Leander Kahney - page 46

UPDATE: Seth at 9to5Mac is now backtracking. While he says he’s received multiple tips that Mac Pros will be updated, he thinks the MacBook Pros tip might have been fake. “Shame on us,” he says.

Our friend Seth Weintraub at 9to5Mac thinks MacBooks and Mac Pros will be updated within a week. Seth received a tip that Apple’s pro desktop and portable line are being refreshed in the next few days — maybe as early as tomorrow, but more likely next Tuesday.

A refresh of the Mac Pros is already widely-rumored. The desktops are expected to be refreshed next week with the Intel Core i7-980x, a six-core screamer. But maybe new MacBooks are in line also? The new MacBook Pros will get Intel i5 and i7 processors, just like the current line of higher-end iMacs. The basic 13-inch MacBook Pro will have an Intel i5 processor, while the 15-inch and 17-inch MacBooks will have quad-core i7 processors.

If true, these machines will be screamers.

In February, MacRumors readers claimed to have found a GeekBench benchmark from a Core-i7  M620 MacBook Pro running an unreleased version of Mac OS 10.6.2. Current MacBook Pros score in the 3700-4000 range. However, this result is to be taken with a very large pinch of salt: forum readers say they’ve been planting fakes.

Either way, DO NOT BUY A MacBook Pro or Mac Pro for a while: updates are imminent.

With just a few weeks to go before the iPad hits stores, here’s the best way to ensure you’re at the head of the line to get one (or three).

If history is any indication, the iPad will be in short supply when it goes on sale April 3. Plus there are rumors of production delays that may further constrain supply.

The best way to get one is to place an advance order on Apple’s online store the minute Apple starts accepting them on Friday March 12.

Trouble is, no one knows what time Apple will update its online store. But there’s a way to get alerted.

Thanks to a bunch of nerds in Berlin, you can be pinged the minute the store is taken offline and, more importantly, when it comes back up.

AppleStoreCheck.com constantly monitors Apple’s online store for changes. Sign up, and the service will alert you by email, RSS or Twitter the minute Apple starts taking iPad pre-orders.

As AppleStoreCheck says: “We’ll check the Apple Store for new products and changes – so you don’t have to.”

iPad pre-orders will initially be limited to US customers, but includes both iPad Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi+3G models, which will ship later. The iPad will be available to pick up from the Apple Retail stores on April 3, or delivery through the mail.

The world’s most advanced music AI runs on a rickety old Power Mac 7500.

Called Emily Howell by its creator, music professor David Cope, the program just released “her” first album, From Darkness, Light, in January.

Having purged the App Store of porn, it looks as though Apple is now clearing the App Store of Wi-Fi finders.

On Wednesday, it appears that Apple removed several popular Wi-Fi stumbers from the App Store, including WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum and yFy Network Finder.

Apple sent a note to the developer of WiFi-Where on Wednesday saying their app has been removed because it uses “a private framework to access wifi information.”

One person’s lost iPod touch is another person’s opportunity to pick it up cheap.

It’s clearly a joke. A real scammer would replace the sign altogether with a new phone number — their own.

What would you do?

Via The High Definite.

This is absolutely great. Film critic Roger Ebert is premiering his new computer voice on Oprah this afternoon. Below is a sneak peek. His new voice — spoken by his MacBook — actually sounds like him. He looks really delighted with it.

“In first grade they said I talked too much, and now I still can,” he says, grinning.

Ebert lost his voice box after years of cancer treatments. He used to speak with “Alex,” the robotic voice built into OS X.  His new voice was created by CereProc, a company in Scotland that recreated it from hours of Ebert’s TV shows and DVD commentaries.

Via Videogum and Daring Fireball.

The Boxee beta is finally available for Apple TV.

Boxee is Apple TV done right. It’s a great, Net-connected, “social” media player that allows you to play video from all over the Web as well as files from file-sharing networks. It streams content from sites like Netflix, Pandora and Last.fm, and makes it easy to get entertainment recommendations from friends. It transforms the Apple TV into a truly-useful internet video device.

The beta adds a much-improved that’s easier to navigate. Boxee on Apple TV was previously available only as an early alpha version. The latest beta was released in January but was unavailable for Apple TV users — until now.

A group of Boxee users have updated the ATV-Usb creator to install the Boxee Beta.

Users who already have Boxee Alpha installed on their AppleTV can simply update Launcher and then update Boxee to install the beta, no patchstick needed.

Link to announcement on Boxee blog.

Take a screenshot tour of the Boxee beta after the jump.

chat roulette from Casey Neistat on Vimeo.

Remember Casey Neistat? He and his brother caused a stir back in 2003 with The iPod’s Dirty Secret, a viral video about the iPod’s irreplaceable battery.

Now he’s got a really nice, artful little film about Chatroulette, a web app tha lets you videoconference with random strangers all over the world (hence the roulette). Check it out. It’s well 5.57 minutes of your time.

Reminds me of CU-SeeMe, especially the perverts.

Via Waxy.

Apple has quietly reinstated a shopping app from a beachwear retailer that sells bikinis.

