Cult of Mac

Lim Ding Wen, a nine-year-old from Singapore, has written a free art application for iPhone, called Doodle Kids. The app has been downloaded more than 4000 times since its release on Feb. 1.

While many kids his age are content to simply play games on the iPhone or PSP, Ding Wen is all about programming in ActionScript and JavaScript. He also understands five other programming languages and is already hard at work on his next app, a game called “Invader Wars.”

Ding Wen’s efforts stem from his father’s devotion to the Apple IIGS, which he calls “one of the best computers Apple had ever produced.” His dad maintains a website “to bring back the fun and excitement of Apple IIGS programming for all the young children,” with sample codes and a Virtual GS disk available for download.

Kids today. Kind of gives one hope for tomorrow.

Via Engadget

If Apple TV supported cable television, as well as iTunes, the move could generate $1 billion for the media box long considered a “hobby” by Cupertino, one analyst recently suggested.

Providing cable box support could also boost Apple TV ownership six times over, potentially creating 6.5 million sales of the media unit, according to Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

Sacconaghi suggested Apple TV could become an alternative to the cable DVR or TiVo with the help of additional software. Firms, such as Tru2Way allows cable customers to avoid renting a box in order to receive pay-per-view or other services.

The percent of people that intend to buy a Mac within the next three months declined to its lowest point since 2007, a consumer research firm said Wednesday.

ChangWave Research said of those people it contact planning to purchase a desktop or laptop computer within the next 90 days, 27 percent of that group expect to buy a Mac. The figure reflects a six percent drop from January 2008 and the lowest since 2007’s 29 percent demand, researchers said.

The new results found new MacBooks introduced by Apple in October “didn’t explode out of the box,” according to ChangeWave research director Paul Carton.

Demand for Mac laptops continues to outpace desktops. The research found of computer buyers, 22 percent said they purchased a Mac laptop versus 17 percent that chose a desktop.

Along with the poor economy, Apple may suffer from its decision not to offer a low-cost netbook to compete with PC makers.

Dell and HP are among PC manufacturers helped by what Carton called a “long-term secular transformation in how the U.S. consumer spends.” That shift is reflected in nearly 20 percent of laptop buyers reporting they had bought a netbook in the previous three months.

If there is a silver lining in the survey for Apple, it may be that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is doing better than the overall PC industry.

ChangeWave said only 11 percent of respondents reported plans to buy a computer within the next 90 days. Just five percent of those purchases will be desktops with six percent picking laptops. The figures represent “record lows,” researchers said.

Norway, which had threatened to take Apple to court over its copy-protection of songs purchased through iTunes, announced Wednesday it was dropping its complaint.

“We have no reason to pursue them anymore,” Norway mediator Bjorn Erik Thon told AFP.

Norway had threatened to haul Cupertino into court over restrictions that blocked songs purchased through iTunes being copied to portable music devices other than Apple’s iPod.

Apple’s upcoming OS X software, codenamed Snow Leopard, will include support for multi-touch technology heavily used by Cupertino’s popular iPhone handset, according to a report Thursday.

Location technology is also part of Apple’s new operating system, Apple Insider reported, citing “people familiar” with a test version of Leopard. Developers just received the latest “build” of 10.6, according to MacRumors.

The new version of Apple’s operating system makes use of the iPhone software developers kit to integrate multi-touch features already available to new MacBook and MacBook Pro owners.

It’s the app that’s launched, whatever, a lot of downloads. iFart Mobile lead developer Joel Comm elaborated about the beginnings of the talked-about app in an interview with the Orlando Sentinel.

If you have not downloaded the app and have been wondering exactly why anyone would pay $.99 for a souped-up electronic Whoopee cushion, here’s what it does:

Q: What is the iFart Mobile iPhone application that you created?

Answer: It’s an electronic entertainment or sound machine. It produces flatulence noises. There are a number you can select from. Each has their own name and you push the button to fart now and it makes the sound. We built in a few other interesting features like the sneak attack which you can set to go off after a certain number of seconds or minutes. And the security fart, which when you put the phone down after five seconds, it goes into alarm mode and if anybody picks the phone up, and it detects motion, then it lets off the designated sound. We also included fart a friend, which lets you e-mail a selected sound to another e-mail address. And then there is the ‘record a fart,’ which lets you add a custom sound to the selection wheel.

Q: Why did you make it?

This isn’t your gran’s sideboard: a sleek, minimalist iBoard provides a dock for your iPod or iPhone, functioning as a de facto stereo with a sound range of up to 100 meters.

From Swiss company Schubinger Möbel, the iBoard (plexiglass case not included, though if you want to keep sticky mitts off the device, it’s not a horrible idea) sends 2.4 GHz radio signal to a loudspeaker system that can handle a full audio range including an 8-inch subwoofer and four loudspeakers, and a 100-watt digital amplifier for  quality sound.

