A recent report by the NPD Group shows that Apple iTunes has moved into the 3rd position for music retailers in the U.S., beating Amazon.com out of the #3 spot.

The report surveyed 40,000 people to find that in the first quarter Apple carried a 10% market share trailing Wal-Mart with a 15.8% and Best Buy with 13.8%. Both Wal-Mart and Best Buy sell a majority of their music as physical CD’s, but the study also noted a decline in CD sales while digital music sales overall continues to rise.

Even though Amazon dropped to the 4th position, its music sales actually increased from previous studies, but just not as quickly as its rivals. The music sales competition will be interesting to see for the remaining quarters of 2007 as Amazon has since started selling DRM free digital music through their …

Many may not remember or had even noticed the tiny Bluetooth headset that Apple announced in January along with the iPhone, but AppleInsider did notice that the headset was recently approved by the FCC to go on sale potentially along side the Apple iPhone launching at the end of this month.

Little has been said about the Bluetooth headset from Apple other than there will be another headset accessory that’s wired to be marketed with the iPhone as well. No information on any pricing or availability has been made public and any photographs and the user manual from the wireless headset were excluded from the FCC report.

Apple always loves to keep things interesting. As iPod fanboys await the launch this month of the iPhone Apple continues to update other product lines. The latest case in point is the refreshed MacBook Pro notebook computers announced today.

The latest Apple MacBook Pros, priced between $2,000 and $2,800, sport the newest Intel Core 2 Duo processors as well as up to 4GB of RAM. You also get nice add-ins like an iSight video camera for video conferencing, a power adapter which disconnects the computer when under strain and built-in 802.11n wireless networking.

Three models are available in the new MacBook Pro line up – 2.2 GHz and 2.4 GHz 15-inch MacBook Pros and a 2.4 GHz 17-inch MacBook Pro. All come housed in a lightweight, aluminum enclosure one-inch thick. Apple is touting that “the 15-inch …

Whoa… In the midst of Apple dropping their DRM with some labels and DVD codes being cracked, from out of nowhere comes a crack for the DRM on downloaded music from iTunes.

The creators of QTFairUse6 have made a way to rid your iTunes downloaded music of that pesky DRM and do with it as you wish, but of course this only works for the current version of iTunes (7.1.1), and unfortunately it only works for Windows.

No doubt by now Apple is working on the next version of iTunes to plug this hole so you’ll have to take advantage before the next upgrade, and Mac users will have to wait a little longer to see if something comes their way soon. Check it out:

hymn via Cruchgear

According to a recent report from DigiTimes, Apple has plans to launch a WiFi enabled iPod that could be available to ship by Q3 of this year.

The report states that as soon as this month Universal Scientific Industrial (USI) will be shipping the components that will make the WiFi capabilities possible to Foxconn, who will then assemble the new device. Foxconn would then have enough of the devices assembled and ready to go by the 3rd quarter of this year, which would mean that these new WiFi iPods would be ready to go in plenty of time for the holiday rush.

This seems to makes sense for Apple to do in order to stay competitive with the Zune and its WiFi capabilities. There has also been rumors that Sony and Samsung are preparing a WiFi enabled DAP, and Sandisk has already shown offer a similar device. One …

Steve Jobs’ latest effort to synergize entertainment with computers is now ready to come into your home theater room. Apple TV, the company’s newest piece of hardware, is now shipping to customers.

Say you want to download the latest episode of “Battlestar Galactica” or “Lost” to your iPod but this time there’s a bunch of you that want to watch it. Instead of crowding around the pod screen, when you hook up Apple TV to your computer (whether it’s a Mac or PC), you can now stream the broadcast straight to your television. You can also do the same for any other trailers, podcasts, photos or movies.

When you add new content to your iPod the Apple TV box changes its menu to accommodate the new material via the 802.11 wireless built-in to it. Connection to your TV is done through an HDMI or …

A report released from Prudential Equity Group recently indicated that Apple may scrap plans for the next generation hard drive based iPod in favor of using NAND flash memory instead. The change according to the report would result in smaller players and improvements in battery life and durability.

