9to5 Staff

Apple’s latest patent application has already set tongues wagging and tweets ablaze, as it describes a way to control the tablet with two hands by touch, think Minority Report.

Apple’s new patent describes a sophisticated multitouch input method, in which you use all ten fingers, complex movements and other gestures. You can even type. The patent describes sensors which will work to identify exactly what your gestures mean, will be able to move the cursor and enable various activities, all through touch.

Or, as the patent puts it: “Apparatus and methods are disclosed for simultaneously tracking multiple finger and palm contacts as hands approach, touch, and slide across a proximity-sensing, multi-touch surface. Identification and classification of intuitive hand configurations and motions enables unprecedented integration of typing, resting, pointing, scrolling, 3D manipulation, and handwriting into a versatile, ergonomic computer input device.”

The patent application basically describes the creation of an all-new user interface, designed to replace the current mouse and keyboard UI. It also notes the new interface has advantages against voice control because it allows people to more easily manipulate graphic objects and so forth.

“A generic manual input device which combines the typing, pointing, scrolling, and handwriting capabilities of the standard input device collection must have ergonomic, economic, and productivity advantages which outweigh the unavoidable sacrifices of abandoning device specialization,” the patent also notes.

Good news too for RSI sufferers: “Epidemiological studies suggest that repetition and force multiply in causing repetitive strain injuries. Awkward postures, device activation force, wasted motion, and repetition should be minimized to improve ergonomics. Furthermore, the workload should be spread evenly over all available muscle groups to avoid repetitive strain.”

There’s lots more in the patent filing, which is available here. We think reading the original patent is probably going to be better than any over-simplification we may provide.

With tablet rumours growing apace, it is interesting to reflect on this statement made by Gizmodo, citing a source the publication believes to have seen a prototype of the Apple device: “There was talk of making the device act as a secondary screen/touchpad for iMacs and MacBooks.”

So the Apple tablet could also replace the interface you currently use on your current Macs. And is now widely expected to ship in early 2010…

Via: AppleInsider
 

Cyclopedia ($2 App store) is a new iPhone application that allows to to view geo-tagged Wikipedia articles in a augmented reality browser.  The browser uses the iPhone’s camera to create a backdrop while the Wikipedia articles are displayed around the backdrop of the view.  

Check the video for more.

From the developer:

Cyclopedia uses the iPhone camera, compass and GPS together to created an augmented reality of the world by overlaying Wikipedia information over the viewfinder. By moving the iPhone around you will see articles pop up according to the direction you are pointing, You can then click on the title to get a quick overview article and, if you want to know more , you can then dive deeper into the full article.

There are currently 65,000 entries in Wikipedia that have geotagged information included in them and all of these are available to you through the system. If you find a location that you don’t feel is included. Go and add the gps data directly into Wikipedia yourself and it will eventually pop up in the app. That’s the beauty of Wikipedia. 

Netapplications is reporting that around 18% of Mac users have upgraded to Snow Leopard.  Their methodology uses the data from thousands of websites and compiles them together – you can see from their data below (via theappleblog) that Snow leopard traffic spikes during the weekend when people aren’t at work using their older Macs and their PCs.

That is all well and good, but we thought you’d like to know that 9to5mac Mac users are now over 65% (!!!) converted.

Two-thirds of you are now on Snow Leopard.  That’s up from just over half on the week after the release (and 10% the day of release)  What’s slowing the rest of you down?

Looks like interconnection development is the new black, with earlier reports on Intel’s LightSpeed technology designed to connect everything to everything else now followed by the creation of a cross-industry group to create a unified interconnect to output multimedia content from a phone to a TV.

Apple’s already ahead on this, at least in some respects, as devices and docks already exist to take video and other media from an iPhone or iPod to a TV set, but any movements that aim to make life a little simpler should be welcomed.

Nokia, Samsung, Silicon Image, Sony and Toshiba have announced the formation of the Mobile High-Definition Interface Working Group. The group aims to create an industry standard a/v interface to connect mobile phones or portable consumer electronics devices directly to high-definition televisions (HDTVs) and displays.

