John Brownlee - page 169

Yesterday, BGR made a SNAFU and claimed that iOS 4.3 was due to be pumped down to users in just a couple of hours. Obviously, that didn’t happen, but The Loop’s Jim Dalrymple has iOS 4.3’s actual release pegged for later today.

That’s looking increasingly likely. Earlier today, and less than a week after releasing iTunes 10.2, Apple has released iTunes 10.2.1 through the usual channels, which is solely a release paving the way for iTunes 4.3.

In fact, it appears to be mostly a small bug fix release, as Apple’s release notes state that iTunes 10.2.1 offers the ability to sync with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 4.3, as well as improved Home Sharing, letting users browse and play from their iTunes libraries with Home Sharing on any iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 4.3. That’s the same as iTunes 10.2.

No other features or bug fixes are mentioned in the release notes, but you can bet that if Apple didn’t feel that a new version of iTunes so shortly after the last version’s release was critical, they wouldn’t have pushed out so quickly. Expect iOS 4.3 to drop in a few hours.

Remember that 64GB iPhone 4 prototype we posted about yesterday, seemingly legit right down to its blanked out serial number and crossed out capacity? The lovely lads over at MIC Gadget got a chance to play with it hands-on themselves, and unless they’re in on the conspiracy, their hands-on time seems to confirm that the 64GB iPhone 4 was very real indeed. It even has the same silver ring around the camera lens that the lost Gizmodo bar prototype had.

But who cares if an iPhone 4 prototype has 64GB of storage if you can’t buy one, right? Interestingly, though, MIC Gadget’s source for the prototype — who says it was leaked from Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory — says he’s heard that the next iPhone will bring 64GB of storage capacity to all users.

That’s interesting for more than just the obvious reason. The iPhone has only one flash module inside of it, compared to the iPod Touch’s two, so it implised the iPod Touch might make the leap to 128GB of capacity in September. Once that happens, say goodbye to the iPod Classic: it’s managed to hold on until now simply by being the iPod you buy if you want to carry your entire music library with you, but once the Touch reaches 128GB, it’s all over for the iPod that started it al.

At last week’s iPad 2 launch event, Apple surprised many of us by failing to announce anything in regards to iOS 5 or the forthcoming MobileMe revamp. In retrospect, it makes sense: although comparatively modest an update, the iPad 2 event was jam packed as it is with sales figures, new software, new accessories and hardware improvements, all of which needed their presentation time. iOS 5 is going to need an entire event all to itself.

So when will Apple debut iOS 5 and MobileMe? German site Macerkopf is citing a source that says Apple plans an early April media event to introduce iOS 5 and the new revamped MobileMe.

The easiest way to tell what Apple is going to do in the future is look at what they’ve done in the past. Last year, Apple held their event debuting iOS 4 on April 8th, 2010, giving developers two or three months to get on board with changes in the operating system before the release of the iPhone 4 in late June pushed it out to end users. It would make a lot of sense if Apple did the same this year with iOS 5 as well.

Adobe’s Flash Player is a bizarre, convoluted product, to say the least. In fact, it’s about as un-Mac-like a piece of software as you can possibly imagine.

For example, did you know that if you want to change your Flash Player’s settings on the Mac, there’s no easy way of doing so locally? Instead, you have to visit a special web link to change your privacy, storage, microphone or web cam settings, or even flush out your cache.

Ridiculous, right? Thankfully, Adobe seems to have taken one more small step to get in line with best Mac practices with the latest beta of Flash Player 10.3, which adds a prefpane to your Mac’s System Preferences panel allowing you to change Flash Player’s settings locally, including Storage, Camera and Mic, Playback and more.

It certainly took you long enough, Adobe, If you want to take Flash Player 10.3 Beta for a spin, you can grab it for Mac here

[via MacStories]

If only Apple offered their own standalone speakers, we imagine they’d look something like this gorgeous DIY 2.1 speaker set-up, designed specifically to match the aluminum unibody aesthetic of Apple’s 27-inch LED Cinema Display. Finding nothing available commercially, DIY modder Brett turned to a CNC machine to make his own speaker set-up, worthy of the mind of Ive.

