Cult of Mac

All across Europe, iPhone exclusivity deals have already toppled, but here in Germany, T-Mobile still remains standing as the sole carrier of the iPhone 4. The foundations are wobbly, though, as numerous other carriers in the country have begun selling the iPhone 3GS, marking the first time more than one company has offered the iPhone… even if one of those iPhone’s is markedly superior.

It now looks like T-Mobile’s exclusivity deal is finally about to collapse entirely though. According to the Wall Street Journal, Deutsche Telekom is preparing for the loss of the iPhone 4 exclusive in time for the holiday shopping season… while Vodafone and O2 are similarly preparing to carry it.

It’s in Apple’s best interest to sell the iPhone 4 on as many networks as possible, and every country that has seen an exclusivity deal end has seen iPhone sales and profits meteorically rise.

Note the timing here as well: T-Mobile is losing the iPhone 4 exclusive by the end of the year. Meanwhile, here in the States, it is heavily rumored that Verizon will get a special CDMA version of the iPhone 4 in January.

It looks like Apple is just letting all of its existing contracts lapse. Now that T-Mobile looks set to lose its exclusivity contract for the German market, can AT&T be far behind?

Twitter for iPhone — née Tweetie — is a wonderful first-party client with almost any functionality you could care to name, but one area in which it loses to some of its competitors is in its lack of support for push notifications.

No worries, though, because along with yesterday’s triumphant debut of Twitter for iPad, the iOS team are also working on integrating push for iOS 4.1.

Says Twitter:

We’ve been testing push notifications internally. When we launched Twitter for iPad, there was a configuration error that caused us to offer push messages to a small set of users. We’ve stopped sending push messages, but users may see an option to turn on push until we release an updated version of the app. So, push isn’t ready yet but we look forward to rolling this out soon.

As Twitter notes, you may be able to turn push notification on under settings even if you aren’t on iOS 4.1 Gold Master, although we’ve heard reports that it may require uninstalling and reinstalling the app to get working.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, push notification service Boxcar — which does a healthy bit of business in the tweet pushing market — has just gone free for all Twitter notifications.

Apple started teasing us today when the company posted its iOS 4.2 for iPad “Coming Soon” software update webpage. That webpage serves as a little reminder to us about the exciting new features coming in the next version of iOS for the iPad.

If you haven’t been paying attention to the news lately you’ll be happy to know that Apple is bringing Apple’s Game Center, a unified inbox to Mail, AirPlay (streaming audio/video), folders, wireless document printing, text searches in Safari, and best of all — multitasking to the iPad. There’s even a little hint of something more.

If you want more detailed information about this much-anticipated iOS update then check out Apple’s webpage for yourself or view a video of the Apple Event held last Wednesday and watch Steve Jobs demonstrate iOS 4.2 on an iPad.

That’s all you’ll get for now, since Apple isn’t going to release iOS 4.2 until sometime in November.

With all the Apple hoopla yesterday, we missed the fact that Epson announced a new all-in-one printer it says is the “fastest in its class.”

The wifi-equipped all-in-one Epson Stylus NX625 printer will run at a blazing 15 pages/minute in black (but only 7.2 in color) — compare that with the Artisan 710 we tested late last year which clocked in at 9.5 ppm in black and 9 in color.

The NX625 will retail for $150 and should be available later this month. See the press release for all the details we omitted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPfCZC4VHnE

Its name suggests it might be a ’70s-era diet soda laced with LSD, but the Galaxy Tab is actually the latest iPad challenger from Samsung — a 7-inch tablet unveiled today at Germany’s version of CES.

Seems Samsung’s stuffed the Android-powered Galaxy Tab (giggle) with enough hardware to make it a worthy challenger: a bright 1024×600 WSVGA screen, a fast processor and 3G (GSM), wifi and Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity. But it also includes stuff that might make  iPad owners envious — like a all the whiz-bang sensors of the iPhone 4 (including the gyroscope), a front-facing and a rear-facing camera, and a micro-SD card slot for memory upgrades.

