Bagmarkets Blog

February 27, 2010

bmsz Apple breaks App Store silence_627

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 5:14 pm

Gruber credited Apple with perhaps waking up to the reality that at some point, the App Store approval process went off the rails. “That Schiller was willing to respond in such detail and length, on the record, is the first proof I’ve seen that Apple’s leadership is trying to make the course correction that many of us see as necessary for the long-term success of the platform. The improvement I consider most important is a significant focus on fairness, consistency, and common sense in the App Store review process,” he wrote.

Perhaps now that the FCC is taking a closer look at the Google Voice debacle, Apple will now start to finally give developers and iPhone users some specific input on the criteria it uses to approve or deny iPhone applications. To this point, the process has been a black box, frustrating developers time and time again.

(Credit:James Martin/CNET)

But while the debate over Ninjawords will rage on, what’s perhaps most significant is that Apple has directly commented on its decision-making process regarding the approval or rejection of a specific iPhone application. As far as I can tell, Apple has never done this in the year-plus history of the App Store, with the notable exception of Baby Shaker. But even then, Apple didn’t explain the reasoning behind its decision to approve an application it eventually called “deeply offensive.”

The developer of Ninjawords isn’t exactly mollified by Apple’s reasoning. “Apple may slap a 17+ rating on our app and wash their hands, saying ‘you’re not required to censor your app’, but at the same time, they’re putting a great deal of pressure on us to do so. Who wants to be the only illicit dictionary on the App Store?” said Phil Crosby of Matchstick, which created the application. Crosby and Gruber noted that several other dictionaries in the App Store contain language that some may find objectionable yet are not required to carry the equivalent of an R movie rating.

Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.


Apple's Phil Schiller, seen here at Macworld in January, commented on the App Store approval process this week–a move that seems to be unprecedented.



Apple breaks App Store silence

In an extremely rare move, an Apple executive has publicly commented on the App Store approval process as it relates to a controversial dictionary application.

Ninjawords draws on Wiktionary.com for its definitions, Schiller said, which means it offers up a few more choice words than the folks at the Oxford English Dictionary have gotten around to including. “Apple rejected the initial submission of Ninjawords for this reason, provided the Ninjawords developer with information about some of the vulgar terms, and suggested to the developer that they resubmit the application for approval once parental controls were implemented on theiPhone,” Schiller told Gruber via e-mail.

Apple’s Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide marketing and last seen playing the role of Steve Jobs at Apple events this year, e-mailed John Gruber of Daring Fireball to comment on the approval process of Ninjawords, a dictionary application that was initially rejected from the App Store because it supplied the definition of several dirty words. Schiller blamed the snafu on poor timing, saying that Apple never directly censored the application but felt it deserved a 17+ rating, which wasn’t formally available as an option until parental controls were released along with the iPhone 3.0 software in June.

Qrqp Apple to ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard Aug. 28_2

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 5:13 pm

Apple made it clear from the beginning thatSnow Leopard was not as much about adding new features as it was about refining the code in the operating system.

Snow Leopard also supports Exchange Server 2007. This means that you can use Mac OS X Mail, Address Book and iCal out of the box with Exchange.

Apple had said at its Worldwide Developers Conference in June that Snow Leopard would go on sale in September, though more recently some tech blogs had been bandying about an August 28 date.

As for speed increases in Snow Leopard, Apple said that its Mail application loads messages twice as fast, Time Machine does its initial backup 80 percent faster, and the included 64-bit version ofSafari is up to 50 percent faster.



For instance, according to Apple, 90 percent of the Mac OS X code has been worked on for the Snow Leopard release. This isn’t just application code, it also includes working on the Finder, making it more responsive.

(Credit:Apple)

Apple says that Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is half the size of the previous operating system and frees up to 7GB of drive space once installed. No doubt this has to do with the refinements in the operating system, but Snow Leopard also only supports Macs with an Intel-based processors, not the older PowerPC processors.

Jim Dalrymple has followed Apple and the Mac industry for the last 15 years, first as part of MacCentral and then in various positions at Macworld. Jim also writes about the professional audio market, examining the best ways to record music using a Macintosh. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. He currently runs The Loop. You can follow him on Twitter @jdalrymple.


Mac OS X Snow Leopard will cost $29 as an upgrade for Leopard users. For Mac OS X Tiger users, the Mac Box Set, which includes Mac OS X Snow Leopard, iLife ‘09 and iWork ‘09, will cost $169.

