iPhone NEWS & RUMORS

2009-11-26T15:14:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone..
What's going on..i'm hit me up on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/farisb?ref=name

2009-11-26T15:08:00.000-05:00

I'm Back

2009-11-26T14:43:00.004-05:00

Hey Everyone, i'm back.
I am going to start slowly by looking at some apps and providing some reviews.
We will go from there.

2008-10-06T10:07:00.000-04:00

Back to my Mac through iChat

2008-01-28T12:43:00.000-05:00

Back to my Mac through iChat

http://allforces.com/?p=316&akst_action=share-this

2008-01-27T10:32:00.001-05:00

iPhone Magic read and enjoy!

2008-01-27T00:28:00.000-05:00

I’m an owner of an iPhone and I’m happy every time someone asks me to show it off to them. It amazes me that even after all this time, the iPhone still gets so much attention when I use it. I’ll put it through its paces and smile when I hear the oohs and ahhs. Even though people know about the iPhone, for one reason or another they just haven’t seen one up close nor held one in their hands and tried it out for themselves.

And now that Apple released the latest 1.1.3 version of the iPhone’s operating system, there’s even more to show off such as the pseudo GPS ability in the Google Maps application. However, I’ve recently been using something that brings a whole new meaning to showing off the iPhone.

The reactions I’m getting to the software products from Hottrix are like nothing I’ve seen before. Basically, Hottrix has produced a series of videos that run on the iPhone and other mobile devices, but they aren’t perceived to be videos by the people watching them. Before I go any further, let me dispel any concerns about what Hottrix is offering. These are not applications that could void your iPhone’s warranty. Nor are they Web applications that require you to go online to run them. They are simply mpeg4 videos, which run just like any other video you’d run on your iPhone.

You download them and use iTunes to install the videos into the iPhone’s iPod Video library as you would any other. But these videos have been designed to fool you into thinking that you are actually looking at the iPhone’s home screen. But in fact, they are a running video of the home screen. And depending on the Hottrix video you are running, some very bizarre things are going to happen.

My favorite one so far is actually Hottrix’s latest. It’s titled iGoldfish, and here’s how I set it up. I’ll be using my iPhone or showing it off when I surreptitiously run the iGoldfish video. I happen to mention that just the other day, I dropped my iPhone and it fell into the water. After the horrified looks appear, I smile and say not to worry and that I’ve discovered that while the iPhone really isn’t waterproof, it still continues to work just fine. The only problem I’ve noticed is that whenever I tap on the glass a few times (I begin to tap on the iPhone’s glass that’s displaying the home screen), something begins to happen that didn’t happen before I dropped it into the water.

At that very moment, you begin to hear bubbling noises and a really large goldfish swims in from the edge of the display in front of the home screen image. This is not a cartoon goldfish but the video of a real goldfish! Jaws drop. I nonchalantly continue to explain that I’ve decided to keep her in my iPhone and have named her “Goldie.” I then position my pinched fingers at the top of the iPhone and pretend to drop a bit of food for her. Of course I’ve timed the video just as a bit of food appears at the top of the screen and floats down in front of Goldie where she eats it with a loud, audible crunch. Goldie then swims off to the left and you still hear the bubble noises. The observers go wild and say things tantamount to “Oh my god, I’ve never seen anything like that!” And that’s just one of the videos you can get.

My favorites include iBeer, iMilk, iWater and iChampagne. With these, you again begin by showing the iPhone home screen. I say there’s a hidden switch I can press whenever I’m thirsty. Pressing it makes the home screen vanish and you see and hear the iPhone fill up with the beverage of choice. You shake it a bit and then hold the upper right corner to your mouth and begin drinking. As you tip the iPhone further back, the beverage looks as if it is pouring out into your mouth. For Halloween and Goths, a blood version is also available. Just a little practice and you’ll have them eating out of your hand with this one.

And speaking of eating out of your hand, there’s iMunchies. Shake your iPhone and it begins popping popcorn. With this video, you stick your index finger and thumb behind the iPhone and it looks like your finger is reaching in and grabbing a kernel. Pop it into your mouth, swallow and then pour the rest of them into your cupped hand with crunching sound effects included. Eat with gusto.

Hottrix offers a variety of other videos for the iPhone and other mobile devices such as a video that makes it look like you’re getting an important call from work complete with a frantic voice screaming something inaudible. It’s perfect when you need an excuse to make your escape from someone.

As I said, the iPhone is a lot of fun when you’re using it seriously and just playing with it. But now there’s more to playing on your iPhone than just playing games. With the offerings coming from Hottrix, your fun is just getting started. These are a real blast, and you’re going to want them all. Prices range from $1.99 to $2.99 per video.

Visit the Web site at www.hottrix.com.

iPhone and iMac get to watch TV

2008-01-25T16:48:00.000-05:00

Today equinux entered the TV receiver market for Mac OS X in the United States. equinux' TubeStick hybrid offers more flexibility to enjoy your favorite TV shows on your Mac, iPhone or iPod. The newly announced USB TV receiver allows you to watch, pause and record live television on your Mac in HD quality. And with The Tube software that comes with TubeStick hybrid, users can even chat with other viewers during each TV show. With the new TubeToGo web services you can schedule, manage, publish and watch TV recordings via iPhone or iPod touch on the go.

"We're really excited to introduce TubeStick hybrid today. Nearly ten months after we started to reinvent digital television on the Mac with our The Tube software, we're more than happy to provide our solution to US customers as well", says equinux CEO Till Schadde. "With TubeToGo we introduced another thrilling add-on, that brings your TV recordings directly to your iPhone or iPod touch."

TubeStick hybrid - Always Ready for Reception

TubeStick hybrid has two built-in receivers, enabling you to watch free-to-air digital HDTV (ATSC) as well as digital (QAM) and analog (NTSC) cable television. In areas with ATSC, reception can be picked up by the antenna, in HD quality. The TubeStick hybrid has a white, minimalist design and is one of the smallest devices in its class. It comes with a white compact antenna and a break-out cable, that allows users to connect to their camcorders, analog video recorders and game consoles using S-Video or Composite. TubeStick hybrid is designed to fit perfectly in the USB port of MacBooks and MacBook Pros, without blocking other necessary plugs.

Watch, Chat, Record, and Go with The Tube

TubeStick hybrid includes The Tube 2, equinux' latest edition of its TV solution for Mac users. The Tube is the latest TV software for Mac OS X, that allows you to watch, pause and record your favorite TV shows on your Mac. You can even chat with other TV viewers, while watching a TV program, using the TubeTalk feature. The Tube provides you with manual and automatic Timeshift and lets you rewind the current program to record it from start with its Déjà Vu functionality. With The Tube you can schedule recordings of your favorite TV shows, manage them in a library and sort them by name or by date. The Tube supports Mac OS X's Spotlight to search for recordings and displays a QuickLook preview when showing them in Finder for Mac OS X 10.5.

Remotely Manage and Access your Favorite Recordings

Today equinux also introduced TubeToGo, an optional web-based service that allows you to remotely schedule, manage and watch your recordings with your iPhone or iPod on the go. TubeToGo lets you remotely schedule recordings via a web-based iPhone application, and publish your recordings library on .Mac or to a remote FTP server and watch it via WiFi connection on your iPhone or iPod touch. You can also setup The Tube to automatically create Video Podcasts to watch your favorite shows on the go, even when you're offline.

Price and Availability
TubeStick hybrid will be available, starting in February at your local Apple reseller, from Amazon or the equinux Online Store for only $129.95. TubeStick hybrid is exclusively designed for the US market. TubeStick hybrid is shipped with the latest edition of The Tube and a one month trail for TubeToGo web service. TubeToGo will also be available from February on a subscription basis.

About equinux
equinux (www.equinux.com), located in San Mateo, CA (USA) and headquartered in Munich, Germany, develops and distributes successful Mac solutions for professionals and consumers alike. Today users from all over the world rely on equinux' award-winning and trusted applications. The business solution VPN Tracker is the market-leading VPN client for the Mac OS X Platform. iSale, equinux' successful eBay auctioning solution won several Apple Design Awards, and currently represents the 2006 winner in the most competitive category "Best Mac OS X User Experience".
All product and company names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.
Copyright © 2008 equinux AG. All rights reserved
equinux – Technology for my life.

iPhone sync with multipule computers.

2008-01-25T16:43:00.000-05:00

Editor’s Note: The following article is an adapted excerpt from the recently-published Take Control of Your iPhone, a $15 electronic book available for download from TidBits Publishing. The 195-page ebook helps readers understand what’s going on under the hood of the iPhone, with lots of tips for using the iPhone more effectively and an emphasis on troubleshooting assistance for solving problems related to activating, syncing, application crashes, iPhone freezes, handset security, and more.

Although you can certainly sync multiple iPhones to a single computer, the reverse of that—syncing one iPhone to multiple computers, isn’t generally recommended by Apple.

Should you decide to ignore Apple’s advice and connect your iPhone to a secondary computer, don’t worry. Nothing is selected for syncing by default. That is, no contacts, calendars, music, video, or any other data will be selected in iTunes, so there will be no automatic syncing and no potential loss of data on either your iPhone or the computer.

If you click the Sync button, however, an initial sync does occur. Unlike with most iPods, no warning advises against this. Happily, it is still the case that no data are lost on either the iPhone or the secondary computer. All that happens is that an iPhone Backup file is created.

However, if you enable any of the checkboxes in the Info, Music, Photos, Podcasts, or Video tabs, the Apply button appears. If you click Apply, you do typically get a warning message. The exact content of the message, and what will happen if a sync occurs, varies depending upon what you selected. [Note: Although there are minor differences in the user interfaces, the iPhone and the iPod touch behave very similarly here.]

Music, video, and podcasts
If you enable syncing of music or video content (assuming you have previously synced music or video to your iPhone via the first computer), you get a message similar to the one in Figure 1.

Figure 1. This message appears when you set iTunes to sync music or video on a secondary computer (that is, a computer that isn’t the one you sync with normally).

If you continue with the sync, it will erase all the iTunes-specific content on your iPhone, replacing it with the content from the secondary computer, but leaving photos and info content (contacts, calendars, Mail accounts, and bookmarks) intact, despite the use of the word “erase” in the message. Any settings changes you made on the iPhone should remain intact as well.

If your iPhone contains songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store and you connect to a secondary computer that is authorized to play music from your account, the message in Figure 1 includes an additional button to “Transfer Purchases.” See this Apple article for details.

Oddly, at least on recent iterations of the iPhone software, the above warning message does not appear when you attempt to sync podcasts from the secondary computer—even though podcasts are also part of an iTunes library. Instead, either no message appears or a message appears that states that only podcasts will be affected by your sync. In either case, if you go ahead and sync, you’ll get the same result: the newly selected podcast(s) replace the podcasts currently on your iPhone—while the music and video media on your iPhone remain unchanged and intact. I am not sure why podcasts are an exception here, but they are.

Photos
If you enable photo syncing on the secondary computer, you get a message like the one in Figure 2. If you go ahead with the sync, all photos on the iPhone will be replaced, but all non-photo content should remain untouched.

Figure 2. This message appears when you set iTunes to sync photos on a computer different from the one with which you normally sync.

Contacts, calendar events, Mail accounts, and bookmarks
If you tell iTunes to sync any of these types of data and click Apply, you get a message like the one shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. This message appears when you set iTunes to sync iPhone’s contacts on a computer different from the one with which you normally sync.

In this special case, you can choose to merge information between the iPhone and the second computer rather than overwrite the synced data on the iPhone. The merged data, now on your iPhone, would then sync back to your main computer the next time you sync with it. Thus, this allows you to combine all the types of information managed on the Info tab (contacts, calendar events, Mail accounts, and bookmarks) in multiple computers.

Merging of Info data is the one case where syncing with a second computer can be useful. You can use the iPhone as a means of merging two sets of data from separate computers.

In all other cases, syncing an iPhone with a second computer results in data from the second computer overwriting similar data from the first computer, which is not typically what you want. However, if you had an unusual setup where you wanted, for example, to sync your iPhone to one computer for photos and to another for music, syncing to both computers could accomplish this. To do so, sync photos but not music on one computer, and vice versa on the second. Keep all other settings and content synced with just the first computer.

Sync to More Than One iTunes Library
How would you like to be able to sync music, video, and pod-casts from a second computer to your iPhone, without erasing the content from the first computer that is already on your iPhone? It can be done, but only if you have a "jailbroken" (hacked) iPhone. If so, install SwapTunes via the Installer application on your iPhone.

The only other option is to manually combine the content from multiple computers into a single iTunes Library, on one computer, with which you sync your iPhone.

iPhones Missing in Action

2008-01-25T15:14:00.000-05:00

The disappointments on the iPhone front started early for Apple, as TheStreet.com first reported in July. Apple failed to sell out the 1 million iPhones it had supplied on the weekend of the product's debut. The goal was an internal target, say people familiar with the plan.

But Apple didn't exactly blow the number out of the water when reported that it sold 270,000 iPhones in its fiscal third quarter. That total was seen as a letdown to analysts, who had predicted sales of between 200,000 and 700,000 for iPhone's debut quarter.

In the most recent quarter, the gap between what Apple sold and what the telcos activated grew even wider.

As RealMoney columnist Tero Kuittinen points out, Apple says it shipped 2.3 million iPhones and AT&T says it activated 900,000 new iPhone subscribers for the same period.

Tech investors are pondering a bit of a mystery: Apple's (AAPL - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) missing iPhones.

By some analysts' estimates, there are 1.4 million iPhones unaccounted for. That is roughly the gap between the nearly 4 million iPhones Apple says it has sold, and the number of iPhone activations by AT&T (T - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) and Apple's European telco partners.

The discrepancy comes amid concerns that Apple's white-hot growth phase has fizzled following what was viewed as disappointing guidance from the company this week. The news also reignites fears that the hugely hyped iPhone may not be quite as popular as first estimated.

Analysts at Sanford Bernstein estimate that Apple has shipped 3.75 million iPhones in total, while telcos have activated about 2.35 million phones. The total unactivated unlocked phones might account for 20% of the difference, leaving 670,000 unaccounted for, says Bernstein.

If the estimates are true, Apple is facing a growing pile of unsold iPhones. The company did not provide an immediate comment.

One of the problems for the iPhone sales is that the current model is a slower 2.5 generation technology, and a faster 3G iPhone will be unveiled in early summer. Another damper on demand, say observers, is AT&T. Consumers have strong feelings about the quality of wireless network coverage, and AT&T has not swept any quality awards on this front.

iPhone vs. Nokia E70 ..read and enjoy!

2008-01-25T09:57:00.000-05:00

Please check out the link below, it might be the funniest thing I have seen.
This link provides a review of the iPhone as well as comparisons to a Nokia E70.

I was at work when I read this and could not stop laughing.

http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone

iPhone aka iGutiar

2008-01-25T09:50:00.000-05:00

iPhone Guitar Hero - Watch more free videos

iPhone jailbreak 1.1.3

2008-01-25T09:30:00.000-05:00

Members of the iPhone Dev Team (publicity shy, natch) say they have figured out a “jailbreak” for the recently 1.13 iPhone upgrade.

Publicity shy? Yea. We are talking aboutjailbreak team user names such as netkas, NerveGas, asap18, bgm, Bugout, bushing, chris_, dinopio, drudge, Fred_, gray, MuscleNerd, natetrue, pr3d4t0r, roxfan, Turbo, Zf[strike], np101137, pumpkin, and kroo.

(MuscleNerd. Hah!)

I certainly do not endorse performing the steps I am about to cite. However, it does appear that doing this will quite likely release your iPhone’s heretofore mortal lock with AT&T Mobility.

That said, those folks bound and determined to jailbreak their 1.13-powered iPhone via Windows would perform the following steps:

Start with a 1.1.1 or 1.1.2 jailbroken phone with Installer.app installed.
Plug in your phone via USB to your computer. Download, extract, and run iBrickr Special 1.1.3 jailbreak edition (ibrickr.exe in the archive).
iBrickr will determine what firmware you are running on your phone and make sure you can run the update.
iBrickr will then guide you through the process of obtaining and modifying the 1.1.3 firmware (make sure to read everything thoroughly).
iBrickr will upload the new firmware image to your phone. Note that this only puts the file on your phone and does not modify it at all, yet.
When iBrickr finishes (should take about 10 minutes), it will tell you to go to Installer and install the “1.1.3 soft upgrade” package. Do that.
When the installer finishes (this should take another 10-15 minutes), your phone should reboot with a fresh activated 1.1.3 firmware.
Like I said I can’t suggest you try this. I only wanted to tell you how those thrillseekers who are trying the latest iPhone unbrick are doing it.