NAND flash memory is a very common source of memory for small thumb drives and memory cards, and is a type of non-volatile memory. Non-volatile memory means that it does not need a continuous power source to retain its data, and NAND flash memory is a durable design that works well for long-term use.

Using the flash memory for iPods would also mean less required power since there are no moving parts, and with the continuing improvements in flash technology the devices can be built smaller without compromising …

A preliminary analysis from iSuppli states that they estimate the iPhone from Apple has over a 50 percent gross margin which all comes back to Apple since they do not allow carriers to subsidize or discount the phones.

“With a 50 percent gross margin, Apple is setting itself up for aggressive price declines going forward,” said Jagdish Rebello with iSuppli.

According to iSuppli, the total expense to manufacture the 8GB iPhone is estimated to be about $280, leaving $319 in profit $599 price tag. The firm did not have an actual iPhone device available to them to take apart, so this estimate was made from the knowledge and experience with similar parts from other products.

The firm estimated that the cost for the flash memory was the most expensive component of both the 4GB and the 8GB iPhones, which …

It appears that Apple is now taking orders for their new Apple TV for $299 with free shipping, although the device will not ship until February. If you plan on ordering one, here is a quick rundown of what you’ll get for your $300.

The actual Apple TV is pretty small, measuring a mere 7.7 inch square and being just over 1 inch tall, weighing in at 2.4 pounds. True to rumors before the Apple TV launch, it does contain a 40GB hard drive, and it runs on an Intel Processor.

The device is compatible to stream video content wirelessly across any 802.11g/n network, but of course they recommend the Airport Extreme. iTunes 7 is also a requirement to get your media for the Apple TV, of course.

The small device has a number of interfaces including IR for the included remote control and of …

Although greatly overshadowed by recent releases of the Apple TV and the iPhone, the new Apple Airport Extreme Base Station was also recently released by Apple and probably deserves a little more recognition than it’s gotten so far.

The new Airport Extreme is an upgrade from the previous version in multiple ways. The design changed to a square look, similar to that of a mini-Mac or the new Apple TV, with small dimensions of only 1.3 inches high and 6.5 inches square. The wireless capabilities are the other major upgrade which now covers the new 802.11n standard, but is still backwards compatible with the 802.11b and 802.11g technologies.

“The new Airport Extreme is the most powerful and easy to use Wi-Fi base station that we have ever made,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide …

Apple added some iPhone pages to their website today after Steve Jobs’ keynote speech was completed. Now that the dust has settled a little bit, here are some additional detailed specs to go along with the iPhone release information we posted earlier today.

The new Apple iPhone has a 3.5 inch Multi-touch screen with a resolution of 320 x 480 at 160 ppi. The Multi-touch screen works by finger touch, not a stylus and can track multiple fingers moving on and across the screen to perform tasks such as resizing an image. It has a 2.0 megapixel built-in camera and a battery that allows 5 hours of talking, watching videos or browsing the web, and up to 16 hours of listening to music.

The service will be provided by Cingular with Quad-Band (850, 900, 1800, 1900) GSM, EDGE, Bluetooth and WiFi. …

If you are one of the many that have suffered from the random, unexpected shutdown problem that has been plaguing the Apple MacBooks as of late, you’ll be happy to hear that Apple has released a fix to the problem, and the fix can be done in lieu of bringing your MacBook in for service.

For about 4 months this issue has been cropping up in many places, and so much so that http://www.macbookrandomshutdown.com was created and has gained quite a bit of popularity due to the common issue with over 1500 reports listed with over 150 pages of user comments on the complaint site, and is an unfortunate hit to the new Apple notebooks with Intel Processors.

No reports have been issued as to the results of how well the update is working. Some users have said that the problem is related …