Samsung says it’ll hit the UK first “in the coming months.” No word on pricing or a Stateside launch.

[via Engadget]

Today is all hardware on the daily deal showcase. First up is Apple’s new nano, smaller and with a touchscreen. The 8GB and 16GB versions also come with new prices for pre-orders. Next is the Apple’s new touch iPod, complete with the high-def Retina Display, iOS 4.1 and front- and rear-facing cameras. Finally is the revamped Apple TV complete with a smaller footprint, smaller price tag but many new features, including Netflix support and streaming 99-cent TV episodes from ABC and FOX.

Along the way, we’ll also check out deals on iPhone and iPad gear, as well as applications from iTunes. As usual, details on these and many other items are at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

Choices, choices. The latest in Apple-related furniture is a custom made iPhone 4 table. Details on it are scant (OK, it seems the Internets aren’t yielding much of anything other than the photo), but it is a slick piece of design that wouldn’t look out of place in many a living room.

In terms of a conversation piece, though, it perhaps looks too much like a normal table and less like one of Apple’s iconic devices. (It has been suggested you jazz it up with iPhone icon coasters, but for some that may be overkill).

The iPod Table made by Italian graphic and industrial designer Mirko Ginepro, still one of our favorites, looks much more like a pop-art nod to the real thing, just giant and made from Corian.

Which one would you rather have to receive your guests?

Sales of Sony’s MP3 Walkman briefly outsold iPods in Japan again, but that was before the iPod Nano “wristwatch” hit the scene.

This small victory also happened at the same time last year in Japan, during the not-so-retailing frenzied month of August.

Survey results from Tokyo-based BCN (Google translated version here) show that 2010 August sales figures have the Walkman grabbing 47.8 percent share of the portable music player market, while Apple captured 44 percent.

If that seems like a slender victory, in 2009 Sony squeaked by Apple MP3 player sales by just 43 percent, creeping above Apple’s 42.1 percent.

BCN says that the two electronics titans currently hold 90 percent of the market and that the slight edge Sony had during the August selling slump may not hold out with the refreshed Apple iPod lineup.

The most popular Sony Walkman was the Sony NW-E042, a 2GB shuffle-like device launched in May that retails for about $80 or 8,000 yen.

Will Japan go gadget-crazy over the new iPods?

Via CNET

Possibly attempting to steal some thunder from Apple’ Wednesday announcement of 99-cent TV episode rentals, rival Amazon.com launched episodes for sale at 99-cents each. The Internet bookseller and Kindle maker said it would offer shows from ABC, Fox and the BBC “to own.”

While Amazon’s Video on Demand service streams such shows as “Glee,” “Bones” and “Lost” to Macs, as well as PCs and set-top boxes, the Seattle-based company noted the shows downloaded “cannot be transferred to iPods.”

Stories leading up to Wednesday’s debut of a $99 Apple TV focused on how some studios were worried about the impact of the Cupertino, Calif. company offering 99-cent episodes. However, the bigger threat from Apple TV may be the damage that can be done to the cable industry’s video-on-demand revenu.

The addition of Netflix and YouTube, along with $4.99 movie streaming not only moves Apple TV out of the self-professed “hobby” classification, but the little box could also “kick the cable companies in the shins in the process,” according to Light Reading.

Apple for now has signed-on just ABC (owned by Disney, where Steve Jobs is the largest shareholder) and Fox (owned by News Corp., whose owner Rupert Murdoch lusts after Apple’s iPad as a savior of print newspapers.) Noticeably missing was NBC, recently purchased by cable giant Comcast. Not only would a 99-cent per episode cause some cable subscribers to pause paying the monthly subscription, but the Apple TV device could also put a crimp in Comcast’s ability to sell video-on-demand.

