News - page 2340

Times are tough for Blair Saldanah.

“My wife needs medical care; and we don’t have health insurance,” he explains on the website he just put up, where he is selling quite a collection of Apple memorabilia, including posters, brochures, cards, stickers, manuals, annual Apple fact books, t-shirts, even a vintage Apple ProMouse that was Steve Jobs’ gift to attendees at the Macworld New York keynote address in 2000.

“Don’t be intimidated by the prices!” Saldanah writes on the portal page. “Most items have some bargaining room built-in, and we’ll do quantity discounts too, so find what you want and let’s talk. You might be suprised!”

That’s a good thing, too, because — for example — he’s got eleven t-shirts from various Apple Store grand openings priced at $200 each.

These economic times are difficult for so many people and one never wishes on anyone the need to sell things near and dear to them in order to raise funds for medical bills. We wish Saldanah and his wife the best.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoiGJMZjs0o

Glorious. Just glorious.

Zumobi announced Monday the arrival of the first-ever official American Idol application for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch. “American Idol Season 8 Exclusive” (link opens iTunes) follows this season’s American Idol Top 13 finalists in their quest to be named the next American Idol and brings fans exclusive multimedia content and news updates for $2.

The app gives dyed-in-the-wool AI nuts contestant bios, pictures, news and exclusive video from behind-the-scenes of the on-air show. In total, 78 original videos of the remaining contestants will be released weekly between now and the Finale, giving fans the opportunity to get know their favorite contestants better.

A “My Rankings” feature allows users to test their talent-picking power by predicting, customizing, and tracking the order of who stays and who gets voted off each week. As users track their favorite contestants’ progress, they are also one click away from the American Idol iTunes page where they can download music from recent performances.

Of course.

Woz’s dancing was hilarious. The kids stayed up specially to watch him and we laughed our heads off. Especially when he first came out on his Segway and went into a dance pose.

Woz had some great moves, saluting his slinky partner, twisting his meaty hips and dropping to his knees. For a big guy, he had surprising energy.

We were expecting a cringe-worthy disaster, but he comported himself superbly. It was a genuine a hoot. Can’t wait till next week.

I’m long on Woz. He might go to the finals, just like the BBC’s pudgy John Sergeant in the UK last year.

UPDATE: The stupid judges gave Woz and Karina Smirnoff low marks. Idiots.

See Also: Voting for Woz on Dancing with the Stars? Here’s how

Photo from Woz.org

Steve Wozniak on “Dancing with the Stars” is the greatest cultural event of the decade. As such, I’m plopped in front of the couch awaiting the Woz for the West Coast broadcast (I’m told we’re just three minutes away). Nicole told you how to vote, and I’m here to tell you how he did. Check out the blow-by-blow below!

9:15 p.m. I just endured a solid three minutes of Jewel’s cowboy husband not dancing. It was absurdly painful. He gets a total of 14 points.

9:18 p.m. There goes Olympic silver medalist Shawn Johnson. She’s being pulled around by a man who looks like the uglier brother of Mark from “Ugly Betty.”

9:23 p.m. Big points for Shawn! I guess! I’ve never watched this show before.

9:23 p.m. Woz just rolled in on a Segway in a cloud of smoke! There is a god.

9:24 p.m. Also, Tom Bergeron just said Woz founded Apple in the early ’70s. A factual error on first sentence.

9:24 p.m. Woz meets his dancing partner by rolling up on a Segway, too.

9:25 p.m. Woz really does not know how to dance, based on these rehearsal shots. Though he does notice that dancing can be mathematical and left-brained.

9:26 p.m. Words of Wozdom: “I like to close my eyes when I’m practicing, because it lets me get an image of my head of me dancing. It’s like I’m dreaming.”

9:27 p.m. “Nerds can dance.” No, Steve, they can’t.

9:27 p.m. Steve comes out with a giant pink feather boa and a tux. He’s actually got a lot of personality, although he might want to close his mouth. Still, he’s a natural ham. A lot of sticking his tongue out.

9:28 p.m. The song is “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet.” Quite.

9:29 p.m. You know, by the standards of this show, that was very not embarassing.

9:29 p.m. Bergeron: “Take that, Bill Gates.” Also: “If Safari freezes, should I delete it or restart it?” Yes, because Woz has a lot to do with current Apple software.

9:30 p.m. Cranky Italian judge: “It was like watching a Teletubby going mad at the gay pride parade!” Well said.

9:30 p.m. Lady judge: “You are what this show is all about!” And “You made it to the end! It was fantastic!” It’s true. He didn’t once take a break or sit down.

9:31 p.m. Woz score coming after the ad. I have to say. He looks way more composed than his partner.

9:33 p.m. Here come the scores: 5, 4, and 4 for 13 total. Which means they did worse than Jewel’s stupid cowboy husband. Which is a serious miscarriage of justice. He was so much better than that guy! 

