Leander Kahney - page 22

One of the big questions about Apple’s upcoming iTunes Match is how the online music service will handle songs acquired from non-standard sources, like analog LPs, or yes, file-sharing networks.

Coming this fall, iTunes Match will scan your iTunes library and make available in the cloud all the songs you’ve purchased online or ripped from CDs.

But Apple hasn’t explained what will happen with songs encoded from sources like tapes or LPs; or those couple of tracks you accidentally downloaded from a file-sharing network and forgot to delete. Will iTunes Match reject these songs or make them available?

In theory, the system should recognize most digitzed music. Apple has explicitly said it will not discriminate based on source, and someone likely ripped the songs from CD before sharing them with the world.

We’ve found a way for you to check how iTunes Match will treat your music library before Apple makes it public.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFFkK2SmPg4&feature=player_embedded

Here’s Apple’s latest TV ad for the iPad, entitled, ‘Now.’

Now, we can watch a newspaper. Listen to a magazine. Curl up with a movie, and see a phone call.

Now, we can take a classroom anywhere. Hold an entire bookstore. And touch the stars.

Because now, there’s this… [cue iPad 2].

Whose voice is that?

Here’s the handsome new login screen in the update to OS X Lion Developer Preview 4, that Apple released on Wednesday afternoon.

It’s a dark linen motif, and it’s used in several places in the Lion and iOS 5. We got  sneak peek of this color scheme during Steve Jobs’ presentation at WWDC. Now it has been rolled out to developers, and soon to the public. Who’s excited?

Here’s screenshots of some other new stuff in the update (Build number 11A494A). Lion is shaping up nicely:

Our friends at Adafruit Industries in New York have just released glowing Mac-inspired cufflinks in time for Father’s Day this weekend.

The $128 iCufflinks pulse with the same “breathing” pattern on Apple’s Macs, MacBooks and iMacs. In fact, Adafruit’s Philip Torrone and his crew reverse engineered Apple’s LED pulse pattern.

Here’s some video:

The nattering nabobs of negativism on Wall Street think Apple’s runaway success is over.

Apple’s stock has been in the doldrums for the last six months, and the reason is that analysts don’t think Apple can keep it up. Here’s what they’re saying:

Ron Johnson, Apple’s VP of retail, is quitting to take the job as president of J.C. Penney, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The company is expected to announce Johnson’s appointment later today. It’s a surprising move.

Update: It’s official. J.C. Penney has confirmed that Johnson will become CEO on November 1. Plus, Johnson is investing $50 million of his own money!

Steve Jobs wanted to build his futuristic spaceship campus thirty years ago, reports the San Jose Mercury News.

Jobs wanted a “shimmery glass structure” surrounded by trees in rural San Jose. He had purchased the land and had lined up world-class architect I.M. Pei to design it.

“To me, it’s as if time hasn’t shifted — 30 years, same vision, same scope, same dream,” said real estate consultant Bob Feld, who worked with Jobs at the time.

So what happened?

To celebrate IBM’s centenary next week, the world’s leading financial magazine, The Economist, took a look at what high-tech companies might survive 100 years.

Apple made the cut, but Microsoft didn’t. And Google is looking sketchy. Why?

A pair of iPhone 4s running an experimental science app are heading for the International Space Station next month, it was just announced at Apple’s WWDC.

This is the size of Steve Jobs’ new Apple spaceship campus — compared to the massive Pentagon building. You can imagine the scale of the complex Steve Jobs is planning to build.

The Pentagon building, btw, is the world’s largest office building (by floor size). It houses about 26,000 people. Steve Jobs’ new HQ will house 13,000 — but it’s parkland in the middle. We imagine it’ll have similar security though.

Thanks Se Mo!

Don’t Miss: Pictures of Apple’s New Mega Mothership Campus

At Apple’s HQ there’s a shop that sells t-shirts, pens, mugs and other logo goods. One is a t-shirt that says, “I visited the mothership.”

Here’s the new mothership: a mega campus that Steve Jobs is proposing to build in the heart of Cupertino, the town he went to school in as a boy. It’s also where he and Wozniak founded Apple in the mid-70s.

Here are some pictures of the massive new building to house 13,000 Apple employees:

In iOS 5, there’s a new “Music” app that combines the functions of the iTunes and iPod apps. Instead of separate apps for shopping and playback, Music is a one-stop shop for tunes. That’s the app’s icon above.

Here’s a screenshot tour showing it in action — including the new ability to download Purchased music from the online iTunes store.

The Apple Design Awards just concluded at WWDC, and the winners are…

Here’s a first look at iOS 5 running on an iPhone 4. Just look how cool this is!

Images in this post are credited to Twitter user dchohfi.

Apple’s Developer Center is finally back up after being offline all morning.

That means iCloud, iOS 5 and a new beta of Lion are available — to registered developers only.

If you’ve only got two minutes, watch the highlights of this morning’s WWDC keynote in this CNN video.

Otherwise check out our WWDC SuperGuide, which gives a fuller overview.

No wonder Steve Jobs is smiling.

He just struck a deal with the record labels to finally monetize pirated music —  a move that “resets the whole music industry,” according to one music-tech CEO.

Here’s the link to the 2011 WWDC keynote video on Apple’s website.

There was a lot of good stuff unveiled by Apple this morning at WWDC.

But the best news?

We just got a screenshot of the notifications bar in iOS 5.

It could be fake of course, but it looks pretty good to us. And it fits with what former Engadget editor-in-chief Joshua Topolsky is hearing.

Check it out full size:

Must be something huge! Pic by Greg Kumparak.

Here’s another shot. You can almost see underneath…

Here’s the line for this morning’s Stevenote. The video was taken at 6.15 AM; It’s as long a line I’ve see for any Apple event, including some of the massive store grand openings. The buzz for this WWDC is huge.

Check out these thoughtful mockups of iOS 5, the next version of the iPhone and iPad OS, which Steve Jobs is due to preview at WWDC on Monday morning.

They were created by Federico Bianco, a graphic designer from Rome, Italy. It’s a “wishlist” of all the things he wants to see in iOS 5, and includes some interesting ideas about notifications, widgets, Home Screen organization and bringing iPhoto to iOS.

Check it out:

Here’s a fascinating description of the iCloud/Time Capsule remote computing system Apple may reveal on Monday described by Steve Jobs himself — back in 1997.

“I have computers at Apple, at NeXT, at Pixar and at home. I walk up to any of them and log in as myself, it goes over the network and finds my home directory on the server and… I’ve got my stuff wherever I am…”

“…we were able to take all of our personal data, our home directories we call them, off of our local machines and put them on a server, and the software made that completely transparent…”

“…so in the last seven years, do you know how many times I have lost any personal data? Zero. Do you know how many times I have backed up my computer? Zero.”

Via MyService and MacRumors.

Apple has already revealed that Steve Jobs will talk about iCloud, iOS 5 and OS X Lion during his WWDC keynote on Monday morning.

In addition, it’s rumored that Apple’s wireless Time Capsule backup/router will get a big update.

Here’s how iCloud and the new Time Capsule will work, according to a source close to the company who asked not be identified. It’s pretty surprising: