Next time you’re in San Francisco with your iPhone taking pictures of the monuments, try Time Shutter for a blast in the past.

It offers 246 shots of the City by the Bay snapped 100 years ago. Thanks to a geo-coded map, you can find the points of interest on a walking tour and see how things have changed.

Apple unveiled “Siri” yesterday. The revolutionary technology is integrated into the iPhone 4S to bring you dictation and voice recognition capabilities that will knock your socks off.

We gave you a breakdown of how Siri compares to Google’s similar “Voice Actions” technology for Android, and Apple’s approach is leagues ahead of the competition.

If you’d like to know exactly what Siri can do for you on the iPhone 4S, an extensive list of compatible voice commands has surfaced that lets you know what Siri is capable of. Check inside for the details.

Apple sells an unlocked iPhone 4, so it stands to reason they’ll do the same for the iPhone 4S. Even so, we’ve yet to get any direct confirmation that Apple’s got an unlocked model planned, which is sort of a bummer, since an unlocked world phone iPhone is seriously tempting.

It does seem, though, that Apple may have an unlocked iPhone 4S in the pipeline, based on info found by selecting an iPhone 4 on the Apple Online Store and then clicking the link titled “About the unlocked iPhone.”

What’s weird is the text says the iPhone 4S won’t look on CDMA-based carriers, which is just bizarre, since the hardware should surely allow it. I’m guessing this is just hastily updated boilerplate that will be refined over time, but it’s still pretty strange.

[via MacTrast]

Lots of people are scratching their heads over Apple’s iPhone 4S announcement. Did Tim Cook and co. drop the ball? Or is the outlandish iPhone 5 rumor mill to blame for such high expectations?

Regardless of the what you think about the iPhone 4S, Apple certainly knows what it thinks. In fact, you can see exactly how Apple retail employees are being instructed to pitch the iPhone 4S to customers.

Today an AT&T customer service representative (CSR) lays the blame for the current upgrade pricing squarely on Apple, inc. According to the AT&T CSR we spoke to this morning upgrade eligibility dates and the pricing models are all dictated by Apple, Inc. and they cannot be changed.

If you’ve had an iPhone long enough you’ll recall a similar customer service fiasco a couple of years ago with the iPhone 3GS.  If you missed the last time early adopters weren’t able to upgrade and extend their contracts take a look at Apple and AT&T Royally Screw Loyal iPhone 3G Customers it wasn’t pretty.

If you stood in line last year to buy an iPhone 4, the year before that for an iPhone 3GS, etc., and count yourself a loyal Apple customer? Well, we’re all idiots, because Apple and AT&T just screwed us royally and now it looks like history is repeating itself.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHE6IYKhIUE&feature=player_embedded

After showing off the sequel to their elegiac App Store masterpiece, Epic Games has now released the first teaser trailer for Infinity Blade II… and it looks just as incredible as it ever did. You can expect to get your hands on the app on December 1st.

In the mean time, Epic and Chair have also released another free content update to Infinity Blade, as well as a new ebook.

Author Jonathan Zschau, writer of Buying and Owning a Mac: Secrets Apple Doesn’t Want You To Know says the top reason why Apple is so successful may be that it is just so darn easy to buy stuff from the Cupertino, Calif. company. “The phrase ‘eyes bigger than one’s stomach’ comes to mind here,” he writes.

Don’t be fooled by the fact that the iPhone 4S looks identical to the iPhone 4. Deciding which iPhone to buy this year is more complicated than it ever has been, and there’s a lot more variable to consider now than there ever have been in the past.

Should you buy an iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 or iPhone 3GS? Should you get one in white or black? Should you get one with 8GB, 16GB, 32GB or 64GB of storage? Should you sign up with AT&T, Verizon or Sprint?

Those are big questions, and the answers will vary from person to person. Still, Cult of Mac has given this a lot of thought, and for most people, we recommend buying the 16GB Sprint iPhone 4S in White.

Below you’ll find our logic, but if you disagree, pipe up in the comments and explain why. We’re going to take the reader consensus and turn it into another post. We can’t wait to hear which iPhone the hive mind will choose.

Are you one of the Apple fans disappointed the iPhone 4S didn’t live up to the months of hype over the “iPhone 5”? Don’t worry, the hype train is still chuggin’ along, this time it’s load is full of rumors about — guess what? — yes, the “iPhone 5.”

Meet Julie Summers. She’s a “street worker” (prostitute) who is dragging her industry into the 21st century. Julie is the first — certainly that I know of — who doesn’t just accept cash, but will also take card using the Square service on her iPhone.

While there’s a lot more to a camera’s quality than megapixels, Apple’s initial batch of images taken with the iPhone 4S’ backlit 8MP camera are impressive. Really impressive.

Here’s the caveat, though: these are all images taken by professionals using absolutely perfect light conditions, likely with tripods. The pictures you take with your iPhone 4S in a pitch black club after you’ve had one too many Snake Juices are likely to vary wildly.

Check out Apple’s incredible photos after the jump.

