9to5 Staff

Portuguese online store and Authorized Apple reseller (for now at least) Promais offer up these new 3G iPod Touch and 5G iPod nano cases.  Via MDN.  More below.

All change in the games industry where the iPhone gold rush is generating serious deals and forcing major strategic change.

There’s big prizes at stake. Most smartphone users (62 percent) download one to five applications per month, while iPhone users are far more active, with 82 percent downloading apps, according to Goldman Sachs. iPhone users, more than those on any other platform, are keen on games, the analysts confirmed.

There’s cash in the iPhone attic: Overall downloads from all app stores will reach 6.67 billion applications by 2014, up from two billion this year, Vikrant Gandhi, analyst at market research firm Frost & Sullivan, told internetnews.com.

Games have become the dominant category on the App Store, with analysts predicting Apple will grab 10 per cent of the handheld games market by the end of the year.

This developing competition for a slice of Apple’s growing market is in the spotlight again today, with comments from Namco, where recently hired ex-Apple veteran, Jonathan Kromrey has taken charge of a new dedicated Apple device development team.

He explains: “I bought a group of people with me from Apple". And Namco seems prepared to make major investment in Apple’s platforms, “We are evaluating partnerships with other developers,” he said.

Confirming just how seriously developers see iPhone development, he says, “My charge is to make games that are the best for the iPod touch and iPhone. There is a gold rush to do Apps for the App store and Namco is at the forefront of that movement."

On future games developments, he admits Namco’s working on a back catalogue of Japanese games along with some new ones, and the company will bring Tekken to iPhone if it can figure out effective game-play.

“No matter the game, what’s most important is that the player feels this real sense of immersion, of tangibility, so they’re no longer playing a game on the device, they’re in the poker room or at the fighting tournament.”

It’s not just Namco, Sega recently began canvassing iPhone gamers to find out which old Sega classics should be given the iPhone treatment.

And it’s not just games developers. There’s serious VC investments being slammed down as Wall Street considers all the estimates and follows the money.

– Backflip Studios, the indie developer behind the popular Paper Toss game for the iPhone, has raised $145,000 in funding, it announced this month.

– Z2Live has just raised a total $4 million in finance to develop the first multiplayer game platform for the iPhone and other platforms.

With the focus on Apple, we’re unsurprised at recent rumours from Sony, which claim that company plans to match App Store prices on games sold through its revitalised PlayStation Network (PSN), where games will cost between 1-5 Euros, rumour claims.

Like Microsoft, RIM and others, Sony has begun actively sourcing iPhone developers to bring existing titles to PSN.

What’s next? We think Apple may eventually extend its growing presence in mobile gaming to attempt a grab at the console market, with the possible introduction of a Pro games store at the App Store, selling titles in higher resolution for playback on larger-screened Apple devices.

Here we go again, as the rumour-mill gathers ever more strength and reports claiming Apple will unveil its latest range of iPods in early September, perhaps during the week beginning September 7, the latest batch of iPod touch with camera pictures/mock-ups have emerged.

This latest trio of purported images have leaked out of those ever-busy Chinese forums. Meanwhile, (fresh off his geek fight with Giz editor Brian Lam) Daring Fireball last night spat out what author John Gruber hears are the price points for the new iPods: 16/32/64 GB for $199/299/399, he claims.

Allegedly, these images depict a prototype (albeit somewhat scratched, hmm..) of the future model of the device, which is also expected to be able to capture video, edit video and share video assets using services such as Mobile Me and YouTube (as the iPhone does at this point).

With the iPod touch already a major contender in the handheld gaming segment, it should be interesting to watch its future land-grab at the low end digital camera/video camera markets.

We guess success will depend on just how high a resolution camera the future product will offer, and what the market decides is the minimum necessary for casual – but effective – photography. Another image after the jump. Via: Techticker.

What do you think – real or fake?

Update: So far the consensus is pretty much in the fake category, two good reasons so far:

1/ Look at the Dock – there’s reflections, which aren’t in the current OS.

2/ That poor iPod touch is pretty scratched?

