Valentine’s Day is not my favorite holiday. I imagine it’s the same with many of you, for various reasons. My big one is that the movies are generally pretty boring…but it doesn’t have to be that way. If all your significant other wants for a Valentine’s Day movie is romance, you can get that in pretty much any kind of movie—even most Godzilla movies have romantic elements, after all (at the end of Godzilla vs. Megalon, for example, Godzilla shakes Jet Jaguar’s hand for an uncomfortably long time).

So, when you hear the words “Let’s watch something romantic tonight,” you can steer clear of anything with Renee Zellweger or Reese Witherspoon in it and instead take these suggestions from the hopeless romantics here at Appletell. All the movies recommended are available for rental at purchase from iTunes.

David: Wall-E

Boy-bot meets girl-bot, girl-bot tries to atomize boy-bot with screaming laser death, boy-bot displays undying devotion, girl-bot’s processor undergoes quantum inversion. I know, it happens all the time, but it still gets me right in the CPU.

So, it’s an animated flick about a trash compactor and his mission to tidy up the planet, but the humanity is still there for all to see. Besides, who wouldn’t want a girlfriend who can shoot energy bolts from her arm? Think of the possibilities for the commute to work! Wall-E has the classic elements of a romantic comedy: a hero and his love interest, unrequited affection, apparently insurmountable differences in purpose and station in life, a little bit of playful poking at one’s flaws, and recognition and appreciation of each other in the end.

Wall-E doesn’t have a lot of dialogue, but it isn’t necessary when the message is so clearly and artfully delivered. Do we really need dialogue when we get a visual of Wall-E holding an umbrella in a thunderstorm so EVE, who is inactive at the moment, doesn’t get wet? So, the lightning strike was a bit Caddy Shack, but that doesn’t stop it from being funny and touching at the same time. We have all known people who will quietly sacrifice even if the focus of devotion doesn’t realize it. But before you get all misty-eyed, don’t forget you also get some laughs as well. Think about the poor Burn-E who just wants to fix the running light and can’t seem to win for losing. You get the laughs you need to say, “Yes, I have been entertained.”

Buy or rent Wall-E

Erica: Independence Day

Not only do you have the Earth under attack by aliens with a ragtag group of misfits being the only thing standing between survival and destruction, but you also have three romances. These romantic stories have a similar theme; one person didn’t appreciate the other, and instead wanted them to be what they considered the “perfect spouse.” In the end, they realized they were the ones who needed to change to truly appreciate the other person’s worth.

With plenty of comedy, action and romance, it’s a movie the entire family can watch together.

Buy or rent Independence Day

Aaron: The Abyss

A disappearing nuclear submarine, a threat from the Soviets, encounters with a mysterious alien life form, and an intentional drowning hardly sound like the recipe for a romantic movie, but The Abyss somehow manages to weave the redemption story of a tough oil platform captain and his estranged wife into a believable melodrama set against a sci-fi background.

If I’m going to watch a film with heavy overtones of “why-can’t-we-all-get-along,” there needs to be a believable love story (The Abyss was released in 1989 just as the Cold War was nearing its end). The combination of Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as the estranged Bud and Dr. Lindsey Brigman make the overarching theme of a watchful alien presence work by reflecting a microcosmic view of the tensions present in the world. The he said / she said of their relationship and ultimate redemption holds a mirror up to the ultimately petty squabbles of the human race at large. As a bonus, there are plenty of sci-fi thrills along the way, like a perfluorocarbon liquid breathing experiment.

The Abyss features some fine examples of early computer animated imagery from Industrial Light & Magic, with pioneering animation techniques including digitization of human characters’ faces for the scene when the alien pseudopod performs some doppelgänger tricks. More importantly, the movie features one of the most violent true-love scenes when Mary Elizabeth Matrantonio voluntarily sacrifices herself to drowning and Ed Harris goes to great lengths to revive her (hilariously parodied in the NSFW South Park Imaginationland).

For those of you with absolutely no interest in sappy, chick-flick style love, this is about as macho as it gets.

Buy or rent The Abyss

Bill: Casino Royale

If there’s anything women love, it’s a tormented man who’s also extremely handsome. If there’s anything guys love, it’s watching two guys beat the crap out of each other. Casino Royale (2006) makes good use of both meanings of the word “tortured” as it reboots the Bond franchise and amazingly manages to make an action film that appeals to both men and women. This is one of the favorite films of my marriage because, as my wife says, “I always have time for Daniel Craig.”

