Only one problem: Most got it wrong.

"They do a nice job," says the singer/songwriter, but "most don't realize it's in open D tuning and has totally different chords."

Now Caillat gets to show how it's really done. She is one of nine artists offering video music lessons at $4.99 a pop via Apple's GarageBand, the music-editing software bundled into its iLife suite of programs. Among others, John Fogerty teaches Proud Mary and Norah Jones shows you how to perform Thinking About You.

Many sites offer video music lessons now. A year ago, iVideosongs was launched with artist tutorials from Graham Nash, John Oates and Rolling Stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell. And there are thousands of free instructional videos on YouTube produced by young guitarists and teachers. Some even feature well-known performers such as Paul McCartney, Police bandmate Andy Summers and Queen guitarist Brian May. Longtime guitar-maker Gibson even devotes a page of its website to the YouTube lessons.

Apple's high profile — and heavy promotion of the video lessons within its 250 retail stores — brings the idea of learning music online to higher prominence. "It's a fantastic idea, and I hope they do more," says British guitarist Justin Sandercoe, who offers free video lessons at Justinguitar.com. "The idea you can have the guitar lesson with the actual artist who wrote the song is terrific. Now, a great artist may not be a great teacher — they won't be familiar with the act of teaching — but the fact is, it's Sting teaching you Roxanne."

A ministudio

GarageBand is a minirecording studio tool that often gets overlooked by Apple computer owners. As part of an overhaul for the iLife '09 program suite (free with new Macs, or $79), Apple added an instructional component to capitalize on renewed interest in playing music spawned by popular "rock band" video games.

"There's this huge problem that hasn't been attacked yet," says Phil Schiller, Apple senior vice president. "Finding a new way to teach music, from your personal computer."

He says the YouTube instructional clips — his kids watch them — "don't attempt to solve the whole problem: how to properly learn to play."

Apple has a guy named Tim (it won't reveal his last name) offering free lessons on playing guitar and piano. For $4.99, artists such as Sarah McLachlan and Ben Folds show you where to put your hands on the guitar or piano keyboard and what key they like to play the song in. They also tell you about how it came to be written.

But if you just want to find out what the chords are to AC/DC's Highway to Hell, it's all there on YouTube for free.

"This is how kids learn music now," says Stutz Wimmer, an Atlanta-area high school music teacher. In a bygone era, teens might listen to a song over and over again to figure it out. Now, "Somebody shows them the chords online."

The YouTube instructors range from professional guitarists such as Sandercoe to young teens in their bedrooms with a Stratocaster.

Edison Mellor-Goldman, 17, a Los Angeles-area high school student, likes to go home from school and make video tutorials using his iMac computer's built-in webcam. "When you teach someone one-on-one, that's great," he says. "But when you put it on YouTube and hear from 100,000 people around the world that 'you helped me' and get such a massive amount of feedback, that's really something."

He's made 33 videos. His most popular — how to play Jason Mraz's I'm Yours— has been viewed 200,000 times on YouTube.

Sandercoe began offering video lessons in 2007 as a way to attract new students. His lesson on how to play Guns 'N Roses' Sweet Child o' Mine has picked up more than 2 million views. His site attracts 600,000 viewers a month. "People can share their common love of something online. It's a fantastic resource," he says. He offers instructional DVDs for sale and asks for contributions. He says he averages about $100 a week.

Most of the lessons found on YouTube are by young teens. Many are imprecise, says Tim Huffman, CEO of Atlanta-based iVideosongs. "You get what you pay for. We offer multiple camera angles, high-definition video and accuracy."

Accessing lessons

Competing with Apple isn't easy — especially when he charges twice as much for artist lessons: $9.95 — but he says he has a few advantages. You can make purchases at the iVideosongs site or via Amazon downloads. The company also offers instructional podcasts (how to play slide guitar, the piano, etc.) at iTunes.

Apple does not offer stand-alone purchases of its copy-protected video lessons at iTunes. The only way to see Sting demonstrate Roxanne is by using a newer Mac with GarageBand.

Joe Lamond, president of the National Association of Music Merchants, a trade group for music stores (where most guitar lessons are held), says the growth of online video lessons has paid off with more-attentive students. Guitar sales — even in a recession — were up 3% in 2008, he says. He credits the Internet and video games.

Earlier today I was contacted by Jason Wilk from TinyCombwho claimed that all stores had Facebook disabled, including three that he tested. I proceeded to call a number of stores here in the Washington, D.C. area and one out of three couldn’t access Facebook. One Apple store representative that I spoke to said that MySpace has been banned for a long time but Facebook has not.

Why the discrimination against MySpace? I have no idea but Facebook and Apple are known to have a fairly strong relationship so it makes sense. Does banning Facebook in stores make a lot of sense? Not really considering Apple’s sales continue to break records each quarter. The company is rapidly capturing large portions of the personal computer marketplace.

Conversely, avoiding having customers come in to the store to use it as a free internet cafe makes a lot of sense. Want to save money? Just show up to the Apple store when they open each day and turn their top of the line computer into your personal office! Apparently some customers were spending too much time on Facebook but part of this argument just doesn’t seem rational.

Personally, I’ve witnessed numerous individuals sitting in Apple stores and browsing social networks. I’m sure Apple prefers customers don’t spend hours on end using the computers but then again, isn’t this how they can sell more computers? Apple is known for constantly having customers in the store. There may be a down economy but every time I walk into an Apple store it’s always busy (perhaps it’s the part of the country I live in though).

