Sunday Apple Tech Buzz - September 16, 2007

A $200 price cut with the iPhone to boost the sales. All early iPhone owners get $100 Apple store credit.

Apple also released the new iPod nano, the "Fat iPod" and iPhone II ... I mean the iPod touch.

iPhone is unlockable

[via Gizmodo]

Line Up Days in Advance for iPhone

Apple's iPhone would be officially go on sale tomorrow. Not surprisingly, we are already seeing people in the big cities lining up outside the Apple Stores trying to get their hands on the iPhone.

People are getting used to pay the big bucks and wait in line for days to get their hands on latest gadgets (e.g. PS3, Wii, etc...) I'm not sure how many of them are actually looking to resale it for profits.

In order to feed the crowd, all the Apple stores would be open until midnight on Friday and each customer can buy up to two iPhone (if available).

Quick facts about the iPhone:

• $499 for 4GB model, $599 for 8GB model
• Touch screen and iPod compatible
• HTML web browser with WiFi
• NO GPS and MMS support for pictures (not in this version)
• 2.0 megapixels Camera
• AT&T data plans $60, $80, $100 (details)

iPhone-like Interface for PocketPC

A developer called Tzywen has developed his own iPhone interface for a Eten M600 Pocket-PC. It is 99% iPhone look alike and the dragging, unlocking, clicking features are fully functionable. It is very impressive!

The video of the PocketPC was posted on YouTube and received over 100k views before it was taken down by YouTube upon Apple's request. A couple of days after, Tzywen received a letter from Apple's lawyers asking him to cease the development and distribution of this software and remove any related postings/videos. He was also asked to destroy any portion of the software that infringes Apple’s rights or otherwise violates applicable law.

It looks like most of the design, skins and features (like unlocking/dragging page) are copyrighted by Apple.

Note: the above picture was NOT the design of Tzywen's software interface as all the images were removed from his site.

Apple, Cisco Share iPhone Trademark

Apple and Cisco Systems ended their feud over the iPhone name on Wednesday as they agreed to share rights to the name and end their legal battle over it. USA Today,

"Cisco - the longtime owner of the name - had earlier said it would share it with Apple as long as the electronics-maker made its iPhone compatible with other companies' products. The settlement addressed that concern, with the two companies pledging to "explore opportunities for interoperability in the areas of security, and consumer and (business) communications." Other terms were confidential."

Since the full deal was not made public, it's hard to say for sure which company got the better end of the deal. As many have said, it looks like a "face-saving" agreement for Cisco and a "money-saving agreement" for Apple.

Apple, Cisco settlement extended

Yesterday was supposed to be the deadline for Apple to respond to Cisco's iPhone trademark lawsuit.

Again, Cisco has granted another extension for Apple. This time, Cisco has given Apple five more days to February 21, at which point the two companies will hopefully have reached a “mutually beneficial agreement.”

Besides reaching an agreement on sharing the trademark, Cisco also expressed interest in reaching a deal on how the products could interoperate. But this is VERY unlikely going to happan. Apple uses a closed system with all of its portable devices, which are tightly integrated with its iTunes software and online store.

Stay tune.

Apple Plans to Take on Digital Music World

Last week, iPod maker Apple Inc. has resolved a bitter trademark dispute with The Beatles' guardian Apple Corps Ltd. over use of the iconic apple logo and name. The settlement gives Apple Inc. ownership of the name and logo in return for agreeing to license some of those trademarks back to London-based Apple Corps - guardian of The Beatles' commercial interests - for their continued use.

Right after the settlement, Jobs shocked the industry when he said he would like to drop the digital-rights management (DRM) in selling online music - helpfully pointing out that this would be no different from the many billions of CDs sold every year which contain no copy protection. However, many music record labels have already made it clear that they will not drop DRM.

The current legal process will ultimately hurt iPod sales which is what Apple is all about. So Jobs has taken a strategic decision that now is the time that they can do better without DRM than with.

