Lonnie Lazar - page 27

Just in case you don’t have such a great photographic eye, or perhaps are not completely satisfied with the images produced by your iPhone’s distinctive optics, there is help available.

More than 30,000 people have downloaded French photographer Eric Lafforgue’s free iPhone app Hervé Péroteau. He released version 2.1 on Sunday with more than 800 pictures available for use as screensavers for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Lafforgue’s work has been published in prestegious magazines worldwide, including Geo, National Geographic, CNN Traveler, The Times, Stampa and UNESCO magazine. His app will fill 25MB of space on your device, but it automatically lets you know when there are photo updates available and includes professional tips from one of the world’s most successful freelance photographers.

Check out some of his images in the gallery below and be sure also to visit his stunning website.

All images © Eric Lafforgue

Tonight’s episode of The Simpsons had fun at the expense of Steve Jobs and Apple fans everywhere.

Via Edible Apple

Blogger Charles Teague has done some comprehensive analysis of emerging trends based on the AppStore’s first 5 months of business and there’s no denying Apple’s online distribution model has exploded out of the gate.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the proposition that the AppStore could be Apple’s most revolutionary development of all, which Teague’s research would appear to confirm in many respects.

The chart below shows the number of applications being released per day, with momentum clearly trending upward and sitting currently at more than 140 new apps per day. There are more than 9000 apps available on the AppStore, with the ratio of paid to free apps at about 7:2.

Stainless is a multi-purpose browser for OS X inspired (according to its developers) by Google Chrome. The early beta version (0.4) available for download works only with 10.5 (Leopard) and appears to be a fun side project for the engineers at Mesa Dynamics, who developed Stainless to leverage multi-processing technologies they developed for one of their other products, Hypercube.

Blogger Jackson Chung has taken Stainless for a spin and writes that it has potential. “It is a fair bit more stable, quicker and simpler to use [than other Mac browsers] – and that appeals to most people who are stuck with the productivity-driven mindset of Do more with less time.” He applauds Stainless’ simple UI and the fact that every browser tab runs under a separate process.

Unlike Safari, for instance, which runs tabs under a collective process, Stainless ‘feels’ lighter, according to Chung, and the whole surfing experience seems quicker and more responsive.

Google is working on a Mac version of Chrome and Media Dynamics gives the impression that Stainless may well be no more than a demonstration of the possibilities we could see when Chrome for the Mac is finally released. Until then, however, Stainless looks to be a taste of things to come.

Via Make Use Of

We came across some very groovy Mac and iGear sleeves and covers from a shop in Australia that could have just the thing for the Apple nut on your holiday gift list.

Foofshop offers ‘foofbag’ Apple laptop sleeves for the MacBook line of notebook computers and soft ‘foofpod’ iPod covers for use with iPod, Touch & iPhone.

Sampled in the gallery below are some of the colors and case designs, all of which are snug fitting and soft padded in sherpa fleece, protecting your stuff from scratches and things that go bump.

Both the bags and pods are slot loading, with an opening at one end; designed for easy removal with no silcone, neoprene, straps, velcro, buttons or clips.

All their products are handmade locally in Australia and the company is certified “carbon managed” by Carbon Planet; 100% of their greenhouse gas emissions have been offset since 2006.

The iPhone DevTeam took another brick out of Apple’s walled garden on Friday, successfully booting the Linux operating system on the iPhone, iPhone 3g and the original iPod Touch, according to a report at AppleInsider.

The “draft version” of the first alternative OS to run on Apple’s mobile devices includes the main Linux 2.6 kernel as well as “rudimentary graphics, serial, and other functional drivers that are enough to get a command line running when input is sent over the USB interface; the accelerometer, audio, networking and even the touchscreen have yet to receive any kind of software support,” according to the report.

Having led the way from the very beginning with efforts to jailbreak and unlock the iPhone, the Dev Team is working to enable Google’s equally Linux-based but more complete Android mobile operating system on the iPhone and is searching for programmers to help with the project.

Via AppleInsider

I followed a link to this CrankyGeeks url because it tempted me with information on “how to get out of your Sprint contract to buy an iPhone.”

I should have known.

The video is pretty good evidence that some FCC regs regarding broadcast standards are there for a reason. Of course, the Internet remains a bit of a final frontier and so you never know (or, as I mentioned, you should know) what you’re getting.

