iPod iTunes Zone

Apple CEO Steve Jobs apologized and offered $100 credits Thursday to people who shelled out up to $599 for an iPhone this summer and were burned when the company chopped $200 from the expensive model’s price. In a letter on the company’s Web site, Jobs acknowledged that Apple disappointed some of its customers by cutting the price of the iPhone’s 8-gigabyte model and said he has received hundreds of e-mails complaining about the price cut.

Jobs added that “the technology road is bumpy,” and there will always be people who pay top dollar for the latest electronics but get angry later when the price drops.

“This is life in the technology lane,” Jobs said in the letter Thursday.

And for many of the iPhone’s early adopters, money is not and never was an issue. They were after the gratification of knowing they were among the first owners of something that was cool, even revolutionary.

“If they told me at the outset the iPhone would be $200 cheaper the next day, I would have thought about it for a second — and still bought it,” said Andrew Brin, a 47-year-old addiction therapist in Los Angeles. “It was $600 and that was the price I was willing to pay for it.”

Jobs said Apple will hand out $100 credits for Apple’s retail and online stores to any iPhone owners who aren’t eligible for a rebate under the company’s refund policy. The policy covers those who bought their phones within 14 days of the price cut.

An Apple spokeswoman said the company did not have an estimate of how much the credits would cost Apple.

Enjoying that period of being among the first — before the price drops and the product reaches the masses — is part of the pleasure, Brin and others say. And in much of the tech world, the usual expectation is that six months will pass before there’s a major price cut and a year before a next generation of the product — usually an improved version — appears.

The looks of envy and attraction are an elixir.

“It’s better than a dog, if you want to meet people,” Brin said of his iPhone.

Read more here

source : cnn.com

Apple’s online store is down for maintenance in the moments leading up to its special event scheduled to begin today at 10:00 a.m. PT in San Francisco. The Cupertino-based company is expected to unveil new iPod nanos and revised full-sized video-capable iPods with touch-screen controls before kicking off a small concert by an unknown musical talent.

Rumors are also circulating that the company could announce the addition of The Beatles music library in digital format for the first time via its iTunes store after issuing an invite with the tagline “The beat goes on” which matches a press release issued just after the iconic rock band broke up in 1970.

source : macnn.com

One day before Apple is expected to introduce new iPods at a special event in San Francisco (“The Beat Goes On”), Microsoft has announced that it is dropping the price of the 30GB Zune music player to $200. A posting to Microsoft’s Zune Insider blog reads “Some of you may have already heard, but tomorrow we’re dropping the suggested retail price for Zune to $199.  It’s part of the normal product lifecycle, something we’ve had on the books for months. We just got some research back and customer satisfaction with the 30GB device is really high (around 94%) and we expect even more consumers will now want to discover the Zune experience at the new lower price.”The price drop comes shortly after Mindy Mount, the corporate vice president and CFO of Microsoft’s entertainment and device division, said that she grades the Zune a “B-” in its current state, noting that the player is doing well, saleswise, for “a product out in less than a year and a half,” but that the company is still developing the brand and trying to expand its identity

Multiple sources claim that Apple’s “Beat Goes On” event should mark a radical departure from the company’s traditional line, claim multiple sources inside Taiwan electronics suppliers. The contacts allege that a premium iPod to be announced on September 5th will include a large touchscreen similar to that of the iPhone and will also include Wi-Fi for networking features while swapping the hard disk for high storage capacity NAND flash memory, the sources said.

source : electronista.com

NBC Universal has announced that it will sell episodes of its new fall television stores using Amazon’s Unbox digital download service, a quick rebound after ties were severed with Apple last week. Shows like “The Office” and “Heroes” are currently available for $1.99 on Unbox (the same price at which they were offered through Apple’s iTunes Store) and new episodes will be added to the site they day after they air. Last Friday, NBC Universal said it would no longer offer episodes of its TV shows through the iTunes Store. Apple countered by terminating NBC’s iTunes Contract, announcing that it would not sell NBC television shows for the upcoming television season.

