Apple Allegedly Sought Non-Poaching Deal With Palm
theodp writes “A Bloomberg report that Apple CEO Steve Jobs proposed a possibly illegal truce with Palm against poaching their respective employees is sure to pique the interest of the US Department of Justice, which already is investigating whether Google, Yahoo, Apple, Genentech and other tech companies conspired to keep others from stealing their top talent. ‘Your proposal that we agree that neither company will hire the other’s employees, regardless of the individual’s desires, is not only wrong, it is likely illegal,’ former Palm CEO Ed Colligan reportedly told Jobs in August 2007.” The article notes that Apple was probably reacting to Palm’s hiring of Jon Rubenstein, who had been instrumental in developing the iPod and went on to spearhead the Pre for Palm (and has now become Palm’s chairman and CEO). “It’s the story about the importance of charismatic engineers,” said veteran Silicon Valley forecaster Paul Saffo. “People don’t work for Palm. They work for Jon Rubinstein. One has to wonder how Steve Jobs ever let Jon Rubinstein leave.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Under a Republican president, there would be no chance of this happening
The only constituency that the Republican Party really serves
Schumer Asks SEC to Ban Flash Orders Used by High-Speed Traders
Senator Charles Schumer asked the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to ban “flash orders,” saying the transactions give high-speed traders an unfair advantage over other investors.
Nasdaq OMX Group Inc., Bats Exchange Inc. and Direct Edge Holdings Inc. hold these orders for milliseconds, giving their customers the opportunity to gauge demand before traders on other exchanges get the chance to bid, Schumer said in a letter to SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. Brian Fallon, a spokesman at Schumer’s office, confirmed the authenticity of the letter.
“Flash orders allow certain members of these exchanges to obtain access to order flow information before that information is made available to the public,” Schumer wrote. That allows “those members to use rapid trading programs to trade ahead of those orders and profit from advanced knowledge of buying and selling activity,” he added.
The senator said that if the SEC doesn’t prohibit flash orders, he will introduce legislation that would.
A couple of centuries of economic research tell us that allowing a few traders to have an advantage over other traders will harm the economy. But this is exactly the sort of common-sense regulation that the Republican Party has fought since the days of Ronald Reagan, and that mindset (along with Reaganite borrow-and-spend fiscal policies) helped create the current financial crisis.
It’s true that Democrats like Bill Clinton co-opted much of the Republicans’ deregulatory ideology, so I’m not trying to say that Republicans like Phil Gramm, John Kyl, and George W. Bush are the only ones responsible for the economic debacle, but the Republicans’ continued resistance to re-regulation of the financial markets makes it clear that the Democrats represent our only hope of real economic reform.
Quicken for Mac lives—and is coming in February of 2010
Mere days after we teased an answer out of Intuit about the status of Quicken for Mac, the company has announced that the latest rewrite has once again been pushed—to February of 2010. In a post made to the Official Quicken Blog, Intuit’s senior manager of public relations Scott Gulbransen wrote that the new version will definitely be coming out after taking in even more feedback from the Mac community, more than two years after the software was originally introduced.
Intuit first showed off its plans for Quicken Financial Life for Mac (the then working title) in January of 2008, hailing it as a complete rewrite of Quicken 2007 for Mac with new and better features. In September, however, Intuit said that the software had “required significant engineering and quality testing” and the company needed “some extra time to get it right.” The ship date was moved to the winter of 2008. Then it was pushed to summer of 2009. And then it disappeared altogether from Intuit’s website, causing users and beta testers alike to alert us that perhaps the product had been scrapped altogether.
Click here to read the rest of this article
Quicken for Mac lives—and is coming in February of 2010
Mere days after we teased an answer out of Intuit about the status of Quicken for Mac, the company has announced that the latest rewrite has once again been pushed—to February of 2010. In a post made to the Official Quicken Blog, Intuit’s senior manager of public relations Scott Gulbransen wrote that the new version will definitely be coming out after taking in even more feedback from the Mac community, more than two years after the software was originally introduced.
