Even more disturbing is that the app’s icon prominently features a medallion with a swastika sitting smak dab in the middle.  Now how in the world did Apple’s app store review team ever let this one through?  Mein Kampf was written by Hitler in 1923 and is part autobiographical and partly explains Hitler’s hateful political ideology.  It’s naturally filled with a plethora of racist content and it’s pretty mind boggling that Apple’s app store censors let this one slide through.

Now some might be quick to argue that this is a free speech issue, but Apple isn’t a public forum and as has been evident over the past few months, it has no reservations about rejecting apps for even the smallest improprieties.  That being the case, why would Apple allow such a book into iTunes at all?  And even if we presume that the book is available merely as a means for historical study of the events leading up to World War II, wouldn’t you think that someone at Apple would have had a problem with the swastika used as the apps icon?

Update: As a clarification, we’re not advocates of censorship by any means, but Apple operates the app store using its own standards for what constitutes offensive and inappropriate material.  If Apple wants to let everything into the app store with with little to no review, then by all means - but that’s not how Apple operates and the acceptance of Mein Kampf is completely dumbfounding considering some of the apps Apple has rejected.  And again, at the very least, an app with a swastika for an icon should raise some red flags.

Who would have thought, then, that 18 years later Jobs would be back at the helm of Apple and Gates would no longer be the CEO of Microsoft.  Crazy.

via CNN

Former Intel CEO Andy Grove had this interesting tidbit to share.

“When you talk about Steve, you need to distinguish between Jobs 1, the young man who started Apple, and Jobs 2, the guy who came back to Apple and turned it around.

As Jobs 2 he became the turnaround artist of the decade. There’s no other company in technology that’s started with a strong core business and developed another very strong one. The rest of us are lucky, or good, [if we're] right once.”

An RFID enabled iPhone could potentially allow users to pay for goods simply by swiping their iPhones over a payment pad, and pay highway tolls in a similar manner.

In 2007, Apple filed a patent with the USPTO describing a method of embedding RFID circuitry into a touch sensor panel.  The abstract reads:

The efficient incorporation of RFID circuitry within touch sensor panel circuitry is disclosed. The RFID antenna can be placed in the touch sensor panel, such that the touch sensor panel can now additionally function as an RFID transponder. No separate space-consuming RFID antenna is necessary. Loops (single or multiple) forming the loop antenna of the RFID circuit (for either reader or tag applications) can be formed from metal on the same layer as metal traces formed in the borders of a substrate. Forming loops from metal on the same layer as the metal traces are advantageous in that the loops can be formed during the same processing step as the metal traces, without requiring a separate metal layer.

But of course!  It’s so simple!

At the present time, RFID technology can be found in everyday items such as credit cards, passports, and is even used to track herds of animals.  Below check out out a video from the Touch Project demonstrating an RFID enabled iPhone.

iPhone RFID: object-based media from timo on Vimeo.

via 9to5mac

Apple yesterday announced that the first Apple Store in France will open up for business on Saturday, November 7th.  The store is located in the Carrousel du Louvre shopping district, right in the heart of Paris, and will mark the first of 3 planned stores in France.  The next planned store will be located in Montepellier and is expected to open up for business on November 14th.  Meanwhile, Apple retail guru Ron Johnson noted at media event for the store’s opening that a second Paris store is already being planned near the Opera Garnier, and is scheduled to open sometime next summer.

ifoApplestore writes on the design of the first Apple Store in France:

The architects have taken a very minimalist approach to the underground storefront, essentially just using glass to fill open spaces in the perimeter walls facing a huge, inverted glass triangle that showers the store with soft light. None of the original stone walls were touched, a sign of remarkable restraint, even though the walls only date to the 1980s when the underground shopping center was built. There are no outward changes to the structure or façade that indicates “Apple.” Inside, however, the traditional design emerges: stone floors, wood tables, a spiral glass staircase to a mezzanine level, a large back-lit Apple logo suspended overheard, and lots of stainless steel.

With Apple’s expansion into France well underway, this brings the number of countries with Apple Stores up to 10: France, the U.S., the U.K., Italy, Germany, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, and China.

You can check out Apple’s VP of Retail, Ron Johnson, and Apple’s head of Europe, Pascal Cagni, at the grand opening in the video below.  Is it just me, or does Cagni bear a slight resemblance to Joaquin Phoenix?

Christmas has come early for MacHeist fans who tend to enjoy buying bundled software for insanely low prices.  For a limited time only, 6 days to be exact, MacHeist is currently offering users 6 solid Mac apps for free.  Yeah, that’s right - for free.  It’s called the MacHeist nanoBundle and includes the following apps: ShoveBox, WriteRoom (hellz yeah!), Twitterific, Tiny Grab, Hordes of Orcs, and if 500,000 people partake in the free downloads, it will unlock Mariner Write as well.  So head on over there and check it out.

