Gentlemen, start your copiers! Well, the last one is a stolen image from Blackberry.com, but still. In case these images change over night, I have been to the Vodafone page, and these images really are all there. Someone’s unemployed right now…
For those of you who thought the Diamond Shuffle was a bit much, Swiss luxury accessories brand DEOS launched these diamond-encrusted covers designed for iPod and iPhone earbuds.
Prices for these handcrafted covers, which slip on earbuds, start at $4,500, for black and white diamond versions, climbing to $60,000 for earbuds dripping with pink, yellow or black diamonds.
Sure, they cost more than the actual device. Which is why some of the models, like the DEOS 32W, which has a full carat of diamonds and costs $5,000, comes with a complimentary Shuffle.
If you’d like to add a little splash to your morning run but don’t have the cash, Swarovski crystal versions run from $110 (demi-dipped) to $200 for the Full Monty.
Steve Goldstein, founder of the Geveva-based DEOS (Defining Expressions of Sound), said the idea is one whose time has come:
“Today there are more than 152 million earphones in the world. [It’s] a marvellous way of making a fashion statement. When you meet someone the person sees first your face and then looks at your ears…”
Don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got that bling.
Image via Bob Pearce/smh.com.au
Steve Wozniak thinks “It is time for the whole computer industry to maybe have a bit of a slowdown,” according to comments published in a wide-ranging interview with the Telegraph UK.
With shares of Apple, Inc. off 45% from August highs at $179, Wozniak thinks the spate of analyst downgrades for the near-term prospects of the company he founded are likely “correct.” He said, “For twenty years we have been in this replacement and upgrade market” that he finds unsustainable.
“Things like [the iPod], if you look back to transistor radios and Walkmans, they kind of die out after a while,” he predicted, referring to a major Apple profit center in recent years.
Wozniak also appeared critical of Apple’s latest groundbreaking product, the iPhone, and the direction development of third-party applications has taken. “Consumers aren’t getting all they want when companies are very proprietary and lock their products down,” he opined, saying, “I would like to write some more powerful apps than what you’re allowed.”
And while, as some analysts believe, Apple may be in a better position to withstand an industry slowdown than other technology companies, because of the near-religious devotion some consumers have toward Apple products, Woniak said neither he nor Steve Jobs was ever comfortable with such attitudes. We “don’t like the fact that it’s a bit of a religion,” he said of the company’s cult followers.
“I would like to have the users influence the next generation,” he said. “With a religion you’re not allowed to challenge anything. I want our customers to challenge us.”
One area of the Telegraph interview with a disturbingly false ring to it, however, concerned Wozniak’s description of Steve Job’s position in Apple’s stream of internal intelligence. He claimed that, when it comes to the introduction of new products, “nobody, not even Steve Jobs” knows what’s next.
“I think he would be sitting there [unaware] right up until the day it is introduced.” Ya think?
Apple’s fourth quarter results later this month may be one of the most widely-awaited events since the Vice Presidential debates.
After the stock whipsawed on analyst downgrades then health rumors surrounding CEO Steve Jobs, investment analysts now suggest Apple must either report strong sales or announce new products.
If Apple does not report healthy sales of Macs during the September quarter, “the importance of the new Mac increases substantially,” Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told Cult of Mac Tuesday.
LOMME (Light Over Matter Mind Evolution) is cocooning for the aughts, or “a unique sleep experience and rejuvenation environment,” as the designers call it.
The fiberglass egg-shaped bed emits soothing sounds (from a built-in iPod), beams tired eyes with “color-therapy filtered lights,” and offers a variety of massage options.
All functions are controlled by a specially-programmed iPhone.
Created by a design trio based in Liechtenstein, only the price may not make you rest easy: around 40,00 euro, or about $55,000.
The Oscar-winning actress looks great, even with no makeup, unmatched sweats and tangled up in the cord of her iPod touch.
Got to wonder about that book she’s lugging titled “Diagnosis and Treatment for Multiple Personality Disorder.” Maybe it’s for new part, or maybe for juggling the life of a star-mom-perfume maker….
Next time she might try going for cover under an iPhone.
Via Celeb Slam
The Apple Blogotubes are a-buzz with boffo Interblag bloviating at a rumor from 9to5mac.com that Apple’s rumored “Brick” product was actually a nickname for a new manufacturing process that will use “lasers and jets of water to carve the MacBooks out of a brick of aluminum.” More, it’s a “game-changer;” “totally revolutionary;” “Apple’s biggest innovation in a decade.”
…Yeah, maybe not.
