News - page 2358

MacBook (Stop Motion) from Fernando Rueda on Vimeo.

Here’s a cute little stop-motion MacBook unboxing video.

***WARNING: SPOILERS***

I particularly like how the MacBook slides inside its sleeve at the end.

iPhone snap of a Macworld banner by Steve Rhodes (CC licensed).

Here’s some useful links for this week’s Macworld:

iMacworld iPhone app — IDG has a handy-looking show guide for the iPhone (I haven’t tried it yet). The app, iMacworld, includes exhibitors, products and conference sessions. You can download the application here.

Hess Memorial Events List — The Hess Memorial Events List (named after the late MacWeek editor Robert Hess and maintained by Ilene Hoffman) is probably the most comprehensive list of happenings, but unfortunately isn’t in a calendar friendly format.

#Macworld and MWSF 09 on Twitter — The Twitter hashtag for this year’s Macworld is a battle between #Macworld and #mwsf09. Try also Macworld

Macworld on FriendFeed

Macworld on Upcoming.org

Macworld on SocialCalendario

Macworld 2009 on Flickr

Several links via Macworldbound.com — “The Definitive Guide to Macworld for First-timers.”

Plenty of chatter yesterday in the Apple blogosphere about the patent application for special iPhone gloves Apple filed back in June 2007, the day before the original iPhone made its commerical debut.

In the meantime, a few companies have already produced products intended to ease the need for iPhone users in the northern latitudes to actually go inside to use their Jesus Phones during the winter. Click on images in the gallery below to see the Apple patent illustration and few solutions on the market today. And let us know in comments how you manage to fulfill your iPhone jones in places where chilly winds blow.

In 2007, British student Meredith Kercher was murdered in Italy, during a study abroad program in hill town Perugia.

About a year later, Rudy Guede was sentenced to 30 years for his part in the killing, for which Kercher’s roommate, American student Amanda “Foxy Knoxy” Knox and her boyfriend, Italian IT grad, Raffaele Sollecito, are still awaiting trial.

Guede’s appeal now before the Italian court hinges on an iPod.

During what has been hypothesized was some sort of late-night Halloween sex game where the 21-year-old Kercher was an unwilling participant, Guede maintains he was in the bathroom of the young women’s apartment.

While she was being killed with a knife, he was listening to music on iCarta, a toilet paper holder roll that doubles as an iPod dock.

Guede’s lawyers tried to head off what they thought might be viewed as a sort of Twinkie defense for the digital age in a statement to Italian media (below translation mine):

“It is nothing more than a confirmation of how some abnormal behaviors are apparently normal among young people today,” said laywers Valter Biscotti and Nicodemo Gentile. “Just as Facebook is their virtual world, they now listen to music everywhere, even in the bathroom. The marketing of such products implies a certain routine use.”

The statement was published today in Italian papers, without information on how the legal team might use or prove the bathroom listening alibi.

Add a new layer of creativity to the things you can do with your iPhone and your photos – with iSteam, a cool new app from UK developer consortium, Great Apps. iSteam uses features of the iPhone and iPod Touch including the accelerometer, multitouch, microphone and speakers to turn the touch screen into something resembling your bathrooom mirror after a hot shower, or a window on a winter day.

Blow on the microphone to “fog up” the surface of the phone (iPod Touch users need an external mic) and use your fingers to write messages and draw, just like you would on a steamy window. Realistic water droplets form on the image and leave trail marks that can be manipulated by tilting the device; shake it up to clear the screen and start over. iSteam even has finger squeaking sounds included.

Images can be saved to the Camera Roll using the screen capture method (hold the Home key & press the lock button) or emailed to iPhone and iPod Touch owning contacts directly from iSteam.

If you’ve ever wondered what it might be like to work at Apple, out in the wild are more than a couple of tell-all accounts penned by former employees, and as the company prepares for its final Macworld appearance next week in San Francisco, the UK Guardian has one, published Friday, by Chuq von Rospach, a former Apple employee who has taken his experience there and turned it into a little cottage industry of freelance writing.

