A post today at iLounge suggests that a close analysis of Apple's sales numbers for iPhone, contrasted with AT&T activation stats, leads to a somewhat surprising conclusion: somewhere between 30 and 35 percent of all iPhones sold worldwide are being sold to users who intend to unlock them, or possibly to middlemen who are shipping the phones to countries not yet serviced by Apple and its carrier partners.
While there wasn't a hard number on the most recent results conference call, the Q4 call indicated that 250,000 phones had already been sold to unlockers, by Apple's estimate. Clearly, there's demand out there for iPhone outside the exclusive carrier relationships.
I thought it was a little odd that the Apple press release concerning the YouTube addition to Apple TV stated that it would take weeks for all YouTube content to be made available on the Apple TV. iLounge got to the bottom of this slightly odd situation (or so it seemed without explanation). They spoke with Apple Vice President of Worldwide Mac Hardware Marketing David Moody who explained the delay. It would seem that all YouTube's videos are in the process of being converted to H.264, a codec that Apple TV supports. All new videos will be converted to H.264 as they are uploaded, but it will take some time to convert the back catalog.
I am sure some of you are thinking, 'Enough with the Apple TV already,' but considering that even Scoble likes it, I think some more coverage is in order. Two Apple TV links worthy of your attention have come across NetNewsWire. First off, our iPod loving friends over at iLounge list the top ten geek details about the Apple TV (I'm a geek, are you?). The list includes:
The 40 gig harddrive only has 33 gigs available for your use
Some H.264 videos won't play on the Apple TV
The Apple Remote does not control the volume (you have to use your TV/Receiver remote)
PC Magazine has given the Apple TV 4 out of 5... circles, which rates it as 'Very Good.' Interestingly Apple told PC Mag of the video codecs supported by Apple TV 'If it plays on your iPod, it should play on Apple TV, BUT if it plays in iTunes, it doesn't necessarily play on Apple TV.'
How'd you like to be the first one on your block to own an iPhone? Now imagine getting that iPhone for free.
It could happen if you win iLounge's new wallpaper contest. The rules are simple: Create a high-resolution desktop picture featuring any current iPod model and the iLounge logo. The iLounge editors will then pick their top three. That's it! All work must be original and submitted by March 25, 2007 at 11:59PM Pacific Time.
The third place contestant will receive an iPod nano and an iPod shuffle, second place gets at AppleTV and the grand prize winner will walk away with an iPhone. Not bad for a few hours with Photoshop.
I haven't even seen one of the new iPod Shuffles in the wild, but our friends at iLounge already have all 5 types. They posted a nice photo gallery giving you all the details about what comes in the box (mostly unchanged) as well as listing 5 key facts about the new shuffles.
The biggest news, other than the colors, is that the shuffles now come with the improved Apple earbuds.
We sat down with iLounge's Editor-in-chief Jeremy Horwitz today and talking about the iPhone, iPod accessories, earphones and more. Give it a watch and I bet you'll learn something.
Our friends at iLounge have been pounding the show floor looking for the best stuff out there. As usual, they have produced their famous 'Best of Show 2007' awards, and the list up for you to marvel at. The iPhone, of course, made the list but check out the iPod accessories you'll find. Jeremy and I sat down and spoke about the awards (the interview will be online later today) and he told me that while nothing on the list was revolutionary there are lots of solid products that should make anyone happy.
The second gen iPod Shuffle is looks pretty good in its nature state, but some folks like to differentiate their gear from the rest of the pack. Shufflesome offers a variety of stickers for your Shuffle (both first and second gen Shuffles can be dressed up with Shufflesome stickers). They have a wide variety to choose from, and some are very striking (the one above is my favorite).
Each Shufflesome sticker will set you back about $7, but can you really put a price on individuality?
Oh Apple. You bad, bad company. Instead of making your customers work to excel at iPod games, you go ahead and release cheat codes? Tsk, tsk, tsk.
iLounge has an amazingly wrong and unethicalarticle up today, that we at TUAW highly recommend you avoid because none of you are cheaters. And none of you would be interested in how to bypass levels for Texas Hold'em and Vortex.
Our friends over at iLounge have just released their 2007 iPod Buyers Guide and it's the biggest one yet, weighing in at 180 pages. If you're thinking of buying anything iPod related at all for the holidays, this is the guide to read before you spend your hard earned cash. The guide includes more than 20 exclusive accessory debuts, sneak peaks, iPod buying tips, Best of the Year awards and so much more.
There are two versions available for download and both are 100% free. One in a full-screen single-page PDF format, which is suitable for printing, and one in magazine-style two-page PDF format. iLounge adds: This issue is specially formatted to fill your screen horizontally rather than vertically, unlike past issues. As a result, if your monitor is smaller than 20" on the diagonal, we strongly recommend that you download the single-page version rather than the two-page version. TUAW adds: if your monitor is smaller than 20" on the diagonal, skip the iPod and buy a bigger monitor first!
