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Apple gives employees 50 GB of iCloud storage
There's a new benefit to working for Apple -- according to a post by MacRumors blogger Jordan Golson, the company now gives all employees a free 50 GB upgrade to their iCloud storage. Free online storage isn't anything new; the company used to give employees a free MobileMe subscription to use. Since the standard free iCloud account only provides about 5 GB of storage, the 50 GB of storage is a nice benefit worth $100 annually. Other fun things that Apple employees can smile about while being overworked and underpaid include recently-added discounts of $500 off on a new Mac (except the Mac mini), or $250 for an iPad.
iPad launch: Buying at the Walt Whitman Mall in Huntington Station, NY
I got to the Apple Store at Walt Whitman Mall at about 8:30 AM and the mall doors were open. There were already about 150 people waiting for their iPad, and the Apple Store folks had two lines set up: one for advance reservations and one for walk-ins. As a pre-order customer, I gave my name to a blue-shirted Apple person and was told to wait on the reservation line. For each 10 people with a reservation they would let in one person without, so perhaps they had something of a handle on inventory. There was coffee and water to be had while waiting and a quick look inside the store showed so many Apple workers that I couldn't imagine how any customers would fit. At ten minutes to opening, a huge crowd of blue shirts ran up and down the mall screaming at the top of their lungs to pump up the crowd, but we didn't need pumping up. Everyone was really psyched already. I talked to a few people while waiting to get in, and I met someone named Theo who had a real reason for buying an iPad: He's a DJ and wanted to use it to kick off videos while performing. Most everyone else had vague answers about why they were there, ranging from, "it just seems really cool," to "I don't know what I'm going to do with it, but I need one."
Official: Apple now offering iPhones contract free (updated: not unlocked)
We heard from 9 to 5 Mac that Apple was due to begin selling a contract-free variant of the iPhone in the near future "at list price." And guess what happened when we inquired to an Apple store? That's right folks -- you can now pick one up for $499 (3G), $599, or $699 (3GS). We've confirmed this info at no less than five stores, so you should be hearing the same message at your local Appletorium. Given the current unfriendly climate between Apple and Google, this could be seen as nasty jab, though the devices are still carrier-locked to AT&T, so you're not being given much freedom... and it's certainly not much of a statement. In many parts of Europe (France and Poland, for example) you can pick up the carrier-unattached device (and we mean totally unlocked), but that doesn't appear to be the case here. Update: We're getting mixed reports on the unlock status of these phones. One store says yes to the unlock, while others are saying they're still AT&T-locked devices being sold off contract. We're digging for more info on this now, so stay tuned. Update 2: It's looking like those initial reports of unlocked devices are inaccurate. It sounds like these devices are still locked to AT&T -- so you're just looking at an off contract pricing scheme. Which is also totally lame.
Found Footage: EasyPay
Blogging for TUAW is great. If I weren't blogging here I wouldn't have found this a Christmas present waiting for me in my Inbox. A little birdie sent along this a video, created by folks at the LA Apple Store, featuring some dude dressed up as an EasyPay unit and a creative reworking of What Is Love. This video tries to encourage Apple Store employees to get people to pay using EasyPay (which Mat covered here).The video is about 57 megs and clocks in at a little less than 5 minutes long. UPDATE: Apple has informed us that the video is internal to Apple and not intended for public viewing, and therefore requested that we remove it from our server.
