Everything is new this issue, or at least that’s the way it feels. In Apple news, CEO Steve Jobs introduced revamped iPods, including the new iPod touch, and dropped the price of the iPhone by $200 (and then offered $100 in store credit to the nearly 1 million customers who bought the iPhone at full price prior to last week’s announcement). But we’re most excited about the new redesign of TidBITS.com; Adam walks through the improved Web site and some of our reasons for doing it. Also in this issue, Apple and NBC get into a spat that results in Apple removing NBC television shows from iTunes; Apple checks into .Mac slowdowns in Europe; Ambrosia Software releases iToner for adding ringtones to the iPhone; Palm kills its Foleo “smartphone companion” just as it was about to be released; and we note the releases of iPhoto 7.0.2, MarsEdit 2.0, the TidBITS AutoCorrect Dictionary for TextExpander and TypeIt4Me, and a pair of ebooks about the iPhone from Take Control.
Someone got the golden ticket, and it's probably Steve Jobs. Apple has sold its millionth iPhone, the company announced, reaching that mark in just 74 days
Responding to complaints surrounding the $200 price drop on the iPhone, Steve Jobs posted an open letter stating that customers who bought an iPhone before the pricing changed will receive a $100 rebate good for store credit at the online Apple Store or physical Apple Store locations.
A bug-fix release to the version of iPhoto included with iLife '08 addresses issues related to .Mac Web galleries, rebuilding thumbnails, editing books, and more.
The iTunes Store will stop selling televsion shows from NBC Universal in response to a demand for increased pricing. Could this defection foreshadow other problems, or could there be a reason for Vivendi-related companies attacking Apple?
A TidBITS reader emailed us this week wondering if we'd experienced or heard of an issue where subscribers to .Mac in Europe are seeing unusually slow download speeds (capped at roughly 768Kbps). Apple responded to our query.
Ambrosia Software has released iToner 1.0, a simple utility that lets you add MP3 or AAC audio files to an iPhone for use as custom ringtones. What's notable about iToner is that it doesn't require any iPhone hacking software to work.
Red Sweater Software has released MarsEdit 2.0, adding a variety of useful features to the popular weblog publishing program while retaining a simple, elegant interface.
If you weren't among our lucky winners of Nisus Writer Pro last week, read on to learn how you can save $10 off the purchase of the program.
If you find yourself needing to rename lots of files, enter this week's DealBITS Drawing for a copy of Sonora Graphics' Name Munger, which provides a nice graphical interface to the task.
If you use Fetch in an academic setting, writing a short essay could win you a brand new MacBook and $750 or a new 8GB iPod nano and $100.
In a post to The Official Palm Blog, CEO Ed Colligan announced that Palm is killing the Foleo, the smartphone accessory that looked and acted like a laptop, but which wasn't a laptop, Palm employees insisted. The Foleo was due to ship this month. (The Kerbango was an Internet radio device that was killed at the last minute by former Palm parent company 3Com.)
Thanks to SmileOnMyMac, the TidBITS AutoCorrect Dictionary is now available for their TextExpander utility... and by extension for Riccardo Ettore's TypeIt4Me.
As you may have noticed, our Web site has changed completely. Follow along with Adam as he explains what we were trying to achieve with this redesign, what features we added to the site in the process, and how we accomplished it all.
Instead of resting on its laurels, Apple continues to break new ground in the iPod world, releasing the iPhone-like iPod touch, putting a 160 GB drive in the new iPod classic, enabling the new iPod nano to play video, and giving the iPod shuffle new colors. Other announcements included the capability to purchase custom ringtones for the iPhone from the iTunes Store, the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store for the iPhone and iPod touch, and a price drop - $200! - for the iPhone.
It may seem as though we've been lying low with Take Control for quite some time, but in fact, we've been hard at work to bring you not just one, but two ebooks about the iPhone (OK, the good folks at Macworld actually wrote one of them). Save 20% when you buy both!