Gross profit margins are in the neighborhood of 50% for the new iPod according to research firm iSuppli, which took apart a 30GB video iPod and estimated that it costs US$151 to manufacture. The player sells for $299. Arik Hesseldahl has all the details in his latest BusinessWeek column. As Ars Technica noted when it…
Just a Thought - Conversations With Steve: 2 Minutes To Curtain...
The huge red curtain undulates slightly, as if sighing, as the air conditioner thrums to life. Steve stands beneath an overhead vent just beyond the curtains and closes his eyes while the cool air from the vent washes over him. Beyond the curtains, seats are filling, and the murmur of the sizable crowd grows more…
Aperture Complements Photoshop Instead of Competing
Aperture, Apple’s new professional photograph management and editing application, is a tool that complements Adobe Photoshop instead of competing with it. Even Adobe sees it as a supplement to Photoshop, according to a Publish article. Apple touts Aperture as workflow tool for professional photographers who deal with images in the Camera RAW file format. In…
Ars Technica Posts In-Depth Review, 'Vivisection' of Video iPod
Ars Technica’s Clint Ecker has posted an in-depth look at the 30GB video iPod, complete with the Web site’s usual dissection to see what makes the device tick. In this case, however, he calls it a vivisection because his “patient” lived. Mr. Ecker addressed all of the major questions that were posed immediately after Apple…
TMO Reports - Apple Shipping New 15 and 17-inch PowerBooks [UPDATE]
Apple announced across the board upgrades to the PowerBook line at a special press event Wednesday. The 15 and 17-inch models received brighter, higher resolution screens and 22 percent better battery life, and an 8x SuperDrive DVD/CD burner is now standard across the PowerBook line. The 15-inch PowerBook sports a 1440×960 resolution display, and the…
Analysts See Big Gains in Online Video Content Delivery
Research firms In-Stat and AccuStream iMedia Research have both issued reports that see big gains being made in the area of online video content delivery in coming years. The former expects worldwide revenue, on both a subscription and pay-per-download basis, of non-adult video content to reach US$2.6 billion by 2009. The latter sees a 109%…
Apple Increases Efforts to Collect 'Made For iPod' Royalties
Earlier this year, Apple instituted a program that enables accessory makers to put a “Made for iPod” logo on their products, in exchange for royalty payments. Likened to an “iPod tax” by some, the program is now mandatory for companies that want to connect their products to the dock connector on the bottom of the…
myTV.PVR Enables Watching, Recording TV on Macs
Support for Titan TV, the Internet electronic program guide, ensures that programs are recorded at the correct time. The hardware also features composite/S-Video and stereo audio inputs for connecting to cable or satellite TV boxes, VCRs, camcorders or DVD players. Pricing is US$149. The kit includes a remote control, power supply, USB cable, FM radio…
Apple Introduces Pro Photo Editing Tool Aperture [UPDATE]
“Aperture is to professional photography what Final Cut Pro is to filmmaking,” said Rob Schoeben, Appleis vice president of Applications Marketing. “Finally, an innovative post production tool that revolutionizes the pro photo workflow from compare and select to retouching to output.” RAW The RAW image format offers the clearest and most-detailed digital images, and it…
TMO To Go Podcast - Mac Geek Gab: Back to MP3 - Terminal Trip, Part 1
Show notes for TMO To Go: Mac Geek Gab For October 18th, 2005 Direct Links: MP3 Version. No Enhanced show (yet!) this week. We’ll be building a separate feed for the enhanced show. More news to come. This week, John and Dave fire up the terminal and walk through some of their favorite utilities, focusing…
BofA Securities Sees Video iPod as 'Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary'
Mr. Bachman took a look at some of the music videos now available for sale on the iTunes Music Store and found them “to have fast download speeds and good clarity.” However, he wrote, “look for breadth of content to be the long-term regulator on adoption trends.” The analyst believes that Apple could increase consumer…
Memorex Debuts Flash Drive With LCD, Mega TravelDrive With More Capacity
Memorex has expanded its line-up of USB 2.0 TravelDrives with the introduction of the flash-based TravelDrive ID, which features a built-in LCD screen that shows its contents as well as how much storage capacity remains. The company also debuted Mega TravelDrives that come in 6GB and 8GB capacities; they use micro drives, similar to the…