As previously reported, Apple pulled the app by Simply Beach, an online beachwear retailer, as part of its great sexy apps purge over the weekend. Among other things, the Simply Beach app sold bikinis.

On Friday, Simply Beach received an email from Apple about the decision to remove any overtly sexual content from the store and that included the Simply Beach application.

“The email also made mention to numerous complaints they had received from customers regarding ‘this type of content’ and implied it was these complaints which had led to the changes,” says the app’s developer, Andrew Long. He added that Simply Beach thought this was a hoax.

A few hours ago, the Simply Beach app was again available on the App Store. Neither Long nor Simply Beach received any communication whatsoever from Apple, Long said in an email.

The same thing seems to have happened with Daisy Mae’s Alien Buffet, a 12+  rated game that was pulled presumably because it features a female lead character in short shorts. Like Simply Beach, the game is quietly back on the App Store. Again, there has been no communication from Apple.

It’s pretty clear that Apple’s doing damage limitation here, reinstating the high-profile apps, although iWobble is still banned.

The mobile porn company Pink Visual calls Apple’s purge of 5,000 or so saucy apps “delusional corporate revisionism.”

The company, whose slogan is “we innovate, you masturbate,” had its “Cutest Girls” app yanked in the App Store purge. Noting that apps from Playboy and Sports Illustrated were untouched, the company’s Director of New Business Development, Liam Colins, issued a statement that said:

“Apple has taken their brand control beyond normal standards, and this is one basis of their remarkable success. When they are attempting to control and dictate what is viewed, listened to and utilized by consumers on devices they purchased and pay for monthly, however, it becomes an act of censorship, pure and simple. Mobile porn exists, it is prolific and it is desired by many of Apple’s customers. To pretend that people will not watch porn or seek out sexual content on their iPhone or iPods is delusional corporate revisionism.”

The statement continued:

“The fact that they left Playboy and Sports Illustrated up indicates that this action is not only hypocritical, but that it is based more on corporate strategy than on any deeply felt scruples or actual consumer complaints. Do they seriously expect people to believe that a kid seeking out inappropriate content via the app store would try searching for ‘Sunny Leone’ before searching for ‘Playboy’?”

Apple’s COO Tim Cook was extremely bullish on Apple’s prospects in 2010, in spite of economic gloom and increased competition in phones and PCs.

Speaking to a handful of Wall Street analysts on a Goldman Sachs webcast, Cook predicted the iPad will be a hit and that the Mac will continue to grow, especially in enterprise. And thanks to the recession, Apple will open dozens of “jaw-dropping” new stores this year in prime locations.

Tomorrow is Steve Jobs’ 55th birthday. Many happy returns Steve.

Steve Jobs was born February 24, 1955.

To celebrate his birthday, we’re replaying Jobs’ great 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University’s graduating class.
Delivered just a year after being treated for cancer, Jobs is uncharacteristically open about life and death. If you’re interested in learning more about when Steve Jobs was born, check out this detailed look at his life and legacy.

Jobs tells three simple stories from his life, and they all include some some great advice. He advises to trust your gut, follow your heart and do what you love.

It’s a great speech. The video is 15 minutes long. If you haven’t seen it, you should.

The video and full transcript of the speech after the jump.

Complaints from women are behind Apple’s recent purge of sex-themed apps, Phil Schiller told the New York Times.

Philip W. Schiller, head of worldwide product marketing at Apple, said in an interview that over the last few weeks a small number of developers had been submitting “an increasing number of apps containing very objectionable content.”

“It came to the point where we were getting customer complaints from women who found the content getting too degrading and objectionable, as well as parents who were upset with what their kids were able to see,” Mr. Schiller said.

Aerial footage of Apple’s massive data center in rural North Carolina clearly show how large the $1 billion complex is.

Shot recently by a local realtor, the footage shows a massive facility the size of a shopping mall.

Experts note that Apple’s data center will be among the largest in the world, rivaling centers run by internet giants like Microsoft and Google. The unusual size of the data center suggests that Apple is investing heavily in cloud computing. At 500-000 square feet, the facility is five-times the size of Apple’s West Coast center in Newark, Calif.

Apple has said little about the complex, except that it’ll be its east coast data hub.

The aerial footage after the jump:

Steve Jobs unloaded on Flash during a meeting with Wall Street Journal executives last week, according to Gawker.

Jobs met with editors of the Journal to show them the new iPad. The Journal make widespread use of Flash on its website for video, infographics, etc., and editors raised concerns about the absence of Adobe’s plug-in.

According to Gawker: “Jobs was brazen in his dismissal of Flash, people familiar with the meeting tell us. He repeated what he said at an Apple Town Hall recently, that Flash crashes Macs and is buggy.”

Esquire magazine has a marvelous profile of film critic Roger Ebert, who has lost his lower jaw and voice box after several years of cancer treatments.

Having lost the ability to speak, Ebert is pouring himself into writing instead.

His astonishing online journal runs to more than 500,000 words on topics as disparate as his life, the afterlife (none-he’s atheist), alcoholism, travel, books, and friends, living and dead.

To communicate in everyday life, Ebert uses text-to-speech on his MacBook Pro, Stephen Hawking-style.

