Daring Fireball’s John Gruber has an excellent track record when it comes to casually dropping details about the next Apple product, so we’re inclined to believe his latest:

[I] if you wait a few weeks to buy the Touch, you’ll get one with a Retina Display and dual cameras.

The Retina Display has been an assumed given since the iPhone 4 hit the market, but the insistence on dual cameras is interesting. We knew the next iPod Touch was bound to have at least a FaceTime camera, but according to a story last month, the iPhone 4’s 5MP camera module simply can’t fit into the existing iPod Touch, so Apple would either need to make the iPod Touch thicker or max the iPod Touch’s back-facing camera out at 3.2MP.

The “within a few weeks” is also interesting, since it seemingly contradicts a rumor that we heard earlier this week that Apple would be hosting their annual iPod event by August 17th. Then again, since we haven’t yet seen press invitations for that event, that rumor’s pretty much contradicted itself.

The death of reformed cad and marginally inept Mac writer John Brownlee was predicated by what seemed to him, at the time, to be the most innocuous sally into pre-dinner small talk.

“I heard today, baby, that OK Cupid says that iPhone users have twice as much sex as Android owners. Isn’t that interesting?”

Brownlee only realized his mistake as the first of many skull-crushing blows rained down upon his head, but by then it was too late to identify himself as a statistical anomaly: all 4.3-inches of his girlfriend’s discarded Droid X had already been deftly crammed past his uvula while she screamed, “Never again, you bounder, I said never again!”

Apple now admits some early iPod nano devices can overheat. The admission comes five years after Japanese iPod owners reported the units became unusable after overheating, and in some cases caused fires and minor injuries.

In a statement, Apple announced there were “very rare cases of overheating” caused by recharging batteries in iPod nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006.

Finally, carbon and silicon based entities can repose and recharge side by side!  FurnitureWorld brings us news of one of the Ultimate iPad Accessories, the iCon Bed, a luxury offering from Hollandia International and mattress brand Therapedic.  Dual adjustable mattresses pair with a high tech headboard for the ultimate in sleep workstations:

The iCon Bed’s upholstered headboard is in a class of its own with its sleek, modern look, along with four fully enclosed speakers, 250 watt amplifier and docking stations for two iPads built into the furniture. It is available in more than 200 fashionable colors and fabrics to complement any bedroom decor.

Like the iPad, the iCon Bed is more about a lifestyle choice than it is about a product, and caters to consumers who know how to balance work, rest and play, said Hollandia CEO Avi Barssessat.

This trendy staple will set you back a cool $20k. Perhaps an opportunity for creative DIY projects?

European Union regulators are now looking into Apple’s ban on Adobe Flash on its iOS devices, including the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. The EU would join an earlier-announced probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into the Cupertino, Calif. firm.

According to the New York Post, which first reported the June FTC investigation, the EU’s European Commission probe could stretch another four to six weeks. “According to a source, the European Commission recently joined the FTC probe into whether Apple’s business practices harm competition,” the newspaper reported Tuesday.

Apple’s on a roll today with new options for developers. In the same day that they brought educational bulk discounts to the App Store, Apple has changed the way iAd works by allowing devs to sell their apps directly from within an iAd.

In other words, instead of tapping an iAd for an app and going to the App Store, you will now get a pop-up asking you to confirm your purchase. Click “OK” then enter your iTunes password and the app will be automatically sucked down.

According to 9to5Mac, this move might be prompted by low iAd fill rates. Either way, it’s a welcome change not to be filtered through the App Store as an extraneous step to sucking down that new app.

It is only three words, but it was enough to get speculation revved-up: Is AT&T admitting it’s iPhone deal is coming to a close? In a late-Friday filing with the Security and Exchange Commission, Apple’s U.S. partner told regulators exclusivity contracts on ‘a number of attractive handsets’ are about to end.

Although Apple’s iPhone was not mentioned by name, the oblique reference had analysts scurrying to connect the dots. For some time, rumors have floated that Apple is preparing to introduce a CDMA version of the iPhone, potentially for AT&T rival Verizon. While neither firm has spoken directly on the issue, AT&T’s statement is just the latest piece in the puzzle.

Miss being immersed in a blue cathode glow as you slumber in front of your staticky black-and-white television. Designer Jonas Damon did, so he built a dock in the style of an old cathode-ray television… complete with an Apple Dock Connector snaking like an electrical cord out of the back. Load up an MP4 of an old episode of Elvira’s Movie Macabre and you’ve got yourself a pixel-perfect recreation of a 1980s bachelor life.

