Advertising is a pretty dirty business, in some cases, and I am not talking about comparative advertising here. What I have in mind is the fact that a lot of smaller companies selling great products are being buried by large corporations selling a lot of junk, but advertising it like hell. No examples needed, I am sure you have some of your own, and mine will only make me extremely mad once again(last time it happened yesterday, in a supermarket, but I won't get into details now).

While the Microsoft advertisements we have seen popping out lately are really lame, and they aren't even focused on Microsoft, after all, it seems they had the effect desired - public's perception of brand value has gone down a lot lately for Apple, as you can see in the graph above.

Back in February, Apple got a value perception score of 70, and now Microsoft advertisements have pushed it all the way down to 12. Just don't get it wrong - it's all about the public being brainwashed by Microsoft's lame ads that are targeting "cheaper computers" and nothing more.

Reality is completely different, and I don't know why... but Microsoft really deserves a little trial for its latest ads - at least that's my opinion. On the other hand, Apple's "Get a Mac" ads were also playing dirty, so I guess Microsoft has just settled the score with its latest ads...

For now, this impressive negative drop for Apple doesn't show in terms of sales numbers, and it probably won't do that anytime soon. After all, the iPod reigns supreme, and - no matter how you take it - the Mac will always remain a better choice for someone's first computer. You only need to think about it in the long run, and just forget about short term satisfaction of a better price.

Apple's Snow Leopard is a pretty hot topic these days, and it has been that way for a pretty long time. Features, looks, improvements when compared to what Mac OS X is currently offering... all have been dissected a few thousand times, and we heard a lot of different things about these topics so far, although official info was extremely limited, as it usually happens with Apple.

Now, we're talking about some serious stuff - the Snow Leopard video madness has begun, and we're not talking about some fakes here, because the story goes like "Snow Leopard pre-release builds movies," and despite the fact the movies are not coming from Apple... they're the real stuff!

A YouTube user known as "LeopardOctober" posted a few videos that show most of the interesting stuff in Snow Leopard, from QuickLook movie playback to the new and long-awaited QuickTime X interface. Since there's been enough hype around them, I won't get back to these topics once again, at least not today...

Heh, it seems funny to me that the guy is still on YouTube, as well as the videos. We're talking about excatly 7 videos here, and since I don't see any reason in going through the topics here, I only have one advice for you: go to his YouTube page and check those videos! Even more, it could be a good idea downloading them, because I can't bet that Apple won't step in and have them removed, but that's one thing we should wait and see if it happens or not.

Instead of upgrading a notebook, it's better to get a new one. No, I am not affiliated with any notebook manufacturer, and the previous sentence is not a truth. In fact, it's not even what I think, but it was a truth a few years ago, when hardware upgrades for portable computers were insanely expensive. Now, if you want a MacBook hard drive upgrade, you won't be forced to sell you car to afford it!

Still don't believe me? Well, you don't have to look for truth hidden inside some words - just face the facts! MyService comes with a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive upgrade for the MacBook and MacBook Pro, that's the story, and if you want to know the price, I won't keep you waiting: we're talking about $345.

I don't know about you, but this still seems quite a lot to me. After all, you should be able to get not one, but two 1TB drives for desktops and spend about the same amount, so... what's the big catch, after all?

For your money, MyService will offer you the 500GB 7200RPM 2.5" SATA Seagate drive, and they claim these are "the largest and fastest mobile drives available," while offering free shipping, professional installation and data transfer. Even better, you'll be able to keep your old drive and maybe turn it into an external backup solution, with a few extra bucks.

At last, you should also know that, if you really want a MacBook or MacBook Pro hard drive upgrade and you're on a budget, MyService is also offering smaller hard drives, starting with the 120GB Western Digital at 5400RPM and $175, but my recommendation for those on a budget is to try to make the jump to $215, and grab the cheapest 7200RPM hard drive available here, the 160GB Hitachi.

If you have an iPhone or at least a player belonging to one of the two iPod Touch generations released so far, you can't say you never used the App Store. If you do, then something's probably wrong... or everything's great and you're using a jailbroken device. Anyway, I am sure that virtually anyone heard a lot about Apple's App Store, financial wonder of the century!

Why am I calling it this way? Just think about all the mumbo-jumbo we heard so far regarding the sales and profits of Apple's online applications store. To sum it all up in a short sentence, the App Store was seen as a huge cash maker with the minimum amount of investment from Apple. Now, it surfaced a completely different truth - the App Store financial wonder isn't exactly so much of a wonder...

It has become well known that Apple rocketed beyond the billion app mark, and most estimations said that accounted for 25 million to 50 million downloaded paid apps, producing an impressive raw revenue somewhere between $70 million and $160 million.

According to Lightspeed Venture Partners' Jeremy Liew, a ratio of 15 to 40 freely downloadable apps for every paid one and a mean price for these at $2.65 are leading to earnings going between $20 million and $45 million, way lower than previous numbers.

The happy end of the story is that, for Apple, the App Store financial wonder is exactly that, but from a different point of view. Obviously, we're talking about an awesome advertising machine for the iPhone and iPod Touch, the two devices bringing in a much higher revenue than the App Store. That's all! ;)

I think there's only one excuse for those having an iPod: lack of knowledge. The need of being cool isn't enough, as long as there are plenty of better alternatives, and - most important of all - offering better price/features/quality ratio. Anyway, since I don't want to turn this article into a "best iPod alternatives" one, although it wouldn't be such a bad idea talking about that, let's move on and see what's the catch with the camera iPod, shall we?

As you surely know, the only camera iPod Apple could easily get ready at this time is the iPod Touch, since it's basically an iPhone stripped of its phone features... and the camera, but things seem to be headed in this direction for the Nano, too. Just don't expect to get some camera iPod Shuffle, all right? Before moving on, let me tell you that Apple is going off the line with this, and I really don't think it's necessary to add some low quality camera to the iPod Nano, for example, since I am sure that over 50% of its users already have some camera phone they carry all over...

Now, various sources came up with a rumor that claims Apple will refresh its iPod Touch and iPod Nano in late September, and - apart from various minor enhancements, as usual - both are expected to feature a camera like the iPhone. While this may sound like something great for some people, I think the iPods will still remain a few steps behind the iPhone. How's that?

It's very simple - now, the iPhone has a camera, but no video recording capabilities. In the future, the iPhone will have a camera with a bunch of video recording features, while the iPod Nano and the Touch will have a camera... but I am sure they won't have any video recording capabilities. Got the idea?

At last, here's what I would like to see in the next iPod refresh - user replaceable batteries, support for a wider range of file formats, and better headphones/sound chips. That's it, Apple, but I only see one "issue" with such iPods - users won't feel the urge to get a new one with each refresh...