Nicole Martinelli - page 46

Artist David Scott Leibowitz — whose impressionistic works for the iPhone were recently featured on CoM — teamed up with developer Andrew C. Stone for an app billed as the first mobile iPhone art gallery.

Called iCreated, the app ($.99 for the first week, $1.99 after that) comes preloaded with 18 works by Leibowitz. Other artists, like Russ Croop, who like to use the iPhone are also featured — and all of the works tell you what was used to make them, should you want to try your hand. Users can upload their own doodles to the public gallery and save or email them.

While the iCreated selection can’t trump sites like Poolga, which offers hundreds of slick wallpapers from designers and illustrators gratis, compared to some paid iPhone wallpaper apps it offers a little push to try some art of your own and share it.

So if you’ve downloaded Brushes, were inspired by the New Yorker cover, now’s the time to get busy.

Always on the lookout for cheap, do-it-yourself iPhone crafts, this combo stand/charger dock from a stack of old CDs is one more way to prop up your device without depleting your wallet.

Jules made it from CDs (you’ll need about 15 total), he notes that you can use DVDs, too and that the dock will work for iPods as well.

The iPhone stands tall over the shiny stack of CDs while plugged into the charging cord.
The CD stand is bit more challenging to make than the rubber band and pencil version we wrote about awhile back — you’ll need a small rotary tool to cut the CDs so you can anchor the charging cord properly — but a nice way to do something with those old CDs.

Full how-to at Geeky Gadgets

This mini Time Capsule Candle is the handiwork of a Japanese Apple fan, and, as far as we can figure out with google translate, was cast from two aluminum shells.

Not quite a DIY for dummies project, but love the end result. Burning your candle at one end never looked so good.

Via Blog! Nobon

Language app iLingua is keeping down prices for summer, one dictionary/phrase book will set you back $1.99 on iTunes.

The Spanish language demo looks promising: words or phrases have images to make connecting the dots easy. The woman speaks very slowly, which is good for learning, thought it may sound a little silly if you cow out and just play a phrase like, “Hey this room is way too small” to a native speaker.

Background music on a loop is distracting and makes the sounds harder to hear, not clear whether you can turn that off or it’s just a demo thing.

Available in Russian, German, Chinese (Mandarin) and Japanese — would’ve loved to have this for last year’s trip to Shanghai, where trying to get a restaurant reservation from the concierge (in what seemed slow, careful English) elicited nervous laughter and frustration all around…
We’ve written about using language/dictionary iPhone apps on the job —  have you used one traveling?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7uhO3bM6jw

Apple hired Academy Award-nominated director David Fincher (Seven, Fight Club and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) to show off the latest iPhone in its TV ad debut.

Titled “break in,” (a nod to how most folks got iPhone video capability before the 3S?) the 30-second spot highlights the video angle and hints at other “amazing new features.”

Via Slashfilm

What goes around comes around: a ring of disk jockeys have been charged with running a six-figure iTunes scam.
Nine British djs allegedly used 1,500 stolen or cloned credit cards to buy their own tracks to the tune of £500,000 (USD $815,000). They were paid £185,000 (USD $300,000) in royalties before getting caught.

The fake buys also boosted them up higher in the iTunes sales rankings, generating further buzz and more royalties. It all started in September, when the DJs used American music distributor TuneCore to get their music on iTunes.

The scam played out with the police in London in New York about three months later after Apple got hit with ‘stop payment’ orders from credit card companies, saying accounts were fraudulent.

The DJs, ages 19 to 41, were arrested in London and the Midlands on suspicion of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering.

Via Metro UK

The latest iPod shuffle is arguably too small to need a case to keep it from harm, but the folks at Scosche devised a case with external controls — so you can plug in other headphones instead of relying on the originals.

Available in black or white in early July,  tapStick slips over the iPod and, though the design doesn’t do much justice to the original, it allows you to control the device sans headphones. Tapstick also comes with a three-foot aux cord, for playlist goodness in the car.

It’ll set you back $30 from Scosche.

Via Coolest Gadgets

An Arizona man with a video business wonders whether  indiscreet Tweets cost him a Mac Book Pro,  plus monitors and printer while on vacation.

“My wife thinks it could be a random thing, but I just have my suspicions,” Israel Hyman told the AP. “They didn’t take any of our normal consumer electronics.”

While he and his wife were on a trip to Kansas City, Hyman sent updates to around 2,000 followers on Twitter.

The timely thieves left behind an Xbox 360, a Wii and, fortunately, the Drobo where his Time Machine backup was housed. His later tweets note that they also left  a “too old” Macbook Pro behind — well, at least he has something to work on while police search for the criminals.

It’s hard to know police will be able to pin the crime to Twitter but keeping schtum about going on vacation — whether digitally or verbally — is kind of common sense.

What’s your social media vacation policy?

These iPhone sleeves sport pop-art goodness in the form of Campbell’s soup labels.

