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Android Market is Google’s competitor to the Apple iPhone store
I was sent a link to the Android Community site this morning that led to the Android Developers blog post on the upcoming Android Market that looks to rival the Apple iPhone store for Android-powered devices. They decided to call it a market rather than a store to try to give it that "open" feeling for developers to provide content. There are several screenshots for you to check out too, including the one to the left. The Android Market will let users find, purchase, download and install content on their devices. The content does not appear to be screened by Google since you just need to register, upload and describe your content to get published. Hopefully it doesn't turn into a ...
Apple Wrong to Require Single Track Sales on iTunes?
iTunes vs. Kid Rock and The Music IndustryThe Wall Street Journal took a look at why some artists are keeping their music off iTunes. Because the store does not allow full album only downloads, Kid Rock, AC/DC and others have opted out. Some acts like Radiohead did it to protect the artistic integrity of their work while others are clear that their motivation is money. Single tracks don't net the same profits that albums do.read more
Apple Is Greener, Greenpeace Says, But Has More To Do
At last Tuesday's laptop event on the Apple campus in Cupertino, Calif., the environment got a lot of attention. CEO Steve Jobs, who has been pushing for a "greener Apple" for months, flatly declared that the new Mac laptops, with their unibody aluminum construction and less toxic parts, "are the industry's greenest notebooks."The verdict from the planet's leading environmental group, Greenpeace, is a qualified yes. "Compared to where Apple was before Tuesday," said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International's toxics campaigner, "its laptops are definitely better. That in and of itself is a good thing. But not all toxic pieces have been eliminated yet."Almost Toxic-FreeHarrell said Greenpeace had been hoping Apple would be the first to announce a laptop manufactured without any polyvinyl chloride (PVC) or brominated flame retardant (BFR) materials. Both produce toxic chemicals when burned, which frequently occurs when computer parts are shipped overseas for disposal."They fell slightly short of that goal," Harrell said. "They didn't quite get the PVCs out of the external power cord. If Apple can achieve that, then we could unequivocally say that they've put the rest of the computer industry on notice that these materials can be completely eliminated."In a press release Tuesday, Apple said it did eliminate all PVCs on internal cables in its MacBook laptops, and avoided the use of BFRs altogether. In addition, Apple said, the new MacBooks meet Energy Star 4.0, EPEAT Gold, and RoHS environmental standards.Harrell predicted that Apple's ranking on Greenpeace's environmental scale will rise in part because of the reduction in the use of toxic chemicals and because the new MacBooks use significantly less packaging.Apple said it measures its recycling performance by a standard first suggested by Dell: The percentage of material sold (by weight) collected in recycling. In 2007, Apple recycled 18.4 percent of the material it...
As Apple Shares Slide, What About Sales?
Apple Inc. tends to prove unstoppable even when other computer makers falter. In the most recent quarter, shipments of Macs surged 41%. That's nearly three times the 15% global growth rate for PCs in general.But in the current quarter, as markets slide, banks go belly-up, and consumer confidence plunges, even the Apple (AAPL) growth engine may hit speed bumps, say some analysts who are revisiting their estimates just a month before Apple is due to report quarterly earnings for the period that ends Sept. 30. Concerns, including slumping demand for laptops and a strengthening dollar, helped drive down Apple's shares more than 29%, to 126.84, on Sept. 23 from 179.32 on Aug. 14.One of the bright spots of Apple's last several quarters has been its MacBook and MacBook Pro lines of notebooks, which in the quarter ended June 28 accounted for more than $2.2 billion, or almost 30% of sales. In a Sept. 22 research note, Samuel Wilson of JMP Securities in San Francisco pointed to potential weakness in notebook sales.Stealth SurveyWilson called 20 Apple stores and 10 Best Buy (BBY) stores and concluded that demand might soon weaken for the higher-priced MacBook Pro, which starts at $1,999, vs. the less expensive MacBook, which starts at $1,099. "When asked whether we should consider a MacBook or a MacBook Pro, we were repeatedly told that the Pro is designed for the design community, with a high-end video card and a large screen, and that we would be better off with a MacBook for the cost," he wrote. Employees at Apple stores proved 40% more likely to push the MacBook Pro than their counterparts at Best Buy, he found.Chip suppliers in Asia report that Apple has been canceling orders for computer memory chips, according to Wilson. "The reasons for the cancellations might...
Clarification: Apple’s Dual GPU Setup
In our coverage on the Apple press event earlier this week, where Steve Jobs introduced a revamp of all the company's notebooks (as well as a new Cinema Display), an error leaked into our story. We said that the new dual-GPU MacBook Pros used Hybrid SLI so you could use both graphics chips at the same time for better performance, but as it turns out, this isn't the case. This was my fault since Jobs didn't actually claim any Hybrid SLI being used. To detail the matter further, Apple has released a support document explaining the features of the dual GPU architecture.
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