Hopefully none too frazzled following his recent spate of letter-writing, Apple’s marketing chief, Phil Schiller, will be required to offer his deposition in the ongoing Apple versus upstart unlicensed clone maker, Psystar, case.

Schiller is just one of several high level Apple employees who Psystar’s “people” will be taking depositions from as they attempt to defend themself against an Apple legal action. Apple has accused Psystar of violating the Mac OS X licensing agreement and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by installing the operating system on PCs.

“We are pleased to announce that an agreement with Apple’s counsel was reached earlier this month and we now have the final list of their deponents for our proposed topics with respect to this litigation. For the past week and for the following ten days we will be doing depositions of some of Apple’s highest level people," Psystar explained.

"After numerous depositions of Psystar employees and associates the shoe is finally on the other foot, oh the joy! We’re taking the top ten most highly moderated questions for each person to be asked at their depositions."

The deposition list reportedly also includes the following individuals: John Wright, OS X Senior Software Manager, Kevin Van Vechten, OS X, Software Engineering Manager, Mike Culbert, Mac Hardware, Senior Director, Simon Patience, OS X, Head of Core OS, Mark Donnelly, Apple VP Finance and Worldwide Business management and others.

Despite the requirement to attend a deposition, Apple legal continues to fight, most recently accusing Psystar of destroying evidence. Groklaw reports Apple’s filing states: “Defendant, Psystar Corporation, has destroyed relevant evidence that it was legally required to preserve. Specifically, Psystar has overwritten — i.e., erased — infringing versions of the software code used on computers sold to its customers.”

“Apple goes on to state that it "contends and can prove" that Psystar violated the DMCA and infringed copyrights "by modifying Apple’s Mac OS X software" and then installing it on non-Apple computers. When Apple deposed the Psystar CEO, Rodolfo Pedraza, it says, it did so to find out what method the company used to circumvent Apple’s "technological protection measures", and that’s how it found out about the erasures of prior versions of Psystar’s software. This happened just before Psystar filed for bankruptcy,” writes Groklaw.

One thing’s for sure, whatever the outcome of the Psystar trials, the clone maker has successfully managed to consume a chunk of high level Apple executive time.

China Unicom this morning denied earlier reports it has purchased five million iPhone’s at a cost of near $1.5 billion.

The China Business News claimed Apple had reached a deal with China Unicom to sell the iPhones, now, once again, China Unicom denies a deal is on the table.

“Talks between us and Apple have been going on for some time, but no agreement has been reached yet," said Unicom spokesman Yi Difei as reported by The Street. "There are all kinds of possibilities.There is no particular timetable for the talks."

The previous report, he said, “is not true”.

Despite a recent visit to China Unicom by a high-level team led by Apple’s Greg Joswiak, Apple spokeswoman in Beijing, Tiffany Yang, said she had no information about an iPhone agreement in China.

It now seems it’s going to be a while until Apple and China Unicom break this deadlock, understood to involve revenue sharing agreements and an understanding of who will run the App Store in the country. Despite this, a deal with China Unicom has been an on/off expectation for months.

Fanboys might want to avert your eyes.  We didn’t get a good look at the shooter (Eric Schmidt?) but we have a feeling his actions arn’t going to be appreciated around these parts.  The good news is that you now know not to put your iPhone up against a 9mm handgun…if that was ever a consideration.

via Gizmodo

It is too bad too, he seemed like a pretty quick typist on the virtual keyboard.

According to the WSJ, Apple’s board will meet next Tuesday to decide who will replace outgoing Eric Schmidt.  Dr. Schmidt, who had been an Apple board member since 2006, left Apple’s board late last month, citing a conflict as Apple’s and Google’s businesses increasingly overlap. 

Apple’s board meets four times a year and includes Chief Executive Steve Jobs, Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell, former Vice President Al Gore, Avon Products CEO Andrea Jung, former Chrysler finance chief Jerome York, Genentech Chairman (and Google board member) Arthur Levinson, and J. Crew CEO Millard Drexler.

