It’s back-to-school time, but some students may be headed for their headphones instead of campus or class. That appears to be the message from Apple’s Tuesday announcement of 300 million download in three years from iTunes U. The collaboration between the Cupertino, Calif. company and universities provides “iTunes users with an incredible way to learn on their computer, iPhone, iPod or iPad,” Apple said in a statement.
More than 800 universities worldwide have contributed 350,000 audio and video files. China, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico and Singapore are just the latest countries to join the program. The free content allows anyone to get a taste of learning or virtually audit a classroom.
Tain’t the heat, t’is the humidity… at least when it comes to iPhone moisture sensors in Hong Kong.
According to the South China Morning Post, numerous Hong Kong iPhone users are having a hard time getting their handsets covered under warranty because the moisture sensors — the small little stickers inside every iPhone that discolor when they get wet, indicating user error — max out at 95% humidity.
The problem? Hong Kong and other Asian countries regularly excess 95% humidity, with some areas seeing greater-than-95% humidity for 73 days between June 1st and August 16th. For an iPhone, this is the equivalent of spending two and a half months in a sauna.
For some users like Justin Hayward, this has resulted in it being impossible to get an iPhone fixed under warranty, and instead being dinged a massive charge for a replacement phone.
“I’ve never used it in the bath, gone swimming or anything like that,” Hayward said. “Let’s face it; many people do break the rules. But a significant number of people are making these kind of report. If the limitation is over 95 per cent humidity, they ought not to be selling the product here. I find it quite unbelievable – a real piece of corporate greed or a great oversight.”
I’m not going to blame this on corporate greed, but Hayward has a point: if the mechanism Apple uses to detect moisture in iPhones doesn’t work in real-world locations, they shouldn’t be denying warranty service on those devices when they fail with triggered moisture sensors.
This isn’t even a problem limited to the Far East: a California woman sued Apple earlier this year over the same problem, and faultily triggered moisture sensors is a rampant problem in the tropics. If Apple’s not going to honor service based upon a moisture detection mechanism that verifiably fails in real-world conditions, they should reconsider selling devices where you can cut the air with a knife.
We always like to tell readers when the ‘other shoe falls’ concerning Apple technology. Earlier this week we reported how Apple products are seeing huge growth rates compared to PCs in both government and business. Today, we see why: corporate IT gatekeepers are becoming more comfortable with iOS-based products, particularly the iPad.
Unlike when the iPhone was first introduced in 2007, the Cupertino, Calif. company has devoted time and effort to answering the concerns businesses expressed early on. Such issues included ways to encrypt information and establishing secure methods to connect to corporate networks, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The latest versions of iOS “adds features that make the devices easier for a tech department to manage, including the ability for businesses to distribute internally developed apps without going through Apple’s App Store,” the newspaper writes.
When we posted yesterday about a new Apple patent hinting at future touchscreen Macs, one of the excellent points made in our comments section was that one reason behind Apple’s reluctance to install touchscreen panels in their non-mobile computers is the ergonomics factor: it’s just not comfortable to constantly be leaning forward to poke and prod a screen.
A new patent from Apple shows how future touchscreen Macs might just solve the ergonomic dilemma. The patent describes a touchscreen iMac with a swiveling display that rotates into a more appropriate, horizontal configuration for multitouch. A built-in accelerometer could automatically determine the display’s orientation and trigger the appropriate interface or even operating system: for example, OS X in an upright position, iOS when prone.
At the end of the day, I don’t buy that a swiveling display is how Apple would go about solving desktop touchscreen ergonomic problems. It seems a little too finnicky as a solution. Still, at least Apple’s thinking about the problem, and if Cupertino’s history with multitouch mobile devices is anything to go by… when they finally do an iMac Touch, they’ll do it right.
Google Goggles is easily one of the biggest app advantages the Android operating system has over iOS… but Google seems ready to hobble their own advantage by releasing it to for the iPhone later this year.
Goggles itself is incredibly neat, allowing you to use your smartphone’s camera to take a snapshot of anything around you that you might want to search for on the Internet. For example, thwarted by your own swollen-tongued artistic plebeianism while on a date at the museum, you could take a snapshot of a painting you know absolutely nothing about and quickly get a list of talking points back about it. You can also use Goggles to scan text and then manipulate with it your phone, by emailing it to yourself or using a number as a contact.
It often seems weird to see Google obviate their own advantages over the iPhone, but all Google really cares about is getting as many people using their search engine — and therefore, viewing their search-targeted ads — as possible. Android’s just one means to that end; every other smartphone is another.
The twelve individuals’ plan was pretty simple, all things considered. Using stolen credit card numbers, they purchased tracks that they themselves had uploaded to Apple’s digital music delivery service. All things considered, they laundered over $300,000 worth of purchases in just four months.
