The chief supplier for Apple’s iPad tablet is denying there will be any delay to the previously announced March shipment date. Foxconn Electronics told a trade publication Wednesday supplies for the tablet device “are on schedule.”
The China-based company also told DigiTimes 600,000-700,000 iPads will be ready in March and 1 million of the devices will ship in April. The iPad’s launch is unlikely to be delayed, unnamed sources told the publication.
We reported two weeks ago that Capcom was planning on bringing Street Fighter 4, to the App Store despite the iPhone and iPod Touch’s lack of waggling physical controls… but now we can see exactly how the iconic fighting game will play on Apple’s line-up of touchscreen handsets thanks to a recently released trailer.
We already knew Valve was bringing its popular Steam games delivery service to OS X thanks to some Mac-specific files floating around the latest PC beta, but you can now pretty much take it as read: the Half-Life 2 developer has been releasing a slew of images slathering the Apple coating across their most popular gaming franchise.
So far, Valve has released images of Half-Life 2‘s Gordon Freeman wearing an iMacified HEV suit, replete with Apple logo instead of the Black Mesa Lambda symbol; the Team Fortress 2 Heavy eating a sandwich in the style of the dancing silhouette iPod ads; turrets from both Team Fortress 2 and Portal (a game which boasts a very Mac-inspired visual design scheme) doing the “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” dance; Left 4 Dead’s Francis mocking the iconic “Think Different” series of ads; a Steam-specific take-off of the first “Introducing Macintosh” advertisement (courtesy of RPS); and Half-Life 2’s Alyx transported into the famous “1984” commercial (via Macworld).
We’ve got all the images after the jump, At the barest minimum, though, OS X is about to get a proper digital delivery platform for games, and native ports of Valve’s greatest games. Rare good news indeed for the dedicated Mac gamer.
The world’s most advanced music AI runs on a rickety old Power Mac 7500.
Called Emily Howell by its creator, music professor David Cope, the program just released “her” first album, From Darkness, Light, in January.
Having purged the App Store of porn, it looks as though Apple is now clearing the App Store of Wi-Fi finders.
On Wednesday, it appears that Apple removed several popular Wi-Fi stumbers from the App Store, including WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum and yFy Network Finder.
Apple sent a note to the developer of WiFi-Where on Wednesday saying their app has been removed because it uses “a private framework to access wifi information.”
One person’s lost iPod touch is another person’s opportunity to pick it up cheap.
It’s clearly a joke. A real scammer would replace the sign altogether with a new phone number — their own.
What would you do?
Via The High Definite.
The best ideas are always the simplest. This is a fantastic tip from one of the team at Massive Studios, who needed a stand to rest a MacBook on.
Why bother spending money on something made of metal or plastic, when everything you need came in the box, wrapped around the MacBook?
Some Instructables are complicated but this one’s dead simple. All you need provide is a couple of screws – yep, screw them right into the styrofoam, apparently it works just fine – and a blade to slice the foam in the first place, and that’s it.
And if you’re wondering whether someone’s thought of turning an iPhone box into an iPhone dock, the answer is most certainly yes.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzhFiC9vsZQ
It was bound to happen: every new Apple product announcement inevitably becomes the lure for some unscrupulous scumbucket’s latest scam, and the iPad certainly wasn’t going to be any different. But the latest online scam to prominently feature an Apple product seems a bit more dastardly than most. According to security firm Sophos, a new iPad scam has hit Facebook, and far from giving you a free iPad, it could cost you a pretty penny.
The scam starts innocently enough: you are directed to a Facebook page which reads “iPad Researchers Wanted — Want to beta test Apple’s latest product?” The page then goes on to encourage you to become a fan and to recruit your friends, claiming propagation of the scam will increase your chances of being accepted into the beta.
But here’s the insidious part: go to the page brings up a pop-up window, claiming to be a quiz that you need to fill out to be eligible for the beta… and the quiz asks for your permission to get your date of birth and cellphone number from Facebook.
“That’s where the scam happens,” says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. The hackers who created this page are trying to sign you up for a premium rate cellphone service, that will charge you something like $10 a week until you unsubscribe.”
