A new survey published Wednesday indicates 93% of iPhone 4 owners are happy with their new Apple devices, down slightly from 99% of iPhone 3G S owners who copped to their ecstasy in a 2009 survey.
Market research firm Change Wave reportedly surveyed just 213 people to reach its conclusions, which may well make them statistically meaningless in the light of the millions of iPhone 4 smartphones in circulation since its public release in late June.
Brouhahas over the device’s revolutionary antenna design and concerns over security holes in its operating software might lead one to question whether more than 9 in 10 consumers remain truly “happy” with their purchase.
We start off the day with three hardware deals. Are you looking for an affordable MacBook, perhaps as a gift? Why not a 1.83GHz MacBook for $490? If not, how about a desktop machine? The Apple Store is offering a number of Mac minis, starting at $719 for a 2.66GHz unit. Or maybe you need more power and mobility? Check out some MacBook Pros, starting at $929 for a 2.26GHz version.
If you’re not in the market for hardware, we have plenty of accessories, including pre-orders for Apple’s recently-announced Magic Trackpad, deals on skins for your iPhone 4 or cases for your iPad. As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.
Inside the new Covent Garden store. @Electricpig.co.uk The exterior of Apple's new Covent Garden store. @Electricpig.co.uk
The crowds have to wait until Saturday, August 7 to swarm into the new Covent Garden store but here’s a sneak peek — thanks to at what may be Apple’s most stunning retail store to date.
Sure, you may prefer the majestic Regent Street location also in London or admire the posh new Paris Opera store, but Covent garden is the largest in the UK and is said to be the most expensive Apple store to date.
Inside the new Covent Garden store. @Electricpig.co.uk
These photos snapped by James Holland at Electric Pig show that Apple’s latest must-see retail spot is a three-story triumph of exposed brick of a restored 1870s building in the heart of London.
The German government announced Wednesday several Apple iOS devices have “two critical weak points for which no patch exists.” The warning from Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security advises users of iPhones, iPads and iPod touch devices to avoid opening PDF files and visiting unfamiliar websites. Apple is already investigating the issue which appeared earlier this week.
The issue appears to be with iPhones using iOS 3.1.2-4.01, iPads using iOS 3.2-3.2.1 and iPods touch devices using iOS 3.1.2-4.0, according to the German statement. Earlier this week, hackers built “JailBreakMe”, an exploit of how Safari handles PDF files. The exploit “jailbreaks” the devices.
I would like to think that most of the people who know me well enough will agree that I have a sense of humor. My tastes in humor can range from the mundane, to a well said pun, or simply the mad cap adventures of a puppet. I really like puppet humor and there is one puppet that really makes me laugh out loud, like a braying donkey no less,the Mosspuppet.
The Mosspuppet has his own iOS app called Mossboard. It is his official iPhone app and it contains a collection of Mosspuppet sound bytes that you can play aloud and in any sequence you choose. You can see it demonstrated in the YouTube video above. It’s outrageously accurate and it looks like a lot of fun. I’m sure that it would have you in stitches in no time at all.
Unfortunately Apple doesn’t think that it is very funny since it was rejected from the App Store. Perhaps the reason for that is due to the fact that the app comes with a sound byte which mentions the puppets desire to touch Steve Jobs’ nipples. Perhaps Apple finds that offensive, but I only thought it was funny. However, according to the Mosspuppet’s Twitter feed the real reason for rejection was the apps references to journalist Walt Mossberg. Umm.. yeah like I believe that. [Note: If you are reading this Mr. Mosspuppet feel free to mention me in your app, but if you do be prepared to send me a copy of your app. I’ve got my UUID on standby.]
Come on Apple its just a parody. Have you forgotten that you’ve let other parodies into the App Store? I’m disappointed. Are you disappointed? Let Apple, Steve Jobs, and the world know whether you are or not by leaving a comment.
