The iPod has become a staple in today’s culture. Everywhere we go, those white headphones seem to be dangling from ears of the young and old alike. People are dancing in the streets, subways, and even squirming in their cars as the tunes to their favorite tracks whisper sweet nothings into their heads.

Even though we see those nano-chromatic devices everywhere, it sells not without a price controversy. Known as the all too famous “Apple Tax”, the iPod does sport a slightly higher bang-for-the-buck price tag compared to its competitors. For instance, the well-respected Creative Zen 8GB mp3 player can be found for around $99; a $50 savings over its colorful counterpart.

A new finding from BusinessWeek today reports that the 3rd generation iPod Shuffle, which actually does whisper sweet nothings by way of artist and song names into our ears, has been dismantled and evaluated for actual manufacturing cost. The result intrigued me very much, even though I’m aware that the price of technology goes down daily. Apple’s newest iPod which is practically microscopic once laying in a hand costs approximately $22 to make. Granted, there isn’t all that much that goes into the device, but to hear that 4GB flash memory can cost six dollars is remarkable. Along with the memory, that rechargeable battery which gives us over a half-day of use amounts to $1.20. The only thing left is the $6 “motherboard” which controls the device, the plastic shell, and the headphones. That’s it.

Paying for an $80 iPod Shuffle? There’s an app for that.

Today MacWorld keynote was quite likely the worst in apple history.  It is now obvious why Steve Jobs didn’t bother showing up, he was afraid he would fall asleep giving the presentation.

I will give Phil some credit, he is a great speaker, and he did manage to get the crowd worked up over several of the features in the newest versions of iLife and the new threat to Google, iWork.  Really, though, neither of these products are worthy of headlining what was the most prominent of Mac days in the year.

Phil spent over an hour discussing these two pieces of software, which is more time then the original release of OS X got, and there are some really cool features which we will cover in detail later.

The new MacBook Pros, which I don’t think should be considered as new since they are just upgrades to an existing line of laptops. While these are obviously awesome machines, they’re are some glaring issues.

One major problem, no removeable battery.  Seriously?!?  I realize they are touting an eight hour battery life, but I still want to have the ability to carry an extra battery with me and switch them out.  It also lasts 1000 charges, which is about 3 years.  Now, the laptop I am writing this post on is 4.5 years old and on it’s second battery … so I guess I will a process to go through to replace the battery in a few years.

Also an issue is the lack of a glare free screen …  These high end MacBooks are not going to be used by people who want to watch DVD’s, some of us want to do real work on them, in coffee shops, and offices with windows during the day … I guess that will be a thing of the past.

The “one last thing”, was iTunes.  iTunes finally adopts a DRM free platform, and bring iTunes to 3G instead of forcing wifi.  Both of these things are very very cool, but also very very late.  This all should have been a part of the iPhone 3G release last year.  DRM Free had to come, but I am not sure it came in time to salvage iTunes place as leader in music sales, from competitors like Amazon and Walmart that have been selling DRM Free for some time now.

In the end, todays keynote seemed to be a waste of two hours, and dissapointed many.  Since this is the last MacWorld that Apple will attend, I was really hoping that they would have made more of an event rather then pushing out a random marketing exec, and leaving us with little more then a software update.

In no particular order :

1. [ Watchman ] movie will be pushed back and will end up being a Christmas blockbuster instead of the summer blockbuster starter they were hoping for. Thanks Fox for taking something beautiful and trying to crap all over it.  Just one more, in a long list of reasons to despise you as a company.

2. Nothing excitingly new will come from this years, and Apple’s last, MacWorld.  By the end of the year, Steve Jobs will have stepped down as CEO and will fill an emeritus roll of some sort.

3. [ Twitter ] will be overrun by malware, spam, and hackers making the service useless and a thing of the past.  We have already seen the start of this, and unfortunately the twitter API is full of security holes, and the twitter dev seems to have reactionary view of security instead of a precautionary view.  Since Twitter is finally starting to make it stamp in histories timeline of the internet, it will draw far too much exposure from unwanted forces.

