Cult of Mac

The flow of apps through the App Store is thicker than a swarm of locusts in a Biblical plague these days (though somewhat less icky, and considerably more beneficial).

So on August 24-26, a bunch of app developers and the sort will gather in the desert at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel & Casino for the inaugural Appcon to discuss mobile app development across all major platforms, hear speakers from, for example, Chicago-based NAVTEQ (the guys who provide all those cool maps for the likes of Garmin and Magellan), and probably indulge a little too much at all-you-can-eat buffets and the craps table.

And who knows — we might be seeing the birth of something close to an E3 if the importance and revenue gathering ability of the app market continues on its upward trajectory, right?

If you know (or care) anything about how computers work, you understand that RAM is one of the most important technical specifications by which a device’s overall performance capabilities may be judged. Simply put, more RAM generally equates to more performance, all other things being equal.

The original iPhone and the iPhone 3G each came equipped with 128MB RAM and if you’ve had the opportunity to use one of those devices alongside an iPhone 3G S (which added still camera zoom and video, among other things) or an iPad, you have seen the performance difference between 128MB RAM and 256MB. It’s why Steve Jobs went on about how blazingly fast the iPad is when he introduced it.

It’s only logical that with the dawn of multitasking in the latest iteration of iOS and with on-the-fly video editing via iMovie as well as video calling coming to iPhone 4, the latest hardware needs and is getting a RAM upgrade.

Which is yet another good reason explaining those 600,000 iPhone 4 pre-orders. And perhaps even a good reason for waiting on the next iteration of the iPad.

[via Macrumors]

We near the end of the week with a $999 deal for a 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook with widescreen 13.3-inch display. Also among the day’s top bargains: a bluetooth iPad keyboard with 25-foot range for $32. Finally, a new batch of App Store price drops, including “Build-a-lot,” a strategy game for the iPhone or iPod touch.

Speaking of iPods, we have a number, including a4GB iPod nano for $70. Also, to keep your new iPhone 4 unmarred is a shield from ZAGG. Along the way, we’ll check out many other deals, details of which are available on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

The belief that the iPad is eating the netbook’s lunch isn’t new. However, we can now mark the calendar: 2012. That’s according to one analysis firm which also dropped this bombshell: tablet devices will soon comprise nearly 25 percent of all PC sales.

The report released Thursday by Forrester Research shows tablet growth increasing over the next five years, from the current 6 percent to 23 percent by 2015. Meanwhile, the market for netbooks – which took off because of their low cost – is gradually shrinking. Currently 44 percent of PC sales, that figure drops to 17 percent by 2015, according to Forrester.

Who can say Apple doesn’t make it as easy as possible to get in on the application Gold Rush founded on its major Operating Systems, iOS and Mac OS X?

The company posted Thursday 100 in-depth technical sessions from WWDC 2010, offering would-be developers free access to advanced techniques, allowing code monkeys everywhere to better grok the revolutionary technologies in iOS and Mac OS X.

All videos are free for download to registered Apple Developers, and portable on Mac, iPhone, or iPad.

What’s it like to own an Apple product, all together too funny. Read the full comic strip at The Oatmeal

Responding to pundit John Gruber’s ongoing debate about website comments, our friends at MacHeist have just launched a Safari extension that adds comments to Gruber’s Daring Fireball site.

The DaringFireballWithComments extension can be found here. Simply download and double-click to install (Make sure you enable extensions in Safari first).

“Get ready for round two,” says John Casasanta, co-founder of MacHeist, who in February launched DaringFireballWithComments.net, a website that briefly mirrored Gruber’s site with, you guessed it, comments.

The site was up for a few days before it was taken down at Gruber’s insistence. It faced a lot of criticism for violating Gruber’s copyrights. However, the Safari extension skirts such issues.

“We’re totally clear this time,” said Casasanta via IM. “We’ll keep this running forever.”

For the last couple of days, Gruber has been debating website comments with writers Joe Wilcox and Ian Betteridge, among others.

“Comments, at least on popular websites, aren’t conversations,” writes Gruber. “They’re cacophonous shouting matches. DF is a curated conversation, to be sure, but that’s the whole premise.”

Not any more.

Apple put together a video love letter to itself where app developers from A-list firms talk about how delighted they are to work with the Cupertino company.