Bond starts the film as an aloof jerk that all the chicks dig, using women and throwing them away because he realizes that in his line of work, he could be dead tomorrow. Also, he’s a bit of a sociopath; when a woman he used for information is tortured and killed, it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. But since he walked out of the ocean wearing tiny, tiny swim trunks about 15 minutes earlier, you’re willing to forgive him. Enter Eva Green as Vesper Lind, the gorgeous woman who will go through hell with Bond, win his heart, but eventually betray him. The actual plot of the film—Bond must beat a terrorism funding criminal mastermind in a high stakes game of poker—is almost completely unimportant as you watch the tempestuous relationship of Craig and Green play out on the screen.

It being a Bond film, there are also car chases and gunfights galore. But Casino Royale takes a big step back from the invisible cars and magnetic watches of previous films; every battle here is brutal, visceral, and very, very personal. This isn’t a Bond who makes a quip after shooting a henchman, but one who strangles with his bare hands then stares at the corpse to make sure he’s dead. None of the battles is more intense, however, than the confrontation where Bond is tied naked to a chair and beaten with a rope. Nobody in modern film takes a beating like Daniel Craig, who still manages to joke his way through the extremely dark film.

And the fact that he’s naked during it doesn’t hurt, in my wife’s point of view.

Buy or rent Casino Royale

Kirk: Corpse Bride

My first inclination here was to go with Dark City, simply because I’m always looking for a reason to recommend that to people. But it’s…well…dark, and has a couple dead hookers in it. That’s a pretty hard sale. So, instead, let’s go with dead puppets.

Corpse Bride is a stop-motion animation pseudo-musical along the lines of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Set in a dreary 19th century Europe, we follow along with Victor (Johnny Depp) and his pending marriage to Victoria (Emily Watson). Although the wedding is arranged by their parents for financial reasons, the two actually fall instantly in love; but a series of mishaps finds Victor accidentally proposing to the wrong woman. The main problem here is that she’s dead, but that doesn’t prevent her form accepting.

The corpse bride steals Victor down to the underworld (which is, of course, much more lively and colorful than the world of the living) with full intent of becoming his wife. In what may be my second favorite cinematic musical number ever, we learn that the corpse bride got the name because she was murdered on the night she was to elope with her true love. Meanwhile, a new suitor for Victoria has appeared above, and the corpse bride below is actually quite friendly and pretty, anyway. Is Victoria better off above without Victor? Is Victor willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to give the corpse bride the husband she always wanted?

The movie is graced with a wonderful cast featuring Tracey Ullman, Richard Grant, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney and others, including, of course, Deep Roy, who even in animation has to play someone very short. This is a Tim Burton film, after all.

Corpse Bride is lively, colorful, and quite funny, and features some of Danny Elfman’s best post-Oingo Boingo music. More importantly, it cleverly honors the sacrifices we’re willing to make for the ones we love…living or dead.

Buy or rent Corpse Bride

Be sure to give us your suggestions in the comment area below (especially if that suggestion is Dark City), and have a wonderful Valentine’s Day!

Also see: Appletell staff picks: Romantic movies for Valentine’s Day

Although Apple does not live stream such events very often, this is certainly not the company’s first time. The company has been streaming its annual iTunes Festival to users, and went so far as to release an iOS app for the 2011 edition of the festival. However, this will mark the first time Apple has live streamed to its Apple TV directly (users could, of course, use AirPlay to achieve similar results in the past). This could quite possibly be a sign that the company is beginning to focus more on Apple TV, as a refresh (or possibly an update in the form of an Apple-branded television?) is due.

Via [MacRumors]

Developers looking for an easy way to promote their iOS apps on the App Store should definitely avoid taking any illegitimate routes, as Apple has been and is continuing to crack down on those developers that attempt to cheat the system to boost their app sales/downloads.

Browsing for ways to boost those sales/downloads will almost certainly bring you upon a service that offers to boost your app’s ranking (such as, within the Top 25) for a fee. This is done through the use of scripts or bots that download an app over and over in order to increase its ranking. While this can be quite an attractive offer, as apps that make it to the Top 25 usually gain a lot of attention, it is also against Apple’s guidelines and could cause a developer to lose Apple Developer Program membership.

