Apple - page 45

Sling Media has submitted an update to its groovy SlingPlayer Mobile app for iPhone that promises, among other things, true 16:9 widescreen support and, in markets not saddled with an exclusive AT&T service provider’s agreement, TV streaming over 3G.

Slingbox owners with DISH Network will also be able to navigate using a touch-supported native browser, instead of pushing through the TV-standard browsing screen being streamed in by the current version of the app.

Of course, the upgrade must first be approved by the App Store review overlords, and by now it’s well known what a capricious bet that can be. Sling Media has submitted a version for use outside of the US that would allow for streaming over a 3G connection, according to reports, and it’s no certainty Apple will approve such functionality for its customers abroad, either.

What is certain is that, regardless what Apple may feel about streaming TV over 3G, the specter of AT&T’s exclusive service agreement in the iPhone’s largest market effectively prevents US consumers from realizing the full potential of Apple’s inventiveness.

UPDATE: Check out purported screenshots of iTunes 9 showing social networking integration from German blogger Tobias Bischoff after the jump.

The coming version of iTunes 9 will feature social networking on steroids, and Apple may be developing a standalone social networking application as well, if an account Tuesday from Boy Genius Report proves accurate.

Citing a “a pretty reliable source” named Lindsey, the site reported over the weekend that iTunes 9 would feature “some kind of Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm integration” along with Blu-Ray and functionality to visually organize and arrange iPhone and iPod Touch applications.

The source appears to have described Apple’s plans further, saying the company is working on a separate “Social” application it plans to release at some uncertain future date. The app would integrate with iTunes to let users broadcast what music they are currently listening to, permit sharing of music with people on their network (but um, iTunes lets you do that now), connect with friend’s friends, and update all of their online statuses at the same time.

It’s not hard to imagine Apple would be working on social networking, since it’s pretty much the biggest trend on the Internet today. It will be interesting to see what the company’s take on social communications looks like, especially in the light of the fact that social networking capabilities are among the more compelling aspects of LaLa — a competing music distribution outlet CoM reported on previously.

It will also be interesting to see just how much “broadcasting” and “sharing” music labels and artists rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI are going to stand for in the brave new social world that appears to be just over the horizon.

Good news for haters of Apple’s glossy MacBook screens: the matte display is back as an option on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, although Apple is charging an extra $50 for it.

Check Apple’s online store. The glossy widescreen display can be replaced with an optional antiglare display. The specs are the same — 1,440 x 900 pixels and a LED backlight — but the matte display has a silver bezel around it instead of a black one. Plus it costs an extra $50.

Apple’s not selling it though. Look how the website copy downplays the antiglare option:

“Choose a standard glossy display that lets you view graphics, photos, and videos with richer colors and deeper blacks, or an optional antiglare display.”

The matte screen was already an option on the top-of-the-line 17-inch MacBook Pro, but isn’t yet offered on the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro. It’s just a matter of time though. I personally like the glossy screens, which I think look great. I’ve never, ever been distracted by its much hated “mirror” effect.

Meet Tadataka Goh, a Japanese jazz bassist who is perhaps the world’s biggest collector of Apple-branded goods — you know, Apple t-shirts, pens and hats.

Over the last 15 years, Tadataka has amassed the largest collection of Apple knickknacks on the planet. He has thousands of items, including hundreds of pens, t-shirts, baseball caps, posters and buttons. He has the first issue of Macworld magazine and an Apple-branded traffic cone.

Tadataka has possibly spent more than $100,000 on them. That’s right — more than $100,000.

“Looking at his collection, he’s probably spent several hundred thousand dollars,” says Steve Naughton, co-owner of RedLightRunner.com, which sells Apple collectibles and counts Tadataka as its best customer ever.

The Japanese are well-known for being enthusiastic collectors, and the most otaku can be fanatical completionists. Even so, the scope of Tadataka’s collection boggles the mind.

He’s got so much stuff, even he doesn’t know how much he’s got. He recently posted pictures of more about 4,000 items to an online gallery, and has scores more pictures to upload.

Click on to see some of Tadataka’s collection. You have to see the photos to appreciate how big this collection is.

The Internet has lately played host to a near-infinite amount of fol-de-rol regarding a rather silly post from Weblogs, Inc. and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis in which he railed against Apple’s recent paranoia. There’s plenty wrong with the gist of his argument (as Leander points out in this rather nice post), as well as a few things that are right on.

