Lonnie Lazar - page 14

Here’s just one of a number of interesting handmade iPhone and iPod cozys and cases from Vintage Coquette, a woman named Elizabeth, who describes herself as “a lover of all things cute and/or vintage.”

Check out her shop on Etsy – she is definitely channeling that special brand of cute with its roots in Hello Kitty and Japanese gadget-fu.

Image © BasiCMYK

BasiCMYK is a talented photographer and self-described geek who was lucky enough to get one of the 300 limited edition PodBrix Young Woz and Jobs playsets when they were issued not long after the iPhone’s debut in 2007.

He’s also apparently a big Steve Wozniak fan, allowing in the description of the accompanying photo that “every time there’s a Stevenote I secretely hope The Woz will pop up on the screen.”

Something tells me there’s no limited edition Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer Lego knock-off playsets lurking out there anywhere.

Apple sits atop BusinessWeek‘s list of “The 25 Most Innovative Companies” for the fifth year in a row, according to a statement released Thursday by the magazine and the Boston Consulting Group.

The news should come as no surprise to anyone who keeps up with trends in the computer, telecom and entertainment industries, though the report does contain undercurrents of weariness with Apple and the #2 company, Google. Both firms received more than 30% fewer votes in the 2009 survey than they got last year, with some respondents complaining about Apple and Google both “resting on past glory” and relying on “improvements [to] previous technology.”

The special report, “The World’s Most Innovative Companies,” will be featured in BusinessWeek’s April 20th issue, on newsstands April 10th.

BusinessWeek.com will also feature expanded content, including an interactive table of the full ranking of the top 50 most innovative companies, a slide show on 50 up-and-coming innovative companies, and a full description of the methodology used to compile the lists, at www.businessweek.com/go/09/innovative09.

The full list is after the jump.

Well, who doesn’t like a little Michael Jackson, dancing babies and quick, snappy edits in a smartphone commercial?

But does anyone think Apple’s legal department won’t soon notice the uncanny similarities between the UI for LG’s Arena and Apple’s own iPhone?

It’s no secret that Apple loves LG displays, but whether that love extends to a willingness to overlook LG’s ripping-off the iPhone’s UI remains to be seen. On the other hand, it’s possible LG licensed the UI. Neither Apple nor LG representatives were available for comment at press time.

Text strings in the latest beta release of iPhone 3.0 software indicate support for the 802.11n wireless standard, according to several reports over the weekend.

In addition to representing an upgrade to the WiFi capabilities of yet-to-be released versions of iPhone and iPod Touch, support for Broadcom BCM4329 chips — through which 802.11n would be accessed — could improve battery life on Apple’s mobile devices. iThe iPhone and iPod Touch currently only support slower 802.11b/g networks.

Perhaps the more interesting implication of details emerging in the 3.0 beta is the promise of video recording and upload capability, a feature some have derided the iPhone for lacking in its initial releases. A recently discovered video upload screen indicates a new version of the iPhone is meant to be able to upload video to MobileMe accounts, which would no doubt come as a welcome feature upgrade for users of Apple’s web services product.

It’s possible video uploading would be supported to any server, and that Apple will also be releasing iPhone software to edit video on the fly, but even if official support for video is limited, whole new avenues for 3rd party development will open up as a result of video on the iPhone.

As others in the smartphone market struggle to catch up to Apple’s product and services offerings, it appears Steve Jobs may have been right when he said his company is already years ahead of the competition.

Sony has added what the company calls “USB 1-wire” connectivity to select models of its 2009 car audio line up, enabling direct digital connectivity for USB powered audio devices such as iPods and iPhones, as well as other MP3 players and even USB thumb drives.

If you’ve ever been frustrated by the sketchy signal provided by radio frequency car adapters such as iTrip, or been dissatisfied by the sound quality of AUX in connectivity trying to get your iPod playing in the car, Sony’s Xplod line of head units is well worth a look and listen.

“We’ve needed to do this as an industry for some time,” explained Mike Kahn, Sony director of marketing for mobile electronics at a media meet and greet in San Francisco Wednesday night. Direct digital connection of the external device to the auto sound system is quickly becoming a standard feature for manufacturers such as Sony, Alpine and Pioneer, which is no surprise given the boost in sound quality over cobbled together analog connectivity solutions of the recent past.

Sony’s gear is very price competitive with its major rivals and its USB 1-wire technology doesn’t require any special cabling – you can use your standard iPod USB cable to plug right into the head unit, browse the device’s library and select songs right from the auto unit’s controls.

