John Brownlee - page 219

As spotted by Apple Insider, Apple’s latest patent application to be unearthed describes a dock wit a “rotationally symmetric” port that allows you to sync and charge your iPhone or iPad in any orientation that you may choose.

The most interesting part about this application is that it isn’t a plug-in device: in other words, an iPhone or iPad could sync and charge just by resting against the surface of the dock.

Much as I would kill to see the end of the USB iPod Dock Connector Cable for inductive syncing and charging technology, It’s strange to see Apple trying to patent this: the Palm Pre‘s Touchstone Charger has done this same thing for two years, and HP presumably now owns the patent on it. If I had to guess, the difference here is that Apple’s patent covers both syncing and charging, while the Palm Touchstone can only do the latter.

How will Apple’s device sync information wirelessly, though? My guess is not through induction, but rather through WiFi… a capability of future iDevices confirmed just last month by Steve Jobs himself.

Yesterday’s iOS 4.0.1 changed the way the iPhone’s signal is displayed: previously, iOS corralled the upper 40% of the signal into the fifth service bar in the fifth signal bar, meaning you had to have less than 60% signal to drop below four bars. This exacerbated the perceived effect of the iPhone 4 “Death Grip” by causing more bars to drop when held “the wrong way” when there were four bars or less of signal, but also made the reception degradation invisible to people living in areas of excellent service because the fifth bar had so much wiggle room for signal degradation.

This is no longer the case. Anandtech has just done a comprehensive examination of the way iOS 4.0.1 displays its signal bars, and as predicted, they found that Apple is now translating signal strength into bars more accurately and with a higher dynamic range. In other words, you’ll require more signal to show higher bars than it once did. Or, as Anandtech puts it, “regardless of how tall the bars are, there are still going to be fewer of them virtually everywhere.”

As an achievement iOS junkie, I’ve been disappointed that it’s taken Apple so long to bring their new Game Center app out of beta. Although there’s many services that offer gaming social networking features like friends lists, matchmaking and achievements, Apple’s entry into the market should consolidate everything into a default, Xbox Live style gaming hub.

Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t quite polished the service off yet, as revealed in a few pictures posted by Mobile Crunch, showing the updated look of the Game Center app. Gone is the dark blue look in favor of an appearance simulating a felted gaming table.

Aesthetically, I prefer the old look, even though the gaming table design is probably a stronger and more internally consistent one. Either way, we still have some time yet to wait before we get out hands on Game Center: it’s not due out until sometime this fall.

[via TUAW]

It may seem strange now that HP owns Palm and is preparing to make a major push of webOS across devices as wide-ranging as smartphones, tablets and even printers, but there was a time just a few months ago when Palm’s major value was perceived to be their library of patents and not their mobile, multi-touch operating system.

At the time, HTC was seen as a potential buyer, largely because securing Palm’s patents would allow them to beat back a massive legal attack currently being made against them by Apple in relation to patents pertaining to their Android smartphones. HTC eventually withdrew, but a new report suggests that another party might have been interested in picking up Palm: Apple itself.

According to the report, Apple — like HTC — was primarily interested in Palm’s intellectual properties, but what’s interesting is that they intended on keeping webOS alive, subsidizing Palm’s operations as a means of challenging RIM’s dominance in the keyboarded segment of the smartphone industry.

Citing “reliable sources,” Greek iPhone site iPhone Hellas is reporting that iOS 4.0.1 might be released today.

The rumor doesn’t quite sound right: iPhone Hellas’ report suggests that yesterday’s iOS 4.1 beta seeded to developers might actually be iOS 4.0.1, which doesn’t make a lot of sense. “The final version of 4.1 will be released much later, probably in September, after several beta versions,” iPhone Hellas’ asserts.

That said, iPhone Hellas doesn’t have a completely ignominious background when it comes to iOS update predictions: back in 2008, they successfully predicted the released of iOS 2.2 over ten days ahead of time.

If the rumor is true, the best news of all might not be the much-talked about “software fix” for the iPhone 4 reception issues, but the fact that the jailbreaking community has been waiting on iOS 4.0.1 to release many of their new exploits, including an updated version of Spirit. Can’t wait!

[via Apple Insider]

When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone 4 and demonstrated their FaceTime video chat technology, the Apple CEO bragged that they intended to ship FaceTime to “millions of iOS devices this year.”

Ever since then, smart money has been on FaceTime coming to at least the iPod Touch by the end of the year… but how will it work without a phone number?

Predictably, by email, if a report by BGR is anything to go by. According to them, your Apple ID will be registered with your device, and FaceTime requests will be delivered through push notification. Simple.