Price not listed, for more info Schubinger Möbel

Via Born Rich

The Reuters news organization brings news of 9-year-old Lim Deng Wen of Singapore, quite possibly the world’s youngest iPhone developer. His signature program is Doodle Kids (app store link), a rather abstract drawing game that he developed for his little sisters. It’s been downloaded 4,000 times so far, and it’s free.

What the article fails to mention is that Lim’s programs were initially written for an Apple IIGS emulator before porting to iPhone, which might just be the most interesting transition between Apple platforms this millennium. Does anyone have an Apple /// program that runs on the AppleTV?

Via Digg

When the comfortably semi-retired co-founder of one of the hottest high-tech entrerprises of the past ten years goes back to work, it’s news – whether he’s called by opportunity, need, or just plain desire.

Steve Wozniak is going back to work – at a storage start-up he says he’s joining because ” I like the people and the product, and … I would like some greater involvement.”

Fusion-io is backed with investment from Dell, and has distribution agreements in place with the Texas hardware maker as well as with HP and IBM, according to a report in the NY Times.

It’s said in times of greatest crisis there is greatest opportunity, so I’m inclined to take Woz at his word when he says, “I think I have a better place at smaller companies looking at new ideas.”

via [gizmodo]

Cult reader James moves to the head of the pack in the incredible contest to see how many apps can be running on your Mac and displayed on your desktop in all their juicy, chaotic goodness by Exposé.

James’ machine is Mac Pro 8 core, with 10GB RAM, 30″ NEC 3090 monitor, and 2 1TB Samsung drives raided together. He has a lot of high end apps running, including all of Final Cut Studio, all of Adobe Creative Suite CS 3 Design Premium, all of Office 2008, all of iWork 08, Google Earth, Windows XP and Crunch Bang Linux in virtual box , Sling Player, Filemaker xcode and mmaannyyy more.

“I got to the point where it started giving an error code and would not launch any more apps,” he told us. “When I tried to screen shot it refused, so I had to quit an app before I could make a screen shot.”

Click on the image to see the original size and find he’s also got Open Office, Think Free Office, Eclipse IDE, a 22 mega pixel image from a Canon 5K Mark II (the ship), Proxi, Sketch Up, Sketch Book education, Skype, Gizmo, Gridiron Flow beta, eBay desktop, Acquisition, Adium, Firefox, Safari, iPhone Simulator…

He thinks there are about 240 apps running in all, but says, “I reckon the Pro could take another 100 if the OS would allow it — maybe snow leopard.”

Follow afer the jump for screen shots of James’ Activity Monitor.

The much-maligned iPhone camera keeps getting more awesome software written to enhance the things you can do with it.

Last week I wrote about Light, something to give your pics a pro touch, there’s another one I’ve been playing with coming out of embargo shortly and the latest is an app called TimeLapse, which lets you time a photo to be snapped as infrequently as every 24 hours, or as often as every 10 seconds, which is about as fast as the phone can snap and store a image in the camera roll.

Once you’ve collected your pics, you can easily dump them into iMovie or QuickTime Pro and make a simple time lapse movie.

You can also set a delay to allow the photographer to get in the frame for a group photo. And TimeLapse works as a rudimentary surveillance camera, too. While it’s running, a display lists when it started, the time of the last picture taken and the approximate time of when it will stop.

A happy early adopter has a handy tutorial here.

Now you can go make a movie and get famous like that guy Matt. Well, not exactly, but what do you want from a camera phone?

Via TUAW

If Apple dropped the costly iPhone data plan, the move could earn Cupertino $7 billion and create a bridge between the iPod and iPhone market, an analyst suggested Wednesday.

“Apple’s more than 100 million iPod users give the company a huge opportunity to capture significant market share in the mobile device market,” Sanford Berstein’s Toni Sacconaghi told clients.

By dropping the required $70 per month data plan, Apple would break out of the limited smartphone segment and open the doors to an iPod touch userbase worth $7 billion in income and $4 billion in profit each year.

The state of Maryland has proposed a ban on writing, sending or reading text messages while driving.

One lawmaker, however, is concerned if the bill becomes a law it will mean he can’t make any more calls using his iPhone touchscreen during commutes.

Saqib Ali, a delegate for Montgomery County, told a panel of colleagues yesterday that he uses his iPhone all the time.

He’s worried that tapping the touch screen to make calls would violate the ban proposed by delegate Frank Turner on writing, sending or reading a text message while operating a motor vehicle.

Turner’s bill doesn’t target talking on the phone. Just thumb jockeying instead of keeping your hands on ten and two.

