If you’re anything like me, now that you’ve pre-ordered your new iPad, you’ll be obsessing over its order status. You know it’s not going to arrive until March 16, but once every hour you’ll logon to the Apple online store to see how your package is getting on anyway.
It’s even easier to do this with the free Apple Store app for iPhone. Here’s how.
Along with announcing the new iPad and Apple TV (and related iOS and app updates), Apple released a new tool for managing iOS devices in business and education. The new Apple Configurator app is a free download in the Mac App Store for Macs running Lion. Although it takes the sting out of managing iPads, iPhones, and iPod touches for smaller organizations, it won’t replace more full feature mobile management solutions for mid-size or larger companies.
Apple introduced its new A5X processor in the third-generation iPad yesterday, and based on the company’s previous moves, we’re expecting the chip to appear in its next iPhone. However, that may not be the case. According to analysts, the chip requires too much power to be used in the iPhone, and Apple will need to create a more power-efficient chip with a new manufacturing process for its next smartphone.
One of Apple’s biggest announcements yesterday — apart from something about some new iPad — was iPhoto for iOS. We’d suspected that Apple would fill in the hole in its iLife suite, and we were right. What we weren’t expecting was something as fully featured as iPhoto turned out to be. That said, it seems the app was really built with the iPad 3 in mind: It works great on the iPad 2, but it’s a little glitchy in places: just like its desktop cousin.
Get your catapults ready: Angry Birds Seasons is back, and this time the 15 new levels are set in Japan. But not the Japan that you or I might visit. This is a Japan populated with pigs wearing rope headbands, nestled amongst giant maki rolls and set in the shadow of the giant Mount Fuji.
If there’s a buzzword for here at the first CITE Conference, it would have to be trust. Virtually every discussion I’ve had over the past two days has boiled down to the level of trust between IT and users.
Trust may be the foundation of all healthy human relationships, but it isn’t something that comes easily to IT professionals in the workplace. That’s the underlying tension that IT staffers have when it comes to the consumerization of IT. It isn’t about devices or public cloud services. It’s about trusting the users that you support.
Did you know that the Calculator app built into iOS has a hidden swipe gesture that allows you to delete those digits that you tap accidentally? No, neither did I until this morning, when I discovered this nifty little backspace trick by accident.
I picked up my first iPhone around three months after the device launched way back in 2007, and I’ve been an iPhone user ever since. I’ve dabbled with Android devices throughout the years, and I even tried webOS on the HP Pre, but I didn’t like either operating system as much as I like iOS on the iPhone.
When Microsoft first introduced Windows Phone, I was instantly attracted to it. I liked the look of the user interface, I liked the way the system worked, and I actually liked the fact that Microsoft was in control of the Windows Phone Marketplace. (One of the things that I dislike most about Android is that the Android Market has no approval process.) I’m not a fan of the Windows desktop operating system, and I’ve stayed as far away from it as possible after purchasing my first Mac. But I felt compelled to try Windows Phone.
So I did. I swapped my iPhone for a HTC TITAN running Windows Phone Mango for one month. Here’s how I got on.
IOS runs HTML5 games a crazy three times faster than Android, according to a study by Spaceport.io. The tests were run on various hardware and software combinations, both for Android and iOS, and the results are pretty startling. And there’s an even more amusing data point: The Blackberry Playbook beat every Android device.
Nerds who use Omni Group’s kick-ass task manager Omnifocus have a little bit of good news today. No, you still can’t export due tasks to a Google calendar shared with coworkers. You can, however, rely on the new non-beta status of the Omni Sync Server, which gets its official launch today. That’s not all: Sync is coming to all Omni’s apps.
The IDAPT i1 Eco Universal Charger ($25) aims to be your charge-every-device portable charger. But this is one instance where bigger is indeed not better.
The consumerization of IT is about more than just a handful of users bringing their own devices into the office. That’s the big take away from the first morning here the CITE Conference in San Francisco. The real story is that movement may have started out with people taking their iPads to work and and checking Twitter throughout the workday, but it has become something much much greater.
At heart, this movement isn’t so much about devices, social networks, or cloud services – it’s about how these technologies have changed the relationship that people have with technology. Apple and other companies have made most people comfortable with technology and shown them an experience of solutions that just work.
We’ve got another great Cult of Mac Deals lined up for our readers this time around, offering 7 inspiring Mac apps for only $50 that will help you take your ideas from concept to reality with elegance and ease.
Among the apps you’ll get as part of The Mac Designer Bundle is acclaimed calendar app Fantastical, the stellar website creation tool RapidWeaver 5 and the time-saving keyboard shortcut tool, KeyCue. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!
If you love Apple and LEGOs then here’s a project you’ll want to get behind – The Lego Modular Apple Store. With roughly 800 pieces, the Lego Modular Apple Store seeks to replicate your shopping experience by helping Lego fans build an Apple Store replete with iPhones, iPads, iPods, MacBooks, iMacs, and even a little Steve Jobs Lego man.
