Lonnie Lazar - page 10

Apple has a support document called “Keeping iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS within acceptable operating temperatures” to which the company has directed those with concerns about alleged overheating problems with 3G and 3GS models of the device.

In addition to offering practical advice such as “Don’t leave the device in your car” (as car interiors can exceed the recommended operating range of -20º to 45º C [-4º to 113º F]), the document also warns that CPU-intensive applications, such playing music or using the GPS while in direct sunlight may also overheat the iPhone.

The OS has a temperature warning screen built in, that appears to indicate when the phone could be running into problems and may not work properly.

Using the iPhone in temperatures over 95 degrees can trigger the temperature warning, according to at least one report. “Low- or high-temperature conditions might temporarily shorten battery life or cause the device to temporarily stop working properly,” Apple warns in the support document, though it says when the temperature warning appears, the phone “may still be able to make emergency calls.”

Recent anecdotal reports of 3GS iPhones overheating, with some white models turning pink as a result, have led to speculation that Apple may have a recall situation on its hands, but the company so far is relying on the fact that “iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS comply with the safety standard for Safety of Information Technology Equipment, IEC 60950-1,” and has had no further comment on the overheating issue.

[GearLog]

Welcome to Macintosh, the feature length documentary that explores the many ways Apple, Inc. has changed the world, jumped from the international, independent film festival circuit to pay-per-view cable TV Wednesday.

The film, which relies on notable personalities associated in one way or another with Apple, such as Andy Hertzfeld, co-creator of the original Macintosh, and long-time Mac evangelist Guy Kawasaki, tells the inside story of what makes Apple different and will now be available to over 20 million subscribers to the Comcast cable network in both the Pay-Per-View section and the “Movie” section of Comcast’s On Demand service.

“The goal was to make a film that you can show to anyone, even someone that has never used a computer, and have them understand why so many people love Macintosh,” says Josh Rizzo, Co-Director. “Availability to all US Comcast customers goes a long way toward completing that goal.”

If you’ve seen it, you know Welcome to Macintosh is really a love song to Apple and though the film is in no way authorized, sponsored or otherwise approved by the company, it’s a good bet there will be cheering in Cupertino once the ancillary sales begin to roll in from people who come to Apple through having seen the film.

What it is: Lala is a newish (about a year old) web-based music marketplace, but to brand it as simply that does an extreme disservice to an interesting, innovative Internet destination that, given enough publicity, strong management and bit of good fortune could become the first online music store to give iTunes a real run for its money as a music distributor.

Why it’s cool: When I was a kid growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, I spent uncounted hours in the music listening rooms at the back of Pop Tunes on Summer Avenue, where I discovered the heritage of the city they call the Home of the Blues, and learned about the ground-breaking artists who gave birth to the Blues’ baby, Rock & Roll.

Pop Tunes was a great spot to get in out of the hot summer sun or the cold winter rain, where I could browse the racks, amassing a stack of LPs and 45s, both old and new, and head for one of the four or five sound-proof listening rooms at the back of the store, where I’d listen to my heart’s content before deciding which of the albums or singles my meager allowance or paper route money would buy me any given week.

By the time I left home for college in another of the great music cities in the US – New Orleans – I had a music collection numbering over 1000 lp records and another few hundred 45rpm singles.

What does my ancient music-buying experience have to do with Lala and this review?

Congratulations are in order to the winners announced Tuesday among the more than 2500 entrants to Fuze Meeting‘s recent “Tell a Story” contest for designers and other creative users of Fuze and the web-based presentation sharing site Slide Share.

The $5,000 Grand Prize went to SlideShare user “slides2407” for the presentation “Drunkenomics – The Story of Bar Stool Economics”, while four additional category winners, including the makers of “Super Cool Dudes” (embedded above), who won for Best Design, collected iPhones and $100 iTunes Gift Cards.

SlideShare supports Keynote, PowerPoint, OpenOffice and PDF presentation formats and is one of the fastest-growing communities of presentation-sharing ideas on the web.

