In a Rolling Stone article this past week about Apple's recent discussions with independent music companies (covered here), it is revealed that Apple representatives say the company is working on a stored-value model to enable non-credit card purchases of songs from iTunes. It's a great opportunity, and I hope they …

Following up a story from earlier this week, another company is providing background music via Apple's iPod. Activaire is a New York company that runs an iPod- based music service offering content licensed directly from independent music labels. An article from Wired provides some additional perspective.

For those families that buy Macintoshes between now and August 10, they can enroll their kids in a free Apple Camp that will be held at local Apple Stores during the weeks of August 11th and 18th. The camps include two sessions, Standard and Advanced, each of which consumes some …

An article from Business 2.0 has an interesting idea for Apple and the record companies. Why not release specialized versions of the iPod with an entire music catalog for a particular group and a special engraving on the back. According to the author, neither the record companies, nor Apple …

One of the problems with Apple's 3G iPod is that the connectors are in a different location than the first two generations. This means that most after-market cases are inappropriate until redesigned. Continuing the flurry of post-iPod announcements is the latest set of releases from Speck Products, including three new …

The Philadelphia City Paper has an article about a local Philly DJ who uses iPods as a distribution mechanism for programmed music in eating establishments, stores, and the like. The benefits are small size, big capacity, and ease of programming as well as the LCD display that the current …

An article from MacMegasite confirms that the Microsoft Macintosh Business Unit is not planning on releasing any future version of Microsoft Internet Explorer for the Macintosh. Coming after the recent Microsoft announcement that there will be no further stand-alone versions for Windows, this isn't a big surprise. So, make sure …

The Open Group (also known as X/Open) sued Apple Computer 18 months ago, according to an article on CNET. The suit is over the trademark to Unix, a trademark owned by The Open Group, and whether Apple will have to: 1) pay a license to use the name; and …

As rumors intensify heading into Apple's WWDC, the IBM 9701 and the next version of Apple's OS X are the chief concerns. This article from eWeek cites the likelihood that the 970 will initially be supported by a version of Jaguar (OS X 10.2) code-named Smeagol. The version …

According to an article from the New York Post (I know, not my usual quality of journalistic source), many of the major artists who have so far refused to sign up for iTunes have done so because they want to be able to sell music in only album-sized chunks. And …

An article from Gnutella News summarizes Apple's meeting with independent music producers on Thursday. Lots of good information about the current state of the service and about how it is set up. Here are the points I found most interesting: 6-7 million copies of iTunes currently in use (presumedly iTunes …

Wired has a recap this morning of a variety of new ways to restore the internet iTunes sharing capabilities to your Macintosh. Of course, they don't point out that Apple's DRM still works correctly when this is used over the internet, so the only files that are completely shared outside …

I've had a chance now to run some existing Keynote files through 1.1 and export them into PDF, QuickTime, and PowerPoint. I'm happy to report that most of these have been improved significantly. QuickTime export looks great now (although, I thought it looked pretty darned good before). File sizes …

Continuing what has already been a fast-moving week for the software, pardon me, hardware manufacturer, Apple has released version 1.1 of Keynote, their presentation software. A quick review from Keynote User is available, and the update can be downloaded directly from Apple's Keynote page. Improvements are said to include …

The folks at Apple have been busy today. Along with the Bluetooth, QuickTime, and iSync updates, they've now released an update for iMovie, bringing it to 3.03. The update claims to increase performance and reliability and to add some new functionality to the well-liked "Ken Burns Effect".

An article on MTV is reporting that Apple has invited indie labels to Cupertino this coming week to discuss putting their songs on the Apple Music Service.

MacCentral is reporting that Virginia Tech is requiring the 17" Apple PowerBook for students majoring in Art and Art History. The department has required PowerBooks since 1998.

An article in the New York Post states that Apple and Amazon have been in discussions over using Apple's technology as the basis for Amazon's proposed new music service.

This article from MacCentral reports that Apple used their own software and hardware to power the iTunes Music Store. This isn't a huge surprise, but I find it a little odd that they didn't mention it at the initial roll-out. Apparently the back-end is all Apple hardware and WebObjects 5 …

An article in Wired this morning talks about Apple's seemingly surprising ability to stay afloat, innovative, and mostly profitable while the world is mostly Microsoft. He credits a number of factors, including the Clinton justice department, control of the hardware, and the now-tight links to the open-source Unix movement. I …