It's Friday, 12th May 2006 and you're listening to the EuroMac Podcast

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Hi, This is Don McAllister and welcome to another edition of the EuroMac podcast. This is our 10th show so we're now into double figures!

The EuroMac Podcast is a free weekly audio podcast which covers news, technology and features connected with Apple and the mac from a European perspective.

Thanks for the great feedback from last week. People seemed to enjoy the interview with Katie Lips so I'm trying to include another one this week, this time with Chris Masuy. Chris is one of the guys behind the "Book of Cool" website which won several awards at the 2006 Webby awards last week. The webby awards are the leading international awards honouring excellence in web design, creativity, usability and functionality. Chris is a mac user based out of Europe and is currently attending an event in Spain so provided I can master recording via Skype and we can hook up, we'll have a chat later in the show.

First on with the news

MacBook Pro 17"

Still no MacBook Pro yet although I did get a note that it had been dispatched on the 6th of May, a good 4 or 5 days earlier than I expected. What I didn't realise is that it was dispatched from Shanghai on that date so it's still going to take another 10 days to reach me, apparently from Shanghai via Holland. Mike one of my ScreenCastsOnline regular viewers sent me a great link so I can track the progress from Shanghai to my front door - Thanks Mike.

www.screencastsonline.com

Beatles Ruling

Big European news this week was the ruling in the Apple vs Apple case. Apple Corps said iTunes infringed on its trademark again by selling music under the Apple logo. Apple Computer countered that it was merely operating a data transmission service. In his ruling in London on Monday, Judge Edward Mann wrote that "the use of the Apple logo is a fair and reasonable use of the mark in connection with the service, which does not go further and unfairly or unreasonably suggest an additional association with the creative works themselves." Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs said he was "glad to put this disagreement behind us. We have always loved the Beatles, and hopefully we can now work together to get them on the iTunes Music Store." Phil Leigh, an analyst at Inside Digital Media, called the ruling a "big, important victory" for iTunes. "Had Apple lost, it would've significantly damaged their ability to market digital music," he said, suggesting that the company would have had to pay a big fine to Apple Corps.

News - Apple wins, Apple loses

Two stories from France this week

Firstly, ifoApple store reports that Details are scarce, but Apple V-P Europe Pascal Cagni has said company could open a retail store in France during 2006, as well as 2007. The Champs Elysées has been identified as a location for a long time as a future Paris store, and it will reportedly open next year. However, a 2006 store opening seems to indicate a mall location somewhere in the country.

ifoAppleStore

The other story relates to Apple scoring a FairPlay victory in France Nicholas Carson in internews.com reports The French Senate amended, then passed a bill allowing Apple to continue using its FairPlay format, which ensures iTunes songs can only be played on the purchaser's iPod. Before the Senate passed the bill with a 164 to 128 vote, it deleted the paragraphs referring to interoperability,

FairPlay Score For Apple in France

Had a audio comment from Christian Meerman from Germany who has a beef with Apples .Mac.

Emails arrive 2 or 3 hours after being ...

Thanks Chris I have to admit, I've not noticed this myself as I tend to use Gmail a lot but I've put a link to the Apple discussion forum mentioned in the shownotes

If you've got any audio comments you'd like to send in around Apple in general, please feel free to send them to euromacpodcast@googlemail.com

Interview

The Book Of Cool LOOP - BARCELONA 2006

Apple are rolling out an Aperture in Depth seminar across Europe in May and June, presumably to coincide with the release of Aperture 1.1. Suggest you head over to the Apple website and check out the dates and venues. Countries include Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, The Netherlands and Italy.

Motorola has launched a new iTunes mobile phone in the UK, the RAZR V3im with iTunes. The new handset is available now from several mobile phone stockists in the UK. It's the first RAZR handset to carry Apple's iTunes software and to integrate an iTunes menu on the phone. The iTunes menu lets users scroll through their playlists, select songs and play them, complete with accompanying album art. However, like the ROKR, song capacity is capped at just 100 tunes. Motorola's 100-gramme handset offers a 1.23-megapixel camera (with video capture and playback), a large internal colour screen, quad-band technology and Bluetooth wireless technology. The phone supports SMS, MMS and email messaging and WAP. Price varies by contract and retailer.

RAZR V3i m - Full Specifications

That's all for this week. I hope you enjoyed this weeks show and thanks again to Katie for the interview. I think I'll try and do a few more so if you've got any interesting developments your working on or launching any new products and would like to be interviewed for the Euromac podcast, just drop me a line at euromacpodcast@googlemail.com

Have a great weekend and I'll see you next week for another edition of the EuroMac Podcast.