These are the highest-grossing games in the App Store and on Itunes for the week ending yesterday. And as you’ll notice, last week’s top-spot holder “Tap Tap Revenge 3,” quickly dropped to the five spot. Ouch.

1. Bejeweled 2 ($2.99)

2. Shrek Kart ($4.99)

3. Madden NFL ‘10 ($9.99)

4. Need For Speed Undercover ($4.99)

5. Tap Tap Revenge 3 ($.99)

6. FIFA ‘10 ($9.99)

7. Bloons Tower Defense ($2.99)

8. Tetris ($4.99)

9. The Sims 3 ($6.99)

10. Scrabble ($4.99)

Source: Kotaku

“Rock Band is coming to iPhone/iPod touch this month,” EA Mobile announced on its Twitter account today but publisher’s love of social outlets didn’t stop there.

A post on the EA Mobile Facebook page reads:

“Check out the in-game Music Store to purchase additional tracks from OK Go, Foo Fighters, Smashing Pumpkins, Lenny Kravitz, Social Distortion, Devo, and more.”

So not only did EA confirm the game, they also confirmed an in-game music store for the game. Nice!

And best of all, EA released the game’s full core setlist. Have a look.

· 30 Seconds To Mars – “Attack”
· AFI – “Girls Not Grey”
· All American Rejects – “Move Along”
· Beastie Boys – “Sabotage”
· Blink-182 – “All The Small Things”
· Blondie – “Hanging on the Telephone”
· Foo Fighters – “Learn To Fly”
· Foo Fighters – “Everlong”
· George Thorogood & the Destroyers – “Bad to The Bone”
· Jethro Tull – “Hymn 43″
· Joan Jett – “Hymn 43″
· Lynard Skynard – “Simple Man”
· Motorhead – “Ace of Spades ‘08″
· Pixies – “Debaser”
· Presidents of The United States of America – “Ladybug”
· Rise Against – “Give It All”
· Silversun Pickups – “Lazy Eye”
· Smashing Pumpkins – “Cherub Rock”
· Steve Miller Band – “Take The Money and Run”
· The Go Go’s – “We Got The Beat”

The game will include vocal, guitar, bass, and drum parts and will take advantage of the Bluetooth functionality built into your iPhone or iPod Touch for up to 4-player multiplayer fun.

Tap Tap and Tap Tap Revenge beware, when Rock Band for iPhone hits, you won’t be the fattest cat in town.

Source: MTV Multiplayer

We also like lists. Here’s a top 10 list of the best-selling iPhone/iPod Touch games and their respective prices, as reported by Apple.

1. Dungeon Hunter $6.99

2. FIFA ‘10 $9.99

3. Madden NFL ‘10 $9.99

4. Need For Speed Undercover $4.99

5. Cartoon Wars (Blue) $.99

6. Skee-Ball $.99

7. Bejeweled 2 $2.99

8. The Sims 3 $6.99

9. Tetris $4.99

10. Tiger Woods PGA Tour $4.99

via Kotaku

Today, Electronic Arts released FIFA ‘10 for iPhone and iPod Touch, vastly furthering the reach of the footy game to the millions of Apple portable devices out there.

FIFA ‘10 for the iPhone/iPod Touch sounds like a very promising version, as it features 12,650 players, 570 teams and 30 leagues and is controlled through what EA calls a “simple and innovative two button control system that offers a free flowingsoccer experience.”

Additionally, the game features multiplayer in the form of Wi-Fi, guaranteeing you and your friends a match any time of day or night.

Download FIFA ‘10 in the App Store or on iTunes today for $9.99 , and look for the console version October 20.

Obviously though, wading through all those apps can be rather daunting. While a new App Store earlier this month certainly helped, Yappler wants to take it one step further and has launched Yappler Sync, a discovery tool for Windows and OS X that allows iPhone users to share a list of their favorite apps with their friends. The tool scans a users App Store library, and sends that list to the Yappler website, where a user can share it anonymously or post it for others.

Yappler.com Sync also creates a list of the apps used by all of its users and updates the list when new apps are downloaded or old ones are deleted, generating their own Top Apps list. Users can share their own list of apps on Twitter and Facebook, or even embed the list as a widget on personal blogs and webpages, like below. We noticed that Yappler doesn’t not which apps you personally don’t sync to your phone though. We don’t actually keep multiple fart apps on our phone. Honest.

Check Yappler out, and share your app lists in the comments.

Artist's rendition of the angry mob of Google workers outside the Apple offices in Cupertino.

In the ongoing volleying between Apple and Google over the Google Voice application, Google has released an unredacted version of the letter it sent to the FCC. In it, Google states that Apple has unequivocally rejected the Google voice application for the iPhone.

The Google Voice application was supposed to allow iPhone users to access all of the features that are part of the Grand Central system that Google acquired back in 2007, including one VoIP phone number that rings all of your phone numbers, integrated SMS, and customizable voicemail and call-screening depending on the caller. Rumor has it that Apple and AT&T are worried that the Google app could replace core functionalities on the iPhone—or eat into AT&T’s bottom line.

Here are the relevant quotes. Google states in its letter to the FCC which discussed negotiations between the two companies:

Apple representatives informed Google that the Google Voice application was rejected because Apple believed the application duplicated the core dialer functionality of the iPhone.

This stands in direct contrast to Apple’s statement in a press release:

We do not agree with all of the statements made by Google in their FCC letter. Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application and we continue to discuss it with Google.

In any case, one of these companies is lying, because they can’t both be true. Google claims that Apple rejected both the Google Voice and the Google Latitude applications because they duplicated functions the iPhone is already capable of doing and might create customer confusion. This is, of course, laughable considering the number of calculators, stopwatches, email apps, and all the other apps available in the store that blatantly duplicate available functionality.

