Cult of Mac

Spatial View, the company that launched the Wazabee 3Dee shell, a cool protective case with removable lens for viewing 3D content on Apple’s iPhone, has announced the release of an SDK and interlacing software to enable third party developers to create and view applications for Apple’s mobile devices in vivid 3D.

The Wazabee 3DeeInterlacing SDK contains tools for developers to create 3D content for the iPhone, including a runtime component that allows games and applications to run in 3D when using the 3DeeShell. The 3DeeInterlacer enables content creators, licensees and production houses to interlace existing content and distribute it for display on 3DeeShell-enabled iPhones. Both run on Mac OS X and are available to download for free at the Wazabee site.

Many are predicting that 3D, long a source of curiosity but plagued by the need for special glasses to view it, will be the next big thing in multimedia. With more and more applications and hardware being developed to support 3D viewing, it should be interesting to see the mobile games and content developers will produce with the Spatial View SDK.

[IntoMobile]

Taking Steve Jobs at his original word – that web apps would make the best use of iPhone and iPod Touch capabilities – iPorn launched Monday a new web app developed using Apple’s iPhone specifications and applying its unique accelerometer and touch navigation.

As Apple prepares to open the doors on WWDC in San Francisco on Monday and possibly announce a new video-capable iPhone, few may be as excited about the possibilities to come as the adult entertainment industry.

The iPorn app is loaded with social networking features such as high-res video streaming, the ability to post and share photos and videos, create member profiles, exchange private messages and more. Registered users can personally interact with amateur and professional adult performers via live video webcams, chat and mobile texting. Members can send adult videos from the website to their iPhone or iPod Touch-equipped friends. Versions optimized for other mobile phones, such as the Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre, are expected to follow later this summer.

To help celebrate iPhone 3.0 firmware and the possibility of video-capable mobile devices from Apple, iPorn is sending the iPorn Bikini Girls to Moscone Center in a high-tech iPorn-equipped vehicle for free photo ops with conference attendees. Later in the evening the company will host an (unofficial) 9-hour launch party at San Francisco’s famed Gold Club, just a block away from the conference site at Moscone Center West.

The party, which will go from 5:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m., is open to WWDC attendees, investors, and media.

It’s no secret the adult entertainment industry has often been at the forefront of technology, producing some of the Internet’s most sophisticated websites and multimedia-rich user user experiences well ahead of many more mainstream and socially acceptable industries.

It’s therefore no surprise the porn industry will among the first fully equipped to let users get the most out of Apple’s innovations in mobile device technology.

Jon Lech Johansen, the world-famous reverse engineer who earned the nickname DVDJon for cracking the CSS DVD-copy protection scheme years ago, again made headlines awhile back for his software program DoubleTwist, which removes old school iTunes Store DRM. That was a bigger deal in the years before every song on iTunes went DRM-free, but many users (myself included) have never paid the 30 cents a song needed to upgrade their older libraries — so DoubleTwist still has a purpose, if you for some reason want non-Apple hardware.

Anyway, all of that is a long pre-amble to highlight the above hilarious picture, which is DVDJon’s physical display ad for DoubleTwist, which was posted on the south-facing wall of the flagship San Francisco Apple Store. As it turns out, the ad wall is actually owned by the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and the ad doesn’t misuse any Apple trademarks, so it’s perfectly legal — even if it appears to show Apple endorsing a product that helps people to stop using iPods and iPhones.

The ad was taken down over the weekend, but DVDJon says it will return soon. Genius.

Via TechCrunch

By Peter Yan, a graphic designer from Melbourne, Australia.

File image

Smartphone users are spending more time using native applications on their mobile devices to the detriment of other technology and media, but the mere availability of applications is not the primary driver of buying decisions, according to a report by Gravity Tank.

The Chicago-based consulting firm surveyed more than 1,000 iPhone and Android G1 users during April and May and found those users had downloaded an average of nearly 24 apps to their mobile devices, among which they use an average of almost 7 per day.

Nearly half (48 percent) of phone owners report shopping for apps more than once a week, while slightly more (49 percent) report using apps on their phone for more than 30 minutes a day.