USA Today ran an article Wednesday saying the Skype for iPhone app is “raising concern among public-policymakers and consumer advocates,” who are irked that Skype calls are limited to WiFi and not permitted to access cellular or 3G networks.

I’m reminded of nothing so much as Lewis CK’s appearance on Conan O’Brien’s show, in which he pointed out how amazing things are in today’s world, and yet no one is happy.

Are Apple and AT&T actually “trying to handicap” Skype, as implied by Chris Murray, senior counsel to Consumers Union? Is there an “urgent need” for Congress and the Federal Communications Commission to revisit the rules and regulations for wireless voice services?

I’m no fan of Apple’s “walled garden” approach to the AppStore, nor do I love the fact that AT&T is my only service provider option for using iPhone in the US.

But in just over 24 hours of playing with Skype on my iPhone, I feel confident in saying Skype doesn’t need congress’ help in its competition with AT&T. If people will have a little bit of patience, Skype and other VoIP service providers will soon be providing them with communications services and calling options they couldn’t have imagined just months ago.

The cat is really out of the bag now, so just find a good WiFi connection and enjoy your free Skype calling. It’s only going to get better from here on out.

It might have helped a few folks if Debt Snowball Pro, a new app coming to the iTunes app store, had been released sooner, but who can really argue with the timeliness of a tool to help eliminate debt using the “debt snowball” method endorsed by finance guru Dave Ramsey and other professionals?

You can choose to pay off debts with higher interest rates first (to save money), or those with the lowest balances (for small, motivating successes along the way). Debt Snowball Pro shows you just how much money you’ll save by choosing these methods over making minimum payments. And it keeps you up do date on how much interest you’ve saved, when your payoff dates are, and when you’ll be debt-free.

Due to be priced at $2.99, Debt Snowball Pro is similar to the Parallel Focus app Pay Off Debt (opens iTunes), which it follows into the AppStore by just two weeks.

Steve Wozniak’s dancing dream is over.

I blame the fact that Pete Mortensen was not here liveblogging it tonight for Cult of Mac.

“I gave it a good try,” Wozniak said after being voted off the show. Few ever expected the burly billionaire engineer to win the contest, least of all Wozniak himself.

Despite having criticized the program’s scoring system in the past couple of weeks, in the end, he said performing on the program made him feel like “the luckiest person in the world.”

Here’s another next-gen iPhone concept worth pondering: Can Apple pull off adding features and functionality to the iPhone while making it even slimmer and sexier than it is today?

We’ll know soon enough, as anticipation for a June or July release event continues to build. More concepts ought to be popping up like spring flowers, too and the big design question seems to be whether any changes will be subtle, or will they push the device in an entirely new direction?

Let us know where you think Apple’s headed in comments.

[SlipperyBrick]

Proving the universal appeal and applicability of Apple’s marketing template, the Spanish agency Shackleton gives us the iHam.

And if you’ve ever been to Spain, you understand the ubiquity of meat on the hoof hanging from the ceilings of tapas bars and restaurants and know, perhaps, how the Spanish love their ham.

Comes complete with a full line of accessories, an introductory video (which must be seen), and a PDF manual.

Simply brilliant.

Thanks to Adrian for the tip!

Follow after the jump for a screen shot of the accessories page.

Skype for iPhone is due to be announced at CTIA 2009 on Tuesday morning.

The world’s busiest long distance service provider and its new partner Apple helpfully made the free Skype for iPhone app available for download via the iTunes AppStore (opens iTunes) Monday night, and a quick lap around the track implies quite an upgrade to iPhone’s voice functionality.

Simply logging in with a user’s current Skype username and password automatically populates the mobile apps’ database with contacts, recent call history, and account information including avatar image, profile information, Skype Credit account balances, Online number information and voicemail history.

Making a call to a Skype friend is as easy and intuitive as it is from the familiar PC interface, and the sound quality on a connected call is equal to that using a headset on a PC, especially when using a headset with mic attached to the iPhone or iPod Touch.

It should be noted that Skype voice calls are dependent on the initiating caller having a strong and stable WiFi connection to place and maintain the call. Weak or intermittent WiFi connectivity will downgrade call quality and easily lead to dropped calls, and Skype will not in any way access or rely on the cell network to complete or maintain voice calls.

Another issue some may have yet to consider in championing the arrival of Skype as a watershed in mobile VoIP calling is the limitation imposed by Apple’s mobile OS that prevents more than one app from running at a time.