Ali wonders how a police officer would know he was dialing his phone and not texting while driving.

Hmmm. Is this splitting hairs or should drivers be forced to keep their hands on the wheel and off their phones, period?

Image used with Creative Commons license, thanks to Mike Kline on flickr.

Via AP

Photographer Kelsey Blessman named this shot “iGod,” it’s part of an ongoing series on technology.

Portraits include one called iFashion where young woman wears iPod headphones as a necklace and others that feature diskettes, cassette tapes and film.

Image copyright Kelsey Blessman.

Via Etsy

Sprint reportedly will launch the Palm Pre in May, timing that could steal the thunder of an expected new version of Apple’s iPhone.

According to the Boy Genius Report Web site, Sprint documents suggest Palm could begin shipping its touch-screen phone in May, a month before many believe Cupertino will introduce its next-generation iPhone.

The Pre, a touch-screen smartphone widely viewed as a rival to Apple’s popular handset, essentially replaces the Treo 755p.

A Paris court has rejected an exclusive iPhone distribution agreement between France Telecom and Apple, reports said Wednesday.

Orange is the wireless subsidiary of France Telecom.

The court said the pact constituted a “restraint on freedom.” France Telecom told reporters it was “shocked” and planned to appeal the ruling.

The court’s action follows a December temporary ruling by a regulatory board opening the way for rival Bouygues and others to sell the iPhone to French customers.

Woohoo! A bumper issue of WTF iPhone Apps this week, thanks to the ever-increasing avalanche of bobbins and foonity spewing forth from the App Store.

Let’s not dally! Onwards! With the craziness!

First up this week is Angry Scot: “Learn the Scottish way to say No! This application will help you summon your inner Scotsman to give you the courage (and words) to solve your problems in these trying times. Each response is carefully crafted and then spoken by an authentic Scots person in his native tongue.”

Daft, but we can live with it. Can things get worse? You bet they can. We’ve not even started yet.

This free iPhone, iPod app from 1-800-flowers.com could come in handy, the idea of using a meeting deadzone to order a forgotten birthday gift (sorry mom!) appeals to me immensely.

You can order stuff from the site, namely  flowers, plants, balloons, plus cookies, cakes and wine and cheese, some for same-day delivery.

Caveat: the first few user reviews are on the low side, with one person having to go through customer support to access an existing account, so you might want to make sure you’ve taken it for a spin before Valentine’s Day next week.

Available on iTunes.

You may know there are now 2,345 fart-oriented applications on the iTunes AppStore, but were you aware of the growing number of ways the iPhone and iPod Touch can help you keep track of your own or (more likely) your mate’s menstrual cycle?

Yes, Apple’s amazing mobile device can help you keep your relationship together, plan a family, or just avoid unnecessarily broken household objects.

Choices include:

* the free uPMS, an app directly aimed at guys “suffering the monthly Pychotic Mood Shifts from their better halves;”

*PMS Tracker, which, for a buck lets a user quickly track the approximate time each woman in his/her life will have PMS, using a green, orange, red coding system to indicate the likelihood of turbulence on any given day;

* iPeriod is an app aimed at busy women who need a little assist with “doctors appointments, event planning, and knowing when to leave the house prepared,” which could be a handy little $4 tool. It even predicts a user’s next 12 periods, fertile days and ovulation windows;

* another $4 app, MyMate seeks to help the sensitive man “organize information [he] frequently needs but can never remember.” It calculates period and ovulation days for up to six months and also provides means for tracking favorite color, song, perfume, “Don’t Likes,” gift ideas and sizes (with convenient European conversions);

*the high-end Woman Calendar is a $10 tool for family planning that logs biological data including cycle days, basal body temperature, ovulation dates, weight, and other customized personal records. It’s got a module for journaling and allows a user to export data from a date range to a CSV file for backup and use with other desktop applications. Comes with password protection or data security;

* last, but not least is IAmAMan, the $2 “private life planner” that lets a user stay abreast of the cycle probabilities for several women. The record and existence of each person tracked is password protectable, so no one need find out who or how many people a user is tracking, and it has a handy click-to-call feature that dials a woman up just by tapping her name.

That’s just a quick round up of a few apps I found after reading about PMS Buddy a web app that’s reasonably popular on Facebook and reportedly headed to the AppStore.

As these things go, there are likely more coming down the pike.

Via Cnet

Not long ago, I reviewed Altec Lansing’s expressionist CLASSIC PC speakers and found them great value for the money. After listening to them for a while beyond the publication of that review, I still loved the sound quality from those $80 speakers but found myself wishing for a little more oomph on the bottom end.

