9to5 Staff

A daily dose of Apple-related holiday shopping items from 9to5Toys.com:

New Mac Minis starting at $557, iMacs $1097, Quad-Core MacBook Pro $250 off, free shipping at MacMall

Apple TV Media Receiver for $85 + free shipping at MacConnection

Amazon gives you $20 back if you use a Mastercard on $100 of electronics or toys (pictured)

Refurb Epson Workforce 320 AIO Inkjet Printer for $19 + free shipping, more

Drobo 4-Bay FireWire 800 / USB Hard Drive Array for $239 + free shipping

Toshiba 2TB eSATA / USB External Hard Drive for $90 + free shipping

mwave 2GB USB Flash Drive for $2 + free shipping

More below:

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There you have it, the definite proof that Apple’s massive store in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal is opening doors for business at 10am next Friday, December 9 – just in time for Christmas. Kudos to Marco Arment, the Instapaper developer, for tweeting the above photo which clearly shows the “Arriving Friday, December 9” temporary signage adorning Apple’s trademark black curtain used to tease a forthcoming grand opening.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli plans on taking a closer look at Apple’s dirt cheap deal with MTA, which leased store space in Grand Central Terminal at a bargain price of just $60 per square foot (works out to $800,000 during the first year) versus the $200+ per square foot most other tenants pay.

According to the Fortune’s Philip Elmer-DeWitt, the store could measure at 23,000 square feet, nearly matching London’s Regent Street (25,000 square feet) and Covent Garden (24,600 square feet) outlets. It should rake in a hundred million dollars in revenue per year:

Some 750,000 people pass through the Grand Central’s marble halls every day, and traffic swells to more than 1 million per day during the holidays. According to the terminal’s official website, 50% of its commuters’ household incomes are over $100,000, and 20% are over $200,000.

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It’s a stats day today as research firms push out various surveys at the beginning of each month. Having chewed on Apple increasing its lead over Android in mobile OS usage and Chrome surpassing Firefox globally, it’s time for some iPhone numbers. According to a ChangeWave Research survey of 215 iPhone 4S owners conducted November 2-9, folks are loving their new handset better than the previous model.

Apple hit new highs in customer satisfaction as a whopping 96 percent of respondents are Very Satisfied (77 percent) or Satisfied (19 percent) with their new iPhone 4S, while only two percent consider themselves Unsatisfied. So much about the iPhone 4S battery issues tarnishing the Apple brand. That’s not to say the problem is non-existent as 38 percent of respondents dislike the too short battery life. However:

Two-in-five owners said they had experienced reduced battery life with their iPhone 4S (40%). But when asked how much of a problem this issue was for them, only 8% of all owners said it was a Very Big Problem while 20% said it was Somewhat of a Problem.

Dropped calls? iPhone 4S owners reported half (2.5 percent) the rate of dropped calls their iPhone 4 counterparts (5.2 percent) reported in the June 2010 survey. Dropped calls on iPhone 4S are primarily attributable to “owners now using multiple wireless service providers – as opposed to only using AT&T back in July 2010”. Lack of 4G? A downer for nearly one in three (30 percent). Interestingly, just one in ten, or eleven percent, don’t like the new iPhone’s relatively small 3.5-inch display compared to the monstrous 4-inch and bigger Android devices. All other iPhone 4S dislikes are in a single-digit range.

As for the likes, 49 percent are sold on Siri, 39 percent are all for ease of use and 33 percent like the new camera system. Faster web browsing and high screen resolution also rated high. Interestingly, the heavily advertised iCloud service ranked sixth. More likes and dislikes in a pair of pretty charts after the break.

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Top mobile operating systems. Source: Global Statcounter, November 2011. Click for larger.

A pair of reports released today reveal that Apple’s iOS mobile platform increased its lead over Android for the month of November, while Symbian remains the most commonly-used mobile operating system globally. This follows last month’s trend when iOS increased its lead over Android as well.

Per Global Statcounter data, a mobile analytics service tracking three million sites, iOS in November 2011 accounted for nearly one-quarter of mobile OSs, growing from 23.48 percent in October to 24.21 percent in November as Android dropped marginally from 22.11 percent share to 21.9 percent share.

