Appletell

We interrupt our regular blog programming for a little bit of an important news. Apple was rated as the second most gay-friendly company based on the result of a study conducted by Prime Access and PlanetOut. The survey was polled to 2,259 people with age range of 18 to 62, 1,502 of them belongs to the general public, while 757 belonging to the gay and lesbian communities, Apple got a 23% approval from the general public and 39% approval from the gay communities.

Perhaps one of the reasons why Apple got into the 2nd rank is the fact that it is one of the first company to give out benefits to their gay and lesbian couple employees. And since the perception on being gay-friendly relies mostly on advertising and the influence of friends and the media, it is but understandable that Apple tops the survey.

Incidentally, taking the top spot of the most gay-friendly company is Bravo Network which runs gay-friendly shows such as Project Runaway, Workout and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. Following Bravo Network are Showtime, HBO, Absolut and Levi’s.

While taking the lowest seal of approval from respondents of the survey are Samsung, Wal-Mart, Dunkin Donuts and Cracker Barrel.

Via [Macnn]

Fueled by the recent snowballing of Mac sales and interest in the iPhone’s mobile WiFi platform, this year’s Apple World Wide Developer’s Conference (WWDC) has sold out for the first time in history.  The exact number of spaces that were available was not put out by Apple, but soon after making the “sold out” announcement, they released the following statement. 

“Response to this year’s WWDC has been off the charts and we are delighted with the show of enthusiasm and support from the developer community for the new iPhone SDK. The conference is now sold out.”

There are many speculations as to what will happen at WWDC ‘08, ranging from 3G iPhones to Tablet Macs (the latter taken with quite a sizable grain of salt).  Based on past WWDC history, chances are slim that any new computer designs will be introduced, as those larger announcement are usually saved for MacWorld (small design updates for the Mac line up are more of a possibility).

Luckily for those who didn’t snag a seat at the conference, videos of the session will be on iTunes shortly after for purchase.

Read [Mac Megatsite]

Want to put the external disk option in your iPod to good use? I mean, your iPod Shuffle, Nano, and 5th generation with with video models are all good as portable disk drives, right? So why let a good feature go to waste because of Apple’s closed system? With a new product called miShare, you can kiss the problem of file swapping between iPods goodbye. Simply attach one iPod on one end, and another on the other end, et voilà! The first iPod can now save the files to the second one on its hard disk, and vice versa. The only catch is that you have to add all the files, whether they be music, photos, notes, etc., via your PC because as mentioned previously, the data is only saved on the hard disk. But really, isn’t that forgivable given the convenience that this product brings?

miShare is available now for only $99.

Product [miShare] Via [CrunchGear]

Apple may well be one of the top IT companies producing top-selling and cool products here and there, but this success doesn’t render the company immune to various lawsuits. Like any other big IT companies, Apple is hounded by several lawsuits caused by product-related issues which the company needs to settle financially.

One of these lawsuits is the case filed by some Canadian residents who purchase the Apple iPod player before June 24, 2004. Those iPod buyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Apple for misrepresenting the actual battery life of its iPod players. Apple claimed eight hours before charging, but the plaintiff found it to last for only three hours. The legal dispute was won by the plaintiff and Apple would have to give them $45 credit which they can use on Canadian Apple retail or online stores. This is reported to cost Apple around $36 million in settlement.

A similar case is facing Apple in San Jose California. This time involving the power adapters of Apple’s PowerBook and iBook computers. A class-action suit was also filed against Apple for failing to correct the problems encountered by users of the said adapters. In 2001, Apple had to recall around 570,000 power adapters due to overheating and sparking. If approved the U.S. District Attorney of San Jose, Apple will have to pay each owners of the iBook and PowerBook $79 each. This would amount to around 2.3 million total settlement damages for Apple.

Read [The Wall Street Journal]

“Apple and Microsoft are on opposite trajectories in terms of their cash reserves” say recent reports, and we don’t really need those reports to tell us that either.  These differences have recently become more evident then ever, both from the fail of Vista and Apple’s rather large jump in market share.  Now, with recent three-year earning figures released, Apple’s increase compared to Window’s fall has been set in stone.  Three years ago, Apple had a pretty measly monetary reserve of only $5.5 Billion.  In comparison, Microsoft had a monetary reserve of $64 Billion.  Recent earnings reports show that Apple’s earnings have almost quadrupled, to $19.4 Billion.  In great contrast, Microsoft’s reserves to have plummeted to only $26.3 Billion.  Microsoft should be happy that their deal with Yahoo went through the floor, as they would have had to borrow a considerable amount of money.  Speculations show that Microsoft saved over $40 Billion in the short term. 

“The company’s overall decline is attributed to deliberate investment decisions, namely continual stock buybacks and special dividend payments, such as a $32 billion plan announced in 2004. In the most recent quarter, Microsoft bought back more than $1 billion of its own stock, a strategy which is likely meant to enhance the company’s EPS rating.”