Wonder how long until the antidote comes down from Cupertino…

iPhone Webclip for your Website

2008-01-24T15:03:00.000-05:00

If you've already downloaded the latest iPhone 1.1.3 software update, then you know you can bookmark your favorite sites on your iPhone/iPod Touch's home screen. Unfortunately, since this is a still a new feature, most site owners are not sure how to create those glossy web clips that appear when you bookmark a site on the iPhone's homepage. Lucky for you, I came across Apple's iPhone Dev Center where they've posted step-by-step instructions on how to do this. Those familiar with favicons should have no problem creating an iPhone web clip, since the process is very similar.
If you're a site owner, I recommend you take a few minutes to create a web clip for your site. It's extremely easy to do, and your visitors will love your for it. Here's how to get started:
Open your image editing program, such as Photoshop, and create an image that's 57 x 57 pixels. Safari will crop larger images, so you can create one slightly larger if you want.
Save the icon in your computer as an 8-bit PNG file, and name it "apple-touch-icon.png."
Upload the image to your site's root directory, just like you would save a favicon image.
Now open up your site on your iPhone/iPod Touch, tap the plus sign at the bottom of the screen, and select 'Add to Home Screen.' Rename site if necessary.
Hit the home button, and admire your new shiny icon.
You can also reorganize and delete icons on your home screen by:
Clicking and holding one of the icons until they start to wiggle
To move icons, hold and drag them to the desired position
To delete an icon, simply tap the "X" next to each icon
Click the home button when you're satisfied

Delicious and Digg Test

2008-01-24T13:01:00.000-05:00

Test

iPhone remote for your iMac

2008-01-24T12:20:00.000-05:00

There is this super scary web based applicaiton that lets you control every aspect of your computer.

It's called Remote Buddy http://www.iospirit.com/index.php?&sid=5406295Gda4f2adf882fb9be

Download and tell me your impressions.

iPhone Rumors

2008-01-24T12:11:00.000-05:00

I head fourth hand that there will be a 3G iPhone coming out in June with 16GB capacity.
It is unconfirmed but I wanted to see if anyone else heard the same thing.

iPhone Last.FM

2008-01-24T12:00:00.000-05:00

A few days ago we sent out some cryptic invitations to a press conference in New York that Felix and Martin are presiding over. We’ve had fun in the office reading the rumors and speculation, but it’s time to spill the beans:

As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website.

Something we’ve wanted for years—for people who visit Last.fm to be able to play any track for free—is now possible. With the support of the folks behind EMI, Sony BMG, Universal and Warner—and the artists they work with—plus thousands of independent artists and labels, we’ve made the biggest legal collection of music available to play online for free, the way we believe it should be.

Full-length tracks are now available in the US, UK, and Germany, and we’re hard at work broadening our coverage into other countries. During this initial public beta period, each track can be played up to 3 times for free before a notice appears telling you about our upcoming subscription service. The soon-to-be announced subscription service will give you unlimited plays and some other useful things. We’re also working on bringing full-length tracks to the desktop client and beyond.

Free full-length tracks are obviously great news for listeners, but also great for artists and labels, who get paid every time someone streams a song. Music on Last.fm is perpetually monetized. This is good because artists get paid based on how popular a song is with their fans, instead of a fixed amount.

We will be paying artists directly.

We already have licenses with the various royalty collection societies, but now unsigned artists can put their music on Last.fm and be paid directly for every song played. This helps to level the playing-field—now you can make music, upload it to Last.fm and earn money for each play. If you make music, you can sign up to participate for free.

We’re not printing money to pay for this—but the business model is simple enough: we are paying artists and labels a share of advertising revenue from the website.

Today we’re redesigning the music economy. There are already millions of tracks available, and we’re adding more every day. We will continue to work hard to bring this to everyone in the world.

Macbook Air Impressions

2008-01-24T10:44:00.000-05:00

After evaluating the state of the ultraportable market historically (poor) and the specs Apple is doling out with this device, it seems almost too obvious that very few people will be willing to buy this junker.

Let's face it -- the MacBook Air is nothing more than a gimmick to make people believe Apple is a trendsetter that knows the best way to bring "cool" products to the masses. But what everyone seems to forget is that this company already has a slew of "cool" products and there's no need for something that's underpowered and overpriced.

Suffice it to say, the MacBook Air is nothing more than a toy that has no promise and will flounder in stores. Why you ask? It's simple.

First off, let's look at Apple's current stable of notebooks. The company offers the MacBook, which is slim and small in its own right and features the same size screen as the Air. Not only that, but it sports far superior specs and is only 0.32-inches thicker than the Air when comparing them at their thickest points. Oh, and let's not forget that it only weighs 2 pounds more and starts at $1099, compared to the Air's $1799 pricetag.

On the other side of things, Apple's MacBook Pro is built with the power user in mind and although it's much bigger than the Air, its entry-level price is just $200 more.

So let me get this straight -- I can have a Mac that's barely thinner than its brother, underpowered, but admittedly "cooler" for an additional $700? Now let's be honest -- who in their right mind would spend an additional $700 on a device just because it looks nicer?

Now, I know that some Apple zealots are screaming right now saying that it's all about portability and it's not meant to be the workhorse the other MacBooks are, but if you're telling me that you can't carry a MacBook around because it's too big and too heavy, you might want to see a doctor.

Another problem that Steve Jobs failed to address during his keynote speech is, who in the world is going to buy this toy? My guess: the diehard Apple fanboy and people with enough money in the bank that they don't mind spending $1799 on a product they'll use in their car or at coffee shops.

Beyond those two groups, who else is really buying this thing? Can anyone honestly say that the average consumer will run down to their local Apple store, excited to get their hands on their first Mac, and choose the Air over the MacBook if they're looking for something small?

I can hear it now: "Hold on, so what you're saying is that I can get a much faster and better-equipped computer that's barely larger for $700 less? Where's the cash register?"

And while I don't think the lack of an optical drive is a big deal by any means, think of the average person just looking to get their hands on a Mac and listening to others tell them how it "just works." How will they feel when they get the Air home, try to install Office and realize the optical drive is missing? Sure, they can go through the trouble of connecting to another computer in the home and pop the disc into that drive, but doesn't it significantly reduce the allure of having a device that "just works"?

Of course, it doesn't quite end there. So far, ultraportable sales have been flat, to say the least, and aside from a few bursts in sales every now and then, the ultraportable market is not the best to enter if a company is looking to increase its market share and turn a profit.

So why did Apple decide to get in on the ultraportable game? More than likely, it's because the company thinks it can do no wrong. And who can tell Steve he can? Not only has the iPod been an unbridled success, but the iPhone is selling extremely well and Mac sales have never been stronger.

But for the first time in years, Jobs and company has committed a blunder that could have enormous consequences. Not only is the MacBook Air a glorified toy that won't be used by the vast majority of consumers, it's overpriced and lacking any significant benefit of ownership other than its looks and multi-touch trackpad.

If you're looking for portability, save $700 and buy the MacBook. If you're looking to spend money, go the extra mile and find yourself a MacBook Pro. Suffice it to say, there's no need for the MacBook Air.

iPhone hacks for 1.1.3 could it be?

2008-01-24T10:12:00.001-05:00

The folks behind the two hacks to Jailbreak the iPhone and iPod Touch 1.1.3 firmware have been in a dilemma. Release now and risk having the hack broken again when Apple ships its official software development kit for the iPhone, or sit on the hacks and release them after the next Apple update.

According to iPhone Atlas, there may be a third way. One of the two jailbreak methods will be released today, and the other held back until after the SDK is launched. A nice workaround in theory, but it seems that the hack we'll get might include some hardware modification, which will put it out of most user's abilities.

Also, many current third party applications won't work on 1.1.3. Apple tightened security on the iPhone by making all applications run as a regular user instead of the root, or super user. Apparently the NES emulator has already been updated to work, with other programmers hard at work on their own applications.

Macbook Air Video NEW!!!

2008-01-24T10:09:00.000-05:00

This is a great video Watch and enjoy!

Macbook Air Stack up

2008-01-24T10:02:00.001-05:00

We can all agree that the MacBook Air is a slick-looking little laptop. It's so thin! You can't argue with that! But if you're in the market for a small, high-performance laptop, is it the best option? I pored over specs for four similarly positioned and more-or-less similarly priced laptops to see if you'll get your $1,800 worth out of the Air. Let's go to the chart, shall we?

It turns out that, surprise surprise, you pay a premium for a tiny form factor. The MacBook Air is seriously expensive for the guts you get inside, but Apple isn't the only company guilty of charging insane amounts for smaller computers. Just look at the Sony Vaio TZ150N, for example. $2,100 for a 1.06 GHz processor? Are you kidding me? I don't care how small, it's still a rip-off.

The best deal—if you don't mind an extra pound of weight and half-inch of thickness—is the Dell XPS M1330. It bests the MacBook Air in nearly every single category, delivering about 30% more processing power, 50% more memory, over 300% more hard drive space, plus a dedicated graphics card. All of this, for $300 less. But also, two hours less of battery life, thanks to the new smaller and more efficient Core 2 Duo processor in the MacBook Air.

But it's really no surprise that a form factor as striking as the MacBook Air's warrants a premium price. Super-slim and light laptops as a category have yet to come down from the stratosphere, dollar-wise. It's a form factor that SSD just makes loads of sense for, lightening them up and cutting down on battery life, but that drives the price up even further for the time being. Chips are still getting smaller and screen technology keeps improving. In a couple of years, these form factors will be reasonably priced with great specs, but until then, prepare to pay a huge chunk more for a bit less power, just so you can brag about having the thinnest computer on the

Youtube on your iPhone just got a little better

2008-01-24T09:41:00.001-05:00

YouTube first dipped its toe in the mobile world in November of 2006 with a deal to deliver some video clips through the VCast service of Verizon Wireless. Last year it created a mobile Web site accessible on many Sprint and AT&T phones. But the site only carried a small slice of YouTube content. And it has another subset on the iPhone.
Today, the company is unveiling a new mobile at m.youtube.com that it said will carry most of YouTube’s catalog, or tens of millions of videos. The site will also have personalization and community features that it lacked before, so users will be able to log in and subscribe to certain channels or have easy access to their favorite videos. And they’ll be able to upload videos directly from their mobile devices.
“The mobile experience will be much closer to the Web experience,” said Hunter Walk, a YouTube product manager.
For now, the new site will have no impact on Google’s bottom line, as it will be free of ads. Mr. Walk said the new site is intended to get existing users of YouTube mobile to spend more time on the site and to grow the YouTube mobile audience. “We want more and more people try mobile video for the first time,” he said.
Watching videos on mobile phones remains a niche activity. YouTube said its mobile site will be accessible from devices that are capable of streaming video and that run on 3G networks. According to the company, that’s about 100 million devices worldwide, a small fraction of the more than 3 billion cell phones in use around the world. What’s more, many of those devices, especially overseas, run on limited data plans, so watching videos can prove expensive, as YouTube notes on its mobile Web site: “YouTube Mobile is a data intensive application. We highly recommend that you upgrade to an unlimited data plan with your mobile service provider to avoid additional charges.”

MacBook to buy or not to buy, that is the question

2008-01-24T09:14:00.000-05:00

As the Macintosh guru in my group of friends and colleagues, the question on everyone's mind over the past week (other than what happened to Apple's stock price!?) is "what do I think of the MacBook Air? - and should I buy one?" Rather than answer everyone separately, let me share my pre-1st hand knowledge/thoughts. Keep in mind, I've been called an Apple Fanboy enough times for me to think it might be true....

The MacBook Air is an amazing piece of machinery. It is ahead of its time on a lot of fronts. However, some details certainly are cause for concern.

The processor. Intel is late on their delivery of their ultra-low 45nm laptop chips. Clearly, the MacBook Air is the exact computer that these types of chips belong in. So Apple and Intel spun it as going out of their way to do something special. That something special was jimmy-ing a 65nm chip onto a board that was made for a 45nm one. The 45 nm chips will be arriving by mid-year and will likely be put in rev 2 of the MacBook Air. They will use less power per CPU cycle and that five hour battery life could easily turn into six - and with the reduced power consumption, they might be able to crank the processor speed up to and beyond 2 Ghz or maybe even fit in some more wireless options..
Wireless. I am not talking about Wifi which the Air has the best money can buy, I am talking about 3G/WiMAX here. It isn't built in. For the road warriors that this device is made for, having 3G Internet access is almost a prerequisite. Of course you can get a decidedly unsexy USB 3G "dongle", but Apple is going to eventually have to cave to pressure and start including these things in its products. Dell, HP and others have included this functionality for years! Apple could even partner with their iPhone buddies, AT&T on this and offer a seamless package. Or how about WiMAX with Intel? Intel is building WiMAX into its next round of CPUs. Again. Rev 2
As much as I hate to say it about Apple - or any company - Rev 1 parts are glitchy - especially the first ones off of the assembly line. I pre-ordered/picked up one of the first MacBook Pros out of the factory a few years ago. Over the course of that first year, nearly every part on it had to be replaced (Motherboard, HD, battery, etc). It is almost a whole new machine after all of the part swaps. That doesn't mean Apple wasn't quick and happy to replace everything - and it is still a solid machine: I am typing on it now as a matter of fact. However, it was a pain to lose it for a few days at a time and my early impressions of it shot my confidence in its quality. These MacBook Airs are going to be going to the people who don't really have that much patience and desire to send it back to Apple for a few days while they swap defective parts - especially at the price premiums.
Option 1: 80Gb Hard Drive. I've booted my MacBook Pro from an iPod before. It isn't fast - I wouldn't want to have to do this on a regular basis - especially on a brand new, expensive machine. Apple may have added a few tricks, but the bottom line is that the 80Gb hard drive is still a 1.8 inch 4200 rpm iPod hard drive - which is not only significantly slower than 2.5 inch drives at 7200RPM but also more prone to damage from shock. The early reviewers also didn't get the hard drive version of the MacBook Air to review - so we won't know how fast/slow it is until it hits the streets. Apparently there is not enough room in there for the 160Gb iPod hard drive either - it isn't an option. That is tight! The next round of 1.8 inch drives will be faster, smaller and store more information. Me? I don't want to be using an iPod drive on my laptop - which leads to...
Option 2: That $1000 64Gb SSD drive. It is the top of the line, fastest 1.8 inch form factor solid state drive out there. But this is an area that is growing by leaps and bounds. Soon there will be 128Gb (or 96GB - there is a 48Gb SSD drive afterall) sized drives available for this thing. By midyear or earlier they should be hitting the same price points at the current 64Gb SSDs. Meanwhile the 64Gb drives will cost about half of what they do now. Those price points seem a lot more digestable to me.
Docks. Right now there isn't much in the way of docking stations for this thing. With the exception of Kensington's USB dock not much comes close. This is definitely a problem in need of a solution. I'd like to see something that plugs into the MicroDVI port as well - and include a superdrive in a sexy package - these laptops aren't going to the aesthetically challenged.
Overall speed. The specs of the MacBook Air pretty much line up with a last generation (Rev B) Mac Mini or 1st generation Rev A MacBooks. Some specs are lower, some are higher. So you'd expect a similar experience from this machine. For the high-end target market to which this is obviously aimed, that speed may not sit well.
Expandability. Everyone has been talking about the lack of expandability of the MacBook Air - which overall I think is unfair, concessions had to be made. However, some things do stick out. RAM. It doesn't take up much space and I want as much as possible. Apple, make a 4 GB option! Street prices say this should be $300 more (Rev 2?) but Apple charges 2-5 times more than street costs. Realistically, pricing details this small won't matter to high end users. Battery. There have to be more options. I am sure someone will make a MagSafe adaptable external battery/crank/solar charger - but until then, once you use your 4-5 hours, you are SOL until an AC/DC outlet avails itself. Think ten hour overseas flights without power - believe me, they exist.
Size. "Thin! thin! thin!" If Apple had its way, that is all you'd hear about. Well that isn't the only dimension that matters. The truth is that this is hardly an utraportable. It has roughly the same footprint as a MacBook - with the same wasted space around the edges of the screen and keyboard. As such, it won't fit in a standard purse like a Sony TZ and won't open as comfortably on a tight airplane ride as a true ultra-portable. Think about it as a MacBook sliced in half. Perhaps Apple will offer a 14 inch screen in Rev 2 that actually goes to the edges of the device or shrink the footprint to the edges of the screen/keyboard. Here is the MAcBook Air compared to a full sized MacBook Pro.

Price drops. As this is an Apple/early adopter device, the price will drop significantly for the next round. We saw this in the iPhone and we see it every time Apple astounds us with new products. It isn't just component costs - which will be significant - it's also the ramp up of production numbers which will bring prices way down. This could easily be late 2008 or 2009's MacBook.
But for a lot of people, these things - or anything else - don't matter..You know who I am talking about. The person who:

saw the machine and said "I have to have it" without needing to hear any of the details
has virtually unlimited discretionary spending money
cares much less about the specs and more about aesthetics
is spending most of his/her time on the web and email - who needs more of something to show off than a real workhorse.
Not to mention that these people will probably be the first ones to get the Rev 2's anyway.

Truthfully, there are a lot of legitimate reasons to snap up one of these beauties - and as they said in the earnings call last week, Apple is getting lots of orders for these things. But they obviously are only for the select few who can justify its unique characteristics.

For the rest of us, it might take some consideration.

iPhone enjoys free AT&T Wifi

2008-01-24T09:10:00.000-05:00

Free. It's a great word.

And now you can use free and your other favorite word -- iPhone -- in the same sentence, as long as you subscribe to AT&T's broadband service.

According to the Associated Press and CNN, AT&T said Wednesday that will be make its 10,000 Wi-Fi hotspots free to almost all broadband Internet customers starting next week.

