Assuming that the price of Tiffen’s soon-to-be-released Smoothee iPhone Steadicam would be beyond his budget, Babyology writer Ben Gurnsberg built this amazing iPhone steadicam robotic arm out of spare LEGO Technic pieces.
It looks cool, but how’d it work? Not well, says Gurnsberg.
Apple has just unveiled a new iPhone app that, as usual, focuses on taking existing iPhone apps and functionality and applying them to a relatable real-world experience, as conveyed by a pleasant and unassuming narrator.
The “Backpacker” ad follows a young traveler in Barcelona as he uses his iPhone 3GS to find hostels with the free Hostelworld.com application, email pictures to his mom and use the $24.99 Jibbigo app to translate for him on the fly.
Not covered in the commercial? The kidney the narrator had to sell to afford the AT&T 3G international roaming charges he incurred when he returned from his trip. You should have switched to WiFi only, my son.
Inside every iPhone is a moisture sensor: a small dot of liquid-sensitive material that turns bright pink if the iPhone’s insides have been exposed to being submerged. It’s the method Apple uses to protect itself from having to replace iPhones that clumsy customers have dropped in a puddle, their beer or a toilet.
Now a California woman is suing Apple over these moisture sensors, claiming that two separate iPhones died and were then denied replacement by Apple because the moisture sensors had been triggered. The woman, Charlene Gallon of San Francisco, claims otherwise.
Want porn on the go? Go buy an Android phone is the advice of none other than Apple founder Steve Jobs.
httpvhd://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOKu9uwdwZI
I use my MacBook Pro as my main work computer thanks to a Logitech notebook keyboard stand and an external monitor, but I’ve often wanted something cleaner: a simple and elegant docking solution without any need to manually connect DVI cables and USB umbilicals.
Henge Docks’ line of MacBook docking stations seems to be just solution. All you do is slap your MacBook into the docking station and it’ll drive an eternal keyboard, mouse, printer, hard drive, stereo and any FireWire or USB hard drives you care to connect to it… all in a clean, compact and efficient design. It even uses your existing MagSafe charger.
Very nice indeed, and with prices starting at $59.95, this looks like an easy product to recommend to any Apple fan who uses their MacBook as their main work machine.
When it was first unveiled at CES 2009, one of the things I really liked about the Palm Pre was its integrated Facebook functionality. Instead of merely adding contacts to your phone manually, you had the option of subscribing to their Facebook contact details, which would automatically merge their phone numbers, email addresses and profile pictures into your local address book.
To me, it represented a much welcome paradigm shift in the way contacts are handled: instead of entering contact details manually, you subscribe to them and have them automatically updated on your handset.
So I’m delighted to see that the Pre’s approach to Facebook / Address Book integration looks like it will be heading to iPhone OS 4.0 too, at least if this rogue PLIST file in the SDK is anything to go by.
Apple’s perverse obsession with miniaturizing the iPod Shuffle doesn’t seem likely to stop until they bring it down to the size of a nanoangstrom, but one of the biggest drawbacks of making a music player smaller than the controls needed to use it is that the user interface needs to be offloaded to a peripheral: in the third generation iPod Shuffle’s case, the stock ear buds.
It’s a bad approach. The Shuffle was already small enough, and since ear buds tend to be easily damaged, it meant that anyone who owned a Shuffle who lost or damaged their stock ear buds would have to lay out for a replacement pair instead of just plugging in another set of cochleal cans.
From Apple, though, comes slightly encouraging news for third-gen Shuffle owners: they will replace your ear buds free of charge for up to two years if they stop working. Just call up Apple or drop by an Apple Store and they’ll send you off with a new pair of ear buds.
Personally, though, I’ll stick to my second gen Shuffle: an MP3 player the size of a box of matches (as opposed to the matches themselves) is plenty small enough for me already, thank you.
Apple sent Gizmodo a formal letter asking for its iPhone back (proving it was genuine) — and Gizmodo is returning it, along with a nice note asking Apple to go easy on the kid who lost it.
Gizmodo editorial director Brian Lam says Apple called him today asking for its iPhone back. He said he’d be happy to oblige, if he received a formal written request from Apple’s legal department.
He duly received the following:
It has come to our attention that Gizmodo is in possession of a device that belongs to Apple. This letter constitutes a formal request that you return the device to Apple. Please let me know where to pick up the unit.
Sincerely,
Bruce Sewell,
Senior Vice President & General Counsel
Apple Inc.
Lam wrote back putting him in contact with his colleague Jason Chen, who actually has the phone.
Happy to have you pick this thing up. Was burning a hole in our pockets. Just so you know, we didn’t know this was stolen when we bought it. Now that we definitely know it’s not some knockoff, and it really is Apple’s, I’m happy to see it returned to its rightful owner.
P.S. I hope you take it easy on the kid who lost it. I don’t think he loves anything more than Apple except, well, beer.
