“… in the latest development build Atom appears to have resurrected itself zombie style in 10C535. The Atom lives another day, but nothing is concrete until the final version of 10.6.2 is out.”
New on the app store is Car Finder, a clever app that leads back to your parked car using augmented reality.
The app uses the iPhone’s camera to overlay the direction of your car and how far away it is. The app relies on the camera and a digital compass, and is compatible only with the iPhone 3GS running 3.1 or later.
The Fab Four still haven’t made it to iTunes, but if you want to shell out $280, you can have some of their stuff on a limited-edition USB stick.
Collectors may crave 16GB key that comes with 14 stereo titles, plus re-mastered 13 mini-documentary films about the studio albums, replicated original UK album art, rare photos and expanded liner notes.
The USB “core” pulls out of an apple, recalling the Granny Smith from the record company founded in 1968. Some 30,000 keys are available from the online store, from December 7 in the UK and December 8 in North America. (You can also pre-order online now.)
If you’re more interested in their music, it sounds like slim pickings for a hefty price – at least one fan, alluneediscash, on the site argued:
“But the BOX SET is only $219! ($179 at amazon) no one loves the beats more than me, but shouldn’t they charge LESS for the usb?”
Which raises the perennial question of when this icon of Brit pop will finally make it to iTunes. Although the Beatles settled the marathon trademark dispute with Apple two years ago, the use of this apple key, meant as a nod to Apple Records, might stir the embers of animosity rather than hasten them for Apple downloads.
The App Store, not even two years old, has crossed the 100,000 mark for apps available to iPhone and iPod touch owners, Apple announced Wednesday. The milestone comes less than two months after the Cupertino, Calif. company said users downloaded more than 2 billion apps.
In September, the App Store reached 85,000 available applications.
The swivel goodness at the base of the iMac G4 had a near-human flexibility and was nicknamed the iLamp in a nod to Luxo Jr., star of a short Pixar film.
Now, one of those aging bases from the early 2000s is living out its retirement as a lamp.
Creator Nicolas didn’t tell hardmac exactly how he did it, but did say it was easy:
“I decided to recycle my old iMac G4. With some spare parts, one can easily transform it into a nice lamp fully articulated thanks to the famous arm.”
Meet Ken Segall — the man who dreamed up the name “iMac” and wrote the famous Think Different campaign.
Segall is a veteran creative director who worked at Apple’s agency, TBWA\Chiat\Day, back in the day.
“I’ve put in 14 years working with Steve Jobs on both Apple and NeXT,” says Segall. “I’m the author of the Think Different campaign and the guy who came up with the whole “i” thing, starting with iMac.”
Segall collaborated closely with advertising legend Lee Clow, chief creative officer of TBWA\Chiat\Day, whose retirement was widely — but prematurely — reported last week.
In this exclusive interview, Segall talks about working with Steve Jobs, how Jobs initially hated the word “iMac,” and the importance of the Think Different campaign to Apple.
Security software developers must think Mac users are quite daft. Tuesday afternon Symantec sent out a press release flogging its ‘discovery’ of a new trojan horse targeting Apple’s OS disguised as a ’space invaders’ style video game in which killing invading aliens results in the program deleting files from the user’s hard drive.
Ooo.
The game in question is an art project called Lose/Lose that first appeared on the web back in September, created by digital artist Zach Gage and featured in Electrofringe’s current exhibition of online art, Electro Online 2009.
The idea behind the project is to use game mechanics to call into question the idea of mindless killing for fun. Are gamers so obsessive they must kill aliens at any cost? In the game, each alien is based on a random file on the players computer. If the player kills the alien, the file it is based on is deleted.
Gage asks, “Why do we assume that because we are given a weapon an awarded for using it, that doing so is right?”
The game has a clear warning at start-up that says, in scary red letters: killing aliens in this game will delete files from your hard drive.
Now Symantec is sending out an alert flagging the art project as malware.
“A new threat cleverly disguised as a classic video game is targeting unsuspecting Mac users,” Symantec said in an email to CultofMac.com. It continued:
The Trojan horse, known as Trojan.Loosemaque, is designed to look like a Space Invaders/Galaga style game. However, for every alien ship the user destroys, the program deletes a file from the home directory. Symantec – the world leader in online security – recently discovered this new Trojan horse targeting Mac users and video of it in action can be seen here. Online games are increasingly becoming a target for virus creators, and this threat shows it’s a possibility regardless of the platform. While the author of OSX.Loosemaque actually informs people on his website that the game deletes files, there’s nothing stopping someone with more malicious intentions from modifying it and passing it on to unsuspecting users who don’t have security software installed.
Symantec is not the first company to flag Gage’s project. Security blockers such as Sophos’ Anti-Virus and Intego’s VirusBarrier X5 also define the game as a threat.
So is it art or is it malware? Are Mac users equipped to know the difference? Seriously, what do security software companies take us for?
An Estonian website claimed Tuesday to have broken news of a major bug in iPhone’s Safari app that could put unsuspecting iPhone users at risk of running up huge bills with their cellular service providers in certain cases.
The danger appears related to Safari’s failure to close connections with web servers that run Motion JPEG to stream video over the Internet. In the case where an iPhone user uses Safari to browse, for example, to the webcam on the island of Keri and then closes Safari in favor of another app or simply returns to the iPhone’s home screen, data continues to stream over the phone’s 3G or EDGE connection from the Motion JPEG-running server.
