News for Thursday, 27 September 2007

Last week, we were reporting about the obvious manufacturing problem of the new iPod nano identified by a LCD display not aligning with the black frame:

Today, we received a new report from Thomas, one of our readers from UK:

I saw your article about the iPod nano having a tilted or wonky screen recently, yesterday I went down to the London Regent Street - Apple Store to preorder my iPod Touch (8GB), and whilst I was there I had a look at the Nanos that they had on display - every last one had a wonky screen, without exception.
Here's a fairly clear photo of just one of them that I managed to take before they asked me to put my camera away.

It is clearly the same assembling defect; yes it is minor, but give a quite weird "touch" on such a nicely designed nano…
So the problem seems to be affecting a quite large number of units, and the fact that Thomas had to put his camera away might indicate Apple is aware of the problem and does not want to have it reported. Let's hope it is only a bad iPod nano production batch, and that Apple and Foxconn will work a solution out.

Announced during the Paris Apple Expo, 4D v11 SQL is the first core product line released by 4D within the last three years. This version contains several major new features, most notably full Universal Binary support, native integrated SQL, a new database engine, and many new developer productivity tools.

At the heart of the new 4D v11 SQL platform is a revolutionary 21st century database engine that allows developers to build business applications that scale to the highest business demands. 4D v11 SQL also delivers on 4D’s promise of an open, scalable platform by adding support for SQL, SVG, and Unicode, as well as enhancing its support for ODBC, XML and SOAP based Web Services.
4D's developer productivity leadership is further enhanced by the addition of over 100 new productivity enhancements, including a new ergonomic design environment with integrated refactoring tools, new structure design editor and an integrated maintenance center to ensure the developer has all the tools at their finger tips to create, deliver and maintain powerful business applications. 4D v11 SQL also provides developers with a new, powerful component architecture that ensures developers can deliver secure high performance modular code.

Regqrdin its price and availability, 4D v11 SQL is immediately available for both Mac OSX and Windows starting at US$349.
More information please visit 4D website: http://www.4d.com/products.html

For years, several renowned companies have tried to compete with Apple iTunes Store without much success, and the close down of SONY Connect and Virgin Digital are there to prove that having a well established name is not synonym of success. Amazon will enter the market as a new online music store, with the advantage of being able to offer a DRM-free catalog thanks to Apple pressure on music majors. But does it mean Amazon collect the fruits from the trees seeded by Apple? Nothing is sure.
Amazon will offer music tracks at similar price than the iTunes Store US$0.99, but also lower at US$0.89. Albums will be available with price ranging from US$5.99 to US$9.99. Beside the price, the main strength of Amazon will be to offer DRM-free MP3 music files encoded at 256Kbits/s, and it will include part of Vivendi Universal Music catalog, whereas the company was recently complaining that receiving over 75% of US$0.99/track was not enough...
Today, it seems some Music Majors are ready to cut their prices to support a strong competitor to Apple iTunes Store, in order to regain control over digital music distribution channels. This could end in the future with price increased when Majors will drive again this business. Apple does not come without strength too, and the recent launch of the iPod touch, iPhone and its partnership with Starbucks might well be its main weapons for the future battle with Amazon to take place in 2008. Vivendi should also not forget that Apple might launch a legal action against the Major if beyond the test period its DRM-free catalog is only available from Amazon.

During the night, European Apple Stores were down for hours in order to redesign the online store, and aligning them with the recently refreshed US Store.
Such change also had impact on the European Apple publishing team, located in France, and dismantled during the summer.
This update of European Apple Stores based on in depth revised code provides a modified user interface. It could also be the first sign of some product announcement,s such as making UK, Germany and French Apple Stores ready to welcome the iPhone in November.

This is not the first time this rumor is emerging, Hitachi might be on track to spin-off or sell its HD Division. Since 2002, and the acquisition of IBM HD Division, the renamed Hitachi HD Division, while delivering top notch products on the market, faces chronic financial issues.
Hitachi HD Division successfully changed the negative image associated to IBM HD, and became the main HD manufacturer/designer with many achievements, driving the way for both storage capacity and performance. Of course, the emerging Solid Storage State drive will strongly compete with standard HD market for notebook, but both systems have their strength. The main issue today is the huge gap between announcement of a new HD model or product and its true availability in our shops.
If Hitachi HD Division is acquired by another manufacturer or company, let's hope they will maintain their high quality and technology levels for delivering reference product for customer-oriented HD.

Apple released a massive and heavy (140MB) update for iLife '08:

Apple iDVD 7.0.1 (18.6 MB)
- Now available as a standalone download.
Apple iPhoto 7.1 (59.3 MB)
- Addresses issues with publishing photos to .Mac gallery.
Apple iMovie 7.1 (44.6 MB)
- Improves overall stability, addresses a number of minor issues.
Apple GarageBand 4.1 (46.1 MB)
- Complete recording studio software.
Apple iLife Support 8.1 (6 MB)
- Update iLife 8 suite.

Elgato presented a free update to eyeTV which was released yesterday at the Apple Expo:

• Support for Free's IPTV service in France


• WiFi access for the iPod Touch and iPhone (view only mode of automatically re-encoded recordings)


• Navigation through the video while it is recording


• The ability to place the window permanently in front


• Direct support for h.264 (HD supported while it only used to work on playback of previous recordings)


• Support for time-shifting on all the analog tuners (even those without a hardware MPEG encoder)


• Export Profiles for iPod Touch and iPhone