Apple-Motorola deal could soon bear fruit

Apple-Motorola deal could soon bear fruit: “Apple and Motorola could soon introduce the mobile phone the two companies are developing to play music purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store. “We’ve said we have something coming on this in the first half of 2005 and we’re definitely on schedule for that. Hopefully you’ll be able to see more about it soon,” Eddy Cue, vice president of applications at Apple, told Forbes. “What we’ve talked about is a something that is valuable for the mass market. It has to be a phone in the middle-tier of the market, not a $500-tier phone. It has to be very seamless to use. And we’re very happy with the results.” Cue declined to say whether Apple CEO Steve Jobs would show the phone at next month’s Macworld Expo in San Francisco.”

[ Via MacMinute ]

Very Cool homemade iPod mini ad

Geroge Masters' Cool iPod mini ad

I came across this awesome iPod mini ad made by freelance motion graphics designer Geroge Masters. He doesn’t work for Apple (not yet anyway), he just made it for fun. Great job George!

Click the image above to view the movie. (10.3MB QuickTime)

From wired news:
“George Masters’ 60-second animated advertisement features flying iPods, pulsing hearts and swirling ’70s psychedelia. It received moderate traffic until it was picked up by several blogs last week. In a matter of days, the homemade ad has been watched more than 38,000 times, and is making the rounds on blogs and e-mail.” Read more from wired news…

One Digital Life has record month

one digital life November Stats

I’m a little late in posting this, but in November I had the most visitors I’ve ever had. With little exception, I’ve had a pretty steady rise in visitors each month. From only 7 visitors in April, when I started, to 3,188 in November.

Penn State students urged to ditch IE

Penn State students urged to ditch IE: “Penn State university recently told its 80,000 students to get rid of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and urged them to switch to alternative browsers such as Firefox, Safari, Mozilla, or Opera. In an alert issued to students and staff, the university’s Information Technology Services (ITS) recommended the switch “because the threats are real and alternatives exist to mitigate Web browser vulnerabilities.” ITS said “The university computing community [should] use standards-based Web browsers other than Internet Explorer to help minimize exposure to attacks that occur through browser vulnerabilities.” In related news, Firefox has been downloaded more than 10 million times since it was officially released a little more than a month ago.”

[ Via MacMinute ]

Another sign that Apple and Motorola are working on a cellphone?

via Engadget…

“Not that this is really gonna convince anyone that Apple is really working on a cellphone, but Tony Ricciardi from TreoMac relates this story which jibes with what we’d heard from one of our sources told us last week, namely that Apple has been showing off a cellphone prototype to potential partners:

I was on a train this weekend, watching an episode of the Simpsons on my Treo 600. The gentleman sitting across from me asked me how I liked the phone. I told him I loved it and we began a tech conversation. He mentioned that he worked for Motorola. I told him I was a Macintosh consultant, and then he dropped the bomb! “I’ve got a scoop for you”, he teased.

Apparently some of his associates had been telling him earlier in the week about an Apple branded phone that had been circulating around the office at Motorola. The phone had Motorola components, but most certainly had Apple brandings on it. He said that he did not have a chance to handle the phone, but that his direct supervisor did. The phone was “sleek and sexy” in her words. He mentioned that there was talk amongst the people who had seen it that iTunes and iPhoto would factor into this device somehow. They also said that the phone had a slot on the top (media slot?) as well as what looked to be a USB 2.0 port on the bottom.

Anyway, like we said before, we’re fairly confident that Apple has at least been showing off a prototype for a cellphone, we just don’t know whether they’ll actually ever come out with one or not. Definitely sounds like they’re exploring their options, though. We’d kill for some spy pics.”

Apple invites you to try Motion for 30 days

Apple invites you to try Motion for 30 days: “You can now download a 30-day trial version of Motion from Apple’s Web site. The software, which integrates seamlessly with Final Cut Pro HD and DVD Studio Pro 3, enables you to add effects to your digital video and ‘explore new creative territory using self-propelled behavior animation [and] character-by-character title animation.’ Motion, which you can purchase by itself for US$299 or bundled with Final Cut Pro HD and DVD Studio Pro 3 for $1,299, requires Mac OS X v10.3.5, an 867MHz G4 or G5 processor, 512MB RAM (2GB recommended), 10GB hard drive space, a 4X AGP slot and a high-end ATI or nVidia video card. Apple offers a Motion Compatibility Checker that you can download and run on your computer if you’re unsure if it meets those minimum specs.”

[ Via MacCentral ]

Mariner intros ‘fridge poetry’ app Desktop Poet

Mariner intros ‘fridge poetry’ app Desktop Poet: “Minneapolis, Minn.-based Mariner Software on Friday released Desktop Poet, a new application described as ‘fridge poetry for the desktop of the Macintosh.’ The software presents you with hundreds of word tiles that you can assemble into sentences or phrases, helping you brainstorm ideas, projects, poems, fiction or other creative endeavors. Individual tiles can include more than one word, and you can click on words to learn their definitions or view synonyms that you can choose from for a replacement. You can also create new tiles as well as adjust preferences that control the tiles’ opacity, your choice of ‘virtual fridge,’ text font and more. Pricing is US$19.95 and Mac OS X v10.2 is required.”

[ Via MacCentral ]

IBM won’t be buying Apple

IBM won’t be buying Apple: “Not that this was much more than idle (but sorta entertaining) speculation to begin with, but you can put to rest all those rumors that IBM might be buying Apple (or Apple’s Mac division): In order to close the deal to sell their PC business unit to Lenovo, IBM had to agree not sell or manufacture personal computers for the next five years. Not sure if this would preclude any sort of closer alliance with Apple or not, but we should probably all just move on with our lives now.”

[ Via Engadget ]