Cult of Mac

Photo by Stephanie Diani for the New York Times

Very interesting news from the New York Times: Disney is completely overhauling its retail stores, with Steve Jobs at the helm.

Theaters will allow children to watch film clips of their own selection, participate in karaoke contests or chat live with Disney Channel stars via satellite. Computer chips embedded in packaging will activate hidden features. Walk by a “magic mirror” while holding a Princess tiara, for instance, and Cinderella might appear and say something to you.

It’s your birthday? With the push of a button, eight 13-foot-tall Lucite trees will crackle with video-projected fireworks and sound. There will be a scent component; if a clip from Disney’s coming “A Christmas Carol” is playing in the theater, the whole store might suddenly be made to smell like a Christmas tree.

It’s a great article, well worth the read. Most notable is Jobs’s insistence that Disney build a full-scale prototype of the entire store in order to figure out how to get the experience just right. I can think of few events more telling in the transformation of Apple from niche computer-maker to taste-maker to the world than that of Disney asking Apple retail specialists for help in defining great experience design.

I mean, eight years ago, Apple didn’t even have stores. Disney created Disneyland. How’s that for turnabout?

Disney Plans Extensive Overhaul of Mall Stores New York Times

Now that Apple has updated the iPod shuffle, giving it a new look (sort of like a Bic lighter), as well as more colors, what’s one to do with the tiny tie-clasp-like older MP3 players? One option: swap out the music for a mini MP3 DV camera.

Xiangyun Industries Co., Ltd. turns the old shuffles into a 1.3 megapixel 20 fps video camera capable of 640×480 or 1,280×960 pixel JPG photos.

The price is between $15-$30 but only order of 1,000 video shuffles, please. The little gadget sounds like a perfect stocking-stuffer or maybe even a spy cam.

[Via Engadget]

We start the week off with deals for both lovers of hardware and software. The Apple Store offers a 15 percent discount on aluminum iMacs with 24-inch screens (2.66 GHz to 3.06 GHz). For those seeking to wedge just one more app on their iPhone or iPod touch, there are many choice, ranging from the serious to pure gaming.

For details on these and other bargains (such as the Peephole, a Twitter image viewer for the iPhone/iPod touch), check out the full “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

There’s a new twist on the “Guest Account” bug with Snow Leopard updates. Along with all /user files vanishing if you have the “Guest” account active when upgrading, if you accidently use the guest account mass file deletions could happen, reports said Monday.

“So I restarted my computer and logged on again, it was exactly the same, everything gone. At which point I looked in the Users folder to find that my User profile had been removed and replaced with a fresh one with the same name,” a user calling himself dbferrari wrote Sunday on the Apple Discussion board. The person said he had accidently selected the “guest” account rather than his personal account at the login screen of OS X 10.6.1.

Friday we wrote about similar reports of data deleted after being logged into the “guest” after an upgrade.

The cure until Apple addresses the bug: disable your Guest account.

[Via Apple Discussions and Engadget]

With its simple tap-to-jump gameplay, high-speed scrolling and gritty dystopian atmospherics, Canabalt proved a hit Flash-based sensation when recently unleashed online. The game has now been released for iPhone and iPod touch—one of the first truly successful Flash-based games on the platform. We spoke to Adam Saltsman and Eric Johnson of Semi Secret Software about how the game came to be.

We’ve written a lot about the iPod Touch becoming a near-requirement at US universities, but iPod use may be on the uptick in North American grade schools, too.

One Florida elementary school has 80 iPods that some kids use to listen to audio books (instead of reading them, it seems) others do comprehension exercises and the wee ones watch videos teaching them about the five senses and then answer questions.

“It’s cool,” 11-year-old Devyn Cabral said, taking a break from Science Fair by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. “When you’re sitting at your desk and reading a book, it’s harder. It’s easier for me to comprehend by listening to it.”

Julianne Audino, 8, said she liked the iPods “better than reading, because we actually get to listen.”

Seven-year-old Dejah Staton wasn’t so thrilled.
“I’d rather read the book,” she said. “You can imagine it on your own. This is telling you.”

Continue reading

Dr. Arthur Levinson has resigned as a member of Google’s board of directors, cutting the final tie between the Mountain View, Calif. Internet giant and Apple. Google CEO Eric Schmidt left Apple’s board of directors in August.

Levinson, who served as a member of Google’s board of directors since 2004, remains on Apple’s board. Although no reason was given for Levinson leaving, reports suggested the departure may be tied to a Federal Trade Commission anti-competition investigation of Google and Apple.

