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New iTunes now ready for download

Among the new product announcements at the Macworld 2008 keynote, iTunes received a brand new feature: movie rentals! With the latest version of iTunes for both Windows and Mac, you will be able to rent movies from all the major studios including Touchstone, MGM, Miramax, Lions Gate, Fox, WB, Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Sony. Apple was able to strike a deal with studios which allowed iTunes to receive new releases 30 days after the DVD release. The first wave of movie rentals will launch by the end of February with over 1,000 titles.

Once you find a movie … Read more

Apple releases the "MacBook Air," but will it measure up?

Apple has put the "Wow" in computing, today announcing its MacBook Air. What had been rumored to be a MacBook with wireless broadband built in turned out to be nothing so pedestrian. Apple, the Arsenal of computing, surprised many with an insanely thin new MacBook Air

Intel and Apple started collaborating on the project a year ago and the result is nothing short of spectacular. Whether it's something that you'll actually want to buy is an entirely different question, however. At $1,799.00, it's not cheap, but no one buys excellence for pennies.

Here are some of the more incredible/interesting aspects of the design:

Dimensions: 0.16" to 0.76". 13.3" screen. As demonstrated, it fits within an envelope. It is dramatically thinner than anything else on the market. The option of flash-based memory.… Read more

Apple flies in the MacBook Air

With Macworld kicking off today, that tangled web of rumor, innuendo, and outright fabrication known as the Internet has been abuzz with all kinds of supposedly inside top-secret documentation, downloaded directly from Steve Jobs' frontal lobe.

Naturally, we didn't believe a word of any of the oh-so-fake "leaked" Steve Jobs keynote addresses and product spec sheets, but one area where most of the speculators were at least partially right was in Apple's latest laptop, the MacBook Air.

As was heavily predicted, the new laptop is not quite an ultraportable, but still very small. Mimicking the 13-inch … Read more

Move over Netflix, VOD services; here comes Apple

Quickly filling up Netflix's rearview mirror is a sight that no tech company wants to see: Apple.

Apple announced on Tuesday that the company has cut licensing deals with every top film studio--deals that will enable iTunes to offer first-run movies a month after they are released on DVD.

This means that Apple has won a major advantage in the Web movie-rental business. One of the biggest complaints customers have with online movie services is that none offer first-run features. The same is true with some of the video-on-demand services operated by the cable companies.

Moreover, Netflix offerings don't work … Read more

The product Jobs won't announce, but should

Mac fans across the world are eagerly awaiting Steve Jobs keynote at Mac World with bingo cards in hand, but despite all the rumors of the " MacBook Air" and the iTunes video rental store, there is one feature that I wish Steve would announce but that I know will not materialize anytime soon. What I'd like to see from Apple in 2008 is an iTunes marketplace, a place where independent media creators can set their own price for their work and share the profits with Apple.

Yes, some independent artists have been able to sell their music in the iTunes store, but there is no means to sell video podcasts or other similar materials through Apple.

… Read more

China Mobile says no to iPhone deal, so far

The largest mobile operator in China has broken off talks with Apple over the iPhone, with one executive saying Apple wanted to share too much revenue.

From the Financial Times:

Chinese media on Monday quoted Gao Nianshu, general manager of China Mobile's data department, saying that Apple had given the impression it wanted to control the value chain and had pushed for up to 30 percent of revenues generated by locally sold iPhones.

"Of course we could not agree," Mr. Gao told a gathering of local MBA students, according to the Sina Web site. China Mobile also … Read more

Is Apple readying a wireless announcement? Maybe not

A banner at the Moscone Center in San Francisco where Apple will host its annual Macworld conference has many in the technology sector buzzing about a possible wireless announcement coming from CEO Steve Jobs' keynote on Tuesday.

The banner that reads "There's something in the Air" has prompted much speculation that Apple is readying itself for another big wireless announcement. The most persistent rumor is that Apple will include WiMax on Apple notebooks.

WiMax is a wireless broadband technology that will deliver faster download speeds than 3G wireless over longer distances than is possible with Wi-Fi, making … Read more

Apple's "poor" customer service

I've read about Apple's poor customer service in several places, most recently on the O'Reilly Radar. My problem with these reports is that I've experienced the exact opposite. In my experience, Apple has great customer support. (As late as 2005, the industry agreed with me.)

Ever called AppleCare's support line? I can't remember the last support technician with whom I talked that wasn't competent on the technology and treated me like someone that actually knows my way around a computer. It's probably true that the Genius Bar support technicians can be snooty, as some report, but for the majority of people who dial for support, it's a non-issue.

When you call a company for support, you want two primary things:… Read more

Google betting big on mobile market--and Apple

(This post has been updated to reflect Google's announcement on Monday.)

On Christmas Day thousands of people opened up boxes with something cool and functional inside and wasted no time logging onto Google.com through their brand new iPhones.

As a result of those gifts, the number of global queries to Google's search site from iPhones surpassed the number of queries from people using market-leading Symbian-based phones for the first time. Google calls it the "Christmas cross-over."

That is huge given the fact that the number of iPhone units shipped is tiny compared to the number … Read more