Cult of Mac

OK. So what have we got here?

Hey kids, look what uncle Steve has made for us overnight: a new Mac mini.

It:

• is tiny
• has HDMI
• has an easy-to-remove lower panel for replacing memory
• has an SD card slot
• is tiny (did we say that?)
• still has a Core 2 Duo processor
• supports up to 8GB RAM
• looks amazing
• is tiny

That’s all I’ve discovered after three minutes of drooling and surfing; more posts with more details coming later.

As it turns out, if you want a white iPhone 4 on June 24th, you’re out of luck: Apple’s iPhone 4 pre-order site is now explicitly saying that the “white iPhone [is] currently unavailable for pre-order or in-store pick-up.”

The omission of the white iPhone 4 seems to be universal: Apple’s domestic wireless partner AT&T has also sent out an internal memo saying that they will only have black handsets in stock on launch day, with the white model promised “later this summer.”

I suppose it’s possible that white iPhone 4s will be available for cold pick-ups on launch day, but everything about this indicates that Apple has had some unexpected last minute delay in producing the white iPhone 4.

It’s disappointing: I think the white iPhone 4 is a significant improvement over the style of the black version, especially with a bumper installed. What about you? Will you wait for the white iPhone 4, or settle for a black version on launch day?

When you actually click the links, Apple’s bouncing around some bad link error messages, but if you want to preorder your iPhone 4 for pick-up or delivery on June 24th, Apple’s preorder website is now live. You might want to keep refreshing it until the kinks go away. (Update: the preorder forms are now working).

Completed your preorder? We’ll see you for some jubilant crowing in the comments!

Well, it’s about time: yesterday, Starbucks announced that they would be activating free, one-click WiFi access across all of their United States locations, starting on July 1st.

For iPhone owners, this isn’t a big deal: they’ve long enjoyed free AT&T WiFi at Starbucks with their Frappucinos.

By opening up WiFi to everyone, though, Starbucks has finally allowed iPod Touch and iPad owners free access to the Internet… not to mention MacBook owners and the rest of those Android and PC toting plebes.

Over at Gizmodo, they’re making a big stink about Apple’s decision to ban two graphic novel adaptations of famous literary works from the App Store for obscenity— namely, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest.

Now Apple’s reversed the ban on these two graphic novels… but in the process of doing so, have ironically made themselves look far more hypocritical in their App Store censorship policies than if they’d stuck to their original decision.

Apple execs have a hard time telling the difference between porn and literature.

First Apple removed images from graphic novels of classics “Ulysses” and “The Importance of Being Earnest” for being, well, too graphic for the device that has been touted as “freedom from porn.”

Robert Berry, the illustrator of “Ulysses Seen,” told the New York Times that an image of a woman with exposed breasts was one of the offending panels in the comic version of the book.

Monday Giveaways took little hiatus because of holidays and big Apple announcements, but it’s BACK, and we’ve got some sweet apps to give away. We currently have 8,362 followers on Twitter, but we think 9,000 is such a better number. We want to put our cult to the test and see if you have the power to help us reach 9k followers! For every 100 new followers we get, I’ll give away a batch of codes to 10 random Twitter followers that re-tweet the special tweet below:

Steve Wozniak will be taking a break from Segway Polo and dancing the tango to be interviewed on radio program “The American Entrepreneur” Tuesday, June 15.

Tune in from 3 PM – 6 PM (EST) online and call 412-333-1360 to ask Woz your most pressing Apple questions.

Host Ron Morris will be chatting to Apple’s other Steve about his personal history, the early days of Apple, what he is up to nowadays and what Steve thinks of the evolution of the computer industry since he and Steve Jobs launched their fledgling startup in April 1976.

Via TAE radio

Electronics giant Best Buy announced today it will team up with Apple and other retailers to handle pre-orders for the new iPhone 4 handset. Tuesday, pre-orders begin at Best Buy and Best Buy Mobile storeswith delivery to consumers set for June 24.

