Most serious companies use to give their employees various presents from time to time, and in most cases, this presents are either personalized for each individual (which is best thing in the world, in my opinion), or everyone gets about the same thing, personalized with the company's logo (not so good, but anyway, it's a present!). If you're one of those that can decide such things to happen, or simply an employee that can give hints regarding such things to his superiors and not get fired, I am sure you'll be glad to find out Apple just started a special program involving corporate gifts...


Basically, it's all about choosing iPods, iTunes Gift Cards, as well as iPod accessories, and if you order at least 50 iPods, you will receive free engraving for each player's back panel, or you can choose to pay a one-time setup fee and have all those players with your company's logo on them, instead of custom text.

Obviously, everything comes for special pricing, and if the above it's not enough, you can also choose preloaded custom content for the iPods ($10 per unit for orders of more than 250 iPods), but I think probably two of the best things to choose are the (PRODUCT) RED versions of the iPod nano or shuffle. Anyway, if your budget allows you, you can go as far as purchasing MacBooks or iMacs!

More details about this program can be found on Apple's site, here.

When it comes to estimating sales, it seems Apple's sales tendency is very easy to predict, especially when talking about their computers. Despite the fact Mac OS X 10.5.2 update didn't fix the Time Machine backup problems everyone expected to see patched, I am sure most Mac buyers will still be satisfied with their purchase, once they get a new computer from Apple. Now, let's see what analysts have to say about this...


For the fiscal quarter ending in March, Shaw Wu from American Technology Research expects to see strong Mac sales, iPhone sales a bit below expectations, and pretty weak iPod sales, just as everyone expects, being given the fact that, in some cases, consumers buy iPhones and forget about iPods, since the iPhone can easily be used as a music player, too.

The expected sales of 2.1 million Macs, just as many as iPhones expected to sell this quarter, look pretty impressive, while the iPod estimations go as high as about 10 millions, compared to a market consensus of 11 to 12 million players.

As I said before a few times, Apple needs to bring completely new and original music players on the market (I don't consider the iPod touch being one!), and concentrate on computers and software more than ever. For them, I think that best card to play now is Leopard and computers running it, but they need some time to make things right, but I simply hope they'll make the best out of it, for the users, as well as for their own good.

Today, I just found out about a very interesting thing. If you just got a MacBook or MacBook Pro back in 2007, and you are crazy about Air's multi-touch capabilities, I am sure you will be extremely pleased to find out that your MacBook may allow you to unleash some multi-touch magic pretty soon, without having to spend a single penny!

<
According to recent news, "An Apple spokesperson has told T3 that the MacBook Air's multitouch track pad is software, not hardware, based.", and despite the fact this wasn't quite a secret for many, it's nice to know it from official sources inside Apple. These being said, the next step should be obvious...

While there's no official confirmation yet, prepare for a software update that will allow you to experience the multi-touch features of the MacBook Air in all their glory on your older MacBook or MacBook Pro computer!

How old? Well, if your MacBook already features two-finger scroll, horizontal scrolling, zooming, and secondary (right) clicking via its Trackpad, it should be enough. Don't worry, you'll find out about this as soon as it happens, and I hope to be able to give you some hints about when is this going to happen, in the meantime, so don't forget to come back here from time to time, or subscribe to our FeedBurner feed!

For an artist, releasing an album full of quality songs can be a really tough challenge, since those albums without a single "filler" track released so far could only fill a small bag, and nothing more. Before the portable music players entered the scene, the public had to buy full albums, thus spending about $20 (or more) for acquiring 10-15 tracks, of which only 5-10 were really worth it. Now, the digital music downloads made the competition really tough, and CD sales are going lower and lower with each year. Who's fault it this? Apple's, of course!


Hey, hey! Don't kill me, because I didn't started this, and this is not even my opinion. The fact is that, according to NBC, Apple and their popular iTunes service, together with the iPod music player, which was sold in over 120 million units since 2001, are guilty for the situation of the music industry. Well, they didn't say exactly that, but made it clear that a large part of the guilt belongs to Apple (the guild is directly proportional with the market share, as it seems...).

It is interesting to mention that NBC noted the fact that artists selling 10-15 million copies of their albums back in 2000, now barely pass the 1 million mark. An example is Alicia Keys' latest album, a top Billboard debut a few weeks ago, only sold 61,000 copies so far. Is that bad? Is it good?

For a music fan, it's good to have a complete freedom of choice. Just like you, I have bought poor albums too many times, simply because 2 or 3 popular tracks that were really good.

In my opinion, this is a natural move. From now on, the big recording companies may go down slowly, but us, the music consumers, will take advantage of better albums. After all, if I find a brilliant album of some artist, I won't buy those 10-15 tracks for $0.99 each, instead of spending $20-$30 for a nice digipack...

At last, it would be interesting to see if Apple has any answer to NBC's claims. If I were in their place, this time I would give them exactly what they deserve - silence.

If one really loves its iPod or iPhone, the money spent on the device itself is nothing, compared to how much can be spent on customizing it, as well as to add various accessories. Today, it's not about skins or protective cases, because if you want style, you should start with the accessories that came with your phone or player, and I am talking about the earphones here...


Today, the iPhone and iPod world has risen to a higher level of style, with the help of the i83 crystal earphones, pictured above. They are my favorite in the fresh i80 series, and although I wouldn't use them (I am addict to simple designs using as much Black as possible), I would gladly grab a few sets to use as presents, starting with my wife. The i83 set has a maximum power of 10mW, 105dB sensitivity, and is priced at $39.99, being available in 4 colors (details here).

If you're into ear-clips, the i84 could be a very good choice for you, especially since the price and technical specifications are about the same(only two colors are available, and the sensitivity is a bit higher, with a value of 109dB). More details about these stereo ear clips can be found on the official product page, here.

Since we're dangerously close to Valentine's Day, if you didn't decide what to grab for your girl yet, now it's the best time to choose, and since Microsoft's "Valentine Edition" Zune is not going to arrive in time, you can try your luck with iLuv...