Can you think of another company whose outdated and obsolete products get repurposed as art pieces even a fraction as often as do those from Apple?
How about a late 20th century PowerMac G4, which, as a 10 year-old desktop might possibly still be good enough to run your elementary school children’s games and learning software, but for all practical purposes is probably better suited as the inspiration for a wall clock to remind you, time after time, how gear Apple cool is.
At a mere $60, these may not last long and you should look into turning your own dusty G4 into a DIY project.
Microsoft will release a Web-surfing, HD-video-playing, multitouch Zune in the fall to compete with the iPod touch — and the hardware actually looks pretty cool. But as Apple well knows, the gadget is one thing, the software and services are another.
Sporting a sexy metal case, the Zune HD will have a 3.3-inch, 480 x 272 OLED capacitive touchscreen display (16:9 widescreen); a built-in HD Radio receiver, and WiFi. The “HD” refers not to the touchscreen, but the HD radio and HD out (720p), though that’s only available with an optional cradle. Pricing was not released, and release is “early fall.”
The cover of the June 1, 2009 edition of the New Yorker magazine will feature art composed completely on an iPhone for the 1st time, according to multiple reports Monday.
Artist Jorge Columbo used the iPhone app Brushes to “fingerpaint” a street scene of people gathered by one of the city’s iconic hot dog & pretzel carts, elevating art on the iPhone to yet one more level of acceptance few could have imagined when Apple’s mobile device first came to market less than two years ago.
Hit the jump for a video made with the Brushes companion app Brushes Viewer showing just how Columbo used Brushes to create his work.
It’s a classic skull design, made with the keys from a pair of Apple keyboards. The white keys come from an extended white Mac keyboard; the black keys were taken from the original iMac (the one with the half sized F keys). Says Roger:
“I could say it depicts the obsolescence that all computer equipment faces, but really it’s just skulls make great tees! What Mac geek wouldn’t like to see a design featuring Mac keys, and only only closer inspection can you find the classic Apple command key.”
Hit the jump for a bigger picture of the skull — and the elusive command key.
However—and this is important—flagrant and blatant IP infringement is apparently fine, judging by Luigi Vs Pac.
And, yeah, we know Apple shouldn’t have to be the IP police when it comes to App Store content, and that some properties being ripped off are somewhat obscure. But, c’mon—Luigi and Pac-Man? In one game? Oh dear.
Apple’s Safari 4 browser is a pig. It’s a resource hog that doesn’t clean up after itself — and it remembers every site you visit, even in “porn mode.”
Safari records every site you visit, even if you turn on the “Private Browsing” feature or clear the browser history. And the files it generates can consume gigabytes of disk space.
“This is a huge privacy concern,” writes designer and musician C. Harwick, from Chapel Hill, NC, who did some snooping in Safari’s hidden system folders. “With no good way of getting rid of them except manually (clearing the history doesn’t do it, and I don’t think resetting Safari does either), these hidden files are strewn all over the user’s hard drive unbeknownst to him waiting for snooping relatives (or more pertinently, law enforcement) to dig them up. I really like Safari, but I’m going to have to seriously consider using Firefox now (ack).”
Who says Apple doesn’t listen to customers? Thanks to a public outcry, Apple has reversed course and accepted the Eucalyptus eBook reader into the iPhone App Store.
The web erupted in outrage last week when developer Jamie Montgomerie’s eBook reader was rejected by Apple because it allowed readers to download the Kama Sutra from Project Gutenberg — which Apple deemed “inappropriate sexual content.”
But on Sunday Montgomerie received a call from Apple. The Apple representative chatted with the developer about his app and invited him to resubmit it.
“We talked about the confusion surrounding its App Store rejections, which I am happy to say is now fully resolved,” Montgomerie wrote on his blog.
David Leibowitz is a veteran fine art photographer who’s lately been making some pretty amazing art using his iPhone.
Based in NYC, Leibowitz’s pictures of the city look like a French Impressionist painted the scenes (hit the jump for more pictures). There’s nothing to indicate they were made using his iPhone and about $40 worth of apps from the App Store.
Leibowitz has a long history of using digital tools to make art. He started in the ’80s with a Polaroid camera. He’d hand manipulate the emulsion to create photographs that look also look like Imrpessionist paintings. But now he’s discovered the iPhone, and the results are not your typical iPhone art.