Other technologies and media, such as gaming devices, GPS devices, newspapers and TV, all suffer in the light of app-enabled smartphones, as people reported the ability to consolidate multiple devices into one as one of the top two reasons they decided to buy a smartphone in the first place.

Leading the pack of reasons people buy a smartphone is the ability to check email and calendars (74 percent cited this). The availability of new games and applications figured into the buying decision for 67 percent of the survey respondents.

The survey results cast an interesting take on all the pre-launch hoopla and positive reviews garnered for the Palm Pre, which will be available to the public starting tomorrow.

Palm’s highly regarded smartphone entry is coming to market with a decided dearth of 3rd party apps available for it and Palm executives have been somewhat cagey regarding the timeline for development of apps for the Pre.

With Apple gearing up its own hype machine for plenty of noise beginning Monday at WWDC it may be some time before Palm is likely to catch up to iPhone’s lead in both the smartphone device and applications markets.

[New York Times]

Edge, a way-cool game for iPhone and iPod Touch by Mobigame, has been removed from the iTunes App Store pending resolution of a trademark dispute being pressed by a guy named Tim Langdell, who claims to own worldwide rights to the use of the word ‘edge,’ at least in the realm of video gaming.

Langdell, whose company Edge Games last developed a video game in 1994, has a reputation in the gaming community as a ‘trademark troll’ and has gained the enmity of a number of gaming aficionados with his latest ploy against Mobigame.

The popular Edge title won the prestigious Milthon Award for Best Mobile Game in 2008 and is designated a Gold level game by Pocket Gamer.

The dispute, and Apple’s apparent policy of removing titles from the App Store at the whiff of legal action, make for a sad commentary on the revenue generated by app developers and what some are willing to do to exercise control over it.

[Daring Fireball]

These iPhone sleeves sport pop-art goodness in the form of Campbell’s soup labels.

Hand made out of recycled  tablecloths — vinyl outside, soft batting inside — at $5  on Etsy, it would be hard to find a cheaper conversation starter. We’re guessing Andy would approve.

Via iPhone Savior

By Jonathan Zschau

Apple released the iPhone 3G on July 11th, 2008, which gives you early adopters just a few weeks before your one-year warranty runs out.

What does this mean? It means you should give your iPhone a good hard look to determine if it’s in your best interest to take your iPhone to your local Apple Store to try to obtain a replacement.

There are at least 18 well-known defects with the iPhone, all of which oblige Apple to replace the handset for free. All are detailed are over the next few pages, including ways to test your iPhone to make sure everything is functioning properly.

Issues that Apple considers grounds for replacement include hairline cracks, discolored screens, dead pixels, flakey WiFi, dodgy GPS and crackly speakers.

If your precious iPhone is suffering from any of these problems, read on to make sure you’re properly prepared before you head down to your local Apple store and get a replacement. Hurry, before it’s too late.

Steve Jobs is recovering from his mystery illness and is set to return to Apple at the end of the month, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Jobs will not however make a surprise appearance at WWDC on Monday. Instead, he’ll host a product presentation or other special event later in June, the Journal says.

“He was one real sick guy,” added this person. “Fundamentally he was starving to death over a nine-month period. He couldn’t digest protein. [But] he took corrective action.”

The story is hidden behind the Journal‘s pay wall, but is free to read on the iPhone.

(The Journal also reports that the next-gen iPhone will be unveiled during the keynote address on Monday but won’t be available until July, to coincide with the two-year anniversary of original iPhone purchases. The iPhone will have a faster processor and a better camera with video editing, the Journal says, citing someone who’s actually seen the phone).

The story also notes that Tim Cook is doing a good job in Steve’s absence — the stock is way up.

Via Tuaw.

Mac and PC prepare to duke it out on this T-shirt touting a 15-round “Hasta la Vista” title fight, presented by Don Gates and King Jobs.

Like all big showdowns, the competitors face off with fightin’ words that will have people staring at your chest and chuckling, in a good way.

Designed by Reece Ward it costs $24 at Red Bubble.

Via Geeky Gadgets

What it is: Kind of a ‘Sims lite’, set on a primitive island. Canned animations and environment changes can be triggered by touch-screen and motion gestures.

