News - page 2124

Play around with this cool online iPad simulator, courtesy of developer Alex Wolkov.

Not everything works, but it’s made with JS & CSS3. Impressive!

Via MacStories.

The 5th Avenue Apple Store is already one of New York’s most iconic locations, but now Apple wants to bring some of their keen architectural sense to Brooklyn… specifically, by putting their sixth NYC store near the new Atlantic Yards arena, which will be the future Prospect Heights’ based home of the New Jersey Nets.

According to the New York Observer, Apple’s been in discussions with developer Forest City Ratner about moving into a retail slot.

Writing about mobile for a living, it can be hard to keep the names of all of the competing App Stores straight. Apple has the App Store, Google has the Android Marketplace, HP has the Palm App Catalog and Microsoft has the most unwieldy name yet in the Windows Phone Marketplace.

Microsoft seems to be as embarrassed by their app market’s name as we are, because they’re now trying to take Apple to court over Cupertino’s 2008 trademark on the the “App Store,” arguing that the term is too generic to be exclusively used by Apple.

Much of the talk surrounding the impact of Verizon gaining the iPhone has centered on a potential loss by AT&T. However, a new theory is gaining a foothold that a Verizon iPhone could instead hurt Apple’s rival Google. Indeed, one analyst Wednesday goes so far as to predict Tuesday’s announcement will “suck the wind out of Android’s growth on Verizon.”

Here’s how the theory goes: although smartphones comprise a small segment of the overall cell phone market, they are a growing portion. Until now, feature phone owners looking to move to smartphones could either switch from Verizon to AT&T and get an iPhone, or stick with their carrier and buy one of the many Android phones flooding the airwaves. Now, yesterday’s announcement means Verizon customers can have their cake and eat it too – they can stay with their network and have an iPhone.

During yesterday’s Verizon iPhone event, one journalist asked Apple COO Tim Cook whether or not Verizon had an “exclusive” on the CDMA iPhone.

Although the Verizon iPhone seems like a huge deal over in the States, in the grand scheme of things, one carrier’s not particularly important… but there are an additional hundreds of millions of CDMA-subscribers in other countries like China and India who Apple would also like to sell an iPhone.

Needless to say, then, Tim Cook said that Verizon’s deal was a multi-year contract, but not exclusive, meaning that the so-called Verizon iPhone is really the CDMA iPhone, and will creep out to other CDMA networks in the coming months.

Sure enough, Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty told investors on Thursday that Apple was likely to strike deals for the CDMA iPhone with China Telecom and Reliance in India in the next few months. Those are the two fastest growing mobile markets on Earth: CDMA subscribers in India account for 20% of the country’s 670 million subscribers as it is.

The CDMA iPhone may be a big deal for Verizon subscribers, and people who want more competition and choice in the American mobile landscape, but let’s not forget the international importance here, which is arguably much, much bigger.

Although there’s still many things we don’t know about about the Verizon iPhone — namely, in the details of their pricing and the generosity of their data plans — one immediate advantage Verizon has over AT&T is that you can tether up to five different devices to the handset’s 3G connection over WiFi, when AT&T only offers one.

For road warriors, that’s a big perk to the Verizon iPhone compared to the AT&T one: you can drive an entire mobile office with just one Verizon device. Another benefit is that AT&T tethering service only works via Bluetooth or USB.

So will AT&T cave and match Verizon’s offer? AppleInsider asked the question, and was told by an AT&T representative that they would not “speculate” on their own plans.

Following Tuesday’s long-predicted announcement of a Verizon CDMA iPhone, one analyst sees Apple stock rising to $450 per share, up from a previous target price of $365. Peter Misek of Jeffreries & Co. seems to base his Wednesday note to investors on a belief the Cupertino, Calif. is not done surprising consumers.

Misek predicts Apple will unveil an iPhone for Long Term Evolution networks (sometimes known as 4G) by October, a GSM-based iPhone 5 in June and a 4G-based iPad in late 2011. Also, the analyst describes “multiple products to assault the living room” and cloud-based services also appearing this year.

