John Brownlee - page 177

When Apple and Verizon debuted the new CDMA iPhone 4 last month, the changes over the existing models weren’t dramatic: about the only thing new about the handset’s hardware was a slightly rejiggered antenna design and a nudged volume button or two.

The software, though, was different enough to take note of: boasting the version number iOS 4.2.5, it included support for the new Personal Hotspot settings feature which, in Verizon’s case, will allow handset owners to set their iPhone as a WiFi hotspot for up to five connected devices.

It now looks like Apple’s made some tweaks to iOS 4.2.5, bumping the version number to iOS 4.2.6, which you can now download. It’s a 652MB file, and given the slight nudge in version numbers, it’s probably a small bug fix.

As for when the rest of us GSM hoi polloi will get the Verizon iPhone’s Personal Hotspot feature, it’s reckoned that iOS 4.3 will bridge both the CDMA and GSM iPhones and bring the same features to all devices sometime in February. Hoorah!

Although Amazon’s Kindle platform seemed to stumble a bit in the wake of the iPad’s debut, mostly from surprise, they’ve since rallied and continued to increase their lead as the biggest e-bookstore on Earth. In fact, according to Amazon’s own metrics, they now sell more Kindle e-books than they do paperbacks.

How’d Amazon compete with iBooks? Ubiquity: Kindle software is available on almost every modern OS out there, and a Kindle book purchased on one can be read on another. Amazon managed to achieve this feat by cutting middlemen out of the transaction entirely: if you purchase a book in-app, you simply are directed to an Amazon webpage. It’s all done on the Internet.

If a new report coming from The New York Times is anything to go by, though, Apple may be ready to strike Kindle on iOS down for the count unless it agrees to utilize iTunes’ own in-app purchase system, though.

With competing products like the Samsung Galaxy Tab finally making their way onto store shelves, the iPad’s no longer the only tablet in town… and consequently iOS is starting to lose some of its dominance.

In fact, Android tablets were able to increase their market share over tenfold in the last quarter. The result? Apple’s dominance over the tablet market has shrunk from a commanding 95% market share to “just” 77%.

Although wildly popular where it’s available in Europe, streaming music service Spotify has had a hard time breaking into the United States, having missed their self-imposed, end-of-year 2010 deadline due to music label recalcitrance.

Recent reports indicate that Spotify has finally managed to sign a deal with Sony, and it’s expected that more labels will soon follow suit. But why did it take so long to make this progress? Spotify’s head of business development Faisal Galaria thinks it’s because of Apple.

We’re starting to reach a speculative consensus on what sort of hardware changes we’ll be seeing in the iPad 2, with the latest analyst report claiming it will contain a better quality (but non-Retina) display, faster chips, separate CDMA and GSM SKUs, and iPod Touch style dual cameras when it is released in March or April.

Skype for Mac version 5 was released last week, and while it added group video chat to the popular VoIP applications, it also takes a way a pretty big system feature: the ability for Flash-based app to access the web cam when Skype is running.

Reports of the problem have been flooding into Skype’s developer database since early November, when Skype for Mac 5 was still in beta.

Nonetheless, the problem not only persists in the final version, but according to Skype, the app’s insistence on hogging the camera even when it isn’t being used is by design.

Got a new MacBook Air and looking for an accessible docking solution for when you want to work on a larger monitor at your desk?

The BookArc is an attractive docking solution for the Air made from heavy gauge steel with a built-in wire management system that neatly integrates the cables that need to plug into both sides of the Air.

You’ll need to supply your own display, mouse and keyboard, but once that’s done, turning your Air into a desktop is as easy as positioning your closed Air in the BookArc cradle and plugging it in… and because your Air docks in a closed position, it should run even faster than if you just plugged your display normally, because the Air’s GeForce 320M only needs to drive a single display.

The BookArc is only $39.99, but it won’t ship until February. If you want to keep appraised of when it becomes available, you can sign up for notifications over at the official website.

If you want something more capable than an AppleTV to hook up to your television (most notably the ability to play local content), the Mac mini has the perfect form factor for a working HTPC… and now Mac accessory maker OWC is ready to supercharge it for you for that express purpose.

Called the Media Center Solution, the service works by just shipping any new Mac mini to OWC, who then go about upgrading the RAM to 4GB, installing a bundle of open source media center software like (Plex, Handbreak, MakeMKV) and then linking the Mac mini with either a 4, 8 or 12TB RAID, which will allow you to store up to 6,000 hours of DVD-quality video.

That’s not all. Not only will OWC send it to you back with an optional external Blu-Ray drive, you can also pick between two Elgato HDTV interfaces allowing you to use your Mac Mini as a DVR. They’ll even throw in a $15 iTunes gift card and an Apple Remote.

Monster Cable’s a pretty loathsome company, suing pretty much everyone who dares put the word “monster” in their names while selling absurdly overpriced copper under advertising claims that border on the pseudo-science employed by snake oil salesmen. I hate these guys… which is part of the reason why I’m so shocked by how neat I think their latest product is.