This is likely to be based on Silicon Image’s Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) technology, and will be promoted and marketed as a standard.

The aim is to create an easy and cheap technology to achieve this, pleasing manufacturers by not costing too much, and pleasing users by being easy-to-use. And it’s expected to support high-def.

The Working Group is expected to organize a Consortium of founding members who will develop a mobile connectivity technology standard specification that governs transmission and reception of high-definition content between portable devices and display devices, to support connectivity in accordance with the new specification.

Security researchers at Symantec have uncovered what they suspect may be the first Mac OS X botnet launching denial-of service attacks.

As revealed in a recent edition of Virus Bulletin, the researchers claim to have found two malware types which use different tricks to grab control of infected Mac OS X machines.

The two malware bundles are called OSX.Iservice and OSX.Iservice.B, and appear to be spread within pirated copies of iWork 09 and Photoshop CS4, distributed on the popular P2P torrent network.  We’ve talked about these before but now these infected machines are springing into action.

Seems the malware maker got hold of original copies of both application and inserted the malicious binaries into the software. Users who download and install these apps may then be affected.

Researchers Mario Ballano Barcena and Alfredo Pesoli warn this to be “the first real attempt to create a Mac botnet”, and state that these zombie Macs are already going about bad business. Thousands of Macs may have been infected, they warn.

The men also note the malware author appears to have used the most flexible and extendible approach when creating the code, “therefore, we would not be surprised to see a new, modified variant in the near future,” the researchers said.

We’re attempting to unearth further information at this time.

UPDATE: We’ve managed a little chat with Symantec, details follow:

– The infection is also known as: OSX/iWorkServ.A [F-Secure],    OSX/IWService [McAfee],    OSX/iWorkS-A [Sophos],    OSX_KROWI.A [Trend],    OSX/iWorkS-Fam [Sophos],    OSX/Krowi.A [Computer Associates].

– They warn: "Users who download files from third party sites and from P2P networks such as BitTorrent are at risk. More generally, anyone who surfs the internet should be aware of the threat of fake web sites, called phishing sites, that steal passwords, identity information and credit card numbers. "

– Asked if Mac users are under attack, Symantec notes: "The short answer, no. Users of Macintosh computers continue to have little to fear from viruses, trojans and worms so long as they take reasonable precautions."

More general info on the malware:

The two versions of the trojan, called OSX.Iservice and OSX.Iservice.B both create a network of computers (a “botnet) that can used by cyber criminals to attack web sites, send junk email, steal passwords (SPAM) and other malicious activities. This network has been called by some, "iBotnet".

The trojans are distributed in pirated copies of Apple Computer’s iWork ’09 and Adobe Photoshop CS4 found on some P2P networks. Other than installing the company’s anti-virus technologies (and warning against free solutions purporting to do this. as these are often flawed), the company advises Mac users who frequently download files and apps should, "Create a limited or non-administrator account for day to day activities. Use an account with full privileges only when necessary."

The fake iWork ’09 installer has the filename iWork09.zip and is approximately 450MB in size. In contrast, the legitimate trial version of iWork ’09 that is available from Apple is named iWork09Trial.dmg and is slightly over 451MB. The iWorkServices.pkg contains the Trojan executable named iworkservices, and is approximately 404KB in size.

The Trojan first determines if it is the root user on the compromised computer and if not, it will end. Then, it checks to see if it was executed with the file name iWorkServices. If not, it will create the following folder:

/System/Library/StartupItems/iWorkServices

The Trojan then copies itself to both of the following locations:

/usr/bin/iWorkServices
/System/Library/StartupItems/iWorkServices
 

It then modifies the following file to ensure that it runs when the compromised computer restarts:

/System/Library/StartupItems/iWorkServices/StartupParameters.plist

The Trojan then restarts itself from its new location in /System/Library/StartupItems/iWorkServices, and decrypts an AES encrypted configuration file, which is located in /private/tmp/.iWorkServices. Finally, the Trojan acts as a back door and opens a port on the local host for connections. It then attempts to connect to the following remote hosts:

69.92.177.146:59201
qwfojzlk.freehostia.com:1024

We’re fairly confident now this isn’t a wide-spread outbreak, but do hope that any Mac user who may have been affected now has the knowledge they need to identify if indeed they have been, and potentially to protect themselves from any further propogation of this malware thingummy…

Mac sync will soon be possible with Android phones, on Mark/Space’s announcement of The Missing Sync for Android.