Should an iPhone user be engaged in a Skype call when a normal cell phone call comes in, the WiFi connection will be broken, and the Skype call automatically dropped as the cell call rings in. Absent the ability to place an iPhone in “Do Not Disturb” mode, this will remain a persistent potential problem for those relying on the iPhone’s ability to deliver voice over WiFi.

Otherwise, at first blush, Skype appears to have delivered a seamless integration of its PC-based application for making calls over IP networks.

More details will come to light as hundreds of millions of Skype users begin to make and receive calls using iPhone and iPod Touch.

It will be interesting, as well, to see how the introduction of iPhone 3.0 operating software, due this coming summer with its promise of push notification may affect Skype for iPhone’s usability.

Skype’s much-anticipated VoIP application for iPhone and iPod Touch will launch in the iTunes AppStore on Tuesday, according to a report at Cnet, which published Sunday evening a pre-launch review.

Set to go live in the AppStore in concert with its introduction at CTIA 2009, Skype’s Apple product is said to leverage a couple of nice iPhone-centric features such as being able to take a photo from within Skype to serve as your avatar image, or pulling a picture in from the camera roll — and the look and feel is less heavy on Skype branding, more attuned to other apps for Apple’s mobile platform.

The Cnet review found lack of SMS, file transfer and conference calling set-up disappointing but those features may well be forthcoming in a post iPhone 3.0 update.

The big question is whether Skype will get the VoIP ball rolling on iPhone and iPod Touch, where other apps such as Truphone, Fring and Nimbuzz, which have offered different levels of VoIP capability on the iPhone for a while already, but have yet to take off.

Apple filed for patents last September that suggest the company may be working on biometric security technology together with optical and voice recognition software to enhance traditional password security for its devices.

According to a report published for the first time this week, the patent filing describes methods for embedding sensors beneath touchscreens and trackpads to recognize fingerprints and vein patterns; device cameras and microphones would authenticate retinal patterns or facial features and recognize a user’s distinctive voice. There is even a suggestion of collecting DNA samples to recognize a user’s genetic sequence. Biometrics could also be context-sensitive and detect the shape of a user’s ear before allowing a call to go through, for example.

Makes that neural interface revolution seem a little more likely, doesn’t it?

Muadib hasn’t posted a lot of stuff at Vimeo, but this mock-up ad for the new iPhone that you just know is coming has design sense and a bit of welcome humor, too.

How far off do you suppose the neural interface revolution is? Because you just know it’s coming.

Skype for iPhone could appear in Apple’s iTunes AppStore as soon as next week, according to a report Thursday at GigaOm.

Citing a “very reliable” source, the report says an iPhone app for Skype could launch next week at the CTIA Wireless conference in Las Vegas. The report notes there have been other clues suggesting such a launch, such as other VoIP services changing potential launches of their own. Which makes sense, because when it hits, Skype will immediately become the big dog in the yard with its 400+ million users world wide.

Other VoIP services, such as TruePhone and Fring already have iPhone applications but have yet to catch on as methods for bypassing the cell network to make and receive phone calls. Other applications, such as web-based RF.com are also known to be working on providing native options for VoIP calling on the iPhone.

Skype has grown to become the most well-known and widely used VoIP provider in the world and its appearance on the iPhone would impact the development of mobile VoIP as well as the business fortunes of Apple and AT&T.

[Venture Beat]

Grab your parka, hat and gloves and book your tickets early for WWDC 2009, June 8 – 12 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center West.

Apple announced the dates Thursday via its Developers Connection website for the annual conference that provides developers and IT professionals with in-depth technical information and hands-on learning about iPhone OS and Mac OS X technologies from over 1000 Apple engineers who created them.

Easily one of the most eagerly anticipated Geek festivals on the calendar, this year’s conference should draw even more interest than usual due to the impending arrival of iPhone 3.0 and Mac OS X 10.6, known as Snow Leopard.

Early-bird registration for the conference is $1,295 until April 24th, after which the entrance fee goes up $300. Current ADC Student Members and student Team Members in the iPhone Developer University Program can apply for a WWDC Student Scholarship for free admission to the conference.

Apple must have the sweetest distribution deal in the entire retail universe, if a report published Wednesday at TechCrunch is to be believed.

The AppStore refund policy allows purchasers a full refund up to 90 days from the date of download of any application purchased in the iTunes AppStore. Which seems questionable enough in the light of, say, the Android Market’s 24 hour return policy.

But a clause in the developer’s contract all iPhone developers must sign in order to have their apps sold in the AppStore indicates that in addition to a three month return policy, “Apple will have the right to retain its commission on the sale of that Licensed Application, notwithstanding the refund of the price to the end user.”

