Apple offers its employees a number of perks, for keeping the company’s retail stores operating smoothly on a daily basis. The latest perk Apple is offering is slightly odd, to say the least. The Cupertino company is offering their retail employees an upgrade to 50GB of free iCloud storage as opposed to the 5GB offered on a standard account.

The free storage is reportedly $100/a month value and is similar to the free MobileMe subscription employees received until it was scrapped for iCloud. According to MacRumors, Apple employees were given a $500 discount on any Mac except the Mini and $250 off of an iPad.

Apple continues to offer its retail employees free services and discounts on products, likely to keep morale high and keep the employees up to date. Some who don’t use the products, aside from the required training may not know as much about the product as an employee who use it regularly.

{via MacRumors}

When I only had one set of earphones in the house keeping them up together was never an issue, however as my family has grown, so has the number of earphones that are lying around the house. At the same time I find then nobody in my family, including me apparently have the time to wrap up their earphones carefully once they’ve finished using them.

Because of the above I’m often left with the task unravelling a tangled mess of wires which then hang in a twisted mess between my head and my iPhone, it doesn’t look good, it doesn’t feel good and more importantly it reduces the life of the earphones too.

These are the problems that Quirky is looking to resolve with their bargain priced Wrapster Headphone Cord Organizer which you can buy direct from their website for just $6.99.

The Wrapster Headphone Cord Organizer is a single, small piece of flexible plastic which wraps around at both sides producing two tubes which not only allows you to wrap your earphones around them securely when not in use but also allows you to keep the Wrapster attached to your earphone cord while in use should you wish too.

It feels well made, keeps your cords in great condition and is available in four colors. That being said it would be nice if more colors were available or even custom colors especially if they expect you to keep them attached to your earphones while you wear them.

It also has multiple uses as when you’re not using the Wrapster to store your earphones you can use it to stand up your iPhone 4 or 4S in landscape mode. Now while this secondary purposes is a nice addition it’s not particularly sturdy and so I wouldn’t recommend purchasing this solely as an iPhone stand as you will be disappointed, even at the cheap price.

Storage for earphones is unlikely to be a top priority for everyone but if you are one of those people who use earphones regularly then getting a storage solution should be a priority and at just $6.99 why wouldn’t you?

What we like

• Small and perfectly formed
• Easy to use
• Great price point

What to know

• More color options please!

With the introduction of iCloud during last year’s WWDC conference, it was clear that Apple was taking a new path with their offering of cloud services. Steve Jobs, who was CEO at the time of the introduction, admitted that the MobileMe services offered up as cloud features were definitely not the best product that Apple had offered its users. Since then, Apple has gradually been winding down operations associated with MobileMe, making the normally $99 a year service into iCloud.

iCloud offers users an initial 5GB of free storage and then begins to charge based on GB of storage. Earlier this year, Apple gave users the option to remove their files and even offered discs of the Snow Leopard software through MobileMe accounts for users to make the transition to iCloud as smoothly as possible. Apple is still allowing users to transfer their files from iDisk and images from Gallery, but is doing so on a final notice, as the website now displays a red sign that reads, “MobileMe is Closed”.

Apple is offering users the option to transfer their iDisk and Gallery files because both of those features as well as iWeb publishing did not and will not carry over to iCloud. Apple’s replacement for Gallery is likely the new PhotoStream feature and iDisk is being replaced by the variety of storage options offered in iCloud.

The Cupertino company has yet to mention a specific date as to when MobileMe would be permanently shut down, but it will likely be shut before the public release of iOS 6.

{via MacRumors}

Apple has been expanding their retail stores all over the world, with over 357 retail stores worldwide with plans to build a number of others in China and the United States. Now, Apple is expanding their retail efforts by setting up new product displays in Walmart stores around the country. Although Best Buy has had smaller Apple product displays in their stores for quite some time, this is the first time that Apple has introduced such a wide variety of products and accessories in a major retail outlet other than its own stores. The first Apple Store within a store was spotted in an Arkansas Walmart, where ifoapplestore snapped a couple of pictures and posted them online.

A report from 9to5Mac also speculated that the displays may be a prototype for future expansion into the Sam’s Club retail chain, which is the warehouse retail division of Walmart. Sam’s Club is usually within the same retail area as Walmart and are readily available in areas that do not have a local Apple Store. The new displays have back-lit graphics, just like the Apple Stores, the same classic wood table, the iconic array of display products and under-table accessory storage.

The under-table accessory storage features the same products available in the Apple Store, with anything from chargers, docks and headphones. This new display is available in Lowell, a town of 7,500 residents. The town does not have a local Apple Store, and would therefore benefit from the new store within a store at the local Walmart. At this point, this is the only known Apple Store within a Walmart in the United States, however, Apple will likely expand this idea into other Walmart Store, and maybe eventually Sam’s Club as well. This is a great idea not only for Apple and its retail expansion, but for the other retail stores such as Walmart, Target, and Best Buy.

