We’ve received some tidbits of information about the iPad 2 launch tomorrow from an Apple staffer:
Add another potential announcement to the already long list of items we are expected to hear from Apple Wednesday: iBooks. Random House, one of the largest publishers of physical books, is now ready to accept Apple’s “agency” pricing model for ebooks sold through the Cupertino, Calif. company’s iBookstore.
The publisher, the lone holdout, said starting today, it will change its pricing to meet Apple’s requirement that booksellers get a 30 percent cut of the e-books’ retail price. The shift toward Apple’s position is hoped to increase e-book sales from iPad owners. The Apple tablet is competing with Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook, among other e-readers.
Speaking to large crowd at the Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, Rovio CEO Peter Vesterbacka spent several minutes gushing about Apple for building the App Store and allowing a game like Angry Birds to be bought and enjoyed by millions of people around the world.
Before the App Store, according to Vesterbacka, there was a “carrier-dominated Soviet model” when it came to making games for mobile devices. “Other people decided on our behalf what was a good game and what was a bad game,” Vesterbacka said.
The App Store changed all of that. “We really have Apple to thank [for our success].”
What of Angry Birds 2 though? Vesterbacka said it’s coming, and that Rovio plans on releasing new Angry Birds games (in the plural) this summer.
Chances are, we’re likely to get a sneak peek of those games at tomorrow’s iPad 2 event. Although it is likely just serendipity that both the annual Game Developers Conference and the iPad 2 launch event are taking place during the same week in San Francisco, it seems like the opportunity to get the developer of the App Store’s most popular game on stage and show off his new games would be an impossible impulse for Cupertino to ignore.
Actually, come to think of it, is it coincidence that GDC and the iPad 2 event are behind held in the same week, or will tomorrow’s announcement have a heavy gaming focus?
The second hacker charged outing an AT&T security breach that exposed over 120,000 iPad 3G customers’ personal data was released on bail yesterday.
Andrew Auernheimer, who left the New Jersey courthouse looking slightly disheveled but with signature beard intact after posting bail without commenting to the press, had been behind bars since mid-January.
He and Daniel Spitler, both in their mid-20s and members of the Goatse Security group, were each charged with a count of fraud and a count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization.
They were charged seven months after vulnerability was discovered by researchers at Goatse security, who wrote a script that harvested iPad 3G owners’ ICC-IDs (or integrated circuit card identifier, used to identify SIM cards to a network) and email addresses through exploiting a hole on AT&T’s website.
Auernheimer also goes by the alias Weev. The last two entries in his LiveJournal on January 14 featured a portrait from a friend (or fan?) looking haunted on what appears to be a cross and a bit about his interest in Jyotish, or Hindu astrology.
After reviewing his birth chart (“you may face a risk to your life and limbs during your 25th year”) he notes:
“It even knows the year of my peril. Just gotta make it through. Keep on truckin!”
Via AP
Wednesday’s Apple announcement, widely expected to include an updated version of the Cupertino, Calif. company’s wildly-popular iPad tablet, will be “crucial” for the tech giant to maintain its lead against rival products, one analyst said Tuesday.
“We believe Apple must make a convincing case for why the iPad 2 is better than the plethora of competitors coming to market, while at the same time persuading iPad 1 buyers to upgrade to iPad 2,” Ticonderoga Securities’ analyst Brian White told investors in a note. Why the importance? The tablet provided 17.2 percent of the company’s revenue during the first quarter of 2011 – and the figure is rising.
Most of us have been taking it as a matter read that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would not be attending Wednesday’s iPad 2 event: he’s on a medical leave of absence, and Tim Cook has proven to be a reliable — if unexciting — stand-in for Jobs in the past.
Italian Apple site SetteB it defying conventional wisdom with a new report, though: they claim that Jobs will at least attend tomorrow’s iPad 2 event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, and depending on how he’s feeling, might even host.