Hit the jump for some of Leibowitz’s latest pictures and an interview explaining how he makes iPhone art.
Solar power has been an obvious answer to many of the world’s daunting energy challenges for a long time, but the expense and relative bulk of solar panels have largely kept solar out of the running when it comes to solutions for mobile power.
Suntrica, a nordic eco-tech company, seems to have found a solution, though, with a line of charging solutions that are small, light, and flexible and could be just the thing energy conscious consumers are looking for to power their gadgets to go.
Suntrica’s SolarStrap™, SolarBadge™ and SolarBadgePRO™ use a flexible, high-efficiency solar panel connected to internal, lightweight batteries for instant or later use. Battery capacities range from 3.7Wh to 7.3Wh and the output of all the chargers is 5.5V DC at 800mA, which makes them perfect for all your portable electronic gear.
Current models are compatible with Apple iPod and Nano, though the company plans to release iPhone compatible chargers in the next couple of months.
A big crowd turned out for the opening of Apple’s latest flagship store in Zurich on Friday.
There’s no official numbers, but pictures at MacPrime, a Swiss Mac magazine, suggest the line snaked several blocks.
Opened at noon, the new Bahnhofstrasse store was mobbed. Several fans camped out overnight, waiting 16 hours to be the first inside.
The Bahnhofstrasse store is the second in Zurich.
It has an unusual design, accoring to Gary Allen of IFOApplestore. It’s only the second Apple store (after 5th Ave.) to have an underground space. A glass staircase leads down to a large Genius Bar for service and training at the “Pro Labs.” More details about the Bahnhofstrasse store at Allen’s site.
Swiss insurance company Mobiliar gave knockoff iPods to guests at the Swiss Economic Forum. Pic: Berner Zeitung.
The head of Apple Switzerland has threatened legal action after a Swiss Insurance company gave 1,200 iPods to bigwigs at the tony Swiss Economic Forum. Trouble is, the iPods were cheap Chinese knockoffs.
At the Swiss Economic Forum last week, the insurance company Mobiliar surprised guests with an MP3 player that looked very much like a second-generation iPod shuffle.
But when Adrian Schmucki, the head of Apple Switzerland, received his, he threatened legal action against Mobiliar.
Add insult to injury, several of the guests asked Schmucki if the knockoffs would work with iTunes.
The Swiss Economic Forum is a two-day gathering of Switzerland’s leading companies, politicians and academics.
The Mounties in British Columbia just busted their biggest counterfeiting operation ever — and the brains of the operation were a very sinister and criminal-looking iMac and MacBook.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia raided a counterfeit “currency lab” in Surrey, B.C. last week, seizing more than $220,000 in American and Canadian notes and arresting four people.
They also seized a new iMac, a MacBook, and what look like a pair of inket printers and a laser printer. HP is the ink of choice for funny money, looks like.
(I’ve always suspect Macs were the machine of choice for counterfeiters, given their graphics history. I’ll look into it).
Gnh! That’s pretty much the sound we made, surprisingly loudly, on reading Gruber’s ‘Regarding Eucalyptus’ post. The gist? App Store idiocy strikes again! The specifics…
It seems Apple, not content with plumbing the depths by rejecting Tweetie for a rude word being in the day’s Twitter trends, has now rejected an e-book reader, because you can potentially read ‘objectionable’ content on it. Gruber sums things up nicely, calling this the “shittiest and most outrageous App Store rejection to date, and that’s saying something”, and we agree wholeheartedly.
As Gruber notes, Apple’s got a bug up its ass regarding the fact that you can read Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana on Eucalyptus. (Won’t somebody think of the children?) However, you can read this on a few other apps, too—you know, apps like Kindle and Stanza and, er, Safari. So Apple had best get ready to kick those off the iPhone for warping our fragile little minds.
But there’s more! What makes matters even worse is on reading the developer’s blog, it’s pretty clear the approvals process is even more broken than we all thought. Had Apple made a mistake and rectified it (see: Tweetie), fine… Dumb, but fine. Here, though, it’s pretty clear Apple keeps rejecting the app again and again for precisely the same utterly asinine reason. When the developer argues his case, it’s like shouting at a brick wall— a particularly dumb brick wall.