Until now, that access was reserved for subscribers to the company's premium broadband services.

I'm one of the lucky ones in this case and I've had the free Wi-Fi for a while now because I have AT&T broadband. I must say that I don't use it all that often; the only place that's really close by is the McDonald's in the base of my apartment building.

But when I really want to use Wi-Fi in my lobby, I order a side salad and log in. The log-in process is cumbersome and takes about 5 minutes. But once you are in, it works just fine.

Flickr Find: Use Webclips to create a personal Photo album

2008-01-23T22:52:00.001-05:00

TUAW reader DoctaBu has come up with a novel way to use Webclips: creating a personal photo album. He realized he could have some fun with webclips by building an entire page of nothing but his friends' and family's pictures. He placed these all on a separate SpringBoard screen, which he can flick over to whenever he wants. Have you done something extraordinary or unique with Webclips? Let us know!

iPhone Missing E-Mail function.. bait and switch

2008-01-23T22:48:00.000-05:00

Ryan Block from Engadget shot us an e-mail about a blog post that he recently wrote on his personal blog. In his post, he reminisces about Macworld '07 where Steve Jobs first showed off the iPhone's e-mail application. He reminds us about the double-pane e-mail that was demoed -- and never made it into the final release. What gives Steve? Some people actually would like this view to quickly look through their e-mail.

Many have said that the iPhone's e-mail client isn't the best feature out there, as it lacks smart folders, multiple message deletion, and the double-pane view. Not to mention the fact that there are multiple bugs that still remain, even with firmware version 1.1.3 (Ryan mentions the fact that the iPhone idles while parsing HTML messages for quite some time). Is iPhone's Mail worth your time, or a pain in the finger?

iPhone Tricks of the trade

2008-01-23T22:43:00.001-05:00

Here are two simple but useful tips from TUAW readers David B Alford and Andrew Akker that help you navigate through your iPhone or iPod home screens. David points out that if you tap just to the left or to the right of the dots at the bottom of your screen, you can move a page at a time without having to drag. Tap left, you move left. Tap right, you move right. It's quick and it's easy.

Andrew figured out how to pause his drag Home screen drags. If you start to move between screens by dragging and then tap the dots control during that drag, screen pauses. You'll see bits of both home screens at once, and can interact with them normally by tapping icons. You can see up to 24 icons at once (16 off to one side, 4 along the other side, and 4 in the bar at the bottom).

I've tested both tips extensively and they work great -- two really nice additions to one's Home-screens skills.

iPhone Rap Video ..best thing i've ever seen.

2008-01-23T22:37:00.000-05:00

Hit me on my iphone.
The fake lips in the copy and paste demo (and the stealth declaration of love at the end) had me laughing out loud, but this one has me rolling -- who knew the iPhone demo guy was such a hip hop mastermind? Pete Miser was the one who put the song together, and apparently Merritt Duff edited the video. I especially like the dance at the end, and the lyrics are perfect. I've never bought a Bluetooth headset because I think they just plain look dumb, but people have thought I was crazy on the bus as I talked directly into the little mic on the headphones.

I love it. John from the MacBook Air demos should do a dis song, and we have a mobile computing rap feud!

iphone like e-mail on the Blackberry

2008-01-23T19:40:00.000-05:00

At last, e-mail handling on your BlackBerry is coming into the 21st century. Also: Office document editing and new IM features.

One of my biggest pet peeves about BlackBerry phones is that for all their vaunted abilities to send and receive e-mail in a flash, the messages themselves arrive in a blocky, unformatted jumble—and good luck clicking on URLs. All that's set to change, though, with the latest update to the BlackBerry Enterprise Server platform (due to arrive by the end of next month).

Among the improvements in BES version 4.5: HTML and Rich Text formatting for e-mail messages, which will finally bring the BlackBerry platform in line with Windows Mobile (which got HTML e-mail formatting in early 2007) and the iPhone. Finally, your messages and newsletters will be formatted correctly, complete with images, and the links will work. Crazy, I know. Also on tap: remote searching for e-mail messages that are on the server but not on your device, along with new IM features (including IM session "click to call," "convert to call," and emoticon support) for users of IBM Lotus Sametime and Microsoft Live Communications Server.

Built-in Office document editing is also coming to the BlackBerry, thanks to the upcoming integration of Dataviz's Documents to Go software (which has been available as a third-party download since last year). First up will be the ability to edit Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, with support for Excel coming later this year. Several other IT, security, and server-side enhancements will also be included in the update (check out RIM's press release for the entire list).

Personally, I'm pretty excited about the update; the lack of HTML-formatted e-mail has been one fo the main reasons I resisted getting a BlackBerry. Now, who knows—there just might be a Curve in my future.

Pirated Movies Used to Promote the iMac

2008-01-23T18:48:00.001-05:00

The DVD ripper aXXo is without a doubt one of the most popular DVD-rippers. Even though he hasn’t been active since November 2007, his rips are still widely used, even by commercial outlets such as the John Lewis store. They must have thought, “Why use a real DVD if we can use a pirated movie for free?”

The aXXo rip was shown on an iMac displayed on an Apple stand at a John Lewis store. A member of the Hexus forums discovered this remarkable promotional material, and writes:

“So I was in my local John Lewis store a week or so back, and I was checking out their new little Apple mac area, which had lots of Macs on display, with some desks setup and other accessories. They also had some wall mounted iMacs. Imagine my surprise when getting closer to one of them to see ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest’ - ripped by Axxo playing.”

Using a ripped DVD is bit odd because this is certainly not the best promotional material. Regular DVDs or free HD-content looks much better on an iMac monitor.

One thing is clear though, aXXo’s presence has now moved beyond the Internet, and for him it must be flattering to see that commercial outlets appreciate his work. Perhaps this might motivate him to return?

The last official aXXo torrent was uploaded November 11, after that it has been awfully quiet. There were rumors that he got caught, others said he had an accident. However, the official statement is that he decided to take a break.

John Lewis was not available for comment, the MPAA probably wont appreciate it that much, but they have our support.

iPhone BEST Applications

2008-01-23T18:22:00.000-05:00

Last week we showed you how to install third party apps on your iPhone or iPod touch, and since then a new firmware preview has leaked its way to the 'nets with saucy new features that—once released—may tempt you to abandon your jailbreak for the newly introduced features. Fact is, until the 1.1.3 firmware is successfully hacked by the resourceful iPhone hackers, you can still enjoy all of the features the update is bringing and more with your jailbroken iPhone. Today I'm taking a look at my 20 favorite (that's right, 20) third-party iPhone and iPod touch apps.

All of the applications below are available through Installer.app, which can be installed by jailbreaking your iPhone. For more details on each app, click through to the gallery page (again, sorry). Some of the apps will work perfectly on both the iPhone and iPod touch, while others are obviously a bit more iPhone-oriented. I've only tested these apps on the iPhone. Want to learn more about all things iPhone? Check out How to Do Everything with your iPhone, written by me and my pal Jason Chen from Gizmodo.

Apps that Cover Rumored 1.1.3 Features
In case you haven't seen it, here's a video highlighting the upcoming features in the 1.1.3 firmware release.
First let's tackle the hot apps of the moment—those apps that can already bring you the features rumored to be in the 1.1.3 update. The major new features appear to be the faux-GPS in Google Maps, multi-recipient SMS, and re-ordering apps on the home screen. Two of the apps above have been covering those features for quite some time (Navizon for GPS and Customize for re-ordering apps), and the third, iSMS for multi-recipient SMS, is a bit newer, but in addition to multi-recipient SMS, it offers quick-reply templates, emoticons, and a much more robust SMS management system. It does not currently offer MMS messaging, though there is an iPhone app (called SwirlyMMS) that is attempting the MMS road, though it's still a bit bumpy. MMS messages can be sent (though it requires a bit of setup), but so far not received.

iSMS
Navizon GPS
Customize
The only major new feature that's been discovered in the 1.1.3 update that isn't easily available through Installer is the new web clip feature that allows the user to bookmark a web page directly on the home screen. There are hacks around that accomplish this, but they're not the kind of no-brainer installations as the above three apps. The WebSearch app described below, however, is arguably a good deal more useful for what I need than the web clips, so I can happily do without for the time being.

Now that I've covered the 1.1.3 features (I'll include these apps in the sections below by category as well), lets move on to my 20 favorite iPhone apps.

Communication
Below we've got a more robust SMS client, a multi-protocol IM app, and a simple utility that adds push email capabilities to IMAP accounts—including Gmail.
iSMS
Apollo
iMapIdle
Multimedia
The multimedia list is a big one, so I'll just highlight a few. You've got a Last.fm client and scrobbler for your iPod, a feature-rich camera app, and a real-time lyrics app that automagically sucks lyrics for your music from the cloud.
Books
MobileScrobbler
iFlix
CameraPro
TuneWiki
Productivity
One of my favorites, the WebSearch app adds one-click search to any site, while Sketches is a great whiteboard tool and drawing pad.
Sketches
WebSearch
Utilities
There are obviously quite a few great iPhone utilities, so to highlight just a few: OpenSSH is what I used to tether my iPhone data plan to my laptop; DropCopy is great for sharing files between your phone or iPod and your desktop; Installer, obviously, is the app that makes all of this third-party app business so easy; Navizon does the faux-GPS for Google Maps; and Customize covers app re-ordering and just about any other customization you'd want to make to your little iPod or iPhone.
OpenSSH
iTrac
iPhoneHome
iSpit
DropCopy
Installer
Navizon GPS
Customize
Games
There are actually tons of games available on the iPhone at this point, but these three stand out as favorites because of their impressive use of the iPhone's animation engine or for just being plain addictive.
Gallery Name
NES
iSolitaire
HuaRongDao

Honorable Mention

For honorable mention purposes (I realize I already fudged a bit with 21 above), I wanted to point out FireflyMediaServer, an app that streams your iPod library to any iTunes library on a local network as a shared library (and which we showed you how to set up here). Dictionary is what it sounds like, a dictionary application that can search tons of installable dictionary databases (also available in Installer). Finally, for the students out there, iStudy is a simple flashcard app that also features downloadable content from Installer.

iPhone is a window into your personal life...understand your rights!

2008-01-23T17:06:00.001-05:00

Adam Gershowitz, an assistant professor at the South Texas College of Law, raises an interesting point about the iPhone and similarly tricked-out mobile devices: If the police stop you and find some legal cause to arrest you, they are probably free, under judicial interpretations of the Fourth Amendment, to search the device.

This means that a standard traffic stop -- say they get you for drunk driving or excessive speeding or any number of other arrestable offenses -- could conceivably lead to a search of your entire Web history, your photos, and potentially even your online accounts at banks or social networking sites.

The iPhone is a portable window to your whole world -- and while arresting you for something comparatively minor, the police may get to look through that window without any approval from a judge.

Gershowitz's theory, which he outlines in a law review article, rests on a legal doctrine known as "search incident to arrest." Ordinarily, the police aren't allowed to search your possessions unless they obtain a warrant. That's the essence of the Fourth Amendment, the one we all grew up with on "Law and Order."

One exception to this is a search incident to arrest -- if the police are arresting you, they can search you and your possessions without first obtaining a warrant. During the past few decades, Gershowitz explains, courts have given the police wide rein in conducting such searches. If police arrest a driver, they're allowed to search not only the driver but the car, passengers in the car, and "containers" in the car -- envelopes, wallets, aspirin bottles -- that they find. And incriminating evidence they find -- even if it's not related to the crime they're arresting you for -- can be admissible in court.

In recent years courts have been asked to rule on the legality of police searches of electronic devices found during the course of an arrest, and judges have almost always come down on the side of the officers.

Police have been allowed to search through pagers and cellphones for contacts and messages, and evidence found on those devices -- text messages that prove that the arrestee was involved in a drug ring, for instance -- were ruled admissible in court.

Newer mobile devices like the iPhone are qualitatively different from pagers and cellphones of yesteryear: They hold much more personal information about their owners, and they're connected to the Internet, which holds still more personal information. When the cops find an iPhone, then, they're sitting on a gold mine of personal data.

Gershowitz notes this theoretical case: Say an officer finds an iPhone on a fellow during an arrest. The cop then brings up the iPhone's Web browser, scans the bookmarks, clicks on one called "porn," which takes him to a Web page that requires a member's username and password, which the iPhone has fortunately remembered -- so the cop presses "submit," and he sees that the Web site has a message function, which the cop then logs in to, and finds, there, an incriminating conversation about the exchange of child porn.

Or something else hypothetically damning -- messages about buying drugs, or buying bongs, or, in Alabama and Texas, buying dildos. Or, say the cop logs into your bank account and finds evidence of financial fraud. Or he looks at your pictures, videos and songs and finds evidence of mass copyright infringement.

All that information would have been private and inaccessible to the government in the days before the iPhone. Now, though, it can conceivably be used against you in court.

Gershowitz goes over possible remedies to this problem. One is for courts to follow the prescription of Justice Antonin Scalia, who favors reducing the scope of the search incident to arrest doctrine. In Scalia's view, only searches that are related to the cause of the arrests should be legal -- if the cops arrest you for not wearing a seat belt, they can't search for drugs, because that's not related to your crime.

Another remedy is for legislatures to limit the scope of police searches of electronic devices. States could specifically prohibit cops from looking at your online profiles on your iPhone, say, if they're only stopping you for driving under the influence.

That's not likely to happen soon -- or at all, unless there are cases in the courts that prove Gershowitz's theory true. As yet, his idea is hypothetical. Still, perhaps it'd be wise to keep a password lock on your iPhone. The cops can't get through that without a warrant.

Hat tip to Techdirt's Mike Masnick for this; read Gershowitz's paper here.

iPhone Voice Dial

2008-01-23T12:33:00.000-05:00

Makayama has released a new native iPhone application called VoiceDial. As you can probably guess from its name, the application adds voice dialing feature to the iPhone, but also allows users to start applications and open Safari bookmarks without touching their shiny handset — all they have to do is say it and Makayama’s app will take it from there.
The interesting thing about VoiceDial is that it isn’t free. So far virtually all applications we’ve seen — except Navizon — have been developed by iPhone enthusiasts and were offered as a free download. Entrance of the established developer like Makayama to the space is certainly encouraging to the iPhone users, even though they’ll have to pay $27.95 or 19.95 EUR in order to download VoiceDial… More information is available from here.

iPhone Proof of Concept projects on fire!

2008-01-23T11:22:00.000-05:00

The beauty of jailbroken iPhones is the ability for developers to demonstrate the amazing potential of native iPhone apps, inducing the salivation of mouths throughout the techie world. And indeed, some incredible examples of mobile possibilities have already hit the interwebs, like the neat-o PlayStation emulator I wrote about before.
And they keep on coming: Erica Sadun, one of the most prominent names in iPhone cracking, put together Listen, an insanely sweet app that lets you identify songs playing on the radio by putting your iPhone up to the speaker. It listens to the tune for ten or so seconds, then displays its name, album, and artist info. A friend of mine tested it and said it worked “really well,” ID’ing a song from Dropkick Murphys’ album, The Meanest of Times, which has only been out since September.
If this isn’t evidence enough that 3rd-party apps for the iPhone could effectively be its most attractive feature, I don’t know what is. Here’s hoping Apple isn’t characteristically stingy with who gets access to the SDK — some of the most innovative stuff comes from the independent, little-guy dev who whips up code in his free time, just for the hell of it.

iPhone American iDol

2008-01-23T11:18:00.000-05:00

We’re more than happy to flick the switch on the 100W bulb and explain how to add lyrics to your iPhone.

Here’s the first trick: while the latest version of the iPhone software does add support for lyrics, those lyrics are pulled directly from the song files’ metadata. If you hop into your iTunes library and select a track, you can hit command-I or control-click and choose “Get Info.” You’ll see a number of tabs, but the only we’re interested at the moment is “Lyrics.” Hitting that will give you a big empty text field. Whatever you put in this field is what will show up on the iPhone, so you’re not required to put the lyrics in—really it could be anything you want:notes, recipes, marriage proposals, whatever. But right now, we’ll assume you want to use lyrics.

To find the lyrics for a song, I recommend a simple Google search: entering the title of the song and lyrics usually yields a number of results. So, for example, if I’m looking for the lyrics to The Rolling Stones classic “Gimmer Shelter,” to which I’ve become addicted, thanks to Rock Band, I’ll fire up a Google search and enter “Gimme Shelter +lyrics” (Lyric Wiki is an excellent collaborative site for lyrics). Once you’ve found the words, copy and paste them into the Lyrics dialog box in the appropriate song in iTunes. You’ll then need to re-sync your computer and your iPhone. Couldn’t be easier.

Well, it could be easier. I mean, who wants to spend all their time finding, copying, and pasting lyrics into iTunes. Pretty much nobody. So instead, check out Gimme Some Tune, an iTunes add-on that can be configured to download lyrics for songs as they play. Combined with Doug Adam’s Needle Drop iTunes script, which lets you play songs for arbitrary amounts of time, you can set it up to automatically retrieve lyrics for all of your songs. That’s pretty darn easy.

