An U.S. government lawyer says Apple conspired with publishers to raise the price of e-books in a scheme costing consumers "hundreds of millions of dollars,"according to the "Brisbane Times" (http://tinyurl.com/kdeaavu). On Monday a three-week trial got under way before a federal judge in New York in a case pitting the Justice Department against Apple.

"Apple told publishers that Apple - and only Apple - could get prices up in their industry," Lawrence Buterman, a lawyer at the Justice Department, said during opening arguments.

However, Orin Snyder, an attorney for Apple, described the case as "bizarre," notes the "Brisbane Times. "Apple acted in its own business interests in negotiating deals with publishers in the run up to the debut of its iPad in January 2010. What the government wants to do is reverse engineer a conspiracy from a market effect."

The brouhaha centers on Apple's...

RemObjects Software has released Oxygene 6.0 (http://www.remobjects.com/oxygene/). The newest version of its Oxygene programming language includes the addition of Oxygene for Cocoa, bringing the modern Oxygene language and development tool chain to developers looking to create truly native Mac and iOS applications.

The Oxygene for Cocoa compiler gives developers direct access to all the great APIs [application programming interfaces] and frameworks that Apple and third party developers are providing for Mac and iOS development.

With the introduction of Oxygene for Cocoa as part of the sixth major release today, Oxygene provides a single language that lets developers natively target all major operating systems in use today -- from Windows and Mac desktop applications, over apps for all major phone platforms (iOS, Android, and even Windows Phone) to cross-platform back-end...

Reggie Ashworth (www.reggieashworth.com) has announced AppDelete 4.0.8, a new version of his application deletion utility. It's a maintenance release with some bug fixes.

You can drag any item that can be uninstalled onto AppDelete: applications, widgets, preference panes, plugins, screensavers, etc. You can also activate AppDelete in many ways: dragging items onto main window, onto dock icon, selecting in menu, right-clicking using AppDelete workflow, dragging from Launchpad, and throwing items in the trash. When the preview screen appears you can uncheck any items you would like to exclude.

You also have several choices: delete the items, log only the items, or archive (copy) the items to a .zip file for safekeeping or reinstall at a later date. The items you delete will be moved to the trash and arranged in a folder so that you can see exactly what was deleted and you know exactly where it...

SACEM, a French society that controls royalties paid to authors, composers, and publishers, said on Friday that Apple owes 5 million euros ($6.5 million) in royalty taxes from iPads sold in France in 2011, reports "CNET" (http://tinyurl.com/m5hlwm9).

The tax, known in France as a copie privee, is levied against all vendors of digital devices that use copyrighted content. That tax then goes to SACEM, which divvies out the money among the various authors, producers, and other creative folks.

Apple passed on the extra tax to iPad buyers, SACEM said, but failed to pay out the tax itself. As a result, the Grand Instance Court of Paris has issued a judgment against the company asking it to pay up, notes "CNET."

onanoff has launched the US$39.95 Dock Minimal, an universal tablet stand and dock that fits all iPads, iPad Mini, Kindle, Samsung and Nexus tablets/e-book readers.

It provides up to 20 viewing angles. Each Dock Minimal comes with one main dock, one kickstand, one touch-screen stylus pen that fits inside the kickstand, four side fittings and five cable connectors that enable the stand to serve as a dock for almost any tablet.
 
The Dock Minimal will be available in four colors; Glacial Blue, Lava Red, Arctic White, Black Onyx. For more info go to http://tinyurl.com/l4brkve .

Apple has released a free WWDC iOS app on the Apple App Store. It allows users to:



• Browse times, locations, and descriptions for sessions, labs, and special events;

• Mark schedule items as favorites with a simple double-tap;

• Watch session videos, available daily;

• Start watching on one iOS device, and pick up where you left off on another;

• Keep up with the latest news, get important notifications, and see daily snapshots;

• View maps to find your way around Moscone West;
• Provide feedback on session content and speakers within the session details view;

• Add attendee information to Passbook for speedier WWDC on-site registration.

