Is AT&T Ripping Off iPhone 3G Owners?

The Apple blog has a GREAT article explaining why AT&T is charging us “Loyal customers” so much for the iPhone upgrade!

“There is already a lot of noise over this all around the ‘net. Owners of the iPhone 3G saying they’re getting ripped off, or not being treated like ‘loyal customers,’ because they’re not being offered the fully subsidized price for the new iPhone 3G S. In reality the AT&T upgrade pricing is pretty much like all phone subsidies in the U.S. (and, for that matter, many other parts of the world). Actually, it’s a little better.”

(Read full article – On Subsidization: AT&T is Not Ripping Off iPhone 3G Owners)

Top 22 Free iPhone/iTouch Apps – 01.22.09

Top 22 Free iPhone/iTouch Apps – 01.22.09

1. Burning Tires 3D Lite
Category: Games
Released: Jan 13, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: Unchanged

2. Sound Grenade
Category: Utilities
Released: Jan 20, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 7

3. DanceDanceRevolution S Lite (US)
Category: Games
Released: Dec 23, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: 2

4. Ustream Viewing Application
Category: Entertainment
Released: Jan 06, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 9

5. iMob Online
Category: Games
Released: Jan 13, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 4

6. iShoot Lite
Category: Games
Released: Dec 28, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: 3

7. Fart For Free
Category: Entertainment
Released: Jan 07, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 6

8. Beer Pong Challenge
Category: Games
Released: Jan 07, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 5

9. Mancala: FS5 (FREE)
Category: Games
Released: Jan 07, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 8

10. Toy Tanks 3D Lite
Category: Games
Released: Jan 13, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: Unchanged

11. iFluff Pets
Category: Games
Released: Dec 18, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: Unchanged

12. Tap of War
Category: Games
Released: Jan 11, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 51

13. Backgrounds
Category: Entertainment
Released: Nov 07, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: Unchanged

14. iBowl
Category: Games
Released: Jan 02, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 12

15. Pandora Radio
Category: Music
Released: Jul 09, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: Unchanged

16. Facebook
Category: Social Networking
Released: Jul 10, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: Unchanged

17. iHandy Level Free
Category: Utilities
Released: Jan 08, 2009
Yesterday’s ranking: 14

18. Virtual Pool Lite
Category: Games
Released: Nov 17, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: 17

19. The Weather Channel
Category: Weather
Released: Nov 04, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: 18

20. Google Earth
Category: Travel
Released: Oct 25, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: Unchanged

21. PAC-MAN Lite
Category: Games
Released: Oct 14, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: 22

22. Movies
Category: Entertainment
Released: Aug 25, 2008
Yesterday’s ranking: 21

(Via Top 100 Free iPhone Applications – Pinch Media)

The Rumor is true – Apple Event – September 9th

So all the rumors seem to be true…

Mark your calendar, Sept. 9th Apple will rock your socks off!

10,000 employees switching to Mac

FORTUNE: Apple 2.0 Axel Springer’s 10,000 employees switching to Mac

Axel Springer AG, one of Europe’s largest newspaper publishers, with 10,000 employees and more than 150 papers in 30 countries, including its flagship Die Welt, announced on Friday that it is switching its entire operation from PCs to Macs.

In a YouTube video, posted below the fold, CEO Mathias Döpfner lists four reasons for the change:

Most of the company’s layout work was already being done on Macs
Macs are more user friendly than other computers
Apple creates the most elegant computers
Macs are cheaper to buy and easier to maintain than they were in the past
The changeover will take five years and when complete, according to Döpfner, will make Axel Springer (SPR.F) Apple’s (AAPL) second largest corporate customer, after Google (GOOG).

(Via fortune )

Hulu thrives!

Hulu lands new partners as usages rises
Hulu, the video website owned by News Corp and NBC Universal, said on Tuesday its service will be distributed on seven new sites, making its archive of popular television shows more widely available.

The deals come as usage on Hulu and its partner sites exceeded all U.S. television network websites — including those owned by its founders — in its first month since launching publicly, Hulu said, citing Nielsen’s VideoCensus data.

Hulu videos will now be distributed on entertainment and social network sites TV.com, TVGuide.com, BuddyTV.com, Flixster.com, MyYearbook.com, Break.com and Zap2it.com, said Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit.

Hulu, which hosts free episodes of current shows such as “The Simpsons” and “The Office” as well as past hits like “WKRP In Cincinnati,” is showing early signs of success in a market dominated by Google Inc’s YouTube.

Read More HERE

(Via Reuters: Technology News.)

Blackberry 9000 will get iTunes sync

Blackberry 9000 will get iTunes sync
Smartphone fans are excited about yesterday’s announcement of the Blackberry 9000, aka Blackberry Bold, aka Research In Motion’s iPhone killer. But Blackberry users are a different breed than iPhone users–the Blackberry’s reason for existence is always-connected e-mail, and Blackberry users tend to be all business, afraid of being out of touch for even a moment. (An old friend in Washington D.C.–where Blackberry users are legion–had to make a vow after her third child was born not to check her e-mail after 6 p.m.)

