You've got to wonder whether Apple and AT&T are excited or worried about a repeat of last year's iPhone mania.

Even though a few people have already started lining up outside Apple's Fifth Avenue store in New York, the buzz surrounding Friday's launch of the iPhone 3G has been far less prevalent on our shores this year than last year, when I thought I was going to lose my mind writing about Apple's first mobile phone.

That makes some sense, since, in many ways, the iPhone is old news. But a new activation … Read more

Updated 2 p.m. PDT Monday to clarify that Apple has cut the price of a MacBook Air with a solid-state hard drive and faster processor by $500 total.

Apple has quietly reduced the price of the flash-memory version of the MacBook Air.

Appleinsider tipped us to the new price, which can be found at the online Apple Store. Before today, you would have paid a $999 premium if you wanted a MacBook Air with a solid-state hard drive, but Apple has reduced that premium to $599. It's also now cheaper to upgrade the processor from 1.6GHz to … Read more

Nvidia's fortunes took a turn for the worse during the quarter, as slowing sales plus faulty products never add up to anything good.

The company announced Wednesday that revenue and gross margins for its second quarter will come in below its own projections, blaming a delay in the ramp of a new product, price cuts prompted by competitive pressures, and a general economic malaise. Analysts were expecting revenue of around $1.1 billion, but revenue now will be just $875 million to $900 million for its second quarter, which ends on July 27.

And then on top of that, … Read more

Samsung is warning its customers that NAND flash memory might be hard to come by for some time after Apple placed a large order, according to a report out of Taiwan.

Digitimes reported Wednesday that Apple recently placed an order of 50 million 8Gb flash chips that it plans to use for that iPhone thing you might have heard about, and therefore the rest of Samsung's customers will have to wait for their chips. Samsung is one of the companies that Apple contracted with to secure supply of flash memory back in 2005.

The order would translate into 50 … Read more

Current and former members of Apple, including CEO Steve Jobs and several directors, have been sued again over their role in the company's stock options-backdating affair.

The latest case, filed in federal court in San Jose last Friday, was put on record Monday. Martin Vogel and Kenneth Mahoney, the plaintiffs, are charging several executives and directors of Apple with securities fraud for failing to disclose the company's practice of backdating certain stock option grants in the early part of this decade.

Apple has admitted that the company backdated certain option grants, including two awarded to Jobs, in order … Read more

Could Apple have a slider-style iPhone up its sleeve?

That's what The Register thinks, reporting Monday that Apple has shown off prototypes of an iPhone with a hardware keyboard to certain executives at wireless operators. The current iPhone famously comes with only one hardware button that returns the user to the home screen, with the rest of the buttons enabled in software.

The lack of a hardware keyboard is said to be a detriment for business users who are hooked on their BlackBerrys, and the iPhone's touch-screen keyboard certainly does take some getting used to in the first … Read more

Apple has released Mac OS X 10.5.4, the fourth update to Leopard since it was released last October.

The new version contains the usual mix of bug fixes and security updates, with iCal getting the most attention. iCal won't delete events without telling you as a result of the latest update, for example, and Apple said the update "improves overall iCal reliability." Airport and Spaces & Expose also received some updates.

MacRumors.com notes that the update paves the way for Apple to release the MobileMe service, the successor to .Mac unveiled by Apple at … Read more

More signs are emerging that Apple is taking new steps to restrict iPhone hacking with the release of the iPhone 3G.

AppleInsider got its hands on a memo sent to AT&T retail employees that warns them to be on the lookout for a special iTunes "unbricking" utility that was supposed to be pushed to the computers of all retail employees last week. According to the memo, "this icon is for the iTunes utility that will be used for unbricking iPhone 3G devices during the activation process. ... Please note, this is not a full version of … Read more

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg probably isn't getting an iPhone 3G.

The head of the telecom giant seemed a bit irritated about Apple's march into the mobile phone industry when he answered a question posed by the Financial Times about Apple's chances of reaching the mass market with the iPhone 3G by saying, "There goes the conspiracy again. You're declaring them a winner before they've earned it on the field."

Seidenberg's main contention seems to be that the iPhone isn't a success because it has such a small share of the overall … Read more