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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tzrme9yWens&fs=1&hl=en_GB]

Steve Jobs went ballistic, giving Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer an earful for stealing the most important games developer then on the Mac, Bungie Software, way back in 2000.

As a result of Jobs’ angry call to Ballmer, Ed Fries, the former vice president of game publishing at Microsoft, and the man central to Microsoft’s acquisition of Rare and Bungie, was told to broker a deal with Apple to appease Jobs.

As the video above shows, Jobs was particularly annoyed at the Microsoft deal because he’d hosted a public preview of Halo at a Macworld Apple event just months before. The loss of the game to the platform was a personal blow.
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Looks like you won’t have to wait too much longer if you’ve been hoping/praying/wishing for a nice white iPhone 4 — as these have begun showing up as available to reserve if you’re using Apple’s freshly-updated Apple Store iPhone app….reserve your white iPhone today.

Remember last week’s story which claimed 32 percent of iPad owners never ever downloaded an app? Please ignore the claim, as Nielsen has released a terse statement which basically says it got this one completely wrong. So shred the thought from your memory immediately.
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When it comes to Christmas/Holiday shopping this year, its advantage Apple with kids abandoning traditional gifts and toys in favor of an iPad or some other slice of Cupertino-designed tech gladness.

The most recent Duracell Toy Report claims two-thirds of teens (13-16-year-olds) want Apple products, such as the iPhone 4, iPad and iPod touch.
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A little tidbit from the Microsoft gathering this evening.  While demonstrating Outlook for Mac and the HTML rendering engine, Microsoft employees revealed that instead of using the Word HTML rendering that previous versions of Mac Office used (and the PC version as well), Microsoft has moved over to Apple’s Webkit rendering engine to render HTML mails.  Outlook 2011 also uses WebKit to create HTML mail.

For those of you who didn’t like Entourage’s HTML mail, Outlook’s WebKit mail, you are in for a pleasant surprise.

Why is this a big deal?  This is the first time that Microsoft has used Apple’s Open Source Webkit framework in their products.  It will be interesting to see if Webkit spreads to other areas.

Office 2011 ships tomorrow and starts at $110 for a 2 license student edition.

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Apple doesn’t wear ties.

Apple Inc., maker of the iPhone and Macintosh computer, has enlisted Unisys Corp. to help it sell more to businesses and U.S. government agencies, expanding beyond a customer base made mostly of consumers. Unisys will provide maintenance and other services to companies and government agencies that purchase Apple devices, Gene Zapfel, a managing partner at Unisys, said in an interview. One of the first of its kind for Apple, the contract was signed this month, Zapfel said. He didn’t discuss terms of the deal.

The deal is one of the first of its kind for Apple according to Businessweek.
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Here’s a poll going on at the Wall St. Journal right now of reader opinions on who makes the best mobile OS.  Who is winning?

That’s right.  Microsoft who just released its Windows phone 7 without multi-tasking and about 30 apps.  Their old OS is by their own admission a dead end steaming pile.  Maybe they like the Kin?  Can anyone explain this?

I’m taking this with a pinch of salt at this time, but speculation that Apple may be on the verge of making a hugely important acquisition are just beginning to cross financial market news wires this morning.

These rumors follow weekend reports that Apple may be planning to make a bid for Facebook — though Facebook has reportedly rejected such assertions.
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There’s yet another player offering converged solutions for mobile devices, tablets — even TVs — Adobe has entered the fray with the release of Adobe AIR 2.5.

Adobe AIR 2.5 aims to help developers build solutions for a wide range of devices — including iOS iOS…
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Unlikely, but Mashable is throwing it out there (Update: Not happening):

It’s the second piece of information from our tipster that really piqued our interest, though. Leading the potential round will be Digital Sky Technologies (an existing investor) and Apple. Yes, Apple. The funding is part of a partnership between the two companies that will eventually result in deep Facebook integration into Apple’s suite of products, including Ping, iTunes, iLife and iWork.

Digital Sky is a somewhat shady Russian Venture capital group funded by Oliarchs that lists Goldman Sachs as part owners.  It would seem a bit out of character for Apple to participate in a funding round with Digital Sky.

Also, Microsoft owns 5% of Facebook so it would seem a little strange for both Apple and Microsoft to join in as owners.

