Cult of Mac

As he seems to do every year, Apple CEO Steve Jobs not only made Barron’s list of the world’s most valuable CEOs… he was declared “without a doubt” the most valuable one.

Taking his place amongst bigwigs like Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathwawy), Reed Hastings (Netflix) and more, Steve Jobs is cited for racking up 100 million iPhones sold, the release of the iPad and Apple’s incredible golden touch overall.

Barron’s list of most valuable CEOs isn’t a popularity contest: it’s based on the objective metric of stock performance, which has been on such an upward trajectory for the past few years that seemingly the only thing that can sink it is Jobs’ retirement (and even then, given the talent and culture Jobs has put together over at Apple, only temporarily).

This isn’t the first distinction Barron’s has awarded Apple this year: back in February, Barron’s handed Apple its second Most Respected Company award in as many years.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2BBDrwnCNo&feature=player_embedded#at=143

For all of you iPad 2 fans outside the U.S. who waited for the new device over the weekend, here’s one unboxing from an Italian customer that underlines the reverential quality many Apple fans experience when opening a new product.

I’m not entirely sure the Vatican would approve, though the garlic and dried peppers — perfect for aglio, olio e pepperoncino, every Italian’s pinch-hit pasta dish — are a nice touch.

If you waited in line to get your iPad 2 on March 25, was it what you hoped?

Via The Apple Lounge

Tablet manufacturers looking to compete against Apple’s iPad see small as their biggest opportunity. That’s the upshot of a Monday report indicating 7-inch tablets have more room on shelves as the Cupertino, Calif. company dismisses such tablets as unusable.

“Korea-based Samsung Electronics’ 7-inch Galaxy Tab and ViewSonic’s 7-inch ViewPad are both generating stronger sales than their 10.1-inch models,” a Taiwan-based industry publication writes. While the 10.1-inch versions offer greater expandability for such things as keyboards, sales are described as “not as stable” as the smaller 7-inch tablets.

Just in case you thought these guys mistook the line outside of London’s Regent Street Apple Store for a line for Justin Bieber tickets, guess what? The UK’s sold out of iPad 2s.

Boy, I sure wish we had this here: down in Oz, would-be Australian iPad 2 buyers can reserve their tablets right through Apple’s official retail site, then walk in and pick them up the next day. Magic!

Well, magic if any of Apple Australia’s retail stores actually had any iPads to dole out, which they don’t.

Still, Apple Retail stores are getting new iPad 2s in on a three or four-times weekly schedule, which means that if you’re an Australian wanting to get an iPad 2, constantly refreshing that page and swooping in on any available unit is probably the most painless way for you to get yourself an iPad.

Maybe we’ll see this same functionality roll out to the States? Sooner please, Apple.

[via MacStories]

Brits depending on their iOS devices to wake them up for work or school in the morning got a seriously gaffe-prone error call this morning, after alarms all around the Isles failed to go off at the proper time this morning, ranging from going off one hour too late to not at all.

It wasn’t just Brits either. The rest of Europe’s iPhone owners were plagued by the same bug, after clocks were moved forward by an hour on Sunday.

The culprit? Apparently, that same stupid time change bug that hit iPhone users last autumn.

It’s not entirely clear if this is a bug still present in iOS 4.3 or one that is only affecting users who have failed to update from iOS 4.2.1.

Any of our readers in Europe want to help us get to the bottom of this? Join the comments and give us a rundown of what happened with your alarms this morning, along with what device and version of iOS you have.

Hey! You! Get off of my cloud! Okay, those may not be their words, but Amazon reportedly may make some announcement about a cloud-based storage service this week. If true, the online retail giant could beat Apple and Google to the punch.

Amazon is talking about a so-called ‘digital locker’ to Hollywood and music moguls, which could store music, movies and ebooks, according to one report. Although there is no word how receptive the execs are to such a plan, it may be further than Apple. The Cupertino, Calif. company is said to have gotten an earful from music heads that don’t agree on streaming fees. The labels want fees for every stream, no matter if it comes from an iTunes purchase or an already-owned CD.

This is ace. This is precisely what the iPad 2 is all about.

For those of you who don’t know them, Dan and Dan are a mysteriously identical comedy duo from the UK. If you like this style of weird Brit humor, there’s lots more of it on their YouTube channel.

Apple just announced the official dates of this year’s WWDC expo, and as rumored, they are June 6th and June 8th. Accompanying the announcement, Apple has posted a teaser page for their annual Apple Designer Awards, which seek to recognize “apps that demonstrate technical excellence, innovation and outstanding design.”

The good news here is that, unlike last year, Apple will be giving out awards to both iOS and OS X developers. This is a relief, since only iOS developers were recognized last year, with Steve Jobs mysteriously saying that this was just “the normal cycle of things.”