But how—I’m sure you’re wondering—do I get such lyrics to show up on the iPhone? Easy enough: when the song comes up, tap on the album art. Usually this brings up additional music controls, but if lyrics are present, it’ll overlay them on the album art. You can even scroll through them with a simple flick, if you’re trying to sing along. We also remind you that singing along to your tunes is an activity usually best left for the privacy of your own.

iPhone Hidden items in firmware update 1.1.3

2008-01-23T11:12:00.001-05:00

Last week’s 1.1.3 software update to the iPhone brought a bunch of new features, which we painstakingly detailed over at the Mothership with a careful detail usually reserved for Talmudic study. But even under the magnifying lens of our scrutiny, one or two minor changes escaped our notice. Fortunately, the folks over at iPhone Atlas were sharp enough to pick up on them.

The limit on stored SMS messages has been raised from 1,000 to an ice-cream-headache-inducing 75,000. That’s right: now you can store every SMS message that you send in your entire lifetime—unless you are a teenage girl, in which case you’ll still need to erase all of your conversations every month.

And now you can use two fingers while typing, too. “Huh?” you say. “Couldn’t you already do that?” Well, yes, but now you can use two fingers simultaneously. Previously, tapping any key meant that the rest of the keyboard was rendered inoperable, which helped eliminating extraneous contact from your other hand. That apparently wasn’t as big a deal as Apple initially thought, so now you can use your left thumb to hold down the shift key while typing a letter: you’ll get a capital and the keyboard will immediately snap back into lower case mode. Handy for those used to, oh, almost every other keyboard ever made.

A final addendum on 1.1.3. Macworld head honcho Jason Snell was trying out 1.1.3’s new “Manually manage your music and video” feature; he gives it a thumbs down. While it does let you drag-and-drop music and video files onto your iPhone, the major advantage that the feature brought tot he iPod—letting you transfer music and video from multiple computers to one iPod—has been locked down on the iPhone. Try to manually manage an iPhone on a second computer and it’ll work—after iTunes offers to erase any files currently on the iPhone. So those hoping to sync with multiple computers are still forced to engage in interpretive dance and ritual sacrifice.

iPhone or iTablet either way iwant

2008-01-22T22:41:00.000-05:00

Some have been working on gathering more information about a new Apple (AAPL) portable device from several different sources during the past 6 months. I have pieced together the puzzle which portrays a picture of what can be perhaps best described as Apple’s rival product to the Intel Ultra Mobile PC [UMPC] initiative which has unsuccessfully tried to marry Microsoft’s (MSFT) Windows OS to a highly portable computing platform.
My strongest piece of evidence came from a trusted tipster about 4 months ago who described an image s(he) had seen of a mysterious touch screen device larger than the iPhone featuring one distinguishing button or depression on each side. At the time, unsure about the actual size of this new device, I reasoned that it could be a new generation of iPhone/iPod Touch or the much rumored Apple tablet. However, the device was later described to have been oriented horizontally on its long end, indicating that it was meant to be gripped with one hand on each side similar to a Sony (SNE) PSP. This ruled out the Apple tablet which is, more than likely, a significantly larger device. It also ruled out iPod Touch since I have been previously tipped on the forward path of the iPod lineup by different sources, essentially confirming that touch screen iPods will not grow much in screen size.
Then about a month ago, another source revealed that Apple has shown significant interest in a 5.2″ 800 x 480 pixel touch screen design by Balda, a German company and the current iPhone screen supplier, and Wintek, an Asian component supplier. This second piece of evidence reveals the real purpose of this new device, an ultra mobile device occupying a position between the 3.5″ iPhone and the much rumored 7-10 inch Apple tablet. There was also a previous article I wrote which highlighted Apple’s sudden concern for flash memory supplies in 2008, despite industry predictions for next year which emphasize greater production and softer demand. This further confirms that Apple is working on a new device due sometime in 2008 that will put strains on the flash memory supply chain.
One thing not seen by any of my sources is a keyboard: it’s clear Apple will not be using a physical QWERT keyboard for this device, instead relying on its patented multi-touch screen as the sole interface for user input. This may be the reason why some have speculated that Apple may be on the verge of introducing a new generation of its famed Newton PDA. However, I firmly believe that the shrinking market for dedicated PDAs puts those speculations to rest, although various PDA functionalities may in fact be included in the final version of the device.
This new Apple device, which could be an Ultra Mobile Computer, has not been sighted out and about the Apple campus or even in the area normally designated for testing new Apple products, suggesting that it’s still in the software and hardware design period. Once it’s physically spotted outside Apple’s secretive labs, we may see an actual product release of 6-8 months, closely following other new Apple product introductions.
Above is a rendition of this new device based on what we know so far

iphone GPS ..make it more accurate and help man kind

2008-01-22T21:44:00.000-05:00

re you the giving-type? Do you like to help others for the betterment of society? Well, you might be interested to hear that you can help Skyhook Wireless map WiFi hotspots in your area. If you’ll recall, Skyhook is the company that provides the iPhone’s v1.1.3 Google Maps’ My Location feature with WiFi hotspot location data, so contributing to their database should make the iPhone’s Google Maps My Location position-data more accurate and useful.

Here are the instructions on how to go about adding your positional data to Skyhook’s database (from iPhone Central):

1. Find your location as latitude, longitude

First we need to determine the location of the AP. Go to Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) and find the location of your access point on the map. Center the map (double-click on it) on the location and then enter the following into your Address Bar:

javascript:void(prompt(”,gApplication.getMap().getCenter()));

This will open a prompt giving you the latitude,longitude of the center of
the map. Copy and paste that into an email. If you are having problems there is a little more detailed tutorial here.

2. Find the MAC Address of your wireless access point

Next we need to get the MAC Address of your AP. This can be tricky, so its best to use software to find it. We recommend NetStumbler and iStumbler on Windows and Mac respectively. You can download the programs at the following links:

Windows: http://www.netstumbler.com/
Mac: http://istumbler.net/

Find your AP in the list and the associated MAC address for it. Now paste the MAC address in the email.

Now you should have a MAC address, latitude and longitude. Its good to recheck the location by pasting the latitude, longitude back into Google Maps to make sure its the right location. Once you verify it, send us the information and we’ll add them to the database. It may take up to a week before the AP is available when using your iPhone or iPod touch.

Just make sure you add accurate data, okay? It would be ashame to actually lose positional resolution because a bunch of dimwits decided it would be funny to add inaccurate WiFi hotspot data.

iPhone 1.1.3 firware update

2008-01-22T20:50:00.000-05:00

Cre.ations.net's Nate True wrote a blog post describing what he found inside the iPhone firmware 1.1.3 update. Whilst digging around in the iPhone's firmware innards, he found that Apple has made some startling changes to the iPhone's OS, including:
The SpringBoard doesn't have to be modified to show custom Applications installed on the iPhone
Applications no longer run as root, instead they run as 'mobile'
Preferences are no longer stored in /var/root
True states additionally that he has also found what appears to be widget support in the SpringBoard.app. 'SBWidgetApplication' manages package locations and icons. So, what does this all mean? It might mean that the stars are aligning so properly that this might be the release: the one that makes it possible for 3rd party developers.

iPhone gets it's own movie site

2008-01-22T20:43:00.000-05:00

January 22, 2008 - 20th Century Fox and Apple have launched an iPhone tie-in site for the forthcoming sci-fi adventure film Jumper. In the Doug Liman-directed film, opening February 14th, a genetic anomaly allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere.

He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between "Jumpers" and those who have sworn to kill them.

The Jumper iPhone site is formatted specifically for iPhones, allowing the user to experience the "jumper" phenomenon by redirecting them -- "jumping" -- to other cool iPhone sites. Just punch JumperTheMovie.com/iPhone/ into an iPhone browser and you'll "jump" to a custom iPhone site.

Furthermore, the Jumper iPhone site offers a Jumper graphic novel (an iPhone first), wallpapers, trailers, character bios, and more.

Macbook Air enjoy a little discount

2008-01-22T20:34:00.000-05:00

I had come across this link and it provides a some savings off the new apple offerings. As expensive as these products are, even a little discount is helpful!

Purchase and enjoy.

2008-01-22T20:08:00.001-05:00

The new iMac starting at $1,144 + FREE Paallels 3.0, Printer and Shipping after Rebate(s)! Now with Mac OS X Leopard

iPhone News

2008-01-22T14:43:00.000-05:00

I have heard that AT&T will be providing enterprise accounts for iPhones.

There also seems to be a strong monthly discount on the data package as well.

I know alot of business that have rouge iPhones being used on a personal level and this now will be the turning point in sales. I predict that the iPhone will overtake blackberry's market share in just one year. With the release of the iPhone SDK arriving next month, we will see the release of blackberry like e-mail integration software. In my opinion, enterprise e-mail support and wirless sync are the only missing peices stoping the iPhone from becoming competitive business use product.

As much as I love my iPhone, I deeply miss the instant sync of e-mail, calander, contact, ect that my blackberry provided.

I had also been a palm user taking advantage of the GOOD LINK server which was also outstanding.

Apple, if you are listening, fix this and sales will come. Enterprise accounts will be big business and they are aching to use the iPhone.

iphone firmware update 1.1.3 hacked

2008-01-22T12:33:00.000-05:00

The latest version of the firmware for Apple's iPhone has fallen to hackers less than a week after its release.
Two hackers working separately have both succeeded in jailbreaking version 1.1.3 of the firmware, iPhone Atlas reports. One of the hacks requires hardware modification, so it's not suited for those of a nervous disposition or lacking in electronics expertise You can see the hack in action on this video:

Another hack by Jonathan Zdziarski, developer of the NES emulator for iPhone, is software only but somewhat complicated. If previous experience is anything to go by, easier jailbreaks will emerge over coming days. ®

Macbook yes or no??

2008-01-13T15:38:00.001-05:00

I’ve been a Mac user for a very long time. Well, I guess I can’t say that I am anymore, as I haven’t bought a new one in several years, and most of my work is done on a PC. I’m still a loyal Apple fan at heart, so I tend to follow the news waiting for that one announcement that’s going to make me finally take the plunge and buy a new one. While I’m not sure that this is the one, I’m very excited about the possibilities that the upcoming Macworld Expo have to offer. The biggest one is the Air.

There are a lot of rumors going around, but we do know that the banners hanging up for the show say “There is something in the air.”To me this cries out WiMAX, but others seem to think that it could be a new MacBook, named the Air. It would be an ultrathin 13.3-inch notebook that would have an external optical drive and possibly feature a completely wireless setup that would take advantage of a Power-by induction patent that Apple filed for a year ago.

Whatever it is, it’s going to have to be big to top the iPhone announcement from last year. I’d really like to think that it’s going to be a new smaller notebook, but we’ll just have to wait and see.

mac update on the way??

2008-01-13T15:30:00.001-05:00

Rumors are flying that Macworld 2008 could see Apple include long-range wireless broadband technology (WiMax) in an ultraportable 13 inch notebook computer.

In San Francisco next week, Steve Jobs’s Macworld keynote could confirm this rumor and maybe even WiMax in the entire MacBook Pro line.

Valleywag claim there is a 60 percent chance of this happening andAppleInsider has images of Apple’s banners showing “There’s something in the air” as a slogan (you can see one image above).

Sprint’s nationwide rollout of WiMax in April could be one reason why Apple will build in the hardware now, we all know that Apple can popularize new technologies and this could be a massive Win for WiMax if true.

2008-01-12T00:34:00.001-05:00

2008-01-11T21:26:00.001-05:00

Spotted by Google Operating System is a new iPhone specific interface for Google’s personalized webpage product iGoogle. The page can accessed directly fromhttp://google.com/ig/i, although iPhone users should be immediately redirected to this page when trying to access iGoogle.

The new iPhone interface is a step up from Google’s previous offering of a mobile specific page at google.com/m (our review here) which only offered limited customization options.

iGoogle for iPhone will compete with Netvibes, who launched their one iPhone specific version in August 2007.

First impressions: this is good. As someone who has long given in to the Google borg all the major services I use (email, RSS reader etc) are through Google, and now iGoogle will give me a start page that links into those service. Google fans will love this, however if you’re not a heavy Google user nothing to see here, move along.

iPhone firmware 1.1.3 deeper look

2008-01-04T12:47:00.000-05:00

How it leaked is still a mystery, but iPhone an firmware revision numbered 1.1.3 is in the hands of a lucky few. Our new hands-on look at the forthcoming release reveals some previously undocumented features and some interesting notes on the usage of Google Maps location triangulation, home screen icon movement and more.
Quasi-GPS: how it works You can now triangulate your approximate location in the Google Maps application (usually within several hundred yards) by tapping the small “target” icon that appears on the lower-left portion of the screen. You can then tap “Directions,” which will automatically place the approximate triangulated location as the point of origin.
The new “Drop Pin” feature is very cool. Tap the small eye-looking icon in the lower-right portion of the screen then tap “Drop pin” (or “replace pin” if you’ve already dropped it). This will put a map pin in the center of your current map. You can then drag it to a new location, and tap it to bring up the normal location arrow. Tap the arrow and you can find directions to the pin, from the pin, or even add the pin as a bookmarked (saved) location. To quickly access your bookmarked locations, tap the eye icon then “List.”

You can now show traffic information on the map automatically, without having to search for directions. This is also accomplished by tapping the eye icon, then tapping “Show traffic.”
The list view for directions is enhanced in iPhone firmware 1.1.2. It now shows pins for the origin and destination so you can tap them and see their location on the map. You can also tap on items in the list and see their location on the map.
Moving icons around the screen — how it works, what it means After installing iPhone firmware 1.1.3, you are presented with a message indicating that in order to move icons around the screen, you can tap and hold a specific icon until all icons start wiggling. You can then tap and drag any icon to move it to a different location. Dragging an icon all the way to the right of the home screen will create a new home screen, which can also harbor icons. At any time you can drag an icon to the edge of the home screen to move it between home screens. Icons can be dragged out of the dock (at the bottom of the screen) or to the dock.
To stop the wiggling and be able to launch applications again, press the home button.
You can reset your home screen to its default setting by tapping Settings then General, then Reset and selecting “Reset Home Screen Layout.”
The reason for multiple home screens is twofold: it’s anticipatory of official third-party applications for which Apple has said it will announce an SDK next month, and it allows you to keep Web site bookmark collections as discussed in the “New Bookmark capabilities” section below.

The capability for multiple home screens has been extant since iPhone firmware 1.1.1, but had to be unlocked. It’s available by default in firmware 1.1.3.
iTunes gift cards can now be used on the iTunes WiFi store You can now use iTunes gift cards on the iTunes WiFi store. Tap “Downloads,” then tap “Redeem” in the upper-left corner and enter a code.

New Bookmark capabilities In Safari, under iPhone firmware 1.1.2, you’ll notice a new “+” icon at the bottom of the screen. Tap it, and you’ll see the options:
Add Bookmark
Add to Home Screen
Mail Link to this Page
Tapping “Add to Home Screen” will allow you to title the bookmark then add an icon for it to your home screen(s). You can then move the icon around per the instructions in “Moving icons around the screen,” above. You could, for instance, have one home screen for news sites, another for Entertainment, etc.
Multiple text message recipients You can now send text messages to multiple recipients. Tap the SMS application, then tap the “+” button to add the desired number of recipients.
Gmail support improved Gmail support within the iPhones Mail application has been improved. Tapping on your account, you can now see labels including “All Mail,” “Spam” and “Starred.”
What’s still missing In this iteration of firmware 1.1.3, there is still no support for:
Copy/paste functionality
Adobe Flash playback
MMS
Voice recording
Unofficial third-party applications There is currently no known method for jailbreaking iPhone firwmware 1.1.3, and installing the update will result in erasure of any currently installed unofficial third-party applications.

iPhone 1.1.3 firmware update getting closer

2008-01-03T09:51:00.000-05:00

We are hearing rumors swirling more and more every day about the impending firmware update 1.1.3.

A few sites have come up with a few items to further confirm that the rumors are true.

Below is a patent that apple had obtained a few years ago showing the same functionality as what was shown in the rumored 1.1.3 update video.

iPhone Copy and Paste from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.

I wish we had some idea of when the update is to come out.

I would have to speculate on early next week for the firmware update to hit, but I could be wrong.

iphone copy and paste on the way

2008-01-03T09:42:00.001-05:00

1.1.3 firmware update on the way? Could the iPhone be receiving copy and paste in the new firmware update 1.1.3?
This video referenced a proof of concept video from August on what it may look like.

We shall see.

iPhone Copy and Paste from lonelysandwich on Vimeo.

iPhone firware update video here ..It looks legit..see for your self

2007-12-31T10:24:00.000-05:00

Review the video. Again, it looks legit but it is still hard to say.

The interface of the update looks like Apple's work but all features that are shown are current hacks in the cracked iPhone.

The items that make me beleive this update is real is the very clean integration of google maps on this video.

It looks legit but I guess we will have to wait and see.

In my opinion, this looks like the real deal. The only problem is I want it NOW!

iPhone 1.1.3 firware update

2007-12-31T08:35:00.001-05:00

An anonymous reader writes "Gizmodo has gathered conclusive evidence which confirms that the iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 update is 100% real. It installs only from iTunes using the obligatory Apple private encryption key, which nobody has. The list of new features, like GPS-like triangulation positioning in Google Maps, has been confirmed too. Apparently it will be coming out next week, but there's bad news as expected: it breaks the unlocks, patches the previous vulnerabilities used by hackers and takes away all your third-party applications."

iPhone 1.1.3 firware update

2007-12-31T08:35:00.000-05:00

iPhone firmware update 1.1.3 NEWS coming very soon!!!

2007-12-28T23:07:00.000-05:00

Looks like the soon-to-be-released iPhone firmware 1.1.3 has quite a few surprises. We were able to get a look at it, and here is what we found:
The ability to send an SMS message to multiple people is now there
Google Maps application can now pinpoint your location using cell tower triangulation
Google Maps can now display the Hybrid map view
You can now drag and drop application icons on your home screen
The home screen supports pagination
You can now add web bookmarks to your home screen
That is all we have found for now. We also know that is you used AnySIM to unlock your phone, you can expect the 1.1.3 update to brick it. Good times. Take a look at our iPhone Firmware 1.1.3 Gallery for a photo tour of the new stuff.

Apple's new price target: $300

2007-12-27T12:17:00.000-05:00

Apple's new price target: $300 and I'm not surprised.

I was speaking with my fiance a few days ago reguarding Apple stock. The position the company has went has moved us to investigate purchasing a stock for the first time.

If Apple continues to do the right things, I could see Apple exceeding Googles current price.

Case in point: iPhone
Apple did an excellent job with research and developement of this product. I had said before, for Apple's first try at a cell phone/smart phone, they got it about 90% right. It makes me wonder if Apple has some of the most talented design and engineering teams in the world. If they take the same approach to the rest of their procuct line, we will see their marketshare increase exponentially.

iMac
My father has had constant issues with his Dell notebook which is now over 5 years old. For Christmas, I had the idea of a MAC.
I must admit, I have been doing alot of research on this product and it was clearly the right fit for him. I had stopped by the Apple store and was impressed with the service. I knew what I wanted and and the it was in my hads within 2 minutes. They even rang me out on the spot and e-mailed my my receipt.

I then set up the computer and after no more then 5 minutes it was fully functional.
My father needed no instruction. Everything seemed to be intuitive to him and I.

Now that's impressive.

In the future I would like to explore the .MAC integration with the apple products.

iPhone, iTunes, iRent? Movies for hire via itunes.

2007-12-27T12:15:00.000-05:00

According to a report in the Financial Times, Apple has inked a deal with News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox that will bring a new video-on-demand service to iTunes. The companies are expected to announce the deal on January 14 at MacWorld.
The agreement reportedly will allow consumers to rent, for a limited time, just-released Fox movies via digital download from iTunes. Although Apple already peddles newly released movies through a deal with Disney, this is the first time iTunes will be renting rather than selling movies digitally.
MGM, Lionsgate, Viacom, and Paramount restrict their digital libraries to older titles. However, the Fox deal could open the floodgates for new release rentals. Apple is reportedly in talks with Paramount, Warner Bros., and Sony to make their new releases available on iTunes for rent or purchase.
Leveraging Apple Ecosystem
The reports of a movie rental deal with 20th Century Fox, if they are accurate, represent an important shift in Apple's business process, according to Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at Jupiter Research.
The deal, Gartenberg said, is Apple's recognition that renting movies is an understood business model that could add profits to Apple's already swelling bottom line.
"The idea of people being able to rent movie content, put it on their iPod, watch it on the go, and then move on to the next thing is definitely a concept that will resonate with consumers," Gartenberg said.
Of course, iTunes won't be the first digital-download store to rent movies. Netflix and other companies offer digital rentals. But Apple's deal with Fox -- and the possible deals with the other studios -- could shake up the decades-old rental business.
"The Fox deal could become a tipping point for digital movie rentals because Apple has already built out this tremendous ecosystem between the computer, the iPhone, and the iPod," Gartenberg said.
Apple TV and FairPlay DRM
Gartenberg also said that adding on-demand movie rentals to iTunes would give Apple the additional service it needs to further cement its position in the digital home.
"Movie rentals would definitely give more legs to Apple TV," Gartenberg said. "People may want to download a movie but not necessarily want to watch it on their computer. They may want to watch it on the big screen in their home, and Apple TV allows them to do that."
To offer the digital rentals -- which would have to expire after a certain preset time in order to be considered rentals -- Apple will be relying on its FairPlay digital rights management system, according to the Financial Times.
New Fox DVD releases reportedly will come with a digital file protected by FairPlay. That file will make it possible for consumers to copy the disc to a computer or a video iPod without the use of special software.

Apple Stock at iAlltimeHigh $200 buck-a-rooskies

2007-12-26T17:05:00.001-05:00

He Steve good JOBS, keep it up!

Your job is safe until the next Stock scandal.

iPhone could be similar to iTablet

2007-12-26T17:01:00.000-05:00

iPhone might have a big brother, iTablet rumors around town.

2007-12-26T16:55:00.000-05:00

During the past 6 months... I have pieced together the puzzle which portrays a picture of what can be perhaps best described as Apple’s rival product to the Intel Ultra Mobile PC [UMPC] initiative which has unsuccessfully tried to marry Microsoft’s Windows OS to a highly portable computing platform," David Sieger reports for Seeking Alpha."My strongest piece of evidence came from a trusted tipster about 4 months ago who described an image s(he) had seen of a mysterious touch screen device larger than the iPhone featuring one distinguishing button or depression on each side," Sieger reports."Then about a month ago, another source revealed that Apple has shown significant interest in a 5.2″ 800 x 480 pixel touch screen design by Balda, a German company and the current iPhone screen supplier," Sieger reports."This second piece of evidence reveals the real purpose of this new device, an ultra mobile device occupying a position between the 3.5″ iPhone and the much rumored 7-10 inch Apple tablet," Sieger reports."This new Apple device, which could be an Ultra Mobile Computer, has not been sighted out and about the Apple campus or even in the area normally designated for testing new Apple products, suggesting that it’s still in the software and hardware design period," Sieger reports. "Once it’s physically spotted outside Apple’s secretive labs, we may see an actual product release of 6-8 months..."

iPhone news Macworld Jan 15th

2007-12-24T10:10:00.000-05:00

I wanted to get the date out there incase Apple fans were not aware. The rumors will start flying and get crazy as we approach the date. I will assume a few things to be announced.

-Subcompact notebook with solidstate hard drive

-3G iPhone

-Large iPhone memory, 16GB +

-Huge integration of .MAC accounts with the iPhone and Macs.

-Apple TV revamp

-Apple Tablet

-Steve Jobs wearing black turtleneck jeans and sneakers.

iPhone rumor site shut down ...there is hope for you bloggers out there to make $$$$$

2007-12-24T09:53:00.001-05:00

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple on Thursday put to rest the last of a series of lawsuits it brought in a losing and costly effort to put a stop to Web leaks about its product plans.
Skip to next paragraph
RelatedBits: Who Is Really Hurt by Apple Rumor Site’s Closure?
The suits raised questions about whether independent Web publishers should be accorded the same legal protections as traditional journalists. They were aimed at the gaggle of Apple enthusiasts who have made both a sport and a business out of pre-empting Steven P. Jobs’s big product announcements.
Nicholas M. Ciarelli, who operated a Web site for Apple rumors called Think Secret, was sued by Apple for publishing trade secrets in January 2005. In a brief statement Thursday on his site, Mr. Ciarelli said that he had reached a settlement with Apple and that he would stop publishing Think Secret.
Mr. Ciarelli, a senior at Harvard, would not comment on whether Apple had given him money to persuade him to cease publishing. But he said he was pleased with the outcome of the negotiations.
“We’ve been able to reach a positive solution,” he said in a telephone interview.
Mr. Ciarelli filed a countermotion against Apple in March 2005 under a California provision that makes litigants vulnerable to financial damages if they sue over what is determined to be constitutionally protected speech. Mr. Ciarelli’s lawyer, Terry Gross, who represented him pro bono, said the motion could have resulted in a financially damaging and embarrassing ruling against Apple, a risk that he said led to this week’s settlement.
Mr. Ciarelli, a social studies major, also writes and edits for The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. He was a freshman when Apple sued him and the publishers of two other sites over leaks about unreleased products.
Apple lost the two other suits on appeal after a higher court ruled that the Web site operators were journalists and entitled to First Amendment protections. The court forced Apple to pay $700,000 in legal fees to the sites.
Mr. Ciarelli said his agreement with Apple constituted a clear statement about the rights of online journalists: “Speaking more broadly, I think online journalists can feel confident that they can assert their First Amendment rights, even when they run up against large corporations.”
However, some free speech advocates warned that the site’s closing could be viewed as a partial victory for a large company that tried to squelch an independent voice.
“It’s great for the individual critic to be paid to be quiet, but the public is worse off if we lose the ability to get more information in the marketplace of ideas,” said Paul Alan Levy, a lawyer with the Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington.
Despite Apple’s attempts to use the courts to silence the ecosystem of sites that try to ferret out information about its products before Mr. Jobs unveils them on stage, the Apple rumor mill has continued to thrive.
None of Mr. Ciarelli’s sources were revealed as part of the settlement, said Steve Dowling, an Apple spokesman. He called the settlement “amicable” but noted that the details of the agreement were confidential.

iPhone maker Fake Steve Jobs could get a payday.

2007-12-24T09:49:00.000-05:00

An anonymous reader sends us to The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs for a developing situation. Daniel Lyons, a.k.a. Fake Steve Jobs, made a post earlier today revealing that Apple was offering him some money (in the wake of the ThinkSecret shutdown) to close down his blog. He said he was interested in taking it. A few hours later, Lyons posted again revealing that Apple's lawyers had contacted him angrily, saying the details of the deal were supposed to remain private. Fake Steve replied 'we either deal out in the open, completely transparently, or we don't deal.' A third post gives details of Apple's lawyers' next response, going totally medieval on him. Since then the situation has calmed down a bit.

iphone firmware update 1.1.3

2007-12-24T09:30:00.001-05:00

I am still waiting for the firmware update 1.1.3 and looking for any sign of updated rumors.

Anyone have any news out there on this. Diskmode and voicenotes would be a welcomed edition to my phone.

iphone x 5,000,000

2007-12-24T09:29:00.000-05:00

Since its eagerly anticipated launch on June 29 of this year, the diminutive iPhone handset has caused quite a stir across North America, and has emerged as possibly the year’s most notable hardware launch in the consumer electronics field.
Adding the touch-screen iPhone to its trendy portfolio of desirable products (which includes the all-conquering iPod music and media player) California-based Apple Inc. could be well on its way to reaching the initial sales goal outlined by CEO Steve Jobs prior to the iPhone’s summer unveiling.
According to a report published by tech-watchers at 9to5Mac, Apple could well use the upcoming Macworld Expo in San Francisco to announce that it has already sold some 5 million units of the iPhone – which would put it exactly halfway to hitting the target of 10 million by the close of 2008.
If that announcement does indeed come to pass, then it will give Apple a further 11 months to achieve its target of 10 million, bolstered by the fact that the first 5 million was amassed in a mere 7 months, reports Wired News. The Macworld Expo will take place between January 14 – 18, 2008.
The opening iPhone launch built impressive sales in the United States, with Apple revealing it had surpassed the first million marker in a mere 74 days. The iconic smartphone then shifted over to the UK, Germany, and France in the final quarter of 2007, which, while not as immediately receptive as the US, have contributed solidly to continuing iPhone performance with around 1 million in total sales.
Other regions likely to increase global sales during 2008 include the likes of China, Japan, and Spain.

Apple year in review

2007-12-24T09:22:00.001-05:00

In a Stevenote sent to Apple employees at mid-year, Jobs awkwardly described the company as a chair with the three legs—wouldn't that be a stool?—: the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone. As 2007 winds down, it's seems only appropriate to consider the year for Apple from that ternary perspective.

Intel CPUs, iPod Halo, Mac OS X, Windows Fatigue, whatever the cause, the effect is that 2007 will be remembered as a Mac Renaissance not seen since the early 90s. In 2006, 5,655,000 Macs were sold. 2007 will see sales between 7.7 million and 8 million—a 36 to 40 percent increase—and two to three times the projected growth of industry average. Since only the iMac saw significant revision this year, this is especially positive news. Of course, that hardware "leg" of Apple—someone find a new metaphor for Jobs—benefited from new software. Besides iLife '08 and iWork '08, including the spreadsheet Numbers, the tri-named Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard was released in October. During its first weekend alone, Leopard sold 2 million copies, something that took the previous iteration of OS X over a month to do. Mac sales in 2007 were great, a trend that will likely continue in 2008.

While new Macs were scarce in 2007, the iPod line launched two new models, as well as repackaging an old one and adding color to the last. While the Shuffle got color cases, the iPod Classic was kept around to keep the Zune in its place: last. The iPod Nano introduced a wide-screen display to the most popular iPod, and the iPod Touch introduced the touch screen display to people who don't want a phone. In 2006, Apple sold 46,366,000 iPods and is expected to sell approximately 55 million in 2007, an increase of somewhere around 17 percent. While the growth rate for sales may be leveling off, that's still a hell of a lot of media players. In contrast, music sales at the iTunes Store continue to accelerate, with Apple passing the two-billion song mark in January, followed by three billion songs in July, with four, or even five billion, likely to be announced at Macworld Expo in January. The iPod, and the iTunes Store, continued their respective market dominance, and will likely continue to do so in 2008.

Finally, that leaves the third leg of Apple, an appendage whose sales continues to elongate. Introduced at Macworld Expo 2007, the iPhone went on sale six months later, selling 270,000 units in its first two days. Seventy-two days after that, Apple sold its millionth iPhone. Now, rumor has it that the iPhone will have sold 5 million units in 2007, putting it on track to meet projections of 10 million sold in 2008. Clearly, Apple has another hit product in the iPhone.

While this has been a great year for Apple, there have been problems. Lackluster sales of the "sort of a new DVD player for the Internet age," as Steve Jobs awkwardly described the Apple TV, has ensured the furniture metaphor will not become a table anytime soon. However, worse than the failure of the Apple TV in 2007, was the inability of Apple to bring video content to the iTunes Store. The impasse with the movies studios and NBC abandoning the iTunes Store means 2007 saw a decrease in the number of video titles available. Still, even this problem is small when considered against the spectacularly successful transition of Apple Computer.

In 1992, market share for the Macintosh peaked at just over 12 percent, an all-time high. By 1997, Apple Computer's percentage of the PC market had plummeted to less than four percent, and that's about where it stands now. It was only fitting then that 2007 began with a symbolic statement of the obvious, and so should we ring out the end of the year in the same way.

Apple Computer is dead, long live Apple, Inc.!

iPhone could have a new brain.

2007-12-24T09:13:00.000-05:00

Apple is forming closer ties with Intel and will begin to roll out a variety of devices based on an upcoming Intel processor that has been designed to work with mobile devices, according to reports.

According to Apple Insider, Apple is planning to use the processor, code-named Silverthorne, in multiple products "currently situated on its 2008 calendar year product roadmap". Silverthorne is central to Intel's efforts to capture a greater share of the mobile-device market.

Apple Insider claims that the most likely candidates for Silverthorne are a 3G iPhone and any new tablet computer.

The inclusion of an Intel processor in the much-hyped iPhone would in some ways mark a change of heart for Apple.

Last year, Intel's director of Team Apple, Deborah Conrad, ruled out putting an Intel processor inside Apple's iPod. "I don't think you're going to see anything soon," Conrad told reporters. But when it came to future devices, Conrad added: "That's where we get very, very excited."

Intel plans to release more details of Silverthorne at the Intenational Solid State Circuits Conference in February.

Apple could offer no comment on the reports at the time of writing.

iTablet on the way?

2007-12-23T13:34:00.000-05:00

Bill Gates has long championed the notion of Tablet PCs - portable computers that let users scribble in digital ink on the screen as an alternative to a keyboard.

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So far, most computer users haven't shared his enthusiasm. But some analysts say the rising acceptance of touch-screen interfaces - exemplified by Apple's iPhone - could put a new spotlight on the concept.

The question is whether Microsoft or Apple will be better positioned to capitalize on it.

There has long been speculation about the possibility of Apple introducing a tablet-style Mac, fueled in part by the Cupertino, Calif., company's patent filings on tablet-computing technology. As in the past, the possibility is likely to be the subject of rumors leading up to the Macworld convention in January, where Apple chief executive Steve Jobs traditionally unveils products.

Microsoft's original Tablet PC software, introduced in 2002, was based on digital-pen technology. Microsoft added touch-screen capabilities a year ago. The iPhone, meanwhile, has captured attention for its use of "multi-touch," the ability to use multiple fingers at once, for more complex navigation.

Upon the launch of the Tablet PC, some analysts projected annual sales as high as 10 million units by 2007. In reality, they've been a fraction of that - expected to come in around 1.7 million in 2007.

"I think [Microsoft] succeeded in the sense that there are still vendors introducing Tablets," said analyst Michael Gartenberg of Jupiter Research. "I don't think they succeeded in the way that they'd hoped it would become a standard paradigm for mobile computing."

