Good evening and welcome to another edition of Meet the MacTalkers! This week we have the pleasure of hearing from forum members nzhomie and that old timer, spargo. Thanks to both members for taking the time to complete the questions and give an insight into who they are.

The dudes over at iWorld Australia (hey Chad!) have a bunch of stuff they’ve made available to MacTalk really cheap to help push our server fundraiser efforts towards $7,000 and beyond.

So if you’re in the market for iPod cases, this is the place to be. Everything here is $9 each, with free shipping. Yep! Free shipping. How cool is that? Loads of stuff for your iPod Nano, iPod Touch and iPod Classic.

Browse around the site, pick what you want if you have any questions, just ask!

It's official! After months of speculation and whinging that Sydney got the better of us, Melbourne's first proper Apple store opens on Saturday, 13th of September, at 10AM. Full details can be found on the Apple Retail website.

So the store is somewhere within Chadstone's vast interior (Apple's website doesn't list where in the complex the store is), it opens at 10AM on the 13th of September, a Saturday and there will be 1,000 t-shirts for those who get there first. Enjoy!

Discussion

The Ultimate Ears super.fi 4vi are high quality in-ear headphones designed for your iPhone. It has great sound and a clicky-thing to answer and hang up phone calls on your iPhone. They also work in things that aren't iPhone, but the clicky-thing will not work. For more info on the headphones, check out the Ultimate Ears website.

After this discussion thread, we've gathered enough interest and the price has been set at $135 per set of headphones *including* Express Post.

The forum members of MacTalk are awesome. They gave MacTalk $5500 for a new server and we are all floored. We personally thank everyone in this episode. Also, Optus are scumbags. We even talk about some Mac stuff for a fair while in this one.

Discussion

Although the supposedly leaked invites turned out to be fake, it has been confirmed today that Apple will be holding a special event on September 9. The invitations certainly suggest this event will be iPod and music centric with the tag line 'Let's Rock'. There is a fair chance we will see new iPods, although some still hold hope for the appearance of refreshed MacBooks as well. What do you think will be released? Keep your eyes peeled in the thread for information regarding any live coverage when it becomes available.

Discussion

In an extremely surprising move, forum member svale has discovered that Optus secretly and suddenly increased the price of the iPhone 3G. Handset rentals have increased by approximately $2/month to $4/month (depends on the plan you're selecting) for new customers. Current customers are not affected and will continue to pay whatever they are paying.

It seems to be that for no apparent reason, Optus has decided to increase the price of the iPhone. No other Australian telco has increased their handset price of the iPhone. It would be safe to assume that because Optus is enjoying a strong flow of new customers due to the iPhone, they have decided to increase the price to simply make more money. No other factors have been revealed as to why the price has risen (i.e: Apple charging them more for the phones). Sure, Optus is a business and profit is their aim, but this is a total scumbag move. Changing pricing on something that they were already making plenty of money on (don't tell me the original handset repayments were being done at a loss), simply because something is in demand and you want to make maximum profit is nothing short of blatant profiteering.

Discuss this topic on the forums.

Perth & Hobart members of MacTalk decided to get a forum meet going in their respective cities, huzzah! Here are the details you need for the Perth meet:

When: Sunday, 14th September @ 12 noon
Where: South Perth Foreshore (Google Map for exact location)
What to Bring: It's BYO food & drink for the most part - MacTalk isn't putting up any cash for the meet due to being paupers for our new server.
Contact: jeremy_warnock



And the details for the Hobart meet:

When: Friday, September 12th @ 6 PM
Where: Ball & Chain Grill - Map - They may have an awful website, but I'm told they do a good steak.
What to Bring: Money for food and drinks as well as cameras!
Contact: ben.grubb[at]mactalk.com.au

Good evening and welcome to another edition of Meet the MacTalkers! This week we have the pleasure of hearing from forum members kenexx and yinyang. Thanks to both members for taking the time to complete the questions and give an insight into who they are.

MacTalk needs a new server, our current box is coping, but to ensure future reliability we have to invest. Unfortunately, we have nowhere near enough money to buy one that suits our needs. This is where you come in and help us out! Think of all the times we've helped you, then check out this thread for more details on our plans and info on how to help.

Discussion