Apple User Podcast

Apple Rumors has the best coverage I’ve found of the news that Apple is hosting a Media event at the Moscone center this wednesday, the 5th of september 2007.

They’ve noticed that the “Beat” in here probably refers to the Beatles catalog of music, which has yet to be added to the iTunes Music Store, it’s widely expected considering the addition of Ringo Starr’s catalog today and John Lennon’s a couple of weeks ago.

They’ve also pictures of Mocked up iPods which may materialize, the phatty iPod picture is a copy of a picture that circulated the web over the weekend and was pulled down per requests by Apple, leading some to believe it may be a real product.

Irregardless of what exactly is released on Wednesday, it’ll certainly be welcome news for folks getting ready to buy new iPods for christmas or Back to School presents.

iPod Nano
(mockup by Engadget)

iPod Touch
(mockup by 1381 designs, found at KezNews.com (NSFW))
Update: Touch mockups from 9to5mac

In other News, Amazon now has a listing for “Mp3 players that are NOT iPods”, absolutely hilarious that there is now a competition for Second Place, you’ll see Zunes here for $205 and last week w00t was offering zunes for $149, there seems to be no player that can affects iPods dominance and to satisfy it’s suppliers, Amazon came up with this silly category. Amazon.com Category: Non-iPod Mp3 Players
Thanks to John Gruber for this

The Apple Comment by Denny Grabowski

Breathless, running heartbeats, exciting. Folks, if you think I am talking about love then I have to let you know: Yes I do. It happend this morning in my email box. I saw this beauty, unbelievable nice computer. And unable to find words, just a huge WOW came over my lips. I know that rumours were around about the new outfit and shots of the new keyboard have been shown as well, but folks that thing looks gorgeous! In comparision with every other Desktop PC this machine is unbeatable: Fast, nice, thin, stylish! Just a very, very tastefull machine. And just in case if you don’t got it, I am not talking about a girl, but about a thing that is beautiful too, it’s the new iMac! Also the new design line: Aluminum and Glass! Just beautiful!

But that’s not all! There are more new things to explore. Steve Jobs introduced the new iLife and the new iWork as well. Both have very nice features and new extras. Check it out on the Apple site! Just sensational!

Gene Munster made a bold move last week by raising his price target for apple stock from $160 to $205. The decision was not easy though and the analyst has carefully considered what may be in store for Apple and the iPhone.

One very surprising note that was made is in regards to the revenue that Apple is receiving from AT&T for customers using the iPhone, apparently, AT&T is handing over $3 per customer using the iPhone, that $3 is PER MONTH for the duration of the customers contract, thats not all, there’s an addditional $8 per month, this extra revenue combined with actual revenue for hardware sales, plus a superfied halo effect on Macs.

If this all comes true than $205 will look like a bargain a year from now!

Well, Its been a good year for Apple and their Fans, We’ve been presented with the Apple TV, the iPhone, Leopard is coming in October, and since we haven’t seen new iPods or Macs for a while we have to believe there’ll be new Macs and iPods before year end.

Look out here for posts about Apple Hardware and Software, there’ll be plenty more coming soon.

John Gruber writes on the wonderful daringfireball.net, no matter how many zunes MS claims to have sold, I, nor he, have ever seen one in the wild, nor have I ever saw someone buy one at CompUSA or BestBuy.
Money quote : “Seriously, I’ve never seen a single Zune in the wild.”

The Apple Comment by Denny Grabowski

Apple is growing without any doubts. The stock market is not the only index to show these developments. The more important question is in which fields Apple increases. More than 60 percent of Apple’s Macs sold have been MacBooks and being a laptop user presents his own difficulties. I mean not the battery charging or the fear that the machine gets stolen. To own a laptop means freedom in every duty. Its makes you free of cables and gives you the chance to get online everywhere, and this is the point! Open wireless networks in a pub are not so safe like at home. An Internet metrics analyst said these week that the portion of people surfing the web using a Mac has doubled. That is the other side to measure Apple’s success. “The amazing story since last summer has been how well the Mac is doing. For the longest time, Mac hung around 3 percent of the operating systems using the Web. But it picked up around last summer and has nearly doubled its market share”, said Geoff Johnston, Analyst at WebSideStory.