Apple to ship Mac OS X Snow Leopard Aug. 28

Apple will ship its newest operating system to customers a little earlier than expected. The company said Monday that Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be available this Friday, August 28.

Noin Apple iPad Adds to Pressure on AT&T_2

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 5:12 pm

If Cupertino (Calif.)-based Apple (AAPL) has its way, iPad users will consume a lot of bandwidth-hogging media. The iPad lets users purchase and download books, movies, and other large files. Marketers may also find ways to deliver multimedia ads and other content wirelessly to the device. If the iPad is successful, "the volume of data would be the same the iPhone consumes plus another 50%," says Mike Manzo, chief marketing officer at Openet, a maker of software that helps carriers manage network traffic.



AT&T spent $21 billion improving its network between 2006 and September 2009, Ralph de la Vega, president of AT&T’s wireless division, told attendees of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in early January.

AT&T’s data-plan pricing may go part of the way toward alleviating network strains. Users who pay $29.99 a month can consume unlimited data. That plan "certainly could tax an already taxed network," says Gerard Hallaren, director of research at TownHall Investment. Those who opt for the cheaper plan may deliberately consume less data for fear of exceeding caps. Because they’ve spent less, they’ll also feel less obligated to use big allotments.

 


Apple iPad Adds to Pressure on AT&T

As Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs unveiled the tablet-style iPad computer Jan. 27, many of his pronouncements were greeted with cheers. In contrast, his revelation that AT&T (T) would be the exclusive U.S. provider of high-speed wireless connections for the Internet-capable device was met with audible sighs.

Network improvement plans by AT&T have met with Apple’s approval, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief operating officer, said during a Jan. 25 conference call. "We have personally reviewed these plans, and we have very high confidence that they will make significant progress toward fixing them," Cook said.

Not everyone who buys an iPad will use AT&T’s network. Three iPad models that work with AT&T’s 3G wireless-phone network will go on sale in April for $629 to $829, with an additional $14.99 or $29.99 a month for a service plan. In all, Apple may sell 3 million to 4 million iPads in the first year, and 8 million in 2011, says Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray (PJC) in Minneapolis. As few as one-quarter of new iPad purchasers will add a wireless data plan, predicts wireless-industry consultant Chetan Sharma.

The reaction reflects dismay with the performance of AT&T’s wireless network and concern that adding the iPad will only add to the strain. AT&T is the exclusive U.S. carrier of Apple’s iPhone, a device that already places heavy bandwidth demands on AT&T’s equipment. Even executives of the phone company concede the network isn’t up to snuff in New York and San Francisco. "Consumers may expect more from their iPad than the network can deliver at this point," says Shira Levine, an analyst with Infonetics, a telecommunications market research firm. "There’s potential for more consumer dissatisfaction."

AT&T to Spend $2 Billion on Upgrades

Only 25% of iPad Buyers May Get Data Plans

Now, AT&T will need to get the message across to users.

Many iPad users will instead access the Internet using Wi-Fi networks in homes and other locations, AT&T executives said on a Jan. 28 conference call discussing the company’s fourth-quarter results. Three iPad models will be Wi-Fi only. The iPad "will be used a substantial amount of time in a Wi-Fi environment," AT&T Chief Financial Officer Richard Lindner said on the call. While the iPad’s 1.5-pound frame makes it easy to carry from place to place, the device’s 9.7-inch screen makes it too big to fit into a pocket.

For those who opt for AT&T’s 3G service plans, the company says it’s working on upgrades designed to reduce the number of dropped calls and poor connections. AT&T will spend about $2 billion to improve its ability to deliver wireless calls, John Stankey, CEO of AT&T Operations, said during the Jan. 28 conference call. AT&T is adding twice as much capacity to its network in 2010 as it did last year, he said. The company is also adding 2,000 cell sites, which play a role in delivering wireless calls, and says it will extend 3G coverage by 400,000 square miles through the acquisition of certain wireless assets.

Abno Apple gets higher profile in HTML standardiza

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 5:06 pm

Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank.


The World Wide Web Consortium’s HTML Working Group had been led by IBM’s Sam Ruby and Microsoft’s Chris Wilson. Wilson has stepped down and is being replaced by two others, Paul Cotton, who manages Microsoft’s Web services standards team, and Maciej Stachowiak, who manages Apple’s WebKit WebApps team, according to an e-mail announcement by W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee.