Apple’s bylaws stipulate its board can have five to nine members; its board has stayed more or less constant at seven to eight members.  The WSJ says that the new board member will be watched as the current board "has been criticized by investors and corporate governance experts for its lack of independence from Mr. Jobs."

They remind us that Tim Cook could be considered for a board seat.  We had a poll a few months ago on whether or not Eric Schmidt should stay on.  You voted 3:1 that he should.  We had another poll last week on who should replace Schmidt.   We’re bringing it back (below).

Jim Dalrymple, former Macworld Editor at Large and current CNET contributer says he’s heard that there will be no tablet at the September event.  The event will be typical music and iPods only.  The iTablet, according to him, won’t be revealed until 2010.

Very reliable sources familiar with the product have said speculation of the tablet being introduced during the September event are flat out wrong. The Apple tablet, they said, would not see the light of day until the first part of 2010.

Though Dalrymple seems pretty sure of himself, the beard has its doubts.

Update: d’oh! Labor day is Monday and Kafka said "week of" September 7th

AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka is quoting some Industry Execs  saying that the week of September 7th will be the big day…or as they put it: One of Apple’s Famed Keynote Events.  Monday is Labor day in the US but September 9th…09/09/09 seems like a better fit to us though we’ve heard nothing specific.

Multiple music industry sources say Apple executives have told them the company is planning one of its famed keynote events for the week of Sept. 7.

The Internet is abuzz right now with speculation.  The timing makes sense as the past four iPod events have been in early September (to get those back to school kids in a lather) but Monday would be unusual for Apple as they often go with Tuesday affairs.

Thoughts?

MacMagazine.br offers up the new Snow Leopard installation procedure in a video below:

??

Also it appears that a Snow Leopard 10a432 Torrent is making the rounds.  We aren’t judging you but $29 seems like very little to pay for something so important your daily life.  Buy it even if you decide to use the torrent as well.

MacMagazine.br offers up the new Snow Leopard installation procedure in a video below:

??

Also it appears that a Snow Leopard 10a432 Torrent is making the rounds.  We aren’t judging you but $29 seems like very little to pay for something so important your daily life.  Buy it even if you decide to use the torrent as well.

More from MacMagazine:

We update the article from earlier but not much here again show the new icon of the installer of the Snow Leopard:

O Gear Live (mesmo site que publicou a imagem acima) também soltou uma tabelinha dos arquivos disponibilizados pela Apple. The Gear Live (same site that published the image above) also released a tabelinha of files provided by Apple. Como você pode ver, a imagem de disco (DMG) do User DVD pesa 6,1GB: As you can see, the disk image (DMG) User weighs 6.1 GB DVD:

Mas a parte mais importante da imagem acima ninguém deu importância. But the most important part of the picture above has no importance. A Apple diz: “[…] This is a preview build […]“ , isto é, a versão ainda é considerada preliminar. Apple says: "[…] This is a preview build […]" ie, the version is still considered preliminary. Nada impede a empresa de anunciar daqui a alguns dias que a mesma foi declarada GM, mas eu acho improvável. Nothing prevents the company from announcing a few days it was declared GM, but I think unlikely. E digo isso também com base nas informações e screenshots que um leitor acaba de nos enviar. I say this also based on information and screenshots that a reader has just sent.

O RoMuLauM afirma que obteve a 10A432 há dois dias (!) e desde então está com ela rodando na sua máquina. The RoMuLauM states that got the 10A432 for two days (!) And since then is running with it on your machine. De lá pra cá, ele já identificou diversos bugs (para citar alguns especiais: instabilidades no Mail.app, erros nas barras de rolagem, Safari lento e aplicativos travando aqui e ali) no sistema, o que pode indicar que ainda não chegou a hora de uma GM. Out here, he has identified several bugs (to name a few special: instabilities in Mail.app, errors in the scroll bar, Safari slow and locking applications here and there) in the system, which may indicate that the time has not yet reached a GM. “Eu ainda fiz questão de instalar o SO do zero, justamente para evitar qualquer problema de transição entre versões anteriores”, comenta ele. "I still question did you install the OS from scratch, just to avoid any problem of transition from previous versions," he says.

