The Internet is a weird place. According to the New York Times, the above fake iPod Touch commercial put together by 18-year-old Mac fan Nick Haley will be remade and launched as the first actual ad for the flagship iPod on Sunday. The incredibly well-made commercial uses shots of the Touch in use timed to “Music is my Hot, Hot Sex” by CSS, which used the line “My music is where I’d like you to touch.”
Do Classic applications work with Mac OS X 10.5 or Intel-based Macs? Classic applications do not work on Intel processor-based Macs or with Mac OS X 10.5.
That’s sorted, then. Ow. Who’s still using Classic on a daily basis and will miss it?
Do Classic applications work with Mac OS X 10.5 or Intel-based Macs?
Image via Trans-USA
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In addition to VOIP, the iPhone SDK may give programmers access to the iPhone’s motion sensors, which may result in all kinds of interesting motion-activated controls.
For example, hacker Erling Ellingsen has already built three homemade iPhone applications that are controlled by tilting, rotating or shaking the iPhone.
Ellingsen’s three demo apps are a virtual Steve Jobs bobble-head that bobs its head when the phone is shaken; a maze that is navigated by tipping and turning the phone; and a virtual box of balls that roll and bounce as he rotates the phone.
In the real world, there might kinds of interesting possibilities for game developers — think handheld portable Wii.
See Ellingsen’s impressive video:
Hackers Open iPod Touch and iPhone To 3rd-Party Apps [Engadget]
Guide to Unlocked, Open-Source Touchscreen Phones [Wired News]
Dev Team A Few Steps Away From Re-Unlocking iPhone [TouchDev]
A guide to what’s new in the Mac OS X Leopard Finder (AppleInsider, pictured)
Man Files Class-Action Lawsuit Over iPhone Bricking (ArsTechnica)
Other Man Claims iPod nano Set His Pants on Fire (NetworkWorld)
Apple Stock Hits $167 a Share — For No Reason (Daring Fireball)
Why I Won’t Buy an iPhone (BusinessWeek)
Apple Classifies Windows a Virus (Flickr)
Leopard Could Add $240 Million in Revenue in Q4 (Fortune)
Anti-Caps Lock Feature in new Apple Keyboards is Hardware-Based (Rentzsch)
The iPhone 1.1.1 firmware Apple unleashed a bit more than a week ago has wreaked havoc on anyone interested in doing more with the iPhone than its manufacturer wants them to. Unlocked phones were closed down and rendered useless. Third-party applications were deleted and prevented from re-installing. It was back to Square 1.1.1 as soon as the update dropped.
But all is not lost. According to Engadget, the hackers who first broke into the iPhone have done it again — and this time they got into the iPod Touch, too. For the time-being, third-party apps are back on the table, so fire up your NES emulators! No one has installed the Mail application on an iPod Touch that has been reported, nor Weather or the other left-out apps. I’ll let you know if I hear anything. The exploit relies on a security hole using TIFF image files that cause Mobile Safari to freak out and open a back door. This TIFF issue has been fixed elsewhere, however, so this won’t last forever. Any new firmware would probably close the loop again. Cat, mouse. Mouse, cat.
David Early, a MacRumors member, shot off an e-mail to Apple complaining about a number of limitations on the device, such as its lack of disk mode, incompatibility with older iPod games, and crippled Calendar application that doesn’t allow the creation or editing of new events. And he actually got a reply, signed by Steve Jobs (though possibly composed by an assistant of his) that ignores most of Dave’s questions but speaks directly to the Calendar issue, which he says will be fixed via software update soon. Click on the thumbnail to read the full note.
It’s pretty awesome. Anyone else ever get an actual e-mail back from Steve?
Via Digg.
As expected, ZuneScene notes that Microsoft took a card from Apple’s playbook and made a big product announcement on a Tuesday. Brace yourselves, people. It’s Zune 2 time! OH, YEAH! Outrageous! Now with the same capacity as the iPod classic, only with a “squircle” interface that sucks way more than a clickwheel! And it costs the same price! BOOYA! And wait for it, homes, there’s now a Zune with flash memory, at the same price and size as an old iPod nano! POW!
In all seriousness, this is seriously underwhelming stuff. Once again, the only feature Microsoft is using to try to stand out from the iPod is WiFi, specifically wireless music, video and photo syncing. Which might be fairly exciting, were it not for the fact that, you know, Apple just rolled out the iPod Touch, which also offers WiFi web browsing. That’s a slightly more appealing WiFi feature for the vast majority of the population.
