To all of you, I wish you the best for the upcoming year.  May you all have a healthy and happy 2009, and may all of your tech hopes and gadget dreams come true!

As I made a trip over to the official Zune forums to find a tip on how to fix this little issue, I found out that every single last original 30 gigabyte Zune had bricked themselves over the course of the night.   Not 10% of them, not 50% of them,  EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE THAT STILL FUNCTIONS.

This goes far beyond random failures, and into the land of class action lawsuit.  Not sure what the issue is with these devices,  but considering it’s firmware agnostic, and device specific, it must be something engrained in the hardware of these Zune 30s.

As of now, the Zune support lines are flooded with calls,  and Microsoft has yet to release a statement on the matter.   I’ll keep this post updated over the course of the day as the story develops.  In the mean time check out the official Zune forums for more information.

I know it’s sad and shocking to the throngs of people who paid thousands of dollars in hotel and airfare to make sure they we’re all set for this January’s SteveNote at MacWorld, to find out that he’s not even going to be there.   It was also shocking to a community accustomed to meeting up every year at MacWorld, to find out that the company the trade show was MADE for, has decided to no longer participate in it.

But to be honest,  it’s the best thing Apple could have done.

First of all,  we’re in what is likely to become an economic crisis only slightly smaller in scope than the great depression.   Apple has a lot of cash in the bank, and I have a feeling they want to keep it that way.   Spending millions of dollars on a booth, and a keynote at a tradeshow every January,  when you have reporters at your beck and call to come to your headquarters any day of the week is simply economically irresponsible.   Over the years Apple has proven that product reveal press conferences on their own terms work just as well as the ones at MacWorld.   Sure you won’t be able to get into one anymore if you aren’t in the inner circle of Apple Favored Press,  but who cares?   There are so many live blogs of the event, and an HD quality stream of it available afterward.   Does it really matter?

Secondly,   HAVING to deliver an important keynote every January has likely driven the development teams at Apple insane.  Every year I imagine December at Apple headquarters being quite an un-happy place to work.  Instead of being able to enjoy the holiday season,  everyone is likely in crunch mode working on finishing whatever is to be debuted at MacWorld in the beginning of January.   And as we know from the recent iPhone and MacBook releases,  Apple is no good when it comes to it’s quality control on it’s first gen products.

Not being required to give a keynote every January will likely give Apple dev teams the ability to get a product more polished before its release,   and Steve and Co.  will be able to schedule a keynote for whenever the cool new product is actually DONE.

So what’s up with Steve not being in the keynote this year?   Simple.   He wants a clean break from MacWorld.   I wouldn’t expect any groundbreaking announcements,  that’s for sure.  If Steve is trusting the show entirely to Shiller,  they haven’t got anything cool up their sleeve for January.     So what will they show?  Maybe a couple of speedbumps on existing products,  perhaps a 32 gig iPhone?   Maybe a $99 iPhone nano.     Show off the improvements of Snow Leopard.   But nothing that the world is gonna “ooh” and “ahh” over.   Apple’s goal here is to make MacWorld irrelevant to their business.    So they will damned well make sure that this keynote is as irrelevant as possible.   Heck I wouldn’t put it past them to have an event with Steve at the helm a couple weeks after MacWorld just to screw them.

If there is one thing I really respect Apple for,  it’s the uncanny ability they have of being able to throw the baby out with the bathwater, without any regard for what might happen.  If something doesn’t work for them, they change it, whether you like it or not.   OS X is a perfect example of this.     They tossed out the old OS entirely and started from scratch.   They knew it would be painful in the short term, but it put them on the stellar track they are on today.   Same goes for MacWorld.   They used it to their advantage when they were a smaller company, and this was the best place for them to get publicity.   Now that it’s more money than it’s worth, and they can simply call the bloggers in on any old day of the week,   why spend the money?   It’s not worth it.   Out with the bathwater Macworld!

So all in all,  I don’t think for a second that Apple leaving MacWorld is a bad thing for Apple.   They’ll still be able to bring us all the cool stuff we expect, and now it’ll be on their own terms,  instead of the yearly CES style keynote that they have had to do in the past.   Seems more like their style anyway.

Is it bad for MacWorld?   Of course it is!   Without support from Apple, or at least Adobe,  the show is doomed.  But with these days of Twitter, and blogs,  is a trade show really necissary anymore?   Not as much as you’d think I’d imagine.

(Above: “Topple” for the iPhone.  I love the personalities of the blocks,  a really nice touch.)

