Edible Apple

A candid shot of Steve Jobs having a conversation with filmmaker Jon Chu at this year’s Oscars Awards.

title and photo via Nathan Bowers

A few weeks ago, we took a look at a string of artists who were reluctant to make their music available on iTunes because they felt their albums should be experienced in their entirety, and not as the amalgamation of “singles.”

Jay-Z summed things up nicely when he articulated why his album “American Gangster” would not be available on iTunes - “As movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles.”

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A new job listing for Lab126, Amazon’s Kindle division, suggests that Amazon is looking to implement some serious changes to the browsing experience on the Kindle.

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One guy and an iPhone is all you need for some bomb ass musical creativity these days. The app used below is called Everday Looper and lets users record their voice or a beat and loop it back, and then record something new with the original recording now serving as the background. After a while, and if you know what you’re doing, you end up with a bona fide song on your hands.

The app is $5 and can be found on iTunes over here.

Further Reading: Using the iPhone to make melodic cover songs

FBR Capital analyst Craig Berger believes that Apple will ship approximately 5 million iPads in the first half of 2010 alone, a lofty achievement that would make the iPad the most ubiquitous e-book reader out on the market, eclipsing Amazon’s unofficial tally of 3 million Kindle’s sold.

via Electronista

A great read from former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz on his experiences dealing with the prospect of patent litigation with the likes of Apple and Microsoft. Here’s what he had to say about dealing with Steve Jobs.

I feel for Google – Steve Jobs threatened to sue me, too.

In 2003, after I unveiled a prototype Linux desktop called Project Looking Glass*, Steve called my office to let me know the graphical effects were “stepping all over Apple’s IP.” (IP = Intellectual Property = patents, trademarks and copyrights.) If we moved forward to commercialize it, “I’ll just sue you.”

My response was simple. “Steve, I was just watching your last presentation, and Keynote looks identical to Concurrence – do you own that IP?” Concurrence was a presentation product built by Lighthouse Design, a company I’d help to found and which Sun acquired in 1996. Lighthouse built applications for NeXTSTEP, the Unix based operating system whose core would become the foundation for all Mac products after Apple acquired NeXT in 1996. Steve had used Concurrence for years, and as Apple built their own presentation tool, it was obvious where they’d found inspiration. “And last I checked, MacOS is now built on Unix. I think Sun has a few OS patents, too.” Steve was silent.

Overall, Schwartz argues that patent litigation is ultimately counter productive in that it actually works to strengthen the competition, not weaken it. Oddly enough, he concludes with a story about Sun having to pay Kodak over $100 million dollars for patent infringement.

As the former CEO of a larger tech company, Schwartz provides a unique perspective on some of the behind the scenes maneuvering that often precedes an actual patent lawsuit. It’s well worth a read.

Earlier today, Apple released iPhone SDK 3.2 Beta 4. The build checks in at 2.5GB and can be found on Apple’s developer site over here. We’ll keep you posted as to any notable changes and shocking discoveries as we’re sure developers poring over the new beta will inevitably find something worth mentioning.

Apple suing HTC for patent infringement seemingly came out of nowhere, but a new investor note from analyst Yair Reiner of Oppenheimer Research suggests that Apple has been in talks with a number of handset manufacturers over the past few months regarding their growing displeasure with what they consider to be the theft of their intellectual property.

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According to a recent report from iPodNN, Apple’s iTunes LP initiative was not an in-house idea, but was instead done at the behest of record labels seeking to increase album sales.

The creation of iTunes LP was largely the result of major label pressure on Apple, a series of telling leaks has revealed. Music industry contacts claim that the ‘deluxe’ albums were a necessary part of the same deal that also forced variable song pricing in exchange for an all DRM-free catalog. The RIAA member labels, not Apple, wanted to resuscitate album sales and thought the bundle of special features would achieve the goal.

Back in late 2008, Apple was negotiating to secure wireless download licensing rights from the major record labels. With over the air downloads comprising a strategic role in Apple’s mobile strategy, the record labels were able to negotiate from a position of strength and extract significant concessions from Apple, with the most noteworthy change being the implementation of variable pricing on iTunes, a move Apple had been resisting for years. And iTunes LPs were apparently part of the deal as well.

If you recall, iTunes LP is essentially a premium version of an album that not only comes with songs, but includes rare photographs, concert footage, exclusive artist interviews, liner notes, and unique album artwork.

Sounds like a home run, right?

Well, it’s been anything but.

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For a company as historically disinterested in gaming as Apple, it’s somewhat ironic that the iTunes App Store is largely anchored by the popularity of games. Looking forward, Apple’s involvement in gaming is about to be taken a step further in light of the excitement developers are showing over the upcoming iPad, and more recently, the announcement that Valve Software is bringing their distribution network of popular gaming titles to the Mac.

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You might have heard that Steve Jobs was at the Oscars this past Sunday. Here he is looking healthy, snazzy, and surprisingly approachable on the red carpet.

via Flickr

Huzzah! The iPad launch is just weeks away and developers are undoubtedly burning the midnight oil in order to get their iPad designed apps ready for the masses. The way things are set up now, developers have to use an iPad simulator in the iPhone SDK because, well, no one has an iPad yet. That said, some developers have expressed concern that coding for a device without really knowing what it feels like to actually hold and use one may cause some hiccups in the coding process. Still, some developers seemingly can’t wait to put their custom designed apps up on the iPad, with one of them being the good folks behind 1Password.

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