Apple’s stock (AAPL) suffered one of the biggest daily falls it’s ever had today when it dropped 23.69 to just 104.55. The stock has been steady at around the 160 mark for the past four months but analyst’s cited the ‘credit crunch’ as a reason for the big drop as it sees Apple struggling to keep it’s high margins in the face of decreased consumer demand. As you can see from the picture, Apple is not the only major company to suffer a severe drop as Google also decreased by 35.99. Thanks to my iPhone and MacBook’s iSight for the picture.

Apple's stock suffers serious hit

Update: Apple stock is continiuing to drop, but not as much as Google’s. I think now is the time to get yourself some Apple shares!

Will it drop below 100?

Update 2: Apple’s stock seems to have stabilised now, while Google continues to plummet.

Apple stock seems to have stabilised

It looks like Apple have cottoned on to bogus reviews for Apps selling on the App Store, as they have now stopped people who have not yet bought or downloaded (for free Apps) an App giving their ‘thought’s’ on it. The App Store has been plagued with bogus reviews from people who have not even experienced using an App, giving their view, and as such damaging potential sales or kudos to developers who have worked hard on getting their Apps online.

App Store now requires purchase before review

If you are like me and want your Movies and TV Shows to look good on your AppleTV, but also want them to play on your iPod or iPhone, then here is a guide to how I rip my DVD’s. Since the latest version of Handbrake you can also include 5.1 surround sound in your files and they will still play on your iPod or iPhone! Now I will show you how to get great rips, but still maintain compatability.

1. Download and install Handbrake software.
2. Insert your chosen DVD, if Apple DVD Player opens, just wait for it to load the film then quit.
3. Start Handbrake, it will ask you to choose a Source, choose your newly mounted DVD
4. Handbrake will now scan the DVD and nine times out of ten it will find the film for you, just check the ‘Title’ section to make sure it has picked up the film. You will be able to tell from the time.
   

   Make sure you choose the correct Title

    

5. Once you have done that now you need to choose a preset from the panel on the right hand side. If you can see the panel click the ‘Toggle Presets’ button in the top right of the app.
6. Now you need to choose iPod High-Rez, this will produce the highest quality file the iPod and iPhone can play.  
   

   Choose iPod High-Rez

    

7. Notice how Handbrake automatically puts a tick in the ‘Insert iPod Atom’ this ensures compatibility with the 5G and 5.5G iPod’s if the horizontal resolution exceeds 320 pixels.
8. Next you need to tweak the rip a bit by choosing ’2-pass encoding’. This will make the encode take roughly twice as long but it is well worth it for the detail it retains, and also helps colour reproduction slightly.
9. If you want the film to play in 5.1 through your AppleTV and Amp then select ‘AVC/H.264 Video / AAC + AC3 Audio’    
   

   Get 5.1 audio in your Handbrake rips

    

10. Now all that’s left to do is to hit the Start button and wait for your film to be encoded.
11. Once done, drag it from the Desktop and into iTunes, iTunes will make a copy of it so you can then delete it off the Desktop. Once iTunes has processed it you can then rename it and add details such as Name, Year, Genre and now thanks to iTunes 8.0, you can add a Description.

iTunes 8.0 was released just after Apple’s latest Special Event, ‘Let’s Rock’ on September 9th. The biggest new feature of this new version was the ability to create ‘Genius’ playlists. Genius playlist’s automatically create a playlist of either 25, 50, 75 or 100 songs that group similar songs together for you. Genius uses different factors such as Genre, Play Count, Rating, Year, Artist and also information from other iTunes users via the online Genius ‘Cloud’, to try and create a great sounding playlist for you. This works very well to be fair to Apple.

Genius playlists are new to iTunes 8.0

Not only does this feature work in iTunes but it also works on your iPhone (with 2.1 update) and on the newest iPod’s (Touch, Nano-chromatic and Classic 120GB). Although the feature on these devices does not seem to connect to the Genius ‘Cloud’ to aid the process, it still works great. It’s an ideal alternative to creating your own ‘On the Go’ playlist, as it’s less time consuming and, if you’re anything like me, I take an age to make up my own playlist!

One of the ways I think Apple could improve the feature even more is to add an option to create a Genius playlist that will fit onto an 80-min CD-R. I created a 25 song playlist the other day and found myself removing 6 or 7 songs to get it to fit on a CD I was making to listen to in the Car. How cool would it be if you could just choose ‘Create CD’ from the drop-down list. So if you’re listening Apple…..

I am just testing my newly downloaded WordPress for iPhone app that I got from the App Store. It was great to see that this was free just like the WordPress.com website, good job guys!

Blogging on the move with WordPress for iPhone