Predictions for 2008

2007-12-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

PEERING into Tech.view’s crystal ball, the one thing we can predict with at least some certainty is that 2008 will be the year we stop taking access to the internet for granted. The internet is not about to grind to a halt, but as more and more users clamber aboard to download music, video clips and games while communicating incessantly by e-mail, chat and instant messaging, the information superhighway sometimes crawls with bumper-to-bumper traffic.
The biggest road-hog remains spam (unsolicited e-mail), which accounts for 90% of traffic on the internet. Phone companies and other large ISPs (internet service providers) have tolerated it for years because it would cost too much to fix. Besides, eliminating spam would only benefit their customers, not themselves.
How so? Because the big fat pipes used by ISPs operate symmetrically, with equal bandwidth for upstream and downstream traffic. But end-users have traditionally downloaded megabytes of information from the web, while uploading only kilobytes of key strokes and mouse clicks. So, when spammers dump billions of pieces of e-mail onto the internet, it travels over the phone companies’ relatively empty upstream segments.
That can’t last. For a start, millions of gadgets are joining the human hordes. Any gizmo worth its silicon these days has its own internet connection—so it can update itself automatically, communicate autonomously with other digital species, and anticipate its user’s every whim.
AFPPart of the solution?
Soon, portable media-players, personal navigators, digital cameras, DVD players, flat-panel TV sets, and even mobile phones won’t be able to function properly without access to the internet. Expect even digital picture frames to have a WiFi connection so they can grab the latest photos from Flickr.
Meanwhile, users are changing the way they use the internet: they are now uploading, as well as downloading, gigabytes galore—thanks to the popularity of social networks like Facebook, YouTube and MySpace.
Hailed by the industry as the wave of the future, “user-generated content” is proving to be a tsunami of unprecedented proportions. Everyone, it seems, is suddenly a budding Martin Scorsese, bent on sharing his or her home-made videos with fellow YouTubers.
Once the biggest files being shared via Napster and other P2P (peer-to-peer) networks were MP3 music tracks occupying a few modest megabytes. Today, music videos and TV episodes of hundreds of megabytes are being swapped over the internet by BitTorrent, Gnutella and other file-sharing networks.
And it’s all two-way traffic. The whole point of P2P is that everyone who is downloading is simultaneously uploading to others.
That’s just the beginning. Legal or otherwise, swapping multi-gigabyte high-definition video and movie files is becoming increasingly common.
In fact, it will soon be the norm. Television networks have found they can make more money from advertising while giving their show away for free over the internet than they can from broadcasting them. Now the movie studios are learning to do much the same.
The result is a gridlock. That the telephone companies are running out of bandwidth can be seen from their equipment orders.
Cisco, the leading supplier of core routers used to direct traffic over the internet’s backbone, has just had another bumper quarter, with net income up 37% over the same period a year ago. Juniper Networks, another information-technology firm, did even better. Both companies credit the proliferation of social networks, the craze for internet searching, multimedia downloading, and the widespread adoption of P2P sharing for the surge in new business.
While major internet service providers like AT&T, Verizon and Comcast all plan to upgrade their backbones, it will be a year or two before improvements begin to show. By then, internet television will be in full bloom, spammers will have multiplied ten-fold, WiFi will be embedded in every moving object, and users will be screaming for yet more capacity.
In the meantime, accept that surfing the web is going to be more like travelling the highways at holiday time. You’ll get there, eventually, but the going won’t be great.
2. Surfing will detach
Earlier this month, Google bid for the most desirable chunk (known as C-block) of the 700-megahertz wireless spectrum being auctioned off by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in late January 2008. The 700-megahertz frequencies used by channels 52 to 69 of analog television are being freed up by the switch to all-digital broadcasting in February 2009.
The frequencies concerned are among the world’s most valuable. They were used for broadcasting UHF television because they suffered little atmospheric absorption, could be beamed for miles, and could then penetrate all the nooks and crannies in buildings. Their relatively short wavelength makes the transmission equipment compact and the antennas small.
Mobile phone companies lust after the 700 megahertz frequencies because of their long range and broadband capabilities. They see lots of lucrative things like mobile television and other broadband services to offer customers.
But the 700 megahertz band is also the last great hope for a “third pipe” for internet access in America. Such a wireless network would offer consumers a serious alternative to the pricey and poor DSL (digital subscriber line) services they get from the likes of AT&T and Verizon, and to the marginally better cable broadband Comcast provides.
Over the past couple of months, techdom has been abuzz with rumours about Google getting into the mobile phone business—with a G-Phone to trump Apple’s iPhone. That’s highly unlikely.
The speculation was triggered by the company’s recent unveiling of its Android operating-system for mobile phones. But the whole point of Android is not to allow Google to make fancy handsets, but to make it easier for others to do so.
The aim, of course, is to flood the market with “open access” phones that have none of the restrictions that big carriers impose—like not being able to download software and games from other makers, or search the internet freely, or make free VoIP (voice of internet protocol) calls from within a WiFi hotspot.
Android has been made available to a group of manufacturers orchestrated by Google and known as the Open Handset Alliance. One of the nimblest of the group, HTC of Taiwan, has already started showing a BlackBerry-like prototype based on the Android operating system. Expect to see a raft of Android phones from other manufacturers over the coming months.
Nor is Google in the business of building a network of cellular antennas and fat communications pipes. Should it win the bidding for C-block, it would presumably team up with Frontline Wireless, a startup with serious expertise and money behind it.
That’s because Google’s core business is organising knowledge and giving users access to it. Google makes its money—and lots of it—from matching advertisers to consumers who use its search engine to look up things, not from tinkering with slim-margin ventures like wireless networks.
But despite owning the world’s largest knowledge base—with over 60% of the online search market—Google is at the mercy of others who control the on-ramps to the internet. That rankles.

Worse, it has no way of getting at the other billion users who rely more on mobile phones than personal computers to organise their lives. Clearly, the time has come to muscle into the moribund mobile-phone business.
Bidding $5 billion or more (the reserve is $4.6 billion) to beat out wireless heavyweights like AT&T and Verizon could give Google the option to become a cell-phone operator in partnership with Frontline, with a ready supply of handsets from its alliance partners and none of the hassles of running a network. Alternatively, it could become an internet service provider with a long-range wireless network to rival the WiMAX networks being built by Sprint and others.
But Google may want to do neither. Sceptics note that Google single-handedly persuaded the FCC to attach all manner of “open access” provisions to the C-block of frequencies—something that was anathema to the mobile-phone companies. Verizon even sued the FCC in a bid to block its move to open access.
Having failed to do so, Verizon now says it will open its network to third-party devices sometime in the future—and presumably for an additional charge. But the FCC is not just taking Verizon’s word for it.
The winner of the C-block of frequencies, whoever that may be (and Verizon is the odds-on favourite), will have to open the network to any device that meets the basic specification. And the devices themselves will have to be open to other suppliers’ software and services.
In short, win or lose, Google has already achieved its objective. Internet searches will doubtless as popular among mobile-internet surfers as among their sedentary cousins. Owning at least 60% of the mobile search market is the prize Google has been after all along.
3. Surfing—and everything else computer-related—will open
Rejoice: the embrace of “openness” by firms that have grown fat on closed, proprietary technology is something we’ll see more of in 2008. Verizon is not the only one to cry uncle and reluctantly accept the inevitable.
Even Apple, long a bastion of closed systems, is coming round to the open idea. Its heavily protected iPhone was hacked within days of being launched by owners determined to run third-party software like Skype on it.
Apple’s initial response was to attempt a heavy-handed crackdown. But then a court decision in Germany forced its local carrier to unlock all iPhones sold there. Good news for iPhone owners everywhere: a flood of third-party applications is now underway.
The trend toward openness has been given added impetus by the recent collapse of the legal battles brought by SCO, a software developer. Formerly known as Santa Cruz Operations, the firm bought the Unix operating system and core technology in 1995 from Novell (which, in turn, had bought it from its original developer, AT&T).
Short of cash, SCO initiated a series of lawsuits against companies developing Linux software, claiming it contained chunks of copyrighted Unix code. Pressured by worried customers fearing prosecution, a handful of Linux distributors settled with SCO just to stay in business.
But IBM, which uses Linux, was having none of it, and fought the firm through the courts until it won. SCO is now operating under Chapter 11 of the American bankruptcy code.
The verdict removed, once and for all, the burden that had been inhibiting Linux’s broader acceptance. Linux is now accepted as being Unix-like, but not a Unix-derivative.
Bulletproof distributions of Linux from Red Hat and Novell have long been used on back-office servers. Since the verdict against SCO, Linux has swiftly become popular in small businesses and the home.
That’s largely the doing of Gutsy Gibbon, the code-name for the Ubuntu 7.10 from Canonical. Along with distributions such as Linspire, Mint, Xandros, OpenSUSE and gOS, Ubuntu (and its siblings Kubuntu, Edubuntu and Xubuntu) has smoothed most of Linux’s geeky edges while polishing it for the desktop.
No question, Gutsy Gibbon is the sleekest, best integrated and most user-friendly Linux distribution yet. It’s now simpler to set up and configure than Windows. A great deal of work has gone into making the graphics, and especially the fonts, as intuitive and attractive as the Mac’s.
Like other Linux desktop editions, Ubuntu works perfectly well on lowly machines that couldn’t hope to run Windows XP, let alone Vista Home Edition or Apple’s OS-X.
Your correspondent has been happily using Gutsy Gibbon on a ten-year-old desktop with only 128 megabytes of RAM and a tiny 10 gigabyte hard-drive. When Michael Dell, the boss of Dell Computers, runs Ubuntu on one of his home systems, Linux is clearly doing many things right.
And because it is free, Linux become the operating system of choice for low-end PCs. It started with Nicholas Negroponte, the brains behind the One Laptop Per Child project that aims to deliver computerised education to children in the developing world. His clever XO laptop, costing less than $200, would never have seen the light of day without its clever (and free) Linux operating system.
But Mr Negroponte has done more than create one of the world’s most ingenious computers. With a potential market measured in the hundreds of millions, he has frightened a lot of big-time computer makers into seeing how good a laptop they can build for less than $500.
All start with a desktop version of Linux. Recent arrivals include the Asus Eee from Taiwan, which lists for $400. The company expects to sell close on four million Eees this financial year. Another Taiwanese maker, Everex, is selling its gPC desktop through Walmart for $199.
When firms are used to buying $1,000 office PCs running Vista Business Edition and loading each with a $200 copy of Microsoft Office, the attractions of a sub-$500 computer using a free operating system like Linux and a free productivity suite like OpenOffice suddenly become very compelling.
And that’s not counting the $20,000 or more needed for Microsoft’s Exchange and SharePoint server software. Again, Linux provides such server software for free.
Pundits agree: neither Microsoft nor Apple can compete at the new price points being plumbed by companies looking to cut costs. With open-source software maturing fast, Linux, OpenOffice, Firefox, MySQL, Evolution, Pidgin and some 23,000 other Linux applications available for free seem more than ready to fill that gap. By some reckonings, Linux fans will soon outnumber Macintosh addicts. Linus Torvalds should be rightly proud.

iPhone news ringtones for all

2007-12-23T12:20:00.000-05:00

Efiko Software has just announced version 2.0 of their very popular iPhone ringtone creation and installation software, called iPhoneRingToneMaker. Though there are several methods and software packages iPhone owners can use to get free ringtones on their Apple iPhones, iPhoneRingToneMaker (along with iToner) is on a short list of these solutions which will allow users to make a ringtone from existing music on their computers, are easy to use, and are well supported by their creators.
Of course, all of this easy-to-use goodness comes at a price, albeit an extremely modest one. Purchasing ringtones through iTunes costs basically $0.99, should you buy yourself just over a dozen of them, you've already spent the cost of iPhoneRingToneMaker ($14.99). Considering that iPhoneRingToneMaker allows you to create and transfer an unlimited number of ringtones to your iPhone, it doesn't take a mathematician to figure out the the software is a bargain.
So what's new in version iPhoneRingToneMaker 2.0? Well, a few preat handy and helpful features:
ringtone shufling
volume boosting
Ringtone shuffling let's you randomly switch up your ringtones on your iPhone. According to Efiko, this works by the software shuffling your ringtones everytime you sync your iPhone with your PC (optional). What sounds more useful is the volume boosting feature. Often, ringtones made from MP3s simply don't sound loud enough. The new volume boosting feature uses digital amplification to make your created ringtones play louder on the iPhone.
iPhoneRingToneMaker is a best seller in the iPhoneFAQ Store and got a 4.75 (out of 5) rating from the folks at ThinkMac.net. The only bad thing is that iPhoneRingToneMaker is only for Windows PCs. No Mac support yet. Mac users should look into purchasing iToner.
If you already purchased iPhoneRingToneMaker, version 2.0 is a free upgrade for all existing owners.

iPhone remote control

2007-12-23T12:17:00.000-05:00

We’ve seen plenty of applications where the iPhone is used as a remote controller, of sorts. From sound engineering to your music collection, the iPhone’s capacitance-based multi-touch display is ideal for remote-control-use.
Cinemar has announced that they’ll be brining iPhone and iPod Touch support for their Cinemar Mainlobby home-automation. Using an AJAX web-app, Mainlobby’s integrated web-server gives the iPhone complete control over everything in the home - lighting, security, home theater, thermostats, and movie/music collection. You’ll even be able to browse all the movies on your 400-disc DVD player or on an external hard-drive and check whether conditions. And, by the time Mainlobby goes commercial for the iPhone, we’re sure the guys at Cinemar will have built in even cooler features.
iPhone support is still in its infancy, so we’ll be keeping a close eye on Cinemar’s development progress.
Click on for a few more screenshots of Mainlobby on the iPhone.

iNeed this help..if your at work, skip this post!!!!!

2007-12-23T12:16:00.001-05:00

There’s a new webapp for the iPhone that everyone can get into. It shows you how to stimulate a woman properly so that she can achieve what guys can get by accidentally bumping into a hottie. (Ok, so, it wasn’t an accident. Tell it to the judge.)If you have an iPhone you can go to rubmyclit in your Safari browser and with a two finger motion, rub, rub, rub to your heart’s content. Sounds great, right? We tried it out with our own fingers and here’s a friendly warning from TheFeed; It’s just as laborious and anticlimactic as you would expect. There’s no audio and it’s awkward and a little gross, just like in real life.
THIS JUST IN: It doesn’t work for any other body parts.

iPhone could be your computer

2007-12-21T20:03:00.000-05:00

If iPhone is an electronic Pinocchio desiring above all to be a legitimate mobile computer, the Blue Fairy just granted its wish. Steve Jobs announced iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) would land in third party developers' hands by Feb. 2008. We're only a month away.
Apple's forthcoming SDK will apply to both iPhone and iPod Touch. The announcement has coders everywhere texting their relief: "OMG, ABFT." [http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2007/10/iphone_sdk]
But what does the announcement really mean? For starters, third party companies will be able to make software to run on your iPhone. Even though Apple will probably require certification and the apps will most likely only be available from Apple. iPhone will soon enter the arena of serious mobile computers like those manufactured by brands like RIM, Palm and Motorola.
Until the SDK announcement it wasn't clear if Apple would ever invite third party software on iPhone. Apple took on uncharacteristic, militant tones with the development community when it warned hackers that new firmware updates are liable to brick iPhones containing third party software. Apple seemed to be turning into the man.
But we all knew iPhone needed a SDK to be a real mobile computer. Despite amazing media capabilities, innovative touch interface and elegant Apple design. Without third party applications like AIM, Skype and even Microsoft Exchange synchronization - iPhone is just a wooden toy-puppet

iPhone thinks positive when it comes to the TEMP.

2007-12-21T19:53:00.000-05:00

It appears that the Weather application on the iPhone (powered by Yahoo! Weather) can’t display temperatures below zero degrees fahrenheit. As reported by one user on the Apple Discussions board:
“I live in Alaska. The temps here have all been below zero F or more than -18C but the weather reported on the iphone never goes below zero F. right now it is -13F and going to Yahoo says this but the iphone shows 0F. ”
While the Weather application will display temperatures lower than zero degress fahrenheit in the extended forecast and the high/low temperature for the day, the current temperature reading cannot step below this threshold. Yahoo’s Web-accessible weather data will show temperature data below zero degrees, so this appears to be an easily fixable bug in the iPhone app.

Blackberry going to bat against the iPhone

2007-12-21T19:47:00.000-05:00

Boy Genius Report may have gotten their hands on early specs of the upcoming touch-interface Blackberry 9000. And according to their sources, the (iPhonesque?) 9000 has two hardware advantages over the iPhone. First, it features a 624MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor that just edges out the iPhone's 620MHz ARM 1173 processor (on paper). Second, the 9000 will introduce speedy HSDPA to the line (a welcomed 3G first for the Blackberrys). Here are the rest of the specs:
- 480 x 320 resolution screen - 1GB onboard memory - GPS, WiFi, HSDPA - Maybe a 3.2MP camera - Maybe dropping in Q1 or Q2 of 2008Looking good, but can anyone get over a loss of button-driven QWERTY

iMap iSucks iPhone needs EXCHANGE

2007-12-21T19:42:00.000-05:00

Even if iPhones are further into the enterprise market than some might think (or desire), the lack of native non-IMAP support for Exchange accounts on the device has given some users and their IT departments pause. While there are some solid third-party options coming along (Visto and SyncML among others), only an Apple-blessed solution is going to satisfy in the end. Is there progress on the home front? Chadwick sent along a link via ModMyiPhone.com to an Apple job posting for a QA engineer:
The iPhone Quality team is looking for a motivated, highly-technical Exchange test/sync engineer with excellent problem solving and communication skills. You will join a dynamic team responsible for qualifying the latest iPhone products. Your focus will be testing Exchange and Outlook functionality with Apple's innovative new phone. The successful candidate will complete both documented and adhoc testing to ensure high quality releases.
Hiring a QA engineer implies that the Exchange connector code under development is getting ready for testing and release. Could an Exchange hookup for the iPhone be coming in time for Macworld Expo? Dee-lightful.

iPhone designed for 75 degrees and Sunny. Cold weather calling tips, use your nose!