As college students prepare to return to the classrooms, many of them are carrying an Apple laptop. An Apple MacBook is favored by 47 percent for those college students who’ve yet to purchase a computer and 27 percent of students who already own a laptop are fans of the Cupertino, California company. As Fortune points out, this is a complete turn-around from 2005, when 47 percent of laptop buyers chose Dell.

This year, Dell is the No. 2 (24 percent) laptop brand chosen for college dorms, followed by HP with 15 percent of the college market and Toshiba with 10 percent, according to research firm Student Monitor, a New Jersey firm who has been doing these surveys for nearly a quarter century.

It’s been almost two years since Microsoft’s laughable, misleading and creatively bereft “I’m A PC” ads, and you’d think they’d have learned something about appearing too defensive… but no! Right in time for the annual “Back to School” laptop sales wars, Microsoft has launched an official PC vs. Mac section on their website.

Needless to say, it’s laughably misleading.

Flash (or, rather, Frash) came to iPhone 4s yesterday, and also runs on jailbroken iPads, but the installation process was, well, a little convoluted.

Thankfully, it’s just gotten a whole lot easier thanks to Cydia repository Benm.at. If you want to install Frash on your jailbroken iOS device, it’s now as simple as following these steps:

1. Open Cydia > Manage > Sources
2. Edit source and add https://repo.benm.at
3. Search Frash and install it.

Voila! A pulsing migraine of Steve Jobs’ annoyance, right in the palm of your hands. Watch out for core meltdown, though: we hear Frash runs pretty hot.

[via Gizmodo]

Apple has just pushed through a great update to its developer app sale agreement, giving devs the ability to offer their apps at a 50% discount to educational institutions.

The idea is to allow educational institutions to preload the same apps across numerous iOS devices to be distributed to students and faculty, while giving developers an incentive to offer their apps at a discount.

The half-off discount only applies in bulk downloads of twenty or more apps purchased at once. If you’re a developer, it’s easy enough to sign up: just agree to the new paperwork and tick the box next to “Discount for Educational Institutions.”

[via 9to5Mac]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsNXtEayCSY

It’s every child’s worst fear – teaching their parents how to use technology!  Perhaps it’s payback for adolescence.  SuperNews! offer up this hilarious look at what happens when Dad gets an iPhone.

“Don’t turn it on! You’ll waste the batteries!”

Be sure to also check out their epic battles Gates vs. Jobs and Gates vs. Jobs II.

In a surprise move, Apple has today approved CineXPlayer for the iPad, which is a free application that allows you to watch Xvid movies on your device.

Great news for those of you out there with a collection of Xvid video files you would previously have had to convert before you could watch on your iPad, but is this just another app that’s temporarily slipped through Apple’s net? Apple doesn’t normally approve apps of this kind for the App Store and famously stands by the MPEG-4 and H.264 formats, brushing other formats aside.

It could mean, of course, that in an attempt to deter us from jailbreaking our devices, Apple is beginning to loosen up on its strict control of the App Store approval process. Many applications have passed Apple’s approval process, however, only to be withdrawn from the App Store hours later. And I get the feeling CineXPlayer will be next on the list.

Only time will tell whether CineXPlayer remains in the App Store or whether it will soon be pulled, but I’d advise you get your hands on it quick just in case.

Pictures of a white iPhone 4 in the wild have been leaked out of China.

The white iPhone 4 was apparently sneaked out of the factory inside the box for a black iPhone 4 and taken to Hong Kong.

The white iPhone 4 has suffered several delays, and is due to ship “later this year,” according to a curt statement from Apple. The device was originally supposed to ship in with the black iPhone 4, but has pushed back twice for reasons unknown. There has been speculation that the white iPhone leaks light from its LCD.

The pictures below who a 32GB model and include details like the headphone jack connector and dock connector.

UPDATE: This might be a fake, as noted by our friends over at 9to5Mac. Vendors in Hong Kong, for example, can turn a black iPhone 4 into a white iPhone 4 for about $360. The lack of a silver metal ring around the camera flash is the give-away.

Thanks Chris of MICGadget.

