The New York Times is reporting that Universal Music Group (owned by the French media giant Vivendi), the largest of the record companies, has refused to renew its two-year contract to sell downloadable music through Apple's iTunes Store

As the iPhone nears release, Apple has unveiled another previously unannounced feature: a YouTube application that will download and play back YouTube videos directly on the iPhone

For almost a year, we've covered the ongoing rivalry between Parallels Desktop and VMware Fusion, the two leading ways to run Windows on an Intel-based Mac without rebooting

Apple revamped its MacBook Pro line of portables last week with faster processors, better graphics capabilities, 802.11n wireless networking (removing the need to run an enabler), and screens that are backlit using LED technology

Congratulations to my fellow TidBITS staffers - Adam Engst, Tonya Engst, Glenn Fleishman, Joe Kissell, and Matt Neuburg - who were included on the now-annual MacTech 25 list of most influential people in the Macintosh technical community (see "Adam & Tonya Engst Honored in MacTech 25," 2006-07-17)

Sometimes it's good to be wrong. Or, perhaps more apt in this case, wrong for the time being. Last week Adobe surprised me with the release of GoLive 9, an update to the company's previous flagship Web design application before it acquired Dreamweaver

Call me a rainmaker. Just a few days after I sent my latest book ("The Apple TV Pocket Guide") to be printed, Apple announced upgrades to the Apple TV

Apple has released iTunes 7.2, which is notable for only one thing - the fact that it now lets you preview and purchase "iTunes Plus" music that is both higher in quality and free of Apple's FairPlay digital rights management

Through a trio of commercials, Apple has revealed that Friday, June 29th will be the release date of the iPhone. The ads demonstrated some of the iPhone's unique combination of capabilities, including watching video, a "glass" (key-free) keyboard, rich email, and integration with Google Maps and local results (see "iPhone Seeks to Redefine the Mobile Phone," 2007-01-15)

Almost exactly a year after its initial release (see "MacBook Fills Out Laptop Line," 2006-05-22) and six months after the last processor jump ("MacBook Gains Core 2 Duo Processor," 2006-11-13), Apple has updated the MacBook line of laptops with faster Intel Core 2 Duo processors that add roughly .16 GHz to each model, a standard 1 GB of RAM across the line, and larger hard disks

In an article in Fortune, several high-level Microsoft executives talked about the company's plans to take on the open source world - notably Linux - on patent infringement grounds

In what may be the first (and last?) press release datelined simultaneously "Glasgow, Scotland" and "Tel Aviv, Israel," TLA Systems and Sig Software have announced that, henceforward, the upgrade path of the latter's Drop Drawers is now the former's DragThing 5.8

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has certified the iPhone for use. When Steve Jobs announced the new smartphone at Macworld Expo in January 2007, he said it would take some time to pass the necessary FCC tests (see "iPhone Seeks to Redefine the Mobile Phone," 2007-01-15)

I knew this day would come, but I honestly didn't think it would take this long. Earlier this week, Adobe's John Nack, senior product manager of Adobe Photoshop, confirmed on his blog that my favorite drawing application, Macromedia FreeHand, is no longer being updated

My first computer, purchased in 1979, had 8K of RAM and 8K of ROM, BASIC baked in, and no persistent storage. My first hard drive was 60 MB and cost $600 in 1989