I am pleasantly surprised to see that Microsoft had the insight to translate Xbox Gamer Cards, which are major points of pride for Xbox Live maniacs, into Zune Cards, which will be embeddable on message boards and websites to show off recent music choices and even let other people listen to top songs. It’s way more compelling than the initial WiFi sharing they dubbed “the Social.” And now, songs transferred that way last forever, not just three days. They can still only get played three times, however.
ZuneScene thinks that the Squircle interface might one day be used as a directional pad for games on the Zune. That would be more interesting if there were complementary buttons on the other side for action and full gaming. I think most people will stick with playing the iPhone NES emulator.
All in all, this is far from a real threat to the iPod’s dominance. It’s profoundly unimaginative and just barely improves on the first Zune and does little more than match the low end of Apple’s line-up. It’s almost sad.
Target is exclusively offering this pink iPod shuffle, benefiting the Breast Cancer Research Foundation, in its physical stores now. As you can see, it includes a $15 iTunes card. And it only costs $79, like a normal iPod shuffle but with more. What’s not to love? Unless you hate pink, I mean.
Via AppleInsider
A couple of things that didn’t quite fit into my analysis of Amazon’s new MP3 service that I find interesting and/or ironic.
Woz’s apparent girlfriend, Kathy Griffin, recently went on Larry King Live to talk about controversial remarks she made at the smaller awards ceremony that precede the main Primetime Emmy Awards. In the clip pasted above, she talks about her relationship with Woz, and the couple’s appearance on the red carpet is shown. Check it out.
By Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen, the Carphone Warehouse has a page up about the Royal iPhone.
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Following reports of Apple’s cutthroat tactics with potential UK wireless carriers, Steve Jobs said a great quote about corporate partnerships.
“Partnerships take a lot of work – you want to go out on a few dates before you get married. Yes, we dated a few people but didn’t get married… and so there were a few unhappy girlfriends out there.”
Link.
The same day that a friendly Mac-head uploaded some unboxing pictures of his new iPod Touch, he also got the notion to shoot video of the iPhone-without-a-phone. It’s kind of what you would expect: A lot of swooping icons, scrolling on touch, video playing, the accelerometer not detecting an orientation shift…
It’s absolutely beautiful, though. If someone figures out Skype for this thing, it could be the greatest telecom network-free communication device ever built. It’s interesting to note that the iTunes Store Mobile didn’t finish loading in the video. Since this is over WiFi, I can only cringe to imagine an iPhone trying to download a song over EDGE…
Anybody out there already got a Touch? Do you ever leave the house now?
Via Engadget
God bless Andy Ihnatko. He’s America’s finest geek humorist.
Via Daring Fireball
We’ve known the new iPods for just a week, but they’re already getting a bit too familiar. The guys over at iFixit performed strip searches of both the iPod classic and the new “fatty” iPod nano and posted the evidence. I’ve got shot of the nano in the raw after the jump, then head over to the full gallery.
At San Francisco’s Moscone Center West, Apple CEO Steve Jobs today met every bit of speculation that fans of the iPod had thrown in his direction in the week leading up — and then some.
The biggest news of the day is the iPod Touch, a virtual twin of the iPhone that eschews phone features and ramps up the multitouch multimedia features. The Touch carries a 3.5 inch screen on a body only 8 mm thick — even thinner than the iPhone. The device has 8 or 16 GB of storage and will sell for $299 or $399.
In a very surprising move, however, the device keeps the iPhone’s WiFi antenna and Safari web browser. It offers almost the full capabilities of an iPhone without the need for an AT&T account. In all likelihood, VoIP calling could be enabled with a microphone accessory, making this a true phone replacement for the adventurous. I had thrown this out as a possibility last week and dismissed it as cannibalizing iPhone sales too much. This is one gutsy move by Apple.
The device can even purchase songs and videos directly from a new WiFi-based iTunes Store that will now also be available to iPhone users. Anything purchased from the store syncs back to users’ computers. All content costs the same as it does on the full store, and everything available through the traditional iTunes store can be purchased from the WiFi store. Perhaps most bafflingly, Apple has a new partnership with Starbucks that will allow iPhone and iPod Touch users to press a fifth button in Starbucks stores to find out which song is playing in the store and instantly download it to their device if they like it. Users can see the last 10 Starbucks songs. Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz joined Jobs on stage for the announcement. Wifi iTunes Store connectivity is free at Starbucks — but not to the wider Internet, which will require a T-Mobile Hotspot account.