Apple’s lead should be viewed in the light of pent-up demand and the successful iPhone 4S launch, which sold four million units during the launch weekend. Symbian remained the leading mobile OS with a 30.95 percent share (up from 29.84 percent in October), while BlackBerry OS recorded another loss, dropping from 9.49 in October to 8.44 percent in November.

Net Applications, which collects data from the 40,000 participating web sites, paints a different picture but relative differences between mobile OSs appear to confirm Global Statcounter’s findings. According to Net Applications, both iOS and Android lost share in November, with the former dropping as much as 7.46 percentage points, going from 61.5 percent share in October down to 54.04 percent in November.

Android in the same period went from 18.86 to 16.72 percent share. However, Symbian – the top mobile OS in the Global Statcounter survey, emerged an also-ran in Net Applications data, having recorded just 5.27 percent share in November (3.47 percent in October). Interestingly, Android’s lead over Java ME was short-lived: The latter grew from  12.81 percent in October to 19.69 percent share in November, overtaking Android after Google’s software had managed to pass passed Java ME devices in October, for the first time.

Top mobile operating systems. Source: Net Applications, November 2011. Click for larger.

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UPDATE [Thursday, December 1, 2011 at 8:50am ET]: Carrier NTT DoCoMo has issued an official statement addressing the Nikkei Business report, included at the end of the article.

According to the Japanese blog Macotakara, which relayed a Nikkei Business story, Apple is gearing up for a 2012 release of both 4G LTE iPhone and iPad on NTT DoCoMo, the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. According to the machine-translated article:

NTT DOCOMO releases iPad for LTE in the summer of next year and releases iPhone for LTE by autumn.

The Fall 2011 timeframe for a 4G LTE iPhone 5 sounds right as it’s about a year since the October 14 debut of iPhone 4S. The carrier’s president Takashi Yamada and vice president Kiyoyuki Tsujimura allegedly met with Apple CEO Tim Cook mid-November to discuss the deal. They reportedly “agreed in principle” to sell both the next-generation iPhone and iPad. The executives apparently pinned down the rules of the game at the meeting, including order commitment.

Despite the rumor-mill insisting that Apple was readying a 4G LTE iPhone, the company’s management downplayed the fourth-generation Long Term Evolution radio technology because the current crop of 4G LTE chips are not fully optimized for low power consumption on mobile devices. Apple’s chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer said on an April 2011 earnings call:

The first generation of LTE chipsets force a lot of design compromises with the handset, and some of those we are just not willing to make.

The Wall Street Journal reported mid-November that negotiations with carriers in Asia came to a standstill because Apple was requiring iPhone sellers to commit to too large a volume. Additionally, NTT DoCoMo wanted to control what software goes on users’ iPhones, a concession Apple was unwilling to make.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po95N9oC_OA]

Infinity Blade is to the iPad what the Halo series is to the Xbox 360 (or the Gran Turismo franchise to the PlayStation 3). That is, a killer game – a title so compelling that not only does it showcases what’s possible on a platform, but is also so impressive that folks go out and buy the hardware just to be able to play that particular game. A killer title for iPad gamers has to be Chair Entertainment’s Infinity Blade.

Classed as the first iOS game to run on the Unreal Engine, Infinity Blade went on to become the fastest-grossing app in the history of iOS, selling $1.6 million in four days. Three major updates later, Chair Entertainment launches Infinity Blade 2, a sequel to the elegiac action masterpiece. Here’s the blurb:

Journey into the world of the Deathless tyrants and their legion of Titans. Build skills and upgrade characters… all while delving deeper into this mysterious, timeless adventure.

Expect forty new locations (up from ten in the original title), many new hit points, weapons and spells, plus a bunch of other nuances and nice-to-haves. Chair is already thinking post-launch, teasing an update with the Clash Mobs feature where a bunch of other players attack a monster with millions of hit points. In case you were wondering, IGN gave Infinity Blade 2 a 10. A cornerstone of the sequel is, of course, graphics.

[slideshow]
The game features console-quality lighting effects.

