Our friends at 9to5Mac have torn down the Verizon iPhone and found a tasty surprise: it’s based on a GSM world phone-compatible chip!
The VZW iPhone is based on the Qualcomm MDM6600 chip, which is dual-mode GSM and CDMA compatible. That means the iPhone 5 will also surely be dual-mode, allowing Apple to ship one handset for both Verizon and AT&T, aw well as every other carrier outside the U.S.
9to5Mac: Verizon iPhone tear-down posted, reveals Qualcomm Gobi chip! (GSM Worldphone compatible!)
While the long-awaited delivery of the Verizon iPhone has been the big story of the week, evidence continues to mount that another semi-mythical model of the iPhone 4 might be dropping at almost the same time, at least if this Best Buy shelf sticker for the 16GB iPhone 4 is anything to go by.
Other than this shot and the fact that Canada’s The Source chain of retail outlets are also gearing up to sell the white iPhone 4, about the only concrete knowledge to be gleaned here is that the white iPhone 4 will be selling for $599, which is the same off-contract price as the black iPhone 4.
Keep calm, everyone: you only have a few more weeks to wait until the white iPhone 4 is yours… just a few months before the white iPhone 5 makes you wish you’d never bought a new phone more than halfway through the lifecycle of the previous gen!
Worried that your Verizon iPhone might not be as jailbreakable as the AT&T version? Don’t sweat it: as it turns out, the Verizon iPhone shipping to customers this week with iOS 4.2.6 works with the same GreenpoisOn utility that Chronic released over the weekend for untethered jailbreaks under iOS 4.2.1.
Of course, once iOS 4.3 comes out, everything’s likely to change again, so if you’re going to jailbreak your new Verizon iPhone… better get it in under the wire while you still can.
There’s a flurry of conflicting reports today on when the next iPad will debut – we have heard that the next iteration of the magical device will be unveiled in March or June at the WWDC.
Make your guess in the comments, along with the reason you think why Apple would choose that date.
Five correct answers, randomly chosen (though we admit some bias for the funny ones), will win promo codes for cool iPhone or iPad apps.
If you prefer to use Twitter as a source of interesting news stories throughout the day, you should try Smartr, a free app by Factyle that filters all of the cat updates and #cairo hashtags from your Twitter stream and instead serves up an attractive and uncluttered collection of the articles your friends and followers are linking, complete with page preview and summary. You can then easily read those articles, retweet them, or even push them to Instapaper to read later.
Smartr’s a fantastic looking app, and best of all, it’s free. Give it a try.
As predicted, Apple’s Mac App Store is already a huge success, driving sales through the roof for the small Mac developers who have already taken part even as Cupertino rakes in thirty percent off the top. Needless to say, the Mac App Store’s success indicates that Apple would eventually like to use it to drive most if not all of Mac software sales… and part of making that happen is to start downplaying the role of boxed software in the Mac ecosystem while emphasizing the Mac App Store as a central hub for OS X digital distribution.
No surprise, then, that Apple is already planning on getting rid of boxed software at their retail locations and directing customers to the Mac App Store instead, where Apple makes better margins on software sold.
Here’s a great tip that’s doing the rounds today. Chris Bowler uses his copy of Transmit as a file browser, because it has two viewing panes built-in, and lets you browse local files in each.
Anyone who has got tired of constantly having to open two adjacent Finder windows to transfer files from one place to another will see why this is a great idea.
Transmit comes with a handful of shortcuts for quick access to your Home folder, Desktop, or Documents folder. It also has a favorites feature – just drag any folder to the starred icon at the far left of the breadcrumb trail at the top of each pane. It also supports the Finder’s four different viewing modes (thumbnails, list, columns and CoverFlow). Great tip if you already have Transmit (or a similar two-pane FTP browser – anyone got any suggestions?) installed.
(Hat-tip to Minimal Mac for the link.)
Landing in the iOS App Store tomorrow is Index Card v2 for iPad, a multi-touch version of the corkboard-and-index-cards system popular with screenwriters and others who need to arrange multiple ideas within a project.
