Tech Industry

Despite trouble with the USB Forum, Palm shares are climbing this morning on market chatter claiming mobile phone giant, Nokia, may plan a takeover of its smaller rival.

Reports from financial wires suggest the potential marriage may be predicated on two twin but different needs: Nokia wants an Apple iPhone-class technology for its smartphones, while Palm needs financial clout to truly gain the chance to deliver on its own technological possibilities.

While neither company has been prepared to comment on these rumours, Palm stock climbed 10 per cent on early Nasdaq training (up $17.50) on chatter and claim.

A Palm purchase could also help Nokia strengthen its reach in the US market, where it is weak. The merger would potentially also help the surviving company compete with Apple’s iPhone.

Dollars and cents may yet undermine any potential deal. Analysts suggest Palm could cost the larger company as much as $3 billion, and at that price the inherent risk could outweigh any potential opportunity.

However, Nokia reportedly spends $3 billion a year on research and development, ten times Palm’s own R&D spend.

Whether these rumours are true or false, both firms will no doubt be considering fresh Barclay’s research released yesterday, which suggests Apple’s iPhone could grab as much as 35 per cent of the smartphone market in the enterprise and business sector within the coming years.

Barclays Capital said in a report, "Investigating Corporate Smartphones," issued yesterday, "We believe the iPhone should get its fair share of [the corporate wireless] market from consumers who want to use it for work as well as its industry-leading application marketplace and developer community that can create occupation-specific productivity  tools," the report states.

What makes these rumours all the more interesting is that they emerge as Palm prepares to issue 20 million additional shares, aiming to raise $313 million through the sale, cash which will be invested in future product development. Obviously, any increase in value of these shares pending such a sale will be of potential use to the company.

Eminem’s litigious people make the news again, on reports that talks between the rapper’s ‘people’ and Apple legal are at a critical point, if both parties want to avoid a public spat in the US courts.

It’s a complex issue of music, distribution rights and music industry lawyers. In its briefest explanation, Eminem’s people are suing Apple and the Aftermath label for selling 93 Eminem tracks through iTunes. This is because Eminem’s Eight Mile High says neither the label nor Apple had the rights to sell digital downloads.

Eight Mile High is claiming Apple may have made as much as $2.5 million from sales of the rapper’s songs through iTunes (we don’t buy that, by the way). Eminem filed suit in 2005.

In legal documents filed to the Eastern District Court in Michigan, Eight Mile – along with co-plaintiff Martin Affiliated – alleges that Aftermath only had the rights to negotiate CD sales, not online distribution.

“Apple’s reproduction and distribution of the digital transmissions via iTunes constitutes a continuing, and willful, infringement of Eight Mile’s and Martin’s copyright interests,” the allegation states.

Apple denies these claims, arguing its deal with Aftermath (which provided the tracks and permissions) is legitimate.

It’s not the first time Eminem has fought Apple. Four years ago the two settled out of court after Apple ran a much-publicised advert that featured a trademark silhouetted figure dancing to the song Lose Yourself.

However, on this new case, should a deal not be agreed by the end of today, the case will go before a federal court in Michigan in a non-jury trial set to open on Thursday.
 

We had a hunch, OK maybe two..  Turns out, it is all true.  Microsoft’s Courier concept is laid out by Gizmodo.  Will Apple blow this out of the water or is this the real deal?  Stay tuned for Tablet War 2010!

ifoAppleStore reports this morning on the new Manhattan Apple Store being built on 67th Street and Broadway.  The roof is starting to come together as you can see from the video below (music from Pixar’s Up).  

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=6754816&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1

Broadway Apple Store Flyover from purnell on Vimeo.

…unique architectural designs that will put it in competition for the most spectacular store in the chain. The steel-framed building has risen from the near-total demolition of a former two-level Victoria’s Secret store, with but a single wall retained because of city permit requirements. Priced at over $37.9 million, the 75-foot wide storefront of the building will mimic the all-glass design of the Boylston Street (Boston) store, but with a twist–it will be slanted to mirror the angle of the two streets. Topping of the building will be its most-viewed feature: a slightly-domed glass roof supported by steel arches, all reminiscent of the historic St. Pancras train station in London (UK). The roof will span the rear three-quarters of the retail space, providing light and an airy atmosphere to the interior space. The store was originally reported to open by Thanksgiving, but instead will likely open before Christmas.

The building is 75-feet wide on Broadway and 45-feet tall, forming an angle that matches the intersection of the two streets. The structure fits in with the surrounding buildings, and some of the roof structure.

This unique aerial view shows the angled front section of the store, and the curved roof.

Adobe’s John Nack used his blog to promote the market share lead of his company’s Lightroom against that of Apple’s Aperture.

Adobe – developer of the industry standard Photoshop software – is publishing research findings from InfoTrends, findings which reveal Lightroom to be nearly four times more popular than Aperture.

These findings aren’t based on unit sales of either application, instead they’re based on a survey of 1,045 pro photogs in North America.

Nack also reveals that among photographic pros using the Mac, In 2007 Lightroom was nearly twice as popular as Aperture, but by 2008 it was nearly three times as popular.

Here’s the stats:

“You might notice some decline in the use of the Camera Raw plug-in inside Photoshop as more pros move to using Lightroom. Let me be clear in noting that Photoshop use among these pros remains in the 90% range, and that the decline applies only to Camera Raw usage,” Nack notes.

Microsoft’s copy-cat battle against Apple seemingly knows no boundaries.  In fact, it is attempting to lure away Apple’s retail staff, a report claims.

Citing anonymous sources, The Loop claims Microsoft is attempting to hire Apple retail store managers to staff its future chain of Microsoft retail shops. Apple staff are being offered “significant raises” and – in some cases – relocation expenses.

The report continues to explain that staffers Microsoft has succesfully poached are then contacting their own former senior management to offer them jobs in Microsoft retail.

So, Microsoft’s vision for a retail store is to pop these shops down right beside existing Apple shops, staff them with former Apple workers, offer Genius Bar-like Guru Bars and more…

That’s innovation… The company’s even hired in former Wal-Mart man, David Porter, who is now corporate vice president of retail stores.

Bear in mind the background: Microsoft’s sales fell another 17 per cent in the just gone quarter as profits slid a significant 29 per cent. Sales fell to $13.1 billion, a billion short of analyst expectations and the second quarter of decline. Will a chain of expensive retail shops truly be enough for Microsoft to regain relevancy?
 

Our sources have told us that the cat is out of the bag and Gizmodo will reveal the Microsoft tablet concept tomorrow.  We’ve seen some bits and we have to say that we are seriously impressed by the work done at Redmond.  Yes, you read that right – and as much as we hate to hear ourselves say it… 

We are really impressed. 

What’s even more exciting about this device is that we keep hearing, over and over again, how Apple is also working on a device in this class – though with just a single 10-inch display.  We hear again and again how they are lining up publishers of content all over the world to get ready for this device.  It seems that this concept could dwarf the Kindle and take some of the phone and laptop market with it. 

If Apple’s device is on the same level of what Gizmodo reveals tomorrow (and we think it will be), there will be some exciting times ahead.

While Facebook has implemented ‘@’ commands in status updates, creating a more ‘Twitter-like’ experience within its popular social network, MySpace has hitched a new deal under which its users can sync their status updates with their Twitter feed.

MySpace is now beginning global roll out of this new feature, at this point any U.S. user can opt-in to sync their status so that any update created on MySpace will appear in their Twitter feed and any Twitter feed update will appear within your MySpace status and mood.  The new sync feature works on mobile, uses open authentication technology and will be introduced globally in the coming weeks.
 
Also interesting in the images supplied by MySpace to illustrate the new feature is mention of the Apple TV. An Industry Standard report this morning claims that Apple’s Apple TV teams – both hardware and software teams – have been “putting in a lot of hours recently”…

Given last week’s Apple TV price-cut is a new model of the device planned? And does Apple intend refreshing its relationships with social networks to widen its integration of these within its products.

