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Good idea/Bad idea: Apple opening up OS X betas to the public?
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Wednesday Highlights: Apple announces record sales for March quarter with revenue of $45.6 billion and $10.2 billion profit, also announced is a board-approved 7-for-1 stock split alongside a dividend increase; Forbes' Mark Rogowsky sums up what all the analysts are predicting: "Flat revenues, minimal earnings growth due only to share buybacks, a tiny uptick in iPhone sales offset by a downtick in iPad sales."; Chris Ciaccia hopes future plans get spelled out by Cook and team as Apple is being "squeezed for new breakthrough product as iPhone and iPad sales go flat"; more in our Apple/Macintosh, and Finances sections; meanwhile the Samsung vs. Apple saga continues into day 10 with the South Korean company gunning for Apple's FaceTime having purchased a patent covering its technology; and Google is apparently shouldering some of the money for Samsung in their fight against Apple; EE Times sees "tech talent war" starting once the no-poaching case between Apple, Google is resolved; Apple allowing public to sign up for beta testing OS X; smart move says Jonny Evans; Mac OS X Hints has a how-to for creating a Fusion Drive with a recovery partition; Fortune takes us on a tour of Apple's Amsterdam store; new TV ad hits the airwaves in which Apple calls up the Pixies; hack allows you to use AirPlay with Google Play Music; GottaBeMobile reviews the MacBook Pro Retina after 6 months of use; Matt Haughey recounts Steve Jobs' connection to rural Oregon; ZDNet review of Samsung's Galaxy S5, "solid...but could have been better"; and you remember Linux, right? Well Ars Technica reviews the latest Ubuntu, concluding it misses boat on big changes.
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"Secrets to Apple success: Displays/While it's common knowledge that Apple is a product trendsetter via the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and MacBook Air, its status as a standard setter is not as widely known." CNET News 8:15 AM
"Apple Keeps Its Moat, and Its Future, Firmly Intact" The Motley Fool 8:15 AM
"Living room plan is Apple's to the core" Telegraph 3:09 PM
"Why Apple says it can't build an iPhone in the US: It's not just about cheap labor — flexibility in staffing, supply chains and reconfiguring factories matter" New York Times 1:03 PM
"A tale of Apple, the iPhone, and overseas manufacturing" CNET News 8:17 AM
"Steve Jobs Was Told Anti-Poaching Idea 'Likely Illegal'" Reuters 1:01 PM
"Can Apple still deliver an earnings surprise? The 18% gap between the Street's estimates and independents' suggests that it can" Fortune 2:44 PM
"Preview - Apple 2012: Smooth sailing, for the most part" Reuters 12:28 PM
"Apple's iBooks Author EULA is more and less evil than you think" BetaNews 1:20 PM
"Examining iBooks Author from the Publisher Perspective" TidBITS 2:58 PM
"iBooks Author Requires Selling Original Books Through iBookstore, Says Apple's Controversial Contract" The Huffington Post 8:23 AM
"Apple Will Own Your Work With iBooks Author" App Advice 8:25 AM
"The App Store Guide – Take Two" ["What's the use of offering more than 500,000 wares if customers can't find their way through the gigantic bazaar? I know, I already harped on about the lack of curation in Apple's App Store, but that was 16 months ago...when the Store contained a 'mere' 250,000 apps."] Monday Note 12:29 PM
"It's not about the numbers, it's about quality: I'll take app curation over raw numbers any day" Macworld 8:33 AM
"Apple targets Nexus in new court claim" The Australian 3:08 PM