Inspired by the Corkboard feature of Scrivener for Mac (the Scrivener people know), Index Card allows users to move cards around, label by color, and even write on the back of cards (the ‘flip’ arrow changes color if there’s something written on the back).
This latest version adds a trio of new features: Stacks, customizable label names, and the option to export notes with the rest of your project to RTF for Word or Final Draft.
Testing the app last week, I found it to be responsive and easy to use. It does exactly what it it promises.
That said, at least on the surface, Index Card is very much about the needs of screenwriters. Developer DenVog would do well to add options in its next release to make the app more appealing to general productivity users. More backgrounds than just cork and solid black would also be welcome.
I can’t say I use index cards in my daily life, but for those that do, Index Card should prove practical. The app already counts a couple of Emmy-nominated producers as users.
William N. Fordes, a Co-Executive Producer/Writer on Law & Order, tells me that he finds Index Card “superb” and “well thought out”.
“The ease with which the individual cards can be moved around is terrific, and makes rethinking the shuffle of scenes so much easier,” he says.
Despite the fact that the iPad is seemingly the perfect medium for their frenetic space warfare RTS, Blizzard has so far resisted all calls to release an iOS specific game or port of their famous Starcraft series of games… but hey, why bother when those franchise rip-off artists extraordinaire over at Gameloft will do it for you?
Check out this new trailer for GameLoft’s upcoming iOS RTS, Starfront: Collision, and marvel at the admittedly well-realized shamelessness. It’s pretty much identical to Starcraft II right down to the choice of races, the UI, the graphics, the units… even the font!
When he first showed off OS X Lion last year, Steve Jobs explained Apple’s reluctance to add multitouch displays to their line of iMacs by saying that multitouch needed to be horizontal to be pleasant to use. Use it in a vertical position and you’re always leaning forward to poke and prod the screen, leading to what Steve Jobs calls “gorilla arm.” That’s why Apple has only brought multitouch to the Mac through peripherals like the Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad. Even so, some patents have shown up over the past year that suggest that Apple’s been experimenting with multitouch-capable iMacs with pivoting displays that pull down to a more appropriate horizontal orientation when a user wants to interact with on-screen elements directly.
If you want to see what such an iMac might look like in the flesh, though, check out HO’s latest TouchSmart PC. Look familiar? Yup, that’s right: it features a pull-down design that drops the multitouch display into a horizontal position to reduce arm fatigue… just like in Apple’s patent!
We start another week with deals for the iMac, iPad and iPod. First up is an iMac bundle. This Core i3 desktop machine runs at 3.06GHz and includes a 22-inch screen and 16GB of RAM. Also part of the bundle is a three-year AppleCare contract — all for just $1,497. Next is a pink faux leather iPad case with screen protector, magnetic closure and more. We wrap up today’s deal spotlight with 83 percent off on select iPod touch cases.
Along the way, we also take a look at other cases for the iPhone, as well as software for your Mac. As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
If iPhoto leaves you cold, or perhaps doesn’t run so well on your older Mac, there aren’t many options for a similar application that combines photo editing and photo library management. Not many, except for Picasa.
Google’s free photo app is a great alternative to iPhoto, generously packed with features and a good choice for people who want to quickly upload photos to the web.
In most respects, it compares very well to iPhoto, including features like face recognition and geolocation data. It comes with a selection of quick edit presets, and easy (but basic) slider controls for detailed editing.
What’s particularly nice about Picasa, though, is its speed. It roars through photo libraries that leave rival photo managers struggling to catch up. On first run, it will zip through your iPhoto library – not copying any files (so don’t worry about disk space) – but indexing all your data there and building up its own copy of the iPhoto library.
Picasa is one of those things it makes sense to have around. It’s free, it’s packed with useful stuff, and even if you don’t put it to immediate use, there might yet come a day when you’ll be glad you have it to hand.
(You’re reading the 28th post in our series, 50 Essential Mac Applications: a list of the great Mac apps the team at Cult of Mac value most. Read more, or grab the RSS feed.)
Port police in Los Angeles busted a counterfeit iDevice operation with a warehouse full of fakes with an estimated market value of $10 million.