If you saw our previous posts about light painting using an iPhone or iPad, you’ll enjoy this brief video demonstration of how to make a very cool New Year greeting.

The lightpainting was done using Penki, an app developed by the people who sparked off this idea in the first place, Dentsu London/BERG.

All that’s needed in addition is a ruler, a camera with a flash (for the portraits), and a shiny table. And perhaps a few rehearsals to get the timing right. There’s a pile more lightpainting images in the Penki Flickr pool, if you feel the need for some further inspiration.

EDIT: Video embedding didn’t work – go here to see the video in full.

Steve Jobs didn’t make an appearance at the Verizon iPhone launch, instead delegating an official Cupertino presence to his number one, Tim Cook… but according to Yahoo, Jobs won’t miss the January 19th launch of Rupert Murdoch’s new iPad-Only newspaper, The Daily.

The news comes apparently from Murdoch himself, who apparently briefed some reporters on the Daily at CES, although that information is still under embargo. The Daily’s team of reporters and staffers have apparently been engaged in full-scale dry runs for weeks in preparation for launch.

Come launch day on February 10, Verizon’s iPhone customers needn’t worry about the 3rd party accessory market being ready to wrest a few dollars more from them in the name of style and security.

iLuv a premier provider of accessories for the Apple smartphone, is all set to launch a new line of stylish cases and protective films for the CDMA iPhone 4, the dearest of which will set consumers back almost $50. Nine cases and two kinds of protective films should be available at leading retailers and iLuv’s online store by late January.

And if you can’t wait that long, be sure to check out the Impactband from BaseOneLabs. They were prescient enough to design their case with 3mm of extra room above and below the volume and rocker switch, which allows plenty of room for access to the CDMA version’s moved left-side buttons.

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart devoted seven minutes of his show Tuesday night to putting his team’s indelible spin on the Verizon iPhone announcement. The second half is actually pretty funny.

It remains to be seen whether 1/11/11 will heretofore be known as VZ Day, but it’s a thought.

Steve Jobs introduced iTunes ten years ago this week, on January 10, 2001 at the MacWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco, where he proclaimed a belief in the “revolution” of “digital music on computers.”

At the time, Macs still ran on OS 9 and iTunes was all about “ripping audio CDs onto your computer disk;” tens of billions of dollars in digital music sales were yet a glimmer in Jobs’ eye.

At the time, iTunes launched as a competitor to existing products from companies such as Real Networks and Microsoft, and Jobs admitted at MacWorld that his company was “late to the game.”

iTunes, of course, quickly became the only game in town, as Apple soon launched OS X and seamlessly integrated its music software with iPod, the line of portable music players that “changed everything” and helped Apple become the tech industry powerhouse it is today.

While many tech pundits equivocate over the Verizon iPhone now that it’s finally almost here, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has no qualms about plunking down for another device on a new network.

“I’m definitely going to get one,” Wozniak said. “I always have at least one Verizon phone on me at all times, just in case I’m in one of those bad areas. You can find those areas where Veriozn doesn’t work and AT&T does, but in truth, it’s usually the opposite.”

“And I also love the mobile hotspot,” Wozniak added. “I hope it’s the standard $30 a month. I wish it was free like the Palm Pre, because that made the Pre a cheaper Mi-Fi. Anyway so I’m expecting that it’s no big new iPhone, not even a new color. It’s just going to be on the Verizon network.”

Wozniak is not your average cell phone user, however. Aside from being far more fabulously wealthy than 99% of the people in the US, his Verizon iPhone will bring the number in his phone holster up to four.

“I’ll have three activated AT&T iPhones, so if the battery runs down I have a spare,” Wozniak said. “And I’m in Europe a lot of times, so maybe one of them will be Verizon, one of them will be AT&T. So I’ll have two AT&T, one AT&T with the international plan, and one Verizon if I need it. Although the tethering’s only to a computer. Although maybe I can give one number up and give it to Verizon. And I’ll keep the Droid X. And I’ll probably give up the Palm Pre, because I now have another Mi-Fi.”