Jobs also announced the iPod classic, a revamp of the original iPod in a metal case at 80 GB and 160 GB, selling for $249 and $349 for those with bigger storage demands; oddly squat video iPod nanos at 4 and 8 GB for $149 and $199; color iPod shuffles at 1 GB in a (product) RED configuraiton; and 99-cent ringtones for iPhone.
All images via GadgetLab
We’re all waiting for Steve’s next big announcement, and in the mean time, why don’t we scarf down some of these sumptious Mac cupcakes, brought to you by GeekSugar? I really like the designs, which went straight for icons rather than attempting to represent more familiar Apple artifacts. Can you name them all before we eat them?
Predicting the future of any technology is a risky proposition. Weird, unexpected things happen that no one can anticipate. Lest any of us forget, for a brief moment in 1998, many assumed that DVD-Audio would replace the CD before something called Napster totally changed the game.
But predictions of the future are fun (why else is speculation about Apple so fascinating?), and everyone gets in on the act at some point. The latest to try to imagine what comes after the iPod is Rick Rubin, the bearded producer who launched the career of the Beastie Boys and revived those of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Johnny Cash. He’s legitimately credited with helping to break hip hop worldwide, but I hardly think his abilities to accurately read the new sound 20 years ago has anything to do with his ability to guess how we’ll get our music.
“You’d pay, say, $19.95 a month, and the music will come anywhere you’d like. In this new world, there will be a virtual library that will be accessible from your car, from your cellphone, from your computer, from your television. Anywhere. The iPod will be obsolete, but there would be a Walkman-like device you could plug into speakers at home.”
You want to know what I love about this quote? That it’s actually stating the complete obvious, but it also anticipates a future where people treat music differently than they do now. First, yes, the iPod will be obsolete at some point in the future. And then Apple will release a new one, including one that works in speakers at home (Oh, wait, that’s been around for years). People are obsessed with the current solution instead of thinking about the needs that it meets.
The bigger question is why anyone thinks subscription music will suddenly take off, however, I can’t guess. Subscription music has never been big, dating to the Columbia Record Club. We’re probably only a year or two from a time when we can put our entire iTunes libraries into a cloud we can access from anywhere, but I want it to be my library, not every song ever. I want to have access to the whole library and choose a song to download, but I want to add things to my library, not have glorified radio going on.
But you heard it here first folks: Sometimes, technology gets obsoleted!
Via Epicenter.
The iPod will get three new features at Steve Jobs’ media extravaganza Sept. 5 according to the rumor mill: a touch-screen, Wi-Fi and digital radio. I think two of three are likely:
1. The touch-screen is a slam dunk. It’s the natural successor to the scroll wheel. Who’d buy a new, high-end iPod without it? Case closed.
2. Wi-Fi is unlikely. What’s it good for? Sharing tunes with other iPod users in public, ala the Zune? Maybe, but I think not. Copy protection and DRM is too problematic. How about using Wi-Fi to sync tunes with your computer? Maybe, but you’ll still need a cable to charge the device, so what’s the point? Maybe Wi-Fi could connect the iPod to a set of speakers via an Airport Express base station and AirTunes? Seems like a lot of trouble for a pretty minor feature. Wi-Fi is good for getting on the internet, so unless the iPod is also getting Safari and e-mail, I don’t see the point of adding it.
3. Digital radio is the real killer. It’s a feature that could spell real trouble for the satellite radio industry. With digital radio, the iPod could be a portable TiVo for music, automatically recording favorite shows, rewinding live broadcasts and purchasing songs over the air. Digital radio is so consumer-friendly, it’s completely transformed the UK radio market in a couple of years, and though U.S. broadcasters seem terrified of it, the success of satellite radio is spurring them into action. As Wired News reported in July:
“In the United Kingdom, more than 4.7 million digital radios have been sold since 1999. Listeners browse station listings in an electronic program guide, pause and rewind content as it’s broadcast, bookmark specific programs or songs, and record them using postage-stamp-size memory cards. And starting in May, they can buy songs as they hear them on the radio, downloading them to computers, digital receivers or cell phones.
… IBiquity says that the HD Digital Radio Alliance, a consortium of U.S. broadcasting chains, will commit nearly $250 million in air time to promote the format in 2007. And UBC Media’s Simon Cole says that satellite’s head start in the United States might actually be good news for HD Radio. “Satellite is softening up the market,” he says. “It’s waking U.S. consumers up to what digital can deliver.”
