News - page 2218

A Chinese gadget site has reviewed the best iPhone 4 knockoff on the market, and while it looks good ands costs only $100, it’s really a piece of junk.

Says M.I.C Gadget:

“It’s the new king in the knockoff market, built to look like a real iPhone 4 while doing its best — with features like a front-facing camera with flash, removable battery, and that outrageous imitation of the industrial design, no one would say that this knockoff is not cool.”

But under the hood, the hardware and software are rubbish. The touchscreen barely works; the back is made of plastic, not glass; it says 64GB but it’s only 64MB; video is so crappy it is unwatchable; the Mail app is MMS, not email; the “five megapixel” camera is only 0.3 megapixels, and so on.

M.I.C Gadget: iPhone 4 Knockoff Review.

PS:  M.I.C Gadget also has reviews of a knockoff MacBook Air and a phony iPad.

If you want to give your MacBook more of the oomph of a desktop, the DeskBook Pro dock from Zemno would be a neat little solution… except for its mind-boggling expensiveness.

Like most laptop docking stations, the DeskBook primarily functions as a port multiplier: slot your MacBook in and you’ll expand your available USB 2 ports to six, as well as two FireWire 800 and one FireWire 400 ports.

The DeskBook Pro also operates as an external hard drive, with two bays that can accept either a 500GB hard drive or a battery. Don’t expect the battery to juice your MacBook, though: it’ll only power the DeskBook away from a power outlet.

Additionally, the DeskBook packs a DVI-out port for the connection of a third monitor to your MacBook. The important thing to note here, though, is this monitor will be driven by USB, so you’ll want to go light on it: it won’t hold up to more performance-intensive tasks.

Not a bad array of functionality, all told, but the price is enough to prevent this from being dropped in many shopping carts: $600 without the $180 hard drive or $150 battery pack. If you want a desktop that bad, at that price, you might as well just buy an iMac.

Prince is one of the most played musicians in my library,but I can’t buy any of his newer albums on iTunes: he won’t license his music to Apple. Why? According to a new interview, it’s because the “Internet is over” and iPod and iPhones fill our heads with malevolent “numbers.”

“The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it,” Prince said in an interview with the Daily Mirror.

“The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

This, of course, is typical nuttiness from The Formerly Known Formerly Known Artist: Prince, who is also a big believer in chemtrails and, as described by Kevin Smith, has some very curious opinions about the appropriation of both camels and women for a God-loving Christian’s personal use.

But all can be forgiven for “Sign ‘O’ The Times.” I think I’ll go listen to it on my evil, number-spurting iPod now.

Two of the most popular sporting games for iPad have gone on sale today for a limited time only courtesy of Gameloft, who have slashed the prices of Real Soccer HD (previously $6.99) and NFL 2010 HD (previously $4.99) to just $0.99.

I’ve found both games to be a great buy, in fact, Real Soccer is one of my favorite soccer games for the iPad, so if you’ve been considering either of them, now is a great time to snap them up!

Gameloft also has a sale currently running on two of their other games including Hero of Sparta HD and Brain Challenge HD, both of which have also been reduced to $0.99.

The savings don’t stop there, though – as well as their sales, Gameloft have permanently cut the prices of both Modern Combat: Sandstorm HD and Gangsta: West Coast Hustle HD from $6.99 to $4.99.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gEAeE9kd2E

It was only a matter of time before some plucky app developer divorced the iPhone 4’s flash functionality from the Camera.app proper to create a bitchin’ Strobe app… but huskily-voiced 15 year old John H. Meyer is the first dev out of the gate with Strobe Pro, an app sure to please photographers and ravers alike.

Strobe Pro probably won’t be particularly useful when used with the iPhone 4’s built-in camera, but paired with a DSLR as a strobing flash could result in some startlingly effective shots. As for the app itself, I’m particularly impressed by Strobe Pro’s wicked slick transparent view mode.

Strobe Pro isn’t available on the App Store yet, but it should be out as soon as it gets through App Store approval.

Machine-carved unibody aluminum is fine and all, but sometimes I miss the less austere Apple aesthetic: the cheery white plastic, the GLBT-friendliness of the rainbow logo. For just $3.50, you can retro your iPad up with this wonderful retro logo decal for the iPad.

As Charlie Sorrel over at Wired notes: “If Apple was in any way nostalgia-minded, it should include these stickers in the boxes of its products instead of those awful, thin white stickers that we throw away by their thousands every day.” Amen to that.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAKhftX0cjk

This isn’t exactly going to replace your HDTV or iPad, but check this out: a 1920 x 960 display made up of 12 daisy-chained iPod Touches, with a thirteenth iPod Touch as a remote. Just imagine how many pixels this would be pushing spread across 12 Retina Displays.

Badminton hasn’t really caught on wildly here in the U.S. Still, if Super Badminton 2010‘s graphics are as good as its screenshots suggest, who cares about popularity. The game boasts “hyper-realistic physics” to complement the slick graphics as well as deep control options and details like being able to play on a wooden court and realistic badminton moves.

