International roll-out in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK of both the iPad WiFi and iPad 3G will happen in late April.
Hurrah! The end is in sight! So much for those rumored delays: this puts the iPad launch exactly within the 60-90 day launch window Steve Jobs promised on January 27th.
Who else will be compulsively refreshing Apple.com on March 12th along with me?
Apple’s always struggled to keep its laptops both cool and quiet. Steve Jobs is notoriously perturbable in regards to fan noise, which means the fans on Macs, when present, kick in a lot less often than on their PC counterparts. A lot of the true engineering genius of the unibody aluminum MacBooks are in the way they effectively dissipate heat while keeping the fans turned low.
It’s a great solution for now, but laptops are just going to burn hotter in the coming years, not cooler. Forward thinking Apple isn’t going to sit on its haunches when it comes to notebook heat dissipation. They’ve filed for four separate patents related to cooling efficiency in future Macs: one for venting heat through open USB and FireWire ports, two addressing a notebook’s ability to adjust its performance dynamically based upon airflow measurements, and one that outlines a plan to use heat conductive hinge assemblies.
As usual, there’s no telling just when, or even if, we’ll see these patents rolled out into actual Apple products, but it’s good to know Apple’s staying on top of the problem as computers continue to burn hotter. After upgrading to a unibody MacBook, I couldn’t go back to my first-gen’s proclivity for scrotum searing if I tried.
Ahh, bless ’em. The hacks at The Sun aren’t famous for hard-hitting investigative journalism, but at least you’d expect them to know an iPhone app when they see one.
A couple of weeks ago a builder fooled them (and the Daily Mail) into believing that he’d taken a photo of a ghostly boy on a building site in Hull.
But as the internet pointed out shortly afterwards, anyone can make the exact same ghostly figure appear pretty much anywhere they like, thanks to the Ghost Capture app for iPhone.
Even funnier are some of the comments posted under the stories. On the Daily Mail’s version, for example, Mel from Stroud says:
“i am mildly psychic and i snese this boy was evacualted from the war,his father died,his mother died of old age,he lives with an old couple and this used to be his school,hopes this helps everyone”
(To be honest, I don’t think for a minute that the journalists at either paper actually believed that the photo was real, and they probably did instantly work out where it came from. But The Sun’s purpose is to entertain as much as it is to inform – so they wrote it up in all innocent seriousness, knowing that readers with a clue would be in on the joke. And that some readers would fall for it.)
Forget the iPad, kids, just forget it forever. You don’t need one anymore. Because the guys at E4 have created… ePad. It’s more than amazing. It’s amazinger.
Don’t just take my word for it. Watch this video for the full details.
One of the greatest things about App Store games is that they’ve broken the seemingly relentless escalation of costs for developers and price-increases for end users. In a sense, many of the games on the store return us to the halcyon days of 8-bit games—playable, quickfire efforts that innovated and packed in plenty of personality.
Over at creature24.com, three guys are about to take this idea to the extreme, taking a skeleton idea for an iPhone game through to App Store submission—all in just 24 hours. Progress will be shown live on the website on March 6, starting at 9:00am EST, and the trio of devs say comments from visitors might even be integrated into the game. I caught up with one of the three crazy game creators, Binary Hammer‘s Bob Koon, to find out more.
Pulling a stunt worthy of Tom Cruise in “Mission Impossible,” thieves cut a hole in the roof of a Best Buy then dropped down 16-feet to snatch up 20 Apple laptops. Then they climbed back up, escaping with $26,000 of merchandise without ever touching the floor.
Touching ground would have set off the store’s burglar alarm. And the two or three person crew were too clever to get caught on tape: they cut the roof hole in a spot where security cameras are blocked by ad banners.
The cinematic caper took place in South Brunswick, New Jersey leaving police to marvel at their handiwork:
“(This was a) high level of sophistication,” said Detective James Ryan, a police department spokesman told NJ.com “They never set off any motion sensors. They never touched the floor. They rappelled in and rappelled out.”
Apple won the top spot in Fortune’s most admired company list for the third year in a row. In the annual popularity contest — business people from around the globe are asked to vote for the outfits they admire the most — Apple earned a total score of 7.95.
Why is Apple so prized? According to Fortune: Product, product, product.
“The whole world held its breath before the iPad was announced,” observes BMW CEO Norbert Reithofer. “That’s brand management at its very best.”
The top 10 of the 50 companies included just two other tech outfits Google (2), Amazon (5). Microsoft ranked number 11.
Apple’s iPhone, which has steadily risen in marketshare against most competitors, hit a bump in February, losing 3.2 percent of its marketshare, according to a Web analysis firm. By comparison, the marketshare of Android-based phones rose 8.3 percent in February.
The problem isn’t a falling interest in the iPhone, says Quantcast. At 63 percent, the iPhone has the largest piece of the Mobile Web Consumption pie, the firm said. Rather, Android phones are taking off at a much faster pace. Android’s marketshare grew 44 percent during the past quarter and almost 100 percent the past year. This is while the iPhone’s marketshare fell 4.5 percent and 10.2 percent during the same periods.
