News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
Apple Corps Ltd -- the Beatles' company -- and MTV networks have put out a press release this afternoon announcing that they will shortly be making an announcement of an exclusive agreement to "develop unprecedented global music project". While details of the project are unknown (the actual announcement is at 1am AEST tomorrow) the word "exclusive" would seem to imply that whatever this project is, Apple Inc, and therefore iTunes, is not included.
Matthew JC. Powell | Oct 30, 2008
The wait is over for users of the Australian iTunes Store who've been looking longingly at the movie content available from the American counterpart of the Store. As of this morning, movies from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Sony Pictures Television International and Lionsgate are available for sale and rental.
Matthew JC. Powell | Aug 14, 2008
At the moment, Research In Motion's BlackBerry is very much the dominant player in the corporate smartphone market -- a position it has held for some time and in which it is well and truly entrenched. It's the game to beat if Apple wants to boast about enterprise adoption of the iPhone, and so far it's got little more than a few careful sniffs. One of those sniffers, however, happens to be one of the biggest companies on the planet.
Matthew JC. Powell | Aug 14, 2008
Sydney's second Apple Store, its first in a suburban shopping centre, opened this morning to subdued scenes compared to the opening of the George Street Store in June. Subdued, at least, in terms of the media frenzy. The Apple faithful queued up outside seemed no less enthusiastic as 9am approached. And the staff, as always, were buoyant. As with the George Street opening, the entire staff of the Store ran out to greet the queue just before opening, high-fiving and cheering enthusiastically. Then they formed an honour guard, with more clapping and cheering as customers entered, runnimng the gauntlet to collect one of 1000 free t-shirts available for the occasion.
Matthew JC. Powell | Aug 9, 2008
Apple has announced that its second NSW store will open on Saturday 9 August in Chatswood on Sydney's North Shore. The Store, in the Chatswood Chase shopping centre at 345 Victoria Avenue, promises to be somewhat smaller than the large George Street store in Sydney's CBD but will also offer the same One to One training, Genius Bar and other services as the flagship store. Apple has so far indicated that it will also be opening a shopfront location in the Chadstone shopping centre near Melbourne, but has not yet disclosed any CBD location in that city.
Matthew JC. Powell | Aug 4, 2008
The media got a special sneak peek at the Sydney Apple Store this morning, ahead of its opening tomorrow afternoon at 5pm. The 215th Apple Store worldwide, it's the first in Australia with at least two more planned. And, according to visiting Apple executive Ron Johnson, it's the second-largest Apple Store in the world (after London's Regent Street store). So, now that the wraps are off, what can you expect when you stroll through the doors and under the floating logo? Read on.
Matthew JC. Powell | Jun 18, 2008
Apple has announced the opening of its first retail store in Australia which will be at 5:00pm on the 19th of June. Anyone with even the veguest of interest in the subject had already gleaned that information from other sources of course, but now Apple has said it officially. It has also identified that spirally iPod pattern on the banner outside the store as a wave. The invitation says the store is "breaking" on the 19th of June, while invitations to the media preview on the 18th invites us to "catch the first wave". So there you go.
Matthew JC. Powell | Jun 12, 2008
It's one of those ideas you look at and slap your head thinking "I should have thought of that". An enterprising designer in Spain has created durable sleeves for the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air that resemble the manila office envelope that Steve Jobs famously pulled the MacBook Air from at the Macworld Expo in January.
Matthew JC. Powell | May 29, 2008
Apple has lifted the lid on what would have to go down as its worst-kept secret of recent times: the Sydney Apple Store will be located at the corner of King and George Streets, in the former Westpac office tower. While everyone with an even vague interest in the activities of the Mac-maker has known this for months thanks to leaks and searches of City of Sydney planning approvals, the company has remained fairly quiet — at least on the record. There have also been job advertisements on Apple's recruitment web site, but these have not specified the address.
Matthew JC. Powell | May 26, 2008
Adobe has just announced a new way for customers to use its Creative Suite 3 Design Premium applications — by subscription. If you occasionally need to use Photoshop or InDesign but can't justify the hefty pricetag all in one go, Adobe will very soon offer the option of "subscribing" to the software on a monthly basis. At launch, the service will be available only in Australia, but is expected to spread to other countries before too long. Creative Suite 3 Design Premium includes InDesign, Photoshop Extended, Illustrator, Flash Professional, Dreamweaver and Acrobat, as well as Bridge, Version Cue and a few miscellaneous other apps.
Matthew JC. Powell | May 1, 2008
SophosLabs announced this morning that a new bit of Mac "Scareware" is doing the rounds. Calling itself "Imunizator" it's a variant of the MacSweeper program that appeared in January. As with MacSweeper, Imunizator tries to scare users into downloading unnecessary security software by claiming that security problems have been detected on their systems.
Matthew JC. Powell | Mar 31, 2008
Myvu has announced that its Crystal video goggles now work with the iPhone. The Crystal glasses require a new cable which costs $US24.95.
