JoostTeam

Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster issued a report early Monday that may draw some attention away from Steve Jobs’ health and put it back on the bright and shiny object Apple (AAPL) released last Friday.

Munster and his team spent the day counting heads and conducting interviews with customers buying the new iPhone 3G S in New York City and Minneapolis.

Among their findings:

* 750,000 iPhones. Munster estimates that Apple sold about 750,000 iPhones over the three-day weekend, 50% more than his initial prediction (500,000) but 25% less than the 1 million iPhone 3Gs Apple sold on launch last July. It took Apple 74 days to sell 1 million first-generation iPhone and three days to sell 1 million units of the iPhone 3G.

* Shrinking windfall. Among the 256 customers surveyed, 28% were switching carriers to AT&T (T), down from 38% last year and 52% in 2007. AT&T’s iPhone windfall is shrinking.

* Brand loyalty. 56% were upgrading from an old iPhone, up from 38% last year. “We believe this shows Apple is developing brand loyalty not enjoyed by other mobile phone makers,” Munster writes.

* 16GB sweet spot. 43% bought the high-end 32GB iPhone 3G S, down from the 66% who bought the high-capacity model (16GB) last year and the 95% who chose 8GB over the 4GB when the first iPhone went on sale.

* Business users. Among customers buying their first iPhone, 12% were switching from a Research in Motion (RIMM) BlackBerry, up from 6% last year. This, says Munster, “may indicate the company is making headway among business users slowly adopting the iPhone platform for corporate use.”

Munster maintains a buy rating for Apple with a price target of $180 a share. The stock closed Friday at 139.48, up 2.6%, before the Street learned that Steve Jobs is recovering from a liver transplant

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jobs has liver transplant but will return to Apple (dailyfinance.com)

Apple is now calling its MacBook laptops “the world’s greenest lineup of notebooks” instead of “the world’s greenest family of notebooks” in response to a recommendation by the Better Business Bureau’s advertising division.

A MacBook page on Apple.com shows the revised wording “the world’s greenest lineup of notebooks.”

The division came to the recommendation after rival computer maker Dell challenged Apple’s MacBook marketing, which refers, among other things, to the devices’ energy usage, packaging and recyclable components.

Dell’s complaints, according to a report published by the Bureau’s National Advertising Division, include Apple’s reference to its gold ratings by the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT — ratings Dell said it and other PC makers have also received.

Apple, in its response, focused on the division’s conclusion about its use of EPEAT ratings. “Apple thanks the NAD for confirming that its MacBooks, as compared to all of the notebooks made by any given manufacturer, are the world’s greenest notebook computers,” it said in a statement. Apple statement adds: “Apple believes that in its advertising the term ‘family’ clearly refers to all of its notebook computers, rather than a particular notebook model or group of models. In the interest of the self-regulatory process, however, Apple will replace the word “family” with an alternate word that effectively communicates that its ‘World’s Greenest’ claim pertains to all of Apple’s notebooks.” Dell also thanked NAD for its review. Last summer Dell stopped using the tagline “World’s Most Secure Notebooks” on a complaint by Lenovo to the NAD, after Dell got the Chinese PC maker to stop calling its line the “World’s Best-Engineered PCs.”

Via WSJ

A new broadband channel highlighting the plight of more than 42 million uprooted people worldwide is now being streamed globally on Livestation, the online destination for live broadcasting.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) is now broadcasting appeals in a constantly updated flow of stories from some of the most urgent refugee flash points around the globe. A direct link to the UNHCR donation page is available on the Livestation player. The channel is available at this address: http://www.livestation.com/channels/68

The decision to stream the stories on Livestation was taken to coincide with World Refugee Day, which falls on 20 June each year.

It’s a date that the UNHCR uses to try to spread awareness about refugees and other displaced people and to raise funds for operations in countries such as Afghanistan, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq and neighbouring countries, Pakistan and Sudan.

Matteo Berlucchi, the CEO of Levitation, said the decision to invite the UNHCR to create a channel on Livestation was taken because of the growing demand for factual information about the plight of millions around the world who are forced to flee their homes by conflict and persecution.

“Livestation already has a rich array of partner news channels telling stories every day about those who are caught in the cross-fire or made to leave their homelands under threat.”

“The UNHCR channel will play an important role in showing the human suffering behind the headlines” he said.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was established on December 14, 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly. The agency is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide.

Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country.

Apparently a casual mention on the Engadget HD podcast is enough to bring anyone out of hiding, as Joost follows Managed Copy out of the shadows, showing off a test of a new interface for the video streaming website that is optimized for the PlayStation 3 web browser. Simply pull up http://labs.joost.com.tv/ from the console, and then the controller buttons will easily control all the video playback from there. Joost went in the reverse of Hulu, YouTube XL and others, from desktop app to browser only, but it seems finally ready to offer new ways, through this 10-foot style interface, to get on the TV.

Via Engadget

Related articles by Zemanta

• How To Turn Your Gaming Console Into A Media Center (makeuseof.com)

You may or may not be aware that I am the author of DellEFI, the application that allow common users to run OSX on the Dell Mini… but now you know!

I want to rethink the whole installation solution for OSX on the Mini 9 and 10v.  What I mean by that is going back to the drawing board and make the solution even easier than it is now.