Google and Apple used to be a match made in heaven, until the two companies found themselves in ever-growing competition. With Google throwing its full weight behind the mobile open-source Android platform, they’re increasingly finding themselves in direction competition with Apple—so much so, that Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s board of directors.

Only time will tell if these two companies will ever be able to make nice. We sure hope so, because the idea of using MapQuest instead of the pre-installed Google maps application on our iPhone makes us shudder.

Apple maintains, at least since yesterday, that they are working with Google on the Google Voice App for iPhone.

Apparently Google is saving its best for last. It has in its possession an image of the rejection letter. So Apple will most likely approve the Google Voice App to save face, and we’ll probably see it in a few days as the Post speculated.

The questions remains, if Apple did lie to a federal regulatory agency, what will come of that?

Take Acer for example. The last year has seen an explosion in the popularity of netbook computers, and Acer’s Apsire One line of $270 netbooks are all the rage. Previously, no one has heard of MSI, but now everyone and their mother is hacking their $300 Wind to run OS X. Same with Asus and their EEE PC line.

Some companies ready to break onto the scene are more familiar for their other products. At the Nokia World conference in Germany last week, Nokia announced their Booklet 3G, a sleek, 2 cm thin aluminum netbook, signifying that the company who previously made their mark on the electronics world by manufacturing phones is now trying to expand themselves back onto the PC market after selling that division more than fifteen years ago.

The Booklet 3G is powered by the same Intel Atom processor in the MSI Wind and Acer One lines, but whereas those netbooks are only wi-fi capable, the Booklet 3G will come built in with a 3G/HSPA antenna, giving the netbook data network access wherever cell reception is available, along with the assisted GPS found in mobile phones. The netbook will also have a 10.1-inch HD-ready screen and HDMI port, something typically reserved for higher-end laptops and desktop, and certainly not something offered on current netbooks.

Nokia is truly in a unique position too introduce a computer as ground breaking as the Booklet 3G is. Of course, a netbook this exciting is also rather wallet-breaking as well. While only European pricing has been announced so far, the Booklet 3G will sell for 575 euros, which comes to about 820 dollars. However, netbooks often come subsidized if they have a data antenna. No subsidies have been announced yet, but they would have to be hefty to be anywhere near the sub-$300 prices on other netbooks.

It’s also yet to seen whether or not the subsidized notebook market will even prove to be profitable. Many carriers in the US are offering netbooks for as low as $50 with a 2-year data contract. Considering how much iPhone users complain about being locked into their contracts though, the carriers will probably face some stiff resistance.

Curiously and notably absent form the netbook market though is Apple. Apple even poked fun at the concept of a netbook yesterday at their keynote, showing an image of someone failing to shove a Dell Mini into his back pocket. Apple continues to claim that people don’t want an underpowered netbook; they want fast and they want powerful. Of course this is belied by the fact Apple continues to offer their white plastic MacBook for sale, and that their “mobile computing platform” of the iPhone and iPod touch has half the processing power of current netbooks.

More over, an article Wired ran last month argued that we’re in the middle of the “good enough” revolution, stating that “the low end has never been riding higher.” An interesting point to consider.

In any case, netbooks are here to stay. It’ll be interesting to seem some the innovations that trickle down towards the end user from higher end computers. An always on data connection, A-GPS, and HDMI connectivity are a great start. What’s next?

iPod Nano.

Apple is adding a video camera to its iPod Nanos, allowing users to take still pictures or film clips for easy uploading to YouTube later, all at the same price pont as a 4 GB Kickflip.  Apple is also — and finally, in our opinion — adding an FM radio. While we haven’t listened to a radio since 2003, its always seemed a cheap component that everyone else has always offered. But in typical Apple fashion, they’ve bettered it: users will be able to live-pause the music, and tag songs to later find them in iTunes. Pricing for the Nano is $149 for 8GB, and $179 for 16GB, all of which come in Apple’s standard candy colored offerings.

iPod Touch.

Apple’s iPod Touch line also saw battery and memory upgrades and price drops. The 8GB iPod touch is now only $199. However, users can also purchase the 32 and 64 GB models for $299 and $399 respectively which include new Open GL firmware for better video and game performance, a necessary upgrade to maintain Apple’s relevance in the mobile gaming marketplace.

iPod Shuffle

Apple’s iPod shuffle is also getting five new colors and price drops. The 2 GB model is only $59 dollars, while the 4 GB model is $79. There still aren’t any controls on the player itself, meaning you’re still limited to headphones with the built-in controls. Apple did announce that many manufacturers are adding support for the controls on board, or through adapters.

All of these are solid upgrades, and while there’s still no tablet, this should definitely take Apple successfully into the upcoming holiday season.

Priced at $7.99, the game allows players to trudge through an entire season including playoffs and the Superbowl while delivering a “hard-hitting and realistic” experience.

“We think fans will be impressed by the amount of detail and authenticity in Madden NFL ‘10, as well as by how intuitive it is to just pick up and start playing,” said Travis Boatman, VP Worldwide Publishing for EA Mobile. “We really took advantage of the platform’s unique capabilities so players have a new way to interact with the game. They can control the speed of the game as it unfolds to make the right call, draw routes on the screen for pass plays or with the swipe of a finger, kick a winning field goal.”

The iPhone/iPod Touch version allows for “Mutli-Touch” control where hot-routes can be traced out with the tip of your finger and like it’s console cousins, John Madden lends his booming voice to the project. Maybe you’ll want to use headphones while playing on the train? Just a suggestion.

Talk about a victory. Apple has approved a Vonage App while Google Voice can’t even get near the App Store with its own software.

“Vonage is currently conducting a beta test and general availability will be announced at a later date,” the company said in a statement Wednesday. “This new service, along with the recent launch of the Vonage World unlimited calling plan, continues Vonage’s heritage of using innovative technology to create significant value for its current and future customers.”

Vonage’s stock (NYSE: VG) soared almost 20 percent on App news.

