Today’s pre-event rumors say that there may be a version of iPhoto announced for the iPad 3, and it certainly makes sense. Daring Fireball’s John Gruber and Panic’s Neven Mrgan both argue that iPhoto is an obvious candidate for an iPad with a beautiful Retina display, and Gabe Glick, writing at MacStories, makes the case for Aperture. I think at least some of them may be right.
Get your catapults ready: Angry Birds Seasons is back, and this time the 15 new levels are set in Japan. But not the Japan that you or I might visit. This is a Japan populated with pigs wearing rope headbands, nestled amongst giant maki rolls and set in the shadow of the giant Mount Fuji.
Remember when we told you earlier today that Verizon was teasing something new and mysterious on the front page of its website? Well, it turns out that AT&T is doing exactly the same thing. If you visit att.com right now, you’ll see the above banner.
“Get ready to see an exciting addition to our line-up.” iPad 3? Probably.
In a move that would surely have Steve Jobs — the man willing to go thermonuclear war against Android — rolling over in his grave, Apple has apparently offered licensing deals to Samsung and Motorola in an attempt to settle ongoing and future patent suits. According to sources speaking with Dow Jones Newswires, Apple has offered licensing deals in the tune of $5 to $15 per device or the equivalent of 1% to 2.5% of net sales per device. Interestingly enough, these fees are on par with what Apple deemed “unreasonable” after attempts to license patents from Motorola.
The rumor mill has been saying that Apple’s third-gen iPad will come equipped with LTE 4G networking. The feature is speculated to be U.S.-only on AT&T and Verizon, with international and other carrier details remaining scare.
We’ve gotten word that the nation’s largest wireless provider, Verizon, has been installing LTE equipment in U.S. Apple retail stores ahead of the iPad 3 launch.
Apple has silently added a new section to the App Store called “Catalogs.” On the eve of the iPad 3 announcement, the section seems to have launched prematurely, as it’s not yet visible with the rest of the App Store’s categories. You can only find it by visiting this direct link, and there are no apps available to download in the iTunes directory.
I have been using Photoshop Touch almost obsessively for the past week, despite being holed up in the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for much of that time. At first look, I thought it was yet another photo-editing app, and in many ways it is. But as I dig in more and more, its clear that — while this is no substitute for desktop Photoshop — its an amazing app in itself. And all the more so as it runs in just 512KB RAM.
First, what Photoshop Touch for? That’s not as dumb a question as it might seem.
Hype for Apple’s third-generation iPad has reached a fever pitch leading up to tomorrow’s announcement. A whole lot of people are eager to see how Apple will leapfrog the rest of the tablet market yet again.
When we asked Cult of Mac readers if they plan to buy the iPad 3, over 50% of you answered with a resounding yes. A new survey indicates that over 40% of online shoppers in the U.S. also plan to spend their hard earned cash on the next iPad, but they want something from Apple in return: cheaper prices.
It looks like Apple has made some subtle improvements to the App Store on the iPad. You won’t notice the changes at first or second (maybe even third) glance, but they are there all the same.
The “Top Charts” section of the iPad’s App Store has been updated with vertical scrolling and faster loading times, mirroring a similar update Apple made several months ago.
Skype has released a new public version of its Mac app with full screen video mode for OS X Lion, automatic updates, improved group calling, and more. Version 5.6 includes multiple bug fixes and interface improvements.
If there’s a buzzword for here at the first CITE Conference, it would have to be trust. Virtually every discussion I’ve had over the past two days has boiled down to the level of trust between IT and users.
Trust may be the foundation of all healthy human relationships, but it isn’t something that comes easily to IT professionals in the workplace. That’s the underlying tension that IT staffers have when it comes to the consumerization of IT. It isn’t about devices or public cloud services. It’s about trusting the users that you support.
What do IT staffers and execs want to see in the iPad 3? Pretty much the same things as everyone else.
Apple is the pink elephant in the room at the CITE Conference in San Francisco. The company isn’t participating but the company’s products, particularly the iPad, are constantly being discussed. In talking to attendees about tomorrow’s iPad 3 launch event, there isn’t a specific IT-oriented feature that they want to see.
It’s looking more and more likely that the iPad 3 won’t just be getting a Retina Display tomorrow, it’ll be getting LTE. The Verge’s Joshua Topolsky is now reporting that their sources indicate LTE iPad 3s will ship in two flavors for both AT&T and Verizon’s network.
Fans of Monty Python, gather your dead parrots and your stuffed John Cleese plushies: today is your day to celebrate the official launch of Monty Python: The Holy Book of Days for iPad, an app that gives faithful Python followers everything they could ever wish for on a plate, with strawberries on top. The rest of us might be left wondering what the fuss is about, though.
It doesn’t take a genius to guess or soothsayer to divine that Apple’s been holding back the iOS 5.1 update to debut it alongside the iPad 3, and so it appears, with reports now indicating that iOS 5.1 has just gone Gold Master.