Originally, the plan was to integrate a subwoofer into the desk housing the display and speakers itself, complete with box paths and room in the back for a USB hub, a power supply and storage. Unfortunately, that phase of the project has yet to kick-off, and so now these gorgeous and elegant speakers pump out their bass through umbilical to a subwoofer sitting on the floor.

Of course, while undeniably attractive, this 2.1 speaker set-up isn’t really totally loyal to the modern Apple aesthetic. In particular, the gold finish of the speaker phones isn’t exactly the sort of thing Jobs would approve of, and it’s hard to imagine Apple ever releasing a pair of speakers at all… let alone a pair this ginormously room commanding. Still, for audiophiles, these are the iSpeakers of which they’ve always dreamed.

One of the most highly touted features of iOS 4.3 is Personal Hotspot. Although Verizon iPhone owners have had access to the feature since iOS 4.2.6, the latest iOS update will bring Personal Hotspot to AT&T iPhone users as well, allowing up to three other devices to connect to it at once.

Interestingly, BGR is reporting that Apple may have made concessions to the carriers to get this feature out the door: they say that Personal Hotspot can technically support up to five connect devices, but that Apple agreed to give carriers the power to specify the maximum number of simultaneous connections. Boo. Expect this to become just one more bartering chip in AT&T and Verizon’s war to get your business.

In other news, BGR is also reporting that they think iOS 4.3 will be released at 10AM PT this morning. That seems unlikely to us: Apple themselves said it would land on March 11th, and Apple generally doesn’t release a new iOS version before the hardware meant to be debuting it. Still, I guess we’ll all know in just a few hours.

Now that Apple has tipped their new, dual-core A5 SoC as the central cortex of the iPad 2, it’s reasonable to expect that the chip will start creeping down the rest of the iOS line-up later this year. That means an A5-equipped iPhone 5 in June, followed by an A5-equipped iPod Touch in September.

But even though it doesn’t look like one, there’s one other member of the iOS family: the Apple TV. Can we expect Apple to update their set-top box offering as well?

For those of us who hate juggling tracks on our iPhones, a 64GB iPhone 4 would be a godsend. It should be more than technically possible: the iPod Touch comes in a 64GB variety, after all. For whatever reason, though, Apple’s let almost five generations of iPhone pass without rolling out a 64GB iPhone.

At least it appears that they thought about it, though. MIC Gadget points out that some alleged iPhone 4 prototypes with 64GB storage capacities that are making their way into the Chinese grey market right now.

Technically, this could be faked, but it looks legit, right down to the correct amount of useable space reported within the iPhone 4’s settings (at 59.1GB, it’s identical to the amount reported by a 64GB iPad). Also, like the found Gizmodo iPhone 4, the back shell of the leaked prototype has the same “XXGB” demarkation.

Obviously, we never ended up getting a 64GB iPhone 4, but let’s keep our fingers crossed that 64GB is the new high-end iPhone 5. It certainly looks like Apple wants it to be.

When the iPad first debuted, it launched with a $30 unlimited, month-by-month data over 3G courtesy of AT&T… who within months recanted the deal and switched it out with a 2GB per month subscription plan for $5 less per month.

AT&T couldn’t just bait-and-switch existing customers, though: as long as you signed up for the original unlimited plan and never cancelled, they couldn’t downgrade all existing customers to 2GB. That left a big question: when Apple finally announced the iPad 2, would AT&T figure out a way to weasel out of the grandfathered unlimited subscriptions once and for all?

Apparently not: AT&T has just confirmed that grandfathered unlimited data plans will continue to be offered on the iPad 2. So if you’ve got grandfathered unlimited, rest easy: you can upgrade to the iPad 2 safely.

