Apple released iOS 4.3 Beta 2 to developers this afternoon. The update includes a new firmware update for the new Apple TV, iPad, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS as well as the 3rd and 4th generation iPod touch.
Registered iOS developers can download these updates as well as a new SDK from developer.apple.com.
Let us know if you find anything interesting in the new beta by leaving a comment.
We start off the day with two deals from the iPhone App Store. First is a number of free applications, including “Taxi Check,” a new way to check prices on taxi rides. Next is a new crop of price cuts on iPhone apps, including “I Just Forgot,” a Little Critter children’s book. We round out today’s spotlight with a deal on Apple’s Remote Desktop 2 software – just $70.
Along the way, we’ll also check out some Xserve servers and some Adobe Photoshop software utilities for your Mac. As usual, you can find details at CoM’s “Daily Deals” page right after the jump.
Most tech companies go out of their way to publish product roadmaps, so their customers know what’s coming next. But Apple is not most tech companies. Ask anyone from Steve Jobs to the guy at your local Apple Store, and you’ll hear the same refrain, “we don’t comment on unannounced products.”
It’s this dearth of hard facts on what’s coming next from Cupertino that makes speculation so irresistible. And with the new year now upon us, it’s the perfect time to ponder what Apple may have in store for us in 2011.
Blogger Deon Devine, from Houston, Texas, has sent Cult of Mac some very interesting predictions.
2010 was a huge year for Apple news. As we close out the year, we look back at some of the year’s biggest stories and what they might mean for 2011.
You got another Apple gadget for Christmas, didn’t you? And you love it, don’t you?
So at what point do you officially declare yourself to be one of those Cupertino Kool-Aid-guzzling, Steve Jobs-worshiping, pathetically devoted Apple fans you used to loathe?
Ten years ago, there were two kinds of people: PC users (a.k.a. “regular people”) and Apple fanboys. At least that’s how it looked from the PC side.
Macs were pretty, but considered by us PC users to be overpriced, underpowered, insufficiently supported by either software or hardware, too hard to customize, optimize or repair and completely devoid of key application areas, such as games.
The world was black and white. You were either a PC or a Mac. Then things got complicated.
Chances were, if you received some electronics this Christmas, it bore the Apple logo. Products made by the Cupertino, Calif. company were the most-gifted items, according to the online elves at Amazon.
Despite being No. 1 in “Most Wished For” TV and video products, No. 2 Roku actually reportedly was found under most trees. Amazon’s Kindle e-reader again topped the list as bestselling electronic device, the same as it has the whole holiday season.
The upcoming Jack Black comedy, Gulliver’s Travels, which opens Christmas Day, will be one giant Apple ad.
When Gulliver travels to Lilliput, he brings his iPhone, which when used by the Lilliputians appears gigantic.
The movie has multiple MacBooks and other Apple products, and Apple logos galore.
Apple is easily the most successful company ever in getting its products into movies and TV shows. Some 41% of the movies that hit number-one at the box office featured Apple products.
Part of the reason for this success is that Hollywood is Apple-obsessed. Another is that Apple works at it. The company proudly boasts that it never pays for product placement. But it’s likely that there is some string pulling, proactive offers of devices to use and other actions that are kept secret by the company.
Whatever Apple is doing, it’s working.
Ever wondered what Apple hardware and software pro bloggers use?
Peter Sciretta is a professional blogger/journalist specializing in film and entertainment. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of Slashfilm.com (stylized as /Film), which has won numerous awards and recognition from the mainstream media. Last year, Total Film named him one of the “100 Most Influential People in Movies.”
Sciretta began his career on a Windows PC, but soon thereafter saw the value of switching to the Mac. “Nowadays everything I have in my home office is Apple-based,” he says.
In this post, adapted from a recent interview, Sciretta reveals what hardware, software, and mobile apps he can’t live without — both personally and professionally.
We’ve already reported how Apple is working on a remote computing system that will be enabled by the iPhone 5.
Equipped with a Near Field Communications (NFC) chip, the iPhone 5 may allow user to load their Home folders on guest Macs when they travel, or log in at school or work. All the user would have to do is tap their iPhone 5 on a NFC-equipped Mac, and the machine would load their Home folder files, settings and preferences.
But if Apple equipped all of its products with NFC chips, which are used for short-range authentication, the technology could be used for super-easy set-up of a new Apple gear, or for easily transferring files and media between different Apple devices.
For example, users could easily connect a new iPad to their home Wi-Fi network, say, just by bringing the tablet within four inches of a NFC-equipped AirPort base station.
“Imagine you touch an AirPort with a new iPad and the Wi-Fi is connected — with full security — in less than a second,” said Gerald Madlmayr, a NFC expert based in Vienna. “No configuration is necessary any more. This makes this technology pretty useful.”
A Danish tabloid is threatening to take Apple to court, and over what? The exposed breasts of the nubile and flax pin-up girls who have graced Ekstra Bladet‘s ninth page for the last thirty five years.
