Apple - page 21

Forget liquid metal T-1000 Terminators and morphing iPhones, Apple already uses Liquidmetal in one of its products, and you’ll never guess what it is…

I learned the answer by talking to Liquidmetal’s co-inventor, Dr. Atakan Peker, who granted CultofMac.com an exclusive interview. It’s not confirmed by Apple. Peker bought the product and immediately recognized his alloy: “That’s my metal,” he said. It’s not used in European versions of the product — only U.S. and maybe Asia.

Leave your best guess in the comments. The winner gets a brand new Magic Trackpad. The answer will be revealed on Monday. You have to name the specific component. Saying “iPhone” or “Mac” won’t cut it.

Apple has just signed an agreement with Liquidmetal Technologies for the exclusive use of the space-age material in consumer electronic products. Peker, who used to be VP of Technology at the company, thinks Apple will make extensive use of Liquidmetal alloys, which are super hard but extremely light and flexible. They will likely be used to make seamless, scratch-proof cases, possibly in freaky shapes. First order of business is likely a new antenna for the iPhone, Peker predicts. More here: Liquidmetal May Be Used For New iPhone Antenna Says Inventor [Exclusive]

Dear Steve Jobs:

What happened to quality?

Not long ago, before Apple became big and popular, your company was loved by many of us without hesitation. We still love Apple, but it’s getting harder to feel that way. Apple is clearly loosing a foothold on quality. Perhaps you are taking on too much at one time.

I’m writing this letter after experiencing a ton of problems with my new iPhone 4, including issues with Bluetooth, the proximity sensor, and yellow-tinged photos from the camera. I just took it back to the Apple Store to be replaced. Customer service is still awesome, but quality is slipping.

It’s obvious you’ve noticed quality problems too. That’s why you just appointed Jeff Williams as a Senior Vice President of Operations, and gave him the job of ensuring the highest standards in quality for Apple products. He’s got his work cut out for him. So we hope he’ll hit the ground running.

Steve, please consider the following examples of why Apple’s attempts to do too many things at once are resulting in quality failures in just about everything it does.

Remember the recent iPod Shuffle rumor predicting Apple will shortly launch a new version with a 3-inch multitouch screen?

Well, here’s how it might look.

Our friend Graham Bower from MacPredictions made this mockup. He has some good ideas about how it might work. Graham predicts the device is a bit bigger than the current iPod shuffle. It has two buttons on the bottom: On/Off and Shuffle. The square screen shows nothing but album art.

In shuffle mode, it transitions quickly between multiple album covers, moving in different directions to suggest shuffling.

Swiping your finger from left to right across the screen cues the next track, and in the other direction it goes back to the previous track.

Swiping your finger up and down controls the volume. Tapping on the screen toggles between pause and play. It’s that simple.

The gaping security hole in Mobile Safari has been fixed with updates to Apple’s iOS operating system.

Apple has just updated iOS to 4.0.2 for the iPhone (and iPod touch) and iOS 3.2.2 for the iPad. The updates patch a security vulnerability that allowed Safari to run code embedded in PDF files.

The updates are available through iTunes. Click “Check for Update” to download.

If you are plannign to jailbreak your device, do it before updating. o not get surprised, if the latest firmware includes a baseband update as well. If that happens, it will block the ultrasn0w carrier unlock as well.

Obviously, the new iOS updates break the jailbreak at JailbreakMe.com, which exploited the vulnerability.

The updates may also contain new baseband firmware, which will break carrier unlocking. To jailbreak and unlock your iOS device, see our Jailbreak Superguide.

Here are the details from Apple:

It’s been almost two years since Microsoft’s laughable, misleading and creatively bereft “I’m A PC” ads, and you’d think they’d have learned something about appearing too defensive… but no! Right in time for the annual “Back to School” laptop sales wars, Microsoft has launched an official PC vs. Mac section on their website.

Needless to say, it’s laughably misleading.

Apple has just pushed through a great update to its developer app sale agreement, giving devs the ability to offer their apps at a 50% discount to educational institutions.

The idea is to allow educational institutions to preload the same apps across numerous iOS devices to be distributed to students and faculty, while giving developers an incentive to offer their apps at a discount.

The half-off discount only applies in bulk downloads of twenty or more apps purchased at once. If you’re a developer, it’s easy enough to sign up: just agree to the new paperwork and tick the box next to “Discount for Educational Institutions.”

[via 9to5Mac]

Pictures of a white iPhone 4 in the wild have been leaked out of China.

The white iPhone 4 was apparently sneaked out of the factory inside the box for a black iPhone 4 and taken to Hong Kong.

The white iPhone 4 has suffered several delays, and is due to ship “later this year,” according to a curt statement from Apple. The device was originally supposed to ship in with the black iPhone 4, but has pushed back twice for reasons unknown. There has been speculation that the white iPhone leaks light from its LCD.

The pictures below who a 32GB model and include details like the headphone jack connector and dock connector.

UPDATE: This might be a fake, as noted by our friends over at 9to5Mac. Vendors in Hong Kong, for example, can turn a black iPhone 4 into a white iPhone 4 for about $360. The lack of a silver metal ring around the camera flash is the give-away.