But I’m not here to dwell on that. I just want to make one thing very clear: what makes Apple great is not what it puts into its products. It’s what gets left out. As exciting as visions of flying iPhones with 8 sim slots, a Zip disk slot, and dual head-mounted displays might seem, the original iPhone (and iPod, for that matter) became iconic because of its limitations — not in spite of them. Innovation, contrary to Calacanis, is often more about editing than possibility. Apple, more than most companies, is defined by its unwillingness to do too much. The greatest design impact is in what we can’t see.

Just weeks after getting permission to tear down his historic mansion, Steve Jobs is embroiled in more wrecking ball controversy.

Preservationists in Melbourne, Australia, are up in arms about the imminent destruction of a historic art deco building in favor of a new Apple store.

Developers have just received permission to rip down Lonsdale House — described as one of the city’s finest examples of art deco architecture.

In its place they’re building a new shopping center called “Emporium Melbourne,” and are angling for Apple to be the anchor tenant. See the artist’s impression above.

Apple already has four stores in Australia, most notably the huge landmark store on Sydney’s George Street, which drew a huge crowd when it opened last year.

The Save Lonsdale House campaign say there’s no reason the building should be demolished, except to make more room for delivery trucks. In the past Apple has been sensitive to historic buildings. The Apple Store in New York’s Soho district, for example, is housed in a historic post office.

Last month, Jobs reached a deal to save his historic Jackling House mansion in Woodside California, which he’d been trying to demolish for years. Jobs will pay $600K to angel investor Gordon Smythe to have the mansion dismantled and moved.

More on the Lonsdale House controversy in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Via 9to5Mac.

UPDATE: Rogers denies there’s an 8GB iPhone 3GS. It’s a formatting error, a spokesman told Gizmodo and Electronista. “There is no 8GB 3G s iPhone,” the spokesman emailed. “There is a formatting error on our website. It is being corrected asap.” Too bad. There was the Boy Genius memo though, which hasn’t yet been strenuously denied by Rogers.

The existence of an 8GB model of Apple’s hot iPhone 3GS looks more likely if you take a gander at this webpage from Rogers Wireless of Canada.

There it is in full public view in a comparison chart — the iPhone 3GS is available in 32GB, 16GB and — now — 8GB.

The lower-capacity 3GS was rumored last week when photos of a Rogers’ internal memo were published by Boy Genius Report. The memo said the company would sell through all of its older iPhone 3G stock before offering the new 8GB 3GS.

Whether the new phone will be offered outside Canada isn’t clear, but seems likely. It’s also likely to be lower-priced, perhaps replacing the current 8GB iPhone 3G, which is sold by AT&T for $99 with a contract.

Entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, the dog loving, Tesla driving, indefatigable self-promoter, is forsaking Apple products in his fury at some of the company’s recent actions, like banning the Google Voice app — The Case Against Apple-in Five Parts.

While he has a couple of points, he’s wrong about the rest. In fact, the things that Calacanis rags on are the things that make Apple and the iPhone great, and he’s misguided not to embrace them. Here’s why:

New rumors this weekend suggest that Blu-Ray may finally be coming to the Mac. But while Blu-Ray is high on many people’s wish list, the rumors just don’t make sense.

Citing a “pretty reliable source,” Boy Genius Report says Blu-Ray is coming to iTunes 9, maybe as soon as September. The rumor jibes with a particularly vague story on AppleInsider suggesting that new iMacs will get new features (yeah, it’s almost sounds like self-parody), possibly Blu-Ray.

But although Blu-Ray format is gaining popularity, it’s unlikely to come to the Mac, ever. Here’s why:

Apple’s upcoming iTablet will be a hit and run the iPhone operating system, according to new report out of Wall Street.

Analysts at Piper Jaffray say the upcoming iTablet will be released in 2010, will cost about $600, and will shift about 2 million units in its first year.

“Last week we spoke with an Asian component supplier that has received orders from Apple for a touch-screen device to be fulfilled by late CY09,” the report says. “This data point underscores our thesis that a tablet will likely launch in early CY10.”

The tablet will also run the iPhone/iPod Touch OS — not OS X, the report predicts. CoM believes the tablet will run OS X, which will be the “killer app” that cements the tablet’s success. Apple appears to be prepping Snow Leopard, the next version of OS X, for touchscreen devices.

“Apple could choose to simply run the current App Store apps on the larger device, with enough usable space for multiple apps to run (multi-tasking),” says the investment firm.

