BusinessWeek ran late yesterday an interesting article interviewing Phil Schiller about the App Store. While it’s good to see Schiller again talking publicly about the approvals process, it’s sad to see Apple still ignoring key issues.
Rumors about Apple’s still-unannounced but wildly anticipated tablet are flying like crazy at the moment, in a fashion not unfamiliar to the last few months before we finally got to see the iPhone. And, as Ed told you last week, content providers are making pronouncements about getting their stuff on the device, believed to be optimized for reading newspaper and magazines.
Conde-Nast and our old friends at Wired, in particular, are announcing that they’ll be on the Apple Tablet and have already developed a special multi-touch magazine format just dying to be present at launch. They’re so confident about this, in fact, that the holidays-only Wired Store in Manhattan features a concept mock-up of the tablet and its interface, which you can watch in the above video.
Some things to note:
Other than that, this is really fun to watch.
Maybe you’re a budding musician working at a nightclub and don’t know what to do with all the misplaced iPhones left behind. Or maybe you’re just brilliant and a wee bit inebriated.
Either way, we figure this is how you might be spending your time (uh, just don’t forget to activate “Airplane Mode” on ALL the phones). And unlike other hey,-watch-me-turn-a-phone-into-a-musical-instrument performances, this one doesn’t seem quite so much like a peek into Bizarro World.
Next up: Chef Ramsey hosts a Hell’s Kitchen episode where the only cooking utensils are iPhones.
“You know, if you saute scallops on a non-stick iPhone screen, they won’t stick. That’s why it’s called fucking non-stiiiiiiiick!”
Cover Up is a new $0.99 iPhone app that masks embarrassing bathroom noises with other bathroom sounds, like running water, a hand dryer or blow dryer.
Trying to mask the sound of a giant anal raspberry is like spraying deodorant to mask a pooey smell: it never really works. But it may be useful if you’re known to the person in the next stall.
More info at Coverup.me.
There’s nothing better than gazing up at the stars on a night out. For $3, Pocket Universe: Virtual Sky Astronomy, using sorta-augmented reality, lets the astronomically impaired among us impress our dates.
It’s not an easy time for Microsoft — with Steve Ballmer having to field questions about being “buffoons” and an “evil empire” at the shareholder’s meeting (.doc) — so when they get together “the world’s most influential technology pundits and online writers” (nb: we weren’t invited) for Mobius to discuss super-secret mobile tech you’d think they’d have a more sympathetic crowd.
If this pic posted by Jason Dunn over at Windows Phone Talk is any indication, most journalists, even the best and brightest from sites like Engadget and Slash Gear are Macs, at a non-scientific ratio of five to three.
Sorry guys. It looks like we’re mostly interested in covering you, not using you.
In a sign of the iPhone’s power to attract, China Unicom Friday said it expects to have 10 percent of the nation’s 3G users by 2012. The comments by an unnamed executive of the country’s second-largest wireless carrier to China Daily echo those made publicly earlier this week.
China Unicom Chairman Chang Xiaobing told reporters recently he expects the iPhone will be the best-selling smartphone in the country. China Unicom sales of iPhones coincided with the introduction of the carrier’s 3G network. Although much was made of China Unicom adding only 5,000 when the iPhone launched in late October, the carrier said the iconic smartphone boosted 3G subscribers to over 1 million in just one month.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer fielded heated questions from the software giant’s shareholders Thursday concerned about losing younger consumers to Apple. Responding to a question on how best to market to the “next generation” of computer users, Ballmer remarked that there “is a group of people with whom our market share is less.”
Although Apple CEO Steve Jobs was recently voted the “most admired entrepreneur” among the 12 to 17 year-old age group, Ballmer told the audience “it is important to remember that 96 times out of 100 worldwide, people choose a PC with Windows – that’s a good thing,” according to Seattle, Wash.-based TechFlash.
Hackers have bypassed Apple’s desire to remove support for Intel’s Atom processor from Mac OS X 10.6.2, allowing the increasingly popular netbooks to run Cupertino’s latest operating system. The complicated hack replaces the Mac OS X kernal, according to reports.
The low-powered Atom processor from Intel is often used by low-cost netbooks. Apple currently offers no hardware officially supporting the Atom chip.
The Pogoplug is a fantastic little gizmo that turns any USB hard drive into your own little cloud server accessible over the Internet. We gave it a very enthusiastic review.
Now the company behind the device has issued version 2 — updating both hardware and software — and it’s all about multimedia.
You know, even after all these years, Mozilla Firefox still isn’t great. The interface looks un-Mac-like, the performance is worse than on Windows, and it just feels like an after-thought. Fortunately for those who still have a lot of love for the Gecko rendering engine, the folks behind the Camino Project continue to do brilliant work on their independent Camino browser, the 2.0 release of which shipped yesterday.
