End User: Bites from the Apple: All You Can Eat

The autonomous breakaway Apple region of the gadgetosphere was up in arms this week over an anonymous email sent to several rumor sites (including Mac Daily News) that foretold of a new iTunes subscription service to be unveiled this fall. According to this scoop, the service would cost $130 a year, would provide subscription access to about 50 percent of the iTunes store, and would give you the option of buying and keeping (which, I assume, would allow you to burn to CD) rather than just renting. But wait, there's more slightly confusing details... if you have a MobileMe account, the subscription goes down to $99 a year (or bundled with MobileMe for $179), which points to a potential "expanded MobileMe service that would let you access 'the cloud' (Apple calls it iDisk) from your iPhone or iPod Touch," according to CNet's One More Thing.

For years, Steve Jobs has had nothing but contempt for subscription services, believing that iTunes users want to own their music outright. But could this be yet another moment where Jobs sees the market ripe for an Apple incursion and puts aside his past mockery? On one side, none of the major subscription-based models such as eMusic or Rhapsody have been doing gangbusters, but CNet's Digital Noise blog notes that the rumored $130 a year price tag would definitely undercut the competition while providing a familiar distribution point in the iTunes software. Additionally, Wired's Listening Post reminds us that Jobs has "(admitted) that the average iPod user has purchased only 22 songs from the iTunes music store. The ability of connected players such as the iPhone and iPod Touch to download new songs over the air may have convinced the Apple CEO that subscriptions could be the best way to get people to consume -- and pay for -- more music."

Several blogs like the Silicon Alley Insider who say this isn't happening, based on what they're hearing from sources. But would you be willing to fork over another $130 for an all-you-can-eat subscription? Personally, I'd probably shy away from it. I've tried a few of the services out there, and I just didn't utilize them as much as I thought I would. And, more often then not, I returned to the music that I actually bought because that was the stuff that mattered most to me. Anyhoo, let us know what you think in the comments while we take a swing through the Apple-y goodness that was this last week.

AppleInsider reports that retailers are running out of current stocks of iPods, which points to something new on the horizon. But will that horizon be rainbow colored?
Much has been made this week about the announcement of OpenClip, an open-source community project that would foster the Holy Grail feature that iPhone users have been clamoring for: copy and paste. This functionality would actually be implemented by applications taking advantage of a loophole within the iPhone OS in order to shuffle data from one app to another--thusly, it wouldn't be a global feature, and definitely one that wouldn't be found in Apple's apps (see more at IntoMobile and One More Thing). However, Gizmodo and John Gruber at Daring Fireball throw water on OpenClip's viability, noting that this loophole is getting closed in the next version (2.1) of the iPhone OS.
What to do with that ExpressCard slot in you MacBook Pro? My pal Jeff Carlson has some suggestions for you in the latest issue of Macworld, including additional storage, connection to multiple monitors.
When the iPhone 3G was unveiled just last month, there were lines of crazed buyers at Apple and AT&T stores everywhere on opening day. It seems that the iPhone craze isn't that great in Poland, where the territory's cellular operator has had to hire actors to stand in line to simulate the frenzy (via CNet's Crave).
Last week we celebrated the iMac's 10th anniversary and noted how the iconographic computer had inspired gadget design for many years. Well, now the iPhone is doing the same, as we've seen from many iPhone-wanna-be-killers like the Samsung Instinct and LG Dare and now for your home's cordless phone. Wired brings us the details on the OpenFrame phone, which features a very familiar touchscreen landscape that also gets ported over to satellite handsets. But more than just telecommunications, the developer (OpenPeak) says the device can also be used as a digital picture frame and to listen to Internet radio.
The Register is reporting that China may be banning access to Apple's iTunes Store, most likely due to the fact that it's been promoting a Tibet-themed album, which includes artists such as Sting, Ben Harper and Moby. (Frankly, Sting has been banned in my house since his Mercury Falling album.)
Here's a very cool application that hasn't quite made it into official application-dom (either via iTunes or the jailbroken black market): David O'Reilly's iHologram, which takes the cat character from his Please Say Something web animation series and creates a 3D illusion of it walking on the iPhone screen (hat tip to my colleague, Aric). Check out the video demonstration:

iHologram - iPhone application from David OReilly on Vimeo.