Trashy? Macs destined for landfill from an elementary school in Florida.
After our post on yesterday’s en masse binning of hundreds of working Macs from a “PC only” school district in Florida, a reader who wished to remain anonymous sent us pics of those computers destined by that school for the trash. We also received comment from a school administrator.
First things first: here they are, stacks of laptops and neat rows of Macs destined for the rubbish heap. Our tipster says more than 208 perfectly good Macs are headed for the dump.
As many of you pointed out in the comments of yesterday’s piece, even if the school district didn’t want to use the Macs, they could’ve sold them and used the money — or given them away instead of just dumping them.
More pics of the great Florida Mac massacre & commentary after the jump.
iHome Audio has unveiled its iP1 high-end portable stereo for the iPhone or iPod. The $299 iP1 features the company’s Bongiovi Acoustics’ Digital Power Station (DPS), touted to create richer sound without bigger speakers. The iP1 includes a dock for the iPhone, or iPod, plus a 3.5-inch auxiliary input.
Although not available until October, iHome is taking pre-orders for the stereo. The stereo includes two 40W 4-inch woofers and two 10W 1-inch tweeters.
Along with the iPhone/iPod dock, the iP1 also includes a remote for iPod menu navigation.
Sling Media has submitted an update to its groovy SlingPlayer Mobile app for iPhone that promises, among other things, true 16:9 widescreen support and, in markets not saddled with an exclusive AT&T service provider’s agreement, TV streaming over 3G.
Slingbox owners with DISH Network will also be able to navigate using a touch-supported native browser, instead of pushing through the TV-standard browsing screen being streamed in by the current version of the app.
Of course, the upgrade must first be approved by the App Store review overlords, and by now it’s well known what a capricious bet that can be. Sling Media has submitted a version for use outside of the US that would allow for streaming over a 3G connection, according to reports, and it’s no certainty Apple will approve such functionality for its customers abroad, either.
What is certain is that, regardless what Apple may feel about streaming TV over 3G, the specter of AT&T’s exclusive service agreement in the iPhone’s largest market effectively prevents US consumers from realizing the full potential of Apple’s inventiveness.
I am a sad panda today. As you may or may not have noticed, three quarters of my big post on Apple vanished when I fixed a typo.
Why? Because I was using Blogpress, an iPhone blogging app that I had been enjoying. Here’s the thing: Blogpress has a show-stopping bug. It doesn’t correctly interpret the tags we use for jumps.
Which is pretty inexcusable. But rather than talk about how Blogpress is deeply frustrating and ruined my morning, I thought I’d make this a positive thing. Tell us what the best iPhone blog apps are. Whichever we like best will get some positive coverage, and we might even document the whole bake-off process. Developers with promo codes, bring it on.
Here are the requirements for the app:
— WordPress compatible
— Landscape keyboard
— Can edit in HTML and WYSIWYG
— Recognizes tags
— Handles categories and post management
There are two things that really piss me off about iPhone… Actually, that’s a huge lie. There are loads of things that piss me off about iPhone, but two things in particular make me want to HULK SMASH. The first is that you can’t back-up individual app data. Delete Peggle from your iPhone, reinstall and you have to start from scratch. Clearly, whoever decided on that gem went to ‘cheapskate DS games without battery back-up’ school.
The other issue is that it’s a major pain in the arse (or ass, if you’re American) to rearrange apps on your device’s home screens. The current ‘drag everything about’ system was clearly designed for hardware where it wasn’t possible to download fifty billion apps. And although Spotlight in OS X iPhone 3.0 enables you to find apps within the mess, you shouldn’t be using text-based searching to find apps on such a tactile, touch-based system.
What we’d like to see is this:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wfv0OJ1oMQ
If you can’t be bothered to watch that, it shows an iTunes interface for dragging and dropping apps about, the organisation of which would then sync with the device itself. Rumours suggest this functionality might appear in iTunes 9, but I remember similar things being promised before.
A press release I received this morning about ShareAppScreen made me hope that someone had somehow managed this, outside of Cupertino. I was hoping for magic beans: someone to have figured out how to rearrange iPhone screens using a widget. What I got was baked beans—a widget that’s awkward to use and that doesn’t realise that different iPhones actually have different apps pre-installed. And when you’re done, it can share your screens with your friends, but not with your device, sadly.
