News - page 2337

Apple has released new lists of the “all time” Top 20 paid and free iPhone and iPod Touch applications, as the iTunes AppStore plows on toward 1 billion total downloads.

The “all-time” designation is kind of interesting, given the AppStore has only been open less than a year, but some of the numbers coming out make an impressive case for yet another ding in the universe attributable to Steve Jobs and his little niche computer company.

The number two paid app, the lovely, meditative Koi Pond has been downloaded 900,000 times at 99¢ apiece, according to one report, certainly a nice year’s work for its developers, The Blimp Pilots.

But how about the number one paid app, the game Crash Bandicoot? Its total downloads are unreported, but one could assume a figure somewhat north of Koi Pond’s 900K — at $5.99 per copy, Crash Bandicoot must have Vivendi Games Mobile wondering how much richer they might have become had the world economy not suffered a total melt-down in the past year.

On the free side of the ledger Facebook and Google Earth run one-two, which is no surprise at all, given the worldwide popularity of those two web properties.

Apple has a giveaway contest going in conjunction with the countdown to one billion downloads, with winners slated to get a fully loaded MacBook Pro, a 32GB iPod Touch, a $10,000 iTunes Gift Card and a Time Capsule wireless hard drive.

Inspired by Magritte’s “The Son of Man” painting, this decal comes in  black, gray  and white for 13″, 15″ and 17″ laptops. If you’re going to add on to the already sleek design, it’s a nice take.

$9 on Etsy.

Apple sits atop BusinessWeek‘s list of “The 25 Most Innovative Companies” for the fifth year in a row, according to a statement released Thursday by the magazine and the Boston Consulting Group.

The news should come as no surprise to anyone who keeps up with trends in the computer, telecom and entertainment industries, though the report does contain undercurrents of weariness with Apple and the #2 company, Google. Both firms received more than 30% fewer votes in the 2009 survey than they got last year, with some respondents complaining about Apple and Google both “resting on past glory” and relying on “improvements [to] previous technology.”

The special report, “The World’s Most Innovative Companies,” will be featured in BusinessWeek’s April 20th issue, on newsstands April 10th.

BusinessWeek.com will also feature expanded content, including an interactive table of the full ranking of the top 50 most innovative companies, a slide show on 50 up-and-coming innovative companies, and a full description of the methodology used to compile the lists, at www.businessweek.com/go/09/innovative09.

The full list is after the jump.

Taiwanese company Elan Microelectronics has sued Apple for the unauthorized use of two of Elan’s patents in Apple’s MacBook, iPhone and iPod Touch products.

“We couldn’t find a common viewpoint with Apple, so we decided we had to take action,” Elan spokesman Dennis Liu told the New York Times, adding that the companies had been in licensing talks for about two years.

A statement published on Elan’s website says the patents cover innovations in touch-sensitive input devices incorporated into smartphones and computer touchpads.

“The first patent at issue, U.S. Patent 5,825,352 (“the ‘352 patent”), relates to touch-sensitive input devices with the ability to detect the simultaneous presence of two or more fingers. Multi-finger applications are becoming popular in smartphone and computer applications. The ‘352 patent is a fundamental patent to the detection of multi-fingers that allows for any subsequent multi-finger applications to be implemented. The second patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,274,353 (“the ‘353 patent”), is directed to touchpads capable of switching between keyboard and handwriting input modes.”

Elan said it won a preliminary court injunction against a U.S.-based rival, Synaptics, in a dispute over one of the patents mentioned in the Apple lawsuit, after a suit was filed in 2006 by a unit that was a subsidiary at the time. Synaptics countersued.

Both actions were dismissed last year after the two companies reached a cross-licensing agreement. That result likely emboldened the company to take legal action against Apple, an analyst who follows Elan told the NYT.

Image used with a CC license, courtesy dnorman

An idea whose time has come: a massage table with an iPod dock built in.

The Sonora Sound Spa Table with integrated Bose Speakers and an iPod Nano has a $6,195 price tag, so it’s not the kind of thing most people could have at home.

But if these became standard equipment at spas, it would be a vast improvement. You could have your kinks worked out while listening to an audio book from home or some non-annoying relaxation music. (No more pan flutes!)

Via Device

A 23-year-old iPod repairman pleaded guilty in federal court in Grand Rapids, Michigan to fraud and money laundering after acquiring more than 9,000 replacement iPod Shuffles by entering serial numbers into Apple’s Web site.

Nicholas Woodhams, who has to pay back Apple for the shuffle-and-switched iPods he re-sold for $49 each, also faces up to 30 years in prison.

As part of the plea deal, Woodhams also has to hand over a home in Portage, an Audi S4 sedan, a race car, a motorcycle, six computers and over $570,000.