The event will open at 10 a.m. at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater in San Francisco, Calif., at the Moscone Center, the same site of Macworld Expo and Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC).

Since 2005, Apple has used these events, usually near September, to introduce massive changes to its music business. Last year Apple introduced new iPods and iTunes 8 at a similar event.

“It’s only rock and roll, but we like it,” Apple says in an email inviting people to the event, Macworld reported. Apple gave no details about the event or what could be announced.

Maybe its a tablet device?

It turns out that there are a couple ingenious hackers out there who have realized that the space your optical drive sits in is some very valuable real estate space which could easily be repurposed and filled with another hard drive. One intrepid blogger, Reid, has decided to throw his MacBook warranty out the window, removed the optical drive and replaced it with a 256 solid-state hard drive, seeing as they both run via a SATA connector. Check out his blog to see the nitty-gritty of what he did.

While Reid could have just as easily replaced the optical drive with a standard drive — did you know they make 1 TB laptop drives now? — solid state drives have many advantages over your standard drives. The flash memory inside a solid state hard drive has no moving parts, so they are more durable and last longer than your standard hard drives. Oh, and they’re FAST. How fast do you say? Reid found a seven-fold increase in speed in benchmark tests he ran.

The best part of all these shenanigans is that in the interest of bettering the human race, Reid is offering to help you trick out your laptop too. He’s posted all the instructions — be warned, there’s some soldering required — and a list of the $10 of parts you need to purchase from Amazon.com. Or for the slightly more adventurous, he’ll ship you the connector for $30. Or, if the whole performing surgery on your laptop makes you feel  a bit queasy, you can ship your laptop to him with the hard drive you want installed, and for $35 plus $14 shipping, he’ll do everything for you.

We haven’t handed our laptop over to Reid — …yet — so remember these caveats: we don’t know Reid, though we’re sure he’s a stand-up guy, so you’re shipping your precious laptop to a blogger while simultaneously voiding your warranty. That being said, comparable services on other sites run $150 plus shipping for an install alone. Granted, MCE will perform a similar service and install a brace that keeps the hard drive from banging around, which might be important if you’re not installing a SSD, but it’s still quite a bit steeper than what Reid is promising.

Either way, with optical drives in notebooks going the way of the dodo, this just may be the life saving hack that will convince us to keep our notebook around for a little while more.

Snow Leopard is going to be a $29 upgrade, and looks to be worth every penny. Most of the enhancements to Leopard under the hood adjustments rather than eye candy; full 64-bit compatibility, speed improvements across the board, and supposedly installation will recover 7GB of HDD space. Add to that Microsoft Exchange support, better OpenCL graphics support, and those fancy new wallpapers, and it’s hard to justify why you wouldn’t want to upgrade.

We’ll let you know our thoughts when we install it this Friday. You should feel free to do the same.

While it’s unexpected that such an announcement would come today, it actually makes sense in the grand scheme of things. When one looks at all the web applications Google offers—Gmail, calendar, Google Docs, a desktop search—organizing these programs into a tightly integrated package at a good price seems very logical. When one considering that Google’s price for just about everything is “free,” it seems like an even better deal. It’s worth nothing that such a concept isn’t strictly original. In the recent past, Wal-mart sold a $199 computer that came with a Ubuntu distribution, gOS, which featured web applications heavily.

Google already has one operating system, but Android is a mobile platform, and Google says in its blog post that Chrome OS is a “is a new project, separate from Android.” Most applications written for Chrome OS would reside in the Chrome browser, making it exceptionally cross-platform. (This is, of course, assuming Chrome ever makes it to OS X. Our fingers are crossed.) Google also promises the OS will be lightweight so it can boot and get you to the web quickly where you can do your business.

Why should you care? Because now Google is going after Microsoft, Apple, and everyone else at the throat. No longer are Microsoft’s cash cows safe; with Google Docs rapidly becoming a viable web alternative to Office, Google Chrome OS could now start to threaten the Windows user base as well. Clearly the take over isn’t going to occur overnight. Depending on who’s counting, Google Chrome users make up about 2% of the browser share, while Firefox is at about 20% and IE remains king at around 60%.

But Android, which currently runs on only one phone offered by T-Mobile, has still managed to attract a huge number of application developers and amassed a sizable app library. Between Google’s solid web applications, these dedicated developers, the general drive to offload computing to the “cloud,” and Google’s bottomless pockets, this very well could develop into more than just a twinkle in Google’s eye.

While we would love to get our hands on an OS X version of Chrome alone, we’re even more excited by the prospect of running an entire Google OS on our computer. We’ll keep an eye out to the future for you.

OK, so obviously those are a couple disappointments, but we’re still getting landscape keyboards across all apps, system-wide spotlight, and push notifications (as soon as the app developers implement them) among many other improvements. A scan of the Twit-scape shows that there are speedy downloads and no major hiccups for people installing. So give it a go, and let us know how it works for you. We forgot our cord at home today, so we won’t be installing until tonight.

Update (3:31 p.m.): Looks like we spoke too soon. It appears that while Apple’s download servers had plenty of capacity, the activation servers couldn’t handle the rush of people itching for iPhone 3.0, and many people are stuck with an updated, but non-active, shiny brick. It could be a while before the activation servers come back up, so everyone will likely have to just be patient.

“Our business is based on building great games. Adding another platform to the mix, like the iPhone or Ipod Touch, provides great revenue possibilities for Playlogic, and provides us with new customers to experience our games,” said Rogier W. Smit, executive vice president of Playlogic.

We don’t know any specifics about the games the company is developing for the Apple handhelds, only that we’ll see them sometime in 2009.

Available June 19, the iPhone 3GS is Apple’s new iPhone hardware. Apple claims that everything on the phone is “twice as fast” at loading apps, sites, and everything else. The device will also feature a faster 3G antenna (7.2Mbps HSDPA, for those who like details), the rumored 3MP auto-focus camera, complete with an API for developers, and a 30 FPS video camera with an associated app to allow for video and photo editing. Another rumor to come true is an internal compass that will orient the maps app depending on which direction you’re facing.

