Computer chip makers saw worldwide demand for microprocessors fall 17 percent during the fourth quarter – a dive that is expected to continue in 2009, a market research firm said Wednesday.

“After hinting at a decline last September, the market fell off a cliff in October and November,” IDC research director Shane Rau told Macworld.

Rau said microprocessor shipments fell 17 percent during the quarter and more than 11 percent compared to the same quarter in 2007.

Although much has been made about Apple’s decision to drop copy-protection from iTunes Plus, the option still keeps music lovers tethered to a limit range of media players, according to a Wednesday report.

Unlike unprotected MP3 files, iTunes Plus creates songs that won’t work on devices requiring Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, the Chicago Tribune reported.

In a survey of compatibility of iTunes Plus purchases with a number of non-iPod music players, Chicago Tribune’s Eric Benderoff found iTunes Plus songs use the AAC file format.

“The problem is that Apple’s ‘unprotected files’ are in AAC format, which Windows Media player does not support,” Benderoff wrote.

httpv://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jCHU4ZHq15Y

Oh, the fun you’ll have with Fracture. Created by Visuamobile, it finally gives you the chance to find out what it would be like to smash your iPhone to pieces – without actually doing so.

I very nearly put this in a WTF iPhone Apps Of The Week post, but then I thought – actually, no. This might be quite entertaining, especially for the kids. My son loves smashing stuff up (I blame Power Rangers, myself) so I think he’ll get a kick out of destroying my iPhone. Over and over again.

Fracture is, as they say, “Coming soon” on the App Store.

A few Apple fans have turned their love for the company, mixed with moments of frustration, into a (distracting?) hobby with cross-stitch projects.

One crafty fellow, who goes by the name Benjibot, started when his 4G iPod conked out. He needled out his pain by creating the following “dead iPod” cross stitch.

He has a few other clever Mac-related projects for sale in frames on Etsy that highlight some of the more ominous icons, including the bomb.

Speculation that Apple will unveil an inexpensive iPhone was revived Tuesday. RBC analyst Mark Abramsky expects Cupertino will unveil a $99 iPhone sometime this summer.

Abramsky, citing “checks”, told clients the handset is likely to eschew 3G, GPS and include a $15 data plan. A low-end iPhone could hike Apple’s share of the smartphone market to nearly 20 percent, according to one report.

While a $99 iPhone could mean handset sales for Apple, it could also cannibalize iPhone and iPod sales. The downshift might force Apple to sell triple the number of iPhones to take up the slack, according to Abramsky.

Update: apparently, this is old news. I guess I’ve been out of touch — sorry — LM

From The Onion… Enjoy

Maybe I’m just out of touch with college-level humor today, because the animated dig at iPhone produced by the Flash technicians at College Humor strikes me as, well, kinda like a skit on SNL – pretty good idea; too long by a lot.

If you manage to sit through it to the end, though, the last 5 – 10 seconds is pretty funny.

Via Gizmodo

Walking that tight-rope is Kaufman Brothers’ analyst Shaw Wu. Wu told clients Apple hasn’t fallen victim to the economy like PC makers because of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s well-maintained elitist image.

A number of technologies, ranging from PCs to cell phones enjoy a commodity status. In a poor economy, companies fear being “commoditized.”

Or maybe it doesn’t, but I got a laugh out of this banner for jailbreaking iPhone software which I first read as “uncoking software.”

Yes, it’s true. There is a man who swapped his iPhone for a Blackberry. In some respects, I greatly admire Ben Ackerman. Not because of his choice of smartphone, but because he was brave enough to own up to his change of heart in public. Not many self-confessed members of the “giant Mac fanboy” club would be prepared to do that.

But Ben has. He prefers the Blackberry, as he explains in a slightly contradictory post on his blog.

I say “contradictory” because Ben is clearly caught between a rock and a hard place. He’s the first to admit that the iPhone:

(a) is “prettier”

(b) has better apps

(c) and better web browsing

… but he *still* prefers the Blackberry. Why, Ben, why?

Because, it seems, the Blackberry is (in Ben’s opinion), simply a better mobile device. It does things you’d expect a mobile device to do, like, you know, MMS and copy-paste. The basics. That’s what it does, and it does superbly: the basics.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the iPhone doesn’t appeal to Ben and many thousands of other people. It’s because Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, Jonathan Ive and the rest of the Apple gang just don’t consider “basics” to be part of their remit. They leave basics to everyone else. Their products go above and beyond.

So, two questions for you:

(1) Do you agree with any parts of Ben’s argument?

(2) If you ever ditched your iPhone for a Blackberry (or, God forbid, your Mac for a Windows PC), would you have the guts to say so in public?

Amid a plethora of suggestions how Apple can make better use of its Apple TV box, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has turned to its users for possible directions.

As part of an online survey, Apple is asking how owners use their Apple TV boxes, including the preferred source for content and their hardware configuration.

The survey’s purpose is seen as a way to determine the company’s next step in turning what initially was viewed as a “hobby” device into the third leg of Apple’s sales strategy.

