We're all too accustomed to frivolous lawsuits about iPhone batteries or people being blinded by MacBooks that are just too damn white, so it's always a pleasant surprise to see the legal system carrying out the job it was intended to: righting wrongs.
Two customers of the San Francisco Apple Store on Stockton Street have launched a suit complaining that the store in question fails to comply with both the Americans with Disability Act and the California Health and Safety Code by not providing "full and equal" access for disabled patrons. Counters and tables which display products are located too high for wheelchair-bound customers to reach, and the height of the Genius Bar means that it's difficult for them to observe when they bring a machine in for service. In addition, the several parts of the store, including the theater and the restrooms, were not wheelchair-friendly.
Worse, though, was the fact that both customers found themselves overlooked—presumably unintentionally—by the store's staff, leading them to conclude that Apple did not have a policy in place for assisting disabled customers.
If Apple doesn't have an existing policy, they should certainly put one in place, and if a lawsuit is what that takes, so be it. I would hope they'll quickly remedy this issue for all of their stores.
Holy cow, Steve Jobs must be pissed. This morning, we saw that NBC was planning on dropping its shows from the iTunes Store in a dispute over pricing and bundling. Now, Apple's fired back press release style, announcing that instead of waiting until December, when the deal with NBC expires, they'll drop the shows as of September, so that they won't disappear in the middle of the season.
As if that preemptive strike wasn't enough, Apple's also laid out exactly where the dispute with NBC came in. I'm just going to repeat what they said here, since my jaw has not yet returned to its fully upright and locked position:
The move follows NBC's decision to not renew its agreement with iTunes after Apple declined to pay more than double the wholesale price for each NBC TV episode, which would have resulted in the retail price to consumers increasing to $4.99 per episode from the current $1.99. ABC, CBS, FOX and The CW, along with more than 50 cable networks, are signed up to sell TV shows from their upcoming season on iTunes at $1.99 per episode.Damn. I'm surprised they didn't toss a "yo mama" joke in NBC's direction while they were at it.
If what Apple's saying is true—and, of course, they have a vested interest in presenting it as if it's totally NBC's fault—then, well, all the better: I wouldn't pay $5 for the shows I like on television these days, much less the drivel that constitutes most of it. I have a feeling this isn't the end of the story, though, so stay tuned.
According to an article in Forbes, Apple's spent quite the bundle on lobbying for patent reform. Cupertino's laid down $720,000 this year (or, in layman's terms, more money than I've ever had) to lobby for retooling the patent system. Here's what's in play:
Trade groups for high-tech industries favor legislation that would help weed out bad patents by allowing companies to re-evaluate them after they are granted. The groups say this could help companies avoid financial burden of defending patents in lengthy court cases.The patent system as it stands right now is clearly in need of a little brushing up; maybe a new coat of paint. Whether Apple's plans for reform are the right solution remains to be seen, but we know how much Apple loooooves patents. Man, I think they'd just make patents all day if they could. Maybe they don't even need to make products at all. Just patents.The company also advocated bills that would increase funding for technology education and provide tax breaks for company spending on research and development.
[via The Mac Observer]
Dear Sony,
There was a time when you were the articulatio genu of the proverbial Apis mellifera, but, well, you couldn't keep trading on the Walkman forever. The world moved on to a digital age, and you got left behind. It's understandable. Your multitude of attempts to capitalize on the burgeoning market of digital music players failed repeatedly, and the Sony Connect store was just embarrassing. Which you've thankfully finally realized.
People often take Apple to task for what they perceive a closed system, but if there's anybody who was truly guilty of this offense, it's Sony. MemoryStick, MiniDisc, ATRAC. Seriously: ATRAC? While the rest of the world was enjoying the freedom of MP3, you decided it would be a good time to launch players that only worked with your own crazy little format? People criticize Apple's use of AAC all the time, but those people are usually missing two key points: 1) the iPod plays MP3 alongside AAC just fine and 2) AAC is actually an open format.
As if that wasn't bad enough, the Digital Rights Management of the Connect store wove a positively spiderlike web of confusion. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia article:
Music sold at Sony CONNECT may be downloaded on up to 5 PC's that are authorized at any given time All music purchased may be re-downloaded at any given time.Seriously, who wants to deal with trying to figure out what label your music comes from?
All music, with the exception of Warner Music Group, allow Sony device exportation an UNLIMITED number of times.
Music purchased from Warner Music Group may only be exported 3 times to Minidisc & Memory Stick.
