eBay addicts rejoice! In a surprising move, eBay has released an official Mac app for free in the US Mac App Store. Instead of having to browse eBay from the web, you can now fire up eBay’s minimal Mac app.
Bernie Madoff fleeced investors for billions with his elaborate Ponzi scheme. He’s now serving a 150 year sentence in maximum security prison for his crimes, but if that doesn’t seem like enough justice to you, well, why not pants the S.O.B. and turn his trousers into a new iPad case?
Apple’s abundance of available cash is certainly no secret. With $76.2 billion in the bank at the end of the June quarter, the company has more money then the gross domestic product of almost two-thirds of the world’s countries. But what will it do with all that cash? Just sit on it in case of an (incredibly) rainy day?
Of course not. To begin with, it may just be about to buy Hulu.
A consortium that included Apple won an auction for a collection of Nortel patents earlier this month with a bid of $4.5 billion. According to the company’s 10-Q quarterly report filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Apple’s contribution was a hefty $2.6 billion.
Within a day of a black iPhone 4 prototype hitting eBay, a similar set of iPhones has just hit the popular shopping site. These white iPhone 4s appear to be early prototypes, which are missing the silver ring around the camera, as well as any signs of model numbers or capacities on the back, both of which are X’d out.
Personally, I don’t quite understand what’s so special about an old Apple prototype, especially one that doesn’t work. But clearly someone does, because this iPhone 4 prototype is currently getting bids of over $1,700 on eBay.
In a sign patents are playing an increasing role in protecting marketshare, Apple and a group of other companies paid an ‘unprecedented’ $4.5 billion to keep Nortel patents away from Google. How will the 6,000 patents be used? First stop, sue the pants of Android, experts predict.
Last fall we reported on the sale of Apple 1 system #82, which sold at a Christie’s auction for over $213,000. A rare piece of computing history, many wondered what the buyer, Italian businessman Marco Boglione, planned to do with his prize purchase.
Turns out like many collectors of old tech, Boglione wanted to fire that puppy up and relive the past! The system was brought to Politecnico di Torino University in Turin, Italy. After a careful power-up sequence designed to gracefully coax 35-year-old transistors back to life, the Apple 1 ran a simple BASIC program displaying the words “Hello Polito” on an old NTSC monitor – to honor the university and (presumably) the famous “Hello, World” program many students of programming are familiar with.
In a fitting meeting of old and new, a MacBook Pro was used to send control instructions to the Apple 1.
Well that was quick: last week we posted about the Steve Jobs in Carbonite case for the iPhone, and quipped that Apple’s Cease & Desist letter was likely on its way. And in fact, indeed it was. Greg Koenig, the case designer, wrote on his Studio Burb page on April 27:
Well it was fun while it lasted. Yesterday, Society6 was issued a cease and desist from Apple’s lawyers. So I’m sorry to say that the cases and skins are no longer available. Sorry for the inconvenience.
As would be expected, the case has already hit eBay. Originally $35, current auction prices are averaging about $50 with a couple hitting $150 already. That’s a decent chunk of change for a small piece of plastic, but looks like it’s now a genuine collector’s item. One with a clever photo skin.
If you are wondering just how briskly the iPad 2 is selling, you don’t have to wait until Apple announces official sales figures – just ask the online auction site eBay. Thursday morning, the service announced just under 12,000 of the new generation tablets were sold in the two weeks between the start of U.S. sales and the recent launch in 25 additional countries.
Among the interesting figures, a majority (65 percent) of iPad 2s sold through eBay went to domestic customers, nearly double the 35 percent for the original iPad in 2010. Canada and Russia topped the list of international destinations for the iPad 2. Intriguingly, Russian demand for the iPad 2 is much higher than for the first tablet, according to eBay.