News - page 2149

Today is the day. Finally. Apple is shipping iOS 4.2 to iPads, the iPhone 3G, 3GS and 4, and second, third and fourth generation iPod touches. iPad users have the most to benefit since they will be getting app folder enhancements and multitasking for the first time. The update also includes Game Center, AirPlay and AirPrint for all devices. Find My iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch is now free to use without a MobileMe subscription and you can now rent TV episodes directly on your iPad.

The update should be available for downloading around 10:00 AM PST today. You’ll need the latest copy of iTunes (version 10.1) so make sure your Mac is up-to-date. Afterwards tether your iOS device to your Mac and check for updates in iTunes after the appointed time.

Check out Apple’s press release for complete details on this exciting new iOS release.

Rivals attempting to share in the wave of momentum for tablet computers may be hurt by an expected wait-and-see attitude as consumers look toward a rumored iPad 2 from Apple. That’s the assessment by anonymous overseas suppliers talking to an industry publication.

According to the suppliers, the expectation of a new iPad sometime in the first three months of 2011 will “seriously weaken” sales of competing tablets from PC makers. Additionally, predictions for tablet sales in 2011 my be overly optimistic and risk disappointment.

Both Rupert Murdoch and Steve Jobs agree: devices like the iPad are the future of media, and the death of print.

It looks, however, like Apple and News Corp. might be working more closely to bring that end about than it was previously thought: according to WWD, Apple is helping News Corp. build an iPad-only, subscription-based newspaper to devices in early 2011… and Steve Jobs himself might debut it.

The new MacBook Air is Apple’s least self-repairable notebook yet, thoroughly bolted down by proprietary Torx screws, but if you thought that was just an anomaly, think again: Apple’s so averse to you cracking open your iPhone that they are actually retrofitting proprietary screws into iPhone 4’s brought in for in-warranty servicing.

Macs don’t really get viruses very often, but there’s more than a few anti-software firms who’d like you think they do… and sell you some software to help squash them.

Anytime we write about Mac viruses, then, it should be done with some salt dissolving on the tongue, and anti-virus firm Sophos’ latest report showing a surprising amount of malware on the Mac is no exception.

The data was culled from 50,000 malware reports generated by 150,000 users of Sophos’ free Mac anti-virus software during the first two weeks of November. The chart looks bad, but in actuality, it’s not really very dire… a fact that Sophos themselves are being upfront about.

In the tablet tug-of-war between Apple and Android-maker Google, the Cupertino, Calif. company may have one the first scuffle in South Korea. Although the iPad doesn’t officially go on sale there until Nov. 30, carrier KT reportedly sold some 60,000 units in less than won week of presales.

With a little more than one month left in 2010, KT — Apple’s partner in South Korea — expects to sell 200,000 iPads, according to a local report. By comparison, the rival Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab from SK Telecom pre-sold about 25,000 tablet in its first week of availability. Overall, Samsung expects to sell more than 150,000 by the end of November.

Apple’s intentions to bake reprogrammable SIM modules into future devices may have been killed off, thanks to the carrier revolt we reported on Friday.

Black Friday is this week and it will mark the beginning of the 2010 holiday shopping season in the U.S. Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Black Friday.

I’m not exactly excited about braving the crowds for holiday bargains. So I’ll be using my iPhone or iPad and any of the free apps below to help me shop from wherever I happen to be.

Concerned with the growing problem with eWaste?  Want the ability to upgrade and repair your own electronics?  Believe that the throw-away mentality needs to change for the sake of sustainability?

So does iFixIt, teardown-masters extraordinaire and longtime information and parts resource for Apple users.  They have just published the Self Repair Manifesto, along with an ambitious call to action to create – via crowd-sourcing – a Wikipedia-style Free Repair Manual for devices of all kinds: electronics, appliances, even a few cars.

On Tuesday, Apple made the addition of the Beatles’ repertoire to iTunes the story of the week (ho-hum though the story was), and this Sunday, the company made the new partnership the centerpiece of every NFL game, flooding the airwaves with multiple ads drawing on still images from the Get Back/Let it Be sessions (and occasional Ed Sullivan performances).

It’s all a bit retro, but there is some kind of nice unifying warmth to the band that made Helvetica rock-and-roll being featured by the company that made Helvetica high-tech.

The ads are nice, though, particularly if you’re enjoying a holiday beverage or two and are feeling nostalgic about the excitement of four friends, a recording studio, and creativity. Take a sip, sit back, and remember that love is all you need.

I’ve read a lot of Steve Jobs interviews but until now I’d not seen this 1985 interview from Playboy.

It catches Steve Jobs at age 29, one year after the Macintosh was launched. He is by far the youngest person on Forbes’s list of richest Americans and one of only seven who made their fortunes on their own.