As well as mentioning that Gizmodo didn’t know the iPhone was stolen when they bought it, Lam also says the guy who sold them the iPhone had earlier tried to return Apple it to Apple. Apparently, he called customer service but go the runaround.
The “sorry Apple engineer” who lost a 4G iPhone at a Bay Area bar has been identified as Grey Powell, Gizmodo reports. Powell is a 27-year-old software engineer with a taste for the sauce (judging by his pictures, like this one above with a PBR). He left the test unit at the Gourmet Haus Staudt in Redwood City several weeks ago.
“I underestimated how good German beer is,” he typed into the next-generation iPhone he was testing on the field, cleverly disguised as an iPhone 3GS. It was his last Facebook update from the secret iPhone. It was the last time he ever saw the iPhone, right before he abandoned it on bar stool, leaving to go home.”
Left on a stool, the iPhone was handed to a guy sitting next to Powell. The guy asked around to see if anyone had lost it, but when no one claimed it, he took it home.
When he woke up after the hazy night, the phone was dead. Bricked remotely, through MobileMe, the service Apple provides to track and wipe out lost iPhones. It was only then that he realized that there was something strange that iPhone. The exterior didn’t feel right and there was a camera on the front. After tinkering with it, he managed to open the fake 3GS.
However, Gizmodo does not explain how the iPhone came into their possession — which may be the most important part of the story. “Weeks later, Gizmodo got it,” is all that is said. Gizmodo publisher Nick Denton paid just $5,000 for the iPhone, he admitted to the AP. According to California law, the iPhone is stolen even it was accidentally left at a bar. The finder is legally obliged to return it to Apple. Instead, they sold it to Gizmodo, who at the time of purchase knew it was Apple’s property.
This is pretty funny (except for the poor schlub at Apple who lost the iPhone, of course).
So I did it again this last week, consumed way too much straight vodka within perhaps an hour. The party started at 7, I had to be removed by 10pm because I was biting/attacking/wanting/insulting people and in the process lost my employers iPhone 4G prototype model. It was lost at Fahrenheit Ultra Lounge & Restaurant downtown San Jose. The phone was hidden inside of an iPhone 3G case. The device has a front facing camera, 80GB of storage. The device, when found was probably running a newer version of iPhone OS but my employer bricked it remotely within a few hours. Pretty sure i’m going to lose my job over this so if you find the phone please email me. Thanks
Apple’s next iPhone seems to answer a lot of geeks’ prayers. It’s got a forward-facing camera, a flash unit, and a super high-resolution screen. Combine that with multitasking and and universal inbox in OS 4.0, and who could say no?
Well, plenty of people, it seems. There’s lots of haters out there put off by the iPhone’s boxy industrial design. Many prefer curves it seems.
Let’s put it to a poll. Will you be buying the new iPhone this summer?
Gizmodo publisher Nick Denton says the “sorry Apple engineer” who left the 4G iPhone at a bar may have been identified. He says he’s calling the poor bastard, and the story is likely to follow.
Earlier in the day Denton promised to reveal the full story of how Gizmodo acquired the next-gen iPhone. The story will is a “corker” (a good story), Denton tweeted earlier.
Minutes ago Denton tweeted the following:
iPhone update. We think we’ve identified the sorry Apple engineer who left the next-gen phone at the bar. Calling in a min.
Earlier Denton tweeted that Gizmodo had paid for the pre-production iPhone, raising the likelihood that Gizmodo is in possession of stolen goods. According to California law, the iPhone is stolen even it was accidentally left at a bar. The finder is legally obliged to return it to Apple. Instead, they sold it to Gizmodo, who at the time of purchase fully knew it was Apple’s property (how could they not?).
Techcrunch and a couple of other sites are saying the price was $10,000 – but no one is offering any evidence.
Apple still hasn’t officially responded to the story.
UPDATE: Denton paid just $5,000 for the iPhone, he told the AP. As Merlin Mann tweeted: “Denton inflates traffic for a gadget blog by buying a stolen phone that doesn’t work? It’s like Christmas Morning for why the web sucks.”
Back in December I wrote about Cinch, a tiny little app that lets you drag application windows around to the edges of your screen, and have them instantly resize to something useful.
Cinch is mouse-oriented, but has a keyboard-oriented cousin called Sizeup. Today, a comment on that old post alerted me to a free, open source rival to Sizeup called ShiftIt.
Police busted a middle school boy for renting out his iPod Touch packed with sexy photos and videos of underage girls.
The iPod Touch’s large storage capacity and big screen were put to use for an increasingly common kind of extracurricular activity. The boy’s business was halted when a renter of the illicit images was caught last week at Pyle Middle School in Bethesda, Maryland.
Students id’d the girls in photos as fellow students — sixth to eighth graders — as well as some from a nearby high school. In a letter to parents, school officials said that their investigation revealed the girls posed willingly and that the photo and video sessions took place outside school grounds.
