Cult of Mac

[polldaddy poll=”4482430″]

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.

Hidden inside a sheathe of patents awarded to Apple today is a particularly interesting one that suggests that your future Mac just might be a slab of aluminum that glows.

If you look at the back of your MacBook, it’s pretty easy to piece together Apple’s current process in making the Apple logo glow. They carve a cut-out of the Apple logo in the MacBook lid, close it up with a sheet of opaque white plastic and when your display is on, the light leaking out causes the logo to emit light.

What Apple wants to do is make the logos and LED displays of future Macs glow without carving a hole in the aluminum. They basically want light-emitting logos and indicators to be invisible unless they are emitting light.

Search Google on your desktop browser and as long as it is HTML5 compliant, hovering your mouse over a link will give you a visual preview of that site, giving you all the more context as to whether or not it’s really the site you need.

Up until now, Google’s Instant Preview functionality wasn’t available to iPad and iPhone users, but it looks like the search giant’s on the cusp of changing that: while it hasn’t been rolled out far and wide, Google is currently in the process of testing a rollout of Instant Preview for Mobile Safari.

Once it’s live, the feature will work only if you tap the magnifying glass icon next to each search result. Tapping that icon will open a preview window that shows a snapshot of the page, which can be flicked through iOS style with your finger.

Extraneous, but neat (and, thankfully, optional). Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the feature is live yet, but it should be coming soon, so keep your iPads tuned.

Wondering just how you went through your 2GB allowance of data this month when all you did was do some browsing and email? A new lawsuit filed in California federal court says you’re not the only one.

The lawsuit filed by Patrick Hendricks alleges that AT&T has been systematically overcharging iPhone and iPad owners with capped data plans by falsely reporting the amount of data. According to Hendricks’ lawyers, this so-called “phantom data” can inflate the actual amount of incoming data by as much as three hundred percent.

“AT&T’s billing system for iPhone and iPad data transactions is like a rigged gas pump that charges for a full gallon when it pumps only nine-tenths of a gallon into your car’s tank,” the complaint reads.

San Franciscans like to share – heck, there are three startups here that will let you borrow your neighbor’s car for a small fee – so it seems like a great place to launch an app that lets you rent someone’s parking space.

Also, finding parking in San Francisco sucks. Enter iPhone app Park Circa, which lets you rent out your parking space to fellow drivers for a low rate or snag a spot on the fly without having to worry about having change for parking meters.

The app, in beta for iPhone and soon to come to Android and Blackberry phones, is free to download on iTunes.

For some time, makers of components required to build today’s headline-grabbing electronics, such as touch-screen phones and tablets, have been eclipsed by big-named electronics firms. The times have changed and Apple is the prime example. The latest instance is a report suggesting the Cupertino, Calif. company wants to corner the market used to build high-resolution “retina” displays for the next generation of smartphones and tablets.

Apple has inked agreements with LG Display, Sharp and Toshiba Mobile Display, the three suppliers one analyst firm says makes the technology behind the new display. Competition for display components “has reached a fever pitch” straining availability, according to iSuppli.

Amongst the constabulary of Mac scuttlebuttheads of which I am an earnest member, that the iPad 2 will ship with a built-in SD card slot — all the better to allow people to edit photos and video on the device, if not increase their storage capacity — is held in consensus.

The prediction is based upon the appearance of numerous iPad 2 cases coming out of Asia that not only have appropriate holes for front and rear-facing cameras and a slot for the iPad’ 2s beefier new speaker, but also a slot that seems just the right size to slide in an SD card.

AppleInsider is now throwing some cold water on those of us expecting to read SDs on the iPad 2, though, instead positing that it’s just a slot reflecting the relocation of the iPad 2’s SIM card slot.

Yesterday, Intel announced a massive hardware recall that surely stopped the hearts of a few investors: the Cougar Point chipset used for their cutting-edge Sandy Bridge CPU had a hardware bug that caused the SATA 3GB/s port to degrade over time, potentially harming hard drives and other devices connected to it.

All things considered, it’s not actually a huge issue. Intel expects that over 3 years of use it would see a failure rate of approximately 5 – 15% depending on usage model. Still, at the end of the day, Intel expects to spend a billion dollars recalling and replacing the chipset. Oof.

The good news, of course, is that a Mac owner, this won’t affect your current system a whit: there aren’t any Macs available with Sandy Bridge just yet. Here’s the bad news, though. That imminent imminent Sandy Bridge MacBook Pro refresh? That might get delayed.