Via Ap

Image used with a CC license, thanks to re-ality

It looks like an iPhone and is about the same size as one, but it won’t harbor any of the nasty germs of your smart device.

This artisanal iPhone soap, which sells for $7.99,  smells like “mojito” or “tropical mango,”  more than you can say for the real thing. The maker Meilin, whose day jobs have also included troubleshooting cryptic error messages from SQL server databases, has also put together soap to give programmers a smile and a bar resembling an iPod.

Via Geeky Gadgets

Over at Core 77, this earbud holder was an in-house entry in this month’s one-hour design challenge to make something useful out of business cards.

Eric says he’s been using it for a week and its still holding up..In any case, it’s a nice way to use those out-of-date cards (dot-com bust, anyone?) instead of just recycling them…

Other Apple-related entries in the business card challenge include an iPhone stand and speakers. Feeling creative? There’s still time to enter the contest — the top five entries win 1,000 business cards.

Via Core77

Stanford’s School of Engineering recently launched a 10-week course on iPhone programming, available gratis on iTunes.

The video podcasts of about an hour each that teach programming for the iPhone and iPod Touch are the same ones offered on the Palo Alto campus, minus the tuition, with a few days lag time.

“There’s a lot of interest in the iPhone,” said Brent Izutsu, Stanford’s project manager for Stanford on iTunes U. “This course provides an excellent opportunity for us to show the breadth and depth of our curriculum and the innovation of our students.”

Not surprising, now that the media are calling the race to make money-making apps the new “gold rush.”
Via Apple Insider

I spent a week in Paris recently, and although I was on vacation, I was still on the lookout for Macs. I almost missed this homage to the Apple design while I was out shopping with my uncle. Fortunately, he saw this excellent window display at the Printemps department store and stopped me to take some photos.

The display case, several large windows long, was completely littered with Apple products. See if you can count them all. You can also see the reflection of the other side of Boulevard Haussmann.

A 20-year-old Brooklyn man charged with raping a woman in New York got busted because he was so intent on stealing the victim’s iPod that he left his own cell phone behind.

According to the indictment, the NYT reports,  Jonathan Salva grabbed a woman from behind around 4 a.m. on Feb. 21 as she walked along West 28th Street, between Eighth and Ninth Avenues, while listening to her iPod (or iPhone, reports vary.)

Salva made off with the device, but left his own cellphone at the scene,  authorities said.

Salva pleaded not guilty to predatory sexual assault, a top charge that could put him behind bars for life. He was held in lieu of $250,000 bail.

One note of levity from the controversial G20 summit in London is the exchange of gifts between US President Barack Obama to Queen Elizabeth II.

The AP reports: Obama’s gift of an iPod to Queen Elizabeth II came loaded with 40 songs from popular Broadway productions, including “The King and I,” “West Side Story” and “Dreamgirls.”

The iPod (exact model unspecified) was given to accompany a rare coffee table book of songs by composers Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, which Obama also gave the queen. It also came loaded with video of her time in Washington and Virginia in 2007 during a private meeting overnight.

The Queen is reported to have owned an iPod since 2005, so maybe he was thinking it was time for an upgrade.

Among the standards,  few selections stand out — “Seasons of Love” from “Rent” and “The Best of Times,” from “La Cage Aux Folles.”

Wonder if they the tracks were selected by Reggie Love, Obama’s 26-year-old-jack-of-all trades and designated iPod stocker, who is following the President on his overseas trip.

The Queen reciprocated with a portrait of herself and her husband.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2nh469INBk

Hmm. This was one of the suspect newslets (see today’s date) that at least gave me a chuckle: a touchless iCar, especially designed to let kids drive themselves around.

Brought to you by mobile open source software company Funambol, the car was designed by CEO Fabrizio Capobianco.

“I grew tired of driving my toddler daughter everywhere, ” said Capobianco. “The other day, she grabbed my iPhone and mastered it in 10 minutes. That provided the inspiration to add finger gestures to iCar. It’s so intuitive even a five year old can give the finger while driving.”

A jab at a “competing” Microsoft car was also thrown into the press release: “Microsoft also today announced its highly anticipated MiCar. The MiCar not only lacks a steering wheel, it has no wheels, period. In initial test drives, MiCar was completely immobile yet still managed to crash. It is available in one color only, “Death-Screen Blue.”

Steve Wozniak’s dancing dream is over.

I blame the fact that Pete Mortensen was not here liveblogging it tonight for Cult of Mac.

“I gave it a good try,” Wozniak said after being voted off the show. Few ever expected the burly billionaire engineer to win the contest, least of all Wozniak himself.