9:34 p.m. Empty headed-host: “You said that ballroom dancing is harder than designing computers. But you just got through that entire dance!” They really seem concerned about his ability to remain standing.

9:34 p.m. Woz: “That was the most incredible fun thing I’ve ever done. It’s so great. I’m so glad to be here!” More fun than pretending to date Kathy Griffin?

9:35 p.m. Dance partner Karina Smirnoff: “Honestly, he’s the nicest man alive, and he gives 100 percent in every rehearsal!” Well, he would have to give at least that much. He’s Woz.

9:36 p.m. And…it’s over. Please turn it off before David Alan Grier dances, and get your vote in now! (Just done with my 13 now; what a worthy cause!)

See you next week? Maybe?

A pre-release version of the original iPhone has surfaced for sale on eBay, though if it’s real, it may not be there for long.

According to the Bloomington, IL seller, up for auction is “a quite rare and collectable example of iPhone prototype,” that even runs on a beta version of the iPhone OS.

The device features a matte plastic screen and has serial number YM649xxxxxx, which the seller claims corresponds to a factory in China, manufactured week 49 of the year 2006. It supposedly works, running iPhone OS 03.06.01_G — the iPhone launched running OS 1.0, version 03.11.02_G.

The seller claims the phone can make calls, browse the mobile versions of websites, and can receive SMS, but lacks any way to manually type an SMS on the phone.

Also for sale is a non-working prototype with a glass screen, a slightly higher serial number, and is described as being in “fair” cosmetic condition, with various scratches.

The bid on the two phones is currently $735, though it remains to be seen whether the auction will close on March 11 as scheduled. Apple demanded eBay take down a recent auction for a pre-release iPod, citing intellectual property concerns. eBay quickly complied, though the iPod owner apparently sold his device privately anyway.

[iLounge]

In other Rock and Roll news, U2 has chosen Blackberry to be the lead sponsor of its upcoming 360 Degrees tour, set to kick off with a June 30th show in Barcelona, Spain and travel across Europe during the summer, before crossing the Atlantic for the first US date at Soldier Field in Chicago September 12th.

The band, which famously stood with Steve Jobs in 2004 and launched a special edition iPod, said at the time, “We want our audience to have a more intimate online relationship with the band, and Apple can help us do that.”

Now, after five years in which Jobs has supposedly raked the music industry over the coals with his tough iTunes pricing negotiations, either the band feels that mission’s been accomplished, or perhaps its record company has merely had enough.

In any event, Bono, U2’s lead singer and most identifiable public figure, is a partner in the firm Elevation Partners which holds a 39 percent ownership stake in Palm, whose highly anticipated Pre smartphone is slated to debut around the time the band’s tour kicks off.

In a statement about the partnership with Research in Motion, makers of the Blackberry, Paul McGuinness, U2’s manager, said, “This tour announcement marks the first stage of a relationship and shared vision between RIM and U2 that we expect will lead to new and innovative ways to enhance the mobile music experience on the BlackBerry platform for U2 fans.”

It might be tempting to read an emotional component into U2’s “rejection” of Apple and its public embrace of a major competitor, but the greatest likelihood is that — as the old saying goes — it’s just business.

Fashion supremo Karl Lagerfeld loves iPods. He used to have 100, and even though he is now down to 40, they are carried around in a custom Louis Vuitton trunk and stocked by a dedicated iPod assistant.

So when the fashion guru turned his be-ringed hand to designing motorcycle helmets for his namesake label, he fitted them out with an iPod connection (bluetooth? Even fashion bible WWD didn’t get more specific than saying the helmets were “fitted for an iPod.)” And, then, well  to give it a little punch, draped them in mink and chincilla.

If the model on ready to wear Paris catwalk show is anything to go by, the helmet feels as bad as it looks. Kind of a shame, since they’re made by French bike-couture helmetiers Ruby.

Via Canadian Press

Phonesuit’s MiLi Power Pack will free you — in style — from the tyranny of needing to recharge your iPhone every night, or after say, every five hours of serious use.

The casual iPhone user probably doesn’t need a MiLi Power Pack, which, at $80 is a not-insignificant investment in extra power, especially if one tends to be in the habit of recharging the device overnight on a daily basis.

However, power users, who have adopted the iPhone as their primary telephone, or who spend a lot of time using it to surf the web, pull up Google maps, send lots of email, are into serious gaming, use it as a constant music player, or take and edit lots of photographs — those users will love having a MiLi Power Pack on hand.

Read on to find out why.

We thought $5 was pretty much a rip-off for the iBend plastic iPhone stand, though readers took us to task in comments on that story back in December.

