11/24, 7:49am
First official new Mac Pro to be sold sets record for most expensive personal computer
Apple is known for making history by inventing the future, but even its designer could not have predicted a new record shattered on Saturday as a special one-off red version of the new Mac Pro (which is not officially available for sale yet) was sold at a charity fundraising auction for $977,000 -- an all-time record for the priciest personal computer ever made or sold. A couple of other items also designed by Sir Jonathan Ive of Apple and designer Marc Newson also fetched record sums.
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11/20, 2:10am
Unit one of only six known working units
A previously-reported auction in Cologne, Germany of a rare working-condition Apple I computer failed to meet the minimum bid of €180,000 ($242,820) but was sold after the auction had closed, Auction Team Breker has revealed. Two potential bidders were surprised that the item had failed to sell and put in their own bids, with the larger of the two being accepted - €246,000, or US $330,000. The same company had previously sold a rare functioning Apple I for over $670,000 in a previous auction.
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09/23, 7:39pm
Desire for new color option far outstrips supply; Apple making more
[Updated: seller cancelled transaction] Though MacNN has previously reported on the mania surrounding new gold-colored iPhone 5s -- with units routinely selling for between $900 and $1,500 depending on capacity and unlocked status -- a new record was set on auction site eBay on Monday when a 16GB unlocked GSM gold iPhone 4s sold for a record-shattering $10,100. The buyer was a long-time eBay user with a history of buying cellphone accessories.
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09/21, 2:44am
While Apple increases orders, crunch on new color could last for weeks
The "gold rush" was a series of events generally considered to have lasted for much of the second half of the 19th century -- until Friday, when Apple officially sold completely out of the gold iPhone 5s model around 10AM ET. Within hours, many of the lucky few that secured a gold iPhone 5s were listing them on eBay and other auction sites. Asking prices have been seen in excess of $2,500, and active interest and bids have appeared as high as $3,850 (for a group of three gold 64GB models). There are currently over 2,000 iPhone 5s eBay auctions in progress.
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08/15, 11:03am
Report claims Verizon to bid in Canadian spectrum auction instead
Verizon may be putting a hold on its attempts to purchase two Canadian carriers, in favor of acquiring spectrum directly, according to a report. The American carrier, believed to be offering at least $600 million to Wind Mobile and a similar figure for Mobilicity, is now considering bidding in a Canadian government wireless spectrum auction instead.
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07/09, 9:00pm
One of the earliest surviving units, but non-functional
A rare Apple I computer, hand-assembled by Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, was sold on Tuesday for $387,750 at auction -- less than auctioneer Christie's had hoped for but well above the minimum bid, and still representing an increase in value for a non-functional unit. The bidding on this unit started at $300,000, and is believed to be the 25th model ever assembled, according to an ink inscription on the unit. Originally designed by Wozniak, the unit originally sold for $666.66. A working Apple I was bought in Germany earlier this year for $671,400.
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05/01, 12:00am
Stolen credit card used to hike price even higher, retracted
A "coffee" with Apple CEO Tim Cook, an offer being bid on for charity fundraising, has been hit with credit card fraud. A previous high bid of $605,000 was retracted after it was discovered to have been placed using a credit card that turned out to be stolen. The site, Charitybuzz, said the issue came to their attention immediately was swiftly retracted, dropping the high bid back to $600,000. The Cook meeting is by far the highest-bid item in the auction.
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04/29, 10:00pm
Original Wozniak, Jobs creation one of only six still functioning
[Update]: Steve Wozniak signature added German auction house Team Breker has rounded up an interesting collection of significant "firsts" from the computing world for an upcoming auction in Koln, Germany on May 25. Among the items of interest will be a mechanical calculator created by philosopher and physicist Blaise Pascal from the year 1652; the first Intel microprocessor (the 4004) from 1971; a 1975 Altair 8800 said to have started the personal computer revolution, and one of only six known original Apple I computers still in working condition.
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04/26, 7:10pm
Apple CEO meeting sets record for charity site
A chance to spend some one-on-one facetime with the CEO of the world's most influential and profitable technology company is worth a lot; far more than anyone expected, as it turns out. Apple head Tim Cook has offered a half-hour "coffee" at Apple headquarters to the winning bidder in a charity auction that was initially valued as being worth $50,000. As of 6:45PM ET on Friday -- with 18 days remaining in the bidding -- the bidding has reached $580,000 after 81 bids. The auction benefits the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
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10/09, 10:20pm
Former Apple employee original owner of 22nd board produced
The original Apple I motherboard for sale at Christie's auction house failed to sell. The auction company expected the board to sell for $127,000, but the bidding failed to reach the reserve price, resulting in no sale. The top bid was reported to be $51,155, well short of the $80,000 reserve.