"Apple looks to TV as profits set to hit $9.5bn: Apple is expected to deliver record profits this week as Wall Street analysts increasingly turn their focus to a television product as the company's next engine of growth." Telegraph 1/21
"Exclusive: Jobs family absent from Disney board despite stake" Reuters 1/21
"Jobs' seat on Disney board not to be filled by widow or Trust" CNET News 1/21
"Apple schools us on the next wave of textbooks" CNET News 1/21
"How schools are reacting to Apple's entry into education" VentureBeat 1/21
"Apple's new vision of education: Can it do for learning what it did for music and mobile devices?" Computerworld 1/21
"Is There a Worm in Apple's E-Textbook Plans?" WSJ Blogs 1/21
"Apple Just Incentivized Every College Kid To Get An iPad. As For High Schoolers..." TechCrunch 1/21
"On the Proprietary Nature of the iBooks Author File Format" Daring Fireball 1/21
"Is This Apple's Next Nightmare?" ["In the wake of Intel's latest earnings, the guys analyze the company's Ultrabook and its effect on the tablet competitive landscape. Will the Ultrabook replace Amazon.com's Kindle Fire tablet as the primary competitor to Apple's iPad? And what will it mean for other tech giants?"] [Video Report] DailyFinance 1/21
"Opinion: Apple puts users first in the enterprise" Computerworld 1/21
"iPod unit sales estimates for Q1 range from 9 to 18 million" Fortune 1/21
"Apple Tries To Stop Sales Of Nexus Smartphone Court Battle Looms: Is a new round of Apple Vs Samsung set to kick off in the Australian Federal Court after Apple claimed that the new Nexus smartphones which comes with Android 4.0 device is guilty of copying the iOS slide to unlock functionality patented by Apple?" Smart House Magazine 1/21
"New Allegations in E-books Price-fixing Lawsuit: Attorneys representing e-book purchasers in a case that claims five major publishers conspired with Apple to fix the price of e-books today filed an updated complaint including new information and allegations." ["In the class-action lawsuit, consumers claim that the publishers feared Amazon's $9.99 pricing model to such a degree that they conspired with Apple to force Amazon to adopt a new agency model in which publishers set prices directly, effectively ending Amazon's ability to provide consumer-friendly pricing for e-books."] Hagens Berman 1/21
"Expanded lawsuit: publishers picked Apple to punish Amazon" Electronista 1/21
"How to adjust OS X's Software Update" Macworld 1/20
"Monitor Disk Activity in Mac OS X" OS X Daily 1/20
"Mac Tip: Show All Hidden Files In The Finder" MacTrast 1/20
"True fullscreen in Microsoft Word 2011" Mac OS X Hints 1/20
"Install recent versions of Adobe Creative Suite on case-sensitive volumes" Mac OS X Hints 1/20
Op/Ed
"The Sad Saga of Gold Strike For the Mac App Store" Developer Dispatch 12:30 PM
"Apple discussions continues on this week's electronic publishing announcements, including iBooks Author capabilities and compatibility, licensing/distribution issues, Knowledge Base updates, file formats, and more, while other notes talk about file systems vs. databases and a Windows iTunes update." MacInTouch 1/21
"Lion commentary also revolves around file systems, databases and documents - fundamental issues in computer systems design." MacInTouch 1/21
"iBooks Author Kerfuffle: I don't understand the kerfuffle over the iBooks Author EULA. Apple is not claiming rights to your text or illustrations." NSLog(); 1/21
"iBook Author's Interesting Terms and Conditions" Forbes 1/21
"Lion discussion continues on files vs. documents vs. databases vs. bundles; printer compatibility issues; and iOS-like systems vs. professional needs." ["Some observations and suggestions regarding the dumbing down (or iOS-ification) of Mac Lion: I've read most of the comments posted over the past few months on MacInTouch. What bothers me to the most are [those] Mac users who simply can't imagine what working on a computer is like for the pro-users -- especially those with thousands of files."] MacInTouch 1/20
