News - page 2349

The Juice Wireless iPhone and iPod Touch app Mirror deserves some credit, we suppose, for putting a big bold **DISCLAIMER** right at the top of its description page on the AppStore, calling the application a “fun, joke…for your amusement only.”

99¢ buys you a selection of 9 frames which can be used to border the reflective glossy surface of the models released in 2008, giving the impression you’re holding a mirror instead of a mobile computing device. The developers say they’ve brought you this hilarious bit of software engineering and design so “you’ll never look stupid staring at your iPhone again.” Um, OK.

If you’re really interested in turning your iPhone or iPod Touch into a mirror, you may want to look into the benefits of a protective mylar screen cover from RadTech.

ClearCal is an ultra thin (5 mil) tension adhering screen cover available in Anti-Glare, Transparent and Mirror surface finishes. Its high quality adhesive stays on the film – which can be removed, cleaned and reapplied several times – magically leaving no residue on your device.

Two sets of protective films are included per pack, priced at $9.95 for the transparent version and $12.95 for the other two. The mirror version gives a clear, fully reflective appearance when the device display is off, turning it into a trés chic silver brick. When the display comes on the mirrored appearance fades away and the cover becomes completely transparent; it’s a very cool effect.

Image © 2009 Robert Lachman

OK, the AppStore has over 10,000 apps for iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s a nice round number, impressive even. But it’s kind of like saying there are over 10,000 medicinal plants in the rainforests of the Amazon.

That’s great, but how do I find them and which ones are good for me?

I’m not paid enough, nor am I interested in wading through all 10,000 iPhone apps to cull pearls from the sea of fart and ringtone gems on offer, but I am happy to pass on a bit of wisdom published by the editors of Mashable, who’ve gone to the trouble of picking out 70+ free social media apps. Since the iPhone is essentially a mobile communication device, it seems to me social media is at least a good place to start.

Follow me after the jump for my picks of the best from Mashable’s list.

Apple could control up to 40 percent of the smartphone market by 2013, UK-based Generator Research announced Tuesday. The company predicted the iPhone would grab marketshare at a time when Nokia and other cell phone players are battered by poor economic conditions.

Nokia, the current cell phone leader, could shrink to just 20 percent of the market, contends the research firm. The prediction is counter to Nokia’s own outlook. Earlier this month, Nokia CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo told the Financial Times the economic mess could hurt rivals and help the Finnish company known for low-cost phones.

Not to be deterred, the British researchers said Apple could parlay the combination iPhone and App Store into another iPod-iTunes success.

Safari users are being advised to avoid the Apple-made browser’s built-in RSS reader, according to reports Tuesday. A security vulnerability in both Mac and Windows versions of Safari could allow hackers to snoop through the contents of computer hard-drives.

Although Apple reportedly knows about the software problem, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company has remained silent on when or if it will release a fix.

For Mac users, the security flaw targets Mac OS X Leopard, according to Brian Mastenbrook, a developer who first spotted the glitch. An alternate Mac RSS reader can be selected via Safari’s Preferences menu.

Windows users can switch to Firefox or another alternative to Safari, reports suggested.

Despite the many times I’ve had the “Mac is better than PC” argument, I’ve never had a fight break out.
Youtube Link [via Neatorama]

Comedian Amy Sedaris narrates a three-part PBS series called “Make ’em Laugh” that debuts Jan. 14.

Her companion web video about online comedy provides more than a few chuckles and a nice Apple reference:

“I got a computer maybe four years ago because I have a rabbit and the rabbit got sick. It was too late to call the House Rabbit Society, so I thought I better get a computer because the next time she gets sick, I’ll be able to go on Ether Bunny and find out what’s going on.”

“Then I got iChat because I can just hold my rabbit up, call the House Rabbit Society and say, “Do you see this scab? What does it mean?” And then they can see it. See, I’m getting there.”