“It’s exciting to have an opportunity to launch this iconic device with this pre-sale,” Best Buy Mobile president Shawn Score said. “Adding the iPhone 4 to our stores alongside other great smartphones like the HTC EVO from Sprint and the HTC Incredible on Verizon, giving customers a great opportunity to view each side-by-side and get the mobile phone that works best for them,” he added.

In order to handicap how well the iPhone 4 will be received, it seems we need look no further than upgrades. Trade-ins hit the 1,000 mark on the day Apple’s latest handset was announced, a marked jumped from the 141 iPhone trade-ins when the iPhone 3GS was unveiled in 2009, according to trade-in specialist Gazelle.

More than half, or 65 percent, of the iPhones being traded-in are the 3GS, according to the company. Although the iPhone has always been popular with the geekerati, the iPhone 4 seems to have crossed the barrier into general consumer conversation, reports say.

In a vaguely-worded apology, carrier AT&T Sunday blamed hackers for a security breach which exposed thousands of iPad owners’ email addresses.

“On June 7, we learned that unauthorized computer ‘hackers’ maliciously exploited a function designed to make your iPad log-in process faster by pre-populating an AT&T authorization page with the email address you used to register your iPad for 3G service,” the carrier explained in a letter obtained by BGR.

Arguably the best soccer game on any console, the much anticipated Pro Evolution Soccer is now available on iPhone and iPod Touch and boasts a unique ‘true flow’ control system, unrivalled realism and official UEFA competitions exclusive to Pro Evolution Soccer 2010. But does it compete with other big soccer games already available in the App Store?

As seen at last week’s WWDC, iMovie for iOS looks like nothing else out there when it comes to mobile video editing. The Tidbits blog has posted some more details about what you can expect, and unfortunately, there’s some limitations on what you can do with iMovie.

The bad news is that for right now, it’s iPhone 4 only, with iPhone 3GSs needing not apply because of the lack of A4 processor. Don’t expect it on the iPad until Apple’s tablet gets a camera, though.

There’s more bad news: right now, you can’t export projects to iMovie on the Mac for giving your edits some more advanced finesse. iMovie for iPhone exists in its own little vacuum for people who want to quickly edit a movie on the go. If you want to edit your iPhone 4 footage on your Mac, you’ll need to start from scratch, at least for now.

While iMovie for iPhone is likely to be locked to next-gen iOS devices, I imagine Apple will eventually integrate the software with the desktop suite and bring it to the next-gen iPad and iPod Touch. Either way, at $4.99, iMovie for iPhone looks like a steal of an app.

This is a heartwarming story: a developer of China’s most popular instant messaging client, TenCent, was invited by Apple to come to WWDC, only to be mugged upon arrival in San Francisco for his iPad. He managed to escape with just a few bruises, but his iPad was shattered. Luckily, a local Apple Genius took sympathy on him and offered to replace the iPad… and to end things on the perfect note, when the developer wrote Steve Jobs to praise the Apple Store’s great customer service, he got a nice note back wishing him a safe voyage home.

The Icon by essential tpe is a design first in a peripheral line all too dominated by bulky li-ion boxes: it looks good. Actually, it looks great, aping the style of the iOS replenishing battery icon by using electroluminescent lighting film that displays the add-on battery’s power level even when it’s unplugged.

It has all the hallmarks of just another Yanko Design wishful-thinking concept, but essential tpe swear that this is a real product which they are ready to sell you… an assertion perhaps belied by the lack of pricing details and the rendered appearance of the product shots.

We certainly hope it’s a real product though: the Icon just looks too sexy for us to root against it.

Curious about Apple’s own foray into protective iPhone cases, the bumper? The guys over at AppAdvice have taken some pretty shots of the bumper case ensconcing a new iPhone 4.

It looks surprisingly good, especially wrapped around the white model, and my guess is that by offering some padding around the iPhone 4’s most vulnerable fracture point, the $29 case will be pretty good at keeping your iPhone safe from cracks… but keys shredding your screen will be just as big of a concern as a totally unprotected handset.