Schmidt said Levinson, a former CEO of Genentech, had provided “unvarnished advice and vital counsel” while at Google and would always “have a special place at Google.”

The first in a series of five t-shirt giveaways, correctly name this mystery Apple item and you could win a T-shirt.

Not just any T-shirt: choose from the Apple-inspired designs at might tees, which include the I Love Lisa we wrote about, a retro-style logo and Steve Jobs in typeface.

The tees are made with water-based eco inks screen printed on high quality tri-blend shirts (part organic cotton, part recycled rayon and polyester) and a $28-$36 value.

We’ll chose a winner at random from correct answers — please name object and model in the comments.
Contest ends midnight, October 14.

“Red skies in morning; Sailors take warning.” Maybe that old seafaring wisdom should include users of the Microsoft-owned Danger Sidekick. In something akin to an “all is lost” warning, Redmond has told Sidekick owners data stored on the first smartphone “has almost certainly been lost.”

What’s to be done? Not much, except sit tight and hold onto your rebates. “Sidekick customers, during this service disruption, please DO NOT remove your battery, reset your Sidekick, or allow it to lose power,” urged Sidekick carrier T-Mobile, halting sales of the device. In the meantime, T-Mobile reportedly will offer Sidekick owners a free month of data services (not voice), valued at $20. How much is your data worth?

Blackra1n, iPhone hacker George Hotz’s software for 1-click jailbreaking, has been released for all existing iPhone and iPod Touch devices. However, it will NOT unlock the device, enabling it to be used with different GSM carriers worldwide.

Blackra1n is currently compatible with Windows only — or “all Windows that matter,” in GeoHot’s words. I am supposing that means Windows XP, Windows Vista and hopefully Windows 7 RC. Currently, there is no word on a Mac version — but it should be released soon as well.

What blackra1n does is…

In the world of iPhone apps, there are generally three categories of quality:

• Crapware that you throw away a few minutes after downloading
• Moderately useful software that you keep around but use a few times a week
• Daily tools that become a key part of your iPhone experience

With the release of Loren Brichter’s much-anticipated Tweetie 2 for iPhone, however, I think it’s time to establish a new category: “iPhone software better than anything Apple.” In fact, I’m willing to go so far as to claim it is the single-best app ever written for the platform. It’s incredibly useful, smooth as butter, innovative in design and features, and just works as you expect that it would. It’s as if it sprung, fully formed, from the skull of the iPhone, as if to say, “This is how it should work.” Not only has Tweetie 2 raised the bar for mobile Twitter clients, it’s raised the bar for mobile software.

I’ve been playing with it non-stop since its release yesterday, so there’s a lot of ground to cover. I’m going to break this review into three major categories: Interface, Features, and Magic. Hit the jump to see it all. There’s so much to talk about!

On my blog a couple of weeks back, I wrote the article More proof the iPhone App Store destroys people’s understanding of good value, highlighting rampant idiotic reactions to Loren Brichter having the audacity to charge three whole dollars for a complete rewrite of his stunning Twitter app Tweetie. Patrick Jordan referred to Tweetie 2’s price-point as a “very,very,very Bad Call,” (his emphasis), suggesting it was “spitting in the face of existing Tweetie users”. My thinking: You’d pay more than three bucks for a crappy sandwich or a luke-warm beer in the pub. But, apparently, three bucks is too much of a ‘reward’ for the hard work a dedicated indie dev has put into a leading and brilliant product.

The dev of Alchemize has clearly had enough of this kind of attitude. On the TouchArcade forum, he reveals that his company has received an astonishing 3400 emails in one month moaning about the price of his three-dollar game. Although its Puyo Puyo-style mechanics won’t win too many awards for originality, Alchemize is a fairly good game, and one that would set you back considerably more on competing platforms. To that end, the dev’s now upped his app’s price to an eye-watering $39.99 in protest at people constantly complaining about paying a few bucks for a videogame.

It’s pretty clear that something needs to be done regarding App Store pricing and value perception, because the race to the bottom is hurting many developers. Apple’s recent ‘top grossing’ chart doesn’t really help. Personally, I like Eucalyptus dev Jamie Montgomerie’s suggestion that the App Store should split its chart in two, along the lines of British 8-bit videogames during the 1980s and early 1990s, offering separate ‘budget’ and ‘full price’ charts.

Alchemize is available on the App Store, and really isn’t worth 40 bucks; but it’s probably worth a shot at three, after the 12th.

