Apple - page 38

Reader Diego sent this in: “This at a restaurant in New York last week,” he says. “No words needed.”

Boy Genius Report has obtained details of Apple’s Black Friday deals — maybe. The site was sent an email flyer, due to go out shortly, that says Apple will offer 25% off all Macs; 30% off iPods (except the iPhone and iPod shuffle); and 15% all accessories as well as Apple software and hardware.

These deals look pretty killer. Maybe too killer. BGR cautions that it’s “unconfirmed.”

BGR says the deals are good only for November 27th, and that Apple stores will open at 6AM.

Link.

We’ve written before in this space about Apple’s unique status as a Muse to creative people. In fact, the initial impulse for this post was a search for striking pieces of art created on the iPhone.

Those are out there, too, in droves — and we’ll be featuring them soon in another gallery post.

Today, however, we bring you something we didn’t quite expect to find: a series of art pieces that shed a bit of perspective on the dark side of Apple.

This presentation is the work of Freek Bijl, a Dutch internet strategist, and in it he makes a lot of very interesting points.

Psystar, the unofficial Mac cloner, may actually have a shot at beating Apple, the Miami New Times reports in an interesting backgrounder on the two brothers behind the company, Robert and Rudy Pedraza.

The six-page profile includes several interesting factoids, including the revelation that their father is a convicted coke dealer.

The brothers started their knockoff business after one of them survived a near fatal car crash. The company is shipping boatloads of computers and is likely making money (quickly eaten by legal costs). Several copycats have cropped up, including the Moscow-based RussianMac.

To recap, Psystar sells cheap Hackintoshes that run Apple’s OS X. A Psystar machine costs about a third of a comparable offering from Apple, but runs OS X in violation of Apple’s shrinkwrap EULA license.

Apple is hell-bent on shutting the company down, but some IP experts think Psystar has a shot. The case hinges on the legality of EULAs — shrinkwrap licenses — that say you don’t own the software you buy, you license it. The legality of EULAs has never been tested in the courts, which makes the Psystar case so important. If Psystar wins, it may not only throw a wrench into Apple’s business model, it may alter the entire software industry.

The paper quotes a couple of intellectual property lawyers who say the tiny Florida company may actually win.

“They’ve already put some really good arguments forward,” says Randy Friedberg, an intellectual property lawyer following the case in New York. “There’s essentially one really interesting question here, and it’s whether that licensing agreement holds up.”

If rumors that Apple is adding an RFID reader to the iPhone are true, it’s huge!

An RFID reader would turn the iPhone into an e-wallet — allowing you to pay for everything, from a cup of coffee to a subway ride. It could also turn the iPhone into an ID card, a security access system and an electronic ticketing device.

It’s could also function as an easy and secure online shopping system that doesn’t require you to enter your credit card number.

Your iPhone could unlock your car, pick up e-coupons at the local mall, and pay for all your supermarket groceries just by laying it on top of the checkout.

Imagine if such a system was enabled on your iPhone. It would supplant your wallet — if enough retailers adopted the system, of course.

From now on, all Hackintoshes may be stuck at 10.6.1.

Hackintosh hackers have confirmed that 10.6.2 drops support for Intel’s Atom chips.

Writes leading hacker StelaRolo:

“The netbook forums are now blowing up with problems of 10.6.2 instant rebooting their Atom based netbooks. My sources tell me that everytime a netbook user installs 10.6.2 an Apple employee gets their wings.”

What’s this mean? StelaRolo says that a hacked kernel will likely appear, but Apple is clerly nuking the Hackintosh market.

In addition, Apple will not likely release any future hardware based on Intel’s Atom platform. Instead, Apple will concentrate on ARM-based hardware, the same platform as the iPhone. That includes the upcoming tablet.

As Seth Weintraub writes on Computerworld.com:

“Apple bought a processor-building company called PA Semi two years ago, in order to build chips for iPhones, said Steve Jobs. The chips that this new Apple division make will likely be the chips that power Apple’s tablet and even future laptops.”

Could Apple be catching Microsoft as tech’s most valuable company?

CNBC says Apple is already in Microsoft’s rearview mirror, and could unseat the software giant within two years.

While Apple is currently valued at $180 billion and Microsoft at $250 billion, Apple’s business is growing fast while MS’s is not.

“The biggest overriding reason why the company still has room to run is that its business is growing,” Erick Maronak, chief investment officer for the Victory Large Cap Growth Fund, told CNBC. “The day they introduce the tablet, that’s going to drive a lot of earnings.” (Maronak’s fund owns shares in both companies.)

Maronak said he would “not be surprised to see Apple’s market cap approach Microsoft’s in the next two years, though he also likes the software company’s growth prospects.”