4. Net Neutrality will finally get the political backing that it needs to become an actual reality, and yet somehow, the US gov’t will still think that they have the ability or the right to control content on the intertubes.

5. [ Wolverine ] will kick so much ass, that it will make us forget, at least for a little while, how pissed we are that [ Watchman ] still hasn’t been released.

Today Steve Jobs issued a statement to apple fan boys, most still upset that they don’t get to see him this week, dispelling rumors that his chronic weight loss over the last year, and recent decision to ditch MacWorld, are signs that he will be leaving Apple, and possibly the planet.

Job’s statement was followed by an official release by Apple’s Board of Directors stating emphatically that if Steve ever decides to move on from being the CEO of Apple, we will know it.

Here is Steve’s announcement [ apple  site ] :

Dear Apple Community,

For the first time in a decade, I’m getting to spend the holiday season with my family, rather than intensely preparing for a Macworld keynote.

Unfortunately, my decision to have Phil deliver the Macworld keynote set off another flurry of rumors about my health, with some even publishing stories of me on my deathbed.

I’ve decided to share something very personal with the Apple community so that we can all relax and enjoy the show tomorrow.

As many of you know, I have been losing weight throughout 2008. The reason has been a mystery to me and my doctors. A few weeks ago, I decided that getting to the root cause of this and reversing it needed to become my #1 priority.

Fortunately, after further testing, my doctors think they have found the cause—a hormone imbalance that has been “robbing” me of the proteins my body needs to be healthy. Sophisticated blood tests have confirmed this diagnosis.

The remedy for this nutritional problem is relatively simple and straightforward, and I’ve already begun treatment. But, just like I didn’t lose this much weight and body mass in a week or a month, my doctors expect it will take me until late this Spring to regain it. I will continue as Apple’s CEO during my recovery.

I have given more than my all to Apple for the past 11 years now. I will be the first one to step up and tell our Board of Directors if I can no longer continue to fulfill my duties as Apple’s CEO. I hope the Apple community will support me in my recovery and know that I will always put what is best for Apple first.

So now I’ve said more than I wanted to say, and all that I am going to say, about this.

Steve

And here is the Follow-up from the BoD [ apple site ] :

It is widely recognized both inside and outside of Apple that Steve Jobs is one of the most talented and effective CEOs in the world.

As we have said before, if there ever comes a day when Steve wants to retire or for other reasons cannot continue to fulfill his duties as Apple’s CEO, you will know it.

Apple is very lucky to have Steve as its leader and CEO, and he deserves our complete and unwavering support during his recuperation. He most certainly has that from Apple and its Board.

Steve Dowling Apple

I know that it sucks that Steve is required to lay out his personal information to the world like that, but unfortunately that is the price of greatness, and I for one, am happy that he is “ok”.

If you read this blog at all, you know that we heavily favor Apple over Windows, but that doesn’t necessarily make us “fanboys”, and the recent news that Apple will no longer be a MacWorld participant has us disappointed, but even more then that, the last minute announcement that Steve Jobs will not even bother with the Keynote this year is a just a big slap in the face.

MacWorld is, historically, the place that all the mac lovers show up to to find out what latest and greatest products Apple will be giving us for the year.  The buzz that MacWorld generates for Apple has been huge in the past, but Apple now feels that they have a no need to make an appearance.

Why? In its own release apple said:

Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.

All of this makes sense, and as a mac fan, I can completely understand the decision.  In fact, I myself wasn’t even planning to attend this year, even though I have faithfully attended over the years.  Last years MacWorld was a severe dissapointment, being nothing more then a collection of small time application developers and iPhone accessories.  What made it worse was that several of the accessory dealers weren’t even selling.  The general feel from most of the exhibitors was “You can look, touch, and love, but you can’t buy it, at least not here.”

The biggest problem I have with this announcement is that Steve Jobs is pulling out even this year.  The keynote has been a high point of the MacWorld event since day one, and the opportunity to “interface” with Steve Jobs, and find out from the man, what is in store for the year.  This year we get Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing.  Who? Exactly.