Apple will hold WWDC 2013 June 10 through June 14 at San Francisco’s Moscone West. At the five-day conference, developers from around the world will learn about the future of iOS and OS X. For more info go to ...

Jumsoft has announced the latest update of the Toolbox for Keynote app. Version 1.2.1 adds 10 fresh Keynote themes, 185 maps, and 42 sets of bullets and frames.

The designs are designed for creating and illustrating presentations, portfolios, proposals, and other types of content. Toolbox for Keynote contains Keynote themes, business-oriented slides, badges, hundreds of clipart images, doodles, maps, flags, and other items.

Toolbox for Keynote requires Mac OS X 10.7 or later and Keynote 5.0 or later. It's free and available worldwide through the Mac App Store in the Graphics & Design category (http://tinyurl.com/ln38lvl).

According to a "MacTrast" report (http://tinyurl.com/lb3wuhe), supplies of the Mac Pro are dwindling. This could hint at a long-overdue, much-anticipated revamp of the pro desktop line at next month's Apple Worldwide Developer Conference.

Writing for "MacTrast," J. Glenn Kunzler said that he had checked a dozen major Apple resellers (including Apple’s own website and retail stores), and found that the vast majority were either out of stock or had very limited supplies of the US$2,499 Mac Pro. Last year Apple CEO Tim cook promised "something really great" for the pro desktop line of Macs. Perhaps that great thing is almost here.

Apple has raised the price of iPads and iPods in Japan after a weaker yen that’s boosting importing costs prompted Toshiba Corp. and Fujitsu Lt. to consider increasing prices, reports "Bloomberg" (http://tinyurl.com/mkratz2)

Apple now sells the iPad Wi-Fi model with 16 gigabytes of memory for 49,800 yen (approximately $493), compared with its previous price of 42,800 yen, according to Apple’s website. The iPod Shuffle music player costs from 4,800 yen, compared with the previous starting price of 4,200 yen.

"We made some pricing adjustments due to changes in foreign exchange rates,” Takashi Takabayashi, a spokesman for Apple in Japan, told "Bloomberg."

Just Mobile has released the Just Mobile AluPocket and AluDisc for the iPhone and iMac, respectively.

The US$29.95 AluPocket is a high design wall mount for your Apple smartphone. It has an aluminum and plastic design with a cable slot and connector recess. You mount it with 3M glue-free tape.

The $69.95 AluDisc is a 360-degree pedestal for the iMac. It's made of aluminum with a ball-bearing mechanism. It's load balanced for all iMacs and flat panel display.

Expeditions: Conquistador is now available on Steam for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux platforms for US$19.99. To celebrate the successful release, you can get a 10% discount until June 5.

Here's how the game is described; "It is the 16th century -- an era of intrepid explorers and adventurers. In Expeditions: Conquistador, the player takes on the role of a famous -- or infamous -- conquistador, landing on the shores of the New World. On the search for gold, fame, and adventure, the player and a few companions venture into regions never before explored by Europeans.

"In single or multiplayer mode, Expeditions: Conquistador offers the opportunity to conquer an unknown continent, or to fight on the side of the indigenous people as they defend their homeland from the invaders. This will require not only tactical skills in battle, but also diplomatic finesse. In Expeditions: Conquistador, the variety of tactical possibilities in turn-based battles, the numerous role-playing...

Apple has introduced a 16GB iPod touch for US$229 alongside its 32GB and 64GB models.

Like its bigger siblings, it sports 4-inch Retina display and dual-core A5 chip. However, as noted by "Macworld" (http://tinyurl.com/oqckzm6), it lacks a few of its siblings’ features: For one thing, you’ll find no rear-facing camera on the model. Apple dropped the fancy 5-megapixel iSight camera from the 32GB and 64GB models, leaving only the front-facing FaceTime HD camera, with its 1.2MP photo and 720p video capabilities.