Mac users don’t like people touching their stuff
Over at Cognitive Daily (part of theScienceBlogs network), as part of a larger informal survey, Dave Mungercontends that Mac users are less likely to let friends try out their new gadgets than users of other platforms.Munger noted, “in this context, the fact that Mac users (and ‘other’ — mostly Linux users) are so dramatically more stingy with their new gadgets is truly a striking finding, even acknowledging the fact that our readers may not be representative of the public at large.”
Apple Bought Me.com? .Mac’s New Name?
Earlier today, John Gruber of DaringFireball.net suggested that Me.com might be the name for Apple’s .Mac rebranding. There was no real evidence, however, except that Me.com was registered under MarkMonitor’s domain service. MarkMonitor is a domain management service that Apple (and many others) use. Gruber admited that this was mostly speculative at that time:
This is proof of nothing, of course, since MarkMonitor provides domain name parking for any company that pays for their services.
Me.com currently redirects users to Snappville.com - a social networking community. Snappville used to be called Me.com but changed names in December 2007 with little fanfare.
MacRumors reader Matthew Yohe, however, pointed us to Netcraft page which curiously lists Kenneth Eddings (eddingsk@apple.com) as the DNS administrator for Me.com. This email address, however, was nowhere in the ownership (Whois lookup) information for Me.com. As it turns out, Mr. Eddings’ email address is only listed in the SOA Record of the DNS record.
In this case, Markmonitor controls the SOA Record for Me.com. Eddings is also the official technical contact for many of Apple’s domain names. So, Apple does appear to own Me.com. It was likely purchased sometime in December 2007, and it (along with MobileMe for iPhone) could very well be the rebranding for Apple’s .Mac service. With Apple’s ongoing product expansion outside the Mac platform, it makes sense that they may need to rebrand their services to something more platform neutral.
In today’s domain market, the purchase of Me.com could run well into the tens of millions of dollars, so it is unlikely Apple would buy it without a specific plan.
Free iPod Touch with Mac Purchase for College Students?
Apple is expected to launch its Back to School promotion tomorrow, and on the eve of its launch, we’ve learned that Apple is indeed going to be making it their biggest ever.
According to our sources, Apple will be offering a free 8GB iPod Touch ($299) to college students who buy a qualifying Mac (MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Pro). Alternatively, students may choose to get an 8GB iPod Nano ($199). The promotion will run from June 3 to September 15th, 2008.
With this aggressive promotion as well as the rumored 3G-capable iPhone launch, Apple is rapidly expanding their Touch OS X platform over the next few months, giving developers a large audience for their iTunes Store apps and games.
There remains one uncertainty, however. When Apple releases the 2.0 firmware for the iPhone and iPod Touch, iPod Touch owners will be required to pay a small fee for the upgrade. Customers who purchase an iPod Touch now may be required to pay this fee when the upgrade arrives in late June. More details may be available tomorrow or at WWDC next week.
Details of the Back to School promotion, including eligibility should be officially announced tomorrow.( 3rd June 2008 )
