China’s Apple fans can now order refurbished iPods and iMacs for discounts up to 22 percent retail, the Cupertino, Calif. company announced Tuesday.
An iPod shuffle returned and inspected by Apple sells in China for $44, according to Reuters.
The move echos similar refurbished Macs Apple sells in the U.S. and elsewhere. Best Buy began selling returned iPhones for a $50 discount.
Apple refused to say how many refurbished products have been sold to China.
Apple approved Ustream’s AppStore live video streaming app on iTunes Monday evening, just in time for what is likely to be the most photographed, videoed and broadcast US Presidential Inauguration ever, on Tuesday in Washington, DC.
Get Ustream’s free app on your iPhone, and if you can find yourself an open WiFi connection between 10am and 3pm (EST) Tuesday, you’ll be able to catch live footage of Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th president of the US.
Ustream’s TV-in only breakthrough may seem small potatoes to legions of iPhone jailbreakers, who’ll be able to use iPhone’s TV-out capabilities to broadcast Obama’s historic inauguration from their iPhones; it’s also quite something for mainstream iPhone users to now be able to receive live video on their mobile devices.
It figures, then, with up to 5 million people in Washington DC for Tuesday’s pomp and circumstance, a few jailbroken live feeds ought to be accessible to those who know the right people.
Sound Clip is such a thoughtful design solution to limitations that make iPhone’s speakers almost suck, it’s a wonder they didn’t think of it first in Cupertino.
A conical deflection chamber that reflects volume towards the user instead of away, the device is said to amplify sound by 10dB between the 5kHz and 20kHz frequencies. The SoundClip fits in the iPhone’s 30-pin dock, and also helps prevent users from blocking the iPhone speaker with their hand when playing a game.
For $8 and a barely perceptible modification to the iPhone’s svelte form, you can improve its sound appreciably.
Via MacNN
Now then, lovely Cultists. We need your help.
You may have heard that this coming Saturday, January 24th, is a special day in the hearts of Mac aficionados. It will mark the 25th anniversary of the Macintosh computer, the machine that turned Apple into a global brand and kick-started the line of computers that has ended up as today’s line up of Pro, Mini and MacBook.
And what we’d like to do to celebrate the Mac’s birthday is find someone who is still using one.
Is that you? Do you have an original Mac that still boots up? Do you still actually use it for anything?
If you have, or if you do, let us know.
We will EITHER: send a media squad to your home to interview you. Top photographers will take pictures of you and your original Mac for use in magazines like Vogue, Playboy, Country Living, Knitting Monthly and possibly even Wired. A real time satellite link will be set up between your home and the White House so that Barack Obama himself can send congratulations and ask you questions about that 8 MHz Motorola 68000 processor. We will also send you a pony.
OR: We might write a post about you.
So, like we said: got a (working) original Mac? We want to know.
(CC licensed pic by ballistikcoffeeboy.)
Look, it’s about time we confessed something: writing all this gubbins about computers is hard work. Bloggers need breaks.
Especially all the Jobs rumor-mongers who have been working FLAT OUT for the last few weeks, typing up the first thing that pops into their heads in order for readers (and the mainstream media, let’s not forget them!) to have something to talk about.
Now Steve’s gone for some well-deserved rest and the wind has been knocked out of the bloggers’ sails somewhat. We need change.
No, not Presidential change. Something simpler. Something to automate this whole business of writing anything-we-damn-well-please about Steve Jobs, his health, and how the World Might End if he isn’t in charge of Apple any more.
So we turn to our friends at MacJournals with heartfelt thanks, because they have knocked up a quick Steve Jobs story template that any journalist or blogger can use to save time from now on.
Microsoft may unveil two mobile services February designed to counter Apple’s iPhone App Store and MobileMe, a blog claimed Monday.
Citing unnamed “sources close to Microsoft,” Neowin claims the software giant will unveil SkyMarket and SkyBox at next month’s Mobile World Congress.
SkyMarket, like Apple’s App Market, will offer a site for Windows Mobile users to download applications. In September, Microsoft began advertising for a Product Manager for SkyMarket. The service would be tied to Redmond’s Windows Mobile 7.
Apple announced Monday it will reveal sales for the first quarter of 2009, covering between Sept. 28th through Dec. 27th of 2008.
The results will be released at 4 p.m. Eastern and 1 p.m. Pacific, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company said. The figures will also be available through a Quicktime rebroadcast.
The numbers are highly anticipated as analyst attempt to predict how successful Apple was during the important holiday shopping period. Wall Street consensus is for a $9.75 billion quarter, pushing the upper limits of Apple’s guidance range of between $9 billion and $10 billion.
Toronto police have posted a security cam video of a $20,000 (about $16,000 USD) iPhone heist on YouTube in hopes of identifying the criminals.
Two armed robbers made a mid-morning visit to a cell phone store on November 1 2008, forcing staff to fill garbage bags with iPhones.