And more and more people could change to Macs. The release of Microsoft’s new operating system Vista wasn’t successfully, maybe an indicator of Microsoft’s monopoly end. Everybody knows that OS X Tiger is a very safety system and very secure and those things show the very deep argument to switch from Microsoft Windows to Apple’s operating system. Unfortunately means that a growing fear. The more user are using operating systems like Apple, the higher the danger to get attacked by cyber criminals. A Mac user is probably a more interesting goal than a user with a cheap PC from an Internet Warehouse. The online attacks are not only just for fun attacks made by kids, such attacks are made to earn money. And its could be easier to damage Mac OS X with harming codes than to find IT Specialists to program the resistance protection stuff, because virus protection wasn’t a big business so far (fortunately).

Apple has today added MGM and its United Artists sublabel to its wonderful iTunes store, open iTunes and browse the new movies that have been added, the trailers for Rocky and Ronin make you want to buy (or at least SEE) them right away.
Does Apple iTunes make its own trailers? or have creative control? Something about their iTunes trailers seems so much better than your average trailers that you see on Network TV or other sales outlets.
Adding MGM to iTunes Movie Library brings iTunes Movie library to 500 movies, it also brings iTunes onboard movie studios up to 2.5 out of the Big 6.
The Big 6 Movie Companies are:
Fox
Paramount
Sony
NBC
Time Warner
Buena Vista

Apple of course began its catalog with Buena Vista (Disney’s) Library, that was followed by Paramounts hefty catalog around January, and today added MGM, which is a subsidary of the massive Sony studio.
Let’s assume that Sony/MGM see unparalled sales from the iTunes store starting today, it’d be logical for Sony to put the rest of its catalog up on iTunes (which includes Columbia, Tristar, Sony animation and more) in the coming months.
If that comes true, we’ve then three of the big six movie studios on board, and Fox, NBC and Time Warner will surely have to come on board too before the 2007 Holiday Season.

Here comes an amazing year for movies on iTunes, on your iMac, on your iPod, and on your TV!

The Apple Comment by Denny Grabowski

More silently than loud removed Apple the addition Computer from his name, more or less recognised. Is Apple no computer factory anymore? What is the point to drop that name off?

To understand this step of changing you will need a look into Apple’s history of the last years and his strategy. The phenomenal iPod was the set up of the big changing. It revolutionized the digital music consumption and pushed it in the most enjoyable way to listen music everywhere and at anytime, and by the way very stylish. That means Apple added digital music as a big piece into his production line inclusive the development of the iTunes store and the music online sale. Both things are still increasing and brought another piece of technology on the market, the Apple TV. This small and good locking box was first introduced last year and is now ready to ship since a couple of weeks. Right, few people can argue, it is a needless box and makes no sense, but it shows how to integrate your Mac with your television. It just iTunes your living room brilliantly!

These few pieces are covering the main things of an enjoyable entertainment life. But there is one more thing out called iPhone, the next step to cover music, photos, movies and internet and of course phone calls altogether. The feedback of this little magic machine was magnificent. It works, looks good and will make his owner happy!

So, these few samples show the necessary step to change the name? Oh yeah, Apple is not longer just a computer company, it is more! Apple is life!

Apple has quietly introduced the eight core mac pro on its online store, over a week before the NAB special event (when many expected it to be revealed), they’ve also lowered the prices on their gorgeous Cinema Displays, seriously tempting me to grab a 20inch for $599.

Appleinsider reports here on Intels new flash tchnology to be used in a variety of devices. Rumors circulated last week about a new Apple line of Notebooks that would utilise this type of technology so the timing is incredible.

These Intel drivew have a MTBF (Mean time between Failure) of 5 Million Hours, thats 570 Years! This compares to Existing ATA Hard drives MTBF’s of about 600,000 hours (almost a tenth of the lifetime of the flash drives).
The Flash drives are also ultra low power consuming and very very quick to read and write to, meaning our notebook computers may soon only need quick charging to run for hours!