Cult of Mac

Outraged over Foxconn suicides and poor working conditions, members of the Chinese Progressive Association protested what they called the “Death Pad” outside the San Francisco Apple store.

About 20 protesters from the labor group carried signs with the names of the suicides and handed out leaflets to busy shoppers on Saturday afternoon in front of Apple’s flagship Powell Street store. Their goal: get US consumers to think about where their favorite high-tech gadgets come from and how they are made.

“Although the tragedies happened in China,” CPA organizer Shaw San Li told the San Francisco World Journal, “we know exploitation of blue-collar workers happens every day in America too. Big corporations like Apple are taking advantage of workers.”

Via SF Bay Citizen

In a break with past product launches, Apple has announced it will begin shipping the iPhone 4 on June 23, a day earlier than planned. Monday, customers who had pre-ordered the new handset were told by email to expect a Wednesday delivery.

“This email is to confirm that your delivery will occur on June 23rd,” reads the note addressed to Apple Store customers. “Although Apple and FedEx tracking information may currently indicate a later date, you can check the FedEx website the morning of the June 23rd to track your package to your doorstep.”

The wait is finally over. Apple has conspicuously ignored consumer demands for third-party application multitasking over the last three years, but now anyone with an iPhone 3GS or 3G iPod touch can now freely switch between apps without missing a beat. In many ways, today’s launch of iOS 4 is Apple’s most anticipated software release in almost two years. Not since the opening of the App Store via iPhone OS 2.0 has the company made such drastic changes to its flagship product line.

Having installed and played with iOS 4 on my 3GS a bit more than two weeks ago, I can say with confidence that it doesn’t disappoint — but it does take some getting used to.

This is something fresh in the shelves of black, rectangular iPhone docks: the Altec Lansing Octiv Mini M102, which distinguishes itself from its brethren by imbuing its sleek design with an angular slant in the back and a free app called Alarm Rock which wakes you up to your favorite tunes when your device is docked.

Otherwise, there’s not much to distinguish this $60 compact dock with any other one, but let’s face it: given how indistinguishable other docks are, a neat geometric design is all that’s really needed to set the Octiv Mini apart.

Want a splash of color for your external Mac, iPad or iPhone battery? HyperMac has just updated their line to include an attractive array of new hues, modeled by the strange gang of human peacocks pictured above.

The batteries are available in four different sizes offering between sixty and two hundred and twenty watt hours of juice for your favorite Apple portable: at the higher end, that’s enough to fully juice your iPhone fifty-two times, power your iPad for 100 hours and drive your MacBook from between 20-35 additional hours, but even the $199.95 entry level model will deliver a third of that performance.

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Not sure if you managed to successfully order an iPhone 4 from AT&T after their untested pre-order system collapsed and they started randomly canceling completed pre-orders?

AT&T’s hipster mouthpiece Daniel is here to tell you how you can make sure that Ma Bell didn’t bungle your pre-order and that an iPhone 4 is actually heading out to you, despite the fact that a better spokesperson for the job would be Private Snafu. Don’t mistake him for a corporate suit, though — see, he’s wearing a vintage thrift store shirt, albeit one with stripes exactly corresponding to AT&T’s own corporate colors! But that tossled bed head mop and immaculately groomed beard don’t lie: this is a guy with Williamsburg street cred written all over him.

[via 9to5Mac]

Wondering why your iPhone 3G didn’t get background wallpapers? So was Gizmodo reader Erica, who rattled off an email to Steve Jobs with a request for an explanation.

Jobs’ response? Backgrounds on the 3G just didn’t meet their performance standards. But there’s a little more going on here.

Erica’s email to Jobs read:

Hey Steve! I just upgraded my iPhone 3G to iOS 4 and was really looking forward to setting a background on my home screen. Guess that’s not happening, but I’d like to know why.

See, I get why you don’t include multitasking. My iPhone gets pretty hot when certain apps run, couldn’t imagine how multitasking would fry my phone.

But the background thing, I don’t see how that would be memory intensive and/or battery draining. It doesn’t seem like that feature needs to be exclusive to the 3GS and 4G.

