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Cult of Mac
Read Leander Kahney's latest commentary about Apple and Mac News in Wired.com's Cult of Mac Blog, including Mac, Mac Pro, MacBook, iMac, iBook, Mac mini, iPod video, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, iTunes, iPhoto, iPhone, Apple TV, OSX, Steve Jobs, and Macworld.
http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/
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Apple v. Sony Difference Made Clear in NY Times Story
Each Apple Store is intimate, friendly, educational and filled with new technologies to discover. They're warm places, filled with helpful "geniuses," great gift ideas and room to learn, fail and succeed. Each interaction is an opportunity for Apple to directly...

Each Apple Store is intimate, friendly, educational and filled with new technologies to discover. They're warm places, filled with helpful "geniuses," great gift ideas and room to learn, fail and succeed. Each interaction is an opportunity for Apple to directly connect in an emotional way with its customers -- a pure brand expression.
But as Apple's influence and power as a company has grown, another electronics powerhouse, Sony, has headed straight downhill, with a mediocre retail presence reflecting its overall woes. The NY Times's Randall Stross does an excellent job of chronicling the features that make Apple stand out and the symptoms of Sony's disease in this feature from the Sunday Times. He does not, however, truly diagnose the patient or recommend a cure that people can actually use.
I'll take that chance. Click through to hear what Apple is doing right, and why Sony Style stores feel so cold.

Technorati Tags: apple, retail, sony
Here's why Apple Stores are great: They are exactly like Apple and its products. Modern, simple, rife with false humility. On some deep level, Apple Stores are very proud of the company's achievements. The place unabashedly celebrates all things iPod, Mac, AppleTV and iLife like a proud parent. More than that, everything in the room says "Try me. Take me home. I'll make you better. I work well with the technologies you already own." The design of the retail experience is focused on emotional connections to Apple's customers. And it works really well, because that's what every Apple product, package, and business decision is also designed to do. It's honest.
Stross is very taken with Apple Stores, but I think this advice for Sony from Wendy Liebman of WSL Retail is a bit off. She's telling Sony to be Apple, and that really only works for Apple:
Wendy Liebman, the founder of WSL Strategic Retail in New York, was equally critical of the Sony Style store, which she faulted as being merely "a place of stuff." She said that a successful brand excites a passionate attachment, the way Starbucks or Target do, and that Apple's stores exemplify "emotional connection."

"People can just walk in, absorb the fumes and feel like the smartest technophile in the world," she said. Let's add that there is only one place to buy computers that features Geniuses at all times.
The article struggles for a purpose. Is the issue that Sony needs to be more emotional? Or is it that the company needs an exclusive device that will drive traffic to the stores? Here's the big picture. Sony is not an emotional brand. It is a cool brand that pushes for sleek, clean, high-design, high-tech products that really push the edges of technical possibility. And the fact is, that isn't necessarily the most fun brand to embody in an environment. Sony Style is almost true to the overall Sony brand, but I think it tries a little too hard to allow people to experiment and discover, much like the Apple Store. Sony makes technology for people who want the latest and greatest. That says to me that maybe Sony Style should be more about a curated experience -- guided tours of the bleeding edge.
A Sony store feels too much like my living room and not enough like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise. That's the problem. If I could be having this experience at home, I'd rather have Apple get me there. For Sony, I want to feel like I've stepped into the future.
Apple's Lesson for Sony's Stores: Just Connect [NY Times]

Pete Mortensen
This Week Will Bring DRM-Free iTunes?
Ever since Apple and EMI shocked the world in April by announcing that they would sell music through the iTunes Store free from copy-protection constraints, the world has been waiting for the company's to actually make that announcement a reality....

Ever since Apple and EMI shocked the world in April by announcing that they would sell music through the iTunes Store free from copy-protection constraints, the world has been waiting for the company's to actually make that announcement a reality.
This might be the week, if the rumor mill has it pegged correctly. MacNN claims we've been going through a delay of these products, which I can't say I noticed:
The seeming delay for introducing the new tier of content has been primarily attributed to a desire to offer the entire catalog at once in the unprotected format rather than a gradual rollout. The companies' technicians are simply in the later stages of encoding and hosting the files before they go live, the contact says.
Not too surprising, here. After all, Apple said they would launch an offering in May -- that means they'll launch it on the last Tuesday of the month, right? Wake me up when Apple actually misses launching during the month.
DRM-free iTunes set this week? [MacNN]

Technorati Tags: drm, itunes

Pete Mortensen
Fact or Fiction: Video Shot on iPhone?
The next four weeks are going to be crazy. Maybe, once the iPhone is truly released into the wild, hysteria over sightings will recede until that day, however, the Internet is wild with any news of an iPhone in public....

The next four weeks are going to be crazy. Maybe, once the iPhone is truly released into the wild, hysteria over sightings will recede until that day, however, the Internet is wild with any news of an iPhone in public. I won't even cover one of the big iPhone stories of the weekend here (a photo of a man who is either holding an iPhone or possibly any other object that fits in the hand is not news), but I am intrigued by this video find.
It purports to be an Apple Store employee sneaking an iPhone onto the floor of the shop, then shooting video of himself being shown on a store iMac's iSight. It looks pretty real. It could be faked pretty easily, though it would basically have to b e done with another camera phone or pocket video recorder dressed in an iPhone costume. What do you think?
iPhone Camera Video Mirror [YouTube]
Via TUAW

Technorati Tags: iphone, rumor

Pete Mortensen
Zombies Welcome at the Apple Store
A Zombie flash mob got a friendly reception at the San Francisco Apple Store, CNet's Declan McCullagh reports: It may be worth noting that the Westfield Mall and Disney security tried to bar the zombies from entering, but Apple store...

A Zombie flash mob got a friendly reception at the San Francisco Apple Store, CNet's Declan McCullagh reports:
It may be worth noting that the Westfield Mall and Disney security tried to bar the zombies from entering, but Apple store security did not. In fact, salespeople were jostling one another for a position where they could take the best photo of the zombies (or themselves with the zombies, or their brains being eaten by the zombies).
More pix at Flickr.

lkahney
Apple: Keep Your Hands off my Power Supply
Apple's MagSafe power connector, the power cord that connects to new Mac laptops magnetically, is one of the more innovative hardware features to hit portables in years. The MagSafe connector doesn't jack in to a laptop; it connects via a...

Apple's MagSafe power connector, the power cord that connects to new Mac laptops magnetically, is one of the more innovative hardware features to hit portables in years. The MagSafe connector doesn't jack in to a laptop; it connects via a magnet so if you stumble over the cord, it just disconnects and your MacBook doesn't come tumbling off the table. It's saved mine from who knows how many spills, and is probably the only reason my MacBook hasn't had to endure frequent trips back to Apple's repair center like my previous Mac laptops. Yet after more than a year on the market, there still are no third-party accessories for it--adapters that will let you jack into the power ports on planes or cars for example. Why not? Dan Frakes discovered that it's because Apple won't license it. Apple owns the patent on the MagSafe, and it's not sharing. Perhaps it wants to corner the market on power accessories, it sells an airplane adapter for about sixty bucks, but that seems short sighted. As Frakes points out, licensing the technology and farming it out to third party vendors could earn the company plenty in licensing fees, while letting consumers get the accessories they want (probably at a lower price).

Photo by Mat Honan

Mat Honan