As Adam Richardson, an industrial designer at consultancy frog design and CNet blogger, points out, lasers and waterjets have been used in manufacturing for ages — by Apple.
The glowing LED that appears behind a “solid” front face of the MacBooks is apparently achieved with laser-cutting to thin out and partially perforate the wall in that one area.
Richardson also speculates that the existing iPod Shuffle is manufactured using a similar process, and even the MacBook Air has some telltale signs that it draws on really interesting and unusual manufacturing techniques. But would Apple actually carve an entire laptop out of one block of aluminum? And would it save any money?
On such a small product this is do-able. On a large product like a laptop this would typically result in a massive amount of waste (so kiss your green credentials goodbye). And the notion that this is somehow cheaper than stamping thin sheets or molding plastic is completely wrong – it’s much more expensive.
Yeah… no.
I’ve been talking with other industrial designers about this issue, and they all agree that the reasoning behind the current Brick rumor doesn’t add up. One friend of mine guessed it would add up to $50 in manufacturing costs and might not be any stronger or lighter than more traditional manufacturing approaches.
Does Apple have a game-changing laptop in the wings that will reinvent the MacBook and MacBook Pro design language? For their sake, they’d better. Will it be milled from a single block of aluminum? Not in this lifetime.
Google’s 2001 retro-search tool has provided endless amusement over the past few weeks. None so much as the image at right, which is the “iPhone 2,” released by InfoTech in mid-1999 and reviewed on StreetTech by Gareth Branwyn.
And yes, it was a comical Internet landline phone, featuring full QWERTY keyboard. Like today’s iPhone 3G, it featured a touchscreen, Internet access, e-mail, and location-based services. Also like today’s iPhone 3G, it improved on significant shortcomings in its predecessor, by adding a better keyboard, higher data speed, and better speaker-phone sound quality.
And, eeriest of all, it had notable areas that needed improving. There was no “Forward” browser button, no “Find” function, and, hilariously, no Cut, Copy, or Paste features. In many ways, it’s exactly like today’s iPhone. Just, you know, totally janky.
Some things never change, apparently.
Thanks, Jwester!
OObject is a curious bloggish sort of site where each post is a collation of objects, brought together under a particular theme. They have a whole category for Apple stuff, including the 19 all time worst Apple products, 12 blatant iPod knock-offs, and 15 best Stevenotes.
You’ll probably be most interested in the 15 best Apple product concept mockups, though. You’ll have seen most of them before, but it’s nice to see them all together at last.
The list of 20 famous Mac users could do with a little work, though: putting Steve Jobs in there doesn’t really count.
TidBITS Publishing Inc., publisher of the Take Control electronic book series, is celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Take Control ebook series with a 50%-off sale. Cult of Mac readers are invited to take advantage of this special offer by following this link to access the discounted pricing. Discounts apply to all ebooks and are calculated once items are added to the shopping cart. The sale runs through October 14, 2008.
The Take Control series launched in October 2003 by publishing Joe Kissell’s “Take Control of Upgrading to Panther” simultaneously with Apple’s release of Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. Since then the series has grown to include 58 titles and numerous free updates, bringing together nearly 8,000 pages of professional content from some of the top names in the Macintosh world: Joe Kissell, Glenn Fleishman, Matt Neuburg, Sharon Zardetto, Ted Landau, and Take Control publisher Adam Engst.
Take Control ebooks use carefully designed layout and typography for easy onscreen reading and printing. They also include bookmarks, clickable links, a feedback channel to authors, and a Check for Updates button that readers can click to access free updates. Print-on-demand versions are available for most titles, and steep discounts are available for classroom and library copies.
Engst is grateful to have been able to keep the series alive for five years and commented, “the people who really deserve credit for Take Control’s success are the readers who trusted us enough to buy our first ebooks and who kept coming back for more. As much as we put a huge amount of thought and design work into making our ebooks more than just digital versions of print books, we know it was leap of faith for many people to try a PDF-based ebook.”
From Juicy Couture, the people who made terrycloth sweat suits hot, come three iPhone jelly cases in bright pink, blue and yellow with logo tags.
Hopefully some of the butter-fingered celebs who made Juicy famous will protect their iPhones with these, declaring “iChoose Juicy,” instead of “assistant go get me another phone” to the world.
$55 for a set of three. Available for pre-order.
Movie stills for forthcoming chick flick “Confessions of a Shopoholic” show star Isla Fisher sitting in front of a MacBook. She’s pretty in pink and so is her computer case.
