One of the coolest new features introduced in Leopard’s version of Mail is the ability to automatically add contact details to Address Book. Just hover the mouse pointer over something that looks like an address or phone number, and a box magically appears that lets you import the info, with the details brilliantly ending up in the right places. Well, good news: Now, an app has brought the feature to the iPhone.
Several tidbits of information about the iPhone 4G are circulating today:
The front-facing camera has been rumored for some time and evidence for videochat capabilities has been found in the iPhone 3.2 SDK. The 960×640 screen is double the current 480×360 resolution.
Engadget says the high resolution (most Android phones are around 800×400) will earn the name “iPhone HD” (makes sense). Engadget was also tipped the iPhone will be launched on June 22nd (a Tuesday, naturally).
The Apple-designed A4 chip is a full system-on-a-chip with better graphics capabilites than the current Samsung-made ARM CPU, making it capable of powering the HD screen without taking a performance hit.
And third-party multitasking was pulled from the iPhone 3.2 SDK at the last minute, so it’s ready to go for both the iPhone and the iPad.
Via 9to5Mac, Daring Fireball and Engadget.
If you want to do any serious typing on the iPad, the iPad Keyboard Dock is going to be a must-have accessory… but what if you want to use your existing Bluetooth keyboard? It’ll already work just fine with your iPad just fine, but the challenge is one of positioning. You need some way to prop your iPad up, monitor like, while you type.
The BookArc from TwelveSouth is a parabola of aluminum lined with silicone to slap your iPad into when you want to do some serious typing. Unlike Apple’s own dock, it supports both horizontal and vertical docking, so you can type in any position.
There’s no launch date or price for the BookArc yet, but if the MacBook Arc is anything to go buy, expect it to cost about $50. That’s probably too much when you can just buy yourself any one of the many kickstand-boasting protective iPad cases about to come to market and have all of the BookArc’s advantages while maintaining portability.
When you’re out and about, it usually behooves you to keep a coiled iPod docking cable with you, if just to charge your devices… but they’re easy-to-forget in their ungainliness.
Scosche’s latest product is an elegant solution to the problem of ubiquitous cable possession: the flipSYNC USB charger and transfer cable will juice up and sync your iPhone or iPod when you need it, and when you don’t, it coils up into a keychain about as small as your automobile’s alarm fob.
The flipSYNC is available from Scosche’s official site for only $20.
Although a few wishful thinkers held out hope far past Apple’s announcement, it’s pretty clear at this point that the iPad’s not going to have an OS X like dashboard out of the gate… but that’s not to say a third-party developer can’t step in to pick up the slack.
Cernegie Mellon Student Rich Hong has just released this teaser video for his widget-based dashboard app for the iPad. It looks and acts just like OS X’s own Dashboard capabilities, which is great. Just pluck this in your springboard and you”re golden.
There’s no telling if Hong’s Dashboard app will catch-on — third-party widget support will be key here — but it looks fantastic. In fact, with the right widgets, an iPad Dashboard app might allow for some remedial multi-tasking (say, writing a report while simultaneously referencing an article in an adjacent browser widget) until iPhone OS 4.0 creeps out.
[via Techcrunch]
You only had to listen to the gasps that filled the room when Steve Jobs announced the iPad’s price to figure out that Apple’s tablet is incredibly inexpensive… not just for what it is, but for an Apple product.
In case you needed further proof, though, check out this incredible infographic by Vouchercodes.co.uk that puts the iPad’s dirt cheap price in perspective.
How cheap is the iPad? Not only is it 43 times cheaper than the Apple Lisa (the most expensive computer Apple’s ever sold), but it’s the cheapest major new product Apple has ever introduced short of the iPod.
Early adopter or not, there is simply no reason to feel bad about picking one up at $499. Apple products just don’t come at a better value.