Next Wednesday’s Apple event will likely see the announcement of the next evolution of iPod, dubbed the iPod Touch. Which is a little bit weird, because the iPhone is obviously the next evolution, what with its revolutionary multitouch interface and the widescreen and the like. So this week, we’re all sort of praying for an iPod with a big hard drive, multitouch, and maybe iTunes purchasing via WiFi. A hard-working country mouse to iPhone’s city slicker.
But in really thinking about where Apple might go (and in the spirit of free-wheeling rumor-mongering), I must admit that a possibility I haven’t seen much of anywhere is that the new iPod would carry over the breakthrough Internet browsing device piece of the iPhone puzzle. As much as I would love an iPhone, its storage capacity is far too small for my iTunes library, and my phone is fine as a phone. I just want awesome multitouch web-browsing and e-mail. If Apple is going to the trouble of building WiFi into the next iPod, it would be a complete waste not to put in real Internet capabilities — even if it steals some iPhone thunder.
All of which leads me to think that the new iPods will remain free of wireless connectivity. Apple isn’t one to give away the farm, and the iPhone is clearly designed to one day completely replace the iPod line. They cannibalize up, not down.
What do you think the next iPod will be (let’s leave the hideous iPod nano phat out of the conversation for the time being)? Widescreen evolution or iPhone web browsing revolution without all those pesky phone calls?
Image via Gizmodo
Apple just sent out invites to a special media event at San Francisco’s Moscone West convention center on September 5 at 10AM — and music is clearly the theme.
There’s been lots of speculation that new iPods are on tap, including stubby, ugly iPod nanos and a touchscreen iPod Touch.
Many wireless companies will unlock cell phones after the initial one- or two-year contract has been fulfilled. But AT&T says the iPhone is “different” and won’t be unlocked at the end of the contract:
AT&T will unlock phones for customers once they have fulfilled their contracts, which typically run one to two years. One big exception: Apple’s iPhone, distributed exclusively in the USA by AT&T. “That’s different,” says AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.
Nintendo owns the portable gaming market. They have since they created it with Game & Watch in the mid-’80s and then revolutionized it with Game Boy in 1989. Many challengers have risen and fallen over the 18 years since.
But as I predicted the day the iPhone was released, a reckoning is due between Apple and Nintendo in the coming years. As GigaOM reported today, Nintendo has filed a patent for a tilt-sensitive handheld console (a perfect companion to the motion-based Wii). Meanwhile, the New York Times claims Apple is stealthily adding game functions to the iPhone. There’s nothing stealthy about it. You create a portable device capable of gorgeous graphics, pristine audio and driven by a multitouch interface, you’re already there in the first place.
Let’s go back to the prediction from Jan. 9, shall we?
And multi-touch in iPhone is significantly more flexible — it’s made to interpret complex gestures with more than one point of input. There are a number of DS games that could easily be adapted, and it’s just made to host a new rhythm or music game that would require drumming two spots at once. It’s not a threat to the DS, because its price-point is so much higher. It is a threat to crappy games for cell phones, which often cost $6 and suck.
More interestingly, this could begin to threaten Nintendo down the road. The iPhone and its interface are extremely high-end today. By the end of the year, Apple could replace its traditional high-end iPod with one driven by the new iPhone interface and screen and offer it for the same price those iPods sell for today — and even boost the hard drive size, too. Suddenly, you have the world’s premiere media player and rising games star in a $250 package. That beats the PSP any day and hounds the DS tomorrow.
Sounds good. Anything else?
That’s my prediction of the day: As the iPhone seizes the high-end of Apple’s consumer electronics products, the iPod becomes the ultimate PSP-killer, with an interface the DS can’t quite match without the need for a stylus. Tell me you wouldn’t buy that. I dare you.
I’m sorry. Sometimes the smug just gets everywhere.
Apple’s Q3 was the company’s best ever. It raked in $5.41 billion in sales, posting a $818 million in profit. Gross margins — the amount of revenue that is profit — is up to a whopping 36 percent. This surely is the highest in the industry. By contrast, Dell reported Q2 2007 margins of just 4.3 percent, earning $605 million profit on revenues of $14.1 billion.
Apple also reported 10 million iPods sold — up 21 percent on the year before; and 1.76 million Macs, up 33 percent year-on-year.
Apple’s stock is rebounding on the news: it’s up 6 percent after taking a hammering yesterday on AT&T’s iPhone numbers.