Jobs’ response:

The icon animation with backgrounds didn’t perform well enough.

If you’ve got an iPhone 3GS or third-gen iPod Touch and you’ve upgraded to iOS 4, you’re probably ready to give multitasking a try. Good news, then: Pandora have just updated the iPhone app to version 3.1, which now supports background audio playback under iOS 4.

Because of the same RIAA licensing nonsense that keeps Spotify out of the U.S. App Store, Pandora is only available in the United States right now, but if you’re a yank who wants to experience the same background functionality in Pandora that you get already in the default iPod app, you can download the app for free here.

With yesterday’s major update to iOS comes a major new source of revenue for both Cupertino and app developers: iAd, Apple’s new mobile advertising service.

In a best case scenario, iAd will result in cheaper apps that deliver interesting, interactive advertisements finely targeted enough that you’ll actually want to play around in them. The worst case? Invasive, privacy-invading ads spreading across all ads that are just as annoying and irrelevant as the braying flash banners splashed across a Yugoslavian torrent site… just with no way to install AdBlock.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to get rid of iAd on your device… at least until the jailbreaker community comes up with their own iAdBlock. That said, you can easily prevent Apple from using your personal details to serve you up user-targeted iAds. Just click this link on your iOS 4 capable device, and Apple will no longer use your personal information to serve you up user-targeted ads.

To be fair, all this is likely to do is make iAds more irrelevant and annoying than they would be otherwise, but if you’re worried about privacy — or just don’t want to help Apple along as they try to build a Google-challenging advertisement empire — it’s good to know Cupertino’s made it easy to tell them to shove off.

iPhone 3G owners trying to upgrade to iOS 4 are reporting numerous issues with the update process, including updates that take hours and failed updates resulting in the sinister error 3002. Fortunately, though, there are ways to get around both by restoring your iPhone 3G instead of updating it.

If you are having problems with an iOS 4 update that is taking upwards of two hours to complete, the good news here is that the longest part of the update is actually backing up the existing media… a strange problem, given that you should automatically be backing up your iPhone 3G in iterative updates every time you sync. If you have a recent backup (and you should), a full restore to factory settings will eliminate the need to backup your iPhone 3G first, and should allow iTunes to update your handset to iOS 4.0 speedily.

The same is true if you’re getting error code 3002. Just click on your iPhone 3G under iTunes and click the “Restore” button. After the restore, you may have to reinstall some of your apps, but it should allow you to run iOS 4 on your iPhone 3G without any other problems or lost data.

Basically? If you’re having problems updating your iPhone or iPod Touch to iOS 4, do a “Restore” instead of an “Update.” If that doesn’t help, hit the comments, and maybe someone can help you.

The iOS 4 update is probably the most radical overhaul to Apple’s mobile operating system to date, so it was probably inevitable that it would also prove to be Apple’s most hiccup-prone update as well.

Even so, the bug complaints currently floating around the internet seem pretty severe for an Apple product and include:

• The update to iOS 4 never installs and simply reboots your device endlessly.

• Update deletes all contacts, which are not restored in backups.

• Photos that you have synced to your device with iPhoto are extremely blurry.

• Broken MMS and Push Notifications.

• Auto-lock set to one minute with no option to change it.

Those first two bugs fall under the category of “whoa nellies,” and that iPhoto bug has got to be an annoyance for people (like me) who use their devices to keep their photo albums always on hand.

Don’t get too comfortable with iOS 4… 4.1 might be just a few days around the corner if these bugs don’t iron themselves out soon.

The UltraSn0w iPhone unlocking software has been updated to support iOS 4.0.

The iPhone Dev-Team’s has updated Ultrasn0w to version 0.9.3, allowing you to unlock your iPhone running iOS4.

The update was announced on the Dev-Team’s Twitter stream. According to the release notes, it works with all basebands from 04.26.08 through 05.13.04:

iPhone DevTeam’s 3G and 3GS software unlock, now with added PwnApple. Compatible with basebands 04.26.08, 05.11.07, 05.12.01 and 05.13.04! Thanks to @sherif_hashim and @Oranav for contributing baseband crashes.

