Back in the Old World, Apple has made the somewhat surprising move of offering lowered prices according to iLounge.
The discounts, which apply to the 30 gigabyte and 80 gigabyte models, reduce the prices from 189 pounds to 179 pounds for the 30 gigabyte model and 259 pounds to 239 pounds for the 80 gigabyte model. Pricing for the UK Apple Store’s iPod Nano and Shuffle units remains the same.
These same price cuts are not reflected on the U.S. Apple Store.

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Though hardly a secret feature by any means, discovering that your iBook, PowerBook, MacBook and MacBook Pro can be scrolled through simply by using an extra figner on the trackpad amounts to one of those “Hey, that’s kind of cool!!!” moments.
Unfortunately, this ability wasn’t present until Apple’s 2005 laptops came on the market.
Daniel Becker’s iScroll 2 0.27 adds full support for this on most of Apple’s aluminum PowerBook G4 units as well as all iBook G4 models introduced from 2003 to 2004. The program, a free 176 kilobyte download courtesy of sourceforge.net, is based on Apple’s AppleADBMouse driver, which was written for the Apple Desktop Bus-powered trackpads found on older Apple laptops. This code was then released via Apple’s Darwin project and has since been rewritten to support newer laptop models.
iScroll 2 requires Mac OS X 10.3.8 or later and a 2003 aluminum PowerBook or iBook G4 to run.
If you’ve had either positive or negative experiences with this, let us know.

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Moving into the European market, Apple opened its doors to press in a special dedicated preview session. The guys over at macitynet.it were there to capture the action in an event that marked Apple’s first store inside continental Europe.
The location, which measures 500 square meters, serves as a full Apple Store location and can be found inside the RomaEst big Mall. The site will open to the public on Saturday, March 31st at 9 AM with surprises being given away to people at the front of the line.
In the meantime, take a gander at the photo gallery that’s been assembled and if you have Mac user friends or family in the city come tomorrow, point them towards the opening event.

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Jason O’Grady’s Apple Core blog is reporting that Windows users are currently unable to search through the iTunes Store after downloading and installing iTunes 7.1.1 on their computers:
Thousands, if not more, of Windows users cannot search for music in the iTunes store since the latest upgrade. Apple has not responded to requests for help and is instead blaming each individual user.
From a spirited thread on Apple’s discussion forums:
I’m unable to successfully use the iTunes Store. The following error occurs randomly, though it most often happen when searching and power searching, the progress bar on top will just never stop and the error message will display after about 30 seconds. It sometimes occur when browsing and clicking on links (the page will not load).
Here’s the error message :
“We could not complete your iTunes Store request. The network connection timed out. Make sure your network settings are correct and your network connection is active, then try again.”
For the rest of the story, click here.
If you’ve seen this problem on your end, let us know.

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With Apple TV mania at its zenith, PowerPage associate editor, Philadelphia PowerBook Users Group co-creator and Emmy award winning NFL videographer Rob Parker sped out to the King of Prussia Apple Store location to snag a unit.
Here are his first impressions:
I’m a gadget freak and I usually buy cool new stuff immediately after it becomes available. Apple TV is just this kind of toy. However, it has limitations that I decided I wasn’t willing to deal with. I did want to see one in the flesh though so I headed to the King of Prussia Apple Store to see what’s up.
The Hardware:
Apple TV is supremely thin and attractive. I personally would rather it be a little thicker and include a DVD player. While the Apple TV’s chipset and QuickTime itself is capable of 5.1 surround sound, the unit is currently not able to do it. Let’s hope for some improvements in version 2.0. The two store units on display were connected via HDMI to a pair of Sony 32-inch HD LCD Televisions. Both units were noticeably hot. And by that I mean that you could iron your boxers or make a nice panini between them. Where’s my spray starch?
Click the jump for the full story…

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When in doubt, just call and ask. Declan McCullagh over at news.com Gadgets blog writes that he called Cingular last Thursday and spoke with a customer service manager at their 1-800-947-5096 number who provided the date, then transferred McCullagh to sales.
No additional information was available beyond this.
June 11th also coincides with the first day of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, which is scheduled to be held in San Francisco from June 11th to the 15th.
If you’ve heard differently or have comments or ideas about this, let us know.

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OpenOffice.org, the free, open source miltilingual office suite project, has been updated to version 2.2. The software, based on free code and XML capabilities with support for the OASIS Standard OpenDocument format, features the following fixes and improvements among others:
-Enhanced text display throughout.
-Better support for Pivot Tables in Calc.
-Several key improvements in Base.
-A more robust Mac version for X11.
OpenOffice.org supports both the PowerPC and Intel hardware architectures for the Mac with multiple versions available for Mac OS X. The program is about a 134 megabyte download depending on version selected and requires Mac OS X and the latest version of Java for the operating system to run.
If you’ve tried the new version and had either a positive or negative experience with it, let us know.

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On Thursday, Apple released AirPort Base Station Update – 2007-001, the first software update to its AirPort wireless router stations of 2007. The update, a 12.7 megabyte download, provides general fixes and compatibility updates for the AirPort Utility, AirPort Admin Utility (for graphite and snow base stations), AirPort Disk Utility and AirPort Disk Agent programs.
The update requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and AirPort Utility 5.0 to run.
If you’ve tried the update and had a positive or negative experience with it, let us know.

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We asked for your opinions on the newly-released Apple TV yesterday and you guys had a lot to say, most of it pretty positive as well.
The biggest complaints reported were fan noise, heat from the Apple TV itself and a current lack of high resolution content from the iTunes Store.
Oh, and one of you lunatics managed to replace the original 40 gigabyte hard drive with a 160 gigabyte hard drive.
Not bad for the first week of a new Apple product being on the market
Click here for the full story…

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According to MacNN, the Apple Store is now offering refurbished MacBook Pro laptops in limited quantities.
Available configurations consist of the following:
-17″ 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1 gigabye of RAM and a 120 gigabyte hard drive for US$1,999 with either a standard a glossy display.
-17″ 1.86 GHz Intel Core Duo, 512 megabytes of RAM, a 160 gigabyte hard drive and 8X dual-layer SuperDrive for US$949.
The web site is also offering discounted prices on both PowerPC G5 and Intel Core Duo-based iMacs as well as older iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 laptops as well as other models.

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