[Barron’s, Light Reading]

It seems the situation is more confused than I thought; some people have been able to connect Facebook with Ping, and other haven’t. See end of post for a number of updates.

OK, I give up. I’m confused. I have no idea what’s going on with Ping and Facebook.

On the one hand, we have the above screenshot, taken from Apple’s own Ping web page just this morning.

It clearly says you can connect Ping to Facebook. But. You can’t.

The lack of an official, native version of the Twitter client for the iPad has been a puzzling omission, but now the big blue bird has set things right, having pushed their native iPad app to iTunes.

I haven’t had a chance to play with it, but it seems that a big part of the native client’s delay was because Twitter had big ideas for the app, grafting a truly unique (and, perhaps, a bit quirky) interface on top.

Gizmodo’s Matt Buchanan explains the new interface:

The interface starts out straightforward, like a simple cross between the Tweetie for Mac and the iPhone app. But Twitter for iPad is actually a bit more complicated than it lets on—it’s the most complex of the three. Rather than sticking with the iPad’s standard split-pane views, like in Mail, Twitter is kind of like its own desktop environment, with overlapping, stacked panes that move from left to right. So, on the far left, you’ve got the main control panel, like Tweetie for Mac, which is the bottom pane. To the right of that, and on top of it, you’ve got the tweet list—either the main feed, mentions or direct messages. Whenever you touch on a tweet, a third pane opens to the right, on top of the other two. If there’s a link in the tweet, it’ll open the browser. If not, it’ll open that person’s somebody’s profile. (And if you type a direct message, that’s layered on top of everything else via a popover, for four total layers.) You can switch back to the main tweet list or control pane by touching it, and it’ll load browser pages in the background while you browse through other tweets. It can get cluttered quickly if you’re opening sub-menus and other things—at the same time, it gives you a lot of flexibility.

Buchanan ultimately finds the new interface bold, but quirky, but Techcrunch’s MC Siegler declares it a triumph, announcing that it completely and totally obviates not only any other Twitter app out there, but Twitter’s own website. Then again, I thought pretty much any Twitter client had killed the need to visit Twitter.com over a year ago.

Twitter for iPad is a free download, and it’s available now on iTunes

To their credit, Aurora Feint has always been remarkably blase about iOS 4.1’s built-in Game Center, even though they currently run the business of the App Store’s biggest gaming social network and match-making service, OpenFeint. In fact, they went as far as to say they were “thrilled” about Game Center, boasting about big future plans for the service… despite Game Center’s seemingly direct competition.

OpenFeint’s plans in an iOS ecosystem with Game Center preinstalled on every device are now becoming clearer, and it seems like Aurora Feint have figured out a killer feature that only their service can provide to gamers: the ability to play cross-form multiplayer matches in games that are available on both iOS and Google Android.

The OpenFeint PlayTime network will not only let you play your buddy even if he is shackled to his Android phone, but the software supports real-time video chat, as well as bot support. That latter addition is particularly interesting, as it means that if a player drops in a multiplayer match, an AI-controlled opponent will seamlessly take his place.

This is a smooth move on the part of Aurora Feint giving developers who have titles on more than one mobile platform a strong incentive to bake both Game Center and OpenFeint support into their titles. I just wish, as a player, I could keep my achievement points in both networks synced.

Perhaps more than any other device in Apple’s electronics arsenal, the iPod nano has changed dramatically over the years. Birthed as the iPod Mini, the first generation nano rounded off and slightly shrank the design, while adding a color screen.

The second generation nano contented itself with a mere material shift to an aluminum case, while the third generation was crunched down to a a squat while gaining Coverflow and video playback.

That squat design was reversed in the fourth generation and the display lengthened while the nano gained an accelerometer and shake-to-shuffle capabilties.

The fifth put the nano’s display on the rack and stretched it out so long it was capable of displaying 16:9 movies when held horizontally, as well as adding a video camera, voice recording, an FM radio and a pedometer to the mix.