Apple offers their own advertising-friendly estimation of how many songs each model of iPod can hold, but those numbers are based on fairly unrealistic standards of 128Kbps AAC songs that are a mere 4 minutes long. Toss in a few tracks from Phish or Beethoven's 5th, and you can easily hurl this song estimation into the realm of 'anyone's guess.'
Enter iLounge's iPod Storage Calculator, a handy little web tool (what, no widget?) that lets everyone from newbies to demanding audiophiles perform some quick calculations to figure out just how many songs, even at varying bitrates, their iPod can hold. As a matter of fact, the only thing about this calculator that makes it iPod-specific is the handy pull-down menu offering one-click access to every storage capacity the iPod has ever packed; in other words - anyone can use this tool to get an idea of how many songs they can bring along.
Our iPod loving friends at iLounge are getting their game on (was that as painful to read as it was to write?). They have reviewed each and every iPod game that is currently available from the iTunes Store. Mahjong does the best with a score of A- while Pac-Mac gets a D+. Check out all the reviews, or just look at them ranked by awesomeness.
I should have noted this when we found iLounge's 2G iPod nano dissection gallery, but it seems that Apple has (strangely) opted to take a step towards keeping their new iPod chip manufacturer's identity under wraps (strange because we already knew Samsung won PortalPlayer's old contract). As iLounge notes about their gallery, you can see three chips stamped with Apple's logo, and absolutely none from PortalPlayer (which we were expecting). It is believed that Wolfson and Philips are the other two namelessly Apple-branded chips, though I have to admit I'm a bit perplexed as to why Apple went to all this trouble in the first place. I mean, their attention to detail is admirable, and their logo is cool and all - but how many nano owners do they expect will ever check under the hood?
Ok, maybe not 'everyone,' but they certainly made the rounds to a healthy portion of companies who have just about anything to do with the iPod. iLounge asked for general reactions of the new products from the likes of Griffin, Altec Lansing, Pacific Rim, Targus, TechRestore and even the Chief iPodification Officer of iPopMyPhoto and iPopMyBaby.com. Plenty of other companies sounded off with reactions, and (of course) just about everyone got a word in on the status of their products, whether they'll work with the new iPods (save for the shuffle, many products should be fine) and what they have coming down the pipeline. While some of the reactions may be packed with more marketing than genuine answers, it's still a good overall 'state of the iPod universe' article, providing a nice communication channel between the accessory manufacturers and their adoring fans. I haven't seen a post like this before from iLounge, but I hope they keep 'em coming.
[Update: Jeremy Horwitz of iLounge let us know in the comments that they actually have been doing these types of posts for a while, and they even have an archive. Thanks Jeremy!]
Why, iLounge, why? The 2G iPod nano was announced barely two days ago. It still had its entire product cycle ahead of it! So young, so innocent.. and apparently so ripe for the dismantling. The gurus of all things iPod have dissected what looks like a silver 2G iPod nano (though I'm not sure whether it's 2GB or 4GB) for all the world to see.
While the majority of us probably won't get much out of looking at this internal iPod guts pr0n, I can think of one basic lesson we can pass on to the iPod owning luddites of our lives: if they ever, during their experience of owning an iPod, see any of these parts from it - that's a bad thing.
A post today at iLounge suggests that a close analysis of Apple's sales numbers for iPhone, contrasted with AT&T activation stats, leads to a somewhat surprising conclusion: somewhere between 30 and 35 percent of all iPhones sold worldwide are being sold to users who intend to unlock them, or possibly to middlemen who are shipping the phones to countries not yet serviced by Apple and its carrier partners.
I thought it was a little odd that the Apple press release 
I am sure some of you are thinking, 'Enough with the Apple TV already,' but considering that even Scoble 
How'd you like to be the first one on your block to own an iPhone? Now imagine getting that iPhone for free.
Oh Apple. You bad, bad company. Instead of making your customers work to excel at iPod games, you go ahead and release cheat codes? Tsk, tsk, tsk. 
Our friends over at iLounge have just released their 
Apple offers their own advertising-friendly estimation of how many songs each model of iPod can hold, but those numbers are based on fairly unrealistic standards of 128Kbps AAC songs that are a mere 4 minutes long. Toss in a few tracks from Phish or Beethoven's 5th, and you can easily hurl this song estimation into the realm of 'anyone's guess.'
Our iPod loving friends at iLounge are getting their game on (was that as painful to read as it was to write?). They have 
Ok, maybe not 'everyone,' but they certainly 
