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Apple Announces Black Friday 2009 Sale

Monday November 23, 2009 01:52 AM


As expected, Apple has announced that they will be holding a one day shopping event on Friday, November 27th. In the U.S., the day after Thanksgiving is called "Black Friday", which is historically one of the busiest shopping days of the year. MacRumors reader @chrisrooke let us know that Apple has begun emailing international customers this teaser page about the sale day.

Come back to the Apple Online Store this Friday for a special one-day-only shopping event.

Over the past several years, Apple has participated with one-day specials at both their retail Apple stores as well as the online Apple Store. Questionable rumors were spread last week suggesting that Apple would be offering substantial discounts on iPods and Macs this year, but Apple's Black Friday discounts have always been very modest. Previous year's price lists can be found in our guides page.

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One Vision for Magazine Content on the Apple Tablet

Saturday November 21, 2009 11:42 PM

We had previously reported that magazine publisher Condé Nast is already taking steps to produce tablet-specific content for their publications in anticipation of the Apple Tablet (and competing devices). Condé Nast publishes the technology magazine Wired amongst others.

Condé’s plan, meanwhile, is to create digital versions of its magazines that will work on all the upcoming tablets, using new software from Adobe (ADBE). Those tablets aren’t actually on the market yet, but the publisher says it’s confident that we’ll soon see multiple versions of machines featuring large color touchscreens and wireless connections.

The company claims it has no special knowledge about Apple's device, but there have been reports that the New York Times has already been approached about producing content for the device.

A new video demonstrates their vision for content delivered on a tablet device:


Again, the company claims not to have any specific knowledge of an Apple tablet device, but expectations are building for exactly such a device.

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Page 2: New Claims about iPod Touch with Camera Due in Spring

Saturday November 21, 2009 11:35 PM

An Examiner post claims that Apple is planning on finally releasing the iPod Touch 3G with Camera this spring.

We have heard from an inside source who claims the camera version of the iPod Touch 3G will be released this Spring. The source confirms to us that the iPod Touch 3G with camera had actually been planned for release this past September, but had problems passing quality control. Unlike Samsung, Apple actually has a Quality Control department.

Supposedly, the new iPod Touch will share the same video-only camera of the iPod Nano.

The Examiner's article was posted by one of their freelance contributors who are encouraged to write on their specialized topics. In this case, it comes from the "Gadgets" examiner. These are essentially a collection of blogs in which the authors are compensated more based on variables like page views and unique visitors. Given that and no particular track record for this author, we'd place the reliability of the information in line with any other unknown "guy-with-blog".

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More Quad-Core iMac Benchmarks Show Substantial Performance Gains

Friday November 20, 2009 04:08 PM

Following up on early benchmarking tests that showed Apple's new quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 iMacs boasting significant performance improvements compared to their Core 2 Duo-based counterparts, Macworld has utilized its own Speedmark suite of real-world tests and found similar results.

Speedmark is Macworld Lab's standard test tool for benchmarking new and upgraded systems running Mac OS X. It uses real-world applications and everyday tasks. It is a general-purpose suite that includes tasks everyone from a high-end user to a new user performs every day.

Macworld Lab follows a detailed script to perform the 17 tasks. Each task is performed three times. We compare the results to a 2.13GHz MacBook with 2GB RAM (Mid 2009), which is assigned a score of 100. We then take the geometric mean of the normalized scores.

Macworld's tests compared the new quad-core iMac models with the base-level Core 2 Duo-based 21.5" and 27" models, as well as the entry-level 2.66 GHz previous-generation 24" iMac, revealing the expected significant performance improvements. Macworld also compared the new models to Apple's latest entry-level quad-core and 8-core Mac Pro models, with both new quad-core iMacs even out-performing the Mac Pro in this real-world battery.


Speedmark 6 Composite Scores
Detailed scores for individual tasks available in article

As Macworld notes, the new iMac is an attractive option for even professional users, comparing extremely favorably with the company's latest Mac Pro models.

With the new 2.66GHz Core i5 iMac and the 2.8GHz Core i7 iMac, Apple has not only blurred the line between consumer and professional systems, it's darn near erased it. The 2.66GHz Core i5 iMac offers faster performance at most tasks than the 2.66GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro. The Core i5 iMac also has more memory and more storage space than the 2.66GHz Quad-Core Mac Pro, while being $500 less (plus you get a 27-inch screen with the iMac). Unless you absolutely require additional PCI cards, multiple internal hard drives, or a lot of RAM, the Core i5 iMac makes a strong case for the being the go-to system for most Mac professionals.

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Game Developers Scaling Back Android Efforts as iPhone Continues to Dominate

Friday November 20, 2009 02:34 PM

Reuters reports that prominent iPhone game developer Gameloft is scaling back its efforts to produce content for the Android platform in the face of weaknesses of its application store. Gameloft also notes that it is not the only one making the move, with other game developers reportedly experiencing similar frustrations.

"We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others," Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference.

The company's frustration comes from a lack of success on the Android platform, contrasted with Apple's App Store ecosystem and its ability to drive sales for developers.

"It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue," Rochefort said.

Games for iPhone generated 13 percent of Gameloft's revenue in the last quarter. "We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android," Rochefort said.

Several months ago, mobile app developer Larva Labs offered an analysis of the massive sales gap between the iPhone and Android platforms, noting a number of major deficiencies in Android's application store implementation. While Android developers have since moved to address some of those issues, the platform has yet to generate the buzz and critical mass to drive application sales to levels that make financial sense for software developers.

[ 276 comments ]

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