Apple is already has a similar market capitalization to Google, Microsoft’s other big rival. Apple has doubled annual revenues to $36.5 billion since 2005, CNBC notes, and has boosted it’s stock price by nearly 900 percent in the last decade. Microsoft’s stock has fallen 35 percent in the same period.

CoM’s Take: We’ve argued here many times that the next 20 years of personal computing will belong to the consumer, not the busines market. Apple’s ease-of-use, design chops and vertical integration put it far ahead of anyone else when it comes to delivering consumer-focused technology.

Apple has just released the 10.6.2 update to OS X, which includes scores of bug fixes and improvements, including the nasty bug that can delete your data when using a guest account.

The “Guest Account Bug” was the big one, but Apple says the update fixes sundry issues, from Exchange contacts not showing up inSpotlight search to glitchy four-finger gestures. Full list of fixes after the jump.

The update has been eagerly awaited by Snow Leopard users suffering problems from spotty WiFi to constant spinning beachballs.

The update is available through Software Update or can be downloaded as a standalone installer. It’s available in two flavors:

Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update (473MB)

Mac OS X v10.6.2 Update (Combo) (479MB)

The update’s size when downloaded through Software Update can vary depending on your machine and the previous updates already installed.

Convert your mild-mannered Mac Pro into a hard drive speed demon.  Stuff it with drives fast enough to work with full-quality, uncompressed video. Get more than 300 MB/s on your internal drives! It’s so easy even I can do it!

I’ve been working in video production for the last 20+ years. When you’re working with video you need as much storage space as you can afford. You need a badass computer with big fat hard drives that scream.

You think you might wanna Hot Rod your Mac Pro?  This easy, step-by-step guide will show you how.

Serious craft from Japan’s Mobile Art Lab in transforming the iPhone into an amazing interactive image in a children’s story book from the future. I love it. All kids should get one for Christmas.

You can read what it’s all about in this Google Translation of their page.

Via dsonz

If you liked Wednesday’s interview with Apple ad man Ken Segall, just wait until you see what we’ve got coming next week.

We have an exclusive interview with one of the top people in the Apple story. I’d say they were number 3: the third most influential person in Apple’s history.

This is the first time they spoken publicly about Apple in many, many years. They have some good stories, a lot of fascinating insights, and a couple of surprises.

Can you guess who it is?

Isamu Sanada’s day gig is photography, but his passion is Apple mock-up design.

An amateur designer of fantasy Macintoshes with a website that showcases dozens of his speculative designs for Apple gear, Sanada got his mock-up cred back when he posted an amazingly prescient take on the Titanium G4 PowerBook months before the real deal was released.

Though he’s gotten lots of praise for his designs, Sanada has been quoted regarding his design chops humbly, saying, “Apple’s thought is more splendid than my thought.”

Hit the jump for more Steve Jobs lookalikes and if you find one out and about — or happen to be one yourself — send us a pic or post it on our Facebook wall and we may feature yours in a gallery post down the road.

Is this Steve Jobs driving a tank in a classic Apple TV spot from the late 1990s? That was the rumor at the time: Jobs was making cameos in Apple commercials.

Ken Segall, the TBWA ad man responsible for naming the iMac and Think Different, reveals the truth after the jump. He also shares some rare behind-the-scenes photos he took during the filming of this commercial and another from the same era.

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.

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.

In these videos I’ve hooked my MacBook Pro (13-inch) to the iMac using Belkin’s Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable, which is available from Apple’s retail stores for $29.99.

Previously I tried to hook up the iMac using DVI and HDMI cables (and appropriate adaptors), but it didn’t work.

See the monster iMac in action after the jump.

Thanks Emil. And thanks Dane for fixing the videos.

BTW: Don’t miss our comprehensive review of the humungous new 27-inch iMac.

Kara Johnson, a material scientist at design and engineering firm IDEO, has just posted up a fun behind-the-scenes look at how some of her colleagues created the above shot of a 12″ PowerBook for dinner as part of her book I Miss My Pencil.

It’s actually surprisingly hard to wreak such meticulous havoc, and it’s fun to see the process of great engineers up close — especially since IDEO and its predecessor David Kelley Design engineered a huge number of Apple products from the late ’70s into the mid-’90s.

Hit the link to see the full process, if you’re not traumatized by the sight of violence against a Mac.

“Taking a Bite Out of Apple” [IDEO Labs]

There’s a dirty little secret lurking within the hearts of iPhone and the iPod touch: neither of them is a particularly great music player. A lot of iPhone owners actually keep a separate iPod nano or classic with them to listen to their music libraries. I’m not one of them, but I’m thinking about it.