The contest was judged by a panel of business and technology luminaries including

• ♦ Don Tapscott – author or co-author of 13 widely read books, including Wikinomics, the best selling management book in the United States in 2007;
• ♦ Pete Cashmore – CEO of Mashable and a Top 25 Forbes Web Celeb in 2007;
• ♦ Tony Hsieh – CEO of Zappos, an online show retailer with merchandise sales over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service;
• ♦ Ann Handley – chief content officer of MarketingProfs and the MarketingProfs Daily Fix; and
• ♦ Om Malik – journalist with over 15 years experience covering technology and business; founder and senior writer of gigaom.com

UPDATE: The headline and photograph in this article have been updated to correctly state the standard agreed to by the handset makers referenced in the story.

Major cell phone handset makers including Apple, Nokia and Research in Motion (RIM) have agreed to back a European Union initiative to support standard device chargers that will charge any phone through a micro-USB port, according to a Reuters report Monday.

The agreement among 10 companies controlling 90% of the cell phone market in Europe calls for phones compatible with standard charging devices to be available in Europe beginning next year, according to EU Industry Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, who said, “People will [no longer] have to throw away their charger whenever they buy a new phone.”

At its inception, the agreement applies only to data-enabled smartphones, perhaps the fastest growing segment of the mobile handset market, and will affect only devices produced for use in Europe.

Verheugen hailed the agreement as a boon for consumers as well as the environment and estimated it will help reduce tons of eWaste generated annually by consumers.

Significant unanswered questions remain: what took them so long, and where is the rest of the world in this deal? Do device manufacturers have to be cajoled by regulatory bodies continent by continent to adopt a standard that should have been in place at least a decade ago?

The iPhone Dev Team, the tireless hackers who provide software to jailbreak iPhones, know how to unlock the iPhone 3G S, but have decided to hold off releasing the software publicly pending Apple’s next move in the two year-old cat and mouse game between the company and the rogue user community.

“We can jailbreak the 3GS right now,” said a statement at the Dev-Team Blog, “but making our jailbreak public at this point … would in fact be detrimental to many more people than it would help. So we feel it’s best to keep our version of the jailbreak out of Apple’s sights for the time being.”

The crux of the problem seems to be a Dev Team concern that Apple will soon release an update to 3.0 software that will close the ultrasn0w exploit released last week that jailbreaks iPhone 3G running 3.0 software, and that many people who want to get an iPhone 3G S don’t have one yet.

“Once the [3G S] jailbreak is out, Apple will fix the iBoot-family bug we use to accomplish it,” the blog post explains. “[Apple] will simply stop signing the old iBoots and only sign the fixed ones. If you bought your phone after Apple has done this, there’s nothing you can do…the jailbreak isn’t going to work for you.”

For now the team has decided to work on 3.0 software issues such as push notification and will wait and see what Apple does next.

[The iPhone Blog]

EOS Wireless has taken the iPod dock – of which there must be hundreds on the market by now – and given it a twist that may appeal to many people who’ve had the desire but not the funds to install a multi-room music system to play music from one central station throughout a home or office space.

We went hands-on with the EOS Wireless Stereo and gave it a thorough listen over the past three weeks and have our considered opinion about this ingenious set-up for you after the jump.

Phonesuit, makers of the excellent Mili PowerPack battery extender for iPhone and iPod Touch is set to leverage the video capability of iPhone 3G S and increasing interest in micro projectors with the Mili Pro, a new hand-held projector designed just for Apple mobile devices, coming in September 2009.

The Mili Pro is an iPhone / iPod compatible (all models), rechargeable, micro video projector with built-in speakers that will allow users to watch movies, video clips, podcasts and more in 640 x 480 resolution on screen surfaces up to 40 inches.