2007-12-21T19:35:00.000-05:00

The problem with designing the iPhone in sunny Cupertino, California? Apple's engineers missed something: it's tricky using the touchscreen when it's cold outside! The folks in the NY Tech Meetup email listserv have recently been swapping winter-iPhone-dialing tips -- see the gloves section below -- and our iPhone-loving hedge fund correspondent says she has stooped to answering her phone with her nose. "Better that than get caught licking my phone," she says. "Not that I didn’t consider that option!"Some last-minute gift ideas for your favorite cold-weather iPhone lover:Convertible gloves. Online camping and gear retailers offer a jumble of different styles, designs, and fabrics. Erehwon sells these classic (pictured) ragg wool flip-up mittens in three sizes for $20, or a black, all-fleece edition for men and women for $19.95. Cabela's offers a weirder-looking set of fleece-lined, neoprene gloves designed for ice fishing for $40.Hand warmers. Don't want funky gloves but need to keep your fingers ice-free for iPhone dialing? Pick up a disposable hand warmer for $1.25, or a rechargeable one from Zippo (right) for $29.95.Stylus/pen. Someone on eBay named "suemusik" has been ripping people off selling a cheap pen as an iPhone stylus for $10. Assuming this pen cap actually works as an iPhone stylus, you'd be best off skipping the middle man. Head to your local stationery/art supplies store with an iPhone in hand, and try out a couple dozen pens. One of them might do a decent job dialing the phone.Phone fingers? We won't pretend to know if these €6.90 latex finger-sleeves work for dialing or not, but they'd make a good gag gift either way.

iGoogle? iPhone platform by Google? iDon't know

2007-12-21T19:31:00.000-05:00

It seems that lots of Googlers are really into the iPhone, including Googler-in-Chief Eric Schmidt. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) has been launching new mobile applications specifically for the iPhone, just as the company also prepares its own Android platform. Is there a hidden connection between the iPhone and Google Android?
Blogger Jon Bradford thinks Google is using the iPhone to beta test (or in Google's case, is that pre-beta?) new applications for its Android system. But what do the iPhone and Google Android have in common?
According to Bradford, it's WebKit, the open source browser platform. You see WebKit is the framework for, of all things, Apple's Safari browser. It also happens to be the framework for the browser in Google's Android platform.
Hence, what we may be actually looking at is Google’s mobile services which will be available on Android from its launch, effectively putting iPhone users through the pain of finding the flaws.
Could this be right? Is Google using the iPhone to test Android?
So for those who have looked jealously on the new interfaces being developed for iPhone, have a little patience, because I think what you are looking at is Google’s services for Android.
This is interesting, especially given the revelation earlier this week that Android doesn't work. Here is what my colleague Eric Zeman had to say:
This is an early stumble for Google. Google needs the developers to be happy with the SDK if it expects the platform to gain any legs in the market. If they can't get applications to work because the coding is all messed up, Android might be a very short-lived experiment or fail to have the impact Google hopes for. The developers who WSJ spoke with also said Google has not been very responsive to their complaints.
Many of our readers chimed in, claiming that early SDKs often don't work. As one reader, Roq, wrote:
Android is due a year from now. I wouldn't be too worried about early bugs if I were you. It's par for the course.
Maybe we shouldn't be worried that Android isn't yet up to par. Maybe Google is working on it right now -- and all those iPhone fans out there are also working on it too (without even knowing it).
What do you think? Are all those new Google applications for the iPhone really just Android apps in disguise?
« Brits Caught Talking While Driving To Be Jailed Main More BlackBerry 9000 Details Leaked »

Vista on the iPhone?

2007-12-21T19:28:00.000-05:00

If we had to find one way for the iPhone and Windows Vista to interact, it probably would have been via SideShow, Vista's secondary-display technology that gives you a small portable control board that you can tote around. The people at Ikanos Consulting have been fooling around with a SideShow webserver and are creating an iPhone-compatible version (along with DS, Wii, PSP, PS3) to control your PC wherever you have access. It's not available for download yet, but a beta should be coming soon.

iPhone iSee your future...more iPhone news and rumors to gobble up.

2007-12-21T19:22:00.000-05:00

After holding off on the release of a faster iPhone because of concerns about battery life, is Apple really prepared to take a step backward with Intel's Silverthorne chip?
AppleInsider reported Friday that Apple has decided to use Intel's upcoming low-power Silverthorne chip in "not one but multiple products currently situated on its 2008 calendar year product roadmap." Silverthorne is Intel's latest push to capture the handheld/mobile phone market as part of a product concept called the Mobile Internet Device.

It's probably a little too soon for an iPhone based on Intel's chips, but maybe not another kind of handheld.(Credit: CNET Networks)
The report goes on to say that the most likely candidates for Silverthorne are a 3G iPhone and the Newton-like tablet computer that AppleInsider reported on earlier in the year. Based on what we know about Silverthorne, I think the subtablet rumor might make sense, but a Silverthorne iPhone is unlikely.
Intel plans to release more details about Silverthorne at the Intenational Solid State Circuits Conference in February, but we already know from the advance program, and from what Intel said about the chip last year, that we can expect Silverthorne to behave like a much smaller 2004-era Pentium M processor that consumes just a watt or two of power, compared with the 35 watts consumed by Intel's Core 2 Duo notebook processors of today.
But that's still not enough for a phone. According to several iPhone teardowns, Apple is likely using the Samsung S3C6400, or some special equivalent built just for them, in the iPhone. That chip is based on the ARM1176 core, which at 620MHz consumes just 279 milliwatts. That's running all-out, whereas most of the time you're actually going to be drawing much less power than that. Silverthorne, by contrast, will consume 500 milliwatts of power at minimum, and probably only when it's doing nothing in idle mode.
Those numbers just aren't going to work in a phone, especially an Apple phone, if the company really is so concerned about power consumption that it has held off on releasing a 3G iPhone until the power consumption of that modem improves. Those numbers could work, however, in something more along the lines of a powerful handheld such as the rumored "Return of the Newton" that was discussed earlier this year. Based on the concept designs shown by Intel last year for Silverthorne-era devices, however, this would be something much larger than a phone, more along the lines of a UMPC or a handheld gaming device like Sony's PSP.

This is what Intel has in mind for its 2009 Moorestown chip, not its 2008 Silverthorne chip.(Credit: Tom Krazit/CNET News.com)
Given the close relationship between Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Intel CEO Paul Otellini, as well as Otellini's commitment to low-power designs, I would not at all be surprised to see Apple and Intel hook up on a future mobile phone or sleek mobile computer. But I wouldn't expect to see it until at least 2009, when Intel releases a chip called Moorestown that is expected to reach the milliwatt operating power of current ARM designs. Some of the concept devices that Intel showed off as Moorestown-era projects looked an awful lot like the iPhone.
Apple had to design the OS X operating system inside the iPhone and the iPod Touch around the ARM instruction set, because there's really no other realistic option right now for smart phones. But it might be looking at the development resources needed to port all of its software (iLife, iWork, GarageBand, etc.) over to ARM, and balking at the amount of time and energy that would require. If Intel can deliver an x86 chip with similar/better power and performance characteristics to the chips built by ARM's partners, it could be a very attractive product, and that's the meat of Intel's sales pitch to the phone makers.
Of course, ARM's partners will be out with dual-core chips by then that could tilt the performance equation solidly in its favor, while staying within the same power envelope. We've got a long time to muse about that.

iWish the iPhone had some of these features.

2007-12-21T18:55:00.000-05:00

The Apple iPhone seems to have taken the international cell phone market by storm, wowing people with its slick appearance and multi-touch display. When you look at actual sales figures, however, this resounding success is largely restricted to the United States. According to recent estimates, there have been approximately 310,000 LG Viewty phones sold in its first five weeks in Europe, outselling the iPhone.The report by Dial-a-Phone of the UK doesn't provide any firm numbers regarding the number of iPhones sold during the same period, but they have official reports from O2 saying that "tens of thousands" of units have been sold. Tens of thousands is quite a bit smaller than 310,000.In terms of figuring out why the LG Viewty is outperforming the Apple iPhone in Europe, the blog comes up with this four-pronged response: The Viewty is better phone (5MP cam, HSDPA, Xenon flash, etc.); Viewty is available on all major networks; Viewty is available on a shorter contract; Viewty is a lot cheaper (free with 12 month O2 contract).

iPhone becoming e-shopping mall. iBuy stuff

2007-12-21T18:46:00.000-05:00

Bloomberg today reports that Americans are splurging on mobile smart phones like they never have before and are catching up to their European and Asian counterparts in handset spending.
Carolina Milanesi, an analyst at Gartner said:
"The iPhone has made the U.S. consumer appreciate the value of the mobile phone. North America is the only region where the average phone price will increase this year. Last year, mobile handsets sold in Japan cost 74 percent more than in North America. In Europe, they were 10 percent pricier.''

Apple has been on a tear of late leaping Windows Mobile devices in US Sales and browser market share. Waterloo, Ontario-based Research in Motion, makers of the recently tricked out Blackberry models of smartphones, is expected to reveal strong earnings this week as well. Both Apple and RIM stocks have doubled this year.
Nokia, Motorola, Sony Ericcson and Samsung expect to capitalize on this new American willingness to spend on status symbol-type phones. It will be hard to unseat the market leaders who also have updates coming in 2008.

Apple picks up the tab for giving an iPhone a good home.

2007-12-21T18:38:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it‘s a need for one more five-star review or another ‘Gadget of the Year’ award, but no matter what reasons exists for putting off the purchase of an iPhone, time is running out, fast.
For delivery by Christmas, online orders for iPhone and other Apple Inc. products must be placed by noon today. To push consumers along, Apple is picking up the upgrade to express shipping. That’s about as big a bargain as one encounters when it comes to buying the $399 device.
To say the iPhone is this year’s most innovative and exciting mainstream technology is to repeat countless other publications, most recently Time magazine. In this case, those reviewers are right.
In the six months since iPhone made its much-hyped debut, it’s become easy to forget what the cellular telephone landscape was before it. With more ease than consumers had a right to expect – even from an Apple product --the iPhone allows owners do it all. Browsing the internet, watching iTunes movies, listening to music, reading emails, taking photos and, yes, placing telephone calls, are all elegant tasks on this stunningly attractive gadget.
Sure I have a wish list of improvements that would make the iPhone experience even better, not the least of which is an upgrade to AT&T’s cruelly slow network speeds for browsing via the cellular connection. I’d also be a big fan of a Bluetooth-enabled portable keypad to help do away with my iTypos. Touchscreen typing is not the easiest skill to master, even with the ‘smart’ help built in that offers possible corrections to my errors.

These complaints are minor, however, when you consider what Apple Inc. accomplished with this debut. While the company did not invent the touchscreen, it did establish a new way to interact with a gadget. Tapping, pinching, pulling, sliding – manipulating this phone is fun and unlike anything consumers have encountered.
Apple also loaded the iPhone. Instead of giving it some scaled-down, OSX-mini operating system, it crammed the entire computer system inside. The iPhone is also an iPod and a 2 megapixel camera.
It rare when an over-hyped piece of hardware lives up to the dreams and desires of fans that waited patiently for its arrival. The iPhone is the biggest news that hit the world of technology in 2007. Somehow, I’m thinking it will stay in the spotlight in the upcoming year as well.

My iPhone as 5 million brothers and sisters.

2007-12-21T18:32:00.000-05:00

Could Steve Jobs already be halfway to meeting his iPhone sales goal? According to 9to5Mac, Apple is expected to announce it has moved nearly five million iPhones as soon as next month's Macworld Expo.
If that number is accurate, it will mean the company is exactly halfway to hitting its target of selling 10 million iPhones by the end of 2008 -- not a bad position to be in considering Apple has another 11 months and presumably some big launches in countries like Japan, China, Spain and others.Of those five million, sources tell the site that Europe contributed one million in sales, while the U.S. accounted for the remaining four.
Apple, of course, announced it had sold 1 million iPhones on Sept. 10, only 74 days after the phone went on sale. After the notorious 33 percent price cut, sales of the phone nearly tripled according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster. And while sales in Europe haven't come close to matching that pace yet, they are undoubtedly a key part of getting to 10 million.

iphone/iTABLET news ..Could this be the future of the iPhone?

2007-12-21T15:10:00.000-05:00

Here's the rumor that won't go away. Unites States Patent Application #20060026536 (which features the signature of Jonathan Ive) concerns "...Methods and systems for processing touch inputs are disclosed. The invention in one respect includes reading data from a multipoint sensing device such as a multipoint touch screen..." Is an Apple tablet in the works (yes, I'm bringing that up again)? Hrmph! even has a very nice round-up of images related to using "gestures" with a touchscreen-based user interface. Note the iPod-like scroll wheel in Fig. 27D.Seriously, though, who would you trust to deliver a tablet PC that's both beautiful and useful? Mr. Ive and Apple, that's who. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

Make purchases using your iPhone at Stores ....Future is near!

2007-12-20T21:38:00.000-05:00

Apple has filed a new patent for a wireless transaction system that looks like it will be used in the iPhone and allow users to order products and pay for them instantly. Apple's patent details their merchant-client wireless system which will work with cellular, WiFi, WiMAX or Bluetooth networks. Among the areas covered by the patent are the ability to access restaurant menus on the go. The system would allow merchants to be able to push their new ads to devices that are tuned into this new web service, and hence would require local merchants to be on board with the initiative.
The system also includes a mechanism for for merchants to report a stolen iPod/iPhone if the owner has properly reported that information to Apple in a timely manner. Apple states that in some cases "whenever a wireless media player comes within range of the wireless data network, the wireless media player can be (unbeknownst to the user) directed to send a wireless media player identifier that uniquely identifies the particular wireless media player to the wireless data network. The wireless media player identifier can be used to track lost or stolen media players when the rightful owner has placed the wireless media player identifier in a central database of lost or stolen media players. In this way, if a lost or stolen media player is tracked, any number of subsequent actions can be taken such as notifying the authorities, disabling the wireless media player, displaying a notice to return the wireless media player, etc. thereby providing a strong disincentive for stealing the player."In one example a user instruction directs the wireless media player to open a graphical user interface (GUI) on a display that includes a list of items previously purchased from the merchant stored in the memory. However, in some cases it may be desirable to store customer information (such as the list of previously purchased items) on either or both the local server or the central server. In this way, even in those cases where a user purchases a new item or is using a different media player than would otherwise be used that does not have a current, or accurate, customer preference file for that particular user, the local server or remote server can be used to update, or synchronize, the local memory.

Snapshot in time..past iPhone rumors...READ and ENJOY!

2007-12-20T21:00:00.001-05:00

(Remember when Apple Stock was under $100. Read and Enjoy.)

Is Apple working on a music player cell phone? Apple's CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, might have let the 'cat out of the bag' on an Apple analyst Q3 conference call.When Merrill Lynch analyst Richard Farmer mentioned the success of the Sony Walkman Phone, Oppenheimer responded by saying: "As regards cell phones, we don't think that the phones that are available today make the best music players. We think the iPod is. But over time, that is likely to change. And [Apple is] not sitting around doing nothing."

In addition to Oppenheimer's slip of the tongue on the conference call, VL-Tone, a member of the Apple Insider forums found some interesting code in the last iPod software update. When using a hex editor he found several phone related commands/variables in the update including: t_feature_app_PHONE_APP, kPhoneSignalStrength, clPhoneMocksApplication, clPhoneCallModel.As a result of all this iPhone hype and rumors, Merrill Lynch has upgraded Apple stock (AAPL) to a 'buy' and raised the target price to $72.So when it comes to cell phones, just remember that Apple is "not sitting around doing nothing." Our sister blog e-Fuze thinks that "This should serve as a clear indication that Apple is indeed working on the iPhone. It is now a matter of when Apple will officially confirm the project and even release a timeframe for the device."

iPhone rumors new iPhone details for next year!

