Amazon just launched an iTunes competitor. They’re offering DRM-free MP3 files for about 10% cheaper than iTunes. I gave it a quick spin and the service works pretty well.

Definitely good to see some competition in this market. Hopefully, this will improve iTunes and add another nail in DRM’s coffin.

They arrived late today – yesterday technically. Me and a coworker picked them up from the states. 40$ in taxes. It wasn’t until later that the public open source hack was posted.

My coworker tried it first. I was going to wait. He’s braver than me! But ultimately who can resist?

As always, an interesting article from Robert Cringely. All about Steve and the iPhone price drop.

I was surprised when talking to random friends to hear how many of them thought that the price drop was a “desperate” move by Apple to sell their excess inventory of iPhones. My take on it is that it’s an aggressive and totally calculated move to outdo the 1 million units sold benchmark by the end of this year. Apple needs to secure a good chunk of the cell phone market this Christmas to be a credible force next year. This is a good way to do it and it also doesn’t hurt to charge early adopters extra money.

Cringely also has a good take on the gift certificates. I didn’t think about it at first, but it’s quite true that many of the customers that will be getting these gift certificates are not current purchasers of other Apple products. This is a great way to make them buy more stuff and Apple is still going to make a profit on that 100$.

Congratulations to my Mom! Her first full book translation is about to be published in Poland. The book is called “Zasady Marthy” (the Polish version of “The Martha Rules”).

It’s great and, apparently, I’m going to get a copy!

Today, Steve announced that Apple will be giving out 100$ rebate to early iPhone customers since the iPhone was discounted yesterday by 200$.

Pretty nice! Normally, people should expect that electronics that they purchase will get cheaper but this was a sizable drop so it makes sense to thank early adopters.

Oh, and since the discount I’ve ordered mine now. I was hoping that the iPod touch would have Mail, but it doesn’t. The iPhone makes more sense then and I’m still hoping that it will be unlocked soonish.