apple
Apple Says New York Bites Its Logo
Ryan Tate · 04/03/08 06:37AMNew York might be called the Big Apple, and apples themselves might be beautiful creations of nature, but as far as Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs is concerned, Gotham has no business affixing depictions of the fruit to anything conceivably related to its products. Like, uh, organic cotton shopping bags, which carry the logo and are produced by the city's GreenNYC campaign in conjunction with grocer Whole Foods. Someone might buy one of those bags and expect it to be functionally equivalent to a MacBook Pro! Ditto for the bus shelters and hybrid taxis that carry the symbol - they look just like Apple products. So Apple and the city are slugging it out in trademark filings, Wired News reports today. Dig through Apple's filing and you'll find the company is specifically upset about the little angular leaf at the top of GreenNYC's logo. But also, Apple has convinced itself that its own mark is somehow synonymous with the entire city of New York, and it looks like maybe the Times is to blame for this delusion:
In Cupertino did Steve Jobs a stately pleasure-dome decree
Jackson West · 04/02/08 07:00PMA miracle: Cupertino bureaucrats have managed to go two years without being verbally abused by perfectionist cult leader Steve Jobs over any and all modifications to his vision for a second Apple campus in the Valley suburb. In his surprise appearance before the local city council back then, Jobs threatened to locate the new offices in another sleepy South Bay burg. But no paperwork has been filed for planning or construction, according to Fortune. Maybe Jobs is still busy verbally abusing the architects.
iPhones sold out in France and England too
Jordan Golson · 04/02/08 02:20PMThere are no iPhones available at stores in France or the U.K., in addition to the coast-to-coast shortage reported in the U.S. What's the problem? No one is sure, but it could be anything from component supply problems to a new product introduction. The latter seems more likely; Apple usually has a well-run supply chain. Even so, we don't see Steve Jobs launching an iPhone upgrade without a big event. An unscheduled one, possibly at the big CTIA Wireless convention currently running in Vegas? Not his style — Jobs likes to hog the stage.
Apple sued again over display "color issue"
Jordan Golson · 04/01/08 05:20PMMany blogs are writing up a recent lawsuit against Apple as if it's a big deal. Too bad it isn't, because it's more entertaining than any April Fools' joke we've seen today. The lawsuit alleges that Apple falsely marketed its 20-inch iMac as being capable of displaying "millions of colors" when it can only display "hundreds of thousands" of colors. The difference is imperceptible to the human eye. Apple recently settled a similar lawsuit over its MacBook notebooks. That lawsuit went away out of court after the plaintiffs found it "difficult" to locate clients who purchased computers solely on the "millions of colors" claim. We're waiting for a clever lawyer to start asking Apple customers if they bought computers under the belief the machines would help them get laid.
Survey: 33 percent of iPhone owners cheating on Steve Jobs with another handset maker
Jordan Golson · 04/01/08 02:40PMIn a survey of iPhone owners, Rubicon Consulting found that a third of iPhone users carry a second phone in addition to their iPhone. I'm one of those folks: I have a T-Mobile phone that I use for personal calls; I use my iPhone as a business phone and for mobile Web and email. I didn't want to break my T-Mobile contract and I'm happy paying for a second phone to keep work and home separate. I didn't think I was the only one with two phones, but 33 percent seems surprisingly high. Here's something the survey didn't tell you, but you might have guessed: iPhone users have lots of disposable income. More details from the study after the jump.
Apple Logo Makes You Creative. Really
Hamilton Nolan · 03/31/08 04:23PMA counterpoint for all you Apple-haters out there: a new study by researchers at Duke University found that "even the briefest exposure to the Apple logo may make you behave more creatively." How did they measure that? By having the subjects list "all of the uses for a brick that they could imagine beyond building a wall." That's science for you! If only gazing at the Apple logo could help me think of a good joke for this post. The actual scientific findings:
The brand that people can't live without? It ain't Yahoo
Jordan Golson · 03/31/08 08:20AM
An annual marketing survey rated Apple the No. 1 brand that consumers can't live without — a spot usually won by Coca-Cola. The computer maker also was cited as the most inspiring brand. Google also featured highly on the survey, but no other tech companies made the cut. No surprise there: Does anyone really think Oracle or SAP are inspiring?
Why Steve Jobs wants to sell you a music subscription
Jordan Golson · 03/28/08 03:40PMWhy is Apple suddenly in talks with record labels about bundling an unlimited music plan with new iPods, after resisting such a move for years? Steve Jobs has scoffed at music subscriptions in the past, saying customers want to "own their music." Never take Steve at his word: For years, he shot down the idea of iPods with video or an Apple-branded cell phone — until he made them happen. The same is about to happen for music subscriptions, I suspect — but not because Jobs has suddenly changed his mind about consumers' tastes.
Paying taxes is for the little people who earn wages
Owen Thomas · 03/28/08 02:40PMDisgraced stock analyst Henry Blodget has found a new reason to fawn over the Valley's billionaires: Jerry Yang, Steve Jobs, and Larry and Sergey pay themselves $1 salaries. Hank, haven't you heard that there's a crisis in Social Security? The $1 salary is the perfect combination of tax dodge and publicity stunt. Jerry, Steve, and the Google boys pay 6 cents of their buck towards Social Security, and a penny for Medicare. Those taxes aren't charged on investment income — the kind generated when a founder sells his shares. "It would be nice if we started to see the same gesture from chief executives in the rest of corporate America," writes Blodget. Sure, if you want to make sure the rest of us get nothing when we retire.