The best advice three guys sitting around drinking can come up with for getting out of your cell phone contract? Complain.

I’ll remember not to ping CGs with a real problem.

Via InternetInjustice

iPhone has a handy TV-Out functionality that lets you watch stored video on a TV monitor connected to the iPhone, and as demonstrated in the video above, can even push live camera input through the updated MediaPlayer framework included in version 2.2 of the iPhone SDK.

Developer/blogger Erica Sadun enlisted members of her family to assist in documenting this cool development over the Thanksgiving holiday, and credits fellow developers Drunkenbass and Greg “go2” Hartstein with helping her integrate user input through iPhone’s on-screen controls.

As Sadun mentions in her post at Ars Technica, this feature may useful in making the iPhone an active participant in the development of new video/phone hybrid apps and as a vehicle for delivering Keynote/PowerPoint-style presentations.

With iPhone, it just keeps getting better and better.

Via Ars Technica

Apple’s latest lstandalone Cinema Displays, the 24″ widescreen with LED backlight technology announced in August, have shipped and began arriving Wednesday for customers also fortunate enough to own Apple machines with mini-Display port connectors.

The new 21lb bright, shiny things work only with the new MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks and the Macbook Air, a limitation puzzled over by many in the wake of the August announcement, but now that they are here, object lust would seem to be kicking in predictably for many.

Ars Technica blogger Clint Ecker did an unboxing first impressions post on Wednesday, a few shots from which can be seen in the gallery below. Of note is the high-gloss reflectivity of the display glass and the fact that Mac OS X elegantly defers to the display’s iSight instead of the notebook’s. It also uses the USB audio on the display, disabling the output on the notebook until you plug into the notebook’s headphone jack. Ecker says the Cinema Display appears “slightly brighter” than the display on a similarly sized iMac.

Via Ars Technica

I wrote last week about the impending release of Job Compass, an iPhone app that utilizes the phone’s location-aware capability and Google Maps to deliver location-specific results to users’ job search queries. The app had its debut on the iTunes AppStore over the weekend and I’ve spent the past few days playing around with it.

I am happy to report Job Compass is a useful, intuitive and well-designed application that takes out of the equation some of the more tedious aspects of searching for new employment. In the current economic climate, where the unemployment rate in the US has risen in each of the past six months and now stands at a level higher than its most recent peak in 2003, Job Compass is a handy app indeed.

On launch the program asks permission to use your location as a base from which to perform a job search. After a few moments, a Google map pinned to your location appears and you’re invited to search for a job. Users can put in anything they want (now’s the time to think – what’s your dream job?) and choose to search for listings within a 5, 10, 25, 50 or 100 mile radius of their current location.

A recent search for writer/editor positions within 10 miles of my house returned five open positions, all of which I could then call up and read about, either in short digest or full description form. Users can choose to send themselves an email with a link to the job description, or open it in Safari and apply for the job right from the iPhone. Though, given the limitations of the iPhone’s virtual keyboard and the raft of text entries usually required in an online job application, sending an email link is almost always going to be your best option. (Note to Ed.: I’m not looking, that was just an example!)

Titus Blair, spokesman for Securicy Ventures, the app’s developer, told Cult of Mac, “we have partnered with most of the large jobs boards with the goal of being the #1 source for location based jobs searches,” and noted that Jobs Compass’s patent pending search protocol currently scans a database of over 2+ million listings, with more added daily.

Blair acknowledges “on Edge it can run pretty slow,” but says “we are working directly with Google on dramatically speeding this up for release 2.0.” Other enhancements in the works for coming updates include displaying maps and search results in landscape mode, the ability to input zip codes to search in other locations, as well as support for listings in the UK and Canada, and possibly other countries down the road.

Job Compass sells for $3.99 on the iTunes AppStore, which, if you’ve just lost your job or are interested in finding a new one, could prove to be a worthy investment.

Low End Mac figures their time is now.

With the economy exuding the stench of death and government busy creating trillions of dollars worth of fictional capital to “bail out” some of the nation’s brand-name institutions, Low End Mac believes their philosophy of “use it up, wear it out, and then recycle it” could not be more timely.

“We are the kings of making our computers last, last, and last some more,” writes blogger John Hatchett in a great piece describing how he turned his old iMac into a digital jukebox. With a little bit of drive cloning and hooking the iMac up to his home stereo, he now listens to his iTunes library all over his house.