You can catch her 30-minute video on “Teh Internets” (sic) online, but put your headphones on — it rightly warns, “The following video contains mature content. Or immature content, depending on how you look at it. But it is not for kids.”

Via After Ellen

iPhones sold on the black market in Bangkok cost about $800, about eight times the U.S. retail price and over twice the average Thai’s monthly salary, a price people are willing to pay to carry around what one local tech reporter calls the Louis Vuitton of status phones.

Thailand is on Apple’s “coming soon” list for legit iPhones but correspondent Patrick Winn, who poked around the stalls at a Thai tech market for Global Post, says that in a country where about 70% of people have cell phones, not everyone is willing to wait.

Legit iPhones will contend with an existing iPhone black market, which for years has thrived in the vacuum and given rise to a network of smugglers and code breakers.

“The iPhones move fast, ” a vendor told Winn. “It’s hip. It’s sharp.”

Though the underground phones are exorbitantly priced the profit margin isn’t what attracts underground vendors. It’s the turnover that makes them worth smuggling and worth selling.
Image courtesy Global Post, full story here.

Citi has lowered its target price of Apple shares to $132 from $153, citing the need to “reflect a more conservative view of consumer spending.”

Richard Gardner told clients Apple may have sold fewer than 4 million iPhones for the last quarter of 2008, slipping from the record 6.9 million handsets Cupertino sold during the third quarter of 2008. Gardner based his estimate on a check of iPhone shipments.

The lower expectation is because Apple reduced iPhone inventory heading into the first quarter, a generally weaker period, the analyst suggests. However, the reduced inventory could signal Apple is readying an iPhone “refresh” in April or May, according to Gardner.

The analyst also cut his earnings expectations for Apple during fiscal 2009, 2010 and 2011. Gardner retained a “Buy” recommendation for Apple stock, however.

Apple’s Board of Directors is opposing a shareholder initiative to require the company to produce a Corporate Responsibility Report (CSR) detailing Apple’s approach to greenhouse gases, toxins, recycling, and more, according to a report at Environmental Leader.

A shareholder group called “As You Sow,” co-sponsored by the Green Century Equity Fund, reasons that many of Apple’s direct competitors, including Dell, IBM, and HP, already publish CSR reports, as do over 2,700 other public companies. Apple’s board, however, has issued a proxy filing asking shareholders to vote against the resolution, saying publication would be an unnecessary expense and would “produce little added value.”

Apple publishes a Supplier Responsibility report and environmental policies on its website, in spite of which As You Sow and a number of less organized parties have pressured Apple to do more official reporting.

If you have ever wondered why you might want to jailbreak your iPhone, or considered the relative merits of Apple’s policy giving it complete control over applications that might run on its mobile operating system, Sarah Perez’s article at ReadWriteWeb should be grist for your mill.

“Jailbreaking” is a straightforward process that allows you to install unapproved third-party applications on your device. It can be confused with “unlocking” – the process that makes the phone capable of working on other carriers besides the one chosen by Apple for exclusive carrier status in a given market. But the bottom line is that, despite the 10,000+ apps available on the AppStore and despite the longterm service contracts Apple’s chosen cellular partners use to tie you down financially with the iPhone, “a non-jailbroken phone is only half the phone it could be,” according to Perez.

Perez recommends the user-friendly instructions at iPhone-Hacks.com for the easiest-to-understand instructions on how to make your iPhone be all it can be. There are a number of other useful tutorials on methods for jailbreaking and unlocking your device available at iClarified.

The Read Write Web artilce linked above has a list of the best “illegal” apps you can put on the phone as well as a reassuring method for hiding the fact you jailbroke your iPhone the next time you want to download Apple’s latest iPhone firmware.

Metafilter user Mr. Zarquon has taken the hilarious Microsoft Research application Songsmith (previously profiled in this Cult post from Giles) and used it to transform the vocal tracks of David Lee Roth from Van Halen’s “Running With The Devil” into a song all its own.