– Part 1. “The Plan”

The new hexacore Mac Pro’s are coming, the screaming performance and egg frying potential of those new machines are making my previously five thousand dollar 2006 model look positively dated.

To be sure, I’m in the midst of a computational mid-life crisis. Follow me after the jump for the cure…

This app requires practically a Best Buy full of hardware: not just an iPhone, a TV and a Wii as well. But if you’re already set up — or eager enough to run out and pop for the hardware because of this app — for $3, WiiPhoto will connect the dots and let you display photos on your TV from the iPhone via a wifi connection.

The app will also let users pull images from a Flickr, Facebook or SmugMug account, or from a Mac attached to the same local network, and throw them up on the screen  — with all these sources easily accessed from within the app. Pretty cool idea for easy image-surfing from the couch.

Apple has acquired an exclusive license to use Liquidmetal’s space-age metal alloys in consumer electronic products, a filing with the SEC reveals.

Developed literally in space by NASA, Liquidmetal’s alloys are super-strong, felxible metals that are incredibly light and flexible, and yet can be cast in factories like plastic.

NASA is extremely bullish about the new metals:

In the same way that the inventions of steel in the 1800s and plastic in the 1900s sparked revolutions for industry, a new class of amorphous alloys is poised to redefine materials science as we know it in the 21st century.

Welcome to the 3rd Revolution, otherwise known as the era of Liquidmetal alloys, where metals behave similar to plastics but possess more than twice the strength of high-performance titanium.

Liquidmetals belong to the class of “glassy metals,” and have already been used in golf clubs and tennis rackets, as well as CE products like a USB memory stick from SanDisk and a high-end cell phone from Vertu. The U.S. Department of Defense is looking at a range of uses, including replacing uranium-tipped armor piercing munitions with Liquidmetals.

It’s unclear what Apple might do with the Liquidmetal license, but a good guess is for casings in future iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Because of the alloys’ high strength, iPhone and iPad cases could be super thin and very light. They would be scatch-proof and corrosion-resistant.

Plus, they could be molded into intricate and unusual shapes: a property that is sure to appeal to Jonny Ive.

Here’s a good overview of the material and its applications (PDF): New materials have remarkable properties and can be customised.

And the video below shows how watch-maker Omega used Liquidmetal to create a seamless, scracthproof watch bezel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZcsWVqLC5I

The Apple Store went down this morning, and when it came back up, Apple had given us all a depressingly good excuse to give them five grand: their new 12-core Mac Pros.

Even the minimum specs for this thing are eyeball melting: two 2.66GHz hecacore Xeon Westmere CPUs, 6GB of memory, an eighteen-speed dual-layer SuperDrive and an ATI Radeon HD 5770 GPU with 1GB of DDR5 memory.

Prices start at $4999.99, but I was able to spec one close to $15,000 with all the bells and whistles before my eyeballs bugged out of my sockets. Shipping is in seven to ten business days, so get ordering

Look, we’ve all been burned by the Verizon iPhone rumor before, but we’re really starting to think that a CDMA iPhone 4 is coming sooner rather than later. Consider these three separate stories surfacing this morning.

First, we have this story from Techcrunch, claiming that a CDMA iPhone is due in January:

Sources with knowledge of this entire situation have assured me that Apple has submitted orders for millions of units of Qualcomm CDMA chipsets for a Verizon iPhone run due in December.

Next up is this AT&T SEC filing which hints very strongly that their iPhone exclusive is nearing an end. The filing contains an entire section dedicated to the risks involved when “exclusivity agreements end,” as well as assurances to shareholders that the loss of the iPhone isn’t a “material negative impact.” This all reads like a company that sees the writing on the wall.

Finally, consider this Digitimes story, claiming that a CDMA iPhone will go into mass production in December by Pegatron, who will supply the resulting handsets to both Verizon Wireless and China Telecom.

Like I said, we’ve all been burned on the Verizon iPhone rumor before… but there’s a lot more scuttlebutt swirling around this time than usual. More importantly, even though all these intel reports have different sources, the details are lining up: AT&T’s exclusive is ending by the end of the year, and a CDMA iPhone will be available in January.

If you are unhappy with AT&T’s service and your contract is coming up, it might behoove you to hold off on renewing it for the time being.

From Steve Jobs’ promise to ship millions of FaceTime capable “iOS devices” this year to a leaked iPod Touch front plate with a front-facing camera hole, the imminent release of a FaceTime-capable iPod Touch is looking more likely by the moment.