Currently in development, the software will deliver a desktop sync solution for phones powered by the Android OS, such as the T-Mobile myTouch and HTC Hero. It will synchronize contacts and transfer media files between an Android phone and a computer running Windows XP, Windows Vista or Mac OS X.

Sync happens automatically and wirelessly whenever the phone is near the computer using Proximity Sync, which works even when the phone is in a backpack or pants pocket. Microsoft Outlook, Entourage and Mac OS X Address Book will all be synchronised.

Unlike Palm – which attempted to hack its way into iTunes support by posing its Pre as an Apple device, the Missing Sync software will also sync iTunes and Windows Media Player music playlists via USB cable. Photo and video sync will also be supported.

In other news, Palm has announced a new detente with Amazon. The company’s latest WebOS 1.2 software enables Pre users to download music from Amazon’s MP3 store over a cellphone network. This probably won’t please customers who purchased a Palm Pre on the promise of iTunes support, but there you go…

And in the other corner, DoubleTwist for Mac debuts October 6, and is likely to work with Apple’s mobile devices, potentially enabling support for a jailbroken app store, CNN speculates.

Greenpeace activists have given a green light to Apple, following the company’s publication of a detailed breakdown of its greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental activists also credit Apple as being ahead of the industry in terms of removing toxic components. Apple eliminated these materials from its entire product line almost a year ago.

In the latest edition of the Guide to Greener Electronics (a quarterly assesment of the big tech firms), Apple sites around number five, the middle of the scale. Greenpeace admits these latest figures were put together before Apple’s recent publication of extensive environmental data.

“We went to press before Apple’s updated environmental information was published last week,” Greenpeace says, adding, “but the welcome news of their transparency about greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental disclosures will be factored in to the next edition. Apple can justly pat itself on the back for listening to their customers who asked for greener gadgets. And all you Apple users should pat yourselves on the back for asking.”

Other firms continue to attract criticism, with HP praised for making a greener promise, and for making the “first step in catching up with Apple” in terms of making all its PC products toxic-free.

Dell and Lenovo each retain a penalty point for delaying their phase-out commitments indefinitely. Acer claims that it will still achieve its target for eliminating PVC and BFRs in all products by the end of this year. Meanwhile Toshiba has a timeline to phase out these toxic substances from all its products by the end of March 2010.

Nokia remains at the top of the ranking, with a score of 7.5 out of 10, followed by Samsung with 6.9, Sony Ericsson with 6.5 and Philips –- which leaps from 7th to 4th place — with 5.9 points. The other climber is Sony, rising from 12th to 8th place.

“We expect these powerful tech companies to stand by their claims and set examples of strong leadership for other industries to follow. It’s encouraging that Philips, Acer and Samsung support the levels of greenhouse emissions cuts required to stem dangerous climate change.”

However, Greenpeace does slate Apple slightly for failing to show climate leadership by taking a stand – a position we don’t agree with following Apple’s publication of its environmental data.

We anticipate good improvement in Apple’s green standing in the next Greenpeace report in three months time.

Apple’s publication of environmental information and Greenpeace’s response comes as HRH The Prince of Wales this week launched a global campaign to encourage a halt in destruction of the Amazon rain forests.

Orange will do its best to scoop up O2’s remaining first-generation iPhone customers when it begins shipping the latest models of the Apple device in November – 2 years since the first UK customers signed-up for 18- or 24- month deals to receive the device.