The bad news? If your software isn’t on the App Store, Apple’s not going to bother recognizing your software, no matter how excellent. With the iOS App Store, that’s a non-issue, but considering the fact that the majority of Mac software isn’t on the Mac App Store yet, it prevents developers with a choice: either give Apple a 30% cut of all of your software sales or don’t qualify for an award. That’s sure to cause controversy.

Way back in the early days of the App Store, an early hot property in the store was Podcaster, a simple utility that allowed users to browse, subscribe to, and download podcasts to the iPhone. It was very useful, both for finding new things to listen to on the go, but also for eliminating one of the key reasons for unnecessary and redundant syncing to a computer.

Naturally, Apple had it removed. Then it came back as RSS Player a few months later. And got stripped out again, in both cases for providing redundant functionality, an absurd claim, as Apple’s built-in iTunes app is only capable of searching for podcasts — subscriptions aren’t allowed. Fortunately, Apple has  finallycome to its senses and now allows podcasting apps to be installed on non-jailbroken phones again, including the original Podcaster. Better still, the choices have multiplied, which brings us to the stellar subject of this review, Instacast.

This $1.99 app (a price I happily paid), approaches phone-based podcast management exactly the way I would like it. Its sole focus is on subscriptions rather than individual files. It uses a simple search mechanism that was able to track down every podcast I wanted to track. It also offers recommendations for popular series. You can also subscribe to any podcast you currently have loaded onto your iPhone. Rather than downloading these podcasts immediately (a potential nightmare), Instacast snags episode descriptions including links to either download or stream any given podcast. Piece of cake.

But the simple power of the app only becomes clearer with longer term use as you build out your library. It implements the increasingly-standard swipe down to refresh gesture first seen in Tweetie. This pulls down descriptions for any newly released episodes within your existing subscriptions and adds them to the existing queue. I have only synced my iPhone once since I downloaded Instacast, and that was to install iOS 4.3.1. I’m actually strongly considering deleting my podcast subscriptions from iTunes.

Now, the app isn’t perfect. Though the UI is fairly intuitive (usually through borrowing conventions of Twitter/Tweetie and Reeder) it has a few oddities, including an easy-to-miss play button, no on-screen volume controls, and no obvious way to delete a downloaded episode (you have to mark it as read). I assume such issues will be resolved in the near future, and the positives definitely outweigh the disadvantages.

In short, Instacast fixes part of a problem of both the iPhone and iPad: much as Apple has defined a new class of mobile computers that doesn’t rely on a desktop or laptop for full functionality, the company has also pushed administration of such devices onto desktop and laptop devices. It’s impossible to boot up an iPad for the first time without syncing it to a computer, and neither machine can install its own software updates without a tether. While this attitude is understandable for firmware and OS updates, it makes no sense for podcasts and other kinds of content. The longer I use Instacast, the more it feels like I’m finally cutting the cable.

Cult of Mac rated: [xrr rating=8/10]

Apple has been using Liquid Contact Indicators(LCI) in practically all of their devices for as long as I can remember, but it looks like with the iPad 2 they’ve stopped using them.

This makes sense because these sensors have not been all that reliable and subject to a lot of false positives from something as mundane as sweat. In 2009 this was a big news topic that I covered for CNET and I spoke to local Channel 2 news in Houston, Texas about complaints they had received from iPhone users. Even CNN had something to say about it.

It was so easy to trip these sensors that there was even a lawsuit over it.

Apple released an update to Xcode 4. The new version 4.0.1 was released on Friday and includes the following bug fixes:

• Improved Assistant editor logic when switching among different file types
• Fixed a bug that prevented indexing of some projects
• Fixed a bug related to nil settings in the Core Data model editor
• Fixed a bug in LLVM GCC 4.2 and LLVM compiler 2.0 for iOS projects

Finally here are additional bug fixes and stability improvements like practically every Apple software update ever released. Whatever they are I’m sure they are good for you!

You can get a copy of this update via the Mac App Store or if you are a developer at Apple’s developer site.

The battle against the jailbreakers has always seemed to be an uphill one for Apple; it takes hackers just days to break into the latest iOS releases, and last year federal regulators said that it was no longer illegal to hack or jailbreak an iPhone. However, there is one thing Apple can but a definite stop to, and that’s accessing Cydia using its Wi-Fi networks in Apple retail stores.

If you try accessing Cydia on a device connected to one of Apple’s Wi-Fi hotspots, you’ll be surprised to see Apple’s website load instead.

Although this isn’t going to deter jailbreaking one slight little bit, it’s still rather funny.

[via iPhoneDownloadBlog]

iOS 4.3.1 was only released a couple of days ago, but thanks to one hacker, it’s already possible to jailbreak the software with PwnageTool 4.2. Before you jump into this, however, there are some things you need to know…

This is a tethered jailbreak, so you’ll have to hook your device up to your computer every time you need to reboot – this could pose a problem if your device crashes while you’re out and about and away from your computer. At the moment, this jailbreak is still in its early stages and not considered a stable release – it’s best not to perform this on your primary device.