Von Rospach’s piece for the Guardian waxes a bit nostalgic for the days when Steve Jobs delivered the Macworld keynote, but he says nevertheless “still tune in with great anticipation” to this year’s speech by Phil Schiller, especially because word on the street says Apple will bow out of Macworld with a hiss and not a bang.

The piece is rather on the long side, and true to form for the genre, is more about the author than about the experience of working at Apple, but von Rospach does provide a glimpse of behind-the-scenes observations that are rarely seen in Apple’s context and, for those interested in one person’s perspective, provides a worthwhile read.

“Easter eggs” is a term that’s come to describe little screens, menus and functionalities software coders hide in their work. Sometimes these things are uncovered by intrepid users, who take as a point of pride the mission to peek behind as many curtains as they can find in an application; sometimes there’s either enough lack of interest in finding the Easter eggs or they are so well-hidden developers end up revealing them on their own.

Those wacky kids in Mountain View, CA who write the Google blog posted Friday about a “Bells and Whistles” Easter egg menu for the company’s voice-enabled iPhone app. The screen is revealed by repeated attempts to swipe upward on the iPhone’s touch screen from the Settings menu. At first glance, there appears to be nothing below the tab labelled “About” but continue swiping upward on the screen (five swipes in my case), and a “Bells and Whistles” tab will appear.

From the B&W tab you can change the app’s theme color, its default sound effect and more. OK. Now that’s out of the way, let’s see what else we can accomplish today…

Via Venture Beat

The third season opening episode of Channel 4’s award-winning sitcom IT Crowd features a scene where clueless exec Douglas Reynholm performs the modern equivalent of fiddling while Rome Burns.

Instead of listening to talk about cutbacks, he’s busy with an iPod party with the all-female accounting department.

Exec 1 (Denholm): “You seem to lack a basic understanding of exactly how much trouble this company is in. We have a financial crisis here. And if you don’t mind me saying, your attitude seems incredibly cavalier.”

Reynholm “What? Can’t hear you, we’re having an iPod party.”

While the trademark white earbuds abound, there’s never a shot of an actual iPod.
Update: sharp-eyed CoM reader Mark spotted a pink shuffle on the hip of the accountant at far right.

As many toasted 2009 with a bit of bubbly, a Florida man celebrated by launching a class-action lawsuit against Apple. The lawsuit claims Cupertino remained mum about vertical lines appearing in iMac displays.

“Apple remained silent knowing its iMac display screens would malfunction while consumers purchased iMacs, made warranty claims arising from the vertical lines on display screens, and made out of warranty repairs related to vertical lines,” alleges the lawsuit filed New Year’s Eve by Aram Hovsepian, who bought an iMac in October, 2006 and began noticing the display problem March of 2008.

The lawsuit alleges Apple violated California’s Unfair Business Practices Act and the state’s Consumers Legal Remedy Act.

With expectations lowered for the upcoming Macworld Expo in San Francisco, talk has drifted from a new iPhone to sprucing up the little Mac mini. The mini is said to include support for dual displays, according to a Friday report.

The updated mini will sport both a Mini DVI connector and a Mini DisplayPort, which was recently introduced with new unibody MacBooks, according to unnamed sources “familiar with the company’s plans” quoted by Apple Insider.

The mini, introduced in 2005, has lacked dual display capability, something available in other Macs. The reason for the graphic refresh: the reported use of the more powerful GeForce 9400 chipset to replace the Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics.

With Viacom demanding higher fees for their channels to be run on Time Warner Cable, it looks like you might have to turn to the Internet for your Colbert Report and Dora the Explorer. That time might come as soon as tonight, with a blackout on Time Warner Cable and Brighthouse Network customers threatened for tonight at midnight.