The projector will feature a variety of AV inputs, allowing users to feed AV directly through the standard dock connectors of iPhones and iPods, with two included RCA and VGA cables permitting connection directly to a laptop or PC, and to most standard AV equipment sources such as DVD players, VCR’s, etc. Users can switch between the various inputs at any time with the input source button.

The device will also ship with two removable. swappable battery packs providing up to 3 hours of uninterrupted projection power.

More hi-res pics after the jump

What it is: Diorama is the first stereoscopic 3D game for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Think the lovechild of Labyrinth and MC Escher.

Why it’s good: With standard red/cyan 3d glasses the depth illusion of the hologram is truly hard to believe and the application of Apple’s mobile OS accelerometer makes Diorama one of the coolest things we’ve seen on the platform.

The current version, which sells for 99¢, features Jaw-dropping holographic 3D graphics, Stereoscopic rendering at 30 frames per second, and super realistic 3d physics played across 9 challenging board environments.

Plus, if you don’t happen to have a pair of 3D glasses lying around, you can send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to

American Paper Optics
3080 Bartlett Corporate Drive
Bartlett, TN 38133

and they will send you some.

Even better, Diorama’s developers provide a link to instructions for DIY 3D glasses.

Where to get it: 99¢ at the iTunes App Store

This video doesn’t even come close to doing the actual game justice, but we provide it here because that’s just how we roll.

An intrepid software developer has published a thorough memoir that details many reasons why Apple is so far ahead of the field in the mobile applications game, and why Blackberry, Palm and Android will have a hard time catching up any time soon.

Marcus Watkins found himself developing an application for his mobile phone in much the same way that countless other developers undoubtedly realized their inspirations: he was minding his own business when he realized one day his life would improve if his phone could do something that, at the point of his epiphany, it couldn’t.

He did his research, found out there wasn’t an application to meet his needs, realized the size of the potential market for his app in the many millions of people with his phone – a good percentage of whom might find his application useful – and he went to work.

Unfortunately (perhaps) for Watkins, his phone is a Blackberry, but fortunately (for Blackberry users) he persevered, and his story shows just how far behind Apple the other smartphone makers are as the device category enters its third year in existence.

“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in his first officially quoted statement for the company since taking a medical leave of absence in January.

Jobs’ comment came in the wake of a news release touting one million iPhone 3G S units sold in its first weekend since being released last Friday. “With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever,” continued Jobs in the release, which also noted that six million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software since it was released last Wednesday.

The statement did not indicate whether or not Jobs would return to work at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA on Monday.

Apple issued $30 iTunes store credits over the weekend to some US customers whose iPhone 3G S models were not able to be activated for service with AT&T when the phones were released on Friday.

In an email sent to customers who had ordered the new smartphone through Apple’s online store prior to the official release, Apple apologized for delays “due to system issues and continued high activation volumes,” which the email said “could take us up to an additional 48 hours to complete.”

Customers were told to expect an email with the iTunes credit authorization on Monday and asked to accept the company’s “sincere apologies for the inconvenience this delay has caused.”

Some customers were particularly miffed last week after having received initial notice from UPS that their phones were scheduled for delivery on Wednesday, but saw deliveries rescheduled to Friday’s official release date, apparently at Apple’s behest.

Apple may have contributed to iPhone 3G S activation delays Friday that have many device users hopping mad and may leave some customers without telephone service through the weekend.

An AppleInsider report during the day Friday indicated that Apple’s activation servers were under strain even greater than those Wednesday that made it difficult for some users to download and install the new 3.0 version of iPhone’s operating software.

Cult of Mac has learned that at least one customer, who pre-ordered a 3G S from the Apple website shortly after the device was announced on June 8, received a message from UPS on Monday this week saying that his order for the 3G S would be delivered on Wednesday.

On Wednesday, Apple sent him a message saying the courier had made a mistake. The UPS site Wednesday showed the delivery was delayed by request of the recipient, which, of course had not been the case. On Thursday, The ‘recipient request’ notice had been removed, though there was still no word on expected delivery.