The movie, based on Sophie Kinsella’s book of the same title, is about a 25-year-old financial journalist who can’t stop overheating her credit cards. And finds a wealthy husband. Or something like that.
Film producers didn’t have to go too far to put a Mac in the movie.
On page 335 of the book, the Becky Bloomwood character has “a crisp copy of the Financial Times under one arm, a pair of tortisehell glasses perched on my head, my clunky executive briefcase in one hand and an AppleMac laptop (sic) in the other. Maybe I over did it.”
Nah, we think it’s just the right touch.
Interested in trying out a cool media center for use with your Apple TV? Cult of Mac readers are invited to receive expedited applications for testing the alpha release of Boxee, a music, video and picture management solution to let your Apple TV play practically any DRM-free multimedia file. Follow this link to receive your alpha testing invitation.
Boxee for (Intel based) Mac works on OS X 10.4 (Tiger) and 10.5 (Leopard). Boxee for Linux is supported on Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) or 8.04 (Hardy Heron) x86 (not x86_64) operating systems. The Boxee patch works with the 2.2 update to Apple TV, but remember to install the update before you install the Boxee patch.
Detailed instructions for installing the Boxee patch after the jump.
Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
There is no end to the creative wonders made possible with Apple gear, it seems. Combining a variety of techniques including tilt-shift and time-lapse photography, Sydney-based photographer Keith Loutit uses his iMac to produce short films like those presented here, which turn ordinary places into scenes worth a second look.
Loutit also employs Apple software in his workflow, using Automator for file management and preparation; QuickTime pro for assembling stills onto video format; Aperture for archiving of frames as higher quality stills; and Final Cut Studio – mostly final cut pro, for color, compressor and motion for editing, toning and export.
Beached from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
Asked how he gets the stunning effects, Loutit is unwilling to give away the store, but allows that “I use two lenses, one Medium format, both converted to tilt further than most manufacturer lenses will tilt on a 35mm body.”
Nearly a third of iPhone users switched carriers in order to buy the Apple touch-screen phone, researchers said Monday. The news comes as the iPhone leads smartphone sales between July and August.
Some thirty percent of U.S. smartphone buyers switched carriers to AT&T in order to purchase an iPhone in that period, market research firm NPD Group announced.
That compares to the 24 percent industry average for smartphone buyers.
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announces fiscal fourth quarter iPhone sales later this month, a few industry analysts could be red-faced. An effort by iPhone owners points to Apple selling more than the 5 million a consensus of experts had predicted for the three-month period that ended Sept. 30.
In addition, the data could lend support to Jobs’ claim 10 million iPhones would be sold in 2008.
Former Think Secret blogger Nick Ciarelli is writing about Apple once more, this time at Tina Brown’s new tabloidy Huffington Post clone, The Daily Beast.
In Not So Secret Apple, Ciarelli argues that Apple’s famously fierce legal attack dogs have calmed down somewhat since the day, a few years ago now, when his constant flow of Apple product leaks and scoops at Think Secret brought them crashing down on him, and his web site to a grinding halt.
Ciarelli interviews editors of several Mac and gadget sites and their opinion is unanimous: Apple realized that the lawsuits and cease-and-desist demands were generating nothing but bad karma, and only confirming that the clamped-on stories were true. So a new policy has been initiated, more leaks are emerging and in higher-profile media, and everything’s a little more relaxed in the legal department than it used to be.
He writes: “But maybe Apple has also realized that when it threatens, subpoenas, and sues web sites run by some of its biggest fans, its actions create a torrent of negative PR that ultimately tarnishes Apple’s brand.”
If that’s the case, I wonder if Ciarelli is tempted to return to Mac rumor-chasing? He was very good at it, after all.
(While you’re looking around The Daily Beast, be sure to read the hilarious and very open Q&A with Tina Brown, in which she explains what it’s all about, and says she’s not jealous of Arianna Huffington at all.)
This is the actual Mac plus that Scotty tried talking to in Star Trek IV, spotted and photographed by Marcin Wichary at the Star Trek: The Experience exhibition shortly before it closed last month.
Note how shiny and clean this particular Plus is. Bet it boots up shiny and clean, too. And if it has problems, it can run a Level One Diagnostic.
Now that the Experience has left the Las Vegas Hilton, it has no home of its own. Where is this Mac now? Probably packed away in a container somewhere. Possibly wrapped up in Spock’s Vulcan gown that it was once displayed alongside.
Annnyway: Borg teddy bears.
Photo used under Creative Commons license. Thanks to Marcin Wichary.