[via Gizmodo]
Artist Andrew Fulton wants an iPad, but like most artists, his means are meager. He shaves with a rusty bottle cap to save money on razor blades, he’s sold all the kidneys to the black market that he can, and his only nourishment is Mulligan Stew or the stray baked bean stuck to the inside of a discarded can. What’s a poor pencil slinger to do?
Well, Fulton’s happened upon an ingenious little plan to buy an iPad: sell Apple fans iPad-related art to raise money for his own device. His drawings are cute, quirky, marvelous and bizarre: I thought the iPad-slicing ninja was my favorite until I saw the tongue-kissing duo of blue-skinned aliens sucking face between Apple tablets.
He only wants $20 for a duotone drawing or $125 for a full-color strip. I’m sure some of our readers wouldn’t mind becoming a patron of the arts to help a fellow Mac fan get an iPad of his own.
[via TUAW]
Owners of the upcoming iPad will have to pay for annual OS updates, according to a new Apple user agreement released online. Buyers of the tablet device expected to hit stores April 3 will get one free update, according to the Cupertino, Calif. company.
“Apple will provide you any iPad OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPad OS software release following the version of iPad software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPad, for free,” the company said.
With the iPad mere days away, no one’s likely to evacuate their various collection sacks if a new version of iTunes supporting iPad syncing drops this week. It’s a certainty, and MacRumors has a round-up of features to expect.
According to MacRumors’ source, the biggest change will be to add a new “Books” section for managing e-books, which will fuse with the existing “Audiobooks” category. To make everything easy, iTunes will automatically detect whether you’ve got an iPad or iPhone connected, to eliminate confusion as to whether or not books can be synced to the device.
Some big changes are also coming to Genius Mixes, iTunes 9’s auto-generated playlists, and will allow for more nuanced user control including the ability to rename mixes and rearrange them by dragging and dropping, as well as delete any unwanted Genius Mixes.
Another improvement is that all iPods will now have the option to auto-covert the bitrates of digital audio files to 128kbps AAC in order to save space and fit more songs on a device.
Expect the 9.1 update no later than Friday.
Apple’s been pretty explicit that for right now, there is a maximum order of two iPads per customer… but no one told Apple founder, celebrity dancer and tech enthusiast Steve Wozniak. The affable beardo with the head bigger than the sun has told Newsweek that he’s buying three iPads this weekend.
On Woz’s part, one of the iPads will be the stock WiFi and another 3G model. He’s also ordered an iPad for a friend.
Woz seems to think the iPad will be a big hit: “The iPad could lower the cost of acquiring computers for students. I think it’s going to be huge in the education market. Think about students going off to college. They want an Apple product, but their parents don’t want to spend that much. Now they have the ideal thing.”
As for Wozniak, he’s mostly going to use the iPad for mobile web browsing. “At first I thought, this is not for me. I have the iPhone for mobility and a computer for my computer life. [But] with the iPhone there are certain things it just doesn’t do well, mostly in browsing. It’s horrible to navigate a map on an iPhone because of the screen size.”
Accompanying a report that Verizon may begin selling a new iPhone are rumors Apple is developing a new handset dubbed the iPhone HD. The new handset would be powered by the same A4 processor as the iPad and include a forward-facing camera suitable for teleconferencing.
Daring Fireball blogger John Gruber wrote Monday the handset would use the iPhone 4.0 software, permitting users to multitask applications. Gruber has dismissed a recent Wall Street Journal report suggesting the Cupertino, Calif. company is working on two new iPhones – one CDMA version for Verizon Wireless – as a “lame entry in the iPhone rumors game.”
Taiwanese chip and touchscreen maker Elan Microelectronics Corp. has asked the U.S. International Trade Commission to ban the import and sale of some Apple Inc. products — including the almost-in-your-hands iPad — alleging patent infringement.
Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch, MacBook, Magic Mouse and iPad use technology which the company claims infringes Elan’s patent “352” granted in 1998 for detecting the simultaneous presence of two or more fingers, Elan said in an email statement today.
“Our goal is to protect our technology and to stop sales of those products in the U.S.,” Elan spokesperson Dennis Liu told Bloomberg.