Gelaskins has teamed up with National Geographic to produce a new line of stunning, nature-themed MacBook and iPhone covers.

Priced between $14.95 and $29.95 depending on device, the covers showcase photos of cute baby seals, weirdly-colored snails and trippy space nebula.

More info at the Gelaskins website.

More pictures after the jump.

I’ve been a long-time user of messenger bags, ever since I was a bike courier here in San Francisco in the mid-1990s. I’ve been though a few of them, including an original Zo bag, but one of the best I’ve used is the Large Messenger Bag from Incase.

Note: It’s Bag Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest bags on the market. Read all the bag reviews here.

Here’s some video of Wired‘s digital version of the magazine in action.

Check out the amazing 360 of the car ad at the 1.33 point. A glossy magazine ad comes to life and you’re able rotate it with your finger. It’s totally sci-fi — and very, very cool.

Wired’s EIC  Chris Anderson says the iPad and other tablets are a big opportunity for the publishing industry, and Wired is betting big on them.

“Much is still to be answered about magazines and other media on this emerging class of devices, from the business and distribution models to the consumer response. But what is already clear is that they offer the opportunity to be beautiful, highly engaging and immersive, going beyond what’s available on the web. I think tablets are going to sell like hotcakes, in part because they offer such an intimate, rich media experience. We’re betting big on them, as you can see, but this is just a taste. Stay tuned for a full release this summer.”

The app is designed to run using Adobe’s Air, but can be easily repurposed for the iPad and other devices, Anderson says. He showed it off for the first time last week at the TED conference.

Via Wired’s Epicenter blog.

Big shocker: Microsoft isn’t supporting Adobe’s Flash in its brand new Windows Phone 7 operating system.

Windows Phone 7 joins Apple’s iPhone and iPad in snubbing the widely-used plug-in.

The news was delivered to Information Week, which received a surprise email from Adobe saying:

“While the newest version of Windows Phone won’t support Flash at initial availability, both companies are working to include a browser plug-in for the full Flash player in future versions of Windows Phone. More details will be shared at Microsoft MIX next month.”

Information Week is skeptical. It says it’s not clear if Flash is coming to WinMo 7 at all.

Microsoft launched WinMo 7 on Monday to great acclaim. Blogs like Gizmodo and Wired’s Gadget Lab, which got to play with the new system at the Mobile World Congress, say it looks better and is easier to use than the iPhone. (Giz: Windows Phone 7 Interface: Microsoft Has Out-Appled Apple; Gadget Lab: Hands-On With Windows Phone 7 Series

Of course, Microsoft makes its own Silverlight platform, a rich-media platform which competes with Flash on the web.

Although Apple has remained officially mum on the issue of Flash, it’s widely understood that the company views the plug-in as buggy and power-hungry.

Not all smartphone makes are snubbing Flash, however.  Adobe just announced Flash for Google’s Android platform, it’s first step into mobile.

Information Week: Windows Mobile 7 Won’t Get Flash

Via Gadget Lab.

Steve Jobs is finally cooperating with an official biography, the New York Times reports.

Jobs will collaborate with Walter Isaacson, author of two well-regarded biographies of Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin and Henry Kissinger.

The book, which is in the early planning stages, would cover the entire life of Mr. Jobs, from his youth in the area now known as Silicon Valley through his years at Apple, these people said.

Mr. Jobs, who will turn 55 on Feb. 24, has invited Mr. Isaacson to tour his childhood home, one person with knowledge of the discussion said.

… Cooperation with Mr. Isaacson could be a sign that Mr. Jobs has emerged from his recent health battles with more of an interest in shaping his legacy.

The digital version of Wired Magazine for the iPad and other devices will be a “game changer,” Editor-in-Chief Chris Anderson said Friday.

Showing off a demo of the digital magazine at the TED conference on Friday, Anderson said the interactive magazine brought print’s high-production values to digital for the first time.

“We think this is a game changer,” he told the audience.

Anderson said the digital magazine is on track for a summer release. The iPad is expected to be on sale by the end of March.

Via Wired’s Epicenter.

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Saturday is the last day of Macworld 2010 and you can bring a friend for only $15 when you use priority code SHARE. The Expo Hall hours are from 10:00am to 6:00pm.

If you want to show the kids a good time do the following:

SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD 2010 — Steven Chan and his wife gave their three kids the same initials: M – A – C.

There’s Maxwell Alexander Chan, his brother Matthew and sister Megan.

“We’re in the printing and graphics business and we just loved the Mac from the very beginning,” said Chan. “Its the tool of our trade, so…”

In a dozen years reporting on Apple, the Chans are the first people I’ve met who named their kids after their favorite computer company. Although there have been rumors of kids named after Apple or the Mac — Gwyneth Paltrow’s daughter Apple, for example — it has become an urban myth, often rumored but never verified (if ever). I don’t know of another documented case.

I met the Chans on the Macworld show floor. They’d driven up from Southern California for the Expo. The Chan’s printing business is in Riverside County.

“We’re both fanatics,” Chan added, laughing. “There’s five of us but we have eight Macs in the house. There’s more Macs than people.”