On July 11, the iPhone SDK emerged from beta sparkling with dew. Trumpets sounded and a few frolicking nymphs danced in joy. The dawn shone bright, the sky offered the blue promise of a new day. And there in the meadow of newly released products stood a mass of grumpy developers shouting: "What about the farking NDA"?"
For the happy blue release fairy had granted the developers' wishes but had neglected one teeny tiny detail: the bad evil NDA still ruled over Apple land from its dark menacing tower in far-off Cupertino. The wreched developers could not bring forth their coding jewels from the mines of iPhone Mordor. Instead, they labored under the cruel cruel chains of confidential information and non-specific release clauses.
And then voices rose up: "We're mad as heck! And we're not going to take it any more!" And thus was born, Effing NDA.com. (Yes, that has been bowdlerized and is NSFW). Developers started tweeting their rage -- from the high hills of Oz to the depths of Silicon Valley.
And how does this little fairy tale end? We don't know for sure. It all rests in Apple's hands. Let's hope for a happy ending.
A few years ago, I was walking through downtown Boston with my Burger King bag and Coke. I ran into a friend in Kenmore Square who was on his way into a pizza joint. He asked me to join him and we both sat down.
As I unwrapped my Whopper, anticipating the greasy goodness that would undoubtedly shorten my life, the owner began shouting from behind the counter.
"Hey!" he said with a heavy Boston accent. "You cahhn't eat that in here. Go pahhk it someplace else!" You see, I was eating the competitor's food in his shop. Or, in geeker terms, running their software on his hardware. That's a no-no in some circles.
Pricing and availability has not been announced. The main difference between Open Tech's model and Psystar's is that Open Tech is not selling computers with Leopard pre-loaded. Instead, they provide an OS-free machine and instructions for installing the OS of your choice.
Still, we are talking about Apple's Whopper in Open Tech's pizza joint.
Personally, I don't see why I shouldn't be able to run whatever OS I please on my own machine. Sadly, that's not the way things are.
This liveblog will be relaying and discussing Apple's Q3 financial results. Apple's third fiscal quarter encompassed sales between April 1, 2008 and June 30, 2008. Apple reported a record-breaking quarter, with revenue up 38% year over year and Mac sales at an all time high!
You can listen in live here. Please join me in the blog to discuss the results, speculate
Here's a reminder to our readers. Apple will announce the financial results of 2008's third quarter at the end of the day today, approximately 4:30pm EDT.
Shortly thereafter (approximately 5:00 PM EDT), Apple will hold a live conference call to discuss the announcement. We'll be live blogging that call right here, so be sure and check it out. Also, you can follow along with Apple's live audio stream here.
Dust off your portfolios, stockholders! It's time to see what you've bought yourselves.
We noted yesterday that the Mac clone maker, Psystar, was sued by Apple for copyright infringement, among other things. According to a recent ZDNet post, Apple wants Psystar to recall all of the Mac clones sold since April. "Psystar's actions have been committed with intent to damage Apple and to confuse and deceive the public," Apple claims.
"As a direct and proximate result of Psystar's infringing conduct, Apple has suffered and will continue to suffer lost sales and profits in an amount not yet fully ascertained in an amount to be proven at trial," Apple notes.
I really don't see how Psystar will be able to recover all of the Mac clones sold since April. But, if you bought one, would you send it back? I certainly wouldn't. Engadget, our sister blog, is also looking deeply into this high-profile lawsuit. They take a look at what each allegation means for both Apple and Psystar.
Like we didn't see this one coming: Apple is suing Psystar for copyright infringement. Psystar is the interesting little startup Mac-clone maker who allowed Mac OS X to run on their systems without the consent of Apple. In its license agreement, you are not allowed to run Mac OS X on any non-Apple hardware.
Apple filed the complaint in a federal district court in California saying that Psystar violated its shrink-wrap license and trademarks. Apple is also alleging copyright infringement. In recent months, Psystar had begun cloning Mac OS X servers, which definitely made us feel a little uneasy about this small company.
am forget my password of mac,did you give me password on new email marko.[redacted]@yahoo.com
Apple -- apparently with no additional research -- reset Karppinen's password, and changed the email address on the account to the perp's. As a result of the login change, the perp had access to Karppinen's credit card details, developer software seed key, and the contents of his iDisk.
Karppinen, understandably, was livid, and sent ADC an email about what happened. A team lead from ADC's European support organization contacted Karppinen, apologizing for the mix-up. The rep promised to find out (from Apple's own logs) what information was compromised.
Apple has so far not commented on the incident, outside of what Karppinen says the ADC rep told him. It's unclear what Apple will do in the future to prevent this from happening again.
