Talkingapple's List: 97

• • Still no word on the K launch
• - When you enable Match it goes through a three step process. Analyzing your library, matching songs, uploading non-matched content. It does this for your whole library. You can't choose to exclude songs other than taking them out of your library.
• If a song is not matched it is copied in its current format and bit rate up to 320K
• Nothing happens to your local music when you run match. If you have a lower quality song that was matched you can remove it from your local library and then replace it with the 256k version.

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• alternative to Apple's iTunes ecosystem. Like the iTunes Store, Google Music offers per-track pricing typically ranging from $0.69-$1.29, with over 13 million tracks available for purchase.
• • No UK announcements. 
• The store offers more than 13 million tracks from artists on Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI, and the global independent rights agency Merlin as well as over 1,000 prominent independent labels including Merge Records, Warp Records, Matador Records, XL Recordings and Naxos. We’ve also partnered with the world's largest digital distributors of independent music including IODA, INgrooves, The Orchard and Believe Digital.
• With Google Music, all music purchases from the market are stored online, with users also able to upload up to 20,000 of their own tracks for free.

  • 320kbps is the file you buy from google. 

  • Apple's limit is 25,000. I suspect Google must be or will be soon, paying some royalties for uploaded music streaming. 
• The company is also integrating the new music service with its Google+ social networking platform, allowing users to post individual tracks to their Google+ pages where friends can take advantage of a one-time free stream of each track.
• One missing piece for Google is Warner Music Group, one of the four major music labels in the United States and which has yet to reach an agreement to have its content distributed through the store. Warner, which is said to still be in talks with Google, is the third-largest record label and holds approximately 20% of the market.

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• as Apple did with the iPad, Amazon creates a whole new niche, which it then fills.
• $199,
• intended for consuming media and playing games, rather than creating and manipulating content.

  • and this is its Niche, which makes it a different market from the iPad not a competitor
• shines brightest when playing video and pumping out audio. Reading is not as pleasant an experience as on Kindle's original E-Ink display

  • Is this a problem, after all the Kindle was always meant to be THE reading device, now it seems reading is pushed to the back a little and even an iPad will do a better job?
• last-minute operating system update that was required when first powering up the device. Once updated, the Fire was not perky, perhaps, but nor was it painfully slow.

• even after hours of use, did not niggle as it does on other Android-based tablets.

  • You get the impression that even though it's still Android is has a more user friendly experience and doesn't irritate you to use like most devices with the Android Operating system.
• Silk is supposed to learn which pages people commonly visit as it gathers data over time from Fire users, and will anticipate your paths before you click, making it zippier still.
• For all that, the Fire is not an iPad killer. But nor does it need to be. Mr Bezos has built a clever little gizmo which, especially at its low price, may yet put a dent in Apple's dominant, even overweening position

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• it's a good—though not a great—product and a very good value. It doesn't just add color to the Kindle, it adds a robust ability to store and stream music, TV shows and movies—and a weaker ability to store and display color photos
• has a fraction of the apps, a smaller screen, much weaker battery life, a slower Web browser, half the internal storage and no cameras or microphone. It also has a rigid and somewhat frustrating user interface far less fluid than Apple's.

• now make up 28 percent of the company's notebook shipments, up from just 8 percent in the first half of the year

  • Shows what people want in a product like this
• Thunderbolt Display enables the MacBook Air to connect to Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt, two features that have never previously been possible from the company's light, thin Air notebooks

• . Apple's sales in Western Europe were up 19.6% year-over-year, compared to an overall decline of 11.4% for the market. Apple's performance was understandably strongest in mobile PCs, where it registered 28% year-over-year growth.
• UK being the only one of those countries where Apple ranked in the top five. The company's 21.8% year-over-year growth there landed it in fourth place with 7.8% of the market, although Samsung's 39% growth left it only slightly behind Apple with 7.3% of the market.

• • No surprise that some OEMs, like Amazon, want to make their own store.
• 472 percent increase in malware threats to the platform over the past four months alone, a new mobile security report claims.
   
   Juniper Global Threat Center published a report
• lack of a review process, the relative ease of making a developer account anonymous and the mere $25 fee required to begin posting applications.
• 400 percent increase in Android malware from 2009 to the summer of 2010

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• The nine month trial will involve hundreds of consumers and businesses using a Long Term Evolution (LTE) network across parts of the city.

• Once the network is rolled out across the UK the firm says speeds are more likely to average 10-15Mbps.

   
• 2013 it will be some time after that before the services can be offered on a commercial basis.

  • Don't expect it anytime soon

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• • Why not get rid of it. It's one of those things we got used to, but is really stupid. Basically you have this physical token needed you identify yourself. What about software, have people heard of that? So easy to do this. 
    
    Can you imagine having to shove something down your computer everytime you needed to use services like spotify or iTunes? It's the same thing! 
    
    It doesn't help anybody. 
• Giesecke & Devrient, the company that developed the world's first SIM card, has proposed the so-called "nano-SIM" as a card one-third smaller and 15 percent thinner than the current smallest card, the micro-SIM, that's used in the iPhone 4 and 4S and both generations of 3G iPad.
• According to today's report, G&D has submitted its design to the ETSI, the standards organization behind the three standard sizes of SIM cards (full-size, mini-SIM, and micro-SIM), illustrated above.

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• • I think we all agree that Apple would love to get rid of them. Samsung, lg and the rest would not because people would not pay full price for these things. But if you no that the majority of problems people have with smartphones are to do with the network they use, and if Apple could create a pipe of Internet to serve calls and everything else, simplifying everything, it would be fantastic. 
    