The good news here is Sophos alerted Facebook, who quickly pulled the scam… but the bad news is, it’s doubtlessly going to pop right back up again.
The lesson here, of course, is if it’s too good to be true, it always is… and Apple’s never going to let a schmuck like you or me beta test its new products.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyFKfSmpM8s
According to Doctor Who lore, inside the dimpled chassis of the genocidal Dalek is a cycloptic squidling, but Steve over at BotBuilder knows the real truth: in actuality, the warbling, murderous cyborgs are remote controlled via iPhone using the accelerometer.
According to Steve, “The iPhone sends out OSC signals over WiFI to processing which then talks over serial to my Servo Board. The Dalek moves around when you tilt the ipod/iphone. I am getting the accelerometer data out for this. I also have a turret that can be rotated and some leds that are switch-able.”
All very well and good, Steve, but you just haven’t taken this project far enough until I can pick up my iPhone, shriek “Exterminate!” into the mic and have it automatically converted into an oscillating, high-pitched electronic shriek emanating from the remote-controlled Dalek’s head plunger.
Yesterday, Cupertino surprised everyone by throwing a bonafide legal temper tantrum about rival handset maker HTC’s alleged infringement on up to 20 Apple patents.
Although Apple is targeting HTC, the takeaway here is clear: Apple’s going after Android, HTC’s bread-and-butter. Google recognizes this, and is standing in solidarity with HTC.
As Apple fans, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture here. Competition is good for the consumer, and Android becoming a credible threat to the iPhone’s dominance will only make the iPhone cheaper and better for consumers in the long run.
There’s other aspects that make this sort of patent battle bad news for consumers though. The New York Times Bits blog asked some IP experts on the possible ramifications of the Apple-HTC patent dispute, and according to Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain, if Apple wins, we could see the courts order HTC to hit the kill switch on their Android phones, just like what happened in the TiVo/EchoStar lawsuit of 2004.
Apple’s line of notebooks are great computers, no doubt, but you’ve got to admit: they’re slick, streamlined designs come at the price of a paucity of ports. The MacBook and MacBook Pro only have two USB 2.0 ports, where as the MacBook Air only has one. Given how many gadgets charge and sync through USB, that makes USB hubs a way of life for those lugging an Apple laptop around.
CableJive’s duaLink Sync Splitter Cable is a great little accessory to maximize the usefulness of your rare open USB port. Essentially, it’s a standard iPod syncing cable, bifurcating polycephalically to allow you to dock, charge and sync two devices at the same time.
It’s not a big innovation, of course, but it’s a nice little accessory if, like me, you have an iPod Touch, Classic, Nano and iPhone to sync (with an iPad soon to be thrown into the mix), and only one free USB port to do it with. You can pick it up at CableJive’s online store for $26.
[via Technabob]
For hardcore users, the iPad’s WiFi-only SKUs may seem like “why bother” affairs… especially given the $30 month-by-month data plan AT&T is offering to customers who pick up the marginally more expensive 3G version.
But AT&T doesn’t see it that way at all: in fact, speaking in a financial conference call this week, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has flat-out warned Ma Bell investors that they shouldn’t expect a huge upswing in new subscribers when the iPad launches.
Amazon had a brief breather from its fight with Apple over ebook pricing for a fight with Apple over digital music. Music labels featured in Amazon’s “Daily Deals” promotions are being pressured by Cupertino to cut it out, lest lose iTunes marketing muscle. The intimidation seems to be working, a report said.
“Sources say that iTunes representatives have been urging labels to rethink their participation in the Amazon promotion and that they have backed up those warnings by withdrawing marketing support for certain releases featured as Daily Deals,” writes Billboard.
The confrontation between Apple and Amazon stems from a requirement labels provide the Seattle-based company a one-day exclusive to sell MP3s before albums reach retailers or iTunes. In return, Amazon provides marketing, such as a banner ad on an artist’s MySpace page and promotions on other Web sites and social media.
ThinkFlood’s latest product, the RedEye Mini, is another universal remote dongle for the iPhone and iPod Touch, but it’s interesting in that it is both more and less gainly than the iPhone Universal Remote Case we wrote about last week.
