DealNN: deals on notebooks, TVs and more

post from MacNN | The Macintosh News Network on 26 January 2010 03:20:00 PM. © MacNN | The Macintosh News Network

Today's deals at DealNN include a wide selection of items from notebooks to HDTVs. Our most notable...

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SwitchEasy releases NUDE cases for iPhones, iPods

post from MacNN | The Macintosh News Network on 26 January 2010 03:05:00 PM. © MacNN | The Macintosh News Network

SwitchEasy has released the NUDE, a new case design for iPhones and iPod touches. The model is a pol...

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Flight Control exceeds 2 million in app sales

post from MacNN | The Macintosh News Network on 26 January 2010 02:45:00 PM. © MacNN | The Macintosh News Network

Firemint has announced that Flight Control, its game for the iPhone and iPod touch, has exceeded ove...

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Canon may have 60D, new Rebel with swivel screens

post from MacNN | The Macintosh News Network on 26 January 2010 02:45:00 PM. © MacNN | The Macintosh News Network

A leak today hints that Canon's entries at the upcoming PMA photography expo could include SLRs with...

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NYT on The Tablet and Apples Relationship With
Content Publishers

post from Daring Fireball on 26 January 2010 02:25:00 PM. © Daring Fireball

This news piece by Brad Stone Stephanie Clifford has an odd tone:

People who have seen the tablet say Apple will market it not just as a way to read news, books and other material, but also a way for companies to charge for all that content. By marrying its famously slick software and slender designs with the iTunes payment system, Apple could help create a way for media companies to alter the economics and consumer attitudes of the digital era.

This opportunity, however, comes with a sizable catch: Steven P. Jobs.

Mr. Jobs, the chief executive, made Apple the most important distributor of music by imposing its own will on the music labels, bullying them into accepting Apple?s pricing and other terms. Apple sold lots of music, but the music labels claimed that iTunes had destroyed the concept of the album and damaged their already deteriorating bottom lines.

Music industry executives may well not like what’s happened to their industry, but is it really bullying from Apple? Or isn’t it simply that Apple does not do what the music executives wish? What the music industry really doesn’t like is the whole idea of downloads. They want to go back to selling $18 discs. Pre-iTunes, “music downloads” were pretty much all free bootlegs.

The print publishing industry should be so lucky to have iTunes do for them what it’s done for music.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/technology/26apple.html

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[Sponsor] Sortfolio

post from Daring Fireball on 26 January 2010 02:11:00 PM. © Daring Fireball

Sortfolio helps web designers find clients and clients find web designers. Visually.

Finding a web designer is frustrating. Even Google — the king of “find me something relevant” — doesn’t really help. Text-based search results of web designer’s sites doesn’t get you anywhere. What you really want is to browse a wide variety of work samples by different designers all on one screen. This is why we built Sortfolio.

Sortfolio tunes you right in to the important stuff. Sort through web designers by previous work samples, geographic location, and typical budget range. It’s fast and it works great. Check it out today.

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Doonesbury on The Tablet Announcement

post from Daring Fireball on 26 January 2010 02:05:00 PM. © Daring Fireball

“You can feel it in the air.”

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Air New Zealand flights to have iPod jacks, power

post from MacNN | The Macintosh News Network on 26 January 2010 02:05:00 PM. © MacNN | The Macintosh News Network

As part of its long-term and comprehensive aircraft revamp, Air New Zealand has added PC power, USB ...

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Live Coverage of Apple’s January 27 Media
Event

post from TheAppleBlog on 26 January 2010 01:22:00 PM. © TheAppleBlog

Tomorrow morning at 10AM PST Apple will be holding its “Latest Creation” Media Event. TheAppleBlog will be there providing you a steady stream of updates on everything announced.

You can get your live coverage fix via two methods tomorrow.

TheAppleBlog Live ? This is the fastest way to get updates and the most interactive. In addition to our own updates (with text and photos), you can send in a comment/thought/observation and if we feel it?s relevant, we?ll post it for the thousands of others reading the updates. Our coverage will start around an hour before the event begins.

TheAppleBlog Twitter ? We?ll be tweeting updates here, so be sure to follow@theappleblog.

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The Coronation of Steve Jobs, King of Content

Tomorrow’s event will be a big day for Apple, and a big day for those of us who make our living following the company’s every move and picking up the bread crumbs it drops along the way. At the very least, it seems certain that they will unveil some kind of game-changing tablet-type device, be it a MacBook Slate or a large-format iPod touch, or something altogether new.

The format the new hardware takes will actually be only the superficial impact of tomorrow’s announcement, though. What will really amaze, and what will matter far more for the future of Apple and the personal electronics industry, will be the content deals that are announced alongside the launch of the new device. If the deals go anywhere near as predicted, Steve Jobs could be crowned the new king of all media.

Alright, so maybe I’m overstating things a bit, but not by much. The story of how Apple’s iTunes affected the music industry, and gave the company an amazing degree of control in setting policy and pricing splits for digital music distribution is well known. It is widely accepted that record companies begrudgingly acquiesce to Apple’s demands, although occasionally they demand a concession, like the iTunes price policy change that accompanied the move to DRM-free music files.

Even now, Apple is reportedly trying to use the same strong-arm tactics on providers of television video content who hawk their wares in the iTunes store. MacRumors reports that the Mac-maker is urging TV networks to lower the per-episode price of content from $1.99 to $1, as part of its selling strategy for the tablet.

If the tablet proves to be even half the multimedia wunderkind it is being hailed as, other media providers can expect the same kind of pressure brought to bear. The book, magazine and newspaper industry in particular stands the least chance of resisting Apple’s power grab, since at this point it’s already looking for a life raft to save it from a daunting future steeped in decline. Some rumors are now circulating that the tablet will ship with a built-in Barnes & Noble bookstore, but whatever the outcome, you can bet Apple will have significant support from magazine and newspaper providers looking for a lucrative alternative to print.

Where Apple has the advantage, even if it is seen as an unsavory source of salvation by those wary of what its done for the music industry, is that it isn’t the Internet. People almost invariably like things that are free, and the Internet makes free easy. The only thing people like more than free is easy, and Apple’s distribution method makes things very easy, especially if the iTunes store is married to an extremely light and thin portable device with a decent size screen and a range of connectivity options.

Selling through Apple also takes a lot of the backshop issues out of the hands of providers. They no longer have to worry about setting up advertising, controlling access, preventing piracy and security exploits, etc. And the revenue picture becomes much more clear, with a per unit price that stockholders and stakeholders alike can easily understand. Taking the long view, siding with Apple makes sense, even if the upfront price is quite steep in terms of power dynamics.

So will Steve Jobs inherit a kingdom tomorrow? Not quite yet, I think. More like he’ll take control of quite a few lucrative fiefdoms, but it’ll take a little longer to unite the entire media nation and declare himself monarch. Make no mistake, though, this is what the tablet will accomplish in the long run. It’s the inherited legacy of the iPod and iPhone, in fact, and this is simply the next building block. Fancy gadgets are lovely, but what draws customers to those shiny screens is the content that they’re displaying; control the content, and you control consumer spending.