So maybe you’ll love the idea of a $10 bean-bag, or as the makers of this cloth sack filled with airy polyester nuggets likes to call it — the Movie Wedge. The soft microsuede covering is also perfect for wiping your iPhone’s screen!

On the other hand, with thanks to Gizmodo’s Jack Loftus, we can point you to this bean bag, which you could pick up for a buck.

Your choice.

[Gizmodo]

California sculptor Adam Reeder is working on series of neo-classical pieces he calls Socio-technic Evolution, that depict Greco-Roman gods, combined with technological objects to illustrate the concept of how technology changes the way western culture interacts with its world.

He chose figures from the Greco-Roman period because it lies at the root of western civilization; he chose Apple products to depict the influence of technology because, well, they do.

“My work is not about the change [itself] that takes place,” Reeder explained, “but the change in interaction, facilitated by technology.”

Pan with his iPod player is the first in the series. It won first place in the spring show at the San Francisco Academy of Art University, and has been selected for showing at the TEXAS NATIONAL 2009 Exhibition. After that it will go to the “art building” in Los Angeles, and then to SoHo.

“The Greek god Pan played his flute in the woods and danced with nymphs,” says Reeder, adding, “my depiction shows Pan, still dancing as before, but no longer playing his own music. Thus, the technology changes the context, but not the nature” of the classical image.

Reeder explains further that the work is not about consumerism, or commercialism, it is about how technology changes the ways in which Western culture interacts with its world.

Among the images in the gallery below, Reeder’s unfinished Atlas is planned to hold a large-scale iPhone.

Back in December we wrote about a potential land-mine of problems for owners of new MacBook Pro 15″ notebooks, related to possibly defective NVIDIA GeForce 9400 graphics processor chips that Apple may have knowingly shipped with some units in 2008.

So far, the major storm speculated about by the Inquirer in that report does not appear to have manifested. But new reports Friday regarding some threads in the Apple support forum indicate that some owners of the new MacBook Pro 17″ model are complaining about a persistent graphics issue related to the NVIDIA GeForce 9600 chip included in those machines.

Recently some NVIDIA notebook GPUs began failing that were used in many notebook computers from Dell and Apple among others. The GPU failures ultimately led to a lawsuit being filed against NVIDIA by some affected notebook owners.

The current issue manifests in green lines that appear all over the notebook screen. More than one user is having the same exact issue, even on new notebooks. The error appears to be limited solely to the 9600M GPU. At this point, if a replacement is needed for the GPU or a firmware fix will suffice is unknown.

Is your new MacBook Pro 17″ giving you graphics fits? Let us know in comments below.

Watchmen, the just-released film adaptation of the dramatic and incredibly detailed graphic novel by the same title, is set in an alternate version of 1984 and 1985 America. Not all of the details of America have changed though, and most importantly, the Mac is still present. As the film neared its climax during the midnight showing I attended, a friend elbowed me vigorously to point out this key snippet: 

There comes a point in the film where one of the characters is viewing a bank of monitors. The camera shows a close shot of the character and just a couple of the monitors. In one monitor on his right, you’ll recognize Apple’s 1984 Macintosh ad being played.

That should make it relatively easy to find the Apple-centric easter egg without revealing the plot. Good luck finding the video of Big Brother’s defeat in Watchmen!

Nothing like a little creativity in the face of frustration: San Francisco PR guy Derek Brookmeyer’s iPhone kept crashing and giving him error messages so many times that he decided to save the screens and count them.

His blog has a collage of 15 of these error screens, mostly related to Internet browsing, along with a letter to his crash-happy iPhone, that starts:

“Dear iPhone,
You are starting to drive me nuts. You are slower than ever, freeze up constantly and give me error messages like it’s your job…”

Via Could I Have Been

At least three new online stores selling applications to run on Apple mobile devices will soon be open for business, taking aim at capturing a piece of the projected $800 million market for iPhone and iPod Touch applications, according to a report at The Wall Street Journal online.

Jay Freeman, a 27-year-old computer science doctoral student who says his “jailbreaking” software has been installed on nearly 2 million iPhones, is opening the Cydia Store to create a vehicle for himself, and developers like him, to capitalize on their efforts to develop software built outside the tightly controlled parameters of Apple’s iPhone SDK. Freeman says he will collect the same sales commission from 3rd party developers on his site that Apple collects from developers whose wares sell on the iTunes AppStore.

Two other “renegade” application marketplaces are planned, according to the Journal report – Rock Your Phone, for iPhone users who have not yet modified their devices to download unauthorized applications, and a thid online store specializing in selling adult games for the iPhone.

While Apple has yet to indicate any action to try and prevent the online stores from opening, Freeman has nonetheless hired legal counsel to press his case, should it come to that. “The overworking goal is to provide choice,” he says. “It’s understandable the [Apple] wants to control things, but it has been very limiting for developers and users.”