For those of you who haven’t seen Topple before,  imagine Tetris with physics.   Much like Tetris, the blocks come down in different shapes from the top of the screen.   In this game, your goal is to build a stack of blocks as high as you can get it without the blocks toppling over.   Also,  you have to make sure to keep yourself steady, as swaying the phone from side to side can disturb the blocks as well.   It requires a lot of skill and concentration.   And it’s a hell of a lot of fun!

If there’s one App you download today.   Give Topple a try,  it’s pretty awesome.  Especially for free!

Click here to download Topple for the iPhone and iPod Touch

We’ll after the release of the app store,  I posted an article requesting an accelerometer-controlled iPhone port of the incredibly silly ball rolling game Katamari Damacy.   For those unfortunate enough to not have played the original,  let me give you a quick rundown of this incredibly bizarre game.

Katamari Damacy places you into the character of  “The Prince of All Cosmos”,  a tiny little green dude.  Your dad,  the Hunter S. Thompson-esque  “King of All Cosmos”, has gone on a bit of a bender, and managed to screw up the whole universe by destroying all the stars.  So being a lazy king, he sends you off to do his dirty work and put all the stars back together.

Now how would you go about putting a star together?    By going down to earth and rolling up all the junk you can find.   You are given a ball called a Katamari, that anything sticks to.  And you’re tasked with rolling around this ball all across earth,  picking up all sorts of items,  starting small with tacks and rubber bands,  and moving up to plants, animals, cars, islands, etc.   As your katamari gets bigger and bigger,  it can pick up bigger items.   It’s a simple concept, but beautifully executed.   There’s nothing like playing it, and seeing a cow that you really want to roll into your katamari,  so you task yourself with making it big enough to roll up said cow.

It all sounds absurd, and of course it is.   It has a sense of humor somewhere between odd japanese game shows and monty python.   The music is also similarly absurd and you’re likely to be whistling it to yourself for weeks after playing.

So when I read this morning that Katamari for the iPhone had been released.   I was a bit more excited about it than even I was expecting to be.   The price is a bit steep at $7.99  but certainly not out of the average person’s price range, and the frame rate is a little stuttery,  but all in all it’s a fantastic port, and stays very true to the Katamari look and feel.

If you want some absurd fun that will keep you occupied for hours on end, I can’t think of a better game to buy.

Click Here to Download Beautiful Katamari for the iPhone or iPod Touch

As you can see from the screenshot below, the UI has been DRASTICALLY redesigned to be far more user-friendly and attractive:

From playing around with it for the past 5 minutes or so,  I have to say that it is a serious improvment over the UI from version 2.6.  The ability to write a short post directly from the home screen is outstanding, and may become my main method of posting.  Also, finally the ability to post YouTube videos directly to a post without fiddling with the code or using plugins has been implemented correctly.   YAY.

So far so good Wordpress.   Now I’m off to make sure everything is still working right.

According to an article on Gizmodo,  it looks as though Apple might just be ditching DRM tomorrow across most if not all of it’s music store.

Speculation about if when iTunes would score DRM-free tracks from all major studios like Amazon and Walmart has been rampant, but according to a rumor at AppleInsider, all this speculation may come to an end tomorrow.

AppleInsider cites a Dec. 3 story from the French publication Electron Libre that says iTunes will remove DRM from Sony BMG, Universal and Warner tracks on December 9th, like it already does with EMI and indie content. The story doesn’t say what percentage of tracks from the major labels, or what the cost bump for the new tracks might be, if any, though it seems to say the thing might cover every single album and track on iTunes. In fact, check out this rather ungraceful machine translation of the French story for yourself:

…The signals are clear today. iTunes should offer catalogs of three majors Universal Music, SonyBMG Music and Waner [sic] rid of technological protection measures next Tuesday, Dec. 9. The transition to DRM Free should be at a global level…

With that opener, it almost reads like a fortune. I for one hope this fortune comes true. [Electron Libre viaAppleInsider]

Somehow though, I don’t see this happening tomorrow.   This isn’t something Apple would do lightly, and with the Macworld keynote coming up in around a month,  why not save it until Steve is on stage?  It seems like a strangely un-Apple sort of move, though they’ve surprised me before.

I suppose like most things Apple, I’ll find out somewhere around noon eastern time.

In other news that doesn’t surprise me at all, rumors are swirling that Apple’s entrance into the netbook/tablet arena will not be running an intel based chip.   To be honest, I’m not sure why this is shocking anyone.

Apple has always been big on playing with the wording of it’s public statements.  At the last Jobs keynote, the CEO of Apple stated that they didn’t know how to make an inexpensive Mac without compromising quality.   So whatever this device is, you can bet on the fact that it will NOT be a full on Mac.   Hence, it probably won’t run a full on intel processor.   I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  Apple does not want to release a cheap product that will cannibalize the sales of it’s oh-so-popular MacBook line.