For the record, this isn’t a security vulnerability with iTunes. Transacting digital goods is actually a common way to get money off of a stolen credit card number: I myself had $1500 stolen from me a few years back when someone got a hold of my credit card number and simply lost game after game of online poker against another account that he controlled.
The same thing pretty much went on here, and Apple wasn’t the only company to get hit: Amazon’s MP3 service was also used by the criminals in question.
Should this worry you? Probably not: in most cases of credit card fraud, credit card companies are quick to side with the card holder. In my case, all I had to do was assure Mastercard that neither I nor my girlfriend were secret gambling addicts. If you ever do see a suspicious iTunes charge come through on your credit card statement, give your bank — not Apple — a call, and they will very quickly set things right.
In a bid to prevent another ‘antennagate’ when the iPhone 4 reaches China in mid-September, Apple’s exclusive carrier there will offer free cases, according to a local news report.
“The iPhone 4 is expected to suffer from the same issues related to signal reception in China, but China Unicom will be offering cases to customers as a free gift,” reports Caixin, an English-language online news site. The iPhone 4 will be introduced in China on September 16.
Following numerous reports of dropped calls when the the iPhone 4 was held in a certain position, Apple eventually announced it would provide free cases to affected customers. Apple is eager to introduce its record-selling iPhone 4 in China, a nation where the Cupertino, Calif. company plans to build 25 stores and has seen 144 percent growth.
As temperatures soar to new records here in San Francisco, quench your thirst at tonight’s Ubergizmo’s Digital Summer party, a festival of fashion, photography, tech and fun.
At 8PM, San Francisco’s glamorous people will gather for Digital Summer, an annual fashion show/tech-showcase that attracts throngs of the city’s brightest young things. Last year, there was a line around the block. (Check out the glamorpuss pictures below).
Full disclosure: We’re a media partner.
This year’s event promises a live runway fashion show, studio photo shoots, a future of fashion display from Intel and hands-on demos of Motorola’s Droid X and Verizon’s Wireless MiFi Mobile Hotspot. Verizon is also recycling old cell phones, so bring them along.
Digital Summer is at the Temple nightclub on Howard Street. It’s $5 with a RSVP (get one here), or $10 on the door. Here’s the Facebook event page, and the full itinerary after the pictures:
People who quilt are also nerdy. Or nerdy people also quilt. Either way, there’s some bitchin’ stitchin’ happening — as per this compendium of Dr. Who and Harry Potter blankets — but we especially like these Apple-related sewing projects. Quilt different!
iNerd Mini Quilt
@Liz Harvatine.
Liz Harvatine made this for her husband as kind of an emblem for the North Hollywood Classic Mac Collectors Club of which he is one of two proud members. It’s a nice banner to be under…
So much for the web being dead. John Mellencamp, the increasingly craggy Indiana roots rocker famed for singing about “Jack and Diane,” “Pink Houses” and having the middle name “Cougar,” has clued the world into a major news story: the Internet has destroyed the music business. Apple’s bad, too. From the Globe & Mail:
“I think the Internet is the most dangerous thing invented since the atomic bomb,” he said. “It’s destroyed the music business. It’s going to destroy the movie business.”
Seriously, you guys. Not content to make Lars Ulrich look like a visionary, Mellencamp went on to deliver the stunning revelation that MP3 audio is technically inferior to what you would get from a CD or LP.
He recalled listening to a Beatles song on a newly re-mastered CD and then on an iPod, and “you could barely even recognize it as the same song. You could tell it was those guys singing, but the warmth and quality of what the artist intended for us to hear was so vastly different.”
Now, I’m not one to question John Mellencamp’s ability to competently rip an album to a portable digital format, but I will say that I never heard him speak up about inferior audio quality when he was selling millions of cassette tapes per year.*
The music business has changed. Apple reinvented itself by understanding how and why it was changing almost a decade ago. And lots of artists, such as the Arcade Fire and Lady Gaga, understand well how to take advantage of those changes and carve out a successful living that’s less dependent on record labels than their own businesses. And dinosaurs like John Mellencamp have no idea how to be successful in the iTunes era.
*Not to mention, MP3s were successful because they were good enough sounding, which allowed them to spread like wildfire. Their inferior quality was a feature, not a bug. There’s a reason why lossless audio still hasn’t caught on for portable players.
Cult of Mac is blowing minds and iDevices with some great apps for your iPhone and iPad. We’ll pick 5 random winners to win 6 great apps. If you want a chance to get your hands on some great apps this week, then follow the instructions carefully below:
Follow us on Twitter (you must do this, if you’re not following us, we can’t contact you if you win).