So has Apple banned Facebook in your stores? We haven’t been able to get an absolute confirmation that it’s unavailable in all stores but there is sufficient evidence to indicate the start of a possible trend. While I doubt it will have a substantial impact on Facebook’s traffic, it could impact the relationship between the two companies.

With Android getting all Flash-ey, Apple's "Goldilocks" position on Flash -- the full Flash player is too hefty, Flash Lite is too weak -- seemed pretty untenable. Now Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen has revealed that Apple and Adobe are "collaborating" on making Flash a reality on the iPhone, citing the technical challenge it presents. What's clear is that with all this work to do, it doesn't seem they're going the watered-down Flash Lite route, but we're trying not to hold our breath for a full-on, Hulu-friendly version that will finally help us get that Doogie Howser fix on the go. Naturally, there's no word on when this will hit.

Apple has enabled users to upgrade previously purchased tracks to DRM-free iTunes Plus format one song at a time, rather than converting entire libraries.


When Apple announced at its final Macworld Expo that it was revamping iTunes to enable variable pricing and offer every track in DRM-free AAC format, it also created a bit of a problem for long-time (or big-spending) iTunes customers. Apple would let customers upgrade their existing DRM-protected iTunes tracks to DRM-free iTunes Plus format for $0.30…but it would only enable customers to upgrade their music libraries in one fell swoop. So, if a user has 100 DRM-protected tracks, the only way to upgrade to DRM-free iTunes Plus versions would be to spend $30.00 all at once—and for many users, that kind of up-front charge is more than they want to spend at iTunes in one go.


However, today Apple has enabled a la carte upgrades to iTunes Plus DRM-free format, meaning users can now upgrade selected music tracks to DRM-free format one at a time. The one-at-a-time upgrade feature also applies to albums and music videos: videos cost $0.60 to upgrade, and albums cost about 30 percent of their original purchase price.

Apple still offers the library-wide "Upgrade to iTunes Plus" feature, but no doubt hopes the song-at-a-time upgrade possibility will encourage users to spend additional money for music they've already purchased. Of course, the flip side is that users will also have the option of not upgrading DRM-protected material it turns out they don't care about anymore.

Apple's DRM-free iTunes Plus music tracks use 256-bit AAC encoding. Apple expects to have the entire iTunes music selection available in DRM-free format by the end of the first quarter of 2009.

Naturally, Steve Jobs was not in power at the time, John Sculley was. Apparently, he had no problem sharing Apple's ideas with a Japanese magazine called Axis. In a 1991 issue unearthed at a second-hand bookstore, we can see that Apple was looking at bike-mounted navigation devices with a Google Street View type of interface, a "TimeBand" wrist computer, and a projection device that could be the roots of the Apple TV. Hit the link for the full gallery

Apple recently showed off their new iPhoto's facial recognition feature, but said it only can recognize human faces, not animals. MacLife tested it out and proved Apple wrong: iPhoto can tell kitties apart.

Apple has reached an undisclosed resolution with IBM, and Mark Papermaster will take over as Apple's hardware czar on April 24.

Apple announced today that its litigation with IBM over hiring Mark Papermaster as senior vice president of Devices Hardware Engineering has been resolved, and Papermaster will start work at Apple on April 24. Apple announced in November it was hiring Papermaster to take over for iPod chief Tony Fadell, but IBM immediately sought an injunction blocking the move, claiming a non-compete agreement Papermaster signed in 2006 would prevent him working for Apple for a year.


Papermaster worked on microprocessor architecture and servers at IBM for 25 years, and has described his position at Apple has having nothing to do with his previous work. IBM maintained that Papermaster would be in a position to disclose IBM trade secrets.


According to IBM, Papermaster may not start work at Apple before April 24, six months after his departure from IBM in October, and will be required to certify in July and October 2009 that he has complied with obligations to not use or disclose proprietary or confidential information from IBM.

At Apple, Papermaster will head up iPod and iPhone engineering teams.

Apple has again failed to make a list of the best American companies to work for, according to Fortune. In its 2009 compilation, the top company is named as brokerage firm Edward Jones, which has managed to avoid any ties to the credit crisis and during 2008 hired 698 new financial advisors in the first 10 months. In the upcoming year, the firm is said to be building a headquarters expansion for 500 more people.


Jones displaces Apple ally Google, which had remained in the top position for two consecutive years. The company now resides in fourth place, as a result of slowed hiring, and fewer perks such as annual ski trips. Photoshop and InDesign maker Adobe has meanwhile jumped from 40th to 11th place, with commendations for its "humane treatment" of 600 workers moved out of the company. Another large gain is ascribed to Microsoft, which has risen from 86th place to 38. The company is said to keep "morale budgets" for fun excursions, though the appeal of the company may be dubious following 5,000 job cuts.

Apple has not held a position in the top 100 employers list since 2006, despite having reached 337th place in Fortune's 2008 Global 500 rankings, and the number one position in 2008's most-admired list.

We did not expect a concept to make such an impact. We are talking about the concept electric vehicle of the future called iMo which has been designed by Anthony Jannarelly. What better proof can you get than the apple branding that we have known to rely on for the past so many years. A small and versatile machine that not only accommodates two people, this one also keeps ecology in mind. The iMo is a self-driving car running on two wheels. So far only a concept, the car is yet to become a reality but it has already caught attention of eco-car experts across the world for its simple design, cutting-edge technology and elegant solution. The vehicle has great usability due to its compact size, which allows it to move briskly amidst saturated roads. But word is that it will be 2024 by the time the iMo hits the roads. Frankly, we can wait for who wouldn’t want to go for a spin in a vehicle that is managed by a holographic interface that depends on gesture recognition!