Mighty Gadget Blog: The latest technology news & reviews in the UK

It is rumoured that Apple is currently in negotiations with Universal, Warner and Sony BMG to secure the rights for its iTunes website to distribute music without DRM.

This could have very big implications for Apple and the music industry as a whole as DRM has always been one of the main talking points of downloadable music. The music industry has typically been pro DRM to stop piracy while the end user is normally anti DRM as it has a tendency to screw the user over by restricting what you can play the files on.

If iTunes manages to secure the deal it could mean that people without iPods will be able to download music from iTunes and play on whatever device they want.

Currently Play.com and 7Digital already offer DRM free music, and there are rumours that Sony may also be ditching DRM however iTunes has the largest catalogue of music and therefore it would be a significant deal.

Phones Review have posted 2 links to You Tube video reviews comparing the iPhone and G1.

The reviewer is quite thorough and basically shows you many features of each phone and compares the two together to see what one is better.

Personally I am not a huge Apple fan so I am a bit biased against the iPhone, however you can’t deny it is a good phone. I feel that the G1 has more flaws than the 3G iPhone however this is the first incarnation of the phone, and if we look at the first iPhone that had even more flaws, especially the lack of 3G!!!

I think Android/G1 is more of a grower and not a shower at the moment. I do have complete confidence that Android will become the best Smartphone OS out there it just requires a hardware manufacturer to release something to make the most of the OS. It also means that Android could potentially have hundreds of different hardware options at any one time. This is where the iPhone is let down, there is only 1 company releasing hardware for it so the phone will always have people that don’t like something about it.

It is that time of the year again, companies are publishing the quarterly report card. Google have been doing well, Yahoo not so well and now Apple are showing some impressive figures.

The company posted a profit of $1.14 billion on revenues of $7.9 billion for the quarter, their sales figures for their devices were off the roofs. In the Q4 of 2008, Apple managed to sell 6,892,000 iPhone 3Gs compared to the 1,119,000 iPhones in Q4 of 2007.

Apple is now the world’s third largest mobile phone supplier in terms of revenue, trailing behind Nokia and Samsung. They outsold RIM’s entire range of BlackBerry phones. RIM sold 6.1 million phones compared to the 6.9 million iPhones.

Apple’s stock prices were up by $9.91 or 11%. Even AT&T benefited from the strong iPhone sales and its stock price rose by 85 cents or 3.3%.

Via: smokingapples

While I am not a huge fan of Apple some people do love to hate them. This is a joke comparison between the MacBook Air and an old Commodore SX-64

Ok so I am about 10 years too late blogging about the MacBook Air, but it is pretty big news so I am going to blog about it anyway. So what is the MacBook Air? It is a ultrathin, ultraportable laptop with a 13.3 inch widescreen.

From Apple.com

MacBook Air is nearly as thin as your index finger. Practically every detail that could be streamlined has been. Yet it still has a 13.3-inch widescreen LED display, full-size keyboard and large multi-touch trackpad. It’s incomparably portable without the usual ultraportable screen and keyboard compromises.

The incredible thinness of MacBook Air is the result of numerous size- and weight-shaving innovations. From a slimmer hard drive to strategically hidden I/O ports to a lower-profile battery, everything has been considered and reconsidered with thinness in mind.

MacBook Air is designed and engineered to take full advantage of the wireless world. A world in which 802.11n Wi-Fi is now so fast and so available, people are truly living untethered — buying music and TV shows online, downloading software, and sharing and storing files on the web.

Some of the key features include:

• 13.3″ backlit LED with 1280-by-800 resolution
• 2GB of RAM
• 80Gig hardrive
• or 64GB solid-state drive (very expensive)
• 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• Built-in iSight camera
• 5hrs Battery
• Oversize trackpad with multi-touch technology
• 1 USB Port
• Headphone Jack
• Micro-DVI

There is no CD/DVD drive built in to keep the size down, though a USB powered external drive will apparently be available.

The batter is not user replaceable but it is apparently possible to pay for a factory fitted battery for you. Apple are quoting $129, I would expect it will be a bit more here in the UK.

In order to reduce the size of the laptop it has been reported that Intel have used the Montevina based chip that was scheduled to be launched later this year. Combined with the Intel 965GMS chipset with integrated graphics the chip has had a 60% reduction on its footprint size. The power rating of the chip is just 20W, as opposed to 35W from the Core 2 Duo

Some more pictures after the jump.

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