Why it’s good: To be honest, the first time Pocket God ended up on my iPhone, I didn’t think I’d play it much. It had charm, but after ten minutes I was done. However, the Bolt Creative team has now provided a staggering 17 updates to the toy, from new animations to fun minigames. Given that the game is only a buck and updates are free, it’s so far cost just over five cents per revision, and it’s safe to say that many of the updates have provided more than a buck’s worth of entertainment, let alone a nickle’s worth.

Where to get it: Pocket God costs $0.99 on App Store. If you decide to download, don’t read the instructions—just explore and find out what you can do with the island and its inhabitants. The game’s much more fun as a voyage of discovery than something to rush through in a few idle moments.

For anyone whose history with Apple dates to their first iPod, it can be really hard to fathom just how different a company it was before Steve Jobs came back in December 1996 and fundamentally turned it around.

I haven’t found a better example recently than these renderings of a project that Apple actually announced in November 1996: a series of cybercafes worldwide offering video conferencing, web surfing, and delicious Appley food and beverage. All from the comfort of an environment that looks like something you might envision if you start snorting ’57 Chevys.

I repeat. Apple actually announced that they were doing this and held a press conference to unveil it, as this CNET article proves:

“The time is right,” said Satjiv Chahil, senior vice president of marketing for Apple, in a telephone interview. “Cybercafes are in. The technology finally is reaching out to ‘the rest of us.’ This will be a place to showcase our products in the real world.”

Can you imagine if this were Apple’s retail vision today? Of course not. They would be out of business if Steve hadn’t come back.

Via GUIFX

Apple’s meteoric rise since the 1997 return of Steve Jobs has many icons, from the iMac to the iPod, iPhone and MacBook Air. But none is quite so fitting a monument as the flagship Manhattan Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. After all, it’s a giant glass cube, as succinct a summary of the Steve Jobs approach to design as I can imagine. The monolith is an amazing image of the brand’s power.

What’s less known is that it might be the single-most lucrative store in all of New York. According to information uncovered by the New York Post, the owners of the building that houses the near-legendary Apple Store claim that the shop pulls in $440 million a year in sales. That location alone. By comparison, a nearby Zara flagship only does $25 million annually. Unreal.

I wonder how much the flagship Dell store does?

Via AppleInsider

Apple is preparing to open a huge new retail store in China’s capitol just steps from the historic Tiananmen Square.

Renderings of the giant, three-story store have been published on the website of U.S. architect Ben Wood, who is based in Shanghai.

The store will be built on Qianmen Street, an up-and-coming shopping strip just blocks from the great square, which has seen huge military parades as well as student protests.

Expected to open as soon as the fall, the store will be Apple’s second in Beijing and its ninth in Asia.

The design mixes traditional Chinese architecture with Apple’s signature glass and steel. It will feature a glass staircase spiraling through all three stories, plus a huge white Apple logo above the front door.

Link.

Via IFOAppleStore.

The first round of Palm Pre reviews are in — and they are generally very positive. The iPhone has a real contender, especially if the Pre comes to Verizon in a few months — a good smartphone on a good network.

The big three gadget reviewers — Walt Mossberg, David Pogue and Ed Baig — all give the Pre very positive reviews, with a few reservations.

Pogue is the most excited. “One of the world’s best phones,” Pogue says in his enthusiastic New York Times review. Pogue is very positive about the Pre, saying it’s a worthy iPhone contender, despite noting drawbacks like the lack of apps and poor battery life.

Ed Baig of USA Today also gives the Pre a thumbs up, but also notes the lack of apps and battery life. Nonetheless, he says the Pre “stacks up well against Apple’s blockbuster device, and in some ways even surpasses it… Palm has delivered a device that will keep it in the game and give it a chance to star in it.”

The big granddady of reviewers, the Wall Street Journal‘s Walt Mossberg, is the most measured, giving a positive review but saying Palm has some catching up to do, especially if the gen-3 iPhone is announced next week.

“The Pre is a smart, sophisticated product that will have particular appeal for those who want a physical keyboard,” says Mossberg. “It is thoughtfully designed, works well and could give the iPhone and BlackBerry strong competition — but only if it fixes its app store and can attract third-party developers.”

