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First Amendment: Freedom to sell out?
The Electronic Frontier Foundation fancies itself as the defender of free speech on the internet. Indeed, the group has a history of defending bloggers and video creators against lawsuits and legal threats, and they've also done extensive work in getting government documents released via the Freedom of Information act.
Obviously, this group of attorneys knows their stuff when it comes to upholding the right to free speech and the protections that should be afforded to both journalists and bloggers every.
Why, then, is the foundation coming out in support of paying off bloggers to keep quiet?
The case in question is that of Macintosh news site Think Secret. Apple brought suit against the site in 2005 for spilling the beans on a number of products. EFF took up the fight on Think Secret's behalf, defending the site against Apple's charges of disclosing trade secrets.
Recently, the case settled. Apple agreed to pay an undisclosed sum and Think Secret agreed to shut down. You'd think that this would be an embarrassment to the free speech cause. Whatever Think Secret was paid to shut up, it was certainly peanuts as far as Apple's concerned and most likely less than what the company loses when unfavorable or premature news surfaces.
And yet, EFF attorney Terry Gross claims that "the First Amendment has prevailed" and that "every Internet journalist should feel some strength from what's happened."
I don't remember that part of the first amendment that protects freedom to take a payoff in exchange for silence. If a company paying off a blog to shut its doors is a victory for free speech, then the press really is in trouble.
iPhone may be coming to Japan
Having already spread over the US and Europe, the iPhone is now poised to take on one of the biggest mobile markets in the world.
Agence France-Press is reporting that Steve Jobs has met with the president of Japanese mobile firm NTT DoCoMo.
Kyoto News backs this up, suggesting that Apple has the firm at the top of its list for perspective iPhone partners in Japan.
This would definitely prove to be a challenge for the iPhone. Japan is rivaled only by South Korea in terms of mobile use and network sophistication. However, these days the iPhone can sell itself on reputation and fashion appeal alone.
Laptops get a wakeup call
Apple has put out a new release that fixes some rather lazy keyboards on Leopard-equipped MacBook and MacBook pro models.
The MacBook, MacBoon Pro software update addresses an issue in which the keyboards on the notebooks would not immediately respond to input. In some cases, users had to wait as long as 2-3 minutes before the keyboard would wake up.
If you're among those waiting for minutes on end for your keyboards to function, this is very welcome news.
The issue only affects MacOS 10.5.1 and later, so those still living in the Tiger days need not fret.
Patch 'em up
Allright boys and girls, the fine folks down in Cupertino have sent out a fresh new batch of MacOS patches for your updating pleasure.
For starters, we have an update for MacOS. It fixes roughly thirty security issues for MacOS and all of its associated goodies.
There's also a patch for the latest beta of Safari. This one is strictly for Windows users, as the MacOS security fix updates the Safari issues as well.
Remember, we're now living in the era of the OS X trojan, so it's a good idea to keep current on all of your security updates. If you have the Software Update utility turned on and you internet connection working, this should just about take care of itself.
Otherwise, you'll want to head over to Apple's download site and get the update yourself.
Expanding the store, eh?
All right, ya hosers. Apple's decided to bring the iTunes store to Canada
Now you can slide on your Maple Leafs jersey, crack open a Molson, and enjoy iTunes TV downloads nother of the border.
Apple is offering the great white north special packages from the National Hockey League and the CBC in addition to shows from the Canadian CBC and CTV networks.
Apple is also showing either a major bit of editorial oversight or an appreciation for Canada's famous sense of humor.
The company made a special point to note that Canucks will be offered an array of Comedy Central programming, including South Park. The controversial cartoon is known for its portrayal of Canadians as beady-eyed floppy-headed fart joke lovers...
Apple and the changing face of advertising
Last night I was was speaking with some marketing people about advertising campaigns. One of them asked me who I thought would make a good spokesperson for an ad campaign by a major PC vendor.
I thought for a second about the compelling ad campaigns of recent years. What were the most influencial? What has worked the best? After a few seconds, I told them "nobody."
I went on to explain that, from my perspective, the best ads have no spokespeople. These days, products seem to work best when the talking head element is removed and the product itself is presented.
At the forefront of this is Apple. Since the days of the iMac, the company has not done a single ad for its hardware that has included a human being (not counting the "I'm a Mac" platform ads.") The company has done a great job of selling the hardware rather than any sort of tagline or iconic pitchman such as the "dude, you're getting a Dell" campaign.