Apple claimed it had declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. NBC Universal later said it never asked to double the wholesale price–as Apple claimed–and insisted its network shows will be sold by the iTunes Store through early December, adding that Apple needs do more about piracy and that the iTunes pricing strategy is hurting content providers.

Regarding the new Unbox deal, The Associated Press reports “Customers will be able to buy an entire season of a show at once. Free pilot episodes of NBC’s new fall shows, such as ‘Bionic Woman’ and ‘Chuck,’ will appear starting Sept. 10. The NBC content can be played, without commercials, on the computer screen, or on a TV through a Web-enabled TiVo set-top box.”

ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are still currently signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.

source : macnn.com

Apple is expected to launch a new range of iPods this week designed to receive digital radio.The company will make an announcement about the new products on 5 September, but is remaining quiet about what changes will be made.

However, a reliable industry insider has told vnunet.com that the announcement will include plans to bring digital radio to the iPod along with an option to buy music using the device.

The source said that the new iPods will be able to receive digital radio, and will include a ‘buy-now’ function to allow the user to download and buy tracks as they are being played.

This facility will be limited to tracks sold from the iTunes store, but Apple hopes to dramatically increase the number of tracks available via the service. It is not known whether the same functions will be included in the iPhone.

Other rumours about the new iPod line suggest the inclusion of a full touch-screen that does away with hardware buttons, and a new version of the iPod Nano that can handle video.

Meanwhile jewellery designer Thomas Heyerdahl has confirmed that he is selling the world’s most expensive iPod, a Shuffle worn as a necklace coated in white and pink gold and covered with 430 diamonds. It will sell for just under £21,000.

source: vnunet.com

When Apple said it was going to make an announcement at the Moscone Center in San Francisco next week, it triggered an elaborate and familiar guessing game.

Could it be the iPhone Nano, the subject of speculation in a financial analyst’s report this summer? What about a WiFi-enabled iPod that some bloggers are buzzing about?

C’mon, Steve Jobs, how about a hint? No, Apple remains tight-lipped.

If documents prepared by an Apple partner and obtained by The Washington Post are to be believed, both of those products are in the works and slated for release in the coming months. One would be an iPod with WiFi and a touch screen like that on the iPhone; the other would be an iPhone Nano priced lower than the cheapest iPhone, which sells for $500.

Such speculation not only moves markets, it also prompts action from companies, from retailers to analysts and accessory makers, for whom every Apple launch creates new business opportunities.

A J.P. Morgan analyst in Taiwan scrutinized patent applications and probed overseas vendors, concluding in a July report that an iPhone Nano — a version smaller than the iPhone launched in June — would be released this year.

The report caused such a stir that another J.P Morgan analyst issued a subsequent report clarifying the firm’s position. “We have been unable to independently confirm . . . so we are not yet convinced this is a likely event” before year’s end, the analyst, Bill Shope, wrote.

There are other clues bloggers are trying to imbue with significance. One is that Apple’s retail channels apparently have not received new iPod inventory in recent weeks, a possible sign that a new iPod will come sooner, rather than later, bloggers said. A second: The image on Apple’s invitation features album cover art used in its iTunes jukebox software.

In the end, it’s all a guess, with some guesses more educated than others. But they’re also making a few bucks for Apple investors. The buzz generated by Tuesday night’s announcement has helped push Apple’s stock up 9.2 percent, closing yesterday at $138.48 a share.

It’s fun to get excited about a new gadget, but, alas, there is a potential downside for Apple, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst with Enderle Group in Silicon Valley.

“If it brings out a product that doesn’t capture the excitement . . . I wonder if people will be disappointed because it doesn’t come up to the levels of what’s expected,” Enderle said.

Apple declined to comment, and Kasper Jade, publisher of the AppleInsider blog, isn’t surprised.

“Obviously, it’s Apple’s job to keep a tight lid on things,” he said. But it’s his job to try to uncover the news, so he talks regularly with retailers, many of whom are also in the dark on Apple’s plans, he said.

Some of the biggest sellers of Apple products, including Circuit City, Best Buy and Wal-Mart, declined comment.

