According to sources, Apple will open stores within Target locations around the U.S.
By doing so, Apple can cheaply expand into smaller metro areas.
If accurate, Apple will open Apple-branded stores in 25 of the larger Targets at points during this year.
Of course, the launch will be a small test, as Target has 1752 stores in the U.S. Apple has 359 of its own stores around the world, including 245 in the U.S. Apple currently has a similar setup in 600 Best Buy stores. Some of the stores even have Apple Solution Consultants and are dubbed “Apple Shops.”
Apple had previous retail relationships with Circuit City, Office Max and Sears until a decade ago, when they began opening their own retail stores. The Best Buy deal is relatively new.
Target has long sold Apple products, starting with the iPod in 2002.
Share on Facebook
Result for: facebook
Nintendo has made it official, Wii U games will be on a proprietary disc that is not Blu-ray or DVD.
The confirmation comes via Nintendo president Satoru Iwata following a week of confusion and speculation as to exactly what Wii U games would be published on.
In explaining the move, Iwata says:
We feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray, such that it didn’t warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies.
Furthermore, the Wii U will go “social,” says Iwata (via TR):
After examining the penetration and adoption rate of social networking services like Facebook, etc, we’ve come to the conclusion that we are no longer in a period where we cannot have any connection at all with social networking services.
Rather, I think we’ve come to an era where it’s important to consider how the social graph of the social networking services can work in conjunction with something like a video game platform.
Result for: facebook
Twitter has completed their acquisition of TweetDeck, one of the most popular clients for the microblogging service.
The purchase ended for just over $40 million in cash and stock with the closing papers signed today.
TweetDeck had been previously linked to UberMedia, who was looking to purchase the client for $30 million and had an exclusive negotiating window that ran out. Uber has the top Twitter app for BlackBerry (UberSocial) and the “highest rated” Twitter app for Android, Twidroyd and has been allegedly cooking up a plan for a “Twitter killing” service.
As arguably the best Twitter client around (and accounting for 13 percent of all tweets sent on a daily basis), TweetDeck is a hot commodity for the microblogging platform and remains the top app for “power users,” those who tweet many times per day from many different devices.
TweetDeck also allows users to connect their LinkedIn and Facebook platforms to one app.