Despite Apple’s feelings about them, my guess is you’ll want to invest in a protective film even if you pick up the bumper.

Stefan Magdalinski is well-known in British geek circles, having made a name for himself building websites like They Work For You, Up My Street and moo.com before moving to South Africa to work for mobile business directory Mocality.

Stef wanted to surprise his wife, who loves chocolate and Apple in almost equal measure. So he made the best possible gift: a chocolate-coated iPad.

Apple your idea about iPad file syncing using the manual file-sharing capabilities of iTunes is disappointing. Especially in my case — I sync my media content with my iMac, which by the way isn’t very easy to carry around, and I cannot sync that same content on my Macbook Pro. If I try to sync using iTunes on another computer my syncing options are to Cancel, Transfer Purchases, or Erase and Sync. None of these options are useful, but if I click Cancel eventually I can manually access the files shared on my iPad even on my Macbook Pro.

It isn’t clear why Apple didn’t add a simple thing like automatic file syncing, but that doesn’t matter now after I discovered Ecamm Network’s new Mac application, PadSync, which adds automatic syncing capabilities to the file sharing feature of the iPad.

From the way Apple protects its iTunes business to theirefforts to block Google from competing equally on the iOS mobile advertising marketplace, Cupertino’s been provoking a lot of anti-trust talk lately.

Now it looks like the first official investigation into Apple’s business practices is about to be underway, courtesy of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, who has completed negotiations with the Department of Justice to examine whether Apple’s limitations on software that can be submitted to the App Store unfairly harms competition.

In the last three months, the hippest flight accessory has become the iPad, as legions of travelers have brought the magical future of computing on board to the envy and occasional derision of those less fortunate. Well now, soon you won’t need to own an iPad to feel superior to those suckers lugging around “books.” At least if you live in Australia.

Jetstar, the low-cost subsidiary of Qantas, has announced that it will make iPads available to its passengers for $8.40 per flight, allowing them to watch a small selection of movies, play games and read some pre-loaded e-books. No Internet access, sadly.

Still, it’s a lot more appealing than paying extra to rent headphones, no?

TNooz via NYTimes.com

Like a Norman Rockwell painting trying to hit you with a bazooka, Valve’s fantastic team-based multiplayer game Team Fortress 2 is now available on Steam for Mac. Even better? It’s free to play this weekend for everyone with a Steam for Mac account, and if you want to play after, Valve has discounted the game by 50%.

I’m away from home right now, but my Steam name is “DrCrypt” if anyone wants to add me (be gentle… I suck). Also, when I get back, I’ll look to set up a Steam “Cult of Mac” group.

We close out the week with three hardware choices for our top deals. First up is anothe MacBook Pro from ExperCom. This time it is a 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo with 17-inch screen for $2,147. There is also a deal on a number of Macs, including an iBook G3 running at 500MHz for $189.99. Finally, we have a deal on a 2GB iPod shuffle for $35.

Along the way, we’ll check out several cases and skins for iPads, as well as the latest batch of App Store freebies. And, if you are into this year’s World Cup, there is a deal on a FIFA World Cup 2010 app for the iPhone or iPod touch.

As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.

Apple newly-introduced iPhone 4 could be a record-breaker. Apple is accumulating millions of iPhone components, expecting its latest handset could break 10 million units sold in one fiscal quarter, reports suggested Friday.

Since May, Asia Optical has shipped an average of 3 million VGA lenses for the iPhone 4’s front-facing digital camera, according to the supplier’s chairman, Robert Lai. Apple’s orders mean up to 30 percent higher revenue for the company.

U.S. federal investigators are now looking into the breach of 114,000 e-mail addresses of iPad owners using AT&T’s website. The FBI said Thursday it was aware of a breach in AT&T’s online security and has begun an investigation.

Wednesday, carrier AT&T acknowledged the email addresses of iPad owners were compromised after a security group announced they had discovered a flaw in AT&T security allowing email identities to be gathered.