And now here we are in the sixth generation, which shrinks the nano down to the size of a Shuffle, ditching the 16:9 display, video camera and voice recording of the previous generation in favor of a smaller form factor and a 240×240 pixel multitouch screen.

As the above infographic by DVICE shows, the nano’s been a polymorph. Who knows what other forms the nano’s shapeshifting design will take over the next half decade?

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlkPaHc_5kM&feature=channel

If Apple’s livestream broke down for you last night during the world premiere of Apple’s new iPod nano and iPod Touch commercials, Apple has just shot both of them up online via their official YouTube channels.

The new iPod nano ad is backed by the track “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” by Cake from the album Comfort Eagle, and largely focuses on the new nano’s built-in touchscreen and the ability to flick the display around to any orientation depending upon where it’s clipped, as the nano itself is traded between the usual headless iPod models, morphing between the nano’s new colors as it is handed off.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-t_IobxOsVc

On the other hand, the new iPod Touch ad is heavily focused on gaming and the touch’s new camera abilities, backed by the song “Come Home” off of Chappo’s Plastique Universe.

The end of the spot is a bit surreal, though, as a pair of white male hands each uses its gripped iPod Touch to take part in a FaceTime call with its partner. The faces on the display, though, usually don’t match the hands… giving me, at least, the impression that FaceTime on the iPod Touch was being demonstrated by some sort of pieced-together Frankenstein of spare body parts, or being silently observed by two spectating device hackers who had somehow managed to hack into the FaceTime protocol.

Here’s iTunes 10, and the first thing you’ll notice is a sleeker, cleaner look. There are fewer lines, there’s a little more space. The application is still bloated with far too much stuff, but at least it looks a little less crowded now.

As revealed yesterday, The latest version of Apple’s iTunes media-managing software, iTunes 10, is now available to download through Software Update or via direct download here.

iTunes 10 has long been rumored to be the first version of iTunes that capitalized upon Apple’s acquisition of Lala and brought cloud-streaming to the masses, but Steve Jobs belied that expectation yesterday by saying that Apple remains “skeptical” of the cloud for the time being.

Instead, the major new feature in iTunes 10 is Ping, a baked-in social network based around music discovery. You can follow friends and artists like on Twitter and be alerted to new music that they rate and review, while also giving the heads up to friends about hot new tracks you might enjoy.

The findings of a recent survey by Coupons.com has all the trappings of some sort of offensive, stereotypical joke… but without the punchline.

Analyzing the findings of how both users on both the Android and iOS operating systems use their website, Coupons.com came to some interesting findings as to what separates the two.

iPhone users? According to Coupons.com, they can best be described as “feminine-smelling, chicken-eating, entertainment-reading fish owners.”

Android users, though, are “manly-scented, pork-eating, news-reading bird lovers.”

These results certainly don’t seem to apply to me. On one hand, I fall into the Android category as far as my pheremonal stink and budgerigar ownership are concerned, but I certainly prefer chicken to pork, and I use iOS exclusively… which according to Coupons’ research, makes me some sort of weird, fish-stroking girl. And what about pork-abstaining Android users, Hassidic and halal alike? There is more research to be done here methinks, Coupons.com.

[via Gizmodo]

The FCC has just beaten our the guys over at iFixit to the device vivisecting punch by tearing down and publicly airing the guts of Apple’s brand new iPod Touch… and it looks nearly as gorgeous on the inside.

While managing to slim down the iPod Touch’s already thin form factor, Apple managed to cram an A4 CPU, a Retina Display and even two cameras into the already svelte chassis. Okay, granted, one of those cameras is a ridiculously paltry affair capable of capturing still shots of less than 1MP… but it’s better than nothing, especially given that getting two cameras into the iPod Touch is pretty much an engineering miracle to begin with.