Indeed, the two new co-chairs arrive during a crucial time. The W3C stopped developing HTML with version 4.01 in 1999, focusing instead on a very different standard called XHTML 2.0 that ultimately met its official demise in July. Browser makers, meanwhile, went their own way with a group called WHATWG, short for Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group.



The standardization process is complicated, though, with a complex back-and-forth between the standards group and browser makers trying new features on their own.

And Aaron Boodman, a programmer involved with Google’s Chrome browser, suggested on the HTML 5 mailing list, “I would like to propose that we get rid of the concepts of ‘versions’ altogether from HTML. In reality, nobody supports all of HTML 5…Instead of insisting that a particular version of HTML is a monolithic unit that must be implemented in its entirety, we could have each feature (or logical group of features) spun off into its own small spec.”

“Why three co-Chairs?” Berners-Lee asked in the note. “Clearly, there is a lot of work to do. Sam, Paul, and Maciej bring particular skills to the job (whether it is Maciej’s experience with WebKit or Paul’s with Working Group processes).”

Apple gets higher profile in HTML standardization

An Apple manager has become a co-chairman of the group standardizing HTML, giving the company a higher-profile role in a crucial time for development of the language used to build Web pages.

WHATWG’s work ultimately grew into HTML 5 as the W3C embraced HyperText Markup Language once again. It’s got a number of features to make the Web a better foundation not just for static Web pages but also for more interactive Web applications. For example, one Web storage lets Web-based applications store data on a computer, helping Web applications work even when a network connection isn’t available.

Meanwhile, Microsoft only began HTML 5 discussion in earnest earlier this month.

ibvv Apple unveils new tablet computer, the iPad_5

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 5:04 pm

Jobs, who appeared thin but healthy, said Apple was launching an online “iBookstore” for the iPad and touted its abilities as an electronic reader of books, newspapers and magazines.



“We are going to be able to bring all of the other great EA games for the iPhone from the App Store to this device in no time,” said Travis Boatman of EA’s mobile studios.

The iPad is “so much more intimate than a laptop and so much more capable than a smartphone,” he said.

“Amazon has done a great job of pioneering this functionality with the Kindle,” Jobs said. “We are going to stand on their shoulders.”

The New York Times, Time magazine and National Geographic were among the partners whose content was displayed on the iPad on Wednesday.

He showed off various iPad features which include browsing the Web, checking email, working with spreadsheets and charts, playing videogames, listening to music or watching video.

“I think it’s a home run,” said Gartner analyst Van Baker. “It becomes a viable alternative to a netbook and I get the 140,000 applications in the App Store. It is a pretty compelling value.”

Gameloft and Electronic Arts showed off slick games they had crafted with just a few weeks of preparation, saying the iPad opens countless “new doors.”

Dressed in his trademark blue jeans, black turtleneck and sneakers, Jobs walked around the stage and sat on a couch at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater as he unveiled the hotly anticipated gadget.

“I have a hard time believing after seeing this that folks are going to want an e-reader that just does plain text and doesn’t do format or colour,” he said.

“Do we have what it takes to establish a third category of products in between a laptop and a smartphone?” he asked. “We think we’ve done it.”

Apple said it would start shipping the Wi-Fi version of the iPad, which has a virtual keyboard but can also dock with an external keyboard, in late March.

Apple simultaneously released a kit for software developers to tailor applications for the iPad.

He said it has about 10 hours of battery life.

Apple unveils new tablet computer, the iPad
GLENN CHAPMAN January 28, 2010

Apple chief executive Steve Jobs revealed the culture-changing company’s latest must-have device, a touchscreen tablet computer anointed the “iPad.”

“If you are thinking about buying a Kindle, you are probably reconsidering that decision. If you are a developer, you have one more reason to develop applications for Apple,” said Interpret analyst Michael Gartenberg.

Besides serving as an e-reader, the iPad runs almost all of the applications available through the Apple App Store for the iPod and iPhone.

“We want to make something that combines the best of print and the best of digital,” Times digital operations vice president Martin Nisenholtz said as he showed off an early version of an app for the device. “We are incredibly psyched to pioneer the next stage in digital journalism.”

Apple shares gained 0.94 percent to close at 207.88 US dollars on Wall Street, but slipped a tad in after-hours electronic trading.


