Tonight I settled in to write a post about how exciting it was that you could play old school public-domain and freeware Nintendo games on your iPhone now, thanks to Jonathan Zdziarski and Nescaline, the app he built to do just that. Ah, Kid Icarus and Ninja Gaiden and Zelda and Mario, all my old friends back again (if I had legal licenses to the ROM images, of course). I was excited to relive my pixelated past, but it was not to be. Jason updated his site this evening saying Nescaline had been pulled: Nescaline was removed from the AppStore by Apple at 22:19 PST tonight. I haven’t received anything from Apple as to why. I predict they’ve either proven to be a pushover to Nintendo, who has no valid claim against Nescaline, or decided they really didn’t want the ability to play NES games in the AppStore. NESv3 continues to be available in Cydia. Apple’s draconian and anti-competitive AppStore practices is [sic] sadly why jailbreaking will always remain a necessity. I was all set to be indignant about this, but then I read the update again. Is it possible that Apple yanked it simply for being available on Cydia? Not being the person at my house who runs a jailbroken iPhone, I don’t have any experience with anything being available through Cydia that is also available on the App Store. I know there are those who have been pulled from the App Store for one reason or another and made their way to Cydia, but I can’t find any apps that seem to be available in both places.
I would like to think this is the issue Apple saw with Nescaline and that’s why it vanished, since the “Nintendo’s knickers are in a twist” reason seems more heavy-handed. Then again, there’s also the “no un-vetted code running in emulation” rule that the C64 emulator ran afoul of previously, which might well be the issue.
Apple just dodged a bullet.
A New York federal judge dismissed a potential class action lawsuit which alleged that Apple propagated their popular iMac screens without disclosing certain manufacturing defects to its customers, saying that the allegations were too general to be considered.
Congrats to Steve Jobs, who’s got another award to put on all the mantles he must have to hold all of the awards he’s picked up: he’s been chosen as the best performing CEO in the world by the Harvard Business Review. They cite AAPL’s “whopping 3,188% industry-adjusted return (34% compounded annually)” as well as an increased market value of $150 billion under Jobs’ oversight. Oh, and they also mention his kickass index of 5,000% when adjusted for the globonational economy, as well as his black turtleneck market factor of 3.1 year-over-year.
Ok, so we made those last two stats up. But yes, as if you needed to be told, Jobs is an amazing CEO, and it’s in large part because of him and his work that Apple is the company it is today. The Business Review says that they didn’t want to just choose most-admired or highest-paid CEOs (Jobs wouldn’t technically make that list, though he’s not worrying about money, we’re sure), but rather individuals who’ve really driven a company forward over their entire tenure in the position. And even with that criteria in place, they agree that “it may come as no shock that Steve Jobs of Apple tops the list.” You’re ruining the curve for the rest of them, Steve! Great job.
As stringent (and arguably overzealous) as Apple’s App review policy is, things still slip through the cracks from time to time. I mean, who can forget the infamous baby shaking simulator slip-up? The latest bit of contraband to hit the App Store isn’t nearly as offensive – that is, unless you’re Nintendo.
Earlier today, an application called “Nescaline” popped up on the App Store. Everything about the application, from the name, to the copyrighted icon, to the very functionality of the application rang of something that Apple would generally deny without batting an eye.. and yet, there it was – for all of one day, at least.
Disney and Apple — now, where have we heard about these two mingling in content related activities before? Sure enough, whispers of a potential tie-up regarding a $30 per month TV service for iTunes are turning into more of a gentle roar, with The Wall Street Journal reporting today that both CBS and Walt Disney Company are “considering participating in Apple’s plan to offer television subscriptions over the internet.” Naturally, this comes from those ever present (and perpetually undisclosed) “sources,” but considering that the outfit just shelled out for Lala, we wouldn’t put anything past it. As the story goes, CBS is considering offering up content from CBS and CW, while Disney could include programming from ABC, Disney Channel and ABC Family networks; details on the purported program are obviously still under wraps, but we know that both of these guys would be looking for some sort of monthly compensation in exchange for access to their lineups. Whatever the case, it’s being bruited that Apple could complete licensing deals and introduce the service sometime in 2010, so we’ll be keeping an ear to the ground for more.
The cable companies suck. All of them. Some suck less than others. But they all suck. We need someone to whip them into shape. And that someone may be Apple.
Apple may be on the verge of gaining two key television network agreements, according to The Wall Street Journal. Specifically, CBS and Walt Disney (which runs ABC) are said to be considering a proposal by Apple to offer a subscription-based TV service over the Internet. Presumably, this would work through iTunes like all of Apple-based content, but also presumably it would work over Apple’s Apple TV device (though maybe a new version of it) to bring this content into the living room, where people are used to consuming it. Simply put: This could be huge.
Chitika Research, a company that helps deliver online advertising, has released numbers from its network that claim 45% of iPod touch users still haven’t upgraded to the iPhone 3.x firmware. Only 55% of the users measured have paid the cash to upgrade to the latest version (because of accounting regulations around subscriptions, iPod touch users have to pay for an upgrade that iPhone users get for free). And actually, the story is even worse than you think: Chitika points out that since mid-June, every single iPod touch sold has had 3.x pre-installed on it anyway. That means the percentage of users who owned iPod touches before June but haven’t yet upgraded is even higher than the overall numbers show.
So how can Apple fix this (and they probably should — lots of their best and brightest apps require 3.0, not to mention developers have spent a good amount of time upgrading them for the new firmware)? First, and maybe even only step, is to get rid of that fee, and Apple is already working on that one. Of course, education might be another issue — it’s possible that iPod touch users just don’t know that there’s an upgrade waiting for them. But I have an inkling that the fee is the real issue here. People may scoff at a $10 app, and I’m sure that they’re doing exactly that for an upgrade to the firmware.
Here’s something that’ll fix a bit of your 27-inch iMac ails. Apple just released a graphics firmware update 1.0. Order of the day? To “address issues that may cause image corruption or display flickering.” Download away, and let us know if you troubled souls have seen some relief.
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Last night on the Talkcast, we talked about the big news last week that Psystar seemed to be down for the count, and the consensus was that we’d heard the last of them. But not so fast: their lawyer now says that they’re not calling it quits just yet. The company that has gotten pummeled by Apple for selling Mac clones apparently “does not intend to shut down permanently,” according to K. A. D. Camera of legal firm Camera & Sibley. According to him, they’re still working on selling their Rebel EFI product (also currently entangled in legal problems), and they’re planning on pushing forward on their antitrust case against Apple (which has already been thrown out once). We’re not sure where they’ll get the money for all of this legal action after already being ordered to give a couple million dollars to Apple, but maybe those 768 computers they sold made more than we thought.
There is one bright point in all of this: while Rebel EFI is still listed as out of stock on their website, they are selling official Psystar t-shirts for $15 which they say will also include a Rebel EFI authorization code later on and now those appear to be gone too! I don’t know about you (and I don’t really want to give these guys any credit card information), but one of those shirts would look great sitting under my tree later this week. If this whole installing-OS X-on-unauthorized-hardware-in-violation-of-Apple’s-EULA thing doesn’t work out for Psystar, maybe they can have a second life as a merch vendor.
We hope this will provide holiday relief for many iMac owners: Apple just released a firmware update for the graphics chipsets in 27″ iMac models, intended to fix display issues. Apple states this download
Updates the graphics firmware on ATI Radeon HD 4670 and 4850 graphics cards to address issues that may cause image corruption or display flickering.