After a full month since the MacBook Air's initial introduction, demand for the unit appears to have increased. Various retailers, including Apple's own stores, have reported a shortage of stock. To find out more about the stock woes of the MacBook Air and the apparent increased sales of the product, check out the full article.

If you consider yourself an audiophile that lives outside the US, acquiring music online can sometimes be a bummer. Now, the latest offering of Amazon could probably help you out.

They have released an announcement that they will be launching Amazon Mp3 this year giving access to music lovers to one of the biggest collection of online songs. Details in the full article.

Following Steve Jobs' announcement of an iTunes song price cut on The Wall Street Journal Online, Apple has dropped the price of all iTunes Plus songs (those without any digital rights management) from US$ 1.29 to US$ 0.99 for U.S customers. It was also announced that Apple will be beefing up their selection of songs by adding more independent music labels to iTunes Plus.

While Jobs didn't explain why Apple is dropping iTunes Plus songs' prices, rumor has it that this price drop and the addition of new indie labels is Apple's response to Amazon's DRM free music download store.

This move could further solidify iTunes' reputation as the 3rd largest music retailer in the U.S. We'll have to wait and see if Steve Jobs' current actions will generate more consumer interest.

Big fan of customizations? Wrapstar's new lineup of skins for the PSP, Nintendo DS Lite and the iPod Nano should be just the thing for you. The wraps not only give personality to your gadgetries but their vinyl make offer extra protection as well.

There are a total of 46 new designs in this gadget fashionry: 18 designs for the PSP, 20 for the DS Lite, and 8 for the iPod Nano.

Some designs will feature Heat, Ollie and Blue Dots for the PSP, while the DS Lite will get Fantasy Pink, Northern Lights and Marco Polo, and the iPod Nano will get Strawberry Fields, Turquoise and Aerial.

The wraps will be available this September 21 and will be available on Amazon. View more designs by clicking the Read link below.

  

Rumors sparked a couple of days ago that Apple might be releasing the next-generation of iPods that will sport a new split-screen interface and other new features. Apple is currently not denying nor confirming anything but this latest development might be telling all of us something.

Reportedly, various online retail chains have slashed more than US$ 20 off on 30GB or 80GB iPods (the ones with video). These stores include Amazon, Best Buy, Circuit City, and J&R online stores. Target and Wal-Mart, on the other hand, are not part of this surprise price cut.

This, when you really think about it, could imply that Apple is already on its way to clearing away excess stocks to make way for the new ones. It is also possible that it's just what it is - a price cut - and nothing more. We guess we all just have to wait for August 7 as nameless sources have claimed that an announcement will be made by then.

Apple hits a three-billion-milestone. Or rather, it has announced that more than 3 billion songs have been downloaded and purchased through the iTunes store.

Also recently, the NPD Group's MusicWatch survey names iTunes as the third largest music retailer in the US, topping Amazon and Target.

Those are pretty amazing feats considering the rate of piracy these days and that they only offer content that's download only. The sales have no doubt been helped along with Apple's revolutionary iPhone which continues to be what is probably the most popular phone ever to be sold.

   

  
The iPhone's release has come and gone, and the much anticipated device finally ended up in the hands of excited consumers and web application developers alike. With so many people wanting to create useful widgets for the iPhone, there are now many new web applications to choose from.

Rev2.org has taken it upon themselves to pick what they deem as the Top 25 Web Applications for the iPhone, and we also think that their choices sound good as well. Here are our personal choices among Rev2.org's picks:

• OneTrip Shopping List: This one is definitely useful for those who have a tough time memorizing shopping lists, or just happen to tend to lose the shopping lists they have prepared the day before. OneTrip has a simple, easy-to-use categorization feature that lets users pick and choose grocery items from different categories, like Food, Fruit, Veggies, Household Items, etc.

• Listingly: This one is a simple listing app for the iPhone. Just like the OneTrip Shopping List App, items can be automatically arranged and categorized. Listingly also can memorize certain terms to speed up your typing.

• iTouch: Possible our favorite application game for the iPhone. Dots will randomly appear on the screen which you would have to touch immediately before they disappear. This is a rather fun reflex game that can make for a potentially good drinking game.

• Avalanche: Here is another fun way of passing time with the iPhone. The game is only one simple rule: get rid of all the blocks by picking 3 or more connected blocks with the same color. The faster you move, the more points you get.

• CheapMF: Possibly one of the most useful iPhone applications around. CheapMF will help you in determining whether that cool item you found in the mall is adequately priced. CheapMF can access Amazon.com to provide prices of used and new items to help you determine if the store item is worth buying or not.

Read more about Rev2.org's picks in the Read link!

According to the NPD Group MusicWatch report for the first quarter of 2007, Apple's online music store iTunes is now the third biggest music retailer in the U.S. What should surprise most people though, is that this report is not only limited to online sales but to physical distribution as well.

Surpassing iTunes is Walmart at first place, which is holding a whopping 15.8% share of the music market, and Best Buy at 13.8% picking up second place. iTunes currently holds a 9.8% share of music purchases at third place with Amazon.com trailing at fourth (6.7%) and Target at fifth (6.6%).

What makes this rather odd is the fact that 86.2% of the quarter's music sales were in CD format as compared to a 13.8% share in downloadable format. With iTunes only selling downloadable content, it's amazing that it reached the third place spot last January. Does this mean bigger and better things for iTunes in the future? We'll have to wait and see.

Electronista has reported that according to "French sources familiar with negotiations for multiple online music stores", Apple is preparing to launch EMI's DRM-free music library on iTunes this week. It could meet Apple's regular Tuesday update schedule, but nothing's sure yet.

According to Electronista, their contacts reportedly said that the companies' technicians are now "in the later stages of encoding and hosting the files before they go live".

The terms of the Apple-EMI deal require that whole albums are will be offered as "a second tier of 256Kbps AAC files without the iTunes-only FairPlay copy protection scheme."

The relatively late debut may be attributed primarily to the decision to release the whole catalog at once, as opposed to a gradual rollout. Another possible reason according to Electronista is legal issues. Apple and EMi reportedly signed a final deal just last week following negotiations of similar contracts with both the new Amazon Store and Europe's VirginMega service.

It seems that as of Wednesday evening, MacBooks combined to occupy 4 out of the top 5 slots on Amazon's list of top selling computers. Don't believe us? Check out the screencap on the right.

Apple Insider reports that the sales of the slightly dated MacBook got a jolt when Amazon started offering instant discounts and rebates which consequently cut the costs of some models by more then US$ 200.

While Amazon is no longer offering their US$ 100 rebate on previous generation MacBooks (they probably already made enough money from that promo), they do have alternate instant savings offerings that reduce the cost (US$ 1499) by US$ 100.99 to only US$ 1399.

As for the currently generation models, Amazon is offering a US$ 100 mail-in-rebate for each of those models. For example, the news 2.16 GHz black MacBook, sees a price of only US$ 1394 after the rebate. What's amusing is that makes the new MacBook actually cheaper the the previous gen black MacBook.

If you're looking for Mac laptops for design projects or what-not, the recent promotion might be a good thing to take advantage of.