It is with a heavy heart that I report the latest victim of Apple’s overzealous legal team. Johnny, who has diligently been running MacThemes for the past couple of years, writes in with the news. Apple is shutting down my first venture, and with it, a little aqua widget dies.

The website has enabled hundreds of thousands of Mac users to customize their GUI, and now has been hit with snail mail from Apple legal. I know Steve Jobs hates GUI customization. I hope MacThemes has been a major pain in his ass over the years. It’s been a pleasure serving you, the Mac community, with your GUI customization wants and needs over the years.

Dear Readers,

Jonathan Komisar

And for the record, best effort definitely goes to IGN for their pretty amazing Legend of Zelda movie trailer.

So today’s the big day, and finally, Cupertino has let the cat out of the bag. The cat I’m referring to, of course, is the latest revision of Mac OS X: Leopard.

I’ll be picking up my copy this afternoon. It feels a little bit like Christmas, except unlike Santa Claus, I still believe in Steve Jobs and his software design team. In particular, I’ve been pretty impressed with Leopard’s outer space stylings.

Not looking forward to backing up over a terrabyte of stuff, but it’ll be worth it. Nothing quite like running on a clean install of the latest and greatest.

Anyone running Leopard already? And if so, what’s your favorite new feature in it so far?

As most of you no doubt already know, Apple is holding a media event in a few hours (10:00 AM PDT) to release new iPods, and possibly a whole lot more. Of note, the event, which Apple has dubbed “The Beat Goes On”, seems to be a reference to the final press release issued by The Beatles in 1970:

Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John
and George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope.
The world is still spinning and so are we and so are you.
When the spinning stops — that’ll be the time to worry, not before.
Until then, the Beatles are alive and well and the beat goes on, the beat goes on.
- Final Beatles press release, April 10, 1970

You never give me your mooooney

This of course aligns perfectly with rumors of The Beatles finally making it to iTunes Store, after literally years of speculation. The road has been long and winding, but it looks like it’ll only be a few hours until customers can download digitally remastered Beatles songs on iTunes.

For live coverage of the event, MacRumors provides a comprehensive list.

Update: Event has begun Of note:

* new iTunes tonight
* ringtones support in iTunes
* new iPod shuffles in new colors, (PRODUCT) RED version
* new iPod nano, with larger screen, cover flow, games (Vortex, Sudoku), new colors, refreshed design, 320*240 screen, more capacity, video support, etc. (photo)
* current iPods refreshed with more capacity, thinner designs, redubbed “iPod classic”
* iPod touch, basically iPhone without phone functionality, thinner, has wifi, Safari… is making me kinda regret picking up on iPhone. Hum. Too soon? Also interesting that what Steve called “iPhone apps” (aka, glorified web pages formatted to fit the iPhone UI) now by default, becomes iPod touch apps as well.
* iTunes Store on iPod touch (and iPhone?) via wifi, so scratch one off the list
* so, no Beatles? darn. Ars reports, “Steve is being a tease by listening to Lennon songs”
* wait, wait, “One more ‘incredible’ part of this…”
* oh great, a Starbucks button when you’re browsing in Starbucks. Really?
* “Can now buy whatever song is playing at Starbucks with one tap of a finger” from Ars. Cool concept, but kind of a let down. Incredible my ass.
* Ars reports, “welcoming howard schultz, founder and chairman of starbucks to talk (played Paul McCartney in the middle there, Steve is such a tease)”
* motherfucker, my friend was right. iPhone 8 gig price drop, and if his source was correct, 16 gig to fill in the top tier will be announced momentarily. I hope not.
* yay, my month old, 8 gig iPhone still remains kinda cutting edge. for now. but Steve suddenly made it worth $200 less. people are going to be pissed. especially 4 gig owners.
* aaaand, no Beatles yet. burned.
* time to lick my wounds and buy more Apple products

Questions Raised
* how long until hackers open up the iPod touch / start adding native apps, including the iPhone mail app?
* with games on the iPod classics/nanos, when will the iPod touch/iPhone get them?
* since when does “one more thing” mean four more things?
* am I the only one who thinks the Starbucks announcement was far from ‘incredible’, and closer to ‘huh?’
* how are early iPhone adopters (the hardcore Apple fans who waited in line) supposed to feel about their models being cut, prices slashed, and the exclusive, sleek look and much functionality mimicked on a new iPod, just two months after its release? that’s a quick turnaround time to screw over early adopters, even for Apple.