The iPhone 3g arrived in Russian stores Friday. They cost a pretty ruble — 23,000 and 27,000 or about $900 and $1,000 for the eight and 16 gigabyte versions — causing some early adopters to spend as much as they make in a month on the gotta-have-it handset.
Retailers weren’t expecting long lines, though. Apple resellers are using a don’t call us, we’ll call you approach, asking potential buyers to leave contact details.
“We already have more than fifty people on our list, so it is better to leave your number and we will call you when your phone is ready for pick up,” he said. Most dealers, such as Evroset and Svyaznoy are also accepting advance orders.
This is a good thing, since temperatures in Russia are already brisk and wet.
Videos show a few very subdued customers waiting in bank-like settings for their new phones.
Although the arrival of the 3G version was sufficiently hyped (as per the “iSoon” billboard above) retailers don’t expect a stampede because uber-early adopters have already bought them on the gray market…
Sales expectations for the former U.S.S.R. are 3.5 million handsets by the end of 2009.
Via Moscow News
Image by lodev via Flickr
Maybe it’s a perk of being consistently named among the most influential people of one’s era.
Perhaps it’s bravado borne of having put a ding in the universe.
Whatever it is, Steve Jobs seems to think nothing of driving a car without license plates and parking in handicapped parking spaces, as the picture above, captured on September 30th by Flickr user lodev shows.
The pic is but the latest in an ongoing parade of evidence Jobs is prone to park wherever he pleases.
It almost begs us to start a Spot-Jobs-in-the Blue-Zone contest, doesn’t it?
A citizen journalist posting to CNN’s iReport website early today had Steve Jobs being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance after suffering a heart attack.
Katie Cotton, Apple’s Vice President of Worldwide Communications quickly shot the rumor down as false, though not before Twitter exploded with tweets on the story and Apple’s stock tanked, before bouncing back.
In early morning trading in New York, AAPL opened strong, up $6 from Thursday’s close at $100. In no time, however, when the rumor hit the wires, the stock was trading at $98. The stock quickly recovered, bouncing back to hit $106 again in early afternoon trading, before sliding back into the close near $97.
Undoubtedly, recent analyst revisions to the broader economic outlook as well as to Apple’s particular prospects, more than concerns about Job’s health, would seem to account for the recent poor performance of the company’s shares. Apple, Inc. stock has dropped from $180 to $97 in just six weeks.
Apple published the 2.2 update for Apple TV users last night and the biggest news may be that users will now be able to turn the device off from within the control panel.
A major complaint about Apple TV has been that the thing runs extremely hot, in addition to the fact that even when not in use, it sits there burning kilowatts of energy, very much at odds with the company’s aspirations to environmental friendliness.
Now, finally, users may put the device into “Standby” mode by pressing the “Play/Pause” button for about 3 seconds from the Main menu. There is also a “Standby” option accessible from an interior menu that I can’t mention here because WordPress doesn’t like the word. But it rhymes with vettings.
As expected, US Apple TV users can now buy HD TV shows directly from iTunes. The latest update also lets users make music video playlists from their favorite songs and Genius can be used with Apple TV, as long as users activate Genius in iTunes and sync with their device.
See all the update features here.
Barclays Capital Friday cut its target price for Apple shares, citing the “obvious economic weakness.”
“We believe it is prudent to cut our estimates given checks indicate a more pronounced slowdown within the PC supply chain and increased pressure on consumer spending,” wrote analyst Ben Reitzes.
The analyst firm cut Apple’s stock price to $135 from $180 but retained an “Overweight” rating for the Cupertino, Calif. company.
Designers have tried before to integrate tech with clothing, mostly resulting in stuff you should buy, stick in a box and sell 20 years from now rather than wear today.
Exception made for Julieta Gayoso’s Indarra line, which includes this Touch Pad Jacket with wireless controls for your iPod that allow wearers to pump up the volume, turn it down or skip tracks while on the move. (The controls even look like Apple icons, so people won’t think you’re randomly poking yourself).
The design’s simple and practical enough to actually wear, with a waterproof finish, zip-out 3M lining and plenty of pockets. The limited-edition numbered topper, which also comes in also comes in “iron moss” and black, retails for about $275. Argentine Gayoso, who started designing tech-friendly clothes in 2006, also offers a line of basics for women.
Smart clothes that actually look smart. Now there’s an idea.
Via Reuters
This is more like it. Visual IT has done a deal with the Geographers A-Z Map Company to produce a licensed copy of the Mini London A-Z for iPhone.
Yes, iPhones come with the Google Maps app, but this is a very different thing, for two reasons.