Apple

This American Life has retracted an episode about Apple factories in China featuring storyteller Mike Daisey.

Here is more from the show: “Regrettably, we have discovered that one of our most popular episodes was partially fabricated. This week, we devote the entire hour to detailing the errors in “Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory,” Mike Daisey’s story about visiting Foxconn, an Apple supplier factory in China. Rob Schmitz, a reporter for Marketplace, raises doubts on much of Daisey’s story.”

The New York Times has since edited an op-ed essay written by Daisey: “Questions have been raised about the truth of a paragraph in the original version of this article that purported to talk about conditions at Apple’s factory in China. That paragraph has been removed from this version of the article.” The Chicago Theater has cancelled a Daisey performance and Edward Champion rounded up more responses from theaters around the country and printed a transcript of Daisey’s new prologue for the piece.

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The Department of Justice’s investigation into alleged eBook price collusion among Apple and select publishers is making various different people in the publishing business speak out.

Authors Guild president Scott Turow blasted the lawsuit in an open letter to members: “Amazon was using e-book discounting to destroy bookselling, making it uneconomic for physical bookstores to keep their doors open.”

Author Barry Eisler responded to Turow in a blog post on J.A. Konrath‘s site. He wrote: “The problem is, this is a terribly tendentious way to state the argument, and it’s also a contradiction in terms. Maybe Scott would also argue that Apple is destroying computer-selling by selling so many computers, but logically, it’s pretty hard to see how someone could destroy bookselling by selling tons of books. In arguing that bookselling is destroying bookselling, Scott is making his biases as clear as his argument is turbid.”

Authors Guild president and novelist Scott Turow sent a blunt letter to members this afternoon, calling the possibility of a Department of Justice lawsuit against Apple and five major publishers “grim news for everyone who cherishes a rich literary culture.”

We’ve reprinted the entire letter below, but here is an excerpt: “Amazon was using e-book discounting to destroy bookselling, making it uneconomic for physical bookstores to keep their doors open … The irony bites hard: our government may be on the verge of killing real competition in order to save the appearance of competition.”

The news broke yesterday that the DOJ may sue Apple, Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Penguin Group (USA), Macmillan and HarperCollins for allegedly colluding to fix eBook prices when they established the agency model for eBook pricing.

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Apple unveiled a new iPad today with a high-resolution retina display. Pricing for the new device starts at $499.

Overall, the new display should make eBooks easier to read. The new iPad also includes an updated version of iPhoto, complete with journal-writing tools for writers to create detailed records of a trip or experience. Do you use a digital journal?

Check it out: “Select a group of photos and iPhoto automatically flows them into a beautiful journal that’s fun to personalize and share online. Touch a photo to make it bigger or smaller. Or drag it to a different spot on the screen. iPhoto adjusts the page around whatever you’re doing, so your journal always looks great. You can even add captions, maps, dates, and weather — giving family and friends the big picture at a glance.”

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Author Seth Godin‘s new book Stop Selling Dreams is not available in the iBookstore.

Why? According to Godin, the book was not approved because the bibliography contains links to books on Amazon.

In a blog post on PaidContent.org, he wrote: “We’re heading to a world where there are just a handful of influential bookstores (Amazon, Apple, Nook…) and one by one, the principles of open access are disappearing. Apple, apparently, won’t carry an ebook that contains a link to buy a hardcover book from Amazon.”

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Earlier this year, Apple unveiled iTunes U, a vast collection of free courses to download for Apple devices.

Here’s more about the massive collection: “Learn a new language. Study Shakespeare. Discover the cosmos. It’s all possible on iTunes U, home to more than 500,000 free lectures, videos, books, and other resources on thousands of subjects. Among the hundreds of colleges, universities, and elementary and high schools on iTunes U, you’ll find Stanford, Yale, MIT, Oxford, and UC Berkeley, along with other distinguished institutions such as MoMA, New York Public Library, and more.”

We’ve been exploring the courses over the last few weeks, uncovering ten free courses for writers and readers can download right now. Topics range from zombies to Tolkien studies to creative writing; the free courses are offered by major institutions like Stanford and Oxford.

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According to a new study from Strategy Analytics, the iPad is still the dominant tablet, but it has lost market share. The company estimates that Apple had a 58 percent share of the tablet market in the fourth quarter of 2011, down from 68 percent of the market in the same period the year before.

Strategy Analytics director Peter King explained: “Global tablet shipments reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 million in Q4 2010. Demand for tablets among consumer, business and education users remains strong … Apple shrugged off the much-hyped threat from entry-level Android models this quarter.”

eBookNewser has more: “The study draws a parallel to this drop and the introduction of the Kindle Fire. However these two devices are in different price brackets and it may be the growth in the tablet market overall that is making Apple less dominant.”

Apple counted a quarterly net profit of $13.06 billion in an earnings call this afternoon, recording impressive device sales for the quarter that ended December 31st.

Check it out: “The Company sold 37.04 million iPhones in the quarter, representing 128 percent unit growth over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.43 million iPads during the quarter, a 111 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. The Company sold 5.2 million Macs during the quarter, a 26 percent unit increase over the year-ago quarter. Apple sold 15.4 million iPods, a 21 percent unit decline from the year-ago quarter.

CEO Tim Cook promised: “we have some amazing new products in the pipeline.” The company also revealed that 58 percent of revenues for the quarter were from international sales.

Apple unveiled iBooks Author this morning, a free app that will help writers make eBooks and publish to the iBookstore. Writers can download the app Mac App Store right now.

UPDATE: Dan Wineman has noticed some sticky legal issues buried in the user agreement for the free app. Read his post before you use the tool to upload your work to the iBookstore.

Here are a few highlights from the App Store description of the app: 1. “Import a chapter written in Pages or Microsoft Word.”

2. “Add any word to the glossary with a single click and easily include photos, images, charts, tables, and shapes next to any definition.”

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This Thursday, Apple is hosting an “education announcement” in New York City–generating rumors all month.

Ars Technica published the latest rumor today. The blog wrote: “Apple will announce tools to help create interactive e-books—the ‘GarageBand for e-books,’ so to speak—and expand its current platform to distribute them to iPhone and iPad users.” Wired is reporting that its sources say Apple will such a tool at the event on Thursday.

eBookNewser has more “We’ve heard that they are going to announce a self-publishing platform. We’ve also heard that they are going to get into digital textbooks. And now we’re hearing that Apple is going to come up with a tool that would do for eBooks what Garage Band does for digital music files.”