In the ecosystem of the App Store, the postcard-sending app occupies a healthy niche; about two pagefuls -- 60 apps -- show up in the store, for a category weighting of 0.125 flatulans. The flatulan, of course, is the unit of measurement of App Store penetration, equaling the 480 individual apps that include the word 'fart' somewhere in their description.

Among those postcard apps, there are several standouts for virtual cards (ADA winner Postage, for example) and even a few that let you send physical postcards for a small fee (TapTapCards, goPostal and Postino).

With Postman (iTunes link/website), released today by Freeverse and Taptivate for $0.99 for iPhone OS 3.0 devices, the postcard-sending app category gets a social media boost. Postman lets you deliver your two-sided ecards (yes, the app gives you the option of simulating the back of a traditional postcard, complete with stamp graphic) via Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, email, or simple upload to the postmanapp.com website for public review. You can already track several tweeted postcards (some which probably should never have been sent.) You can also simply save your postcards to the photo roll on the device.

Creating postcards with Postman is fast and easy; all the controls are persistent in a small icon bar at the top of the screen and large front/back and 'share' buttons at the bottom.

Postman has style and several handy features. In addition to using your own camera images/photo library or the included stock images for postcard sources, you can locate yourself on a Google map and use that graphic instead (this leverages the Map API in iPhone 3.0). Once you pick a graphic, you've got a choice of one-click filters to apply that spice up the look of your card. You can easily switch fonts and colors for your text input on the card front or back, and then send with a couple of taps.

There are a few rough edges with the first release. I found the lack of a portrait mode frustrating, as I'm actually a faster typist on the vertical keyboard; not that you'll be keying in a chapter of War and Peace, but there's quite a bit of room for copy on the postcard back and I'd like to be able to rotate on that screen. The selection widgets seem cramped a bit, particularly the one for the stock templates. It would be nice to save postcards in progress and switch back to them, but for now there's only one card and no way to revert to earlier versions.

If you want to have super-slick, email-only postcards from your iPhone, and are willing to spend a couple of dollars more for some added flexibility, you may be better off with Postage or the still-awesome Comic Touch. For $0.99, however, the first pass of Postman delivers ease of use and some very handy delivery mechanisms on the back end.

In today's New York Times, Tim Arango tells a story of a heated conversation between Sony Music's Rolf Schmidt-Holtz and Steve Jobs on Christmas Eve -- one that "ricocheted around the music industry."

Apparently, before the announcement at Macworld, all the labels except Sony had agreed to a new pricing deal. Sony wanted the new pricing to take effect immediately after the announcement, but Jobs wanted a longer rollout. After the phone call, according to the Times, Sony agreed to the longer waiting period.

During this time, Jobs was allegedly on medical leave, recuperating at home from his much-publicized illness. Arango notes that Jobs' point-man on music industry relations, Eddie Cue, and Apple's entire staff "do their best to follow Mr. Jobs's style in their own negotiating." That is to say: Hardball.

Music executives, according to an unnamed source, are afraid of angering Apple, as Apple can single-handedly remove a label's catalog from the iTunes store, angering the label's customers. At the same time, Apple can claim that their hands were tied, the decision wasn't theirs, and that all the ire should be directed at the music industry. Such a thing hasn't happened -- yet -- but the threat is there, and real.

The labels, on the other hand, feel like they brought Apple back from the dead, blessing the company with content.

Even so, David Card of Forrester Research offered an interesting coda to the story: "if it weren't for Apple, God knows how bad the music industry would be," he said.

[Via 9-to-5 Mac.]

We'll have more coverage and reactions tomorrow to Apple's announcement this afternoon of Steve Jobs' leave of absence while he tends to his health. While we may have different takes on what the news means for Apple's immediate and long-term prospects, I believe we can all join in wishing Steve a full and speedy recuperation. I'm sure we also all send Tim Cook our hopes for Apple's continued success.

To that end, TUAW wants to give you a voice as part of our audio get-well card to Steve. You can call in your message to our voicemail hotline at (917) 512-7398 x41469, or record it yourself and upload the MP3 or AAC file to our dropbox at http://tr.im/getwell -- we'll edit the messages together for next week's podcast. Be sure to identify yourself on the call.

If you want to do a photo or illustrated card, you can upload it to the same dropbox, or simply tag it with 'tuaw' on Flickr to add it to our pool, and we'll highlight the best in a gallery later this week.