Abaixo você confere algumas screenshots obtidas com exclusividade pelo MacMagazine: Below you will find some screenshots obtained exclusively by MacMagazine:

Janela inicial que aparece logo após a inserção do DVD. Initial window that appears after the insertion of the DVD. Observe o ícone que veiculamos acima e uma mudança visual no "semáforo" da janela, agora com botões menores e mais espaçados. Note that running the icon above and a change in the visual "traffic light" of the window, now with smaller and more spaced buttons.

Atualização: o leitor não nos havia informado que a modificação no “semáforo” foi feita por ele mesmo. Update: the player we were informed that the change in the "traffic light" was made by himself. O build , portanto, não traz nada de novo nesse sentido. The build, therefore, does not bring anything new in that sense.

Primeiro passo da instalação. First step of installation. É bem parecido com o do Leopard, tirando os botões, que agora têm um estilo diferenciado, eo primeiro da esquerda, que diz "Utilitários". It is like the Leopard, making the buttons, now have a different style, and the first left, which says "Utilities."

É clicando em "Utilitários" que o usuário tem acesso a opções avançadas da instalação, como restaurar backups do Time Machine, reparar o HD com o Utilitário de Disco ou realizar outras tarefas. It is by clicking "Utilities" that the user has access to advanced options of the installation, how to restore from Time Machine backups, repair the HD with Disk Utility or perform other tasks.

Deixando a parte de "Utilitários" de lado, chegamos a esta tela padrão. Leaving the party of "Utilities" from the side, we arrive at this screen pattern. A pessoa pode optar por prosseguir com a instalação normal ou personalizá-la usando o botão no canto inferior esquerdo da tela. The person may choose to continue with normal installation or customize it using the button in the lower left corner of the screen.

Aqui estão os opcionais do Snow Leopard, incluindo o Rosetta eo QuickTime 7, conforme tínhamos comentado antes. Here are the options of the Snow Leopard, including the Rosetta and QuickTime 7, as we commented before. Logo abaixo vemos um erro de indicação que corrobora a ideia de que este build ainda não é o final. Below we see an error indication which supports the idea that this build is not the end.

Janela de instaladores opcionais do Mac OS X, incluindo o Xcode, para desenvolvimento. Window installers optional Mac OS X, including Xcode, for development.

Ainda segundo o RoMuLauM , ao contrário de como acontecia no passado, no Snow Leopard a instalação do sistema começa direto nesta tela. According to the RoMuLauM, unlike as in the past, the Snow Leopard to install the system starts direct this screen. É só depois de um certo tempo (cerca de 20 minutos, diz ele) que a máquina finalmente precisa ser reiniciada. It is only after a certain time (about 20 minutes, he says) that the machine needs to be finally resumed. No total, ele afirma que o processo todo não passou de meia-hora. In total, he says the whole process nothing more than a half-hour.

Apesar de tudo indicar que o build 10A432 infelizmente *não* é o GM, pelo andar da carruagem a Apple conseguirá atender sua promessa de entregar o novo felino até setembro para os consumidores. Despite all indicate that the build 10A432 unfortunately * not * is the GM, the floor of the truck, Apple will meet its promise to deliver the new cat up in September to consumers. Continuamos aguardando ansiosamente! We eagerly await! :-D :-D

Atualização II: o mesmo leitor gravou um vídeo mostrando as mesmas telas, porém sem as modificações visuais que inicialmente pensamos ser nativa do build 10A432 . Update II: the same player recorded a video showing the same screens, but without the visual changes that initially thought to be native build 10A432 O áudio ficou super baixo, mas o que vale mais é o visual: The audio was super low, but what counts most is the visual:

Gizmodo took a call today from someone who claims to have held tablet prototypes in their hands and sat in on Apple meetings about the device.  We’ll just republish the good bits:

"The device, which I’ve held mock ups of, is going to have a 10 inch screen, and when I saw it looked just like a giant iPhone, with a black back— although that design could change at any time" they said, "with the same black resin back, and the familiar home button." That’s obvious.