Fear not. With TVUPlayer you can watch most of the 19 channels that might be removed if an agreement can’t be reached. At least you can watch the key ones: Comedy Central, Spike TV, Nickelodeon and MTV are all available to stream. The quality’s not great, but it’s better than nothing isn’t it?

IDG, promoter of the Macworld Expo 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. next week, is asking Mac fans to help shape a future without Apple. A Town Hall event is set for Jan. 7.

The Town Hall is designed to help IDG “shape Macworld in 2010 and beyond,” according to a statement.

Acknowledging 2009 will be without Apple CEO Steve Jobs and the last year the Cupertino, Calif.-based company will participate, future Macworld’s will increase the focus on the “Mac community,” including users and product developers, IDC said.

Soon after Apple announced its plans to drop Macworld appearances, the event’s organizers vowed to continue. Analysts have scaled back their expectations for Macworld Expo.

The Town Hall will be held at 5 p.m. Pacific Time in Moscone Center’s Gateway Ballroom.

From Smule, creators of the internationally captivating Ocarina app for the iPhone, comes Zephyr, a 99¢ app that is part snow globe, part artboard, part multi-media messaging device, part chain letter and altogether fun.

Classified as a Social Networking application in the App Store, Zephyr invites users to use the touchscreen to draw pictures and messages rendered in snowflakes, while the app simultaneously translates touch and movement into distinctive wind sounds to complement the written message. You can erase a composition entirely by shaking the phone or erase parts with a two finger swipe gesture. When you’re happy with your creation you can send it off anonymously into the ether, where it will be received by another Zephyr user.

The chain continues when the recipient of your message expresses “love” for it by tapping a heart icon that appears on the screen with a received message. The more a message is loved, the more it will be passed forward.

You can also receive a message, see the stops it made on its way to you and decide whether or not it will continue on its journey around the world.

No word yet on whether Smule developers plan to update the app with different iconography for the changing seasons.

Now that you’ve been introduced to Burrell Smith, you can get a feel for the kind of eccentric behind the original Macintosh. This is a charming guy, a hard worker, and a creative character. These types of people are the foundation of Apple’s success through innovation.

While it’s great to read these examples of creative things that these employees have done, it’s much more valuable to understand how they got about becoming this type of person. The story “Make a Mess, Clean it Up!” from Folklore.org provides that key analysis using a lesson in Burrell’s style of video gaming. Notice that even in the first few paragraphs, the idea of innovation comes to mind immediately.

“Working 90 hours a work week requires frequent, and highly effective, work breaks. In the center of Macintosh work area in Bandley 3 we had a ping pong table, a nice stereo system, and a Defender video game machine. We found that competitive play gave us a jolt of adrenaline, and a refreshed mind-set when we resumed work. We also learned a lot about our coworkers and how they excel during competition. While playing Defender one day I got some great insight into how Burrell accelerates his own learning process.”

Make a Mess, Clean it Up! [Folklore.org]

“Expectations are low given Steve Jobs will not speak at the conference,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told investors Tuesday. Earlier this month, Jobs announced he was handing the speaking reigns to Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller. The 2009 event will also be the last for Apple.

The introduction of Schiller at the key Apple gathering “suggests there will not be any revolutionary products this year,” Munster wrote. As a result, chances for a new iPhone being launched at Macworld are not as likely as once thought by the bullish Apple watcher.

RIM is asking a court to permit it to hire former employees of hard-hit rival Motorola. The Canada-based handset maker claims Motorola is blocking its workers from joining the BlackBerry manufacturer.

The case revolves around a February agreement between RIM and Motorola which forbade the two companies poaching employees. RIM said the agreement expired in August and wants the court to invalidate the pact.

“RIM entities continue to grow and hire new employees within the United States and globally against a backdrop of recent public announcements by Motorola that it has and will continue to make massive layoffs,” according to the RIM lawsuit filed last week.

To combat lower handset sales, 3,000 Motorola workers were axed and the Schaumburg, Ill-based company recently announced it would cut pay and benefits.