Unlike the iPhone Universal Remote Case, the RedEye Mini is a small dongle that plugs into your iPhone or iPod Touch’s 3.5mm headphone jack. In other words, it keeps your Dock Connector open where the iPhone Universal Remote Case hijacks it, requiring you to pull your iPhone out of the Remote Case every time you want to sync it. The RedEye Mini solution is better in this regard, although now you have an easy-to-lose dongle to worry about.
Apple Store employees could be the first civilians to touch the mythical iPad tablet device. The iPad is set to arrive Mar. 10 in Apple Stores for employee training. Television commercials for the iPad should begin airing by mid-March with sales of the Wi-Fi iPad happening by the end of this month, a Tuesday report claims.
The Examiner cites a Southern California Apple Store manager who wanted to remain anonymous. A 3G version of the iPad will appear in late April or May, according to the report.
Controversy pays: after going public about pressure from glass company Seele over the eBay sale of a fractured stair, former Apple employee Mark Burstiner sold the cracked keepsake for $9,950.
It comes from the spiral staircase in Apple’s 5th avenue store, Burstiner saved the glass heading to the trash after it was fractured by a customer’s Snapple bottle.
The final sale price is about four times what Burstiner first thought a 250lb glass stair from the staircase was worth, $2,500.
We can’t wait to hear the buyer gets the thing home and what they do with it. And whether the suits will have any more to say about it.
Stay tuned.
Axiotron, makers of the thing that was closest to being an iPad before the iPad was announced – the Modbook – are not going to give in without a fight. No sir.
They’ve sent out a press release today, announcing a new promotion for buyers of all new Modbooks. Something they hope will make customers think twice before buying an iPad.
This is absolutely great. Film critic Roger Ebert is premiering his new computer voice on Oprah this afternoon. Below is a sneak peek. His new voice — spoken by his MacBook — actually sounds like him. He looks really delighted with it.
“In first grade they said I talked too much, and now I still can,” he says, grinning.
Ebert lost his voice box after years of cancer treatments. He used to speak with “Alex,” the robotic voice built into OS X. His new voice was created by CereProc, a company in Scotland that recreated it from hours of Ebert’s TV shows and DVD commentaries.
Via Videogum and Daring Fireball.
You need not risk $20 million in alimony to find deleting compromising text messages from your cell phone useful.
That’s the premise behind Tiger app, a nod to philandering putter Tiger Woods, an iPhone application that erases indiscreet SMS messages, forever, right after you’ve read them. You can set a text “life span,” then those texts are deleted from both user’s phones, living up to its slogan “to cover your tracks.”
A boon for star-crossed lovers, double dealers, anyone needing a bit of privacy in a world of oversharing, this is certainly a more elegant solution than the double SIM card, a favorite in amore-happy Italy from where I write — where the number of SIMS outnumber inhabitants.
It also provides a much-needed buffer in the dating world, since it offers a tigertext ID you can give to out and then figure out if beer goggles are 20/20 or not.
As one of the app reviewers, JJH13 says: “I was out at a party last night and met someone and wasn’t sure I wanted him to have my number. I noticed he had an iPhone and just gave him my tigertext user name. Later I can decide whether to give him my number. I love the fact what I say via text is pretty much going to stay that way. I work as an attorney in family law and can see some great uses for this professionally.”
However, even the yawningly monogamous may find a use for this: who doesn’t have a few friends or co-workers whose SMS messages are just about always worth automatically deleting?
Tired of the iPod alarm clocks that wake you to the gentle morning light or a bit of soft Winton Marsalis? Yeah, just hit the ‘snooze’ bar and roll over for a few more minutes. What you need is an alarm clock that won’t take no; perhaps iLuv’s new Vibe Plus. This alarm clock will rock your world – literally.
Along with the usual technology, like integrated iPod dock, FM stereo and speakers, is the intriguing option described as “bed shaker.” The attachment, which rests under your pillow, can “shake the deepest of sleepers awake,” claims the maker. Combine the shaker with the buzzer (there are 10 options for getting your lazy behind out of bed) and the iLuv iMM178 Vibe Plus might be the best bit of technology since Mr. Coffee.