Overall, it’s better than using something like Photoshop for testing app arrangements, but other than that, it’s a case of ‘roll on iTunes 9’.
UPDATE: Check out purported screenshots of iTunes 9 showing social networking integration from German blogger Tobias Bischoff after the jump.
The coming version of iTunes 9 will feature social networking on steroids, and Apple may be developing a standalone social networking application as well, if an account Tuesday from Boy Genius Report proves accurate.
Citing a “a pretty reliable source” named Lindsey, the site reported over the weekend that iTunes 9 would feature “some kind of Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm integration” along with Blu-Ray and functionality to visually organize and arrange iPhone and iPod Touch applications.
The source appears to have described Apple’s plans further, saying the company is working on a separate “Social” application it plans to release at some uncertain future date. The app would integrate with iTunes to let users broadcast what music they are currently listening to, permit sharing of music with people on their network (but um, iTunes lets you do that now), connect with friend’s friends, and update all of their online statuses at the same time.
It’s not hard to imagine Apple would be working on social networking, since it’s pretty much the biggest trend on the Internet today. It will be interesting to see what the company’s take on social communications looks like, especially in the light of the fact that social networking capabilities are among the more compelling aspects of LaLa — a competing music distribution outlet CoM reported on previously.
It will also be interesting to see just how much “broadcasting” and “sharing” music labels and artists rights organizations such as ASCAP and BMI are going to stand for in the brave new social world that appears to be just over the horizon.
Here’s a blog after my own heart: Minimal Mac is devoted to keeping your Mac as simple as can be, something I strive to do as far as possible.
A few minutes browsing Minimal Mac shows me I’ve still got a long way to go. I thought my desktop was minimal:
…but it turns out that real purists wouldn’t care for all that junk in the Menu Bar. If you aspire to proper minimalism, you need to have a Menu Bar more like this:
By kind permission of Harry Vangberg, harry.vangberg.name
Today’s deals include iMacs starting at $399, refurbished MacBook Pro laptops at $999 and wake up to your favorite iPhone/iPod tunes with the iHome Clock Radio. Details of these and plenty more can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.
Here’s a game that 3D Realms has actually shipped. Duke Nukem 3D, the classic first-person-shooter from the mid ’90s, is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
3D Realms is famous of course for not shipping games. It’s follow-up to Duke Nukem — Duke Nukem Forever – has been promised for more than a decade, earning a top slot on Wired.com’s Vaporware awards year after year.
Duke Nukem 3D is a simple port of the 13-year-old game. It’s pixely and low res — but who’d want it any different? The controls are a little difficult to master, according to reviews on iTunes, which are generally favorable. Players are reveling in gaming nostalgia.
Good news for haters of Apple’s glossy MacBook screens: the matte display is back as an option on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, although Apple is charging an extra $50 for it.
Check Apple’s online store. The glossy widescreen display can be replaced with an optional antiglare display. The specs are the same — 1,440 x 900 pixels and a LED backlight — but the matte display has a silver bezel around it instead of a black one. Plus it costs an extra $50.
Apple’s not selling it though. Look how the website copy downplays the antiglare option:
“Choose a standard glossy display that lets you view graphics, photos, and videos with richer colors and deeper blacks, or an optional antiglare display.”
The matte screen was already an option on the top-of-the-line 17-inch MacBook Pro, but isn’t yet offered on the entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro. It’s just a matter of time though. I personally like the glossy screens, which I think look great. I’ve never, ever been distracted by its much hated “mirror” effect.
Apple knickknack collector Tadataka Goh has spent perhaps $100,000 on Apple collectibles.
Meet Tadataka Goh, a Japanese jazz bassist who is perhaps the world’s biggest collector of Apple-branded goods — you know, Apple t-shirts, pens and hats.
Over the last 15 years, Tadataka has amassed the largest collection of Apple knickknacks on the planet. He has thousands of items, including hundreds of pens, t-shirts, baseball caps, posters and buttons. He has the first issue of Macworld magazine and an Apple-branded traffic cone.
Tadataka has possibly spent more than $100,000 on them. That’s right — more than $100,000.