Apple succeeded in persuading Internet giant Google to not include multi-touch features in Android, the open source cell phone platform, a report suggested Tuesday.

Multi-touch, which gives a handset the ability to convert multiple finger touches into instructions, was apparently bypassed by Google in an attempt to avoid legal entanglements, VentureBeat reported, citing an unnamed member of the Android development team.

In late January, Apple was awarded an omnibus patent covering its multi-touch technology used by the iPhone and the iPod touch. Apple has also threatened companies that might infringe the patent. The comment was seen as a not-so-subtle jab at Palm, which recently unveiled it’s iPhone rival touch-screen Pre.

Using Dock Spacers from Caleb PIke on Vimeo.

Here’s something I’ve not thought about before: an utility that lets you create multiple Dock configurations, each one mapped to one of your Spaces. It’s called Dock Spaces and you can get it from here.

As someone who rarely makes use of Spaces and always keeps the Dock hidden from view, this leaves me bemused at best. But I know lots of you love yer Spaceses and yer Dockses, so this one’s for you.

(Look again at the video, though: wouldn’t you find it annoying to wait for the second’s pause as each fresh Dock is spawned for each Space? I would. Blimey.)

British thriller/crime novelist Christopher Fowler (“Psychoville,” “Disturbia”) claims he doesn’t even know what a PC is, he’s so in love with his “awesomely cool MacBook Air.” Fowler’s been using his MacBook to upload clues in a treasure hunt in London for signed first-editions of his books.

More from his love letter to Apple:

How has the MacBook improved your life?
It’s super-light, fast, and I always have it with me so that I can blog via my local Wi-Fi coffee shops. Except it means I drink waaaay too much coffee.

What additional features would you add if you could?
A push-down track-pad, like on the Pro. Easier uploading of video footage from my mobile, cross-region DVD functionality, and someone to sort out the Blu-Ray mess. Nobody knows what plays where.

What piece of technology would you most like to own?
A good eReader that looks cool (so, not the Kindle, then).

Via The Guardian

Ecamm’s Call Recorder plug-in for Skype is an easy-to-install, easy-to-use solution for enabling voice and video call recording in Skype, well worth the $15 cost – a highly recommended plug-in for anyone with a Mac who wants to keep records of their Skype voice and video calling history.

I ran into a situation over the weekend where I had scheduled what I knew would be a long interview, something I wanted to be able to refer to later this week when I’m writing up a profile of my subject for a project I’m working on.

The thought of once again trying to cobble something together using a cassette recorder with my iPhone on speaker had finally become too much to bear: how many times in the past had a conversation been too garbled to interpret, or had I forgot to press the record button until several minutes into the conversation? Once I even did an entire interview having forgotten to put batteries in the cassette recorder, and had to face the ignominy of asking my interview subject to let me re-conduct our whole conversation the next day.

Of course, the simplest thing might be for Apple to enable (or at least approve) a comprehensive recording mechanism for iPhone calls, but since that’s not the case at present – and may or may not be grist for another post – I decided to use Skype for our call once I found Call Recorder and installed it.

Ecamm’s Call Recorder has been around for a while, but gets it right with this lightweight (2.3 MB) plug-in that installs in minutes and runs automatically within Skype – with the advantage of being highly configurable and supporting fully manual operation as well. The current version 2.3.4 also handles recording and archiving of video calls, though I’ve not yet personally done one of those.

Both sides of a voice call are recorded to separate tracks in a QuickTime movie, which can be easily converted to MP3 format and then emailed or posted to a website. Call Recorder can handle completely uncompressed recording for highest fidelity, or compress recordings at a 2:1 ratio or using AAC encoding. Video encoding can be done as JPEG, MPEG-4 or H.264.

For any journalist, podcaster, online instructor, even for business people looking to ensure accountability and corporate audit trails, Call Recorder adds easy, indispensable value to Skype on the Mac.

Of the dozens and dozens of “soft-touch” iPhone cases on the market, the new “Tortoise Skin” line from DRO Concepts just may supplant Incase as my favorite.

Made from a proprietary Silicon-Hybrid Polymer(SHP), DRO Concepts’ rubber-like material provides a pleasant tactile feel while protecting your iPhone3G with the same toughness a tortoise shell brings to protecting its owner. The custom-designed case for both 8GB and 16GB models has a great grip and provides more resistance to tearing and stretching than standard silicon. Intelligent openings offer complete access to all of the iPhone 3G features.

Right in the price-pocket for quality iPhone cases at $20, the Tortoise Skin comes with one D-shield screen protection film (also sold separately for $7) and is offered in your choice of seven understated Pantone™ colors.

Apple’s new 24″ LED Cinema Display suffers the fatal flaw of “ridiculous, terrible glare,” according to Jason Snell, editor of Macworld, who informed his Twitter followers Monday he’s putting his monitor back in the box and returning it to Macworld Labs.

Snell has spent his professional career as a writer covering Apple and, despite the presumed objectivity of his position as the editor of one of the larger, more recognizable mainstream media brands associated with the Cupertino computer maker, likely wouldn’t give up on such a major piece of Apple hardware unless he felt it was poorly executed.