Boston is one of the first US cities — along with Pittsburgh and San Jose — to let angry citizens file complaints about potholes, graffitti and missed trash pick-ups via iPhone.
Boston’s Citizens Connect, which city officials say has been downloaded 5,000 times since it’s October 2009 debut, won’t be the only way people can let city government know what’s awry in their fair city.
The Cradle of Liberty aims to be the city of smartphone apps thanks to a new one called Boston Urban Mechanic Profiler, or BUMP.
It’s still under development, but the general idea is that instead of using bumping to exchange your phone number with that cute denizen of the coffee table adjacent, by bumping fists with their phones drivers or bicyclists can quickly and easily report road conditions to city officials.
To bridge the iPhone divide — wealthy areas get bumped a lot, poorer areas not at all — officials are considering equipping city workers who live in less affluent neighborhoods with iPhones so they can boost the bumps.
Via Boston Globe
Apple’s App Store Approval Process is often too arbitrary or subjective by half, but no matter how you feel about the latest app rejection to storm the newsfeeds, at least their rationale makes sense: QuackPhone, an app developed by Nick Bonatsakis of Atlantia Software, was rejected for “containing minimal user functionality.” In other words, the app — which made your iPhone quack like a duck — just didn’t do enough for Apple’s tastes.
From a critical perspective, it’s hard to argue with that logic: the App Store is already distressingly filled with lazily programmed and tasteless sound board apps that will allow your iPhone to simulate everything from the sound of a braying jackass to the flatulation of a loose rectum. A higher signal to noise ratio on the App Store is in everyone’s best interests.
But while most people can probably do without these kind of apps, the real issue with Apple rejecting them outright is the old slippery slope argument: exactly how much “functionality” does an app need to have to be approved on the App Store, and isn’t this sort of rejection just really a veiled editorial move on Apple’s part? If an app is open and honest about what it does, who is Apple to say that its users aren’t allowed to use it? If iPhone owners want their handsets to quack like a duck, just what’s the big deal, outside of Apple’s own arbitrary distaste at the concept?
You’ve got about 10 hours to place the winning bid on an unusual piece of Apple memorabilia: a cracked glass stair from the 5th Avenue store’s stunning spiral staircase.
As we predicted, Apple wasn’t happy about it. Former Apple employee Mark Burstiner, who rescued the stair from the trash after it was cracked by a customer’s Snapple bottle, got into an email tussle with a VP from Seele, the company that makes the glass stairs, over pulling the auction.
Burstiner pulled the item, then, in a post on Gizmodo, explained why he decided to put it up for sale again:
As far as Iʼm aware, I have done nothing illegal. I have not stolen. I have not deceived in any way. The step is not confidential, and it is not IP. The step is the very same that any New Yorker could see by walking into Apple Fifth Ave. The only thing I am guilty of is taking the risk of throwing out my back through having to move the step multiple times. I saw an opportunity, I asked for permission, received it, and proceeded. I wonʼt allow a major corporation to bully me into a corner. At the time of this posting, it has been seven full days since I put the listing up, and I havenʼt heard from Apple directly a single time. I have every right to sell my property, and I plan to do so.
The controversy is turning what might’ve been yet another quirky, deserted auction into a potential moneymaker.
Apple is again back in legal headlines, Tuesday suing handset maker HTC for allegedly infringing 20 unspecified iPhone patents. HTC has designed a number of smartphones powered by Google’s Android mobile operating system.
The lawsuit, filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission and in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, points to the iPhone patents covering user interface and associated architecture and hardware, reports said.
It’s Tuesday morning, and we’re all a little tired. Regrettably, this smooth trance infused tribute to Apple product design isn’t exactly likely to wake anyone up: as an experience, it all feels a little bit like dreaming of electric sheep in an android sherpa’s belly.
Soporific or not, though, this is an impressive little video. Animated by US design company Transparent House, the animation was rendered in just ten days by using various 3D visualization tools. Overall, it’s an attractive little love letter to Apple’s three decade history of excellent product design.