Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Actor Richard Belzer found himself on the wrong side of the law after an employee at a Manhattan Apple store told cops the "Law & Order" star attacked her, police sources said."

After reviewing the tape of the incident, NYPD said at best it was harassment, not assault, since Belzer didn't "choke" her as the victim alleges. I haven taken more calls than I can count from victims of crimes that, to put it mildly, exaggerated what happened to them. I'm not saying she is doing this, and that she wasn't scared, but under the law it appears her charges are unfounded when it comes to saying Belzer "attacked and choked" her. I'm just anticipating a civil suit next from her, call me cynical.

Head on over now to the Apple Store, online pre-orders are now being accepted. Woo Hoo.

"With just a few weeks to go before the iPad hits stores, here's the best way to ensure you're at the head of the line to get one (or three). If history is any indication, the iPad will be in short supply when it goes on sale April 3. Plus there are rumors of production delays that may further constrain supply."

To give yourself ample opportunity, visit AppleStoreCheck.com and they will let you know when things change and the familiar message above is displayed at the Apple Online Store. Once you sign up, they will alert you via email, RSS or Twitter. This doesn't appear to be limited to the iPad either, as they say "We'll check the Apple Store for new products and changes - so you don't have to."

"At Apple's annual shareholders meeting at its campus in Cupertino, Calif., Thursday, the company revealed it intends to open 25 stores in the nation of China."

This bit of info was from the Apple meeting last Thursday, but China isn't the only place Apple is going to build new stores. They plan on a total of 50 stores this year, including Shanghai, Spokane WA, Boise ID and London according to Tim Cook, Apple COO.

"In a move to update the design and feel of the App Store's individual app pages in iTunes, Apple has made several key changes to the pages which are aimed at allowing for easier, more intuitive access."

By now pretty much all of the pages should have this new design, but it is still possible you may run into a few that haven't been fixed. I like the new look, very clean, and if you click on the arrow next to the "Buy Album" button, you can add things to your wish list, or notify friends via email. It also has the option to tell friends via Facebook or Twitter. What are your thoughts?

"Apple will launch a second Bristol, UK store on December 12th at 9AM, the company has announced. The shop is located within the Upper Mall at Cribbs Causeway, in a storefront formerly owned by music and video retailer HMV."

You can find more info about this store at Apple's website, but so far the hours are going to be later than normal with Apple keeping the store open until 9pm. They will have their first workshops, holiday-themed, scheduled for December 14th and 16th.

"Apple has confirmed the November 7th opening for its retail store located at the Carousel du Louvre. Like many Apple Store openings, the first 5,000 visitors will get a free t-shirt."

This is just one of several locations Apple plans on opening up in France, including Montpellier, but no dates have been set on the other opening.

"One of the strangest things about the Apple Stores, in my opinion, is how they always used Windows based PDAs for customer checkouts not at the register. Sure, Apple didn't want or really need to make their own system, but it was just a little strange to me."

It must have felt strange to them too, as they are now going to be using the iPod Touch with barcode scanner and credit card readers. The only store reported to be using them now, in a trial phase, is the Valley Fair Mall Store in Santa Clara, CA. iPhone Alley has a more complete writeup on this switchover in case you want more info on what exactly they are going to be using.

Apple is also changing how the employees in the store will look, having everyone wear the same color t-shirt to avoid confusion with customers. Some customers reported being a bit confused about which employee they needed to contact since they were wearing different colored shirts. However, they may change the color of the t-shirts just to keep things interesting.

"Either Microsoft (MSFT) plans to sell rocks at its retail stores or it expects customers to buy a few desktops, Xboxes, and store fixtures all at once."

Well, their programs are bloated aren't they? Ok, Ok, enough of the joking, but it does remind me of a requirement listed on the Assistant Medical Examiner position in our County that opened up recently. The primary requirement was the ability to lift a minimum of 75 pounds. And before you reply, I was not comparing a Microsoft product to dead weight. No, really. If you aren't interested in the associates position, they only require the manager to be able to lift 50 pounds.

"My how you've grown, iTunes! Mexico now has its own iTunes store, giving our neighbors to the south the ability to download their favorite music, videos and iPhone/iPod touch apps."

77 stores now worldwide with the addition of Mexico into the iTunes mix, and according to the article the pricing is "12 pesos (a little over 90 U.S. cents as of August 4, 2009) for singles, and most albums at 120 pesos ($9.15 as of August 4, 2009)." For some unknown reason, I thought Mexico already had their own store so this was news to me. I guess I just assumed that Apple would have done all of North America by, live and learn I guess!

"Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) today launched a Kindle Store optimized for the Safari Web browser on iPhone. Now when users of the Kindle for iPhone app click on "Get Books," the new Kindle Store tailored for the size and shape of the iPhone and iPod touch screens automatically opens in Safari. This optimized Kindle store offers iPhone and iPod touch app users quick and easy access to the Kindle Store's 280,000 books, including 106 of 112 New York Times Best Sellers and most New Releases that are available for $9.99 or less."

The only knock I had on the Kindle App was that it didn't have a good mechanism for getting content onto the app; you had to browse the store through Safari and an interface that was anything but intuitive. Now, however, things are much easier and Amazon, as usual, did a hell of a job on the UI (it's very similar to their iPhone version of the web site). Basically, if you can live with reading books on the small screen, the iPhone could replace the Kindle if you wanted to (I don't, but it's a decent companion; no one can have my Kindle. Ever!).

"It kinda looks like Circuit City plus a few Surface displays, Microsoft Tags and magical screen-equipped shopping carts (pictured above). Oh, and before you gather up your Zune pals for a road trip: the Experience Center is real, but the customers are fake -- the store isn't open to the public. Video is after the break."

It's a nice looking store, honestly. Maybe this is the future of Microsoft? If you think about it, once Apple started controlling their retail destiny, things picked up. Maybe Microsoft is looking to control their image a bit? Who knows. I wouldn't mind seeing one of these pop up in my neighborhood; it would be interesting to see Microsoft's approach to retail. Engadget has way more pictures and even a video of this mockup store.

Apple has announced the "Best of 2008" from iTunes and, as could probably be expected, there isn't a whole lot of greatly big revelation going on. The music, television shows, and songs are all pretty much what you expected because it's all from a raw numbers angle. The interesting (or not so interesting, actually) part is the podcast section which is loaded with the same podcasts (for the most part) as it is year after year from the same providers. Everyone you would suspect is rightfully represented there, but the most disappointing part is how much of the podcast section is mainstream media outlets. I'm totally bummed at how podcasting has been taken over by the mainstream media outlets and big LA and NY producers like MSNBC, NPR, and so on. Essentially the best of 2008 on iTunes is the best of the mainstream with very little surprises or interesting additions.

I don't fault iTunes for noting raw numbers, but numbers aren't the whole story and in most cases they aren't even that interesting. Frankly I'd like to see a whole lot more GDGT.com and a whole lot less NPR, for example.

What do you think? Is this a representative sample or a bit too self-congratulatory for your tastes?