Certainly, the mention on the MySpace sample page below showing sample Twitter posts is interesting, shortly after the rhetorical question, “What the heck does an HDMI cable look like?” comes the statement, “am back with an ex – his name is appletv…” Of course, this could just be apocryphal, but it certainly picqued our interest.

One thing’s for sure though, the social networks are booming, and Twitter appears to be emerging as essential network glue for these.

Beyond Twitter? Expect more activity. “MySpace is a place where people go to broadcast, discover, and express themselves.  We’ll be adding other networks soon and are excited to see how users will sync their favorite websites to more easily socialize with friends and followers,” MySpace’s ‘people’ explained.

UPDATE: MySpace has since issued the following update: "We wanted to flag that almost immediately after launch a number of musicians, celebrities and comedians including Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Rachel Zoe, Margaret Cho, George Lopez, Jamie Kennedy, David Spade, Slash, Cat Deeley, Chamillionaire, Jim Gaffigan, David Alan Grier, Larry The Cable Guy, and John Witherspoon have synced their MySpace and Twitter updates to connect with fans. This is only the beginning, as we plan to enable our users to sync their updates across even more networks. Looking forward to sharing more news shortly."
 

If you haven’t already downloaded the beta version, you Blackberry fans might be in for a surprise on September 25th.  According to BGR, Blackberry’s Mac desktop client will be unleashed then.  That statement is made all that more credible by BGR’s claims that the latest betas are running smooth as silk.  Will you Blackberry fans jump on board or are you fine without?

http://www.viddler.com/simple_on_site/c82ea7d3

The inaugural Engadget show’s pretty good viewing led by an interesting chat with current Palm boss and former Apple exec, Jon Rubinstein, who talks about the “terrible state” Apple was in at the start of his time there, and confirms he was involved in the decision to adopt USB, stop use of the floppy disk, and in the choice of 1.8-inch drive used in the iPod.

“While we started working on iTunes we started playing with some of the music products that were available on the market, and they were terrible, really poor products.” So Apple decided making a music player would be fun.

When he decided to leave Apple, he gave 18-months notice and finished development of the iPod nano and video, and headed off to Mexico for a year and a half off, before a call from former Apple CFO, Fred Anderson, then at Elevation Partners, inviting him to “take a look at” Palm.

Take a look at the rest of the interview to find out what Rubinstein did next. “I think Palm is an incredible opportunity,” he says.

He also had a good crack on Apple secrecy: "You guys are always looking through Apple’s garbage can, no one’s looking through our garbage can," he said, while discussing the secrecy surrounding launch of the Palm Pre, which should ship in Europe by Christmas, he said.

Microsoft continues to attempt to regain the initiative, and is attempting to boost sales of its forthcoming Windows 7 OS by offering a deep discount on the software to students, as it tries to lure them back from the Mac.

The company has announced qualified college and university students can obtain Windows 7 for $30 in the US and £30 in the UK. The OS is available to students for pre-order now and will be released for download on October 22 in the US. In the UK pre-orders start September 22, while students in other countries will be able to take up the discount from October 22.

Microsoft has lost many students to Apple in recent years. Apple now leads the education markets in the US and Europe. Now it appears Microsoft is attempting to consolidate its remaining student user base. The discounts are only available to students who already run a “genuine copy” of Windows Vista or XP. They must also possess a valid college email address.

The move follows NPD’s revelation yesterday that Apple’s decision to make Snow Leopard an affordable OS upgrade is paying dividends, Snow Leopard sales in the first two weeks have “far exceeded” those of the two previous OS’s. NPD believes Snow Leopard sales are over twice those of Leopard and four times higher than those achieved by Tiger.

Apple’s decision to make Snow Leopard an affordable OS upgrade is paying dividends, with NPD reporting the new software has outsold sales of both Leopard and Tiger in just two weeks.

Price – $29 – is certainly part of this success, while the fact that a Leopard disc isn’t technically required to enable a Tiger user to upgrade all the way to Snow Leopard is bound to help, despite Apple saying this isn’t permitted.

As we reported last week, we’re certainly experiencing the same mass migration, with our current visitor stats showing over 62 per cent of 9to5Mac readers are already using Snow Leopard, while 29 percent are on Leopard, as indicated in the chart below. 

