Apple - page 19

He drives a hybrid and he’s fanatical about recycling — here are some gift ideas for the man who cares about the planet. Don’t forget to recycle the packaging!

A metrosexual is a man who has a strong concern for his appearance (or any concern for his appearance, really). He typically craves the most stylish clothes and home accessories. He’s form-over-function. He keeps fit, takes care of himself, and he wants you to know it. Here are some metrosexual-worthy gift ideas.

When PC platforms were the central battlefield for technology, Microsoft was Apple’s big threat, hated enemy and all-purpose nemesis. But those days are gone.

Yet some Apple Faithful rage on against Redmond like abandoned Japanese soldiers on remote Pacific islands long after the end of WWII. It’s time for those Apple fans to come back to civilization understand what’s really happening now. Microsoft is more a friend than an enemy to Apple.

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Cult of Mac was asked by CNBC’s Street Signs to contribute our thoughts on the current market debate of whether it’s wiser to invest in Gold or Apple. Even though we don’t masquerade as financial advisors, the debate in the short-term seems fairly straightforward to us, and here are a few of the major points:

A recent teardown of the new MacBook Air today revealed that the pretty little notebook is unsurprisingly laden with a bevy of proprietary engineering making it one of the most difficult notebooks on the market to repair. Highlights of the full break down can be read after the jump.

UPDATE: Well, turns out we were wrong about this one; it’s been around for awhile. Crow, anyone?

That rumor we mentioned yesterday — the one where we thought Apple would announce a new social network based around Apple Genii? Turns out Apple quietly added something very close to what we predicted yesterday during the virtual Apple Store’s refresh for the new MacBook Air and iLife ’11.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M1r-xsFw0Q

We’ve been playing around with the new beta release of FaceTime, and while it’s slim on features, we’re fairly pleased with the app considering it’s still in the beta phase. So far FaceTime for Mac is a simple replication of FaceTime from iOS, but it’s simplicity is what I like about it so far.

This chart tracks the dizzying rise of new products in Apple’s sales mix. Currently about 60% of Apple’s sales come from products that the Cupertino company launched in the last three years.

“This last quarter is not a holiday quarter. Now imagine what next quarter will look like on this chart,” writes Horace Dediu, who charted Apple’s sales in the graph for Asymco. “Think back to 2001 before the iPod. The orange band was all that Apple had.”

Source: Asymco

If you recently used Limera1n or GreenPois0n to jailbreak your iOS device, and want to make sure that iTunes doesn’t automatically update your device’s firmware whenever the next update is released by Apple, then here is a quick fix to prevent you from accidentally updating your iPhone/iPod/iPad.

In 1983, Steve Jobs wooed Pepsi executive John Sculley to Apple with one of the most famous lines in business: “Do you want to spend the rest of your life selling sugared water or do you want a chance to change the world?”

Jobs and Sculley ran Apple together as co-CEOs, blending cutting edge technology (the first Mac) with cutting edge advertising (the famous 1984 ad) and world-class design. But it soon soured, and Sculley is best known today for forcing Jobs’ resignation after a boardroom battle for control of the company.

Now, for the first time, Sculley talks publicly about Steve Jobs and the secrets of his success. It’s the first interview Sculley has given on the subject of Steve Jobs since he was forced out of the company in 1993.

“There are many product development and marketing lessons I learned working with Steve in the early days,” says Sculley. “It’s impressive how he still sticks to his same first principles years later.”

He adds, “I don’t see any change in Steve’s first principles — except he’s gotten better and better at it.”

Slide-on iPhone 4 do cause scratches and cracks on the device’s glass back, the vast majority of readers reported in a poll we ran on Friday.

Almost 75 percent of repondents said their iPhone 4 has been scratched, cracked or otherwise damaged by a slide-on case. Only 26 percent said they’d had no problems.

The poll was prompted by a report Ryan Block in GDGT that Apple is actively investigating slide-on cases before it turns into a PR disaster like Antennagate.

The results are at total surprise to me. I’d not heard of the issue before Friday, and I’ve used several slide-on cases with my iPhone 4 without problems.

Of course, online polls are far from scientific surveys. In fact, most commenters on the post report that they’ve had no problems. If you read the comments and ignore the poll, you’d get the impression that there isn’t an issue, or that trapped dirt affects all cases and all phones — not just the iPhone 4.

The results are interesting because it was unclear how widespread the issue was — it certainly didn’t seem mainstream. But as Block pointed out this morning, Apple is trying to preempt the issue before it becomes a public relations nightmare. More here: Following up on yesterday’s “Glassgate” story.