For the next three weeks we’re going to be publishing a series of posts called “My Close Encounters with Steve Jobs.” Written by David Bunnell, the founder of Macworld magazine, it’s a bunch of great stories about Jobs and the launch of the Mac. It’s a excellent, insightful read with a ton of previously unpublished stories and details. Starting Tuesday — Part 1: Meeting Steve.
We start out another week with more deals on Apple items. A number of iPod touch models are on the block, starting at $169 for an 8GB model. Deals on Intel-based Mac mini desktops are also on tap, starting at $499 for a 2GHz Core 2 Duo unit. We wrap up our top trio with the latest batch of App Store freebies, including WalkJogRunning, which lists running route recommendations. (I hope it includes routes marked by the slowest-running dogs.)
We’ll also check out other Mac-related hardware and software, such as MacGourmet and a Clock Radio for the iPod and iPhone from Sony. As always, details on these and many other items can be found on CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYVIHf9KBSE
This mini Apple store is the latest awesome creation from Gary Katz, who has been turning shoe boxes into iPhone theaters.
This time, it took him a weekend to make a store mock-up, and this one requires two iPhones for the full effect. One iPhone slots into the back wall, playing a loop of the iPad intro and Apple ads and another iPhone provides the Apple logo to light the store sign. The minuscule iPads, iPhone and iMacs are the fruit of long hours with an Exacto knife.
Katz put tiny versions of his own business cards in here, too, in case computer engineer Barbie has some tech dilemmas.
This is a one-of-a kind labor of love to avoid tussles over trademarks, but his other clever iPhone theater kits can either be bought or downloaded, including this drive-in version.
Gizmodo on Monday dropped THE bomb: the site has a pre-production model of the iPhone 4G, due to be launched in June.
The new iPhone was found “lost” in a Redwood City, Calif. bar, according to Gizmodo, which published its findings, along with numerous pictures of the device. Apple, taking a page from Detroit’s practice of camouflaging unreleased autos, made the phone appear like an ordinary iPhone 3GS.
The Speck CandyShell iPhone Case is a brightly-colored protective case that not only provides first-class scratch protection, it really makes your iPhone pop.
The 3G version of Apple’s iPad tablet device will ship “By May 7th,” the Cupertino, Calif. company is telling online buyers Monday morning. Apple, however, appears to be sticking by last week’s statement pre-ordered 3G iPads would be shipped in late April.
In a statement e-mailed to customers who took advantage of the early pre-order opportunity, Apple said the 3G iPads would ship in late April “as communicated at the time you placed your order.”
My esteemed colleague John Brownlee wrote earlier today about the excellent article at Ars Technica which explains in detail why the new 13″ MacBook Pro doesn’t have a speedy i5 or i7 chip, while its bigger brothers and sisters do.
What interests me more, though, is the discussion that follows the Ars article.
Think you can do a better job running a 3G network than AT&T. Here’s your chance to prove it: Telecom Tycoon HD is a mobile broadband network sim for the iPad that allows you to roll-out a 2G, 3G and LTE network across a virtual city.
The latest MacBook Pro refresh finally brought Intel Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs to Apple’s line-up of laptops… but only the 15 and 17 inch models. If you want a 13-inch MacBook, you need to satisfy yourself with the Intel Core 2 Duo chipset.
Steve Jobs claims that the reason Apple went with the Intel Core 2 Duo chips for the 13-inch MacBook Pros because a 20% CPU increase was outweighed by giving the 13-inchers a much better CPU and 10 hour battery life.
But Ars Technica has a more in-depth explanation: price, graphics performance, battery life and the laws of physics.
The Touch Pad App is in my opinion, Edovia’s best application for your mobile Mac devices and now the iPad. For those of you who use a Mac Mini for your home entertainment and digital storage set up in your living room or bedroom, you must get this application. Basically, it turns your iPhone, iPod Touch, or iPad into a touch pad similar to the one on the Macbook. It can also act as an Apple remote. There have been some glitches and movements that didn’t work like the touch pads on the Macbooks, but Edovia just came out with their latest version of the app (3.1), and they cleaned up a lot of those issues. Still, this is a great app to have, and guess what, we’re giving it away for FREE today!
We’re doing something a little different today. In order to get this app, you gotta be on your “A” game with your Cult of Mac knowledge. We’re going to ask you trivia from articles published since last Tuesday (April 13th). Make note that the app codes we’re giving away are only good for the United States version of iTunes. Sorry to all of our international readers, but when we get sent promo codes, they’re usually always the U.S. version. We’ll try to ask for some international codes in the future.
This is a $3.99 app, and if you’re like me, I hate paying for anything over a $1, so have some fun with this one, make sure you’re up to speed on what was going on with Cult of Mac last week, and keep refreshing our Facebook page every now and then today. Good luck!
It’s been a content rich morning from the Chinese gadget sweatshops, but this latest handset will undoubtedly give the true Mac faithful the vapors: the TEG W3000 is the spitting image of the unholy, cross-species union of an iPhone and a Nexus One.