We will have an easy-to-use unlocking how-to guide coming soon.

NOTE: This post has been edited. It incorrectly said Ultrasn0w was for jailbreaking iPhones.

Apple knows where you are and plans to put that information to work.

The Cupertino company updated its privacy policy today to disclose that it may now “collect, use, and share precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device.”

The new terms of service will pop up as a prompt next time you try to download or buy anything on the iTunes store — there is currently no opt-out option. (As Cult reader Joh pointed out — iOS4 users can opt out of iAd, however, online here.)

The only service to users mentioned in the privacy policy update is the recently-announced  “Find my iPhone” for MobileMe subscribers.

iOS 4 is now available for download through iTunes, adding over a hundred new features to the iPhone and iPod Touch, including multitasking. If you’ve got an iPhone 3G, 3GS or iPod Touch (second gen or above), plug your iDevice into your USB port and hit the “Update” button in iTunes now.

Busy updating? You can also now officially grab iBooks for iPhone through the App Store as well.

What do you think of the new OS? Let us know in the comments.

For many of you, it’s probably a bit too late, but if you’re a Mac gamer who uses Valve’s Steam for Mac games delivery client, you might want to hold off updating to 10.6.4: according to Valve, 10.6.4 introduces some major performance issues to owners running Macs with NVIDIA GPUs.

The following message warend Steam users who logged in over the weekend about the upgrade:

The recent 10.6.4 update from Apple has noticeable performance issues for NVidia graphic chip owners running high performance games. If you wish to avoid this, you should consider waiting to install the 10.6.4 update until Apple has had the opportunity to address this issue. Full details of what is contained in the 10.6.4 update can be found here: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4150. If you have already installed this update and believe your graphic performance is affected, please contact Apple support (https://www.apple.com/support/) for details on what to do.

I haven’t noticed anything on my 27-inch Core 2 Duo iMac, but your mileage may well vary. If you haven’t updated to 10.6.4 yet, and if your Team Fortress 2 performance is more important to you than your Snow Leopard importance, it can’t hurt to hold off for now.

For many of you, it’s probably a bit too late, but if you’re a Mac gamer who uses Valve’s Steam for Mac games delivery client, you might want to hold off updating to 10.6.4: according to Valve, 10.6.4 introduces some major performance issues to owners running Macs with NVIDIA GPUs.

The following message warend Steam users who logged in over the weekend about the upgrade:

The recent 10.6.4 update from Apple has noticeable performance issues for NVidia graphic chip owners running high performance games. If you wish to avoid this, you should consider waiting to install the 10.6.4 update until Apple has had the opportunity to address this issue. Full details of what is contained in the 10.6.4 update can be found here: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4150. If you have already installed this update and believe your graphic performance is affected, please contact Apple support (https://www.apple.com/support/) for details on what to do.

I haven’t noticed anything on my 27-inch Core 2 Duo iMac, but your mileage may well vary. If you haven’t updated to 10.6.4 yet, and if your Team Fortress 2 performance is more important to you than your Snow Leopard importance, it can’t hurt to hold off for now.

We start the week off with a different sort of speaker deal. This time we bring you the iOctopus speaker system by Pixxo. It includes an iPod dock and 3.5mm jack for $13. Also available, an 8GB iPod touch for $139 and some screen protectors for the soon-to-be shipping iPhone 4.

Details on these and many other bargains are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

It was a big disappointment to many when it became apparent that the white iPhone 4 would not be available at launch, forcing many to choose between waiting to upgrade their handset or getting a different color.

According to iClarified, though, there may be one big box retailer with some white iPhone 4s on hand come June 24th: Best Buy.

According to their intel, there are between 10 to 20 white iPhone 4s ordered by each Best Buy location. It’s unclear if Best Buy will actually get these white iPhone 4s, but it appears they at least expect to receive a limited number of them.

Who knows? If you’ve got your heart set on a white iPhone 4, you might want to try your luck at Best Buy later this week.

It’s not out quite yet, and there’s no official word on exactly it will be pumped through the iTunes download chute, but just to remind everyone: iOS 4 will be available today as a free download to all eligible third-gen iDevices (the iPhone 3Gs and third-gen iPod Touch), as well as as a limited update without multitasking for the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch 2G.

