Apple’s new lottery system in Hong Kong doesn’t yet involve scratch tickets, but the company made plenty of scratch last quarter, and the Steve Jobs quotes and pictures going up around Apple’s campus only scratch the surface of the man. The remainders for Monday, January 30, 2012 are here to scratch your itch.
Apple combats scalpers with new lottery system for iPhone reservations in Hong Kong (9to5 Mac)
In an apparent effort to combat scalpers, Apple has set up a new page on its site for reserving an iPhone in Hong Kong. The page requires the customer to enter a government ID number, which they must reportedly also show at the time of purchase. Supposedly, it employs a lottery system, in which the winners get a chance to buy an iPhone, and the losers get stoned.
Applemade more money than… (Apple made more money than…)
It’s hard to conceptualize the $46.33 billion in revenue that Apple made in its most recent quarter, so one site attempts to put the number in perspective by comparing it to a variety of figures. For example, did you know that Apple made more than 50 times the gross revenues of Finding Nemo, or twice as much as the cost of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions (in 1969 dollars, anyway)? For those who clamor that Apple is on its way to becoming the next evil empire, you can console yourself that Apple still doesn’t have enough money to build its own Death Star.
Obama campaign rolls out Square mobile fundraising platform (Politco)
A large part of President Obama’s support in the 2008 election came from small contributions via his website. So, it’s little surprise that in 2012 the president is taking matters one step further by dispatching campaign personnel armed with Square credit card readers. No word on whether the commander-in-chief will let people put their donations on a tab.
Bill Gates: ‘I wrote Steve Jobs a letter as he was dying. He kept it by his bed’ (The Telegraph)
During Steve Jobs’s illness, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates wrote the Apple CEO a letter that Jobs kept by his bed. Boy, that must have been a tough one for Clippy to help with: “So, you’re writing to your erstwhile archrival…”
Steve Jobs’ legacy lives on at Apple Campus with posters and quotes (9to5 Mac)
Speaking of Jobs, Infinite Loop is apparently now decorated with quotes and pictures of the Apple co-founder, such as this: “I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what’s next.” That’s slightly better than the one down the hall, which says “Blu-ray is a bag of hurt.”
Product News:
Office2 5.0.2 – ByteSquared has released an update to its iOS app Office2, bringing all of the iPad app’s document editing tools to the iPhone, including floating and inline images; floating shapes; footnotes and endnotes; text boxes; section breaks, page breaks, and column breaks; headers and footers; the ability to revert to a previous version; a new page layout-based document interface; and more. $6.
Steam Mobile – Valve has released a Steam Mobile, a new iOS app for online game platform Steam. Steam Mobile lets users connect with the Steam community: You can chat with friends, read the latest gaming news, browse user profiles, and stay up to date on Steam sales. Free.