The Nintendo DSi doesn’t have much positive street buzz. Among all the people I know in the world of game writing and the industry at large, most of them thought that the system just didn’t offer enough to be worth the upgrade cost. Then a funny thing happened: each one of them happened to be at a GameStop or Best Buy in the past week or so to buy one. That’s when I became sure it was going to be a hit.
Apple is unfazed by Microsoft’s recent attempts to make Macs out to be a bad value. “A PC is no bargain when it doesn’t do what you want,” Apple spokesman Bill Evans recently told BusinessWeek. “The one thing that both Apple and Microsoft can agree on is that everyone thinks the Mac is cool. With its great designs and advanced software, nothing matches it at any price.”
Preliminary results are in for PC sales in the first quarter of this year. Echoing Gartner’s recent report predicting a fairly grim outlook for 2009, the numbers show a significant 6.5 percent year-over-year decline in PC shipments worldwide for Q1. Meanwhile, US PC shipments have recovered somewhat over the sharp decline experienced in Q4. And while Dell continues to cede significant market share to HP, Acer, and Toshiba, Apple’s impressive growth over the last couple of years seems to have run smack into a brick wall.
Security researcher Charlie Miller has discovered a bug in the iPhone OS that could be a potential security vulnerability. Though the iPhone is generally considered unable to run shell code in its default configuration, Miller says that he has found a method that enables execution of arbitrary shell code.
Amid the general love-fest over the Amazon Kindle, its DRM is beginning to bite some users in the butt as they are getting locked out of their accounts and, subsequently, their e-book purchases. The incidents highlight once again that the customer doesn’t really own the content when it comes to DRM; even when it’s so loose that it’s not apparent day to day, it can still hurt you in the long run.
Apple has begun to quietly roll out feature-length movies on the German iTunes Store. The movies, which range from 8 to 14, appear to our un-German-reading eyes be purchase-only at the moment. The product pages, however, are not yet available, indicating that the rollout is still in progress.
Apple only offers one monitor option so far that is compatible with the now company-standard Mini DisplayPort. Though it is by most accounts an excellent display, its $899 price tag may be more than you’re looking to spend. Enter Collins America and its new CinemaView line, offering three Mini-DP compatible displays for under $500.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has put together sales estimates for Apple’s recently ended fiscal second quarter. He and several colleagues visited a series of Apple Stores to gauge how many iPhones, iPods, and Macs the company is likely to have moved in the past three months. After crunching through the numbers, Munster sees a good outlook for Apple this past quarter.
The general consensus around the blogosphere is that rumored Zune HD will be coming this fall, and it will be a more “international” release, though an official list of countries is not yet available. The leaked picture above (which looks legitimate, despite the atypical inclusion of the word “Zune” on the front) is courtesy of WMPoweruser, which brings us the following supposed details about the device.
Microsoft has announced that the latest addition to the family of SideWinder gaming products, the SideWinder X3 Mouse, will set the customer back just $40. The X3 will start shipping sometime in May. According to Microsoft, the eight-button mouse “combines gaming performance and versatile design” and also “delivers comfort for either hand.” The company outlines six features for the mouse:
