iOS 4 is now available for download through iTunes, adding over a hundred new features to the iPhone and iPod Touch, including multitasking. If you’ve got an iPhone 3G, 3GS or iPod Touch (second gen or above), plug your iDevice into your USB port and hit the “Update” button in iTunes now.
Busy updating? You can also now officially grab iBooks for iPhone through the App Store as well.
What do you think of the new OS? Let us know in the comments.
For many of you, it’s probably a bit too late, but if you’re a Mac gamer who uses Valve’s Steam for Mac games delivery client, you might want to hold off updating to 10.6.4: according to Valve, 10.6.4 introduces some major performance issues to owners running Macs with NVIDIA GPUs.
The following message warend Steam users who logged in over the weekend about the upgrade:
The recent 10.6.4 update from Apple has noticeable performance issues for NVidia graphic chip owners running high performance games. If you wish to avoid this, you should consider waiting to install the 10.6.4 update until Apple has had the opportunity to address this issue. Full details of what is contained in the 10.6.4 update can be found here: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4150. If you have already installed this update and believe your graphic performance is affected, please contact Apple support (https://www.apple.com/support/) for details on what to do.
I haven’t noticed anything on my 27-inch Core 2 Duo iMac, but your mileage may well vary. If you haven’t updated to 10.6.4 yet, and if your Team Fortress 2 performance is more important to you than your Snow Leopard importance, it can’t hurt to hold off for now.
For many of you, it’s probably a bit too late, but if you’re a Mac gamer who uses Valve’s Steam for Mac games delivery client, you might want to hold off updating to 10.6.4: according to Valve, 10.6.4 introduces some major performance issues to owners running Macs with NVIDIA GPUs.
The following message warend Steam users who logged in over the weekend about the upgrade:
The recent 10.6.4 update from Apple has noticeable performance issues for NVidia graphic chip owners running high performance games. If you wish to avoid this, you should consider waiting to install the 10.6.4 update until Apple has had the opportunity to address this issue. Full details of what is contained in the 10.6.4 update can be found here: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4150. If you have already installed this update and believe your graphic performance is affected, please contact Apple support (https://www.apple.com/support/) for details on what to do.
I haven’t noticed anything on my 27-inch Core 2 Duo iMac, but your mileage may well vary. If you haven’t updated to 10.6.4 yet, and if your Team Fortress 2 performance is more important to you than your Snow Leopard importance, it can’t hurt to hold off for now.
It was a big disappointment to many when it became apparent that the white iPhone 4 would not be available at launch, forcing many to choose between waiting to upgrade their handset or getting a different color.
According to iClarified, though, there may be one big box retailer with some white iPhone 4s on hand come June 24th: Best Buy.
According to their intel, there are between 10 to 20 white iPhone 4s ordered by each Best Buy location. It’s unclear if Best Buy will actually get these white iPhone 4s, but it appears they at least expect to receive a limited number of them.
Who knows? If you’ve got your heart set on a white iPhone 4, you might want to try your luck at Best Buy later this week.
It’s not out quite yet, and there’s no official word on exactly it will be pumped through the iTunes download chute, but just to remind everyone: iOS 4 will be available today as a free download to all eligible third-gen iDevices (the iPhone 3Gs and third-gen iPod Touch), as well as as a limited update without multitasking for the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G.
As a further reminder, if you’ve jailbroken your iPhone or iPod Touch, you’re going to want to hold off installing the update until the Dev Team tells you it is okay, although take heart: they anticipate the relase of a fully working jailbreak for iOS 4 this month.
Although Apple is not set to launch its iAds platform until July 1, placeholder tests are already being spotted at the App Store. The placeholders appear with the iAd logo in apps for developers OneTap Movies and the Yellow Pages, according to Monday reports.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a Worldwide Developers conference that 17 advertisers had already signed onto the platform, committing up to $60 million for iAds. Jobs said 60 percent of that money will return to developers. “Apple sells and serves the ads, and you recieve 60 percent of the advertising revenue,” he explained.
The clusterflug continues. If you were one of the few prospective buyers who managed to successfully order an iPhone 4 from AT&T last week before their whole untested system crashed, you may well have gotten an email from AT&T over the weekend, claiming your order had been canceled for no particular reason.
Meet 24 year old Yuan Yandong, one of almost 500,000 workers employed by Foxconn. From 7:30 pm to 5:30 am, Yandong works the night shift, monotonously putting together over 1,600 hard drives a shift.
His task is to help complete 1,600 hard drives – his workshop’s daily quota – and to make sure every one is perfect. Seated in the middle of the assembly line in his black Foxconn sports shirt, cotton slacks and company-mandated white plastic slippers, he waits for the conveyor belt to deliver a partly assembled rectangular hard drive to his station. He places two plastic chips inside the drive’s casing, inserts a device that redirects light in the drive and then fastens four screws with an electric screwdriver before sending the drive down the line. He has exactly one minute to complete the multistep task.