While most journalists spent their scant Apple-given minutes with the iPad 2 playing with apps and snapping photos, CNET UK went straight to business, jumping into Safari and running the SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark to measure how much better Mobile Safari’s new JavaScript rendering engine was over the original iPad’s.

According to CNET, quite a bit: the iPad 2 is up to four times faster in JavaScript rendering than the original iPad, and it’s not just a matter of beefier hardware. Even on the original iPad running iOS 4.3, there’s a 1.5x boost in JavaScript rendering compared to an iPad running iOS 4.2.

Most impressively, the iPad 2 is faster at JavaScript than all competing tablets, with the Galaxy Tab processing JavaScript at only 1/3rd of the speed of the iPad 2. The web just is faster on iOS.

Although the results are undeniably gorgeous, Apple’s decision to switch from the 3GS’s plastic back to a glass one for the iPhone 4 has been a disastrous one. Not only did Apple have to put out the fires on “Glassgate” shortly after the fiasco of Antennagate thank to the the glass backing’s tendency to crack when used with a slider-style iPhone case, but the glass backing has also proven to be a nightmare for Apple when it came to releasing the white iPhone 4, thanks to the glass’ tendency to leak light onto the camera sensor.

Reports now indicate that Apple wants to ditch the glass in the iPhone 5, instead moving back to the aluminum back found in the original iPhone. Cupertino ditched aluminum in the iPhone 3G because of wireless and cellular connectivity issues, but it’s thought that advances in antenna design might have mitigated the connectivity drawbacks of aluminum.

One big question we had here at Cult of Mac when the iPad 2 was first announced was whether or not developers would have to update their apps to take advantage of the iPad 2’s faster, dual-core A5 SoC. Now Apple’s clarifying the matter: no, you don’t have to, but it’ll help.

According to a new note posted on the iOS Dev Center, Apple has asked devs to update their apps for the iPad 2 in order to take advantage of the new hardware. Mentioning that most operations inside of applications will be faster just by dint of the jump to a dual-core processor, Apple concedes that software can become faster still if they tune up their software for the iPad 2 with tools like OpenGL Profiler. Devs are further asked to enhance their apps with the “new user experiences” made possible by the iPad 2’s cameras and gyroscope/accelerometer combo.

The first-gen iPad was a sneak peek at what Apple had in store when it came to the iPhone 4’s hardware, and we imagine the iPad 2 will be no different in this regard when it comes to the iPhone 5. Developers honing their apps for the iPad 2 now will be able to reap the benefits immediately upon the release of the next iPhone.

[via MacStories]

If there was ever an Apple launch that seemed to favor the Greg Packers of this world, it’s that of the iPad 2. Uncharacteristically, Apple won’t be taking any orders for the device until the date it hits store shelves: March 11th.

It’s hard to say what this implies. By one way of thinking, it means Apple’s not confident it can supply iPad 2 pre-order demand; thought of another way, Apple may simply want to avoid the problem of customers getting their new products delivered several days early by FedEx.

Either way, though, it’s left most of us wondering just when Apple will allow customers to start ordering the iPad. It looks like now we know: MacAppsDaily is reporting that an Apple phone rep told them that online sales of the iPad 2 would begin at 12:01am PT on March 11th, with “free, fast shipping.” 9to5Mac has also confirmed that time as well.

Looks like a late night for me on Friday. Who else will be awake?

Leading up to the iPad 2’s announcement, most of us were expecting a relatively modest refresh over the original iPad, and technically speaking, that’s what the iPad 2 is: it’s a slightly thinner, slightly faster iteration on the last generation. It’s amazing, though, how what on paper seems like such a modest spec bump can in fact be such a must-have update for millions of people.

It’s the Apple magic at work, and look no further than the massive volume of original trade-ins that reCommerce companies like Gazelle, eBay and NextWorth are experiencing for proof that the iPad 2 is going to sell like gang busters.

