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Apple Now Accepting iPad Apps, Planning “Grand Opening” of iPad App Store

Apple is now accepting iPad apps for a “grand opening” of the iPad App Store, according to an email just sent to registered developers.
“iPad will begin shipping soon and your opportunity to be part of the grand opening of the iPad App Store starts today,” the email says.
There’s no details about when the store’s grand [...]

Security Expert: “Mac OS X Is Safer, But Less Secure”

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Tech site H-Online has an interesting story today, quoting security expert Charlie Miller about his forthcoming talk at the CanSecWest conference next week.
He says OS X is full of security holes. There are lots more than in Windows, he claims.
And yet: OS X is a safer system to use. Why? Because, in the words [...]

Apple Devotes Entire Home Page To Jerome York Obituary

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If ever you needed a sign that Apple was a different kind of technology company, this is it.
What other computer manufacturer would remove its top-selling, hype-inducing, industry-altering new product from the prime spot on its website home page, and replace it with an obituary to an investor?
This is one of those “Here’s to the [...]

Coming Soon: Steve Jobs, the Sitcom

Fake Steve creator Dan Lyons just signed a deal to bring Steve Jobs to another small screen near you.
The half-hour series called “iCon” is billed by the presser as “a savage satire centering on a fictional Silicon Valley CEO whose ego is a study in power and greed.”
Making sure the barbs prick will be the [...]

New Rev of Mobile Google Maps Simulates GPS – iPhone Next?

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One of the enduring complaints about the first-generation iPhone (other than the price, slow EDGE data, AT&T exclusivity, limited storage, battery life, no third-party apps, no landscape keyboard outside of Safari…) is the lack of GPS support in its version of Google Maps. While several high-end smart phones now double as navigation tools, the iPhone requires you to enter your starting location for driving directions.

But that fault might soon disappear. Yesterday, Google rolled out Mobile Google Maps 2.0, which features My Location, a service that uses the positions of nearby cell phone towers to guess where you’re located. It’s not available for iPhone yet, just BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and S60 Nokias (if Apple allowed third-party apps, you’d already have it…), but it seems like an iPhone GMaps update is inevitable. I tried to make it work on my circa-2004 BlackBerry, and it doesn’t work. I now have a phone-crashing application, and that’s it.

Anyone have it working? How accurate is it in your neighborhood?

Via GigaOM 

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About the author

Petemortensen

Pete Mortensen is a design strategist for consulting firm Jump Associates and the co-author of Wired to Care: How Companies Prosper When They Create Widespread Empathy, a book and blog that are significantly more interesting than you might initially think. Pete's particular Apple avocations are both around design--interface and industrial. Follow him on Twitter!

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6 comments

    Worked just fine on my HTC P4350. Thought it might be a US-only feature initially, but then it claimed to pin-point me to within 600m. In fact it was more accurate than that at both the locations I tried it.

    Very cool. But quite scary that Google can collect all this information about you.

    Apple actually update the iPhone with some real, useful, upgrade-worthy software?? Sounds too good to be true. Maybe they’ll upgrade the google maps software if it will somehow make it easier for us to purchase songs/ringtones from the iTunes music store, ’cause that’s what we all really want to do anyway. All other potential applications are a waste of potential revenue generation on the iPhone.

    Hey, that’s a block from where I work! How did it know where I am?!? >:)

    Yeah, um…that’s a little documented feature called “Ken’s Location.” Sorry, dude. I should have given you the heads-up…

    ;)

    you forgot “no multimedia SMS text messages”

    I am in 30 Rockefeller Plaza using BlackBerry 8703e and it’s putting me exactly two blocks north.

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