If you're blogging your thoughts on today's announcement and Steve's health as it relates to Apple, feel free to leave a link in the comments.

From everyone at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, we wish you a Happy New Year! May the new year bring you happiness, and plenty of Mac and iPhone goodness.

From all of us at The Unofficial Apple Weblog, we wish you a warm, bright, wonderful 2008.

Okay it looks like it's time for me to eat some crow. Back in the Valentine's Day Ask TUAW, somebody asked if it would be possible to upgrade the 802.11g wireless card in iMacs and MacBooks to be compatible with the new 802.11n wireless standard that Apple just recently released and I said probably not. Well it turns out I was wrong, though I should get partial credit because I did actually mention QuickerTek in my response. Today QuickerTek announced the availability of a wireless N card that fits in the Airport card slot of "modern MacBooks and MacBook Pros" as well as "modern iMacs." They say: "Since this wireless upgrade uses standard parts, no drivers or other changes need to be made, nor are additional steps required to use the higher speed 'n' upgrade."

I just called QuickerTek and they confirmed that this upgrade only requires removing the old card from your Core Duo MacBook (Pro) or iMac, connecting the antennas, and running Apple's enabler upgrade software (which, as we mentioned before, will run you $2).

QuickerTek offers the bare card for customer installation at $149 or they'll put it in for you for $199 if you send them your Mac.

[Via MacMinute]

Update: We previously mentioned doing this yourself with a Mac Pro upgrade kit (which is substantially cheaper), though be warned that Apple claims this will violate your warranty.

MacsimumNews broke down a MacGeneration post (a French publication) revealing that the new 24-inch iMac Apple introduced this week could quite possibly be the first iMac with a truly upgradeable graphics card. Thanks to a new Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM - originally designed for high-end notebooks) standard in the biggest iMac of 'em all, owners might be able to upgrade their own graphics card and (finally) ditch that old just throw it out when you want to upgrade stigma - if this is true, of course. You can also thank NVIDIA and their partnership with some of the industry leading notebook manufacturers (we would imagine Alienware and even Dell, believe it or not) for this standard that was quite a long time coming.

Why this much-requested feature isn't getting any spotlight time on the new iMac's graphics page, or why the 24-inch is the only model to receive the coveted upgrade-ability treatment, definitely doesn't help our skeptical side. We'll be investigating this further, as it could easily be that Apple adopted the standard for one reason or another (like cheaper manufacturing costs), but still soldered the card (which will most surely cause an uproar, if true).

We'd also like to echo MacsimumNews' observation that it would be stellar if Apple could work this standard into the next MacBook Pro revision, as the company kinda dropped the ball with their current lineup.

Thanks Michael!

Apple has released a software update for at least the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and possibly the 17-inch as well (I just have a 15-inch). ExpressCard Update 1.0 "resolves an issue that prevented the system from sleeping when some cards are inserted in the ExpressCard/34 slot." Have at it boys and girls.

Also, do not adjust your display - the funky color scheme you see in my screenshot is the work of ShapeShifter, Unsanity's GUI theming utility.

[UPDATE: At least one commenter has confirmed that this update appears for the 17-inch MacBook Pro as well.]

Thanks Guy!

AMD, the #2 CPU maker in the world, has announced a purchase of ATI, a leading graphics card manufacturer, for $5.4 billion. IMG has more details on the buyout and the business end of things, but we're more interested in finding out what exactly this means for the Mac market. ATI currently supplies the graphics hardware in a good portion of Apple's machines, including the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on and my wife's iMac, so here's hoping ATI makes enough money from working with Apple to keep AMD - an arch rival to Intel - happy. Stay tuned for more details as they develop.

Re-defining the term "portability," Engadget picked up on the MoGo MouseBT, to be unvelied at the January '06 CES they'll be covering. Ergonomics aside, this looks like a slick little Bluetooth mouse that can stow away in a PC card slot - which means 12" PowerBook and iBook owners will still have to resort to a good ol' fashioned bag (or pants) pocket for storage. But how cool would a mouse like this be? Hopefully it'll have better accuracy than other BT mice I've used. Aside from Apple's, I've tried one from Logitech and another from MacMice and neither of them held a candle to the accuracy and response of Apple's Bluetooth mouse, which still didn't match a true blue chorded mouse.

Who knows, maybe '06 will be "The Year of the Bluetooth Mouse."