mobile carrier SoftBank Mobile has begun offering a free 8GB iPhone to entice customers to sign-up for lucrative two-year data plans.

As part of its “iPhone for Everybody Campaign,” Softbank is giving away the iPhone, which previously sold for $238.21 in Japan.

Through May, the carrier is also discounting the 16GB iPhone, charging just $4.96 per month, or $119.11 over the two-year contract.

If you take the Basic Lessons on GarageBand ’09, your improving finger work on the guitar and piano will be thanks to a guy who introduces himself at the beginning of each segment as just “Tim.”

That’s Tim Blane, a Boston singer-songwriter with a decade of live performances under his belt. Other credentials include ringtones for Pepsi, he also opened for Guster and KT Tunstall and writes his own soulful pop tunes.

When Blane received an e-mail from an Apple guy last summer saying that he’d seen Blane’s clips online and wondered if he would be interested in auditioning for a job, he jumped at the chance.

“I thought maybe they needed someone to show up at a trade show,” recalls Blane, who was sent a script and flown to LA for an on-camera audition. Nearly a thousand actors and musicians auditioned for the gig.  Four screen tests later Steve Jobs selected Blane, who has never taught a lesson in his life, to be GarageBand‘s music instructor.

“They didn’t want a preachy vibe, but more a vibe of sitting down with your little brother. I had a great time, although I had to wear super HD makeup on my face and hands and arms. I think I ate more makeup than lunch.”

Via MacDaily News,  Boston Globe

Meetings at daily news organizations are generally pretty lively affairs. Now journalists at outlying bureaus or on assignment at UK daily The Guardian can participate in the daily pitching and griping — without having the odd pen thrown at them or having to deal with the face-melting scowls of colleagues.

Another Apple TV update has disabled the popular free media-streaming Boxee software. The side-effect of the Apple TV 2.3.1 update was reportedly unintentional on Apple’s part.

Although the specific conflict is yet unknown, Apple sent the update last night to all Apple TV owners. One potential solution is to disable automatic updates.

This isn’t the first time an update of Apple’s increasingly-popular device which streams video and photos from your computer to your TV has caused problems for Boxee fans.

Pop duo Little Jackie’s single “Liked You Better Before” makes iPhones sound a little like the SUV of the cell phone world:

I liked you better
When you weren’t popular
Trends didn’t matter to you

But now you’re all into the way you look
Your iPhone ringing off the hook

You can listen to it on their site, rest of lyrics here.
Any other recent pop songs with iPhones in the lyrics — and are they all about jerks?

Image used under CC license,  thanks to ryanoelke.

Apple’s annual shareholders’ meeting today could be more about the elephant in the room, not sliding profits and job cuts which have become increasingly common topics in American business.

With Mac sales above the anemic numbers of PC makers and the iPhone continuing to make marketshare inroads, the financial side of the annual meeting is without surprises.

“Don’t expect too many fireworks,” advised CNBC’s Jim Goldman.

OK, so you’ve installed the Safari 4 Beta and found, perhaps to your mild surprise, that you no longer have Safari 3 around and that your default browser is now beta software. (For what it’s worth, I think this beta period will be pretty short, and that a proper release is not far away. Anyway.)

But there are some things you don’t like. Perhaps you’d like the tabs to appear where they used to. Perhaps you liked the old loading progress bar – the blue one that filled the address bar, instead of the new spinning wheel which only displays *activity*, not progress. Or perhaps you hate the new Top Sites feature and want to disable it completely (not much need for this, as it’s easy to switch off, but still).

While most of the Mac blogosphere has been occupied with a certain other browser release, the OmniGroup, a stalwart of NeXT and OS X software development, has made four of its own previously commercial apps, including the very appealing OmniWeb browser, completely free of charge. The other applications in question are presentation improver OmniDazzle, useless file remover OmniDiskSweeper, and developer tool OmniObjectMeter.

Back years ago, pre-Safari and Firefox, my brother and I would debate constantly about which the best OS X browser. He said OmniWeb, and I always argued in favor of Chimera (which turned into Camino). The reasons were pretty clear. I was a college student and poor, and he was gainfully employed and could afford to pay for his browser. Also, I had a 12″ Powerbook, and he had a 17″ model, so the large amount of screen real estate needed to take advantage of all of OmniWeb’s cool features was no sweat for him.

A lot of time has passed since then, Camino has improved dramatically, and so has OmniWeb. I’m still no convert, but I’m more tempted than I have ever been. And free DiskSweeper! That’s awesome!

Hat tip: Gruber