O2 is currently brazening out the new increase in competition out, saying it has “no plans” for price cuts, but we think these will be inevitable.

Also in the UK, Carphone Warehouse, which has held retail rights to sell iPhone beside Apple and O2, is now locked in negotiations with all three confirmed carriers to maintain that relationship, though it seems competing mobile retailer, Phones4U, is also vying for the trade.

Don’t underestimate the importance of the iPhone to Carphone Warehouse – the company has credited the device for helping it build its market presence at the cost of Phones4U. It is now close to inking a deal to sell Vodafone’s version of the device.

However, Orange has already agreed to allow Phones4U to offer the device, and may move to a multi-tiered strategy, also offering its version iPhone through Carphone Warehouse.

Current expectation is that Orange will bring the iPhone to the UK market at a £100 discount against O2’s price – that’s a discount on overall cost of ownership, including device purchase and monthly cost.

Orange and O2 will be battling head to head over the Christmas period when thousands of iPhone contracts will come up for renewal. Orange will likely trumpet the effectiveness of its 3G coverage outside the UK’s major cities when compared to O2 while it tries to secure those new iPhone customers.

While this is a particularly British story, Apple executives are likely to be watching how the market plays with interest as they consider whether or not to extend the much-criticised exclusive deal with AT&T in the US. Market behaviours in the UK may offer management an insight into likely consequences of opening its device up to more US networks, following an extended period of carrier monoculture.

*UPDATE: Since this appeared speculation has begun, suggesting Apple may be "throttling" iPhone 3G and 3GS supplies to O2, which has apparently sold out on iPhone 3GS AND iPhone 3G online and in shops. Carphone Warehouse appears to have stock.

An O2 spokesperson said the network will "continue to see extremely high levels of demand for the iPhone which means it comes in and out of stock very quickly and will be why the website hasn’t had any since Monday."

Apple bought a company called Placebase in July for its mapping software.  Almost no one noticed.  What is Apple going to do with a mapping company?  Apple Maps on the iPhone?  Places in iPhoto?  More?  Here’s CEO Jaron Waldman talking about the Placebase product.  Much more here.

[blip.tv http://blip.tv/play/AbvQC4T5XQ]

Apple’s got a new support doc out today and it sheds some light on what’s going on behind the scenes of iTunes LP.  Firstly, to play an iTunes LP, you’ll need a 2GHz Dore 2 Duo or faster processor, so earlier model Minis and MacBooks need not apply.  PowerPC?  Pshaw (No).  On PCs, the same requirements apply.

Perhaps most interesting however, is the minimum screen requirements.  Apple states that the screen resolution has to be at least 1280×800 on both Mac or PC.  There are a lot of people out there running media centers on 720P screens that might not meet these requirements.

If the tablets are going to be able to access this type of content (and what are they good for if they can’t?), they’ll need to meet these video requirements as well.  Although we’ve said it before, let it be known that we’re saying it again:  We believe that the tablet will have at least 720P resolution, probably more like 1280×800.

A more common screen size for netbooks like the Dell Mini 10 is 1,366 x 768.  This is also a very distinct possibility.

Apple will reveal its fourth quarter FY2009 results during a conference call held on Monday, October 19, 2009, the company confirmed today.

The call will see the final results of Apple’s last 2009 quarter, as the company reportedly moves to beef up its product offering with improvements in its iMac range as it enters the first quarter of the 2010 financial year, which customarily begins between September 28-30.

New iMacs are expected in early October.

Speaking during the most recent Q3-09 call, Apple CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, predicted revenue in this quarter in the range of $8.7-8.9 billion.

“Looking ahead to the fourth fiscal quarter of 2009, we expect revenue in the range of about $8.7 billion to $8.9 billion,” he said, “and we expect diluted earnings per share in the range of about $1.18 to $1.23.”

Apple’s last quarter was a success. It posted revenue of $8.34 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.23 billion, or $1.35 per diluted share. Record results for the company in a non-holiday quarter.

