News - page 2013

For those of you who aren’t able to download your OS X Lion upgrade for any reason, Apple is now selling its $69 Lion USB thumb drives.

Another set of iPhone 5 components have surfaced online, and while these things never really give away a lot of information about Apple’s upcoming device, they do indicate that it could be available in both black and white.

Mac OS X Lion has killed off a number of things including, but not limited to Rosetta, visible scrolls bars, Quicken (see Rosetta), and unnatural scrolling. Now another casualty is the venerable analog modem.

Yesterday, we reviewed Canopy’s Kapok camera system for iPhone 4; the free, feature-packed Canopy Camera Tools app is an excellent camera app and an integral part of that system — but it also works just fine by itself, without any extra hardware.

Amazon has released a new iPhone app for college-bound students that offers online price comparisons for textbooks. As the school year beings, finding a good deal on class textbooks can be tricky.

The new Amazon Student app lets users scan the barcode of a textbook and determine its trade-in value. Users can also buy new and used textbooks from Amazon.com and have them shipped from within the app.

Apple has allegedly begun work on its upcoming retail store in Grand Central Station. The world-renowned terminal in New York City’s Manhattan area serves 700,000 commuters daily.

According to MacRumors, Apple is expected to operate under a “very tight construction timetable” in order to get the new store ready for Black Friday.

There will soon be a day when a driver is not required for printing. Wireless printing has become more of a household standard as new printers roll out with cloud technology, and Apple is looking to make the printing experience as painless and seamless as possible.

Two interesting patents applications were recently filed by Apple that detail printing protocols and APIs that don’t require drivers, with more of a focus also being placed on printing from the cloud.

Remember those fake Apple stores in China that were uncovered last month? It turns out that faux Apple stores abound in other continents, like Europe, and unauthorized resellers have even been popping up in the US.

After an investigation by the Chinese authorities, 22 fake Apple stores were shut down. One of the main stores in Kunming, China has been rebranded with a clever new name: the “Smart Store.”

At least the store owner didn’t have the nerve to call it the “Genius Store.”

Flex Benefits

Way back in 1996, when Safari wasn’t even a glimmer in Apple’s eye, Apple sent out this email to document explaining how to use the Netscape browser.

It’s pretty interesting reading a document in which what I would consider to be core modern computer concepts like hyperlinks and back and forth arrows are explained to a technical-minded audience for the first time.

It just goes to show that everyone’s been a noob one time or another.

Do you remember the first time you used a browser? My first browser was Lynx on a dial-in Unix ISP. Which browser was your first, and what platform was it on?

Apple’s chalked up some big victories against Samsung in recent weeks, culminating in a preliminary injunction that got the Galaxy Tab 10.1 banned throughout the EU. But did Apple do so based upon false evidence? That’s what one Dutch website is alleging, and we’ve got to admit, their argument’s pretty good.

The iPad, more accustom to flinging angry birds than multi-ton slabs of rock, turns out to be the perfect tool for the modern quarry. Indeed, designed for the road warrior, Apple’s tablet seems at home with the rock warrior.

News that high-end TVs are nearing the sub $1,000 range may be the impetus for Apple to enter the market, a new report suggests. For some time, talk has swirled around the tech giant moving beyond the world of 10-inch screens. Might 32-inches and above be the next step for Cupertino?

Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ official biography by Walter Isaacson has just had its release date bumped to November 21st, 2011 from the original date of March 6th, 2012. It also has a new cover and a new title!

Orangutans at the Milwaukee County Zoo could be some of the luckiest orangutans on Earth. Why? Because just like millions of humans, they enjoy using apps, playing games, and watching videos on the iPad.

Now that Google owns a handset maker, will the $12.5 billion deal end Motorola’s patent-infringement complaints against Apple? Not likely, says the Android creator.

The safe bet is that the iPhone 5 will stick with 3G instead of lightning fast LTE 4G mobile broadband, but not so fast! A new report on Monday says that Apple’s 4G-capable carrier partners are already testing iPhones with LTE capability.

Since Apple’s acquisition of Siri many moons ago, there have been rumors that the technology would one day worm its way into the iOS software. Speculation, fueled by evidence in the latest iOS SDK, would lead us to believe that Siri “Assistant” feature will finally come to fruition in iOS 5. And according to one report, it will integrate with your contacts, calendars, emails and more.

Apple has told its handset suppliers to expect a boatload of iPhone orders for the second half of 2011, reportedly increasing the initial number to 56 million from 50 million units. Half of those handsets are for the much-anticipated iPhone 5, according to a Monday report.

Following the release of Edge earlier this month, a new tool for creating HTML5 animations and webpages, Adobe continues its support for HTML5 with the release of Muse, which makes it easy for those without any prior knowledge of HTML5 or CSS3 to create websites.

Samsung’s not going to like this: Google has just purchased Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion, finally placing the Android maker on equal footing as Apple when it comes to controlling both the hardware and software of their smartphone platform.

A “one of a kind” MacBook Pro prototype, which has been listed for sale on eBay, reveals Apple’s work on a notebook with built-in 3G connectivity. It’s the first MacBook Pro we’ve seen with an antenna built into the side of the display, and a SIM card slot beneath the memory cover.

Remember Panasonic’s 3DO game system back in the mid ’90s? Not surprised if you don’t; it failed miserably and was discontinued after three years, despite being packed with promise and cutting-edge technology. But the three-year sales record of this flop have thus far still managed to handily beat that of Android tablets — all of them. Combined.

Apple is gearing up for the construction of its new headquarters in Cupertino, California. Steve Jobs proposed plans for the new campus to the Cupertino City Council back in June, and the city quickly gave a resounding approval for Apple to begin work on its new mothership.

A development proposal has been submitted by Apple to the City Council with more details and renderings of the future campus. And we have to say, it looks awesome.

Most of Apple’s money comes from recently invented gadgets. More than two-thirds of Apple’s revenue comes from product types that didn’t even exist five years ago (iPhone and iPad). And 78% of Apple’s income is made by products unimaginable just ten years ago (throw in iPod and iTunes).

That means, in order to stay on the same growth curve in the current decade, Apple will have to invent product categories as new as the iPod, iPhone and iPad were, right?

Wrong.

The new products were part of a killer strategy Apple came up with in 1997. Apple will dominate the future by sticking to the strategy, not by trying to invent more product categories.

My first reaction to the new iPad-stand-pillow ePillow was a hearty guffaw — followed almost immediately by a “hmmmm”; it’s one of those wacky-looking ideas that just might be brilliant.