(Credit: RIM)
So while the iPhone grew out of the iPod, and thus counts music playback as one of its primary features, the Blackberry Bold focuses more on its core communications features–e-mail, messaging, and telephony–as well as new physical improvements, like a bright color screen. You can see this focus in the first detailed hands-on review of the product at Crackberry.com, where media playback isn’t even mentioned until part III (of IV) and gets no more than a paragraph. And 1GB of onboard memory isn’t really enough for serious music listeners anyway, although it’s expandable to 16GB.

But the clearest indication of all: while the 9000 might echo past Blackberries and ship with a Roxio application for organizing music on your PC and transferring it to your phone, RIM is also preparing a new application called Blackberry Media Sync that will let you use Apple’s iTunes to transfer files to the phone. Of course, once you do get music onto the device, a relatively powerful internal stereo speaker system might actually make listening without headphones a reasonable option–sort of like the boombox of tomorrow. The iPhone’s speakers are apparently not quite up to the task.

Still, for music fans in desperate need of a new phone–like me–the iPhone is still the most obvious choice, especially now that a 3G model is almost certainly on the way. But if you’re already a Blackberry fan, or are primarily concerned with having access to e-mail at all times, the 9000 seems like the clearest alternative to the iPhone.”

(Via CNET.)

Two reasons to get iWork instead of Office

Two quick reasons to get iWork over MS Office

iWork and MS Office are both great apps depending on your needs and wants.  MS Office is great for people who need to have compatibility with Windows users and iWork is a great addition to the rest of the Mac apps.  So the question is, which one should you get?  Each has its upsides and downsides, but how do you know which one will be right for you? Well, right off the bat there is a few things you can look at to help you make your decision.

1) Price. iWork comes in at a nice $79.00 whereas MS Office is anywhere between $149.95 and $499.95.  They both offer the same apps (text editor, presentation maker, and spreadsheet creator), but iWork is a lot cheaper.  However, they both offer free trials to see which one you like, but I imagine the price is enough to turn some away from MS Office.

2) Viruses. Cult of Mac has written a post stating that of 6 viruses in the wild for Mac OS X, 5 of them are exploited through MS Office.  As far as I’m concerned, this is enough of a reason to not go with the Microsoft product.  I don’t want my machine being more susceptible to attacks from simply editing a text file.

So when the day comes for you to decide between these two apps, which one is it going to be?  Have you already made up your mind?

Full Story » | Written by Josh Holat for Appletell. |

(Via Appletell.)

Warner Bros. to Release Movies for Apple TV and On Demand Same Day as DVD

Warner Bros. to Release Movies for Apple TV and On Demand Same Day as DVD [Home Entertainment]

The format war over, and Blu-ray safely enthroned as the victor, Warner can now turn its sights beyond—to downloads and the infinite format war. Time Warner’s chief executive announced today that Warner Bros. will release movies for on-demand systems like Comcast’s and Apple TV on the same day they are released on DVD from now on.

Warner’s been toying around with it for a little while and been increasingly open to internet distribution, so it doesn’t come as a major surprise. Interestingly, according to their numbers, offering same-day releases on the internet only eats into DVD rentals by 3-5 percent, and actually increases sales. Plus, online rentals/sales double bring them more than double the profit margin of physical discs, so everybody wins, except for Blockbuster. (So Hollywood really does have nothing to fear from online distribution.)

The best news though? Head of Warner’s home video said that they’re trying to make online rentals “at least as lenient” as grabbing a DVD from Blockbuster, breaking open that 24-hour window. Now that would be a deathblow for Blockbuster. [<A href=”http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/warner-brothers-to-rent-movies-online-sooner/index.html?ref=technology&#8221;

(Via Gizmodo.)

Free Wi-Fi Access to iPhone Users???

AT&T Providing Free Wi-Fi Access to iPhone Users
A couple of readers (of MacRumors) have reported that AT&T hotspots are now offering free Wi-Fi access to iPhone users. AT&T Wi-Fi hotspots at Barnes and Noble as well as Starbucks are now offering iPhone users a custom portal to access free Wi-Fi. A special iPhone formatted page asks for your mobile phone number. Once entered, you can access the Wi-Fi access for free. MacRumors has been able to confirm this finding at a local Barnes and Noble. Blurry photo provided:

AT&T recently partnered with Starbucks to provide Wi-Fi access to Starbucks’ 7000 stores nationwide. This partnership allowed existing AT&T broadband customers free access and AT&T promised that it would “soon extend the benefits of Wi-Fi at Starbucks to its wireless customers”, but no official announcement has yet been made

(Via MacRumors.)

#1 music retailer in the US – Apple!

Apple officially says it’s the #1 music retailer in the US

Based on today’s earlier leak of some weekly NPD marketshare data, we had our doubts that Apple had actually overtaken Wal-Mart as the number one music retailer in the US, but it looks like that January surge of iTunes gift cards and new iPod owners pushed it over the top for good — and now we’ve got the PR to prove it. Apple’s giving out the same “4 billion songs to 50 million customers” numbers as it has for a while now, but it says iTunes was the biggest game in town in January and February. Of course, there’s a lot of 2008 left to go, so Wally might make a comeback — it was the overall champ last year — but Apple’s achievement is still a major milestone for digitally distributed content, and we hope to see a lot more iTunes-like services on that list soon.

(Via Engadget.)