µTorrent has long been the best Bittorrent client for Windows, and for my money (nothing, since the app’s free), it’s been the best Bittorrent client for Mac since its debut as well. Historically, though, the Mac version of µTorrent simply hasn’t been as full-featured as the PC counterpart… but that’s all changed with the latest beta, which is available to download now over at the official site.

The latest beta of µTorrent brings over to the Mac many of the most widely requested features on the PC. Here’s what is new:

It’s about that time of year again: the annual Pwn2Own computer hacking conference is kicking off next week. Since compromising browsers is a big part of the event, the big browser makers, including Google and Mozilla, have already issues security patches, trying to close up vulnerabilities before the hacking frenzy.

Now it appears that Apple is preparing to follow suit. According to French security firm Vupen, Apple will be issuing a patch to close up Safari’s vulnerabilities after a similar patch was issued on Wednesday for iTunes, closing up fifty exploits in WebKit.

Pwn2Own starts on March 9th and goes through March 11th. At the event, security researchers and hackers will compete for $65,000 in prize money as they try to take down the most current versions of all the major browsers, including Safari 5, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Firefox.

At Wednesday’s iPad 2 launch event, Steve Jobs described competitors as “flummoxed” to counter the iPad’s success, and he’s right. Almost a year after the iPad’s debut and we’re only starting to see the first of the original iPad’s real Android competition: not the 7-inch tweeners, but actual competition to the iPad’s software and hardware feature set. So what does Apple do? They come along with the iPad 2 and effortlessly cut the legs out from underneath the competition.

Samsung is one of Apple’s biggest suppliers and one of its biggest competitors, especially in the smartphone and tablet space: Samsung’s still unreleased Galaxy Tab 10.1 is one of the few Android tablets that seemed to be competitive in features and hardware with the original iPad. Stress original, though, because in the wake of the iPad 2, Samsung VP Lee Don-Joo has gone on the record as saying that parts of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 are “inadequate” compared to the iPad 2.

Flummoxed is right. Apple’s modus operandi for product revisions is hardly some sort of arcane mystery: they improve the software, make the device thinner and try to eke out some more battery life. How did Samsung — one of Apple’s biggest component suppliers — get caught off guard by the iPad 2?

The answer? They didn’t, of course. They knew what was coming. As a company, though, they just weren’t agile or resourceful enough to head it off.

Apple’s adamant that you should use their FaceTime video chat software over WiFi, and even have some software checks to make sure you’re not trying to pump your pixellated mug out over 3G. It appears, though, that the iPhone 4 isn’t particularly mindful if you’re connect to 3G somewhere down the pipe: if you want to use FaceTime on an iPhone 4 over 3G, it’s just a Personal Hotspot away.

We knew it was coming, but AT&T has just confirmed that their network will support iOS 4.3’s new Personal Hotspot feature (previously a Verizon iPhone exclusive) starting on March 11th.

If you are already a $25 DataPro plan subscriber (which nets you 2GB of usage) and also have the $20 a month tethering option, you’ll be updated to AT&T’s new plan automatically when the change pushes out next Friday.

Verizon iPhone users, of course, get unlimited data, but the Personal Hotspot capability costs $20 for 2GB of data to up to 5 connected devices. AT&T’s plan, on the other hand, gives you 4GB total data to play with: either 4GB through your iPhone 4 alone, or 4GB parceled out between the iPhone 4 and the devices connected to it via Personal Hotspot.

Ultimately, AT&T’s implementation of Personal Hotspot seems like a better deal for extreme road warriors, while Verizon’s seems better for regular users. Which plan do you prefer: AT&T’s implementation, or Verizon’s?

Apple allowed one new iPad 2 accessory to go unmentioned during yesterday’s launch event: the official iPad 2 Dock.

This is what losing looks like: according to sources speaking to Boy Genius Report, Research In Motion is preparing to bring Blackberry Messenger to iOS through the App Store.

