News - page 1979

Alongside the unveiling of its iPhone 4S at an event in Cupertino on October 4, Apple announced a brand new service called Find My Friends. Similar to Find My iPhone, Find My Friends allows you to see where you friends are based on the GPS location of their iOS device. Ahead of the launch of iOS 5 later today, Apple has made the Find My Friends application available, but you won’t find it in the App Store.

We’ve seen the first rash of iPhone 4 reviews coming in, and they all agree on one thing: Siri is very impressive.

It works because it does several things all at once. It understands what you’re saying, irrespective of your accent, and without a lot of initial training. And it understands what you mean, because it has the built-in smarts to know that if you say “Tell my wife I’m running late,” you mean “Send a text message to this particular contact with text that says I’m running late.”

But this is just the start for Siri (which Apple’s acknowledged by calling it a beta). The iPhone 4S is the first Apple device that supports it – it certainly won’t be the last. Where might Siri go next?

Existing MobileMe customers will be happy to find out that Apple is giving them access to the 20GB iCloud storage plan until June 30, 2012. The total allotted storage comes to 25GB, but the plethora of storage plans I expected to appear didn’t. Instead Apple is only offering three storage plans.

If you’re buying your new CDMA iPhone 4S through Sprint, then you’ll be pleased to know that the device will come unlocked — allowing you to stick in any SIM and use the device on any network. If you’ve ordered a Verizon device, however, it will come locked to Verizon, but you can request to have it unlocked after 60 days.

While we’re still clicking that ‘Check for Update’ button in iTunes in anticipation of iOS 5, the Apple’s iCloud website has already lost its ‘beta’ tag and been given a new login page design.

The WSJ’s crusty old Walt Mossberg, not easily impressed by new gadgets, was also pleased by the iPhone 4S and Siri:

Inside its familiar-looking body there lurks a nascent artificial-intelligence system that has to be tried to be believed.

Walt Mossberg: The iPhone Finds Its Voice

The first reviews of the iPhone 4S are coming in, and they look pretty good.

David Pogue, in a review headlined “New iPhone Conceals Sheer Magic,” says Siri is game-changing:

It’s even more amazing how Siri’s responses can actually form a conversation. Once, I tried saying, “Make an appointment with Patrick for Thursday at 3.” Siri responded, “Note that you already have an all-day appointment about ‘Boston Trip’ for this Thursday. Shall I schedule this anyway?” Unbelievable.

A few magazines have begun to populate Apple’s Newsstand app on the eve of the October 12th release of iOS 5. Right now the only two magazines that I could add to Newsstand were Wired and Popular Science. They only showed up on an iPad I wasn’t able to find anything for the iPhone.

Apple’s iPhone 4 remained the best-selling smartphone on both AT&T and Verizon during the month of September. The iPhone 4 has continued to do well in the consumer market despite the fact that it’s over a year old.

On Sprint, the number one handset was the Samsung Galaxy S II, Epic 4G Touch in September. The HTC Sensation took the number one spot on T-Mobile.

Both the Android Market and iTunes are like flea markets: there’s some good stuff up front and lots of junk the more you rummage around the piles of crap in the back.

And the junk just seems to multiply the more you look.

Case in point: Google recently yanked “Is My Son Gay?” from the Android market after allout.org launched an online campaign about the homophobic quiz app. (Questions included “takes a long time to do his hair,” or if he “likes football” rather than “musicals.”)

The trouble is that both iTunes and the Android Market have apps that are just as offensive.

Steve Jobs was a man known for his signature style. During the last decade, the CEO and entrepreneur was hardly ever seen in public without his black turtleneck, blue jeans, and New Balance sneakers.

Many have stopped wondering why Jobs chose such unusual attire to wear while unveiling revolutionary products to the world, but it turns out that there’s actually an interesting story about why Jobs was never seen without his turtleneck and blue jeans.

Apple is working fervently on its own chip technology for the post-PC era, according to TechCrunch. Specifically, Apple has 1,000 engineers (or about 5% of its Cupertino workforce) working on its series of processors for upcoming products.

Steve Jobs himself said that “getting low power and smaller is the key to everything” when it comes to chip design. Apple is thinking ahead to the future of the revolution it started with products like the iPhone and iPad.

Stuff.tv’s video hands-on with Siri is even more impressive than Apple’s demo videos. Not only do they show it opening websites, sending IMs, checking the weather both locally and across the world, setting a wake-up alarm, doing currency conversions and finding the distance to the moon, Siri even changes its accent according to whether it is talking to a Yank or a Brit.

Pretty awesome. Who said this wasn’t a killer feature for the iPhone 4S?

Incredible.

[via Bashir Sultani]

Want to play with the same version of iTunes us devs have been rocking for the past few months? iTunes 10.5 is out, and it brings support for the iPhone 4S, the iCloud and iTunes Match along with it. Not that you’ll be able to use iTunes Match yet, but best be prepared anyway.

You can download iTunes 10.5 here. Pick it up now if you plan on upgrading to iOS 5 tomorrow, or plan on getting an iPhone 4S on Friday. It’s a 103MB download on the Mac.

Update: iTunes 10.5 actually doesn’t support iTunes Match. Instead, iTunes Match support has been shuffled off to iTunes 10.5.1 Beta, which is also now available for download by devs.

Movie studios, faced with dwindling DVD sales as consumers turn to streaming, want to create their own cloud-based storage option to compete with Apple. Aptly named UltraViolet, the service apparently hinges on invisible interest by audiences that have abandoned physical sales.

Sure, the new iPhone 4S has a brand-spanking new iOS 5, the endlessly cool Siri voice-recognition and HD-quality digital camera. But perhaps the most exciting feature for Apple is the 71 percent to 73 percent profit margin on each handset sold – and there should be millions, one analyst said.

Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography of Steve Jobs has according to rumor already been picked up for a $1M option by Hollywood, but who should play Steve? Here are some casting ideas, some great (bring back Noah Wyle!), some not so great (Michael Cera?) Who is your favorite?

Did you miss out on preordering an iPhone 4S? Afraid to brave the lines outside of your local Apple Store? Skeptical that Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy will get the iPhone 4S you want? You now have another option: go pre-order an iPhone 4S at Sam’s Club today, then pick it up Friday.

The iPad has become the favored device for slurping up media in the U.S., overtaking the iPhone in August, according to new figures from an Internet research firm. Apple’s iOS also is the overwhelming choice for U.S. media consumption with Android a distant second.

As the number of voice calls have dwindled, mobile carriers now rely on text messaging as a profit center. Now that source of revenue is under attack as Apple prepares to release iOS 5 and iMessage, a feature allowing free messaging between iPhone, iPad and iPod touch users.

Rather than complying with Apple’s App Store terms and throwing the Cupertino company 30% of every sale it makes, Audible has launched an iPhone-friendly web app that allows users to add a bookmark to their home screen for quick and easy purchasing.

The Jobs tributes show no sign of slowing down. Some Minecraft players have been getting busy building their own Jobs tributes out of blocky Minecraft stuff. The one above, by KickAssTechnology, is particularly nicely done and ends on a poignant tone.

There’s more where that came from.

While Apple may not be all too happy about it, some German customers are ecstatic today having received their iPhone 4S pre-orders three days before the device is scheduled to launch.

Want to know what Apple retail employees can tell you about iOS 5 and iCloud? These images are of leaked internal Apple documents which are provided to retail store employees to help them sell iOS 5 and iCloud.