Intuit first showed off its plans for Quicken Financial Life for Mac (the then working title) in January of 2008, hailing it as a complete rewrite of Quicken 2007 for Mac with new and better features. In September, however, Intuit said that the software had “required significant engineering and quality testing” and the company needed “some extra time to get it right.” The ship date was moved to the winter of 2008. Then it was pushed to summer of 2009. And then it disappeared altogether from Intuit’s website, causing users and beta testers alike to alert us that perhaps the product had been scrapped altogether.
Click here to read the rest of this article
Mac Quicken ‘09 still missing in action
All references to Quicken for the Mac 2009 have disappeared from Intuit’s website, leaving users wondering when—if ever—the software will launch. The software, meant to be a “complete rewrite” of Quicken for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, was showcased at the Macworld Expo 2008 and originally expected to ship that year. However, after at least one delay, the software now appears to be MIA more than a year and a half after it was introduced.
Intuit first showed off its plans for Quicken Financial Life for Mac (the then working title) in January of 2008, hailing it as a complete rewrite of Quicken 2007 for Mac with new and better features. Users could track their cash flow, download info from banks, track taxes, and even create budgets, and was expected to launch as a beta by the fall of 2008. In September, however, Intuit said that the software had “required significant engineering and quality testing” and the company needed “some extra time to get it right.” The ship date was moved to the winter of 2008.
Click here to read the rest of this article
Mac Quicken ‘09 still missing in action
All references to Quicken for the Mac 2009 have disappeared from Intuit’s website, leaving users wondering when—if ever—the software will launch. The software, meant to be a “complete rewrite” of Quicken for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, was showcased at the Macworld Expo 2008 and originally expected to ship that year. However, after at least one delay, the software now appears to be MIA more than a year and a half after it was introduced.
Intuit first showed off its plans for Quicken Financial Life for Mac (the then working title) in January of 2008, hailing it as a complete rewrite of Quicken 2007 for Mac with new and better features. Users could track their cash flow, download info from banks, track taxes, and even create budgets, and was expected to launch as a beta by the fall of 2008. In September, however, Intuit said that the software had “required significant engineering and quality testing” and the company needed “some extra time to get it right.” The ship date was moved to the winter of 2008.
Click here to read the rest of this article
Intuit and Apple Announcements Include Money and a Lesson
Intuit, the company that helps manage your money, may owe you some. Heck, even Apple might.
In the winter of 2007, Intuit’s Quickbooks for Mac 2006 contained a fatal bug — an automatic update erased the desktop folders of users’ accounts (yikes). Intuit’s silence on the issue was deafening. Finally, after days of complaining and people fighting with tech support, Intuit offered a free data recovery utility and a limited apology. Now, 18 months and a bunch of lawyers later, Intuit has settled and will offer to pay most expenses related to data loss, recovery and data recreation. They’ll even give you a free copy of Quickbooks 2007. Yawn. Don’t have your receipts related to that bug? Oops.
Apple avoided a lawsuit of their own last week by agreeing to cover MacBook Pros with distorted video due to a problem with the NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics processor. If you paid for a repair due to this issue, Apple may reimburse you. These repair extensions come through every so often and almost always after significant complaints by Apple users, including petitions, angry blog posts, and such — you know the drill. Apple extends the warranty to three years for the identified issue and compensates those who already paid for the repair. As a tip, before you pay for a repair, search out “repair extension” and your model of Mac. Not all repair centers check for these repair extensions, so it helps when you do.
Both announcements underscore the importance of saving receipts for repairs and other losses related to these failures. Receipts take up little space and just only a moment to store. I scan all of my receipts for repairs and documentation into a special iPhoto album called “Disputes.” “Print PDF to iPhoto” is a real helper as well. I use keywords to make them searchable and they are backed up along with the rest of my photos. When these announcements come through, I’m ready to go. A few minutes of your time can really pay off.
Want to know which issue might be the next repair extension? Read Apple’s Annual Report 10-Q and check out the Legal Proceedings Section. Those are the issues ripe for settlement and repair extension.
Consumers really do get reimbursed after submitting receipts and filling out paperwork, usually more often then pesky rebates. All the parties involved know most people don’t like filling out forms, so often the money goes unclaimed by those who were affected. I personally got reimbursed for my faulty iBook adapter, got a battery replacement for my iPod, and received an allowance for my scratched iPod Nano. I don’t always agree with these class actions, but the fact is, if you own a faulty product, it’s worth my while (and yours) to turn in the paperwork and get reimbursed.
