At a talk in San Francisco tonight, I encountered a very cool (relatively) new OS X app called MemoryMiner. Basically, it takes all of your photos, your address book, and Google Maps to create interesting, shareable stories with friends and family. The most important piece of the app is its ability to quickly tag a portion of an image, much as Facebook and Flickr do, then associate those pieces of data back to your wider social network — over the course of time. It’s explicitly designed to allow you to tag a person at different points in their lifetime, so you can track and associate your family’s history over the course of centuries, if you have the documents to support it.

It’s currently in version 1.85 (available for a 15-day trial or $45), and creator John Fox tells me version 2.0 is well on its way, as is a social tool to track your personal geographic history compared to others. Having played around with the app for a few hours now, I will say that the program is really great at tagging and adding in new people to my MemoryMiner people file. In a few minutes, I had clips of pictures and names with all the people I wanted to. Unfortunately, for those whose birth dates I didn’t know (most of them), I had no ability to track their photos over their lifetimes. But it largely works as advertised.

Unfortunately, it has some pretty basic, pretty show-stopping limitations for the time-being. I couldn’t get it to import my iPhoto 08 Library, so that’s a huge portion of my memories that aren’t included right now. Even more troublingly, the program lacks the basic functionality to rotate photos so they’re in the correct orientation. Or, if it’s there, I just couldn’t locate it, which would almost be worse

Still, it’s a program with considerable potential. I could even imagine the company setting up a service to scan, upload, and tag archival photos so they can be associated and studied by users at home. I can just see the genealogy lovers getting way into this. Maybe in version 2.0.

The proliferation of cheap applications on the AppStore is stifling innovation and holding Apple’s mobile touch platform back from realizing its true potential, according to developer Craig Hockenberry.

In a post Tuesday at his furbo.org blog, Hockenberry published an open letter to Steve Jobs, saying, “I’m not going to give you suggestions on what to do” about developers (himself included) working on 99¢ titles that have a limited lifespan and broad appeal instead of on “the cooler (and more complex) ideas that could see the utility of the platform taken to another level.”

He goes on to describe the economics of paying development team members the going rate of $150-200 per hour, the realities of having to make up the bulk of development costs during the short period of time an app is likely to be featured among the tens of thousands soon to be available on the AppStore, and concludes “there’s too much risk…in developing something that takes 6 or even 9 man months…with a break even at 215K or 322K units.”

Under the prevailing conditions, where 99¢ “ringtone apps” dominate the landscape, Hockenberry says “going for simple and cheap instead of complex and expensive” is the fiscally responsible choice for developers to make.

In the end, he says “We’re not afraid of competition. In fact, we welcome it as a way to improve our products and business. [But] we’re hoping for a way to rise above the competition when we do our job well, not just when we have the lowest price.”

It’s hard to quibble with Hockenberry’s assessments from a developer’s economic risk perspective, especially in the midst of a contracting economy such as the one at present. It’s also unlikely the iPhone’s “killer app” will end up being one that goes to market at 99¢.

From the perspective of consumers, though, from that of users of new technology that is itself in the midst of early stage development, of users who in many cases make purchase decisions sight-unseen or on the basis of 2 minute YouTubed product demos – simple and cheap seems just about right.

Apple and Nvidia may be sitting on a potential landmine of defective chipsets in new 15″ MacBook Pros, according to a report Tuesday at the Inquirer.

Citing questions stemming from problems affecting Dell, HP and Apple computers earlier in the year with failing chips due to bad materials and thermal stress, as well as a $200 million charge Nvidia took over the problem in July, the Inquirer commissioned researchers to take apart a new MacBook Pro and investigate Nvidia’s assurances that none of the bad chipsets made it into Apple’s new computers that began selling in the fall.

“A small lab of mad scientists who do not wish to be named, fearing repercussions from Nvidia and Apple” took an off-the-shelf 15″ MacBook Pro apart, desoldered the parts, and “cut the defenseless notebook into many pieces,” according to the report, examining what they found through a scanning electron microscope equipped with an X-ray microanalysis system.

