Cult of Mac

When we talk about the massive anticipation for the Verizon iPhone, what we’re always considering is the regular customers, whether the guy from AT&T who has been waiting years to switch away from the mushy, dropped call maker, or the Verizon customer who has had to pretend an Android phone is just as good as an iPhone for years now.

We never talk about the Verizon employees though… a shame, since they probably want an iPhone more than anyone, if only to stop people asking them constantly when Verizon will have the iPhone and treating them like second-class citizens.

Unfortunately, if you’re a Verizon employee, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer to get your iPhone, at least if you want to link it to your Verizon-expensed business line. Try to activate an iPhone on your existing number and Verizon will detect it and change it to a personal number.

Is an iPhone worth paying for your calls? Apparently, Verizon thinks it just might be, because while they can’t stop employees from getting one personally, they have distributed a memo pleading with all employees to postpone iPhone purchases for themselves, their friends and their family until the initial rush is over.

We suspect many of you were up in the wee hours of the morn, smearing blood across the F5 key as you rubbed your index finger raw refreshing Apple’s website… but in case you forgot what day it is, since 3am EST, it’s been Verizon iPhone Pre-Ordering Day! Hooray!

Of course, you can’t just be one of the AT&T hoi polloi if you want to pre-order an iPhone from VZW: if you’re not an existing Verizon customer, you have to wait until February 9th with the rest of us suckers.

Care to get with the pre-ordering? You can do so either directly through Apple or through Verizon. Predictably, ordering from Apple is the smoother and more pleasant experience.

Who’s signed up? Let’s all have a congratulatory back-patting session in the comments!

The early Verizon iPhone reviews are in, and it’s basically the same story across reviewers: calls are better, but data downloads not so.

The VZW iPhone is a great phone, Wired.com reports, but data isn’t as speedy as AT&T’s.

WIRED It’s a better phone, period. More likely to pull a signal, even indoors — this could change the way we converse at bars. Hot-spotting is well-integrated and very easy to use. Has a whiter, slightly better-looking display.

TIRED Slow data transfers compared to the AT&T iPhone. Sluggish app installs take away from the App Store’s instant gratification. Video streams are compressed more heavily, so Netflix and YouTube are uglier. No simultaneous voice and data transmissions thanks to the limitations of CDMA.

Meanwhile, David Pogue at the NYT says: “…the Verizon iPhone is nearly the same as AT&T’s iPhone 4 — but it doesn’t drop calls.”

And Pogue brings up a good point about the VZW network buckling under the rush on new iPhones:

Consider, too, that if surveys are any indication, Verizon can expect an enormous stampede of new iPhone customers. Last time this happened — to AT&T — the weight of all those bandwidth-sucking iPhones swamped the network, causing interruptions that persist to this day. The same thing might happen to Verizon.

Verizon swears that it’s prepared for the onslaught. Then again, that’s what AT&T said, too.

The Verizon iPhone goes on pre-sale at 3am tomorrow. First deliveries are expected on Feb. 10.

Engadget did some speed tests and found AT&T’s network was significantly faster. Here’s the results:

The Daily, the made-for-iPad product from Rupert Murdoch and News Corp., made a much-anticipated world debut Wednesday at the Guggenheim in New York. News Corp marketing promised “a package that’s smart, attractive and entertaining.”

Too bad it delivers an experience that’s pedestrian, plain and vaguely creepy. Not to mention prone to crashing.

Nielsen have stepped away from their television statistic to crunch the numbers on current smartphone ownership in the United States, and some of those numbers are fascinating indeed.

Perhaps the most interesting revelation is that right now, Android, Blackberry and iPhones are all pretty much in a dead heat when it comes to market share. That makes this a pivotal time for Google, Apple and RIM. We know Apple is well placed this year for some big numbers, thanks to the Verizon iPhone and the forthcoming iPhone 5, but can even those handsets stop Android from increasing its lead on iOS?

Also intriguing: according to Nielsen’s data, Asians are the most likely people to own an iPhone, while African Americans love BlackBerries. Smartphone penetration is also much lower amongst Whites than Hispanics or Asians, and use their phones less too.

Interesting stuff. If you’re intrigued by smartphone demographics, plunge in here for more.

We’re on the iPad’s case today — literally. We start of the day with two cases designed for the iPad. The first is the colorful iLuv case with Tatz Graphics. Next is a faux leather case. We round out the iPad accessories with a five-piece kit either for the the Apple tablet or the iPhone.

Along the way, we also check out a sportswrap for the iPod nano, an iPhone wall charger and an Apple TV media receiver. We also look at some software for your Mac, including Microsoft Office 2011. As always, details on these and many other products can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Earlier today, Apple spokesperson Trudy Miller explained the sudden crackdown on e-reader apps that use an out-of-app billing systems (such as Amazon’s Kindle or Sony’s Reader app) in lieu of in-app purchases in order to sell users content.