Hand made out of recycled  tablecloths — vinyl outside, soft batting inside — at $5  on Etsy, it would be hard to find a cheaper conversation starter. We’re guessing Andy would approve.

Via iPhone Savior

Mac and PC prepare to duke it out on this T-shirt touting a 15-round “Hasta la Vista” title fight, presented by Don Gates and King Jobs.

Like all big showdowns, the competitors face off with fightin’ words that will have people staring at your chest and chuckling, in a good way.

Designed by Reece Ward it costs $24 at Red Bubble.

Via Geeky Gadgets

These handmade cards have the clamshell form of the iBook with a pretty realistic-looking  keyboard and  “Happy Birthday” greetings on the screen.

Maker Cadizcards says, “All the glory of the Mac cult favorite, sendable with a first class stamp. I created one of these as a birthday card for a die hard fan of the clamshell Macs and fell in love with them myself.”
Wish there was a non-birthday version with a white screen (like the real thing) to write on,  can think of a lot of people and occasions for these…

$12 for a set of three on Etsy (one each blue, aqua and lime), including envelopes. Custom colors available.

Kudos to Remy over at TGR for rounding up all the rumors about the next iPhone heading into WWDC with an easy-to-read infographic.

The legend lower right tells you what the probability of these changes will be from his point of view plus a source list of links for the rumors so you can decide for yourself.

We won’t know for sure until Apple’s worldwide developers conference kicks off June 8, but what do you think are the chances it’ll have a luminous logo (in this chart deemed “unlikely”),  improved camera (“very likely” ) and $199-$299 price points (“very likely”) ?

Via Device

Tech buffs can delve into Silicon Valley history by perusing Apple Computer’s first business plan and IPO documents.

The 1977 38-page IPO filing, done in a typewriter-y font with the odd punctuation issue, lists management as the fourth risk factor for potential investors:  “Apple Computers’ Management team is young and relatively in-experienced in the high volume consumer electronics business.”

And would you put money into a company headed by these key execs?

*  “S.P. Jobs, V.P. Operations, Attended Stanford and Reed College, Engineer – Atari – 2 Yrs”
* “S.G. Wozniak, V.P. Engineering, Attended University of Colorado and University of California at Berkley [sic], Engr. Tennant – 1 Yr., Engr. Electroglass – 1 Yr., Engr. – Hewlett-Packard – 3 Yrs.”

The IPO document was donated to the Computer History Museum by original Apple investor Mike Markkula, who saw massive potential in the green startup. In 1977, Steve Jobs met with Markkula and convinced him that personal computers were an exciting opportunity. Markkula invested $250,000 in Apple for a one-third stake in the company and served as president from 1981 to 1983.

A pair of theives “armed” only with a toddler to distract employees walked out of a SuperTarget with an iPod Touch. Police are still looking for the man and woman who snatched the device in a Boynton Beach, Florida store.

In the security cam footage, you can see the man talking to a sales associate in the foreground, then a woman comes along with a toddler (around 1:30) and asks a question. While the sales associate looks up, the man takes the iPod touch, an 8g model valued at $230.

Police hope the video footage will help ID the pair, you can contact them by calling Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-8477 (TIPS).

Via Palm Beach Post

After Jorge Colombo’s iPhone art was featured on the cover of the New Yorker, it seems everyone wants to get their fingers in the pie.

The Brushes app Colombo used to finger paint a late-night scene in Manhattan sold 2,700 copies when the cover debuted Monday, earning slightly over $13,000.  It usually sells around 60-70 copies a day.

“A painting app seemed like a natural fit for the iPhone,” 32-year-old Brushes developer Steve Sprang told the NYT Bits blog.  “You’re touching the screen, so it’s a natural step to want to draw on it.”

Sprang said the results dwarfed when Brushes was chosen as the app of the day on iTunes and that the app had sold 40,000 copies to date, earning him six figures.

If you’re itchy to get busy with fancy fingerwork, Sprang has knocked the price down a buck, to $3.99, in honor of the New Yorker cover.

Via Bits

A university in Japan is giving out hundreds of iPhones to students, in part to keep truants in check with the GPS system.

Aoyama Gakuin University is handing out 550 3G iPhones to those enrolled in the School of Social Informatics and, much like its growing use in other colleges, it’ll be used as a research tool (press release in Japanese, or semi-comprehensible  Google-translated English) and to give out information on class schedules and lectures.

Attendance is a key requirement for graduation in Japan, the AP reports, so the cat-and-mouse game of skipping class and getting someone to sign-in for you or put a hand up during roll call is rampant. The school plans to give out another 500 iPhones for a total of 1,000 to complete the program after a test phase.

Not sure how effective this will be. Students who are determined to sleep in or play hooky could hand the iPhone to a friend and get on with it.  Seems easier, and in some ways less deceitful, than getting someone to pretend they’re you or fake a signature.

Would you take the free iPhone in exchange for being monitored?

