If record labels decided to pull some of their songs from the Zune Pass service in the past couple of weeks, they did a poor job telling Microsoft about it. The company seems to be as in the dark as Zune Pass subscribers about why songs, albums, or entire discographies have gone missing. Ars technica reports that a Microsoft employee wrote on a Zune forum, “We are investigating your reported missing albums indicated in this post—and will come back to you as soon as we understand why they’re missing.” [More]
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Report: Apple Offering 15% Buyout For Yellow-Screened iMacs
By 2.4.10
Gizmodo is reporting today that Apple is offering a 15% “refund bonus” to some customers who return one of the numerous 27″ iMacs with a nasty yellow tinge to their beautiful big screens. iMacs are not cheap, so that’s at least $250 depending on your computer’s configuration. [More]
Six e-Readers Compared
By 2.1.10
If you’re thinking of buying a digital reader in the next six months and you’re wondering what device to get, here’s a handy chart that compares six of the most highly publicized models side by side. As you might guess, bigger screens and more flexibility with file formats means higher prices. Also, the iPad is sort of a misfit here as it’s the only device that’s not a dedicated ebook reader. [More]
Macmillan E-Books Will Now Cost $15 On Amazon
By 1.31.10
After refusing to sell any Macmillan books or ebooks for three days, Amazon.com today gave in to demands by the publisher that it start charging $15 for Macmillan ebooks, rather than Amazon’s customary $9.99. In a statement, Amazon warned that customers might “rebel against such a high price for books that cost far less to distribute than physical books.” Will they also rebel against a $259, black-and-white, DRM-laden e-reader that doesn’t let you share or re-sell books that you “own,” and can yank them back without notice at any time? [More]
Man Uses Technological Detective Work To Recover Stolen iPhone
By 1.29.10
A blogger had his iPhone swiped on a flight but managed to track it down in a saga worthy of a TV movie of the week, if those still existed. He’s not the first guy to do this, but the story is inspiring every time. [More]
You Can Now Make VOIP Calls On Your iPhone Using 3G
By 1.29.10
I’ll keep this short because it’s Apple-related and we all need a break from that company: Apple has removed its ban on using your iPhone’s 3G “connection” to place VOIP calls, so now you can use an app like Fring to place overseas calls even when you’re not around a Wi-Fi hotspot. Call quality in those moments will naturally depend on AT&T’s ability to provide a good 3G connection, so keep your expectations low, but still it’s good news for any iPhone/AT&T customers looking to save money on calls. [More]
The iPad Is A Giant, $499 iPod Touch
By 1.27.10
Apple’s Steve Jobs finally introduced that iPad the whole world has been talking about for the past two centuries. What can you do with it? Watch movies. Read ebooks and news. Send email. Play games. All from a shiny multitouch display. Right, the same stuff you can do on an iPhone (except make calls, but you can’t really do that on an iPhone either). But it’s bigger! Faster! And will only cost $499. Quick, where can I buy one? [More]
Google Voice Does End Run Around Apple, Launches New Web App
By 1.26.10
Apple made it clear last year that Google Voice is not welcome on the App Store or your iPhone. “Fine,” said Google. “We’ll go through the browser!” Today the search engine revealed a new mobile web interface that uses some fancy HTML5 magic to provide voicemail, calling, and text message functionality. If you don’t already know, you can turn any page in Mobile Safari into an App icon on your home screen (click the “+” icon in Safari), meaning now you can have a legitimate Google Voice “app.” Below is a video tour. Update: There’s a down side to this: Cy writes in to let us know that this fancy new version actually breaks functionality for iPod Touch owners–the old web-based version let Touch owners make calls, but this one doesn’t. [More]
Apple, Best Buy Driven By Arrogance
By 1.25.10
A stinging analysis on WalletPop makes the obvious but poignant argument that too-big-for-their-britches corporations such as Apple and Best Buy have let hubris cloud their customer service vision. [More]
Botched Parental Controls Let Kids Check Out iPorn
By 1.22.10
The software that controls Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch includes parental controls that are meant to block kids from buying porn apps. And it works. Sort of. While kids whose parents use the software to protect their iPods can’t purchase any of the App Store’s billions of “babe” apps (App Store porn is largely of the soft-core, pin-up variety), they can still browse it, checking out the app descriptions, reviews and, of course, screen shots. Oops. [More]
Don't Get Cat Vomit On Your Laptop
By 1.20.10
Tayler’s cat and Tayler’s MacBook Pro just had an unfortunate run-in. Does anyone have any advice on cheap ways to repair this laptop, or at least how to get the content off of it without paying hundreds of dollars? [More]
I Can't Find A Way To Fix My Borked iPod
By 1.13.10
Liz has an iPod Touch that freezes up a few songs into a listening session. She’s patiently slashed through mountains of red tape to try to find a solution but has just about given up on finding a fix. She writes: [More]
Customer: iTunes Left Corrupted Tracks On Sale For Nine Months
By 1.8.10
In March Daniel downloaded two tracks from iTunes that wouldn’t play. He re-downloaded them several times and complained to customer service, getting several free downloads as a result, but the problem persisted. It took nearly the entire year for iTunes pull the tracks offline, he says. [More]
Apple Says They're Investigating Stolen iPhone Claim
By 1.6.10
Alisa, who told us last week that Apple wouldn’t help her get back her stolen iPhone, has written to us today with an update.
This whole situation has turned out to be a happy story, e-mailing Steve Jobs actually turned out pretty well. I e-mailed him the same day I emailed you, which was the 30th of December, on the 2nd of January I got a phone call from the executive office of Apple.
Shocking: Best Buy's "Mac Optimization" Sucks Also
By 1.5.10
We didn’t include Best Buy’s Apple optimization services in our investigation, but Heidi N. Moore of Slate.com took a look at the service and as she tells Consumerist in an email, “unscientifically came to the same conclusion.” [More]
Mac Cloner Psystar Sells T-Shirts, Vows Comeback
By 12.28.09
You may not be able to buy Mac clones from Hackintosh-maker Psystar anymore , but if you’re looking to relive those glory days of running OS X on generic hardware, Psystar has a t-shirt for you. And it looks like they even designed it themselves, rather than modifying the fabric of some other company’s shirt so that it would work on their loom. [More]
Apple Genius Insults Customer, But Apple Corporate Steps In To Fix Things
By 12.23.09
Frank, one of the Geniuses at Tim’s nearby Apple store, was kind of an ass to Tim and his wife when they brought in their iMac to replace it. Luckily, a woman at Apple’s corporate office actually responded to Tim’s complaint and provided excellent customer service. [More]
What Happened With Operation Chokehold
By 12.21.09
So what ended up happening with “Operation Chokehold,” the plan last Friday to protest unreliable iPhone coverage by having a bunch of people simultaneously run a bunch of data-intensive apps to bring the AT&T network to its knees? We’ll tell ya. [More]
