Cult of Mac

We start the day with prevention for your iPhone or iPod. First up is an anti-slip mat which you can attach to your dashboard or other surface and clings to your electronic device. Next is a “waterproof” case for your iPod. Just how waterproof may be indicated by the warning “not available for diving.” (So, you’re good-to-go when you spill your drink, but hold off playing your favorite tunes while diving to that ship wreck.) Finally, there is the Evo Cam 3 webcam software.

We’ll also check out other gadgets, including a four-foot extension cord for your iPhone. As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

A poll of iPad users — 6,000 of them — found they are overwhelmingly pleased with the device.

Technologizer asked iPad owners in May how they were getting on with their new device, they were overwhelmingly pleased with battery life, speed and reliability and some 59 percent were satisfied with speed and reliability of the 3G network.

Despite claims that the iPad was nothing more than a kiddie pacifier, about 93 percent of owners surveyed said they either “frequently” (73 percent) or “occasionally” (over 20) use it instead of a traditional computer.

Some are also using it in place of smartphones, too. Over 80 percent of iPad owners surveyed are also iPhone owners, about 60 percent of respondents said they “frequently” use the iPad instead of their smartphones, another circa 25 percent “occasionally” use their iPad instead of the phone.

Does this reflect how you’re using your iPad or not?

Readers deserve to feel a bit like a ping pong ball as analysts swing back and forth on the question of whether or when Verizon Wireless will get the iPhone. What was once thought to be a moot issue gained new life earlier this week after a report suggested Apple would award the iPhone to Verizon in January 2011. Now comes an analyst who spoke with AT&T and says Verizon Wireless customers will have to wait until the second half of next year.

Oppenheimer analyst Timothy Horan made the statement to investors Thursday after what he terms an “upbeat” talk with AT&T chief financial officer Rick Lindner. “The company gave some solid reasons as to why the iPhone will not affect its financial results all that much, but also why Verizon is unlikely to get [the handset] until the second half of 2011 or later,” he wrote.

The MyWi app by Intelliborn has been one of the biggest reasons to jailbreak an iOS based device. With the latest 4.0 release, creating a wireless hotspot has never been easier. For a one-time fee of $19.99 you can turn your stingy 3G iPad into a wireless hotspot capable of sharing your 3G connection with as many devices as you wish. I’ll show you how after the break.

If the Palm Pilot was the corporate digital tool of choice in 2000, today’s boardrooms are likely to be populated with iPads, according to one venture capitalist. “In nearly every board meeting I attend, multiple iPads are unfurled,” writes David Hornik of August Capital.

Writing at VentureBlog, Hornik remarks about the button-down set: “Where once they carried Palm Pilots, now they hold an iPad under their arm. iPad is the new cool toy.”

Laurent Bourrelly, who likes to collect a few Apple-related things, had a great idea for a USB memory stick: how about make one out of some old Mac junk?

Here’s the result: the command key stick. If you want to make your own, Laurent has published some instructions – they’re in French, but you’ll be fine with just the pictures.

Then again, if you can read French, you might enjoy Laurent’s blog about all things Apple: pomme-c.

More than half of all iOS devices detected in May were located outside the U.S., a just-released survey indicates. Apple was also the most-frequent brand found, with 44 million unique devices, according to the AdMob ad agency.

According to AdMob, 57 percent of the iOS devices it found in May were outside the United States. Although 48 percent of iOS devices, such as the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, were found inside North America, 28 percent were from Western Europe, while 15 percent came from Asia.

On Windows, it’s easy to cut and paste files and folders between locations; but that’s one of the first things people notice missing from Mac OS X.

The Windows system works just like cutting and pasting text or pictures inside a document, which is why it’s so popular. People understand what’s happening when hit the “cut” command and the file disappears – they know it hasn’t been deleted, but that it’s gone to the clipboard, ready to be pasted elsewhere.

On OS X, things work differently. In short, there is no built-in way of “cutting” a file to the clipboard. But you can copy stuff.

The iPhone 3GS users who are not willing to upgrade or are waiting for Antenna issue to be fixed cannot use Apple’s latest iMovie suite on their device because of lack of backward compatibility, at least according to Apple. Some said that it was an issue with the smaller RAM on the device but that doesn’t seem to be the case as those who have already jailbroken their device will now be able to use it.

Among the iPhone 4 hubbub there appears to be little discussion about the performance of iOS4 on older hardware.  Apple has noted that iOS4 runs in a limited fashion on the iPhone 3G, and removed many features to ensure adequate performance, but it’s not clear that goal has been met.

Last week we posted an article about using a double hard reset to improve performance after upgrading (see: Speed Up iPhone 3G + iOS4 with a Hard Reset?)  The problem appears to be a widespread issue: it’s been discussed (among other places) on the Apple Support Forums, MacInTouch and AppleToolbox, and during this past week has become one of the most viewed topics on Cult of Mac.