The first suspect is described as male, black, about 25 years old, around five foot nine with a slim build and wearing a dark green cloth jacket with some fur trim around the hood.
The second suspect is about the same age, height and sex, with a medium build. He was wearing dark clothing and had a white cloth covering his face.
In the YouTube video narrated by the investigating detective, you can sort of make out the iPhone boxes at one point when one of the staffers drops them on the floor as a gun is pressed into his back.
Anyone with information is asked to call the hold-up squad at 416-808-7350, or Crime Stoppers at 416-222-TIPS (8477) or use the website 222tips.com.
Via Toronto Star
Apple was named along with 12 other PC makers in a patent-infringement lawsuit two companies filed last week, according to a report Monday.
The lawsuit claims Apple and others infringed on two patents covering a so-called “safety box” limiting an application’s access to computer resources.
The lawsuit is asking for a court injunction plus unspecified damages.
Men’s fashion shows are keeping things busy and taxis scarce in Milan this week. Designers are dealing with the luxe hangover with new sober designs; Bottega Veneta wants to move its expensive leather goods by putting the focus on how useful they are for toting small electronics.
IHT fashion scribe Suzie Menkes writes:
“Designer Tomas Maier took pains to explain the functionality of iPod-friendly bags. A projection would have helped to convey the details.”
It’s hard to imagine perpetually broody models opening up the bags like the one above on the runway to show the handy-dandy iPod pockets “Price is Right” style, but as Menkes later notes, if you believe in the quality of the Italian fashion house known for its woven leathers, you’ll just have to take thier word for it.
Steve Jobs, who last week took a six-month medical leave of absence as CEO of Apple, reportedly wants to remain on Disney’s board of directors.
Jobs, Disney’s largest shareholder, has been on the Walt Disney board since 2006.
The decision became public Friday, when Disney released a proxy statement, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Questions about Jobs’ ability to serve are already be raised, according to the Financial Times. A board member must serve 250 hours a year, according to the newspaper.
Barack Obama is a Mac. At least that’s how the NYT described his style, approach, manner — naming rival Hillary Clinton a PC about a year ago.
The soon-to-be 44th president of the United States, who addresses citizens via YouTube and Twitter, is also a Mac user who has been spotted flashing an iPhone, keeps up with his family via iChat, whose “O” logo was designed on a Mac and whose campaign was powered by MacBooks.
Obama has said they’ll have to pry the Blackberry out of his hands and, in addition to the more obvious firsts, may be the first president to put a lap top in the Oval Office. (It would give him something in common with Russian President Dimitry Medvedev, who has been photographed doing official business on his MacBook.)
Do you want to see a Mac on the desk of the Oval Office or is the choice of First Laptop a non-issue?
This Apple keyboard concept has an induction charge and sync on the right hand side for an iPhone or iPod and six programable OLED keys much like the Optimus Maximus Aux keyboard.
The mock-ad lists the price as $79. Worth the price for going wireless?
Via Textually
How about this uber-nerdy wood and brushed aluminum USB keyboard that features real Scrabble tiles for your next Mac mod project? The points score is slightly edited to show each key’s secondary function, but we think it’s just about the coolest thing we’ve seen this late on a Sunday night.
Via SlipperyBrick, via Datamancer
When there are more than 15,000 apps vying for one’s favor like so many new puppies in a box, deciding which ones to try might well come down to picking the ones with the cutest mugs. And of course, how does the AppStore display its puppies, uh, mugs? With galleries of app icons, that’s how.
So, unless you’re hip to some strong word of mouth on a particular app, or you know a few of the 500,000 iPhone app developers newly minted in the past year, you might as well start with something like the “50 iPhone Apps With Icons That Don’t Suck” approach taken by Dr. Macenstein.
A quick browse through the doctor’s post reveals worthy apps may in fact come with worthy icons, such as Dizzy Bee, the highly addicting tilt game, seeker, a free business and residential listings search app, and Rocket Taxi – Cab Finder, an app that uses GPS or WiFi to help you find the nearest cab company.
I feel the doctor went a little strong to the games section with his picks, but the AppStore is overweighted with games, so maybe it makes sense. What do you think? Would you check out an app based on its cute icon alone? What are some of your favorite iPhone app icons?
Via Macenstein
Steve Wozniak gave his own unique and valuable perspective on Steve Jobs, Jobs’ health and Apple culture in an interview on NBC11 in San Jose over the weekend, saying, “What [Jobs] says, we ought to accept,” referring to the public’s insatiable curiosity about the Apple CEO. “No matter how much he gave, in explanations and explanations and explanations, there [are] a lot of people that keep wanting more and more.”
In addition to defending Job’s public statements on his health and the culture of privacy at Apple generally, Woz allowed that “Apple has some incredible people…followers of the Apple mentality, followers of Steve himself,” who will lessen the impact of a short six month absence. “The products coming out of Apple, out of tech companies, have a long tech pipeline…they work their way through for a year, year and a half…Those products are in the pipeline, they’re not going to be disturbed.”