The findings indicate the Nvidia GeForce 9400 GPUs in some unknown number of MacBook Pros are in fact afflicted with material, called “bad bumps”, the tiny balls of solder that hold a chip to the green printed circuit board it sits on, that will crack, causing the computer it is in to die.

The Inquirer article suggests that “barring a total failure of their lot-tracking system, [Nvidia] had to have known the Macbooks shipped with ‘bad bumps’.

Did Apple know? Calls to Apple PR were not returned prior to the story’s publication, and while that might look pretty damning, it isn’t. “Apple will not talk to journalists unless they are assured the response will be fawning,” according to the Inquirer report.

We’ll have to keep an eye on this story to see if the news affects sales of MacBook Pros and whether – or when – Apple support forums might begin to erupt with tales of dying notebooks.

Via Techmeme

Bring me the head of Nick Pavis! The CEO of San Francisco-based entertainment software company MunkyFun is ultimately responsible for the two hours I failed to notice ticking by this afternoon while engrossed in his visually stunning, sneakily addicting iPhone game, Ivory Tiles.

With its oddly calming Oriental soundtrack and the realistic sounding slide and click of ivory tiles on a wooden gameboard, Ivory Tiles draws you into the challenge of solving its spatial and geometric puzzles like nothing I have ever experienced. Making excellent use of iPhone’s accelerometer and impeccable 3D graphics engine, the game took me through levels of frustration, elation and ultimately relaxation that I hardly imagined possible from playing a game on a mobile device.

Must. Keep. From. Number. One. Son.

$1.99 from the AppStore; worth ten times that amount. Requires iPhone 2.1 software update.

They may not look as studiously Apple as the Earbud speakers in the next post, but I’ll wager the $20 difference in price these Altec Lansing expressionist CLASSIC speakers kick some serious audio jams on those stylin’ earbuds.

To begin with, Altec Lansing is one of the venerable names in audiophile engineering. The Milford, PA-based company has been producing superior quality speakers since 1938 and this offering in the PC audio category lives up to its 70 year reputation for good sound. Unique cylindrical cabinets house specially designed 3″ drivers powered by 15 watts of total continuous power to deliver a full spectrum of clear, warm sound found in other PC audio products costing twice as much.

Speakers should never require an engineering degree to get going and these small-footprint machines, with their own simple style that says “listen up,” are about as plug and play as any audio component you will find. Power and speaker volume controls are at your fingertips on the rear of the Right speaker, and if you’ve got a friend over with an iPod or other portable audio device, you can easily listen to their iTunes library by plugging into the Altec’s 3.5mm Aux-in jack. All the cords and connecting hardware are made from high-quality, heavy gauge material that inspires confidence in a well-made, long-lasting product.

I mentioned they sound great, right? For $79.95, these speakers will upgrade your standard thin, tinny PC audio system and bring new life to your music, gameplay and movie watching experience.

Available now from the Altec Lansing website and select Apple Retail outlets, these and the full line of Altec Lansing PC audio components will also be featured at Macworld 2009.

Just like your iPod earbuds, but supersized 500 times.
These 500XL giant earbud portable speakers have a built-in amp, run on three AAA batteries and come with a USB cord.

No specs on how much they pump though the makers assure you’ll be able to annoy your co-workers, which is important.

$60 at Fred Flare
Via Trendhunter

Walmart could sell 4.5 million iPhones in 2009, equally the number of handsets sold by Apple retailers, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster speculated Tuesday.

The analyst called the 4.5 million benchmark “achievable” if each of Walmart’s 3,500 stores sell 1,284 iPhones in 2009. Munster expects Apple’s 208 retail locations will sell 4.5 million iPhones.

“We do not believe that Street numbers accurately reflect the potential impact from Walmart stores on iPhone sales in 2009,” Munster told investors. The Piper Jaffray analyst retained his belief that 45 million iPhones will be sold next year.

Even credit-crunch era consumers will break out the plastic to buy an iPod in a new color.