Cupertino, I think we have a problem.  Another one.

In an extraordinarily thorough review of the iPhone 4, Anandtech has gone into the reception issues of the iPhone 4’s antenna in the greatest depth yet.

Mapping the bar representation of the signal strength against the actual signal strength, Anandtech found that over 40% of the signal strength is represented by 5 bars. You need to love over 40dB of signal to go from five to four bars, but only 10db to go from four to three.

On average, the iPhone 4 loses 26.4dB of signal when tightly held in your hand, and 19.8dB of signal when held naturally… a significant jump over the 3GS when it comes to signal degradation when held, thanks to Apple’s decision to allow the iPhone 4’s antenna to come in direct contact with human skin. Since over 40dB of signal strength is measured in the fifth bar, that means that if you’re in an area of great AT&T service, you might not notice a drop at all… but it’s still happening. If you’re in an area of worse coverage, though, the signal drop will be dramatically visible.

The iPhone 4’s widely reported reception problems is the carcass, and the buzzards have been circling for awhile, but the first just dropped down for the feast: the first class action lawsuit against Apple and AT&T has just been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, and predictably, it focuses on the iPhone 4’s antenna.

The claims are that Apple and AT&T were guilty of general negligence when it comes to the iPhone 4’s reception issues, with Apple specifically guilty when it comes to a defect in the design, manufacture and assembly of the iPhone 4. Additionally, Apple is cited for a breach of warranty, while AT&T and Apple both are accused of deceptive trade practices, intentional and negligent misrepresentation and fraud by concealment.

The lawsuit was filed by Ward & Ward, PLLC and Charles A. Gilman, LLC. on behalf of Kevin McCaffrey, Linda Wrinn and a number of other iPhone 4 users… and it’s not likely to be the last one filed, since the same firm that sued Facebook and Zynga is said to be looking into their own suit.

This is one design decision that is turning into a major headache for Apple, whether the iPhone 4 has a design flaw or no.

I was still shooting JPG on my digital camera until a few months ago, but buying a new MacBook and being given a copy of Aperture gave me a chance to switch to shooting RAW.

That also meant a new workflow for managing and editing photos. I didn’t want my Aperture library to be filled up with crud, so I decided to import images to a folder and manually weed out the useless shots before transferring what remains to Aperture.

After doing this in a Finder window I realised I needed a better tool for the job, so I went looking for lightweight image browsers.

And what I found was Xee.

The Core77 design blog has scored a rare interview with Jonathan Ive, ostensibly about the iPhone 4, but really about the way a physical and emotional connection to raw materials can not be extracurricular to design.

“It is that direct experience, the hands-on, that is the key; like experiencing the iPhone 4 itself, it cannot be done without the physical connection. “It’s very hard to learn about materials academically, by reading about them or watching videos about them; the only way you truly understand a material is by making things with it,” Ive explains, going on to add that years upon years of making his own models with his own hands is what gave him a deep understanding of the materials he’s worked. “And it’s important to develop that appetite to want to make something, to be inquisitive about the material world, to want to truly understand a material on that level.”

It’s a fantastic read: an uncommon glimpse into the mind of one of the most brilliant (and soft-spoken) visionaries in tech. Very much worth a read.

The upcoming release of Tron Legacy is going to be heralded by an glut of tie-in crap, but this Tron-branded iPod dock may be one of the better products of the bunch.

Designed to emulate the iconic, glowing identity disc / fatal frisbee of the Tron films, this dock is a collaboration between Disney and Monter, and it shows… at least in aesthetics. Features-wise, though, there doesn’t seem to be a lot separating this from your usual $100 dock, which makes the $249.99 asking price a bit hard to swallow. Fanboys only.

Firefox has just announced that their not-really-a-web-browser-so-Apple-can’t-reject-us app, Firefox Home, has just been sent off to the App Store for approval

Based upon Firefox Sync technology, Firefox Home allows iPhone users to always have access to their Firefox browsing history, bookmarks and open tabs, as well as access to their “Awesome Bar,” which allows them to browse to a site with the minimum of typing fuss. Find what you want, and Firefox Home passes on any opened pages to Mobile Safari.

There shouldn’t be any hangups getting Firefox Home through the approval process, given the existence of other Safari-competitors on the App Store, like Opera Mini or the Atomic Browser. If you’re a major Firefox user and you want to take your sessions — but not your browser — on the road with you, you can set yourself up for Firefox Home here in wait for an official thumbs up.

It’s easy to extrapolate from the fact that Macs don’t have Blu-Ray drives already (even as an option) that, internally, Apple is banking on digital delivery as the future of high-definition content. Now, for the first time, Steve Jobs has confirmed it in one of his characteristic email exchanges with an Apple fan.

Writing a disappointed Blu-Ray fan about the form’s absence in Apple’s line up, Jobs wrote: “Bluray is looking more and more like one of the high end audio formats that appeared as the successor to the CD – like it will be beaten by Internet downloadable formats.”