Apple’s subsequent warning to developers regarding illegitimately boosting an app’s rating within the App Store follows:

Adhering to Guidelines on Third-Party Marketing Services
Feb 6, 2012

Once you build a great app, you want everyone to know about it. However, when you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts. Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership. Get helpful tips and resources on marketing your apps the right way from the App Store Resource Center.

These services have apparently been around for a while, but have just recently gained enough publicity to get Apple’s attention. It is unclear how much success such services have had, and which apps they have boosted into the Top 25 in the past, although for remarkably high fees (one such service provider charges $5,000) and the risk of losing your Apple Developer Program membership, it is certainly not worth it for developers to take this path. There are many other ways to market your iOS app or game successfully without having to cheat your way to the top.

Via [MacRumors]

Apple has rolled out a new feature for Apple TV users. Owners of the media streaming device will now find a new option called Genius under Movies and TV Shows. The Mac version of the iTunes Store has had Genius recommendations for quite some time, but the feature has been absent from Apple TV until now.

The Genius feature recommends iTunes content to watch based on your purchase history.

There will not be a software update required to see the new feature. This small changes was made on Apple’s own servers, so users are a click away from Genius recommendations if you’re ready to use it.

According to MacRumors, has been automatically pushed to all connected devices. If you’re not seeing the new menu on your Apple TV menu screen, it’s recommend to maintain an active internet connection to make sure it updates.

Via [MacRumors]

Through interviews with those whoare closely associated with the company, from Apple’s management team to their board members, Inside Apple shows us how the company functions internally. This book is certainly a perfect choice for anyone who aspires to pursue a career with Apple or is just genuinely interested in how the company maintains its success through smart business choices, as well as the creation of such innovative and amazing products that the public knows them for to this day.

If Apple’s corporate culture is something that sparks your interest for whatever reason, Inside Apple by Adam Lashinsky is a book you’ll want to pick up and take the time to read. You can do so now by purchasing your copy on the iTunes iBookstore or the retailer of your choice for only $12.99.

Via [TUAW]

Much was made last week as large swathes of the Internet went dark in protest of the proposed SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Lobbyists representing the MPAA and RIAA made dramatic claims about the dire need for online piracy to be squashed, with the backing of major Hollywood studios, television networks, and record labels. They even went so far as to make what some have interpreted as veiled blackmail threats against the President and members of Congress who reneged on their support.

Emerging from the dust, Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm that provides seed funding for startups, has declared all-out war on Hollywood, calling for tech entrepreneurs to put forward ideas on what will be entertaining us 20 years from now (think iTunes/YouTube in 2032). The proposal’s ominous title, “Kill Hollywood,” has certainly generated a great deal of discussion and proportionate backlash, including one particularly pacifistic response by Ben Parr, in which he declares Y Combinator’s declaration “Short-sighted and Irresponsible.”  The trouble is, Parr’s let’s-all-work-together ethos simply is not possible, and the points he makes, while admirable, run counter to the very nature of the technological change that is eroding the MPAA/RIAA member’s traditional business models.

Counterpoint

Parr makes three points in support of his theory that war is an inappropriate response to the SOPA/PIPA effort, and these points summarize his views on why fighting back will ultimately backfire. Each presents a worthy superficial argument, but upon closer examination it becomes apparent that technological progress invalidates them.

1. “The heart of Hollywood is in its aspiring stars, not its execs.” This is, in fact, quite true. Equally true is the fact that most members of Hollywood make normal wages and are more impacted by piracy-related losses—think of all the film crew, set designers, drivers, etc. Unfortunately, Hollywood is no longer the sole provider of entertainment nor the steward of all talent.  While YouTube contains its fair share of dreck, rising stars are increasingly self-promoting and skipping the same old story of the starving actor moving to LA.  Look at Darren Criss emerging from Team Starkid’s Very Potter Musical, or (love or hate her) Rebecca Black. MPAA members may be losing money, but not all of it is attributable to piracy. New forms of media are taking eyes and ears away from their traditional revenue streams.
2. “War is rarely the solution.” In this point, Parr posits that a new generation of Hollywood execs is making good faith efforts like Hulu or Verve, and that war will hamper this progress. Here, again, the problem is that progress is not coming fast enough. Apple had to drag record companies into the 21st century with iTunes 10 years after the MP3 standard was published. Media consumption and consumer electronics are inextricably intertwined, and in a world of iPads and AppleTVs, 10 years is simply too long to wait for any generation of execs to adapt. By the time those newcomers have learned the ropes, the entire game will have changed.
3. “Entertainment and art are relative.” Parr takes issue with Y Combinator’s impossible dream that “It would be great if what people did instead of watching shows was exercise more and spend more time with their friends and families.”  He urges us to remember that we are dealing with the industry that gave us Schindler’s List and Planet Earth. What he fails to mention is that these companies are also the ones who gave us Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Bambi 2 (why, Disney!?), and musical acts like Milli Vanilli and an endless stream of boy bands. Does it ever occur to Hollywood that people are not willing to pay for—if you can pardon the vernacular—crap?

