MacRumors

Engadget posted photos of the Motorola SLVR L7 -- an upcoming cellphone which also incorporates iTunes support.

Nothing too unexpected it has just about the same user interface as the ROKR E1 (though the menus are slightly less sluggish) and it has Bluetooth, a VGA digital camera, and a TransFlash memory card slot for storing up to 100 iTunes tracks, but there is one real surprise: the phone doesnt have a headphone jack. Seems a bit odd for a phone with iTunes, but were hearing that Motorola will offer Bluetooth stereo headphones.

The phone follows the widely criticized ROKR Motorola phone which first introduced iTunes on a cellular phone.

Meanwhile, Sprint has joined the fray with their own music phone service which offers over-the-air song purchasing.

Now available via Software Update:

This update fixes reliability and resolves AirPort compatibility issues with certain third party 802.11 cards and access points for Mac OS X v10.4.3 and later.

Apple also recently released the Mac OS X 10.4.3 update.

The previous Airport update was in July 14, 2005.

Update: One user reports that Motion 2.0.1 has also recently been updated.

One analyst believes that Apple have sold as many as 37 million iPods by the end 2005. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster wrote:

'We expect the iPod to continue to be a foundation for growth in other parts of Apple's business, and we expect that by the end of calendar 2005 more than 37 million iPods will have shipped, providing Apple with a greater scope of awareness for various products'

Apple's iPod sales, however, hasn't yet translated into booming music download sales according to this Bloomberg report. According to that article, digital download sales have plateaued and are still a small percentage of total music sales. As a result, music industry leaders are still pushing for a multitier pricing to boost income.

The Independent reports on on-demand video content such as that provided by the iTunes Music Store. In less than 20 days, Apple announced they had sold more than 1 million videos. The question of a more extensive lineup remains.

The Independent reports that the BBC is planning to offer "most of its programming" available for customers:

In Britain the BBC is planning a similar service by making most of its programming available on platforms like the video ipod for seven days after it has been broadcast. The difference is the BBC programmes will be available for free. Their logic is that the public have already paid for the programmes through the licence fee and it would be unfair to make them pay again.

No details the specific form of distribution they've chosen.

Now available via Software Update:

The 10.4.3 Update delivers overall improved reliability and compatibility for Mac OS X v10.4 and is recommended for all users.

It includes fixes for:

- AFP, SMB/CIFS, NFS and FTP network file services
- AirPort and Bluetooth wireless access
- Core Graphics, Core Audio, Core Image, and RAW camera support
- disc recording when creating and burning media
- .Mac sync services
- Spotlight indexing and searching
- Dashboard widgets: Dictionary, Flight Tracker, Stickies, and Unit Converter
- Address Book, AppleScript, Automator, Dictionary, Font Book, iCal, iSync, Mail, and Safari applications
- Disk Utility, Keychain Access, Migration Assistant, and Software Update
- compatibility with third party applications and devices
- previous standalone security updates

For detailed information on this Update, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n301984

For detailed information on Security Updates, please visit this website: http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n61798

The Korea Times reports that Samsung is currently in talks with their partners to "debute a service program like iTunes of Apple. Our No. 1 priority is to help customers use our products with ease".

Ironically, Samsung is the company which is supplying Apple with the NAND Flash memory for the iPod nano.

Meanwhile, Sprint Nextel has launched the first US music download service aimed at mobile phone users.

The Sprint Music Store enables Sprint customers to download songs for $2.50/each. Sprint has lined up 250,000 songs from all four major music labels. For $2.50, customers get both a lower-quality phone version as well as the high-quality (WMA) version for their PC.

The pricing of the Sprint service, almost two-a-half-times the 99 cents that iTunes charges for a download, reflects the belief among mobile carriers that consumers will pay a premium to buy music while they are on the move, an assumption some analysts dispute.

Comparisons, of course, are made with the Motorola ROKR iTunes capable phone. As previously reported, Apple does not offer over-the-air iTunes purchasing. Instead, requiring you to copy songs over from your PC or Mac.

Apple announced today that the iTunes video sales have exceeded 1 million videos since October 12th.

"Selling 1 million videos in less than 20 days strongly suggests there is a market for legal video downloads," Steve Jobs, chief executive officer, said in a statement. "Our next challenge is to broaden our content offerings, so that customers can enjoy watching more videos on their computers and new iPods."

Apple presently offers over 2000 music videos, 5 Disney/ABC television shows, and 6 Pixar shorts. It's unclear what the breakdown of video sales are.

According to Reuters, Apple is actively requiting more content: "Sources have said Apple is in discussions to lure more U.S. television networks to provide programming"

The Independent has an article about Steve Jobs with an interesting perspective.

Of note, however, is a tidbit about Apple's current deal with Disney to provide Television content for the iTunes Music Store. According to the Independent, Steve Jobs is leveraging Pixar-Disney negotiations in order to obtain the TV content for iTunes:

Disney gave in to Pixar, and is presently trying to woo it back to a new distribution deal - a deal that Jobs is making Disney give up all sorts of favours for, like providing content in the form of TV shows for his Apple iTunes store.

When Apple launched iTunes 6 with video content, only one Disney/ABC had licensed content to Apple. Apple claimed later that ABC was the only network that was initially offered the option.

The new MacRumors Guide pages are a companion to the MacRumors website and forums. The Guide pages are based on the MediaWiki software which drives the popular Wikipedia encyclopedia. The software is designed to provide a collaborative environment for users to continuously edit entries to provide both accurate and up to date information about the many topics.