I’ve been an avid Camino user since it was known as Chimera, and the new version has lots to offer, particularly in terms of stability, security, and one totally unique feature. Needless to say, it remains (in subjective experience) the fastest browser on the planet, and it’s finally caught up to Safari with annoyance blocking, malware/phishing protection, tab re-ordering and Keychain support. But the headline addition here is Tab Overview, a very cool idea that works like Exposé for your browser tabs. Basically, you just type CTRL-CMD-T, and you get a dynamically resizing window with snapshots of everything you have open. It’s quick and nearly flawless.
I want to use it steadily for a few days before I render a final verdict, but I might just be in love.
Here’s a guide for finding the best bargains on Apple-related gear during the infamous Black Friday sales on November 27. We’ve compiled a comprehensive list of gear from leaked photos of sales flyers and descriptions of sales.
The bargains include a 2.26 GHz MacBook + $150 gift card at Best Buy for $999.99 ; a 32GB iPod Touch + $30 Gift Card for $295.00 at Target; and a Sony Speaker Dock Clock Radio For iPod/iPhone for $79.99 at Office Depot.
We’ll continue to update this guide as more retailers announce their Black Friday offerings in the run up to the big day.
The repair and teardown experts at iFixit are releasing more than 240 repair guides for every Mac mini and most iMacs produced since 2004. The company is also now selling iMac repair parts, from hard drives and RAM to power supplies and disassembly tools.
“The repair manuals include in-depth disassembly guides, model identification tips, troubleshooting techniques, and upgrade information. The 241 new repair guides use 1,452 photos to clearly communicate each step of the repair. iFixit repair guides are well known for world-class photography and clear, concise step-by-step directions.”
Looking at Google’s Chrome OS demos today, I noticed a giant omission that bodes ill for its future: it’s not optimized for touchscreens.
Chrome looks like a nifty version of a desktop OS, like a version of OS X or Windows, that pulls a lot of data from the cloud. Yeah, it’s slick, thoughtful and forward thinking, at least in one sense: Cloud apps are clearly the future, so why not the OS also?
But it looks like a traditional WIMP OS (window, icon, menu, pointing device). Why isn’t Chrome optimized for finger controls? The future of computing is mobile devices; and the future of mobile devices is touchscreens. As far as I can tell, Google didn’t mention touch at all, and none of the press asked about it.
Google says the Chrome OS will be launched by this time next year, by which time Apple will probably have reinvented the mobile computing experience with a multitouch tablet.
Apple’s tablet will do for netbooks what the iPhone did for cell phones — make the competition look hopelessly antiquated, whatever OS they run. Google says the UI is still under development and is subject to change; they’ll have to change it radically if they want a chance of competing with Apple, which has already adapted Snow Leopard for touchscreens.
Like Steve Jobs says, quoting hockey player Wayne Gretzky, Google needs to be aiming for where the puck’s going to be, not where it’s at now.
By this time next week, millions of American’s mouths will be watering in anticipation of turkey, stuffing and cranberry sau…oh, heck with that. What’ll really get the salivation going is anticipation of Black Friday.
So don the battle armor, lace up and get ready for the most brutal shopping day of the year. Oh, and you’ll probably want to arm yourself with the following pair of razor-sharp iPhone shopping apps.
Black Friday Wish 1.0 lets you create a shopping list, then receive details downloaded to your iPhone/iPod Touch on the best deals that the app’s human-powered research team has found for the items on your list.
Then Mall Maps will guide you to all the dazzling bargains through its mall database, listing of what stores are in each mall, mall floor plans and use of the iPhone’s GPS to tell you what malls are nearby if you suddenly find yourself mall-less.
Black Friday is a buck, Mall Maps is $3. Probably no Black Friday deals on these two, though.
Apple’s iPod touch will play an even greater role within the Cupertino, Calif. company’s chain of retail stores. Along with dumping Pocket PC-based checkouts, the touch will now be seen more in the hands of employees working on the floor and in the stockroom, a report said Thursday.
The increased exposure comes as Apple readies distribution of three exclusive iPod touch applications designed to make life easier for Apple Store employees during the expected hectic holiday season, according to AppleInsider. One application will allow any employees to exchange iPhones or iPod while on the store floor, rather than only at a Genius Bar tech support area.
After losing an initial court request to pull Verizon’s “Map” commercials, AT&T has created its own ad and website claiming the carrier offers a better “3G experience” than its rival. The new ads and website featuring actor Luke Wilson tout “When you compare, there’s no comparison. AT&T.”
The website, TruthAbout3G.com, follows the denial by a federal judge of AT&T’s request that Verizon’s ads be yanked because they are ‘misleading.’ In Wednesday’s ruling from Atlanta, GA., U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Batten, Sr., wrote that some viewers might “misunderstand” the ads, “but that doesn’t mean they are misleading.”
There are iPhone-controlled cars and beds — now one company plans to integrate iPhones/iPods in its wheelchairs for a new kind of accessibility.
Dynamic Controls developed a system to connect an iPhone or iPod Touch to the wheelchair system via Bluetooth; it mounts on an adjustable arm and has a recharger, too.