It’s nice to be a man with options, eh?

[PC Magazine]

The day millions have waited for finally arrived Tuesday when Verizon announced it would begin offering customers Apple’s iPhone.

Well, perhaps more accurately, the day millions have waited for will finally arrive on February 10, when Apple iPhone users in the US get their first opportunity to sample the services of a network other than at&t, which has enjoyed the longest reign of exclusivity on the planet as the sole US carrier for iPhone since its launch in the summer of 2007.

Some say pent-up demand for iPhone on Verizon could “demolish” at&t’s business.

“I can tell you that the number one question I’ve gotten is ‘when will the iPhone work on Verizon’,” Apple COO Tim Cook said Tuesday at the launch announcement in New York — and some have predicted the boon to Verizon’s bottom line from iPhone sales will be massive.

Apple has released the sixth developer preview of the forthcoming Xcode 4. The new update has been posted to Apple’s developer websites for Mac OS X and iOS. Primarily it offers iprofiler a new command-line tool along with a new framework for measuring application performance. It also wouldn’t be your typical Apple software update without additional enhancements and bug fixes from the previous version released last November.

The iprofiler command-line tool helps developers to measure an applications performance without having to launch the Instruments application. However, its output can be analyzed by Instruments later for a complete performance evaluation.

The new framework introduced in the update is called DTPerformanceSession and it allows an application to create performance measurements of itself or other applications.

Complete information about the Xcode 4 Preview 6 and a download link are available to registered Apple Developers through Apple’s Developer website.

According to Verizon Wireless CFO Francis Shammo, it’s not just the iPhone 4 that’s going CDMA and joining Verizon. In an interview with Bloomberg, Shammo declared that a CDMA iPad, which connects directly to the Verizon network without the need for the carrier’s MiFi device, will be available in the future.

Shammo did not give any details on when the device might be available, how much it might cost, or whether it would use the network’s 4G service over LTE, however.

Although the iPad has been sold through the Verizon website for some time, it’s the Wi-Fi only model bundled with the carrier’s MiFi hotspot device, which is required to connect to the Verizon network. Some may argue that the benefit of having the MiFi device is that you can connect multiple devices and share the data connection, however, it’s possible the CDMA iPhone’s new ‘Personal Hotspot’ feature in iOS 4.2.5 could also be introduced to the CDMA iPad.

The announcement delivers another blow to AT&T, who currently have iPhone exclusivity until the device is also made available through Verizon in February.

Feast your eyes on the new Verizon iPhone 4. Apple’s iPhone 4 has finally hit the largest CDMA network in the U.S.  so now my Verizon friends can stop coveting my iPhone 4 and get their own!

Click the read link to see more images.

[via Engadget]

Early photos from Engadet’s hands-on shows a picture of the Verizon iPhone 4 sitting on top of an AT&T iPhone 4. They look the same until you notice that the mute button and the volume buttons on the Verizon iPhone 4 has been repositioned.

The mute button has been placed in a lower position than the original iPhone 4 on the left side of the iPhone frame. This has led to an offset in the position of the volume buttons also. This means that existing iPhone 4 cases may not work with the new Verizon iPhone 4 model.

Considering all the time and money invested in case design and manufacturing this has to be a set back to the existing case industry and it will lead to confusion in the retail space. However, since case vendors deal with many different phone form factors to begin with this may not be a big deal to them. I’ll be reaching out to a few of them for comment about this soon.

Is this the fall out from Antennagate? Although Apple representative, Tim Cook, claimed that the antenna changes were made to accommodate the CDMA network. I have to wonder if we’ll see the same changes made to the AT&T version of the iPhone 4 or the next generation iPhone 5.

[photo via Engadget]

[Updated to clarify additional changes in volume button position and to correct some typos.]

On one side, an iPhone 4. On the other, an iPhone 4. Spot the difference.

