In a twist on the “I’m a Mac” ads, this sticker shows a PC playing solitaire while waiting for the Mac to load a witty retort. Or maybe the PC just froze.
The 4″ x 2.75″ sticker costs $1.50 and, according to the description, was made on a PC.
Via Nerd Approved
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9E2D2PaIcI
“Objectified” the indie documentary film about industrial design that gives you a rare peek into Apple designer Johnathan Ive’s studio is out in movie theaters now — with a limited number of screenings from Stockholm to San Francisco.
The 90-second trailer is punctuated with Apple products (iPhone, MacBook) and a nice-close up of Ives.
At least one reviewer said Ive’s contribution — where he explains how a laptop emerges from just about one piece of metal — is a highlight of the effort by director Gary Hustwit.
If you catch it, let us know what you think.
An intrepid software developer has published a thorough memoir that details many reasons why Apple is so far ahead of the field in the mobile applications game, and why Blackberry, Palm and Android will have a hard time catching up any time soon.
Marcus Watkins found himself developing an application for his mobile phone in much the same way that countless other developers undoubtedly realized their inspirations: he was minding his own business when he realized one day his life would improve if his phone could do something that, at the point of his epiphany, it couldn’t.
He did his research, found out there wasn’t an application to meet his needs, realized the size of the potential market for his app in the many millions of people with his phone – a good percentage of whom might find his application useful – and he went to work.
Unfortunately (perhaps) for Watkins, his phone is a Blackberry, but fortunately (for Blackberry users) he persevered, and his story shows just how far behind Apple the other smartphone makers are as the device category enters its third year in existence.
Besides its (much-needed and noticeable) speed bump, the new iPhone 3GS offers only three exclusive features over its predecessors. There’s the extremely well-executed video editing, the promising but presently limited compass, and the voice control app.
And, surprising no one, the voice program is the only one of the three that isn’t ready for prime time. Why? Because voice recognition programs suck. Based on the challenges facing the 3GS, a truly foolproof voice interface is about as close to arriving as a mind-power interface. Having never owned a Newton, I have the distinct pleasure of playing with an advanced Apple technology that really doesn’t live up to the hype. It’s almost exciting!
Let’s get out the good first. When the app works, it does a pretty good job. On about 3 out of 10 efforts, it has actually done what I asked (more than any previous voice dialing app I’ve ever tried). Another third of the time, it did the function I wanted but with the wrong content (it placed a phone call, but to my mom, not my wife). And then 40 percent of the time, it just did something crazy and frustrating, like shutting down and locking the screen or, when I asked it to “Call Bruce,” it began to play a Sonic Youth song.
So there you go, a 30 percent hit rate of actual usefulness. Which is about 69 percent below the rest of the iPhone’s functionality — even the AT&T-dependent parts. Though I’ve owned an iPhone for all of 56 hours, I’m typing like a pro now, much faster than I ever managed on a BlackBerry. Every part of the iPhone experience that’s supposed to be questionable is actually brilliant.
Which just makes the voice control app’s flaws that much more prominent — it’s like a holdover from a Moto Razr that somehow snuck onto my iPhone. It’s not even good enough to use in the car — too great a risk of calling the wrong person. Honestly, I think it’s as good of an example as you can find for the overall difficulties with making voice-anything bullet-proof and reliable. Too many vocal variations, accents, and possible disruptions to ever be as good as what Apple shoots for.
Still, it’s hardly a downside to owning a 3GS — you can pull it out at parties and amuse your friends as it screws up. It’s like the first-generation Newton’s handwriting recognition all over again. Ian is riding a taste sensation, indeed!
The popular Boxee media center software is the rare app that starts on the Mac before going to Windows. CC-licensed pic by Matt Grimm.
Here’s some good news for Mac users of Boxee, the popular media platform for Macs and Apple TV: The software is going Windows.
At a developer event on Tuesday night in San Francisco, Boxee released its first version for Windows PCs.
This is good news for Mac users because the Boxee platform will have a much larger user base for developers to create plug-ins for. Significantly, the software will run on Windows Media Center PCs, which is by far the biggest installed base of computers connected to TVs.