Although we’ve known for several months Google would like an Android tablet, Tuesday we learned more details: Motorola’s the manufacturer and Verizon appears to be the carrier. An Android-based tablet could appear later this fall, the Financial Times reports.
Motorola already makes the set-top boxes used for FiOS. The tablet is expected to be unveiled in the fall, about the same time as Android 3.0, codenamed “Gingerbread” is also thought to be released.
Although voices heard earlier this week indicated Apple’s cloud-based music service may be delayed and be “limited it scope,” it appears the Cupertino, Calif. company may have quietly launched streaming music via its Mobile Me iDisk App.
iDisk, similar to Microsoft’s SkyDrive and Google Docs, was upgraded last month to allow stored music to be played via the MobileMe iDisk App.
The iPad helps connect the bones for medical students. @Stanford U School of Medicine.
At just four months old, the iPad is preparing to go off to college.
Apple’s “magical” device, which launched April 3, will be handed out during fall 2010 orientation to college students at a number of US campuses, though the tablet computer won’t be replacing old-fashioned notebooks or pencils any time soon.
Stanford is the most prestigious university to announce an iPad program so far. All first year medical students and Master of Medicine students will be provided with an iPad.
“The iPad allows students to view and annotate course content electronically, facilitating advance preparation as well as in-class note-taking in a highly portable, sharable and searchable format,” the Stanford University School of Medicine announced on its blog. “Students will be able to easily access high-quality information at any place, at any time…and replacing printed syllabi with PDF’s is in line with the Sustainable Stanford initiative, which aims to build sustainable practices into every aspect of campus life.”
Apple is edging closer to introducing its iPad to China’s growing legion of fans. Monday, the government’s Quality Cerification Center gave its much-desired safety certification to the tablet device. Although the Cupertino, Calif. company is mum on its intentions, the iPad would make the second product Apple exports to the Asian giant.
“The iPad is a top tier device and the Apple brand has a great deal of influence among consumers,” iResearch analyst Liu Liang said. Carrier China Unicom has expressed interest in selling the iPad, as well as the iPhone 4, the Wall Street Journal reported in July.
One of the prettiest apps for iPad just got even better Tuesday with new support for iPhone 4’s Retina Display technology enhancing the concert and music poster app, Rock Show.
Portland-based developers Neutrinos, LLC have been steadily improving Rock Show since its initial release and with version 2.0 announced an exclusive mobile-only poster sale that sold out in just two days. Rob Banagale, Neutrinos CEO, said, “As far as we know, Guy Burwell’s 7/29/2010 Silversun Pickups poster was the first retail item that could only be bought on an iOS device, not the web.”
Rock Show lets users browse, share and order directly through the app hand-made, limited edition concert and music posters that are often hand-packed and shipped directly by the artists who created them. With over 250 posters in the current catalog, Banagale feels his company is on to a good — and growing — thing.
The Blackberry Torch misses the mark. We all know this. From its bastardized Palm Pre meets Chinese black market phone industrial design to its Android-by-way-of-Vectrex UI, the entire product is just a complete whiff as an attempt to release a modern, relevant phone for the multitouch and App Store era. Not only that, this is RIM’s third straight swing and miss for an iPhone-killer. We all know this.
But why can’t RIM manage to put forth a phone at least on a par with the Droid or the Samsung Galaxy S line? The answer’s simple, really. They’re so jealous of Apple’s success that they can’t bring themselves to find their way forward.
iOS 4’s Folders functionality is incredibly useful for organizing the digital App Store protozoa constantly multiplying in your iPhone’s petri dish, but the limitation of 12 apps per folder can be frustrating for those of us trying to keep our home screen down to a single page.
If you’ve got a jailbroken iOS 4 device, though, there’s now a solution: Infinifolders, which allows you to place as many apps in a folder as you like. Just flick up and down to reveal all of your folder’s contents.
It’s not a free tweak — it costs $1.99 — but if you’ve got a lot of apps to corral, the price may well be worth it to you. It’s available now through Cydia.