Gizmodo has put together this helpful graphic, allowing us to easily visualize how much the signal bars have grown between iOS 4.0 and iOS 4.1.

Hey, look at that! They’re way bigger now. That must mean the signal’s better, right? The software fix worked!

I love it: could Apple’s contempt for people “overblowing” the iPhone 4’s reception issues be any more palpable? It’s so sweet and sticky. It should be drizzled over pancakes. “Having reception problems? Here, have some bigger signal bars… not that there’s any problem to begin with, and you’re a moron if you think there is.”

Looking for a new NAS that will play nice with your iTunes collection? Seagate has just announced the BlackArmor NAS 400 that promises to do just that.

The BlackArmor NAS 400 comes without storage bays, so you’ll have to plug your own drives into the four available storage bays, but it supports RAID 0/1/5/10, as well as JBOD configurations. The BlackArmor 400 also comes with a pair of gigabit Ethernet ports, four USB ports and ten licenses for Windows backup software.

Other than that, the usual features of a NAS are all here, including encryption support and robust security settings for data protection. The 400 is, as mentioned, also iTunes and DLNA server capable.

Don’t expect the 400 to be cheap though: without drive, the BlackArmor NAS 400 will cost you $399.99.

Ever since Apple purchased Lala late last year, iTunes users have been expecting to see their music collections make a jump to the cloud (often referred to as iTunes Live).

More surprising, though, is how many users are actively looking forward to a new, streaming iTunes: according to NPD’s polling of 3,862 iTunes users, about 25% are interested in a new streaming library function. Extrapolated upon iTunes’ population as a whole, that’s about 13 million users in the United States alone.

Even more interesting, according to NPD, is that roughly half of those users would be willing to pay up to $10 a month for the service, providing it supported multiple devices. That’s about 7 to 8 million iTunes users, adding up to a billion dollar market in the first year.

I was hoping that whatever form a streaming iTunes took, it would be free, but obviously that’s wishful thinking: Apple’s already got a huge number of users chomping at the bit to stream their entire libraries wirelessly to all of their computers and iOS devices. Of course they’ll end up charging.

My big question is what this means for Apple’s iPod-line. If iTunes goes into the cloud this year, does this mean we can expect a 3G-capable iPod Touch at this year’s September iPod event? In the context of a streaming iTunes, the lack of an always-connected iPod in Apple’s device line-up seems like a hole that would need to be filled.

Would you pay $10 a month for streaming iTunes?

There’s no denying that Valve’s team-based World War II multiplayer shooter Day of Defeat is one of their less popular games, but if you’re burned out on the recent ports of Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike Source, good news: Day of Defeat Source is now available on Steam for Mac for just a tenner.

Needless to say, like all of Valve’s other Mac ports, if you already own DoD for the PC, you don’t have to pay again. Day of Defeat’s a good game, but it doesn’t quite have the polish of Valve’s other games, particularly Team Fortress 2. If you’d like to play a similar game for free, I recommend Enemy Territory.

With Day of Defeat’s official Mac release, the only big Source-engine games Valve has yet to release are the two I’ve been waiting for most: Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead Ii. With Valve releasing a new port every two to three weeks, though, my guess is we’ll see both before the end of the summer.

As a last note, this is as good a time to mention that we’ve set up a fledgling Cult of Mac group for Steam, so if you want to do some multiplayer with fellow Macheads, load up Steam and join the cult.

The iPhone 4’s reception issues may get all the press, but there may be another big issue when it comes to iOS 4: a growing number of users are reporting that upon upgrading any iPhone to iOS 4, the performance and audio quality of Bluetooth headsets is vastly degraded.

The symptoms vary, but are usually reported as sounding “muffled,” “like you’re in a tunnel” or “far away” when using a Bluetooth headset with any iOS 4 device.

Users are also reporting significant issues over at the Jawbone forums, prompting a Jawbone spokesperson to comment:

We are aware of and concerned with the user frustration surrounding the issues affecting all Bluetooth devices (headsets, car kits, and speakers) connecting to the iPhone 4 and iOS4 updated phones. We know users have come to expect the freedom of hands-free and we are working night and day with our partners, Apple and AT&T, to resolve the issues as quickly as possible.”

Once infamous Hackintosh manufacturer Psystar’s name is popping up again in the newsfeeds. That’s discordant enough to have me tapping the flux capacitor trephined into my right temporal lobe like a faulty odometer: is it somehow 2009 again?