Paris & Britney Joined MyBlogLog, Who's Next?

As fellow bloggers Parislemon and Webomatica pointed out, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears have joined the MyBlogLog community. Both contacts and official sites are run by their PR and both celebrities probably have no idea that their official sites have joined a new cyber community (I don't think they would mind though). Not that it will do anything for me, by I think it is still cool to have Britney and Paris in my contact list.

Anyway, now that Paris and Britney have joined, Who are the next celebrities/famous persons you want to see in MyBlogLog?

1) Steve Job (Apple CEO)
Could you imagine how many people would sign up for MyBlogLog if Steve Job has joined? All the Apple fanboys would be bombarding him with any iPod, Mac related questions. People would be leaving him messages asking for free iPod and free iPhone. There is little doubt that his blog would become the biggest community.

2) George Bush (United States President)
The most influential man on Earth probably never searches online or reads blogs after he became the US president. He should have all the assistants he needs that can help him found what he wants and listen to the filtered news. If he ever came to the community and spent sometimes reading stuff that people wrote about him, that would probably changed lots of things (I think he would learned what a Google Bomb is at the very least). Of course, his community would have the most flamed messages in the world that would probably bring down the server down.

3) Lindsay Lohan (US Celebrity)
Hey Britney and Paris are here, so she should be here too! All three of them will get all the paparazzi here and make this place like a tabloid. At the end, they would probably be trying to fight against each other on the title of Celebrities With the Most "fans".

Vista and Apple's Strike Back

According to Technorati, Window Vista is one of the hottest topics discussed the past week.

Technorati shows that Vista got nearly 10,000 mentions in one day. We are also seeing Bill Gates' interview and press everywhere over the Internet. While many are criticizing Gates' questionable skills in interviews or if he is actually putting any spins in his moves so that more people would talk about him and his latest darling. There is no doubt that he got all the people talking.

So, what does Microsoft's biggest nemesis Apple going to do? They just can’t let Microsoft have it all right? Let's look at how Apple and their fanboys strike back…

Other than making fun of the interviews that Gates have, and putting them on YouTube so that the whole world can watch it (which may actually helped Microsoft), what did they do?

Apple played their trump card "iPod" against Microsoft on this one. Apple is telling all the iPod and iTunes users to hold off on upgrading computers to Windows Vista, warning that the iTunes music software may not work well with the new operating system from rival Microsoft Corp. They are also "proving" it by offering fixes to Vista user because Microsoft said that they tested Vista is compatibles with other products like iPod.

Anyhow, the fact is Vista is not for everyone and only decent computers are capable of supporting it. So, we waited five years in Vista to get developed, then there is another 3 years to have people replace their old computers with Vista on it.

iPhone Buzz

Apple's CEO Steve Job has announced last week (Jan 9) iPhone is going to be released this year. It quickly became the biggest buzz of the year. Its pictures and video are everywhere and it is going to be one of those must-haves for the year.

Shortly after Apple announced the release of iPhone, Cisco quickly respond by saying they had the name "iPhone" trademarked in 2000. Expect lots of press from both sides and let's see how Apple resolve this issue.

During the Keynote Steve Jobs took a call on his iPhone (of course it is a spin, would you possibly answering your cell phone in front of that many people during a presentation?) . Some hardcord fans took the time to extract the ringtone audio from the presentation, clean up the static and allow everyone to download this unique iPhone ringtone. (hey, not everyone can afford the iPhone, but I guess most of us can get a iPhone tone right?)

Anyhow, what can be expected other than seeing this mediaplayer/phone everywhere on the street in June? We could also see that it gives a hugh boost in mobile advertising now that a lot more people having big screen smart phones.

Here is a stupid/crazy idea in making million bucks from Apple. You can anticipate what the next Apple new hit is and what products they are developing, then start creating low quality similar products. After that, file trademark for your products with an “i”, like “iTV”, “iRadio”, “iRobot”, etc. If you nailed it right, you could resell your trademark name to Apple and make millions of dollars!