"Computing with Bifocals: When Force Quit Doesn't Work & Other Tales of Horror" The Mac Observer 1/20
"iBooks Author: You Work For Apple Now" PC Magazine 1/20
"EPub On Mac; A Weird Issue For Apple?" AppleBitch 1/20
"Four open questions about iBooks Author" Macworld 1/20
"Enthusiasm for iBooks Author marred by licensing, format issues" Ars Technica 1/20
"iBooks Author Rules: Audacious, No Big Deal Or Sign Of Wars To Come?" paidContent 1/20
"Developer Week in Review: Early thoughts on iBooks Author" O'Reilly Radar 1/20
"Use iBooks Author, only Apple can ever publish your work: Cupertino grants itself exclusive rights via EULA" The Register 1/20
"How U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work" New York Times [Free/Paid Registration Required] 1/21
"How Santorum gets Apple to move from China to Charleston" Fortune 1/21
"Week in Apple: Apple's textbook push, why Video pros are disgruntled, and more" Ars Technica 1/21
"Steve Jobs Action Figure Designer Apologizes to Fans of Apple Founder: Pressure from the Apple founder's family: and Apple attorneys: led to the toy being pulled off the market." The Hollywood Reporter 1/21
"Study: Algebra iPad app garners higher math scores over traditional textbooks" DigitalTrends 1/21
"Steve Jobs' Figurine that Never Was and His Technology Wits" Technorati 1/21
"Windows Phone Predicted to Displace iPhone" Computerworld 1/21
"Student Creates Pilot Korean Version of iPhone's Siri" Chosunilbo: S. Korea 1/21
"These (Smartphone) Doctors Make House Calls" LAPTOP Magazine 1/21
"Activity Spotted For Two Future France Stores" ifoAppleStore 1/21
"Paper iPads and iPhones help honor the deceased during Chinese New Year" The Next Web 1/21
"Georges Clooney is Mac guy. What else?" Mac Amour 1/21
Non-Apple News
"Disney Keeps 10-Person Board After Jobs's Death, Departures" Bloomberg 1/20
"Street stays bullish on Google despite miss: Shares fall on results, but analysts say core business is strong" MarketWatch 1/20
"Google Maps gets UK train travel info" ZDNet UK 1/20
"New Google accounts automatically register users for Gmail, Google+" ZDNet 1/20
"Google Abandons Anonymous Accounts With New Signup Form" Webmonkey 1/20
"Tech the star at NAMM musical instrument show" USA Today 1/20
"Nokia Launching Windows Phone 7 Handsets for China in First Half of 2012" IDG News Service 1/20
"Tinseltown offensive: Studios strike back with $3M SOPA ad blitz" New York Post 1/20
"OpenSSL fixes DoS flaw introduced by critical DTLS patch" IDG News Service 1/20
"LG Spectrum Android Smartphone Coming to Verizon" eWeek 1/20
"ARM not worried about Intel foray into handheld device platforms, says ARM executive" DigiTimes 1/20
"Acer, Asustek, Lenovo to offer Thunderbolt ultrabook PCs in 2Q12" DigiTimes 1/20
"Facebook turns Like into Want, Cook, Read, and many others: Making good on its promise of 'frictionless sharing,' Facebook introduced 60 Timeline apps on Wednesday evening. The apps create real-time Facebook status updates on what you're listening to, reading, cooking ... the list goes on." Christian Science Monitor 1/20
"Gene Steinberg meets author Kirk McElhearn, commentator Daniel Eran Dilger, and tech writer Rob Pegoraro this week on The Tech Night Owl LIVE" The Tech Night Owl LIVE 1/20
"Publisher Terry McGraw on Steve Jobs and Digital Textbooks: 'This Was His Vision'" [Interview] AllThingsD 1/20
"These fantasy sports iPhone apps are worthy of their own store" Appolicious 1/21
"Hands-on: iBooks 2 introduces interface changes, pop quizzes" Ars Technica 1/20