And The Beat Goes On

Y Combinator’s declaration was not so much about open hostility and war as it was about the simple, natural progression of industry. Call it technological innovation, call it the human condition; whatever term you use it is simply unavoidable. Ask companies like Nokia, Eastman Kodak, or Pan Am that have seen their business models eclipsed by new upstarts that did things differently and provided cheaper, more desirable alternatives to customers. Heck, look at each generation taking over from the last, with the accompanying fall of dictators, outmoded fashions, and prejudices. Change is the very nature of life itself, and no amount of lobbying money can change that. Piracy certainly accounts for a loss of money by MPAA/RIAA member companies (though it is likely much less than they led members of Congress to believe), but there are myriad technological changes that threaten them with irrelevance more damaging than any amount of piracy:

• New forms of entertainment form a zero-sum game: Every hour spent playing a Zynga game is an hour not spent playing another game from a traditional publisher. Ad-supported games like Words with Friends bring in less revenue per game than a console game like Halo, so with a set number of hours in a day, the mix of media being consumed matters. Ten minutes spent watching cat videos on YouTube means less time to go to a theater and pay the exorbitant ticket price for the latest installment of the Transformers franchise. Which leads to a second point:
• New forms of entertainment will be initially less profitable: Apple, the poster child for creative destruction, likely made slightly less profit on each flash-based iPod nano than the older hard disk-based iPod mini. Preserving the company cash cow at the expense of adapting for the future is a good short-term balance sheet activity that has disastrous long-term consequences. Kodak invented digital imaging in 1975, but remained paralyzed for fear of disrupting their existing film business and ended up in bankruptcy last week. New ventures are often less profitable in the short term, but change is nonetheless necessary to stay relevant. Despite some disastrous PR blunders, Netflix successfully managed to increase its profit on streaming services during 2011 by effectively converting free streaming service into an $8-per month standalone product. At launch, the service was not worth that price, but through careful enhancement it has grown to be worth that much to millions of subscribers.
• Technology changes have broken many old profit-generating assumptions: The MP3 format available from Amazon’s music store and the AAC format available from Apple’s iTunes mean that music purchases are a once-and-done deal for the foreseeable future. Music and movie companies relied on a steady profit stream from physical media sales that were refreshed every so often, necessitating new purchases. Vinyl records wore out and needed replacing, then cassette tapes necessitated the repurchase of music; music companies’ greed reached its zenith with the advent of the CD, which was a vehicle for price fixing that artificially drove profit margins up. Physical media could also be lost, which required a consumer to repurchase it, but digital files can be backed up, synced, and duplicated indefinitely. MP3/AAC backwards-compatibly is insanely simple, so music companies are facing the prospect of selling a song exactly one time per consumer.  Music subscription services like Pandora or Spotify also mean a lower, fixed revenue stream for media companies’ products.  Instead of paying $14 to see one movie you may hate in theaters, many busy folks are content to wait for it to come in the mail from Netflix, which costs only $8 per month.  These new distribution channels challenge existing business models, which leads to point #3:
• Power to the People: Self-publishing tools like Garageband, WordPress, and HD-capable prosumer DSLRs—coupled with new Internet-based distribution models—have lowered demand for many of the services provided by large media companies. Lewis CK’s recent self-distributed standup show earned him more money than traditional DVD sales through HBO; if aspiring stars truly are the group to be protected, surely diverting revenue straight to them is a positive change? Surely a video’s viral nature is a better indicator of its future success than the word of some studio exec who green lighted flops like Green Latern or the Tayler Lautner vehicle Abduction. In a business where risk aversion leads execs to turn down a movie like Star Wars, why would there be resistance to technology tools that can help pick surefire winners? Technology has a habit of decentralizing things, so there is no longer a need for all the elements of a film to be based in or controlled by Hollywood.

