Trademork reports that Apple filed a trademark on the Apple name with regards to gaming. The trademark application applies to “toys, games and playthings, namely, hand-held units for playing electronic games; hand-held units for playing video games; stand alone video game machines; electronic games other than those adapted for use with television receivers only; LCD game machines; electronic educational game machines; toys, namely battery-powered computer games.”

So, is Apple interested in gaming. Does Apple have a gaming department that we don’t know about. My MacBook comes with “Chess” and it’s a pretty boring game. The computer always wins, in case you want to know.

Can Apple be a game changer in the portable gaming industry in the same way that it was in the cell phone industry?

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Windows Media Player remains the number one player with 75.8 unique users in December 2007 but Apple iTunes popularity is on the rise going past RealPlayer last April. It continues its climb with over 35 million unix for the month of December. This is a 26.8 increase from last year. On a sour note for Apple, Quicktime usage is falling.

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Woah! I know a couple of Apple fan boys but I never realized they were this… well, weird. Please, please, Mac users, tell me you’re not like any of these people.

Official MacHeads Site

Even though Apple charges a $19.99 fee for the newest iPod Touch firmware upgrade, there are a lot of takers. Having Mail, Maps and other goodies like Stocks, Weather and, at last, Notes on an MP3 player, but around the world people have been complaining that they cannot upgrade their iPod Touches. They have the money, it’s just that the Apple iTunes Store is not available in their area. Let’s see. The iTunes Store is available in the following territories:

• U.S., Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Republic of Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Republic of the Philippines, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom

If you do not have a billing address in any of these countries, Apple will not let you purchase anything from the iTunes Store. Amazingly, all of Latin America is out. That means, even if you live in Puerto Rico, which is just a boat ride away from the U.S. and even Mexico (just across the border of the Apple base country), you cannot get have an iPod Touch with Maps and Mail. In Asia, though the iTunes Store is available in Japan and the Philippines, it is not available in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia nor Mainland China. Now, I can understand Apple’s reluctance to sell to China, but Taiwan and Singapore?

Looks like it’s time for Apple should check their own Maps application.

Check out Hong Kong’s Victor Heung’s complain about iTunes Store non-availability in his home.

It’s .16 inches thin at the slim side and .76 inches on the thick side, aluminium, LED backlit screen, the keyboard “is the best we’ve ever shipped,” as Steve Jobs put it, and it’s got this yummy feature called a “multitouch gesture pad.” Yes, it’s a bit of an iPhone too, because you can rotate, resize and move photos by sliding your fingers over the trackpad, pinching them together or moving them apart – just like on the iPhone screen.

So why are people complaining about MBA? Only one thing really… NON-USER-REPLACEABLE BATTERY? What the hey! Never mind the lower than usual processor speed, it’s an ultraportable after all, and never mind the absence of an optical drive, the lack of ports (only 1 USB here) or even the slower PATA hard disk, but a battery you cannot access without voiding your warranty?

PS: is the non-replaceable battery, the 1.8 inches 4100 RPM PATA hard disk, the lone USB port and the lack of a DVD drive enough to push this Apple product to the drawing board from whence it came?