iLounge

By Charles Starrett

Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Monday, August 17, 2009
News Category: Mix

Apple made an effort to stop a profile of CEO Steve Jobs from running in the U.K.‘s Sunday Times. The profile itself states that an Apple PR representative told the author the company “want[s] to discourage profiles,” and that it later contacted the publication’s editor in an attempt to stop the profile from running. At four-pages in length, the profile is a broad look at the Apple co-founder’s history with the company, his personal background, and his personality, as told through a series of quotes from Apple-focused journalists and former colleagues.

Apple has made a change in its Public Relations department, giving the App Store a dedicated PR team, according to a new report. TechCrunch reports that it has received its first email from “App Store Public Relations,” indicating a new branch of Apple’s PR team; past emails received by the site have come from more broad iPhone or Apple PR teams. The report states that the company recently split its iPhone PR team in two, with one group to focus on the hardware and the other to take on public relations for the App Store.

Japanese iPhone carrier SoftBank has begun offering its exclusive line of hand-crafted Japan Texture cases for the iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. These lacquer cases feature intricate artwork representing various events and figures from Japanese history, with gold dust details. Each of the five cases comes with its own specifically-designed carry bag, as well. SoftBank’s Japan Texture cases are available now and sell for 99,800 yen, or roughly $1,058 each.

TomTom has confirmed that its upcoming iPhone GPS cradle will support the iPod touch. In an interview with French-language site Mac4Ever (Translated Link), TomTom PR representative Yann Lafargue said that the cradle would work with the iPod touch, allowing the device to utilize the cradle’s built-in GPS receiver as its own, and will even allow the touch to work with GPS software from competing companies. Unfortunately Lafargue was unable to provide further details on the cradle’s release date or pricing.