In normal times, ARM would have headlined Apple’s use of its chips in some of the most iconic electronics sold. However, the Cupertino, Calif. iPad and iPhone maker has assumed the role of a black hole for component suppliers: felt, but unseen – and unspoken. As such, when ARM announced a 72 percent increase in fourth-quarter profits from chips destined for tablet computers, Apple was mentioned only as an “influential market leader.”

ARM’s fourth-quarter net income reached $46.7M, up from around $27M a year ago, the chipmaker told reporters Tuesday. “ARM continues to sign licensees with influential market leaders in an increasingly digital world, and as the industry chooses ARM technology in a broadening range of products, it further drives our long-term royalty opportunity,” the company announced.

Tech bloggers are salivating over the possibility that the Verizon iPhone will create a “Perfect Media Storm” when it is released on February 10.

“These kinds of stories only come along every generation or so,” said one industry expert who insisted on anonymity for this article (and also insisted on ordering Lobster during our off-the-record lunch). “Really monumental tech events expand rapidly across the media landscape until almost every single headline is focused on that piece of news. It is a remarkable and terrifying occurrence, I’ve heard tell.”

Pundits are warning that the Verizon iPhone launch will attract noticeable attention from the Main Stream Media, including obligatory “lining up” segments on local newscasts, and a variety of daytime TV clips. Add to that scenario the brewing social media battles between Apple fan boys and iPhone haters and you have a tech news super cell that is capable of generating Apple headlines for weeks on end.

Even spammers will contribute to the upcoming media tsunami with their unending stream of boorish VeriPhone “opinion pieces” that are nothing more than keyword targeted word salad or repurposed content from legitimate sites. Angry AT&T users could also foment media attention as they publicly bash their aging network.

While no one can predict what the actual Verizon iPhone media storm will look like, expect it to pick up speed starting early next week.

Teaser articles with flashy headlines will appear first, hinting at the raging media storm that will soon follow. Then, as review units are tested, expect a sustained torrent of “under the hood” coverage from all areas of tech media.

Finally, on February 10, the event will make landfall with national news and cable networks cutting together segments comprised primarily of glamour shots of the new phone and happy Verizon customers getting their Apple devices.

What follows is a sampling of headlines sure to appear during the impending Verizon iPhone media storm. Prepare yourself and your loved ones for this type of journalism, as we will see much more of it in the days ahead.

Can You Hear Me Now? Comparing Dropped Call Data on Verizon and AT&T

OVERCLOCKED: Which iPhone Is Faster?

Top Ten Verizon iPhone Tips and Tricks

Which Network Really Has You Covered?

There’s an App for That – A Detailed look at how the app experience plays out on both networks.

Verizon iPhone Ships a “Billion Million” Units – Predictions of units sold in the coming months from tech press and analysts.

I’m returning My Verizon iPhone

Apple Stock: How High is Too High?

Why Android Is The Best Smartphone EVER!

This Guy’s Blog Post is WRONG!

No Way! That Other Blog Post is WRONG! – A protracted back and forth between two tech journalists to elicit links, coverage, and increased attention.

Where is the White iPhone?

How The Verizon iPhone is a Win for AT&T

I Told You So: How I Predicted All of This Over a Year Ago

iPhone, Therefore I Am

The iPhone as Fashion Statement

Why I Hate The Verizon iPhone

Why I’m Leaving AT&T

This Verizon iPhone Top Ten List Goes To Eleven

How the iPhone Reinvented Telephony

One iPhone to Rule Them All

“It almost never happens, but these giant media storms have occurred in the past,” said our source. “This new iPhone is something like the moon landing, really.”

When Apple and Verizon debuted the new CDMA iPhone 4 last month, the changes over the existing models weren’t dramatic: about the only thing new about the handset’s hardware was a slightly rejiggered antenna design and a nudged volume button or two.

The software, though, was different enough to take note of: boasting the version number iOS 4.2.5, it included support for the new Personal Hotspot settings feature which, in Verizon’s case, will allow handset owners to set their iPhone as a WiFi hotspot for up to five connected devices.

It now looks like Apple’s made some tweaks to iOS 4.2.5, bumping the version number to iOS 4.2.6, which you can now download. It’s a 652MB file, and given the slight nudge in version numbers, it’s probably a small bug fix.

As for when the rest of us GSM hoi polloi will get the Verizon iPhone’s Personal Hotspot feature, it’s reckoned that iOS 4.3 will bridge both the CDMA and GSM iPhones and bring the same features to all devices sometime in February. Hoorah!