UPDATE: Hospital spokeswoman Ruth Ann Hale declined to add any more information to hospital’s statement. She would not say when the transplant was performed (the Wall Street Journal said about two months ago); how long Steve Jobs had been on the transplant waiting list; nor where the donor organ came from. “We’re not saying anything beyond what it says in the statement,” she said by phone on Tuesday night. It’s safe to assume the donor liver came from a deceased patient — otherwise Jobs wouldn’t be on a waiting list. But the lack of a time frame for the operation is curious. Perhaps it’s to protect the identity of the donor? If the time of the operation is known, maybe it makes it easier to identify potential donors?
Methodist University Hospital in Memphis has confirmed that Steve Jobs had a liver transplant — and the disclosure was made with Jobs’s permission, the hospital says.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the hospital said Jobs was the sickest person on the waiting list at the time the donor organ became available.
The hospital’s statement is likely in response to growing questions about the transplant. On Tuesday morning, the New York Times published a high-profile story asking whether Jobs’s money and power helped him to jump to the front of the queue. “Whenever someone rich and famous receives a transplant, suspicions inevitably arise about whether that person managed to jump to the head of the waiting list and take an organ that might have saved the life of somebody just as desperate but less glamorous,” the paper said.
The hospital’s statement appears to be a flat denial that Jobs received any preferential treatment.
“He received a liver transplant because he was the patient with the highest MELD score (Model for End-Stage Liver Disease) of his blood type and, therefore, the sickest patient on the waiting list at the time a donor organ became available,” the hospital said.
The hospital said Jobs is doing well.
“Mr. Jobs is now recovering well and has an excellent prognosis.”
Full text of the statement after the jump.
Hacker George Hotz appears to have found a way to jailbreak and unlock the iPhone 3GS.
The 19-year-old Hotz, better known as GeoHot, may have found a hole in the iPhone 3GS boot sequence, which will allow hackers to unlock the device.
The crack comes just days after the release of the new iPhone. Previous jailbreaking hacks have sometimes taken weeks.
Details are hazy, however. Hotz has posted a screenshot that appears to show a custom command inserted into the iPhone’s iBoot, implying that signature checks had been bypassed, according to one explanation in the comments of the post. If so, it’s the first step in jailbreaking the device.
In addition, the just-released UltraSn0w unlock should also be compatible with the iPhone 3GS.
In a bid to preserve some of the best modern industrial design for future generations, Smithsonian’s National Design Museum, the Cooper-Hewitt, is asking Apple fans to donate their old and not-so-old devices.
Aptly, webmaster William Berry calls the request a “wish list:”
Newton Message Pad (1993)
iBook (2001, white)
iPod, 1st generation (2001)
iMac G5 (2004)
Macbook Pro (2006)
iPhone, 1st generation (2007)
Macbook Air (2008)
While you can get rid of something that has given up the ghost, your device should still be in excellent (external) condition, with original parts and power cords or batteries. All donors will be listed on the credit line whenever the works are displayed or published.
The generous-minded can get in touch with Cynthia Trope, Associate Curator of Product Design and Decorative Arts, at [email protected].
What, if anything, would you be willing to part with for a museum?
Kevin Miller has a great story about how he used the new “Find My iPhone” feature to track down his stolen iPhone and recover it from a thief.
In Chicago for a Lego convention, Kevin had his iPhone stolen in a bar. Luckily, he’d just activated the Find My iPhone feature. The following day, Kevin and a couple of his Lego-convention friends used the iPhone’s built-in GPS and Google Maps to track its location.
As they converged on the crook, he tried to make a run for it. I won’t ruin the rest of the story. It’s a great story, well told.
Help plant a tree to offset carbon emissions from your iPhone or iPod is the green idea behind AcornHq, a London-based company.
The brainchild of a couple of New Zealand transplants, John and Sarah Lewis, the company asks 20 Apple device owners to give $3.50 per device — iPhone or current and older iPods — to plant a tree to counteract the effects on the environment from manufacture and use.
Those oak trees take root on a New Zealand planting farm, where Lewis hopes Acorn donors willing to trek that far will be able to visit soon.
After the jump, details on how it works from John Lewis.
