With a very small chance of saying something wrong, I can claim that China is the fastest growing country in the world. While things are cooling down in most areas of the planet, they keep going high, and the environment has to pay a heavy toll, but that's a sad truth I can't do much to change. Considering this incredible growth, it's no surprise that Apple will have one store opened there this summer, expected to be ready just in time for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

Apple's first Chinese store was shaped as a plan some time ago, but now everything is official - the location is Qianmen Street, a half-mile avenue at the south end of Tiananmen Square, currently just out of an impressive renovation, worth $40 million. Utilities have been improved, the street is now paved with green and white marble, a tram line has been reintroduced, buildings are now restored to their 1920-1930 appearance, and the existing Opera House has been rebuilt. Wow!

The Apple Store will be located on this street, now the second pedestrian-only shopping street in Beijing, expected to soon feature 300 shops, with over 800,000 square feet, including international retailers like Starbucks, Adidas, and our beloved Apple, of course.

According to various architecture sources, the Apple Store in Beijing will blend in with the other buildings in the area, instead of going along with the standard storefront designs used so far by the Cupertino-based company.

What could be wrong with a company that usually repairs iPods? Obviously, there are a lot of things that could be wrong with such a company, but to make things more clear, what could be wrong with a company repairing iPods to end up in a court of law, facing Apple's lawyers? It seems that Apple has problems with the name, once again. Come on, those guys are supposed to repair iPods, should they choose "Tomato Mechanic" as company name???

What Apple did was to start a lawsuit against the iPod Mechanic, a small iPod repair business based in Michigan. The accusations are pretty simple - Apple claims that Nicholas Woodhams, the man behind iPod Mechanic, misused Apple's "iPod" and "Pod" trademarks on his company's website, and for the name itself, of course.<-120x240 Vertical Banner - left-> According to Apple, Nicholas was asked to stop using the name of the media player back in 2006, and he agreed to drop the iPod Mechanic name by January 2007, and park the ipodmechanic.com domain by March. Until now, none of these happened, and the iPod Mechanic website is still working like a charm as we speak.

To make it all even worse, Nicholas is also accused of fraud, because he convinced Apple to send him free components, one example being his exploitation of the iPod shuffle Advance Replacement Program in 2007. The story is a bit more complicated, but I even noticed customer complaints about iPod Mechanic, one of them being available here.

As usual, I am sure the truth is somewhere in between, but I am amazed - as always - by how Apple hags on to these trademarks, even when doing such things is completely lame...

Greenpeace seems to have something against Apple, but considering that the iPhone 3G has more plastic than the previous model, ranking the Cupertino-based company pretty low in its rankings is somehow justified. I may have said this again, and I say it once more - it's not all about money, so if you can choose between a "green" product and one that may end up in a junkyard and spend a few hundred years until "fading away," try making a small effort and get the "greenie." Your grandchildren may thank you one day for this...

"For example, all new models of iMac and the MacBook Air have bromine-free casings and printed circuit board laminates as well as PVC-free internal cables. Millions of iPods now have bromine-free enclosures and printed circuit board laminates. The MacBook Air also has mercury free LCD display with arsenic-free glass. MacBook Pros come with mercury-free LED backlit displays. Apple scores poorly on most e-waste criteria, except for reporting a recycling rate in 2006 of 9.5% as a percentage of sales 7 years ago. <-234x60 Half Banner - right->It does only slightly better on energy criteria, failing to score on all criteria except energy efficiency of products, where it scores top marks (doubled) for all desktops computers, portable PCs and displays complying with Energy Star 4.0 and their iPod and iPhone power adapters not only exceeding the Energy Star standard, but already meeting California’s stricter efficiency regulations that take effect 1 July 2008," says Greenpeace, so there are also good things about Apple's products and protecting the environment.

The top we're talking about, called "Greenpeace Guide to Greener Electronics," only has 18 positions, so Apple's 11th place is not that bad, but not too good, either. Sony and Sony Ericsson got the first positions, both with a 5.1 score, followed by Nokia(4.8), Samsung and Dell, both with a 4.5 rating, and no less than 5 companies that scored 4.3 - HP, Motorola, Acer, Panasonic, and Toshiba.

At last, I would like to ask you a simple question: did you ever think about the environment when purchasing a product, not necessary an Apple one? Tell us more than just "yes" or "no!"

We already know that the iPhone 3G is cheaper to produce for Apple, and nobody kept the fact that AT&T is paying a certain amount to Apple for each iPhone sold, so the end user can get the smartphone for only $199(the 8GB model), but nobody knew exactly how much gets Apple for each one of these beauties...until now. Well, it's not official, but it's more than nothing!

According to recent notes from Oppenheimer analysts, quoted by MacRumors via Barrons, AT&T pays Apple $325 for each iPhone 3G, so that we can get them for those incredible prices - $199 for the 8GB model, and $299 for the 16GB one. Even more, it seems tha AT&T is paying an additional $100 per phone for iPhones sold in Apple stores, so the total comission ends up at $425, bringing Apple's prices at $624 and $724.

I just wonder about the Samsung Instinct...how did they manage to pull that incredible $129.99 price? That's another interesting story, but I have no idea about its details yet. Anyway, thins are looking good for everyone, especially for Apple and its customers...but I wouldn't worry about AT&T, either! ;)

For millions of people, iTunes is more than just "a digital media player application," because I dare to say that Apple managed to turn iTunes into much more. I am not thinking about the fact that iTunes is the largest music retailer in the US, after reaching the second place last February, and I don't even care about the fact they may be losing money, because I am sure Apple won't go bankrupt because of this. In the end, I am sure the iTunes Store brings some serious profits, and today I have just found out something interesting about the songs on iTunes...

Should I keep the truth hidden any longer? No, I guess not. I am stunned, that's the truth. Apple's smart moves have pushed iTunes where no music retail service has gone before! No, they didn't start selling music to aliens just yet, but I am sure that will happen, as soon as we'll have some aliens available. For the time being, the number of songs sold through iTunes has changed. Obviously, that number is changing every second, but I am talking about the BIG one. How big? 5 billion! Almost one iTunes song sold for each human on the planet(well, about 20% less, I guess, but anyway...)!

This is no rumor, because Apple has just announced that iTunes Store's customers purchased and downloaded more than 5 billion songs, while the iTunes Store also has the largest music catalog online, with over 8 million tracks. Even more, the iTunes Store is now renting over 50,000 movies daily, turning it into the most popular movie store, too, with a catalog of over 20,000 TV episodes, over 2,000 films, of which over 350 are available in HD quality.

Impressive! To be honest, I am not crazy about iTunes, because I usually buy full albums, or at least singles. I am addicted to losless music, and most people I know feel the same, but that doesn't minimize iTunes' merits. Good job, guys!