"But it will come in two editions, one with a webcam and one for educational use."  

See? Apple isn’t going to just cede the educational market to Amazon’s Kindle.

They continued to explain the device as something that would sit between an iPod/iPhone and a Macbook, and would cost $700 to $900—"More than twice as much as a netbook," he said.

That’s pretty standard rumor faire.

To make up for that cost and make the device more than just a big iPod there was, this person claimed, there was talk of making the device act as a secondary screen/touchpad for iMacs and MacBooks, much like a few of the USB screens that have come out in recent months from Chinese companies. Very interesting.

Interesting.  Like these?

They went on to say that although the project has been going on under various names between four and six years, the first prototype was built around the end of 2008. Adding, "The time to market from first prototype is generally 6-9 months." That would place the device’s release date in this holiday season. They then said, "There was a question of what OS the device would run, too." (Other people I’ve talked to have implied this remains a huge secret.)

My call dropped on some windy road off skyline drive. Fucking AT&T.

The AT&T call dropping is easily the most believable part of this whole story.

Jason Calcanis, Weblogs Inc founder, Mahalo CEO, and ugly dog aficionado loves his publicity stunts.  So much so that we are taking the above Tweet at 1/2 of face value.  But we thought you’d like to know.

Microsoft just announced the next major version of Office for the Mac.  It will be released in 16 months (!!) and have a (believe when you see it) almost Windows feature compatible version of OUTLOOK for Mac as a Cocoa app, which will replace Entourage.

“We’ll bring forward all the functionality from the Entourage Web Services Edition, including public folders, managed folders, and category syncing, but with Outlook we’re going even further and building a whole new application,” said Microsoft Mac Business Unit general manager Eric Wilfrid

To Entourage, Microsoft’s crippled Outlook for Mac, we have to say: it has been real.

Entourage has long been criticized for its large database, which is difficult to back up and can cause serious downtime if it gets corrupted. Wilfrid said that the new Outlook will use a new, modern database instead of the one used by Entourage

Frankly, by December 2010, we might not all be driving flyng cars, but many more people will have moved on to the cloud or to other Office applications (iWork?).  That is a long time to wait for a Cocoa version of Office.

 In a separate announcement, Wilfrid said Microsoft was simplifying its current Office 2008 offerings, going from three different editions down to two. The existing Home and Student edition will remain.

Replacing the $399 Standard Edition and $499 Special Media Edition is the new $399 Business Edition, which will include the Web Services Edition of Entourage and Microsoft Document Connection for Mac. Microsoft Office 2008 Business Edition also includes additional templates and clip art, and more than eight hours of Lynda.com training videos.

Frankly MMS is a dinosaur of a technology and won’t be around in 5 years.  It also enables Telcos to charge you for something that should be free.  You can accomplish everything MMS does on mobile email so long as your recipient has email on their phone.  Sure, not everyone does now, but they will…soon.

That being said, Apple and AT&T are being sued because the iPhone has yet to get MMS in the US – though it has been touted as a feature by both Apple and AT&T.  AT&T has promised this feature (and tethering) by late summer.  We are pretty Meh on the whole issue but were pretty sure a lot of you feel strongly about this.  Here’s the long version:

A class action started in a Louisiana district court alleging that Apple and AT&T touted the iPhone as supporting MMS (multimedia messaging service) but have not as yet provided the service. The plaintiffs allege that Apple "advertised heavily that the new version of iPhone, the 3G, as well as the even newer version the 3G-S would allow MMS. Apple’s print and video advertisements in and on television, the internet, the radio, newspapers and direct mailers all touted the availability of MMS." AT&T advertised the same functionality, the filing says.