Tweet this: @cultofmac and @appular are making it rain with FREE iPhone and iPad apps! #cultofmac
Your tweet will be your entry into the giveaway, only ONE entry is allowed per person, and the giveaway will last until 11:59pm tonight. We’ll contact the winners on Tuesday or Wednesday and how to get the codes!
Optional step – Tell us what you think about these apps if you own them already in the comments section.
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!
We start off a rainy week on the East Coast with deals for the Mac and the iPhone. First up is DiskAid for the Mac, a utility that lets you use your iPhone or iPod touch as an external drive. Also, a ZAGG coupon gives you a 20 percent site-wide discount on items, including the invisibleSHIELD.
As usual, details on these and many other items can be found at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Two issues are pushing Apple to expand beyond its current one-carrier arrangement for the U.S. iPhone, an analyst told investors Monday. Not only is the iPhone maxxing out the AT&T network, the Cupertino, Calif. company needs to stem the tide of Android phones flowing from Verizon.
This is where we usually write about Verizon’s chances of obtaining the Apple handset. Although such speculation has reached the level of the Easter Bunny or BigFoot as an appealing tale lacking only facts, Kaufman Bros.’ Shaw Wu takes a different tact: if not Verizon, how about a two-for-one deal?
Someone in government must love Macs. How else to explain one analyst’s figures released Monday showing a 200 percent increase during the second-quarter of 2010 – 16 times greater than the overall PC market’s 12.1 percent growth-rate? But, as the late-night pitch-men like to say: Wait, that’s not all.
Macs in business (especially very big businesses) rose nearly 50 percent during the three-month period – three times that of the PC market’s 12.1 percent, according to Needham analyst Charlie Wolf.
(Here in the luxurious and well-appointed Cult of Mac offices, one could get a good gander at these pics without recrimination, but we erred on the side of caution, including the ones chosen for this post.)
Remember back in June when Apple told developers the iBookstore had 22 percent of the eBook market? An author who uses both platforms to market his writing is now telling a vastly-different story. He sells 200 Kindle ebooks each day, compared to 100 a month for the iPad’s iBooks.
Despite the Kindle ebooks not currently supporting color or video, like the ebooks via Apple’s iBookstore, “according to my numbers Apple is a very small part of the ebook market,” blogs author Joe Konrath. “I sell 200 ebooks a day on Kindle. On iPad, I sell 100 a month,” he adds.
The Magic Trackpad is a fantastic addition to a desktop, but it’s insistence on being battery powered is a little strange. For most users, it’ll never leave their desk, yet there’s no USB option, unlike Apple’s own keyboards; additionally, unlike the Magic Mouse, where a cable would limit its effective range, the Magic Trackpad is designed to stay stationary.
For a lot of people, then, the Magic Trackpad’s battery guzzling represents something of a waste, and while Apple’s introduction of their own Battery Charger mitigates a lot of the environmental concerns, its still a shame there isn’t at least an option to plug it into your iMac or MacBook’s USB port directly and never worry about its juicing at all.
That’s why MacRumors modder markbog hacked his Magic Trackpad to hook straight to his Mac’s USB port by taking the batteries out of the device, stripping down an old USB cord and attaching them to a battery sized dowel.
Supposedly, it works great. Let’s not forget, though, that the Magic Trackpad is a pretty great mobile accessory as well: it easily fits into a laptop bag, and I can say from first hand experience that it makes an absolutely fantastic way to control your Mac mini driven HTPC set-up.
It’s really rare that an App Store game can sell me with just four achingly beautiful words, but Deceased Pixel’s upcoming iOS action game Super Mega Worm has done just that… and those words are “Great Death Worm Wojira.”
The trailer embedded above gives a bit more details about the game. The Great Death Worm Wojira? That’s you, a Tremors-style nematode who needs to chew into great, spattering hunks the miserable humans who have wreaked havok on the poor skin of Mother Earth… all with a fantastic soundtrack and fun, rich SNES-era pixel sprites.
After being caught completely unprepared for the iPad’s debut, this Christmas season is looking to be a slugfest between different electronics companies each aiming to out iPad the other.
What’s the outcome going to be? According to Acer chairman JT Wang speaking to the Chinese language paper the Economic Daily News, Wang said that by the time the tablet market “stabilizes” Apple’s share will plummet from almost 100 percent to close to 20-30 percent.
While we’re skeptical that the drop will be quite so profound, this isn’t really news that Apple fans should be discouraged by. Apple barely controls 15% of the smartphone market. Android, in comparison, controls 17%, RIM 18% and Symbian a whopping 41% of the smartphone market. But so what? That hasn’t stopped Apple from making billions off of the iPhone. It hasn’t stopped the iPhone from leading the way in the mobile arena. And even though Apple’s in fourth place, it hasn’t stopped the iPhone from being absolutely synonymous with the very definition of a smartphone. iPhone is in a class by itself.
