Apple’s iTunes music store has overtaken Best Buy to become the number-two music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart, according to market researcher NPD Group.
Apple’s growth is likely to continue. Sales of CDs are plummeting while digital downloads grew about 50 percent last year, NPD said.
Most tellingly, nearly 50 percent of U.S. teens didn’t buy any CDs during the year, NPD says.
“Teens are continuing to check out on the CD,” NPD analyst Russ Crupnick told the Associated Press .
Hipster thieves in Williamsburg are interested mostly in Macs, according to a couple of reports in Gawker. Burglars are lifting Macs, but leaving roommates’ Dells and other PCs behind (mostly). One commenter notes: “I’m hoping the roomate with the Dell arranged for the stealing of his asshole roomates Apple equipment.”Hipster Thief Of Williamsburg Wants Only Apple Products
Williamsburg Residents Getting Their iMacs Stolen Left and Right
It’s the night before the last Tuesday of February, and you know what that means: Rumors! It’s been widely speculated that Apple is holding a secret event tomorrow, likely for the roll-out of the iPhone SDK or new hardware. And now…proof. Or something very like it. Photos of an inventory sheet from a store with new hardware SKUs that suggest new MacBooks, MB403LL/A and MB402LL/A. Initially, some speculated that these must be new MacBook Pros (because they desperately need updating), but these numbers suggest an update from the low end.
BusinessWeek claims they have it confirmed that the iPhone SDK will be late. What do you think will happen tomorrow?
Via Gizmodo.
Mythical beast, adrenaline junkie and sometime digital revolutionary Jon Lech Johansen has fired the latest volley in the DRM wars, launching doubleTwist, software promising to make restrictions on purchased digital media a thing of the past. A grizzled veteran of the campaign against DRM, “DVD Jon” has been handing media companies defeat after defeat, nonchalantly toppling flimsy restriction schemes from DVD copy-protection to Windows Media to FairPlay, the encryption scheme “protecting” most purchases from Apple’s iTunes.
It’s not a great stretch to suggest that Johansen’s work has proved to the corporate world that DRM doesn’t work. Tech news outlets received the news of Jon’s calmly, reporting on the announcement with typical restraint and critical analysis. Oh my dear lord, no, they certainly did no such thing. DVD JON CREATES DRM KILLER, Slashdot reported. (“What, again?” responded thousands of readers the world over.) The truth is that doubleTwist is less a direct assault on DRM, like the Pickett’s Charge of Johansen’s PlayFair endeavor, than a preview of a DRM-free world. Bought your favorite album from iTunes and can’t wait to play it on your flavor of the month mobile phone? doubleTwist, it seems, can make it happen. Make the jump to read how.
Or, “How I Learned to Stop Stressing and Love Mac OS X”
In an effort to help bruised and battered Windows users into the kinder world of Macs, I’ll be posting tips and stories garnered from my own switching experience. This first post is my own switcher’s story. And it all begins with I, your humble narrator, with my ears utterly closed to the Apple praise of a friend…
Greatest of all time.
I just got back from visiting a friend in San Luis Obispo, California, and he pointed me towards the Mac Superstore. I’d never heard of the place, and Apple has so thoroughly eradicated all unofficial Mac retailers that I didn’t think there were many left (sadly). But I decided to give the place a close look from the inside. What follows, here and on the jump, is a photo-tour to the coolest Apple store that the company doesn’t own – and maybe ever.
Best Doorstops Ever.
The experience at the MacSuperstore, founded in 1998 by Shane Williams, a graduate of Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo, begins before you even walk in the door. Since the weather is almost always sunny and calm in SLO, Williams and staff use vintage all-in-one Macs to hold the doors open to the faithful. I checked closely, and one door is propped by a Mac Plus while the others are SE/30s. The effect is inviting – and a bit disturbing. I last used an SE/30 in mid-1999, and it seemed pretty far from a doorstop then.
All the most interesting stuff is inside, however, so please read on.
The iMac is a beautiful all-in-one desktop solution capable of handling most every need. But it’s also a bit pricey, especially compared to the dirt cheap Mac mini. Jon Doty decided to do something, fusing a Mac mini with a commodity LCD monitor to create a homemade iMac that I can only describe as…elegantly janky.
Make sure to check out the gallery – the whole process is detailed to a charming degree.
Via Digg.
Mike Beauchamp’s iPhone has been through hell and back – and it’s still working. He tells the story in graphic detail at Flickr.
As the last pair of headlights approached, the semi got over to the far outside lane because he saw me standing on the side of the road. I knew this was trouble. As I watched helplessly from the shoulder, the semi plowed my phone at full speed, throwing it to the ditch on the other side of the highway. At this point, I figured I’d retrieve it just for the purpose of seeing the crushed iPhone in disarray, mangled and crunched lifeless in the grass.
Much to my surprise, as I approached, I heard the familiar sound of my ringtone — the iPhone was alive and ringing! As I picked it up and cradled it gently in my hands, I saw the screen displaying my caller ID — the screen still worked! I slid my finger gently over the answer slide and paused as I held the tattered and torn device to my ear — my heart must have skipped a beat when I heard my mom’s voice at the other end of the phone — the phone still worked!
Glorious. Apple should hire him.
Via Daring Fireball
In a clear sign that everyone is really frantic to get Super Tuesday over with already, the New York Times has published the article contrasting Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama the world wasn’t waiting for. Noam Cohen has the temerity to ask: Is Obama a Mac and Hillary a PC?
I started cringing before I even started reading. Essentially, it comes down to the idea that Obama’s website looks like Apple’s (it doesn’t – looks more generic Web 2.0), and that Hillary’s looks like a typical business-solutions provider (maybe? I’d say it looks more like Foxnews.com). Some of the quotes are quite hilarious.
With Obama’s site, all the features and elements are seamlessly integrated, just like the experience of using a program on a Macintosh computer,” said Alice Twemlow, chairwoman of the M.F.A. program in design criticism at the School of Visual Arts (who is a Mac user).
And what does this mean for those of us voting on Tuesday? Absolutely nothing. The story doesn’t even bother to mention if either Obama or Hillary use Macs. Seems like that might have proven relevant…
On a more relevant front, I’ve reposted the Hillary 1984 video after the jump.
The tinkerers at iFixit have taken apart the MacBook Air to discover:
