I suppose it had to happen.
If you’ve been online since forever, you’ll remember the Hot or Not meme that was briefly that year’s Lolcats, until something more interesting came along.
But Hot or Not has continued to be hot (or not) ever since. And now you can download the Hot or Not app to your iPhone.
Or you could not.
I can’t decide if this is a delightful sign of the caring Mac community, or if it’s a sickening sign of people who can’t just leave a sick man alone.
Look, over here: it’s Prayers for Steve. Except most of them aren’t prayers, most are simply “Get well” messages. You can add yours. There are, of course, Google ads at the bottom. Could be worse: they could be plastered all over the top and sides too.
I don’t know, maybe I’m being too grumpy. Is this a good idea? You tell me.
A new Trojan Horse is currently hidden in pirated copies of Apple’s iWork ’09 available via various BitTorrent tracker sites, according to a marketing pitch, uh, report from security software manufacturer Intego.
While the pirated software is complete and functional, the installer contains a “bonus” called iWorkServices.pkg. This software is installed as a startup item where it has read-write-execute permissions for root: in other words, it has all the powers of a system administrator. This malicious software connects to a remote server over the internet, alerts its maker that it has been installed and gives this person the ability to connect to the affected Mac remotely.
Given this alert came from Intego, it is no surprise their software, VirusBarrier X4 and X5, protects you against this Trojan horse as long as your virus definitions are dated January 22, 2009 or later.
Meanwhile, SecureMac, has made a free and handy iWorkServices Trojan Removal Tool that does what its name says it will do.
Of course the very best defense of all against this kind of evilware is to get copies of your software legitimately.
Via MacMerc
Boxee released a new version of its free, open source social media software for Mac Thusday that includes support for ABC. Included, of course, in ABC support is access to one of the most popular network TV shows, “Lost,” which serendipitously had its season premier,…wait for it, Wednesday.
The Boxee peeps are duly excited because ABC also produces two other ragingly popular TV shows, “Desperate Housewives,” and “Gray’s Anatomy.”
News from torrentfreak indicating “Lost” was the most downloaded TV Show on Bittorrent in 2008 dovetails with Boxee’s plan, according to a spokesperson, who told Cult of Mac, ” we strongly believe that given the option, most users will opt for streaming a TV Show (with a reasonable amount of ads) rather than using a file-sharing service.”
Online streaming offered by ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, etc. has made progress over the past 12 months in terms of quality, breadth of selection and release windows (i.e. the time it takes for the show to be available online after it originally aired). In this respect, a service such as Boxee is a great alternative to the file-sharing networks.
Boxee hopes to release an Apple TV version within the next few days and is still working on making it available for Windows and Ubuntu.
Check out this 1,474 megapixel image of President Barack Obama delivering his Inauguaral Address.
David Bergman was fortunate enough to have a photographer’s press pass for the Presidential Inaguration in Washington Tuesday, and he used his access wisely. With a Gigapan Imager and his Canon G10, Bergman shot 220 images and took more than six and a half hours using Gigapan software to put them all together on his Macbook Pro. The completed TIF file is almost 2 gigabytes.
You can view the image in minute detail using flash controls at Bergman’s website, in full-screen mode here (I found this the best viewing on my machine), and at the Gigapan site.
Bergman has only just started exploring the photograph himself, but says he found YoYo Ma taking a picture with his iPhone. The first reader who solves “Where’s YoYo?” wins a great Cult of Mac prize!
iPhone application developer AppCubby has slashed prices on all its apps to 99¢ to combat what App Cubby founder David Barnard describes as, “the challenges of selling in the App Store.” Apps formerly priced up to $10 will now sell at a flat dollar fee, with satisfied users invited to make “donations” to the developer to fund future app development.
“The App Store [has] continued to frustrate me and foil my best efforts. So I’ve decided to try a little experiment,” Barnard says, echoing concerns he’s expressed before over the financial ecology of Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch application marketplace.
Barnard’s frustration, that “artificial market forces are driving down the price of apps, which in turn drives down the perceived value of the products we have invested significant time and money to create,” has also been widely expressed by developer Craig Hockenberry, who published a wish list of changes he’d like to see made to the AppStore back in December.
AppCubby’s “experiment” will be interesting to follow insofar as it appears to push beyond Apple’s AppStore pricing guidelines, which prohibit “sales” of software outside the approved channel. If App Cubby can gain greater exposure for its products by pricing them at a buck and fund additional development operations through donations made outside the AppStore, it could look like a better deal for everyone – including Apple – than trying (and failing) to move the same apps for $5 – $10.
Via iLounge
Documentary film maker Gary Hustwit recently got to interview top Apple designer Jonny Ive for Objectified, a movie he’s making about industrial design.
The interview took place inside Ive’s ultra-secretive design studio near Apple’s campus, which is harder to get into than Fort Knox. This is the first interview I’ve ever heard of taking place inside the studio. Quite a coup for the film. I can’t wait to see it.
In the meantime, I’m dying to know what machines are in the background of this still. I knew the studio was filled with CNC mills and 3D fabricators. Does anyone know what machines are shown in this shot?
The makers of the Boxee media center are reportedly investigating whether to emded its television streaming software in a variety of hardware, including game consoles.
“During CES we were approached by several device makers that wanted to speak with us about embedding boxee into existing or future products,” Avner Ronen wrote Thursday at the company’s blog.
Choosing a hardware solution would avoid requiring consumers either stream video from a computer or modify an Apple TV, a process that could interfere with using the Apple device to stream Netflix videos to your television.
Although embedding Boxee software is not in the near future, Ronen offered a poll, asking customers what hardware (set-top box, TV tuner, blu-Ray DVD, etc.) they would prefer and at what price.
In 2008, Boxee fixed their software after an update to Apple TV disabled the media streaming service. Boxee has received $4 million in venture funding from CBS, Netflix, Hulu and others.
No laptops. Old PCs with outdated software and broken keyboards. No Internet. No phones. Though his administration has been described as representing “an iPhone kind of future,” the first few hours for Barack Obama staffers were the worst kind of analog past.
According to a Washington Post article:
“One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used.
The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing.
Several people tried to route their e-mails through personal accounts.
But there were no missing letters from the computer keyboards, as Bush officials had complained of during their transition in 2001.”
Looks like time they started shouting, “Yes, we Mac!”
Via Washington Post
Apple interim CEO Tim Cook spoke plainly during Wednesday’s earnings call about the company’s being “ready to suit up and go against anyone” who might try to gain a competitive advantage in the mobile device arena by “ripping off” the iPhone’s IP.
General consensus holds the Palm Pre poses the best competition for iPhone thus far, with some analysts drawing close connections between Apple and Palm around the Pre’s touch interface.
Mike Abramsky, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets put the question directly to Cook on Wednesday’s call, asking, “the Palm device particularly seems to almost directly emulate the kind of touch interfaces that [Apple] innovated…Is that to what you’re referring with regarding to ripping off IP?”
Cook declined to talk about any specific company and reiterated his and Apple’s position that “competition is good [and] makes us all better.” However, he also drew analysts on the call a clear picture of Apple’s belief that the “magic” of the iPhone has little to do with hardware and everything to do with software.”
“We’ve said since the beginning software is the key ingredient and we believe that we’re still years ahead on software,” Cook said, adding “we approach [this business] fundamentally different than people that are approaching it only from a hardware point of view.
It’s obviously way early in the game, and in the event Palm’s Pre never manages to gain significant acceptance in the marketplace, Apple is likely to keep its attention and resources focused on other things.
Should the Pre come on like gangbusters and should there be a lot of “hey, this thing works just like an iPhone” talk, it’s not too difficult to imagine Apple calling on its competitive advantage in cash and legal muscle to put the squeeze on a company that, not long ago, was being written off by many as headed for the dustbin of history.
Despite Wall Street urgings to introduce an inexpensive product to spur new customers, Apple leaders suggested the Cupertino, Calif. firm is not about to go there.
“It’s a category we watch, we’ve got some ideas here, but for now we think the products there are inferior and will not provide an experience that customers are happy with,” Apple operations chief Tim Cook said in answer to a question Wednesday.
Earlier this week, Berstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi told clients an $800 MacBook could increase demand for Apple products during the weak economy.
We’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Mac by asking Cult readers to get in touch with their stories of Mac ownership over the years.
To start things off, here’s Zev Eisenberg (a man who can solve a Rubik’s Cube while reciting pi) to tell us about his pile o’ Macs.
Apple announced its retail locations brought in $1.74 billion during the December quarter, selling more than a half billion Macs for the fiscal first quarter.
At a time when retailers search for ways to attract customers and announce the shuttering of poorly-performing shops, Apple said it raked in $7 million for each of its 251 stores.
Large discounts and bundling iPods with other Mac items accounted for much of the upturn in retail income.
Apple’s report for the December quarter beat Wall Street expectations, Wednesday. Bucking others in the technology sector hurt by the ailing economy, the Cupertino, Calif.-based company announced quarterly sales of $10.17 billion, surpassing investor predictions of $9.74 billion.