USA today devoted an article on how shoppers aren’t color blind — especially when it comes to Apple mp3 players:

Nearly five years ago, Sally Trammer of Indianapolis, a senior systems analyst at Eli Lilly bought herself an iPod Mini specifically because it came in the color she craved: lime green.

Trammer was fully aware that this model stored far fewer songs than a full-size white or black iPod.

“I didn’t care, I just wanted to have that color,” she says. She recalls overpaying, too about $300. Then she purchased a fancy, lime-green leather case, to boot. “Regardless of what it cost, I knew I had to have it.”

Such consumer color devotion is a key element in iPod sales. Apple officials declined to comment, but retail expert Marshal Cohen of NPD says he’s spoken with plenty of adult iPod owners who bought new iPods specifically to get a new color. “This boggles the mind,” he says.

Color me a little astonished by the trend, too. A silver iPod nano is as far as I’ve strayed from classic white.

Fess up in the comments: have you bought a new iPod for the color, for yourself or for someone else?

Photo credit: AJ Mast
Via USA today

In the title sequence for 1960s spy-spoof turned film “Get Smart,” main character Maxwell Smart interprets intelligence chatter on his iPod.

He’s first shown without the original earbuds, but shortly afterwards on his way to Control with white headphones plugged in, having traded the intelligence chatter for mood-boosting Abba’s “Take a Chance on Me.”

Arguably the best gadget in what should’ve been a gadget film (anyone hanker for a molar transmitter? Though the Cone of Silence might be nice ), to boost product placement in the movie Apple teamed up with Warner Bros to promote the film by giving away iPod Touch devices to journalists with pre-loaded film clips and having cast members make Apple store appearances.

Sony Ericsson Tuesday joined the Open Handset Alliance, becoming the latest cell phone maker to voice support for Google’s Android operating system.

Sony Ericsson has said it plans to adopt the Android software for several phones during 2009. The phone maker will drop t he Symbian UIQ phone software in favor of Google’s open-source Android platform, reports said Tuesday.

In a statement, Sony Ericsson announced it hoped to use Andriod to develop successful handsets along the lines of its popular Walkman MP3 players and Cyber-shot digital cameras.

iPhone beatbox app Beatmaker has been updated to version 1.3, which brings with it some nice new features.

This release is about detail: there’s more detailed edit options in the step sequencer. You can do more with your patterns, they can be more complicated and mixed in more interesting ways.

Editing the whole song is easier thanks to a zoom control and an access bar that lets you jump from one part of the song to another.

Best of all, it’s now a proper sampler. Beatmaker will let you record sounds using the iPhone’s built-in mic, assign them to pads, and use them in songs without any extra fussing about.

Wait, though, there’s more! Have you wanted a pocket Stylophone ever since the 1970s ended? Me too!

Weeeeelllllll…

Time Magazine has dropped the iPhone to third place in its annual poll of the top 10 gadgets. Is the luster wearing thin on Apple’s flagship product.

While crediting the iPhone for launching an “era of mobile computing,” when it comes down to performance the handset “doesn’t handle email as well as the cheapest BlackBerry, and as a telephone, it’s no better than most cell phones,” the magazine said.

“As a phone, the iPhone was never better than other handsets, and still isn’t today,” Avi Greengart, Current Analysis’ handset analyst, told Cult of Mac. The iPhone’s reception, microphone and speaker aren’t what makes the device special, Greengart said.

Apple is striving to change how people view the iPhone 3G compared to the first handset. Cupertino is encouraging journalists to describe the iPhone as a mobile computing platform, not as a phone.

In 2007, the first generation iPhone wowed Time’s reviewer, who wrote the Apple handset “changed the way we think about how mobile media devices should look, feel and perform.”

Although the iPhone dropped out of first place, the No. 1 spot in Time’s poll was given to an Apple-related product, the Optoma Pico PK-101 projector – an iPhone and iPod add-on. Second place was won by the first consumer laser TV set, the 65-inch Mitsubishi LaserVue TV.

I like the look of word game Giant Crayon WordSoup – it reminds me of Wurdle on the iPhone, which keeps me occupied for hours, when I can wrench it from my wife’s fingers (she gets addicted and spends the whole evening playing if I’m not careful).