The game’ll set you back a moderately hefty $5 though, so those screenshots will have to do a considerable amount of persuading to anyone who isn’t a badminton nut.

How’s iPhone 4 carrier unlock coming along, you ask? Jolly well, says Dev Team member MuscleNerd.

Despite the fact that the baseband-unlocking code used by ultrasn0w on the last three iPhones won’t work on the iPhone 4 due to a baseband change, a carrier unlock should still be attainable.

“Next step is to keep the task backgrounded like we did for 3G/3GS,” MuscleNerd wrote on his Twitter feed. “Backgrounded task is the unlock.”

Great news for those of us who want to migrate our phones to different networks, or use the when we travel abroad without paying exorbitant rates.

[via BGR]

Last year we published a list of five Apple stores to visit before you die. The list, done just in time for summer jaunts, included Sydney, Tokyo, Scottsdale, London’s Regent Street and New York’s famed 5th Avenue store.

But now there’s Paris, which definitely makes our bucket list of Apple stores to visit.  The recently-opened store is Apple’s third retail outlet in France and the Cupertino company’s 294th shop.

UK artist Kyle Lambert demonstrates the viability of creating art on the iPad, painting an impressive portrait of singer Beyoncé using the Brushes app, 1 finger and 6 hours of work.  Very nice job.  Even better, Kyle’s posted a time lapse video documenting the whole process.

Thanks to MacWorld for the tip.

Superficially, the iPad’s incredible multi-touch screen has a lot of potential for graphic artists, but in reality, the lack of a stylus and the tablet’s own inability to distinguish applied user pressure gimps the iPad’s ability to challenge the venerable Wacom tablet.

To show us what could easily be, the guys at Ten One Design have put together this video in which they demonstrate an iPad capable of sensing the pressure applied to a Pogo Stylus.

It’s an impressive video, but there’s a rub: Ten One Design has to use a private API call to make the pressure function work, which means that it’s nothing we can expect to see on the iPad unless Apple rolls it into their UIKit framework.

Get on it, Apple. Through the dark times, it was artists and graphic designers who supported your brand; now it’s time to give them the drawing tablet they’ve always wanted.

Between cameras, gaming consoles, phones and laptops, proprietary cables and chargers are an irritating reality of the modern tech head’s life… and any solution that promises to consolidate them is going to find an audience with at least a few consumers with an OCD about clutter.

The iDapt charging station looks to be one of the more ambitious of charging stations, capable of juicing over 4,000 gadgets through a sleek base station capable of charging up to four devices at a time, in addition to a constabulary of interchangeable tips.

Naturally, it’ll charge anything that uses an iPod dock connector, as well as pretty much every other portable gadget under the sun. For $60, it looks like a good solution, although iDapt’s making its real bank by selling the adaptors, not the base station… and there’s just no getting around the fact that it’s way past time the world got a device charging, syncing and docking standard the way AV has HDMI.

Apple’s response to the ongoing iPhone 4 “death grip” debacle is largely cosmetic, but at the end of the day, Cupertino’s made sure that everyone knows that “if you are not fully satisfied, you can return your undamaged iPhone to any Apple Retail Store or the online Apple Store within 30 days of purchase for a full refund.”

Throwing the gauntlet down and challenging your customers to return their phones if they aren’t happy with Apple’s fix is pretty daring, but at least Apple seems to be putting their money where their mouth is: Computerworld notes that simultaneously with the release of the iPhone 4 Reception memo, Apple quietly changed the terms of its return policy to exclude the customary 10% restocking fee.

According to Computerworld, Apple’s dropping the restocking fee to defend against class-action lawsuits that might otherwise cite the 10% fee as losses to be recouped. Personally, I think it’s simpler than that: Apple’s just not the kind of company to promise a full refund, then shortchange you.

Ever since Apple purchased streaming music site LaLa back in 2009 and Cupertino’s acquisition of a massive data center in North Carolina, safe money has been on iTunes moving into the cloud. But why haven’t we seen it yet?

According to an interesting rumor posted by Electronista, it all comes down to licensing.

Currently, Apple has a deal with the music industry that allows customers to stream music from their own computers to other devices, Airtunes. However, this existing licensing agreement doesn’t apply to streaming music directly from Apple’s servers, which would require an entirely new deal to be inked.

If Apple’s going to announce iTunes Live this year, it would be at September’s iPod event… but according to Electronista, many record label executives haven’t even heard of Apple’s service, which may indicate that we won’t see streaming iTunes this year at all.

[via Boy Genius Report

Macs tend to be a bit underpowered when it comes to the GPU, but information gleaned from the firmware of the most recent Mac mini suggests that future iMacs and Mac Pros may be getting a beefy spec bump soon.

Specifically, the latest Mac mini OpenGL firmware reference support for the NVIDIA GeForce 480 and the Radeon HD 5000. Both cards are about to be superseded by newer offerings from both NVIDIA and ATI, but for Mac users, they would still represent a significant performance bump.

What’s curious here about the news is that Apple is again considering using ATI GPUs in their products. NVIDIA has been the sole supplier of discrete GPUs to Apple since late 2006, so if ATI is about to get back into the game, it would mark quite the transition.