2007-12-20T20:53:00.001-05:00

iPone news looks at CDMA VS. GSM

2007-12-20T19:46:00.000-05:00

It’s come to my attention that not everyone understands the subtle yet significant differences between GSM and CDMA. We’ve received random e-mails from folks asking how they can get XY phone from AT&T to work on Sprint’s network and it makes me scratch my head. My first instinct is to curse and hit the Spam button, but I slowly realize this individual just doesn’t know the difference. It’s not their fault. In our line of work we don’t always remember that everyone is as savvy or immersed in tech on a daily basis. For this we apologize. To make up for our indiscretions here is your Orientation for the week.
A few people I spoke with knew that the main difference had something to do with a SIM card, which is the Subscriber Identity Module card. Said SIM cards are used in the US by T-Mobile and AT&T. I’m hoping most of you know this already. Here in lies one of the positives for subscribers with GSM carriers. You’re not tied down to a single handset that’s attached to one network like you are with CDMA carriers/phones ie Sprint and Verizon. It’s quite evident with the mayhem surrounding the iPhone. That’s the bare bones difference.
To be exact, GSM stands for Global System for Mobile Communications, which is based on an older standard called TDMA, which we won’t get into. CDMA stands for Code Division Multiple Access. Neither of those terms is very easy to digest at all, now is it? Without getting into the nitty gritty of it, simply because you needn’t worry about it, I’ve broken it down as best I can for you (and me) to understand. If you must know the technical specs then I have one morsel for you to chew on: they share bandwidth differently. GSM allocates a bit of bandwidth for each user on a local network and they can do as they please, whereas with CDMA each device gets a chunk of bandwidth only when they need it.
Some say that CDMA is a superior technology for the following reasons: It allows for more users across a given frequency because it’s only being used when needed, and because battery life on CDMA phones is far superior to that of any GSM device because it’s not transmitting anything when sitting by idle.
Those are the two main factors and I could talk about the cancer causing aspect of mobile phones, but we’re beyond that and everything causes cancer these days.
However, GSM’s constant contact means that acquiring a signal isn’t as tricky. When a CDMA phone connects to the network, it must negotiate with the local tower what phone it is, what service, what number, etc. This is that pause between when you hit “send” and it starts ringing. The more interference there is, the longer this takes. With GSM, that’s taken care of when you roam into a tower’s area, the phone is “registered” with the tower already and starts transmitting much faster. Also, the already-connected state means that GMS can work in areas (such as elevators, underground) where CDMA generally can not.
The only downside to CDMA at this point in time is it’s lack of mobility across continents. GSM networks are used in more countries (roughly 3/4 of the world market) than CDMA so roaming is hardly ever an issue thanks to that SIM card.
In terms of data transmission, GSM has the upper hand with HSDPA as it is capable of transferring up to 7.2 Mbps while EV-DO Rev. A can only muster 3.1 Mbps. A GSM signal can also be shoddy at times depending on where you are. For instance, in Manhattan AT&T doesn’t get the best coverage while Verizon and Sprint are rock solid. In my experience T-Mobile works perfect in the city, but not very well out on Long Island. It also depends on where you live in the country because in the Bay Area, AT&T is a champ while T-Mobile eats it. In general, CDMA carriers are more reliable nationwide because of the larger tower footprints.
The overall point that you should take away from this is that you need to assess your current needs if you’re in the market for a new phone. Will you be traveling or staying home? Of course, CDMA providers like Verizon are releasing dual-band phones like the BlackBerry 8830 World Edition that allow for a SIM card when you travel overseas, so it may one day be a moot point. Be sure to check the network coverage in your area as it differs from region to region. Voice/data plans and hardware themselves are going to be the biggest factors in your decision. Do you want better coverage (Verizon), better phones (AT&T), cheap plans (T-Mo) or faster data (Sprint)?

iphone rumors and ipod patents could be the future.

2007-12-20T19:34:00.001-05:00

Apple Inc. has been active filing patents for new technologies that could integrate into its product line, including a possible revival of the iPod Hi-Fi, wireless device ordering and lockdowns, and a new network-based anti-piracy scheme.iPod BoomboxAlthough Apple was forced by poor sales to pull the iPod Hi-Fi from store shelves in September, a new US patent published on Thursday shows the electronics maker still exploring its own speaker accessories.Named the iPod Boombox in the patent and in earlier trademarks, the audio system borrows the shape of the now discontinued Hi-Fi but embeds a screen or control system at the front. In screen form, the change would allow the Boombox to play video from a docked iPod as well as sound.A receiver on the front would also allow remote control alongside volume buttons on the top of the system.As with most of Apple's patent filings, the company is not under obligation to use the technology even if the patent is later granted.

Wireless ordering and lockdown system

A second patent published the same day, for a wireless communication system, allows for special transactions to occur when an Apple device comes in contact with wireless networks.In the new implementation, a handheld or similar hardware automatically identifies itself to the local network, triggering an order to a remote system that queues up and processes requests based on their priority. The technique could be used to notify a device user exactly when coffee is ready at a restaurant or push ads in certain locations, Apple explains in one example.The description bears some similarity to Apple's Starbucks service, which automatically cues a Starbucks option on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iTunes program when its user is connected to a hotspot run by the coffee shop.However, the invention may also be used to remotely shut down a device, the company says. In the event the equipment is lost or stolen and either Apple or another organization is aware of the incident, the hardware identifier could be used to warn any unwanted owners or lock the device outright, preventing data theft and encouraging its return.The patent appears to address concerns raised by large businesses, which have been told to avoid the iPhone by analysts due to the lack of remote administration present on RIM BlackBerries, Palm Treos, and most other work-oriented smartphones.Code injection anti-piracy systemOne of Apple's additional patents revealed on Thursday focuses only on software, according to a report from MacRumors.Dubbed a Run-Time Code Injection to Perform Checks, the software patent would let a program's developer trigger the installation of new code that approves the use of a program with the user's hardware. If the hardware changes, the code could disable a given copy even after it has been approved elsewhere.Copy protection could thus be in place without relying on hardware dongles or other local copy protection systems, many of which are largely ineffective, Apple says.The anti-piracy method can potentially run every time a program is active and appears to vary sharply from Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage, which is usually only invoked upon installing a new program or specific software updates.Auto-shutdown system for handhelds, MacsLastly, an additional patent for a host device shutdown system could aid Apple's reputation for environmental friendliness while aiding users.Software on both a host computer and a portable device, such as an iMac and an iPod, could be set to automatically sleep or shut down either system when certain conditions are met, such as a full battery. Owners could leave a system running overnight to charge an iPod knowing that it would shut off on its own while also preventing the attached device from continuing to draw unnecessary power.

iPhone driving future MAC interface .. the MAC wants to feel the love

2007-12-20T00:30:00.000-05:00

An Apple Job listing (noted on Engadget) reveals that Apple is indeed working on multi-touch Mac hardware.They are looking for a reliability engineer supporting Multi-touch panel development with Mac and iPod hardware groups. The job itself seems to involve high level quality assurance testing, but the involvement of the Mac hardware group seems to confirm that Apple is working to incorporate multi-touch technologies into future Macs.This progression has been widely expected since the iPhone was first released, but this is the first (possible) indication from Apple.9to5mac had previously suggested that the Apple sub-notebook might incorporate some of these features, but no further details have become available, so the timeframe for this integration remains speculative.

iPhone firmware update 1.1.3 rumors

2007-12-19T20:12:00.000-05:00

Any updated news on this update? I am concerned that this iPhone firmware update is not coming this week.

I am getting to the point where I will make an app my self. Disk mode would be a very welcomed feature as would voice notes.

Does anyone in the world know any details on this? Please give all of us a heads up.

Rumors not limited to iPhone..Windows Mobile taking another wack at it.

2007-12-19T19:19:00.000-05:00

An increasing number of rumors are circulating online about the future versions of Windows Mobile, including claims of vastly improved web browsing, new interfaces, and context-sensitive functionality.
A few of these rumors concern the Windows Mobile 6.1 update, expected early next year, whose features have in large part already been revealed.
Many more revolve around the next major revision of Windows Mobile, commonly referred to as "Photon." Photon has been widely expected to launch in the first half of 2008, and deliver a single platform version not divided between touchscreen and non-touchscreen devices. However, it's unclear how this launch schedule may be affected by the introduction of Windows Mobile 6.1.
Rumors not facts
Gadget site Gizmodo has published an article discussing a number of these reports as fact, and implying that Microsoft Product Manager Derek Snyder provided them the information they cite.
However, Brighthand can confirm that Snyder did not provide Gizmodo the information that the site implicitly attributed to him, and Microsoft has denied that any of the information presented by Gizmodo is officially sanctioned or confirmed. As such, this report must be considered unconfirmed rumor.
Future of Windows Mobile 7 and 8
What is rumored about Photon is that it's supposed to include a much improved web browser with features similar to the Safari browser on Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch devices. Microsoft previously initiated a beta test of a scaling web browser engine called Deepfish in March, making it likely that this technology will be integrated into the next major Internet Explorer revision.
Rumored but unconfirmed for Photon is an upgrade to the multimedia capabilities of Windows Mobile, focusing particularly on music and photos, and a possible cross-pollination with Microsoft's semi-flopped Zune media player.
Also, for the first time reports are circulating about the Windows Mobile version to follow Photon, likely in 2009. Gizmodo discusses a completely redesigned user interface, a global search, and context-sensitive links between applications, such as standardizing the ability to find contacts on a map, along with other similar capabilities.
Of course, at this time little to no official information is available from Microsoft about its plans for even the short term future of Windows Mobile, making any speculation prone to possible change without warning.

iPhone does it again..I'm not surprised

2007-12-19T19:16:00.000-05:00

When Apple first announced the iPhone nearly a year ago, there were a few nay-sayers—among them Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmber—who dismissed the product outright, claiming the iPhone had "no chance" and would only capture a market share in the low single digits. Those predictions seem to have been a bit premature: new smartphone sales figures compiled by Canalys and published without fanfare by Symbian show that the iPhone captured 27 percent of the smartphone market during the third quarter of 2007. The figures put the iPhone ahead of everything except RIM's BlackBerry line…and ahead of the sales figures for all Windows Mobile devices combined.
The iPhone's impressive second place finish during the third quarter of 2007 (ending in September—the iPhone's first full quarter of availability) may be more impressive since the iPhone wasn't yet on sale in markets outside the United States. The device has since gone on sale in the UK, France, and Germany. Canalys's sales figures align closely with similar mobile device sales numbers published by the NPD Group.
The Apple iPhone has been downplayed by some industry watchers as a consumer-friendly device that would never be accepted by corporations and enterprises; however, a solid debut in second place amongst smartphone sales may cause some analysts to rethink their assessments—especially those who predicted the smartphone market would be dominated by Windows Mobile. Apple is also working to improve the iPhone's story, with a developer SDK due in 2008 and persistent rumors of improved integration with Microsoft's Exchange server technology.

Palm oh Palm, what have you done

2007-12-18T21:55:00.000-05:00

No shocker, because we were warned: has-been smartphone maker Palm (PALM) reported a crappy Q2 this evening, thanks to weak sales, a delay getting one of its new Treos out the door, and higher than expected warranty expenses repairing some of its older products.The company sold 686,000 smartphones during the quarter, up 11% year-over-year. But that's hardly impressive considering that last quarter, the U.S. smartphone market itself grew 180% year-over-year, according to research firm NPD Group.Palm's quarter is even more lousy in the context of its newest, least-experienced smartphone rival. While Palm is an established company with a multi-national sales channel across many carriers, Apple (AAPL) -- which just entered the smartphone industry in June -- sold 1.1 million iPhones in its last quarter. On one carrier -- in one country.Overall, Palm reported a net loss of $9.6 million, or 9 cents per diluted share, on $349.6 million of revenue. That's a sharp decline in profit from a year ago, when the company earned $12.8 million, or 12 cents per share, on $392.9 million of Q2 revenue. One bright spot: Palm's $99 Centro, available on Sprint Nextel (S), is doing well. But the lower-priced product helped force Q2 gross margin down year-over-year from 35.4% to 29.7%.Things could get worse before they get better. Palm desperately needs to get sexier phones on the market and its new operating system finished -- before Apple and RIM smoke them out of the high-end smartphone market even more.

iPhone firmware update 1.1.3

2007-12-18T21:21:00.000-05:00

I had reported that the Firmware update would be coming later this week.

I attempted to confirm this rumor and was not sucessful.

If anyone has a updated news on this, let me know.

iPhone got it going on..taking the market by storm

2007-12-17T20:56:00.000-05:00

Apple's iPhone is already the second best selling smartphone platform in North America, trailing only RIM's BlackBerry, according to a report from Canalys.
Roughlydrafted.com apparently got a hold of the study from Canalys commissioned by Symbian, the operating system owned jointly by Nokia, Ericsson and others. The study looked at third quarter sales of smartphones and found that in its first full quarter, the iPhone has already outsold all of the Microsoft Windows Mobile, Symbian and Palm phones and now holds a 27 percent market share in North America.

This despite being on the market since late June on only one carrier AT&T, which doesn't sell throughout North America and doesn't have solid coverage in several states.
NPD, the research firm, reported much the same thing last week, with the iPhone selling 1.12 million of the 4.2 million smartphones sold in Q3, giving it 27 percent of the market. NPD said the iPhone has clearly helped grow the smartphone market, which expanded by 180 percent since it launched.

RIM is still in first place, though it's now facing serious competition from the surging iPhone. But for Microsoft, Symbian and Palm, the numbers could be cause for concern.
Business users are still favoring the BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices. But there is more pressure on IT departments to try to do something for the iPhone. And perhaps more importantly, there are just a lot of regular consumer that are moving into the smartphone market because of the iPhone. And they're clearly willing to spend money for quality.
So that should be good news for the entire industry. People are looking to do more with their phones and they'll shell out the cash to whoever can do it in an elegant and intuitive way.

iphone news: iMake apps

2007-12-17T20:40:00.000-05:00

A Mountain View, California company is launching today a platform designed to let developers create telephony applications they can embed in Web pages and existing Web-based services.
Ribbit's back-end technology includes a software switch that essentially connects Internet-based voice communication services with mobile phones, landline phones and text messages. On top of that connection is the Ribbit API that lets developers build applications that unify the wide variety of communication methods.

Developers can build applications that include functions such as recording, sending and receiving voicemail, and making and receiving calls. The applications can be built using Flash, embedded into any Web site, and integrated into existing Web-based services. The platform supports many existing Web-based calling services, such as Skype, GoogleTalk and MSN.

Developers can charge end-users for the applications, and Ribbit can handle the billing for them. There are several ways developers can offer and charge for their products, and in some cases Ribbit will share revenue with developers.

Ribbit showed off one application a developer has created that embeds phone capabilities into Salesforce.com. By keying a code into a mobile phone, users essentially replace their current voicemail with Ribbit for Salesforce. Then users can listen to or see text transcripts of their mobile voicemail messages within Salesforce. They can send the messages to colleagues and tag them for easy sorting later.

Users can also make and receive phone calls through their Salesforce page. Such calls are automatically logged in their Salesforce application.

Ribbit for Salesforce will cost US$25 per user per month for end-users. It is currently in a private beta with more than 90 companies, and should be widely available in February, according to Ribbit representatives.

Salute America's Heroes, a veterans' association, has built essentially a call center application that lets veterans who work for the group make and receive browser-based phone calls while at home. The capability is integrated into a Web site that also hosts tools they use while making the calls. The capability allows the association to take on the cost of the calls rather than reimbursing workers for the use of their home phones.

Ribbit designed its own softswitch, which runs on Linux blades and has been certified in an Alcatel-Lucent lab to meet the capabilities and reliability that telecommunications providers typically require, said Ted Griggs, CEO and co-founder of Ribbit. Ribbit's network operations center is hosted by a third party in Virginia, and the company is working on opening one on the West Coast to offer geographic redundancies. It can add capacity simply by adding more servers.

Another, more consumer-oriented application is available to try on the Ribbit developers page. The AIR iPhone is essentially a software-based voice over IP phone that looks just like Apple's iPhone. Users can make and receive calls to mobile and fixed-line phones, including from the contact list in the phone, on their computers.

Ribbit hasn't quite yet configured its offering in terms of pricing for such consumer applications, but expects to in the first quarter of next year. In the case of the AIR iPhone, Ribbit would share revenue from end-users with the developer.

Ribbit says that more than 650 developers are working on new applications, although on Friday only two were listed on the developers site. "Dozens" are near release, a few additional applications should be available on Monday, and many more should be available in the early months of next year, according to the company.

Ribbit opened its offering to developers in August but plans to officially launch the company, along with details about how its technology and business model work, on Monday.

iPhone Alert..waste of a 2k

2007-12-17T20:36:00.001-05:00

The Apple iPhone is easily one of the hottest electronic gadgets of the year, getting everyone excited about touchscreen displays and the marrying of music with voice conversations. It's not exactly an exclusive device, however, because just about anyone can waltz into an AT&T dealer and ask for a touchtastic mobile. If you want to be a little more special, you may want to consider getting a Platinum Edition Apple iPhone. This is because only 250 units will be produced.To be sold through GoldStriker, the Platinum iPhone comes at quite a premium over its non-platinum counterpart. Whereas a regular iPhone goes for about $400, the platinum version is ringing up at a cool �1099.95. That works out to about US$2,230, meaning that you can have one of these or five of the garden variety phones.Looking for special features? Keep looking, because the Platinum iPhone still boasts the exact same spec sheet. Then again, with a production run of just 250 units, you can feel pretty darn special showing off that Platinum iPhone... until someone steals it and posts it up on eBay.