Alex Heath - page 105

With rumors of a standalone Apple television set ramping up, Digitimes is reporting that Apple has told suppliers to begin prepping for the manufacturing of an Apple TV set in the first business quarter of 2012, with an expected release in the fall.

The TVs in question will only be available in 32-inch and 37-inch flavors initially, according to the report. Rumors have suggested that Apple will eventually abandon the current Apple TV set-top box and focus on an integrated solution with its own television hardware.

Apple has felt the need to create a dedicated webpage and how-to video for iTunes Match, the company’s new music service. iTunes Match became available for US customers in November, while 17 other countries were added to the availability list last week.

The new webpage for iTunes Match is home to a handy video walkthrough and more details about the service, including a 10-question FAQ.

Known developers Grant Paul (a.k.a ‘chpwn’) and Ryan Petrich have released a working Siri port for older, jailbroken iOS devices in Cydia. “Spire” will install Siri on older-generation iOS devices, including the original iPad.

Spire downloads Siri directly from Apple’s servers. The only catch is that you will need access to an iPhone 4S and your own proxy to get the port up and running.

Santa has come and gone on his sleigh, and Apple has profited along the way. A survey from Ace Metrix, a TV ad analysis firm, has revealed that Apple’s Santa Siri commercial beat out 34 other Santa-themed spots to win the crown of most effective ad for the 2011 holiday season.

Apple’s commercial, featuring Santa and the iPhone 4S’s Siri assistant, scored a 652 out of a possible 950 points in Ace Metrix’s survey, topping competitors like Pillsbury, Coca-Cola, and Nintendo.

You just got your brand new iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 or iPhone 4S for Christmas. It’s shiny exterior beckons you to explore your new smartphone. We want to show you how to get started with your new device the right way, so that you can begin enjoying it from day one.

In this handy guide, we’ll take you through initial setup; teach you some awesome tweaks that’ll maximize your battery life and enhance your experience; introduce you to some of the best iOS apps the App Store has to offer; and tell you about some great accessories that you just shouldn’t be without.

Here’s our guide to setting up your new iPhone the right way.

comScore is reporting that Apple was ranked as the 13th most-trafficked web source during the month of November, attracting more hits than companies like Wal-Mart, eBay, VEVO, and ESPN. Apple saw 79 million unique US visits while Wal-Mart saw almost 59 million.

Apple sat right under New York Times Digital in its web rankings for November.

Apple has just posted a new support document outlining everything international customers need to know about iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match availability. Customers in the United States were given public access to iTunes Match back in November, and Apple has been rolling out its cloud services for iTunes to international markets since then.

After countries around the world were given access to iTunes Match last week, Apple has officially outlined both iTunes in the Cloud and iTunes Match international availability, including the types of media that are offered to customers in each country.

One of the unfortunate byproducts of owning an iOS device is that your Home button can become a little sluggish over time. When you get your new iPhone or iPad and use it initially, the Home button works smoothly, but it can eventually become less responsive.

Fortunately, there’s a subtle trick in iOS for recalibrating your Home button. After performing this tip on your personal iOS device, you should notice that your Home button is considerably more responsive when you’re navigating throughout iOS.

Mercury News is reporting that Apple is preparing construction on a new “prototype” retail store in Palo Alto, California. The store will be built about a block away from an existing Apple Store at 340 University Avenue.

With work set to begin “any day now,” the new store will reportedly feature a glass skylight and plenty of stone and metal. The $3.15 million project received its building permit on December 12th from the city of Palo Alto.

Many have called Steve Jobs the father of modern computing, but some would argue that the true credit goes to Jacob Goldman, founder of Xerox PARC. Under Goldman’s guidance, Xerox become responsible for the technology that inspired Steve Jobs to create computers like the Lisa.

The New York Times is reporting that Jacob Goldman passed away this week at the age of 90. He was Xerox’s chief scientist and founder of the Xerox Corporation’s Palo Alto Research Center — the very place Jobs took his team in December of 1979 to get a demonstration of the technology that drove him to create the first successful personal computer.

Intuit has announced that its popular finance application, Quicken, will be updated with Lion support in “early spring” of next year. The 2007 version of Quicken for Mac will be updated with Lion compatibility and Intuit promises that it will focus more on Mac development in the future.

Quicken for Mac doesn’t work on Lion because Apple discontinued support for Rosetta apps that are based on PowerPC architecture. The updated version of Quicken for Mac 2007 will finally run natively on Intel hardware.

The iPhone 4S is out for blood this holiday season.

