MacRumors.com

Alibaba has a few more images of cases for the rumored 2nd generation iPod Touch and 4th generation iPod nano.




Images link to the individual product pages.

Electronista reports on a few more comments made by Kevin Rose during this week's Twit podcast.

Coloring in details left out of his controversial blog entry, Rose alleges early on in the episode that the new devices and their companion jukebox software should be unveiled on September 9th, or just two weeks from now.

Rose also claims iTunes 8 may have the ability to make music recommendations based on the user's music library.

An ad image purporting to be a leaked ad for an upcoming MacBook Pro has been circulating.


The image is a mockup made by one of our forum members and not a real leak.

A number of Apple rumor sites, including MacRumors, have received an anonymous tip purporting to describe details of a "Late September Apple Event". The source describes MobileMe upgrades that will allow the iPhone and iPod touch to access a user's iDisk storage, as well as the introduction of "iTunes Unlimited", a yearly subscription model for digital music.

MobileMe, iPhone, iPod Touch
-Enable disk use
-When enabled for disk use, iDisk folder accessible
-iDisk app
-Viewable formats can be opened, other formats grayed out
-Button to sync with MobileMe
-Photo syncing support via MobileMe
-October launch

iTunes Unlimited
-256 Kbps music; highest quality digital music subscription service ever
-50% of U.S. store available for iTunes Unlimited at launch, U.S.-only launch
-Available through iTunes or retail box a la MobileMe, funds applied through iTunes gift cards cannot be used towards subscription purchase
-$129.99 stand-alone or $179.99 with MobileMe, current MobileMe subscribers can add iTunes Unlimited for $99.99
-One-year subscription period
-Current a la carte options unchanged
-When signed in to subscription account, “Buy” is “Get”
-“Download and Play throughout iTunes Unlimited Subscription” or “Buy and Keep”
-“Buy and Keep” option available for downloaded subscription songs, purchased version replaces subscription version
- Late October launch with iTunes 7.8

Despite previous comments from Eddy Cue and Steve Jobs expressing some opposition to subscription-based models for digital music, the concept of an "iTunes Unlimited" service has persisted for a number of years due to the popularity of the business model with other music services. Of recent note, CNNMoney.com reported on such rumors in April 2007, and they were revived once again in March 2008 by the Financial Times, which reported that Apple was offering music labels only $20 per device for unlimited access to the iTunes catalog.

Readers should note that anonymous submissions made to multiple rumor sites are generally false, but we are publishing it due to long-standing popularity of the "iTunes Unlimited" rumor and the fact that several other rumors sites have reported on this, making it a significant topic of discussion in the rumor community.

The Apple Store University Park Village will open to the public on Saturday, August 23, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. CDT. The new store is in Fort Worth, Texas and represents the 15th Apple Store in Texas but the first in Fort Worth.

More information at Apple's retail site.

Apple has started televising three new 'Get a Mac' ads which have been posted to their site.

- Pizza Box - PC tries to attract college students with free Pizza
- Throne - Mac explains switching from PC to Mac is easy by bringing your PC to an Apple Store
- Calming Teas - PC has a new line of calming teas for frustrated Vista users

Update: Apple has posted a fourth new ad to its site, entitled Off The Air, in which Mac and an Apple Store Mac Genius explain how easy it is for PC users to transfer their data to a new Mac with the help of a Mac Genius. PC, not liking what he is hearing, attempts to have filming of the ad halted.

Adobe has announced its intention to drop PowerPC support from After Effects CS4.

By focusing on Intel Macs, we save a huge amount of engineering and testing time. This means that we will be able to complete more features for a larger group of customers and deliver the best release possible. Plus, some CS4 technology is so new that it never existed on PowerPC Macs.

Adobe believes that by removing support for the PowerPC architecture they will be able to deliver more features in CS4. For users requiring PowerPC compatibility, Adobe recommends buying After Effects CS3 while it is available.

While other Adobe applications are also Intel only such as Premiere Pro, Encore, and Soundbooth, the decision shouldn't reflect on other Adobe applications such as Photoshop (which has seen its share of CS4 controversy).

CBS5 has video from a fire that broke out at the Valley Green 6 building on Apple campus in Cupertino, California. No injuries were reported.

One reader provides this Google map which pinpoints the building (above the "B" pin).

Microsoft today issued updates for both Office 2008 and Office 2004. The updates provide improvements to "stability and performance" and "address vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of a computer's memory by using malicious code."

Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.2 Update weighs in at 159.6 MB and addresses security vulnerabilities and AppleScript reliability through the suite of Office applications, as well as providing specific performance improvements for Word, Excel, and Entourage. A full list of improvements is included on Microsoft's update description page.

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 11.5.1 Update weighs in at 14.5 MB and addresses security vulnerabilities, as well as fixing a specific stability issue in Word 2004 involving documents containing numbered lists and updating the Japanese postal code dictionary in Entourage 2004. Microsoft's update description page details these improvements and provides additional information about the update.

Expreview clams that Intel will be officially announcing that the Nehalem processors will be known as the "Core i7" on August 11th.

Nehalem is Intel's next generation processor that is expected to launch in Q4 2008.

We've heard multiple reports that affected individuals who have asked for some form of compensation from Apple's customer service have been offered a free year of service.

Apple's MobileMe email outage affected approximately 1% of .Mac/MobileMe customers and involved some loss of email data surrounding the incident.

Businessweek's Cliff Edwards speculates that Apple may introduce a touch-screen iPod nano in time for the holidays. He bases this prediction on analyst expectations and other recent whispers, but also reports that he saw a similar device in the wild:

Out in the wild the other day in San Francisco, I saw a guy whip out and change his music on a black touch-screen device that looked suspiciously like an iPhone, only smaller. Apple often has key employees test new devices for bugs before rolling them out, so it’s not out of the question.

Apple is widely expected to revamp their iPod line in the coming months with talk of a taller version.