Via Low End Mac

Those were the days, my friend, we thought they’d never end…

That whole Solitaire thing seems pretty quaint now, doesn’t it?

Via Edible Apple, via Married to the Sea

iFrogz, developer of accessories for iPod and iPhone announced the availability of its first line of customizable earphones Tuesday, claiming to offer over 200,000 unique possibilities among three new products.

I could think of any number of words to describe what may be going on in the marketing department at the company’s Logan, UT headquarters, but they can certainly be said to think different.

For starters, the product line is called EarPollution, with individual offerings named Hype, Fallout and Nerve Pipes. The whole campaign calls to mind some kind of industrial accident rather than a new wave of must-have items in the over-saturated earphone market. Then again, standing out from the crowd is a definite strategy.

And stand out the iFrogz headsets do, too. From the ultra-bling options available on the Nerve Pipes to the slightly more downbeat style of Fallout (both over-ear) and the low-profile, in-ear Hype, users can customize color and artwork for headbands, speakers, earpds, even hinges (on Nerve Pipes), giving them what iFrogz CEO Scott Huskinson calls “complete creative control to develop something truly unique and original.”

Styles retail from $19.99 for the Hype earbuds, and $34.99 for both the Fallout and Nerve Pipes. Despite the estimated 235,000 unique combinations currently available the company promises more customizable options will become available at a later date.

Ahead of what is likely the most nervously anticipated Holiday Season for retailers in more than a generation, Apple joined the Black Friday bandwagon Tuesday, announcing a “one-day-only holiday shopping event” for the day after Thanksgiving.

Subscribers to Apple’s Inside Apple News received an email Tuesday announcing the company’s “biggest shopping event of the year” and visitors to the Apple online store found promises of “dozens of great iPod, iPhone and Mac gift ideas” good for Friday only. No word yet on what Friday’s pricing is going to look like or what items in the catalog will be on sale.

Now that Apple holds such a prominent place in the retail trade the company should be expected to follow many of the industry’s marketing rituals, but it’s probably a safe bet they are a little less nervous in Cupertino than in, say, Minneapolis (home of Best Buy) or Bentonville, Ark. (world headquarters of Wal-Mart).

Green is the new black. And once again Apple is in the forefront, for better or worse, of a coming trend. It’s hard to imagine any technology company having the stones to advertise its products as good for the environment, which, to be fair, Apple doesn’t say here.

But the ad does tout the new notebook line’s aluminum enclosures and glass screens as 100% recyclable, points out that their power consumption is less than that of a light bulb and says they are mercury free. All steps in the right direction, to be sure.

Here’s a gallery of a dozen very cool Apple/Mac wallpapers you can use to liven up your desktop or simply go for a change of scenery. These were sent in by reader Henrik Andersson, who blogs for We Find the Stuff and found these at deviantArt, where there’s even more to be found.

You can see Henrik’s original posting here.

You don’t need to be in holiday stress mode to realize the zen benefits of playing with Koi Pond on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Tis the Season, however, and the dev team at The Blimp Pilots studio have added a holiday theme for your added enjoyment of one of the best apps I’ve seen to leverage the awesomeness that is Apple’s touch interface and accelerometer.

Koi Pond is an application with a graphically realistic pond filled with Koi fish. You can move your finger around the screen to create ripples in the water that send the fish scurrying for safety off the screen. You can rearrange the lily pads, feed the fish, even get them to come and nibble your finger by leaving it in the water. The app has beautiful 3D sound, too and rates, for my money, among the best bucks I’ve ever spent.

On the Apple Store website, it seems clear your choices among the iPod Touch offerings are 8GB, 16GB and 32GB models. Alerted by a photo posted by Flickr user iTomath, however, I was drawn to the What’s New with iTouch info page on the Apple site and, sure enough, the photo on the page as of this writing appears to indicate a 33GB device. Not that 1GB makes any difference in this day and age, but it does seem odd, doesn’t it?

A few weeks back, we featured a post on design student Kyle Buckner’s wooden iPhone pedestal. Kyle contacted us today with news and info on his latest Apple-inspired creation, a custom timepiece commissioned by the Apple Store in Richmond, VA for one of their special customers.

