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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 [...]

Two Intesting iPhone 2 Tidbits

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I heard two interesting tidbits about the possible design of the iPhone 2 at the weekend:

Better Battery Thanks To Better Software

3G is generally assumed to be a drain on battery life because of the hardware, which sucks down juice, but it is actually the iPhone’s software that is the problem, according to engineers working on Google’s Android phone. According to a conversation reported to me by a colleague at Wired.com, Google’s engineers say the first iPhone OS was basically a hack. It was adapted from the desktop OS and had none of the advanced power-management features necessary to properly run the networking chips. But the iPhone 2 will have not only better integrated circuits, it will have proper power-management software also.

The iPhone 2 Won’t Have an All-Plastic Case

There are several rumors speculating that the iPhone 2 will have an all-plastic case, replacing the metal back of the current design. But an engineer I talked to last year said the metal cases of the iPod and the iPhone were probably designed to dissipate heat from inside the device . They were likely big heat sinks. And that’s why I doubt the iPhone will have a plastic back, because plastic doesn’t conduct heat as a well as metal.

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About the author

Leander Kahney

Leander Kahney is the editor of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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6 comments

    Can’t wait to find out.

    Two “Intesting” iPhone 2 Tidbits… getting an upset stomach over this are you?

    A metal heat sink that people carry around in their pockets?

    Well you were half right!!! ;-)

    Here’s a serious question… is the back panel of the iPhone 1.0 already plastic? Sure, it *looks* like metal. But is it?

    Originally I thought it was metal… but that illusion shattered when my first iPhone had an hard skidding fall onto some rough pavement. The resulting mess of scratches seemed to be in something less like metal and whole lot more like… PLASTIC! I tapped the back and sure enough… it SOUNDED like plastic too.

    Right around that time I ran into this engadget article about laser etching the iPhone, and it seemed to confirm what I’d discovered — the aluminum back is just “really nice plastic”

    http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/17/laser-etching-the-iphone/

    Has anyone cracked open their iPhone and know for sure? Is the “metal” really plastic?

    FWIW, the iPhone case is made from the magnesium alloy, AZ91D. It is electroplated with a tin alloy for corrosion and scuff resistance. Magnesium has good heat conductivity (hence its use as a heat sink) and electrical conductivity and thus doubles as a EMI shield.

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