You know what, Steve? As much as we don’t really feel like it’s an Apple event if you aren’t prancing onstage like some sort of crazed conductor to a music only you can hear, it’s seriously okay. You can just sit in the audience for a change. You’ve earned a bit of a rest, and the iPad 2 is going to be awesome even if you’re not the one to physically deliver it in your hands to the rest of the world.
[via 9to5Mac]
We’ve seen transparent iPhone 4s before. It’s a simple process, actually: just unscrew your iPhone 4 with a torx driver, then douse the back panel in acetone or naphtha until the black paint bubbles away. Screw the now transparent panels back on, and voila.
If you hate paint thinner fumes, though, and just want to avoid the part of the process that involves huffing dangerous chemicals, the lads over at M.I.C. Gadget are selling a transparent back panel for the iPhone 4 for just $23.90 each.
It certainly looks cool, seeing your iPhone’s silicon guts electronically pulsing beneath the handset’s translucent skin, but before you decide to do this mod yourself, just a warning: this mod is going to greatly downgrade the image quality of your iPhone 4’s camera. Apple has had a near impossible time preventing ambient light from leaking onto even the white iPhone 4s sensor. How do you think your camera’s going to do when it’s got an invisible skin?
There’s an old saying which allowed Mac computer users to sleep while Windows fans dealt with swarms of pesky malicious hackers : security through obscurity. However, now that you can’t go a day without hearing or reading about Apple, that maxim may be wearing thin. Security researchers now report hackers have a way to remotely send commands to your Mac OS X computer.
Although security research firm Sophos wants to call the Trojan the “OSX/Musminum-A”, hackers involved prefer “Blackhole” RAT, or Remote Access Trojan. Whatever the name, the security exploit could allow hackers to control your Mac, even displaying a fake “Administrator Password” window. However, before you hit the defcon-3 button, there are some details you might want to know.
One or Apple’s subtler masteries is price. Cupertino knows how to keep the prices of their products understandable, without gumming them up with multiple SKUs and convoluted pricing structures… and while past Apple products have often times been accused of being burdened with the dreaded Apple tax, in recent years, Apple’s managed to price their products so low as to undercut the competition (the iPad, for example, is still the only competitive sub-$500 tablet).
No surprise, then, that Apple’s new business-centric IT service, Joint Venture, flaunts an immediately grokkable price: $499 for five users annually, with each additional user costing just $99. All tax deductible.
Joint Venture hasn’t been formally announced, but it’s expected to get some talk time at tomorrow’s iPad 2 event. It’s not a show-stopper service, but if I were a small business owner trying to convince my partner to switch the office to the Mac, I’d be kissing a snapshot of Steve Jobs right now.
Steve Jobs almost joined such Neo-Arthurian luminaries as Sir Elton Hercules John, Sir Robert of Hope and Dame Kylie Minogue, according to a former Labour Party politician, who says that the Apple CEO was almost offered a knighthood back in 2009 for his services to technology.
According to the former senior British MP, although the argument for Jobs’ knighthood was compelling, the Apple boss’ impolitic inscrutability ultimately cut him out of getting the war.
Although the suggestions for knighthood reached the final stages of approval, at the end of the day, Steve Jobs was irrefutably blocked by Downing Street because Jobs had once refused to attend an annual Labour conference, which would have been seen as a big political win for then-current Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Why was Jobs considered?
Apple has been the only major global company to create stunning consumer products because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced. No other CEO has consistently shown such a commitment.
If it hadn’t been blocked, Jobs still wouldn’t be the first American to be a British Knight, or even the first tech magnate: Bill Gates won in 2005. However, due to his lack of British citizenship, he still wouldn’t be allowed to go around, belligerently demanding strangers to refer to him as “Sir Steve,” a la Ben Kingsley.
Creating your own personal website can be a fun way to share pictures, videos, and more with friends, family, and the world. Apple includes an Application on every Mac for this very purpose called iWeb. In this video you will learn how to create a basic website in iWeb.
iSkin has been my favorite case maker for longer than I can remember. I’ve bought their cases for iPhones and iPods. I liked some of those cases and others I didn’t like at all. Some of them were just okay, but in the end I always used one of iSkin’s cases on my iDevices.