"Smarten up for free with Apple's iTunes U app" ITworld 1/20
"The Most Awesomest, Coolest, Usable Note Taking App Isn't On The Mac" Mac 360 1/20
"Blowing Up the Book: A new crop of digital books comes loaded with Videos, songs, animated shorts and pop-up graphics. Is this the future of publishing?" WSJ.com [Paid Membership Required] 1/20
"Codosaurus Review: On-the-go Web page editor is useful, but limited" Macworld 1/20
"Alice for the iPad: A Charming Must Have" The Mac Observer 1/20
"Jazz: Trump's Journey Review/Egg Ball and BulkyPix have made what might very well be the first-ever Video game (loosely) based on Luis Armstrong's life. And it's GOOD." 148Apps 1/20
"'Time of Heroes' Review – Time to Sharpen Your Tactical Skills" Touch Arcade 1/20
"Order Up!! To Go Review: Order Up! To Go is a solid time-management game for those looking to become the next 'Top Chef.' Despite the freemium version's ad-stricken gameplay, there's a lot of addictive potential to be unlocked." 148Apps 1/20
"Stop Those Fish Review: Three redneck bears, three boats, and a load of dynamite to fight off the attacks of overly aggressive aquatic life." 148Apps 1/20
"Feed 'Em Up Review: Cute and loveable looking but beneath this predictable surface is a challenging puzzle game." 148Apps 1/20
"Updraft Jack Review: Jump, run, glide and dodge through lush forest environments and keep Jack the sugar glider alive for as long as possible." 148Apps 1/20
How-To/Tutorial
"iOS 5 Untethered Jailbreak: How to Use Absinthe to Jailbreak iPhone 4S and iPad 2" International Business Times 1/21
"How To Fix 'Error Establishing Database Connection' While Jailbreaking With Absinthe" Cult of Mac 1/20
"How to Manage Data Backups with iOS 5 and iCloud" The Mac Observer 1/20
"Steve Jobs rumored to have shot down Push Pop Press for iBooks Author" AppleInsider 1/20
"Apple: School should center on the iPad" CNN 1/20
"Apple's iBooks Author Software: Just Say No/Buried in the iBooks Author software license agreement is a contractual requirement that gives Apple considerable power over content that you create using the software." InformationWeek 1/20
"Apple textbook domination? Not so fast.: A look at the math behind yesterday's iBooks announcement." Fortune 1/20
"Will Apple's Textbook Initiative Help Grow the Market?" PadGadget 1/20
"Studying up on Apple's new education apps" Appolicious 1/20
"Looking Forward to the Next Round of Innovation" Tech.pinions 1/20
"Apple Embroiled in iBook Publishing Controversy" Minyanville 1/20
"Opinion: The Apple Education Announcement Falls Short" Wired 1/20
"Apple's iBooks Textbooks initiative is a welcome and natural progression" ZDNet 1/20
"The Macalope Daily: Farewell to the Half-Blood Prince/Apple didn't so much 'digitally destroy' the textbook publishing industry on Thursday as it offered it a ride to the future in its aluminum time machine." Macworld 1/20
"Apple's iBooks 2 was Steve Jobs' 'vision,' textbook publisher says" CNET News 1/20
"Hey Apple: Here's A Company That's Already Disrupting Education" Business Insider 1/20
"Teacher: We're Not Going To Buy A Bunch Of iPads At My School" Business Insider 1/20
"Apple's iBooks Textbooks: 4 Reasons to Be Skeptical" Techland 1/20
"Will Textbooks for iPad Change Education?" iDownload Blog 1/20
"Two thoughts on the Apple's Education Event in NYC: Its presentation software, Keynote is alive and well and expected to prosper, and Android-based tablets are dead in the water in the K-12 education domain." Les Posen's Presentation Magic 1/20
"The 6 Facebook Timeline Apps to Check Out First" Wired 1/20
"Why IT managers should look east in 2012" V3 1/20
"Poll: Linux's big data guzzling worries melt away/Concerns about using Linux on servers to crunch huge data workloads are evaporating, according a survey." Channel Register 1/20