The game runs fine on the original iPad, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and third- and fourth-generation iPod touch. However, you’ll want to enjoy it on your iPad 2 or iPhone 4S due to optimizations that really push the envelope of what’s possible on Apple’s A5 chip, especially in the lighting and shading department. Make no mistake, this is one game that you’ll want to show off to your Android-toting friends.

More information is available at the official site. The game hit the New Zealand App Store this morning. You should expect it in the U.S. store around 11pm Eastern time tonight at this URL, priced at $9.99 (a 941MB universal binary download). To celebrate the launch of Infinity Blade 2, Chair slashed the original Infinity Blade to just six bucks for a limited time. Release notes and more clips after the break, including Donald Mustard (creative director), Adam Ford (artistic director) and Geremy Mustard (technical director) talking the visuals.

More videos below:

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Meg Whitman, 55, a former eBay CEO and the president and chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard since September 2011, has no doubt in her mind that Apple stands a chance of zooming past Hewlett-Packard, the world’s leading computer vendor, some time during next year.

Whitman’s appraisal of Apple assumes, of course, that one considers tablets, such as Apple’s iPad, personal computers.

Commenting on a recent Canalys survey that first predicted Apple’s likely takeover of Hewlett-Packard with a little help from the yet unreleased iPad 3, Whitman told French newspaper Le Figaro (machine translated):

Yes. I think it’s possible if you integrate tablets. Apple does a great job. We need to improve our game and our products to take over the leadership position. Apple could go past HP in 2012. We will try to become the champion in 2013. It takes time for the products on which I have come to influence the market.

Hewlett-Packard is the world’s leading computer vendor, operating in nearly every country. More interesting than that, Whitman said her company will reach a decision soon on the fate of the webOS mobile operating system, which has remained in turmoil after HP indicated it might sell of that asset. She reassured Hewlett-Packard fans that her company is open to all options and nodded at Android as one of the choices being considered.

According to TechCrunch, she said:

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A new twist in the Apple vs. Samsung legal proceedings spanning more than two dozen lawsuits across continents as the Federal Court in Australia lifted sales ban on Samsung’s Galaxy Tab tablet today. The court unanimously overturned a ruling last month from Justice Annabelle Bennett which required that Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 be banned from sale in Australia.

Sydney Morning Hearld quoted the ruling:

Samsung will be permitted to launch the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia provided it keeps accounts of all transactions involving that device in Australia.

Samsung’s Australian subsidiary says it is “pleased with today’s unanimous decision”. Reacting to the decision, Apple plans on appealing to the High Court. The Federal Court also honored Apple’s request that its injunction remain in effect until Friday at 4pm, to allow the company time to prepare an appeal. A full hearing on copycat accusations is set for March 2012, which could still result in a permanent injunction.

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Heading into the holidays, we’re going to have 9to5Toys roundups on Apple-related products daily. Today’s:

MacConnection has the AppleTV at $85/ea, 1 per person (above). Shipping, depending where you live, brings it up around $90. Or get it for $71 used.

• Phillips iPod/iPhone alarm clock: $40
• Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 for PC and Mac: $39.99
• Skullcandy 21 Watt iPhone/iPod Speaker: $99.99

MacBook Pro Core i5 2.3GHz 13″ Laptop Bundle for $1,000 + free shipping

Klipsch Image S5i Rugged In-Ear Headphones for $59 + free shipping

AcaseView APLUS Screen Protector for iPhone 4 / 4S for 45 cents + $5 s&h

Canon PowerShot ELPH 100 HS 12MP 4x Camera Bundle for $135 + free shipping

USB Sync and Charging Cable for Apple iPhone for $2 + free shipping

Ventev VersaDUO Interchangeable Shell for iPhone 4 / 4S for $2 + $2 s&h

Sony CyberShot DSC-TX100V 16MP 4x Digital Camera for $219 + free shipping

Kodak PlaySport Zx5 1080p Waterproof Camcorder for $106 + free shipping

Corsair 32GB Voyager USB 3.0 Flash Drive for $20 after rebate + free shipping

More at 9to5Toys

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A Windows 8 tablet mockup

If you believe today’s Forrester Research report, a Window of opportunity is closing fast as customers are losing interest in the forthcoming Windows 8-powered tablets. Microsoft on its part previewed Windows 8 two months ago and won praise for its touch interface. To be perfectly honest, the UI does look nice and interesting and support for ARM/x86 architectures and app market makes it better suited to compete in the post-PC era. But timing is everything and “Windows 8 is going to be very late to the party”, Forrester argued. Here’s the gist of their report:

For tablets, though, Windows really isn’t a fast follower. Rather it’s (at best) a fifth-mover after iPad, Android tablets like the Samsung Galaxy Tab, HP’s now-defunct webOS tablet, and the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. While Windows’ product strategists can learn from these products, other players have come a long way in executing and refining their products — Apple, Samsung, and others have already launched second-generation products and will likely be into their third generation by the time Windows 8 launches. Meanwhile, newer competitors like Amazon (Kindle Fire) and Barnes & Noble (Nook Tablet) are reshaping consumer expectations in the market, driving down price points (and concomitant price expectations), and redefining what a tablet is.

Interestingly, Microsoft has a web tool that, when accessed on one’s iOS or Android device, lets one run an emulation of Windows Phone 7. In what some might dub a sign of desperation, Microsoft is reportedly readying a version of the Office suite for iPad – an ironic move, really, as they didn’t even announce Office apps tailored for Windows 8 tablets.

Announcing Windows 8 well ahead of the promised late-2012 release may have backfired as the excitement surrounding Windows 8 tablets wore off and competitors like Apple and Google can close any perceived advantages. In the first quarter, 46 percent of U.S. consumers yearned for a Windows tablet, Forrester noted (your chart goes right after the break). Last quarter, consumer interest plummeted to just 25 percent. Apple went from 16 percent to 28 percent and Google from 9 percent to 18 percent. But even though more people yearned for a Windows tablet than an Android one, Forrester notes:

Microsoft has missed the peak of consumer desire for a product they haven’t yet released.

Of course, gauging demand for an unreleased product can be misleading and even Forrester analysts were forced to change their ideas of how the market works when early iPad sales caught everyone flabbergasted. On the other hand, we do know Windows 8 tablets won’t ship in volume before this time next year. And herein lies the problem…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osa1ZXZaaWM]

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UPDATE [Tuesday, November 29, 2011 at 1:33pm ET]: The team behind the iTether app published a blog post offering their side of the story. We’ve included the entire post after the break because their servers were being battered at the time of this update.

It was fun while it lasted, but iTether is gone from the App Store now. Unfortunately, looks like the combined effects of the hype and excitement, possibly coupled with iTether’s workaround of some of the App Store restrictions, may have provoked Apple enough to pull them from the store. Yesterday’s arrival of iTether yesterday surprised Apple fans, chiefly power users who berated Apple on their strict rules and previous removals of tethering programs such as Netshare.

Even better, approvals such as this one make us wonder how such apps ever make it into the App Store in the first place. Of course, Internet connection sharing works in most places outside the United States so the program was mainly of interest to our U.S. readers looking to use their iPhone’s cellular data on their computers without paying additional carrier fees.

The Tether.com web site was down at press time. Canada-based developers yesterday wrote on Twitter that Apple took no issue with the program. “We were very clear with Apple what our app did. They asked us a bunch of questions and then approved us”, the team wrote. The original iTunes link no longer works so you’ll have to look elsewhere. If history is an indication, it won’t be long before iTether hits the Cydia store. Did you manage to download a copy yourself? Hit us in comments.

Developers posted a statement on their blog, included right below the fold. We’ve also received a tip that it is still possible to download iTether through Installous on a jailbroken iPhone.

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Wenner Media, best known for its music and politics biweekly Rolling Stone, will roll out digital replicas of both the Rolling Stone and US Weekly magazines for Apple’s iPad by early 2012. Digital versions of their dead tree counterparts will allegedly shy away from bells’n’whistles. In addition, the publisher will release the Beatles book app for iPad this coming Thursday, December 1.

A companion to the The Beatles: The Ultimate Album-by-Album Guide book that came out this summer, the app basically repurposes print content and sports much of the material from the Beatles’ book, MocoNews.net reports. This includes 122 pages with over 60 photos, enriched  with 30-second previews of each song and interviews. The Beatles app will set you back ten bucks and will not initially launch on Android. And while we’re at the Beatles, it appears as part of the Apple Records settlement Yoko Ono got to copy Apple’s website look and feel.