Interestingly, BGR notes that one of their sources stated that this move is in response to the upcoming Motorola Droid which happens to launch tomorrow.  Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or have a life), the Motorola Droid has been getting rave reviews and has instantly catapulted itself as a true competitor to the iPhone.  Whether or not consumers will respond remains to be seen, but if the Droid begins to generate some momentum, a cheap 8GB iPhone 3GS might be worth trying in an effort to slow down the Droid train.

Segall describes that when Jobs returned to the helm of Apple in 1997, he wanted a new advertising campaign to help remind people what Apple was, and what its products embodied.  Segall quotes Jobs as saying, “What are we going to do to recapture the spirit of that company? We’ve got some great products coming but we need to communicate to the world what the company stands for.”

After brainstorming for a while, the team at TBWA realized that Apple was truly unlike every other company.  It carved its own path.  They did things their way.  They did things differently.  By god, they thought differently.  And hence, a slogan and an iconic and award winning ad-campaign was born.
On the process of actually coming up with the Think Different campaign, which Jobs reportedly latched onto from the very beginning, Segall writes:

With the concept in focus, it was now just a matter of developing the campaign that could best deliver it. We went down many roads – with and without a human presence, with and without mice (yes, mice). The breakthrough came when we stepped back and realized that the spark driving Apple existed long before Apple. In fact, it existed long before electricity. The ability to think creatively is one of the great catalysts of civilization. So the logic seemed natural: why not show what kind of company Apple is by celebrating the people Apple admires? Let’s acknowledge the most remarkable people – past and present – who “change things” and “push the human race forward.”

It’s been reported elsewhere that the first incarnations of the Think Different campaign featured black and white stills of “artists and creative professionals” using the Mac.  It was Jobs, however, who suggested that the ad campaign use noted historical and cultural figures instead.

The iMac was Apple’s first grandiose project under Jobs, and there was no doubt that the Bondi Blue all-in-one design was stunning.  But it needed a name to match, and with the Internet becoming an increasing part of our everyday lives at the time, the letter ‘i’ was chosen to symbolize that this was in fact an Internet computer.

Here’s how the process went down:

Jobs said he was betting the company on the machine and so it needed a great name. He suggested one at the meeting, Segall says, but it was terrible. It would “curdle your blood.” Segall declined to say what Jobs wanted to call it.

Jobs said the new computer was a Mac, so the name had to reference the Macintosh brand. The name had to make it clear the machine was designed for the internet. It also had to be applicable to several other upcoming products. And it had to be quick: the packaging needed to be ready in a week.

Segall says he came back with five names. Four were ringers, sacrificial lambs for the name he loved — iMac. “It referenced the Mac, and the “i” meant internet,” Segall says. “But it also meant individual, imaginative and all the other things it came to stand for.” It “i” prefix could also be applied to whatever other internet products Apple was working on.

Jobs rejected them all, including iMac.

“He didn’t like iMac when he saw it,” Segall says. “I personally liked it, so I went back again with three or four new names, but I said we still like ‘iMac.”

He said: ‘I don’t hate it this week, but I still don’t like it.’”

Segall didn’t hear any more about the name from Jobs personally, but friends told him that Jobs was silk-screening the name on prototypes of the new computer. He was testing it out to see if it looked good.

“He rejected it twice but then it just appeared on the machine,” Segall says, laughing. “He never formally accepted it.”

As for working with Jobs himself, Segall reiterates the well-known theme that Jobs abhors focus groups and never relies on market research, noting that in his entire time with the company, Apple has “never tested a thing in print or on TV.”

Regarding the abundant use of the ‘i’ prefix on Apple products, Segall notes that discussions have come up regarding whether or not Apple should abandon it, but by now it’s become such a part of Apple’s lineup that they’ve decided to stick with it to keep things consistent.

On working with Jobs, Segall says:

I’ve got some great emails from him.  I might publish them one day, but he’ll never talk to me ever again… He surrounds himself with creative people and gives them room to be creative.  He’s an interesting combo of taste, no compromise and charisma.

More times than not, he’s a charming, funny guy.  His charismatic, fun side is what makes everyone want to follow him around.

I was around for a few good flare-ups but they weren’t directed at me.  He mostly got mad if things hadn’t moved forward; if he didn’t see two weeks of work out of you. That’s when he got annoyed. Everything’s in constant motion at Apple. There’s always new products.

And that’s the magic of Apple.  Always looking forward, never backwards.  Always staying in motion, keeping people guessing, and delivering revolutionary products one right after the other.

Since his time at TBWA, Segall has gone on to work for Dell, where the differences between the two companies are especially stark.

Dell and Apple: It’s night and day.  It’s a transactional world Dell lives in. It’s all about numbers. Everything they say about Apple making products for themselves is true. Apple — it’s about changing the world. For everyone else, it’s about the money.