Don’t get me wrong. Syncing media to modern Apple handheld is the best such experience money can buy, and the actual playback and browsing experiences are in the top tier of media phones and Internet tablets. That doesn’t mean they’re great, though. For the most part, the iPod app found on the iPhone and touch is a fairly literal translation of the original iPod interface ported over to a much higher-end device, plus an overly complex Cover Flow mode — which doesn’t even work well with Playlists. And that’s kind of pathetic, given Apple’s ordinarily high standards.

This is not the usual case where Apple is so far ahead of the competition that it’s not even clear how a media player app should change as it migrates to a modern multitouch platform. The video linked above is the proposed Rachael UI for the media player app in Sony Ericsson’s Android-based phones. It’s not amazing, but it does a few things really, really well. Notably, it provides a lot of rich information on artist pages that brings back some of the feel of listening to a physical album, and it also makes it easy to find your favorites, recently added albums, and tracks, and your most recently played music — all on one screen. That alone, in my opinion, annihilates the best of the current iPhone music experience. And I think we’d all agree it’s a refreshing departure from either a long list of artists listed in alphabetical order as a home screen.

The Zune HD, though its UI is an overly stylized collection of wank, also does some interesting things with tagged favorites that show the untapped possibilities available in next-generation handheld music playback.

I’ve had my iPhone 3GS for about four months now, and I love everything about it — except that it doesn’t do a great job of helping me rediscover diamonds in the rough of my music collection. The iPod app is good enough, but it isn’t great yet. Here’s hoping that the old competitive spirit will push Apple to truly push the edges of what’s possible. Shouldn’t we be able to view iTunes LPs on the iPhone, at the very least?

Sony Ericsson’s “Rachael” Android UI: Android + Zune HD > iPhone [Gizmodo]

To use the new 27-inch iMac as an external monitor requires a very specific cable to work: a Mini DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort cable, to be exact.

It does not work with a HDMI cable or a DVI cable, even when they are strung between a pair of Apple-branded Mini DisplayPort adapters.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about the issue on the web and even at Apple’s retail stores.

Earlier in the week we asked readers to post pics of their workspaces on our Facebook page for the chance to win a new Magic Mouse — and the response was great. So far, more than 90 of you have taken the time to become fans of Cult of Mac on Facebook, snap a shot and upload your pictures — thank you!

While everyone is waiting with bated breath to find out who’ll win the Magic Mouse (announcement to come tomorrow, Sunday, November 1), we thought readers might like to see a cool dozen of some of the most interesting.

Let us know what you think in comments below and feel free to continue posting your own shots over at the Facebook fan page.

The sexiest all-in-one computer has long been the iMac, and last year’s 24-inch model was a beauty. But oh my Lord, the new 27-inch machine induces crazy lust. Look at the size of that screen!

I just returned from the Apple store with one. I went to buy the new Magic Mouse. They were out of stock, so I bought the new iMac instead — it comes with a Magic Mouse.

Crazy, I know. I just couldn’t help myself. We’ve already got a 24-inch model, but the 27-inch is so much… bigger.

Yeah, like 3-inches of extra screen makes a difference. But it does. The screen is simply HUGE. There’s no other word for it. If you’re sitting right in front of it, hunched over the keyboard, you have to physically MOVE YOUR HEAD to look from one corner to the other. You get motion sickness if there’s video playing, like being in the front seats of a movie theater.

Thanks to this big beautiful screen, the sexiest desktop in the world got a lot sexier. The question is though: is the screen too big?

Full review after the jump, including real-world benchmarks and tons of pics.

As anticipated, Apple has updated the Apple TV software to 3.0, which brings a new interface and home screen with quick access to favorite content. Instead of drilling down to get to a recently-rented movie, it’s now accessible right off the home screen, as are favorite TV Shows, podcasts and YouTube movies.

The update also adds support for iTunes LPs and iTunes Extras, as well as Genius Mixes and internet radio.

The update likely breaks Boxee, the unsanctioned internet media player that actually makes the Apple TV useful, but internet radio is a welcome addition.

To support the new Apple TV software, Apple has also updated iTunes to 9.0.2. As well as being compatible with the Apple TV 3.0 software, the update adds a new “dark” viewing option in Grid View. The iTunes update also once again breaks Palm Pre syncing.

Forget Balloon Boy and Billy Mays this Halloween. Dress up as your favorite demonic CEO instead.

You’ll scare the pants off work colleagues when you walk in the elevator, and the neighboorhood kids will be in a bag of hurt when you give them apple slices instead of sickly sweet candy.

Hit the jump for a full-size mask that you can print and cut out.

Thanks Dan Draper for the fantastic image of Steve Jobs and Forbes for the idea.