This isn’t the first time Elan, which bills itself as the “smart human interface expert,” tries to give Apple the eFinger: they filed suit against Apple in a California court over another touscreen patent, “353,” in April last year.
Apple has not yet commented on the suit.
One thing is certain: patent lawyers on both continents will be keeping a shine on their shoes. On March 2, Apple filed a complaint with the ITC against Taiwan’s HTC Corp. alleging its patents were breached, though the cases are not related.
For years I’ve been shuttling movies and TV shows between Macs at home and work using a portable hard drive.
But now that same drive is hooked to the internet thanks to the Pogoplug, a nifty $129 device that turns any USB hard drive into your own little cloud server accessible over the Internet.
Sitting on a bookshelf at work, the Pogoplug serves up all my files over the Net, even to my iPhone. It’s also going be a great complement to the iPad (arriving Saturday), storing all my media and streaming music and movies over the net without eating up the iPad’s limited memory.
Windows PCs have two distinct keys for deleting text in different directions – delete and backspace. But on some Macs, there’s no sign of anything called “delete”. What gives?
I was drawn to In-Case’s Bamboo Slider because it is made from recycled chopsticks and bamboo scaffolds. Living in California, where recycling and composting is mandatory, there’s pressure to be as green as possible. I was eager to try this iPhone case out.
But the company also sent a Monochrome Slider case made out of nothing but pure plastic. No bamboo, hemp or recycled materials in sight. Guess which one I like better?
Note: It’s Case Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest iPhone cases on the market. Read all the case reviews here.
I love iPhone skins. They provide pretty good protection from scratches, and are the equivalent of getting a tattoo for your iPhone. Except these images aren’t permanent — you can change skins as often as your mood.
Three of the best iPhone skin makers — Gelaskins, Smirk About and Infectious — all offer designer skins from original artists. The offerings are all pretty similar: they all cost around $15, they are pretty easy to apply, and all offer similar levels of protection.
How they differ is in their unique designs that make your iPhone stand out from the masses.
Note: It’s Case Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest iPhone cases on the market. Read all the case reviews here.
After nine years, iPod co-creator Tony Fadell has opted to exit Apple to get a hand in “green” tech.
Fadell is credited with hatching the idea of a hard-drive-based digital music player in the 1990s. He first took the concept to Real Networks, but left after just six weeks due to clashes with CEO Rob Glaser.
Fadell found fertile territory for the project at Apple, where he was the first member of its iPod hardware engineering team in 2001. Working with Jon Rubenstein, Michael Dhuey and Jonathan Ive in under a year, the iPod was born.
Fadell was was promoted to vice president of iPod engineering in 2004, then named senior vice president of the iPod Division in April 2006.
His final exit isn’t that much of a surprise: Fadell stepped down from that position in 2008, staying on in an advisory role to Steve Jobs.
The forty-year-old Fadell kept mum about the motives behind his decision but told the New York Times that he was saying adios to Apple to advise companies and pursue private investments with a focus on green technology.
“My primary focus will be helping the environment by working with consumer green-tech companies,” he said. “I’m determined to tell my kids and grand kids amazing stories beyond my iPod and iPhone ones.”
Sure, a picture is worth a thousand words, but why settle for a measly thousand words when you can cram 10,000 into one panoramic mega-photo!? Well take heart shutter bugs, Autostitch Panorama is here to give you the verbose images you so desire.
Autostitch is super simple to use. It works like this. Using your favorite camera app, take a bunch of pictures of whatever you want in your mega-photo. As you snap away, try to have each photo you take overlap about 1/3 of any other photo you take (so AutoStitch knows how the images fit together). When you’re content you’ve captured everything, import all those photos into AutoStitch, hit one button, and boom! baby, Autostitch births a giant panoramic image just for you!
“But surely the images don’t look that good,” you say in half murmur. Not so! Since picture quality was my primary concern, I decided to put this little app through some tests, creating panoramic mega-photos of all sorts of different sceneries.