The Dev-Team, an iPhone hacking group, has released a free jailbreaking and unlocking tool for the iPhone 3.0 OS.
Called UltraSn0w, the easy to use unlocking tool jailbreaks the 3.0 iPhone to allow unauthorized apps and unlocks it for use with other carriers.
Apple broke the law by lying about Steve Jobs health, says a top marketing professor.
But whether the Security and Exchange Commission has the “balls” to prosecute is unclear.
Paul Argenti, Professor of Corporate Communication at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, says that Apple’s communications about its CEO’s health violated the SEC’s full disclosure regulations.
UPDATE: Reuters reports that Steve Jobs was seen leaving Apple’s campus on Monday. “He was seen leaving the main Apple building in Cupertino, California and getting into a black car alone that was then driven off by men in black suits with ear-pieces,” the news service reported.
CNBC’s Jim Goldman is saying that Steve Jobs returned to work at Apple on Monday.
Employees have seen Jobs around Apple’s campus, Goldman says. “Officials at Apple have yet to respond to multiple phone calls and emails seeking guidance about Jobs and his whereabouts, but employees are doing what Apple PR isn’t, and that’s confirming that he’s here at work,” says Goldman.
The information jibes with this morning’s iPhone 3G S press release,
which quoted Jobs for the first time since he took his medical leave,
implying he’s back in charge.
This is great news – if it’s true. I’d be delighted to see Jobs back in charge at Apple, but trouble is, I’m not sure I trust Goldman. He’s proven as unreliable as Apple’s own PR surrounding Jobs’ illness. Goldman last year said Steve Jobs wasn’t sick, just days before he took sick leave. For this, he was accused by NewsWeek columnist Dan Lyons (aka Fake Steve) of being “played and punked” by Apple PR.
So I’m willing to give a prize to the first reader who sends in a picture of Steve Jobs at Apple’s campus or a picture of his car (preferably parked in a handicapped spot).
Yeah, I know, it’s stalkerish. But I’d like to know if Steve Jobs is really back at work, and this is one way of getting to the bottom of it.
BTW, I’ve called and emailed Apple’s PR asking if Jobs is back at work — but I’m not holding my breath.
Show us Steve’s smiling face. Let’s cheer his return to work and good health!
Steve Jobs may not be back to work yet, but Fake Steve is.
Fake Steve Jobs (aka Newsweek columnist Dan Lyons) has started blogging again.
Over the weekend, Fake Steve made a series of off-color jokes about Steve Jobs’ recent liver transplant. The posts are classic Fake Steve — sick, tasteless and LOL funny.
Unfortunately, it may not last.
“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, in his first officially quoted statement for the company since taking a medical leave of absence in January.
Jobs’ comment came in the wake of a news release touting one million iPhone 3G S units sold in its first weekend since being released last Friday. “With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever,” continued Jobs in the release, which also noted that six million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software since it was released last Wednesday.
The statement did not indicate whether or not Jobs would return to work at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA on Monday.
Apple issued $30 iTunes store credits over the weekend to some US customers whose iPhone 3G S models were not able to be activated for service with AT&T when the phones were released on Friday.
In an email sent to customers who had ordered the new smartphone through Apple’s online store prior to the official release, Apple apologized for delays “due to system issues and continued high activation volumes,” which the email said “could take us up to an additional 48 hours to complete.”
Customers were told to expect an email with the iTunes credit authorization on Monday and asked to accept the company’s “sincere apologies for the inconvenience this delay has caused.”
Some customers were particularly miffed last week after having received initial notice from UPS that their phones were scheduled for delivery on Wednesday, but saw deliveries rescheduled to Friday’s official release date, apparently at Apple’s behest.
Jobs has blocked the FAA from officially tracking his jet’s flights (a routine request; some simple paperwork with the National Business Aviation Association). But his 15-seater Gulfstream 5 has a distinctive tail number — N2N — that makes it easy for aviation buffs to track its movements on the Internet.
And while it looks like he flew to Memphis on March 23, possibly for a liver transplant — as CNBC claims to have independently confirmed — his jet made many more flights in April.
Could this 7,500 square foot mansion at 36 Morningside Place in Memphis be Steve Jobs’s new mansion?