The results aren’t expected to see Apple apply the recently revised GAAP rules which will now allow the company to note revenues from iPhone and Apple TV sales in the quarter they take place. It’s likely the company will require more time to put new systems in place for new form reporting on these.

The results will be revealed during a conference call, which will be made available for listening here.

We all know Intuit’s Bill Campbell sits on Apple’s board, so it’s nice to hear his company today announced an all-new version of its popular QuickBooks package for the Mac.

Aimed at small businesses, QuickBooks 2010 ships in late October and offers a range of new tools for business users, all couched within what the company describes as “the simplicity they expect from a Mac product”.

The package offers a fast and easy user set-up, delivers customizable reports and graphs and has integrated features which can support available plug-ins for credit card processing and hours tracking.

Business owners can also pay their employees with Intuit QuickBooks Payroll for Mac, an integrated add-on payroll service. This online offering helps users easily manage everything from paychecks to W 2 forms, including federal and state tax payments and form filings.

“Now more than ever, business owners are concerned about profitability,” said Kiran Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Intuit’s Small Business Group. “So with this new version, we focused on the areas that help business owners be more productive, such as at-a-glance reports, integrated credit card processing and simplified routine tasks. This means they have more time to grow their business with the insights they need to improve their bottom line.”

The software will cost $199.95, but is available for pre-order now from Amazon for $189.99, with a price guarantee meaning if the price falls again pre-launch, Amazon will honour all orders made at the new, lower price, rather than the original deal.

QuickBooks 2010 for Mac includes over forty enhancements that help users save time, make money and get paid. Below is a list of key new features and improvements.

Reflecting the trend to abandon PowerPC support, Intuit QuickBooks 2010 for Mac is designed to work on Intel-based Macs (running Mac OS 10.5.7, 10.6, or later).

RIM has confirmed it will ship its BlackBerry Desktop Software for Mac on October 2.

As we previously reported, the new software makes it easier to sync data between a Mac and a BlackBerry. It will sync contacts, calendar appointments, tasks and notes from Apple apps including iCal and Address Book.

The software will also let BlackBerry users add and remove applications from their device, schedule back-ups, encrypt back-up files and install software update.

In a move which Apple may act against, given its recent action to prevent Palm’s Pre in doing this, the BlackBerry software will let users sync their device with their iTunes library, though this presumably will only sync more recent iTunes purchases which lack DRM, and music copied from a CD.

Various other improvements in this release include support for syncing with multiple computers, and the capacity to choose where to store any required music or media files (on an SD card, on the phone’s internal memory, etc).

The free download will be made available on the blackberry.com/mac website from 1pm Eastern on October 2.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again, Apple has big plans for eBooks and its future Apple tablet will help kickstart yet another change in publishing, just as the Mac helped launch the notion of desktop publishing.

Apple is reportedly engaged in extremely high level talks with senior executives from across the publishing industry with a view to making eBooks available to the tablet, and while these may start as the kind of text-based publications you’d find on a Kindle, these will advance to become true multimedia content delivery vehicles.

Perhaps a sign of what’s to come is visible in iTunes Extras/LP. These combine multiple assets and can be purchased from iTunes. They are designed to replicate the DVD or album experience, and while the jury’s out on their success in that, they clearly offer opportunities for the creation and distribution of engaging content.

Now Gizmodo tells us that Apple has been in talks with newspapers, magazines and book publishers, including the New York Times, McGraw Hill and Oberlin Press.

The entire vision relates to Apple’s future tablet, Gizmodo explains: “Several years ago, a modified version of OS X was presented to Steve Jobs, running on a multitouch tablet. When the question of "what would people do with this?" couldn’t be answered, they shelved it. Long having established music, movie and TV content, Apple is working hard to load up iTunes with print content from several major publishing houses across several media.”

The report continues to explain a meeting held on Apple’s Cupertino campus between Apple executives and senior figures from across the publishing industry. This followed an internal Apple competition the winning idea of which was textbook distribution through iTunes, a vision that’s already got strong foundations through iTunes U.