There is a great video of Steve Jobs giving an interview to 60 Minutes in which he states – rather boldly – that the problem with Microsoft is that they “simply have no taste.” He goes on to say that the Windows firm has “no originality” and “no culture infused into products.”

SAN FRANCISCO, MobileFocus, CTIA — The CTIA conference is one of North America’s biggest mobile phone shows and it was dominated by Apple — even though Apple wasn’t there.

Attendees were either talking about Apple, showing off Apple-challenging products, or selling Apple-compatible accessories and add-ons.

Just check out some of new iPhone and iPad accessories below that were shown off at the MobileFocus press-and-analyst-only sneak peek on Wednesday night.

Hello readers. Look at this remote. Now at your hands. Now back to the remote. Now back to your hands.

Maybe it’s a joke. Maybe it’s a clever ruse. Maybe it’s a prototype. Maybe it’s clever CGI like they used for Gollum. I have no idea. But the picture here (sourced from Engadget) is supposedly the remote control shipping with Sony’s TVs that have Google TV integrated inside. It is, in a word, a monstrosity (my friend MG said it best, “My God, it’s full of buttons!”).

Here are all the things wrong with it, in a nutshell:

SAN FRANCISCO: Google is not to be underestimated, but sitting here watching a demo of the first Google TV, I’m not sure it has mainstream appeal.

Built by Logitech and running Google’s Android software, the Logitech Revue Google TV has definite geek appeal. It does everything: the $299 box connects to satellite and cable TV, compatible DVRs and Web video, as well as other online multimedia. You can search for content using your voice and control it with a smartphone. It has apps, HD videoconferencing, and functions as a universal Harmony remote, controlling all your home theater devices. (For a detailed breakdown of how it compares to Apple TV, see here)

But there’s no way my mother will go for it.

Apple’s never really been very strong when it comes to designing usable mice, but they have certainly always been innovative: from the Mighty Mouse to the Magic Mouse to the Magic Trackpad.

Apple’s latest discovered patent describes a mouse that could have been: the Ambidextrous Mouse.

Back in the flower of my youth, I took a job at the local mall working as a minimum-wage cashier at a discount clothing outlet permeated with the distinct smell of moth balls. It was awful. My boss had a greasy pencil moustache and a lazy eye and was overly complimentary about the softness of my hands; my only customers were antique, gum-sucking grannies buying pre-soiled brassieres and underpants by the carriage full.

Meanwhile, across the way, my friend Josh had landed himself a job in a posh clothing boutique aimed largely at girls in their late teens and early twenties. It being summer, there seemed always to be a bikini sale going on, and I can’t even count the hours I spent watching him through the greasy yellow plate glass of my work store window, encouraging the buxom and spritely clientele — freshly emerged from the changing rooms in some impossibly flosslike two-piece to show off to their friends — to take a bounce on the complimentary trampolines that had been installed around the show floor. It was enough to make an undersexed teenage boy spill a vein in sheer impotent jealousy.

This memory came flooding back to me when I first saw the picture above of the Mall of America’s new Microsoft Store, which is currently under construction directly across from the Apple Store.

The iPad is set to become the fastest selling consumer electronics product in history, with initial sales running at three times that of the current record holder: the DVD player.

“The iPad did not seem destined to be a runaway product success straight out of the box,” retail analyst Colin McGranahan of Bernstein Research wrote in an investors’ note. “By any account, the iPad is a runaway success of unprecedented proportion.”

Hot on the heels of the new Apple TV , Google is launching its own set-top box next week.

Made by Logitech, the Android-based will be unveiled next Wednesday October 6 at press events in San Francisco and New York (see the invite below).

Like Apple’s device, the Google TV is black, although it’s quite a bit larger than Apple’s diminutive box (see David’s photos comparing it to the old Apple TV). The Google TV will run on a 1.2-GHz Atom processor with 4 GB memory, 802.11n Wi-Fi, two HDMI-out ports, Dolby 5.1 surround sound and a pair of USB ports. It will also offer video-chat at 720p if you connect a webcam.

It promises an innovative search-based interface. Search for what you want, and it displays content from the Web, cable, satellite and compatible DVRs. Here’s a trailer showing how it works:

John Gruber of Daring Fireball spoke at the Web 2.0 Expo 2010 on the subject of “Apple and the Open Web.”

Here’s the full talk:

He makes an interesting argument: based solely on what you see of its website, you’d never think that Apple was a web company. But its dependence on the web itself, and of the HTTP protocol, for things like the App Store and Mobile Me, makes it more of a web company than many would think. Apple’s innovations around the web, and its contributions (such as WebKit, the basis for Safari and many other competing browsers), make it “a great web company.”