BGR says that RIM wants to own the messaging space, and that means being ubiquitous across all platforms. It’s a curious move: BlackBerry Messaging is one of the few reasons people still buy BlackBerry smartphones over an iOS or Android device.

Ceding the messaging advantage to the competition? A curious move to say the least, especially since RIM is supposedly hopeful that their new BlackBerry tablet, the PlayBook, can help them get back some of their sales mojo. Does RIM see its future as being primarily in software over hardware? Are they already ceding victory to Apple and Google?

[via TUAW]

Although not covered in yesterday’s event, Apple has, as rumored, rolled out their new small business support program, Joint Venture. Here’s how Apple describes Joint Venture:

Joint Venture is a program designed to help you use Mac, iPhone, and iPad to improve the way your business runs. We’ll set up your new Apple products, train your employees to get the most out of them, and make sure everything stays working with dedicated support.

Not only will Apple help you setup new systems for your business with software installation and data transfer, they’ll also train your employees on an on-going basis, allowing companies to schedule up to three two-hour training sessions per year for their employees.

Joint Venture will also support your business in times of crisis, offering “unprecedented” access to the Genius Bar as well as telephone consultations, priority access for in-store appointments and even loaner notebooks in the form of MacBook Pros and MacBook Air for while your office machines are in for repair.

A pretty compelling offer, especially for the price: coverage begins at $499 per year for up to five system, with each additional system coverable for $99.

Using nothing but a historic release of Mac mini release dates and Apple’s recent introduction of Thunderbolt, the Three Guys And A Podcast have made a fairly compelling argument that new Mac minis are due soon.

Noting that Mac minis have tended to be released every eight months on average and that the last major update was in summer, the eponymous Three Guys think that Apple will roll out a Mac mini revision replacing the Mini DisplayPort with a Thunderbolt port.

They also theorize that the Mac mini will make the jump to Sandy Bridge along with last month’s MacBook Pros, with the $699 Mac mini getting a 2.3GHz Intel Core i5 processor, and the Mac Mini server getting the Intel Core i7 CPU.

This all seems fairly likely to me, but the interesting part isn’t the specs, it’s the when. The Three Guys speculate that the new Mac mini will be rolling out this month, but honestly, who knows? The average update in the Mac mini line happens eight months apart, but that average is skewed by extremes: a 19 month window between August 2007 and March 2009 where there were no updates, coupled with a microscopic two month gap between updates from July to September 2005.

Sandy Bridge Mac minis are coming, no doubt about that. But I wouldn’t lay any money down on when.

We were warning pretty much everyone we knew for months that if they hadn’t bought an iPad yet, it was a sucker move not to wait until Apple at least announced the new one… but if you or one of your friends is one of those unfortunates who caved to temptation within the last two weeks, good news: Apple will give you a partial refund for your brand new but now obsolete first-gen iPad.

Apple’s handling it the same way as they handle their refund process for Macs that have been obsoleted within a couple of weeks of a new revision being announced: just go into your local Apple Store or call up Apple, prove you bought your iPad within the past fourteen days, and they’ll give you a refund of $100, €100, or £100.

Giving refunds on obsoleted products is one of the nicer things Apple does. I mean, yeah, it’d be nicer if they actually allowed you to return your iPad, but hey, what are they going to do with them now?

[via MacTrast]

They aren’t much good at protecting your iPad from a fall, but if all you want is something to protect the screen and prop your iPad 2 up for typing or movie watching, the new Smart Covers are the bee’s knees. Made of ribbed, folding polyurethane, they attach to the iPad using magnets, and not only is merely peeling a corner of one up enough to unlock your iPad…. the inside of the smart cover will even clean and polish your screen when it’s attached.

Very neat, but it looks like Apple had some design inspiration for their iPad 2 smart covers: as TUAW notes, the new Smart Covers have an eerie resemblance to a common style of Japanese bath tub lids. It just goes to show: one of the hallmarks of good design is in being endlessly adaptable to a wide-range of problems.