News - page 2009

Another of iTunes’ famous hold outs has finally woken up to the reality of the music business: singer-songwriter Bob Seger has finally given a thumbs up to Apple to start selling his songs.

In an odd bit of trash talk aimed at itself, AT&T replied to a Department of Justice objection to the acquisition of T-Mobile USA, the Dallas-based carrier saying T-Mobile is tiny and unlikely to be upgraded by its German parent. Additionally, AT&T said it has spent $30 billion upgrading its network between 2008 and 2010 and customers are still complaining.

Have you noticed the prices of iBooks increasing? It’s not a mystery that publishers now view electronic versions of their hardcover editions as a way to save money. Turns out publishers are adopting Apple’s “agency pricing” model, a move making cheap iBooks on your iPad or iPhone as rare as dime store novels.

Imagine iCloud’s ‘Documents in the Cloud’ feature fuzed with Dropbox. Or MobileMe’s iDisk only a million times faster and more reliable. That could have been one of the features launching alongside iOS 5 this fall, with reports Apple made an $800 million bid for Dropbox.

Continuing this morning’s rumors that the so-called iPhone 5 is nothing but a phantom, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has rushed over to Apple Insider and spilled more details about what his supply checks are showing: an iPhone 4S that is largely identical to current models, and even features the same amount of RAM… a mere 512MB.

While we all patiently await the release of iOS 5, Apple’s assemblers could be getting a gold master release from September 23, according to one analyst — just in time for a mid-October launch of the long-awaited iPhone 5.

New signs the iPhone 4 more than a year later is still hot in the minds of consumers. Last week, we wrote that the iPhone 4 is the top-selling U.S. smartphone despite cheaper Android alternatives. Another analyst tells investors the Apple handset shows ‘unexpected strength’ although the iPhone 5 is on the verge of hitting shelves.

Design proposals and pictures of Apple’s upcoming ‘spaceship campus’ have had us in awe over that jaw-dropping design and sheer magnificence, but as we learned last week, not everyone wants Apple’s spaceship campus to land. Over the weekend, LA Times’ architecture critic took a stab at ‘Apple Campus 2.’

We’re all huge fans of the iconic glowing Apple logo that lights up every time we open up our MacBooks, so wouldn’t it be nice to have the Apple logo on the back of our iPhones do the same? Thanks to Andy and Chris at the U.K.-based iPatch iPhone & iPod repair specialists, you can have your iPhone 4 modded to boast a glowing Apple logo every time your screen lights up.

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If you’ve plowed years of hard work into maintaining an iWeb blog, you must be concerned about what will happen to your site with the impending death of MobileMe just around the corner. But thanks to this handy conversion tool from RAGE software, you can transfer it all to WordPress within minutes.

As originally noticed by iFans, NBC has finally updated its iPad app with the ability to watch full-length TV shows, including titles like The Office.

The app is free in the App Store, and the same content that’s available on NBC.com is also available on the iPad, thanks to the latest update.

Apple has issued a new OS X beta to developers with full iCloud integration. OS X 10.7.2 Build 11C55 is available to developers right now, and iCloud seems to be fully baked into the release for the first time.

Previously, iCloud betas had been available as separate downloads to be used in conjunction with beta OS X Lion developer builds.

U.K. carrier Vodafone has published a product listing that directly references the iPhone 5 coming in 16GB and 32GB capacities. The upcoming device will allegedly be offered in black and white, with no reference made to the rumored 64GB version.

Carriers have been known to let the cat out of the bag before, so there’s a good chance that Vodafone just squashed the hopes for a 64GB iPhone 5.

Apple recently launched the iTunes Match beta test, but overwhelming demand caused Apple to shut the program down. Well it looks like Apple’s ramped up the back end so that it can support more beta testers. They’ve re-opened iTunes Match enrollment to more developers in the U.S.

On Friday Apple posted an announcement on their News and Announcements for Apple Developers RSS feed asking developers to get their apps ready for iCloud backup and restore. The announcement is yet another clue that Apple is getting closer to releasing iCloud and iOS 5 to the public.

Here’s the latest twist in the story of an early iPad buyer who had his pinky torn so a thief could get his hands on Apple’s must-have device.

Brandon Smith, 22, pleaded guilty Friday to aggravated robbery and second-degree assault, the Denver District Attorney’s Office announced.

The plea isn’t completely out of nowhere: the scales were looking weighted after Smith reportedly thought his theft case would go away if the victim was ‘eliminated.’

Reiterating previous reports that Sprint will be getting the iPhone 5 in the coming weeks, a leaked internal Sprint memo reveals that the carrier is blacking out the first two weeks of October for the “possibility of a major phone launch.”

Sprint employees are not allowed to take vacations between September 30th and October 15th. After all, Sprint will need as many hands on deck as possible to deal with all of its new iPhone customers.

Steve Jobs is NOT dead — it’s a screw-up by CBS.

The rumor — which is lighting up Twitter like crazy — was caused by an errant tweet from CBS’s “What’s Trending” feed. The tweet said:

“Reports say that Steve Jobs has passed away. Stay tuned for more updates.”

But CBS has now pulled the tweet and kinda apologized:

“Reports of Steve Job’s [sic] death completely unconfirmed.”

So, they don’t know one way or the other.

We’ve called Apple and left messages all over the PR department. The one live person we talked to said they’d get back to us shortly. But there obviously wasn’t a fire drill there, so it’s safe to assume Steve is still alive.

We showed you our final round of the ‘Coolest Mac Setups’ gallery yesterday, and now we’re starting a new reader submitted series called “Me and My Mac.”

Happy Friday, developers! Apple has seeded iTunes 10.5 beta 8 and iWork beta 3 for iOS in the Developer Center.

The update fixes several performance bugs and adds updates to iTunes Match.

When they aren’t just accidentally losing their prototypes in bars, the security around Apple’s prototypes can be quite impressive. Just listen to what some early-access devs had to go through to check out the original iPad before it was released. The only thing they didn’t have to acquiesce to is wearing explosive collars around their necks.

You might remember a security kerfuffle from a few weeks ago involving DigiNotar issuing compromised security certificates to websites after being hacked, including one for Gmail. Well, Apple’s just fixed that at the root level of OS X Lion and Snow Leopard 10.6.8 with the latest Security Update.

Timing is everything. That could be the message from news Apple’s chief iPad 2 supplier is expected to churn out 20 million of the tablets for the third quarter – just in time for the all-important holiday sales period. Shipments of the iPad 2 for the quarter were already expected to hit 14 million, thus topping the last period’s 9.25 million tablets Apple sold.

Apple’s iPhone again ranks as the most satisfying smartphone by JD Powers’ customer survey. This makes the fifth year the handset has been listed on top, scoring 795 in customer satisfaction. Motorola placed second while legal nemesis Samsung was dead last in customer satisfaction.

It was a tragic week in Cupertino as Allen “Skip” Haughay — a popular iPod engineer and six-year Apple veteran — was struck and killed by a truck in San Jose, California while riding his cherished horse, Regal Bull.