For the green-conscious looking for big sound on the go, Logitech has just unveiled it S715i Speaker Dock, a custom-tuned portable speaker dock that comes with an eight-hour rechargeable battery to save on your AA cost.
Although it’s larger than some luggable speaker dock solutions, the S715i offers big sound to boot, thanks to eight custom-designed drivers that separate and enrich specific sound frequencies, with each channel getting a half-inch tweeter, a 3-inch midrange driver and dual 2-inch passive radiators.
The S715i also comes with a wireless remote, allowing you to control your music, turn down the volume or put your playlist on shuffle even across the room.
The S715i works with any device supporting Apple’s Universal Dock Connector, short of the iPad, and will both play and charge from the built-in battery. If for some reason you got made the sucker by buying a non-Apple MP3 player, or just have an older iPod or iPad, you can connect them too, thanks to a standard 3.5mm auxiliary input.
The Logitech S715i goes on sale today, and costs €179. It will ship this month.
Games maker Blizzard has always had sympathy for Mac gamers: not only do native Mac ports exist for most of Blizzard’s titles, but they have exclusively shipped hybrid Mac/PC installation DVDs of their titles since World of Warcraft.
Their latest blockbuster title, Starcraft II, follows suit with the Mac love… but the game’s content also includes another fond pat on the head for fans in this in-game ad for the iPistol, a space marine spoof of Apple’s famous “dancing silhouette” iPod ad campaign.
Not that anyone’s seen those ads in a while, mind, but cut Blizzard some slack: given Starcraft II’s ten year development cycle, we should count our blessings that they aren’t parodying “Think Different.”
While JailbreakMe is one of the simplest jailbreaking solutions yet, it goes about its dirty work by exploiting a dangerous flaw in the way Mobile Safari handles PDFs and embedded fonts. The same exploit that is making it convenient today for thousands of iOS device owners to jailbreak their machines could be used tomorrow to totally compromise them and install malevolent code upon their devices.
Needless to say, Apple’s going to be closing this security hole, stat, and now Reuters is reporting that Apple is “investigating” the issue, although there’s no timetable for a fix yet.
The Dev Team must have been conflicted about this jailbreak. On one hand, they were able to allow any device running iOS 3.2 or higher to jailbreak just by visiting a simple website, but in doing so, they were revealing a very dangerous exploit that is now in the wild, just waiting to be adopted and easily deployed against unsuspecting web users. Furthermore, the nature of this exploit makes a quick response by Apple inevitable: this jailbreak solution may go down as the most quickly neutralized on record.
It’s also got to be a nightmare for Apple. Counterintuitively, the only way right now to “close” the security hole inherent in all iOS devices is to jailbreak your phone, then install the PDF Loading Warner from Cydia. Jailbroken phones might actually be more secure right now than unjailbroken ones. Apple needs to fix that, as quickly as possible.
If you’re an Aperture user frustrated with your Mac’s inability to read your new camera’s RAW shots, Apple has just sent their latest Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update slaloming down the Software Update chute, emblazoned with the version number 3.3.
Most of these cameras are micro four-thirds or similarly mirrorless cameras. The update adds native OS X RAW support to the following models:
• Canon PowerShot SX1 IS
• Olympus E-PL1
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-G2
• Panasonic Lumix DMC-G10
• Samsung NX10
• Sony Alpha DSLR-A390
• Sony Alpha NEX-3
• Sony Alpha NEX-5
The update extends RAW compatibility to Aperture 3 and iPhoto ’09 users, and weighs in at just 5.6 MB.
In order to save battery life, Apple very intelligently limited the kinds of API calls multitasking apps could make in the background under iOS 4 to audio, VOIP and location. It’s a clever compromise, but it leaves a lot of common multi-tasking applications in the lurch: for example, your newsreader can’t update your list of RSS feeds when the app isn’t in focus.