That 62% Snow Leopard users is up from 55% the week after release and 10% the day of release.  This is substantially faster adoption than we saw with Leopard.  Three months after Leopard was introduced, more than half of our readers were still using Tiger.

As reported by LoopInsight, Snow Leopard sales in the first two weeks have “far exceeded” those of the two previous OS’s. NPD believes Snow Leopard sales are over twice those of Leopard and four times higher than those achieved by Tiger.

Sales also remain steady, as second draft upgraders move to but the software following Apple’s recent release of a patch to address issues encountered by early adopters. Snow Leopard sales declined by 25 per cent, but fell 60 per cent for the previous two OS’s.

“Even though some considered Snow Leopard to be less feature-focused than the releases of Leopard or Tiger, the ease of upgrading to Snow Leopard and the affordable pricing made it a win-win for Apple computer owners — thus helping to push sales to record numbers” said Stephen Baker, vice president of industry analysis at NPD.

HP just released an update with more Mac supported features to its line of media MediaSmart Servers EX490 or EX495. For example, admin features, media library and recovery over Time Machine. Another cool tidbit for specific devices is a built-in video converter for collecting and converting videos. The MediaSmart comes to flavors, the EX490 has a Celeron processor and 1TB of storage for $549, while the EX495 rocks a 1.5TB HD with Dual Core for $699. Along with this updates the media Smart servers can potentially support 17 GB external HD.
That’s is whole lot of content streaming media to your iPhone with HP’s iStream app that allows users to tap into to with their iPhone/iPod Touch. 

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=310041883&mt=8

http://www.shopping.hp.com/store/product/product_detail/FL704AA%2523ABA?

Apple has hired Intel’s top lawyer, Bruce Sewell, replacing the company’s General Counsel and senior vice president, Legal and Government Affairs, Daniel Cooperman, who has served in the role for the last two years and will be retiring at the end of September.

“We are thrilled to have Bruce join our executive team, and wish Dan a very happy retirement,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With Bruce’s extensive experience in litigation, securities and intellectual property, we expect this to be a seamless transition.”

Sewell’s no stranger to Apple. Prior to joining Intel he was a partner in the litigation firm of Brown and Bain, where he handled such notable cases as the landmark fight between Apple Computer and Microsoft Corporation over the copyright of the Macintosh Graphical User Interface.

At Intel Sewell served as senior vice president and general counsel, supervising a team of roughly 600 attorneys and policy professionals across 30 countries.

Sewell also represented Intel on several professional, legislative and policy boards in the United States and abroad. He has been profiled in Fortune Magazine and was recognized in 2006 as one of the 100 Most Influential Lawyers by California Lawyer magazine and the legal Daily Journal.

Mr. Sewell is a frequent contributor and lecturer in the areas of global business development, innovation economies, international competition, and intellectual property rights.

He joined Intel in 1995 as a senior attorney assigned to counsel various business groups in areas such as antitrust compliance, licensing and intellectual property. In 2001, Sewell was promoted to vice president and deputy general counsel, managing Intel’s litigation portfolio, and handled corporate transactions including M&A activities.

Sewell was admitted to the California Bar in 1986 and to the Washington D.C. Bar in 1987. He received his J.D. from George Washington University in 1986, and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Lancaster, in the United Kingdom, in 1979.

Just out of interest, here’s Sewell talking on CEO responsibility and regulation at Davos this year:

Apple TV day was yesterday in the US, with revelations that the new iTunes LP/Extras formats carry content at sufficiently high-res for playback on a TV and discovery of new iTunes U features, and a huge price cut for US customers.

Today’s the day Apple begins extending its Apple TV blessing outside of its own US shores, with the 40GB model being removed from sale worldwide and new lower prices set on the 160GB model.

Apple’s UK store this morning reveals that Apple has cut the previous £263 cost of the system to £219 in the UK. That the product costs just $229 in the US will inevitably see some UK customers complain at the hefty price differences between the US and the UK, as it can’t simply be explained away by the cost of VAT (a UK sales tax) applied here.