The iPhone also features a new voice control UI, allowing users to make vocal commands such as “Call Mom” or “What song is playing?” all in a live transcripted interface. Snazzy? Sure. Necessary? Probably not.  The phone also features hardware encryption and an improved battery life which should come as a relief to iPhone users everywhere.

The form factor for the iPhone 3GS is staying exactly the same, available in black and white (sorry, no flaming orange iPhones). Storage will also increase–$299 for the 32GB model or $199 for the 16GB model. Still too pricey for you? Pick up the older iPhone 3G for just $99 (yay recessionomics!).

The iPhone OS 3.0, which will ship June 17 to other iPhone users contains many new improvements, most of which have been announced before, but we’ll summarize them anyway: the iPhone is finally getting copy/paste, MMS messaging, system-wide Spotlight that will index your email, contacts, and apps, and a landscape oriented keyboard.

A cool new feature will allow users with MobileMe to locate their phones should they go missing and you’re not in enough hysterics from losing your iPhone to be able to use a computer. Apple announced support for data tethering, but AT&T was notably missing from the list, most likely indicating that iPhone users in the US will be SOL. Safari will be updated to run faster and will auto-fill contact and stored login info.

Push notifications (including text, sound, and “badge”) will finally go live in this release, after much delay. Apps will also be able to access the dock connector, allowing you to use you iPhone with external gadgets, such as TomTom’s new GPS driving device. Peer-to-peer interfacing will allow you to connect to other users to play games or send information such as contacts.

Overall, only Apple could drum up so much publicity for something that is ostensibly just an evolutionary change rather than a revolutionary change. Nevertheless, these developments are still exciting, even if they’re overdue. We’ll let you know what we think when we get our hands on a new iPhone 3GS in just a couple weeks.

The MacBook Pro line is being expanded with a new 13-inch model. All sizes will have the new unibody built-in, non-removable battery which Apple claims will last for 7 hours. All models will get a speed bump and come with a standard 4GB of DDR3 memory, expandable to 8GB. The MacBook Pro also now comes with a Secure SD slot, replacing the PCI slot that got (basically) zero use before.  The MacBooks are getting a Firewire 800 port (I guess all that moaning when Apple got rid of it last time actually had an effect) and their brethren’s Secure SD slot.

The prices across all laptops have been slashed; both the 17-inch and the 15-inch Macbook Pro models as well as the Macbook Air will drop $300 to $2499, $1699, and $1499 respectively , while the Macbooks will drop $100 to start at $1199. Yay for the recession and new toys!

In the past we’ve seen Roller Coaster Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, and even a Prison version, but now handheld gamers can relive those past moments of innocence streetside selling lemonade to strangers!

The title is a business/strategy type game with decisions regarding pricing, inventory, supplies, marketing, advertising, and even your own staff left up to you. I can’t help but smile as you’re given the ability to alter weather, location, and even your secret recipe in order to maximize profits. The fact that such a game exists is inspiring and altogether exciting.

Best of all, the app is free (with sponsor messages throughout) and allows you to listen to your iTunes library in-game.

Selling Lemonade

Decisions decisions

P + L Statement

The mobile division of Electronic Arts is the publisher for the game based on the insanely popular TV show.  Bearing half the price tag ($4.99) of other EA iPhone titles, American Idol looks to be worth it, given you’re a die-hard fan that must be surrounded in all things idol between shows and on the go.

The mobile game revolves around the same ideas of the TV show, except YOU are the star and YOU determine your eventual fate.  Furthermore, judges Paula Abdul, Simon Cowell, Randy Jackson, and Ryan Seacrest all make appearances in the handheld game…so maybe now it’s worth it?

That’s where an entire audio sub-industry has sprung up, catering entirely to iPod owners who want to “dock” their music box somewhere and jam to a room-filling sound that’s not mashed into their ears.

Blast and The Boston Globe recently tested five of these docks: the Altec Lansing inMotion Max at $199, the Logitech Pure-Fi Express Plus for $78, the compact iHome iH4B for $39.99, the Cambridge SoundWorks i765 for $299, and Wayland-based Sprout Creation’s all-wood Vers 2X at $199.

As a bonus, Blast also tested the Boston Acoustics Duo-I at $199 and the iHome iH51BR at $149.

For professional advice, we turned to Dariusz Dobrolinski, is co-owner of the tiny yet historic Q Audio store on Vassar Street in Cambridge, which claims to be the worlds smallest hi-fi store and one of the original distributors of CD players in the US in the early 80s. Dobrolinski said the Altec Lansing inMotion Max was the best item on the list, and we agreed.

“It sounded the richest,” Dobrolinski said. He warned us not to jump at the deepest bass or the highest treble, which some inexpensive systems tend to crank up to make up for their lower quality components.

“If you want to buy a docking system, don’t look for something that has bass and sizzles, it may impress you, but later on you will notice you don’t get the midrange and that’s where all the instruments and all the voices are,” Dobrolinski said. “Bass is not critical unless you want to fill a huge room, but none of those systems are designed for huge rooms.”

The Altec Lansing and Cambridge SoundWorks models were all very similar, though. They sounded great, look great, and come from brand names that are known for generally building their products to high quality specifications.

The iHome name has gained a lot of ground in the last three years. You often see these functional alarm clock iPod docks in both luxury hotels and college dorms. They generally sound good and have useful wakeup features like dual alarm clock times and, of course, the ability to wake up to your favorite songs blasting from your nightstand. The iH4b’s compact size and low price makes it a great value for dorm rooms and bedrooms. It has a good sound on a small footprint.

The Vers 2X is a great choice people who want something different. It doesn’t have a radio or really any other features except an iPod dock, but it’s an attractive, well-built speaker system.

