Free 8GB iPod Nano or $299 rebate towards iPod touch after rebate

Combined with regular education discounts which range $100 - $250 on systems

Katie's advice - school is a long way off, wait until closer till August or September before buying.

Promo runs through September 15th.

48 hours vs. 24 hours - is this coming to the US?

£2.49 for library rentals, £3.49 for new release rentals - still quite expensive

Detailed info available on AT&T's site - see link.

3G data will cost $30 over the old $20 EDGE plan

SMS text messages are NOT included. THe same $200 that were included in the original plan are now $5 a month

$18 "upgrade fee" for current subscribers. $36 Activation fee for new subscribers.

AT&T stores will start selling the iPhone at 8am

This would be an odd move for Apple who usually does product launches in the late afternoon. But it's unlikely that Apple will let AT&T start selling the iPhone before they do.

If you hand down your iPhone, someone can still activate it with AT&T on one of the previous 1st Gen price plans.

www.macrumors.com—starting-new-service-on-original-iphone-prices-stay-the-same

Unknown- in order to enable exchange support will you have to be on the $45 a month "corporate data plan"

This makes Katie re-think whether the 3G iPhone is worth upgrading too since she'll be paying $25 a month more for data plus $5 more for SMS messages for a whopping $360 a year. I'd rather buy an unsubsidized iPhone and keep my current plan.

General consensus is that people can live with the $10 a month for faster 3G data, but the $18 upgrade fee and the SMS no longer being included just add insult to injury.

Apple appears to have given more control over to AT&T with regards to the plans. It seems pretty obvious now that Apple had some influence in the original iPhone pricing plans.

Despite the lower price, Apple seems to still be raking in the cash on the iPhone and perhaps this is why they handed over more control to AT&T.

Although the revenue sharing agreement is gone, Oppenheimer analyst Yair Reiner claims that Apple is getting a $325 up front subsidy plus an extra $100 for subscribers signed up in Apple stores.

www.ipodobserver.com—36288

Apple also seems to be dong well on their iPhone profit margins. Estimates are the 8G iPhone may cost as little as $100, with a 50% profit margin comparable to the iPods.

www.ipodobserver.com—36225

What We Use .Mac For

What We Wish .Mac Would Do

Is .Mac a good "value"

The @me.com email addresses have already started coming on line.

Set to officially launch on July 11th.

A few week ago Corey talked about his experiences becoming certified in Apple and Windows technical certifications. I myself am quite interested in beginning such an endeavor, but I have a few questions regarding the process. First of all, I am 15 years of age. Is this too young to go for certification? My goal is to do consulting and troubleshooting work, and with a Microsoft and/or Apple certification under my belt, I could probably get a bit more trust and confidence in my prospective customers. I am not sure if I am ineligible due to my age, but I figured you might know :-)

Also, in your opinion, what would be a good certification to go for? i want one that would aid me in helping people obviously, but I don't really want to put a lot of effort into something that isn't really going to help me in the long run. Microsoft's website seems to have dozens of courses to choose from, and I honesty am clueless about where to dig in!

Hi Katie, I had a question about the Apple TV as a friend and I consider one. The content that you view - does it have to reside on the Apple TV's internal hard drive or can it stream from your iTunes library on another computer in your network. My friend has four boys and there are certain movies and shows that they like to watch over and over - he doesn't want to have to have that content reside on and take up space on the hard drive as it would be too much. Any thoughts?

I recently installed an AirPort Extreme wireless and Bluetooth card on my late 2006 MacPro. FastMac had a great PDF on installing the the Bluetooth card, but I could NOT find something as definitive for my AirPort Extreme wireless card which was purchased from my local Apple Reseller. The challenge I ran into was that there were three wifi antennas that I could connect to the two antenna posts on the wireless card. Since Apple does not support this as a user installable part there were no instructions in the box. As a result, I was at a loss to know which of the three antenna to attach to the card. Luckily I was able to call the reseller and speak to the person who handles their repairs. He informed me that I would attach the antennas labeled 1 and 3 to the card. By the way, the instructions I downloaded, said to be patient when attaching the antennae leads, they are not joking. It took me about four hours to do an install that should have taken about 20 minutes.

So my AirPort Extreme wireless card is working fine. But it still bugs me that I could not find some kind of written complete and 'authoritative' source for this hardware upgrade. The instructions that I downloaded did not mention that there would be three antennae leads labeled 1, 2, and 3, and did not contain guidance regarding which leads to attach to which posts.

I believe that in a recent podcast you had mentioned one of the benefits of one of your recent Apple certification is that you had access to online information from Apple. Do you know of a good, authoritative source for the rest of us, at least for some of the more basic upgrades and repairs? The reason I stress the 'authoritative' is that suppose that I was performing this or a more complex repair or upgrade, on a weekend on my only computer and found out at the end of that repair or upgrade that I had done something wrong. In the best case I would be out the time to go back and correct the problem, in the worse case I could damage my hardware.

Alan Says iPhones on eBay are selling well still

I cringed when I heard yours (and others) predictions about the value loss of current generation iphones on ebay. I know you don't participate in jailbreaking or unlocking, so you probably don't realize there is a huge community of people who do this so as to not be tied to a contract, or to use a carrier than gives better service and/or rates in their area. Or, like me, that has a work-provided phone, and just uses my iphone as a "GoPhone", paying for only the minutes I use. In Europe, where I sometimes have to travel for work, tying a phone to a carrier and FORCING the user to use that carrier is unheard of. American phone carriers are gouging the public and it's very unfair and monopolistic.

Prices on used iphones are through the roof on ebay. I was quite surprised myself. I went to purchase a phone for a relative. I use an ebay searching tool that allows for finding newly listed items. I found a 8G iPhone for $2.99 (Buy it now) that had just been listed, just the phone, no box, manuals or accessories. In the 15 minutes it took to locate and call my relative for permission to buy it for her, it was gone! So, now I'm looking again, but not finding a price like this.

Just thought you wanted to know in case you wanted to know what your "old" phones are worth.

See iPhone Alley's Guide to Erasing your iPhone

www.iphonealley.com—guide-for-thoroughly-erasing-your-iphone?

iPod Observer's Thoughts For Your Current iPhone

www.ipodobserver.com—36265

Have a happy and safe 4th of July to our US listeners.

Visit our Website www.themaccore.com

Call our Voicemail Hotline: 206-905-4119

Please don't forget to introduce yourself at the beginning of your comment and then pause and leave your email address at the end.

Send us an email: themaccore@gmail.com (you can attach a standard audio file to your email and we'll try to play it on the show.)

We're on Twitter

Don't forget about the MacRoundtable - new episodes released every other week

www.macroundtable.com

Review us on iTunes!

Support the show.

www.themaccore.com—index.html