A new spy shot claiming to show the next-generation iPhone has emerged, and it appears to show a forward-facing camera.

If the spyshot does indeed show the new iPhone, a forward-facing camera would be a cool but surprising feature. Although high on many iPhone users’ wishlists — it would enable iChat videoconferencing from anywhere — the feature seems too Dick Tracy to be true, especially with AT&T’s bandwidth-challenged 3G network.

A forward-facing camera was mentioned in a recent Apple patent granted April 16 — although this doesn’t mean much. Apple patents everything, and a ton of patented features never see the light of day.

These handmade cards have the clamshell form of the iBook with a pretty realistic-looking  keyboard and  “Happy Birthday” greetings on the screen.

Maker Cadizcards says, “All the glory of the Mac cult favorite, sendable with a first class stamp. I created one of these as a birthday card for a die hard fan of the clamshell Macs and fell in love with them myself.”
Wish there was a non-birthday version with a white screen (like the real thing) to write on,  can think of a lot of people and occasions for these…

$12 for a set of three on Etsy (one each blue, aqua and lime), including envelopes. Custom colors available.

In April, I got terribly excited about Flight Control, an air traffic control arcade-oriented ‘management’ game. The premise is simple: drag aircraft to landing areas. The reality is an intense arcade game where game over is a blink of an eye away.

Recently, I’d heard rumors of updates. But with the original game such a fantastic, simple and polished production, there was the worry that it’d be ruined under a pile of new features. That worry went away on playing Flight Control 1.2, which keeps the original’s gameplay intact but introduces two new airfields and new craft.

The beachside resort is the first new airfield, adding water landings to the mix. Initially, this seems little different to the original game, but the number of craft ramps up rapidly and the revised landing layout is tougher than the original’s.

The real star, though, is the intense and absurdly tricky aircraft carrier level. Military jets move just a tad faster than anything else, and you’re soon not only juggling that, but also a surprising twist when you realise what happens to landing areas on a moving ocean… Frankly, we’ll be shocked to see 10,000+ landing scores on this map for some time to come.

Overall, this is a triumphant update—a classic iPhone game made even better. The fact that it’s still under a dollar [App Store link], for a game that betters most other handheld titles out there, just goes to show what great value Apple’s platform can be for gamers.

TIPS: If you’ve any tips for dealing with the new airfields and getting high scores, please post in the comments below.

Archie Comics are, for most kids in America, the very first comic books we ever read. Now, courtesy of Iverse, we can read them on our iPhones, in between generating fart noises and muttering “There’s an app for that, too.”

No word yet on whether or not you can shake to have Archie switch from dating Veronica to Betty and vice versa.

App Store link.

Via Comics Worth Reading

Kudos to Remy over at TGR for rounding up all the rumors about the next iPhone heading into WWDC with an easy-to-read infographic.

The legend lower right tells you what the probability of these changes will be from his point of view plus a source list of links for the rumors so you can decide for yourself.

We won’t know for sure until Apple’s worldwide developers conference kicks off June 8, but what do you think are the chances it’ll have a luminous logo (in this chart deemed “unlikely”),  improved camera (“very likely” ) and $199-$299 price points (“very likely”) ?

Via Device

Hacker Nathan Seidle has rigged his car so that his Nike+iPod pedometer unlocks the doors wirelessly as he walks up to it.

“I hate keys,” he writes. “I am on a mission to dispose of them all.”

Seidle already uses keypads and wireless RFID cards to get into his home and office — the last key in his pocket is for his car.

So Seidle took a Nike+iPod sensor — the pedometer/transmitter that normally goes into your running shoe — and rigged up a simple proximity sensor inside the car to detect when it approaches. The Nike+iPod sensor is constantly transmitting a unique ID, which the car uses to identify Seidle and unlock the doors. He keeps the Nike+iPod in his pocket.

Seidle made the proximity detector inside the car from the Nike+iPod receiver (the part that normally plugs into the iPod) and an Arduino Pro Mini microcontroller board, made by his company, SparkFun Electronics, plus a few other bits and pieces.

The system, which Seidle calls the iFob, is an intermediate hacking project. He’s posted a detailed tutorial on the SparkFun website.