The new Verizon flavored device, left, has a new antenna layout wrapped around its exterior.

This is nothing to do with people moaning about “antennagate”. It’s a functional redesign to allow the phone to work with Verizon’s CDMA network.

It does look, from this photo at Engadget like the mute switch on the Verizon device has shifted a fraction of an inch southwards – which might mean that some cases and covers that fit an AT&T phone won’t necessarily fit a Verizon phone.

Otherwise, the devices appear to be identical in every other respect.

Amusingly, Verizon’s own web pages about the iPhone 4 are chock-full of stock photos of the AT&T version of the device – only the front page has the photo (annotated above) that clearly shows the refreshed antenna layout.

[polldaddy poll=”4367123″]

Are you ready to drop A&T like all those important calls? Or are you going to wait — and see if that new antenna really changes the death-grip issue?

Let us know in the comments.

Tuesday’s announcement Verizon will begin accepting pre-orders for the iPhone 4 only increases the pressure on Android, Apple’s biggest smartphone rival.

“This will put considerable pressure on Android which cannot be underestimated,” Shaw Wu, analyst at Kaufman Bros., wrote by e-mail. Although the announcement held little not already known, today’s announcement is “nonetheless big news as this doubles AAPL’s market opportunity here in the U.S.,” We added.

So now that Verizon has announced that they’re selling shiny new iPhone 4’s you’re chomping at the bit to get off of AT&T or T-Mobile and join the ranks of Big Red right? Of course one of the biggest draw backs to doing this is that your Early Termination Fee could cost as much as $325. While it’s not the easiest thing to do, there are multiple ways to get out of having to pay the ETF, and we’re going to show you a couple of ways to avoid the fees.

Those expecting the 3G limitations of Verizon’s CDMA network to disappear with the iPhone 4’s debut should think again.

Asked whether or not you will lose your data connection when you get a phone call on the iPhone 4, Cook responded: “It’s consistent with other CDMA devices right now.”

That sucks. That means no talking and browsing at the same time, and if you get an incoming call when your 32GB iPhone is working as a mobile hot spot, everyone connected to you will have their signals drop. Bummer.

Asked if this experience would be jarring to those who expected constant voice and data, and asking how Apple could allow this when they are so focused on user experience, Tim Cook paused for a long time before answering, then finally said: ” I think people place different emphasis on things — I can tell you that the number one question I’ve gotten is when will the iPhone work on Verizon. I couldn’t be happier to tell people that. They will make those sorts of tradeoffs.”

In other words, Apple knows this is a problem, but there’s nothing they can do. They aren’t happy about it.

In a Q&A session after the official announcement of the Verizon iPhone, Tim Cook has answered some interesting questions about the CDMA iPhone, including why it doesn’t run on LTE.

Asked why Apple didn’t embrace Verizon’s LTE network, Cook said: “Two reasons — the first gen LTE chipsets force design changes we wouldn’t make. And Verizon customers told us they want the iPhone now. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve been asked ‘when will it work on Verizon.”

He’s referencing LTE’s extraordinary demands on battery life here. Apple doesn’t usually jump on new technologies fresh out of the gate anyway, so it’s to be expected.

We know that the Verizon iPhone 4 will be almost identical in hardware to the AT&T iPhone 4. We know it’ll launch on February 10th. But what will it cost, and when will it be available to pre-order?

First the price: the 16GB Verizon iPhone 4 will cost $199, the 32GB will cost $299 with a mobile hotspot included that can support up to five devices. That’s a big perk: unlike AT&T’s iPhone 4, you get tethering!

As for pre-orders, Verizon is giving its existing customers a week’s window to pre-order the device starting February 3rd. Come February 10th, orders will be open to all customers on both Verizon and Apple’s official website.

One thing that no one mentioned? Unlimited data. It appears that the Verizon iPhone 4, despite everyone’s hopes, will not be the exception to Verizon Wireless’ tiered mobile data approach. Pity.