Calvin And Hobbes — Bill Watterson’s beautiful elegy to imagination, impishness and inquisitiveness — is still a comic strip that is unmatched in my affections over fifteen years after the final strip ran. In fact, it’s always been interesting to me to imagine what Calvin might be doing now if he’d aged in real-time. He’d be around 32, and really, what company better for him to explore his imagination and his inquisitiveness than Apple?
Since such musings tend to pop around my head, I was delighted to stumble upon this great Reddit thread, in which Redditor ClassicWinger merged Calvin And Hobbes with OS X Lion’s default wallpaper to come up with an all new wallpaper, in which Calvin and his tiger look up at a densely packed universe in the hushed awe it deserves. You can download it in full-resolution here.
Love the wallpaper above, but wishing for something more appropriate to Mountain Lion? We’ve got it after the jump, alone withan even better wallpaper, featuring my favorite Calvin alter-ego, Spaceman Spiff!
Did you know that the Calculator app built into iOS has a hidden swipe gesture that allows you to delete those digits that you tap accidentally? No, neither did I until this morning, when I discovered this nifty little backspace trick by accident.
With the number of MIDI controllers on the market, the search for a great portable controller can be daunting.
Let me introduce you to the Korg microKEY, my favorite mobile MIDI controller.
Although bloggers and analysts refer to Apple’s rumored upcoming HDTV as the iTV just out of simplicity, there’s no actual indication that Apple would call it that. None. No one knows for sure if Apple’s even working on an HDTV, let alone what they’re going to call it.
The only evidence that Apple might call an HDTV the iTV is US Patent Patent No. 2011/0154394 A1, which has a solitary image indicating that Apple might, at least, be using the name iTV internally. But that’s not stopping the usual cadre of doofuses from trying to eke some payouts (or, at least, some free publicity) out of the whole thing. In this case, it’s American-based iTV Entertainment, who are threatening to crash tomorrow’s iPad 3 event to prevent Apple from releasing an HDTV with the same name.
The patent saga continues with U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner in Chicago ruling that Motorola and Google must provide Apple with information regarding Android development as well as information about the impending merger. It’s unclear exactly what specific “information” must be provided and while everyone goes ahead and assumes it’s some sort of top secret documentation, I’m betting it’s nothing of the sort and Apple won’t be gaining any trade secrets out of this. It’s all ridiculous and will only end as all of these patent suits have ended, with nothing more than a software update.
I picked up my first iPhone around three months after the device launched way back in 2007, and I’ve been an iPhone user ever since. I’ve dabbled with Android devices throughout the years, and I even tried webOS on the HP Pre, but I didn’t like either operating system as much as I like iOS on the iPhone.
When Microsoft first introduced Windows Phone, I was instantly attracted to it. I liked the look of the user interface, I liked the way the system worked, and I actually liked the fact that Microsoft was in control of the Windows Phone Marketplace. (One of the things that I dislike most about Android is that the Android Market has no approval process.) I’m not a fan of the Windows desktop operating system, and I’ve stayed as far away from it as possible after purchasing my first Mac. But I felt compelled to try Windows Phone.
So I did. I swapped my iPhone for a HTC TITAN running Windows Phone Mango for one month. Here’s how I got on.
Valletta is yet another Markdown editor for the Mac, but one with a crucial difference. Instead of using a separate window to preview your document, it converts only the current line you’re editing, leaving the rest as clean and beautiful preview. It’s a clever idea, but we’ll have to see how well it works in practice.
Apple officials have reportedly confirmed that the company will not be taking its pop-up retail store to this year’s South by Southwest Interactive Festival, which kicks off on Friday, March 9. The decision suggests Apple’s iPad 3 will not be ready for shipping next week.
Cult of Mac’s reviews editor Charlie Sorrel and I have a bet going on whether or not the iPad 3 will have LTE.
I figure Apple’s got to see the impact of LTE on their iOS devices sometime, and the iPad is the perfect launch platform for it: they can sell the functionality as optional and at a premium, as they do 3G, making sure a minimum number of people get burned by a lack of LTE deployment in their area (and falling back on HSPA+ when LTE isn’t around)…. all the while the iPad 3’s biggery battery mitigates 4G power management issues.
Charlie thinks that argument’s stupid, and LTE’s far too immature to deploy. At stake is a solid buck, or half Charlie’s monthly salary, so tensions are high as the iPad 3 announcement lurches closer and closer on the calendar.
The latest report suggest that buck could very well be mine.
Take apart one of Apple’s latest iMacs and inside you’ll find plenty of space for mounting an additional hard drive. Of course, it’s useless if you don’t have the tools for the job, but that’s where iFixit comes in. The teardown specialists have released a new kit that provides you with everything you need for installing an additional hard drive in your new iMac.