Ok, a cardboard theater with an iPhone in it, but this still beats the sugar-cube igloos my dad used to pile together to amuse us kids on rainy days.
Gary Katz crafted this theater in a couple of hours using a laser printer, rubber cement and a humble shoe box. Put an iPhone in and voilà: it’s showtime.
Katz shows how he did it above, but if you’re short on patience, he sells pre-made kits — personalized on request — for $20, plus shipping.
We’ve already got a good handle on how periodical publishers intend on using the iPad to revitalize their businesses, but what about book publishers? Outside of just having another e-book platform to publish for, how can the iPad’s incredible multimedia and interactive capabilities be leveraged to transform the way we experience literature?
On Tuesday, Penguin Books’ CEO John Makinson tried to answer just those questions, demonstrating some upcoming books that will be coming to the iPad. Perhaps the most impressive demo was for the iPad version of the beloved children’s book, Where’s Spot? which has been transformed into an adorable interactive learning app. Penguin’s not stopping there: their Vampire Academy e-book is “an online community for vampire lovers” that features live chat between readers (a nice touch, but parents might get their heckles up at the idea of a real-life Edward Cullen prowling for pre-teens in the pages of their cildren’s book) , while a Paris travel guide switches to street map view when it’s put on a table.
Patent infringement lawsuits filed by Apple and Nokia in Delaware were put on hold after a judge ruled Wednesday their outcome must wait for international trade complaints to be sorted out. In February, the International Trade Commission announced it would investigate Apple’s claims against Nokia, a move following a similar January pronouncement concerning Nokia’s allegations against Apple.
It is uncertain when the Washington, DC-based ITC will announce decisions in the two cases, although some say the probe could last about 15 months. The body can demand the halt of imports if a company is found guilty of infringing upon a competitor’s patents.
To Be Or Not To Be… Steve Jobs. That is the question.
Well, actually, that’s not the question at all: the real question is whether you will pay good money to see “one of the elite performers in American theater,” Mike Daisey, be or not be the reclusive Apple CEO in a one-man show titled The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.
Don’t expect a flattering portrayal of Jobs. The official description of the monologue declares that Daisey will follow the “epic story of a real-life Willy Wonka” along his “trail to China where millions toil in factories to create iPhones and iPods.” Did you get that? Forget Oompah-Loompahs, Jobs apparently has millions of his own diminutive ethnic slaves to work at his Wonka factories.
We’re guessing that Dickey isn’t going to be afraid to play fast and loose with the facts in order to embellish the internal struggle of a charismatic tech leader and grand poombah of the Cult of Mac… but it’s not like he doesn’t have the credentials. Daisey’s first big theater break came from a show focusing on his employment at Amazon.com, and he’s also done a one-man show in which he portrayed another enigmatic cult leader: the one great nemesis of Lord Xenu himself, “Commodore” L. Ron Hubbard.
If a questionably sourced monologue about Jobs piques your interest, you’ve got plenty of time to pick up tickets: The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs won’t hit the stage until January 14, 2011.
The chief supplier for Apple’s iPad tablet is denying there will be any delay to the previously announced March shipment date. Foxconn Electronics told a trade publication Wednesday supplies for the tablet device “are on schedule.”
The China-based company also told DigiTimes 600,000-700,000 iPads will be ready in March and 1 million of the devices will ship in April. The iPad’s launch is unlikely to be delayed, unnamed sources told the publication.
We reported two weeks ago that Capcom was planning on bringing Street Fighter 4, to the App Store despite the iPhone and iPod Touch’s lack of waggling physical controls… but now we can see exactly how the iconic fighting game will play on Apple’s line-up of touchscreen handsets thanks to a recently released trailer.
We already knew Valve was bringing its popular Steam games delivery service to OS X thanks to some Mac-specific files floating around the latest PC beta, but you can now pretty much take it as read: the Half-Life 2 developer has been releasing a slew of images slathering the Apple coating across their most popular gaming franchise.
So far, Valve has released images of Half-Life 2‘s Gordon Freeman wearing an iMacified HEV suit, replete with Apple logo instead of the Black Mesa Lambda symbol; the Team Fortress 2 Heavy eating a sandwich in the style of the dancing silhouette iPod ads; turrets from both Team Fortress 2 and Portal (a game which boasts a very Mac-inspired visual design scheme) doing the “I’m a Mac / I’m a PC” dance; Left 4 Dead’s Francis mocking the iconic “Think Different” series of ads; a Steam-specific take-off of the first “Introducing Macintosh” advertisement (courtesy of RPS); and Half-Life 2’s Alyx transported into the famous “1984” commercial (via Macworld).
We’ve got all the images after the jump, At the barest minimum, though, OS X is about to get a proper digital delivery platform for games, and native ports of Valve’s greatest games. Rare good news indeed for the dedicated Mac gamer.
The dread iPhone backup progress bar (via iPhone Lover)
Just a shade over nine years ago, Apple launched iTunes, a fairly late, fairly average MP3 player with CD burning built in. And though it lacked many of the features of Audion, then the best music player for Mac, it not only became the market leader, but it set the stage for the iPod, widespread legal music downloads, legal TV, the iPhone, and soon the iPad. It would be no exaggeration to say that iTunes saved Apple. It would be no exaggeration to say that iTunes is now Apple’s most successful piece of software ever in terms of users.