With its granite coloring and design, the Incipio Tribal Regrind ECO Case actually looks like a piece of carved stone.
This iPhone case is made out of 100% recycled silicone, and at least 20% of that is waste materials from other Incipio products. This makes The Tribal Regrind ECO Case one of the greenest molded cases ever.
Note: It’s Case Week on CultofMac.com. We’re checking out some of the latest and greatest iPhone cases on the market. Read all the case reviews here.
Apple is working on two new iPhones for a summer launch, including an iPhone for Verizon, the Wall Street Journal claims.
While Apple has unveiled a new iPhone every June or July since launching the product in 2007, the new model with CDMA capability, the cellular technology used by Verizon, is notable because Apple and AT&T Inc. have long had an exclusive relationship with the iPhone. That has given AT&T a competitive edge over other carriers including Verizon for the last three years.
While Apple has unveiled a new iPhone every June or July since launching the product in 2007, the new model with CDMA capability, the cellular technology used by Verizon, is notable because Apple and AT&T Inc. have long had an exclusive relationship with the iPhone. That has given AT&T a competitive edge over other carriers including Verizon for the last three years.
A Verizon iPhone has looooong been rumored, the Journal story is a major step towards confirmation. The Journal cites “people briefed on the matter.” Apple, AT&T and Verizon all declined to comment.
A Verizon iPhone would be a huge win for Apple. Verizon is the biggest carrier in the U.S, with 91.2 million customers. It’s network is reputed to be the fastest and most reliable.
As the launch of the iPad approaches, Apple has published a slew of guided video tours of the new device.
Published on Apple’s website, the tours include guides on how to use Safari, Mail, YouTube, and the iWork suite.
The tours also include a closer look at the iBooks app, which now seems to have previously-undisclosed features like word search, table of contents and a ratings/review popup. The tour also reveals a system-wide Dictionary.
All in all, the iPad looks really slick. I can’t wait for Saturday.
We start off a new week with a deal on unibody MacBook Pro laptops. The refurbished units start at $1,499 for a 2.53GHz model. Next up is a round of always popular App Store Freebies, including “Dungeon Run,” a game for your iPhone and iPod touch. We also check out Sony’s Digital Media Port for the iPod, allowing you to listen to tunes stored on your pod on your Sony stereo.
We also check out some storage options and other accessories. As always, details on these and many other items are available at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
The 10.6.3 update has just been released and includes a raft of bug fixes for QuickTime, OpenGL and more.
The 437.2MB update is available via Software Update and is recommended for all users of Mac OS X Snow Leopard.
The list of fixes, enhancements and improvements is after the jump:
We’ve all heard the saying, “the only thing better than an iPad is a free iPad” (and if you haven’t, you have now, because I just said it). No, we’re not crazy enough to be giving away free iPads. But we know who are: the folks over at VIVmag.
Although it’s never going to replace the iPod in most people’s pockets, Microsoft’s done a lot to overcome the initial missteps with their Zune line of portable media players.
In fact, if not for the overwhelming advantages of the App Store, I’d recommend the Zune HD to people over the iPod Touch. It’s a fantastic media player with a beautiful high-definition screen and a great interface, and it’s available at a wonderfully down-to-earth price: the 32GB Zune HD only costs $199 compared to the 32GB iPod Touch’s price of $299.
Only the Zune platform’s woeful app marketplace makes it a sucker buy for those who want the most of their PMPs: if all you want to do is watch movies or listen to MP3s, the 32GB Zune HD is a great deal.
Now, Microsoft is teasing the imminent release of the 64GB Zune HD. There’s no price available yet, but my guess would be $299, which is $100 cheaper than the 64GB iPod Touch. Whether or not you think that’s a good deal depends a lot on how invested you are in the App Store, but if you’re looking for a great, next-gen PMP at an affordable price, this is one Microsoft product that even an Apple fan can feel pretty good about owning.