The report continues: “Key apps, like Safari and Mail, could be made larger to make use of the larger screen resolution, making Apple’s tablet appealing for more extended use, and the company could continue to leverage its primary asset in mobile computing, the App Store, in this scenario. We believe this is the most likely scenario given the success of the multi-touch platform and the App Store ecosystem, which could be accelerated with a tablet device.”

The analysis says Apple will reap extra revenue from the tablet that hasn’t been included in most forecast models.

“While at first glance this may appear to address a niche market, we believe the addressable market is larger than that of the Apple TV, of which Apple sold about 1.2m in its first year,” the report says.

Via AppleInsider.

Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller took the time to craft a lengthy, detailed statement of the company’s position with respect to criticism leveled Wednesday by this site and others, over the App Store review process Matchstick Software’s Ninjawords application endured on its way to appearing as a 17+ rated selection on the iTunes App Store in mid-July.

As it had been initially reported on Tuesday evening at Daring Fireball, Apple “required” Ninjawords — an iPhone dictionary app that delivers Wiktionary.org content to iPhone and iPod Touch users — to censor certain vulgar content in order to gain approval as a title in the App Store, and yet the company still gave the app a 17+ rating, which requires purchasers to provide proof of age before they can purchase apps so rated.

In a response published Thursday to Daring Fireball author John Gruber, Schiller clarified certain facts and the chain of events that led up to Ninjawords finally appearing on the App Store after having first been rejected by Apple review staff. As Gruber acknowledged Thursday, in actuality, Apple reviewers merely suggested that Matchstick Software developers wait to re-submit their application until Apple had in place Parental Controls (ie: 17+ ratings) on the App Store and in no way suggested that content on the app had to be censored in order to gain Apple’s approval for sale.

Because Parental Controls were not yet available at the time Matchstick wanted to take its product to market, the developers acted of their own accord to censor the app’s content, hoping it would thereby pass Apple’s review process.

As Gruber wrote, “it really came down to bad timing around the launch of parental controls.”

Matchstick spokesman Phil Crosby told Gruber via email, “17+ ratings were not available when we launched, which means at that time, it was simply not possible for our dictionary to be on the App Store without being censored. Given the options of censoring or sitting on the side lines while our competitors ate our lunch, we chose to launch.”

All in all, one can take it as a good sign that Apple cares enough about public perception of the App Store and its often-criticized review policies for Schiller to explain the company’s position so clearly as he did to Gruber.

It’s even better to know that Apple finds — as Schiller put it — “Wiktionary.org is an open, ever-changing resource and filtering the content does not seem reasonable or necessary.”

If you’re running Leopard, hit Command + Shift + 4 and then the space bar, and you’ll see an icon of a camera that harks back to Steve Jobs’s days at NeXT.

The decades-old icon is one of the last visible vestiges of NeXTStep, the old operating system that laid the foundation for OS X in the late ’90s.

The camera icon looks dated, but it’s pretty good by today’s standards. Look at some of the Windows icons from the same period.

The NeXTStep camera can be found in the Resources of the Grab tool (in the Utilities folder) and comes in several different versions with eyes, stopwatches and camera flashes.

Other holdovers from NeXT in Leopard include various system sounds, including Basso, Frog, Funk, Ping, Pop, and Tink, as one commenter notes at Robojamie.net, which first pointed out the camera icon.

And as another commenter says, there’s another old icon in: /System/Library/Frameworks/AppKit.framework/Resources/NSMultipleFiles.tiff

It doesn’t seem to be used anywhere though.

Steve Jobs founded NeXT in 1985 after he was booted from Apple. He had the company build advanced workstations, hoping to drive Apple out of business. But its black magnesium NeXT Cubes were too expensive except for select clients in academia and the CIA. NeXT eventualy dropped the hardware to concentrate on the its state-of-the-art software and operating system, which Apple bought in 1996 as the foundation for the Mac OS.

Apple got a lot from NeXT: Jobs came on as an adviser, and eventually took on the CEO role. A lot of Apple’s top executives came from NeXT and so did  lot of its technology. As well as basing OS X on NeXTStep, Apple has built a lot of its online offerings on NeXT’s WebObjects, including its first online store, the iTunes Music Store, its DotMac website and the iPhone App Store.

Just one day after earning congratulations for pulling the developer’s license of a prolific producer of useless (and possibly copyright-infringing) applications, propriety demands Apple receive a major Bronx cheer for the way the company treated Matchstick software and their Ninjawords iPhone Dictionary application.

The degree of censorship and hassle Apple forced Matchstick developers to endure in order to get their nifty $2 app listed on the App Store, as reported Tuesday at Daring Fireball, is simply unconscionable.