“Looking at his collection, he’s probably spent several hundred thousand dollars,” says Steve Naughton, co-owner of RedLightRunner.com, which sells Apple collectibles and counts Tadataka as its best customer ever.
The Japanese are well-known for being enthusiastic collectors, and the most otaku can be fanatical completionists. Even so, the scope of Tadataka’s collection boggles the mind.
He’s got so much stuff, even he doesn’t know how much he’s got. He recently posted pictures of more about 4,000 items to an online gallery, and has scores more pictures to upload.
Click on to see some of Tadataka’s collection. You have to see the photos to appreciate how big this collection is.
Ibint's Messenger Loopbag is a good, sturdy laptop tote for NYC.
Because we’re all geeks these days and need bags for our laptops, the market for fashionable computer bags has mercifully grown. Gone are the days when the only laptop bag you could buy was black and rectangular.
A particularly stylish entry onto the fashion laptote market is Ibint, a company that sells a range of good-looking laptop bags called Loopbag. The Loopbags have distinctive zippers that loop around the front and back of the bags — hence the name.
We’ve been testing a pair of Loopbags in New York for the last couple of weeks, and they’ve held up exceptionally well, especially because this summer has been exceptionally wet.
The Internet has lately played host to a near-infinite amount of fol-de-rol regarding a rather silly post from Weblogs, Inc. and Mahalo founder Jason Calacanis in which he railed against Apple’s recent paranoia. There’s plenty wrong with the gist of his argument (as Leander points out in this rather nice post), as well as a few things that are right on.
But I’m not here to dwell on that. I just want to make one thing very clear: what makes Apple great is not what it puts into its products. It’s what gets left out. As exciting as visions of flying iPhones with 8 sim slots, a Zip disk slot, and dual head-mounted displays might seem, the original iPhone (and iPod, for that matter) became iconic because of its limitations — not in spite of them. Innovation, contrary to Calacanis, is often more about editing than possibility. Apple, more than most companies, is defined by its unwillingness to do too much. The greatest design impact is in what we can’t see.
Apple is developing a new media file format to deliver digital music along with collateral material such as artwork, lyrics, liner notes, songs, videos, and images all from a centralized album launch page, according to a report Monday at The AppleBlog.
Citing “various whispers and rumbling around the web,” the report said the new file format is code-named “Cocktail” for the variety of ingredients it will bring to the user experience.
Apparently, major music labels including Sony, Warner, Universal, and EMI are also spearheading their own version of an enhanced file format in the hope of not being outdone by what amounts to a significant potential upgrade for iTunes.
Apple is considered by many to have effectively “saved” the music industry by inventing the iPod and iTunes, with the major labels having resented the company’s pricing power and ability to dictate distribution terms ever since.
If true, the rumored new file format could make for nice end-user eye candy while providing entertainment for those amused by the ongoing struggle for world domination among Apple and the major media distributors.
Corporate IT support for the iPhone is on the rise, according to a report Monday at Tech Republic, though many CIOs and IT directors remain wary of the Apple smartphone’s security vulnerabilities.
Using an interesting (if not altogether scientific) polling strategy pioneered by Silicon.com, Tech Republic finds 42% of corporate IT departments are now willing to support the iPhone in its 3rd iteration, which is quite a swing from the near-universal skepticism with which corporate IT greeted the device upon its initial launch two years ago.
Results of the poll ought to be taken with a grain of salt, as the numbers themselves are based on the responses of just 12 individuals, but the comments included with the report are interesting nonetheless, and say as much about the way some corporations think as they do about Apple’s gadget itself.
Some corporate leaders, such as Mike Wagner, CIO of Stone & Youngberg in San Francisco seem to just get it. “The iPhone is one of the most innovative and revolutionary end-user products developed in the last 5 years,” Wagner said, adding “The support and training requirements for the iPhone are orders of magnitude less than the mobile OSes offered by competing vendors.” Wagner also noted “the general excitement and enthusiasm from the end users” in his company with iPhones, linking it directly to “a corresponding decrease in the perception that IT is a wet blanket that is an impediment to the use of consumer-friendly products.”
Still, the majority of corporate IT geeks don’t consider supporting the iPhone because, as Lisa Moorehead, Director of IT for MA Dept of Public Utilities put it, ““iPhones are not supported because they are considered personal gadgets.”