Jobs said he expected the device to carve out a place between the laptop computer and the smartphone.

The long-awaited iPad has a 9.7-inch (24.6-centimeter) colour screen and resembles an oversized iPhone. It is 0.5 inches (1.3 cms) thick, weighs 1.5 pounds (0.7 kgs) and comes with 16, 32, or 64 gigabytes of flash memory.

The 3G version will reach the market in late April. The iPad is “unlocked,” meaning buyers can pick preferred telecom service providers.

Some technology analysts believe the iPad will render other e-readers obsolete, while a number of publishers are counting on it to sell digital versions of their publications.

“You can have black-and-white, colour, video in your books — whatever the author wants,” he said. “We think the iPad is going to make a terrific e-book reader, not just for popular books but for textbooks as well.

The cheapest iPad model, with Wi-Fi connectivity and 16GB of memory, is 499 US dollars while the most expensive — which includes 3G connectivity and 64GB of memory — costs 829 US dollars.

“We want to kick off 2010 by introducing a truly magical and revolutionary product,” said Jobs, who underwent a liver transplant last year and was making just his second public appearance since September.

Jobs said the iPad has support from five big publishers and Apple will “open the floodgates for the rest of the publishers starting this afternoon.”

Enderle believed iPads could also pose a threat to hand-held gaming systems and eventually videogame consoles.

Analyst Rob Enderle of Silicon Valley’s Enderle Group said the iPad could be “disruptive for a lot of markets.”

4xvu Another strong earthquake hits Haiti_417

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — admin @ 4:59 pm

Port-au-Prince was hit on Wednesday by a strong earthquake measuring 6.1 on the moment magnitude scale, eight days after the Haiti capital was razed by a 7.0 quake.



The US Geological Survey initially measured Wednesday’s quake at 6.0.

AFP reporters in the city said there was no immediate sign of damage or casualties, but a crashing sound could be heard suggested that an already damaged building may have collapsed.

The quake struck 59km west of the capital Port-au-Prince, according to the US Geological Survey.

Residents reported a low vibration followed by a brief but more powerful rumbling shake at 6.03am (2203 AEDT).

Another strong earthquake hits Haiti
January 20, 2010

AP

It followed the much more powerful quake on January 12 that is thought to have killed 100,000 to 200,000 people.


In nearby Petionville AFP staff said the quake was felt for around 10 seconds.

It struck at a depth of 9.9km, it said.

Jlvl AOL Looks to Slash Staff by a Third_79

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: — admin @ 4:58 pm



AOL’s online ad market share in the U.S. has fallen from 8.2 percent at the beginning of 2005 to 4.4 percent in this year’s third quarter, according to IDC.

In addition, CEO Tim Armstrong has decided he will not accept his bonus this year.

Pay for What You Get

Related articles

Google #1 in Search Engine Satisfaction, AOL in Last Place

Miami - AOL, which will be spun off from parent company Time Warner next month, wants to cut its staff by about a third, and is giving employees a chance to volunteer to join the ranks of the unemployed.

AOL Hard at Work on "Content Platform"

AOL’s subscription revenue dropped 29 percent in the third quarter.

IDC: Worldwide Online Ad Spending Drops Slightly in Q3

AOL Is a Real Steal at a Mere $4.2 Billion

"We will need to do an involuntary layoff if we do not reach the target numbers through the voluntary option. We believe the voluntary program gives people more choice and decision-making ability instead of waiting for the final cost recommendations and involuntary layoffs," AOL spokeswoman Tricia Primrose said via e-mail on Thursday.

 


AOL Looks to Slash Staff by a Third

By Juan Carlos Perez

AOL’s revenue dropped 23 percent year-on-year to $777 million in the third quarter, ended Sept. 30. Of particular concern is that advertising revenue fell 18 percent, since AOL is on a years-long transformation from a subscription-fee based model to an ad-supported model. By contrast, global ad revenue fell only 1 percent in the third quarter, according to IDC.

AOL has announced a "voluntary layoff program" that will run between Dec. 4 and Dec. 11 and that seeks up to 2,500 employees willing to resign. The company’s current headcount is about 6,900.

Last month at a conference in San Francisco, Armstrong said AOL is building "a large platform around content and monetizing that content" that represents a strategic shift for the company. To support this new strategy, AOL has in the past six months grown its staff of journalists from 500 to 3,000, he said.

