Mark Papermaster is the replacement for iPod creator Tony Fadell, who quit Apple last week. Fadell’s loss will be sorely felt by Apple as his vision was responsible for the creation of the iPod, the developments of the iPhone and the inception of iTunes, the music download website.

To replace Fadell, Apple brought in Papermaster from IBM. However IBM aren’t too happy about Papermaster jumping ship to work for what they believe is a rival business. Now a District Court judge in New York has ruled that Papermaster must cease work for Apple as it’s possible that he is breaking a ‘non compete’ clause in his contract with IBM.

Last week Apple announced that Papermaster was to replace Fadell on their iPhone and iPod range and would be reporting directly to Apple boss, Steve Jobs. However on Friday last week they announced that he would have stop work based on the rulings of the court.

Apple will hope to get the situation resolved quickly as they’ll be looking to move forward with the iPod and iPhone after the loss of Fadell.

With Microsoft slashing the price of their Xbox 360, speculation was rife that Nintendo and Sony may follow suit with their Nintendo Wii and PlayStation 3 consoles respectively. However, in the case of Nintendo and the Wii, any price cuts before Christmas seem extremely unlikely.

One of the main reasons for the unlikely price cut is the fact that the Nintendo Wii has outsold its competition month on month since its launch, selling almost as many units as the Xbox and the PS3 combined!

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated that if Nintendo did make a price cut, it wouldn’t necessarily mean increased sales a cementing of Nintendo’s position as the manufacturer of the top console.

This is my personal thinking, but when the model’s price-tag drops over time, manufacturers are telling consumers it’s better to wait, and I’ve always thought that was a mistake.

Effectively Nintendo are stating that they won’t be reducing the price of the Wii, so anyone waiting for a price drop will be waiting a long time. It seems to be Nintendo’s policy to pick a low price point for their consoles and stick to it, as opposed to the strategies employed by the likes of Sony and Microsoft, who choose high price points and then reduce their consoles over time.

As Nintendo president Satoru Iwata stated, when consoles are priced higher and then reduced over time, consumers wait for the reduction before purchasing. With Nintendo, that won’t happen.

Apple’s failure to make their iTunes music download store compatible with other MP3 players besides the iPod could land them in court in Norway. The consumer mediator for Norway has said that it will take Apple before a government agency as Apple’s failure to make the digital download website work with other MP3 players breaches rules on competition within Norway.

Bjoern Erik Thon, the Consumer Ombudsman, stated:

iTunes has shown a lacking will to comply with our demand and we are now preparing to try this case in the Market Council.

Thon issued Apple with a deadline in September to open up iTunes to other MP3 players, and that deadline passed on November 3rd. Norway insisted on Apple breaking the link between iTunes and the iPod in 2006, but so far Apple has declined to do so.

Apple has made some attempt to open up its store to MP3 player users by explaining how customers could transfer tracks downloaded from iTunes to CD and convert them to MP3 format, but Thon claims this doesn’t go far enough.

iTunes maintains its previous views in its response to the Consumer Ombudsman. The company is in other words unwilling to make changes to make music in the iTunes Store available to all music players.

The iPod rules the MP3 player arena. We all know it, yet many companies have tried (and failed) to muscle in on its success. Sony has made several attempts with their Walkman range, Microsoft has tried and recently MySpace said they’d have a go as well.

Of course Apple will take some beating, and one of the biggest technology companies in the world has realised this and decided against challenging their might. PC retailer Dell recently claimed they re-enter the MP3 player arena, using their considerable size and reach to challenge Apple. However it now appears as though Dell has had second thoughts about the idea, as the Wall Street Journal has reported.

It was thought that Dell would use the Wi-Fi functionality in order to allow their MP3 player to sync to a server that controlled the music. They purchased technology that would allow this when they bought Zing last year.

The timing for Dell to launch a new player would have been very poor, with this festive season looking like being a slow one for sales, and Apple already having the market sewn up.

The iPod has been at the top of the MP3 player tree since its very creation, and backed by the hugely successful iTunes and the designers at Apple it looks to remain the top dog in the MP3 player arena for sometime to come.

However social networking website MySpace has designs on breaking in to the market almost solely owned by Apple, not just with a music download store, but with an MP3 player as well.

Chris DeWolfe, the chief executive of MySpace, suggested that MySpace may be about to launch their own MP3 player to further boost the presence of their own online download store. The hint was made at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco after Chris DeWolfe had been questioned over the firm’s intentions for their download store.

MySpace obviously has a large following, but it’ll be up against it in any attempt to crack the MP3 player market as Apple has sold more than 160 million iPods since their launch.