Via WSJ

Image: Claude Estèbe

Japanese women between 20 – 26 awarded Apple products 4 out of the top 5 spots in a survey of their thoughts on superior design commissioned by Japan Industrial Design Promotion Organization and published at the online site What Japan Thinks.

Asked “Amongst stuff you have never owned, what do you feel has superior design?” the women named Apple’s iPods first. Second place went to the Apple iPhone, with Plus-Minus Zero humidifiers (?) coming in third. In Fourth and fifth places were Apple’s desktop computers and notebooks, respectively.

The survey of 1,102 young women distributed among Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya, also had respondents rank companies in general, asking “Amongst stuff you do own or have owned, what do you feel has superior design?” Apple came in first place, followed by Sharp, Sony, NEC, Muji Ryohin [a Japanese retail design company, literally named “no brand quality goods”], Panasonic, Franc Franc [a Japanese Ikea], and Nintendo. Results of the same question directed to stuff they “have never owned” again placed Apple first, and with respect to overall brand image (not tied to any specific products), Apple came in second only to SONY.

Results of the survey are enlightening, coming in the wake of the brouha-ha that grew from a recent Wired article suggesting that Japanese “hate” the iPhone.

Via AppleInsider

Will RIM’s just-introduced BlackBerry App World become the business-class version of Apple’s more consumer-oriented iPhone App Store? That’s the question being asked as the Canadian phone maker prices BlackBerry applications starting at $2.99.

Unlike iPhone applications that can be purchased for as little as $0.99 each, a multi-tiered price system for BlackBerry users ranges from $2.99 all the way up to $9.99 per app.

RIM’s departure is viewed as an acknowledgment of growing resentment by some iPhone developers at App Store pricing.

We’ve previously shown some of the musical amazements made possible with the iPhone and Smule’s Ocarina, and we’ve talked about the incredible, inventive Stanford Laptop Orchestra, but check out this video of The Mentalists playing a fully arranged pop tune using nothing more than their Apple mobile devices and software downloaded from the iTunes AppStore.

The truly paradigm-shifting import of the creative doors opened by Apple’s breakthrough mobile operating system are only just beginning to surface.

Via Edible Apple

Apple maintains an average five day inventory on products, with Cupertino outdistancing its PC rivals, an analyst said Thursday.

Financial analysis firm UBS said Dell was the closest PC maker, keeping inventory in stock for just a week, according to checks during the December quarter.

While China’s Lenovo maintained a 15-day inventory average, top PC maker HP had stock sitting an average of 32 days, according to UBS. Chip-making giant Intel turned-over inventory in 89 days. The record went to D-Link with 131 days of inventory.

If the 25 year anniversary of the Mac has you feeling nostalgic, you might want to check out the wares at this memorabilia sale.

There’s a little bit of everything, (including a Hoyle deck of cards with the Apple logo), but some of the best pieces are from the ’80s, including the original Mac brochure, the user manual and the first four issues of Macworld magazine.

The seller is parting with the collection to get together money for medical care and hopes you’ll take good care of his Mac stuff…

Via MacNN

Showtime is stumping for votes for its programs up for Emmy awards by making them available on the iPhone and iPod Touch to TV Academy voters.

Emmy voters with Apple mobile devices can screen full episodes of Showtime series including “Dexter,” “Weeds” and “United States of Tara” by entering a password.

The move is expected to save Showtime some money, a spokesperson told Variety that shelving DVD screeners last year by partnering with Internet video provider Brightcove to post its Emmy hopefuls online saved “tens of thousands of dollars.” The Brightcove option will be available again this year for Apple-less Academy members.

Via Textually

If Apple’s mobile handsets are destined to become world-class gaming devices, one supposes this kind of thing is to be expected. Somehow, though, the Racing Wheel for iPod Touch showcased by Hama at CeBIT09 seems over the line, doesn’t it?

Then again, I’m not a gamer, so maybe I’m just driving outside my engine qualification.

How about it Cult gamers?

Via Engadget

Digital media company Mosaic Legends and San Francisco rock photographer Jay Blakesburgh have created a limited edition interactive app and eBook titled, simply, Grateful Dead, avialable now for $6 on the iTunes AppStore, that appears to be a template for more titles to come.

But who better to start a long, strange trip with than Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead?

Focused around a stunning Photomosaic of the Dead’s iconic guitarist, comprised of nearly 450 individual photographic “tiles” that users can double-tap and pinch their way into, down to full-res views of single photographs, the app also includes photographer’s notes on each photo, additional history of the band, built-in capability to comment on and share photographs with other app users, and a link to the Mosaic Legends store, where users can preview and purchase photographic Glicées and limited edition large prints.

If this AppStore offering takes off among the Dead’s famously loyal and devoted community, look for the idea to be reprised as a marketing vehicle in many additional incarnations.

Via MP3 Insider