This… this might be the future of music.

News Monday that CES attendance figures for 2009 are down 22% comes as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the big picture in the past six months..

In the wake of Apple’s decision to abandon Macworld, and despite rumors the Cupertino computer maker will join the big consumer electronics circus in Las Vegas next year, the fact remains the global economy is in a tailspin.

It says here expecting corporations to continue sinking major investment into expensive trade show PR going forward is a bad bet.

Which is not to say that innovation will come to a halt, or that producers of technology and electronic gadgetry are about to vanish from the landscape.

In the spirit of the relative dispersal of brick and mortar distribution outlets for any number of goods among an increasing web of online marketing vehicles, this writer believes it only makes sense that in a contracting economy, chances are the standard-bearers of communication and computing and entertainment will soon focus marketing budgets less on trying to woo live bodies to vast acreages of real-time exhibition space and more on leveraging the enticements of Web 2.0 and unified communications capabilities to rely on drawing eyeballs and attention to virtual marketing platforms.

In the coming year, look for fewer big-time confabs and more small-town events. Fewer shows at the Garden and more online specials.

It’s a brave new marketing world. Think different.

Recently-released movie “Bride Wars” stars Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway squaring off as two BFFs who stage competing weddings on the same day at New York’s Plaza Hotel.

Candice Bergen, who plays the wedding planner caught between the pair of bridezillas, is shown in the trailer using Macs in a couple of shots.

Early reviews warn “Bridal Wars” isn’t worth the 90-minute commitment, citing, among other things, the onslaught of product placement.

A lot of leading lights in popular music went to public schools in the windy city: Kanye West, Jennifer Hudson, Chaka Khan, Lou Rawls, Bo Diddley, Curtis Mayfield, Quincy Jones and Nat “King” Cole.

54 of these Chicago-themed tracks are on an iMix playlist on iTunes. The playlist was the brainchild of Brad Harbaugh, who runs the Chicago Public Schools (CPS) alumni website.  Struck by the number of famous musicians when he was going through the alumni’s honor roll,  he drew up a list of Chicago’s best.

CPS doesn’t profit directly from the sale of the $0.99USD tracks, but it is a nice way to promote schools and a cool idea for Chicago lovers in general. You can also see a list of the tracks, as well as exactly where the artists went to school in Chicago and when, on the alumni site.

There are a few unexpected tracks on the Chicago playlist like “A Boy Named Sue”  by Shel Silverstein, “City of New Orleans” by Steve Goodman and “Rawhide” by Frankie Laine alongside the Jones’ theme to TV show “Sanford and Son,” “Change Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke and “Chuck E’s in Love”  by Rickie Lee Jones.

On the downside, some alums whose lyrics were too deemed too explicit like Rhymefest and DaBrat  were kept off the playlist.

More than just hot air, the idea is that music is an important part of the curriculum at Chicago public schools. Students from 50 high schools perform in a solo and ensemble concerts every spring at various high schools and elementary schools. The program, in its 84th year, is said to be the longest-running public-school concert series in the country.

The Chicago playlist is also a work in progress — if you know for sure what school Lupe Fiasco went to, let them know.

Via Chitown Daily News

A nice idea for a “retired” Mac: new life as clocks.

Here are two versions using the side panel and front cover of a G4, which sort of looks like a giant Swatch but has an operating CD drive door and zip drive opening.

The creator is a guy (handle: pixelthis) with a fondness for all things Apple who has been taking things apart since the day he could walk and occasionally putting them back together.

These Mac clocks run about $60 each, available on Etsy.

His other clocks made from computer hard drives, bike wheels and bike gears are also worth a gander.

Some Nebraska state senators will go back to work with new MacBook Airs.

The government paid a discount price of $1,524 each for 70 laptops (49 of them go to lawmakers, the rest to staff), causing some to complain about expenses for “designer” computers:

Senator Tony Fulton of Lincoln questioned the purchase saying the Legislature could have managed with less than “designer laptops,” particularly during these tough economic times, according to the Omaha World Herald (The story didn’t specify which model was purchased.)