Palm poaches another Apple executive
Owen Thomas · 03/27/08 10:36PMJon Rubinstein, the chairman of Palm, is once again striking former boss Steve Jobs where it hurts — Apple's talent. The latest hire: Lynn Fox, the head of Mac PR, joined Palm earlier this month. For a PR person, she's made the move surprisingly quietly; her name has yet to appear on any press releases. As with Mike Bell, the Apple veteran who now heads Palm's product development, Rubinstein is likely trying to keep things quiet. Relations between Palm and Apple, whose iPhone is walloping Palm's Treo, are tense enough as it is.
Steve Jobs brings unimaginable joy to one MacBook Pro owner
Jordan Golson · 03/27/08 06:40PMApple Fetishists: Grow Up
Pareene · 03/27/08 05:08PMKarl Rove loves his iPhone. He uses it all the time! (The entire Bush administration has good reason to love the little gizmo.) The roly-poly Machiavelli also recently admitted to owning a damn MacBook Air, the laptop whose sole selling point is its ability to fit in an envelope. Drug-addled radio tyrant Rush Limbaugh had to ask Apple to help fix his own new Mac. Your favorite propagandists love the sleek design and friendly usability of Apple products. Crypto-fascists—they're just like us! Which brings us to this plea: can we please, please end the tiresome trope of Apple having any sort of hip sensibility?
Apple store employees violate 5-iPhones-per-customer rule in a big way
Jordan Golson · 03/27/08 03:00PMTwo employees of the Salem, N.H., Apple Store (where I shop, natch) have been arrested and charged with stealing 332 iPhones. No word on what the two delinquents did with the phones, worth almost $133,000, but we suspect they were sold off to be unlocked overseas. Here's what I want to know: How the hell did they steal 300-plus phones?
Safari for Windows illegal for use on Windows PCs
Jordan Golson · 03/26/08 03:40PMWant to install Safari on your Windows PC? Hope you don't mind violating Apple's Software License Agreement. Apple's lawyers messed up when they copied and pasted the license for using Safari for Windows. From the text of the SLA:"2. Permitted License Uses and Restrictions. A. This License allows you to install and use one copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-labeled computer at a time." Whoops! You could run Safari for Windows on an Apple, I suppose, using Boot Camp or virtualization software. But somehow I don't think that's why Steve Jobs had his programmers rewrite the browser software for PCs.
Why it's splitsville for Motorola
Owen Thomas · 03/26/08 12:00PMMotorola, mortally wounded, is spinning off its handset business in slow motion. CEO Greg Brown expects the deal to go through next year. There's no Razr on the horizon to spur sales, thanks to former CEO Ed Zander's overreliance on the model. In San Francisco cofeeshops, the popular theory is that Apple's iPhone killed Motorola. Nonsense. Motorola killed Motorola. The population of the Bay Area is 7.2 million; despite the appearance that every man, woman, and child here now has an iPhone, Apple will be lucky to have sold that many by now.
Can't you tell how clever John Mayer is from his bug report to Apple?
Nicholas Carlson · 03/26/08 11:00AMJohn Mayer sat there waiting — waiting — on his iTunes to load. It never did. And like the rest of us, he had to force quit. But instead of doing so and moving on, Mayer felt compelled to write a cheery missive to the folks at Apple. "Hi guys. John Mayer here. Nothing's worse than running to stale music on your iPod, am I right?" He goes on in such a manner. We know this because Mayer posted the below screenshot of his report to his blog, fully indicating his cleverness to those paying attention. At the end of his post, Mayer wonders how Apple engineers will react to his letter. Anyone care to inform us how it was greeted at One Infinite Loop?
O'Reilly sells iPhone book to "hackers"
Jordan Golson · 03/25/08 06:20PMTech publisher O'Reilly Media has released a book targeted to unsanctioned developers on Apple's iPhone mobile platform. iPhone Open Application Development tells coders how to write programs for "jailbroken" iPhones — those that have been hacked to remove Apple's block on unsanctioned software. All of which seems outdated, now that Apple has released instructions for writing approved apps. O'Reilly will surely rush out another book on that subject. But why not just sell one book to everyone? That seems easier.
Steve Jobs changing tune on music subscriptions?
Nicholas Carlson · 03/21/08 11:40AMApple executives will meet with music labels next week to discuss selling music subscriptions on iTunes, the New York Times notes, confirming prior reports. At the meetings, label execs will argue that customers are ready for subscriptions because they're used to watching movies expire after they rent them on iTunes. Despite his long-held reservations, Apple CEO Steve Jobs is reportedly willing to listen. He's even said to be considering making music subscriptions part of purchasing an iPod or iPhone — probably just to spite NBC CEO Jeff Zucker.
NYT, Brought To You By Apple
Hamilton Nolan · 03/21/08 07:49AMThe New York Times has given over an unusually large end-to-end box on its home page above its news content to Apple, for an ad [click to enlarge]. It's not the first time this has happened. Not only does this type of thing provoke journalism purists to wonder whether the paper of record is losing its perspective on the editorial/ advertising divide; it also makes Gov. Bill Richardson look like he's going to be crushed by a giant apple.