Apple has released two minor software updates today. A tweaked version of iOS 5.0.1 (Build 9A406) for the iPhone 4S has been pushed for users who haven’t yet upgraded to the latest firmware (essentially replacing the current 5.0.1 build).
The second-generation Apple TV has been updated to version 4.4.4 (Build 9A406a) and features small bug fixes and stability improvements. Both updates can be downloaded now.
Japan’s Sharp, maker of huge-screen televisions, voiced confidence Thursday as it told reporters Apple isn’t much of a concern. What about the almost incessant chatter that the tech giant will enter the TV manufacturing market with an iTV in 2012? “It’s not something we’re studying very hard,” an executive claims. Unclear whether this is bravado or whistling past the graveyard, but perhaps Sharp missed class the day Apple mangled a whole string of industries thought to be untouchable.
Apple quietly issued an update to its Apple TV earlier this week, which finally introduced TV show streaming from the cloud to users in Australia, Canada, and the U.K. for the first time. However, there may have been a good reason why Apple was so quiet about it.
It would seem that the feature isn’t ready yet — or that it was not meant for certain territories — because just days after being introduced, Apple has removed it again.
In a new patent just published by the US Patent and Trademark Office, Apple has described a future system for controlling Macs using body language and gesturing, much like the Xbox 360’s Kinect. But frankly, if any Apple product is likely to use motion control, it’s the rumored iTV.
This morning we reported that Apple had provided some more details to the Cupertino City Council about their proposed plans to build a new “spaceship” campus, including a render that showed a roof entirely tiled in solar panels.
How much power would that generate, though? Enough to power a million Apple TVs.
We’ve been hearing a lot lately about the so-called iTV, Steve Jobs’s “cracking” of the HDTV problem. But what if the iTV is just a rumor, and Apple instead plans on fixing television by making iMacs into HDTVs?
Ever since Jobs enigmatically said in his bio that he had “cracked” the television problem, people have been going nuts speculating… and Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has gone so far as to say that the iTV will cost twice as much as a regular television set, and come in three different sizes.
Well, looks like Munster’s forecast has some corroborating evidence. A new report not only says that Apple’s iTV will come in three different sizes, but that it will also pack Apple’s next-gen A6 CPU.
Apple has a tendency to make businesses nervous — just ask the CD folks assimilated into the iTunes universe, or the companies swept aside by the iPhone in 2007. A similar nervous tick is growing in the television set manufacturing business, already skating on razor-thin margins. TV makers reportedly are snooping around for details on an Apple-designed iTV that could start production in February, but is it too late for them to do anything besides be bulldozed by Apple like so many industries before them?
aTV Flash (black) from FireCore has now dropped its beta tag and hit version 1.0. The software package is designed to supercharge your second-generation jailbroken Apple TV, introducing a whole host of functionality that isn’t available from Apple. In addition to a media player which supports a huge variety of formats, aTV Flash will also introduce a web browser, weather and RSS feeds, a Last.fm radio, and more to your set-top box.
Great spot by 9to5Mac: Amazon just dropped the price of the Apple TV by $10 to just $89.99; they’ve also rechristened it the ‘2010’ model.
Could Amazon know something the rest of us poor suckers don’t? Is an updated 2011 Apple TV incoming in time for Black Friday? If so, don’t expect much besides a bump to an A5 chip: if Apple were to, say, bring Siri to the Apple TV, they’d definitely make a big fuss over it in an event.