Thanks Chris of MICGadget.

Apple has acquired an exclusive license to use Liquidmetal’s space-age metal alloys in consumer electronic products, a filing with the SEC reveals.

Developed literally in space by NASA, Liquidmetal’s alloys are super-strong, felxible metals that are incredibly light and flexible, and yet can be cast in factories like plastic.

NASA is extremely bullish about the new metals:

In the same way that the inventions of steel in the 1800s and plastic in the 1900s sparked revolutions for industry, a new class of amorphous alloys is poised to redefine materials science as we know it in the 21st century.

Welcome to the 3rd Revolution, otherwise known as the era of Liquidmetal alloys, where metals behave similar to plastics but possess more than twice the strength of high-performance titanium.

Liquidmetals belong to the class of “glassy metals,” and have already been used in golf clubs and tennis rackets, as well as CE products like a USB memory stick from SanDisk and a high-end cell phone from Vertu. The U.S. Department of Defense is looking at a range of uses, including replacing uranium-tipped armor piercing munitions with Liquidmetals.

It’s unclear what Apple might do with the Liquidmetal license, but a good guess is for casings in future iPhones, iPods and iPads.

Because of the alloys’ high strength, iPhone and iPad cases could be super thin and very light. They would be scatch-proof and corrosion-resistant.

Plus, they could be molded into intricate and unusual shapes: a property that is sure to appeal to Jonny Ive.

Here’s a good overview of the material and its applications (PDF): New materials have remarkable properties and can be customised.

And the video below shows how watch-maker Omega used Liquidmetal to create a seamless, scracthproof watch bezel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZcsWVqLC5I

>Back in 2008, Apple wanted chip design guru Mark Papermaster so much that they actually got into a lawsuit with IBM over him. A mere fifteen months later, though, Papermaster has left his position of Senior VP of Devices Hardware Engineering at Apple… and all signs point to Papermaster having been canned.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Papermaster had a a “falling out” with Steve Jobs over Apple’s corporate culture, and has lost Jobs’ confidence months ago.

As Daring Fireball’s John Gruber points out, that seems to be consistent with external evidence: namely, despite the fact that Papermaster was in charge of the iPhone 4’s hardware, he is nowhere to be seen in Apple’s iPhone 4 promotional videos. Nor was he on stage during Apple’s “Antennagate” press conference.

Rather, in both instances, Papermaster’s ostensible subordinate, Bob Mansfield, took his place to talk in detail about the iPhone 4’s hardware. No surprise, then, that Mansfield has now been promoted into Papermaster’s now vacant position.

Ultimately, this seems to be a case of a square peg not being able to fit into an Apple-shaped hole.

The most interesting detail of this story is the fact that Papermaster was not fired by Jobs over the iPhone 4’s antenna issues. In fact, according to Gruber, the iPhone 4’s antenna issues were ticked as a bug over two years ago, and Steve Jobs himself gave the okay on releasing the handset as designed, believing the “death grip” issue to be comparable to antenna-issues on other smartphones.

A few times a year, some dusty old Beatle pops up out of his crypt, coughs out a centipede and tells us that they really want to bring their catalogue to iTunes and it’s coming soon, honest.

It can be confusing: three years ago, Paul McCartney said that an iTunes deal was “virtually settled”, but just three months ago, he said a deal was just a far away as ever, claiming those boneheads at EMI were the ones gumming up the works.

Now John Lennon’s infamous wife has emerged from her Black Pyramid and recited the incantation that transforms her into Yoko-Ono The Ever-Living. She doesn’t blame EMI: she basically just says Steve Jobs is messing things up by not paying them enough money.

“Steve Jobs has his own idea and he’s a brilliant guy. There’s just an element that we’re not very happy about, as people. We are holding out,” Yoko said.

“Don’t hold your breath… for anything,” she then ominously added, punctuating the implied threat with a maniacal cackle before returning to her mausoleum to plot the attainment of the fabled Sword of Omens.

Rolling Stone‘s Special Issue of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time made its debut Tuesday on Zinio, a digital publishing platform that could spell the difference between “survive” and “thrive” for old-school media publications looking to keep the doors open in coming years.

With a stable of top-tier periodicals such as National Geographic, Esquire, American Photo, Car & Driver and many more, Zinio definitely leads the way in showing how paper publications might remain not only relevant but vital and attractive to a new generation of “readers” weaned on the sizzle and flash of gaming and 3D entertainment.

Publication is morphing into something beyond simple words and pictures, evolving into an immersive medium that both pushes ideas and information out to consumers — and draws them in with interactive features and activities that take one beyond the superficial layers of what an article or essay might seem to offer.

Thus, with such crucial stakes at hand, did Zinio, Apple and Rolling Stone produce something of a mixed scorecard with the 500 Greatest issue.

Earlier today, Apple released another update to the iOS 4 beta and the corresponding SDK to developers, bringing the current version of both to 4.1 beta 3. The update follows the release of the previous beta by less than a week.