In recent weeks, Cult of Mac has reported a number of stories showing many holes in the tattered shroud of respectability with which Apple attempts to proclaim the innocence and purity of all things that might ever appear on the iPhone. The tale behind Ninjawords’ (iTunes link) tribulations would seem to set Apple’s high-water mark for institutional hypocrisy to date.

As Daring Fireball author John Gruber put it so well: Apple requires you to be 17 years or older to purchase a censored dictionary that omits half the words Steve Jobs uses every day.

For Shame.

Apple’s board of directors is a bit light these days. In addition to recently resigned/forced out/exiled Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who is the eye of a hurricane about the notorious Google Voice/App Store rejection/AT&T imbroglio, the company has an internal seat it has kept vacant since the resignation/dismissal/ejection of former Chief Financial Officer Fred Anderson in the wake of the backdating/did Steve or didn’t he/stock options fiasco.

In other words, Apple could add as many as two board members to its strange leadership team, which currently stands as Jobs, Al Gore, Genentech Chairman Arthur Levinson, Intuit Chairman Bill Campbell and the CEOs of both Avon and J. Crew. The ghost of Andy Warhol, despite rumors, does not actually sit on the board.

So who should join this squad? Fake Steve’s had his say, and it’s high time we had ours as well. As BusinessWeek’s Arik Hesseldahl points out, temporary CEO/COO-extraordinaire Tim Cook seems like an obvious addition, especially given his position on Nike’s board, and his value to the company is at this point proven and prominent. He seems like a gimme, particularly if Apple wants him to become the real CEO at some point.

From an external perspective, however, things get much more interesting. At this point, Apple’s board is very light on tech folks. Besides Steve, only Campbell is directly involved in computers, and he’s only on the consumer and small and medium business markets constituted by Quicken and QuickBooks. That said, Apple is running out of friends in technology — virtually everyone is in competition with them in some form or another, which is partially what led to the awkward situation with Schmidt.

Tenuous as their relationship has been in the past (particularly over use of the term iPhone), I would love to see John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, on the board. He’s an incredibly bright guy, a brilliant manager, and he really gets tech and telecommunications without being an Apple competitor in any meaningful sense. Additionally, he has a reputation for remarkable ethics, both personally and across his organization — Cisco was one of the only organizations in Silicon Valley that didn’t have stock backdating issues a few years back. He also gets business customers in a big way.

Chambers is my pick. What say you?

Apple has revoked the iPhone developer’s license of one prolific mobile app developer, according to a report at MobileCrunch, but the company is still taking heat for inconsistencies in its App Store approval policies.

Kahlid Shaikh and his team of 26 engineers working under the name Perfect Acumen had over 900 apps approved and selling in the iTunes App Store until July 24, when Apple terminated Shaikh’s iPhone Developer Program License due to concerns over “numerous third party intellectual property complaints concerning over 100 of [his] Applications.”

The majority of Shaikh’s apps merely aggregated content found on the web and delivered it to iPhone users under titles such as “US Army News”, “Skin Care Updates” and “Economical Crisis Updates”, as well as other questionable content under titles such as “Top Sexy Ladies” and “Top Sexy Men”.

Shaikh admitted he is not concerned about creating particularly valuable apps, according to the MobileCrunch report. Instead, he said, he’s going for “less product value” and “more monetization.” Many of his apps had been sold for $4.99, generating revenue in the range of thousands of dollars per day for Perfect Acumen, according to the report.

Despite having finally grown exasperated with fielding copyright and intellectual property claims against Shaikh, and having acted to remove what some believe was a raft of useless apps from the App Store, Apple is taken to task by the author of the MobileCrunch report for inconsistencies in its App Store review process. The entire brouhaha here is seen as evidence that “Clearly, Apple doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.”

It appears, in the eyes of some, Apple cannot win for losing, no matter what the company does with the App Store. Either its review process is too open or it’s too restrictive; the store has too many useless apps, bans products users want, or acts to cull sketchy apps — and the end result is “Apple Sucks” no matter what they do.

Apple’s is a difficult position for a company to be in. The company created an entirely new distribution model for an industry that didn’t even exist two years ago. It created opportunity and economic activity that has amounted to one of the few glimmering beacons of hope in what has been roundly described as one of the worst economic downturns in nearly a century. And yet some people seem unable to accept the fact that every single decision made at every step of the way has not resulted in clear skies, smooth sailing and endless joy for one and all.