As a further reminder, if you’ve jailbroken your iPhone or iPod Touch, you’re going to want to hold off installing the update until the Dev Team tells you it is okay, although take heart: they anticipate the relase of a fully working jailbreak for iOS 4 this month.

Although Apple is not set to launch its iAds platform until July 1, placeholder tests are already being spotted at the App Store. The placeholders appear with the iAd logo in apps for developers OneTap Movies and the Yellow Pages, according to Monday reports.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a Worldwide Developers conference that 17 advertisers had already signed onto the platform, committing up to $60 million for iAds. Jobs said 60 percent of that money will return to developers. “Apple sells and serves the ads, and you recieve 60 percent of the advertising revenue,” he explained.

The clusterflug continues. If you were one of the few prospective buyers who managed to successfully order an iPhone 4 from AT&T last week before their whole untested system crashed, you may well have gotten an email from AT&T over the weekend, claiming your order had been canceled for no particular reason.

Meet 24 year old Yuan Yandong, one of almost 500,000 workers employed by Foxconn. From 7:30 pm to 5:30 am, Yandong works the night shift, monotonously putting together over 1,600 hard drives a shift.

His task is to help complete 1,600 hard drives – his workshop’s daily quota – and to make sure every one is perfect. Seated in the middle of the assembly line in his black Foxconn sports shirt, cotton slacks and company-mandated white plastic slippers, he waits for the conveyor belt to deliver a partly assembled rectangular hard drive to his station. He places two plastic chips inside the drive’s casing, inserts a device that redirects light in the drive and then fastens four screws with an electric screwdriver before sending the drive down the line. He has exactly one minute to complete the multistep task.

Although Yandon describes the work as numbing, this New York Times profile piece does not make Yandong’s work seem particularly hellish. Perhaps the most disturbing detail in the entire piece is that Yandong is unaware that he is only legally allowed to work a maximimum of 36 overtime hours a month, saying that he more commonly works twice as much overtime, especially when big orders come in.

Working at Foxconn looks tedious make no mistake, but it doesn’t look obviously hellish: the psychological factors at play that are driving Foxconn’s workers are a lot more subtle than whip-lashing taskmasters.

If you managed to get your order in before the colossal iPhone 4 pre-order server meltdown, be on the lookout for shipping confirmation from Apple and AT&T.

Apple started to confirm shipping notifications and FedEx tracking for the iPhone 4 yesterday, some with a June 23 deliver-by date. The official release is June 24.

Today, AT&T customers are getting some relief from iPhone 4 pre-order anxiety as shipping info and confirmation emails are being sent out.

Has your new device been confirmed as on its way yet?

Via MacRumors

Amazon, although it is in a tug-of-war with Apple for the hearts and minds of publishers, may have a more immediate concern when it comes to other e-book rivals, such as Barnes & Noble and Borders: pricing. While Apple has staked-out the higher-end, the makers of the Nook and Kobe e-readers are rushing toward the lower-end, leaving the Internet retailer in a lonely position. However, Amazon could lower its Kindle’s $259 price tag very soon, one analyst suggests.

The Kindle could drop below $200 “before the end of summer,” according to Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney. In May, brick-and-mortar bookseller Borders introduced the $149 Kobe e-reader, joining competition from Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The Nook in March forced Amazon to also find a retail partner, Target, to get the Kindle on the radar of non-Internet shoppers. Possibly forcing Amazon’s hand was a DigiTimes report that the Nook had captured more than half of the U.S. e-reader market.

Analysts often point to the introduction of video conferencing – branded as FaceTime by Apple – as a chief selling point for the Cupertino, Calif.-based company’s soon to be released iPhone 4. However, a nagging question had remained until Sunday: won’t video calls drain your cellular minutes? Over the weekend, Apple put the doubting minds at ease.

“The voice call ends as soon as the FaceTime call connects,” an Apple representative told Silicon Alley Insider Sunday. Because FaceTime uses Wi-Fi, no carrier minutes will be used.