About halfway through the 5-minute or so video, the execs start talking about how much they don’t like working with other platforms. (Read: “Android?”)

“We’ve actually spent some time working with other platforms, it’s a night and day difference,” says Calvin Carter of Bottle Rocket apps who made the NPR app. “They are more difficult for the user, they don’t have the power or the tools available, they don’t have the distribution network. They don’t have the standards, both in hardware or software.”

“It is that handset fragmentation, if you will, that causes developers a lot of problems,” says Skarpi Hedinsson of ABC TV. “Because you’re now targeting individual devices.”

“It’s really evident in Apple’s APIs, in the developer’s tools, that you’re working with something really mature,” remarks Tom Conrad of Pandora. “Not something that was invented two years ago.”

Via Jordan Stark

Charles Parr wonders whether Apple’s wireless Magic Mouse would be any more enchanting if you didn’t have to change the batteries, so he whipped up the above prototype.

He says:
“I’m not a product designer by any means, but I know changing batteries all the time can be a pain… I would definitely like to have a rechargeable Magic Mouse that will utilize the same dock connector that Apple has on all their products.”

Parr sent the idea along to Steve Jobs, but hasn’t heard anything yet.
What do you think?

Via Charles Parr

The tech industry is known for its superlatives. However, in the wake of the iPhone 4’s introduction, analysts have been caught off-guard, using words like “ginormous” and “huge” to describe interest in Apple’s new handset. Now a prominent Apple-watcher believes the number of iPhone users could jump from last year’s 30 million to 100 million by the end of 2011.

Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty told investors Wednesday night she believes more than 50 percent of current iPhone owners will upgrade to the iPhone 4. If 50 percent of iPhone owners upgrade, that means Apple will sell 48 million handsets, she projected. Noted Mac analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffrey envisions a very similar outcome. Predicting Apple will sell 9.5 million iPhone during the June financial quarter, Munster pointed to a recent Wall Street Journal survey suggesting 62 percent of iPhone customers say they will upgrade.

The Atlantic has posted an article discussing the iPad’s appeal to Baby Boomers, and makes some good arguments as to why the newest iDevice may be a huge hit with this demographic:

1. It isn’t that hard to use.

Your mom is awful with a computer. That time you taught her how to use e-mail, you felt like you needed a fifth of Jack to quench your frustration. But downloading an app is much, much easier than installing a program in Windows. You just go to the app store, download it, and — voila! If she thought a Mac was easy to use, wait until she sees an iPad in action. Just pray she doesn’t discover Facebook.

Currently my Mom doesn’t see the need for an iPad at all – she’s yet to be convinced that an upcoming switch from dialup to cable modem will make a difference in how she uses her computer.  But as the article notes, perhaps that may change…

Thanks to Digg for the tip.

Apple may ship a CDMA version of its popular iPhone later this year. Pegatron, an electronics manufacturer with plants in China, has received orders from the Cupertino, Calif. company to produce a CDMA version of the handset ready for fourth-quarter shipping, an industry publication reported Thursday.

If correct, the rumor appears to signal a shift by Apple away from its usual iPhone supplier, embattled Foxconn, and bolster a Wall Street Journal report that the handset maker would produce a CDMA phone this September.

The only thing that Apple didn’t actually update with the iPhone 4 was the storage, raising the question of whether or not the iPod Touch will get a storage bump come September.

Theoretically, Toshiba’s currently available flash storage modules could give us a 128GB iPod Touch this year… but next year, we could possibly see that number double again to a shocking 256GB, thanks to Toshiba’s latest announcement: they have just announced the first-ever 128GB embedded flash memory chip manufactured with a 32nm process to start shipping this autumn.

Stacking sixteen 8GB NAND layers, the new design is just 0.06″ thick and seems ready made for iDevices. Since Apple employs one NAND flash module in the iPhone 4 and two 32GB NAND flash modules in the 64GB iPod Touch, that means next year, the iPhone 4 could conceivably leap to 128GB of storage to the iPod Touch’s 256GB.

Image via Mactropolis

In certain corners of the Internet, it has become received wisdom that the iPhone will appear on Verizon any time now. Timelines are speculated upon. AT&T’s rampant incompetence is cited. And then Apple announces another must-have product that only works on AT&T’s network in the U.S.

So, in case you’re wondering, the iPhone 4 isn’t coming to Verizon in September. It’s not going to T-Mobile (in spite of what some misinformed analysts think, it’s still not 3G-compatible) or Sprint, either.