It would appear from this user’s experience that Apple told UPS to delay iPhone 3G S shipments until Friday, the official release date.

Of course, it’s unclear whether early delivery of some customers’ phones would have affected the activation delays other users experienced Friday. iTunes gave many trying to activate their devices a message reading “Your activation requires additional time to complete. Due to the current activation volumes, it may take up to 48 hours to resolve your issue,” and many were quick to blame AT&T for the delay.

However it appears clear that Apple may have played a significant role — aside from being unprepared to meet activation demand through iTunes servers — in spoiling the launch of yet another of the company’s groundbreaking products.

AT&T used its Facebook page to quash rumors about an iPhone tethering plan Friday.

Apple fan site Appmodo quoted “a source with AT&T” Friday, saying iPhone tethering would cost users an $55 a month and be available sometime in July.

UPDATE: MMS and tethering are now scheduled for September, according to a report at Appmodo, and tethering will cost an additional $55 per month on top of iPhone data plans.

At this writing AT&T has not issued a statement confirming or denying the report and a call to ATT media relations was not returned. (Thanks, Jason)

An admin for the Facebook account made a status update saying, “There are a lot of reports out there, but wanted you guys to know that rumors of $55 tethering plan on top of an unlimited data plan are false,” says the AT&T statement. “We’ll have more news to share when the iPhone tethering option is closer to launch.”

Calls to AT&T were unreturned Friday afternoon, but Mark Siegel, AT&T executive director for media relations told Cult of Mac on Thursday the company would offer a tethering plan “in the future,” without giving details of pricing or a date certain.

iFixit CEO Kyle Weins flew to London Thursday to be one of the first people in line at Apple’s Regent Street store and picked up a spankin’ new iPhone 3G S for the sole purpose of tearing the mother down.

Once again, using only a heat gun or hair dryer, a Phillips #00 screwdriver, a small suction cup and a spudger, you too, could get into Apple’s latest smartphone/mobile computing device — if such was your idea of entertainment.

iFixit is widely regarded as the best teardown artists in the biz and this item certainly burnishes that reputation, with detailed notes and photos showing the engineering minutiae of what may become Apple’s most popular product ever.

Apple promises faster speed and longer battery life with the 3G S iPhone, but early notes on the teardown indicate a battery with only 6% more ‘oomph’ than the one in the 3G, using a battery with 1219mAh as opposed to 1150mAh in the 3G. The main Samsung CPU is capable of 833MHz, which appears to confirm Apple’s marketing that says the ‘S’ in the 3G S stands for ‘speed’.

See another excellent teardown and parts analysis from the fearless tech wizards at Rapid Repair, but remember the old adage: ‘don’t try this at home’ — unless you don’t care about voiding your warranty.

Not content to sit back and enjoy the many feature upgrades of iPhone 3.0’s official release, iPhone users worldwide exchanged various methods for enabling tethering on their phones Thursday, pulling an end-around on carriers who failed to have tethering plans in place for Wednesday’s release of the new firmware.

Even prior to the official release of the new operating software for Apple’s popular mobile devices Wednesday, 9 to 5 Mac had published detailed instructions for enabling tethering, which AT&T – iPhone’s exclusive carrier in the US – does not at present officially support.

In response to questions about tethering with iPhone 3.0, Mark Siegel, AT&T’s Executive Director of Media Relations told Cult of Mac Thursday “anything to do with the software and what it can or can’t do is an area that Apple needs to comment on.” He had no further comment from AT&T regarding tethering on the iPhone, other than to reiterate that “We will offer a tethering plan in the future but have not set a date at this time.”

Tethering is a process that allows two devices to share an internet connection over a carrier’s data network, seen in many cases as preferable to using insecure public WiFi connections. Carriers typically offer tethering plans that increase a customer’s monthly spend from between $15 and $30 per month for the access to extra data, which can be limited to 500MB on the low end of the price range, up to unlimited extra data at the high end.

