Apple is mixed up in all kinds of patent issues. As a result, the company has been accused of unfairly trying to kill Google’s Android platform, and of being a “patent troll.”
But such criticism is misplaced. First, the accusations are false. Second, the real blame should be reserved for the US Congress, which has the power to fix our broken patent system, but year after year fails to do so.
If the rumors are anything to go by, the next iPhone will be unveiled sometime in the next month. We don’t know anything for sure about the iPhone 5 yet, but it seems likely at this point that the iPhone 5 will have an A5 chip, a larger display, a thinner design and (possibly) a capacitive home button for gestures.
That tells us a lot about what the iPhone 5 might be like, but not a lot about what it looks like. So for your perusal this weekend, we’ve put together a gallery of ten of the best iPhone 5 concept designs out there. Let us know which one is your favorite in the comments.
Apple is allegedly investigating complaints from some Mac OS X Lion users about system crashes related to graphics or sleep/wake issues on various Macs. Users that complain about the problem say that a person will see their Mac suddenly crash and display a black screen or a kernel panic. One common situation surrounding the problem is that some sort of graphics event is taking place or that the crash may take place when the computer wakes from sleep.
OS X Lion includes a plethora of new gestures to enhance the user experience. While the majority of these gestures are based around the trackpad, the Magic Mouse still has more than a few new gestures. In this video, I’ll show you how you can use Lion’s new gestures to make the most of your Magic Mouse.
Forbes has put together its list of the world’s most innovate companies, and the results are fairly shocking. Apple places fifth on the list, with Amazon sitting comfortably ahead at the number two spot. Google ranked a very surprising seventh place, with the number one spot going to Salesforce.com.
The question on everyone’s mind: How do you determine “innovation?”
AirBeam is a clever little app that lets you output realtime video from one iDevice (camera-equipped, obviously) to another iDevice on the same local network. The app usually sells for $4, but it’s free today through Saturday.
Belkin today released its Keyboard Folio for iPad 2, a $100 Bluetooth keyboard case. Like Adonit’s Writer 2 (review coming soon), Belkin’s take on the iPad keyboard/case is a faux suede folio with attached BT keyboard and placeholder to carry the iPad 2 around in.
While it may not be your own real life helicopter, the iRemoco is still a super fun remote control helicopter that plays nice with your iPhone. Thanks to a little adapter that you plug into your iPhone’s 30-pin connector, you can control this fun toy right from your iPhone.
According to the RBC Daily, Apple could start selling the iPhone 5 in Russia this November, with that date being “almost immediately” after the US release.
The Russian newspaper’s sources are unnamed smartphone retailers, and this report seems to echo another rumor that Apple won’t unveil the iPhone 5 until October of this year.
Apple may have started shutting down the developer accounts of those who sell their device slots to non-developers. Specifically, developers who have sold access to their developer account for unauthorized users to run iOS 5 beta software.
Email warnings are allegedly being sent to developers from Apple, and those that are selling device slots for profit are reportedly having their Apple developer account privileges revoked.
Apple was granted a temporary restraining order for trademark infringement against several U.S. unauthorized resellers.
I’m a huge fan of Speck’s extensive range of accessories that compliment Apple’s iOS devices. I’ve had a number of Speck cases since the original iPhone, in addition to products for my MacBooks and iPads, and one thing that’s consistently good about these things is their build quality and design. They all fit well, do the job they were intended to do, and cope with whatever you throw at them.
I was delighted, then, to get my hands on the new Speck CandyShell Wrap ($55) for the iPad 2.
A FedEx driver was arrested for forging signatures on iPad deliveries and selling the stolen goods.
Casey Putsch has done something so incredible that even Bruce Wayne would approve: he’s not only designed and built a turbine-powered Batmobile, but he slapped an iPad on the dash to help him with navigating through the streets of Gotham.
There’s loads of reasons not to install Flash on your Mac, from extending your battery life to keeping your system running like greased lightning. If those reasons aren’t good enough for you, though, here’s another one: a new Trojan for Mac is going around that poses as FlashPlayer, and if you’re not careful, installing Flash on a new Mac is all that it could take to infect your system.
If you’re in Indiana, you’re likely using an iPhone. However, in California — home of Silicon Valley — Android probably rules. Most Apple iPhone and iPad users are in the North U.S., while the majority of Android users are in the southern U.S. states, according to the findings of a survey tracking which tracked mobile ad clicking by device maker, all mapped by location.
AT&T is informing jailbreak tetherers on grandfathered unlimited data plans that either they stop tether or sign up for 2GB tethering plan. If you don’t abide, AT&T will sign you up for a 2GB tethering plan and kill your grandfathered unlimited data plan for good.
A thorny wicket. It’s probably not fair to congest AT&T’s networks by sucking up data from your iPhone to play World of Warcraft on your MacBook Pro without, you know, paying for it, but if you’re intent on doing so, there may be a way to avoid AT&T’s scrutiny, keep tethering through your jailbroken iPhonei, and keep your unlimited data plan, all at the same time.
Acer founder Stan Shih has opened his mouth and said something extraordinarily stupid: the ultrabook and tablet form factors are nothing but a stupid fad with no future. Someone should tell Apple that, so they can stop selling iPads and MacBook Airs to a throng of millions of excited customers.
The downside of the iPhone’s gargantuan success as a money maker for Apple is that it can also have an “outsized impact” on Apple profits. The iPhone contributes 49.2 percent of Apple stock value, one analyst warns. Wall Street also said the iPad has replaced the iPod as the tech giant’s halo product, buoying sales of other Apple products. Even so, at least one analyst thinks that Apple could go as high as $540 a share.
Remember MacDefender? It was the first really big piece of malware to hit the Mac operating system, and was a huge problem for Apple’s tech support teams… such a huge problem, in fact, that Apple introduced a self-updating anti-malware database into OS X, which basically killed MacDefender and its variants off.
MacDefender worked by tricking users into believing that they’d been infected by malware (which they in fact had — MacDefender’s own — even though it was trivial to remove the infection) then tried to bilk them out of their credit card numbers for bogus anti-malware software.
MacDefender died off pretty quickly after Apple updated Snow Leopard to fight it, but the perps behind the software went unidentified. Now, it looks like they’ve been caught, raided and busted.
Responding to their customers’ garish ineptitude in trying to outprice the $999 MacBook Air, Intel has decided to do notebook makers’ work for them and put together a reference bill of materials on how to build cheap ultrabooks capable of competing Apple’s superslim ultraportable.
Apple’s stock Maps app for iOS is great at what it does, but there are a number of useful features that it’s lacking. Thankfully, Cydia boasts a plethora of jailbreak tweaks that allow us to add our own enhancements — the latest of which introduces a handy speedometer.
The drawback to success is you’re only as good as your last killer product. Perhaps that’s what Apple executives were thinking when they recently told a Wall Street analyst any rumored low-cost iPhone would have to be more than out-cheap Android, but be a ‘category-killer’ like the iPad and iP
hone.
One of my favorite improvements that shipped with Mac OS X Lion is Mail 5.0 and its new Conversations view. This new view allows you to view message threads by combining messages into a chronological timeline. It has one drawback, since by default, any messages that you sent don’t show up in the timeline. That makes it hard to read and make sense of the thread. Here is a tip on how to fix it.
Following the release of OS X Lion last month, some early adopters ran into issues when attempting to install Xcode 4.1 that meant installing the software was rather difficult. Apple has now addressed this in the Xcode 4.1.1 update.