But nope, Psystar’s well and truly back after filing an Opening Brief with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, asking them to overrule the order that has prevented the company from making Mac clones.

According to the Mac Observer, Psystar’s strategy is “getting the court to adopt a radical revision of the Copyright Misuse doctrine that would in effect destroy copyright and force all copyrighted works to be licensed.”

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uH8K-TUhfk

The guys at ColorWare will take pretty much any gadget under the sun and dip it into a couple of cans of Pantone-coded paint for you. No surprise, then, that they’re now applying their multi-chromatic treatment to the iPhone 4.

Like usual, you just pick out a color scheme, write a check for $250, send them your phone and wait for them to send it back to you, as prettily painted as a surfer girl’s toe nails.

However, what makes the ColorWare treatment more interesting this time around is that a coat of paint on the antenna might be just enough to thwart the iPhone 4’s infamous ” grip of death” reception issues.

ColorWare’s not promising anything just yet, but they are testing their latest iPhone 4 coloring process in the lab to see if it has measurable effect on reception. Either way, this might be the first ColorWare paintjob that transcends the decorative for the prophylactic.

Pithy thoughts and official tweets are non-existent, but Apple’s Senior Vice President of iOS Scott Forstall has joined Twitter… and while he’s already got over 14,000 followers, the only person he is following so far is Coco Himself.

Since Forstall has yet to tweet, there’s little meat to this news, but it is an interesting subject for speculation: Apple has been notoriously tight-lipped in the past, but with the iPhone 4 a bonafide PR disaster due in part to a perceived lack of transparency in communicating with their customers about the issue, are we possibly seeing a shift in the way Apple communicates with the public? Does Forstall’s Twitter account represent a personal whim, or is it instead the first sign of a larger campaign of social media marketing?

Way too little, way too late: speaking at the opening keynote at the Worldwide Partner Conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer told his audience that we should expect Windows 7 tablet computers “sometime before the end of this year.”

“We know you really want to know what’s coming,” said Ballmer. “[Tablets] will come from the people you would expect. From Asus, from Dell, from Samsung, from Toshiba, from Sony.”

Microsoft just doesn’t get it. Their business is software, so it’s understandable they are focusing on selling a tablet operating system instead of a single iPad-challenging tablet themselves (even if that business model is so stagnant that it has directly contributed to the death of possibly revolutionary products).

The problem is: Windows 7, as an operating system, isn’t capable of taking on iOS. One was built from the ground-up to support multitouch; the other is a bad hackjob rlaid on top of a desktop operating system.

HP knows full well that Windows 7 isn’t up to the job of taking on iOS: that’s why they killed the Windows 7 Slate and purchased Palm’s mobile, multitouch operating system, webOS. It’s only a matter of time before Microsoft’s other hardware partners get the same memo.

At the end of the day, Microsoft is going to enter the slate arena several years late, just like they did with Windows Phone 7. How can a company this hopelessly entrenched in the business models of the past hope to survive when the likes of Google and Apple are swimming in the same waters, faster, stronger and smarter?

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_TFHqIHBqM

A lot has been made of the iPhone 4’s incredible Retina Display, but the handset’s unprecedented screen clarity won’t do you any favors if you’re blind.

Even so, it seems like iOS might be built from the ground-up to support blind users, as this video from musician Victor Tsaran reveals: he was able to effortlessly pair his iPhone 4 with a Bluetooth Braillant 32 display. Coupled with iOS’ innate (and somewhat hyperactive) voice-over accessibility feature, Victor is able to easily take advantage of most of his iPhone 4’s core functionality. Now that’s an attention to detail.

[via Gadget Lab]

Having issues getting FaceTime to work on your home network? Your firewall might be the problem. Apple’s just posted a note to their support website giving tips on getting FaceTime through your router’s prophylactic layer.

According to Apple, the ports FaceTime needs to be open are 53, 80, 443, 4080, 5223 and the 16393 – 16472 UDP block. Obviously, opening these ports up is going to differ according to your network setup, so check your router’s manual for instructions before fiddling around.

Look, at this point, it’s pretty incontrovertible: at the very least, you need to have a case or bumper for your iPhone 4.

Exogear’s latest case, the Exolife, is a sleek rechargeable battery case packing a 1500-mAH lithium ion capable of doubling your iPhone 4’s already impressive battery life. It also features a hard polycarbonate shell, a USB 2.0-to-micro-USB cable for charging and syncing and the ability to switch off the external battery when your phone doesn’t need the juice.

Needless to say, the Exolife will also guard against the iPhone 4 Death Grip just as well as a cheaper bumper. The price doesn’t seem too exorbitant to me at $89.95, and if you wait until September, you can even get one in white.