The state might have been able to buy laptops for $400 to $500 each, said Fulton, an engineer. “The decision was made with proper authority, and I’ll accept it,” he said, “but I don’t like it.”

A handful of other laptop models, in prices ranging from $1,100 to $2,200 were reviewed before deciding for the MacBook Airs. The Macs replace four-year-old Fujitsu Lifebook laptops.

French cell phone carrier Orange is reportedly “satisfied” with December iPhone sales that hit 210,000 – triple the 70,000 handsets the France Telecom-owned company sold during the same period in 2007.

The news comes from French newspaper La Tribune, which quoted unnamed sources within Orange and SFR. If true, the iPhone sales would appear to counter worries that a recent French competition decision would dilute the cell phone market.

France’s competition body recently temporarily ruled against Orange’s exclusive iPhone deal, permitting rival Bouygues to also offer the Apple handset.

Apple’s move to CES from Macworld Expo “is a done deal,” AppleInsider reported Monday, confirming last week’s Cult of Mac story breaking the news.

AI cited unnamed “sources close to” Apple.

The move is designed to provide a greater contrast between Apple and its rivals, including Microsoft and Palm. Leaving Macworld also marks Apple’s departure as only a computer company and positioning itself as a larger consumer electronics player involved in cell phones, gaming and software.

If you can’t afford to enroll in the iPhone application programing course at Stanford, you may want to take a look at a couple of new 4 day iPhone development courses being offered by Saratoga, CA-based Edison Labs University.

I ran into Edison’s Chief Scientist, Owen Rubin, at Macworld last week, where he was very excited about the prospects for future app developers learning to work with both iPhone and Android, for which his school also offers courses. “This is an exploding field of software development,” Rubin told me, “and I think there’s a great opportunity to help people who want to pursue the path get a strong foundation in the knowledge they’ll need to be successful.”

Edison’s introduction to iPhone app development is focused on enabling a developer to build applications using the iPhone SDK, the iPhone simulator, and to download, test and debug applications on an iPhone and iPod touch device. The school plans to offer soon classes for novice developers who need to get a foundation in Objective-C and object-oriented programming as well.

Each 4 day training costs approximately $2000, which, when you consider the potential riches of a runaway AppStore success, seems like a pretty decent investment.

It’s not surprising that iPhone app training is beginning to spring up in the Bay Area, given our proximity to Apple and Silicon Valley. We’d be curious to know about any iPhone developer courses available in readers’ areas, how much they cost and how they are structured. If you’ve seen any, be sure to let us know about it in comments.

There are several “serenity” apps on the AppStore, though none may have the cache of Buddha Machine, an iPhone/iPod Touch version of the cultural icon brainchild of Beijing-based musicians Christiaan Virant and Zhang Jian.

Calling themselves FM3, the two pioneers of electronic music in China have brought the idea of their simple, palm-sized box to iPhone and iPod Touch with a $4 app that offers 9 different ambient loops and a zen-like 3D depiction of the real-life Buddha Machine in 7 different colors activated in sequence by simple swipes of the touchscreen or randomly by shaking the device.

Virant was kind enough to offer me a promo code to check out the app and as with many things related to Buddha nature, its simplicity is both disarming and fascinating. The nine ambient loops, ranging in length from five to forty seconds, amazingly synced with the natural rhythm of my breathing, perfectly complementing a meditative mood or providing welcome refuge from modern urban distractions.

FM3 released the first corporeal Buddha Machines, each of which is said to contain a little Buddha, in 2005. Recently released 2.0 versions sell for around $20 and feature 9 new loops and a pitch control. Virant says he is working on an app version for the Buddha 2.0 with new sounds as well as pitch-shifting and a few other functions. It should be released in a month or two.