“Even as the consumer disappeared, Apple managed to report record quarterly revenues,” ThinkEquity analyst Vijay Rakesh told clients Thursday morning.
Apple reported selling 2.5 million Macs for December, a nine percent increase over the same period in 2007. Much of that came from new MacBooks launched in October. Although 2007 saw desktop sales climb with the introduction of refreshed iMacs, in 2008 Apple unveiled new unibody aluminum MacBooks, as well as a price reduction for its entry-level white plastic MacBook.
Dunno if you’ve noticed, but a little meme has been spreading across Twitter during the last few days. It’s called “#firstmac”.
You can guess what happens. You announce details of your first ever Mac, and as long as you add the “#firstmac” hashtag, your comment will be collated with all the others over at hashtags.org.
Browsing through the list, there’s a huge variety of first Macs to be found, but a quick scan through the page (at the time of writing) suggests that the iMac’s various incarnations have been the first Mac owned most often – reflecting the model’s bestseller status.
So then, fess up: what was your first Mac? The first one I *used* was an SE/30 in a cybercafe in Cambridge, circa 1989 or 1990. The first Mac I purchased second-hand was an LCII from a friend. And the first I bought brand-new was a lime green iMac. Those, as they say, were the days.
Except they weren’t. That iMac was underpowered and drove me crazy with slowness and crashes. The first Mac I bought and really enjoyed as a G3 iBook, two years later.
Users downloaded Ustream’s free video viewing app for the iPhone more than 113,000 times in the first 24 hours it was available, according to the live video broadcasting company. In only two days the app has vaulted to the top spot in the AppStore’s Entertainment category and is already the number six most popular free app.
As might be expected with such huge demand over such a short period of time, there have been reports of complaints about the app crashing and users who are unhappy that it works only over WiFi (no support for 3G or EDGE viewing), but the intense interest only serves to underscore pent-up demand for video on the iPhone – even for video of purely user generated content such as that available on ustream.tv.
The company has submitted for approval by Apple a second application that will permit broadcast of live video from the iPhone, though it remains awaiting clearance to the AppStore.
That one is likely to take off even faster than the viewing app.
Via TechCrunch
Coming Friday from Santa Monica iPhone accessory maker Phonesuit.com, theMili Power Pack promises extended, stable power in a design that compliments your iPhone’s appearance.
Compatible with both 2G and 3G versions of Apple’s mobile communication device, the Mili Power Pack’s 1800mAh battery specs at 350 Hours Standby time and will provide 6 hours of Talk time on 3G, 12 hours on 2G. Browse the Internet for 6 hours on 3G, 7 hours on Wi-Fi and get up to 28 hours of Audio play and 8 hours of Video play.
The battery pack features USB I/O ports to charge your iPhone and the Mili’s battery without removing the phone from the pack, and charge external devices, such as a Bluetooth headset from the juice in the Mili’s battery.
When the iPhone is connected to the Mili power pack, the Mili prioritizes power consumption. If the Mili is connected to a USB power source, consumption comes first from this power source. When the Mili is not being charged, the iPhone’s power consumption comes from the MiLi battery first untill the Mili’s remaining charge is less than 5 percent. When the Mili battery is less than 5% charged, the iPhone power source is used. The iPhone’s power source is always used last so it can maintain its maximum charge.
Using the included USB cable, you can also sync your iPhone without removing it from the power pack.
$79.95, from the phonesuit website.
Apple’s iPhone now comprises 2.2 percent of cell phones sold in Taiwan, reports said Wednesday. More than 12,000 of 546,000 phones sold in December were iPhones.
The December sales put the iPhone in sixth place among handsets sold on the Asian island nation, according to a report in Digitimes.
Although its unclear what impact the iPhone’s appearance had on rivals, a number of handset makers saw losses in market share last month.
Developed by two anesthesiologists, this iPhone app helps log cases, keeping track of who has gone under for what in the operating room.
Some functions include:
— Record a new anesthesia case log on the fly, even if you don’t have a wireless connection (your iPhone will sync data to the CaseLogs server once it regains connectivity).
— Browse Case Log History to quickly find a patient record and open the entry for easy editing (your anesthesia records are organized chronologically).
Launched a couple of months ago, iAnesthesia:Case Logs reviews are generally favorable, it seems that the app (view demo here) helps get rid of manual methods like collecting stickers to log patient procedures but has been criticized for omitting a field for patient names over privacy concerns.
