Cody Taylor

Memo to President Bringdown. Cool it with the “catastrophe” talk, Barack. It’s contagious. The latest example: Analysts are predicting Apple (nasdaq: AAPL – news – people ) will launch a iPhone that will sell like crazy–after a quarter during which iPods sold like crazy–causing one analyst to argue that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s

An architectural overhaul to Apple’s QuickTime media software due as part of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard may ship with a media player that bundles once-premium features at no cost.

Apple is conducting an online survey of Apple TV users in order to better understand that particular group segment users.

Although Apple has downplayed the possibility of a stripped-down iPhone, the Royal Bank of Canada is reiterating claims this week that the company is gearing up to announce two new versions of its touch-screen handset, including an entry-level model that lacks both 3G connectivity and an unlimited data plan.

Apple’s on again-off again negotiations with China’s largest mobile carrier, China Mobile, have supposedly come to a standstill yet again. According to Interfax China, China Mobile CEO Wang Jianzhou is none too thrilled with the idea of Apple selling apps directly to China Mobile customers.

Julie188 writes “Even as Microsoft celebrates its 10,000th patent, angry shareholders are starting to speak out against what they say is the squandering of billions of dollars on pointless R&D projects. The 10,000th patent covers a technology that allows a device to associate data with objects placed on its surface, and is likely eventually to become part of the Surface table PC. But shareholders are fed up with the billion annually spent. Said one, ‘I believe Bill Gates is a charlatan because what he has said, implied, promised to shareholders and stakeholders and all of these visionary things that he mumbles and jumbles about and doesn’t make reality of. MS is spending billions of dollars on R&D. Where is the return on investment?’ In contrast, Apple had almost the same revenue gains as Microsoft while spending one-tenth as much.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Burnett recommends an eWeek article on the leading contenders to make an iPhone out of an iPod Touch. Of course your newly phone-capable iTouch needs no activation and no binding carrier contract, just Wi-Fi. One of the companies working in this space, JaJah, is bundling the software with back-end services such as billing, so that carriers — or anyone really — can offer free-calling iTouch phones.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.