There are a bunch of guitar-oriented apps on the AppStore but the one demo’d in the video above, from developers at Frontier Design Group seems to have a lot of promise.

Called, simply, Guitar, unlike many of the instructional apps or glorified tuners out there, this app focuses on playablity. Chords and scales are easily assigned to its fretboard buttons, making it possible to strum chords, play melodies, or both. With over 1500 built-in chords, and a built-in chord editor to create custom chords, Guitar relies on a variety of realistically sampled sounds to provide surprising depth and nuance to what a user can play.

The most recently updated version of this $4 app, compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch, lets users record performances or create backing tracks that can be played along with. Recordings can also be backed up over the web to the Frontier Song Server, where they can be shared between multiple devices.

Guitar may not be as huge a hit as Ocarina, but it serves notice that Apple’s mobile gadgets are limited only by their users’ own imaginations.

A working 3rd party application enabling MMS on the iPhone is now available as a free download on the UK AppStore, according to one report. Ross McKillop and Ed Lea appear to have addressed the lack of MMS in the UK with an app that remedies one of the most widely decried shortcomings of the iPhone outside the lack of copy & paste functionality.

The pair’s app makes it free to receive MMS messages and its UI fits perfectly to Apple’s iPhone interface, according to the report. It works by prompting for a user’s O2 Mobile Number and the PIN that O2 sends when a subscriber receives an MMS message. The application then retrieves the MMS messages from O2.

The catch is that sending an MMS will cost you coin of the realm. The current charge is 10 messages for £3.79 which works out to nearly 72¢ per message.

Microsoft often gets a hard time from true Mac people — usually with good reason. For decades, MS apps for the Mac have been less full-featured than their Windows equivalents, and it’s only been in the last eight years that the Mac Business Unit has had the support to even try to make a decent version of MS Office.

The Redmond juggernaut is now trying harder, and they’ve really been speeding up their efforts in the last month or so. First, Microsoft’s beta program Songsmith was promoted in an unintentionally hilarious ad running on a MacBook Pro running VIsta, then MS released its first iPhone app, Seadragon. And today, MS has released a second iPhone app, Tag, which uses the iPhone’s camera to read special barcodes in order to access exclusive content off of posters, magazine ads, and more.

All that, and the beta version of the Hail Mary of operating system known as Windows 7 has been successfully installed on a Mac using Boot Camp, a positive sign for dial-booting Mac users for years to come. Granted, that one is more about MS not explicitly making Windows incompatible with Apple’s Intel-based platforms, but it’s still mighty handy.

What do you think? Has Microsoft finally made peace with the fact that it can’t win over true Mac lovers and started, you know, realizing that they can still make software we might want to use? Or is it all a trap?

Image via TechFlash.

Tag via My iPhone Place

Windows 7 Dual Boot from Our Coffee Stops via Engadget.

Check out this gallery of incredible art, a selection of the winners in a digital art contest sponsored by Macworld for the 2009 Conference and Expo that ended yesterday in San Francisco. Click on each thumbnail to get a full-size view of the image.

Please note, the images you see here I captured by photographing the original artwork that was displayed in the underground passageway between the North and South Halls at the Moscone Center, where Macworld 2009 was held. My images are handheld photographs made in sub-optimal lighting conditions and as stunning as I feel they are, they do not capture 100% accurate representations of the artworks themselves.

If you click through to each piece, you’ll find links to the original artist’s web page, where they provided one. You may also see all the winners at Macworld‘s website.

In this Monday night CBS sitcom about what happens when a pair of physics geeks meet the beauty next door, Apple products crop up first, as far as I can tell, for use by the distressed.

In the third episode of the first season (Big Bang is now in its second season) roommates Leonard and Sheldon are playing a MMORPG with friends. Though all the computers are covered with stickers, it looks like the only Mac user is Raj, another university researcher who is so flustered by Penny, the blond neighbor, that he is always mute in her presence.