In effect this means Apple will charge 100% of the sale price to a developer for every refund given, even though the developer only got 70% of the price of the sale in the first place.

Many iPhone app developers are on the record as having no problem with Apple’s 30% sales commission for applications sold through the iTunes AppStore. The thinking goes that independent developers gain access to many more potential customers by having their products in the widely visited venue, save tons of money on marketing and transaction costs and generally benefit from being associated with the legitimacy of the Apple brand.

When consumers get wind of this policy, which may be a new development, according to the TechCrunch report, developers of some widely purchased though basically useless apps could be in for a rude awakening.

UPDATE: No developer is likely to go bankrupt in the real world, according to a level-headed explanation posted Thursday by Erica Sadun, a developer/blogger for ArsTechnica.

The reason, which makes perfect sense when you think about it, is that Apple never gives refunds, except in extreme circumstances and then, only after causing the customer many headaches.

All the Fart app people can rest easy now.

Apple released a firmware update Wednesday for owners of 2009 unibody 17″ MacBook Pros meant to resolve issues with Nvidia graphics processors that have been causing display anomalies for some users.

Reports on March 6 described complaints related to the Nvidia GeForce 9600 graphics processor in new 17″ MacBook Pros that were causing lines to appear all over some users’ notebook displays, as reported in Apple support threads and in comments to Cult of Mac’s original post.

The firmware update released Wednesday applies only to 2009 model 17″ MacBook Pros. Users wishing to apply the firmware fix should consult Apple documentation for information on how to apply the update.

Let us know in comments whether the firmware solves the problem.

Nearly 900 people RSVPd for the boxee meetup Tuesday at Webster Hall in NYC, where the “bleeding edge” media center platform is announcing brand new partnerships with Pandora, Radio Time and PBS, as well as a more robust API and a new XUL-based framework for the boxee browser that will enable easier interaction with any web-based video (translation: Hulu web pages).

Live video of the meetup and a chat session are accessible on the Mogulus boxee meetup channel.

With the new Pandora station, boxee users can listen to their personal quickmix and favorite stations, as well as create new stations, making music in the living room more accessible than ever.

BoxeeHQ is also releasing a new PBS app today, and the company promises its new API will allow developers to build apps using XML pages and Python scripts, giving them control over everything they want from a UI perspective.

They offer as an example the new implementation of Radio Time, an application built using the new API that will allow users to stream over 100k terrestrial radio stations from around the world.

By adding new access to more music and continuing to add to and refine access to video content, boxee is definitely pressing its case as a force to be reckoned with in the breaking down of barriers between internet and traditional media content.

If you’ve been on the fence about whether or not to jailbreak your iPhone due to trepidation over wading into deep geek water, Ripdev’s release of InstallerApp might be just the tipping point you’ve been waiting for.

It’s an application for Mac (soon to be available for Windows PCs as well) that allows you to download iPhone apps on your computer and transfer them to your device in a friendly iTunes-like interface, without “jailbreaking” your phone.

InstallerApp comes with software, called “Pusher”, that RipDev says can install Installer.app on your iPhone without “jailbreaking” it, so you can use Apple’s approved AppStore and InstallerApp simultaneously. The app supports Cydia, a popular installer for jailbroken iPhones, but does so, according to Ripdev, without making a mess of your iPhone’s file system or replacing any system libraries as Cydia does.

You’ll need a Mac with Intel processor running OS X 10.5 Leopard or higher. InstallerApp supports first generation iPhone and iPhone 3G, though not iPod touch as yet.

One $7 license lets you sync up to three iPhones and gives you access to free updates and email tech support for one year. The free version is fully functional and lets you browse the app’s repository of thousands of non-AppStore software titles, and use it to install the Installer app on your iPhone, but you won’t be able to install other apps on your iPhone. That sort of defeats the purpose, but at least you can get a look and feel for free.

Clearly, the jailbreaking community is hitting its stride in providing competitive alternatives to Apple’s walled garden of iPhone apps. Ripdev is even promising to support iPhone 3.0 shortly after the new software is released and jailbroken.

UPDATE: InstallerApp may not be living up to its developers claims, according to some comments to this post and to a report at Engadget. Has anyone had success making InstallerApp perform as advertised? Let us know in comments and we’ll post again as information warrants.

[Macworld]

After a decade of being the clear leader driving market trends in computing, Apple’s influence could wane in the post-Steve Jobs era, according to a thoughtful piece posted Tuesday at TG Daily.