I had to experiment with them, because the cases were like a good pair of shoes. You need to try them on and decide what’s best for you. I hope that this review will help you to make the right choice when choosing an iSkin case for your iPhone 4.
So you want to know more about Mac OS X Lion, but you don’t have a developer account and can’t get your hands on a copy of it. What’s a Mac enthusiast to do?
Turn to Flickr, that’s what. There’s loads of interesting Lion photos and screenshots turning up there.
The New York Times‘ Bay Citizen website has published more remarks from Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak on the subject of Mike Daisey’s controversial one man show.
As previously reported, Woz was moved to tears by “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” a monologue about Apple and Foxconn, the company’s largest supplier in Asia that saw a rash of worker suicides last year.
Wozniak says he found the play deeply upsetting. He urges Tim Cook, Apple’s COO and current acting CEO, to go see the one-man show besucase the issues it discusses could hurt Apple financially in the future:
Tim should know about this very soon, so that he knows what’s in more and more people’s heads. The emotions and understanding and moral feelings that Mike brings out are very strong and could be a threat to Apple’s future, even though they are only simmering now.
The Bay Citizen: Apple Co-Founder Responds to ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs’
Former Apple manager Paul Devine pleaded guilty in federal court in San Jose on Monday to a massive kickback scheme involving Apple’s supply chain.
Devine will forfeit $2.25 million in proceeds and property, the U.S. Attorney said.
Devine provided suppliers with details of Apple’s product roadmap and pricing targets in exchange for hefty kickbacks. When he was busted, feds found about $150,000 in shoeboxes under his bed and more money in foreign accounts and safe deposit boxes.
Devine originally pleaded not-guilty but later agreed to protect Apple’s trade secrets if the case came to court. That move was seen as a way to get a favorable plea bargain. Devine had faced 23 counts of wire fraud and money laundering. He plead guilty to one count of each statutory violation.
He awaits sentencing on June 6. He could face up to 20 years in jail, the U.S Attorney said.
Full press release below:
Who’s to blame for the disastrous roster of health, safety and environmental problems chronicled by Apple’s recently published “Supplier Responsibility 2011 Progress Report“?
In the past year, and especially in the past month, Apple has become associated with the many problems of Chinese manufacturing for two reasons.
First, a string of high-visibility suicides by employees of the Taiwanese contract manufacturing firm Foxconn were universally reported in the media as having occurred “at factories that make iPhones” and other such associations (even though those factories typically make products for many different companies).
And second, Apple’s “Supplier Responsibility” report generated enormous news coverage, and most of it overemphasizing Apple’s role and de-emphasizing the role of other parties.
Media aren’t the only ones associating Apple with Chinese factory problems.
Dang, this is a good giveaway. Recently, we posted about VoxOx and their guerilla marketing tactics at CES and they want to give away a $199 Apple gift card to a creative Cult of Mac reader.
How to Enter
Step One: Sign up for VoxOx using this custom Cult of Mac link.
Step Two: Post some sort of creative interpretation of VoxOx’s tag line “Speak Free with VoxOx” on the Cult of Mac Facebook Page wall. It can be a photo. A video. A diagram maybe.
That’s it! You have until Friday, March 4th at 11:59 pm PST and we’ll choose our favorite post (deal with it) and announce the winner one week from today.
Until then, here is an entertaining picture of the VoxOx alien from CES.
Reddit user labuzan posted a nice story today, detailing how a family iPhone went through the laundry, and what happened when they took the dead device to an Apple Store and told their story.
The results were not what you might expect.
Instead of charging for a replacement phone, the Apple employee serving them handed one over free of charge, saying: “We made an exception.”