Although Yandon describes the work as numbing, this New York Times profile piece does not make Yandong’s work seem particularly hellish. Perhaps the most disturbing detail in the entire piece is that Yandong is unaware that he is only legally allowed to work a maximimum of 36 overtime hours a month, saying that he more commonly works twice as much overtime, especially when big orders come in.
Working at Foxconn looks tedious make no mistake, but it doesn’t look obviously hellish: the psychological factors at play that are driving Foxconn’s workers are a lot more subtle than whip-lashing taskmasters.
If you managed to get your order in before the colossal iPhone 4 pre-order server meltdown, be on the lookout for shipping confirmation from Apple and AT&T.
Apple started to confirm shipping notifications and FedEx tracking for the iPhone 4 yesterday, some with a June 23 deliver-by date. The official release is June 24.
Today, AT&T customers are getting some relief from iPhone 4 pre-order anxiety as shipping info and confirmation emails are being sent out.
Has your new device been confirmed as on its way yet?
Via MacRumors
Amazon, although it is in a tug-of-war with Apple for the hearts and minds of publishers, may have a more immediate concern when it comes to other e-book rivals, such as Barnes & Noble and Borders: pricing. While Apple has staked-out the higher-end, the makers of the Nook and Kobe e-readers are rushing toward the lower-end, leaving the Internet retailer in a lonely position. However, Amazon could lower its Kindle’s $259 price tag very soon, one analyst suggests.
The Kindle could drop below $200 “before the end of summer,” according to Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney. In May, brick-and-mortar bookseller Borders introduced the $149 Kobe e-reader, joining competition from Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The Nook in March forced Amazon to also find a retail partner, Target, to get the Kindle on the radar of non-Internet shoppers. Possibly forcing Amazon’s hand was a DigiTimes report that the Nook had captured more than half of the U.S. e-reader market.
Analysts often point to the introduction of video conferencing – branded as FaceTime by Apple – as a chief selling point for the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s soon to be released iPhone 4. However, a nagging question had remained until Sunday: won’t video calls drain your cellular minutes? Over the weekend, Apple put the doubting minds at ease.
“The voice call ends as soon as the FaceTime call connects,” an Apple representative told Silicon Alley Insider Sunday. Because FaceTime uses Wi-Fi, no carrier minutes will be used.
The complete text of Best Buy’s launch plan for the iPhone 4 has been leaked to iClarified by an individual going by the handle of bbinsider.
The 24 page launch plan addressed to Best Buy employees includes:
The most interesting information revealed in the document, according to iClarified, is that Best Buy will be offering pre-sales on launch day for people standing in line waiting to buy an iPhone 4:
Since inventory availability is expected to be minimal, stores may open up a limited time pre-sale window as an option for customers on launch day who have not previously pre-purchased.
– Pre-sales may only occur up to 11:00 am local time
– Customers who pre-purchase on launch day will be added to the store’s pre-sale cue based on time of pre-sale and will get their pre-sale fulfilled in priority order
– Do not provide customers who pre-purchase on launch day timing on when a device may be available
You can read the entire document and grab the rest of the plans highlights yourself here.
I have a personal request: I’d like to ask for your support for a charity bike ride I’m doing in July.
I’m riding the Tour of the California Alps, better known as the Death Ride, to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Team in Training program.
I’m $1,000 dollars short of my fundraising minimum ($3,500). I’d like to ask for your support.
If you can help in the fight against blood cancer, please make a pledge using this link (use the “Make a Donation” widget at the right). It’s fast, easy and totally secure. I only need 20 people to make a $50 donation (or one person to make a $1,000 pledge). The deadline is June 24 — less than a week away.
The Death Ride is a very challenging 130-mile route that goes up and over five mountain passes in the awesome Sierra Nevada. It features 15,000 feet of climbing in one day, most of it between 6,000- and 9,000-feet above sea level, where the air is pretty thin. Here’s the elevation map. For an idea of how high that is, see this amazing infographic. It’s a lung-busting, masochistic ordeal.
We did a training ride last weekend that featured bears, snow and very little oxygen. Beautiful — but brutal.
Many thanks for reading this — and your support. I’d appreciate you sharing this post via email, Facebook or Twitter. Every penny counts, and it’s for a very good cause.
Police in Sussex want to test an app that would let gun owners start the renewal process using their iPhones.
Part of a £3 million cost-cutting campaign, anyone who wanted to renew shotgun and firearm licenses would start via iPhone, then be visited in person by officers.
Not everyone thinks the streamlining is a good thing.
”We’ve got to be extra careful giving gun licenses,” Lyn Costello, of Mothers Against Murder and Aggression (MAMAA), said. ”We have this attitude that gun murders don’t happen very often so its OK to be lax, but it is not OK and we’ve got to do everything in our power to stop it happening again.”