"Asus Transformer Prime Ice Cream Sandwich Update" HotHardware 1/20
"The best new Android tablets: Do they stand a chance?" MSNBC 1/20
"AT&T rate hike unnecessary given typical data use?" MSNBC 1/20
"A Microsoft Turnaround in the Making: Ballmer gets Religion" Forbes 1:01 PM
"2 Things That Should Scare You About Microsoft's Earnings Report" The Motley Fool 2:53 PM
"Another Analyst Firm Says That Windows Phone Will Beat The iPhone By 2015" Business Insider 8:34 AM
"Microsoft's Windows Phone predicted to overtake iOS by 2015" Recombu 8:45 AM
"Is Windows 8 on Intel coming sooner rather than later?" CNET News 8:47 PM
"Tech firms score with offline ads: Microsoft, Google have seen their market share moving up rapidly after promotions on television" Business Standard 8:55 AM
"Microsoft Brags About Windows 8 Mobile Broadband Improvements" Brunei News 8:45 AM
"Intel names Mooly Eden to lead Israel operations" Reuters 8:13 AM
"Intel appoints Mooly Eden as Israel manager: After nine years in the US, Mooly Eden is moving back to Israel to replace Intel Israel general manager Maxine Fassberg." Globes [online] 8:42 AM
"Intel posts record results, make management changes" ITP Technology 8:44 AM
"'Ultra' in name only: the failures of Intel's Ultrabook rules" Ars Technica 4:16 PM
"They Just Don't Get Intel!" [Video Report] TheStreet 8:25 AM
"Endgame: RIM's Ballisille, Lazaridis To Step Down From CEO Roles" paidContent 8:56 PM
"RIM's Co-CEOs stepping down, replaced by COO Thorsten Heins" The Next Web 8:46 PM
"FCC chairman Julius Genachowski calls for SOPA compromise" VentureBeat 12:28 PM
"Can cloud unravel the data-sharing puzzle?" ZDNet UK 8:24 AM
"Be Wary Of Google: A Price Ceiling Is Imminent" Seeking Alpha 8:55 AM
"Google Searches for Niche Role in Europe: New Head for Northern and Central Region Aims to Meet E-Commerce Needs of Businesses in Different Markets" WSJ.com [Paid Membership Required] 9:29 PM
"Microsoft, IBM gains offset Google loss: Tech stocks put in a largely upbeat trading session Friday, led by gains in shares of Microsoft Corp. and IBM Corp., and helping overcome losses from Google Inc." MarketWatch 1/20
"U.S. stocks gain for third week, near 6-month high: Microsoft, IBM lift Dow on Friday; Google drags on Nasdaq" MarketWatch 1/20
"Stocks Finish Mixed as GE, Google Earnings Rattle Confidence" TheStreet 1/20
"Stocks gain 2% for the week, despite slow Friday" CNNMoney 1/20
"Most U.S. Stocks Rise on Technology Shares" Bloomberg 1/20
"Stocks open mixed, driven by earnings, debt talks" Associated Press 1/20
"Wall St slips on GE, Google results" Reuters 1/20
"Blue Chips Push Higher: Blue-chip U.S. stocks rose on pace for a fourth-straight session gain after strong earnings reports from International Business Machines and Microsoft, but discouraging reports from other bellwethers kept a lid on gains." WSJ.com [Paid Membership Required] 1/20
"Stocks: Cautious trading day ahead" CNNMoney 1/20
"Canadian stocks slip on unimpressive U.S. earnings" MarketWatch 1/20
"Hang Seng Ends Above 20000 for First Time in 10 Weeks: Asian stocks climbed Friday, with financial stocks and exporters again leading the charge, on eased worries about the euro-zone debt crisis and Thursday's higher finish on Wall Street." WSJ.com [Paid Membership Required] 1/20
"Asian Stocks Advance on U.S. Jobless Claims, Europe Debt Sales" Bloomberg 1/20
"Asia Markets: Asian stocks get lift from banks, exporters" MarketWatch 1/20
MacSurfer Headline News Staff
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P. White, R. Adams, P. Valery, C. Aiken, R. Bradbury, F. Pessoa, S. Bellow, F. O'Connor
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