There’s even been a major example of what the vision could be, with Dan Brown’s recent new book also made available as an iPhone application. This title explores various potential advantages in digital reading, with support for notes, changing font styles, suggested reading, and tell a friend features, as well as the classic eBook experience.

Talks are understood to be gathering intensity at this stage, as Apple heads toward its purported January introduction of the Apple tablet. And hints that as both a creative tool and as a device for accessing Apple’s growing empire of digital content, Microsoft’s Courier has a lot of catching-up to do – after all, all we’ve seen of that so far shows Redmond’s vision is no more than as a glorified sketch/scrapbook. And scrapbooks are cheap.

Joel Rickett, editorial director of Penguin’s Viking Books, told The Observer newspaper: "The ebook is very quickly becoming a publishing reality and The Lost Symbol (iTunes link) will be one of the fastest-selling books of recent times.
"Once people can flip between books, look up references online and switch to an audio reading, everything will change very quickly."

Other recent activity came in the iTunes release of the Mayhem comic book in the iTunes LP format (iTunes Link). As John Fortt at Fortune noted, "Maybe the tools Apple created to digitize Gibson’s Mayhem comic will be part of an author’s kit with that oft-rumored Apple tablet?"

This followed Apple boss Steve Jobs statement to the New York Times that Apple doesn’t see eBooks as a big business – for the company.
Being a big business for Apple doesn’t necessarily mean eBooks aren’t a potentially big business for its platforms. eBooks are the second-biggest content category on iTunes after games, so there’s a proper eBook gold rush surging up. It’s just that Apple doesn’t publish the books…but it does create the platform – particularly its mobile platforms.

Also bear in mind Coolerbooks.com and its recent move to partner with Google to launch the world’s biggest online ebookstore – 40 times bigger than Waterstones it aims to offer over two million titles by the end of 2009, with one million titles available right now.

Initially, however, Apple hopes to use its leading advantage in the education market to help popularise its tablet, as we surmised in an August report.

When it comes to the education markets, Apple already knows the score. “We teach teachers not just about Apple solutions, but also how to create content that’s suitable for digital learning,” Apple’s director of EMEA education markets, Herve Marchet, told Macworld UK. "If you want to play in the education market, you need to be a solutions provider. You aren’t just bringing in the machine, you must also offer appropriate software, content and models for best practise in content creation.”

And beyond Apple, Disney (a company which has, erm, Apple CEO Steve Jobs on its board) today launched Disney Digital Books, which it terms, "reading made magical".

The eBook gold rush is now on….

Akamai is preparing the ground for what could emerge to be an avalanche of HD video content streamed directly to an iPhone, as it beefs up its international content delivery infrastructure for provision of HD video services.

We’re also wondering if support for iPhone will lead to easier access to live and on-demand online video content for other Apple devices, such as the Apple TV, which some say may proffer a Web browser designed to enable easy access to video content found online. But that’s just speculation.

What isn’t speculative is Akamai’s news. Apple and Akamai have held a relationship for close to a decade now, with the Web infrastructure firm enabling Apple’s Web properties to be internationally available without lag. Particularly iTunes.

The Akamai HD Network is a system for streaming high-definition live and on-demand video to a variety of devices. It will enable content and service providers offer online video that matches the traditional TV and DVR (digital video recorder) experience through buffering, adapting to network and processing speeds along with all-new features for navigating the content, Akamai said.

Video lovers will be able to watch HD Network content on computers in the Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight formats, but also on the iPhone, said Akamai President and CEO Paul Sagan.

Attempting to deliver high bitrate HD files can create long buffering delays, slow start-up times, and frequent interruptions. Because the Akamai HD Network chooses the optimal bitrate for delivery – it is faster and more consistent than any other network. With fully integrated DVR capabilities for live video across Flash, Silverlight, and the iPhone, the Akamai HD Network enables a personalized and interactive experience that matches HDTV.