Intel Tuesday introduced the Q9000, a 2.53 GHz quad-core chip designed to offer a cheaper alternative for notebook manufacturers. Acer becomes the first to use the $350 chip to power a product, its $1,800 Aspire 8930G-7665 for gamers.

Unlike its bigger brothers, the Q9000 sports 6MB of cache memory – half that of Intel’s Q9100 and QX9300. Intel also offers the 2.53 GHZ P8700, 2.66 GHZ P9600 and T9550, as well as the 2.93 GHz T9800.

Apple is among a number of computer makers that will use new Intel Core 2 Quad chips created for mobile PCs. Cupertino reportedly will use the new chips for an expected refresh of its line of iMac desktops, reports suggested Monday.

News broke over the weekend that iFart Mobile, the current #1 paid application on Apple’s iTunes AppStore, netted its creators $40,000 in two days at Christmas, according to a blog post by Joel Comm, the application’s lead developer.

The two-day holiday haul was in addition to $25,000+ in profits the app generated in the two weeks prior to Christmas.

Comm’s is by no means a unique success story. Steve Demeter, developer of the game Trism, made $250,000 in the first two months the AppStore was open; Eliza Block, the developer of “2 Across” app, was reportedly earning $2,000 per day on her application back in September.

Granted these are but three names out of the more than 10,000 apps now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s not difficult to do the math, though, and when an application designed around people’s fascination with flatulence – one of dozens dedicated to the same theme – can net its creator $40,000 in two days, it would seem irresponsible of a director attempting a remake of The Graduate not to write this exchange into the script:

Mr. McGuire: I want to say two words to you. Just two words.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: iPhone Apps.

More Apple oriented websites felt obligated to post the news on Monday that casemaker Vaja has added an iPhone Nano category to its offerings of cases for Apple phone products. Coming on the heels of last week’s news that XSNS had done the same, the pre-Macworld rumor mill seems to indicate a strong likelihood that Apple will introduce a mini-me version of its popular mobile phone next week in San Francisco.

Is this what we’ve come to? Roughly 10 million people have bought iPhones this year. AT&T is selling refurbished iPhones for $99 and now you can buy them new at Walmart, too. Who, exactly is dying for an iPhone Nano?

I have to go on record as saying I’ll be disappointed to see Apple cave in to the mobile handset market’s mystifying tradition of churning out 1001 minutely varied executions on a theme, for the sake of what? Surely not functionality.

Prior to the iPhone you had relatively similar smartphones made by a few companies (Palm, RIM, Nokia) and hundreds of other devices that were just, phones, made by dozens and dozens of manufacturers. Even within the smartphone realm, my eyes glazed over at the number of “different ” Blackberries, for example.

The iPhone came along and changed everything. And in perfect Apple fashion there were basically two choices, a perfectly fine device and another one for those whose device must, under any circumstance be perceived as “bigger.” Hey, fine. There’s nothing wrong with a Corvette…

But now, a Nano? Something smaller? Less functional than its big brother? Less touchscreen real estate? A virtual keyboard for really tiny fingers?

Knock yourself out, Apple. I would think there are greater heights to scale.

Three men were charged with the murder of a store owner in Fairbanks, Alaska after buying an iPhone with the dead man’s credit cards.

According to court documents, the three men, two of them in the military and one discharged a year ago, allegedly killed 62-year-old Daniel Frederick, owner of Blondie’s military surplus, to hinder a military investigation.

Police tracked them down after they bought an iPhone at an AT&T Store.

One of the men paid for the high-tech phone using one of Frederick’s cards, but he added the phone to his existing account with the company, according to a criminal complaint filed in court.

It was the start of an electronics spending spree that included a computer and DVDs that court documents state totaled thousands of dollars.

Frederick’s body was later found in a wooded area. The 62-year-old man had been beaten and strangled.

Court papers say the men killed Frederick in what was described only as “a matter that military authorities were investigating.”