The makers of Pastebot, a clipboard manager for iOS devices, were frustrated by the limitations of iOS’ multitasking capabilities, so they figured out a clever solution to keep Pastebot running in the background: they programmed it to play a silent audio file so that Pastebot was always kept in memory and didn’t need to be relaunched between every copy.
Needless to say, Apple wasn’t entirely thrilled with this solution, and rejected the app… but it was only because Pastebot played a silent audio track without user approval in the background, and that music’s only purpose was to keep the app in memory. The fix was simple: offer users the ability to choose which track Pastebot loops in the background. If a user wants to specify a blank track, so be it.
Apple was happy with this solution. It makes me wonder whether the same approach could be used with other apps like Reeder, or 1Password Pro, or Instapaper, that might benefit from running in the background.
For all those who took the liberty of running the ridiculously simple JailbreakMe 2.0 installer over the weekend (before having second-thoughts based on the security hole it exposes), the accompanying package to unlock your iPhone to run on any GSM carrier worldwide has dropped.
Ultrasn0w 1.0-1 is the first baseband unlock for iOS 4 phones, and works with iPhone 4s, 3GSs, and 3Gs. It might also work with 3.x devices, but it’s unclear from the documentation. Gentlemen, head for T-Mobile (at EDGE speeds)!
Put on your deerstalker and take a gander at the patina of filth stained into my 27-inch iMac keyboard and I can’t say I’d blame you for ascribing any number of stomach-churning hygienic deficiencies to my person. Perhaps you might imagine me to be some blind, albino grub of tapioca-like consistency typing his posts from the plastic kiddy pool filled with chocolate sauce from which he bastes (you wouldn’t be far off), or as a man who habitually deep wipes with Apple products.
In actuality, I’m not nearly that filthy, but I’m also a smoker. Worse, I’m a pipe smoker, and so my aluminum keyboard’s crevices tend to fill with latakia detritus, and the ASDF keys occasionally stained with tiny spatterings of tar.
Well, okay. I guess I am pretty filthy, when it’s all put down like that. Worse: in my aluminum keyboard, I have an analogue to the yellowing and browning of my lungs. As I hammer out posts over the course of the day, chain-smoking all the while, my keyboard functions as a sort of X-RAY in QWERTY of the carcinogenic staining of the life-sustaining meat bladders inside me.
I was glad to see TUAW’s pro-tip on easily keeping your white, non-glossy Apple product squeaky clean, then: the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser, a sponge made of melamine foam that apparently works a champ, and is certainly better for my Mac’s finish than my last cleaning solution: nail polish removal wipes, which was just a stupid idea in retrospect.
Anyone else got any tips on getting their keyboards white again? I’ve tried the good old pencil eraser in the past, but I’ve found cleaning the indian rubber dust afterwards pretty irritating. Let us know your tips in the comments.
Reading through some old CoM posts tonight (for linking and reference in a piece coming out tomorrow), I came across a piece of news we covered years ago that didn’t pay off until this spring.
Way back in 2007, the year the iPhone launched, an AT&T executive told a Kentucky newspaper that Apple disguised its prototypes as something else to avoid arousing suspicion:
So secretive was the project that he didn’t even show the phone to his wife. And when AT&T’s team of testers hit the streets to try the phone in ballparks, subways and skyscrapers, Burns said they used a contraption to cloak the device so nobody would know what the testers were holding.
Burns declined to offer a description of the cloaking device, calling it “something that looked like something else.”
Well, we all learned this spring what that “something that looked like something else” was for the fourth-generation — an iPhone 3G in a protective case, as Jason Chen of Gizmodo showed the world. Strange that this earlier report didn’t come up more often in the massive coverage of the legal rigamarole over the iPhone 4’s “loss”.
This still leaves the greater mystery of how the original iPhone was hidden — putting a case on it alone wouldn’t mask the fact that it was something radically new. Has anyone figured it out? And was it a Zune? I really still hope it was a Zune.