Csty Animoto’s slideshow tool gets video support_1

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 4:56 pm



To help make the time limitations a little more feasible, Animoto has a built-in clip editor that lets users choose the 1 to 10 seconds they want to use from an uploaded video. Users just pick the start point, and how long they want it to run, and Animoto’s servers do the rest. You can also choose to cut out the sound, as well as duplicate any clip. Doing this several times over lets users string together a series of segments from a larger clip to go beyond the time limitations.

Animoto's slideshow tool gets video support

Music video slideshow tool Animoto is venturing into new territory Tuesday night with an upgraded tool that supports video clips. Alongside photos, users can now upload videos up to 200MB in size, including segments that are in high definition. These exist seamlessly beside the photo content, and get the same Animoto treatment with transparency effects, reflections, and other eye candy.

Venturing into the realm of video editing is definitely an interesting move by Animoto. In a chat with me last week, CEO Brad Jefferson insisted that the tool was not headed in a direction that would let users control specific times on how long certain pictures were presented, or tweak things like total clip length–two things that are determined by how many photos (and now videos) users decide to use. “I don’t like the idea of moving back to the timeline,” Jefferson said. “The music is always going to determine how long (the video) is. We’ve always been about a really simple paradigm that doesn’t get people thinking from a tool level.”

Another caveat–and it’s a big one, is that you can only use 5 or 10 seconds of a video at a time, in clip form. This limitation is by design, and serves a few purposes. One is to keep a slideshow from getting muddled down in long clips, while keeping rendering times down on Animoto’s side. It also acts as an incentive to upgrade to Animoto’s paid service, which bumps the possible clip size from 5 to 10 seconds.

Unlike the way Animoto handles importing photos from third party sites like Flickr, Facebook, and SmugMug, the same cannot be said for videos. If you want it to grab a video you’ve already uploaded somewhere else you need to track down the source file and re-upload it.

Josh Lowensohn writes for Webware.com, CNET’s blog about Web applications and services. E-mail Josh, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/Josh.


That’s not to say Jefferson isn’t smitten with simpler ways for people to edit their videos before they’re uploaded. Especially on the newiPhone, which lets users shoot a video, trim it, then send it in an e-mail, or places like YouTube. For now there isn’t a way for users to send those clips to Animoto without first heading to their computers to download the file off the phone, but Jefferson envisions a future update that will take the computer out of the equation entirely.

Fywn Ancestry.com files for IPO_711

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 4:50 pm

Clarification, Wednesday 5:07 a.m. PDT:The headline on this story has been changed from the original to avoid confusion.

Ancestry.com’s foray into the public arena comes at a time when funding from venture capitalists to start-ups and IPOs is down. The company is hoping its past growth and success will help it buck the trend.

Lance Whitney wears a few different technology hats–journalist, Web developer, and software trainer. He’s a contributing editor for Microsoft TechNet Magazine and writes for other computer publications and Web sites. You can follow Lance on Twitter at @lancewhit. Lance is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and he is not an employee of CNET.


Ancestry.com is run by a firm previously known as The Generations Network, which changed its own name in early July to Ancestry.com to capitalize on the brand name. The majority of the company is owned by Spectrum Equity Investors, a communications business that paid around $300 million in 2007 for a 67 percent stake. Underwriters for the IPO are Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

With almost 1 million customers, Ancestry.com relies on paying subscribers rather than advertising to bring in the cash.

Profits have risen steadily over the past couple of years. For the first six months of 2009, Ancestry.com took in earnings of $8.18 million on sales of $99.9 million, according to its SEC filing. Those results compare with earnings of $1.24 million on sales of $87.4 million for the first six months of 2008.



As a genealogy site, Ancestry.com enables people to research their family history to find out who their ancestors were and how their family tree blossomed. The company started life in 1983 as a book publisher and then jumped online in 1997.

Ancestry.com files for IPO

Popular genealogy site Ancestry.com is going public, hoping to raise around $75 million, according to its SEC filing for an initial public offering submitted Monday.

