by Jason Wilk on February 5, 2009

- In an effort to thwart off time-theft and loiterers, Apple has decided to add Facebook to the list of banned websites at retail locations nationwide. When I asked some of the genius’ today whether or not anyone noticed the change, they all said that Facebook stopped working sometime in the past week. One of the genius’ said “Apple Stores have become a regular Internet Cafe, so placing the most popular time-killer [Facebook] of them all on the banned-list will certainly help everyone get a chance to test out the computers”.
- As you may have heard, MySpace was banned in May of 2007 from all Apple Stores. When asked why, Apple said “Nearly 2 million people visit Apple Stores every week. We want to provide everyone a chance to test-drive a Mac, so we are no longer offering access to MySpace in our stores.” Apple Stores, which now total 251 worldwide, see an average of 15,744 visitors weekly per store (Q4, 2008). So, currently about 16 million people per month are now denied the right to jump on for a minute (or an hour) to update their status or do their daily stalking. It will be interesting if Facebook will see a slight dip in traffic this month due to the change.
Trying to stay up on Apple? Check out these recent articles:
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by David Heyerman on January 31, 2009

- Adobe chief, Shantanu Narayen told Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland that Adobe is now working on a “two-way process” with Apple to develop Flash for the iPhone.
- Beforehand, Adobe was said to be develping the animation plug-in solely, but now, with Apple’s support, Flash should be closer than we once expected.
- “It’s a hard technical challenge, and that’s part of the reason Apple and Adobe are collaborating,” Narayen said. “The ball is in our court. The onus is on us to deliver.”
- No word on when it’ll drop, but exciting, nonetheless.
Photo: Engadget
by Jason Wilk on December 17, 2008

Microsoft takes the main-stage to battle Adobe and a slew of startup companies trying to be the leader in Web video and collaborative animation/web design tools. The WSJ outlines the major online destinations that have gone with each service this year. For example, Netflix, CBS, The Olynpics (via NBC.com) have all gone with Microsoft’s Silverlight player this year stealing further business from Adobe.
“Adobe’s Flash player is installed on about 98% of Internet-connected PCs, and Silverlight is only installed on about 25%, according to Adobe and Microsoft. Adobe executives said this gives the smaller company about a two-year head start. But Microsoft is “willing to invest” in order to win certain “trophy sites,” said [Bob Muglia, senior vice president of the Microsoft unit responsible for Silverlight].
Places like CBS are raving about Silverlight, saying it is saving costs greatly over Adobe’s flash player. This is bad news for Adobe who has been receiving their share of bad news this year. Another big loss came in the mobile department. They have spent two years now trying to deploy their ‘flash lite’ technology to mobile phones, only to see minimal adoption. Most importantly, Apple will have nothing to do with flash on the iPhone yet, which Adobe has been banking on for quite some time. All the bad news has caused Adobe to lay off over 600 employees as well as scale back on the MacWorld Expo in January. Some say they won’t even be having their Adobe Max conference next year. Will Adobe Flash be a thing of the past?