As more and more U.S. iPhone users become fed up with AT&T, some are seriously starting to consider using Apple’s iPod Touch as a full-time phone.

Trouble is, the Touch doesn’t have cell phone radio. But pair it with a personal WiFi router, like Verizon’s MiFi, and a service like Skype, and the Touch might be a viable full-time VOIP phone.

CoM reader Alex Bowles’ contract with AT&T expires in January, so he seriously looked into replacing his iPhone with an iPod Touch and Verizon’s MiFi. Here’s what he found.

Famous iPhone hacker George Hotz (better known as GeoHot) claims to be working on a tool that might revolutionize the current jailbreak scenario! Called blackra1n, the tool promises to jailbreak all  existing iPhone and iPod Touch devices with 3.1.2 installed in just a matter of seconds, according to GeoHot. However, it will NOT unlock the device, enabling it to be used with different GSM carriers worldwide.

Currently, jailbreaking an iPhone or iPod Touch is a complex and time-consuming process, requiring the creation of custom firmware, entering several different modes, etc. There are separate tools for different devices and different firmware versions. Not only this, each generally requries you to follow a different procedure. It’s a pain.

But with blackra1n, jailbreaking promises to be a few simple clicks for any iPhone or iPod Touch.

The last tool released by GeoHot was purplera1n, a simple solution, which allowed iPhone 3GS users to jailbreak any OOTB (out-of-the-box) phone with firmware version 3.0 with a single click. The procedure was simpler and less painful, compared to DevTeam‘s offerings, which required you to choose between several different options. But purplera1n contained a few bugs that forced him to kill the project after the release of firmware update 3.0.1.

However, blackra1n will be quite different from purplera1n because it is based off a completely different exploit, GeoHot says. GeoHot expects to release the tool really soon although, after dealing with some technical obstacles. Hopefully, it will be out this weekend.

Hotz is a 21-year-old hacker who is famous for unlocking the first iPhone ever soon after its debut in 2007. After a break, he recently made a comeback to the iPhone scene with the release of his jailbreak and unlock solutions for iPhone OS 3.0 that offered tough competition to the DevTeam.

For many, the gloss finish on a MacBook Pro’s screen can become irritating. Although Apple stepped in to allow MacBook owners with 15.4-inch screens to swap out for $50 the displays for a matte finish, that option wasn’t available for owners of the 13-inch Macs – until now. TechRestore will “repair” your MacBook Pro’s glossy screen for $200.

“Send in your MacBook and [TechRestore] will rip out the screen and replace it with a matte one , and because the screen no longer has the glass panel, you also get a matte-black bezel, complete with holes for the iSight camera and LEDs,” according to Gadget Lab.

TechRestore says it will send your MacBook back within 24 hours and with a 1-year warranty.

[Via Gadget Lab and TechRestore]

Adobe has announced the release of Photoshop for your iPhone or iPod touch – although the software is closely tied to Adobe’s Photoshop.com photo hosting and sharing service.

Iomega has released the StorCenter ix2-200, a squat-looking NAS that includes built-in remote torrent transfers and support for Apple’s Time Machine. The $270 (1T) product also lets you download data to any Bluetooth phone – along with a number of “green” features.

“Based on EMC’s world class enterprise storage and security technologies and featuring a completely new sleek, sexy industrial design, the new network device will be the easiest-to-use NAS appliance on the marketplace today,” according to Iomega.

The ix2-200’s features “appeal to the movie-downloading, home-server-building, tofu-eating, lazy ass in you,” according to Gizmodo.

What struck us most is the built-in support for torrents. No computer is needed – download the files on the road with your Bluetooth mobile. The NAS also includes support for up to five security cameras that can be monitored from your iPhone.

[Via Gizmodo and Iomega]

We close the week with a familiar trio: MacBook Pros (2.66GHz 17-inch screen), more MacBooks (13.3-inch 2.4GHz) from the Apple Store, and the iPod touch ($149 for an 8GB). Along the way, we also offer a laptop case for your MacBook, plus the MyPlaylists app for your iPod touch or iPhone.

For details on these and other bargains (such as 40GB Apple TVs), check out CoM’s “Daily Deals” page after the jump.

Microsoft’s “Pink” phones, a Zune-like response to Apple’s iPhone, is on the verge of collapse, as the company ignores advice coming from the increasingly disgruntled team of Danger employees. The key mistake, according to leaks is the software giant’s demanding a firewall between the Pink program (also known as the Zune Phone) and Windows Mobile and Zune projects.