Even more frustrating is that this announcement was made on December 16.  Less then a month from MacWorld.  Will MacWorld expo be refunding the cost of the Keynote passes to people who have no interest in a jobless keynote?  Doubtful.

In the end, I don’t disagree with the decision to ditch the expo scenes, but c’mon Steve, give us one last hoorah and a last “one more thing”.

It has been 18 days since the release of the long hailed, hyped, and over marketed iPhone 3G.  Has it lived up to the hype?

I have heard it said that “if you don’t have a love hate relationship with Apple, then you are just a fanboy.”  This is a very true statement.   I am an apple believer.  I see Steve Jobs as a visionary who, barring health problems, will be pivotal in taking consumer electronics into the future.  However, I also know enough to avoid the fanboy filled lines for newly released apple products.  Why?  Because straight out of the gate, Apple generally FAILS.  They get it right fairly quick after the release, but the initial release is not usually a pleasant experience.

So, was it different for the iPhone?  NO.  We all remember the abysmmal launch that saw outages both in the at&t activation servers, and also the iTunes activation process.  Lines that should have taken an hour took most of the day because the purchase time wasn’t a swift 5 minute process, like the previous iPhone, but an excruciating 30 minutes to an hour.  Even after all that time spent, many were walking out with unactivated iPhones.

After nearly 3 weeks, if you want an iPhone you still get to stand in line.

What about the lucky ones who got their phones and were able to activate them?  A friend of mine is on his fifth iPhone 3G and is convinced that the black iPhones are cursed and has switched to the white iPhone.  I am sure there is no difference, but he has had battery problems, overheating problems, antenna problems, and apparently one of the iPhone’s got ghetto and cut him…

What about the app store?  This, I believe, has been the saving grace for the iPhone.  The app store is awesome.  Providing needed functions and add-ons to a phone that, unfortunately, should have had them in the first place.  Personally, I have downloaded about 30 different apps, and all of them are pretty cool.  Even apps that serve no purpose at all just have a flair of awesome that is hard to escape.  The best example of that is the iPhone saber app. It literally does nothing except show you a light saber and let you swing your phone around to make the light saber cracking noises, and yet it is so much fun.  Another fun time killing app is the iPint.  Using the accleramator on the iPhone you slide a brew down to the waiting hands of your customer avoiding all the obstacles on the bar.  As a reward the phone pours you a pint you can “drink” and it looks pretty realistic.

Other apps do provide much need productivity and functionality to the phone.  For instance, the Wordpress blogging app is a fantastic tool to allow bloggers to report on events, or edit mistakes on the go.  Another great app would be the Speed Dial app.  Yep, I know you have speed dial on your phone already. This app though creates a block of nine square images of your friends that you can touch to dial, it just looks cool, and it is easily my most used app on the phone.

Also heavily used is Pandora.  Pandora is an internet radio application, you create your account and plug in a few of your favorite artists and songs and it creates custom radio stations that you can listen too on the go.  The selections can sometimes be a little out there, for example it paired up Journey on my RUSH station, but overall it makes pretty selections.

Lastly I will talk about the “remote” app.  This one allows you to control your iTunes from anywhere on your network with your iPhone.  While that is a great feature, this app really shines if you are also an Apple TV owner.  I love my Apple TV, but one major issue I have with it is that the remote that comes with SUCKS.

It looks cool, but it can be a pain in the rear to use.  Enter Remote on the iPhone.  Now instead of having to navigate back and forth with the menu button, I can go directly the movie, or song, or picture that I want on the screen.  Plus it drives my wife crazy when she has the small remote and “thinks” she is control of the TV. Muwahahahah . sorry .

As an first gen iPhone user, I am extremely happy with the App Store, and it has satiated my desire for an upgrade for the time being, so while an iPhone 3G is in my future, I am content to avoid the lines and the fully expected initial Apple FAIL for now.

So, in the end, no, the iPhone is not living up to the hype.  It will, in the end, but as with all things Apple there is a painful early adopter process.   In the coming weeks with the release of MagicPad giving us copy/paste ability and continuing upgrade of at&t’s 3G network, the iPhone will be the dominant phone on the market, but if you are currently in a contract with another provider, don’t break it for this phone.