“I think mobile is the best thing that’s ever happened to the web. I say the iPhone is the best thing that’s ever happened to mobile.”

What do you think?

Apple’s tiny new Apple TV packs one heck of a punch in a very small package — Netflix! Youtube! $0.99 TV shows! It’s dead easy to set up, absolutely tiny in size, and a pleasure to use. And it’s ridiculously priced at only $99.

On the other hand, iTunes’ movie selection still sucks; and the Apple TV won’t play nice with popular internet video formats like DivX or Avi.

Still, this pint-sized box is now based on iOS, and Apple may yet try to turn its “hobby” into a real business by adding apps that feature new content channels, communication tools and maybe even games. If so, this Apple TV may have a very good future. The hardware is certainly ready and it is based on the same technology as the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

If Apple opens up Apple TV to apps like it did eventually on the iPhone it could be unstoppable. Jailbreaking might just do that before Apple is ready to offer this feature.

Read the full review below so you can decide if this Apple TV is for you.

About two weeks ago, Steve Jobs told a college journalism student to “leave Apple alone.” That e-mail exchange left a bad taste in people’s mouths; it was pretty rude. But that hasn’t been my experience at all.

I also wrote to Jobs about the same time complaining about the problems I’ve had with my iPhone 4. But instead of being told to leave Apple alone, Steve got his people right on it.

I received a phone call from Steve’s Corporate Executive Relations (his A-Team of executive ninjas who get shit done), and a week later, I’ve got a new iPhone 4 after receiving extra special customer service.

I’ve had continual problems with the iPhone 4’s proximity sensor ever since I got my first iPhone 4 on launch day back in June. Cut a long story short, I’ve spent weeks dealing with Applecare and Genius Bar Geniuses, and three replacement handsets. It’s been a frustrating and irritating experience. Finally fed up, I sent the following email to Steve himself.

Apple’s hard-charging COO TIm Cook has denied rumors he’s leaving Apple to be the CEO of HP.

Cook denied the rumors this morning while speaking to analyst Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Co.’, Barrons reports:

Tim Cook will not be going to HP, he loves Apple,” Marshall tells me Cook told him.

Apple’s stock took a pounding this morning on the rumor. Cook is credited with turning Apple into a paragon of operational efficiency and is pegged to be Steve Jobs’s successor.

Apple leads all technology companies by a wide margin when mainstream tech writers try to figure out which stories to file, according to a new study released by the Pew Reasearch Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the year between June 1, 2009 and June 30, 2010, Apple was the the subject of 15.1% of all stories in the mainstream technology press, with the bulk of the coverage being positive, according to the study. Google came in 2nd, with 11.4%, with Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft rounding out the Top 5.

While over 40% of the stories filed about Apple suggested the company’s products are innovative and superior in quality, just 17% suggested the products are overhyped, and less than half that, 7%, portrayed Apple as too controlling with its products. Stories about Google, on the other hand, portrayed its products as innovative and superior in just 20% of cases, slightly ahead of the 19% in which the thread was the idea that the company has too much information and too much power.

Clearly Apple PR does a great job and on the whole, the company turns out some pretty nifty products. But there may come a day soon when Apple, too, has faded from the headlines: “After being arguably the most important technology company, even as recently as five years ago, run by the richest man in the world and the world’s most powerful monopoly, Microsoft has…fallen off the mainstream media’s radar. It received just one-fifth the coverage of Apple, less than a third the coverage of Google and less than half the attention of Twitter.” Other technology giants such as Amazon, Best Buy, Yahoo and RIM all garnered less than 1% of the mainstream media’s attention.

After a disappointing Wi-Fi-less iPhone debut last year, more than 1000 people lined up to be among the first to buy an iPhone 4 at the Xidan Joy City Apple Store in Beijing on Saturday.

A number of Apple fans camped out for the release, according to a report covering the launch, with the coveted first place in line going to Yu Zhong Hui, who lined up in the early morning hours Thursday. “Physically, it’s been painful. But mentally, I’m very happy,” Yu said.

“It’s like waiting in line to see a movie star,” said 26-year-old systems engineer Sun Jian Kuan. “No phone can best the iPhone.”

China Unicom, the mobile carrier for the device, has reported 50,000 users signed up for an iPhone 4 on the first day of pre-orders. China’s pricing for iPhone 4 without a contract is 4,999 yuan ($744) for the 16GB model and 5,999 yuan ($893) for the 32GB model.

[Computerworld]