Jobs has reportedly bought a large residence in Memphis after receiving a liver transplant in March at one of the city’s hospitals.
Forbes reports that Jobs may have bought a mansion in Memphis close to The Methodist University Hospital Transplant Institute, a liver transplant center.
A finance reporter, Alexander Haislip, previously at Red Herring magazine, also says that Jobs has bought a mansion.
UPDATED: The problems are fixed. No more ‘Page Not Found’ errors. CoM is back to normal.
Sorry folks, there’s a database problem with the site, which is causing all news stories to return ‘Page Not Found’ errors.
I just published an in-depth review of the new iPhone 3G S and it’s camera, which I’ve been working on since dawn yesterday, so I’m super delighted by this turn of events. What a wonderful weekend surprise!
The site’s hosting provider is looking into it and promises a fix by the end of the day — kinda, maybe, fingers crossed.
Hopefully, CoM won’t need a liver transplant or anything like that!
Steve Jobs has reportedly bought a mansion in Memphis. It’s not this one, but maybe he’s living near Elvis’ Graceland. CC-licensed picture by Pictophile.
Back in April, rumors swirled that Steve Jobs had bought a mansion in a swanky neighborhood of downtown Memphis while he was receiving medical treatment. The rumors didn’t gain much traction — it was just too weird — but now the WSJ says Jobs received a life-saving liver transplant at one of the city’s hospitals.
The rumor about the mansion started with Alexander Haislip, who runs a private equity site, PEHub Blog, citing a “well-connected business person in Memphis.”
Today, Haislip adds some more interesting details. It’s a 7,500 square-foot mansion located at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac in a “swank” part of downtown Memphis, Haislip says. Surrounded by old growth trees, the mansion is painted yellow with white trim and a pool in the back.
The mansion, built in 1914, has undergone substantial renovation since it was purchased last month. “I thought the house had flooded and the roof had caved in or something,” one neighborhood resident says. “There was an inordinate number of workers there. There’s been large crews preparing this house for someone.”
Among the renovations? Upgraded security. “Whoever “bought” the house installed video cameras in the trees and there is a security guard in a white jeep,” says another neighborhood resident. “It’s been very secretive.”
Haislip dug into property records hoping to find Steve Jobs on the title, but the new owner is listed as a mysterious LLC, which he says traces back to a Memphis law firm. The lawyer in charge gave him a no comment and the realtor who sold the mansion said she didn’t know who the client was, she dealt only with the lawyers. Haislip spoke to residents and no one has actually seen Jobs, but one claims to have seen his wife, Laurene Powell.
Haislip didn’t name the street, but it may be Morningside Drive, according to a comment in a related Barron’s blog post.
The commenter also says the mansion was bought by LGHC LLC — the name of the mysterious LLC — which he says shares an address with Memphis law firm Burch,Porter & Johnson.
I did some digging myself. The law firm appears to be real, but a search for Morningside Drive in Memphis turns up only Morningside Street, which is definitely NOT a Steve Jobs kind of neighborhood judging by the Street View pictures.
I also searched local tax and property records for Steve Jobs, Laurene Powell and LGHC LLC, as well as several real estate sites and Zillow — turning up nothing.
Meanwhile, CNBC is reporting that it confirmed Jobs’ private Gulstream jet flew from San Jose to Memphis in late March, which fits the WSJ’s transplant timeframe.
There’s plenty of naysayers pooh poohing the iPhone 3G S. It’s a minor upgrade, they say. Not worth the money, especially for 3G owners.
But after buying one on Friday morning and playing with it all day, I can say with 100% certainty that that’s complete and utter rubbish.
The 3G S is a major step up from the iPhone 3G, worth every penny. Sell the car; sell the house; sell the kids: you must have this phone.
The full review after the jump, plus plenty of test photos and video shot in sunny San Francisco.
Steve Jobs had a liver transplant about two months ago but is making a speedy recovery and will return to Apple in June, according to the Wall Street Journal.
“Steve continues to look forward to returning at the end of June, and there’s nothing further to say,” Apple spokeswoman Katie Cotton told the Journal.
Jobs had the transplant in Tennessee and may return to work part time, the Journal said.
