Brian Vanderhoff's North Fulton Real Estate Blog

Apple announced that the Mac App Store will open for business on Thursday, January 6. By bringing the revolutionary App Store experience to Mac OS X, the Mac App Store makes discovering, installing, and updating Mac apps easier than ever. The Mac App Store will be available in 90 countries at launch and will feature paid and free apps in categories like Education, Games, Graphics and Design, Lifestyle, Productivity, and Utilities.

Labels: Apple, Mac App Store

Modmyi.com

Labels: Apple, Jailbreak all iPhones, Jailbreak iPhone 4, Limera1n

For the fourth consecutive year, J.D. Power and Associates has ranked Apple highest in customer satisfaction among smartphone manufacturers.

Apple scored 800 out of a possible 1,000 points, according to the J.D. Power study that asked over 6,800 smartphone owners to rank their experiences between January and June 2010. The study, released today, showed that Apple scored particularly well in ease of operation, operating system, features, and physical design.

Motorola, at 791 points, and HTC, at 781 points, grabbed the second and third spots, respectively.

The factors key to overall satisfaction among smartphone users were, in order of importance: ease of operation (26 percent); operating system (24 percent); physical design (23 percent); features (19 percent); and battery function (8 percent).

With the popularity of the App Store, it should come as no surprise that mobile apps are becoming more important to smartphone users. More than two-thirds of users download games and 54 percent report downloading travel software like maps and weather applications. The study also showed that 41 percent of smartphone owners download utility applications and 36 percent download business-specific apps.

J.D. Power also released a study today on customer satisfaction with traditional wireless handsets. That survey found that owners of traditional mobile phones are keeping them longer. J.D. Power pointed to the economic downturn as one possible reason for that.

Earlier this week the University of Michigan's American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked Apple No. 1 in customer satisfaction for the seventh straight year.

Labels: Android, Apple, Smartphone

Apple's pushing out iOS 4.0.2 for iPhones and iPod Touches and iOS 3.2.2 for iPads, an update that patches the previous versions' PDF exploit and wipes out your iPhone's unlock and nice new jailbreak.

The update, which is showing up in iTunes now, doesn't bring any new features, just a patch for the recently-exposed PDF vulnerability (the one used by JailbreakMe), so if you weren't super worried about being susceptible—or if you want to keep your jailbreak or your iPhone unlocked—you might not want to jump on this one just yet

Labels: Apple, Iphone, iphone 4, iPhone 4 Unlock Release in 48 Hours, Jailbreak iPhone 4

Apple today released Safari 5.0.1 and introduced the Safari Extensions Gallery. Extensions allow users to quickly add powerful new features to Safari — from toolbars that display live web feeds to sophisticated programs that filter web content. Users can download and install extensions either from the Safari Extensions Gallery or directly from a developer’s site.


--- Brian and Jennifer Vanderhoff North Fulton County REALTORS Vanderhoff Real Estate (770) 331-1206 --- Milton, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale North Fulton County, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale Forsyth, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale ---

Labels: Apple, mac, safari 5

Apple yesterday introduced Aperture 3, the next major release of its powerful photo editing and management software. Aperture 3 offers more than 200 new features including Faces, Places, and Brushes. A 30-day trial is now available for download.
---
Brian and Jennifer Vanderhoff
North Fulton County REALTORS
Vanderhoff Real Estate
(770) 888-9269
---
Milton, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
North Fulton County, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
Forsyth, GA Real Estate, Condos, Homes for Sale
---

Labels: Aperture, Apple

Apple Inc. has redoubled its effort to distribute movies online, gaining a foothold in a promising but unproven business that could eventually bolster its other core products.

The tech giant launched a movie rental service at its online iTunes Store Tuesday and won the alliances of all six major movie studios to supply content.

Under terms similar to those at other online movie providers, rental prices range from $2.99 for library titles, $3.99 for new releases, and $1 extra for high-definition versions. The movies are ready to watch almost instantly over a high-speed Internet connection, and users have a 24-hour period to watch each movie once they start it.

The service, which launched in the U.S. on Tuesday and will roll out internationally later this year, will work on Macs, Windows-based machines, iPhones, iPods or the Apple TV set-top box.

But Apple and its rivals all face the challenge of making Internet delivery easy and affordable enough to drive a massive change in the habits of the movie-watching public.

Many analysts give Apple high odds of surviving what will likely be a long, bloody battle to dominate the digital living room.

Even though Apple's stock suffered Tuesday, some investors appeared to agree. Shares of Blockbuster Inc. plunged nearly 17 percent after Apple CEO Steve Jobs, speaking at the Macworld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, announced the new threat to the world's largest chain of movie-rental stores.

"Movies are really a big part of people's lives, just like music. And being able to do this on Apple's platform is an intriguing alternative to running out to the video store or getting DVDs through your mail," American Technology Research analyst Shaw Wu said.

