The Guy Who Made The iPod Is Now Building A Sleek Thermostat

THE APPLE INVESTOR: Analysts Look Past Steve Jobs, See Apple's Compelling Value And Vision As A Mobile Device Leader

Apple's revenue grew 71% year-over-year!

John Sculley On Steve Jobs, The Full Interview Transcript

"The thing that separated Steve Jobs from other people like Bill Gates — Bill was brilliant too — but Bill was never interested in great taste. He was always interested in being able to dominate a market. He would put out whatever he had to put out there to own that space. Steve would never do that. Steve believed in perfection. Steve was willing to take extraordinary chances in trying new product areas but it was always from the vantage point of being a designer. So when I think about different kinds of CEOs — CEOs who are great leaders, CEOs who are great turnaround artists, great deal negotiators, great people motivators — but the great skill that Steve has is he’s a great designer. Everything at Apple can be best understood through the lens of designing."

Continue reading the full story at Cult of Mac by Leander Kahney

DailyTech - Report: Apple Cuts 0.7 Percent of iPad Profit to Give Factory Workers Big Raise

"It took a string of suicides to spur it to action, but Apple is finally taking a big step towards trying to ensure that the workers who build its bestselling iPads, iPods, and iPhones enjoy a decent standard of living.

According to a report by Chinese news organization Sina, Apple has now quietly committed a dramatic gesture, offering to finance the majority of the 20 percent raise in pay to the Shenzhen workers. The raise was long promised to workers, but had remained undelivered for some time now.

The 20 percent raise will cost Apple a little, but not very much. It is estimated to raise the costs of labor for the iPad from 2.3 percent of the cost to 3.0 percent of the cost. Apple still looks to make hundreds in profit off of each unit sold (breakdowns estimated Apple makes at least $200 per iPad sold)."

DailyTech - Report: Apple Cuts 0.7 Percent of iPad Profit to Give Factory Workers Big Raise

Apple's fifth take: Ars reviews the iPod nano with video

Once again, we have taken a look at the new iPod nano to see if its new features are cool enough to keep it at the top of Apple's bestseller list. And, since video is one of the nano's major new features, we compared its video quality to other pocket video cameras.

Another year, another iPod nano. As expected, Apple introduced the next generation of its flash-based music player during the September 2009 iPod event, once again building on its current feature set in an attempt to appeal to more buyers.

The new nano (fifth generation, for those keeping count) is very similar to the fourth-generation version. What differentiates the 5G nano, however, are a few major feature additions plus a handful of refinements intended to keep the nano on everyone's stocking stuffer list.

Quick look at what's new

If it weren’t already plainly obvious, the major new feature of the fifth nano is the addition of a video camera. That alone could have probably justified the new device, but Apple went a few steps further, leveraging existing (but latent) capabilities already on the nano to add several other features. These include a full-featured FM tuner application, a pedometer, a Nike+ receiver, VoiceOver support, and a voice notes application.

Read the full story at Ars Technica By Jacqui Cheng, Clint Ecker

iTunes 9 Tips and Tricks - Solve the Mysteries of the New iTunes

The latest update to iTunes is such a drastic change that many users are scratching their heads trying to figure out where everything is and how to work it.

Sure, if you just want to hit Play, you're good to go, but if you're looking for the alleged ringtones Steve was talking about, or how to share your music via Twitter and Facebook, it's not that cut and dry.

We jumped right into iTunes and hopefully, this list of tips will help you get back to enjoying your music while basking comfortably in the new features of iTunes 9.

Read the full story at MacLife

Jobs makes it clear he's back in charge at Apple

SAN FRANCISCO--Though technically he returned to work two months ago, it was as the host of Wednesday's Apple music event that Steve Jobs publicly retook the reins of the company he founded.

Read the full story at CNET

See the video of the event.

Apple working on device abuse detection technology

Apple has investigated a system where portable devices like iPods and iPhones would detect and store into memory "consumer abuse events" such as exposure to extreme cold, heat or moisture in void of warranty, a new patent application reveals.

The invention, entitled "Consumer Abuse Detection System and Method," was discovered byAppleInsider in a new patent application disclosure this week. Apple originally filed for the patent on Feb. 1, 2008. The concept aims to detect issues, like a dropped iPhone, that might void the warranty on the device.

Read the full story at AppleInsider by Neil Hughes

Apple's Secret Weapon: Your Mom

Sales of cars and homes are foundering but Apple has found steady customers.

BURLINGAME, CALIF. -- Walk into the local Apple store at 10:35 on a Friday morning and you'll notice something different: normal people.

These are not the mutants you'll find trolling Fry's for a new motherboard, a liter of Mountain Dew and packets of beef jerky. These are not the middle-aged pot-bellied dudes you'll find eyeing the latest big screen television at Best Buy ( BBY -news - people ).

These are people like your mom. Among the 20 customers at the store Friday were several older women. One was getting a quick tutorial on how to download digital movies.

What's up with that? I asked my mother-in-law. "There's always someone there to answer your questions," she said of Apple ( AAPL- news - people )'s stores. "I like that."