Woz even spoke of an epiphany he had in the shower, about how Jobs’ medical leave might benefit Apple: “He wants a rest. The rest and peacefulness. What do you do when you rest? Sometimes your mind floats. A person like him works out better concepts and products and ways the future could be and way we live our lives better than any individual could. Probably a great thing for Apple.”
Gotta love Woz’s positivity.
I’ve received two “friend tech support” complaints about slow Internet access and seeing lots of ads for Vimax on just about every website all of a sudden. Today, I found the solution thanks to an article on Boing Boing referencing an Apple Support thread on the issue.
The software causing the problem is related to your DNS. Instead of showing your usual ads, they’re replaced with the offensive advertisements. Mulder on the Apple Support thread provides this insight and fix:
“Reinstalling Mac OS X will not solve the problem, as it’s not with anything in OS X. If you have no Trojan Horse, then it would seem your ISP is doing this. So try this:
Open System Preferences > Network > Configure > TCP/IP and paste these two DNS servers into that field:
208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
click Apply Now and quit System Preferences. Then restart Safari and see if the problem continues.”
Results as follows: “Its worked zoop!! Zoop!!” and “I too obtained immediate results – thank you!“. If you have any problems, consult the thread itself for details on the debugging process and solution.
Ustream is bringing streaming webcam video to the iPhone, perhaps in time for you to watch the historic inuaguration of President Barack Obama from the nation’s capital next Tuesday, if Tim Cook can make a little rain in Cupertino over the weekend.
Via Gizmodo, via TechCrunch
Proving it really is the coolest company on the web, Google unveiled this week the Prado layer in Google Earth, an amazing bit of functionality that lets users zoom into almost any spot on the planet for a detailed view of what’s to be found there using the company’s earth mapping product.
The Google Earth Prado layer also includes 3D models which allow you to fly around the Prado buildings to experience the museum as if you were actually there. The paintings have been photographed in very high resolution and contain as many as 14,000 million pixels (14 gigapixels).
The iPhone version of Google Earth is not yet updated to support this feature, so you’ll have to use your desktop earth to get there.
As Wall Street looks forward to Apple next week reporting revenue for the holiday period, Goldman Sachs analyst David Bailey thinks Cupertino may encounter problems with the March quarter.
Apple’s double-digit growth rates may well sputter as the company “will undoubtedly be affected by softer consumer demand” for its pricier products, Bailey told investors Friday.
The analyst told clients Apple’s revenue for the March quarter will be between $7 billion and $8 billion. Wall Street is forecasting $8.24 billion in revenue for the period.
This prototype bedside lamp with an iPod dock and speaker has simple curve design, it’s exactly the kind of thing that is yes, useful, but that you could buy just for the looks.
Props to designer Sang-Hoon Lee, hope to give more details soon.
Via Yanko Design
Proving itself to be The Little Engine That Could of an otherwise dismal economy, Apple’s iTunes AppStore has reached an inventory of over 15,000 applications (some of which do not exist to reproduce the sound of flatulence) and has entertained more than 500 million downloads since its debut six months ago.
It took just 5 weeks for the AppStore to deliver more than 200 million downloads, whereas it took 6 weeks to go from 200 million to 300 million. So, the volume of interest in applications for iPhone and iPod Touch is increasing impressively, although the most recent bump is likely a result of Apple’s mobile gadgets having been popular gifts this past holiday season.
Via Mashable!
A little more interesting than your usual hodgepodge of stickers, these black die cut vinyl decals fit on 13″, 15″ and 17″ laptop covers.
Giving your MacBook a little animal appeal, there’s a version with a cat fishing for a goldfish, or a squirrel munching on your Apple logo.
Made by a Milwaukee corporate designer by day who lists his favorite materials as vinyl and a 15-inch MacBook Pro…
$11 on Etsy
Apple is preparing to open its first store in Philadelphia, designed by the same firm responsible for its Fifth Avenue retail location in New York City, according to a Friday report.
The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has signed a lease to move into a former restaurant situated to attract upscale shoppers and diners, reported the Macnn Website.
Although few details were provided, Apple would remake the Brasserie Perrier restaurant, using the Bohlin Cywinski Jackson architectural firm. The architects lead construction of many key Apple Stores in the U.S. and Great Britain.
Jake of 8bitjoystick.com: I use my old Mac SE as a door stopper. I know that’s blasphemy.
Rott3npeanut: I’ve turned my Mac into a PC so I can use it to record.
Giant Pangolin: I turned my Mac into a half-Mac, half-PC for only $159.
SAL-E: I use my old Mac as a grandfather clock
trevyn: I use my old Mac for running Indigo.
Come on, kids. Confess. What do you use your old Mac for? (No file/print/music servers please; something more interesting. The weirder the better.)
(CC pic from jake of 8bitjoystick.com)