“We have not changed our developer terms or guidelines,” Miller said. “We are now requiring that if an app offers customers the ability to purchase books outside of the app, that the same option is also available to customers from within the app with in-app purchase.”

Offending apps have until March 1st to comply or be yanked from the App Store.

It seems, though, from this wording that Amazon and Sony can comply simply by giving users the option of where they want to buy an e-book: directly from them via the web at the lowest price, or through in-app purchases at a higher price to take into account Apple’s 30% cut.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has been seen hobnobbing around town with Steve Jobs on more than a few occasions, but now that Steve Jobs is sick and Eric Schmidt is voluntarily leaving his ten year stint as the head of the infamous search giant, journalists are starting to ask if Schmidt might be the successor to Jobs’ crown.

On Schmidt’s part, while being respectful of Steve and conscientious of his illness, he’s also being a little coy.

After months of being an open secret, News Corp’s iPad-only Newspaper, The Daily, is finally here… along with iTunes’ new in-app subscription API that will allow the Daily and other e-publications to finally begin to prosper. We’ve got the full details.

In an ironic twist, Apple is preparing to co-host unveiling an iPad-only newspaper that could save publishers, while also releasing guidelines limiting publishers’ app subscription options. The Cupertino, Calif. tech giant – which owns iTunes App Stores for the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Mac – is telling publishers to stop circumventing paying Apple’s 30 percent cut on sales.

The requirement to begin March 31 – which Apple spokespeople stress is not new – forbids companies such as Sony, Amazon and presumably others with ebook reader apps – from only initiating book sales outside the iTunes ecosystem. Others, such as the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times also offer apps but use only private billing systems.

The arrests of nearly 30 people are expected to be announced today in a New York-based cybercrime ring targeting Apple stores.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.  will name names Wednesday of the dirty two-plus-dozen who forged credit card numbers to buy goods from Apple stores across the country.

The allegations involve a total of 27 people and roughly $1 million in ill-gotten gains from Apple stores across the country from New York to Los Angeles to Wauwatosa, Wis.

The indictment lists purchases in Apple stores including Las Vegas, Atlanta, Indianapolis and St. Louis, and smaller communities such as Altamonte Springs, Fla., and Stamford, Conn.

Group members of the group occasionally ran up sizeable tabs – more than $3,000 worth of products in one go — but other transactions were as small as a $53.45 tab for a laptop case, according to the indictment.

Accused ringleader Shaheed Bilal had thousands of stolen credit card numbers stored in e-mails and bragged on Twitter about using credit cards at restaurants, prosecutors said at his arraignment Tuesday.

Via WSJ, NPR

It seems only appropriate News Corp.’s iPad-based “newspaper”, The Daily, will be officially unveiled today at the Guggenheim Museum, a repository of Post-Impressionistic artists. Like Cezanne and Manet, News Corp.’s Rupurt Murdoch and Apple’s Eddie Cue hope the application ushers in the age of Post-Print and Post-PC.

The ceremony is set to begin at 11 am Eastern, where reporters and analysts will gather to hear details of the project. So far, we only know there will be a $0.99 per week subscription cost. Will The Daily be a digital version of an actual newspaper, with staff, competition, ads and the rest? Can Apple finally find a subscription model that works both for the Cupertino, Calif. tech giant and the beleaguered print industry? Can the iTunes’ Eddie Cue really stand-in for the ailing Steve Jobs?

And you thought getting busted for checking out porn at work was bad: an Italian member of parliament was snapped checking out prostitutes on his iPad during a session.

Except that in the Viagra-fueled Italian government that’s pretty much business as usual. Simeone Di Cagno Abbrescia, 67, is a member of Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi’s PDL party, who perhaps thought checking out what to do after work on the iPad’s glossy 9.7-inch screen was no big deal.

The tablet computer – if he’d had a laptop he could’ve adjusted the screen down – was probably what got him busted by a fellow politician with a phone cam.

Well, this is a heck of a scoop to wake up to on Wednesday morning: 9to5Mac has got its grubby little hands upon what they claim to be the display of the iPad 2’s LCD, fresh off of the assembly lines of China.

AT&T is waking up to the fact that it has lost its exclusive to the iPhone. Now the company is starting to try to prevent massive customer departures when the Verizon iPhone goes on sale this month. The first try directly aimed at current AT&T customers was the e-mail I received today titled: Feel free to make a call while reading this email.

