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TheAppleBlog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Microsoft Considers Zune On the Mac and Apple Should Offer iTunes Subscriptions

Mary Jo Foley reports on her ZDnet blog that Microsoft is seriously considering making Zune services, such as the subscription-based Zune Pass, available to other platforms — and that includes Apple's very own Mac OS X.

It's early days though, as Foley admits, "There's no guarantee that the Redmondians will end up doing this — or timetable as to when this could happen — but it's one of many strategies under active consideration."

She adds, “I've been thinking that there might be a number of Apple iPod/iPhone users who might prefer a music subscription service over a pay-per-song one. (And one that's better than Rhapsody.)”

Jose Pinero, Director of Communications for Microsoft's TV, Video and Music Business told Foley that:

"…with the addition of the ability to stream music from a browser that is part of the new Zune 4.0 experience, Mac and Linux users already can stream music to their systems if they have a Zune Pass subscription. The streaming capability isn't limited to Internet Explorer; it works with any browser."

So does this mean we may see a Mac OS version of Microsoft Zune Player software appearing one day soon? The latest version, Zune 4.0, is described in a recent review by Paul Thurrott as “…vastly superior to its only real competition, Apple’s iTunes.” Ouch.

But as Pinero explained, Zune Pass wielding Mac owners can already use their web browser to listen to their music. What they can’t do on the Mac OS is purchase and manage their music. And that’s where a native version of the Zune software comes in.

This raises the sticky-sweet issue of the Subscription Model, and whether Apple ought to adopt it. It’s a model proven supremely successful by the likes of Rhapsody in the U.S. and Spotify in Europe. Let's take a quick look at those services.

Spotify

Spotify is, at its most basic level, completely free (through the unpredictable insertion of thankfully-occasional unskippable ads). An optional monthly fee of £9.99 (around USD$15) buys the user a Premium Account, banishing the ads and allowing the user to store streamed songs locally on their desktop computer (and now iPhone) for listening offline.

Rhapsody

Rhapsody doesn't offer a free service, and at $12.99 its cheapest membership level is relatively expensive when compared to Spotify. For two dollars more, Rhapsody users can store music for offline listening.

Zune Pass

Zune Pass comes in at one price only — a hefty $14.99 — and offers both unlimited streamed music and a selection of 10 downloadable tracks each month that are yours to keep. That's 120 songs per year. If you have a PC and a Zune player, you can store songs for offline playing.

Now consider how Apple could dominate this market. At its September 9 Press Event Steve Jobs said Apple manages over one hundred million active iTunes accounts with credit cards. That's a staggeringly huge number, and even if we make some pretty conservative estimates, we still arrive at impressive results. Try this on for size; if Apple launched a monthly subscription service, priced at just $9.99 per month (cheaper than Zune Pass, Rhapsody and Spotify) and if only one percent of its credit-card-toting iTunes customers signed-up… that's still almost a billion dollars in the bank, per year.

There's more. While Rhapsody, Spotify and Zune Pass all cater to our (strictly) musical needs, a subscription service from Apple could potentially draw on the vast repository of content found throughout iTunes. So, to Music we can add TV shows, movies, maybe even custom-made "premium" podcasts from high profile celebrities and artists. And in a post-Tablet 2010, it's conceivable subscription-based magazines, newspapers, journals and books could be added in to the mix.

Others might have been first to the Subscription Model party, but it's easy to imagine the Apple pitch: "Today, Apple reinvents the Subscription model…" only, y'know, they'd say something way more funky than that.

I can't believe I'm excited at the prospect of yet another reason to give Apple my money. But I do believe this is a service Apple would do well to consider. The Rhapsody's and Spotify's of this world prove there's a growing, lucrative market demand for streaming content. That Microsoft is seriously considering expanding its Zune Pass service to other platforms tells me, beyond a shadow of doubt, there's gold in them thar hills. I wonder if Apple has noticed?

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Man & Machine Wins Mighty Mouse Moniker

Earlier this week, while Apple was distracted with its objections over supermarket chain Woolworths new logo, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office was busy awarding the name "Mighty Mouse" to peripheral manufacturer Man & Machine.

According to TechCrunch, Man & Machine was finally granted the trademark on Tuesday, after five years of using the name on a line of optical mice that are waterproof, hygienic and "…specially designed for use in medical, industrial and marine applications."

TechCrunch reports that while Man & Machine released a statement about the win, they didn’t mention Apple by name, though did say, "Others have used the name Mighty Mouse for their computer mice and have sought registration of that trademark, but now the United States government has spoken." (By the way, I've been all over the Man & Machine web site and cannot find that statement.)