Far be it for us to say that perhaps ‘reversals’ for Tweetie and the NIN app actually came from Apple caving to dreadful publicity. But, hell, if the way to get a perfectly good app into the App Store is for a whole bunch of blogs to kick up a fuss and show, yet again, how the App Store approvals people seemingly have the combined intellect of a drunk, lobotimized woodlouse, we’re happy to do our bit.
Labor protestors outside Apple’s Taiwan Office on Thursday. The Apple laptop says “Responsibility.” Images: Global Post.
Apple’s office in Taiwan drew protesters on Thursday complaining about layoffs and unfair working conditions at one of Apple’s main contractors.
A group of 30 to 45 workers complained of exploitation at Wintek, one of Apple’s major suppliers of LCD panels. The company is rumored to be supplying screens for the long-awaited Apple tablet. The workers chanted slogans and held signs saying “black-heart business” and “responsibility” outside Apple’s office in Taipei.
This handmade set of two cotton applique pillows inspired by Mac keys is a nice way to put some fandom in your living room or office lounge without going overboard. Specify your initial on the letter key pillow to personalize.
Location based software applications in Blackberry’s new App World store are four times more expensive than similar titles in Apple’s App Store, according to a Skyhook Wireless report released Wednesday.
The company’s Location Aware App Report (PDF), a monthly survey of titles available in the online stores of mobile handset manufacturers Apple, Blackberry and Android, found the App Store offers a greater percentage of paid to free apps across a wider variety of title categories than either Blackberry or Android.
With over 35,000 apps in the App Store at the time of the survey (around 10,000 having been added since), and 2,300 of them location aware, Apple’s average price for a paid location aware app was $3.60. In contrast, the average price for a location aware app from Blackberry’s App World store was $13.60, while bargain-basment titles could be had from Android’s Market at an average price of just 84¢
The survey results are skewed in that Apple’s App Store has been open nearly a year, while Blackberry’s App World is only in its second month of operation. On the other hand, in its first six months of operation, the App Store saw more than 800 location aware apps released, while Android’s Marketplace produced fewer than 200 in its first two quarters.
For now, location aware software developers have shown a clear preference for Apple’s iPhone platform, even if some seem to believe the Blackberry platform might support quite a bit more revenue per title.
“With the success of the iPhone, the touch panel market has entered a dramatic new growth phase.,” the DisplaySearch report said.
The report predicted big growth in projected capacitive touchscreens — the technology used in the iPhone and iPod touch.
“Projected capacitive touch screens have increased substantially and become the second biggest touch technology following closely behind resistive touch,” the report said. “About 27 touch screen suppliers manufacture it. Not only have more resistive touch screen manufacturers moved to produce projected capacitive, but projected capacitive technology has evolved to single layer or film type, and can serve sizes larger than 100-inches.”
Whoa — a 100-inch iPhone in 2015.
Mobile phones and smartphones will be the most popular application of touchscreens, but they will also be the primary interface for media players, navigation devices, and games. More than 40 percent of mobile phones will have touchscreen interfaces by 2015, the report predicts, up from 16 percent now.
Touchscreens will also become popular in applications like retail, ticketing, information kiosks, and education and training terminals, the report said.
Rumors that the new iPhone will feature a glowing Apple logo on the back of the handset have generally been met with derision. The idea that Apple’s designer’s would waste precious battery life with a glowing logo is so abhorrent, many have used it to dismiss the rumors altogether.
But a group of Russian hackers in August last year hacked an iPhone to make the logo glow. The hack — as seen in the video below — involved a Dremel tool and about $300 in parts, according to reports.
And it had no effect on the battery life whatsoever, the Ruskies said.
But why would Apple add a frivolous glowing logo?
To make the Apple logo more visible, of course. Just like glowing lighthouse on the lid of a MacBook, or the iPod’s white headphones, Apple is not shy of using us to advertise its wares.
Nerdy Norwegian Petter Roisland helped police find a fugitive drug dealer, thanks to his stolen MacBook.
Roisland, a 23-year-old who lives near the southern Norwegian town of Stavanger, lost a computer in a burglary last year.
Determined not to get ripped off twice, Roisland installed Orbicle’s Undercover recovery software on two MacBooks he bought as replacement machines. And then in February, they too were stolen.