Many Mac users have multiple systems of varying ages, and often several different copies of their iTunes and iPhoto libraries. Here’s how to get them all in one place:

Your post today about sharing libraries made me wonder whether you have addressed importing/merging libraries across two Macs. My wife has a desktop PowerMac G4 Cube and a newer MacBook. She wants to import both her iPhoto and iTunes libraries to the MacBook, but I’m not sure how to accomplish this. Also, because the Cube has slow USB and the MacBook has no Firewire, I’m not even sure how to get the data over to the MacBook without it taking eons. Any thoughts would help.

Thanks! Rik

Wall Street analysts, after watching disappointed investors sell-off some Apple shares, Wednesday attempted to remind consumers that the iPhone 4S maker is still a rock star, pulling in profits like nobody else on the planet.

If you’re eager to get hold of an iPhone 4S, but you only splashed out on an iPhone 4 12 months ago, then you’ll be pleased to hear that Apple will buy back your unwanted device for up to $200 via its Reuse and Recycle program.

Mac OS X Lion brought about changes to some of the gestures in Mac OS X. If you prefer the way the gestures worked in Mac OS X Snow Leopard you can bring some of them back. The trick to go back in time is just one key away.

Case company Hard Candy sold thousands of cases for a mystery Apple device that it believed Tim Cook would unveil yesterday.

Customer’s were so excited by the prospect of a jumbo iPhone with a 4.44-inch diagonal screen, they pre-ordered a couple of thousand cases based on the rumor.

“Crazy day,” said Hard Candy CEO Tim Hickman after the Apple event. “We have to cancel a few orders. Two thousand cases were ordered since you ran your story. That’s bad ass! Apple consumers love, love, love to play in this world.”

As far too many people have pointed out already, Apple’s event this morning was a bit of a disappointment — as a spectacle. 16 months is a long time to wait for an incremental hardware improvement, which the iPhone 4S unquestionably is. But there was one announcement amid all the recap of iOS 5 and iCloud features that should have been tremendously exciting to anyone who cares about the future of interactions: Siri, the voice-activated assistant exclusive to the iPhone 4S.

As always happens when Apple rolls out a major technology (in this case, e-concierge services), critics are happy to point out that Cupertino is late to the party (can you believe that it took them 5+ years to respond to the Treo?!). Specifically, they’re calling Siri a catch-up effort to match Google Voice Actions technology that’s been available on Android for well over a year. Having used Voice Actions for awhile now, I can confirm that this is half-true. On a feature-by-feature basis, Siri looks me-too. But from an experience standpoint, it’s totally different. As usual, Google’s implementation is process-oriented. Apple’s, unsurprisingly, is human and friendly. And this is why Siri has the potential to be revolutionary.

The iPhone 4S has been official for less than a day, and Samsung is already plotting to block the device’s launch in some parts of Europe. The Korean electronics giant has announced that it is filing a preliminary request to have an injunction slapped on Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone in both France and Italy.

Itching to get your hands on Apple’s latest iPhone? According to Apple representatives, you’ll be able to pre-order the iPhone 4S from 12:01 AM Pacific on Friday, October 14.

Shortly after Apple’s ‘Let’s talk iPhone’ event yesterday, the company finally seeded the Gold Master release of its highly-anticipated iOS 5 software. Until now, you had to have your device’s UDID registered to get your hands on the software early, but that’s not the case with the GM release — anyone can download and install it onto their device.

Don’t have the time to watch the full Apple Keynote? Here’s the whole thing, compressed down into just 90 seconds. Catch the video after the break.

One of the overlooked iPhone 4S features in today’s keynote was the fact that Apple’s newest smartphone boasts Bluetooth 4.0 technology. The latest MacBook Air and Mac Mini models also have Bluetooth 4.0.

Apple’s technical specifications for the iPhone 4S note that the device has built-in Bluetooth 4.0 support. 

Back in 1987 during the era of John Sculley, Apple released a “what if” video describing a device called the Knowledge Navigator. This prescient work anticipated a personal digital assistant a la Siri, a touch screen tablet computer like the iPad, videoconferencing (FaceTime) and more.

Apple has posted its three intro videos from today’s “Let’s Talk iPhone” keynote on YouTube.

The three videos introduce the iPhone 4S, Siri, and iCloud. Check inside to watch!

Apple has just emptied their magician’s hat onto the table, and out of that silk showman’s topper spilled the brand new iPhone 4S. For some of us, the revelation of “just” a faster iPhone 4 was a disappointment… but it was much more than a disappointment to hundreds of case makers who had bet millions of dollars between them on a radical redesign.

Ah, the mythical iPhone 5. A slimmer, tear dropped iPhone with a larger display and a lozenge shaped capacitive home button. What a chimera. It first emerged as a report over at This Is My Next from Joshua Topolsky, the ex-Engadget editor who was also wrong about whether or not the iPad 2 would have a Retina Display. But he’s not the only one who was wrong about the iPhone 5, and for the last six months, it’s been persistently murmured about by tech bloggers, journalists and analysts.

What the hell happened? How were people so wrong?