With that said, if you’d still like to perform the jailbreak, you’ll need the following things:

• PwnageTool 4.2
• iOS 4.3.1 firmware
• iTunes 10.2.1
• Mac OS X
• PwnageTool bundle for iOS 4.3.1
• Universal Ramdisk Fixer
• tetheredboot utility

You can then follow the step-by-step guide over at Redmond Pie to have your way with your device. Good luck!

According to two “solid sources” for TechCruch, Apple’s forthcoming iOS 5 software may bring with it a major revamp of the operating system built around the cloud, but we’ll have to wait for a fall release to enjoy its new features.

A fall release would break the pattern of previous iOS releases, which have typically been unveiled in early spring and released alongside a new iPhone in the summer. However, it’s believed iOS 5 may come with a third-generation iPad rumored to launch later this year.

The TechCrunch sources say that:

• iOS 5 will launch in the fall and will be a major revamp of the OS.
• It could well be previewed at WWDC, it just won’t be released then.
• The iOS 5 launch is also likely to coincide with the release of the iPad 3.
• The new iOS will be heavily built around the cloud, and we could see several new services launch from Apple that take advantage of this.
• Yes, one of those is very likely a “music locker” service. There is also a fall launch aim for this, during Apple’s annual music-themed event.
• But much of the cloud stuff will first be talked about at WWDC, Apple’s developer event which will take place in June.
• One of the new cloud service elements is likely a location service that focuses on finding friends and family members.
• OS X Lion is still on pace for a summer release — some of the new cloud components are likely to be baked into it as well.

Earlier reports had suggested that iOS 5 would be previewed at Apple’s iPad 2 keynote earlier this year, and when that didn’t happen, new reports then rumored that another event in April would take place to talk about iOS 5 and a revamped MobileMe. If the TechCrunch sources are correct, it seems this event won’t go ahead either.

Unfortunately, these sources didn’t provide any details on the iPhone 5, but we’re guessing the device is still on track for its unveiling at WWDC with a launch this summer. Of course, if that is the case, the device will launch with the latest version of iOS 4 and not iOS 5.

We’re beginning to hear reports of potential camera issues with the iPad 2. Nearly a dozen people have reported this issue so far. Basically, for a few frames, the colors from the video feed of the cameras will completely go bonkers. I’ve been noticing this myself on my own iPad 2 that I’ve had since launch day. I made a few FaceTime calls on it, and I immediately began to notice the issues. It’s not clear if it’s hardware or software related.

Spoiler: According to some people on Twitter, the issue persists in iOS 4.3.1 that was just released on Friday.

I compiled some still images from a recording that I made while inside a car wash. I had my iPad 2 in my bag, and I figured that, since I’ve yet to record a video on it, I could just record my trip through the car wash. During the two and a half minutes that I was in there, I noticed that the colors were “glitching-out.” It’s happened three times now.

You can see the video glitches in my video below.

iPhone users are downloading, and VCs are throwing money at, a new iPhone app called Color.

Don’t get it? You’re not alone.

What the Naysayers are Naysaying

The general reception to Color has been overwhelmingly negative — even worse than the initial reception to the Apple iPad.

Gizmodo quipped that Color’s main purpose is to “amuse yourself by creeping out strangers.”

All Things Digital said Color reminds them of a mock news story created by The Onion, in which investigators establish the cause of a fire by examining the “43,000 pictures taken by students at a party.”

Fortune called Color a “whimsical” “Trojan horse.”

Computerworld called it a “social network for voyeurs.”

Daring Fireball says Color is a “breathlessly overhyped piece of crap.”

The app is currently rated by users with only two stars out of five in the iTunes App Store. Compare that with, say, the 99-cent “Mr. Ninja” game app, which is getting five stars.

The two main strains of criticism center around uselessness and privacy. People aren’t understanding how to use Color, nor why they might want to. Also: The app doesn’t give you any way to know who’s seeing your pictures, and enables creepy weirdos to potentially observe others unwisely sharing private or inappropriate moments. Also: Many users I’ve talked to don’t realize that when you connect to others at a specific event, Color then gives you access not only to their photos and videos taken at the same event, but all taken by them previously elsewhere as well.

All this criticism and mockery is interesting, but largely misguided. I’ll tell you why below, but first lets understand what Color actually is.

It’s not just Americans that are crazy for the iPad 2. Check out this video of the huge line outside the Apple Store on London’s Regent Street on Friday. It just goes on and on.

Via OnlyGizmso

Early this morning, Jay Freeman, aka “Saurik“, released Cydia 1.1 to the world. With it comes a number of fixes, new features, and enhancements to make everybody’s jailbreaking an even more greater experience.