The Estonian report claims to have been able to run up over 740MB of data transfer in a little over an hour in this manner and that the only way to get Safari to properly sever the data link is to browse to another site before closing the app.
The bug would appear to affect only those iPhone users who do not pay for ‘unlimited data’ as part of their standard service plan, and thus poses no risk to at&t subscribers using their phones in the US, or to many European users with similar plans in their home countries.
With the rise of limited data plans in some countries, however, and in the case of users traveling with iPhones overseas using limited International Data plans, this could cause a real problem.
A request for comment from Apple PR remained unanswered at press time.
Whether funky or fashionable, protective or passe; made of titanium or cardboard, most iPhone cases are predictable. IvySkins Tuesday introduced an interesting twist on the ho-hum case: integrated energy. The SmartCase ($79.99) claim to fame is an integrated an interchangeable battery that supposedly will extend your iPhone 3G or 3GS’ battery by 200 percent.
The key is the case will signal your iPhone to first feed off the SmartCase’s battery, then your handset’s. The device includes a five-LED indicator, built-in power charger and a USB cable. The case itself is made of a polycarbonate and a polysilicon coating protection.
If you’re looking for something a bit more basic, iaPeel has a print-and-peel alternative for $21. You use the included designer software to create your own ’skin,’ print it out on any inkjet printer and then apply it to a generic case.
Adobe made its position on the unavailability of Flash for the iPhone clear Monday with a snippily worded announcement that points the finger squarely at Apple for any iPhone user who might end up at the ‘getflash’ web page.
But an interesting comment on the Reddit thread about the long-standing brouhaha makes it appear the Adobe folks might doth protest too much. Flash would suck the iPhone’s battery dry in less than an hour.
Here’s a couple of videos of the new 27-inch iMac in action as an external display. The new iMac is the first that can act as a monitor for another machine, but will only work with devices that output DisplayPort video, like newer MacBooks.
We start out with a number of deals on MacBooks and MacBook Pro laptops. The deals are flying off the shelves at the Apple Store, with a 13-inch MacBook for $899. A similar MacBook from PC Connection is selling for $925. A 17-inch MacBook Pro with AppleCare is offered for $2,348. Also on tap are a number of deals for iPhone and iPod accessories, along with various cases. Finally, we round out the top trio with a number of software deals, including price cuts from the App Store and other bargains.
For details on these and other items, check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page for the complete information right after the jump.
Customers check out the iPhone at a Beijing launch event. (photo: Bloomberg)
China Unicom executives said Tuesday the carrier has added one million subscribers since Oct. 30, but only 5,000 of those are for iPhones. The numbers from Unicom Chairman Chang Xiaobing are far less than the 500,000 iPhones Apple had expected to initially sell. The disappointing figures are prompting many to question whether pricing is to blame.
Although Hong Kong’s China Unicom Ltd. President Lu Yimin said the 6,999 yuan ($1,025) price was not too high for the iPhone 3GS, so-called gray market versions cost around $800 locally. The disparity may serve as “an interesting exercise in how to sell an inferior product at a higher price,” Duncan Clark, a Beijing consultant, told Bloomberg.
GeoHot, creator of the famous blackra1n jailbreak tool has now released blacksn0w. Blacksn0w is a full fledged software unlock solution for iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, having baseband version 05.11.07 found in firmware version 3.1.2. Unlocking the phone enables you to use it with any carrier in the world.
This means if you have older firmware, you can now upgrade to a stock 3.1.2 and still have the ability to remain unlocked. Blacksn0w also enables the tethering option on these iPhones for you to share the data connection with a laptop or desktop computer.
The blackra1n application for iPhone installed as a result of the blackra1n jailbreak process then allows you to run blacksn0w and finally unlock the phone. However, those who already have the old version of blackra1n application installed on the iPhone can upgrade to the latest version by selecting the new ‘ra1n’ option inside the application. After installing the updated version, tap ’sn0w’ in the application to unlock. For those who used the DevTeam’s PwnageTool to jailbreak, blacksn0w will soon be available on Cydia.
To accompany blacksn0w, there is a new hacktivation feature added to blackra1n, which activates the iPhone to be used without the iPhone specific plans from carriers like AT&T, O2 etc. But, if you have an officially activated phone already, this won’t interfere. The update to blackra1n tool also makes it a lot faster, enabling it to jailbreak the iPhone / iPod Touch in just 15 seconds. It also adds support for Mac OS X Tiger and PPC Macs along with the existing Windows and Intel Mac support.
Please note that if you have an iPhone 2G, you can still jailbreak using blackra1n but blacksn0w will not unlock for you. You must use BootNeuter available in Cydia for that purpose. Also, if you purchased an iPhone 3GS or iPod Touch (any capacity) in October or later, there is a high probability that you have a new model. Blackra1n currently performs only a tethered jailbreak for these new devices, which means you need to use blackra1n every time you boot the device, otherwise all your jailbreak data gets wiped.
The new version of blackra1n is available to download at blackra1n.com
Check out our guide on how to jailbreak and unlock using blackra1n and blacksn0w here.
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