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Release Date: August 05, 2009
Genre: Games
Release Date: May 22, 2009
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Release Date: August 29, 2009
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Release Date: March 27, 2009
Release Date: August 07, 2009

iTunes New Music Releases

Release Date: September 29, 2009
Genre: Rock
Release Date: September 20, 2009
Release Date: September 15, 2009
Release Date: August 25, 2009
Genre: Rock
Release Date: August 25, 2009

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Release Date: April 22, 2009
StickWars $0.99
Release Date: March 31, 2009
Genre: Games
Bloons $0.99
Release Date: April 05, 2009
Genre: Games

Discover New Music

  • King James Version

    • 4 out of 10
    • Harvey Danger
    • The sophomore effort from Harvey Danger, I was really looking forward to this followup to "Where Have All the Merrymakers Gone?" Unfortunately, "King James Version" failed to deliver any of the bri

  • Machine Gun Etiquette

    • 8 out of 10
    • The Damned
    • Punk rock is mostly associated with three chords and a bad attitude, but the Damned were one of the few bands of the era bent on bringing musicianship and a good sense of humor to the scene. And while
  • Kind of Blue

    • 10 out of 10
    • Miles Davis
    • The jazz album to end all jazz albums. Miles Davis and John Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly and the list goes on. The who's who of who's who in jazz have assembled for this monumental record. Get this
  • The Last 5 Years (2002 Off-Broadway Cast)

    • 10 out of 10
    • Jason Robert Brown
    • The soundtrack to this moving off-broadway musical is heart moving. The lyrics follow a couple in a relationship for five years, one point of view going forward in time, and the other tracing time fr
  • Mezzanine

    • 6 out of 10
    • Massive Attack
    • "Black Milk" knocks me off my feet in this collection of moody and eclectic songs. Massive Attack uses samples and keyboards in a very unique way, but not all the songs pack the same punch.

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News

U.S. Consumers Buying Fewer Mobile Phones, Paying More

The NPD group reported on Tuesday that U.S. consumers are buying fewer mobile phones overall, but the phones they do buy are costing more. NPD said this is the third quarter in a row with a year-over-year decline.

Motorola still leads in phones sold overall, but its market share has plummeted from 32 percent last year to 21 percent this year. The New York Times carried the AP story. [Subscription may be required.]

NPD said the survey excluded government and corporate buyers, and other figures from IDC suggest that those organizations are taking up the slack.

In the second quarter, 42.9 million handsets were shipped in the U.S. By comparison, Apple has been shipping about 3 million per quarter, but the iPhone’s appeal is mainly to the smartphone market, a much smaller segment. That market, feature rich phones which can browse the Internet, doubled in the last year.

"One explanation [for the overall drop] might be that there’s a group of consumers that’s holding off, making do with the devices that they have, either because of larger economic concerns or because they don’t see any value yet in the new voice and data services that are driving some of these new handsets," said Ross Rubin with NPD.

The research lends credence to the disappearance of the middle class thesis, a bi-modal society. Those on the lower side of the economic spectrum are cutting back on even basic phones or upgrades. Meanwhile, those on the high side of the spectrum, as well as government and corporations, are snapping up smartphones. In that market, Apple and RIM are in a two horse race in the U.S., with Palm falling off quickly, according to recent ChangeWave research.

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