Meanwhile, expectation of a new breed Apple TV continues, with some anticipating a 250GB model, while others predict the addition of new features to the device, principally the introduction of a WebKit-based browser of some kind and others hoping for gaming features.

All this follows last week’s price cut on these systems over at giant online retailer, Amazon. It also follows recent claims that new Apple TV SKUs were being reported among resellers.

Here’s one to watch: recall the beginning of the month when Sony briefly outsold Apple’s iPod with its Walkman in Japan, and just how widely that news spread? We’re wondering if this nugget will spread as fast…

Sure, it was significant as it represented the first time in four years Sony had grown a sales lead on its rival, but as we predicted Sony’s little home turf advantage has evaporated already, following Apple’s introduction of the new iPod range, according to BCN.

Apple’s iPod market share shot up to 58 per cent in the week ending September 13, far and away ahead of Sony with 32.1 per cent.

Its a big change – Sony held 47.4 per cent the previous week, compared to Apple’s then 37.1 per cent, Bloomberg informs.

Naturally, we’re suspicious on these statistics because they don’t include iPhone (which is also an iPod) sales though how the total Japanese market for music playing devices including phones shapes up hasn’t yet been revealed by BCN.

Apple has sold near 225 million iPods worldwide since the device launched in 2001. Half of all new iPods sold go to customers who have not previously purchased an Apple music player.

It boasts 100 million iTunes accounts and has shifted 8.5 billion songs so far. Between Jan 6, 2009 and July 21, 2009 the service sold 2 billion songs. That’s interesting when you consider it took Apple between April 28 2003 and January 10, 2007 to sell the first two billion.

Apple says it has 73.8 per cent of the MP3 player market, followed by 18 per cent held by "other", SanDisk at 7.2 per cent and Microsoft at 1.1 per cent share.

Sales of portable music players in Japan fell by 13.5 per cent in August from a year earlier.

I don’t know about you but I can’t get enough of Mosspuppet comedic sense. In this vid they make good use of the "I am T-Pain" iPhone app. http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=314652382&mt=8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeo-r9IIgA

Apple’s all-new iTunes Extras/LP format appears aimed at high-resolution devices, including Macs, PCs, and potentially in future, the Apple TV and iPod tablet.

The format is developed using tools Apple’s christened TuneKit, a JavaScript framework that’s perfectly capable of delivering Adobe Flash-like media sequences, without Flash, Roughly Drafted first informed us.

Apple’s extended media delivers its content at a width and height of 1,280-x-720 – exactly the same resolution as video output through an HDTV using an Apple TV. It’s also potentially high-res enough for an Apple tablet device.

The limitation of this format is it doesn’t yet play on an iPhone or an iPod touch. And while it can scale down for playback on a MacBook’s 13-inch screen, it’s clearly targeted at full native HD.

“iTunes Extras supply the missing link between Apple TV and the DVD: a TV-friendly user interface presenting rich interactive bonus content,” Roughly Drafted writes.

Just as Apple built its MobileMe apps using the SproutCore framework, TuneKit provides media developers with a familiar JavaScript framework for creating interactive bonus materials.

Developer Jay Robinson has done a very thorough kick at the tyres of the new format, uncovering a series of nuggets, including proof the format saw some changes during its pre-release development and the revelation that the software contains no DRM, reflecting the industry’s more liberal attitude to paying customers.

Also interesting – the new format renders in WebKit, so you can visualise a wave of creative expression as fans and artists use Apple’s new – and free – format to create immersive multimedia experiences for playback through a compliant Web browser (which includes Google Chrome, by the way).

The lack of a licensing fee and the relatively non-complex nature of creating content using Apple’s solution has driven one developer to speculate, “iTunes will soon establish a record amount of computers on which WebKit is the conveyor of premium Web experience. It won’t be long until WebKit rules the PC world too.”

We don’t believe Apple’s plan stops here. We’re speculating the company has already put together software to enable selected iPhone game developers to build products capable of playback at 1,280-x-720.