The Slacker's Guide - Desert Combat and Wesnoth
Battle for Wesnoth:"I love it when a plan comes together," exclaimed George Peppard, typically through a cigar and ear to ear grin at the end of each episode of "The A-Team". Words to live by, and likely gray matter I’ll never get back, come to think of it. But sometimes a plan does come together,…
IDC Expects MP3 Player Sales to Surge
“Demand for portable MP3 players is booming, as more and more consumers get acquainted with their stylish form factors and digital audio functionality,” said IDC analyst Susan Kevorkian. This is good news for Apple, which already controls 80 percent of the digital music market, expected to be worth US$145.4 billion by 2009. Flash based players,…
Just a Thought - Apple's Seed
Maybe there should be a Palm death knell. If there was one I’d likely be a high contributor, but I wouldn’t like it very much. You see, I really like Palm and the devices they produce; well, some of them anyway. I also believe that the traditional PDA is passed its prime. I’m not the…
Ihnatko - How to Stuff a Wild iPod
As I sit down and write this (about 12:30 EST on Wednesday afternoon, the video iPod is a Maybe. Sure. Okay: definitely there’s a possibility that there’ll be an iPod that can play video, which will be released sometime, today possibly, or maybe sometime next year. Not to worry; by the time I upload…
Microsoft and RealNetworks Settle Lawsuit, Partner Up
Microsoft settled a lawsuit on Tuesday with RealNetworks, and Apple may have inadvertently played a hand in the deal, according to a vnu network report. Apple’s dominance in the digital media market may have pushed the two companies into an agreement. Microsoft is paying RealNetworks US$761 million that covers both the settlement, and payment for…
Apple Updates QuickTime to 7.0.3 w/Bug Fixes & iPod Features
The update also gives QuickTime 7 Pro users the ability to "create video and audio files that can be played back on compatible iPods." The update notes in Software Update also specify that it will disable QuickTime Pro functionality in prior versions of QuickTime (i.e. QuickTime 5 or QuickTime 6). You can find the update…
Samsung Pleads Guilty to Price Fixing That Forced Apple, Others to Raise Prices
The Justice Department said that the company engaged in the activity from 1999 through 2002, forcing Apple, Compaq, Gateway and other computer makers to raise their prices as a result. Reporter Rex Nutting said that the Justice Department may also charge the Samsung executives involved in the case.
DLO Redesigns TransPod Auto Solution for iPod
DLO announced Wednesday the release of a redesigned TansPod auto solution for the iPod product line (iPod, iPod nano, iPod mini). TransPod includes a multi-frequency FM transmitter, a holder for your iPod, and a charger, all rolled up into one device. The redesign includes new industrial design, automatic intelligent power management, controllable backlit display, programmable…
The Back Page - Bryan's Notes from the "One More Thing..." Media Event
As you probably know by now, Apple told incoming journalists that blogging and live updates from the "One more thing…" media event were VERBOTEN! Why in the world Apple would want us not giving people live updates is beyond me (Think Control), but it was moot anyway, as I had zero cell-phone signal inside the…
First on TMO - Apple's Tim Cook: iPod nano Demand is 'Staggering'
Unsurprisingly, the new iPod nano was an oft-raised topic of discussion during Apple’s Q&A session with financial analysts on Tuesday. Tim Cook, Apple’s Executive Vice-President of Worldwide Sales and Operations, characterized demand for the new MP3 player as “staggering” and noted that the company shipped more than one million nanos in the 17 days from…
TMO To Go Podcast - Mac Geek Gab: Tips for Switchers, Virus Rants, and More!
Show notes for TMO To Go: Mac Geek Gab For October 11th, 2005 Direct Links: MP3 Version. No Enhanced show (yet!) this week. We’ll be building a separate feed for the enhanced show. More news to come. John and Dave focus their advice (and that from the listeners!) towards those of you who have switched…
Apple Modifies Google AdWord Policy
As previously reported, the issue stems from Apple requesting that Google prohibit the use of specific AdWords, or keywords, in paid advertisements in Google search results. The end result was that companies selling Mac and iPod related products were hobbled because they had no way of linking their products to a consumeris search. Although “Mac”…
