New Mac Mini and iBooks Released

iBooks have a speed bump, 1.33GHz/12.1-inch for $999 and 1.42GHz/14.1-inch for $1,299.

No widescreen.

14" now comes standard with an 8x SuperDrive

All models have 512MB RAM and Bluetooth and Airport Extreme built-in

The ATI Mobility Radeon 9550 with 32MB VRAM is not enough to take advantage of Core Image.

Mac Minis

The $499/1.25GHz model receiving only the RAM upgrade to 512MB

The $599/1.42GHz Mac mini has 512MB RAM and built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth

Added an $699/1.42GHz Mac Mini with same specs and 4x SuperDrive

Modem is no longer standard on 1.42GHz models.

iPhoto 5.0.4 update released

Update, the latest update to its popular digital photo management software. iPhoto 5.0.4 addresses an issue with browsing photos that have been auto-rotated by a camera.

Apple opening two more US retails stores this weekend

The Woodlands Apple store in in Texas and Apple Store Manhattan Village in Manhattan Beach California this Saturday, July 30th

The first 1000 people to each store will receive Apple commemorative t-shirts.

Planned Apple Music event in Tokyo. iTunes Japan?

Journalists have been invited to attend a special music event on August 4th at 10am in Tokyo.

Possibly announce iTunes Music Store for Japan, which Steve had originally had said would launch in 2004.

ITunes Phone to debut in August, yeah whatever.

Rumored to debut at the “V Festival” concert in the UK sponsored by Virgin Mobile.

Virgin is said to be one of the first carriers to support the new phone.

Do we even care anymore?

In the meantime, Motorola did announce a new Q Smart Phone running Windows Mobile 5.0

Apple will supply 30,000 iBooks to Florida schools

Broward County School Board will be buying 30,000 iBooks, for grades K-12

Great win for Apple, but what do 5-year olds need with iBooks?

Buy pants, get a song.

The GAP is partnering with Apple to give away an iTunes download when you buy a pair of jeans.

Canadian iPods will remain tax free

The Canadian Supreme Court won't hear a case involving extra fees for iPods and other MP3 players in that country.

the Copyright Board of Canada collects a small extra fee on blank media such as CDs and tapes because some are used to make pirate copies.

They argued that iPods and MP3 players were also being used to store pirated music and therefore should also be subject to the tax, which would have added as much as $25.00 to the price of an iPod.

Last year an appeals court block the tax from moving forward and the Supreme Court decision ends the issue.

Survey shows Podcasting far from "mainstream", even with help from iTunes

A report from Pew Internet & American Life Project, show that only 9% of Americans know what RSS is and only 13% even think they understand what Podcasting is

www.pewinternet.org

Many more listeners to come, so if you think Podcasting is done, we are just getting started.

Sharp reps brag about their chip in new iPods

According to Jon Stokes, it's Sharp's LH7A400 System-on-Chip that will be used in a new Video iPod

Some features of the chip include, a 200MHz ARM processor, 32-bit external data bus, IrDA, MMC, Smart Card, and PCMCIA/CF support

I have two words for you, "Sony Watchman".

Using DV camera for iChat

Play question from Nikko

Should work with most DV cameras that have Firewire. Must have a G4 or G5, G3s are not supported.

Windows Media player issues under Tiger

Via Skype, listener zoltak.

Gets errors "Specified stream type is not recognized" and "Error creating unique tmp file". Deleting .plist and reinstall doesn't fix.

May need to repair permissions, after deleting and before reinstall.

Are XBrite™ LCDs better?

Play question from Jensen

XBrite (UltraBlack) is a Sony technology, other companies call it TrueBrite, etc

A special anti-reflective coating on the display and use 2 lamps instead of one.

Extra brightness would throw off color accuracy.

Follow-up on iPod -36 error

Listener Eric via Skype

Had a similar issue of not being able to sync, but with his Photo iPod

Turned out to be photo syncing and turning that off and then back on resolved the issue without the need for a full iPod restore.