Apple has never shown favor to emulators in its App Store (with the exception of examples like the Commodore 64 app), so it’s surprising to see iMAME available in the App Store for free right now. iMAME allows you to run thousands of classic arcade titles if you’re lucky enough to have the original ROMs.

The emulator app includes 9 less-than-popular arcade games to run, but the possibilities are pretty endless if you know what you’re doing.

The International Trade Commission (ITC) recently placed an import ban on several HTC devices in the United States for violating an Apple design patent. The ban wasn’t set to take place until April of 2012, but Apple’s win would effectively end HTC’s short-term business in the US if HTC failed to develop a workaround.

Noting that it was already working on “alternate solutions” to sidestep the patent infringement issue when the ITC’s ban was announced, HTC has today confirmed that it has already developed a fix that will keep its Android-powered devices safe from Apple’s lawyers for the foreseeable future.

Apple has seeded a new built of the OS X Lion 10.7.3 beta to developers in the iOS Dev Center. Build 11D36 of 10.7.3 can be downloaded now by registered developers.

While there are no known issues in this latest beta, Apple does request developers to focus on areas like iCloud Document Storage, Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight, and Safari.

Thieves aren’t interested in Blackberries, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want RIM’s PlayBooks tablets.

$1.7 million in Playbooks was recently stolen off a truck on its way from Plainfield, Indianapolis to Ontario, Canada. While the driver took a short pit-stop in Madison County, thieves stole 22 pallets of PlayBooks, totaling 5,200 devices.

Yesterday we told you about AT&T’s decision to back out of its proposed $39 billion merger with T-Mobile. After facing heated scrutiny and antitrust concerns from both the Federal Communications Commission and Department of Justice, AT&T couldn’t take the heat any longer.

As part of the deal falling through, AT&T has agreed to pay T-Mobile $3 billion in cash for breakup fees. The money combined with the two carriers’ spectrum and roaming deal makes T-Mobile the only winner of the failed merger.

Apple is offering the popular Bejeweled game for free to customers who ‘like’ the App Store on Facebook. The limited-time sale is a continuation of app giveaways that Apple has been offering on Facebook for the last couple of months.

The United States International Trade Commission (ITC) has ruled in favor of Apple and declared a ban on the import of many HTC devices in the US, including flagship phones like the Sprint Evo 4G and Verizon Droid Incredible. The ruling would effectively end HTC’s business in the US.

After a lengthy back-and-forth between the two companies, the ITC has ruled that HTC infringes on two of Apple’s patents. Should the President of the United States decide to let the decision pass through, the ban will be put into effect on April 19, 2012. HTC plans to implement “alternate solutions” to combat the ruling.

AT&T has officially backed out its proposed merger with T-Mobile. The deal has been undergoing intense scrutiny from the FCC and DOJ. A $4 billion pre-tax fee charge will be paid by AT&T as agreed upon.

We’ve seen Siri do nearly everything imaginable, but did you know that Apple’s virtual assistant is also a musician? The Yamaha Disklavier can be controlled by Siri, as demonstrated in the above video.

Siri takes a song from your iPhone’s Music library and sends it through an Airport Express to then get analyzed and played perfectly by the piano. Hey, it’s a lot easier than learning the piano yourself, right?

Apple has posted two HD trailers for Christopher Nolan’s highly-anticpated Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises. While you’ll have to wait until summer of 2012 to watch the whole thing, 3:41 minutes of glorious footage is available from the movie trailer section of iTunes right now.

If you need more of a Batman fix, the 6-minute prologue to The Dark Knight Rises is showing before Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol in IMAX. The official trailer is also showing before Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

Don’t forget that you can see these trailers and more in Apple’s official Trailers app for the iPhone and iPad.

Literature & Latte, the development company behind the popular word processing app called Scrivener, has announced that an iOS version of Scrivener is in the works for a 2012 release.

Fans of Scrivener for Mac will be happy to know that the app is now in development for the iPhone and iPad. The professional writing tool will likely offer the most robust word processing experience for iOS to date.

The Wall Street Journal has shed light on Apple’s plans for entering the TV industry. According to the WSJ, Apple is planning to reinvent not only the television itself, but the way we consume media every day.

Apple has been working on its top-secret TV project for quite some time. While the project is still in its early stages, all signs point towards Apple destroying and rebuilding the traditional way we watch movies and TV shows. The company wants to implement a unified experience that extends to the living room.

Facebook has released an update to its iPhone app that brings the highly-anticpated Timeline view to mobile users. Version 4.1 of the Facebook for iOS app brings with it the ability to access friend lists, subscribers, and subscriptions. Photo viewing and overall speed improvements are also included.

An iPad version of Timeline is coming soon, according to Facebook. Users can download the latest update for free in the App Store.