The best example of this is the iPod campaign. The human element is deliberately removed. You don't see people, you see the silhouette. These aren't talking heads, these are fashionable young people who could be you (or who you wish would be you) getting down with the iPod.
Other companies are now following this lead. Dell, for example, is doing something similar for its all-in-one model. Apple has, to some extent, taken the pitchman out of computer advertising. And, unless you're the former Dell teenage pitchman (who is reportedly now a bartender) this is a good thing.
More rumors on sub-notebook
New reports are surfacing with all the dirty details on Saint Stevie's planned "one more thing" for the Macworld Expo in January.
Apple Insider points to a CNBC report in which a manufacturing source as laying out all of the specifics, including a $1500 price tag and a 50% smaller size. The new book will be a "sub-notebook" rather than a tiny "ultra-mobile PC" and will have a screen somewhere in between 12 and 13.5 inches, depending on who you believe.
The buzz has been building around this, and word is that it really is going to happen. Then again, "word was" that the iPhone was definitely going to be announced three or four times during 2006.
Still, if you think you're in the market for a laptop and like the idea of a $1500 solid-state Mac, I'd hold off until after the expo...
Big Apple in the Big Apple
Normally, the opening of a new Apple store doesn't draw much interest. That's because your normal Apple store isn't a sprawling retail space in the middle of Manhattan.
The new shop will be the largest Apple store in NYC and will feature a 46 foot genius bar. That's enough room to turn down 12 iPhone repair requests at once. The store will be Apple's 204th retail storefront and will employ more than 140 New Yorkers.
If you find yourself on West 14th street at 9th Ave at 6PM on Friday, you can be there for the gala grand opening. Otherwise, you'll have to wait until your next vacation and convince the family that a large Apple store is way cooler than the statue of liberty.
iPhone, oui!
Orange says that in France the iPhone is selling like hotcakes (or perhaps crepes).
The firm has reportedly moved more than 30,000 units in the week since the phone was launched in France. 48% of those were to new customers.
Perhaps the most interesting figure, however, was the 20% of buyers who purchased the unlocked version of the iPhone.
This is roughly the same percentage of people who purchased and then manually unlocked the iPhone, suggesting that any Apple/AT&T paranoia about unlocking the iPhone is unfounded.
Those who want an unlocked iPhone want it bad enough to hack it. The rest don't have much of a problem signing a contract, especially at a discounted price.
Hopefully this will be taken into account when the 3G iPhone is released and Apple will make an unlocked phone available worldwide.
Did Apple cave on movie prices?
After playing hardball with music and TV studio executives, Apple has agreed to raise the price on iTunes movie downloads at the behest of major film studios.
According to Electronista, an industry analyst is reporting that Apple made the concessions in order to secure the rights to some major movie studio catalogues. The prices will reportedly climb as high as $15 per film.
There is, however, some good news for consumers. As part of the deal, the studios will reportedly bundle DVDs with versions of the videos pre-formatted for smaller screens, such as those on, say, an iPhone or iTunes player screen.
Pepsi picks Amazon for billion-song promotion
In 2004, Apple and Pepsi teamed up to do a program in which 100 million free downloads would be served up via Pepsi bottle tops.
The campaign was kicked off with a Super Bowl commercial in which kids who had been sued for illegally downloading music drank Pepsi and proclaimed they'd still download over Green Day's version of "I fought the law."
Only about five million downloads were ever actually served. Possibly because it wasn't promoted well enough, or maybe because people don't really equate spending $1.35 for corn syrup and fizzy water with sticking it to the man.
Regardless, Pepsi is making a change with this year's free download campaign.
The soda kingpin is going to be offering one billion downloads this year. But rather than serve the songs via iTunes, Pepsi is going to use the eyeball-hungry Amazon download service.
Perhaps Pepsi didn't want to deal with the computing diva that is iTunes and its terms. Or maybe Apple simply didn't feel the need to set up a repeat of a promotion that only ended up serving about 5% its target volume.
Either way, I'm sure Amazon will be happy to get the publicity for its music store.
The original 2004 commercial which heralded the rebellion of the consumer and the end of the RIAA's bully campaign against kids... or not.
