News - page 2088

Initial reviews deeming the device “half-baked” meant a bad start for the BlackBerry PlayBook, and things just got a little worse as RIM recalls nearly 1,000 units.

We’ve been speculating on Apple’s partnership with Nuance for some weeks now, and confirmation the two companies are working together comes with the new speech technology discovered in the Mac OS X Lion beta.

Apple is offering free repairs to those with Macs and iOS devices who had their equipment damaged in the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan back in March.

In a video interview on Vokle, it was said that iDevice hacker @p0sixninja mentioned a possible iPad 2 jailbreak release within the next couple of weeks.

The new SportWatch GPS offers Nike+ functionality without the need for an iPod or iPhone. There’s lots to like about Nike’s latest toy, but early teething trouble combined with poor GPS accuracy are currently letting it down.

Looking for a cool new case to protect your magical iPad from slime, scratches, termites, and falling debris? Yesterday we published our review on the beautiful, wooden BrudaCase and now we’re giving our readers a chance to win a Cherry BrudaCase for free (retail value $150).

We’ll select one reader at random as the winner of the giveaway and have a BrudaCase mailed out to you. The contest will run from Friday, May 13th til Monday, May 16th at 12PM PST. Limit of one entry per person.

Components purported to be for the fifth-generation iPhone have sparked new rumors that the device’s camera and LED flash will be separated, and will no longer sit snuggled up to one another in the corner. Strengthening these rumors is a case discovered on trade site Alibaba for an ‘iPhone 5G’, which features a mysterious new hole in its rear.

(Update: Many — but not all — of the users in the Apple Support Communities are now reporting that the activation servers are back online, and their devices working again.)

Looks like the Lion Beta 3 Preview might not be the only problem Apple’s dealing with this morning.

As of last night, an ongoing problem with Apple’s activation servers seems to be leaving many iDevices recently updated or restored to iOS 4.3.3 bricked around the world.

Apple has released the fifth version of its developer preview for Xcode 4.1. But what’s new?

We’ve received various reports from developers testing Lion Developer Preview 2 that the Preview 3 update is no longer appearing in Software Update on machines running Lion Developer Preview 2 released on March 30th.

Here are the new wallpapers in OS X Lion Developer Preview 3, released this afternoon. There are poppies, ducks, and an actual lion.

They come courtesy of it’s all tech, who bundled them up into a downloadable zip file (26.1MB).

Check them out:

This is new the login screen in Lion Developer Preview 3, which was just released this afternoon. And we also have a list of some of the biggest changes.

Apple has just released the third major Developer Preview of Lion, the upcoming update of Mac OS X.

The 1.07GB update is avaliable to registered Mac developers running developer preview 2 update 2.

There’s also an update to Xcode, which is now version 4.1. Developers must upgrade Xcode to 4.1 after installing Lion Preview 3.

We’ll have more details soon…

After indie dev James Thomson was threatened with a lawsuit earlier today by a patent troll called Lodsys for using Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism in his pCalc iOS app, his first instinct was to play things cautious and not release the update scheduled for today.

Several hours later, though, and Thomson is feeling bolder: he’s decided to release the update to pCalc anyway. But will the other devs hit with shakedowns today be so plucky and defiant?

What do you when you’re a maker of illegal Chinese iPhone knockoffs and the police come with a battering ram to your door? It starts raining fake iPhone 5s. Hallelujah?

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek has just coughed up a crusty old bezoar of regurgitated iPhone 5 rumors. You know pretty much all of them: that the next iPhone will be called the iPhone 4S (debatable, doubtful), that it’ll boast an A5 dual-core SoC (a certainty) and that it’ll be coming to Sprint and T-Mobile (maybe).

He does make one interesting new claim, though: the next iPhone will boast HSPA+ mobile broadband speeds. Depending on which carrier you believe, that might make it a 4G phone.

Remember that gorgeous $32 cardboard desk concept from yesterday? Wouldn’t one of these Dieter Rams inspired wooden iPhone and iPad stands by Frog look absolutely great on the corner of one?

So after all the complaining and all the controversy about Apple’s decision to eschew a camera in the first-gen iPad, how many people are actually using it now that a camera comes equipped in the iPad 2?

Almost no one… at least on Flickr.

AT&T will begin to roll out their nationwide 4G LTE network starting in New York City on June 30th. But will they penetrate enough markets for Apple to release a 4G-capable iPhone 5 in September?

Cult of Mac has learned Apple could be scheduling secret employee meetings with retail staff on May 28th between 8 and 10am. Is this just pre-WWDC preparations, or something more?

In addition to unveiling a display today that could give the iPad 3 a Retina Display, Samsung has just debuted a new foldable AMOLED display that could be used to make your next iPad fit into your pocket, your next iPhone an iFlipPhone.

The courts smacked Apple down today in a suit against Kodak, and it could cost Cupertino up to $1 billion in licensing fees.

Adding insult to injury, the ITC judge also ruled one of Apple’s patents invalid.

Sean Power, a Canadian tech consultant and author, recently had his MacBook stolen along with some other valuables in his bag, including his birth certificate and cell phone. Using a free piece of software, Sean was able to track down his belongings and organize their safe return with the help of a bunch of friends on Twitter… and we can tell you how to do the same if it happens to you.

Wondering who the mysterious patent troll suing indie devs for using Apple’s own in-app purchasing system is? We still don’t know, but we can add another company to the list of patent houses suing iOS devs… this time not for in-app purchases, but for upgrade links.

Amazon.com has just stopped all sales of MobileMe. It’s almost as if they know something’s coming that could blast their recently unveiled Cloud Locker music streaming service out of the water. There’s an iCloud on the horizon.