At times, it seems, store employees fill many Apple retail outlets at a near one to one ratio with customers. Which raises a question about just what those employees are doing on the clock, for this summer’s favorite prank is quickly becoming jailbreaking Apple devices right under those employees’ noses — or behind their backs, as the case may be.
Perhaps it’s nothing more than bored kids on summer break with nothing better to do, but since our report Monday of a self-proclaimed “bored” anonymous prankster jailbreaking all the display phones at an unnamed Apple store, at least three more incidents of similar mischief have been reported.
Earlier today, Apple released another update to the iOS 4 beta and the corresponding SDK to developers, bringing the current version of both to 4.1 beta 3. The update follows the release of the previous beta by less than a week.
There are a plethora of problems being reported about the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 and I hope that this update will address them. I’d particularly like to see fixes for the following:
I have not yet heard about any new features in this beta, but these details will likely surface soon. We’ve seen reports that the proximity sensor issue may have been resolved by Beta 2, however in my opinion that is still an open issue due to conflicting reports about it. Additionally, I suspect that these beta releases resolve the PDF security flaw in Mobile Safari since the hack doesn’t support iOS 4.1. Finally, the rapid release of beta 3 almost immediately after beta 2 indicates that Apple maybe getting closer to a public release of iOS 4.1.
If you find out anything new about this update feel free to tell us all about it in the comments.
Talking of mobile phone companies in trouble, here’s a first look at Nokia’s upcoming mobile platform, MeeGo.
Still under development in partnership with Intel, MeeGo is a Linux-based mobile OS for a wide range of mobile devices, from pocket computers and smartphones to internet TVs and in-vehicle infotainment systems.
In the video above, you can see the user adding social networking contacts to the address book; buying an app; and playing a tune. Unfortunately, there’s no commentary, but it’s easy enough to follow along.
It looks pleasant enough, but nothing stunning. You can get all of this and more in well-made iOS apps.
Check out this fascinating chart from The Economist regarding IT industry revenues, profits, employees and so on. The two monsters of the space are HP and IBM, which both have double the revenues of Apple, and more than 10x the number of employees.
The story, The end of Wintel, compares the giants of the IT industry in terms of how vertically integrated they are.
The shift to mobile computing and data centres (also known as “cloud computing”) has speeded up the “verticalisation” of the IT industry. Imagine that the industry is a stack of pancakes, each representing a “layer” of technology: chips, hardware, operating systems, applications. Microsoft, Intel and other IT giants have long focused on one or two layers of the stack. But now firms are becoming more vertically integrated. For these new forms of computing to work well, the different layers must be closely intertwined.
Apple, whose products have always been more integrated, is building a huge data centre and also offering web-based services.
As I argued in Inside Steve’s Brain, Apple is ascendant these days because of its vertical integration. It’s into the whole stack, from chips to online advertising. And despite what the chart says, will also likely be into cloud computing.
Apple’s iPhone 4 is a smash hit and the latest Android handsets are getting rave reviews. Apple and Google are snapping at RIM’s heels, still the smartphone market leader. To counter the attacks, RIM has just released a new OS, Blackberry 6, and a new handset, the Blackberry Torch.
But early reviews of aren’t looking so good. The Torch touchscreen slider has a ridiculously low-res screen (360 × 480) and the software is described as “uninspired, old, clunky sometimes, and cluttered.” Ouch.
Boy Genius Report: “This is a stop gap device for current BlackBerry users… and that’s an issue. iPhone 4 or recent Android owners won’t be lusting after the 9800, and that’s never a good thing.”
Analyst Michael Gartenberg: “In [a] world where every vendor is working to up their game, raise the bar and drive new innovation in hardware and software, it felt RIM barely stepped up.”
Engadget: “… the OS overwhelms the hardware a little when it’s really cranking — for example, the phone basically locked up while it loaded Engadget in the new Webkit browser.”