On a more optimistic note, this holiday season is going to be massive for Apple with all these new iPods.

Updatea 2: And Steve offers all iPhone early adopters $100 back in an open letter… in Apple products, anyway. Nice gesture, and smart business move.

In case you hadn’t heard, the executives at NBC think they’re freaking geniuses. They’ve just figured out the secret to saving the company. It involves doing good business in a fantasy world that only exists in NBC head Jeff Zucker’s mind. Inside sources tell me that Jeff privately calls this realm Zuckerland.

In Zuckerland, Apple is a big, bad, bully, demanding so much of the poor, defenseless television networks that working with them no longer makes sense.

In Zuckerland, Rupert Murdoch is the nice guy who’s going to help NBC fight the bully, Hulu.com is the next YouTube, and NBC will once again become the premier purveyor of quality television broadcasting, on the backs of such promising hits in the making as “Bee Movie” inspired mini episodes that Entertainment Weekly calls “most promising” among NBC’s 2007 fall lineup.

In Zuckerland, customers on iTunes pay $4.99 per episode for NBC shows, which, though it may sound ludicrous at first, actually makes perfect sense within this fantasy world, because in Jeff Zucker’s mind, this is war with Apple, and wars cost a lot of money. So he’ll need some funding from all those hardcore customers on iTunes for the effort.

Hooray, I am the best CEO in all of Zuckerland

Of course, unfortunately for NBC, Zuckerland is imaginary, and the real world tends to operate on different rules. Rules such as, if you call out Apple wrongly for being a bully, their PR department will bite back, and reveal you for what you are: a greedy son of a bitch. Or, that Rupert Murdoch is happy to ‘partner’ with NBC on Hulu, but is not pulling Fox shows out of iTunes Store, because iTunes is sending Murdoch nice, fat pay checks every month in exchange for selling his shows. Or, that if you try to gouge your own fans, things tend to get ugly.

Over the past year, I’ve personally spent over $300 on iTunes Store purchasing NBC shows, including dozens of episodes of The Office, Heroes, and My Name is Earl. $1.99 per episode has felt expensive at times, but on the expensive side of fair, which is a price point I’m not opposed to paying, especially during stretches of high quality television. But apparently that ain’t enough for Jeff Zucker.

Part of me wants to write a nice letter to NBC to try to convince them to take this back. But the part of me with brains realizes that the letter would disappear into the Zuckerland post office, and never be seen again. So screw that. NBC has lost a customer here, and said customer has a feeling that things are only going to become uglier from here on out.

Which is a pity, because NBC has some really good, struggling shows, and I doubt this will help. So sign here if you think Zuckerland is a joke.

Update: This one’s almost too ludicrous to be true. But remember. In Zuckerland, even the seemingly mundane turns out to be almost depressingly misguided and unfortunate.

As my friend and fellow blogger, Gedeon Maheux, points out, it turns out that Hulu effectively translates to “cease and desist” in Swahili. The sad part is, it’s obvious that this is far from a self-deprecating joke, and simply another stunning display of rash and misguided decision making, courtesy NBC. It’s funny in the way The Office is funny, except these painfully awkward moments aren’t scripted. This is real.

I’m still holding some hope to the theory that this is all a massive publicity stunt and intricately planned, leading towards a finale featuring Zucker comically dancing off stage hauled off by a giant hook, followed by a retraction of everything that NBC has done over the past few days along with a public apology for humor in bad taste. Then we can all clap and pretend that this never happened. But I think I’m being overly optimistic.

Update 2: This is the part where the wrecked car on the side of the road that you’ve been staring at with morbid fascination while driving slowly past it suddenly explodes, rather unnecessarily. Predictably, NBC is entering damage control mode, but it seems to be a case of too little too late, with some extra bullshit sprinkled in, because, you know, it’s the Zuckerland national spice. Below, some key quotes, along with a personal translation that strips out the PR double talk. If you don’t want to wade through the BS, what’s left is the distinctive mix of paranoia, confusion and fear that is the mark of a corporation that doesn’t understand its customers, is backed into a corner, and is too chicken to fess up and apologize.