A lot of people do. Little wonder analysts expect to see increasing sales--and fat margins--when Apple reports earnings for the quarter ending in June. The report is due out on Tuesday afternoon. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters expect net income of $1.1 billion, or $1.16 a share, compared to net income of $1.1 billion, or $1.19, during the corresponding period a year ago. Sales are expected to rise to $8.2 billion from $7.5 billion.

Continue reading the full story at Forbes by Brian Caulfield

U.S. Soldiers' New Weapon: an iPod

DOD are developing military software for iPods that enables soldiers to display aerial video from drones and have teleconferences with intelligence agents halfway across the globe. Snipers in Iraq and Afghanistan now use a "ballistics calculator" called BulletFlight. The Ipod is becoming the U.S. Military's new secret weapon.

"The future of "networked warfare" requires each soldier to be linked electronically to other troops as well as to weapons systems and intelligence sources. Making sense of the reams of data from satellites, drones and ground sensors cries out for a handheld device that is both versatile and easy to use. With their intuitive interfaces, Apple devices—the iPod Touch and, to a lesser extent, the iPhone—are becoming the handhelds of choice."

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Massive iPod Touch Sales Over Christmas

Apple's new iPod Touch appears to have been a huge hit this holiday season with evidence that the high end iPod has seen massive gains in marketshare.

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Blow into the iBreath and your iPod plays a blood-alcohol al

The accessory's maker hopes the iPod's cool factor will overcome any stigma of being responsible and using a breathalyzer.

Now the iPod can answer the question: Am iDrunk?

A new product called the iBreath turns Apple Inc.'s iPod into an alcohol breathalyzer. The $79 accessory plugs into the base of the iPod and functions like a field sobriety test. The person using the iBreath exhales into a retractable "blow wand" and the internal sensor measures the blood-alcohol content. Within two seconds, it displays the results on an LED screen. A reading of 0.08 or above sets off an alarm, signaling a blood-alcohol level above the legal limit in all 50 states.

"We figured, OK, if it's only a breathalyzer, the chances are this thing is coming off the iPod and sitting in the drawer," Bassler said. "If we put in the FM transmitter, they might keep it on there."

Dean-Mooney questions the accuracy of the device. Law enforcement agents use instruments that are calibrated monthly, and accurate readings require the person taking a field sobriety test to blow "deep lung air," she said. iBreath claims to offer results in as little as five seconds within 0.01% accuracy.

"I'm afraid it not only causes young people to use it as a training tool but also gives them a false sense of security. 'I'm good to go,' " Dean-Mooney said. "Your blood-alcohol content goes up for 30 minutes after you stop drinking."


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Apple Threatens iTunes Shutdown

For five years, Apple's iTunes Music Store has been the Internet's most successful music store. "If the [iTunes music store] was forced to absorb any increase in the ... royalty rate, the result would be to significantly increase the likelihood of the store operating at a financial loss - which is no alternative at all," Cue wrote. "Apple has repeatedly made it clear that it is in this business to make money, and most likely would not continue to operate [the iTunes music store] if it were no longer possible to do so profitably."But as music publishers have sought a higher share of its proceeds, Apple has threatened to shutter iTunes.

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Apple rocks out, announces new iPods, iTunes 8

At the highly-anticipated "Let's Rock" event today in San Francisco, Apple updated the venerable iPod.

HD TV shows
"Shows will cost $2.99 apiece (instead of the typical $1.99 for SD episodes), but unlike the handful of HD movies the store already has, HD TV show episodes can be watched on a computer, not just on an Apple TV."

iTunes 8
"Jobs announced a new Pandora-like "Genius" feature that can generate playlists of songs "that go great together." A new Genius Sidebar can also anonymously (and voluntarily) send your library info up to the iTunes Store cloud to make smarter recommendations of new music a customer may like. A new button in the iTunes 8 interface offers easy access to these new Genius features."

New iPod nano
"The new iPod nano can create Genius playlists on the go, without having to connect to iTunes, and it also gained the accelerometer from the iPhone and iPod touch for viewing Cover Flow album art, photos, and video when turned sideways. The iPod nano is also gaining a number of new hardware and software features that typically could only be had through third-party accessories (if at all), such as a built-in voice recorder and the ability to shake it to shuffle. Other new iPod nano features include an iPhone-like headphone set with a new clicker, volume control, and microphone."

New iPod touches
"The new iPod touch has the same 3.5" display but gets thinner with a tapered, stainless steel back (probably to differentiate it from the iPhone). The iPod touch will gain the iPhone's integrated volume controls on its side, and gains a built-in speaker like the iPhone which Jobs claimed was "really hard for something this thin, for casual listening." Genius playlist creation will also be built into the iPod touch. nother unique feature of the new iPod touch is the integration of the Nike+iPod system for tracking running statistics. Unlike the iPod nano, the hardware receiver has been built into the iPod touch."

New iPhone OS 2.1
"The major update should "significantly" improve battery life, problems with droppped calls, fix a lot of bugs, and backing up to iTunes should be "dramatically" faster. New iPod touches ship with the 2.1 OS update, and it should be available to download for free for all other iPhone and iPod touch owners running iPhone OS 2.0 this Friday."

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