What I have in mind is to use an installation package that would do all it need without the user intervention.  This might mean splitting DellEFI in two main product.  The 1st would be the core boot loader, driver and custom dsdt.aml installer.  The second product (or maybe multiple) would be for individual packages.  For example, one installer for the touchpad, one for remote CD, one for hibernation, etc.

This way we could modularise the whole thing and focus development on individual aspects instead of trying to cram everything in one solution.

What do you think?

Also, Dell will send me a free Mini 10v evaluation unit so I can continue to support the Mini 10v users.  Talk about a nice company!

The goal would be to build an installation package (dellefi.pkg) that could be run from a terminal at the end of the OSX installation process… similar to what the dellefibootmaker solution does but in a much nicer way.  So you would essentially:

1. Install OSX from a USB key
2. Possibly apply the desired combo patch
3. Run the dellefi.pkg installation
4. Reboot
5. Enjoy OSX on the Mini
6. Install individual customization packages

I know Merklot wanted to convert DellEFI into an installer at some point.  I am not sur if he went anywhere with that.

Cheers and looking forward to your comments

Related articles by Zemanta

• How To: Hackintosh a Dell Mini 9 Into the Ultimate OS X Netbook [How To] (i.gizmodo.com)
• How To Install Windows 7 On Almost Any Netbook [How To] (gizmodo.com)

It’s been a busy 2 months at work and kind of neglected the DellEFI community in the process.  But this hopefully is about to change.  I am getting some breathing room and will start working on it again as I find the time.

One thing that draw my interest was the announcement of the Dell Mini 10v as a direct replacement for the Mini 9 that has been officially discountinued.

I am looking at getting an evaluation unit so I can progress with supporting this new netbook under OSX.  Hopefully Dell will send me a nice unit I can use to do just that.

So until then I will keep working on the trusty Mini9!

Related articles by Zemanta

• So Long, Dell Mini 9. We Hardly Knew You (jkontherun.com)
• Dell’s Mini 10v gets unboxed, cracked wide open, fitted with OS X (engadget.com)
• Dell Mini 10 Unboxed, Compared to HP Mini 1000 (jkontherun.com)

Overall, Rapid Repair estimates $170.02 in components — but as always, this figure doesn’t mean a lot since you can’t quantify the blood, sweat, tears, and poached engineers from competitors that went into this product over the last several years.

BBC World News today announces the launch of the BBC World News app, allowing users of the iPhone and iPod Touch in sixteen European countries to watch the channel live on their Apple devices over Wi-Fi and 3G networks.

The application, which is available to download directly from the Apple AppStore, enables users from the Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland to watch BBC World News live, wherever they are in the world.

The BBC World News app, which has been produced together with online TV specialist Livestation, is available for €7.99 and can be downloaded from the iPhone App Store from 3 June.  The BBC’s mobile news site is also included in the App, providing users with one-click access to all the latest international news and sport.  The launch will be supported by a series of on-screen activity on BBC World News as well as advertising on Livestation’s website.

Jim Egan, Director of Strategy and Business Development at BBC Global News, says: “This is an exciting new way for BBC World News viewers living in Europe to watch the channel anywhere.  With live TV streaming alongside the BBC’s mobile news site the app is a complete on-demand news service. Having a news channel available live on the iPhone at this level of broadcast quality is a world first. We aim to extend this service to iPhone owners in other regions soon.”

Matteo Berlucchi, CEO of Livestation, says: “We are delighted to be able to bring BBC World News to the iPhone as we believe this is the first hand-held device that can take mobile TV to the next level, thanks to its superior screen and connectivity qualities. Being able to watch BBC World News live from an iPhone or iPod Touch while in cafes, at home, in hotels or airport lounges is clearly a very attractive proposition. I am confident viewers will welcome the ability to take their favourite news channel with them while on the move.”

BBC World News, the most watched BBC channel, has 74 million viewers a week.

Palm hosted an impressive debut of the Pre at CES. But remember that Palm’s developer network has been largely dormant for three to four years; not immediately embracing its reinvigorated efforts is shortsighted and will prove costly. If you can afford to spend $199 on a phone in this economy, would you purchase a phone that’s been in the marketplace for two years, has sold more units than the Motorola (MOT) Razr, and is supported by tens of thousands of available applications, or would you purchase an unproven phone from a company teetering on the brink of extinction, or at least irrelevance?

And at the outset, the company made an attempt to court a community of software developers who would be at the forefront of creating all manner of rich applications that will make the Pre both useful and fun to a range of buyers. The chain of events caused me to step back and look at Palm in a new light, but my concerns about the success of the Pre relate to far more than the company’s treatment of developers.

On June 6, Palm (PALM) will release the Pre, a smartphone many hope will fuel a resurgence of a company long since fallen from grace.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Palm Pre promises to explode into a supernova of suck (crunchgear.com)
• Palm losses widen with poor smartphone sales (vnunet.com)

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington’s CrunchPad device continues to inch toward reality. Pictures of Prototype C, which is the device we’re actually demo’ing to people now, are here. The case will be aluminum, which is more expensive than plastic but is sturdier and lets us shave a little more off the overall thickness of the device.

TechCrunch has refined the design of its CrunchPad concept tablet, with a launch prototype that adds a flush display. We’ve been working hard behind the scenes on the CrunchPad since our last update in April, and have just about nailed down the final design for the device. The latest version of the CrunchPad has a case that’s just 18mm or about 0.7 inches thick, and which sits flush with the display, unlike earlier prototypes which were thicker and made of plastic.