AT&T at present already charges iPhone customers $30 per month over and above the cost of a calling plan for “unlimited data,” which many believe is exorbitant in the light of how much data a user typically accesses with normal browsing and emailing on the phone.

Be sure to let us know in comments below if you’ve downloaded the config files necessary to enable tethering on your phone, whether tethering is an important option for you to have, and what you’d be willing to pay to have it legitimately.

Apple finally made the iPhone 3.0 firmware update available to US customers Wednesday afternoon and anecdotal reports indicate the company’s servers are working hard to meet the demand.

A few readers indicated problems with their downloads timing-out in the comment thread on our review of the software, other readers in a thread at MacRumors indicated painfully slow download speeds for the 230MB file — though some also indicated lightning quick experiences as fast as one minute to download.

I happened to be caught out and about this afternoon and found even getting to the iTunes app store was problematic over a public WiFi connection. Before attempting to fetch iPhone 3.0 I tried downloading a free iTunes U Summer Mix of music, which I gave up on after 3 ‘network connection re-set’ error messages and figured trying to update my iPhone would be fruitless.

How about you? Are you running the software now? Any problems with the download? Let us know in comments below.

AT&T announced limited changes to its general upgrade policy Wednesday, extending ‘eligibility’ for subsidized pricing on the new iPhone 3G S to some current customers who signed service contracts on the 3G model less than one year ago.

The changes come in response to the great number of complaints that arose after the company announced subsidized pricing on the new iPhone ($199 for 16GB, $299 for 32GB) would only be extended to new customers signing a two year service commitment and to current customers who are ‘eligible’ for a hardware upgrade when they want to purchase a new 3G S model.

The standard upgrade policy has always been vague, with AT&T allowing only that “In general, the more a customer spends with us, the quicker they become eligible for a price break on a new device.”

The announcement released Wednesday stated “iPhone customers who spend more than $99 a month per line with us generally are eligible for an upgrade between 12 and 18 months into their contract,” which is vague enough, but the company will offer, beginning Thursday June 18, subsidized pricing on new iPhone 3G S phones to “customers who are upgrade eligible in July, August or September 2009.”

Further confusing the issue, AT&T offers “early” upgrade pricing of $299 (16GB) and $399 (32GB) for the 3G S model to customers who qualify. The company has an upgrade eligibility wizard on its site that tells current customers when they are eligible to different hardware options based on its secret algorithm weighing length of AT&T contract, how much money a customer spends per month, possibly one’s credit score, etc.

[Silicon Alley Insider]

The Apple blogosphere percolated with spitting and popping yesterday after Daring Fireball reported that iPhone and iPod Touch users might find reasons to be excited about the impending release of QuickTime X in Snow Leopard.

The possibility of native .flv file support in QuickTime X meant that support for Flash video – probably the biggest item remaining on many people’s wish-list for iPhone – could soon be a reality for Apple’s mobile device users. The story was picked up by TechCrunch and we were off to the races.

Turns out to have been a false alarm, triggered by an over-eager post at Cateto blog, occasioned by a bit of software confusion, but still…

The point here is that with Perian, a free open source plug-in for QuickTime, Flash on the iPhone and iPod Touch would be conceivable, no matter the difficulty of Apple and Adobe executives and legal departments finding a way to get on the same page about it all.

Just one more reason why we lurve open source.

Queensland University of Technology, one of the largest universities in Australia, has published health and safety concerns about Apple Macintosh glass or high gloss monitor screens, and recommends students and school employees “consider the purchase of other types of monitors which are not high gloss.”

Because reflections on the screens “could cause the operator to adopt awkward postures when viewing the monitor screen and using related equipment,” which awkward poatures “may in turn lead to an injury,” health and safety officials at the university have come out against the controversial Apple products and published detailed computer safety guidelines for members of the university community.