The Force is strong with the Wii Fit, and funnily enough the Force is strong with Star Wars as well. It would be though, wouldn’t it?

We’re talking Nintendo Wii though, and by Force we mean sales figures. The two titles, Wii Fit and Star Wars Force Unleashed, have been among the big sellers in the UK from July to September. The Wii Fit managed to sell 460,000 units of its fitness inducing peripheral.

Star Wars meanwhile sold 321,000 units in the UK alone, just behind the obviously successful Mario Kart, which sold 394,000 units.

This final quarter is the really big one for Nintendo though, where they’ll be aiming for some huge sales. The attempts by their rival Microsoft to hijack the success of the Wii by reducing the price of the Xbox 360 don’t look to have harmed sales either. The Nintendo Wii is expected to be in such demand again this Christmas that it sells out across the UK, so if you’re looking to secure one for under your tree, you’ll need to move fast.

Faster than a Jedi Knight!

While music may be good to get you moving, and even to spur you on while at the gym, a new study claims that an iPod or MP3 player could in fact have the opposite effect on you if you use a pacemaker or implanted defibrillator.

The study from the American Heart Association claims that headphones for iPods and MP3 players can interfere with the heart saving devices if they’re too close to them.

Research carried out earlier this year by federal regulators in the US found no link to MP3 players and negative effects on cardiac devices. However the researchers, led by Dr. William Maisel, decided to investigate the possible link further and claim that patients, and those who use cardiac devices, should ensure that they keep any headphones away from them by at least 1.2 inches.

When the researchers conducted their tests on 60 patients they found that 23% of those tested created some form of interference from the MP3 players.

It appears that commuters in the UK find users of iPods and MP3 players to be the most annoying travelling companions on trains. A new survey conducted by Jetsleeper discovered that British commuters were angered by being forced to listen to other people’s choice of music on their daily commute.

This doesn’t apply to all iPod users though, only the ones who have the volume on their MP3 players turned up so loud that everyone in the carriage can hear it.

Other types of commuters who were revealed to be annoying included mobile phone users, those who spoke in a loud voice, people suffering from illness and sneezing everywhere and those who travelled with very large bags and rucksacks, banging into people as they moved.

iPod users however were voted more annoying than any of these other people.

A Jetslepper spokesman stated:

Commuters have a lot to withstand without having to put up with annoying fellow travellers… being generally unsociable on public transport.

Just behind iPod users for annoying were travellers who read broadsheets, opening them out to take up all of the room available to them.

Following the announcement that the creator of the iPod and iTunes, Tony Fadell, was leaving Apple, along with his wife Danielle Lambert (who also works at Apple), in order to spend more time together and with their children, the departure looks like it will hurt the electronics giant pretty hard.

Let’s look at the ways that Fadell’s departure will harm Apple.

The iPod franchise will be harmed
Fadell was credited with the idea behind downloading digital music, and was instrumental in the design and creation of the iPod. He also played a major role in the further development of the iPod franchise and products moving forward.

Affects the development of the iPhone
In addition to the iPod, Fadell was the man behind the advancements made in the iPhone. Without his drive the iPhone would never have reached where it is today, and will struggle to move forward.

Apple lose a man who can take on Steve Jobs
At any company you need powerful, opinionated people who can say no to the boss. Fadell was one of those men. Without Fadell, Apple has lost a key decision maker.

Moral will be affected at Apple
The loss of Fadell will harm the moral at Apple HQ and at the development team behind the iPod and iPhone.

Apple is now without a Hardware Device Engineering Chief
With Fadell gone, nobody is able to make the decisions he made. No one can make the calls he made. He’s going to be a tough guy to replace, though they will try.

The spate of robberies involving teenagers and electronic goods such as iPods and games consoles has continued with a sixteen year old boy being the victim of a mugging in Barnstaple this week.

The teenager was mugged on Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon, before 2pm, and was forced to surrender his Apple iPod to two adults. The teenager was minding his own business, walking along a towpath near the iron bridge. This happened in Rock Park. He was attacked by two men, one of whom held on to him from behind while the other man threatened him, and stole his iPod.

This is a common occurrence as iPods are easy to sell on and hold their value second hand, so they represent easy targets for robbers. The fact that many iPods are carried by teenagers makes them even more enticing for thieves who think that teenagers are easy to steal from.

One of the men is described as being Asian, aged between seventeen and eighteen. He’s around five foot nine and was clean shaven. There is no description of the second man.

Anyone with evidence on the crime are advised to contact Crime Stoppers. Police also advise that anyone with an iPod be very careful when out in public.