When his correspondent respond that high-end video formats had a higher uptake, citing the lack of DRM as a main driver behind Blu-Ray growth, Jobs shot down the idea.

No, free, instant gratification and convenience (likely in that order) is what made the downloadable formats take off. And the downloadable movie business is rapidly moving to free (Hulu) or rentals (iTunes) so storing purchased movies or TV shows is not an issue.

I think you may be wrong – we may see a fast broad move to streamed free and rental content at sufficient quality (at least 720p) to win almost everyone over.

I think Jobs is write that Blu-Ray is clearly an interim format, although I’m skeptical, right now, of iTunes’ dominant place in the high-definition video digital delivery ecosystem: iTunes isn’t really making the most impressive show when it comes to video compared to the likes of Netflix, and I don’t really think that’s likely to change until Apple starts taking the Apple TV more seriously than “just a hobby.” Apple needs a competitively priced and featured set-top box to really get their video strategy into play.

These guys were all unveiled at this year’s CES, but earphone-maker Etymotic doesn’t pop out products very often — their still-popular er6i earbuds have been around since 2004 — so when no less than four Etymotic goodies are hitting stores within the space of a month, we sit up and take notice.

It’s black, it’s hungry, and it gets along with almost anything. While that may sound like the monster-under-the-bed from childhood has found a good therapist, or maybe started smoking weed, it’s actually Seagate’s latest addition to their ultra-flexible GoFlex line of external drives, the 3TB FreeAgent GoFlex Desk.

Seagate’s done a little math in their pr release, and says the drive will store 49,980 hours of music — which is almost six years of tunes, playing 24/7. That’s a lot of partying.

The drive will ship mid-July, with a tag of $249.

Apple released an update today to its MobileMe Gallery application for the iPhone & iPod Touch which brings it up to version 1.1.1.

The update features “various bug fixes” as well as the ability to download your photos in a higher resolution when using the iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi.

Despite these improvements, this little app still leaves much to be desired. Apple are yet to develop a way in which you can manage your photo galleries from your iPhone & iPod Touch. Currently you can only view or upload to galleries you have already created on you computer, and you cannot create or delete galleries from within the app.

As well as this, MobileMe Gallery is still not a universal application, so although it will run on the iPad as most iPhone apps will, it’s not yet been built for the iPad’s larger screen.

We start the last day of June with a couple items for your iPad and another deal on unibody MacBook Pros from the Apple Store. First is a velvet bag for your iPad for just $7. Next is a number of unibody MacBook Pros from the Apple Store, starting at $929 for a 2.26GHz Core 2 Duo model. Finally is a simply holder to prop up your iPad for reading.

Along the way, we check out iPhone and iPod touch software, sleeves for your iPod nano and another iPad stand. As usual, details on these and many other bargains are at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Particularly in the Crayola colors, JayBird’s retro-styled Bluetooth headphones look quite attractive to me in a PlaySkool kind of way. They pair with your iPhone through a tiny little dongle and even feature side-mounted control buttons for cycling through your iPod’s music collection without digging it out of your purse, as well as an integrated mic perfect for making phone calls.

They’re a bit pricier than I want to spend on a pair of over-the-ear, foam-covered headphones at $99, but when all is said and done, I still like the style quite a bit.

This is something of a pro tip, but if you have an original 2007 iPhone dock, time to dust it off: DVICE has found that it actually works better than Apple’s new, custom-fit iPhone 4 dock.

The explanation is all about looseness: although the iPhone 4 dock perfectly fits the handset, it’s actually just a bit too tight, making the handset difficult to remove from the cradle with just one hand. The original iPhone dock has none of these problems.

Don’t have an original iPhone dock? Check the eBay listings to pick one up for a song?

Celluloid-worthy beauty Anna Chapman, arrested by the FBI for belonging to an Russian espionage network called “the illegals,” may also go down in history as the spy who loved Macs.

On January 25, the 28-year-old told her 175 Facebook friends: “My new Mac has been the buy of the year…Love it!”

It wasn’t an easy relationship, though. According to the FBI documents, her spy job was plagued by network problems that made transmitting her weekly Wednesday intelligence reports via a private wireless network at Starbucks and Barnes and Noble in New York a major hassle. Documents didn’t mention which Apple laptop she used.

It looks pretty official at this point that whatever measures Apple is going to take in fixing the iPhone 4’s reception problems, free bumper cases isn’t going to be one of them. Just in time, then, comes this quick and easy guide on how to use silicone modeling clay to make your own cheap bumper, which will not only protect it from a shattering fall, but also prevent the glass surface from getting scratched on tables and the like. Extend the sugru a little farther over the iPhone 4’s antenna danger spot at the lower left corner and that should help minimize dropped bars when you’re gripping your iPhone 4 as well.