“This was a well-funded operation, and the counterfeits looked very authentic,” said Ron Boyd, chief of the approximately 200-member L.A. Port Police force, adding that a buyer might not have noticed anything awry until he or she got home and tried to hook up with iTunes.
Police believe the fakes were shipped in from China as replacement parts then reassembled them. The two brothers arrested and charged with felony counts for the sale of counterfeit goods in charge of the operation may have thought they could fly under the radar with older-model fakes, still in demand by some consumers. (Personal aside: I still have both of those iPod Nano models and am clinging to them because of the storage, battery life and light weight.)
It’s not often Wall Street analysts use farming analogies to explain technology stocks. However, Needham & Co.’s Charlie Wolf Monday points to the growth rate of hybrid corn to explain the rocketing popularity of Apple’s iPad tablet. Indeed, the analyst expects 35 million of all sorts of tablets will sell in 2011 – 90 percent carrying the Apple logo.
Like the growth of hybrid corn in the 1920s, outlined in Everett Rodgers’ The Diffusion of Innovations, Wolf sees the iPad as only the latest technology following the “S-Curve” of slow early growth, followed by faster expansion, then slowdown. Computers followed this growth pattern in the 1980s, as well as the iPod.
Mark your calendars: the next iPhone will be revealed sometime between June 5th and June 9th, 2011, as Apple has already booked those dates at the Moscone Center in San Francisco for this year’s WWDC.
Although the Moscone Center’s website officially lists the early June event name as a “Corporate Meeting,” this anonymous description is usually deployed by Moscone Center management to refer to Apple events.
Apple’s next iPhone is traditionally announced at each year’s WWDC event held at the Moscone Center sometime in June.
Note: Jonathan Zschau is a Boston-based attorney and a specialist in consumer rights.
UPDATE: SquareTrade has objected to some of the statements and characterizations in this article. The company has some good points, which are published in full here.
As well as a good case or bumper, should you buy an extended service plan to protect your iPhone?
These service contracts are commonly referred to as “extended warranty plans,” “protection plans,” or “insurance plans” and promise to insure your iPhone from defect, accidental damage, and sometimes loss or theft.
The problem with extended service contracts is that they don’t offer you much more than you are already entitled to through your iPhone’s warranty, AppleCare, or existing consumer protection laws.
Although these service contracts do offer additional protection from accidental damage, theft, or loss they are also fraught hidden conditions, exclusions, and deductibles, which ultimately detract from their utility. Except for a very small minority of unusually accident-prone iPhone owners, these extended service contracts are a waste of money.
Apple events tend to be grand affairs, but as the presumed launch of the iPad 2 approaches, it’s unclear exactly how Cupertino will choose to herald in their second-gen tablet with the company’s charismatic CEO on an indefinite medical leave of absence.
An Apple product launch just isn’t the same without Steve, and it appears that Apple knows it: according to a brief new report, the launch of the iPad 2 will be a smaller affair than customary.
The report comes by way of macotakara.jp, a blog with a decent record when it comes to accurate predictions. They say that the event that Apple will host a “small event to introduce [the] next generation of iPad.”
When the iPad was first unveiled, AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson explained his company’s decision to offer a month-by-month, committment-free data plan for the tablet by saying that he saw the iPad as a “Wi-Fi driven product.” That prediction seems to be accurate: while Apple sold seven million iPads last quarter, AT&T only activated 442,000 3G accounts for it.
Never the less, the latest rumor suggests that Apple is planning on making a big push for 3G in the iPad 2, with a good sixty percent of the first production run devoted to manufacturing 3G models.
During last night’s Super Bowl Sunday, I was surrounded by a multitude of passionates for that noble game, fans who felt every impact of muscle and cartilage as gods collided upon the field. While friends around me pumped their firsts and said, with great authority, things like: “”Expect the Packers to try to tie a bow on this baby by running out the clock in the second half,” I nodded sagely and pretended to understand the game.
My secret, of course, is that I don’t. In fact, my understanding of professional football’s rules are almost entirely gleaned from this 1944 theatrical Goofy short that I watched on my iPhone on the car ride to my friend’s house for “the Big Game.”