Turns out that, all these years, Apple has licensed the Mighty Mouse name from CBS, the trademark owners of a certain well-known cartoon superhero rodent. That license didn't extend to computer peripheral hardware, however, and this was a deciding factor in the USPTO awarding the trademark to Man & Machine.

It's unlikely Apple would — or could — license the name from Man & Machine, since it already uses it on a line of pointing devices. So the most logical next step would be to create a new name.

And the timing couldn't be better (or worse, depending on your viewpoint). Recent reports and rumors suggest that Apple is busy working on a brand new pointing device which may be constructed from aluminum and do away with the much-maligned scroll-nub in favor of a touch-sensitive interface. An "iMouse Touch," perhaps?

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AT&T Not Ready for Tethering, May Throttle iPhone Data

We reported here on Tuesday that AT&T had announced plans to make VoIP services available on its 3G network, great news for iPhone users who previously could only use applications like Skype and Vonage via a Wi-Fi network. So, AT&T sorted out MMS and now it’s sorted out VoIP. That just leaves tethering, right? Now that it’s upgrading its network and fixing everything that was wrong for iPhone customers, tethering has to be just around the corner, yes?

No. According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, an AT&T spokesperson says it needs more time to work on that functionality:

Whenever we offer new features, we want to offer the best possible customer experience. For tethering, we need to do some additional fine tuning to our systems and networks so that we do deliver a great experience.

So I won't mention how, late last year at the Web 2.0 Summit, AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega told Michael Arrington that tethering would be available "soon."

Clearly AT&T is struggling to cope with the data demands made by modern smartphones on its creaky old network. Speaking this week at the annual CTIA Conference in San Diego, and reported by PC World, de la Vega hinted at possible future steps the telecom giant may take to lessen the load. "We have to manage the network to make sure that the few cannot crowd out the many," he said.

PC World's Mark Sullivan thinks this can only mean one thing: placing hard limits on the total amount of data iPhone (and other bandwidth-hungry smartphone) owners can consume.

In the face of exploding data service demand and scarce wireless spectrum, does AT&T intend to quietly begin rationing the data usage of bandwidth hogs like the iPhone? Will AT&T begin to quietly "manage" the duration and speed of my 3G connection based on how much data I've used in a given day, or on the type of content or services I'm using the bandwidth to access?

AT&T announced in September that it was working on upgrading its network, but the process will take time. Is throttling data a necessary solution in the short term, until the network can more adequately meet the demands of the (growing) smartphone market?

In an article yesterday on All Things Digital, John Paczkowski reported that a staggering 4.1 billion text messages are sent every single day in the U.S. (740 billion in the first half of 2009 alone). That's double the number in the same period last year.

According to the CTIA, there are more than 246 million wireless data-capable devices at large in the U.S. today. Of these, 40 million are smart phones or PDAs, and more than 10 million are laptops. Little wonder that wireless data service revenue rose 31 percent to more than $19.4 billion in the first six months of 2009.

Chart from CTIA

It's not hard to see that AT&T is behind the curve when it comes to bolstering its data network to meet the demand of its customers. So far behind the curve, in fact, that its competitors can afford to take legitimate shots at the company in television commercials.

So what's the solution for long-suffering iPhone customers? Jumping ship and moving to Verizon? Or remaining loyal to AT&T, avoiding the hassle of changing contracts and giving the company time to improve its network and expand its services? It’s already had the better part of three years. How much more patience will customers have?

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iPhone OS 3.1.2 Released

A month after Apple made iPhone OS 3.1 available, version 3.1.2 for the iPhone and iPod touch can now be downloaded via iTunes.

Besides achieving version synchronicity (3.1.1 came with the 3G iPod touch), the update addresses issues with waking from sleep, cellular network disruption, and crashes while streaming video.

The most notable problem, the “iPhone coma” issue, resulted in some iPhones becoming unresponsive, touch controls not working, and phone not ringing when called. This required a hard reboot, but that was only a workaround. It’s still too early to tell whether 3.1.2 is a true fix for that pernicious issue.

Unfortunately, what was not addressed in the terse update log at all was battery life. That’s a little irritating because the problem has been acknowledged by Apple as “under investigation.” While fixes for issues relating to loss of network connection or random crashing/freezing are always welcome, those issues seem to affect a relatively small number of users. The battery life problem likely impacts most iPhones, if not most iPhone owners, the latter being dependent on how the individual uses the iPhone. Still, one hopes there is an iPhone OS update coming that will address the power management issue, and sooner rather than later.

In addition to the iPhone OS update, there is also a carrier update, version 5.6, but no info on what it does.

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