It’s interesting to note that among the CIOs and IT directors who report not supporting the iPhone, several quoted in the report placed the point of failure at service problems and bad coverage from AT&T.
Perhaps the most telling comment of all, however, came from Chuck Elliott, IT Director for Emory University School of Medicine, who reported “we are finding more and more of our users are buying and using the device without assistance from IT.”
Photo used with a CC-license. Thanks to Chris Corwin on Flickr.
An elementary school in Sarasota, Florida is sending several hundred working Macs to the trash heap — in keeping with the school district’s “PC-only” policy.
Piled up in the cafeteria of the Emma Booker school, 140 G3 and G4 laptops and over 50 iMac and eMac machines await the scrap heap.
An account in the local paper takes on dramatic overtones:
Sarasota County Public School system employees who alerted the Pelican Press to the salvage effort asked not to be identified because they feared retribution. “All of the machines are still working,” said one. “The teachers asked if they could buy them or give them to the kids. We were told, ‘No.’”
Putting the Macs out to pasture is the result of a decision by Superintendent Gary Norris, who headed the school system from 2004-2008, who declared the school system would be PC-only, the paper said.
Even the county school district’s program that donates computers to needy kids, called Texcellence, is a Mac-free zone.
“We’ve never used Macs,” foundation spokeswoman Laura Breeze told Pelican Press. The group recently received 1,100 used PC computers and is refurbishing them and adding software before giving them out.
At a time when budgets are tight, you have to wonder why a school district would send working computers to the scrap heap.
Who hasn’t splashed coffee on their keyboard or sprinkled water or their candybar phone? After skipping a heart beat or two, you find the gadget seems no worse the wear. But not so for the iPhone – and its great timing for a waterproof life vest for your iconic handset. The vest is inflatable, and protects your screen with a clear plastic cover.
The waterproof cover comes with earphones with a waterproof connection and a lanyard. (Although Wired’s Gadget Lab suggests an arm band would be a better choice.)
While iPhone cases are common, they usually stress the bling or cool factor. This Japanese entry ($34), while not high on anyone’s list for style, actually saves you some money.
The case comes too late for Brian X. Chen, who lost his iPhone earlier this year from water invading the phone’s dock port.
Getting a step closer to completely paperless banking, some customers of USAA will be able to deposit checks using their iPhones.
An updated version of the bank’s mobile app out this week accepts checks that have been photographed with the iPhone.
In the demo above, a bank exec first enters the amount of the check, then lines it up on a desk to take a picture, flips it over to take a shot of the signature. After checking that the images lined up properly and hitting “submit,” the check is in the bank’s system.
“We’re essentially taking an image of the check, and once you hit the send button, that image is going into our deposit-taking system as any other check would,” Wayne Peacock, a USAA executive vice president, told the New York Times.
The check doesn’t have to be mailed or deposited afterward, customers are advised to void or file it. To avoid fraud trouble, only customers with credit and some kind of insurance are eligible — an estimated 60 percent of the bank’s customers. Since USAA‘s customer base is largely military personnel, for those overseas it might just be the ticket.
The last time I deposited a check, the ATM scanned it directly, but as long as you don’t need to get cash out or do something else this is a nice time saver, especially if you’re a straight shooter.
Just weeks after getting permission to tear down his historic mansion, Steve Jobs is embroiled in more wrecking ball controversy.
Preservationists in Melbourne, Australia, are up in arms about the imminent destruction of a historic art deco building in favor of a new Apple store.
Developers have just received permission to rip down Lonsdale House — described as one of the city’s finest examples of art deco architecture.
In its place they’re building a new shopping center called “Emporium Melbourne,” and are angling for Apple to be the anchor tenant. See the artist’s impression above.
Apple already has four stores in Australia, most notably the huge landmark store on Sydney’s George Street, which drew a huge crowd when it opened last year.
The Save Lonsdale House campaign say there’s no reason the building should be demolished, except to make more room for delivery trucks. In the past Apple has been sensitive to historic buildings. The Apple Store in New York’s Soho district, for example, is housed in a historic post office.
Last month, Jobs reached a deal to save his historic Jackling House mansion in Woodside California, which he’d been trying to demolish for years. Jobs will pay $600K to angel investor Gordon Smythe to have the mansion dismantled and moved.