One thing I do know, however, is the sanctity of the playbook: that secret tome of symbolic crosses and circles ascribed strategic meaning by arrows and squiggles. It’s always seemed to me that the average playbook would make a good app.
Ignorant as I may be of the way professional football is conducted, it looks like I’m not alone, as Dallas Cowboys technology director Pete Walsh has begun to push his team to start using iPads as their playbooks.
More evidence that the mobile world is smarter. Sales of smartphones, such as the iPhone and Android-based handsets, reached 100.9 million units during the fourth quarter – an 87 percent increase over the same period in 2009. Global smartphone shipments reached more than 302 million in all of 2010, a 74.4 percent rise over 2009. According to IDC, Google’s mobile operating system played a large role.
“Android continues to gain by leaps and bounds, helping to drive the smartphone market,” said Ramon Llamos, senior research analyst for IDC’s Mobile Phone and Trends unit. Android is now the “cornerstone” of many vendors’ smartphone strategies and is threatening cell phone giant Nokia.
Motorola’s Super Bowl ad for its Xoom tablet — one of the first serious iPad contenders — is replete with Apple references: 1984, Lemmings, white earbuds. But where Apple’s TV ads for the iPad are practical and concrete, Motorola’s is cryptic and confused.
Reminds me of Palm’s weird, ethereal ads for the Pre, which bombed. It’s not good sign.
Plus, the device will reportedly cost $800 with a $20 per month data plan. There’s no WiFi-only model. From our hands-on at CES, the hardware looks OK, but we couldn’t test the software: Moto was showing an unfinished unit..
Apple’s upcoming iOS 4.3 update will have wireless syncing, Photobooth, and a Sports Training program.
It may also get QuickLook from OS X — the ability to quickly peek at a file or email attachment without launching any programs.
The new capabilities were discovered by programmer Chris Galzerano, who has been digging around in the iOS 4.3 SDK and firmware beta.
Here are the details:
UPDATE: Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac is skeptical about this information. PhotoBooth is right, he says, but has been known for weeks. QuickLook is for opening attachments in email; the Sports Trainer frameworks have been in iOS forever, and likely refer to Nike+; and the Wireless Syncing frameworks are likely part of regular MobileMe syncing.
It is a popularly held belief that one day Mac OS X and iOS are destined to merge into one OS to rule them all. When Apple announced last October that Lion, the next major update of Mac OS X would feature some of the best ideas from iOS, it only added to the convergence speculation.
But are Apple’s two operating systems really destined to converge? After all, they both seem to be doing very well by themselves. The Mac may benefit from some iOS features, but it’s hardly struggling on its own. Mac sales are stronger than ever. So what exactly would the advantages be?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqr7a0ekmS8&feature=player_embedded
FaceTime is now available on most of Apple’s iOS devices, and through its OS X operating system for Mac, however, there is one device that’s still sat out in the cold. The incredibly popular iPad is still patiently awaiting FaceTime compatibility, but now, thanks to a hack, it’s possible to enjoy the feature on Apple’s first-generation tablet.
Courtesy of “Intell,” the hack uses a version of the FaceTime application created for the iPod touch, which has been optimized for the larger device and boasts a full-screen user interface.
Of course, you won’t currently get the full FaceTime experience on your iPad because of its lack of front-facing camera, but it’s certainly a start and a nice little taste of things to come. You will be able to see your FaceTime partner on your iPad, and they will be able to hear you.
You’ll need to be connected to Wi-Fi to enjoy FaceTime on your iPad, just like you currently do for other iOS devices.
If you’d like to try the hack yourself, check out the lengthy step-by-step guide copied, from Intell’s post on the iFans forum, after the break. Be warned, however, this process is noted to be risky.
If you try the hack out for yourself, let us know how it went.
Apple advertising has intersected with the NFL over the years. As we endure the countdown to Super Bowl XLV on a (thankfully snow-free) Sunday morning here in the States, a look back at some Apple ads either related to football or which ran during the Big Game itself.
The very popular I’m-A-Mac campaign gave the glory to the Referee in one spot, that unsung hero and arbiter of the game. The battle then was Leopard vs. Vista, and the ref got the call right!