The MacRumors Forums are abuzz with discussion about the opening of the first Apple Store in Kansas. Not to be confused with Apple Store Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, Mo., this store is in Leawood, Kansas.
Specifically, the store is located in the new shopping center being built in the Crate & Barrel area on the south east corner of 119th & Roe. While there's no listing on Apple's retail page, they do have a map page partially complete.
Several forum users state that the store will open on July 11, just in time for the 3G iPhone launch. If you visit this store over the weekend, please let us know! Welcome to the club, Kansas!
We wish Doug good luck in his new position at Apple. However, I am a bit nervous that he's the VP of product design, because it's impossible to ride a Segway and not look like a total tool.
With the release of the iPhone 3G, Apple will be in a completely new cell phone market in Japan. Apple recently posted a new iPhone 3G Guided Tour on the Japanese Apple website, undoubtedly to get the Japanese warmed up to the iPhone. While there are no new apparent features shown, Apple does show off the character recognition (which is really slick when you see it in action).
It is still neat to watch, even if you don't understand Japnese. You can view this video on the Japanese iPhone website.
Axel Springer AG, Germany's largest newspaper publisher, is moving its entire organization -- 12,000 computers -- to the Mac platform. Axel Springer will become Apple's largest corporate customer in Europe, and second largest customer worldwide. (Google is number one.)
Axel Springer owns Bild and Bild am Sonntag, tabloid-style dailies (not unlike The Sun in the UK or the New York Post in the U.S.) and several magazines sold under the Bild brand. The company currently uses large-scale publishing solutions from WoodWing Software and CCI, both of which support Mac clients.
In a video message to employees, CEO Matthias Döpfner cited ease-of-use, appearance, and total cost of ownership in the reason to switch. Employees can start buying and using Macs and iPhones this month, though the entire organization will be migrated over the course of a year or two five years. (Hey, I took French in high school.)
Thanks Alex, Rouven, and bimbum for the tip (and the help with the German)!
The Apple Expo is Europe's Apple conference -- similar to the Macworld expo in the US. Apple Expo '08 has posted details about the expo, including dates for this year's conference: Wednesday, September 17 through Saturday, September 20, in Paris, France.
Currently, there are only two iPhone events scheduled out of the over 30 planned events. It is a nice change to see that the iPhone will not "steal the show" in Europe like it does at Apple conferences in the US. You can see all of the details, exhibitors, and scheduled events on the Apple Expo website.
RetailWeek recently compiled a list of the top 100 retail locations around the world. What did they find? Well, Apple holds two positions in their list: one for the 5th Avenue store (New York) and one for the Regent Street store (London).
According to the list, the 5th Avenue store has all three key deciding factors: "excitement, education and ease." They go on to say that the glass cube is in line with the "DNA of the brand."
Does this change your mind about shopping at Apple's retail stores? Be sure to take our poll and drop a comment.
Is it even possible? Forbes does a little bit of speculating on just who might take over when Jobs takes his leave from Apple, and candidates aren't exactly jumping out of the woodwork. Jobs is about as visionary as they come -- only a guy like Steve could lead Apple from the iMac to the iPod to the iPhone, breaking records and status quo the whole time. Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall are tossed out as two names currently within Apple's ranks, but Jobs is almost as much of a company mascot as he is a CEO. As consultant Patrick Sweeney says in the article, anyone who steps into the turtleneck has to fit completely into the culture of the company, or it won't work.
And forget the day-to-day and design decisions -- who's going to stand on stage and say "boom" at WWDC and Macworld? Here at TUAW, we're pretty sure the rumors of Jobs' ill health are exaggerated; he's probably not going anywhere anytime fast. But at the same time, it's hard to imagine an Apple without him at all.
Boy Genius Report is reporting that Apple may allow sales of the iPhone at BestBuy and RadioShack retail stores in the U.S. This, of course, is in addition to it being sold at Apple and AT&T stores.
This would be the first time since the iPhone's introduction that a third-party reseller would be able to sell the iPhone. These rumors are definitely unconfirmed at this point so we don't know if this will happen in time for the retail giants to get in on the July 11th introduction sale.
A few years ago, I was walking through downtown Boston with my Burger King bag and Coke. I ran into a friend in Kenmore Square who was on his way into a pizza joint. He asked me to join him and we both sat down.
This liveblog will be relaying and discussing 
Here's a reminder to our readers. Apple will announce the financial results of 2008's third quarter at the end of the day today, approximately 4:30pm EDT.
We 
The MacRumors Forums are 
Doug Field, former chief technology officer at 
With the release of the iPhone 3G, Apple will be in a completely new cell phone market in 
RetailWeek recently compiled a list of the top 
Is it even possible? Forbes 
Boy Genius Report