We close out another week with a deal on i5-based MacBook Pros, the new Mac mini desktops, and price cuts on Electronics Arts games for the iPhone and iPad. Expercom offers a MacBook Pro powered by a Core i5 Dual 2.4GHz processor and a 15-inch display with 8GB of RAM for $2,198 from Expercom. There is also a deal on Apple’s recently refreshed Mc mini computer, complete with a Core 2 Duo processor running at 2.4GHz for $669. Lastly, Electronics Arts, maker of the Madden NFL games, offers its semi-annual sale on software, including “Battleship,” “Boggle for the iPad,” and “The Sims 3” for the iPhone.
As always, details on these and many other bargains are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Apple has taken MobileMe Mail out of beta and made it available to all me.com members.
The iPad-inspired three-column view is especially nifty. See the screenshot above.
The new web mail also includes a couple of features not available in the beta: mail forwarding from another account and improved junk mail filtering.
Here’s the full list of features:
Apple quietly updated OS X’s malware protection system in the recent OS 10.6.4 upgrade, but made no mention of it in the accompanying release notes or security bulletin.
The updated XProtect.plist now protects against HellRTS, a Trojan Horse often disguised as iPhoto that hijacks the host Mac to send spam, take screenshots, and peek at files and settings.
Security expert Graham Cluley slammed the company for stealth security updates.
Unfortunately, many Mac users seem oblivious to security threats which can run on their computers. And that isn’t helped when Apple issues an anti-malware security update like this by stealth, rather than informing the public what it has done. You have to wonder whether their keeping quiet about an anti-malware security update like this was for marketing reasons. “Shh! Don’t tell folks that we have to protect against malware on Mac OS X!”
Yet another analyst is predicting a gangbuster debut for the iPhone 4. Next week’s iPhone 4 launch could be a “2 mln – 3 mln iPhone event,” according to Susquehanna Financial’s Jeff Fidacaro. In a note to investors, the analyst said Apple could sell up to three times as many units compared to the 2008 launch of the iPhone 3G or the 2009 launch of the iPhone 3GS.
Fidacaro’s expectation is based on Apple’s announcement the Cupertino, Calif. company sold 600,000 iPhone 4s on the first day of pre-sales and what many believe will be a strong rush to upgrade existing iPhones – particularly iPhone 3G owners.
Until today, iPhone fans have had to settle for images of a nonfunctional iPhone 4 prototype or peaks during the handset’s unveiling at the Worldwide Developers Conference. However, now comes both photos, videos and text from a Czech Republic website demonstrating the unit Apple plans to ship next week.
The Jablickarc.cz website includes photos of the iPhone 4, along with images created with the units 5-megapixel digital camera and video camera. The website’s user claimed the phone is fast, responsive and can take demands of heavy use with little impact on its battery life.
Next time you leave your iPhone behind in a bar, there’s a free app from Apple that could help you find it.
The Find My iPhone app is now available for download on iTunes but requires a MobileMe account subscription.
It works like this: install the app on your “home base” (someone else’s iPhone, or an iPad, iPod Touch) and in the event that you lose your iPhone or it gets swiped, login to the app via MobileMe.
Dan Frommer reports for Business Insider that AT&T is making some interesting decisions in regards to customer data plans. This recent decision will probably stir the pot with customers already irate over recent iPhone data plan changes and affects customers that buy AT&T’s new 3G MicroCell product. We don’t think that the report might be fair after speaking to AT&T.
Two analysts appear to have differing opinions on the iPad’s future: one believes Apple is preparing to ramp up production of the tablet, while another says the good times may be coming to an end. First the positive outlook: the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is selling 1.2 million iPads per month and has signed a second supplier to meet an increasing demand.
DigiTimes, citing market sources, said Friday Samsung Electronics will join LG Display to supply 9.7-inch LCD panels for Apple’s iPad. The companies are expected to ship 300,000 to 500,000 panels each month.
This Penny Arcade strip on the WWDC WiFi Problems may not be timely, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to thinking this was exactly what happened to some poor grunt the second Jobs stepped off stage.
Steam for Mac is already pretty great and getting better, but Valve Software’s Rob Barris says that we can expect performance improvements in the near future thanks to driver updates from ATI, NVIDIA and Apple themselves.
“Performance is going to improve as drivers are updated,” Barris said “I would expect modest improvements in short term and larger ones in longer term. No, I can’t put dates on them.”
“We are making a lot of progress is identifying specific issues that need work inside the game and inside OpenGL and drivers. Apple, ATI and NVIDIA are all involved.”
Although most of the games that have been released on Steam for far have run just fine on the Mac, they don’t yet boast Windows 7’s speed of performance. Not a big deal now, but as newer and more sophisticated games are brought over to Steam for Mac, the gulf between Windows 7 and Mac performance is only going to get greater. It’s great to see improvements are on the horizon.
[via Crunchgear]
Over at the EE Times, they have posted an interesting comparison between Apple’s A4 CPU and the Samsung S5PC10.
The end results are that they find that the CPUs are similar in design, Apple has taken a chip originally engineered to meet the demands of a broad range of OEMs and reduced the complexity and footprint to suit Apple products, thanks to their partnership with Intrinsity.
[via Engadget]