But, um, guys? That moment at 0:54? How can I put this?

Just days after opening its first retail store in Germany, Apple is set Dec. 13 to begin moving into its first store in France, located near the Louvre Museum.

Apple will move into a 7,700-square foot two-level store previously occupied by Résonances, a retailer that’s moving elsewhere in the underground shopping mall Carrousel du Louvre.

As part of the makeover, Apple first retail store in France will include a glass staircase that connects the two levels, according to Apple Insider.

The new store should open to the public by Fall 2009. Apple’s retail presence in France comes two years after company CEO Steve Jobs predicted a 2007 ribbon-cutting.

Got a big fat PDF? Rather have it split into lots of little jpgs, one for each page in the PDF?

That happens to me a lot.

Jim DeVona’s Save PDFs pages as images Automator app is what you and I need.

It does all the chopping-up-and-separating, then it neatly saves the images in a numbered sequence so you know which one’s which.

You should check out his software page too, it’s got all sorts of goodies for your Mac, especially for Yojimbo users.

Everybody say: “Yojimbo!” There, that feels better doesn’t it?

Some people are frantically asking “WHY GOOGLE, WHY?” but to me it makes perfect sense. Gmail now has a simple task manager and I love it. It works nicely within my copy of Mailplane, as do the keyboard shortcuts. You can enable it from inside the Labs settings tab (which is where you can mess with keyboard shortcuts too).

It made me smile when I looked at the hints. Gmail knew I was using a Mac and showed me the appropriate Command keystrokes to make stuff happen. Move items up and down the list with Command+Up or Command+Down, indent them with Tab, unindent with Shift+Tab. All makes sense.

But my favorite feature is that any email can be turned into a task. These tasks appear with a little “Related email” link so you can instantly see their context.

Bravo Gmail team, a job well done.

Here’s another inexpensive gift idea for your favorite iPod fan, iHome’s inexplicably named iH15W cubular docking station.

Actually, the name is easy enough to explain by the unit’s 15watt amplifier, which is probably strong enough to disturb the neighbors without actually rattling the windows. But the company might have gotten a little more play by naming it the iHome Mood Cube, since its distinctive feature is the ability to illuminate different colors, providing a changing atmosphere for both the music and your mood. You can select the color you prefer for the day, or let it cycle through all of them. Two Reson8 speakers and a built-in subwoofer spell the likelihood of decent sound, which, at $59.95 is priced right for that special someone on your “nice” list this holiday season.

Via Engadget, via ChipChick

A pair of electronics Phd candidates at Ottawa, Ontario’s Carleton University may have invented a process for wirelessly connecting the circuits of a mobile device to its antenna, allowing it to consume 12 times less power than traditional, wired-transmitter modules and lowering the overall cost of any hand-held device, according to a report at OttawaCitizen.com.

Atif Shamim and Muhammad Arsalan, together with their adviser Langis Roy of Carleton’s department of electronics, co-authored a paper describing a packaging technique to connect the antenna with the circuits via a wireless connection between a micro-antenna embedded within the circuits on the chip.

Their work was named the best paper at the European Wireless Technology Conference in November, whose judges praised the invention for “excellent integration of system design, material sciences and electromagnetic antenna design.” They also said the innovation is “highly relevant, with large potential for commercialization.”

Shamim has filed patent applications in the U.S. and in Canada, with the knowledge consumers continue to gripe about the short lifespan of the iPhone battery.

“It’s a common problem. There are so many applications in the iPhone, it’s like a power-sucking machine,” said Shamim.

Research on the invention is due to be published in the upcoming edition of Microwave Journal.

Via LowEndMac

AdWords advertisers can now show desktop text and image ads on the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full (HTML) Internet browsers, Google announced Monday.

Google text and image ads can now point to desktop landing pages without advertisers needing to create mobile landing pages or ads in mobile formats. The ads can deliver mobile-specific calls-to-action and reach mobile users searching with their phones more than ever during the holiday season.