Buckner built the clock over the weekend, using hand-cut and polished plexi-glass. “I went out and bought a clock , and stole the motor out of it,” he told Cult of Mac, adding “then I searched on the internet and found a free background that referred to Apple, edited a few things in Photoshop and printed them out to attach underneath each piece.”

Check out the gallery below and follow after the jump for more on Buckner’s background and plans for the future in Apple-inspired design.

If you want to use a racy photo as your iPhone wallpaper it will have to be strictly DIY now that Wallpaper Universe has been pulled from the AppStore.

Some will say this turn of events confirms Steve Jobs’ promise to keep ‘porn’ off the iPhone. Others point out that it highlights the inscrutability of Apple’s review process for selecting what does, and what doesn’t make it into the AppStore catalog.

Leaving aside for the moment the question of whether Apple should retain exclusive gatekeeper authority over apps that can be legitimately run on the iPhone, many would be satisfied if the process for AppStore certification was more transparent, according to MG Siegler, writing for Venture Beat.

Last weekend’s snafu over the release of Google’s voice search update, the punting of approved apps on a third update, debacles such as the I Am Rich app – all raise legitimate questions over the capriciousness of Apple’s distribution of tickets to the big show.

Via Industry Standard

Have you loaded up so many apps on your iPhone you’re now pushing the nine screen limit? Do you ever want to just get back to your home Home screen and wish you didn’t have to start swiping screens back across the phone face?

The latest update to iPhone software 2.2 has a nice little feature built in that will take you home – just push the “Home” button.

So simple. Surprising, actually it took ’em this many updates to load that one in, but thanks, Apple!

One of the iPhone’s great uses is as a pocket reference. So much information can be stored on it and accessed immediately, with flair and panache, no less.

Now this capability extends to the world of vintage wine, with the Wine Vintage Card app. For $2 you can have up to date information on the past decade’s wine production in every major wine region of the world at your fingertips. And where some impressions of people who know and love wine conjure visions of stuffiness and seriousness, this app uses an easy to read and understand emoticon system to confirm whether that ’03 Cabernet from Napa deserves a premium over the ’03 Bordeaux.

The card doesn’t break information down by individual producers, nor does it go back to vintages prior to 1998, but what do you want for two bucks?

Via MacsimumNews

The HP TouchSmart laptop computer will get attention from curiosity seekers when it debuts on November 28 because it is the first consumer-grade full touch-screen-capable notebook computer. If you watch the video demoing the the device above, however, you’d be forgiven for thinking HP may be in a bit of an awkward position once the actual sales numbers from this product start to get tallied.

Watch how taking advantage of the touch screen’s functionality requires two hands – one to hold the open screen steady at the side or the base, and another to actually perform the touch gestures on the screen. It also seems from this demo (which is apparently not a final release version of the product) the screen is not especially sensitive to touch gestures, that many “commands” have to be “repeated” twice and three times before the screen registers them. The screen itself is high-gloss and, well, I know how I feel about finger oils on a glossy glass surface. If these machines do end up taking off for some reason, there ought to be a bull market in screen wipes.

When Apple introduced the iPhone in June 2007 it rocked the mobile computing world almost as much as it rocked the mobile phone world. And with the launch of the AppStore this past summer, Apple’s business and iPhone software development exploded, with both continuing to outpace a clearly struggling global economy.

I don’t expect HP is going to have nearly the impact iPhone has had, despite introducing the kind of product many have been clamoring for from Apple.

No one waits until after Thanksgiving any more to start thinking about and marketing Christmas, so why wait to get your iPhone Christmas Advent Calendar?

Available now from developers Gourmet Pixel, the 24 Days app greets the user upon first opening the application with a countdown to December 1st.

Once into December, you’re able to open each relevant window and in return, receive an interactive gift, which culminates to a spectacular interactive finale on Christmas Eve.

“A lot of the standard individual elements built into 24 Christmas Days are actually being sold in a separated form by other developers as single apps,” says Darren Lynch, a Director at Gourmet Pixel. He adds, “our app can also be used year after year, so it really is cost effective. While it ticks all the boxes, in terms of classic Christmas imagery, watch out for some special surprises that our development team has added –œ it’s a real Christmas treat!”

An anonymous tipster pointed us to this photo, posted anonymously on the web, of Woz on his Segway at the urinal. There’s just no place left to hide, is there?

Via