So what IS this mystery device that is hidden beneath the bowels of 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino California?  Likely something that is based more on the iPhone archetecture than anything else.  In fact I’d expect it to resemble Nokia’s N-series tablets more than an iMac or a Macbook Air.  This article from Computerworld, makes a good argument for that as well:

To recap, here are the reasons, I believe that Apple will choose the ARM platform for their upcoming Netbook/Tablets.

1. Apple has an internal PA Semi team working on future ARM chips for the iPhone/iPod Touch
2. ARM chips cost an order of magnatude less (to license) than Intel equivalents
3. ARM chips take up less space on a motherboard
4. ARM chips use many times less power, enabling much longer battery life and much sleeker design.
5. You won’t need to virtualize Windows on these types of devices.  Most other Apple applications can be easily ported between chips.
6. Apple wants more control over the processors, which it can’t have with Intel.
7. While a variant of the iPhone version of OSX is the most likely of candidates, Snow Leopard’s optimization release might also be for ARM as well.

So Whatever we’re looking at here. It isn’t a Mac.  I can be pretty sure of that.  With companies starting to produce netbooks running Android,  I can totally see Apple modifying the iPhone OS and subsequently the App Store, so that they will run on a netbook style device.

Hopefully the App Store will become device aware,  only allowing you to download apps written for your specific device, as that would seem to provide the most Apple-like user experience.

So what are the advantages to this new kind of device?   Likely a bigger / higher resolution display,  possibly a physical keyboard, perhaps USB ports for extending the functionality, a faster processor and graphics chip allowing for more complex / graphically intensive apps and games.   Not to mention the fact that a physical keyboard would likely entice devs to write some good office software for the platform as well.

Regardless of what is coming.  I certainly am in the camp that believes that this (comparatively) low-priced device will NOT be a full on Mac, but more of an extension of the iPhone / iPod touch platform.  Either way, January can’t come fast enough.  I want to find out!

Adobe, makers of almost all of the popular graphics and layout software in use today has announced the layoffs of nearly 600 of it’s workers due to the troubled economic times.  According to an article from ZDNet:

Adobe said Wednesday that it will eliminate 600 full-time positions, or roughly 8 percent of its workforce, amid weaker than expected fourth quarter earnings.

The company said in a statement that it will deliver fourth quarter revenue between $912 million to $915 million, down from its previous outlook of $925 million to $955 million. Wall Street was expecting revenue of $930 million. Earnings excluding items will be 59 cents a share to 60 cents a share. Under generally accepted accounting principles, Adobe said earnings will be 45 cents a share to 46 cents a share. Adobe’s earnings were helped by two tax items that boosted earnings by 5 cents a share. Wall Street was expecting earnings of 51 cents a share.

Adobe said demand for Creative Suite 4 was weaker than expected and “the main cause for the shortfall in fourth quarter revenue.” Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen said the global economic downturn hurt revenue.

Hm..  is this shocking to ANYONE?  Really?

Once an economy goes into a downturn, the higher priced software packages are going to feel a lot of the brunt of the problem, especially when the updates aren’t really NECESSARY for most people.  This is especially true in the case of Photoshop.  If you already have CS2 or CS3, and you can get your work done, there is very little REAL reason to upgrade to CS4.  Sure it’s faster, and sure it has new features, but if your company is on the brink of going out of business, the last thing you’re going to do is spend $1600 per computer for Adobe Software that you already have working versions of.

This should be a serious message to Adobe.   There is no reason you should still be charging thousands of dollars for this software!  There are parts of Photoshop that haven’t changed since version 5, possibly even farther back.   Most of that work is done and paid for.  Not to mention that lowering the price would likely cause people to pirate the software less.

Here’s a price point that would cause people to actually buy and use your software without it being the most pirated piece of software on the internet:  $99.    That’s right, $99.  It’s expensive enough to let people know it’s professional grade software, but cheap enough that it can be bought on a whim at  your local Staples.  I know I’d certainly be more likely to pick up a copy of the new Photoshop at $99 than I would be to UPGRADE my current version for hundreds of dollars.

My point is, that with the flourishing complexity and quality of low-cost and open source options ( Pixelmator and GIMP in Photoshop’s case ), the era of thousand dollar software is quickly coming to a close.  Tough economic times will cause people to either stick with the software they’ve already purchased, or if that option doesn’t exist, to move to a less expensive or open source option if possible.

I hope Adobe learns the lesson before it costs them their business.