Interestingly, it wasn’t that long ago that Jann Wenner, the co-founder of Wenner Media, dissed digital magazines as a fad. In a May AdAge interview, Wenner called out other publishers for scrambling to release tablet apps, painting the trend as “sheer insanity and insecurity and fear”. Perhaps the success of iOS 5 Newsstand prompted him to reconsider his stance? Last year, Wenner also organized a protest of sorts by running the magazine industry ad campaign that had promoted the “power of print”.

In a somewhat related app news, TED’s official app is finally available on the iPhone.

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An Apple television mockup by Adr-studio.it

More news concerning a rumored television set by Apple that several analysts and some media outlets have been calling for feverishly. According to a blog post published by The Tokyo Times news site, Apple has commissioned Sharp to begin manufacturing large displays for an Apple-branded television set. Sharp should ramp up production in January:

American technology giant Apple is shifting partnerships in Japan towards Sharp, eyeing the production of a brand-new TV range which may be called iTV.

The product should hit the market by the summer 2012, the story goes. And according to New York Post, which referenced the original Tokyo Times report:

Apple has taken over the entire plant — pulling out of South Korea and its former partner Samsung — to insure the quality of the new set and to protect its secrecy.

The Tokyo Times story quotes Jefferies analyst Peter Misek as saying that Apple’s rivals have already begun “a scrambling search to identify what iTV will be and do”. The analyst wrote in a note to clients, based on his visit to Japan and talk with manufacturing executives:

It’s a huge deal for Sharp because they spent significant amounts of capital to try and expand capacity and upgrade their facilities. It gives Apple a partner that they can control manufacturing and secure supply at a lower price.

Please be advised that our confidence in The Tokyo Times isn’t very high…

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A recent survey conducted by GoodMobilePhones.co.uk of 1,694 Brits aged 18 and over made waves with claims that as much as 22 percent of U.K.  owners regret the purchase of iPhone 4S over battery life and jealousy of rival smartphones. What happened instead, research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech claims, was that the device went on to steal Android market share in the United Kingdom.

According to the findings of the research note, Apple’s U.K. handset market share in the quarter leading up to the end of  October climbed to 27.8 percent, a 2.8 percentage point increase, while Android dropped from 49.9 percent to 46 percent. Looking only at October sales, Apple won a cool 42.8 percent of all handset sales during the month versus 35 percent  of October sales for Android phones…

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35 years ago, Steve Jobs invited Ron Wayne to persuade Wozniak to join him in his entrepreneurial foray called Apple Computer Co. Jobs and Wayne go back a long way and had known each other from Jobs’s Atari days. Wayne drafted the original four-page founding contract that established Apple Computer Co. on a typewriter and came up with all the legalese of their partnership agreement.

Twelve days later, Wayne left the young startup and sold his stake. 35 years later, the original founding contract goes up for auction at Sothesby’s and is expected to fetch a cool $150,000. Apparently the consigner bought the legal papers back in the mid-1990s “from a manuscript dealer” who is thought to had acquired them from Wayne, Sotheby’s Richard Austin told the publication.

What’s interesting about the documents are the terms of Wayne’s withdrawal from Apple. So, how much did the two Steves compensate Wayne for his ten percent stake of the company, now worth $35 billion? According to Bloomberg:

On April 12, Wayne withdrew as partner. The move is documented by a County of Santa Clara statement and an amendment to the contract, both of which are part of the Sotheby’s lot. Wayne received $800 for relinquishing his 10 percent ownership of Apple, according to the document. He subsequently received another payment of $1,500, according to Sotheby’s.

Included right after the break is a video interview of Ron Wayne with The Next Web’s Matt Brian from September highlighting why he left Apple after just twelve days. One of the reasons is Wayne’s realization that he would be standing in the shadows of geniuses.

The original legal document that established Apple Computer Company (left) and signatures of Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ron Wayne (right).

