Today's theme seems to be Posts About Apple Retail Stores, so better continue the trend. This one comes from the "Yeah, some people are a little nuts" department: A dumpster diver in Boston found a piece of the "Green Monster" facade that was used to cover the Boylston Street store during its construction, and has put it up for auction at eBay.
Bidding (which ends on June 8th) started at $50, and currently stands at a wopping $355...for a piece of a sign found in the trash. The money earned from the auction will go to boston2portland, an annual bike ride charity to raise money for Parkinson's Disease research. The winning bidder will receive a personal invite to the boston2portland PowerRider reception, "a little wine-and cheese affair just for the select few riders who have earned over $2500, along with a personal tour of the Center for Neurological Diseases!"
Check the eBay auction for some more photos, and if you're a fan of the right half of the Apple logo, consider placing a bid-it's for charity.
[via ifoAppleStore, Infinite Loop]
The Apple Store 5th Avenue is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, perfect for insomniacs like me who realize at 3 a.m. that they really, really want a new iPod and would otherwise be up the creek until the damn stores open at 9-stickin'-a.m. and in the meantime need to listen to their current stupid iPod.
Yesterday, though, Apple spit at the concept of 24/7 by closing the 5th Avenue Store until after midnight-the third time in its history it's ever been closed (previously for the iPhone and Leopard launches). Why commit such a crime against abbreviated time schemes? Apple Store employees said they had closed the store to...film a commercial.
MacRumors' sources claim the commercial is for the upcoming 3G iPhone, which is rumored to make its debut around June 9th at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference. Timing's perfect, so why not?
There are some photos of the hubbub, and more photos, and even more photos, if you'd like to scrutinize the commercializing yourself.
Now we just wait, eagerly, for Jobs to get on stage at WWDC, introduce the new iPhone, and cap off his demo with a grinning acknowledgement of the speculation-"We made a great TV spot for the new iPhone; I'd like to show it to you now." Followed by cheering. Lots and lots of cheering.
Our readers are a thoughtful, observant sort. So we were not even mildly shocked to have two separate ones write in mere hours apart to inform us of two new prospective Apple Stores in the US and abroad.
The first tip came from Alex in Liverpool, in that far off mythical land we call the United Kingdom (come on, if that doesn’t sound like some sort of fantasy realm, what does?). He sends us a shot of a black-veiled storefront in a recently re-opened street, with a sign that says “Coming Soon.” Liverpool is, of course, also the hometown of The Beatles—hey, we haven’t had a Beatles rumor in awhile. Maybe they’ll announce the catalog at the same time as they open the Liverpool store. Or maybe I should just repeatedly bash my head into my desk. Same difference.
Our second bit of Apple Store-related news comes from reader Edden, a denizen of Las Vegas. While Sin City already has two stores, one in the upscale Fashion Show shopping mall and another in the “Town Square,” it appears that a third outlet is destined for the Forum Shops in the Venetian Caesars Palace casino (yes, apparently I cannot keep my faux-Italian casinos straight, apologies). Edden was looking to apply to for a job at the Apple Store and was surprised to see a listing for a Forum Shops location that doesn’t exist (duh-duh-DUH!). Sounds as though it may be on the way.
Well, that’s all the news about Apple Stores that’s fit to post. Of course, you can always tip us off to more interesting (or, heck, uninteresting) developments by hitting up our email address over there on the right side of the page.
Don your tinfoil hats, friends. With every new OS X update, there are those in the legion of curious Mac fans who will pore over every changed file to see if they can suss out anything about Apple’s future plans.
Skimming string files is a time-honored pastime, bringing us such great moments as Apple TV games. The latest discovery (that’s a Russian link—I’ll spare you my attempt at remembering my high school Russian), though, is somewhat more interesting. iCal received some slight changes in 10.5.3, and in the app’s Localizable.strings file (which you can find for yourself by going to your Applications folder, choosing “Show Package Contents” for iCal and navigating to Contents/Resources/English.lproj/), there are some interesting references to .Mac.
/* Label of the .Mac button in iCal’s General preferences. %@ is the new name of Apple’s online service (was .Mac) (remove -XX02) */
/* iCal could not update your .Mac synchronization settings. %@ is the new name of Apple’s online service (was .Mac) */
Et cetera. %@ is a placeholder variable; in 10.5.2 and earlier, the name of the service was hardcoded instead. Similar references have been found in Safari and Mail as well. But it seems that Apple is at least considering changing .Mac’s name (ooh, I suggest iTools. Kidding!). Over at Daring Fireball, John Gruber digs up an Apple trademark application for “Mobile Me,” suggesting that as one possibility for a re-branded .Mac.