The latest evidence? Confirming earlier rumors about how FaceTime would be handled on the next gen iPod Touch, MacRumors has discovered that the latest beta of iOS 4.1 supports email-based FaceTime initiation.

I’ve been banking on an iPod Touch capable of FaceTime ever since the iPhone 4’s release, but now I’m really beginning to wonder if we won’t see that device in the next couple of weeks. Take the existence of email-based FaceTime in iOS 4.1 beta 3 and combine it with Apple’s seeming slowness in releasing a fix for iOS 4.0.1’s PDF security vulnerability and today’s rumor that the next iPod event will happen next week, and I think what we’re looking at here is an update to iOS 4.1 timed around the imminent release of a new iPod Touch. What do you think?

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYVG-cKHPIE&feature=player_embedded

Comex has done it again. The man behind the popular Spirit and JailbreakMe jailbreaks has successfully ported Flash to the iPhone 4.

The Android-to-iOS flash port, called Frash, was first unveiled last month, but this is the first time it’s been available for the iPhone 4. The instructions for installing it aren’t exactly noob-friendly, but either way, this is Steve Jobs’ worst nightmare come true: Flash running on any modern iOS device capable of being jailbroken.

Of course, the man never said that it couldn’t be done, just that it shouldn’t be done… and watching the video above, we have to agree. While Frash seems to work well enough, it’s noticeably slow, especially in loading new Flash videos. That kind of stuttery performance is simply anathema to Apple’s principles… well, unless you’re running iOS 4 on an iPhone 3G, that is.

Apple’s annual iPod media event is traditionally held in September, but according to Brazilian Mac site Mac Magazine, they might hold it a bit early this year.

According to MacMagazine’s “reliable source within Apple,” Cupertino plans to refresh their iPod line and unveil the next-generation iPod Touch as soon as mid-August, with a date of August 16th or August 17th being cited as the most likely dates.

Mac Rumors points out that if these rumors are true, this iPod event date also aligns with a claimed August 17th release date for iLife ’11, although it’s not entirely clear how that product’s release would fit in with a strongly-focused iPod announcement.

Given that Apple has yet to send out invites for their iPod event, that date might seem suspiciously near, but it’s plausible: Apple has traditionally given only a week’s lead time to the press when throwing their iPod events. Last year, the invite for their “It’s Only Rock and Roll” iPod Event came with just nine days worth of lead time, and in 2008, Apple sent out the invites just seven days before the event. If this rumor is true, then, expect official press invites to start landing in the next day or two.

>Back in 2008, Apple wanted chip design guru Mark Papermaster so much that they actually got into a lawsuit with IBM over him. A mere fifteen months later, though, Papermaster has left his position of Senior VP of Devices Hardware Engineering at Apple… and all signs point to Papermaster having been canned.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Papermaster had a a “falling out” with Steve Jobs over Apple’s corporate culture, and has lost Jobs’ confidence months ago.

As Daring Fireball’s John Gruber points out, that seems to be consistent with external evidence: namely, despite the fact that Papermaster was in charge of the iPhone 4’s hardware, he is nowhere to be seen in Apple’s iPhone 4 promotional videos. Nor was he on stage during Apple’s “Antennagate” press conference.

Rather, in both instances, Papermaster’s ostensible subordinate, Bob Mansfield, took his place to talk in detail about the iPhone 4’s hardware. No surprise, then, that Mansfield has now been promoted into Papermaster’s now vacant position.

Ultimately, this seems to be a case of a square peg not being able to fit into an Apple-shaped hole.

The most interesting detail of this story is the fact that Papermaster was not fired by Jobs over the iPhone 4’s antenna issues. In fact, according to Gruber, the iPhone 4’s antenna issues were ticked as a bug over two years ago, and Steve Jobs himself gave the okay on releasing the handset as designed, believing the “death grip” issue to be comparable to antenna-issues on other smartphones.

If you can buy it before Apple pulls the sale, you could snap up a 3G iPod prototype with camera.

You’ve still got a day to bid the 32GB iPod, at this writing there were 34 bids and a ceiling of $449. However, this isn’t the first time one has cropped up on eBay, the last one for sale in April was pulled shortly after it made news.

The iPod with camera prototype will probably be a museum piece, but you may have trouble using it — the device doesn’t come with the as-yet unreleased camera software. (duh).