According to AppleInsider, Microsoft’s isolation of the Danger team prevented the engineers and others to pass along lessons learned while developing Danger’s Sidekick. Since acquiring the smartphone maker in 2008, Microsoft has seen most of the Danger team either be fired or walk.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ircH4hwjx60

If you’ve ever wondered what the point of those flashlight apps are, wonder no more: they are kick-butt investigation tools.

The next time you need to crawl down a 150-foot electrical conduit and don’t have a flashlight —  your iPhone can light the way, a recent episode of CSI reminds us.

In a cheesy bit of iProduct placement, the actor hands his iPhone-cum-flashlight over to the guy who will have to brave the crawl space saying “There’s an app for that.”

There are a bunch of these apps on iTunes, most are free, ranging from Funny Flashlight to myLite (also has strobe effects), with jokey descriptions like “Are you scared of the dark?”

Has anyone found the flashlight app handy — aside from helping solve heinous crimes?

Via Art of the iPhone

It’s Friday and it’s time for our weekly digest of tiny iPhone reviews, courtesy of iPhoneTiny.com, with some extra commentary exclusive to Cult of Mac.

Under review this week: Edge by Mobigame, Concertimatic, Juiced, Formula 1 Live Racing Free, Dude, FTP On The Go, Mr.AahH!!, Pinch n Pop!, iSplume, Edge by Mobigame Lite. As always, all id.gd links are to the relevant App Store page.

It seems everywhere you look – on the street, on television and online – another iPod or iPhone is being produced or sold. Supply of flash memory has hit a 1.3 percent shortfall and is expected to drop to 3.3 percent below demand during the important Christmas period. Once again the blame is being laid at Apple’s doorstep.

“NAND flash supply has reportedly become tighter as major chip producers Samsung Electronics, Toshiba, Micron and Hynix Semiconductor favor demand for Apple devices,” DigiTimes writes on a report from DRAMeXchange.

This isn’t the first time Apple has been blamed for a shortage in NAND memory. In September a “serious shortage” of flash memory was reported, causing makers to curtail production to everyone but Apple. At the same time, Apple unveiled new flash-based iPods, including a 64GB iPod touch and an updated iPod nano with video ability.

If you’re still not convinced about the need for regular backups, maybe talking with some Snow Leopard users will. The Apple support boards are buzzing with reports of Leopard users finding data zapped.

“Users start their Macs up as normal only to find they’ve logged in as ‘Guests’ on their machine – with all the files and data held on their Mac in their own user account seemingly deleted,” according to 9to5.

About 18 percent of Mac users have upgraded to Snow Leopard since its release August 28, we reported earlier this month.

So, a month ago, I wrote a post proclaiming iTunes LP to be the first digital album good enough to criticize. I would like to revise that assessment. It is, instead, the first major content misstep in the history of the iTunes Store.

At launch, Apple had six albums available in the format, which basically marries lyrics, album artwork, ad video content to your collection of AAC files. Scratch that, there were five albums and one musical comic book. It seemed like too little, but it was a launch — there were hardly any apps on the App Store when it came out, too. A month later, however, things have scarcely improved. We’ve gone from six offerings in iTunes LP to 13.

So what could be the problem? As it turns out, it’s the business model. According to Gizmodo, an indie record label owner asked Apple what it would take to get some of his albums available in the LP format. Apple’s reported answer? Be a major label. Seriously. Read on.

Apple has just released a new firmware update, version 3.1.2 for the existing iPhone and iPod Touch range, which contains no new features but fixes an important issue with cellular network reception. The new software fixes dropped cell connections until the iPhone is restarted, according to Apple.

However, it looks like the update does contain a new baseband version in order to fix the issue, therefore if you have an unlocked iPhone 3G or iPhone 3GS, do not update until there is confirmation from a trusted source, like the iPhone DevTeam. If you’re planning to jailbreak, you should wait as this firmware version is currently incompatible with the latest jailbreak tools. But updates will soon be released to resolve the compatibility problem, according to the iPhone DevTeam.

The complete-ish list of changes, according to Apple’s cryptic update notes, is as documented below:

• Resolves sporadic issue that may cause iPhone to not wake from sleep.
• Resolves intermittent issue that may interrupt cellular network services until restart.
• Fixes bug that could cause occasional crash during video streaming.

Clearly, it indicates no new features, unless there are some hidden ones. ;)

To download the new firmware for your iPhone, select the model below to download it directly from Apple’s server or open iTunes and click iTunes –> Check for Updates in the menu bar.

• iPhone
• iPhone 3G
• iPhone 3GS