But it would also be no exaggeration to call it the worst piece of software Apple makes and the one thing that could disrupt Apple’s current march to mobile device dominance. It has bloated into a crashy kludge that the rest of the Apple universe depends upon. Despite a lot of good intentions from amazing software developers, iTunes has become Apple’s Internet Explorer 6 — an unmitigated disaster.
The WiFi-Where App in action (before Apple removed it from the App Store).
Having purged the App Store of porn, it looks as though Apple is now clearing the App Store of Wi-Fi finders.
On Wednesday, it appears that Apple removed several popular Wi-Fi stumbers from the App Store, including WiFi-Where, WiFiFoFum and yFy Network Finder.
Apple sent a note to the developer of WiFi-Where on Wednesday saying their app has been removed because it uses “a private framework to access wifi information.”
The best ideas are always the simplest. This is a fantastic tip from one of the team at Massive Studios, who needed a stand to rest a MacBook on.
Why bother spending money on something made of metal or plastic, when everything you need came in the box, wrapped around the MacBook?
Some Instructables are complicated but this one’s dead simple. All you need provide is a couple of screws – yep, screw them right into the styrofoam, apparently it works just fine – and a blade to slice the foam in the first place, and that’s it.
And if you’re wondering whether someone’s thought of turning an iPhone box into an iPhone dock, the answer is most certainly yes.
Plainview is a web browser with a difference. It’s a full screen browser, lacking any bells and whistles at all except just the one: no chrome, if you’ll forgive the pun.
So all you get is web content from floor to ceiling. Everything else gets hidden away, including your Dock and your Menu Bar.
So, you might wonder, why on earth would I want that? Good question.
We have a hardware trio of deals today, starting off with a number of used Macs, including a 500Mhz iMac G3 with a 15-inch CRT for $40. Next up is a 16GB iPod nano for $160, followed by a 16GB iPhone 3GS for $149. (A 32GB version sells for $249.)
Also on tap is a number of software apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, including a new crop of App Store freebies. As usual, the details on these and many other bargains are available right after the jump.
It was bound to happen: every new Apple product announcement inevitably becomes the lure for some unscrupulous scumbucket’s latest scam, and the iPad certainly wasn’t going to be any different. But the latest online scam to prominently feature an Apple product seems a bit more dastardly than most. According to security firm Sophos, a new iPad scam has hit Facebook, and far from giving you a free iPad, it could cost you a pretty penny.
The scam starts innocently enough: you are directed to a Facebook page which reads “iPad Researchers Wanted — Want to beta test Apple’s latest product?” The page then goes on to encourage you to become a fan and to recruit your friends, claiming propagation of the scam will increase your chances of being accepted into the beta.
But here’s the insidious part: go to the page brings up a pop-up window, claiming to be a quiz that you need to fill out to be eligible for the beta… and the quiz asks for your permission to get your date of birth and cellphone number from Facebook.
“That’s where the scam happens,” says Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. The hackers who created this page are trying to sign you up for a premium rate cellphone service, that will charge you something like $10 a week until you unsubscribe.”
The good news here is Sophos alerted Facebook, who quickly pulled the scam… but the bad news is, it’s doubtlessly going to pop right back up again.
The lesson here, of course, is if it’s too good to be true, it always is… and Apple’s never going to let a schmuck like you or me beta test its new products.
According to Doctor Who lore, inside the dimpled chassis of the genocidal Dalek is a cycloptic squidling, but Steve over at BotBuilder knows the real truth: in actuality, the warbling, murderous cyborgs are remote controlled via iPhone using the accelerometer.
According to Steve, “The iPhone sends out OSC signals over WiFI to processing which then talks over serial to my Servo Board. The Dalek moves around when you tilt the ipod/iphone. I am getting the accelerometer data out for this. I also have a turret that can be rotated and some leds that are switch-able.”
All very well and good, Steve, but you just haven’t taken this project far enough until I can pick up my iPhone, shriek “Exterminate!” into the mic and have it automatically converted into an oscillating, high-pitched electronic shriek emanating from the remote-controlled Dalek’s head plunger.
Yesterday, Cupertino surprised everyone by throwing a bonafide legal temper tantrum about rival handset maker HTC’s alleged infringement on up to 20 Apple patents.
Although Apple is targeting HTC, the takeaway here is clear: Apple’s going after Android, HTC’s bread-and-butter. Google recognizes this, and is standing in solidarity with HTC.
As Apple fans, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture here. Competition is good for the consumer, and Android becoming a credible threat to the iPhone’s dominance will only make the iPhone cheaper and better for consumers in the long run.
There’s other aspects that make this sort of patent battle bad news for consumers though. The New York Times Bits blog asked some IP experts on the possible ramifications of the Apple-HTC patent dispute, and according to Harvard Law School professor Jonathan Zittrain, if Apple wins, we could see the courts order HTC to hit the kill switch on their Android phones, just like what happened in the TiVo/EchoStar lawsuit of 2004.
