MacRumors

NPD Group released the top leading music retailers for the first half of 2008. The list was based on purchases of CDs or digital music downloads.

1. iTunes
2. Wal-Mart (Walmart, Walmart.com, Walmart Music Downloads)
3. Best Buy (Best Buy, Bestbuy.com, Best Buy Digital Music Store)
4. Amazon (Amazon.com, AmazonMP3.com)
5. Target (Target and Target.com)

Apple's iTunes remains number one amongst all retailers. Apple took the number one spot in April, overtaking Wal-Mart.

Amazon, however, saw a rise in ranking from #5 to #4, which NPD attributes to both strong CD sales as well as Amazon's introduction of their MP3 music store. The digital rights management (DRM) free solution provides iPod users a convenient and compatible alternative to Apple's iTunes.

A financial analyst at UBS Investment Research publishes his outlook for Apple's product line in 2008 and 2009, as reported by AppleInsider.

The analyst Maynard Um also cites "industry checks" to confirm that the MacBook and iPod will see updates later this year. Both Apple notebook and iPod updates have been widely expected in the coming months with some signs pointing to a September launch.

Um also claims there will be a "first half of 2009" launch of the a Mac "sub-notebook". Talk of an Apple sub-notebook has died down since the release of the MacBook Air, which has partially filled that need in Apple's product line. However, there remains a small but vocal group of individuals who want Apple to release a true sub-notebook with screen sizes smaller than the 13" screen that the MacBook Air houses. Um believes another "sub-notebook" was originally intended for launch in 2008 but has been delayed until 2009.

Finally, the analyst points to additional iPhone colors to be launched in time for this year's holiday season as well as a brand new iPhone in the first half of 2009.

Ars Technica reports that Steve Jobs sent an internal e-mail to Apple employees this evening admitting mistakes in launching MobileMe.

"It was a mistake to launch MobileMe at the same time as iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 software and the App Store," he says. "We all had more than enough to do, and MobileMe could have been delayed without consequence."

In particular, Jobs suggested that Apple should have launched the MobileMe services individually rather than in a single, complicated transition. Jobs also outlined a reorganization of management structure in which Eddy Cue, Apple's vice president for iTunes, will add oversight of the App Store and MobileMe to his duties and will report directly to Jobs.

"The MobileMe launch clearly demonstrates that we have more to learn about Internet services," Jobs says. "And learn we will. The vision of MobileMe is both exciting and ambitious, and we will press on to make it a service we are all proud of by the end of this year."

MobileMe has been plagued by intermittent service at launch, exorbitant preauthorization charges for members signing up for the free trial, and an extended MobileMe e-mail outage affecting approximately 1% of customers that was not resolved until July 29th.

Update: Ars Technica has now published the full text of the e-mail.

Apple has posted the 2.0.1 iPhone firmware update tonight.

- Backup process for the iPhone is much faster.
- Netshare still works
- SMS typing faster

The latest collection of photos reportedly depict the upcoming MacBook revision which is expected in late September. The photos depict the top half of the MacBook's casing without any electronic components. The glow-in-the-dark Apple logo remains in place in these images. The case is made of aluminum and resembles the MacBook Air casing.

English translation provided by Ken:

From the picture below we can see that the MacBook has also entered the world of aluminum cases.

Along with its two big brothers it has changed to an aluminum case. Everyone can also pay attention to the corners. Right now Apple loves to do stuff like this. Everyone wants to know if the Apple logo on the cover lights up. The picture below should make this clear, without needing me to say much.

Of note, the case is almost identical to the MacBook Air casing.

Computerworld reports on comments made by Psystar's attorneys who suggest that anti-trust issues may arise in their defense of the Mac-clone company. Apple sued Psystar in July after Psystar had begun selling a Mac-compatible computer almost two months prior. Apple's lawsuit not only asked for the cessation of sales but also for a recall of all computers sold. Such a move would, of course, bankrupt the small clone company.

Some other intellectual property lawyers agree that Psystar "would be smart to play the antitrust card".

"What Psystar might say is, 'What we would like to do is use the Mac operating system's unique features more broadly on a variety of hardware,'" said Handler then. "I think it's a very, very hard argument to make, but I wouldn't be surprised if they tried.

Carr & Ferrell LLP, the law firm that is representing Psystar, has gone up against Apple before in another intellectual property case involving Burst.com. Colby Springer, one of Psystar's lawyers, promises "This will be an interesting case."

TechCrunch claims that Apple has ramped up iPhone 3G production to a massive 800,000 units per week. They cite a source "with direct knowledge of the numbers".