Needless to say, a family already loyal to Apple just got its loyalty quotient increased by several notches.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40QzE2ZuQSM&feature=player_embedded
Poker With Bob – ($0.99) iPhone – Games
Playing poker against Bob is an experience unlike other poker games in the App Store, and finally injects some character and entertainment into the game for those looking to have a little fun. Poker With Bob is a draw poker game that features a real-time, fully animated 3D character for you to play against, armed with minutes of brilliantly lip synced animation to rant and rave at you when you’re winning, and tease and taunt you when you’re not. Bob doesn’t just move his mouth – his entire body is smoothly animated and he never takes a rest.
I was unfamiliar with draw poker when I picked up this game, but the brilliant in-game tutorial gets you playing in no time. You can challenge Bob over five different levels of increasing difficulty with higher stakes, and together with the one-on-one Bluetooth multiplayer, this game is hours of entertainment.
If you enjoy draw poker but you find other App Store releases a little boring, give Poker With Bob a try – he’ll ensure you have fun. Check out the video above to see him in action.
[xrr rating = 100%]
AirMusic – ($0.99) iPhone – Utilities
AirMusic is a superb application for streaming your music over Wi-Fi to your PS3, Xbox 360, or PC, and allows you to wirelessly listen to your tunes through your TV without using an AppleTV. Its incredibly easy setup means your music is there the moment you want it – just ensure all of your devices are on the same Wi-Fi network, start AirMusic, then navigate to your music library on your console or PC and your tunes will be there – it couldn’t be easier.
Although I use an AppleTV in our living room, I downloaded this application for use with a PS3 in another room and so far I can’t fault it. The only downside to AirMusic is that it won’t play older iTunes purchases that are protected by DRM, but I’m yet to find a way of playing DRM-protected tunes on my PS3 without putting them onto a CD first. AirMusic setup takes literally a few minutes, streaming is effortless, and the quality is great. If you’re looking for a way to share your iPod library with your Xbox, PS3, or PC, I recommend you give AirMusic a go!
[xrr rating = 80%]
YoruFukurou (“Night Owl”) is a high quality, totally free Twitter client that will appeal to a wide cross-section of people.
Is this the Dock Connector for the iPhone 5 with its viscera hanging loose? Taiwanese site Apple.pro certainly thinks so, and as the guys who first posted pictures of the touchscreen to the new iPod Nano, they’ve got a decent history of getting their hands on parts of unannounced Apple products. So maybe!
The new Dock Connector is slightly narrower than the part found in the current iPhone, and is part number 821-1300-02, compared to 821-1281-A for the Verizon iPhone. It certainly looks legit, even if it doesn’t tell us much except that the next iPhone will be a smidge thinner.
As they are sometimes wont to do, Apple met with analysts last week to discuss — if not their plans — than at least the current state of corporate thinking and strategizing, giving an indirect glimpse into the future as Apple sees it.
One of those analysts, Toni Sacconaghi of Bernestein Research, has now issued a note about her meeting with COO Tim Cook, CFO Peter Oppenheimer and VP Eddy Cue… and according to Toni, Apple’s strongly hinting at a cheaper iPhone nano coming soon.
We start another week and the last day of February with deals for your iPhone and Mac. First up is a new crop of reduced prices on Apps from the iPhone App Store, including “Cartoon Wars 2.” Next is the iPhone Puzzle game “LetsTans Deluxe – at free, it is a $3 price cut, Finally, another chance to get the game “World of Goo.” Fast becoming a classic on gaming platforms such as the Wii, now there is a version for your Mac.
Along the way, we’ll take a look at various iPhone docks, bumpers and cases for your iPad. As usual, details on these and many more items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Last night, Apple held secret meetings with Apple Store retail staff around the world, most likely to brief employees on what to expect when the iPad 2 debuts on Wednesday. But what actually happens at those meetings? Silenced by NDAs, the employees can’t say… but that didn’t stop one of our readers from peeking through the keyhole.
His account of what he saw of the secret meeting at London’s Convent Garden Apple Store, after the jump.