That said, Steve Jobs is known to enjoy long walks with the Facebook founder, who is richer than Jobs, at least on paper. Apple would also like more Facebook integration into Ping and probably GameCenter as well.
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One benefit of iMovie ’11 not talked about at the keynote or on Apple’s pages is the ability to export 1080P video to YouTube.

Interesting and welcome for Apple’s consumer video product considering Apple’s iOS devices don’t yet support anything above 720P.  Yet.

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Those new MacBook Air models are being torn apart, poked and prodded, but just how many will Apple sell? A fair few it seems, with analysts at Concord Securities claiming we’ll see 700,000 of them flying off the shelves in the current quarter alone.

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Here’s interesting, buried deep inside the new beta FaceTime for Mac is code which alerts you when you receive an incoming FaceTime call — even when you haven’t got the software active on your Mac.  Apple says as much on their Website:

The theory seems sound enough — it is, after all, no more than the same alerts you are already used to receiving from some non-open apps on your iOS device.  Through Push Notifications…
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Google is already hitting major hurdles in its quest to transform the TV industry, with major US broadcasters blocking their Web shows from being broadcast via Google TV. Google meanwhile is in negotiation to agree rights, but is likely to face similar rectitude from some broadcasters as faced by Apple with Apple TV.

ABC, CBS and NBC have all blocked access to their shows from Google TV. These problems come just weeks since Logitech and Sony began selling devices running Google’s software. Hulu this week also moved to block Google TV from acccessing its service.
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Chicago Now got a sneak peak and a chat with Apple Retail chief, Ron Johnson, about the new Lincoln Park, Chicago Apple Store. Apple is calling their latest retail store “significant.” They’re placing it in the same category as their recent London, Shanghai, and Paris stores.

The design of the store is gorgeous and very innovative for the neighborhood that it is located in. According to Chicago Now this particular area of Lincoln Park used to be very old looking as well as “dingy, dark, smelly.” Now, Apple is transforming it.

In terms of the actual retail store it has three entrances, for very significant reasons. The northern part of the store has a retail focus, the southern portion covers Apple’s one-to-one program, and the center entrance is something new to Apple’s retail chain.

It’s a public area with benches, tables, chairs, WiFi and all that good stuff. Apple’s Lincoln Park, Chicago store opens this Saturday 10/23/2010 at 10 AM. There will be special t-shirts for the first 4000 people visiting the store on opening day. A few more pics after the break:

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I’ve talked before about Apple’s moves to get its iPhones used as payment systems — and it seems there’s a willing market for such things, despite the fact that iPhone 4 is not compatible with Square’s famed credit card processing system (which is why Square began shipping new card readers today). The latest news? Giant UK supermarket Tesco is trialling a scheme in which customers will be able to scan products they buy in store using their iPhone and iPad, for later payment and verification at checkout.
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COMPUTERWORLD: Scant months since beginning a public spat with Adobe over its decision not to support Flash on iOS devices, Apple now also appears ready to abandon Java in Mac OS X.

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Apple seems to have a good — a really good — chance to seize enterprise sales from RIM’s BlackBerry devices.

Apple boss Steve Jobs alluded to this earlier this week, when he said, “We’ve now passed RIM (Research in Motion) and I don’t see them catching up with us in the foreseeable future.”

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Into every life a little rain must fall, or so they say — so hot on the heels of the release of beta Facetime software which lets Mac users chat to their iPhone-using buddies, a German Mac website is warning there’s a nasty security gremlin in the code.

Principally, miscreants can easily get access to a FaceTime user’s Apple ID and reset the password, the site warns.
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http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/microPlayer.swf

Some heavy words from Goatberg:

But I couldn’t find a killer innovation that would be likely to make iPhone or Android users envious, except possibly for dedicated Xbox users. Even the built-in Office can be replicated with third-party Office-compatible apps on competing platforms; and the iPhone and Android phones also can interoperate with Microsoft’s corporate Exchange email, calendar and contact system.So for now, I see Windows Phone 7 as mostly getting Microsoft into the game, and replacing the stale, complicated Windows Mobile system that preceded it. It will get better. The company is already working on a copy and paste system, and said it is coming early next year. But, today, I see Windows Phone 7 as inferior to iPhone and Android for most average users. It’s simply not fully baked yet.

Engadget also isn’t thrilled, saying:

It still feels like the company is a good year behind market leaders right now, and though it’s clear the folks in Redmond are doing everything they can to get this platform up to snuff, it’s also clear that they’re not there yet.

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