In the iPhone, Apple has the biggest non-dedicated mobile gaming device in the world, while in the DS, Nintendo controls the most successful dedicated mobile gaming console. There’s a war on, and while it won’t be a battle to the death, Nintendo understandably doesn’t want to give Apple any more help than it has to when it comes to gaming… least of all by creating iPhone versions of its more popular franchises.

During an investor Q&A, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata confirmed that you shouldn’t expect an iPhone version of Super Mario Bros. or The Legend of Zelda anytime soon.

“Other companies don’t share Nintendo’s values or traditions when it comes to creating devices,” he said. “We are absolutely not thinking of [releasing software on other platforms].”

Iwata wasn’t specifically referencing the App Store, of course, but the message is clear: Nintendo’s gaming franchises are long-term strategic assets Nintendo isn’t going to lend for a quick buck to promote another console. If you want Nintendo games on your iPhone, you’ll have to turn to jailbreaking and emulation.

[via TUAW]

The popular Spotify music application for iPhone & iPod Touch has been updated to version 0.4.7 today for the iOS 4 software. This update brings with it the eagerly awaited multitasking support which now allows you to listen to your favourite music whilst using other applications on your device.

The update also features a new “what’s new” tab that displays new releases, the top 100 tracks in your country and a social news feed that displays Facebook posts. As well as the ability to use your headset remote, the multitasking dock buttons and the lock-screen buttons to control playback.

The full list of changes as listed in the description are:

iOS 4 multitasking! Play Spotify tracks while doing other things with your phone. NOTE: Only iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 and iPod Touch (3rd generation) support multitasking.

Use the headset remote and lockscreen buttons to control Spotify playback

“What’s new” tab has been added showing you newly released albums, the top 100 tracks in your country, and the social feed

Share tracks and albums to your Spotify friends!

Battery consumption is improved when the app is in the foreground or paused.

You can find Spotify in the App Store here (U.K.), but please note; you need a Spotify Premium account to use the iPhone & iPod Touch application.

Although Apple unveiled new privacy rules with the iPhone 4 software for developers, the restrictions on data collection reportedly hasn’t prevented Google from serving ads within iPhone or iPad applications. A central reason why Apple is turning a blind eye to the third-party ads is to take FTC pressure off of the Cupertino, Calif. company, according to a Friday Wall Street Journal report.

The report quotes a developer for Conde Naste Publications that hesitates to test Apple’s willingness to enforce the new rules because iAds is the most lucrative advertising network.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvo2g7RkVSo&feature=player_embedded

Things to do over the weekend with your brand new iPhone 4, or Apple’s most fragile and shatterable handset yet? Why not strap it to a few helium balloons and send it off for a little jaunt along the troposphere. They weren’t entirely stupid, though: recovery of the iPhone 4 seems to have been assured by a long length of fishing wire.

[via TUAW]

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It’s Independence Day Friday, and let’s face it, after a week of iPhone 4 reception controversy, we’re all a little tired, so let’s all take a moment to chuckle over this: Futurama‘s 31st Century parody of the Apple Store and the iPhone.

[polldaddy poll=”3421479″]

Apple issued a lengthy public apology this morning about the antenna issues plaguing the iPhone 4 while still maintaining the launch was the most successful in the Cupertino company’s history.
Will the “uh, we’re sorry” cut it?

Tell us why or why not in the comments.

Despite Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ 2008 statement that “no one has succeeded” in combining the internet, movies and tv into one living-room gadget, the Cupertino, Calif. company reportedly is revamping its AppleTV software and hiring broadcast design experts for what could be a new product based on the iOS operating system running the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

According to the New York Times, much of the new work is being done outside the Apple TV area and in a new design group, a move that “could signal an entirely new product.”

Apple Friday “emphatically denied” an emailed statement attributed to CEO Steve Jobs and quickly spread by bloggers. In an exchange over frustration with iPhone 4 reception, the head of Apple supposedly replied: “It is just a phone. Not worth it.”

The exchange, originally published by the well-known Boy Genius Report blog, then spread by dozens of other sites, supposedly included this conversation between Jobs and a blogger identified as “Tom”:

Apple published a letter to iPhone 4 users this morning, in which it apologized for the device’s reception weirdness.

But it turns out there’s nothing wrong with the hardware. Turns out Apple’s been using the wrong formula for calculating and displaying signal strength, and has been doing so since the 3G model came out.

So if your phone told you signal strength was four bars, it might have only been two. And where it said you had two bars, it might have been non-existent.

Oops.

The letter says:

“To fix this, we are adopting AT&T’s recently recommended formula for calculating how many bars to display for a given signal strength. The real signal strength remains the same, but the iPhone’s bars will report it far more accurately, providing users a much better indication of the reception they will get in a given area. We are also making bars 1, 2 and 3 a bit taller so they will be easier to see.”

The changes will appear in a forthcoming software update (which will also apply to 3G and 3GS models).

Apple signs off with a hopeful: “We hope you love the iPhone 4 as much as we do.”