See those two batteries in the image above? They were both taken from Apple’s iPhone 3GS. The one on the right ballooned within the device, causing it to literally burst at the seams, breaking the device’s plastic shell, pulling apart its metal bezel, and even popping its screws. Could this happen to your iPhone, too?
Apple issued a press release this morning to confirm that more than 25 billion apps have now been downloaded from its “revolutionary” App Store by more than 315 million iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches worldwide. The company also announced the lucky winner of its $10,000 iTunes gift card.
Apple is yet to strike a deal with China Mobile over the iPhone, but that hasn’t stopped the Cupertino company from supporting China Mobile customers who want to use its latest smartphone with the carrier unofficially. Just a month after Apple confirmed that the iPhone 4S has issues with China Mobile SIM cards, it has fixed the device to eliminate signal issues.
A man bought what he thought was an iPhone in an electronics plaza in Zhengzhou. But when he found out it was fake, he grabbed a kitchen knife and went back to the plaza to find the seller.
After coming back every day for several days unsuccessfully finding the seller, he found another group of counterfeit iPhone sellers, got into an argument and ending up stabbing one of them to death.
Is Apple getting into the car business? No, Apple isn’t building a car. But it makes perfect sense that Apple would be working on an in-dash system.
The car blog Jalopnik said this week that a Chinese head-hunting firm is apparently helping Apple hire someone expert in the manufacturing of car parts. The recruiter apparently placed the position in the automotive section of LinkedIn. The listing said:
“Apple(China) Looking for SQE/NPI with over 4 years Mechanical engineering background familiar with CNC/die casting/stamping/plastic injection, can use APQP/ PPAP/SPC to control product quality.”
PatentlyApple.com has reported over the years multiple patents held by Apple for in-car user interfaces.
The circumstantial evidence suggests that Apple is at least thinking about getting serious about the automotive dashboard business.
And getting into the car business just makes sense for Apple. Here’s why.
Did you know Cult of Mac has a brand new podcast? No lies! We’re calling it The CultCast, and it’s the best 30 minute conversation you’ll hear about Apple all week long.
And wouldn’t you know it, we just released episode two into the wild! Join Leander Kahney, Buster Heine, and me, Erfon Elijah, as we yay and nay our way though all the iPad 3 rumors you’ve been hearing; ponder how Apple’s stock price could make it to $1000 per share; and argue about whether AT&T should be allowed to throttle those of us with unlimited iPhone data plans.
Sound tasty? Well dig in my friend! You can subscribe to The CultCast right now in iTunes and listen to episode two on your way to work!
TidyTilt is a nifty earbud cord wrap, multi-position kickstand and mount for iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S that looks a lot like Apple’s iPad Smartcover.
The brainchild of Zahra Tashakorinia and Derek Tarnow, students at the IIT Institute of Design in Chicago, TidyTilt was so popular that its massive overfunding on Kickstarter turned their little project into a business.
The iPhone and iPad have been core players in the so-called consumerization of IT. This trend that is transforming whole industries is both a challenge and an opportunity for IT professionals, managers, and individuals in just about every field out there.
The first ever Consumerization of IT in the Enterprise (CITE) conference and expo as it kicks off this weekend in San Francisco. The conference is a unique opportunity to hear from IT and business leaders from every industry was well as vendors, experts, and end users that have jumped in and seized the reins of this new workplace phenomenon. On tap will be stories about innovation, case studies in successful mobile initiatives, and much more.
Germany has become quite the hotbed for patent lawsuits lately as it’s been in the spotlight for the Apple vs Motorola Mobility legal battle. As the legal war rages on, a new ruling has found that Motorola did indeed violate Apple’s EU Patent No. EP2059868 on a “portable electronic device for photo management”. The patent in question basically fixes over scrolling by bouncing the user back a bit once they’ve zoomed in too far, and even though this patent is software specific, it may have repercussions on Motorola’s hardware if they don’t come up with a fix quickly.
Apple’s stock price has soared to astronomical heights over the last 18 months. Yesterday Apple stock closed at another record high and the company become more valuable than the GDP of Poland. But how high can Apple’s stock keep climbing? Well according to Apple’s co-Founder, Steve Wozniak, Apple stock will continue to soar for quite sometime.
One of the big trends at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has been announcements regarding NFC. While NFC has been supported in a handful of Android phones and BlackBerry models, till now there haven’t been many real-world applications for it. With several announcements around NFC, the technology’s time may be finally be coming.
Despite rumors, Apple has never shown an interest in adopting NFC in the iPhone or iPad. Could Apple’s lack of NFC support could stick out like a sore thumb despite the fact that it managed to upstage every company at MWC with yesterday’s iPad 3 event announcement.