We anticipate the next Apple TV software release may introduce support for some of these elements, including a browser capable of handling content built using the new iTunes Extras/LP formats. We expect some selected games to also be made available, once Apple figures out how to create a fast gaming interface (will that USB port at the back become something?)

More importantly, we suggest Apple has focused on this work in order to ensure some of its existing customers already have content of the right kind and quality for immediate playback by early adopters of its forthcoming tablet product range.

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster recently predicted sales of 6.6 million Apple TV’s by the end of this year. Munster also predicted launch this year of new Apple TV hardware equipped with a TV input and DVR functionality.

He said: “We expect Apple to design a connected television over the next two years (launching in 2011) with DVR functionality built in. These recorded shows could then sync with Macs, iPhones and iPods over a wireless network. The device would push Apple further into the digital living room with interactive TV, music, movie, and gaming features. With its iTunes ecosystem, Apple could develop a unique TV without any set-top-boxes or devices attached.”

While you wait to see if this is true, you may want to explore Amazon’s currently discounted Apple TV.

We all know Apple CEO Steve Jobs is eating lots of ice cream at the moment, now we’ve even learned which ice cream he likes the best.

SetteB.IT has set its best sleuths to work to uncover this information, revealing that along with lashings of good Italian food (well, it’s an Italian site) he also likes to chomp his way through a decent portion of vanilla or chocolate ice cream.

According to the report, super-secret sources in the Apple canteen have seen the legendary tech industry leader make a hard choice between dark chocolate ice cream and vanilla.

Also seems the former vegetarian has moved to adopting a pescetarian diet, eating seafood risotto, fish soup, salmon and sushi. Kind of like what this particular writer eats, also a pescetarian.

It does potentially strike us that perhaps Jobs should just write his own autobiography, rather than have elements of his life revealed willy-nilly. We know his life story and the evolution of his thinking would make interesting reading for decades to come. And we’d rather he got the choice to write it in his own way.

Apple is generating a major shortage of flash memory as it ramps up its product plans for Christmas.

A report this morning claims Taiwan’s flash memory makers – including Samsung, Micron, Toshiba and Hynix – are prioritising orders for Apple and warning of shortages across the rest of the market.

These moves emerge scant days since Apple introduced its new range of iPods, including the new high-capacity 64GB iPod touch (currently lacking a camera), new iPod nanos and more.

The action also occurs as industry rumours speculate Apple may proffer a new bunch of product upgrades in the month ahead, with many still anticipating release of a media-focused Apple tablet.

In July, Apple confirmed a half-billion dollar deal with Toshiba for supply of flash memory chips. Apple chief operating officer, Tim Cook, stressed the importance of the deal, saying, “We view flash as a very important component for us, because we use it in so many of our products.”  He noted that Apple uses 3% of the world’s flash storage.

Apple’s securing a chunk of the flash memory market has also helped prices in that market recover slightly following months of weakness.

In the contract market, average pricing for 16Gb chips climbed 7.2% to US$4.48 in the first half of September, and 32Gb went up 4.3% to US$6.80.

The question: With Apple clearly generating such demand for flash memory components, does the company plan to introduce new flash memory products within the next quarter, or is it simply ramping up supplies for the Chinese iPhone launch later this year?
 

The fine folks of iFixit, as per usual, have torn apart Apple’s latest iPod Touch revealing some very interesting technology. Firstly, the latest Broadcom BCM4329 makes the device capable of N-speed Wifi unlike any other iPod or iPhone.  Apple currently doesn’t have this capability enabled but there are plenty of people who’d like to switch their wireless to the 5GHz N network for longer range and less interference.

Secondly, the ARM chip (below) is different Samsung ARM chip than the iPhone 3GS or any Apple device before it.  The CPU is labelled 339S0075 ARM. This marks an improvement over the previous iPod and iPhone 3GS processors. The processor on the last iPod touch (2nd gen) was labelled 339S0048ARM. The processor in the iPhone 3GS is marked 339S0073ARM. 

The most revealing part of this take apart is the little empty space for a video camera like the one in the iPod Nano camera. If your not too skittish of the innards of the of whats inside check more pics here and here.