Recently, the Google mobile team launched new results pages formatted specifically for the iPhone, according to the post at Google’s Mobile blog. Now, advertisers will be able to display ads exclusively on these mobile devices, create campaigns for them, and get separate performance reporting. Advertisers who prefer not to show desktop ads on these phones can opt out and show ads only on desktop and laptop computers.

Via Techmeme

Apple has finally concluded negotiations with Sony, Universal and Warner that will let tracks from the three giant music labels sell on iTunes without Fair Play restrictions, according to a report at AppleInsider.

AI cites information from a French electronic website claiming unnamed sources who confirm the DRM-free date is Tuesday, December 9. This hullabaloo falls squarely into the rumor category and should be seen as Holiday Hype as much as anything until either an official announcement from Apple or until tracks are actually being downloaded from iTunes without digital rights management restrictions.

The French site, ElectronLibre, also reportedly claims Apple is set to allow shoppers in France, Germany and the UK download an “unlimited” amount of certain iTunes content just after Christmas, leading up to the start of Macworld 2009 on January 6.

Via AppleInsider

UBS analyst Maynard Um became the latest to douse cold water on talk of a $99 iPhone appearing on Wal-Mart shelves. Um said such a move would disregard Apple’s pricing practices.

“We believe a $99 iPhone would be atypical of Apple’s premium brand strategy,” Um told investors Monday. The analyst believed $149 would be more realistic for a 4GB iPhone.

Although others, such as Kaufman Bros.’ Shaw Wu last week called a $99 iPhone “inevitable,” Um said such a move would “cannibalize” sales of the 8GB and 16GB versions, cutting Apple’s share price by $0.27 in 2009.

Spawn Illuminati (App Store)is a fun and cheap little app for your iPhone/iTouch. You can see what it does; it spawns little blobs of light that respond, in a manner of speaking, to your touch commands.

The commands aren’t terribly intuitive, and the app seems to have a mind of its own half the time, but that doesn’t stop it being fun to play with, especially for little ones. With a bit of practice, you can get some very nice results with it (as evidenced in the official gallery).

And it’s a great way to make a wallpaper image for your iPhone that’s completely unique.

There’s no Flickr grounp yet – gasp! Perhaps one will pop up later on. I would have made one myself, but I’ve got tea to drink.

More floopy screenies after the clicky thing.

Apple eliminated GPS functionality in order to sell the iPhone 3G in Egypt, the New York Times reported Monday. Cupertino’s acquiesense to the Egyptian government comes as the company negotiates entry into China’s 500 million consumers.

Apple silently modified the iPhone in the face of Egyptian concerns that GPS could be a military security risk, according to the newspaper. However, the changes come as governments attempt to put a lid on technology used by pro-democracy movements.

On the Egyptian iPhone Web page, Apple mentions 3G, Wi-Fiand Microsoft Exchange compatibility, but not GPS.

We all known Apple moves in mysterious ways, making changes that disrupt the lives of users with few warnings. Users Monday reported some movies are vanishing from the shelves of the iTunes Store.

Like in the Eagles’ “Hotel California,” a variety of movies can be bookmarked on iTunes but can’t check out. An error window appears when such flicks as Michael Clayton, Atonement and Charlie Wilson’s War are selected, according to Macworld.

The mystery may be some rights-management issue, although the movies involved span several studios, Ars Technica points out.

This isn’t the first time iTunes users have scratched their heads over movies available through iTunes. A recent uproar occurred after iTunes customers discovered new MacBooks included hardware-based copyright protection features which prevented some movies from playing on third-party displays.

Device maker Belkin said Monday it would pull-out of the upcoming Macworld Expo in order to concentrate on partners hurt by the crumbling economy.

The news confirms speculation from last week that Belkin would join Adobe and a growing list of Apple companies either bypassing or curtailing their involvement in the premiere Mac product showcase.

“We are not exhibiting at Macworld, but we will be holding meetings with our channel partners,” Belkin spokeswoman Melody Chalaban confirmed to Macworld. Belkin has also withdrawn from the Consumer Electronics Show.