As proof of concept, Akamai has made a live broadcast of its press announcement of the new service available in multiple formats, including Flash, Silverlight – and iPhone. Go test the iPhone stream right now, if you like…

The Akamai HD Network is a streaming platform that leverages the following functionalities:

– Adaptive Bitrate Streaming
Unique network and player streaming process that is designed to enable uninterrupted playback at HD bitrates that seamlessly adjusts to fluctuations in available bandwidth to provide the best quality possible for each user

– Instant Response
Immediate response to viewer interactions with the video player, including sub-second time-shifting (such as pause, rewind, seek and play commands) video startup times, and seamless stream switching
– HD Video Player
Open, standards-based video player for faster time to market
– HD Player Authentication
Authenticates player for all three environments ensuring only authorized players access content.

"Seeing is believing," said Paul Sagan, President and CEO, Akamai. "With the Akamai HD Network, we are revolutionizing the way content traverses the Internet with a new approach to bringing an HDTV-like experience online. We’re entering a different online world, where many content owners and publishers need to deliver HD-quality video to a much wider online audience, with a higher level of interactivity for consumers. Delivering ‘web-quality’ content to ‘web-sized’ audiences is one thing, but delivering HD-quality content to broadcast-scale audiences is another."

We’re wondering if the recent iPhone streamed live Underworld performance may have been a test of concept of Akamai’s new service for iPhone users? We also wonder if we may see live performances at iTunes events streamed live to iPhones in future, such as the coming Glasgow performance by legendary act, Echo and the Bunnymen. Though that’s just deeply idle speculation. Though with Akamai’s service, it is now possible, subject to the caveat of the ‘net neutrality’ debate…

Annoyed with Adobe? Feel the company’s customer commitment to be a little weak? Somewhat annoyed at the company’s opaque price tier structure when it comes to Creative Suite sales in the UK and Europe in comparison to the US? Wondering why it won’t stick strictly to Apple development guidelines to create CS in the first place? Perhaps there’s a reason behind it all. Perhaps that reason has just become pretty visible – Adobe’s got a Dell.

Here’s the deal: Dell announced today that Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe, has been appointed to the company’s board of directors. Mr. Narayen, 46, joins the board immediately and will stand for election at Dell’s next shareholders meeting.

“As CEO of one of the world’s largest and most diversified software companies, Shantanu will provide us with valuable insight as we develop and deliver IT solutions to customers,” said Michael Dell, chairman and CEO. “In addition, he brings strong operational expertise and experience, leading a company known for its innovative culture and growth.”

Mr. Narayen has been CEO of Adobe since December 2007, after serving as Adobe’s president and COO, responsible for day-to-day global operations, product research and development, marketing, and corporate development. He held key product research and development positions at Adobe, including for worldwide products, product development and engineering technology.

Before joining Adobe in 1998, Mr. Narayen was co-founder of Pictra Inc., a pioneer in digital photo-sharing over the Internet; led desktop and collaboration products at Silicon Graphics; and held senior management positions at Apple, that last stint was a long time ago, it’s clear.

So there we have in interesting rift. Adobe and Apple helped revolutionise desktop publishing way back in the day, with close and friendly relations between the founders of both firms. Flash forward to today, and Adobe’s current CEO seems to want to send us all to Dell.

Techcrunch brings us DVD John’s latest forray into advertising.  His last advertising adventure was buying the space on the San Francisco Flagship Apple Store.  Then he was called into court to testify against Apple in an iTunes monopoly suit.  This time around, his company has switched up the characters in the classic 1984 Superbowl ad….below. 

The ad closes with the statement that "on October 6th, doubleTwist brings you Choice".  What will DoubleTwist free us from?  BluRay DRM is our hope.

It turns out that New Yorker’s frequent complaints about AT&T’s iPhone service aren’t unfounded.  Some dude sent Gizmodo his Genius Bar adventure – he thought he had a faulty iPhone.