    I fear it's too late for that now. Plus, Apple would have a serious problem with scaling and expanding overseas. 
• IDG News Service reports on comments made yesterday by venture capitalist John Stanton claiming that Steve Jobs had been investigating the possibility of using unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum as way to bypass carriers in setting up a mobile phone network in the years before the iPhone debuted. While the idea proved to be infeasible, Stanton's description of Jobs' vision fits with the Apple co-founder's overall goal of controlling the entire user experience from end to end.

• • I applause them. This market is just horrendous. It's the same old thing. We are tied to a business module that no longer makes sense with the tech available today. 
     Who wants to sit in front of a tv at a certain time to watch a chain program. And set top boxes are definitely not the solution. 
    
    I see in a not far away future companies like Sony, Apple, Google, Amazon and Microsoft being the distributors on a very tight ecosystem. 
    
    Google won't care where you access their stuff, neither will amazon. But to get the exclusive iTunes tv shows (because they will exist much like some program's only appear on sky) you will need to get an Apple device. 
    
    We'll see
• The Wall Street Journal now reports that Sony is working on the next phase of its efforts, seeking to launch a Web-based alternative to traditional TV that would skirt around cable companies' control of the market.
• Sony is proposing to beam the channels over Internet connections to Sony-made devices, including PlayStation gaming consoles, TV sets and Blu-ray players, the people said. Sony has sold about 18.1 million PlayStation 3 consoles in the U.S. alone, according to NPD Group Inc., and many homes have other Internet-connected Sony devices.
• Sony has reportedly reached out to a number of content providers, including Comcast NBCUniversal, Discovery, and News Corp., in attempt to strike deals to offer their shows on the service.
• One stumbling block could be Sony's desire to license a smaller bundle of channels than existing cable operators offer to undercut the incumbents on price and flexibility, according to people familiar with the matter. That could be a nonstarter for media companies, which would prefer not to undercut their biggest customers.

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• • I don't even know why they did it in the first place. 
• Texas Hold'em began life as a game for non-iOS iPod models, debuting in late 2006. As Apple introduced the iPhone just a few months later, rumors circulated that Apple was getting serious about gaming, in part evidenced by its in-house work on Texas Hold'em for the iPod.

• Digitimes
• Upstream suppliers of Apple have recently started shipping a small volume of components for a 15-inch ultra-thin notebook model from Apple in November and the device could be either MacBook Air or just a thinner MacBook Pro. The new MacBook is expected to appear as early as the second quarter of 2012, according to sources from the upstream supply chain.

• SemiAccurate claims that Apple had late stage AMD Llano based MacBook Air prototypes last spring and had been "on the verge of production".
• AMD based design would reportedly have had much more graphics (GPU) power, and lose only a little CPU power as compared to what was ultimately released. The "Llano" is part of the AMD Fusion platform which offers a combined CPU/GPU hybrid system

  • We reported n this a long time ago. Ere's a few more details
• • Isn't it a great thing we have competition. 
• Graphics (GPU) performance has been a stumbling block for Apple in pushing its laptop designs further. The MacBook Air was stuck on previous generation Intel chips for an extra revision due to the relatively poor performance of Intel's integrated GPUs. Apple finally upgraded the MacBook Air to Intel's Sandy Bridge processors in July.
• According to SemiAccurate, one reason Apple chose not to adopt AMD's solution was AMD's inability to supply enough of the required parts to Apple. SemiAccurate had previously claimed that Apple was also looking into moving from Intel processors to ARM processors in the future.

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• Apple is working hard on enhancements to the Siri functionality of the iPhone 4S, with the update apparently set to come early next year in a more significant software update probably dubbed iOS 5.1. The report points to Apple's Siri FAQ to note that additional language support and expansion of maps and local search to new countries will be included in the update. In addition, Apple is said to be looking at a significant expansion of Siri's capabilities for controlling iOS devices, implementing commands for such tasks as taking photos and videos, and turning connectivity such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth on and off.

• Apple began sending out emails to purchasers of the first-generation iPod nano on Friday, notifying them of the replacement program.
  
• recommends that users stop using their first-generation iPod nanos and order a replacement
• Customers can bring their iPod nanos an Apple Retail Store or an Apple Authorized Service Provider for help securing a replacement

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• Late late week, Apple announced a worldwide replacement program for owners of the first-generation iPod nano. The program was instituted due to battery issues that could cause the devices to overheat and in extreme cases catch fire.
• some had hoped that Apple might offer newer-generation iPod nano models given a potential shortage of units that officially went out of production nearly five years ago, the replacement units are indeed still first-generation iPod nanos
• • People bought old iPod Nando's on eBay hoping to get a new gen nano. Nope!
• Apple's standard refurbishment program includes the use of brand-new batteries and outer shells to make the devices appear and function as new

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• German site mobiFlip.de reports (via FOSS Patents) that Samsung has apparently relaunched the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Germany, tweaking the design and releasing it under a new Galaxy Tab 10.1N name in an attempt to skirt around the injunction against selling the original design.
• The most obvious difference from the front of the device is that the metal frame around the edges of the device now wraps around slightly toward the front along two of the edges. It is unclear what, if any, other changes Samsung made to the device to address the court's view that Samsung had copied the iPad with its initial design.
• likely was a result of consultation between designers and the company's lawyers well-versed in the court's findings and likelihood of accepting the design as different enough from the iPad to pass muster.

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• hough what changes it includes are unknown.
  
• minor update, fixing issues in the Apple TV version 4.4 software update that accompanied the launch of iOS 5