"Sale prices and royalties have gradually been eroded to the point where an artist needs to sell in excess of 1.5 million units before they can show a profit, after paying for recording time and tour support," Jazz Summers, the manager of the Snow Patrol, and chairman of the Music Managers Forum, told the Times.…
Bryan Chaffin
Bryan Chaffin is the cofounder of The Mac Observer and currently serves as Afternoon Editor. He has contributed to MacAddict and MacFormat magazines, and co-authored the last two updates of iPad and iPad Pro for Dummies with Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus and Ed Baig. You can find out more about Bryan at his personal site, GeekTells, or find his Twitter link below.
Articles by Bryan Chaffin
iPod nano Pushes Prices Down in Taiwan
The iPod nano is pushing prices down for competing digital media devices in Taiwan, just as mania for the nano appears to be building on the island. Taiwanese newspaper DigiTimes reported Friday that iRiver, BenQ, and Mirco-Star International have all reduced prices on flash memory devices in order to more closely compete with the iPod…
Apple to Replace Cracked iPod nano Screens
Apple Computer said Tuesday that problems with iPod nano screens breaking, as documented at FlawedMusicPlayer.com are not a design issue, but rather an issue of vendor quality that affected a small number of units. Furthermore, the company is now replacing those units that do have problems through AppleCare. "This is a real but minor issue…
iPod nano Owners Complain of Cracked Screens
Reports of cracked screens on iPod nanos are appearing on the Internet, with one Mac and iPod nano owner posting a Web site that is asking other users for their own stories and information. While we have not verified the information posted on the site, several stories and images of other iPod nanos with cracked…
Apple Exec to Chat ABout iPods in DigitalLife Panel
Greg Joswiak — Vice President, iPod Products, Worldwide Product Marketing for Apple Computer — will be participating in a "What’s Hot for the Holidays" panel at the DigitalLife consumer electronics and entertainment event on October 14th, 2005. Mr. Joswiak will be joined by execs from HP, Motorola, Adobe, and Netgear, all of whom are going…
Bill Gates Talks Apple, Google, Security
"At any point in our history, weive had competitors who were better at doing something," said Mr. Gates in response to a question about Apple and Google. "Novell was the best at file servers. Lotus was the best at spreadsheets. WordPerfect was the best at word processing." He continued, "Right now, because of the breadth…
Motley Fool: Apple is Good Candidate for Buying Six Flags
"Apple Computer has the greenery on its balance sheet to make an all-cash buyout happen," he wrote. "Given its volatile share price, though, Apple would be taking a real gamble if the market interpreted the acquisition as misguided — even though it wouldnit be." He continued, "From digital delivery of onboard photographs to podcast updates…
Made In Lab Releases Ask Jeeves Dashboard Widget
The download is 465 KB, and can be downloaded directly from Made In Lab. The company has also added a Widget for counting down to the release of Rent, and updated Widgets called Green Thumb and D.I.Y. Ask Jeeves Widget
29 Music Reviews at iPodObserver
However, for the nonce they donit appear in the headlines, and you can only find the reviews by visiting iPOis home page, or by visiting the Music page at the site. We will be changing this in the future, but until then we have put together a list of reviews we have already published to…
A-POD: A PC Case That Looks Like an iPod
The A-POD (as posted by PC Watch) Japanese PC manufacturer Scythe has cut to the quick for Windows using iPod fans: The company is marketing a PC case whose white design and front looks like an iPod, according to a report from Japanese site PC Watch (found via The Register UK). Not too coincidentally, the…
Apple Hot Deals Update for CDW MacWarehouse
< a href="http://www.apple.com">Apple Computer has updated the Hot Deals pages for CDW MacWarehouse at the Macintosh Product Guide. The Mac Product Guide is a list of Mac compatible hardware and software products on the market. The Hot Deals section of the Product Guide features several Mac retailers and special offers that one can only get,…
Coldplay Ups Apple Quotient with Solar iPod Charger
iPod-wielding Coldplay fans can exercise both loves with a new Coldplay-branded Solio, the solar-powered iPod charger that was introduced at Macworld San Francisco 2005 (see TMO’s Solio review for more product information). As The Unofficial Apple Weblog noted with the site broke he Coldplay story, the band has a history with Apple that includes releasing…