We never asked to double the wholesale price for our TV shows. In fact, our negotiations were centered on our request for flexibility in wholesale pricing, including the ability to package shows together in ways that could make our content even more attractive for consumers.

We asked Apple nicely to triple the wholesale price, for us. Because, you know, our fans deserve it. Making our shows more expensive makes them feel more valuable you know. And we also wanted to spread the good word about our shows by providing our fans an easy way to download related shows together, because we feel that the whole à la carte model Apple built iTunes around doesn’t serve our customers’ needs. But the bullies in Cupertino refused. Can’t you see?

It is clear that Apple’s retail pricing strategy for its iTunes service is designed to drive sales of Apple devices, at the expense of those who create the content that make these devices worth buying.

Sure, we get more per purchase than we do with DVD sales, and sure, we get a bigger share than Apple, but how does that make sense? WE’RE the ones selling Apple’s iPods. Can’t you see?

In addition, we asked Apple to take concrete steps to protect content from piracy, since it is estimated that the typical iPod contains a significant amount of illegally downloaded material.

The iPod is like, used by everyone. And we’re the ones who sold it to everyone, by like, making the TV shows that people watch on them. And most people who use iPods are pirates. And they’re watching our shows for free. So all we asked Apple to do was to only allow DRM protected videos to play on iPods, and they refused. Can’t you see?!

Recommended Reading
NBC Will Not Renew iTunes Contract (NYT)
Apple’s Response (Press Release)
Biting the Hand that Feeds You (Gedeon Maheux)
What Did Apple’s Five Fingers Say to NBC’s Face? SLAP! (Cult of Mac)
NBC wants more DRM, higher prices from iTunes: report (Ars Technica)
Daring Fireball
Apple to stop selling NBC Television shows (TUAW)
An Open Letter to NBC re: Leaving Apple’s iTunes Store (iLounge)
NBC ‘Disappointed’ in Not Negotiating New iTunes Pact (Bloomberg)

And if you liked it, digg it!

Or, as Apple puts it, “Hello, tomorrow.”

Back during the keynote at WWDC 2006, when Jobs and co were introducing (Mac OS X.5:) Leopard, I remember one moment when everyone in the packed room quieted down in a moment of anticipation. This was when Scott Forstall (who was at the time, speculated by the Mac press as being an heir apparent) was down to the final item on his initial ten item preview of Leopard features. Number ten. Time Machine. After letting its name build itself up through the audience over a few minutes of expert simmering and vague narrational introduction, Scott clicked on a little icon in the dock, and the screen fell away to reveal one of Leopard’s most guarded and revolutionary features: that all of our Macs, come October, will gain the ability to travel back and forth through our personal timeline in a mysterious and star studded realm that the people at Apple called Time Machine. Continue reading…

After a few weeks use, I can say for sure that I love my iPhone. There is simply no other phone out there that does as much so well, and the multi-touch interface is so skillfully and intuitively harnessed that even a 1 year old can use it.

I just wish it had some more applications.

Yes, I know that there are tons of web apps for iPhone out there, but I’m talking real apps, instead of glorified web page bookmarks. (And though there are some pretty awesome native apps that have been created for the iPhone, it involves a lot of hacking on the user’s part, which is something I’ve avoided doing every since I botched up my iPod nano trying to get it to run Doom. Though this little gem by Lucas Newman and Adam Betts is tempting.)

But since I’m not a member of the iPhone team, all I can do is dream. Here are five iPhone applications I’d like to see from Apple, along with mockup realizations by UI designer and friend, Josh Pyles, of Pixelmatrix Design. Enjoy!

An Archive.org/Ebook Reader

I know what you’re thinking to yourself. Books? On the iPhone? Come on, who reads these days?