Computer speakers requiring serious plunking down of dough (we’re going to peg “serious” at over $100 in this particular instance; the Z520s weigh in at an MSRP of $130, well over the threshold) ought to pack really good sound, some sort of neat tech trick or come with a year’s worth of free pizza. The 2-way Z520s try the middle route by offering some design wizardry that almost, but doesn’t quite, account for the price — or make up for an acute case of bass-gone-missing.

Ever had a sudden hankering to crank out a few Real Racing HD laps on your iPad while river rafting? Yeah, neither have I (although that might have something to do with the fact that I’ve never been river rafting). But if the itch ever struck, it’d probably be best if the iPad was vacuum-sealed in a tablet-sized, waterproof DryCASE; luckily the company just added the tablet-sized version to their line at Macworld. The cases start at under $60 and includes a headphones/mic jack.

Oh, and think the whole whip-the-iPad-out-while-rafting thing is laughable? Yeah, so did I — until I came across this in the company’s press release:

“A new buoyant waist band has just been added by many requests by stand up paddle surfers and kayak enthusiasts.” Cool.

For the adventurous spirit wishing to go back to the 80s and live on the frontier of national cellular service, all the while carrying around a phone roughly the size of a Korean War field radio, here you go: Thumbs Up’s ’80s Phone, a case for your iPhone 4 that is sure to make you look like Gordon Gekko sent hurtling forward in time. Yours for about $20.

The App Store might have just racked up its 10 billionth download, but the vast majority of those apps have only been given the most cursory examination by users: in fact, according to analytics firm Localytics, 26% of all apps are only used once after they are downloaded.

Localytics’ findings aren’t specific to iOS: they studied thousands of apps across the Android, BlackBerry, iOS and Windows Phone 7 platforms. Across the board, though, one-time use was on the rise in 2010, making it more important than ever for app developers to make that first impression count.

Apple released iOS 4.3 Beta 3 to developers this afternoon. The update includes a new firmware update for the new Apple TV, iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS as well as the 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch.

Registered iOS developers can download these updates as well as a new SDK from developer.apple.com.

Let us know if you find anything interesting in the new beta by leaving a comment.

Go down to your local Apple Store and you might just see this wonderful display for the new MacBook Air. Channeling Pixar’s Up, the display features a single helium balloon dangling aloft an 11-inch MacBook Air.

All is not as it seems, of course: nearly invisible fishing wire is being employed to create the illusion. The Air’s light, of course, but not so light that it can be lifted by a child’s balloon.

Still, this calls for an experiment: I wonder who out there is brave enough to figure out how many balloons are needed to send an Air into the stratosphere and willing to back up their math by lending their notebook and its iSight camera to the cause?

What with Apple and TV both as American as pecan pie (which, ironically, is actually way more American than apple pie), you’d think the U.S. would have a chokehold on TV-iPhone innovation. Nope — besides Al-Jazeera now streaming live news on the iPhone for free, last week Germans had a chance to watch and interact with the world’s first augmented-reality TV show.

Viewers of Galileo, a quiz show that airs on the German ProSieben channel, were able to interact with the questions on the TV screen by viewing and interacting with augmented reality versions of the questions on their iPhone screens, courtesy of augmented-reality app Junaio (For a visual demo, suffer through a short ad and watch the cute video). Not to worry though — Metaio, the German-based developer that makes Junaio, says similar stuff is on it’s way to the U.S. soon. Fantastisch!

We start of with one of several cases available for Apple’s iPad. The TabletFlip case comes in a two-pack for just $30. Next is a deal on a Core 2 Duo MacBook running at 2.4GHz and with a 13.3-inch screen – just $910. We wrap up the spotlight with a 500GB hard drive coupled with an iPod dock (but no sync) from Buffalo.

Along the way, we’ll also check out a way to enlarge your iPhone’s screen, a two-year warranty for your iPhone and some software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deal” page right after the jump.

What’s the opposite of putting a pig in lipstick? Making a leggy supermodel wear a sow mask? I’m just struggling to find the proper analogy here, because some mad man has just released a fairly exhaustive skin for iOS that makes your iPhone look like — horf — a Windows Phone 7 series device.

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Everyone seemed excited when the iPhone 4 launched with video chat app FaceTime. But aside from the burgeoning iPhone porn chat industry, is anyone actually using it?

Jamey Heary over at Network World wonders. And so do I.
While I love the idea of Jetson-like communications devices, video chatting never seemed that useful to me, even as an expat, to make it something I used regularly – as per a piece I did for Wired back in 2005 writing about my video-call enabled Nokia smartphone.

Once you have waved at your relatives and someone asks you to flash them, the novelty wears off.

Do you use Facetime? How often?

Let us know what you find it useful for or why you haven’t bothered in the comments.