Although Amazon’s Kindle platform seemed to stumble a bit in the wake of the iPad’s debut, mostly from surprise, they’ve since rallied and continued to increase their lead as the biggest e-bookstore on Earth. In fact, according to Amazon’s own metrics, they now sell more Kindle e-books than they do paperbacks.

How’d Amazon compete with iBooks? Ubiquity: Kindle software is available on almost every modern OS out there, and a Kindle book purchased on one can be read on another. Amazon managed to achieve this feat by cutting middlemen out of the transaction entirely: if you purchase a book in-app, you simply are directed to an Amazon webpage. It’s all done on the Internet.

If a new report coming from The New York Times is anything to go by, though, Apple may be ready to strike Kindle on iOS down for the count unless it agrees to utilize iTunes’ own in-app purchase system, though.

Samsung may have helped Android attain the top spot in smartphone sales, but the open-source operating system from Google hasn’t done the same for the handset maker’s attempt to rival Apple’s iPad tablet. According to one analyst firm, 16 percent of Samsung Tab devices are being returned.

“Consumers aren’t in love with the device,” ITG Investment Research analyst Tony Berkman told the New York Post recently. ITG tracked sales of the Tab between its November debut through Jan. 15. By comparison, the iPad sold through Verizon, reportedly has a 2 percent return rate.

I think performer/journalist Mike Daisey has very important things to things to say about Apple, the electronics industry, and modern industrial production.

Go see his hilarious but upsetting one-man show at Berkeley Rep, or watch this great TechCrunch interview:

The one news network that can be counted upon for on-the-ground reporting in the ever-volatile Middle East is Al Jazeera — the Arabic language’s answer to FOX, CNN and the BBC.

Fortunately, for those who do not speak or understand Arabic, the preeminent Middle Eastern news network funds a team of English speaking journalists who broadcast under the network’s imprimatur, and whose content is available to Apple iOS device users via the free app, Al Jazeera English Live.

More than a million people could march in Egypt Tuesday, a response to calls dating back two weeks, when young dissidents posted a protest event on Facebook in the wake of the ousting of Tunisia’s authoritarian strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali.

As the situation in Egypt began to heat up seriously Monday, with the government systematically shutting down ISP and mobile communications services, as the country’s military refused to fire upon the citizenry protesting dictator Hosni Mubarak’s 30 year rule, and his Vice President indicated a willingness to “speak” with the opposition — there’s no time like the present to try and keep abreast of events as they unfold.

UPDATE: this post has been edited from it’s original text to reflect a more accurate depiction of Al Jazeera’s English-language broadcasting.

Apple started it. In the most famous and expensive TV commercial to date, the company hurled the first “Big Brother” accusation (not to mention a giant hammer) at IBM and the IBM-compatible world, as it was called at the time.

In the commercial, directed by Ridley Scott, an attractive blonde 80’s girl wearing Hooters shorts, a Mac T-shirt and the kind of ankle-length socks people used to wear back then with their “jogging shoes” smokes a gaggle of goons in an all-out sprint for the most depressing cineplex ever where she unleashes her sledgehammer at the screen with equal parts ferocity and femininity.

Since then, various other tech companies have accused each other of being “Big Brother,” and Apple is often the one accused.

Most recently (i.e. possibly this coming Super Bowl Sunday), Motorola will essentially accuse Apple of being Big Brother in this commercial.

The problem with all these “Big Brother” accusations is that they’re always based on sloppy, mushy thinking — including Apple’s original ad, which didn’t seem to have anything specific in mind about how IBM resembled Big Brother, exactly.

Macworld staffers Christopher Breen and Ben Long wowed attendees at iPad Supersessions during Macworld 2011 last week, illustrating their talks with pristine images projected directly from their iPad’s screen interface.

Breen revealed their dirty how-to secret, which had been the subject of some oblique chatter in the Expo’s Media Center after their talk, in a post Monday on the Macworld website: they used a jailbroken iPad and “illicit” software to accomplish the feat.

In his web posting Breen wrote “only Apple [has] the secret for projecting an [iPad’s] entire interface,” suggesting there may be a method for projecting images from an iOS device using “display out” data transmitted to a standard projector without jailbreaking. But so far as anyone interested knows, Apple treats that as proprietary information.

Where there’s a will, there’s a way, however, and into the breach, as usual, goes Cydia and redsn0w.

It’s time for yet another Monday iPhone App Giveaway brought to you by Appular! If you’re into hamsters and zombies, you are going to have your mind blown with the apps we’re giving away. Just checked and the hamsters are actually FLYING hamsters. Good Lord!