But since the launch, in the USA, such functionality is not yet available. The court filing says the AT&T Answer Center page said: "Customers who are sent a MMS message and own a non-MMS capable device will receive a text message instead of an actual MMS message." But, the filing alleges: "AT&T is not a carrier which offers MMS! Of course, AT&T is the only carrier in the United States used by the iPhone. In other words, AT&T’s towers do not support MMS." Apple, says the filings, has revealed that AT&T has never upgraded its towers so as to support MMS functionality. "The only excuse offered by AT&T and Apple is a mouseprint disclaimer on the website, in barely readable font, which reads ‘MMS Support from AT&T coming in late summer’". The class action suit alleges the Louisana suit will consist of at least 10,000 individuals. The action is brought both under the Louisiana Unfair Trade Practices Act and other Louisiana civil codes.

Apple has the highest profit margin of any player in the smartphone industry – even though it doesn’t yield the highest revenue, this chart shows.

LG, Samsung, Nokia, and RIMM beat Apple to the revenue punch, but they don’t yield the same margins – closest player is RIMM with 20.7 per cent margin.

Interestingly, the cell phone handset industry yielded over $65 billion in the last 6 months. Of that, 9.7% was pocketed by the companies. It was recently announced that Apple received 32% of the total handset market’s profits, equivalent to a whopping $2,038,000,000 – all through iPhone sales.

Thanks to: iSmashPhone.

Games may be exploding on Apple’s handheld devices, with Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst, Michael Pachter, predicting the iPod touch will grab 10-15 per cent of all handheld game sales in the near future, but as Apple closes in on the purported release of the much-speculated upon 10-inch iTablet, there’s yet more signals that the Amazon Kindle’s days as pre-eminent e-Book reader are coming to an end.

We’ve already reported on the flurry of activity taking place within the education market to offer eBooks for the iPhone and iPod touch in that sector, but now it seems companies are hustling to offer bespoke solutions which should see a new wave of newspapers and magazines offering their material to users of these Apple devices, and profitable solutions, too. And don’t neglect that eBooks are the second-biggest category on the App Store.

First out the block to offer such a turnstile solution (not forgetting that outfits in the music sector, including iLike and The Orchard already offer App-creation solutions for musical acts) comes PixelMags. That company has announced plans to offer publishers a platform on the Apple iTunes App Store to publish magazines, newspapers, books, catalogues and brochures.

The Apple developer will allow publishers to easily digitise publications with custom-made Apps for no set up or monthly fees and publish them on the App store says PixelMags. Better still, it’s the first dedicated iPhone App platform to be accredited by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, all downloads will count towards circulation figures.

Adventure games have always been popular, and there’s yet more of these looming for your Apple handheld device. Melbourne-based developer, Tin Man Games, today announced plans to release a library of fantasy adventure gamebooks for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The library will initially consist of three original adventures, the first being Siege of the Necromancer, and readers will be able to grow their collection as new books are released. There’s no need for dice – all you need to do is shake your iPhone/touch to get that random factor when playing through an adventure.

Earlier this week, Coursesmart announced plans to bring 7,000 educational titles to the Apple mobile platforms, opening up further Apple opportunities in the education sector.

We think the new App Store gold rush will be eBooks, and we think that rush will become a deluge when Apple introduces its larger-screened iTablet. Kindle may face a problem…

Update: What? Oh there are already 10 applications that do this?  Well we like this one better, so nya!

We don’t report every product news announcement that crosses our desk, but sometimes what we see catches our imagination, and today it’s Edovia who scoops the prize, with TouchPad 1.0 ($3.99) – and we’re interested because the app is a remote trackpad and keyboard package that lets you control any Mac remotely.

That’s right, you can use your iPhone or your iPod touch to remotely control you computer across a WiFi network. And because the software’s designed to emulate what you do with a normal touchpad, it’s going to be familiar to use, the developers promise.

We can imagine this will be an elegant solution for anyone using a Mac as a media centre, for schools, teachers and in other situations we can’t imagine…but what we like is the idea itself.