Despite having criticized the program’s scoring system in the past couple of weeks, in the end, he said performing on the program made him feel like “the luckiest person in the world.”

In an unpredictable turn of events on Woz’s  tumultuous “Dancing With The Stars” gig, his partner Karina Smirnoff has asked him to walk (not fox trot or tango) her down the aisle at her upcoming wedding.

The dancer will wed former DWTS co-star, Maksim Chmerkovskiy, who was paired with Denise Richards.  Richards and Chmerkovsiy were eliminated unexpectedly on last week’s show.

Smirnoff says of Woz:
“He’s a little out of his element but has the biggest personality you’ll ever meet. He’s super funny and super charming.”

Awww. Let’s hope the pair makes it out of tonight’s show — it’s largely thought his internet fan base is keeping Woz in the running in what has been described as not so much dirty dancing but stinky.

Via Detroit Free Press

Came across the Italian edition of CoM founder Leander Kahney’s book on Steve Jobs (“Inside Steve’s Brain“) the other day in a shop in Milan.

The title in Italian has been translated as “Inside Steve’s Head.” Perhaps the idea of being in his brain was considered a little too graphic?

It looks like the Spanish edition took the same route…Curious to see if there are any other differences in title translations, if you spot any, let me know…

Skype for iPhone is due to be announced at CTIA 2009 on Tuesday morning.

The world’s busiest long distance service provider and its new partner Apple helpfully made the free Skype for iPhone app available for download via the iTunes AppStore (opens iTunes) Monday night, and a quick lap around the track implies quite an upgrade to iPhone’s voice functionality.

Simply logging in with a user’s current Skype username and password automatically populates the mobile apps’ database with contacts, recent call history, and account information including avatar image, profile information, Skype Credit account balances, Online number information and voicemail history.

Making a call to a Skype friend is as easy and intuitive as it is from the familiar PC interface, and the sound quality on a connected call is equal to that using a headset on a PC, especially when using a headset with mic attached to the iPhone or iPod Touch.

It should be noted that Skype voice calls are dependent on the initiating caller having a strong and stable WiFi connection to place and maintain the call. Weak or intermittent WiFi connectivity will downgrade call quality and easily lead to dropped calls, and Skype will not in any way access or rely on the cell network to complete or maintain voice calls.

Another issue some may have yet to consider in championing the arrival of Skype as a watershed in mobile VoIP calling is the limitation imposed by Apple’s mobile OS that prevents more than one app from running at a time.

Should an iPhone user be engaged in a Skype call when a normal cell phone call comes in, the WiFi connection will be broken, and the Skype call automatically dropped as the cell call rings in. Absent the ability to place an iPhone in “Do Not Disturb” mode, this will remain a persistent potential problem for those relying on the iPhone’s ability to deliver voice over WiFi.

Otherwise, at first blush, Skype appears to have delivered a seamless integration of its PC-based application for making calls over IP networks.

More details will come to light as hundreds of millions of Skype users begin to make and receive calls using iPhone and iPod Touch.

It will be interesting, as well, to see how the introduction of iPhone 3.0 operating software, due this coming summer with its promise of push notification may affect Skype for iPhone’s usability.

Doubt I’ll be making lunch on my MacBook anytime soon, but its ongoing overheating and fan problems have made me wonder whether the rumors they get hot enough to cook on are true.

Wonder no more: flickr user Digital Monk tossed a little egg yolk on his MacBook Pro and in 10 minutes, voila , cooked it. (Unless it’s an early April Fool’s joke…)

He says:

“I’ve read in more than one instance that you can cook an egg on a Macbook pro. Of course, whoever was saying that was using it as a metaphor to explain how hot these laptops can really get. I have always nodded my head in agreement that mbp’s heating problem is something Apple is not taking seriously (Do you hear us Apple? Grrrr!). Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fantastic machine, far superior than the laptops that run Window or what have you. But it does have it’s own share of drawbacks.

Today I decided to see for myself if you could really cook an egg on a Macbook pro! So I ended up placing some yolk on my MBP. And it didn’t take more than 10 minutes to find out if MBP is also a cooking machine!  Above are the results.. I did not actually taste the yolk, but it was cooked alright!”

Via Technopath

In a nice little piece of Internet archeology, an interview with graphic designer Rob Janoff  on the creation of the iconic Apple rainbow logo has resurfaced at zlok.net.

In 1976, Janoff worked as an art director for Regis McKenna where he created the logo, it was a pro-bono gig.

“For inspiration, the first thing I did was go to the supermarket, buy a bag of apples and slice them up. I just stared at the wedges for hours,” recalls Janoff. The fruit of his labor: a simple 2-D monochromatic apple, with a healthy bite taken from the right side. Jobs loved the conceit-only he suggested it be more colorful. Janoff’s boss disagreed, insisting the logo be made all black to save on printing costs.