John Carmack: Mac/PPC Peformance Gap for Gaming "Not a Myth"
The performance gap between PowerPC and x86 is "not a myth," according to Mac and Windows gaming developer John Carmack, cofounder of id Software. Mr. Carmack made the comment at Slashdot in response to a discussion there about Friday’s Devil’s Advocate column by John Kheit at The Mac Observer. According to Mr. Carmack, the compilers…
QuickTime 7.0.1 Update Improves Security, More
The security issue patched in the update was a fairly serious one, at least in terms of the damage is could do. A malicious person could create a QuickTime movie with a Quartz Composer object that could both gain access to local data and "send it using an encoded URL to an arbitrary web location."…
Apple Hot Deals Update For ClubMac, MacConnection
The new ClubMac Hot Deals page has offers on a Nikon D70 bundle and several other digital cameras, a photo printer, a high-end DV camera and several consumer DV cameras, three Webcams, five more printers, a camera case, and two photo paper packages. You can find the ClubMac Hot Deals page at Appleis Web site.…
The Back Page - Don't Do Business with Mac-Pro in Campbell, CA
Don’t do business with Mac-Pro, an Apple VAR in Campbell, CA. Why? Because they were rude to me, did a terrible job of working on my PowerBook, and the owner wouldn’t take care of the situation to my satisfaction. That’s right, I am using my column to complain about customer service. The story starts with…
Analyst: Apple Stock Drop Offers Buying Opportunity
At issue is the announcement of a beta subscription music service from Internet giant Yahoo!, which the company introduced Wednesday morning. The service is being launched with a yearly subscription fee of US$59.98 that allows people to rent as much music as they want, and take it with them on any digital media device that…
2,000 People in Two Hours at SoHo Apple Store
S ome 2,000 people went through Appleis doors in the first two hours of Tiger availability last Friday, according to a report at Forbes magazine. The article, penned by frequent Apple commentator and reporter Arik Hesseldahl, covered the release of Tiger, including background information on Appleis Tiger and Microsoftis as-yet-to-be-released Longhorn Windows update, the importance…
Apple Releases QuickTime 7 for Panther
< A href="http://www.apple.com">Apple Computer has released QuickTime 7 for Panther users. QuickTime 7 is a component of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger," which is being released today, but the company has made a standalone update for Mac OS X 10.3 users that brings all of the new features to Panther. QuickTime 7 Pro will require…
Tiger Pre-Orders Ship
W eive begun hearing from Observers who pre-ordered Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and have received shipping notification. Delivery for most pre-orders was promised for Friday, April 29th, the same day the software will be released in retail stores. For those who didnit pre-order the Mac OS X upgrade, Apple announced in-store "Tiger World Premiere"…
Apple Fixes Java Glitch in Mac OS X 10.3.9
< A href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/20/apple_brum_store/">Apple Computer has patched a Java glitch the company said affected some users of Mac OS X 10.3.9. The glitch caused the Safari Web browser and standalone Java apps to sometimes crash. Appleis description: "After updating to Mac OS X 10.3.9, some systems may have issues with Java applications and Java-enabled websites when…
BBC Editorial Looks at Mac Community
I n an editorial for the BBC published Thursday, Stephen Evans examined the culture of Mac owners and Apple fans. Dredging up the controversial "cult" word, the article compared the Manhattan Apple Store to a church, Macworld keynotes to church event, and even considered the idea that Mac users were comparable to Catholics, while Windows…
Apple Shareholders Approve Board-Sponsored Proposals; CEO Blasts Protesters
I n its annual shareholder meeting Thursday, Apple Computer shareholders approved all of the proposals sponsored by the companyis board of directors, and Apple CEO Steve Jobs took the opportunity to blasts environmentalists that have been protesting against the company. According to a report on the meeting by MacCentral, Mr. Jobs denied all of the…
Nine Inch Nails Releases Song as GarageBand File For Mac Users
O n Friday, April 15th, Nine Inch Nailsi Trent Reznor gave his fans a free song, and made it a GarageBand file to boot. “The Hand That Feeds” is an advance single for Nine Inch Nailsi forthcoming album, With Teeth, which is due to be released on May 5th, 2005. The single is currently available…