Dobrolinski said that you should also focus on how the product looks. Style is important. He also said that you’ll want your dock to have a remote control so you’re not getting up all the time to tune it.

Individual products on Page 2

Crash Bandicoot however is more than just the most downloaded paid game app; it beat out every other paid app, across every genre available in the online store.  In addition, Crash, priced at $5.99 is one of the more pricey add-ons.  However, as anyone with the game will tell you, truly showcases the graphical capabilities of the handheld.

The most popular free video game app? That’d be Tapulous’s Tap Tap Revenge.  However the Facebook, Google Earth and Pandora Radio apps beat out the finger busting rhythm game, setting it at the #4 overall spot.

via GamaSutra

One of my big beefs with carriers (or even phone makers-I’m looking at you Apple) are carriers that cripple their phones because they’re worried that missing income could erode their bottom lines. Early on, Verizon crippled the RAZR so that uploaded mp3’s couldn’t be used as ringtones, forcing people to purchase expensive twenty second clips of songs that they already purchased for $0.99 from iTunes. Even still, most Verizon phones do not allow personalized mp3 ringtones, and customers must purchase them. On the flip side, Cingular customers, who have access to many of the same phones, are free to use their phones as they see fit.

Of course, this lead the grassroots efforts that lead to consumers hacking their phones. Apple routinely blocks apps from the App store that they find threatening. Such was the case with Podcaster which Apple blocked for “duplicating functionality.” Nevermind the clock apps, and calculator apps, and stock watching apps, and … Need I really continue? On a similar vein, AT&T forced Apple to remove NetShare because tethering your iPhone as a modem violated their contract. Of course, solutions to both of these missing apps are available to users who jailbreak their phones, leaving AT&T and Apple without any income.

While AT&T has allowed VoIP apps to run on iPhones, they have to restrict data to Wi-Fi networks only, eliminating the possibility of using data networks for free minutes. However, not all carriers are so generous. Nokia wants to bundle Skype on their upcoming flagship device, the N97 in Europe. Clearly, this would make the phone quite attractive to consumers already strapped for cash. However, O2 and Orange have refused to even stock the device unless Nokia strips the software out.

Businesses need to stop treating their customers like shoddy criminals and realize that it’s our nature to try and save money any way we can. If the technology exists, why can’t we use it? Carriers should realize that by allowing the software with a small surchange would sell more phones, bringing in more customers and more money. What about that situation isn’t attractive? Could this be why the US and Europe have some of the most underdeveloped wireless networks when compared to Asian countries?

Change may be scary, but it’s time for carriers to embrace new technologies and move forward. People are paying good money for devices-they’re going to want to use them to their fullest extent.

I hate iTunes.

I’m sick and tired of Apple getting a pass on quality control just because they gave us the Holy Roman iPod Empire and, by a roll of the dice, beat out 10 comparable music download services, both of which are jam packed into our worlds and force-fed to us through iTunes, a software title that just about creeps by on 4 GB of RAM.

It started out innocently enough with iTunes for managing and syncing your iPod and downloading new songs. But where did this incompetent “Genius” come from as it utterly paralyzes my computer from doing the one thing I’m actually trying to do — play a single song from my library?

What’s a decent sized audio library for anyone in their mid-20s? I have 2,000 songs that fit into a space under 8 gigs and play perfectly find on both my new Nano and my original third-generation iPod. Why is it that these same songs can bring a multi-core computer to its knees under the banner of iTunes?

And who gave Apple permission to try and install Safari and several other programs on my computer under the false auspices of “upgrading my iTunes to the latest version.” AIM tried to do that around the same time the term “adware” was coined.

Seriously, is Apple still so desperate for exposure that they will literally try and sneak their software into someone’s computer? No I don’t want Mobile Me. Thanks though.

When dragging a song from my library to a playlist is a 45 second, six click ordeal, there’s a problem here.

Strip it down! Turn off automatic art downloading. Save the Geniuses for the chess club.

In a way this is all our fault. We adopted the whole package and forked over our credit card numbers without asking questions. We can’t switch, right?

Now excuse me, there’s a new MGMT song I have to buy off the iTunes Store.

Of course, now that it’s no longer a Mac-only browser, it’s share has grown as a few (admittedly brave) folks downloaded it for their PCs. Even still, the vast majority of Safari users were Mac users who used Safari by default because they were too lazy to actually choose another (better) browser.

On Tuesday, Apple announced the beta for Safari 4 for both Windows and Mac. Apple has pulled out all the stops to make Safari an attractive browser that people will actually want to use. Heavy on new technical features as well as eye candy, this is quite possibly the first time Safari has resembled a browser that has the brilliant minds behind Apple’s design. Granted, most of the features just appearing now have been in other browsers. This time, however, Apple has put its own spin on them to make them, well… just work.

The first difference greeting users (after a brief, yet fancy, intro movie) is that Safari now offers better visual integration with the Window’s OS, featuring a standard title bar with buttons. While the chrome of Apple’s applications remains on the rest of the window, it is less distracting than before. Also, instead of a tab bar, tabs show up in the title bar like in Google Chrome (a feature Apple calls “Tabs on Top”). While I’m not a personal fan of this style because it prevents tab rearranging, it does take up less screen real estate.

The address bar and search box now have “AwesomeBar” like features, suggesting visited sites and bookmarks. When typing in addresses. The new home screen for empty windows and tabs shows the users’ most visited sites, a feature that Opera users have had for a long time, and intrepid Firefox users can add via plug-in. The screen is constantly updated over time, but can be customized by pinning or hiding links. Clicking on one of the tabs animates it as it moves to fill the window, a small piece of eye candy that is utterly cool to watch. Actually, the browser is full of these small animations that the average user doesn’t notice consciously, but make for a better visual experience, something Apple has always incorporated into its products.