If true, this would bring Apple's iPhone 3G production and sales well above previous estimates and expectations. An early report claimed that Apple would produce 24-25 million iPhones throughout the life of the product. At a rate of 800,000 iPhones per week, Apple would produce over 40 million devices over the next year. This would also put them well ahead of their goal of selling 10 million iPhones in calendar years 2008.

Apple did sell 1 million of the iPhone 3Gs on its opening weekend, but has not yet offered additional sales numbers. Stock for the iPhone has remained tight weeks after its launch and Apple is expecting to launch the iPhone 3G in 20 additional countries on August 22nd (including Singapore).

Intel has started releasing some details about their upcoming GPU project code named Larrabee. New graphics cards based on this technology will compete with NVidia and ATI video cards that currently dominate the market. Larrabee appears to be a hybrid design between existing CPUs and GPUs, according to Extremetech:

Each of these Larrabee cores is quite distinct from the execution "cores" in many current graphics processors. It's not the x86 instruction set that makes it special (though that is certainly unique as well). Rather, it is the support for full context switching and preemptive multitasking, virtual memory and page swapping, and full cache coherency. These are features developers have come to expect in modern x86 CPUs, but don't yet exist in modern GPUs.

The advantage of such a design is said to be improved scalability as additional processor cores are added. Intel claims an almost linear improvement in gaming performance as the number of processor scores increase:

And I've heard from a source that I trust that Apple will use Larrabee; this makes sense, because Larrabee, as a many-core x86 multiprocessor, can be exploited directly by GrandCentral's cooperative multitasking capabilities.

Intel is quick to point out that describing Larrabee as just a GPU is misleading, in that they expect Larrabee multi-core processors could be used in a number of applications outside of gaming.

Larrabee is expected to be released in 2009-2010 and will be initially targeted at "the personal computer market". Apple should be well equiped to leverage this technology with the introduction of Snow Leopard sometime in 2009. Snow Leopard will incorporate tools such as Grand Central and Open CL to harness both multi-core and GPU processors.

DailyMail.co.uk revived rumors of an "iPhone nano" this weekend with a report that claimed that a "nano" version of the iPhone would be shipping in time for Christmas.

The product will be launched in the UK at up to 150 for pay-as-you-go customers by O2, the mobile phone group owned by Spain's Telefonica. 'This will be a big one,' said an industry source.

This rumor has circulated before in almost identical form about one year ago.

At that time a JP Morgan analyst claimed that Apple would be planning on launching a cheaper version of the iPhone in the 4th quarter of 2007. This was based on liberal interpretation of some of Apple's patent applications which resulted in JP Morgan retracting the report and whispers that the analyst responsible for that report had been fired.

Local readers familiar with The Daily Mail have relayed that the paper is known for its "sensationalist reporting" and have expressed doubts about the article's credibility. With this in mind, however, we should also note that more reliable sources have indicated that Apple has been working on a smaller iPhone, but there is no expected time-frame for that product's release.

USA Today has published an article highlighting AT&T chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson's contributions to the Apple-AT&T relationship. Of particular note, the article cites unnamed sources who claim that in exchange for offering Apple subsidies of up to $300 per iPhone, AT&T has been awarded an extra year of iPhone exclusivity in the United States, extending into 2010.

In exchange for its payout, AT&T got a year extension, into 2010, on its exclusive distribution deal with Apple, people familiar with the matter say. Sources asked to not be named because the terms are confidential.

Under the original iPhone contract, Apple had the right to offer the device to other carriers beginning in 2009. If Apple exercised that clause, AT&T would have lost one of its biggest points of leverage with customers exclusive access to the iPhone. Nailing the extension "is a very big deal," Entner says.

Stephenson declined to discuss the contract, saying only that he is "very happy" with the arrangement.

USA Today had previously claimed that AT&T's original exclusivity agreement with Apple was to run for five years (into 2012), although other sources had reported that the agreement would extend only until 2009.

After an unusual sequence of events, Nullriver, Inc.'s NetShare app has reappeared on the iTunes App Store.

The $9.99 application promises to allow you to share your iPhone's network connection with your computer.

Share your iPhone's EDGE or 3G Internet connection with your computer using NetShare. NetShare provides a SOCKS5 proxy for your computer to connect to.

The application appeared briefly last night but was pulled for unknown reasons. Note that the tethering application does not appear to work with all traffic (such as mail, AIM requires configuration), but does work for Safari web browsing. The App is available in iTunes: App Store link.

Screenshots of the instructions were posted in our original story and a forum user has written up a detailed tutorial.

Notes: To get Firefox or Camino working, you can follow these instructions. It is reportedly possible to route all network traffic through the iPhone, but may require another application.

Notes 2: Windows XP instructions.

Update: NetShare has again been removed from the App Store without explanation from Apple.