Unfortunately, the iFob doesn’t start the car; it just unlocks the doors.

“The system now works great!” Seidle writes. “When you’ve got a handful of stuff, it’s great to know the doors will automatically unlock as you approach. However, I still have use a key to start the car. The next step is get a big red button wired up for button start so that I don’t have to carry my key. Someday.”

Via GadgetLab.

Tech buffs can delve into Silicon Valley history by perusing Apple Computer’s first business plan and IPO documents.

The 1977 38-page IPO filing, done in a typewriter-y font with the odd punctuation issue, lists management as the fourth risk factor for potential investors:  “Apple Computers’ Management team is young and relatively in-experienced in the high volume consumer electronics business.”

And would you put money into a company headed by these key execs?

*  “S.P. Jobs, V.P. Operations, Attended Stanford and Reed College, Engineer – Atari – 2 Yrs”
* “S.G. Wozniak, V.P. Engineering, Attended University of Colorado and University of California at Berkley [sic], Engr. Tennant – 1 Yr., Engr. Electroglass – 1 Yr., Engr. – Hewlett-Packard – 3 Yrs.”

The IPO document was donated to the Computer History Museum by original Apple investor Mike Markkula, who saw massive potential in the green startup. In 1977, Steve Jobs met with Markkula and convinced him that personal computers were an exciting opportunity. Markkula invested $250,000 in Apple for a one-third stake in the company and served as president from 1981 to 1983.

A pair of theives “armed” only with a toddler to distract employees walked out of a SuperTarget with an iPod Touch. Police are still looking for the man and woman who snatched the device in a Boynton Beach, Florida store.

In the security cam footage, you can see the man talking to a sales associate in the foreground, then a woman comes along with a toddler (around 1:30) and asks a question. While the sales associate looks up, the man takes the iPod touch, an 8g model valued at $230.

Police hope the video footage will help ID the pair, you can contact them by calling Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-8477 (TIPS).

Via Palm Beach Post

Truphone, arguably the most persistent VoIP developer for Apple’s mobile products iPhone and iPod Touch, released the 3.0 iteration of its app for the iPod Touch Monday, making a very strong case for the portable gadget as an effective communication device.

Among the improvements in Truphone 3.0 are a faster, slicker UI, improved voice quality, and native support for IM communications using Skype, MSN Messenger, AIM, Yahoo! Messenger and Google Talk.

Users with a stable WiFi connection will assuredly enjoy being able to IM using any of those clients from within a single app, as well as make free phone calls to other Truphone users, Skype and Google Talk users. Truphone also offers excellent rates on calls to landlines and worldwide mobile phones.

The upgrade offers improvements to in-app account management that now allow users to:

• See rates before initiating a call
• Display recent call history, showing the exact cost of a just-ended call, how long it lasted, with the ability to see a summary of calls made month by month
• Top up an account balance without the need to access a browser window separately
• Top up an account balance in variety of ways, including credit card or PayPal
• Change calling tariffs within the application.

When Apple introduced the iPod Touch few considered the possibility it might become a communication device, but with the addition of a microphone adapter and the evolution of 3rd party applications developed for the iTunes App Store over the past year, Truphone has done a great job of employing its WiFi connectivity to give iPod Touch owners the added value that comes with being able to make VoIP calls.

Receiving calls through the Truphone app still requires a user to have it open and running, but when Apple introduces a new version of the device’s operating software next week at WWDC, the push notification it will support could change even that limitation.

Labor protesters demonstrating outside Apple’s Taiwan offices in May. The Apple laptop says “Responsibility.” Images: Global Post.

Asian labor unions will be putting more pressure on Apple on Tuesday with a protest at Computex Taipei, Asia’s largest electronics show.

The unions are hoping to force Apple to intervene in a labor dispute with one of the company’s major suppliers, Wintek, which makes LCD screens and is rumored to be working on the upcoming Mac/iPod tablet.

Wintek has been accused of unfairly laying-off workers and poor and exploitative working conditions in factories in Taiwan and mainland China. Wintek denies the charges.

The protest will “expose the reality to the public, and request Apple Inc. to execute its Code of Conduct, to end the exploitation of labors in Taiwan and China,” one of the unions said in a news release.