Users can now look through and search their histories and bookmarks using Coverflow. Each entry has a screen shot saved for it. I find this interface for viewing bookmarks and histories actually to be more intuitive for both the average user who is likely to be a bit daunted by the system file structure as well as for native OS X users.

Something I found interesting and rather unique is the built-in RSS viewer. The in-browser RSS reader allows users to scroll through the stories, adjust them for length, sort them by any number of descriptors, and even search them, all from the same window. And while most users who know what RSS is will likely keep using a separate reader, these features are still very useful for quick browsing.

On the technical side, Apple claims that the new Nitro Engine renders Javascript faster than every other browser, and includes benchmarks to support their claims. In a completely biased and unscientific survey, I thought surfing through AJAX heavy sites like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Facebook was indeed snappy, so I’m likely to believe Apple assertions.

Safari still lacks an add-on architecture, which is perhaps Firefox’s best attribute, and the largest thing to keep Safari from gaining significant browser share. Otherwise, Apple has picked the best features of the browsers on the market and wrapped them up in a slick package that certainly deserves a look.

Docking stations are nice if you use the laptop primarily at one location or have lots of things to plug into it that don’t move — input devices, webcam, monitor. This leaves the BookEndz with a good chance to market third party docking stations. This is a hard thing for the company to manufacture since the laptops don’t just have a docking port like most laptops that have first party docking stations. They are left with plugging into the external ports and then just moving them to the outside their device.

BookEndz still have some options that users can work with, though. With their MacBook docking station, they have a USB hub inside, so you can have 6 devices plugged in, while the MacBook only has two USB ports on the side.

The docking station has all the original laptop ports plus the mini DVI is converted to either a DVI or a VGA. You can only use one at a time. If you plug in both only the VGA is recognized.

The BookEndz also use a sliding switch on the side to plug in the speaker/headphone port. This is important since the MacBook enables the port based on a sensor that detects something plugged into the port. When the headphones or speakers are plugged in the laptops speakers are disabled.

The switch on the Bookendz unit I was given was a very sticky. It is hard to move from plugged in and unplugged. This will loosen over time with usage. The company said that the one I was sent may be an early model and the new ones are looser and easier to switch to plugged in, or unplugged. They do make it easy enough to just plug everything in at once.

I like that when I use a BookEndz I can go from standard laptop to having a big monitor, and normal keyboard. Using a USB video card, it’s possible for a Macbook to now have two large monitors plugged in, and then it’s easy take it away when you need to go.

One part that makes it hard with the newer Apple laptops is the much toted power plug. Apple does not appear to let any third party companies make Mag-Safe adapters. BookEndz have a space for the original power bricks to be used. This could have been done better. They seemed to have decided to make it easy for the user to unplug the power brick to take with the laptop, instead of leaving the power brick in the docking station. This means every time you go to unplug the docking station, not only do you unplug the docking station, but also the power adapter. This also requires sitting the docking station on top of the wire so it will all sit flat. I think they should have made the docking station hold the power adapters more snugly. That way you can just plug everything in at once.

The design of the plastic casing is fairly smooth and flowing like the MacBooks, but the devices have touches here and there that look more hobbyist.

Overall I think it’s a very good and useful product for what it does. I think it beats just plugging in each port separately every time I get to work. For what they had to work with I think they did a great job. I just wish Apple thought of this sooner.

By the way: Because of a reporting error, we removed the line “Apple hasn’t ever produced a docking station for their laptops.” It was incorrect.

Topping all the charts was Apple’s latest update to its iLife suite, touting major retrofits of iMovie, iPhoto and GarageBand. The changes range from a better system for organizing photos in iPhoto to more powerful video editing functions in iMovie to a series of learning tutorials for various instruments in GarageBand.

“iLife continues to be one of the biggest reasons our customers choose to get a Mac,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “With iLife ‘09, we’ve made working with photos, making movies and learning to play music a lot more fun, and iMovie users are especially going to love the advanced but easy-to-use new features.”

Right after the big iLife news hit, Sling Media introduced a real stunner: HD streaming for Macs and iPhones via Sling.com. Sling Media expects to have an iPhone app out soon. Expected release date for SlingPlayer, a downloadable application that will interface with Sling.com to deliver HD content, is sometime in the first fiscal quarter of this year.

“SlingPlayer Mobile is ideally suited for the iPhone’s large touch screen display and I know iPhone users are eagerly anticipating the application’s availability,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media.

Following up, a new 17-inch MacBook Pro with unibody construction and a non-removable 8-hour life battery and an optional anti-glare coating on the screen was announced. The computer comes packed with a 2.66ghz Intel Core Duo chip, a 320 GB Hard Drive, and 4 GB of RAM, to name a few updates.

“We’ve developed new battery technology that is better for the user and better for the environment,” said Jobs. “Apple’s advanced chemistry and innovative technology deliver up to eight hours of use on a full charge cycle and up to 1,000 recharges.”

The final move of the day set social networking sites buzzing. Apple announced a new DRM free iTunes with a three tier pricing structure — $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29.

Both moves on the iTunes front were widely regarded as a necessity in order for iTunes to remain competitive with other online music stores, with the DRM removals hailed as long overdue.

Quotes from characters such as Darth Vader, Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and C-3PO are included, as well as sound effects including the Lightsaber, R2-D2’s beeps, Chewbacca’s growls, and TIE Fighters flying.

Star Wars Sound Board is available now from the App Store for $1.

They add weight, width and bulk to your devices, but they are one of the best solutions out there for active gadget geeks. The few and the proud.

Blast took a gander at three OtterBoxes: two “Armor” class boxes that waterproof iPod touch and Nano, and a “Defender” series case for the iPhone.