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Asian trade publication DigiTimes reported this morning that Apple is readying a MacBook Air refresh and looking to expand its ultra-thin notebook family with a brand new machine. Sometime during the first quarter of next year, according to sources from the upstream supply chain, the company will update existing 11.6- and 13.3-inch models and put out a new 15-inch model we’ve been hearing about before:

The sources noted that related upstream players have already started pilot production of the MacBook Air models and will add a 15-inch model into the product line to expand its reach in the ultra-thin notebook market.

Another interesting bit of the DigiTimes story is that Apple is expected to lower prices of the current lineup ahead of the refresh. The update should include a new Ivy Bridge processors that consume less power while providing a speed boost in the CPU and GPU department (also expected in the next MacBook Pro refresh).

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For those who missed out on the Black Friday specials, Amazon still offers the entry level Core i5 MacBook Air for $849.99 plus free shipping.  That’s a significant $150 off of retail and the lowest price available.  This latest MacBook Air includes an Intel Core i5 1.6GHz “Sandy Bridge” dual-core processor, 11.6″ 1366×768 LED-backlit display, 2GB RAM, 64GB SSD, AirPort Extreme (802.11n wireless), Bluetooth 4.0, Facetime camera, Thunderbolt port, and Mac OS X 10.7 Lion.

Amazon also still has the lowest prices on the entry level MacBook Pro ($1049).  Other price lows (mostly from MacMall) can be found here.

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Best Buy has had $100 iTunes gift cards (both online and physical) for $80 since Black Friday but they’ve just opened up $50 gift cards for $40.  iTunes gift cards make great gifts and can be used on Music, Videos, iBooks, iOS Apps  and Mac Apps.If you buy two, you can additional $10 Best Buy Gift Card free if you pick them up in store.

Check out other holiday deals on Apple products here and on 9to5Toys.com
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Update: Ooops. Originally thought this was an Apple patent.

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Patently Apple today publishes some interesting new patents from developers including what appears to be an “iRobot” (oops, name taken) built around an iPad head.

iRobot’s introductory abstract describes the invention this way: “A robot system includes a mobile robot having a controller executing a control system for controlling operation of the robot, a cloud computing service in communication with the controller of the robot, and a remote computing device in communication with the cloud computing service. The remote computing device communicates with the robot through the cloud computing service.”

Subsequent drawings include navigation and obstacle avoidance (below) which seems to indicate that this is a “mobile” device in every sense of the word.  Most of the perceived applications appear to be in the medical setting…
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHoukZpMhDE]

Microsoft’s Craig Mundie shoved his foot knee deep in his mouth this week when he said that Siri was nothing special, and Microsoft’s own voice capabilities have been around for over a year.  The reason for Siri’s success?  Marketing, of course.

People are infatuated with Apple announcing it. It’s good marketing, but at least as the technological capability you could argue that Microsoft has had a similar capability in Windows Phones for more than a year, since Windows Phone 7 was introduced.

To be fair, Siri isn’t even about the Voice Recognition, it is what the iPhone does with it.  The voice recognition is outsourced to Nuance’s engine. The Microsoft Phone barely made it to the point where you could make sense out of what its engine produced.

If you were Microsoft, would you rather Mundie be so out of touch with the technology he is talking about that he can’t tell the difference, or that he’s just flat out shamelessly lying?

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It’s Black Friday and we’ve got the best deals from around the web on Apple products and accessories. Although most of the Apple Store prices (which we stumbled upon a few days ago) are moderate discounts, some are actually the lowest we could find, especially in iPads and accessories.  We’re updating all day long so come back early and often…and don’t forget to check 9to5toys.com.

Apple Store Refurbished items come with Apple’s one year warranty and are as good as new. AT&T has 64GB iPad 3G for $479. DailySteals has a 16GB iPad for $280 (refurb).  iPhone4 16GB Refurb is $49 with activation, Frys has $25 off of current iPhones

Software:

1. Microsoft Office for Mac is $70 at Amazon or $100 for the Family Pack
2. Parallels is $35 PLUS you get $40 off Windows when you buy Parallels, VMWare Fusion is $28
3. Adobe Photoshop Elements $48 at Amazon, Premiere Elements:  $50, Lightroom Student Teacher :$89 Full Version $100 CS5: $289
4. Quickbooks 2012 is $125
5. Toast 11 Pro $80

Misc:
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