The purpose of these Guide pages is not to provide another comprehensive encyclopedia website, or even a general Mac encyclopedia. Instead it is meant to provide an organized outlet for the vast amounts of knowledge that is provided in the forums.

The Guide pages can be found from the "Guides" tab in the navigation tabs near the top of the page, or directly through http://guides.macrumors.com.

Beyond tutorials and how to's, we also expect to host detailed product pages for the most recent Apple releases. These topic pages will be created as products are released (such as the PowerMac G5 Dual Core 2005) and will be kept up to date as new information rolls in about configurations, photos, benchmarks, problems and more.

For those unfamiliar with the Wiki software, we have some help pages to get you started.

Of note, we are restricting the ability to edit content to registered forum users. All users who were registered prior to October 29th, 2005 will have full editing rights, however, any new registrations beyond that time will need to achieve a 20 post minimum in the forums prior to being able to edit. The reason for this is to prevent spamming/abuse issues. See How to Register and Login for more details.

For questions and discussion about the Mac Guide pages, we have also opened up a new Mac Guides forum to discuss any issues.

Wired offers an detailed history behind the create of the ROKR iTunes phone and the dynamics between Apple, Motorola and the cellular phone companies.

When Jobs and Ed Zander, CEO of Motorola, announced 15 months ago that the two companies were going to partner on a new phone, people imagined a hybrid of two of the coolest products in existence: Apple's iPod and Moto's RAZR. For months the new gizmo glimmered mirage-like on gadget sites - ever promised, never delivered. When it finally did show up, it bore the unmistakable hump of a committee camel.

The article describes the creation of the ROKR being at odds between the interests of Motorola, Apple and the cellular phone companies... all struggling for the larger piece of the pie.

While this was happening in the U.S., Wired reports that a new wave of music phones and services have already been in place internationally, and these services will start making their way into the U.S. Also mentioned is Apple's refusal to broadly license their copy-protection format ("Fairplay") to all comers. Motorola is the only 3rd party company that has had access to Fairplay, thus allowing their product to play purchased iTunes music.

Appleinsider claims that Apple has issued a message to its channel partners to replace any 5th Generation (iPod with Video) that exhibits "any type of hardware failure"... including those that would be classified as abuse... for a limited time.

According to the rumor site, Apple is attempting to preemptively avert any quality complaints for the new device. Apple has been under significant public criticism with screen-scratch complaints on the recent iPod nano. A class action suit emerged last week surrounding the iPod nano screen-scratch issue.

Meanwhile, Appleinsider also reports that Apple's iPod shuffle appears to be selling well despite the recent introductions of both the iPod nano and 5th generation iPod (with video).

SMH.com.au reports that Sony-BMG and Apple may be coming to an agreement to supply Sony-BMG's music on the new Australian iTunes Music Store.

The iTunes Music Store for Australia was launched on Tuesday, October 25th. But notably absent was the music from Sony-BMG. According to previous reports, pricing disputes had led to the long delays in the launch of the Australian music store.

According to this new article, negotiations are coming to a close:

"There's a couple of points left to finalise, the negotiations are going really well and we hope that they will be all settled soon and we'll be on track too"

Pricing remains a contentious issue between Apple and the Music Industry. Previous reports have noted the ongoing difference of opinion. The music industry has been pushing for a tiered pricing system while Apple has insisted on a single price point for all songs. This will be an ongoing issue as Apple's current agreements with the US music labels ends in early 2006.

ZDNet and eWeek report on a presentation by Norman Rohrer, and IBM engineer at the Fall Processor Forum in San Jose.

Roher discussed the IBM PowerPC 970MP which is being used by Apple in the latest round of PowerMac revisions. IBM describes the new chip as a "low-power, high-performance" processor.

The 970MP houses two processor cores each with its own CPU, AltiVEC unit and 1MB of cache. The previous PowerPC 970 (G5) processor only had a single core. In addition, the new 970MP can shut down one of the two cores and further reduce power consumption by reducing its frequency. Peak consumption is described as 100W which can be reduced to 40W.

Even with such power savings modes, it seems unlikely that the 970MP will approach the anticipiated plans from Intel to produce lower power consumption chips. Intel's future Performance per Watt roadmaps were cited as reasons for Apple's switch to Intel which is planned to begin in 2006.

Apple is now offering the NVidia GT video card as a Build to order option on the PowerMac G5 configurations. The video card from NVidia utilizes the new PCI Express architecture introduced on the new PowerMacs.

The 7800 card is a $400 upgrade for Dual 2.0 G5 buyers and a $350 upgrade for Dual 2.3/Quad 2.5 buyers. Apple provides a comparison chart of the various cards offered on the new PowerMacs.

Need faster performance for motion graphics, animation, and 3D design and visualization? Upgrade to the NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, designed to accelerate the latest creative applications and blockbuster games.

Meanwhile, MacCentral has published some benchmarks for the new dual-core PowerMac G5s. Again, no real-life benchmarks for the Quad PowerMac G5s are yet available as they are not shipping at this time. These benchmarks confirm that the Dual Core machines were generally comparable to the clock-equivalent dual processor machines.

Several readers have noted that a hacked version of Apple's Front Row application is being distributed over the internet.

This Front Row.app has been cracked to skip the remote check and should idle in the background once loaded.

Apple released Front Row as an iMac only application on October 12th. The media application allows users to manage their Videos and Songs with the new iMac's included remote control.

Many have seen this as Apple's first step into the media-PC arena. At the moment, however, Apple has only shipped Front Row with new iMacs and does not officially offer the application to non iMac-users.

A video demonstrating Front Row on a Mac Mini is shown here.
Photo: Image of FrontRow on an iBook.