Photo from the iPhone project press conference courtesy @ Aoyama Gakuin University

Via AP

Engineer and programmer Steve Capps, who worked on Lisa, the Finder and Macintosh system utilities, talks about his work on the original Macintosh team with the guys at RetroMac Cast in a two-part podcast (episodes 115 and 116).

Capps got started by automating a library in college, then went to do the same at Xerox before landing at Apple in 1981. He was chosen to work for the Mac team because he had “the right chops at the right time.” Capps was working on a printer drive for the Lisa team, when Steve Jobs lost interest in Lisa and put the steam behind the Mac, calling Capps over.

“Great to talk about the old glory days,” Capps, who went on to work on Internet Explorer and MSN Explorer, said.

Via Newton Poetry

US college students and teachers who buy a Mac get an iPod Touch thrown in a back-to-school promotion. (Fine print: you have to buy before Sept. 8 and shell out the cash for the iPod touch, which you get back via rebate. Full details here.)

The ad shows a cheerful student  whose iPod Touch displays “Monopoly” but with the iPod Touch being used more frequently in colleges for orientation,  class lectures and in some cases required or in place of textbooks having one is becoming less of a plus and more of a necessity.

Via Mac Daily News

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMtOKvJFetk

Maybe old iPods turned into sequencers only sound good at 2 am, as the guys who made these one late night admit.

But maybe not. This nifty 16-step sequencers with sounds from iconic video game Mario  + bass use pdPod on iPodLinux; if you want re-purpose your old iPod this way, check out the re-ware project, then let us know if your sounds are worthy of daytime broadcast.

Via Make

Consumer Electronics Show (CES) organizers have supersized the iPod and iPhone showcase at the January 2010 event. The next iLounge Pavilion will offer over six times the floorspace dedicated to Apple accessories and software sellers, from 4,000 square feet to 25,000 square feet.

In a press release, Jeremy Horwitz, Editor-in-Chief of iLounge.com and co-sponsor of the iLounge Pavilion said the 525% space increase is due to the surge in iPhone and iPod touch popularity from the App store. It also probably has to do with Apple’s decision to pull out of Macworld and Macworld’s move to February.

Signed up companies so far include Griffin Technology, Scosche, Incase Designs, iSkin, Incipio Technologies, Jaybird Gear, MusicSkins and AAMP of America.

Via MacWorld

This handmade set of two cotton applique pillows inspired by Mac keys is a nice way to put some fandom in your living room or office lounge without going overboard. Specify your initial on the letter key pillow to personalize.

$65 for the set on Etsy.

One million potential iPhone developers downloaded Stanford’s dev course since it started in April. The 10-week course from the Palo Alto university’s school of engineering is offered gratis on iTunes.

Steve Demeter, the founder of Demiforce and maker of the popular Trism iPhone game, spoke to the class Monday, the SF Chronicle reported, and touched on the opportunities and growing challenges of developing for the iPhone.

Demeter earned $250,000 in the first two months of Trism but acknowledged his good luck in breaking through early and having the support of Apple, two things that most developers now can’t count on.
You can still catch the video lectures of about an hour long each are available here.

Screenshot from Steve Marmon’s May 8 lecture, courtesy Stanford, iTunes.

Via SF Chronicle

CC-licensed photo by David Paul Ohmer.

In an effort to reach out to young, tech-savvy Catholics, the Holy See will launch an iPhone app to coincide with its World Communications Day, celebrated May 24.

The Vatican app was created by Father Paolo Padrini, the priest who developed iBrevary, an app that puts morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayers on the iPhone and a Facebook application called Praybook.

“The pope is inviting us to promote a culture of dialogue, of respect and friendship, especially among young people,” Archbishop Claudio Celli told Catholic News.

The initiative to put the Pope in your pocket comes after  the Vatican youtube channel and will launch from a website (not yet live) called www.pope2you.net. So far the app lets people send and receive “virtual postcards” of Pope Benedict along with inspiring excerpts from the pope’s various speeches.  No word on whether its gratis or, like the iBreviary, will cost $.99.

Would you download the Vatican app?

Via Catholic News

This steampunked iPod is the handiwork of Neal Bridgens , a Toronto-based retoucher and illustrator, who noticed that a piece of copper tubing on his workbench fit perfectly around the rounded edges of an iPod.

From there, Bridgens told CoM that he spent “many, many hours” in this labor of love over the last year building the case from materials he had on hand.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WI0Gie7Jn_8

This isn’t the first Apple ad out after Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunter” campaign, but this one responds directly to the ads where pseudo-everyday consumers shop around and pick PCs over Macs.

Here Megan stands between hip the Mac guy and a line of brown-suited PCs — like a dating game show? —   while she talks about her (computer) needs.

The PCs who don’t fit the bill file out but some are still lining up to win her affection until she says, “I just want something that works, without a lot of viruses or a ton of headaches.”

Leaving her alone with  Mac Man. Cute couple.

Is the promise of long-term stability with little drama enough to combat the price claim made by the Microsoft ads?

Via Silicon Valley Insider