“It kind of goes both ways with the retailers,” Jade said. “We talk to them about what’s going on, how the inventories are doing. They give us status updates. We share information we have.”

source: WashingtonPost.com

Samung cooked up a new touch screen mobile phone dubbed Samsung Croix to battle the Apple iPhone.

The Samsung Croix’s user interface also named Croix (means cross in French) just won an iF Communication Design Award 2007.

The finger input system is supported by cross like menus and lists.
When Samsung plans to begin offering a Croix based touch screen mobile phone is not known at this point.

The interface looks very clean and intriguing and might have a chance against the Apple iPhone interface.
Samsung scored overall 11 iF 2007 design awards.

source : i4u

Apple Inc. will use a special media event on September 5th to introduce a new array of digital media offerings, according to digital invitations issued to analysts and members of the media Tuesday afternoon.

The invites, which arrived by e-mail, depict an enlarged CoverFlow interface with the caption, “The beat goes on.” The wording appears to have been borrowed from the trailing line of The Beatles’ final press release, which was issued by Apple Records on April 10, 1970, following the band’s split.

“Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John and George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope. The world is still spinning and so are we and so are you,” read the 1970 Beatles release. “When the spinning stops — that’ll be the time to worry, not before. Until then, the Beatles are alive and well and the beat goes on, the beat goes on.”

Apple’s event is scheduled to take place at the Moscone West in San Francisco on September 5 at 10:00 a.m.

Apple is widely expected to use the gathering to usher in a new breed of Mac OS X-based iPods. Additional announcements relating to the company’s iTunes software and digital media download service are also expected.

by Kasper Jade

Apple Inc. will use a media event next month to unveil a new breed of iPod digital music players that have been injected with the company’s most vital asset — the Mac OS.

The move will culminate a multi-year effort on the part of the Cupertino-based electronics giant to form a new platform of digital devices around the common core of its legendary operating system software and expertise in industrial design.

Three of Apple’s four business segments — the Mac, iPhone and Apple TV — already rely on derivatives of the Mac OS. In surgically replacing the iPod’s Pixo-influenced OS with a modern-day variant of its homebred software, the company will have effectively scaled the Mac OS across its entire product matrix.

Internally, Apple is much further along, according to sources, who say the company will again tap an embedded version of the Mac OS to form the foundation of yet another business segment and digital device family in 2008. In the meantime, however, the company’s efforts will reportedly focus on maturing its already established product families.

People familiar with this year’s plans say Apple’s iPod roadmap for the fall now calls for as many as four new models — most, if not all, will employ NAND flash — including major evolutions of both the flagship video iPod and iPod nano lines. It’s these two iPod product families which are expected to receive the Mac OS treatment, though to varying degrees.

Sources in the Far East — where Apple manufacturers its digital music players — have recently vouched for sightings of a “full screen” iPod, which they believe will finally make its debut ahead of this year’s holiday shopping season. The players are said to run a derivative of the Mac OS-based iPod software introduced as part of the company’s iPhone handset back in June.

What’s interesting, however, is that the Apple has also been working on Mac OS-based iPod software for models that will retain their click-wheels — such as third-generation iPod nanos. Interface concept videos recently published and then pulled from MacRumors consisted of genuine Apple material to this effect, AppleInsider can confirm.

The videos illustrated intentions on the part of the gadget maker to carry over software design aspects from the iPhone, in addition to tying in features of its just-released iLife ‘08 digital lifestyle suite. In particular, they demonstrated widespread use of vibrant album art, Leopard-style interface overlays, a world clock widget similar to the iPhone’s, and a new photo feature that would allow iPod nano users to browse their iLife ‘08 photo “Events” via a CoverFlow interface controlled by a physical click-wheel.

Exactly what may be in store for the remaining iPod models is admittedly unclear. However, one could simply represent modest improvements to the entry-level iPod shuffle, while the other could be one-in-the-same with much-rumored second iteration of iPhone.

Those people familiar with Apple’s digital media player plans say an official unveiling of this year’s offerings is on tap for mid-to-late September.

source : www.appleinsider.com