His iPhone was dropping calls left and right ("over 30%") so he brought it in to the Apple Store to have it evaluated.  The Apple technician ran some tests and found that his drop rate was "only" 22%.  That is apparantly a better than average result for iPhones in New York City.

Conclusion? 

"The problem is consistent with the service provided by AT&T."  Have fun…

Hoping to help customers get their head around the 85,000 different apps for iPhone and iPod touch, Apple today updated the Apps for Everything page.  The page now has 12 different categories, and in each category page Apple showcases some of the top apps (of their choosing presumably) and provides links to the App Store.

via the Loop

In part 3 of his interview with Techcrunch, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer laid some choice tidbits for us to dissect…like the following:

The most successful [IE competitor] by far is Firefox. Chrome is a rounding error to date. Safari is a rounding error to date. But Firefox is not. The fact that there’s a lot of competitors probably is to our advantage. Yeah, we’re right now about 74 percent overall with the browser market, roughly speaking. But we’re having to compete like heck with IE 8, with great new features. The other guys are getting more and more unanticipated competitive attack factors, the thing that Google announced yesterday where they replaced IE but they don’t tell you. I mean that’s how I would say it. For all intents and purposes of what they’re doing IE is not there. It’s their operating system. Instead of now masked as browser, it’s masked as a plug in basically to IE. So, you know, we’re going to have to compete like heck and you know, see where things go. The one thing that’s unclear is what’s the economic play for anybody else competing with us at the browser level. Is this all about kind of controlling the search box or is it about something else?

Marketshare from Aug 2009 NetApplications

Think the the IE Chrome Frame annoyed Ballmer at all? 

Other things that are around 7% of market share: Bing search engine and Mac Hardware in the US.  Two other things that Microsoft doesn’t focus on or care about. 

Would he call Bing a rounding error?  Why is he being so sensitive on browsers? Perhaps he’s a little worried that IE is heading toward the magic 50%.

Internet Explorer marketshare over the years

Speaking of Mac, Ballmer had some words for Apple’s desktop product.

Mr. BALLMER: Here’s Windows and Windows is a very successful product. How do you attack Windows? Well, you attack with the high end, and hardware. That’s an attack. That’s – I won’t call it the Snow Leopard attack. I’ll call it the Mac attack of which Snow Leopard is a piece. You could attack from the side. That’s the Chrome – Firefox attack. You can attack from cheap, from below. You’re not from the side. You’re one on one, but that’s kind of a Linux, Android, presumably Chrome OS, who knows, attack vector. You can attack through phones that grow up. You know, mama don’t let your phones grow up to be PCs or something. I don’t know. But that’s another attack vector. So, you could say how do I feel about all these attack vectors? Strong, I feel very strong here.

I mean, we’re gaining share. Apple is expensive. And in tough economic environment, people get it. Their model is, by definition, expensive. And we’ve actually held or maybe even gained just a tiny bit of share relative to the Mac in the last 12 months. And it’s not really Snow Leopard. It’s really Windows PCs versus Mac.

That’s the trade-off. We’ve done extremely well versus Linux-powered machines with the Androids or Linux and we’ve done that primarily by having a better solution and being willing to do the right thing from our pricing perspective. And Windows 7 will only make this, I think, more competitive here.

Not sure where he’s been getting his numbers.  Apple has been outperforming the overall PC market for the last 480 quarters in a row or something.  Could you call this a fib?

This one is geared toward the PC world at the moment but the implications to Macs (and iPhones) are pretty clear.  It appears that Adobe will be releasing a version of Flash in the coming weeks that makes use of a computer’s GPU to accelerate Flash.  In this case, they are NVIDIA ION chips that .  Any Apple user not living in a cave will think two things upon hearing this information:

1. "Hey, that sounds familiar.  Isn’t that what Snow Leopard’s OpenCL is doing? Why not just program Flash to use now Leopard’s GPU optimizations?"
2. "Flash really needs some optimizations so it stops killing my machine when I hit a complex Flash-based banner ad. "

There’s some obvious advantages to GPU optimizations