9to5Mac has posted two internal Apple "First Look" documents aimed at arming Apple Store employees with talking points to help sell iOS 5 and iCloud. Although it is unlikely that employees would need to sell these services independently, seeing as they are bundled for free with an iOS device, they are enhancements that could help sell new iOS devices, as well as keep existing iOS users from switching to competing platforms. The two images are available to view here once you click "Read More..." below.

PDN Pulse posted a very interesting look at what it took to photograph Steve Jobs. It appears his quest for perfection and the need to be in control did not end at his office. From the article:

“It was the joke among photographers. He was like the nightmare subject,” says San Francisco photographer William Mercer McLeod, who photographed Jobs on assignment a total of five times, and once worked for Apple, helping to develop the company’s Aperture software.

Thanks to Andy Ihnatko for sharing this story.

Microsoft has recently experienced issues communicating the future of Zune hardware. They initially announced the end of Zune hardware a week ago on their support page, only to retract the message via a Twitter post. Fret no more, the Zune’s support page (again) declares that Zune hardware is no more:

We recently announced that, going forward, Windows Phone will be the focus of our mobile music and video strategy, and that we will no longer be producing Zune players. So what does this mean for our current Zune users? Absolutely nothing. Your device will continue to work with Zune services just as it does today. And we will continue to honor the warranties of all devices for both current owners and those who buy our very last devices. Customer service has been, and will remain a top priority for us.

Netflix announced that it no longer plans on spinning off its DVD rental-by-mail service into a separate company named Qwikster. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings posted the following on the company blog:

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs.

This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.

I wonder if this reversal has anything to do with the stock’s decline since the original split announcement. For fun, I decided to crunch some (simple) numbers. Netflix announced the Qwikster split on September 19 when the stock opened at 158.27. The last trading day before this new announcement was October 7 when the stock was valued at 117.21. That works out to ~26% devaluation since the original announcement.

According to ZDNet, Audible added a new button in their iOS app that takes the user to their mobile store. This is surprising, considering Apple requires all in-app purchases go through them where they take a 30% cut. Was this an oversight by Apple’s App Store auditors, or maybe a precursor to App Store policy changes? Makes me wonder if the next release of Audible will still contain this link.