With the July 11 launch date fast approaching, the machinery required to execute the worldwide release of Apple's second generation iPhone is kicking into gear. A timeline: Tuesday, July 1: Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) unveil details of their pricing plans. Apple issues a pair of video guided tours and AT&T publishes a checklist and video on how to get "iReady." (See A tale of two videos.) Friday, Jul...

The Segway The news that Doug Field, Segway's chief technology officer, has left the company for Apple, is one of those high-level personnel changes one feels obliged to comment on. "So that's what MobileMe is all about," wrote one wag on The Mac Observers' Apple Finance Board. "I can see it now," wrote another. "The iSegway - and you'll only be able to use it on roads Apple approves of, paying a t...

Daniel Smith, a Canadian sales and marketing consultant with an eclectic blog called Smithereens, posted on Saturday what he called "a very plausible rumour" about the launch at of Apple's iPhone 3G on the Rogers Communications network. The gist of the post — entitled "Apple Flips Rogers the Bird" — was that Apple and Rogers, Canada's largest mobile carrier, have had a falling out over the nega...

Heyward, Casey, Dane, Daniel and Kaitlin Who's crazy enough to camp out for a week on the streets of New York City for a chance to be first to buy an iPhone 3G? TheWhoFarm, that's who, a newly minted publicity-seeking environmental collective with an agrico-political mission: to persuade the 44th President of the U.S. — whoever that turns out to be — to transform the White House's 17-acre lawn...

Here's an unexpected Independence Day gift for Apple. Axel Springer AG, one of Europe's largest newspaper publishers, with 10,000 employees and more than 150 papers in 30 countries, including its flagship Die Welt, announced on Friday that it is switching its entire operation from PCs to Macs. In a YouTube video, posted below the fold, CEO Mathias Döpfner lists four reasons for the change: Most of...