Make no mistake: Apple is a huge company that can and will act with caprice to get and maintain whatever economic advantage it can in a ruthless marketplace. The FCC appears increasingly interested in the operational nuances among Apple, Google and AT&T, as the formerly moribund antitrust watchdogs of the federal government are starting to prick up their ears under the Obama administration.

However, when Apple acts to shed the likes of Shaikh and his questionable work product from the App Store the company ought to be praised for finally — if belatedly — doing the right thing.

Fake Steve has a hilarious series of posts about Eric “Squirrel Boy” Schmidt’s resignation from Apple’s board. Much better than the real news and boring analysis. Starts with Squirrel Down! and continues:

“Eric, let me tell you something. After what you pulled here at Apple, no one will ever trust you again. You’re a dead man. Okay? You are the herpes of the tech industry. You lame-ass spy. You backstabbing, flack-fucking thief. You sat in our meetings and learned all of our secrets. You listened to our product development plans. Then you went off and copied our products and now you’re trying to fuck me in the ear with my own ideas.”

Then he goes on to detail the hilarious phone calls Steve has taken from wannabes looking to fill Schmidt’s empty seat, including Woz, Kara Swisher, Jon Shirley, Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble and Chris Anderson.

Worth reading in order to appreciate how the joke builds (I made the mistake of reading them backwards). Highlights are the Kawasaki and Anderson posts.

Link.

Apple’s tablet, which may be on sale as soon as November, will be the best computer you ever bought. It will be better even than the beloved iPhone.

It will be an entirely new kind of computer that will usher in a new kind of computing.

It will be a horizontal iMac: a touch-screen computer that you use horizontally, in your lap or lying on the couch.

It will be a complete rethink of the computer for play, not work, and it use the original pointing device — your finger.

It will be really easy to use — a pleasure in fact, because it will be magical.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has resigned from Apple’s board of directors, Apple announced Monday.

“Eric has been an excellent Board member for Apple, investing his valuable time, talent, passion and wisdom to help make Apple successful,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Unfortunately, as Google enters more of Apple’s core businesses, with Android and now Chrome OS, Eric’s effectiveness as an Apple Board member will be significantly diminished, since he will have to recuse himself from even larger portions of our meetings due to potential conflicts of interest. Therefore, we have mutually decided that now is the right time for Eric to resign his position on Apple’s Board.”

Some believed Schmidt’s presence on Apple’s board gained early favoritism for Google’s voice-search app in the App Store and much speculation in recent months centered around Schmidt’s continued effectiveness on the board — for many of the reasons Jobs referred to in this morning’s announcement.

Some began to question the relationship between the two companies even more seriously with Apple’s recent rejection of Google’s Voice application for the iPhone, but at least now, with ties between the two companies severed at the directors’ level, their status as competitors has a more legitimate public face.

Apple on Friday afternoon released a firmware patch for the iPhone to fix a dangerous SMS security hole.

The 3.0.1 firmware update is available now through iTunes. The 300MB update is available for the iPhone, iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS. It doesn’t appear to contain any other features or bug fixes except for the SMS patch, according to Apple’s security advisory.

As previously reported, noted security experts Charlie Miller and Collin Mulliner revealed a major security exploit in the iPhone’s SMS system on Thursday at the 2009 Black Hat Conference in Las Vegas.

The exploit takes advantage of memory hole in the SMS system, allowing hackers root access to the device. Programs could theoretically be sent to any iPhone, through multiple SMS messages if necessary, and take over all functions, including the camera, phone and microphone. The only indication of the hack would be a SMS message containing a single square character.

Miller and Mulliner reportedly chose to reveal the exploit, which is applicable to all mobile platforms including iPhone OS, Android and Windows Mobile, at Black Hat after Apple had been unresponsive in the wake of their showing it to company officials earlier in July.

Looks like Apple woke up fast. The patch was issued in about 24 hours.

UPDATE: Google also patched its Android system on Friday, and Microsoft says it is investigating, according to BusinessWeek. To be fair, Microsoft was just informed of the vulnerability, while Apple was warned weeks ago, which may explain the speed of its patch.

I just visited Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue for the first time — you know, the subterranean one with the glass cube on top that was co-designed by Steve Jobs.

While the architecture is fabulous, the most notable thing was the huge crowd in there at 6.30 PM in the evening on a weeknight. The stores in San Francisco and Los Angeles are often crowded, but the 5th Ave store was heaving. I don’t mean just crowded; it was literally packed, wall to wall.