He’s portrayed by Playboy as the Mark Zuckerberg of his era: a Valley wunderkind with a magical gift for foreseeing the future. Of course, it’s interesting to look back and see how the future actually panned out.

Jobs comes across as a confident and knowledgeable, but not brash and arrogant. Here’s a few of the highlights:

At the top of our must-have iOS apps list this week is the official Google Voice application that has finally made it in to the App Store. It’s a free download, and it’s claimed to be faster than the Google Voice HTML5 web app.

Also on our list this week is ComicStrip – an application that allows you to create your own comic book using the photos in your device’s camera roll. It’s a universal app so you can use it on your iPhone and your iPad, and it features a great collection of fun and unique layouts and caption bubbles to help you tell your story.

Other applications this week include AVPlayer – a great new media player that supports multiple file formats, and Notica – a beautiful visual memory companion that lets you add notes, photos and videos to beautiful postcards. Check them out after the break!

At San Diego State University’s College of Engineering, the rapid asexual mitosis of comp sci students has engendered a problem: there are more students than lab computers.

The iPad to the rescue! By rebuilding its web server infrastructure to support virtual computing through Mobile Safari, almost all of the students at SDSU are able to do most of their work on the go, whether through the iPad, iPhone or Android (boo).

Over the last few weeks we’ve covered Apple-centric gift ideas for men and women.  Now teens take center stage (like they don’t always anyway), as we lay down a humungous stack of sick, phat, gnarly, rad, neato, cool and completely sweater-free holiday gift ideas just for them.

Artsy Teens have no time for academics — they’re too busy creating. Art is their passion and they need the latest gadgets to keep up with them. Here are some gifts the Artsy Teen will treasure.

The Trendy Teen is all about the latest and greatest. Never mind how much it costs, if their friends have it, they want it. Here are some gifts the Trendy Teen will definitely want.

Brainy Teens take pride in their work, and they get great satisfaction from receiving all A’s on their report cards. Here are some gifts worthy of the Brainy Teen.

The Sporty Teen spends a lot of time outdoors; whether as part of a team or working out solo, they are active motivated to perform. Here are some gifts worthy of the Sporty Teen.

Apple released a support document yesterday titled MacBook Air (Late 2010): Video anomalies after waking from sleep, wherein Apple says that if you are experiencing these symptoms, “After waking from sleep, your MacBook Air display may flicker or fade from light to dark repeatedly.”

The solution is to: “Download and apply the Mac OS X v10.6.5 update to resolve this issue.”

Apple never mentioned this in the Mac OS X 10.6.5 release notes. I’m not surprised by that, but I’m happy that Apple has a solution to the problem that plagued early MacBook Air adopters – including myself and other staffers at Cult of Mac.

Have you seen any more video anomalies after applying the Mac OS X 10.6.5 update on your MacBook Air? Let us know if it worked for you or not by leaving a comment.

Apple has joined the list of closed systems, threatening to turn the web into another proprietary product from Cupertino, warns Tim Berners-Lee in an article published online Friday. Berners-Lee, who loosed the World Wide Web in 1990, blasted Apple’s iTunes for trapping consumers “in a single store, rather than being on the open marketplace.”

“For all the store’s wonderful features, its evolution is limited to what one company thinks up,” the Internet pioneer writes in Scientific American. Rather than using the standard HTTP protocol, Apple links iTunes material with the proprietary “itunes:” command.

When Steve Jobs said that Android was fragmented, here’s exactly what he meant: according to Rovio, who make the popular mobile game Angry Birds, they are struggling to support the game on all of the different Android hardware. In comparison, iOS development is easy as a dream.

What started off as an off-the-cuff joke by Steve Jobs at September’s iPod Event has become an actual sub-industry of the iPod accessory market as manufacturers churn out watchbands by the factory full for the new, touchscreen Nano. The only problem is the cheapness and unimaginativeness of most of these solutions: either they are cheap rubber shells to encase your Nano in or simple straps onto which you are meant to clip your Nano.

They don’t pass muster. MINIMAL’s latest, Kickstarter-funded line of iPod Nano watchbands are something different though. They’re not just functional… they’re gorgeous.

The rationale behind Apple’s unibody aluminum housings isn’t just aesthetic appeal: it’s also sturdiness. Unibody aluminum adds a bit of heft to an ultra-thin Apple portable, but it makes that device also harder to break despite its thinness.

There’s always room for improvement though, and if a new patent published by the USPTO is anything to go by, future iPads might trade in their aluminum shell for ultra-strong carbon fiber.

According to reports last month, Apple is working on a reprogrammable SIM module for future iPhones that would allow Cupertino to sell iPhones directly to customers without it being locked to a specific carrier.

Hey, guess who doesn’t like that idea? Hint: the carriers.