To the feature highlights:

* Super-easy setup
* Modifier keys (Ctrl, Option/Alt, Cmd, Shift)
* Tab, Esc keys included
* 1 finger, 2 finger and 3 finger gestures
* Vertical, horizontal scrolling
* Swipe left or right with 3 fingers (Back and Forward)
* Horizontal and vertical orientation supported
* Pad still works while keyboard is visible
* Easy to use Connection Manager

Requirements:
* Supports OS X 10.5 (Leopard), OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
* Windows and Linux NOT supported
* Connects through a WiFi connection and Bonjour
* Screen Sharing or VNC server required
* English keyboards supported
* iPhone, iPhone 3G, 3GS, iPod touch (1st & 2nd gen)
Buy it!

Apple has prevailed in a long-standing iTunes action which claims the company has acted monopolistically in the way iTunes works seamlessly with the iPod/iPhone family, and no other devices.

The complaint alleges illegal "tying" in violation of the Sherman Act, monopolization in violation of the Sherman Act, and violations of California’s Cartwright Act, unfair-competition law, and Consumer Legal Remedies Act.

U.S. District Judge James Ware of the Northern District of California denied certification of a damages class in the suit, a decision which reflected the credibility of the expert witnesses fielded as part of the hearing which attempted to secure class action status for the case.

The lawsuit describes Apple as holding 83 per cent of the US online music market, 75 per cent of online video and over 90 per cent of the market for hard drive-based music players.

The lawsuit alleges Apple has used its dominance in these three markets to create a closed system in which the iPod will play only files purchased from iTunes, and iTunes files will work only on the iPod. The argument rests on whether Apple has restricted consumer choice in its business behaviours.

(Let’s skip iTunes Plus, as music was sold in proprietary DRM-shrouded format at the time this case was filed).

Plaintiff Stacie Somers was attempting to certify both a damages class and an injunctive class action on behalf of everyone in the US who bought an iPod between Dec. 31, 2003 and whatever future date this case ends.

The case is: Somers v. Apple Inc., No. C 07-06507 JW, 2009 WL 2137148 (N.D. Cal., San Jose Div. July 17, 2009).

You can view the entire 24 page filing here.

While we think we know the on/off iPhone deal is heading toward the on position (though problems still remain), a report sheds light on what those problems might be.

It’s widely-believed China Unicom wants a slice of App Store/iTunes revenue in addition to refusing to grant Apple a slice of per-user iPhone revenue. And while the allegation may be untrue (it’s founded on speculation, after all), at least one report lends weight to the notion, kinda…

Chinese company, NetDragon, has moved to deny reports that it is engaged in talks with Apple for the operation of the App Store in China. The company says it has not entered into any agreements with Apple or any associated company for operation of the store, and is not talking to any involved parties on the matter.

An earlier SinoCast report claimed NetDragon to have agreed to run Apple’s App Store in China once the iPhone ships in September.

NetDragon already operates China’s largest cracked iPhone platform, offering applications, film and TV shows and a range of cracked iPhone management software solutions.

What’s interesting about this report is that it implies business insiders in the world’s most populous nation are chatting about the possibility. While there can be smoke without fire, this is an interesting example of either speculation leading the debate, or a window as to just how complex Apple – and by inference, any Apple competitor with an App Store to run – is finding it to be to enter the Chinese market.

While it waits to get into China, Apple developer relations team members are reportedly approaching local software developers to encourage them to build applications for the iPhone. These in-development apps are being tested on iPod touch devices now, and will be in among the first tranche of local Chinese-made applications to debut on the App Store once it does open for business.

Of course, the question remains: will Apple run the App Store, or, facing layers of Chinese legal complexity, will it license store operation to another local firm?

Whatever the situation, negotiations have entered a critical phase as Apple and China Unicom rush to a September launch. A senior team of Apple execs, led by Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of iPod and iPhone Product Marketing, visited China last week.
 

Snow Leopard GM 10A432 has been released to developers as you can see from the screenshot below. Rumors on the street say that it is off to the printing presses and should be released to the public two weeks from Friday.  It has also hit the torrent sites, though with all of the Trojans going around, it probably makes sense to wait a few weeks and spend a paultry $29.

Also check out the new Installer Icon Disk Art (via Gearlive)

 Here are the seed notes in case anyone’s interested