Apple Releases Shareholder Vote Totals

The Board Under the rules in place when the votes were cast (see below), shareholders were given the chance to vote for a board member or abstain, a system that all but insures that the company’s slate of candidates are insured, especially with the requirement that they receives only a plurality of the vote, not…

Apple Shifts MobileMe to Digital-only Sales

The company also removed MobileMe from its online store, raising questions about Apple’s plans for the service going forward. So far, speculation has been focusing on the possibility that Apple may be planning to offer MobileMe as a free service.Apple is dropping its boxed MobileMe offeringRumors claim Apple is working on a major redesign of…

Apple: App Store Runs Just Above Break Even

The question came from an Apple shareholder late in the question and answer section of the meeting from a shareholder asking the three execs on stage for the event — COO Tim Cook, Marketing VP Phil Schiller, and CFO Peter Oppenheimer — about rumors that the next iterations of the iPad and iPhone were delayed,…

Readability Tries for App Store Approval Again

“The Readability iOS app has been re-submitted. Coming soon: our open love letter to Apple,” the company said on Twitter.Readability loves Apple againThe company’s app was previously rejected from the App Store for violating a new Apple policy that requires subscription services to pay the company 30 percent of the money it collects from in-app…

Apple Cuts iAd Price in Half

Apple’s iAd bill goes on a dietAccording to AllThingsD, Apple isn’t having any trouble keeping iAd clients, making the price cut appear to be more about increasing the pool of companies jumping on board instead of retaining those that have already signed up.“Lowering the minimum buy to $500,000 from $1 million will certainly make the…

The Decline (and Fall?) of Computer Books

Still, the details regarding computer books are worth a closer look. The industry survives. But it’s struggling against forces largely beyond its control. The assault on the computer book industry comes from three directions: 1. Vanishing target audience Before the rise of the Internet, if you wanted to learn more about your computer (let’s say…

Letters from Steve: iOS Subscription Rules Created for Publishers

There has been much ado made over iOS subscriptions in the two weeks since Apple introduced its plan earlier in February. Publishers aren’t happy because Apple won’t give them customer data, and music and book services, as well as SaaS app developers (Box.net, Dropbox, Readability, and others) were concerned that their business model couldn’t accommodate…

3 Cartoons To Turn Any Day Into Saturday Morning

Back then, as I suppose it is today, the cartoons were specifically made to sell toys, and like the good little consumers we were, my kids had them all. In fact, I’m sure I can still find a Joe or a Pony in the attic if I bothered to crack open one of those dusty…

Photo: President Dines with Steve Jobs, Others

President Obama dines with tech industry leadersThe photo captured the President, along with Mr. Jobs, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz, and more.According to White House representatives speaking ahead of the dinner, “The president and the business leaders will discuss our shared goal of promoting…

DOJ, FTC Looking at Apple Subscription Rules

DOJ, FTC are looking into Apple’s new in-app sales rulesThe rules Apple is imposing on developers require them to include an in-app purchase option whenever they offer a system for purchases and rentals outside of the application. Sticking with its standard App Store policy, Apple will take a 30 percent cut from sales and rentals…

Apple Locks Up 60% of Touch Panels, Locking Out Competitors

According to DigiTimes (thanks to LoopInsight for the heads up) Research In Motion, Motorola, HP, and other large corporations are busily scrapping amongst themselves over the remaining 40% of supply, leaving smaller, second tier companies (like many of the companies we saw showing Android tablets at CES), out of the running for this high end…

Apple CEO Steve Jobs to Meet with President Obama

Steve Jobs to talk tech with President ObamaA White House official commented “The president and the business leaders will discuss our shared goal of promoting American innovation, and discuss his commitment to new investments in research and development, education and clean energy.”Mr. Jobs has been on medical leave for several weeks, but is still involved…

Apple Joins Group Pushing Corporate Tax Holiday

According to Fortune magazine, Apple, Oracle, Cisco, as well as energy and pharmaceutical firms want to convince lawmakers to give them a one year tax holiday that would allow them to bring some $1 trillion back to the U.S. at a 5% tax rate, instead of the 35% those funds would be subject to today.…

iPad Competitors? Send In The Clones

What is the deal here? Is there a complete dearth of creativity in hardware design these days? Has Apple hired up every designer with even a hint of originality, leaving the rest of the industry with soulless zombie hacks to pick over? Are there no CEOs with a vision and the guts to take a…

Rain Design Inc.’s Laptop Computer Stand Is Exceptional

The mStand by Rain Design Inc. is a laptop stand that works with 13, 15, and 17-inch Mac laptops. It’s made from a single piece of aluminum and weighs approximately 2.5 pounds which provides excellent stability. It is 5.9-in. at the highest point, 7.5-in, deep, and 10-in wide. There is a large hole on the…

The State of Browser Security: 2011

First, there are three security issues related to browsers to keep in mind. Intrinsic security. How well can a browser deal with malicious payloads coming back through port 80 that can either harm a system or install software that takes control? Such payloads bypass a firewall because it’s a valid return of an outgoing request…

Demolition Begins on Steve Jobs’s House

The house was designed and built for copper mining magnate Daniel Jackling (hence its name, the Jackling House) in 1925 by architect George Washington Smith. The home was built in Spanish Colonial Revival style, and was considered a local landmark by some in the community. Mr. Jobs purchased the property in 1984, where he lived…

Judge Dismisses Overheating iPad Lawsuit

“The Court concludes that these allegations are insufficient,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy Fogel, according to Computerworld. “At the least, Plaintiffs must identify the particular commercial or advertisement upon which they relied and must describe with the requisite specificity the content of that particular commercial or advertisement.”The plaintiffs alleged the iPad “overheats so quickly…

Apple Supplier Sustainability Report Shows 24.5% More Audits

Audits – It’s Not Just the Taxman In 2009, Apple conducted 102 such audits, including 83 “first-time” audits at facilities that the company had not examined in the past. The other 19 audits were repeat audits at facilities previously visited by the company’s auditors. In 2010, Apple conducted a grand total of 127 audits —…

Nokia Taps Microsoft Vet for US Head

The move suggests that the world’s largest (but shrinking) cell and smartphone maker intends to have a very close relationship with Microsoft, and the company’s announcement of the post emphasized that Mr. Weber has 16 years of experience with his former company.

Apple Rounds Up GRAMMY Winners for iTunes Store

Since the iTunes Store GRAMMYs page includes nominees and winners, there’s a long and varied list of artists to check out. Some of the winners include The Suburbs for album of the year, Need You Now for record of the year, and Need You Now for song of the year, too. Train won a GRAMMY…

MobileMe Revamp to be Free, Include Cloud Music Service

The cloud-based iTunes storage will apparently support Internet-based streaming, giving users access to all of their music, video and photo content without needing to store everything on their iPod, iPhone or iPad. Storing iTunes libraries online will also free users from connecting to their computer to sync content.MobileMe may add new iTunes cloud featuresWhile the idea…

WSJ: Jobs is Still Running Apple

Unnamed sources told the WSJ that Mr. Jobs is participating in meetings via phone calls, and is taking some meetings in his home.Mr. Jobs “is continuing to work on are the next version of the iPad tablet computer, expected out in the next couple of months, and a new iPhone, expected to be released this…