The same thing’s going to happen here. Everyone is going to release a poorly realized tablet to compete with the iPad, and since they can’t license iOS, they’ll install Android, webOS or Windows on their devices. I have no doubt that, very quickly, those operating systems will be fatter slices on the tablet marketshare pie chart than iOS will be… but so what? There’ll still only be one iPad; all the other tablets will just be competing with each other.
We’ve been hearing rumblings of an iOS-driven AppleTV rebranded as the iTV and priced at $99 for a couple months now, and now it seems that Digg founder Kevin Rose thinks that these rumors have a lot of weight.
Although it’s not clear if Rose has any inside information, he writes: “From what I hear we should expect to see the iTV launch in September.” That would certainly confirm rumors we’ve heard that the new ‘iTV’ will debut alongside a freshly rejiggered iPod Touch at Apple’s iPod event in September, and it makes a lot of sense besides: the AppleTV, after all, has always pretty much been just a big iPod you could hook up to your television.
More to the point, Apple themselves said that their plans for a media-streaming iTunes update would likely be “more limited in scope” than people were anticipating. We all know that the music industry and film industry have been being difficult when it comes to signing licensing agreements with Apple for streaming, but television’s another story… as an institution, they are already quite comfortable with digital streaming. Could that mean that the streaming iTunes rollout will be limited in scope for everything save television at first?
Pretty much every iOS game is played with fingers, but the (i)Pawn app from French studio Volumnique is trying to change that by employing a set of physical token that are each capable of being uniquely identified by the iPhone’s touchscreen. Click through for a video.
It’s a neat demonstration, but I’ll be honest with you: I’m not entirely sure how it works. Looking at the site, each token appears to be glued onto a different sized cell battery. Since the iPhone’s capacitive touchscreen works by using a layer of capacitive material to hold an electrical charge, and senses a touch when the amount of charge under your finger changes. If the bottom-loaded batteries on the tokens predictably change the amount of charge sensed by the touchscreen, this could conceivably work… but I’m not sure the iPhone’s touch software is that nuanced. Any developers out there who might be able to hand us their theories?
Either way, it’s a neat demonstration, an even if (i)Pawn looks like a pretty boring game, it could have some neat practical merits. The iPad’s a great size for a game board, after all: a Monopoly app with mail-away top hats, locomotives, irons and terrier tokens could be a pretty satisfying experience.
Déjà vu. A likeable geek whose job is largely dedicated to testing mobile phones leaves his precious new iPhone in a bar… except this time, that affable geek wasn’t Gray Powell. Instead, it was Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam… the same guy who helped okay the purchase of the lost/stolen iPhone 4 prototype months before its official debut.
According to Lam’s Twitter account, the Gizmodo chief lost his iPhone at a restaurant while having lunch, but a random bystander sitting at a nearby table held onto it for him until he returned. Seemingly without a dose of sarcasm, Lam then tagged his tweet with the Twitter #karma tag.
Perhaps it should have been tagged with #dramatic-irony instead. If anything, the whole misadventure underlines how different things could have gone for Apple and Gizmodo if someone with some scruples had found the iPhone 4 prototype and tried to return it to Powell, as they did for Lam, instead of almost immediately rushing to the highest bidder.
The most surprising detail of this story is that since the tweet, Lam has Brian Lam has locked down his Twitter account so people can’t read his tweets, presumably in response to the Twitter taunts of people on whom the irony was not lost. What a weirdly defensive move, especially from a guy like Lam, who certainly realizes that his job at the largest gadget blog on the Internet makes him a public figure.
Look, Gizmodo, at the end of the day, you landed the biggest tech scoop basically ever, but at the cost of some of your journalist’s ethics. That’s cool, but you’ve got to be ready to take your lumps when people loudly laugh at the irony.
I grabbed myself the Alfred Powerpack over the weekend, and so far it’s looking very promising.
Alfred, you may remember, is a fast little app launcher, web searcher and doing-stuffer for OS X. Clearly inspired by the likes of Quicksilver, it offers basic features for free and now, with the Powerpack, adds a few extras for a fee.
Even as Apple has blazed trails in forwarding multitouch as a bonafide interface for mobile devices, they have completely abstained from installing touchscreens on their MacBooks and iMac-lines, despite the fact that numerous competitors have jumped with both feet forward into the multitouch PC arena.
According to a recently discovered patent, though, Apple’s at least thinking about bringing multitouch to their desktop and laptop lines, detailing a touchscreen MacBook boasting iPhone-(and iMac)-like IPS display technology.