In January, Bloomberg News reported that Jobs was considering a liver transplant.
Jobs took six months medical leave in January, promising to return to work in June, but many have been pessimistic about his prospects.Jobs lost weight rapidly in 2008.
The Journal said Jobs had the surgery in Tennessee because of the state’s short waiting list — 48 days compared to 306 nationally. A cancer expert told the Journal that Jobs’ pancreatic cancer may have metastasized and spread to his liver, requiring a transplant.
Five-year survival rates for liver-transplants is about 75 percent, the Journal said. The survival rate of slow-growing tumors like Jobs’ — with or without liver surgery — is usually longer than a decade, the expert said.
The Journal said Jobs has been spotted at Apple’s HQ during his leave.
Apple may have contributed to iPhone 3G S activation delays Friday that have many device users hopping mad and may leave some customers without telephone service through the weekend.
An AppleInsider report during the day Friday indicated that Apple’s activation servers were under strain even greater than those Wednesday that made it difficult for some users to download and install the new 3.0 version of iPhone’s operating software.
Cult of Mac has learned that at least one customer, who pre-ordered a 3G S from the Apple website shortly after the device was announced on June 8, received a message from UPS on Monday this week saying that his order for the 3G S would be delivered on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, Apple sent him a message saying the courier had made a mistake. The UPS site Wednesday showed the delivery was delayed by request of the recipient, which, of course had not been the case. On Thursday, The ‘recipient request’ notice had been removed, though there was still no word on expected delivery.
It would appear from this user’s experience that Apple told UPS to delay iPhone 3G S shipments until Friday, the official release date.
Of course, it’s unclear whether early delivery of some customers’ phones would have affected the activation delays other users experienced Friday. iTunes gave many trying to activate their devices a message reading “Your activation requires additional time to complete. Due to the current activation volumes, it may take up to 48 hours to resolve your issue,” and many were quick to blame AT&T for the delay.
However it appears clear that Apple may have played a significant role — aside from being unprepared to meet activation demand through iTunes servers — in spoiling the launch of yet another of the company’s groundbreaking products.
A 14-year-old British girl owes her life to her iPod earbuds, which took a 300,000-volt surge when lightning struck.
Sophie Frost and her boyfriend huddled together under a tree near Essex during a storm when a bolt of lightning hit. Doctors say that Frost and her beau were saved because the massive surge took the shortest route to the ground — through her earbuds.
The four-day-old iPod (a gift from her grandmother), may have saved her life, but she still suffered severe burns that left tie-dye like patterns down her torso and legs and a perforated eardrum.
The teens were knocked unconscious by the jolt and hospitalized for burns but doctors believe they may heal without permanent scars.
Dr. Ian Cotton, a reader in electrical engineering at Manchester University, told the Daily Mail Sophie could have been saved by her iPod:
“If lightning hits a person it can do one of two things. It can go down the outside of the skin, which is more likely if someone is caught in a storm and their body is wet. Or it can puncture the skin and go into the body. Potentially a metal wire, which is highly conductive could divert the electricity away from the heart and save someone’s life.”
There have been some reports of iPods directing currents and harming wearers in storms, this seems to be the first time it saved someone’s life during a blitz.
Via Daily Mail, BBC
AT&T used its Facebook page to quash rumors about an iPhone tethering plan Friday.
Apple fan site Appmodo quoted “a source with AT&T” Friday, saying iPhone tethering would cost users an $55 a month and be available sometime in July.
UPDATE: MMS and tethering are now scheduled for September, according to a report at Appmodo, and tethering will cost an additional $55 per month on top of iPhone data plans.
At this writing AT&T has not issued a statement confirming or denying the report and a call to ATT media relations was not returned. (Thanks, Jason)
An admin for the Facebook account made a status update saying, “There are a lot of reports out there, but wanted you guys to know that rumors of $55 tethering plan on top of an unlimited data plan are false,” says the AT&T statement. “We’ll have more news to share when the iPhone tethering option is closer to launch.”
Calls to AT&T were unreturned Friday afternoon, but Mark Siegel, AT&T executive director for media relations told Cult of Mac on Thursday the company would offer a tethering plan “in the future,” without giving details of pricing or a date certain.