This is understandably frustrating, as every U.S. iPhone user has, at one time or another, experienced complete AT&T meltdown — full bars but no connectivity, battery life dropping at more than a percentage per minute, and dropped calls every few steps. But the sad fact is, AT&T was and is the only credible partner for Apple to work with on the iPhone and the iPad. And the reason for that has very little to do with the United States and everything to do with the rest of the world. They’re stuck together until everyone goes 4G.

Most of us are familiar with the annoyance of a pair of earbuds squirting out of our ear canals. The best earbuds either use rubber tips to anchor your headphones in place or, better yet, are specifically molded to fit your ears, but even those solutions can be uncomfortable for long listening sessions.

UrbanEars have a different solution with their latest Medi buds: they use an “earclick” solution which secures them in your ears by applying pressure at the catilaginous antiragus and inferior crux. The end result? Even though you can hardly feel them, they stay in your ear.

Each pair of Medis comes with four variably sized swappable pads to guarantee a close fit, and each bud boasts a 15.4mm driver, an inline remote and microphone compatible with the iPhone and a fabric, tangle-free code. They are available now for just $50 in twelve different colors.

[via Gadget Lab]

We’ve heard a bit about OnLive before, a client that promises to interactively stream spec-intensive games in real time to devices that can’t natively run them like the iPhone, iPad or OS X. Touch Arcade just got a chance to try OnLive out at this year’s E3, and the resulting video of the service streaming Borderlands to the iPad is pretty impressive, even if the current control scheme is pretty wonky.

The only problem is that, as usual, OnLive is being demonstrated in ideal conditions involving a local server, an extremely limited pool of players and a great WiFi connection. Latency is going to make or break OnLive, and there’s a lot of skepticism that the technology’s there yet to make this work under non-ideal circumstances, especially for twitch-based games like shooters and RTS titles.

We’re not necessarily optimistic, but we hope for the best: the idea of playing top-of-the-line PC games on our Macs and iPads without having to wait for an official port or upgrade our hardware is just too promising to ignore.

Our favorite unibody vivisectionists over at iFixIt have done their usually thorough job tearing down the new Mac Mini.

A lot of the Mini’s biggest changes are already obvious: the transition to aluminum unibody and the ability to easily access the Mini’s internals with a single counter-clockwise twist, making it very easy to replace RAM. In fact, there aren’t really any big revelations, except one: running at just 10 watts idle, the new Mac Mini is one of the most energy-efficient computers around, and Apple’s most frugally power-sipping desktop yet.

Steve Jobs has openly criticized Adobe Flash as being slow, buggy, insecure and crash prone… so it seems strange that the recent 10.6.4 update to Snow Leopard did not bother to include the latest version of Flash that actually addresses many of thoese concerns.

The version of Flash in 10.6.4 is version 10.0.45.2, while the latest version is 10.1.53.64, which not only patches numerous security vulnerabilities but implements support for hardware flash decoding under OS X… commonly cited as the number one reason why Flash works better on Windows than on a Mac. (Edit: As commenters below helpfully inform me, no, it jolly well doesn’t. Hardware decoding is coming in a future version of Flash for Mac.)

A conspiracist might think that Apple doesn’t want Adobe to fix Flash: they just want it to die. My guess, though, is that it takes so long to thoroughly test a software update that last week’s Flash update was simply too late to be bundled in.

If you’re concerned, just download and install the latest version of Flash yourself: it’s quite the improvement.

No one’s disputing that the unprecedented demand for the iPhone 4 would have tested the limits of even the most thoroughly tested and fail-proof preorder system…. but even giving AT&T the most generous benefit of that doubt, yesterday was an utter debacle for them in almost every way: not only did their pre-order system fail in almost every way imaginable, but in the process, they yet again exposed their customers’ private data.

When iPhone 4 pre-orders went live yesterday, a huge volume of customers discovered it was virtually impossible to order one online directly from AT&T, with many realizing the best way to get an iPhone 4 was to order it for in-store pick-up at an Apple store.

According to a source speaking PC World, the demand put on AT&T’s servers had less to do with the sheer volume of demand than the fact that AT&T didn’t even test their ordering system before the launch.