Melbourne's finest example of art deco, Lonsdale House, is going under the wrecking ball to make room for a new Apple store. More info at https://blog.adonline.id.au/lonsdale-house/
Today’s deals include half-a-dozen new App Store freebies, refurbished MacBooks for under $600, and Apple’s ongoing Back to School hardware sale, which throws in a fee iPod Touch with a computer purchase. Plus many more.
Details of these and other Daily Deals can be found on the CoM Daily Deals page.
UPDATE: Rogers denies there’s an 8GB iPhone 3GS. It’s a formatting error, a spokesman told Gizmodo and Electronista. “There is no 8GB 3G s iPhone,” the spokesman emailed. “There is a formatting error on our website. It is being corrected asap.” Too bad. There was the Boy Genius memo though, which hasn’t yet been strenuously denied by Rogers.
The existence of an 8GB model of Apple’s hot iPhone 3GS looks more likely if you take a gander at this webpage from Rogers Wireless of Canada.
There it is in full public view in a comparison chart — the iPhone 3GS is available in 32GB, 16GB and — now — 8GB.
The lower-capacity 3GS was rumored last week when photos of a Rogers’ internal memo were published by Boy Genius Report. The memo said the company would sell through all of its older iPhone 3G stock before offering the new 8GB 3GS.
Whether the new phone will be offered outside Canada isn’t clear, but seems likely. It’s also likely to be lower-priced, perhaps replacing the current 8GB iPhone 3G, which is sold by AT&T for $99 with a contract.
Entrepreneur Jason Calacanis is giving the finger to Apple. CC-licensed photo by Eirik Solheim. http://eirikso.com/
Entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, the dog loving, Tesla driving, indefatigable self-promoter, is forsaking Apple products in his fury at some of the company’s recent actions, like banning the Google Voice app — The Case Against Apple-in Five Parts.
While he has a couple of points, he’s wrong about the rest. In fact, the things that Calacanis rags on are the things that make Apple and the iPhone great, and he’s misguided not to embrace them. Here’s why:
Apple is rumored to be adding Blu-Ray to the iTunes, but why would it undercut its brand new online HD rental service?
New rumors this weekend suggest that Blu-Ray may finally be coming to the Mac. But while Blu-Ray is high on many people’s wish list, the rumors just don’t make sense.
Citing a “pretty reliable source,” Boy Genius Report says Blu-Ray is coming to iTunes 9, maybe as soon as September. The rumor jibes with a particularly vague story on AppleInsider suggesting that new iMacs will get new features (yeah, it’s almost sounds like self-parody), possibly Blu-Ray.
But although Blu-Ray format is gaining popularity, it’s unlikely to come to the Mac, ever. Here’s why:
Displaying an impressive level of tech savvy, Ice-T took a claw hammer to an old PowerBook he’s getting rid of.
In this 4-minute video, you can watch Ice-T smash his old PowerBook to bits. At first, it seems the former rapper is getting revenge on a glitchy machine.
“This Mac gave me a lot of hell,” he says. “It’s kinda like payback.”
But as the video goes on, it’s clear Ice-T is trying to remove and destroy the hard drive, which he’s afraid might fall into the wrong hands.
“I’m gonna get this hard drive out of here, make sure none of my secrets are in here, if somebody should find this computer,” he says.
In the comments, Ice-T takes a lot of flak for destroying the machine (and a bunch of racist garbage). The geniuses on YouTube rip him for not taking the machine to an eWaste facility and releasing toxins into the environment.
While the toxins criticism might be on target, Ice-T was right to destroy the hard drive first. Data is incredibly easy to pull off old hard drives, whether the drive has been erased or not, even in multiple passes. There are plenty of cases of identity theft from old machines. And just weeks ago, journalism students were able to buy a drive full of government secrets from a dump in Ghana.
As the actor knows, the one sure-fire way to destroy all data on a hard drive is to destroy the hard drive. “There’s probably a better way to do it, but i just said, ‘fuck it,'” the Law & Order actor says.
In fact, if recycling an old laptop, it’s a good idea to drill several holes into the case and right through the hard drive before taking it to an eWaste facility (Only if the drive can’t be easily removed obviously, which is the case with many older PowerBooks and iBooks).