{via ifoapplestore}

Apple Inc. (AAPL) recently launched a new TV ad called “Harmony” which in 30 seconds highlights iCloud service for iOS and OS X. AAPL has been posting a series of iPhone 4S ads which show the all-new voice assistant Siri and the much improved camera and now with the latest ad the focus has turned to iCloud.

iCloud automatically stores music, photos, apps, calendars, contacts, documents and keeps all your iCloud enabled devices in sync. When Apple introduced iOS 5 during WWDC 2011 Steve Jobs took to the stage to talk about iCloud and repeatedly said, “it just works”. The new TV ad in a similar theme conveys that iCloud is “Automatic. Everywhere.”

The ad begins with the all-new welcome screen in iOS 5 which gives you an option to use iCloud and then goes on to show an album being purchased on iPhone 4S which then shows up on iPad 2 and MacBook Air. Then photos, calendar, app purchases, contacts update and iBooks are all shown to sync between different devices.

With the introduction of iCloud users can not only keep their iOS devices in sync but can also backup to the cloud, set up the device without connecting to iTunes and with iTunes Match they can upload their entire music library to the cloud.

iCloud is a free service available on devices running iOS 5 or higher however, if you need to add more space for backup then you could purchase additional storage right from your device.

Google is holding its annual I/O event later on today, but the company has already released information on the products it is set to announce. One of which is called ‘Music Beta by Google’ — a service that provides users with online, cloud-based storage for up to 20,000 songs — and looks set to rival Apple’s upcoming iCloud.

Google doesn’t yet have deals in place with any of the major record labels, so the ability to purchase and download music through the service is currently non-existent, however, you can use the service store their your own music for access from internet-connected devices, such as tablets and smart phones. The idea is that you store media content in the cloud and stream it to your device when you want it, rather than storing it on your device and taking up precious storage space.

Google’s launch of this service comes shortly after Amazon announced a music storage service of its own. While both companies have launched their services way in advance of Apple’s iCloud launch, will either of them have any advantage?

Well, no — certainly not with iOS users anyway. Firstly, neither Google’s nor Amazon’s services will be designed specifically with iOS in mind. Whereas it goes without saying that Apple’s service (when it finally launches) will be perfected for the iOS platform. Sure, Amazon’s Cloud Player now supports iOS devices, but it’s not a perfect user experience. We’re yet to see how Google’s services works, but it’s sure to be designed to work perfectly with Android powered devices — not those running iOS.

Secondly, neither Cloud Player or Music Beta by Google currently have any arrangements with the major music labels. You can only use these services to access music you already own — that you’ve uploaded yourself. We already know that Apple is currently in talks with record labels, so we know that with iCloud we’ll at least be able to access music that we don’t already own. Whether that will be with a subscription-based streaming service, or just through individual track purchases, we’re yet to find out.

While Amazon and Google may currently be when it comes to cloud-based music services, I don’t think either service will tempt iOS users away from Apple’s iCloud.

iCloud is expected to launch at WWDC 2011 conference in June.

The CNET report notes a recent rumor claiming Apple may charge $20 a year for the service, but they couldn’t confirm with sources whether this figure was accurate. A similar service from Google is also expected to come with an annual fee.

Apple’s cloud-based music service will allow users to store their music and videos in a digital ‘locker’, enabling them to stream the content to internet connected devices, such as the iPhone and iPad – negating the need for content to be stored locally on the device taking up valuable storage space.

The service was expected to come as part of a MobileMe revamp, which would provide users with certain aspects of cloud storage as part of their subscription – just like iDisk. However, it’s now unclear whether the two services will be separate entities, or whether the annual fee could also incorporate the MobileMe subscription.

While Apple has informed music executives that work on the service is now “complete,” it has apparently only provided a broad description on how the service will work, keeping the specifics under wraps.

Meanwhile, Amazon recently rolled out its own cloud-based digital storage service called Cloud Drive. The product offers 5GB of storage for free and then tiered subscriptions that allow storage up to 1TB.

The information in the report is said to come from an “inside source” at EMC – a company which intended to buy Isilon in late 2010 for $2.25 billion – and planned to use the storage infrastructure technology to support cloud computing services.

Although the report made no mention of cloud services, the 12 petabytes of storage could well be just what Apple needs to launch a cloud-based streaming service, allowing users to access their movies, music, and photos on their iOS device from a digital storage locker. Reports have been speculating for some time that the Cupertino company would launch a service to compete with music streaming services like Spotify, Rhapsody, and the new Amazon Cloud Player.

In 2009 Apple acquired a company called Lala which previously provided a similar service. Lala subscribers could buy music downloads, listen to online content, and upload their own music library to the cloud for remote playback on various devices. However, Apple closed the company soon after its purchase sparking rumors that it would build the Lala model into iTunes and relaunch the service, but we’re yet to see that happen.