“But Jobs was resolute, arguing that color was the key to humanizing the company,” says Janoff. “So I just put colors where I thought they should be, not even thinking about a prism.” What thanks did Janoff, now the owner of his own Chicago-based graphic design firm, get for all his hard work? “Not even a holiday card.”

Full article here.

Janoff’s site also has a nice radio interview with him talking about his “eureka” moment as he made the logo…

Skype’s much-anticipated VoIP application for iPhone and iPod Touch will launch in the iTunes AppStore on Tuesday, according to a report at Cnet, which published Sunday evening a pre-launch review.

Set to go live in the AppStore in concert with its introduction at CTIA 2009, Skype’s Apple product is said to leverage a couple of nice iPhone-centric features such as being able to take a photo from within Skype to serve as your avatar image, or pulling a picture in from the camera roll — and the look and feel is less heavy on Skype branding, more attuned to other apps for Apple’s mobile platform.

The Cnet review found lack of SMS, file transfer and conference calling set-up disappointing but those features may well be forthcoming in a post iPhone 3.0 update.

The big question is whether Skype will get the VoIP ball rolling on iPhone and iPod Touch, where other apps such as Truphone, Fring and Nimbuzz, which have offered different levels of VoIP capability on the iPhone for a while already, but have yet to take off.

Apple filed for patents last September that suggest the company may be working on biometric security technology together with optical and voice recognition software to enhance traditional password security for its devices.

According to a report published for the first time this week, the patent filing describes methods for embedding sensors beneath touchscreens and trackpads to recognize fingerprints and vein patterns; device cameras and microphones would authenticate retinal patterns or facial features and recognize a user’s distinctive voice. There is even a suggestion of collecting DNA samples to recognize a user’s genetic sequence. Biometrics could also be context-sensitive and detect the shape of a user’s ear before allowing a call to go through, for example.

Makes that neural interface revolution seem a little more likely, doesn’t it?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIS6G-HvnkU

A series of Microsoft ads are aimed at budget consumers worried about price tags, further perpetuating the pricey Mac myth.

Associated Press reports the ads were shot by recruited unwitting subjects by posing as a market research firm studying laptop purchasing decisions.

It picked 10 people who answered a call for volunteers on Craigslist and other websites and sent them out with a camera crew and budgets ranging from $US700 to $US 2,000. If they found a computer that fit their criteria, they could keep it.

In the first 60-second ad, a red-haired recent college grad named Lauren is on the hunt for a speedy laptop with a 17-inch screen and a “comfortable” keyboard, all for less than $1000. She strides into an Apple store; then, the scene jumps to her walking out empty-handed, telling the camera that the only laptop in her price range has a 13-inch screen.

Back in the car, she sighs and says, “I’m just not cool enough to be a Mac person.”

Lauren heads to Best Buy next and buys a Windows notebook made by Hewlett-Packard Co. for $US699. And she wasn’t alone. While some might have been able to find an Apple computer that fit the budget, Microsoft said none of the people they filmed picked a Mac.

Via The Age

Edith Zimmerman, whose blog demonstrates that she never quite bought the concept that food shouldn’t be played with, made an iPod out of bread.

It looks like the track playing is “(B)ready or Not” by the Fugees. Wonder if she’s going to be sent to bed without dessert…

Via Walyou

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNhBwA7BLho
If you had any doubts about it being a very Bollywood moment — after Slumdog Millionaire won 10 Academy Awards and even the Pussycat Dolls got a themed “global goddess” makeover and pop song — this faux iTunes ad uploaded on youtube by Bollywood Hipster is the tipping point.

The mix of ancient and modern Indian dance styles is set to the themes song from movie Bachna Ae Haseeno.

Namaste to CoM reader Tina Singh for the tip.

Via om malik

Grab your parka, hat and gloves and book your tickets early for WWDC 2009, June 8 – 12 at San Francisco’s Moscone Center West.

Apple announced the dates Thursday via its Developers Connection website for the annual conference that provides developers and IT professionals with in-depth technical information and hands-on learning about iPhone OS and Mac OS X technologies from over 1000 Apple engineers who created them.

Easily one of the most eagerly anticipated Geek festivals on the calendar, this year’s conference should draw even more interest than usual due to the impending arrival of iPhone 3.0 and Mac OS X 10.6, known as Snow Leopard.

Early-bird registration for the conference is $1,295 until April 24th, after which the entrance fee goes up $300. Current ADC Student Members and student Team Members in the iPhone Developer University Program can apply for a WWDC Student Scholarship for free admission to the conference.