Howls of protest among many users accompanied Apple’s decision to discontinue matte screen options for its monitor products in 2007, largely from professional photographers and other users who process graphic images in their work, despite some who believe the glossy surface produces more saturated colours, deeper contrast, and sharper images than traditional matte displays.

Asked what might have spurred the university to publish an official position in the matter, Cult of Mac contacts in Australia pointed out that Australian employers must provide workers’ compensation for injuries sustained in the workplace under strict government regulations, and speculated that “the university is playing it safe, so that it can never be said that it did not advise against the use of gloss screens.”

Gives a whole new meaning to “protect and defend,” doesn’t it?

[MacMatte]

Despite the great hue and cry that arose Monday in the wake of the news that AT&T will not be among the 22 worldwide carriers to support tethering when iPhone 3.0 debuts, a wonderfully snarky how-to from 9to5 Mac spells out step-by-step instructions for getting your tether on today, for free, regardless of whether AT&T wants you to, without jailbreaking your iPhone.

In fact, the process only works with un-jailbroken iPhones legitimately registered for service with AT&T in the US.

Two important things you need to be aware of before you consider sticking it to the AT&T man:

1. You have to be running iPhone OS 3.0, which, obviously, has not been released officially but which is widely available if you know where to look. A very good place to start would be right here.

2. You have to be running the very first pre-release version of iTunes 8.2, which is more difficult to get ahold of but, depending on just how deep your enmity for AT&T runs, is also out there hiding in plain view.

Beyond that, it’s just a matter of refusing to accept the proposition that you can’t do anything you want to do with something you’ve bought and paid for just because a couple major corporations don’t want you to feel so empowered.

As with anything satisfying in Life, there are risks, but to those who are willing to bear them go the richest rewards.

See 9to5 Mac for further details.

It looks like somebody may have purposely arranged these two magazines in a retail rack to make a point, but credit Flickr user Nep Smith for ferreting out an interesting symbiosis between issues of PC World and Macworld back in October of 2006.

Given the growth Apple has seen since then, it would appear plenty of others may have noticed the writing on the wall as well.

If you haven’t seen the latest Star Trek movie yet, or if you’re interested in rocking a genuine Trek look on your iPhone or iPod Touch anyhow, you will seriously want to consider picking up Talkndog’s super-cool 99¢ Star Radio Communicator (App Store link) app.

Its trillium mesh cover flips out and animates open with a flick of the wrist, exposing the communicator interface. The opening action is accompanied by the familiar “chirping” sound known to old-school Trekkies the world over. Under the mesh antenna “cover” you get a hypnotic spinning black-and-white spiral, with three blinking colored lights and two metal buttons below. One button actually loads a working retro-modern iPhone dialer, complete with sounds that will make you think you’re punching in a star date.

[iPhoneSavior]

T-Mobile.nl has posted specs for the iPhone 3GS that indicate Apple’s new 16GB and 32GB mobile devices will sport 600 MHz processors and carry 256MB of RAM when they hit the market later this month.

Current iPhones operate with a 412 MHz chip and have but 128 MB of RAM, so it would appear the new models will be equipped to fulfill the promises of a much faster, snappier UI that Apple made in introducing the phones Monday at WWDC in San Francisco.

The company has given developers at WWDC few details about the guts of the new models, but they are believed to run a new PowerVR SGX graphics processing unit which provides support for OpenGL ES 2.0., which is good news for users, though it could cause headaches for developers who want their apps to be backward compatible with original iPhones and 3G models introduced in 2008.

Stay tuned for the inevitable iFixit teardown shortly after the phones are released to find out what’s really underneath that oil-resistant glass.

You have to love the guys at iFixit. No sooner does Apple release new hardware into the wild than those guys are all over it with their Phillips #0, Spudger and Tri-wing screwdrivers like so many buzzards on a fresh carcass in the desert.

As we post, they are liveblogging their tear-down of a new 13″ MacBook Pro. If you’re enthralled by computer innards and don’t get queasy at the sight of silicon, you’ll want to head on over for a look-see.