Apple’s sharp increase in profits, fueled by Mac and iPod sales, has been enough to surpass even those of Google ($12.1 Billion), IBM ($12 Billion), and Intel ($10.9 Billion).  With Apple’s huge recent sales increases, both from the Mac and iPod, it seems like those numbers can only go up.

Read [MacNN]

Since its introduction by Apple on January 9th, 2001, iTunes has become one of the most popular music library organization apps ever.  It started off simple and eventually became what it is today, a place not only to organize files, but to shop, learn, and watch.  With so much growth, large deals, and new features in the past few years, it makes me wonder where iTune’s place will be in the future.  When digital sales take over physical media, will it be because of iTunes?  Will iTunes one day start a revolution in how we purchase and handle all of our DVDs, music, and TV shows?  Or will iTunes eventually slip away into the past and be replaced by a whole new app or movement?

With the direction iTunes is headed now, it seems like it very well could be the driving force behind moving totally to digital sales for some.  It has one of the biggest music selections available anywhere, allows you to rent movies, releases new DVD titles the same day as hard copies, and contains all sort of other media, such as podcasts and TV shows.  With only a couple more deals and updates, iTunes could soon be the place to go for all of your media.  This would almost completely eliminate the need for physical media.  Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t think this will happen anytime very soon, but it is possible.  But what would seal the deal for moving completely to digital media?

MORE »

Let’s face it, Apple gets a TON of publicity.  So much so that some sites has made feeds that exclude all articles dealing with Apple.  This article will discuss two things dealing with all this publicity, why it happens and what it does for Apple.

Why does this happen? Apple makes their hardware and software themselves for the most part.  This means every time one of these products gets updated, there is news about it.  With so many products, many updates are bound to happen, which means more publicity.  Also, Apple knows how to market a product efficiently and increase the publicity even more.  They make the announcements of the devices they create huge and develop tons of hype.  All this hype around the device causes it to be heard about all over the internet, news shows, etc which is bound to lead to good things.  But, what are those goods things?  Read on to find out.

What does it do for Apple? Publicity brings customers and customers bring money.  And behind every sale there is, obviously, money.  With so much hype around all of their products, even people not in the tech field are bound to hear about them.  Heck, even my local news station was reporting about the iPhone.  All these potential customers seeing these great products causes them to look more into and, in some cases, even buy it.  Apple has mastered this and is why their market share continues to increase.  People hear so much about their products that they begin to get curious, just what Apple needs to drive a sale.

What are you thoughts?  Is this publicity good for Apple, or just annoying?

According to a report by Fortune today, AT&T Inc. will subsidize $200 of the purchase price for new iPhones purchased this summer, reducing its cost to as low as $199. Although Apple wouldn’t be particularly happy, they wouldn’t be able to object either, due to increasing iPhone sales through AT&T.

Fortune claimed in its report that AT&T will subsidize the price of new iPhones capable of accessing the 3G data network that the carrier is currently expanding in the United States. AT&T’s $200 price cut would likely be limited to customers who sign a two-year contract, and would not be available directly through Apple. Apple and AT&T now sell the iPhone for $399 for the 8 GB model and $499 for the 16 GB model, and the expected 3G models are estimated to have the same list prices. Several weeks before the new 3G iPhone is to be released, Apple will stop supplying the current iPhone models to reduce inventory, according to Fortune.

Both Apple and AT&T declined to comment on the report, with representatives from both companies stating that they do not comment on speculation.

Read [Fortune’s Report]

Apple’s update of the iMac line on Tuesday is really beginning to show the direction that Apple is taking in its computers. Most significantly, Apple seems to be showing signs of preparing its Macs for the world of gaming.

Some evidence of this is the new 3.06GHz processor option for the 24-inch iMac, which is suspicious only because Apple is working the current technology to get 3.06GHz out of something designed to only give 2.8GHz. Another piece of evidence is the GPU, which seems to be a stock nVIDIA 8800M GTS (even though Apple calls it an 8800 GS, but Apple also called Mobility HD 2600 XT parts HD 2600 Pro). This is a very high-end GPU and offers much more power than most Mac users currently need from the iMac.

Implementing the overclocked processor and a high-end nVIDIA GPU in an iMac is a suspicious move for Apple to make. Whether Apple is starting to optimize Macs for gaming using Boot Camp with Windows, or even preparing Mac OS X-based gaming, no one can be sure. Either way, it appears that Apple is taking a step forward towards a future of gaming in its Macs.

Apple is at again with a new iPod commercial.  This time around the ad features the same same colorful theme with figures of dancers in black as well as a hip song.  You can find the ad on Apple’s iTunes page and the song “Shut Up and Let Me Go” by The Ting Tings in the iTunes Store. Like most of the songs featured on Apple’s new commercials, this one will probably sell like hot cakes, making for a very happy artist.

Apple does a great job on all of their ads, they are very catchy and yet manage to get the point across about the product.  They make you remember them, which is the one of the major points when it comes to advertising.  They are the type of ads that make you stop fast forwarding your DVR and watch them, which is pretty hard to do.  Heck, I will probably end up buying this song now, how about you?