Costs $19.99, available on iTunes.
Via Med Gadget
The next version of Google’s Android-based cell phone sold by T-Mobile opts to drop the keyboard in favor of a virtual version to better chase after iPhone fans, a report suggested Wednesday.
The G2, built by Taiwan’s HTC for U.S. carrier T-Mobile, will appear this Spring without a physical keyboard, according to gadget blog Gizmodo. Removing the keyboard in favor of a touch-screen version will better align the Android phone with handsets such as Apple’s iPhone.
The new phone, alleged pictures of which Gizmodo published, provides a “slimmer, rounded design,” wrote Macnn.
Apple’s white plastic MacBook now has the same graphics horsepower of more expensive aluminum MacBooks, reports said Wednesday.
The upgrade, made without any official fanfare, provides buyers of the low-end notebook NVIDIA’s 9400 graphics engine, the same system already available to owners of pricier aluminum MacBooks.
Cupertino also added some oomph to the white plastic notebook’s main processor, upgrading the MacBook to a 2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and doubling memory to 2GB.
However, the white plastic MacBook’s beefier DD2 memory has a clock speed of 667 MHz rather than the speedier 1.06MHz available with DD3 memory for aluminum MacBooks.
Likewise, Apple still limits white plastic MacBooks to a 20-inch Cinema Display upgrade and retains a Mini DVI graphics output rather than a Mini DisplayPort.
In October, Apple lowered the price of its entry-level white plastic MacBook to $999 from $1,099.
Remember the Talking Moose?
If you don’t, this post will make no sense to you whatsoever.
But if you DO: Hey! Woo! Yay! Talking Moose is back as a Twitter superstar and can provide just as much entertainment from there as it used to back in the day. Probably more.
I had the Moose running on my Lime Green iMac. Annoying as hell. But fabulous none the less.
(You can still get the Moose for OS X, did you know that? Not that you need to now. Twitter! Superstar! Twitter is the new Hotmail, did you hear? Or was it the new Geocities? I forget. Us old timers do that. Often.)
(Via TidBITS.)
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is probing whether Apple sufficiently informed investors of CEO Steve Jobs’ health status, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
An unnamed source told the news organization the review does not mean Apple committed any wrongdoing, according to the report.
Last week, Apple announced Jobs was taking a six-month medical leave of absence after being informed his health troubles were “more complex” the previously announced. Prior to the announcement, Jobs had assured the Mac community an ailment that had prompted speculation was due to a “hormonal imbalance” the Apple co-founder described as “easily treatable.”
I was going to save this one for a “WTF iPhone Apps Of The Week” post, but then I thought – No. This is Too Good. This needs a space of its own.
Ladies and gentlemen (but mostly, I suspect, gentlemen): I present iPropose. It is an app designed to help the tongue-tied ask for someone else’s hand in marriage.
I think the official blurb from the App Store says everything:
“Make sure the most important event of your lives happens inside your life’s most important gadget. And with iPropose, that special someone will know you really care. iPropose is 100% guaranteed to result with a “YES” or your money back!”
Stop and think, ladies (because I suspect it will be mostly ladies): do you really want to marry a guy who proposed to you on a phone? Do you?
Have you ever designed and ordered a book using Apple’s iPhoto book publishing tool? I have, and they are nice. The quality is quite good and the pricing seems fair value – they make great commemorative gifts and keepsakes. But Apple’s not really in the publishing business. Through iPhoto your options are somewhat limited and somewhat photo-centric, all of which is as it should be.
But say you’ve got a publishing idea that doesn’t fit one of Apple’s iPhoto templates and, well, gosh darn it, also doesn’t seem to be getting much interest from any of the few publishers remaining in the business of making and distributing books. There’s always the so-called “vanity press” – but what if you could just design it and print it on your own?
Well, you can. With free software from Blurb you can write, design and print your own books and sell them online. Books can be up to 440 pages long and come in a variety of sizes in both hardback and softcover, at prices that make you wonder why it’s so hard to make money in the publishing business.
Blurb’s BookSmart software for Mac (cross-platform compatible with Windows) features a ton of professionally designed layouts or lets you create from scratch, integrates seamlessly with iPhoto, lets you import from online sources such as Flickr and Picasa, and supports all of your own fonts in a variety of sizes and text styles.
When you’re done creating, you can sell your masterpiece online in the Blurb Bookstore and keep 100% of the markup.
Blurb may not save the publishing industry the way iTunes saved the music industry, but it’s nice to know you can be a Paperback Writer for just $4.95.