News for Thursday, 25 October 2007

The Washington Post has the story detailed. Link

NBC said that before the breakup, its shows accounted for 40 percent of all the television programs purchased on iTunes; Apple said the number was closer to 30 percent.

NBC Universal confirmed that it sent a letter on Oct. 9 asserting that Apple is in breach of contract, though it is unlikely to pursue legal action. The two sides have stopped negotiating and there appears to be no resolution in sight.

NBC proposed a range of prices and packaging of shows on iTunes from 99 cents to $2.99, said a source close to the talks who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the proposal was confidential. Apple refused. In a press release, Apple said NBC proposed selling some shows for as high as $4.99, which NBC denies.

With NBC taking a firm stand, the other companies have started to re-look at their existing contracts.

Warner Music Group, whose contract with Apple expires at year-end, is considering switching to a month-to-month deal with Apple

See:
Vivendi Universal - Apple: iTunes Contract is Indecent
Other Articles:
NBC Will not Renew iTunes Partnership with Apple
Apple Comments NBC's Decision to not Renew its iTunes Contract

We decided to post a report from Dana, one of our readers, as his comment is a good analysis of the current problem faced by Cupertino: high unlocked iPhones sales.

A few days ago Apple announced that the Apple Store would sell only
three iPhones to any one customer (at least in the US), yesterday they reduced the number to two. Clearly, this is Apple's attempt to curtail the percentage of unlocked iPhones in circulation, since some individuals were buying them in large numbers, unlocking them, and then reselling them. I would imagine that Apple feels legally obligated by its contractual arrangement with AT&T and its foreign counterparts to make what lawyers call a "good faith" attempt to restrict the availability of unlocked iPhones. This is how Apple is trying (to use your words) to control its market distribution channels.
But this may turn out to be a bad decision. The really impressive feature of the number of unlocked phones in circulation is that it represents a very dramatic vote of "no confidence" in the quality of AT&T's service by American users. I doubt that if an owner of an unlocked phone using a competing service saves much if any money, since other services have similar (or even more expensive) pricing structures, so considerations of quality rather than economics seems to be creating this demand for unlocked iPhones. If Apple is
successful in putting an end to this black market, given this widespread dislike of AT&T, one wonders if iPhone sales might drop off, especially as more attractive competing products become available.

The reality of this grey market of unlocked iPhone has been perfectly demonstrated today in France. Orange will not have the exclusivity of the iPhone for the French market. Indeed, mobile phone company, Phone and Phone launched yesterday a huge campaign to promote the carrier-free version of the iPhone in France! It will be priced 749€ as a subscription-free model, or 379€ with a subscription plan from the third largest French mobile phone carrier, Bouygues Telecom.
Of course, one can not find any information about the warranty or the support for the iPhone (such as performing firmware updates). In addition it is clear that such iPhone are originating from the grey market, imported from USA and SIM unlocked.
While Apple did not react yet, Orange announced today that it might launch a "cease and desist" action to impose its exclusive partnership rights in France for distributing the iPhone. In the same PR, Orange reminds consumers about the risk of purchasing such unit from the grey market, as warranty and support will not be available (indeed iPhone warranty is local and not worldwide).

Leopard will now be in shops in less than 30 hours. Many of you will rush to get it for installing the new Mac OS X on their computers. Before to do so, we think it is important to deliver some advices:
- if you rely on a running Mac OS X system for professional usage, do not install Leopard on a "production" hardware, perform a test on a similar configuration, and wait for couple of days as users with variable peripherals, plug-ins and installations will report bugs and problems.
- if you rely on compatibility with some specific peripherals, printers, scanners, etc. same procedure, perform a test on a similar hardware to ensure a total support, as some Leopard-compatible drivers will only become available from third-parties after Leopard is officially released.
- if you still rely on classic for some applications, do not install Leopard as it does not support Classic/OS9 mode anymore.
- if you think that everything is fine to perform the installation right away, then do not forget to perform a backup of your data, or even clone entirely your current system.
- when possible, perform a "clean install"
- before launching the installer, think of repairing all authorizations on your HDs and volumes.
Once the installation is performed, be aware that some utilities or system optimizing add-ons might not be compatible with OS X 10.5 yet.
If you should remember only one thing among those advices, save your data before installing a new system.

While Transmeta initiated a legal action against Intel for patent infringement, both companies settled down an agreement. According to unveiled terms, Intel will make an initial US$150 million payment and pay Transmeta an annual license fee of US$20 million for each of the next five years.
According to this agreement, Intel will be granted a perpetual non-exclusive license to all Transmeta patents and patent applications (current ones and within 10 years period).