To check out more shots, head on over to the FCC site and marvel, yet again, at how Apple’s fantastic design starts from the inside-out, and not vice versa.

httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqYi_WRq6M4

Ever since Epic Games first demonstrated the Unreal Engine 3 running on the iPhone 3Gs last year, we’ve been wondering just what the creators of Gears of War and the Unreal Tournament series had in store for us when they finally turned their attentions to the App Store.

Yesterday, at Apple’s annual September iPod Event, Epic gave us our first taste of what’s to come: Epic Citadel, a free and utterly gorgeous next-gen app that works as an interactive technology demo of Unreal Engine 3 running on iOS.

The 82.2MB tech demo doesn’t include any real gameplay, per se, but as a demonstration of what iOS is capable of — particularly on the A4 CPU — it utterly breathtaking, offering a fully-realized medieval town to explore. I imagine Epic won’t be able to crank so much detail out of their engine once the bullets and bodies start flying — and they will — but even so, this is astonishing. We are looking at Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3 caliber graphics here… on a device that fits in the pocket.

We didn’t think anything could look better than id software’s recent demo of the Rage engine running on the iPhone 4, but Epic’s one-upped Carmack.

Today’s Apple music event met with a decidedly chilly reception. The new iPod shuffle was an acknowledgment that its previous generation was a flop. The new AppleTV doesn’t support app development and has few advantages beyond a Roku box. New iOS updates are coming slower than anyone would hope.

And all of that discontent isn’t even factoring in that Apple has removed video from the iPod nano line.

What’s that? You didn’t notice? Join the club. Steve went out of his way to extoll the great features of the new nano (like a screen you can’t see when it’s clipped to your body) while carefully avoiding any discussion of the fact that its screen is too small to play video on.

But it’s true. Like the original iPod nano, the new model is for photos and music only. Check out the tech specs page. Lots of discussion of audio playback. No mention whatsoever of video. I hope I’m wrong. But I’m pretty sure I’m not.

Still — looks great as a wristwatch, yeah?

Apple has released  the Gold Master version of iOS 4.1 to developers barely more than four weeks after the release of iOS 4.1 Beta 3. There have been a plethora of problems reported with iOS 4.0 and its incremental updates, but according to Steve Jobs today the following issues will be addressed in this new iOS release:

• Proximity sensor
• Bluetooth issues (muffled audio/connectivity)
• Slow performance issues on the iPhone 3G

There is no word on whether or not the update addresses the complaints about yellow tinged photos when using the rear camera on the iPhone 4.

Registered iOS developers can grab a copy of the new beta at developer.apple.com/iphone. The rest of you will have to wait until next week.

Ok, maybe the little black box won’t arrive in every single home, but unlike the 1st-gen AppleTV, the 2nd-gen announced today is going to sell like buttery hotcakes slathered in maple syrup.

Steve Jobs launched an insta-meme today by suggesting in his keynote that Apple’s new multi-touch iPod nano could be worn as a wristwatch.

The meme becomes a fad next week when the nano arrives in stores and people start actually wearing them on wrists. It’s going to happen, especially when third-party companies begin offering special-purpose wristwatch straps for it. I know it’s going to happen because I’m going to do it.

Talk is cheap, but a Huffington Post poll at post time was running over 67% in favor of wearing the iPod nano as a wristwatch.

But serving as Apple’s first-ever foray into the wristwatch racket isn’t what’s ground-breaking about the device.

Wow — that was quite a show from Steve Jobs. A brand new line up of iPods (except the Classic); a hot new AppleTV that costs just $99; and a potential Myspace killer in Ping, iTune’s social network for music.

But which announcement was the big one long term?

Will a FaceTime-enabled iPod allow Apple to route around AT&T and other wireless carriers? Or will the new, inexpensive AppleTV be the product that finally takes settop boxes mainstream, and Apple’s next big hit? Or is the new multitouch nano a glimpse at the future of multitouch personal electronics (think nifty iWatches)?

[polldaddy poll=3704292]