The designer of the brilliant “PhotoShoplifter” t-shirt (see the pic after the jump) is back with a new design honoring old Macs.
Roger of RubyRed T-shirt Designs has created the “Sad Chimes Rest Home” shirt featuring three vintage machines that are loved but no longer used.
“Old Macs deserve more than ending up on the scrapheap after a life of creation and innovation,” Roger says. “Be sympathetic to your old Apple in its time of need, send it to the Sad Chimes Rest Home for retired and redundant Macs. A place where the Mac Classic and the G3 iMac can reminisce about operating system developments.”
UPDATED: YouGov sent a little more info about the survey’s other metrics — posted after the jump. Basically, Apple still leads on quality and reputation, but MS has caught on value, satisfaction and willingness to recommend.
Microsoft’s “Laptop Hunters” ad campaign is hurting Apple, according to a new consmer survey by YouGov BrandIndex.
“With the Laptop Hunters campaign, Microsoft is making an impact on the perceived value score in the mind of consumers, particularly young consumers,” Ted Marzilli, global managing director of BrandIndex, said on Tuesday afternoon when I phoned him up.
YouGov is an international market research firm based out of London. Its BrandIndex survey queried about 5,000 people online from a pool of about 1.5 million, Marzilli said. It claims to be representative of the U.S. adult population.
Its latest survey shows a clear uptick in Microsoft’s “value,” and a clear downtick in Apple’s. The change coincides with Microsoft’s high-profile campaign.
In an effort to reach out to young, tech-savvy Catholics, the Holy See will launch an iPhone app to coincide with its World Communications Day, celebrated May 24.
The Vatican app was created by Father Paolo Padrini, the priest who developed iBrevary, an app that puts morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayers on the iPhone and a Facebook application called Praybook.
“The pope is inviting us to promote a culture of dialogue, of respect and friendship, especially among young people,” Archbishop Claudio Celli told Catholic News.
The initiative to put the Pope in your pocket comes after the Vatican youtube channel and will launch from a website (not yet live) called www.pope2you.net. So far the app lets people send and receive “virtual postcards” of Pope Benedict along with inspiring excerpts from the pope’s various speeches. No word on whether its gratis or, like the iBreviary, will cost $.99.
CC-licensed mockup by Victor Anselme. Note: this image did not appear on the iPhone Apps blog.
The new iPhone will be available July 17 and will have a bunch of new features, including video recording and editing, a digital compass, turn-by-turn directions, and a better battery, according to an obscure blog called iPhone Apps.
The blog, who no one has ever heard of before, claims to have been contacted by a “reputable source,” who is “closely connected to Apple’s hardware development team.”
Whatever. I’m dubious, but the rumor somewhat gels with previous rumors and the site’s detail and specificity lend the claims are certain credence. Kinda.
Developers are sneaking Easter Eggs into their iPhone apps to get around onerous App Store restrictions, Brian Chen at Wired.com reports.
Programmer Jelle Prins’ song lyrics app Lyrics, for example, was initially rejected by the App store because it included songs with naughty words. Apple bans profanity, pornography and basically anything adult and fun.
But the Lyrics app will include swear words if you go to the About page and swipe downward three times. Up pops an option to turn off a swear word filter.
“Lyrics has slipped in a quiet ‘Screw you’ to Apple’s App Store gatekeepers albeit one mumbled behind their backs,” Chen writes.
Has anyone else discovered undocumented features in iPhone apps? If so, leave them in the comments. A prize for the best one.
Apple published a support article Monday indicating “It’s possible to receive a small and quick electrical (static) shock from your earbuds while listening to iPod or iPhone.”
The article reads like a schoolbook primer on the nature and causes of static electricity and points out that the condition is not limited to Apple hardware, that static can potentially build up on almost any hardware and could be discharged using any brand of earbuds. Support staff also helpfully note that receiving a static shock from a pair of earbuds does not necessarily indicate an issue with the iPod, iPhone, or earbuds.
OK. And the company found it necessary to publish this information because…?
Have iPod and iPod users been experiencing an inordinate build-up of static electricity with their devices?
Let us know in comments below if you find it shocking to use your Apple mobile device in windy, low-humidity conditions.