One certainly hopes that there’s more than just a name change at stake here; .Mac as a service is woefully outdated and in need of serious love and attention from Apple. Might we see something at WWDC? If it coincides with over-the-air syncing for the iPhone, as Gruber suggests, that seems a distinct possibility. And, just to throw out my own piece of speculation, if it somehow tied in with an API to make .Mac syncing more accessible (and useful) to third-party developers, that would be a perfect fit for WWDC.
Though Mac users we may all be, the rest of the world doesn’t necessarily share in our enlightenment. We still live in a Windows world, and that means dealing with certain Microsoftian annoyances. Take email attachments, for example. Ever gotten a forward from a friend asking you to check out a knee-slappingly hilarious attachment? Eagerly anticipating a single bright spark to your otherwise dull existence you scroll down and find…an impenetrable “winmail.dat” file.
Winmail.dat files come to us courtesy of Microsoft Outlook and Exchange users. Encoded as rich text, these files, which have a MIME type of application/ms-tnef, are pretty much useless to anybody who doesn’t run Outlook.
Boooo. Yes, you could reach out with the power of the Force and strangle your correspondent to death, but that might just be a wee bit overreactive. Instead, try Joshua Jacob’s TNEF’s Enough. This one-trick pony application lets you open up winmail.dat files and save the attachments secreted within. Works like a charm (just used it myself yesterday) and it’s freeware (donations welcome).
[via TwisterMC]
By now, all of you should know that Firefox 3 is imminent. Any day now, the finalized code of the new version will be compiled and released. Before people start using it, enjoying it, preaching it, they will be downloading it. That’s where you come in. You need to help set a Guinness book world record by doing exactly what you were going to do anyway. Well, I suppose you could also visit your parents and get them to download it as well.
I have no doubt Firefox 3 will get unprecedented downloads. For many Mac users, it’s the new Internet Explorer. They may prefer Safari, but they’ll keep it installed for compatibility reasons. Does that mean I won’t give it a real chance? Naw. I will. In fact, I like what I’ve seen in the RC. That said, it’s still not, and likely will never be, as Mac native as my refined taste dictates. Camino and Safari still rock my world, and the former has the same rendering engine.
Thanks to eagle eyed commenters, we’ve gotten word that aTV Flash, which we mentioned recently, is gone. Vaporware.
Due to questions arising regarding the fair use of a particular file present on the aTV Flash, and conflicting opinions as to whether or not it falls under the fair use category, we have VOLUNTARILY discontinued offering the aTV Flash at this time.
In our interpretation of the fair use doctrine, our software does not cross any lines, but since this is a grey area issue, we have taken a proactive approach and decided to seek clarifcation directly from the rights holder before we offer the product again.
I would have loved to know what file we are in question speaking about so I could take a gander at its usage statement, but alas, it’s unspecified. All orders have been cancelled and refunded. In addition, you may now feel free to scramble and try to install all these Apple TV mods on your own.
Apple's iWeb is not for everyone, and for those people, there's RealMac's RapidWeaver. The theme-based website editor got a major overhaul today with the release of version 4.0.
What's new? For starters, a brand new interface which integrates elements from Leopard's GUI (the sidebar style, for example). Themes, a big part of RapidWeaver, are more manageable thanks to folders, better previews and searching. This release also includes one-click publishing and Google Analytics support.
It's worth mentioning that RapidWeaver 4.0 is now Leopard-only (for Tiger users, the older 3.6 is still available). The update is free for users of version 3.6; for earlier licenses, the upgrade cost is $29. You can buy RapidWeaver for $59 now, while the price will soon increase to $79.
[via Macworld]
Just in case it wasn't obvious enough before, there's now an official welcome to Sydneysiders from Apple.
Reports The Sydney Morning Herald:Apple has leased the first three levels of the building at 77 King Street and, according to the development application, each of the levels will have a floor space of about 445 square metres [or 4,800 square ft.].
Over the store's entrance - and behind the "drop in soon' sign - will be a three-metre-high Apple logo.
Two other smaller Apple Stores - one in Sydney's North Shore suburb of Chatswood and the other in Melbourne's Chadstone shopping centre - are also under development and will probably open after the main Sydney store throws open its doors.
That is expected to happen at 6pm on Thursday, June 19.