Via AP, News Miner

Australian company Tropical Howie offers a range limited-edition neoprene cases that make you think about going on vacation as you head to work. Six styles include bright stripes (“swimwear”), one that looks like a beach towel and a paisley print (“market”) or Hong Kong taxi for adventures of a different sort.

There are 750 cases available in six styles, designed to fit 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch MacBooks, and at least one Mac fan gave them the thumbs up. Going by availability on the site, it looks like the 13-inch in most styles have sold only a few hundred, while some styles in larger sizes have less than 100 cases left.

At about $55 (AUD 79), setting yourself apart from the pack won’t set you back that much.

Via Daily Candy

It didn’t take long for a French retailer to begin selling ‘unlocked’ iPhones, following a recent court ruling in that nation. FNAC Friday began selling the popular Apple handset without the usual carrier contract.

Despite the rather steep prices (an 8GB iPhone sells for the equivalent of $1,122), the FNAC offers seems to be the first to take advantage of a ruling by France’s Competition Council temporarily striking down the practice of requiring contracts tied to carriers.

Earlier this month, the competition board described Apple’s 2007 exclusive deal with France’s Orange carrier a “serious and immediate” threat to broader competition.

Besides an all-in-one design, new iMacs expected in January could sport new cooling technology for chips developed by chip giant Intel, two Asian-language publications are reporting.

Foxconn will create a “magnesium-aluminum alloy chassis,” according to the Economic Daily News. The Chinese-language pblication also claimed Foxconn’s Precision Components and Auras Technology will produce the iMac’s “cooling module.”

The news may dovetail with a previous report from DigiTimes that Apple was among a group of PC makers opting to use new quad-core processors from Intel expected to alter computer power requirements. The Core 2 Quad chips, ranging in speeds from 2.33 GHz to 2.83 GHz, require 65W rather than 55W for current iMacs, according to AppleInsider.

I love hearing and reading stories about the people who made great things happen. In much the same way that I enjoyed “Classic Feynman” and shared the book with many friends, I share with you the beginning of the Apple Macintosh. Andy Hertzfeld’s website, Folklore.org, chronicles the early days of Apple Computer and the creation of the Macintosh. It does more than that though, it brings back all the fun had in creating it, and gives us a first look in the original Cult of Mac: its creators.

Quite a few of the stories follow Burrell Smith. Originally hired as an Apple II service technician, Burrell was an amazing hardware engineer and generally crazy guy. It was his hardware and circuitry work that made the original Macintosh a reality.

“I’ll Be Your Best Friend” introduces you to one of the key men behind the Mac through his introduction to Andy Hertzfeld:

“Toward the end of my first week as an Apple employee in August 1979, I noticed that someone had left a black binder on my desk, with a hand-written title that read, “Apple II: Principles of Operation”. It contained a brilliant, concise description of how the Apple II hardware worked, reverently explaining details of Woz’s epic, creative design hacks, in a clearer fashion than I’d ever read before. I didn’t know who left it there, but the title page said it was written by “Burrell C. Smith”.

Later that day, in the late afternoon, I was approached by a young, animated, slightly nervous guy with long, straight, blond hair, who entered my cubicle and walked right up to me.“

I’ll Be Your Best Friend [Folklore.org]

iPhone app developers iPaguri have a new offering on the AppStore today, called Walking Tour Fierenze, a one and a half hour audio guide for, you guessed it, a walking tour through the center of Florence, Italy.

The version currently available is in Italian only, with versions in English, French, Spanish and German coming. The developers promise anecdotes, curiosities, stories and legends about the famed center of Renaissance art and culture that “others can’t show you,” a claim we’ll have to get our Italy-based colleague Nicole Martinelli to suss out and possibly opine on regarding the true value of this $10 app.

In concept, however, iPaguri could be sitting on a gold mine. I envision Walking Tour versions for every major tourist destination and gallery in the world…

Requires iPhone 2.2 Software Update.