MPAA and RIAA member companies would have us believe that the free and open nature of the Internet poses so grave a risk that legislation altering its very fundamental functioning is vital to protect their industry. Companies like Walt Disney, Paramount, Universal, EMI, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group wanted to put the brakes on technological change to protect their existing business models in the name of “stopping piracy.” While piracy may be a source of lost revenue for these companies, vast revolution in the form of media creation, distribution, and consumption are the real threats to their industry.

These threats represent creative destruction, and the death of the old to make way for the new stops for no man.  Nobody can win a fight against it, nor can any company or trade group lobby hard enough to reverse it. Y Combinator’s declaration of war is not so much a new call to arms as a statement of simple fact: The world is changing, and will always continue to do so. To fight against it is foolish. To embrace it, as we have seen, could just make your company the most valuable in the world.

Shortly after the Apple Education Event which took place in the New York City yesterday, Apple posted the entire 60-minute video on their own website. This hour-long video features Apple executives Phil-Schiller, Eddy Cue and Roger Rosner, who which took the stage to introduce the new iBooks 2 services.

Apple also revealed that they’ve built partnerships with several large publishing companies which will help them create new tools for future interactive digital textbooks.

Among the many announcements, Apple pushed out an improved version of their iBooks, a new section of e-textbooks that can be found within the pages of the iBookstore, iBooks Author for Mac, and the new iTunes U app.

As usual with their product announcements, Apple released a promotional video with tons of interviews from Apple executives and regular customers showcasing the benefits Apple’s iPad can provide to those in the education system.

The video recently is available in iTunes as a new podcast video download in HD and standard formats.

You can update to iTunes 10.5.3 using Software Update on your Mac or Apple Software Update on your Windows PC, or you can download it directly for both platforms from Apple’s web site. If you’re concerned about how this new iTunes version may affect future jailbreaking and/or your current jailbreak, you can be assured that upgrading to 10.5.3 is completely safe.

Product [iTunes]

Another major announcement today from Apple’s education-based media event is the release of iTunes U—formerly only an educational podcast section within the iTunes Store—as an official iOS app. According to Apple’s Eddy Cue, who made the announcement on behalf of the company, over 1,000 universities currently make use of iTunes U, which has seen over 700,000,000 total downloads since its launch.

The popularity of iTunes U among educators and students alike has prompted Apple to bring the platform onto iDevices as a universal iOS app, allowing access to all of iTunes U’s free content—consisting mostly of audio and video lectures—to everyone with an iDevice. However, beyond just the traditional iTunes U content, this new iOS app expands the service even further by allowing teachers to create and manage courses right from within the app. This gives teachers the ability to distribute lectures, assignments, handouts, quizzes, etc. to their students, all through this new iTunes U app.

Teachers create their courses through a web-based tool called the “iTunes U Course Manager,” and have a great deal of control over their course’s content, who has access to the content, and much more. Apple hosts all of the course components and makes it available to the general public, although teachers have the option of restricting access to their students only.

iTunes U for iOS has kicked off to a great start with 100+ iOS-optimized courses already available within the new app, and a lot more is definitely on the way. This app is certainly revolutionizing how students are able to complete their university courses and keep up with all of their digital contents. From being able to keep track of assignments, watch video lectures, read course-related literature and more all within an iOS app is truly amazing, and to make it all that much better, everything from the app to the content is free of charge.

You can download the iTunes U iOS app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch on the App Store.

Via [MacRumors]

Previously, if iTunes customers had a desired product in mind, they had to resort to clicking on multiple pages to get to that specific item. But now Apple has given iTunes a much-needed improvement that will certainly assist users in quickly finding apps and videos in the iTunes Store. This small makeover adds the ability for users to peruse the whole store in a “Quick View mode” which will let them purchase items without leaving the current page.

When clicking on the “info” button in the bottom right of each app icon, an option will appear which gives a detailed description of the selected item along with the reviews, screenshots and price. According to several reports around the internet, this option became available on both the main iTunes Store and App Store pages, as well as in search results.

It seems this new feature also works across all the content that can be found within iTunes, including songs, albums, music videos, movies and TV shows. Simply scroll over the desired item you wish to view in order to get the pop up window with a small preview of the product, its overall rating, basic description, and pricing information. Users can also easily make a purchase of the items from within the window.

Via [iSpazio]