Apple building server farm, secret lair in North Carolina
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Odds and ends, Xserve, Apple
As Mike mentioned in the news roundup yesterday, word is going around that the corporate overlords at Apple are planning to build a massive server farm in the state of North Carolina within the next decade or so. How do we know? Because the company is working on getting a few nice tax breaks to go along with the deal, eventually worth about $46 million if Apple fulfills their end of the agreement. Their end of the agreement being a huge investment of a whopping $1 billion (that’s over 333,000 Xserves, if that is indeed what they’re installing — and we bet not) into an economy that could probably use it. What exactly will go in there? We aren’t sure — lawmakers say the investment is worth it, and obviously Apple isn’t showing their cards.
[Note: the $1B investment figure is not an upfront number, but rather a total investment over the first 9 years of operation. -Ed.]
But the facility, once up and running, will start by employing at least 100 people, so that’s a nice start. Google has apparently gone through the same deal with North Carolina recently, though their deal was a little smaller: $600 million investment for a server farm that opened last year.
More backend for Mobile Me? More power for the App Store or a project like it? A giant building full of Cubes running 24 hours a day? Or something we haven’t even dreamt of yet?
TUAWApple building server farm, secret lair in North Carolina originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 25 May 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Why do crap apps still exist? They sell.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store, SDK, iPod touch
The Wall Street Journal’s Digits blog takes a look at “crap apps” — those pieces of junk on the App Store that do one thing and do it pointlessly, whether that thing be farting or belching or making the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard (yes, really) or what have you. And they come up with a very intriguing, albeit obvious, reason that the App Store seems so filled with completely terrible and silly apps. Why? Because they sell.
Yes, even “legitimate” iPhone developers — those people working hard to create an innovative touchscreen interface, or bring some crucial functionality to the iPhone — are finding that of all the apps they release, the crudest and most stupid are the ones that sell. They profile a guy whose serious movie apps aren’t selling, but whose cobbled-together-in-five-minutes gimmick apps are making a mint. In short, the reason our App Store is full of way more fart apps than apps like Twitterific 2.0 is because people are paying for the fart ones. The message we’re sending with our wallets is that if you want to make a million dollars on the App Store, don’t toil away to polish your groundbreaking award-winning puzzle game. Just give us a gag we can show to our friends.
Is it right? I’d say no, but then again, even I have been pulled in to a gimmick app or two: I bought Cat Piano (in my defense, I’ve gotten enough entertainment out of it to find an easter egg: shake your iPhone while playing). But next time your finger is poised over the “Get App” button on that 99-cent belching app that you just know the friend you’re seeing later will get a total kick out of, think to yourself: is that two-second gag worth an App Store full of crappy apps?
TUAWWhy do crap apps still exist? They sell. originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 12 May 2009 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Steve Jobs spending less on flying
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple Corporate, Odds and ends, Apple Financial, Steve Jobs
This might be obvious to most of us, but the WSJ feels it’s fit to print: while Steve Jobs’ reimbursed budget for his private jet has been fairly considerable over the past year or so — $580,000 for a six-month period a year ago and $30,000 during a quarter period, the past few reports have seen the budget much, much lower. For the first three months of this year they didn’t pay him at all, and for the previous six months before that they’ve only reimbursed him for $4,000.
What does this mean? Nothing, really — while the WSJ points to it as evidence Jobs hasn’t been traveling overseas to help bring the iPhone to China and carry out other big Apple deals, we’ve already known that Jobs wasn’t involved much in the day-to-day business anyway; besides, it’s hard to recuperate at home and fly around the world simultaneously. There are lots of other reasons for the budget to be down — that $580,000 period would have been right around the manufacturing point of the iPhone 3G, and since most of the focus lately is on software, it’s not like Jobs needs to be jetsetting off exotic plants to make sure production is on schedule.
And of course gas prices are back down quite a bit, and companies are under a little more scrutiny and pressure in this economy, so teleconferencing may be just as good as a plane ticket these days. Apple is still saying Jobs is expected back in June, and though these plane figures are interesting, the fact that Apple is still confident of his return says more about the company’s future.
TUAWSteve Jobs spending less on flying originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 27 Apr 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