OtterBox Armor Case for 3G iPod nano (Clear)

OtterBox Armor Case for 3G iPod nano
$30 4 out of 5 stars

• Waterproof to 3 feet
• Dust, dirt, drop and scratch protection
• Click wheel still works
• Adds a ton of girth to the product

OtterBox Armor Series for iPod touch

OtterBox Armor Case for iPod touch
$40 4 out of 5 stars

• Completely changes look and feel of iPod
• Waterproof to 3 feet
• Dust, dirt, drop and scratch protection
• Interface still works thanks to thin protective membrane
• Makes the iPod look tough

OtterBox iPhone Defender

OtterBox Apple iPhone Defender Case
$65 3.5 out of 5 stars

• Bump, scratch and drop protection
• Not waterproof
• Less obtrusive than other boxes
• Very expensive for a cell phone case.
• Has a holster

“Three years ago we introduced the world’s first waterproof housing and speakers developed for scuba diving, the DV-i700. Even though the number of supported mp3 players was small, the response and interest we received was overwhelming,” said Kristian Rauhala, CEO of H2O Audio, the company behind the iDive. “Divers have asked us to develop this product since the iPod revolution started. iDive’s “Made for iPod” integrated microprocessor detects a wide variety of iPods making it compatible with Apple’s most popular devices.”

Three hundred feet is a long way underwater, but if you’re down there with nothing better to do, why not crank your tunes? I guess. If you’re that comfortable under 300 feet of water, more power to you.

Features:

• Waterproof to a submersed depth of 300ft/90m
• Supports most models
• Integrated microprocessor allows for push button control of click wheel and touch screen iPod devices
• Built-in amplifier provides high quality stereo sound (uses 3 included AA batteries)
• Over ear speakers can be attached to mask strap or tucked under a dive hood
• Locking cam knob ensures secure seal
• Lanyard loop for easy attachment
• Polycarbonate construction
• 1 year warranty

The H2O Audio iDive goes for $349.99, available exclusively online.

iTunes has sold over four billion songs to over 50 million customers since opening in 2003.

“We launched iTunes less than five years ago, and it has now become the number one music retailer in the world,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s iTunes vice president. “We are thrilled, and would like to thank all of our customers for helping us reach this incredible milestone.”

The ranking comes from market research data from NPD Group’s MusicWatch survey that tracks consumer purchases. iTunes topped Wal-Mart based on their January and February 2008 sales figures, Apple said in a statement.

This is yet another blow to the hard copy, “old way of doing things” music shopping experience. And yet, it is has shown that legal music downloading can and does succeed in the US.

“Safari loads web pages 1.9 times faster than IE 7 and 1.7 times faster than Firefox 2,” Apple said in a statement. “Safari also runs JavaScript up to six times faster than other browsers, and is the first browser to support the latest innovative web standards needed to deliver the next generation of highly interactive Web 2.0 experiences.”

“Safari 3.1 for Mac and Windows is blazingly fast, easy to use and features an elegant user interface,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “And best of all, Safari supports the latest audio, video and animation standards for an industry-leading Web 2.0 experience.”

Safari 3.1 is the first browser to support video and audio tags in HTML 5 and the first to support CSS Animations. Safari also supports CSS Web Fonts, giving designers limitless choices of fonts to create stunning new web sites, Apple said.

Download it now at http://www.apple.com/safari

This is a big development for “the world’s most wearable music player” which weighs just half an ounce.

“At just $49, the iPod shuffle is the most affordable iPod ever,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide iPod Product Marketing. “The new 2GB model lets music lovers bring even more songs everywhere they go in the impossibly small iPod shuffle.”

The new 1GB iPod shuffle is now available through the Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 2GB iPod shuffle will be available later this month.

The iPod touch now comes in a 32GB model for $499, joining the 16GB model for $399 and the 8GB model for $299.

“For some users, there’s never enough memory,” said Greg Joswiak, Apple’s vice president of worldwide iPod and iPhone Product Marketing. “Now people can enjoy even more of their music, photos and videos on the most revolutionary mobile phone and best Wi-Fi mobile device in the world.”

Both models feature Apple’s Multi-Touch user interface and the ability to play music, videos, photos and more with just a touch of their finger, Apple said Tuesday.

All iPhone and iPod touch models include the latest software enhancements announced last month including the ability to automatically find your location using the new Maps application; create Web Clips for your favorite websites; customize your home screen and watch movies from the new iTunes Movie Rentals. Both iPhone and iPod touch feature the world’s most advanced mobile web browser in the world with Safari and great mobile applications including Mail, Maps, Stocks, Weather and Notes.

The new 16GB iPhone is available now through the online Apple Store, Apple’s retail stores and AT&T retail and online stores.

The 32GB iPod touch is available nationwide.

The availability of the “Maps” positioning feature will vary depending on location.

First though, the raw specs:

Thickness: 0.76in max, tapering down to 0.16
Width: 12.8in
Depth: 8.94in
Weight: 3 lbs

CPU: special micro Core2 Duo running at 1.6 or 1.8ghz
Ram: 2 gb
HD: either an 80 GB PATA, or 64 GB SSD, both 1.8in size.
Screen: 13.3 @ 1280×800

Wifi: b/g/n
Bluetooth: 2 + EDR

… and, most notably, the only ports it has are a single USB, headphone jack, and a micro-DVI, in addition to not having any form of internal optical drive (although an external usb DVD+/-DL is available).

The other big innovation is Remote Disc, a software solution that enables the Air to read (via wifi) discs mounted on another Mac or Windows machine, even to the point of being able to boot off them and install an OS (most likely through some implementation of PXE, although the details are unclear).

Reading the sheet, it seems to me that the Air is intended not as a primary machine or desktop replacement, but as a compliment to an existing workstation or server for people who want to be able to do a few things around the house with said machines without being tied to their desk (a niche known as a ‘fat-client’), and for business execs who need something lightweight they can take with them to meetings to show demos and presentations.