In all seriousness though, the iPhone’s high resolution screen not only displays photos, videos and album art brightly and crisply, but renders text like a champ. And for the skeptics, I can attest that the iPhone renders text so well, I’ve browsed the web for hours on the little device without loss of vision, headaches, or eye soreness. In fact, it was actually a surprisingly pleasant experience.

Admittedly, the iPhone is not ideal for reading. And tackling a length novel on the iPhone’s tiny, portable screen is in something like reading Harry Potter on thousands of sticky notes. But since Josh and I couldn’t figure out an effective way to miniaturize the latest Harry Potter book into a pocket-sized version, we focused on the easier route. Dreaming up an interface for reading ebooks and Archive.org books on your iPhone that would one-up carrying around an actual book while traveling.

We looked towards the Apple Design Award winning media cataloging app, Delicious Library, for UI inspiration for the display of your library/downloadable books. DL pioneered an immersive, intuitive, and delicious looking interface for digital media browsing, and we love it, and it works. (Oh, and at the request of chief monster, Wil Shipley, here’s my one word review of his app: buy.):

Click me to view in full size

Bookmarks, check. Intuitive navigation (tap the corner or slide to the next page), check. One tap definitions. “Skimming” scroll options by dragging around on the right side of the screen, ala iPod functionality in the iPhone. Browsing, purchasing, and downloading of books from anywhere. Check, check, check.

We live in a fast paced, busy world of fast food, on demand, one click buying, and twittering. I think I’d find myself reading more, in smaller chunks at a time, if this app was packed in by Apple.

Continue reading…

I’m sure I’m not alone when I say that I am starting to get really pumped up for WWDC, now just under a month away. Why? Well, I’m definitely expecting some new hardware from Apple. Mac Pros seem pretty likely. But what I’m really anticipating is the first sneak peak of Mac OS X Leopard, or 10.5.

Of course, it’s still just under a month away. And frankly, while I love fake screenshots (I really do, they make you think, and sometimes they turn out to be, well, not so fake after all), the ones that have been popping up so far have been pretty disappointing. Tabbed Finder? Ok. iTunes style metal UI? Sounds good. Multiple desktops support? Sweet. Virtualization of Windows apps? I’m hoping for it. But let’s be honest, Leopard could be sooo much cooler, and so could the fakes.

So, as my blog starts its second week of existence, I am kicking off a Fake Leopard Screenshot Contest. (Tagline: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a fake one is worth nearly a thousand bucks of software!) If you think I’m joking, think again. I am being utterly, 100% serious. What this ultimately is is an exercise in conceptual UI design, and I am hoping that by the end of it, the three winning screenshots will be much cooler than the real Leopard’s ever going to be. Well, ok, admittedly I’m secretly hoping that Leopard will trump these, but hopefully for the sake of this contest, this hope will prove outrageously false.

So, about the three winners. Winning usually involves prizes, does it not? Absolutely! So, to provide some incentive beyond recognition for your 1337 UI design skills, I have put together a rather awesome prize package of freebies, valued at just under $900 for each winner. Without further ado, presenting the bounty for an awesome fake screenshot: Continue reading…

As a college student, I’m currently extremely happy with my base model MacBook acquired about a month ago. Talk about bang for the buck! Well, today, Apple has upped the ante with a new model of iMacs for edu customers selling at… $899. Yeah. That’s $150 less than a base MacBook model in the educational store (and $300 less than the previous base iMac model), for what are basically slightly better specs. (17″ monitor vs. a 13.3″, and 20 gigs more harddrive space.) Oh yeah, and you still get your free iPod nano, adding another $129 in savings. So, taking that into effect, if you sell the iPod on ebay, you’re getting a brand new Intel iMac (all-in-one computer with keyboard and mouse) for basically under $800. Sounds pretty amazing to me!

Also, I wanted to add a note for those of you thinking about purchasing this, and possibly hesitating on the Intel GMA950 Integrated Graphics. It’s really not that bad. Believe it or not, I was even able to run Half-Life 2 under Boot Camp at playable speeds, and World of Warcraft, etc. should do just fine. Not too shabby for a sub $900 Mac! This is seriously raising the bar for good value here. By the way, out of curiosity, are any of you recent MacBook customers, or planning to get one of these iMacs instead? Let me know by commenting.