Apple investors, however, seemed underwhelmed by Tuesday's parade of product announcements, which also included an ultra-slim notebook computer called the MacBook Air and a backup storage drive dubbed Time Capsule.

Shares of Apple slipped, losing $9.74, or 5.5 percent, to close Tuesday at $169.04. They fell another 3.6 percent, to $163.01, in after-hours trading.

With millions of people already using iTunes to download music or TV shows, Apple already has a coveted customer base, Wu said.

Jobs acknowledged Apple's first attempt to bring Internet-based video to televisions through its Apple TV device misfired. Also, iTunes previously offered movies only for purchase, racking up a mere 7 million downloads, which paled in comparison to 125 million TV shows and more than 4 billion songs downloaded.

But Jobs said competitors such as Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc., Blockbuster Inc. and Vudu Inc. haven't seen much more success.

"We've all tried to get movies over the Internet and to the TV, and we've all missed," Jobs said. "So we're back with Apple TV, take two."

And rentals seem to be what people want when it comes to movies, Jobs said.

The Apple TV set-top box always could wirelessly stream videos and other multimedia from a user's computer to a TV. But the new model shipping in two weeks will let users rent or purchase content without a computer. Apple cut the box's price from $299 to $229 and said existing Apple TV owners could get the new features through a free software upgrade.

If Apple ends up helping shake up movie distribution the way it did music distribution, that likely will enhance its other sales as well.

"The near-term benefits are not that clear," said Wu, the American Technology Research analyst. "But longer term, it'll drive people to the Apple platform, whether it's a Mac, an iPod, an iPhone or the Apple TV."

In its fiscal 2007, Apple earned a record $3.5 billion, up more than 75 percent from the previous year. And it sold 7 million Macs and 52 million iPods, an increase of more than 30 percent for each product line.

The rising interest in all things Apple isn't going unnoticed even by electronics vendors accustomed to creating products for the predominant Windows world. Samsung Electronics Co. last fall launched a line of printers it sold exclusively first at Apple retail stores. And this week for the first time it is displaying its wares at Macworld.

The weeklong event in San Francisco ends Friday and is expected to draw more than 50,000 attendees.

Labels: Apple, Iphone, IPOD, New Movies, Rental

Customers might want to check if they really bought an iPod product when shopping at the iPod World kiosk at North Point Mall and six other malls. The Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs reported those kiosks sold look-a-like products to the iPod Nano and Shuffle without telling customers the products were not manufactured by Apple.

The agency entered into a settlement with Shay Zvi Lahav, individually, and his companies, Easy Sale 4U LLC. d/b/a iPod World and Accessories 2000 L.L.C., over allegations that they passed off counterfeit merchandise as Apple products.

The look-a-likes were sold at kiosks in Lenox Mall, Cumberland Mall, North Point Mall, Town Center Mall, Mall of Georgia, Macon Mall and Hamilton Place Mall in Chattanooga, Tenn. Additionally, the counterfeit products were advertised and distributed via the company's Web site, www.accessories2000.com.

After receiving a tip Nov. 28, 2007 the state agency sent undercover investigators to visit the "iPod World" kiosks to determine if the allegations could be substantiated. Investigators found that the kiosks offered several different items, ranging from FM transmitters to MP3 docking stations with speakers. Although none of the items for sale were authentic Apple products, the appearance, design, packaging, function and pricing of many of the items were virtually identical to those of genuine Apple products, specifically Apple's iPod Shuffle and Nano and their associated accessories.

Adding to the allegedly misleading tactics, the salesmen failed to correct customers when they referred to products by their Apple names. One salesman demonstrated the features of an FM transmitter by using a genuine Apple iPod Nano. Furthermore, the receipt given to the undercover investigator following his purchase of the fake iPod referred to the product as a "Shffle," just one letter off from the actual Apple product name.

Immediately following the undercover investigation, the Office of Consumer Affairs put kiosk owner Shay Zvi Lahav on notice of alleged violations of the Fair Business Practices Act. On Jan. 7, Lahav entered into an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with OCA, in which he agreed to refrain from using the terms "iPod" and "iPod World" in his companies' signs and Web sites; to refrain from selling any products whose appearance, functionality and packaging are virtually identical to those of Apple products without posting clear, conspicuous disclaimers asserting that the products sold are not Apple products and that the companies have no affiliation with Apple; pay $20,000 to OCA for investigative and administrative fees; and offer full restitution to affected customers.

Customers who have purchased products from iPod World, Easy Sale 4U, L.L.C. or Accessories 2000, L.L.C. can get a full refund by returning products to either the place of purchase or to 4264 Winters Chapel Road, Building A, Suite B, Atlanta, GA 30360, along with a sales receipt or proof of payment (e.g. cancelled check or credit card statement). Refunds will be offered through Feb. 5 only.


For more information, contact the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs at 404-651-8600.

Labels: Apple, Fake, IPOD, Nano, North Fulton, North Point Mall, Shuffle