There were lines for the Genius Bar (OK, expected); there were lines for the checkouts (also expected); there were lines for the iPhone 3GS (not expected); and there were lines for the new MacBooks (set up at a special stand. Also not expected).

There were lines for all the machines in the store. People were hanging about the tables for a chance to use the demo iMacs, MacBooks and iPhones.

It was hard to look at anything on the shelves without asking someone to get out of the way. It was almost impossible to move down some of the aisles because of the crowds.

It more resembled a hip NYC nightclub than a premium consumer electronics manufacturer in the midst of an economic downturn.

Color me genuinely surprised.

BTW: The Fifth Ave locale is one of the five Apple stores to see before you die.

Chinese regulators have approved a modified iPhone for the giant Chinese market, which uses the speedy GSM/WCDMA chipset but has no WiFi.

Why no WiFi? Hit the jump for an explanation (It’s partly business, partly snooping).

The long-standing tiff between Apple and the iPhone jailbreaking community reached new heights of absurdity in a recent filing Apple made with the US Copyright office, in which the company all but claimed granting iPhone jailbreakers an exemption from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act would invite terrorist attacks on the nation’s wireless network infrastructure.

In a written response (PDF) to questions from the Copyright Office, Apple claimed that jailbroken iPhones could be used by drug dealers to avoid authorities, by hackers to skirt carrier-enforced limitations or even by attackers to crash the software at cell phone towers. “Technological protection measures were designed into the iPhone precisely to prevent these kinds of pernicious activities,” said the Apple statement, which added, “if granted, the jailbreaking exemption would open the door to them — to potentially catastrophic effect.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), representing consumer interests and arguing in the case for the jailbreaking exemption, dismissed Apple’s claims. “This is all just a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt,” said Fred von Lohmann, an EFF senior staff attorney and the organization’s expert in intellectual property law.

Von Lohmann called Apple’s claims that jailbroken iPhones could bring down a carrier’s network a hypothetical game. “None of this has ever happened [with jailbroken iPhones],” he said. “You don’t see the independent iPhone stores filled with malicious software tools. Instead, they’re filled with the software that Apple has refused to offer in its App Store.”

The Copyright Office is expected to make its final ruling in the case by October.

[via PCWorld]

The celebrity website TMZ has bagged the first photograph of Steve Jobs back at work on Apple’s campus. Appropriately, the picture was taken with an iPhone.

“It’s the first time we’ve seen Jobs back in action since January, when he took a leave of absence for a liver transplant,” says TMZ. “Jobs has reportedly been back at work for about a month.”

The picture was taken at 3PM on Wednesday at Apple’s campus in Cupertino. Jobs looks very thin — but, hey, he’s back at work!

Jobs is crossing the road that loops around the campus — Infinite Loop. He’s walking towards one of the car parks that surround the buildings. The photo was taken from inside a vehicle as Jobs crossed in front of it.

The person walking in front of Jobs is likely a bodyguard, but one that looks remarkably like Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head designer. Jobs is reportedly guarded these days, and is driven around in a big black SUV.

The bodyguard is pretty burly, so he’s not the best person to be photographed with if you’ve lost a lot of weight.

Via 9to5Mac.

Apple took one more step toward fully integrating the iPhone platform into MobileMe Wednesday, making a free MobileMe iDisk application available for download on the iTunes App Store.

Members of Apple’s $99 per year cloud computing service will be able to use the iDisk app on their iPhone or iPod Touch to view files stored on an iDisk; access Public folders; easily share files from an iPhone using integrated email links; quickly access recently viewed files and view iPhone-supported file types-including iWork, Office, PDF, QuickTime and more. Files larger than 20MB may not be viewable.

Apple will release its fabled touchscreen tablet as early as September, the Taiwanese paper Apple Daily claims. If true, the announcement is likely just weeks away. Apple will have to put the device on store shelves by the fall in time for the crucial holiday shopping season.

In a direct rebuttal of AppleInsider, whose sources say the tablet will be launched early next year, Apple Daily pegs a September release date for the device.

The paper details Apple’s suppliers: Wintek is providing the tablet’s touch-sensitive screen. Dynapack International Technology Corp. is supplying the batteries; and the whole device is being assembled by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (Hon Hai’s Foxconn unit made headlines after a worker allegedly committed suicide after losing an iPhone prototype.)

The Apple Daily report jibes with Monday’s report from the Financial Times that Apple is working on a new, revolutionary kind of “digital album” codenamed “Cocktail” to accompany the tablet, which the FT also says will be launched this fall.