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08/29, 5:32pm
Expected to fetch more than $125,000
A nonworking Apple I board have been listed for auction on October 9 at Christie's of London. The unit, with serial number 22, came from former Apple employee Joe Copson. The unit originally came with just 8K of RAM and no case, keyboard or monitor. Only 50 or so of the roughly 150-200 units produced have survived, and only six are thought to be in working order. The auction expects the machine to sell for between $80,000 and $125,000.
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08/23, 4:00pm
Mac maker says the patents belong to it, not Kodak
Nearly three weeks after US Bankruptcy Court Judge Allan Gropper ruled that the company had no claim to two imaging patents in its struggle with Kodak, Apple has filed an appeal challenging the judge's finding. The two companies are locked in a dispute over the ownership of a total of 10 patents, with Apple seeking to block the auction of the two patents in particular.
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05/29, 6:35pm
Apple did not file to recover 'stolen' property
Surprising observers who had speculated that Apple would close down the auction, a rare prototype iPad with two 30-pin dock connectors sold for a total of $10,200, about $200 above the original asking price. The unit had dock connectors on the "bottom" and "left side" of the iPad, and was functional except for a faulty digitizer, which renders the touchscreen inoperative. The unit still had Apple's "Switchboard" testing software included.
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12/21, 6:00pm
Wants thousands for name similar to Apple's
Hoping to cash in on the similarity to Apple's cloud-services suite, a North Attleboro man has put up the domain name icl0ud.com for auction on Ebay, asking a minimum bid of $7,000. The domain currently points to a generic business site called cloudstoragedrive.com that offers to help digitize, manage and secure files stored on a cloud storage system. The business is also for sale for the same asking price.
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12/08, 7:00pm
Multiserver, ROM card, power adapter
A trio of rare Apple prototypes from its early years, never sold to the public, have made their way onto Ebay for auction. The first is a never-before-seen prototype box (now empty) for a proposed product in the mid-80s called the Apple "Multiserver." The second appears to be a prototype ROM card from an Apple II, circa 1978, and the third item is a unique power adapter for a Powerbook Duo 270c, reports AppleInsider.
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03/22, 3:50pm
Group working to ensure competition among carriers
The UK is reportedly preparing its largest-ever spectrum auction, which will include bands spreading across 250MHz of spectrum no longer utilized by television broadcasters. The wireless regulation authority Ofcom is said to be working to finalize a strategy that will ensure the spectrum is distributed among at least four competing networks.
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05/23, 9:00pm
FCC considers auction
After the recent auctioning of the 700MHz wireless band, the FCC has revealed that it is considering another auction for the 2155 to 2180MHz band, which would require the winning party to offer free wireless broadband services as part of an aggressive build-out schedule. RCR Wireless News writes that the band – which is referred to as AWS III – would require free access, and the capacity to reach 50-percent of the US population in four years, and 95-percent by the end of the license term.
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03/18, 9:35pm
700MHz bid ends
The 700MHz FCC-led wireless auction today ended with an estimated revenue of $20 billion, says Molly Peterson of Bloomberg.com. While the FCC hasn't disclosed the actual winner of the auction, this brings a close to a nearly two month long bidding war between 214 companies, including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, and Google. Analysts for the FCC expected the auction to raise between $10- to $15 billion.
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03/11, 12:00am
First Look: Bling! It
To sell items on auction sites like eBay, you need to show others what you’re selling. Take a good picture of the most run-down item and it can still attract buyers. Take a lousy picture of the most valuable item and the picture alone can turn off potential buyers. To increase your chances of attracting buyers and making a sale, take the best pictures possible. If your pictures still look drab and dull, spice them up with Bling! It.
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03/07, 2:15pm
iSale 5.1 released
Equinux today released iSale 5.1, the latest revision of its online auction software for Mac OS X. iSale 5.1 allows users to integrate video clips into auctions from all leading video websites, according to Equinux, including Apple's .Mac service. The update also increases security by supporting the PayPal Security Key for 2-factor-authentication. The Template Editor in iSale 5.1 includes a new item for integrating video clips in all of the 222 templates that ship with the software. iSale 5.1 is available for $60, and requires Mac OS X 10.5.
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