Cofy AmEx Presale Tickets for AMERICAN IDIOT Now A

Filed under: Uncategorized — admin @ 4:49 pm 

AmEx Presale Tickets for AMERICAN IDIOT Now Available

Related Links Full Cast Announced for AMERICAN IDIOT; Cast to Appear on Grammy Awards STAGE TUBE: A Look Back at the Berkeley Rep Production of AMERICAN IDIOT AMERICAN IDIOT Moves To Broadway; Opens at St. James Theatre April 20, 2010 Cast of AMERICAN IDIOT Featured On Green Day’s New Version of Their Single ‘21 Guns’

Purchase TicketsAmerican Idiot On BWW.TV

The limited engagement of AMERICAN IDIOT at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre began previews on September 4, 2009, opened on September 16, 2009, extended twice and played its final performance on Sunday, November 15, 2009. AMERICAN IDIOT’s record breaking run brought in the biggest advance sale in the Theatre’s 41-year history, the biggest day at the box office, 17 of the top 20 days ever and due to ticket demand had to announce the first extension before it had played its first performance.

Based on the Reprise Records Grammy® Award-winning album of the same name, AMERICAN IDIOT features the music of Green Day and the lyrics of its lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong. The show is directed by Tony Award-winning director Michael Mayer (Spring Awakening), who also collaborated with Armstrong on the book, and choreographed by Olivier Award-winning Steven Hoggett (Blackwatch). The Tony-winning composer Tom Kitt (Next to Normal) is the music supervisor, orchestrator and music arranger. In addition, Kitt also provided string arrangements for Green Day’s latest album 21st Century Breakdown.

Tickets for the Broadway run of AMERICAN IDIOT are now available exclusively to American Express card holders. Tickets will go on sale to the general public on February 14th. AMERICAN IDIOT will begin previews on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 and open on Broadway Tuesday, April 20, 2010 at the ST. James Theatre.

The cast of AMERICAN IDIOT collaborated with Green Day to record a new version of the hit single “21 Guns.” Produced by the band’s singer and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, the track was released by Reprise Records on December 22, 2009 for purchase through all digital retailers. “21 Guns” is the second single from Green Day’s gold album 21st Century Breakdown. The digital version of the track has gone platinum, selling more than one million downloads, earned 2010 Grammy® Nominations for “Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals” and “Best Rock Song”, while the video won three 2009 MTV Video Music Awards in September, including “Best Rock Video.”

Michael Mayer comments, “Green Day’s iconic album is one of the most brutally honest, eloquent, and poetically theatrical responses to the post 9/11 world that I have encountered. I hear in these amazing songs the frustration and anger and dreams of a lost generation of Americans. Collaborating with Billie Joe and the band has been a mind-blowing thrill from day one.”

The show features scenic design by Tony-nominee Christine Jones (Spring Awakening), costume design by Baryshnikov fellow Andrea Lauer (The Butcher of Baraboo), lighting design by two-time Tony-winner Kevin Adams (Hair), Sound design by Obie Award-winner Brian Ronan (Cabaret), as well as video design by Darrel Maloney.

AMERICAN IDIOT will be produced on Broadway in association with Berkeley Repertory Theatre.For more information, visit www.AmericanIdiotOnBroadway.com.

AMERICAN IDIOT follows working-class characters from the suburbs to the city to the Middle East, as they seek redemption in a world filled with frustration - an exhilarating journey borne along by Green Day’s electrifying songs. This high-octane show includes every song from the album, as well as several new songs from 21st Century Breakdown. Green Day won two Grammys ®- Best Rock Album and Record of the Year - for its multi-platinum American Idiot, which sold more than 12 million copies worldwide. Now the band brings this explosive album to the stage with the director of Spring Awakening, which won eight Tony Awards in 2007.


“American Idiot is that rare and tricky creature, a true rock opera,” says Charles Isherwood of The New York Times. “Directed with polish and precision by Michael Mayer, American Idiot has its own voice: bitter and melancholy, attuned to an era more doubting than hopeful. Perhaps most strongly - and promisingly? - the show’s story of young men on a confused search for themselves during a time of changing social mores and foreign wars recalls Hair, the musical about the make-love-not-war generation. (Both musicals also do most of their storytelling in song.) Mournful as it is about the prospects of 21st-century Americans, the show possesses a stimulating energy and a vision of wasted youth that holds us in its grip.”

“Experiencing American Idiot on stage in Berkeley was incredible,” says Billie Joe Armstrong. “We have really enjoyed working with Michael, Steven, Tom and the cast. The energy and chemistry of the group is contagious. Michael Mayer was able to bring life to the characters of American Idiot and Tom Kitt’s musical arrangements are breathtaking. We’re so proud that the show is coming to Broadway!”

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