Perhaps that failure to test the system thoroughly explains AT&T’s other major SNAFU yesterday: dozens of AT&T customers reported that logging into pre-order the iPhone 4 would often log them into other people’s accounts, exposing these users’ personal details, including credit card information and personal address.

If you intend on upgrading to iOS 4 on Monday, the first piece of the puzzle has landed on Software Update: iTunes 9.2 is now available for download.

It’s a pretty tiny update, with the only non-iOS 4 specific feature being some new album artwork improvements, including a new transition effect. Apple’s clearly saving all the big new features for iTunes 10, which we can probably expect to land in September with some sort of cloud-storage and streaming functionality.

Here’s the change log:

• Sync with iPhone 4 to enjoy your favorite music, movies, TV shows, books and more on-the-go

• Sync and read books with iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4 and iBooks 1.1

• Organize and sync PDF documents as books. Read PDFs with iBooks 1.1 on iPad and any iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4

• Organize your apps on your iOS 4 home screens into folders using iTunes

• Faster back-ups while syncing an iPhone or iPod touch with iOS 4

• Album artwork improvements make artwork appear more quickly when exploring your library

Get it now through Software Update, or download it directly from Apple.

The iOS device-controlled AR.Drone quadricopter from Parrot, last seen terrorizing my co-workers, will finally reach the consumer market in September for $299. The crazy vehicle, which can do things that no flying thing should be able to, for lack of better words, uses cameras, WiFi, and the iPod touch, iPhone, or iPad to look through a live video feed, steer around blind corners, hover, bank, and generally act amazing.

Oh, yeah, and you can hold augmented reality dogfights with your friends. An Android client will ship eventually, but for now, this thing is for Apple users only. Check it out!

If, like me, you walk around all day executing random karate hand-chops to the theme of Mission: Impossible running through your head, then you might consider adding this next app to your quiver.

Just like the messages sent to IMF (Impossible Mission Force, for all you non-spies),  Self-Destructing Message will erase evidence of clandestine texts, on both the sender’s phone, and the recipient’s — just so long as you both have a copy of the app. It also has a “black book” feature that hides the actual identities of your contacts.

Apple announced 600,000 pre-orders for iPhone 4 on Tuesday, a number “far higher” than the company anticipated.

In a short press release, the company said the unexpectedly-high demand caused many system malfunctions and apologized for any difficulties and frustration.

Yesterday Apple and its carrier partners took pre-orders for more than 600,000 of Apple’s new iPhone 4. It was the largest number of pre-orders Apple has ever taken in a single day and was far higher than we anticipated, resulting in many order and approval system malfunctions. Many customers were turned away or abandoned the process in frustration. We apologize to everyone who encountered difficulties, and hope that they will try again or visit an Apple or carrier store once the iPhone 4 is in stock.

Earlier, AT&T said it had received 10-times the number of iPhone pre-orders than last year’s iPhone 3GS, and is suspending pre-orders.

“Given this unprecedented demand and our current expectations for our iPhone 4 inventory levels when the device is available June 24, we’re suspending preordering today in order to fulfill the orders we’ve already received,” AT&T spokesman Mark Siegal told the New York Times. “The availability of additional inventory will determine if we can resume taking preorders.”

Radio Shack has also suspended pre-orders, it said on Twitter.

SAI: AT&T: iPhone 4 Pre-Orders 10 TIMES Higher Than First Day Last Year

We start the day out with another deal on MacBook Pros. This time, MacConnection offers a number of MacBook Pros, ranging from a 2.4GHz 13-inch Core 2 Duo model for $1,099 after rebate to a 17-inch, 2.53GHz i5 unit for $2,049. We also check out the latest round of App Store freebies, including “Trippy Replay,” billed as an augmented music experience. Finally is the Cable Unlimited Battery Boost to provide a bit more energy for your iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS.

Along the way, we check out other Mac-related gadgets, including iHome’s portable speakers for the iPod and Sony’s Clock Radio for the iPhone or iPod. As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

With the snap of an iPhone camera, one police department is identifying suspects on the go.

Using an app called MORIS (Mobile Offender Recognition and Identification System), the police department in Brockton, Massachusetts is matching photos of suspects with a database in development by statewide sheriff’s departments.

Sean Mullin, president and CEO of BI2 Technologies of Plymouth who developed the app, explained that the app allows officers to identify suspects through facial recognition, iris biometrics and fingerprints – all on one device.