However, having browsed around several forums and listened in on a number of conversations, it seems that most of those with a lot of negative opinions are trying to shoehorn it into the category of ’submicro roadwarrior’ and then complaining when it doesn’t fit:

“It’s too big/wide/etc. It should be 12/9/5 inches, etc”

People who, say, have a server downstairs that contains all of their movies and want a lightweight laptop with a decent screen that they can watch stuff on while lying around on the couch or cooking dinner in the kitchen, and 13″ gives a good compromise between portability and watchability.

Likewise, for someone trying to present a demo in a meeting without a projector, smaller screens aren’t really a plus.

Also, in relative terms of volume, a thinner laptop gives you more room for carrying extra books or marketing material or a few small packages side by side, whereas lopping off an inch or so from the edge of the machine gives you a long narrow area that rarely translates into usable storage space for anything other than some toothpaste.

Regardless of anything Steve Jobs might say about style, a thinner 13″ is generally more effective than a thick 10″.

“It doesn’t have a replaceable battery”

This isn’t as big a deal as people make it out to be.

The vast majority of laptop owners don’t have multiple batteries for their laptop(s) anyway, and these days it’s rare to be in a location without a power outlet somewhere nearby. On top of that, carrying around spare batteries largely defeats the purpose of having such a lightweight laptop in the first place.

Unless you’re doing a lot of transcontinental flying on a cheap airline with no power sockets, a single battery is plenty.

Apple has already confirmed that the onboard battery is not permanently attached to the motherboard and can be replaced easily by removing a few screws and the bottom panel of the machine (a process that any reasonably skilled technician can perform in a few minutes), and that they’ll be providing and supporting replacement batteries for some time into the future.

“The ram is not upgradable”

The Air comes with 2GB, which is more than enough for the sorts of things this machine is meant for.

For the most part, all the things that really eat up ram (3D gaming, scientific processing, multimedia creation, etc) are not things you’d be doing on a laptop, and even if you had to run Windows in virtualization (via Parallels or VMware) because of a specific application, you’d have enough to do what you needed to.

Sure 4GB would be nice, but if you need to be editing HDTV movies or running a financial database server on the road, the Air is probably not for you anyway.

“It doesn’t have any ports”

Are you really going to be connecting a non-Bluetooth external mouse and a keyboard (with no ports of its own) on the road?

Several external hard drives at the same time?

One usb port really isn’t that much of a limitation for a laptop that doesn’t sit around all the time with a lot of devices plugged into it, and people seem to forget that you can buy a pocket usb hub if you really need it.

The lack of an ethernet port doesn’t phase me either as it’s far more likely I’ll encounter a wifi hotspot in my travels than an wall jack, and if I really need it I can always buy a usb-to-ethernet dongle.

As far as video goes, Apple includes in the box adapters that enable hookup to dvi/vga, anticipating that business folks who do a lot of presentation work will probably be a large part of the core market, moreso than people who need to run a bittorrent server in range of several microwave ovens.

I realize this may come off as sounding defensive, but one thing that’s always bugged me is when people rag on a product when they don’t understand what it’s meant for.

Like when the iPod first came out, the Air is getting bad press from people who don’t understand why it’s so much better than what’s already available.

That having been said, I personally am probably never going to own an Air, precisely because I need neither a fat-client (my primary machine is a MacBook Pro, not a wall-bound tower) nor am I a business exec, but that doesn’t stop me from recommending it strongly to anyone who does fit into those categories.

The Air nicely fills a hole that’s been open in Apple’s laptop lineup for about a decade since the Duo 2300c disappeared in the late 90’s, and is very probably the best laptop on the market within this class.

For more, check out BLAST staffer Mike Preble’s take on it.

The purpose of the product is to let you plug your iPod into both a stereo/home theater system and a computer in one fell swoop.

Now, it adds a decent amount of wires to your system, and I felt it would have been much more useful as a wireless product — letting you plug your iPod into the dock near your computer and beam music to the receiver end plugged into your stereo.

There are three situations where the iPort FS-2 is extremely useful. First, if you don’t have front A/V inputs on your home theater receiver, you can plug the iPort in the back and know it’s always there when you need it. Second, if you have a home theater PC used to sync songs on your iPod. Finally, it’s also useful if your household has more than one iPod — you can swap them back and forth and listen to your tunes on your home system.

I had preconceived reservations at first, but the iPort is one of the best A/V iPod docking solutions out there. It basically lets you plug all the audio and video wires into your receiver one time and forget it. Now all you have to do is drop any iPod in and you’re ready to go.

iPort created the product to allow users to plug into computers and receivers at the same time, but unless you have a computer a few feet from your stereo/receiver (or a laptop) I don’t see how that’s possible.

If you do have a computer or home theater PC nearby (and aren’t just playing music off that…) then it’s great.

The system supports A/V wires of up to 25 feet though, so you can definitely navigate across the room. The iPort company offers a bunch of in-wall solutions that go longer (up to 500 feet of audio in some cases), but this is their desktop variant, and it’s definitely a handy gadget.

Music and video are both crisp and clear. Give this one a shot.

Quick hits:

Developer: iPort
Platform: iPod
Launch Date: June 6, 2006

Overall: 4 out of 5 stars

The programmer of this dangerous piece of code was an eleven-year-old boy.

Using the installer.app feature on the iPhone, users can access the diverse world of third-party applications. The malware in question passed itself off an update at www.jmwiki.com for applications including Erica’s Utilities, OpenSSH, Launcher and Doom. After downloading and installing the file via the iPhone’s installer.app, the malware displayed the word, “shoes” and proceeded to remove files critical to iPhone functionality.

Though by malware standards the virus was fairly tame, McAfee Avert Labs blogger Jimmy Shah noted that the piece of software highlights an important security concern with iPhone, one that depends entirely on the vigilance of well-informed users.

McAfee recommends users only acquire software only from trusted sources and install only official firmware updates.

After the child’s ISP was informed of the problem, his father was contacted and the site hosting the malicious application was taken down.