In addition to music and all the other stuff you can do with an iPod/iPhone that might come in handy — compass reading, maps — it has an app that can be used for some controls on the chair, showing chair information in real time, including speed, and a diagnostics feature for when things go awry.
“We recognized the iPhone has revolutionized the way people communicate and saw the opportunity to develop this solution for wheelchair users, taking full advantage of Apple’s ‘Works with iPod / Made for iPhone’ developer program,” Charlotte Walshe, CEO of Dynamic Controls, said in a press release.
Lee Kwok, a wheel chair user in Christchurch, New Zealand was also quoted in the presser, saying says he thinks it will be fantastic to be able to buy an off-the-shelf product that has so many features for powered wheelchair users: “Having access to mainstream technology via a wheelchair is a huge advantage.”
The new feature is expected to launch in April, 2010.
Apple’s mythical tablet computer reportedly will be delayed because the Cupertino, Calif. company has added a second model with an OLED display, pushing an expected March 2010 launch date to later next year. The report by a Tiawan hardware news site cites anonymous Apple partners.
The company “has decided to switch some components and plans to launch a model using a 9.7-inch OLED panel from LG Display,” according to Digitimes. The OLED panel would be in addition to a 10.6-inch TFT LCD display. LG Display reportedly has a $500 million panel purchasing contract with Apple.
By now you’ve probably seen the viral clip for the Nude It app originally posted at whoisthebaldguy.com (if you haven’t, brush off that cave dust and watch it now).
The clip shows a mind-blowing iPhone app being used that employs augmented reality to de-clothe unwitting victims being viewed through the iPhone’s camera. Seems like great idea, judging by the 650,000-plus hits the clip has garnered in the five weeks it’s been up on YouTube.
Cult of Mac spoke briefly with the the clip’s creator, Michael Krivicka, a video editor living in NYC.
They’re calling it the first “iPhone reality show,” and it was likely inevitable; with TV saturated by the likes of The Apprentice and Biggest Loser, the genre of reality show had to find a new home somewhere.
So for one week, from December 6-12, Italian-based Command Guru will stream all the shenanigans that result when a bunch of iPhone app developers stop being polite and start getting real.
Contestants will assemble from all over the world with the goal of developing a free, open source social-networking iPhone app, from idea to final product at the iTunes App Store. The contest will also let developers from around the world can chime in at any time to help, which should prove interesting.
More pre-contest excitement can be found on the contest’s Twitter feed, where Command Guru says it’s giving away one iPhone 3GS per week till the contest begins.
From the press release:
“There are over 100,000 Apps and millions of users who do not have any idea of how they are developed,” said Alessio Zito Rossi, founder and CEO of Command Guru srl. “The stork doesn’t deliver iPhone Apps! We will show the world how they are really born – live and streaming!”
Gizmodo’s Brian Lam tested the new 27-inch Quad-Core i7 iMac and found it’s a beast. Geekbench benchmarks showed a 2x to 3x improvement over the Core 2 Duo model, but most impressive was a real world DVD ripping test, using Handbrake:
On the Core i7 iMac, it took 43 minutes to rip a DVD, Storm Riders, a surfing film from the ’70s featuring Gerry Lopez (my favorite) and others. On the Core 2 Duo machine, it took 147 minutes! I know this is basically a DVD read test coupled with decoding and video conversion, but the results have me excited because this is a real task that takes my computer a long time to do, performed by a program that hasn’t been revised in a year.
Benchmarked: The Quad-Core i7 iMac is Super Fast
Does your digital camera take extreme photographs? Ever wish you had a camera that could take more punishment than falling off a coffee table? Maybe Casio’s EX-G1 is the camera for you. Introduced Wednesday, the brightly-colored EX-G1 is more than just another flashy digital camera. Casio bills the EX-G1 as the world’s first waterproof and shockproof digital camera.
The EX-G1 is part of the company’s Exilim G line of “endurance” cameras aimed at athletic and adventuresome photographers. As such, the $300 EX-G1 is 0.78-inches thick and able to withstand drops from 7 feet. Casio also claims the camera can withstand being 10-feet underwater for up to a full hour.
Microsoft Wednesday introduced discounts for the Mac version of its flagship Office 2008. The offer reduces the price of the Home and Student Edition, Business Edition and Business Edition Upgrade between $20-$50.
The discounts are available through Jan. 5, 2010.
South Korea regulators have given iPhone sales a green light in this gadget-hungry Asian nation. The move by the Korea Communications Commission clears the way for the country’s second-largest carrier to offer service plans for the popular handset.
While recent interest has been focused on China, Apple has long wanted into the South Korean market, where young tech-saavy consumers might flock to the iconic cell phone. South Korea’s government, however, has had long-standing barriers to foreign competition with home-grown handset makers, such as Samsung and LG Electronics, the world’s second and third-largest cell phone makers. Reports say 93 percent of South Koreans subscribe to cell phone services.