Snell, of course enjoys a luxury many consumers do not, in that he can give his display back to the magazine’s lab and not have to worry about its cost or the space it may take up sitting unused in a corner or on a shelf. Average folk who’ve bought Apple’s new display and discovered after using it for a time that the glare is unbearable have far fewer options for doing anything about it.

What about you, dear reader – how do you feel about Apple’s embrace of the glossy screen on its flagship display? Is it worse in the wild than the glossy notebooks’ display? Would you send it back to “the Lab” if you could?

Last week we wrote about a kind of silly competition going on out there in Mac land between people vying for the title for running the most apps simultaneously on a Mac.

Comes now, Cult reader Jay Pan, who figures all the buzz about people running OS X on hacked netbooks should entitle him to some consideration for managing to get 80 apps going with OS X running on an Advent 4211 ( MSI Wind Clone ), with both Blender and Daz3D launched.

“I’ve been trying to determine Atom’s performances with Mac OS X for some time now, and I think this shows Atom’s netbooks are not so crippled!” he told us.

So what do you think? Is Pan’s record in the same league with the 240 apps running on a Mac Pro 8 core machine? Should the judges create a special “netbook” category for the dubious “Busy Mac” honor?

Follow after the jump for Pan’s hardware specs and list of apps running, and be sure to click on the image above for a larger view.

Fully aware that this probably maxes out the cute quotient for the week (at least), but these iPhone, iPod clickwheel designs for kids onesies and T-shirts are, well, adorable.

You can get them at an all-Apple baby apparel store, or if you’re feeling a little more crafty, make them using a iron-on transfers like one Japanese Apple Fan did.

If you have to dress up your kid in Apple gear, these are probably preferable to the other, more scatological ones we’ve written about in the past.

Via Blog! NOBON

Although Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants it to “disappear,” the just released Kindle 2 e-book reader is drawing quite a bit of attention for its Apple-like design.

Among the new features drawing comparison with the iPod and iPhone are Amazon’s decision to adopt an aluminum back and a sleeker size – 25 percent thinner than the iPhone, reports said.

Although Amazon Monday mentioned only that the new version of its e-reader “will also sync with a range of mobile devices in the future,” the iPhone could be among those devices.

Control over the popular App Store has become the latest stumbling block to Apple introducing the iPhone in China, reports said Monday.

The head of China Mobile sees direct sales of iPhone applications to consumers as a “threat” to its control over 72 percent of the nation’s mobile users, according to news agency Interfax, citing a source with knowledge of negotiations between interim Apple CEO Tim Cook and China Mobile president Wang Jianzhou.

China Mobile views direct credit card sales as interfering with its normal payment method, where it is the middleman between customers and payments. For the App Store to get the carrier’s okay, China Mobile would reportedly need to play a part.

Have been looking for an easy way to adjust the iPod with gloves after nearly getting myself killed on the way to work driving my bike with one hand, glove in mouth, as I tried to lower the volume. This is an easy solution that doesn’t take too much skill…

You’ll need:

– A pair of gloves
– Needle (medium or heavy weight, depending on thickness, fabric of gloves )
– Conductive thread (the only drawback is that a quick search for spools seems to turn out a cost of about $20 each, though you can also make a bunch for your friends…)
– Fabric pen or marker

How-to
1. Put on gloves, mark the location of where your fingers touch your screen with the fabric pen or marker for your center mark.

2. Take off the gloves and thread your needle with conductive thread (tie a knot at the end)

3. Using the dot as your center mark, sew about a 1/4″ square with horizontal stitches. The size depends on the size of your finger. Pull the thread all the way through to the inside of the gloves — to work, the thread has to touch your fingers on the inside of your gloves when you have them on.

4. Sew another square of vertical stitches on top of that one, tie it off and cut the excess thread.

This handy idea comes from a book called “Switch Craft: Battery Powered Crafts to Make and Sew.”

Via iheartswitch

Over at Reddit, some of the Redditors have been enjoying a little friendly desktop sharing over the past day or so. If you’re looking for some inspiration for your own desktop arrangement, there’s plenty to be found here.

Seeing all these desktops got me thinking: what are the desktops of the Cult team like? And how about our lovely Cult readers?

At the top of this post you can see my desktop, and “minimal” doesn’t really do it justice. My desktop is always kept clean and clear, devoid of decoration and deprived of a Dock. But that’s just me, and I’m a bit weird. How about my fellow Cultists?

Beatrice Murch is not a woman who lets a minor problem like a broken power lead get in her way.

Might your next television carry the familiar Apple logo? That’s the suggestion of one analyst who sees a Cupertino-branded TV as the next likely move beyond the iPod and iPhone.

“Apple’s fantastic abilility to create exceptionally user-friendly products could revolutionize TVs just like the iPhone changed the mobile phone market,” argued Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.

Although Apple expressed its usual reticence about the comment, Munster said such a product would be the “only logical next step” for the company.