As the holidays loom ever closer and the global economic get worse and worse, Apple’s doing its bit to encourage a little seasonal spending.
The new iPhone Your Life section on apple.com is full of tips and tricks for new iPhone users, encouraging them to dive into the App Store and look around.
There are recommendations and staff picks, and on the Top Apps page there’s limited web-based access to best selling apps in a range of categories – the first time I’ve seen Apple replicating some of the App Store functionality on the web.
The Tips and Tricks page is also a good starting point for Christmas Day iPhone newbies (of whom, I have no doubt, there will be many).
Travis Hammond is a graphic designer located near Baltimore, Maryland. He works for a private auction firm and a local magazine, and does freelance photography and design work. He’s also a bit of an Apple nut, if these among many other examples of his Mac, iPod and iPhone inspired creativity are any indication.
A Long Island woman stabbed an attacker in the neck with her iPod charger, then managed to pick the twice-convicted rapist out of a police line up — he still had the prong marks from the charger on his neck.
According to a local paper, at 2 a.m. the rapist approached an 18-year-old as she was walking home from a friend’s place. He made a pretense of asking for directions, then put her in a chokehold and pulled her behind a church.
In the struggle, she stabbed him with an iPod charger which didn’t prevent the rape but became key in identifying her 23-year-old attacker.
Sources told the paper that by the time police rounded him up as a suspect, about a week later the rapist still bore “two prong marks on the neck from the charger.”
Wondering whether the European iPod charger with rounded prongs would come in as handy for impromptu self-defense.
Now that iPhone Firmware 2.2 is out (all 245.7MB of it), what do we all think of it? Initial reactions around the web seem broadly positive, and my own experience so far matches that. In recent weeks I’ve been seeing quite frequent application crashes on my 2nd gen iPhone, so I’ll be interested to see if they happen less often now. On very first impressions, the phone feels faster and snappier in use post-update.
Most of the changes were published in advance, but there are some hidden extras that are new to me.
Inspired by our previous post on an iPhone stand from a standard binder clip, CoM reader Rich Sipe took matters into hand and fashioned another one, a bit more complex than the first one but it looks like it’ll give you a sturdy stand out of pinched office materials.
Apple’s new MacBooks are great — but as a proud owner of one of the milled wonders, I can confirm that the much-vaunted glass trackpad did have issues. Not constant ones by any means, but it would miss clicks quite often — probably one in ten times.
Having finally downloaded and installed Trackpad Firmware Update 1.0 yesterday, I can also confirm that the problems have completely gone away now. No fuss, and every click counts.
My experience has not been universal, however. MacFixIt reports that many users are having difficulty installing the update, and I’ve even heard of some people getting kernel panics and other bad news. Install at your own risk, obviously, but it’s a very welcome update — makes the already good significantly better.
As has been widely rumored, Apple rolled out iPhone OS 2.2 tonight via software update, which brings Google Street View, mass transit directions, location sharing by e-mail, and, most excitingly, over-the-air podcast downloads, which has been a fairly glaring oversight (and source of considerable controversy).
At the same time, Apple has whipped out iTunes 8.0.2, which is basically a bug fix, plus improved results for VoiceOver, Apple’s accessibility technology for the visually impaired.
Nothing big, but good to see Apple improving its software nonetheless.
The busiest shopping day of the year is traditionally the day after Thanksgiving, known in the Retail Trade as Black Friday. And this year, anticipation appears to be building for some of the best Black Friday deals to be had for netbooks, the super-cheap small laptops from many manufacturers that may get even cheaper for a retail minute.
Here’s a custom Google search for Black Friday deals, and you’d be well advised too, to be on the look out at local hardware retailers for returned notebooks pre-installed with Linux.
We’ve seen rumors of deals to be had on a Dell mini-laptop, and powerful arguments for why netbooks may just dominate the holiday shopping season.
When you get your hands on your mini-deal, see the references below for tips on how to get ’em to run OS X:
One of my favorite Mac programs is Garage Band. As a musician and songwriter, I am endlessly impressed with how much creativity and flexibility Apple has built into the program, for my money the star of the iLife bundle.
I learned about a new little trick for creating one-touch sound effects using Garage Band‘s Musical Keyboard, as described by writer Christopher Breen in MacWorld.
You can map up to 18 of the program’s built-in sound effects (select Sound Effect from the Software Instrument Info pane), or pre-recorded AIFF files dragged from the Finder, to keys on the Mac keyboard (as shown above) and save the whole set as an “Instrument” to be called for use in creating any new podcast or other recording project.
Be sure to see Breen’s article for the step-by-step instructions for utilizing this handy tip.
Mac userTom Klaver says, “Command-Tab in this case brings me command-slap, because when I invoke the command-tab keystroke to switch to another app, almost every time this weird unidentifiable
thing happens.”
Think you’ve got the hands or, in the case of iPhone, the fingers of a surgeon? You’ll soon be able to find out with a new mobile game from developer ngmoco, inc.. Dr. Awesome, Microsurgeon MD is an iPhone game that lets you import friends from your address book and “perform surgery” on them in a Qix meets Trauma Center gamescape environment, according to blogger Brandon Boyer at Boing Boing.
These fabulous tilt-shift G4 iMacs are the work of joelsuplido on Flickr. He’s got a whole set of them, there’s more Mac ones to drool over. It’s not just the tilt-shift effect, it’s the colors; they’re gorgeous.
Fashion czar Karl Lagerfeld, who put his hand to an iPod casehimself once for Italian fashion house Fendi, owns a custom iPod trunk to support his professed love of Mac.
Lagerfeld totes his gear around in a handcrafted custom trunk from Louis Vuitton. Well, probably some bedraggled assistant has to pack his wardrobe of 20 iPods, one charger (what just one?), JBL iPod speakers and a subwoofer.
Too cool even to even carry the LV monogram (but they do have Lagerfeld’s initials near the handle) the trunk is made in trademark Taiga black leather with a microfiber interior.
Custom cases like these take from four to six months to make and run upwards of $10,000.
Microsoft, a day after slashing prices of its Zune media player, Thursday threw a bone to fans of DRM-free music, offering a $15 per month Zune Pass subscription for essentially $5.
Microsoft said it would allow Zune Pass subscribers to keep 10 songs (worth around $10) per month that they can own, even if the subscription ends. Previously, copy-protection meant songs downloaded from the Zune marketplace would be disabled if the $15 per month subscription service expired.
“People want the freedom to listen to whatever they want across millions of songs, combined with the confidence that they can keep their favorite tracks forever,” Chris Stephenson, Zune’s general manager of global marketing, said in statement.
Can see this iPhone power charger, a prototype by a Tokyo designer who goes by the name Mac Funamizu, in the hands of irate Hollywood agent Ari Gold from Entourage as he channels Gordon Gecko.
A diagram in Apple's iPhone status patent application.
Apple has filed a patent application to add always-on status indicators to the iPhone. The innovation would address a common task for cell phones but a headache for owners of the touch-screen handset.
In most flip-phones and even other touch-screen devices, users can instantly know when they’ve missed a call or received a voice-mail message. However, for iPhone users, it requires turning on the phone and going into settings to retrieve the information.
Apple is in talks with three major music studios that have held out selling songs on iTunes free of copy protection, according to a report Thursday. If successful, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG titles could be part of Apple’s iTunes Plus.
Although CNET described discussions as “still preliminary,” an agreement would expand Apple’s iTunes Plus option to include music from all major studios. When the program was launched about a year ago, only EMI signed onto selling tunes free of restrictions that tied iTunes purchases to an Apple device.
With its iTunes and iPod dynasty, Apple has dominated digital music sales. However, a growing number of rivals — Amazon, Microsoft and MySpace among them — have used DRM-free MP3 music to loosen the stranglehold.
Apple Wednesday released a software update permitting the Apple TV device to operate more as a hub for digital content. At the top of the list of enhanced features included in the 2.3 software: AirTunes streaming.
The new ability opens possibilities for Apple TV owners to listen or view content from either another Apple TV or Airport Express speakers.
Additionally, the update expands access to your iTunes playlists, permitting videos, podcasts or music to be accessed via Apple TV. In October, Apple released an update that included the latest features in iTunes 8.0, including support for the new Genius playlist function.
The update also adds support for third-part remote controls besides Apple’s and music volume control.