Ludicrously called the Monster iMotion CarPlay 3000, the cable is a car charger for your iPhone or iPod with one neat little extra: it allows you to control your music without ever touching your device just by making gestures in mid-air as you drive.

In just a couple of days, Apple will be putting the venerable Xserve line of rack server Macs out to pasture in favor of the Mac mini. So if you need any, get hopping… just don’t expect Apple to do the same in shipping them out. In fact, the Apple Store is now listing both the Quad-Core and 8-Core Xserves as not shipping for another three months.

Still rocking an iPod Classic? I know I am: although I love my iPod Touch, a part of me just can’t let go of the notion that the true magic of the digital music experience is the ability to carry around, on one pocketable device, more music than you could conceivably listen to in a decade. Picking and choosing which songs and albums to load? What is this, the stone age?

That’s why I still rock my 160GB iPod Classic, which is actually just a few gigs a way from being filled up entirely. Now Toshiba is doing the rounds with a new 1.8-inch drive that is just as thin as the current Classic drives — just 5mm — but goes all the way up to 220GB, while boasting better battery life and a bigger buffer for less skipping.

So: 220GB iPod Classics, coming soon? I don’t really know. I’d say that the Classic line is on its way out: Apple’s committing to flash memory and multitouch these days. But is there a possibility that Apple will continue to crank out the Classic to appeal not to everyday users but to niche listeners like me who want to hold their entire iTunes libraries in the palm of their hands? I doubt it — extreme niche really isn’t Apple’s thing — but maybe.

[via Hard Mac, 9to5Mac]

AT&T is expecting a “rocky, volatile and hard to predict” 2011 after losing iPhone exclusivity, said CEO Randall Stephenson speaking with analysts on Thursday.

However, the erstwhile sole American provider of Apple’s nifty prestige handset claims to be “fairly confident” that they will still manage to grow through the disruption.

Last quarter, AT&T gained enough subscribers to pass Verizon as the biggest domestic wireless carrier, now boasting 95.5 million wireless customers compared to Verizon’s 94.1 million.

The only problem is now Verizon’s got the iPhone, and analysts are going absolutely bonkers predicting how many people will flee AT&T, and how many CDMA iPhones Verizon will sell. Some analysts say that up to 10% of AT&T’s existing subscribers could jump ship in the coming year, while others suggest that Verizon could sell twenty five million CDMA iPhones.

Meanwhile, Verizon’s further sweetening the pot by offering unlimited data and mobile hotspot features for up to five connect devices, neither of which AT&T has officially countered yet.

“Rocky?” Seems like a bit of an understatement, don’t you think? 2011 is going to be a knuckle-whitener for AT&T.

I’d be hard pressed to identify a gadget more likely to be repeatedly dropped as much as a cell phone. The constant, frenzied fumbling into a pocket for a ringing call pretty much guarantees that your phone will go flying out of your hands on at least one occasion. So when Apple unveiled the iPhone 4 with a design that was glass both front and back, I arched my eyebrow. I suspected daftness.

As it turns out, though, the iPhone 4’s Gorilla Glass backing is pretty tough. It’s not tougher than the iPhone 3GS’s plastic, though. There was also Glassgate, where various third-party slider cases would cause particulate matter to become trapped between the rear back of the iPhone 4 and case, scratching the Gorilla Glass and even growing into larger fractures over time.

No surprise, then, to hear that the first class action lawsuit over Apple’s decision to use Gorilla Glass in the casing of the iPhone 4 has just been filed in Los Angeles. The lawsuit, filed by Donald LeBuhn, claims that the iPhone 4 is not as durable as Apple claims and that Apple continues to sell the product without warning customers of its defective glass housing.

After months of rumor, speculation and delay, Rupert Murdoch’s iPad-only newspaper, The Daily, is finally ready to say “how do you do,” judging by these very stodgy and dusty invites News Corp. just sent out.

The Daily will be officially unveiled on Wednesday, February 2nd at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City at 11am EST, headed by Rupert Murdoch and Apple VP of Internet Services Eddie Cue.

Yesterday afternoon, Apple released version 10.1.2 off iTunes through Software Update, a seemingly mysterious update to Apple’s catch-all media library / shopping / syncing / social networking software gryphon.

As is usually typical, Cupertino was terse about what was in iTunes 10.1.2, only noting that it “provides a number of important stability and performance improvements.” No new features were mentioned.

Don’t shrug off iTunes 10.1.2 though, especially if you plan on buying a Verizon iPhone in the coming weeks. In the update’s Read Before You Install iTunes document loaded in the .dmg file, it is explicitly noted that the 10.1.2 update adds support for syncing with the CDMA iPhone 4.

Best grab the 10.1.2 update now if you plan on jumping ship to Verizon. You might easily forget, then spend hours bashing your head against the wall in activation before a Genius finally explains the problem to you with such smug bemusement that you almost squinch his turtleneck shut with your hands then and there.