Superman is faster then a speeding bullet, can leap tall buildings in a single bound and is the man of steel, but give him some kryptonite and he gets a little whiny and all the bad guys take over.

Today is the long awaited day that we finally get the iPhone 3G in hand, and currently it has been available for a total of 3 .5 hours on the east coast, and not even an hour on the west coast, and what has at&t done.  They have killed the buzz.  They have handed the iPhone a big block of kryptonite in the form of activation servers that can not handle the load… SHOCKING.

Remember this post [ Buy your iPhone3G online? Apple and at&t say no way! ].  In that post I reminisced back to last year when the at&t activation servers went down, because they couldn’t handle the load.  I don’t want to say I told you so, especially since everyone told you so.  No one should be surprised that at&t is too inept to have learned its lesson last year.  No one should be shocked that iPhone sales will ONCE AGAIN be halted due to a carrier that can’t seem to pull its activation servers out of their corporates asses.

What we should be shocked by is that Steve Jobs allowed this to happen… again.  Do you think that Superman would continue to partner up with Lex Luther after he had given him a big block of kryptonite?  NO!  So, Steve, what the hell are you doing?

You have created a worldwide race of lemmings willing to stand in line for days for a PHONE… that in itself is a masterpiece of marketing.  You have proven that your company is the leader in creating fan boys.  Yet, for some reason (money) you insist on forcing us to use a carrier that is so useless and so inept that it may single-handedly be the death of the iPhone.

The next big dissapointment for the lucky few that did get the 3G iPhone activated, will be the limited and frustratingly bad 3G network that at&t has, that will likely crumble under the weight of the new iPhone users.

In what is most likely an effort to stifle the purchasing and unlocking of iPhones for use on other networks, Apple and at&t have announced that you will not be able to buy your iPhone online, nor will you be able to buy the phone and activate it later.  Purchase and activation will take place at the same time.

While I completely understand at&t’s desire to prevent the iPhone usage on other networks, since I am sure they paid a pretty penny for the exclusivity, I have to imagine that there is a better way to go about this.  Forcing a 10 – 12 minute process onto people in the store is going to make the initial buying day (July 11) a complete mad house.

I remember back to the original launch day, and even though I wasn’t buying one I went with my brother to get his and the store was mad crazy.  In that particular episode, he yelled (yes, yelled) at the guy behind the counter, over the top of all the apple fan boys, that he wanted an iPhone, and then half-handed half threw his credit card to the guy who ran it and came out with the phone and the receipt.  The whole process took maybe 2 minutes, and it was still crazy in that store.

Now, factor in that NO ONE will be able to buy online, and the phone is now priced so that my 14 year-old nephew can afford one, and that the purchase time has gone from 2 minutes to 15- 20 minutes, and that is assuming that at&t’s activation servers don’t take a massive dump (remember the last time … they did. ).

So, how much pandamonium can we expect when the activation server go down, and the people who have been sitting in line for as long a week or so, can’t even buy the phone since at&t can’t activate it..

I will be there just to watch the show.

People are taking pics on their phones, and posting them to social networks like [ plurk ] and [ twitter ]..  As I get them I will update this post.. so keep checking  back ..

Thanks to [ LiveCrunch ] on Plurk for these  :

Lines forming ..

Banner covered, likely until after the keynote … my guess is that it has 3 iPhones (red, white, and black)

Lots of new apps being being demoes….

Great images of them all at [ EnGadget ]

Australian resellers began receiving mysterious packages from Apple on Friday with a warning across the top that breaching the boxes ahead of June 10th would be a violation of their non-disclosure agreements with the company.

June 10th in Australia is actually around the same time of Apple chief executive Steve Jobs’s June 9th WWDC keynote in the US. The boxes likely contain a single demonstration 3G iPhone to be displayed by the resellers immediately following the company’s announcements.

Earlier this year, reports began appearing on Apple rumor sites in Australia that said local resellers had started to receive guidance from the Cupertino-based company regarding a local 3G iPhone launch during the final week of June.