[via TUAW]

Last week, the Fring iPhone application supported Skype video conferencing over 3G. This week, it doesn’t, ending a four year relationship between Fring and Skype. What the heck happened?

According to Fring, their recent update to the iPhone app resulted in such a huge volume of video calls that they needed to temporarily “reduce support” for Skype, after which point, Skype demanded Fring not restore connectivity.

But that’s not what Skype is saying. According to the VoIP company: “There is no truth to Fring’s claims that Skype blocked them, it was their decision and choice to withdraw Skype functionality.” They then go on to say that Fring “misus[ed] the Skype software in ways which it was not designed for and which does not scale to meet consumer demand.”

It’s really hard to parse this bickering. Was Skype just upset that Fring beat them to the 3G video-conferencing punch, using their own API? Or was Fring’s decision to pull Skype support violate their licensing agreement somehow?

Either way, the only clear winner here is Apple’s FaceTime. The cross-platform video chat providers just can’t seem to get their act together.

It’s that time of year again. MacWorld — the annual convention for all-things Mac bringing together thousands of enthusiasts and developers alike under one roof — has just announced next year’s dates and venue: January 27 through the 29th.

Even better: free registration is now open. If you register your attendance before July 26th, you can expect a free ticket to the convention. So get on it now: in just two weeks, you’ll have to pony up some cash.

So who amongst our readers can we expect to bump elbows with at MacWorld next year? Let us know in the comments.

There’s no point debating exactly what collective aneurysm in Apple’s generally unassailable design hive mind has led to Cupertino’s corporate blind spot when it comes to their cross-platform Notes application and its inexplicable reliance on the hideous Marker Felt font.

The good news is, there’s no reason to use it: the App Store is filled with better and more attractive note-taking apps. The newest on the scene is HelvetiNote, a gorgeous note-taking app for the iPad that is as minimalist, muted and beautiful as another Cult of Mac favorite, Reeder.

It certainly looks gorgeous and functional. My only complaint would be the lack of syncing with other note-taking services… namely the likes of SimplenoteApp. If you’re looking for an alternative to the eye sore of the iPad’s default Note.app, HelvetiNote is three bucks well spent.

Noise-canceling ear buds deliver impressively clear sound, but at the expense of the added bulk of the in-line noise canceling unit. Blackbox’s latest i10 Noise Canceling Earphones get rid of the bulk, though, by getting rid of the usual bulk-adding battery housed in the noise-canceling unit. They’ve accomplished this by also ditching the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack; instead, the i10s use an Apple 30 pin dock connector which allows these earbuds to draw power directly from your iPhone or iPod.

That makes these $125 earbuds something of a gamble, since they’ll only work with Apple’s audio players…and even then, only as long as Apple sticks with its current 30-pin connector format.

Research in Motion has long been rumored to be working on their own BlackBerry-powered tablet, often christened the BlackTab, but a new report by Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar is now dusting off that rumor in a new report.

What are we looking at, according to Kumar? Something more akin to Dell’s recent tablet offerings in the Streak than the iPad: expect a 7-inch touchscreen, a Marvell processor and 3G baseband, as well as front and back-facing cameras for videoconferencing.

The most interesting detail of Kumar’s report, though, might be in the dating: although earlier rumors about the BlackTab pegged it for an early 2011 release, Kumar says that RIM is straining to get it out there by the end of the year.

Courtesy of Brian Freeland of Freeland Studios comes this steampunk update of his original iRetrofone, the iRetrofone Steampunk Copper Edition.

It’s admittedly a more attractive dock than the original, although in this case, “Steampunk Copper” seems to mean “brown with lots of functionless plastic molded gears.” I’d rather see what the likes of Jake von Slatt could do with the concept of a steampunk iPhone dock than spend $450 on this one, but your taste might well vary.

The first draft of this post was composed jointly by an excitement-inspired cerebral aneurysm and my own paroxysmal face smashed repeatedly against the keyboard.

The second draft will be more succinct: PopCap games have just sent out an email featuring the Plants vs. Zombies rotting hand logo clutching a sign that says “Save the Date: August 2, 2010.”

The obvious assumption? Plants vs. Zombies 2. After all, the original has sold like gangbusters on every platform it’s been released for. A sequel is just money in the bank for Pop Cap.

Twisting my fingers to the point of splintering here. I’ve warded off over 50 waves of Super Garguantua Zombies with my endless survival gloom shroom setup in the first game. I’m ready for some new zombies on my lawn.