All you need to do is follow @cultofmac and @appular on Twitter and tweet this phrase to be entered, “Big ups to @cultofmac and @appular for making it rain with free iPhone app codes!” A 5 random twitterers will be chosen to win this app bundle. We’ll choose the winners at 11:59pm on Tuesday and notify through Direct Message on Wednesday.

Special Thanks to Appular for helping us put together these app code giveaways! If you’ve got a mobile app that you’d like marketed effectively, contact the good folks at Appular!

Here’s a look at the apps we’re giving away:

The 150-year-old catalog giant Hammacher Schlemmer has released a classy iPhone stand that turns your device into a desktop handset.

Hammacher’s iPhone Desktop Handset looks good for cradling under your chin, and definitely does away with iPhone 4 proximity sensor issues.

Seems like old-school handsets are making a comeback. The handset is reminiscent of the iFusion Smartstation office phone/dock that premiered at Macworld last week. But the Hammacher handset plugs into the headphone jack instead of working via Bluetooth.

The Hammacher handset is $60, which seems a bit steep, but is cheaper than the $200 rotary-style iRetrofone Base.

Via Laughing Squid and Ubergizmo.

Confirming our exclusive report back in October, Woz says the white iPhone 4 weas delayed because of light leakage into the camera, ruining photos.

But not to worry, the white iPhone 4 is coming soon Woz told the Engadget Show last night.

Rumors suggest Apple has fixed the light leakage issue with new paint, and the white iPhone 4 has recently been showing up in inventory systems at AT&T and Best Buy.

Via VentureBeat.

Proving that fact is always more interesting than fiction, ad man Steve Hayden remembers the making of Apple’s 1984 ad in AdWeek this week.

Marking the 27th anniversary, Hayden describes the utterly chaotic process behind the making of what’s been called “the best TV commercial ever.” Everyone hated it, and no one wanted it to run except Steve Wozniak, who offered to pay half the costs himself.

The first version of the spot was more Jetsons than Metropolis. The intention was to remove people’s fears of technology at a time when owning your own computer made about as much sense as owning your own cruise missile. We wanted to democratize technology, telling people that the power was now literally in their hands.

AdWeek: ‘1984’: As Good as It Gets

Back in 1984, Apple introduced the Mac with its famous 1984 Superbowl ad. Now Motorola is invoking some of the same ideas to promote its Xoom tablet, but this time, Apple is Big Brother.

Motorola’s new Superbowl Ad , “Goodbye 1984,” says that 2011 looks a lot like 1984:

One authority. One design. One way to work.

It’s time for more choices. It’s time to explore. It’s time to live a free life.

Learn more about Motorola XOOM: https://moto.ly/xoom

The ad is pretty bare-bones, and it’s not clear whether it will run during the Superbowl or is just a teaser or a trial balloon.

Funny how often Apple is compared to Big Brother these days. Over the weekend, The New York Times invoked Microsoft in its heyday with its market-crushing “platform” — a position Apple finds itself in now, says the Times.

Here’s Motorola’s ad below, and Apple’s original 1984, just for comparison purposes.

We start a new week and the last day of January with deals for the iPhone, the MacBook and the iPod. First up is the latest batch of price drops from the iPhone App Store, including “Slingo Supreme,” a game that combines slots and bingo. Next is a group of MacBook Pro laptops, starting at $999 for a 2.4GHz 13.3-inch unit. We wrap up the spotlight deals with an 8GB iPod nano (current model) for just $120.

Along the way, we also check out a deal on iTunes gift cards, including a $100 card for just $85. We also have some bargains on iPod touch cases, a mobile iPod stereo speaker and some software for your Mac. As always, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Back in the web’s Dark Ages, before anyone even dreamed of creating a logo for a markup language, and when messing around with default link colors was adventurous web design, the closest thing anyone had to online video was the animated GIF.

It was just a small series of still image files glued together, but when played in sequence they looked like movement. A million “UNDER CONSTRUCTION” animated signs bloomed across the early web.

Since then, the animated GIF has gone out of fashion. You don’t see them so much. But you might see more soon, and enjoy making your own, thanks to a new photo toy for iPhone called GIFvid.

The UK’s first iPhone photo show in a gallery called “An Exhibition for Hipstamatics” has been held over until February 11 at the Orange Dot Gallery in London.

The show features 157 prints – the same number of Hipstamatic 100 analog cameras made in the early 1980s that inspired the iPhone app – considered the best works from web site Hipstamatics.com. The site allows contributors to share and showcase their best hipstamatic shots alongside some inhouse originals.

And, if you love the pic so much you’d like to hang a copy, you can also buy prints online.

Via The Apple Lounge