All music, with the exception of Universal Music Group, may be burned to ATRAC CD's ONLY 5 times.
Music purchased from Universal Music Group may NOT be burned to an ATRAC CD.
All music from Sony CONNECT may be burned into Redbook format 7 Playlist Times.
All Music exported to Sony Network Walkmans that are authorized (meaning only flash & HDD based players) with CONNECT can be exported an UNLIMITED number of times. Meaning Warner Music Group content can be exported an unlimited number of times on these devices without using your 3 export rights.
Memory Sticks & Minidisc's are not authorizable, thus utilize your 3 Warner Music Group export rights.
So I'm not sad that you've killed off Connect, Sony. Or even that you've replaced it with Windows Media support on your music players. It was really only a matter of time. And perhaps you'll take this as a lesson of this simple fact: you don't need to compete in every market.
So good luck to you in your future endeavors, Sony. Perhaps we shall one day meet again on the bumpy road to love. Or not.
Cheerio,
Dan
When Apple quietly refreshed the Mac mini, I was pretty happy with the specs. Sure, the laptop hard drive is a little pokey, the lack of 802.11n is bizarre, and integrated graphics is teh suck, but for an entry level machine, it’s quite capable. I wouldn’t use one as my primary machine, but as a media server, Xgrid slave, or HD TV media center, it performs quite adequately. I’d even recommend it as a primary machine for less discerning computer users, such as my parents. The graphics card and storage won’t affect what they’re doing.
The $64,000 question is how much better are the new minis though. Madman James Galbraith put them through their paces. He locked them in a steel cage along with the old Mac minis and the new iMac. While they ably handled the previous generation, the iMac used its keyboard as a weapon (they’ve got an awful sharp edge). In all seriousness though, the CPU boost and change in processor makes them much more capable. On par with the iMac in some cases.
There’s one more thing not touched on in the review that will sweeten the pot. The new Mac mini can actually handle 3 GB of RAM. Buy, buy, buy.
According to a report by the New York Times, NBC Universal has decided to end its contract to sell its television shows through the store. This is a major blow for the media store because NBC accounts for a staggering 40% of all video sales. While many analysts believe that Apple makes little/nothing on iTunes Store sales, losing a large chunk of content makes the store that much less useful. And it’s good content.
Among the most popular NBC Universal shows available for sale on iTunes are “Battlestar Galactica,” “The Office” and “Heroes.”
I watch all these shows. Clearly NBC is being run by Cylons. Ok, so I record them myself straight off the air and I probably never will buy them off iTunes, but it gave me a warm fuzzy to know that I could. The Times also mentions NBC’s upcoming Hulu.com, which is aimed at being sort of a YouTube competitor. Great, so now you’ll have to be online to watch. That’s real convenient. It also means no more iPod and iPhone compatibility.
You may be wondering what NBC wanted to do that Apple refused to go along with.
NBC Universal and other companies say they want to increase prices by packaging content— say an episode of “The Office” with the movie “The 40- Year-Old Virgin,” because they both star the comedian Steve Carell.
In other words, in order to buy a simple episode of “The Office”, you’ll need to pay multiple times that price and buy a movie as well. On this front, I think we can all agree to tell NBC to get bent.
I recently came across Global Voices' authoritative guide to keeping your online traces hidden. One of the tools that you can use to anonymize your online speech is by using a program called Tor (The Onion Router).
This week, Tor just updated its latest beta version to 0.2.0.6 for Mac OS X (Universal Binary).
While most MacUser.com readers probably don't need to worry about this sort of thing, if you live in a politically sensitive place, or just want to ensure that your online tracks stay as discreet as possible, you might want to check it out.
Yesterday, I was exchanging rapid-fire emails with a friend in New York. It got to the point where it seemed like it would make much more sense if we just switched to IM. Seeing as she was on a Gmail account, I suggested that we used gChat (Google Talk), the free IM client that's part of any Gmail account.
However, she couldn't seem to find how to sign onto gChat. Mystified, I inquired as to what browser she was using -- and she told me that she was on Safari, while I was on Firefox.
One quick firing up of my Safari, and I discovered the sad, sad, truth -- Safari doesn't appear to support Saved Searches or the Quick Contacts box on the lower left side. As the picture illustrates, Firefox has those boxes, whereas Safari doesn't.
Of course, astute readers of this blog will note that this isn't the first time I've pointed out Firefox's superiority over Safari. Still, if Apple can get just about everything else right, why can't they do browsers right?
