Apple
Apple Contest to Download the 1 Billionth App
Apr 12th
We all know how popular the iPhone and iPod Touch are (unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past year– in that case your excused 
), and how awesome it is to be able to download apps right to the device using the App Store. Well, for those of you who don’t believe how popular the iPhone and iPod Touch have become, just check this: Apple right now is running a contest for the person who downloads the BILLIONTH app. Yup, as we said in the title, thats BILLION with a B!
This is rather amazing, considering it’s been really under a year since the App Store launched (technically it came in July of ’08), but it gets even better for us users! Like what Apple did a couple of years ago when they were closing in on selling their 1 billionth iTunes song, they’re giving away a boatload of gear to the lucky soul who happens to download that 1 billionth app. What kinda gear you ask? Well, try a 17″ MacBook Pro; an iPod Touch 32GB; a $10,000 iTunes Gift Certificate (yes 10 GRAND– honestly, this is crazy!); and an Apple Time Capsule (basically a back up hard drive for your Mac or Windows PC that will automatically back up your hard drive using your wireless network). Total Retail Value of all the prizes? $13,746 (again– WOW!). You can follow the countdown to 1 billion apps at Apple’s site here.
Wanna know something even better? The app you download doesn’t necessarily need to be a paid app! You can just download a free one and you could win.
Listen, this won’t be easy to win, especially as they’re going at about a thousand apps every 10 or so seconds (at the time I’m writing this at least), but hey best of luck to ya!
New Pricing System Begins for iTunes
Apr 8th
The new iTunes pricing method
At MacWorld ’09 in early January, Apple announced that they would introduce a new pricing system for iTunes, with songs costing either $.69, $.99 or $1.29, depending on how much the record label and artist wanted to charge– which really means based on the song’s popularity.
Apple, true to it’s word, released this new pricing system yesterday, and I’m not gonna lie: this ain’t cool. The economy is still in the toilet, and their gonna raise prices? Doesn’t really make much sense to me, and already 33 out of the iTunes Top 100 songs are going for this new price, and this new pricing has only been out 3 days! The other 77 songs are staying at the previous $.99 for now, though I don’t think it will stay that way for long. See now how this whole popularity thing changes the price?
I also don’t get why they’re giving Amazon and other services a chance to gain some ground in the online music store; you can also get DRM Free songs (DRM= Digital Rights Management, which is the copy protection previously found on iTunes songs, limiting song sharing on computers and iPods. iTunes Plus now removes DRM from the iTunes songs, though movies and TV shows still have them) at Amazon’s Mp3 store for as low as $.79 (they too have the $.99 and $1.29 price listings as well), including a majority of the songs on their Top 100 being either $.79 or $.99 (though Amazon also has a few $1.29 songs– which we hope they keep to a few and try to make up ground vs Apple and iTunes with the cheaper pricing). I mean, the number 2 song currently on both lists– Poker Face by Lady Gaga– sells for $.79 on Amazon, and $1.29 on iTunes, and their the exact same song! (And yes you could say it’s only a $.50 difference, but when you buy a lot of songs, it’ll add up to be much more pretty quickly).
I know that most of this really ends up hurting the consumer, but there is one good thing out of all this though in my opinion– the fact that now all iTunes songs are DRM free. This is something that is actually good for us consumers as we can all now listen to our higher priced songs on any device we want (though just so you know, to make this happen tech wise, they didn’t need to raise the price, as evidenced by the $.69 songs which are the exact same DRM free quality as their $1.29 counterparts).
So while its great that now all iTunes songs are DRM free, I’m still not gonna pay over a dollar for a song when I can get it for less than a dollar at another, reputable site like Amazon.
What are your thoughts– you agree or disagree with the new iTunes pricing? And are you still gonna get songs from iTunes even though they raised the prices? You gonna switch to Amazon, or another site like Rhapsody? Or have you stopped buying your songs entirely and instead go the more illegal, torrent (or otherwise known as file sharing) route to get your stuff ? Let us know in the comments.
Apple Announces iPhone OS 3.0– the Wrap Up
Mar 19th
We mentioned this last week, but Apple finally previewed some of the new features in their upcoming OS for the iPhone and iPod Touch– iPhone OS 3.0.
With iPhone OS 3.0, Apple showed off a bunch of cool –and in many cases, long awaited features — as well as some new cool things for developers to make new apps (with even some new apps being shown off today by developers).
iPhone/iPod Touch Software 3.0 is Coming Soon!
Mar 12th
Apple today let loose some pretty cool info, saying that come next Tuesday, it will show the world the next verison of the iPhone/iPod Touch software: Version 3.0!
Now why would this be so important? Like Version 2.0 of the iPhone/iPod Touch software that came out last July, this proves to be a pretty big software update that promises to bring a lot of cool (and in some cases very needed!) features. These features could be anything from finally allowing Apps to run when you’re not using them directly — for example, having AIM continue to run while your playing a game in a different app (this feature is called Push Notifications) — to full usage of the GPS, to a wireless headphone option, to copy and paste, to something insane that Apple just thought of!
Luckily though, Boy Genius Report.com has learned some of the new features to expect in the 3.0 update:
- send and receive picture messages (called MMS or MultiMedia messaging),
- use you iPhone as a wireless modem to connect to the Internet on your computer using your cell phone signal (something we’d assume Apple and AT&T would make you pay extra for)
Those we know are coming for the iPhone, as for what would also be included for the iPod Touch we’ll have to wait till Tuesday.
Oh, and if you develop apps for the iPhone/iPod Touch, Tuesday’s also your lucky day, as Apple also plans to show off a whole new SDK which should promise to give you the ability to create even more cool things!
Let’s hope that both the software and the SDK get released to all of us soon after Apple shows it off; whatever it ends up that they show off on Tuesday, we know we’ll probably want it asap!
We’ll of course have it all covered here on Tuesday, so don’t worry, and make sure to check back
Anyways, we gotta ask– what are you praying/hoping/wanting to see in the new iPhone software 3.0, and while we’re at it, what apps you still wanna see out on the iPhone/iPod Touch (you never know who’s reading and could make it happen 
). Let us know in the comments.
Review: Apple Mac Mini ’09 Update
Mar 12th
Last week Apple decided to finally release some long awaited updates to its Mac desktops: the Mac Mini, the iMac, and the Mac Pro.
These updates were more for the specs of the systems than anything else; bigger hard drives, more memory (aka RAM- something you need to make your computer run fast, the more the better both on Windows and Mac), and, in cases like the Mac Mini, an additional USB port.
Today, we got our hands on the Mac Mini (special thanks to my younger bro Josh, who just so happened to need a new computer now after his old one died) and we decided to put it through its paces and see if it is worth the money. In short, this thing is awesome and great even for someone who never owned a Mac before, and only briefly used one (like me).