Well, I should have known Altec had already thought of that. Ingeniously engineered into the small-footprint housing of their Expressionist BASS computer speakers, powerful 4″ (100mm) long-throw subwoofers deliver all the lows that are typically missing from the little speakers you find sitting on desks all over the world.

Of course, you could spend lots of money on high-fidelity audio components for a computer set-up, which in many cases would include a separate subwoofer that sits at your feet or hides somewhere nearby, effectively dispersing the low frequency signals you need to get a truly rich audio experience on the computer. Altec Lansing has managed to put that all together for you in a pair of attractive desktop cones that are super easy to hook up and sound great without breaking the bank.

Twin 1 ½” drivers deliver mid and high frequencies so vocals and details come through with the clarity you expect from the company’s long history as a quality speaker manufacturer, and the sub-drivers in each speaker really do provide that punch-in-the-head color you want from your online gameplay, movie watching and YouTube browsing. They also have an auxiliary input for conveniently connecting portable CD, DVD, and MP3 players.

To get the most out of these speakers I had to play around with the EQ in my iTunes app to correct for their increased bass response, but once I got everything balanced the way I wanted it, I found I could actually listen to all sounds from my computer at a lower overall volume than previously and now, two weeks into using them, I find I actually mute the computer volume quite a bit less than I used to, and I work with music on in the background more as well.

For $130, Altec Lansing Expressionist Bass computer speakers could help you come to love computer audio.

Image copyright Spacesick.

THE HORROR, etc.

Hat tip: Gruber.

Iotum is taking its innovative Calliflower conference calling application mobile with a free application for iPhone and iPod Touch on Apple’s iTunes AppStore, the company announced Tuesday.

Calliflower makes organizing and participating in multi-party calls simple and engaging by allowing participants to see the status of other callers, and features interactive chat, intuitive conference controls, recordings, call archives, invitations and reminders, integration with calendars, and more.

“We’re liberating Calliflower conference calling from the desktop and extending all of its features to the world’s most powerful mobile device,” says Iotum CEO Alec Saunders. “We had to reread some of the iPhone’s UI requirements in order to get Apple to approve the app, but we feel it faithfully recreates on the mobile platform what over 200,000 users have come to appreciate about the web-based app.”

One useful feature of the web app that won’t be found (yet) on the iPhone is Calliflower’s document-sharing functionality. “It’s Flash-based,” Saunders told us, “so we’ll have to wait for Flash on the iPhone before we get document sharing.”

Users can create a new Calliflower account directly from the free app on the iPhone, or existing Calliflower users can simply log in using their current Calliflower account.

iPhone 3G owners in Florida and New Jersey become the latest to sue Apple over what they charge are “false and misleading advertising” about the handset’s speed.

The latest court challenges were described as “more cookie-cutter lawsuits” against iPhone advertising. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company has been sued four times in two weeks over nearly identical claims, according to Apple Insider.

In Florida, residents Onel Gonzalez and Ron J. Brayteson are asking a district court to stop Apple’s advertising and require the company pay damages.

Texas native Jesse Jane is on hand for the Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas, where she talked tech with the Canadian Broadcast Company.

For the last six years, she’s been making movies for Digital Playground, one of the bigger U.S. adult entertainment companies, which prides itself on being one of the first of the early technology adopters.

Jane gave a heads-up on where the porn industry is going with tech, with a nod to the iPhone, Twitter and iChat:

Q. Besides high-definition, what other technologies are you seeing that are notable or interesting?

A. There’s always new stuff going on. Just in toys, they’re always coming up with these inventions like Sybians and crazy machines to have sex with or get tied up with.

Now we’re shooting on the Red [digital HD] cameras I think Digital Playground is the only one and we have all the Blu-ray coming out. I’m learning with my little camera and my website, where I’m able to upload daily diary videos, which is fun. Technology is getting a lot easier to make things more personal with your fans. They like the daily clips.

Now we can watch porn with our iPhones, and in the next month or two, with Digital Playground we’re going to be able to stream, Twitter and live iChat on our website from our iPhones.”

Jane also hearted her iPhone, which she calls a lifesaver during downtime.

“I love my iPhone because I can sit there and check my e-mail and update my website from my phone while I’m sitting there waiting at the airport.”

Via CBC

This could get ugly. Seems there’s a bit of a competition going on out there over how many apps one can get running simultaneously, as reported by Gizmodo.

Last spring, some guy reported running 150 on a 2.2ghz MacBook Pro,, which was quickly challenged by some clown running 108 on Vista (huh?).

Now, we get the new champ, whose mark has been set on a 20-inch 2007 iMac, with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo and 4 Gigabytes of RAM. Makes for a kind of interesting showcase for Exposé, I guess.

How about you? How many apps do you run simulataneously on your Mac?

Via Gizmodo