Industry analyst Rob Enderle describes Apple’s amazingly diverse impact on wider market trends:

* The iPhone immediately became the gold standard for mobile phone manufacturers, resulting in an explosion of new devices and innovation across every mobile software platform;

* Apple created integration between power and graphics in computer processors that would not have been possible without the company’s commitment to OpenCL, a framework for writing programs that execute across CPUs and GPUs;

* Apple’s focus on design and higher margins resulted in the introduction of products such as the recently released Dell Adamo, a PC notebook designed and marketed to emulate Apple’s attention to every detail from the packaging inward, down to the absence of stickers promoting Microsoft Windows and Intel;

* The elegance of the user experience in Mac OS X virtually doomed OEMs’ embrace of Linux to a competition not with Apple but with Windows, an outcome which will affect the introduction of Google’s Android when it comes to market next year as well.

In short, Enderle writes, “Apple is at the core” of all recent change in the computer industry, that “as a result Apple’s efforts, the products we will see from a variety of vendors will be vastly more amazing than they otherwise would have been.”

None of the above is really subject to debate. Enderle goes on to question whether Apple can keep it up in the post-Jobs era, however, and this writer disagrees. Follow the jump to find out why.

Image by shapeshift, used under CreativeCommons license

Next-generation iPhones could enjoy up to twice as fast 3G connectivity and faster WiFi as well, according to rumors being pondered Friday at Silicon Valley Insider and Mac Rumors.

The speculation centers around AT&T’s stated intention to upgrade its 3G network to support 7.2 Mbps speeds, up from the 3.6 Mbps speed of the current network. The cellular provider maintains that that many of its cell towers can be upgraded through software rather than by new equipment, but current iPhone hardware limits connectivity to 3.6 Mbps, so users of Apple’s mobile devices will need a new generation of phone to enjoy faster 3G connectivity.

Additional speculation concerns the possibility of faster WiFi connectivity through a new Broadcom 802.11 chipset that would provide real Wi-Fi speeds of up to 50Mbps (versus 25Mbps for typical 802.11g) in addition to Bluetooth with support for wireless stereo audio.

While none of the speculation has been confirmed at this point, it is only logical to assume that as faster, more powerful chips become available, Apple and its service provider partners will enable devices that take advantage of them.

Perhaps the battery industry will join the advancing technology party in a meaningful way as well.

No matter how many times, nor by how many ways it’s disproved, the canard that Macs are more expensive than Windows machines will just not die.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer yammered on about Apple’s price premium Thursday, speaking to BusinessWeek editor Stephen Adler at The McGraw-Hill Companies’ 2009 Media Summit. Citing February sales data indicating a pull-back in the momentum of Mac sales, Ballmer pronounced Apple’s run at market share in the PC universe all but doomed in the currrent economy.

“The economy is helpful. Paying an extra $500 for a computer in this environment — same piece of hardware — paying $500 more to get a logo on it? I think that’s a more challenging proposition for the average person than it used to be.”

Anyone who bothers to think beyond the superficialities, however, knows the higher cost of Macs to be a myth, debunked at least as far back as the earliest years of this decade, and regularly disproved since.

On top of that, three quarters of companies in a recent survey indicated an intention to increase their Mac purchases in the coming year, citing increased productivity and lower cost of ownership as reasons underlying their purchase planning.

So when are people gong to stop paying attention to blowhards such as Ballmer, a guy who won’t even let his wife or kids have an iPod?

UPDATE: This post corrects a post written and originally published on 4/18 that contained incorrectly attributed information.

The single most talked about and demonstrated feature of iPhone 3.0 software at Tuesday’s launch event — push notification — remains absent from the beta release distributed to developers, with no indication thus far forthcoming from Apple when it will become available.

Scott Forstall, Apple’s Senior VP for iPhone software spent over half an hour Tuesday extolling the virtues of push notification and explaining why — although promised by the company over a year ago — it has taken so long to roll out. Developer “demand we didn’t anticipate” caused Apple to “completely re-architect the server infrastructure for push notification,” he said.

Developer representatives from a half dozen companies were trotted out for a dog and pony show to demonstrate how amazing push notification is going to be in the next version of iPhone software, and yet, despite distributing documentation of how the service is intended to work, Apple has yet to provide developers a method for implementing and testing push notification in their apps.

Forstall spoke plainly in his presentation Tuesday (see 26:45 into the video) “It is now really scalable, and we’re ready to go.”

Apparently not.

Calls to Apple for explanation were not returned as of press time, but we’ll be sure to keep readers apprised as this story develops.