Verizon may have just landed the iPhone just in time: AT&T just announced that they have passed Verizon as the number on wireless carrier in America, increasing their current subscriber numbers to 95.5 million.

Back at CES last month, when Scosche unveiled its new line of gear, I was particularly taken by the flipSYNC II, the successor to their first gen key fob that transformed, in a pinch, to an iPod cable. I’ve been eager to have one ever since, and today, I get my wish, as they are now available for sale.

The flipSYNC II is a transforming key chain accessory that makes sure you’re never without an iPod cable when you need to charge or sync your device, even in a truly rare pinch. When not in use, the flipSYNC folds up into a black dongle similar to the one you might have on your car keys to turn off the alarm when the neighborhood brats start jumping on the hood. Yank the ends, though, and out comes an iPod Dock Connector and a USB appendage.

We’ve heard before that Apple intends to update their A4 chip for the next-generation of iOS devices to a so-called A5 dual-core SoC , which would not only allow the iPhone 5 and iPad 2 to run more intensive apps even faster than they currently do, but would quadruple the A4’s graphics and video capability.

Now Digitimes is jumping aboard that rumor, claiming that “the chance is high” that Apple’s next-gen SoC will adopt a dual-core processor in time for the iPhone 5.

It appears that at least some existing Verizon customers will be spooning instant coffee directly into our mouths and shoving match embers between our finger webbing next Wednesday night: the Verizon iPhone preorders will begin at 3am EST on February 3rd.

The $99 second-gen AppleTV has already supplanted the iPad in at least one metric: Netflix has just announced that more content is Watched Instantly on the iOS set-top box than on the best-selling tablet.

I’m not quite sure I’d hold your breath just yet, but a new MacBook Pro refresh might be due soon, if reports of near-empty stocks of both the 15-inch and 17-inch unibody models are anything to go by. If that refresh happens, it’s likely to be a long-overdue update from the Intel Core 2 Duo CPUs that Apple currently uses to the newest Sandy Bridge processors.

Multiple sources in both Apple Stores and third-party resellers are reporting that they are running low on supplies of Cupertino’s premium notebooks, with even Amazon listing a one to two month delay on shipping the 17-inch MBP.

Is OS X’s built-in Terminal app just too modern for you? Miss the days of phosphorescent emerald text burning through the convex black screen of an old cathode ray tube, slowly updating itself at 300 baud as it de-syncs and interlaces like crazy?

Me too. Cathode is a new terminal app that uses OpenGL and Cocoa to emulate the look of a vintage terminal, right down to the curve of the screen, the flicker and the jitter.

Geeky? Exquisitely so. As someone who grew up playing Rogue on an ancient IBM terminal, though, Cathode is right up my alley… especially given Nethack’s excellent OS X Terminal port. Now that’s the way a rogue-like is meant to be played!

Cathode is shareware, but use it for too long and the image quality will slowly degrade until you pay $20 for a license.

I generally don’t like corks that I can’t rip out with my teeth or suck on when there’s no booze in the house, but the Kork case for iPad might change my mind: it’s a cork board approach to protecting your tablet that isn’t just environmentally friendly — each case is made of recycled cork — but is also pretty attractive.

$67 will get you one: I’m tempted just so I can attach girly postcards to the back with pushpins.

The Verizon iPhone does not support the carrier’s blistering new LTE wireless network, but a future 4G iPhone will says China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou.

“Apple has made it clear they will support TD-LTE,” Wang recently said at the Davos Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We hope that when they develop the next-generation models, since Apple can create CDMA, they can also consider developing TD-SCDMA.”

There’s little doubt that Jianzhou is right, but while there’s little doubt that Apple will eventually take the plunge and release an iPhone 4G, it’s the “when” people are curious about.

Last June, AT&T killed off their iPhone unlimited data plan, replacing it with a slightly cheaper plan with a 2GB data limit, which they said was pretty much all the data that anyone used anyway… so this was actually saving you money. No one bought it, but there was nothing to be done. Where else were you going to get an iPhone?

Now, things are very different. It’s seven months later, and Verizon’s not only got the iPhone, but they’re rolling it out with their own $30 unlimited data plan. Predictably, we’re not hearing reports that AT&T is backtracking and quietly offering customers who were previously on unlimited plans all-you-can-eat data… as long as they don’t switch to Verizon.

There’s only one verified example of this so far. Jose Argumedo of Brentwood, NY says that he and a friend were switched to an unlimited plan after they called AT&T’s customer service.

That’s hardly very solid evidence of a mass reversal of policy, but AT&T’s actually not denying that they’re offering customers unlimited data to stay, with spokesman Mark Siegel saying: “We handle customers and their situations individually, and we’re not going to discuss specifics.”

Basically, it looks like AT&T is offering users the option to switch to unlimited data right now, as long as they have had the unlimited version in the past. If that sounds like you, today’s the day to try calling up Ma Bell and seeing what they can do for you.