When The Little App Factory received a legal letter from Apple requesting that they change the name of their popular Mac app, "iPodRip", CEO John Devor decided to pen a heartfelt email to Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself. iPodRip, in case you're unaware, is a nifty little Mac app that enables users to copy songs from their iPhone or iPod back to their Mac. The app has been around since 2003 and is must-have if you experience any kind of data loss on your Mac. To date, it has been downloaded over 5 million times. Read more
Over the past few months, Palm and Apple have been playing a never ending game of cat and mouse over the Palm Pre's ability to sync up with iTunes. Every time Apple released an iTunes update which prevented the Pre from syncing with iTunes, Palm would fire back with a WebOS update of its own which restored media syncing. This back and forth went on a number of times, and Palm even went so far as to file a complaint with the USB Implementers Forum claiming that Apple was improperly discriminating against third party USB vendor ID's. Read more
The Florida based Psystar corporation has been a perennial thorn in Apple's side for well over a year. You might recall that Psystar is the company that sells un-authroized Mac clones via its website, in addition to selling software (called Rebel EFI) which enables PC owners to install OS X on their machines. Apple naturally doesn't take too kindly to companies stealing its intellectual property, and in the summer of 2008, Apple took Psystar to court for copyright infringement. Read more
Last week, Google announced that it was acquiring the mobile advertising company AdMob for $750 million in stock. AdMob, of course, is the largest mobile advertising company in the world and its ads can be seen on a plethora of iPhone apps. As the market for smartphones continues to expand, so does the market for high quality mobile apps, and in turn, so increases the opportunity for mobile advertising. Read more
No matter how you look at it, the release of Windows 7 has gone off without a hitch compared to the headaches that accompanied the launch of Windows Vista. Not only that, but reviews of Microsoft's new OS seem to be universally positive, with both critics and consumers liking what they see. Windows 7 is Microsoft's most eye catching OS to date, and the similarities to OS X are undoubtedly there. Read more
Well here's a rumor that should get all you Verizon subscribers excited. Apple is supposedly planning to release a worldmode version of the iPhone in the third quarter of 2010, which would subsequently enable it to run on Verizon's CDMA network. The current iPhone, of course, is GSM only. Read more
The iPhone for the past 2 years has enjoyed preeminent spot as the top smartphone on the market. But since its release a little more than 2 years ago, competitors have increasingly been upping the ante and churning out more impressive devices. First came the Storm from RIM, which by all accounts did nothing to threaten the iPhone's standing. Next came the Palm Pre, which despite a ton of hype and generally decent reviews hasn't posed much of a threat to Apple either. But the recently released Motorola Droid now out on the market, it seems that Apple has finally met i Read more
The iPhone may soon be getting stiffer competition from upcoming products like the Motorola Droid, but one area where Apple's commanding lead seems untouchable is its mobile app store. Apple today announced in a press release that developers have now created over 100,000 applications for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Phill Schiller stated in the press release: Read more
A few days ago, word spread that the latest (at the time) developer build of Snow Leopard all but killed support for the Intel Atom processor. The atom processor, of course, is often found in the netbooks that happen to be popular amongst those seeking to create hackintosh machines. When news began to trickle down throughout the Apple blogosphere, it seemed that Apple was finally taking some concrete steps to thwart an arguably growing and thriving hackintosh community. Read more
Apple's advertising is almost as iconic as the products themselves, and the man behind many of Apple's most famous ads is Lee Clow of TBWA Chiat\Day. Clow was the mastermind who came up with the slogan "Think Different", and helped co-create the entire award winning Think Different ad campaign which featured notable historical figures throughout history. Recently, word leaked out that Clow was resigning from his position as chief creative officer of the TBWA Media Arts Lab, which is essentially a special unit within TBWA which focuses on Apple related ads. Read more
Late this week, Apple announced a new Apple TV 3.0 software update which features a UI re-design, and while it looks pretty slick, it's not exactly mind blowing. Some of the other added features include support for iTunes Extras, Genius Mixes, iTunes LP, and Internet radio. Again, some solid additions, but nothing to write home about. I do want to point out, though, that genius mixes is a vastly underrated feature on iTunes. In case you're un-familiar, the genius mix feature on iTune Read more
This past September, Apple upgraded its entire iPod lineup, but one conspicuous omission was a camera-enabled iPod Touch. In the weeks leading up to Apple's special media event in September, an iPod Touch with a built-in camera was all but guaranteed, but last minute technical glitches reportedly forced Apple to scrap that portion of the upgrade and simply offer a new iPod Touch with improved internals. Read more
New data strings found within the latest developer build of Snow Leopard (10.6.2) seem to hint that new MacBook Pro's might be right around the corner, or at the very least, in the works over at Apple HQ. The pertinent files reference MacBook Pro models 6,1 and 6,2. The currently shipping MacBook Pro models, however, carry a reference number of 5,x. Read more
Windows 7 finally went on sale this past Thursday, and critics have been calling it the most "Mac-Like" version of Windows yet. In other words, Microsft has learned something from the fiasco that surrounded the Vista launch and has delivered an operating system that people are actually excited about.
But you didn't expect that Apple would just take this lying down, would you? Read more
Not long after Apple announced the most profitable quarter in company history, Apple unveiled a slew of new hardware on Tuesday.
Chief among Apple's many announcements were newly unveiled iMacs with larger screens. The new iMacs come in 21.5-inch and 27-inch flavors, and replace the old models which featured 20-inch and 24-inch screens. Now, if you've ever actually used a 24-inchiMac , you can attest to the fact that the screen real estate is huge, and I can only imagine what the 27-inch display will look like perched up on top of a desk. Read more
Apple today announced its financial results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, and the results, like clockwork, exceeded analyst expectations once again. Over the quarter gone by, Apple reported earnings per share of $1.82, nearly 40 cents higher than what analysts were expecting, and impressively, 20 cents higher than the "whisper numbers" leading up to today's earnings release.
Overall, Apple posted a quarterly profit of $1.67 billion on revenue of $9.87 billion, which represents the most profitable quarter in Apple history Read more
One of the more impressive aspects of the recent iTunes 9 release was the introduction of iTunes LP's, which essentially offer a more interactive music purchasing experience. Each iTunes LP consists of an entire album that comes with lyrics, liner notes, album artwork, and in many cases, never before seen photos and exclusive artist interviews that give fans a behind the scenes glimpse into the creative process behind many of their favorite songs. Read more
You know there are a lot of ways to get rid of a cellphone. You can throw it in the trash, you can give it away or you can just keep it in a box full of out of date tech gadgets. Or, you can drown it in a large glass of beer. And believe it or not, that's exactly what one guy did with his Palm Pre just a few days ago. Read more
In response to customer complaints that its prices are too high, Schiau Studios raised the price this past weekend of their Alchemize app from $2.99 all the way up to $39.99, making it the most expensive game on the iTunes App Store for a brief period. The price change is only temporary (and all the proceeds go to charity), but the price change is an interesting response to a vocal number of iPhone owners who for some reason seem to believe that everything on the iTunes App Store should be free, or at least fit into their pre-conceived notions of what price range an app should fit into. Read more
Apple is known for vigorously defending its intellectual property, and while some might claim that it often takes things too far, from Apple's perspective, it often doesn't have much of a choice. Read more
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