We’ll tell you everything you need to know about this new release, what it means to you, and what it might mean when it comes to the iOS 4.3 untethered jailbreak.

Check out this totally pro video of the iPad 2 launch in Munich, Germany. It was shot, edited and uploaded entirely on an iPad 2 using iMovie. The entire process took less than a hour. It’s even in HD (720p).

It was shot by journalist Richard Gutjahr. Gutjahr made headlines himself last year as the first guy in line for the original iPad at Apple’s 5th Ave. Store in New York. Gutjahr bumped pro-line sitter Greg Packer.

It’s pretty amazing that such a professional video was prepared and published in less than an hour. Could never do it that quickly with a camcorder/MacBook/Aircard combo.

Here’s the finished product:

Here are some pictures and an explanation of the equipment and methods (in German).

The first “real” competition to the original iPad was the 7-inch Android-based Samsung Galaxy Tab, and it looks like the first “real” competition to the iPad 2 will be the Galaxy Tab 10.1, a Honeycomb tablet boasting a 10.1-inch, 1280×800 display, a 1GHz dual-core CPU, dual-antenna WiFi, a 3MP back-facing camera and a 2MP webcam that starts at prices of just $499… all in a form factor that Samsung claims is both thinner and lighter than the iPad 2.

Well, except it turns out that Samsung’s claims about a thinner iPad 2? They appear to not be true.

Fritz Nelson of InformationWeek ended up getting a couple comparison shots between the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and the iPad 2, and found that contrary to Samsung’s claims, the Galaxy Tab was still slightly thicker.

It’s possible that the unit on display was a prototype, so maybe the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is thinner than the iPad 2. But my guess is it’s all a marketing lie, considering the fact that Samsung’s also been busted for hiring actors to pretend to be fans of the Galaxy Tab.

Who really cares? Honestly, if buying a tablet with Android installed on it isn’t going to dissuade you — and it should, given the execrable history of past Android devices being updated to later, more feature-rich versions of the OS by their manufacturers — a matter of a couple millimeters and a couple of actors isn’t going to cure you of your delusions either.

TechCrunch is reporting that Apple will release the first Gold Master release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion sometime in the near future.

It’s an interesting rumor. Although they are classifying the release as “GM1,” Apple traditionally releases Gold Masters only a few weeks before the actual software ships. If Lion is already at Gold Master status, barring any huge problems, Apple must be fairly convinced that Lion is fully baked.

Lion is slated for a Summer release date, but if Apple does release even the initial Gold Master in the next month, it bodes well for Lion debuting very early in summer… and very possibly late spring.

With any other company, you’d chalk this up to coincidence, but with Apple, you suspect meaning: Swedish designer Mattias Östergren noticed that the iPhone 4 fits exactly inside the dent below the trackpad in the MacBook Air that allows the ultraportable laptop to be easily opened.

At the very least, it shows what the base unit of reference for Apple’s designs are these days: everything’s measured in terms of iPhones.

By now, seems to be pretty well accepted that texting while driving is even more dangerous than driving while intoxicated. SuperTooth, a French company behind a variety of Bluetooth gadgets, released a version of their hands-free Bluetooth speakerphone earlier this week at the CTIA mobile conference in Florida.

The SuperTooth HD is a more powerful version of the company’s other models, like the SuperTooth Voice, and features two speakers outputting a relatively powerful a 5 watts through a 5.4 watt amplifier (which SuperTooth says is three times as powerful as any other speakerphone out there). Pair that with dual mics, and you’ve got what sounds like a fairly formidable hands-free package.

The HD also has the same voice-control and text-to-speech features as some of the company’s earlier offerings, like answering calls, retrieving voicemail and composing Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and text messages. The SuperTooth HD will be available next month for $129.

Timing for me was good this afternoon. I went to sync my iPad 2 on my Mac and iTunes told me that an iOS update was available for it. Yes indeed and much to my surprise — iOS 4.3.1 (8G4) is out.

The latest firmware offers the following improvements and fixes:

• Fixes an occasional graphics glitch on iPod touch (4th generation)
• Resolves bugs related to activating and connecting to some cellular networks
• Fixes image flicker when using Apple Digital AV Adapter with some TVs
• Resolves an issue authenticating with some enterprise web services

The update supports: iPhone 4 (GSM model only), iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, and iPod touch (3rd and 4th generation). The update isn’t available of Verizon iPhone 4 users who remain on iOS 4.2.6.

There isn’t any mention of a fix for battery woes encountered by users across practically all iOS devices, but I hope that it addresses that problem as well.

Information about security fixes in this update can be found in this Apple knowledge base document.

Please share your experiences with the update after you’ve installed it by leaving a comment.

[via iTunes]