Users of the streaming-media service boxee are advised to not install this latest upgrade. Apple TV users are reporting the 2.3 upgrade disables boxee.
Flickr user raneko had a mucky Mighty Mouse, and decided to take it to pieces and clean it. This wasn’t something Apple intended to happen, so it’s quite an involved process – you can follow raneko’s progress from this photo in his Apple set (which has a bunch of other great Apple pics in it).
(Photo used under Creative Commons license. Thanks to raneko.)
Last month, the Texas LEGO User Group included a model Apple retail store on main street for the Austin Maker Fair. You can also take a look inside the store, though Lego for Lego, we prefer the interior of this mini Apple store, though the logo roof on the Texas model is pretty sweet.
The big tech news of the last few days is that Hewlett-Packard‘s 2008 earnings are better than analyst estimates — and this most recent quarter should be their strongest. It was a major bright spot from one of the world’s largest companies, showing that the current credit crisis doesn’t actually mean that the entire economy has shut down. Specifically, the tech sector might be in less trouble than everyone else.
And it made me wonder, yet again, why exactly stock analysts continue to assume that Apple can’t continue to grow and innovate in the coming years. After all, if one organization knows something about hitting the gas during a down time to get light years ahead of the competition, it is Apple. The stock chart I’ve reproduced above from Google shows the performance of AAPL since the introduction of the iPod in the depths of the post-9/11 and -Enron recession. Even with the recent precipitous drop in AAPL (it’s down almost 60 percent since January), the stock is worth about eight times what it was before the iPod (when you factor in the stock split in 2005).
The iPhone is burning up the charts. Apple has its strongest line-up of laptops in the history of the company and is gobbling up market share. The iPod touch and new nano has cemented Apple’s lead in the media player market. When people aren’t buying cars and houses, they still find time for personal entertainment — it’s a comfort when everything else is crazy. With Apple’s current technology and product pipeline, I believe that Steve has the organization poised to thrive once again. They’re going to maintain their position, continue growth, and get out ahead in creating new markets while their competitors are battening down the hatches and sticking to doing what they already know.
What Apple has to offer isn’t going away because credit is scarce. If anything, it may grow even more appealing.
Italian priest Father Paolo Padrini came up with the idea of a free prayer app for iPhone and iPod Touch users. This virtual breviary, or book of hours, gives the morning prayer, evening prayer and night prayer or complines for the day.
Right now, it’s available only in Italian but Spanish and English versions are on the way.
“Meninos is a creative team with experience from a wide range of clients, specialized in illustration, graphics and motion design,” according to the website copy. the iPhone icon coaster set pictured above is but one of many whimsical designs available on what appears to be a website based in Brazil.
“We start making this products for personal use, then for friends and now we sell for friends of friends,” they say. All products are designed and created (hand made) by the artists and designers at Meninos studio, where they like to make things simple and different.
The AppStore “is causing a sea change in both the mobile phone industry and the gaming industry that threatens the viability of all competitors,” according to technology stock analyst Jason Schwarz at Seeking Alpha.
Calling the AppStore bigger than the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone, Schwarz points to comments made by Steve Jobs during Apple’s recent earnings conference call with industry analysts, in which he pointed out that the company is now benefiting from being at the center of a cycle in which cool applications beget more sales, thereby creating an even larger market which will attract even more software development.
Schwarz writes that Apple and the AppStore have “brought the Internet to the level…everyone expected during the tech bubble…[with] efficiency of distribution [that] is impossible for the traditional model to compete with,” and goes on to identify Apple stock, trading in the $80 range, as “a unique wealth building opportunity.”
Some Cult of Mac readers have lately complained about the preponderance of iPhone and iPhone app-related coverage we have been publishing, but the fact of the matter is that AppStore development is exploding. It represents where much of Apple and Mac oriented creativity exists right now. And if Schwarz is right when he says “Modern day society values its computers and phones above all else,” then AppStore news and product development are likely to increase and not fade away.
On a day when HP beat Apple to the punch with the idea of a multi-touch notebook, Apple fan and Flickr user nthnschrdr‘s design for a multi-touch Mac Pad is something worth dreaming about…
Be sure to go to the Flickr page and check out the photo’s embedded notes.