There are a plethora of problems being reported about the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 and I hope that this update will address them. I’d particularly like to see fixes for the following:

• Proximity sensor
• Bluetooth connectivity
• Bluetooth muffled audio
• iPhone 4 yellow tinged photos (rear facing camera)
• Slow performance issues on the iPhone 3G

Registered iOS developers can grab a copy of the new beta at developer.apple.com/iphone.

I have not yet heard about any new features in this beta, but these details will likely surface soon. We’ve seen reports that the proximity sensor issue may have been resolved by Beta 2, however in my opinion that is still an open issue due to conflicting reports about it. Additionally, I suspect that these beta releases resolve the PDF security flaw in Mobile Safari since the hack doesn’t support iOS 4.1. Finally, the rapid release of beta 3 almost immediately after beta 2 indicates that Apple maybe getting closer to a public release of iOS 4.1.

If you find out anything new about this update feel free to tell us all about it in the comments.

Check out this fascinating chart from The Economist regarding IT industry revenues, profits, employees and so on. The two monsters of the space are HP and IBM, which both have double the revenues of Apple, and more than 10x the number of employees.

The story, The end of Wintel, compares the giants of the IT industry in terms of how vertically integrated they are.

The shift to mobile computing and data centres (also known as “cloud computing”) has speeded up the “verticalisation” of the IT industry. Imagine that the industry is a stack of pancakes, each representing a “layer” of technology: chips, hardware, operating systems, applications. Microsoft, Intel and other IT giants have long focused on one or two layers of the stack. But now firms are becoming more vertically integrated. For these new forms of computing to work well, the different layers must be closely intertwined.

Apple, whose products have always been more integrated, is building a huge data centre and also offering web-based services.

As I argued in Inside Steve’s Brain, Apple is ascendant these days because of its vertical integration. It’s into the whole stack, from chips to online advertising. And despite what the chart says, will also likely be into cloud computing.

Showing how easy it is to jailbreak the iPhone 4 by simply visiting the jailbreakme.com website, an anonymous prankster jailbroke all the display phones at one of Apple’s stores.

It’s not clear what store was targeted; nor how many iPhone 4s the mischief-maker was able to jailbreak. The only evidence is a picture posted to an online photo-sharing site and a comment submitted to Reddit: “I got bored, so I jailbroke apple store iPhone 4’s.”

Note: If you have an iPhone or iPad, be careful which websites you visit in Mobile Safari. There’s a huge security hole that allows the browser’s PDF viewer to execute code, bypassing all security mechanisms. It’s being used to jailbreak devices, but could easily be used by bad guys to install some very nasty, malicious software. Expect an emergency 4.0.2 iOS update from Apple very soon.
Via Reddit.

Ruh roh! It looks like Apple has an excuse to shutter all the front facing cameras on every iPhone 4 sold after last week. Apple’s notorious grip on it’s no porn in iOS apps policy won’t protect anyone from the adult entertainment industries interest in making tons of money with the iPhone 4’s FaceTime video chat feature.

I agree with this report on Techcrunch — it is interesting that Apple has removed the videos demonstrating the antenna problems on smartphones made by rival companies. Those videos were originally posted on a special antenna page at Apple.com.  Now suddenly — poof they’re gone.

Travel back in time with this classy look at the History of Apple Design.  Matt’s Macintosh offers a loving paean to Cupertino’s Industrial Design trends through the decades.

Theatrically filmed and scored, it’s like Christmas Past and Present!  [via RetroMacCast]

We’d like to ask our Canadian readers for help with a story we’re working on about the iPhone 4.

The iPhone 4 just launched in Canada on Friday, and Canadian buyers are able to buy the device unlocked (if it’s bought from Apple rather than a carrier).

We’re looking for readers who are getting an unlocked iPhone 4 and can test it on Wind Mobile’s network to see if it can support 3G data speeds.

Why do we want to test the iPhone 4 on Wind Mobile’s network?

Wind Mobile is an up-and-coming carrier that uses the same GSM network technology as T-Mobile in the United States.

The iPhone is rumored to be coming to T-Mobile USA in the fall, breaking Apple’s exclusive deal with AT&T. However, it’s not clear whether the iPhone 4 has the right radio hardware to support T-Mobile’s 3G data network.

We’re told Wind Mobile in Canada has the same network infrastructure. If it works on Wind Mobile’s network, it should work on T-Mobile’s.

T-Mobile’s 3G data network operates on the 1700/2100 MHz bands. According to Apple’s specs, the iPhone 4 works on the 2100 UMTS/HSDPA/HSUPA band, but not the 1700 band, which has led some to conclude that it is incompatible with T-Mobile’s 3G network.

However, there is some debate whether Apple simply didn’t list the 1700 band, which seems to be the convention when listing such specs. And no one has yet tested the iPhone 4 on T-Mobile’s network in the U.S. Despite the efforts of the Dev Team, there isn’t yet a publicly available unlock for the iPhone 4.

This is why we’d like help testing an unlocked iPhone 4 on Wind Mobile in Canada.

If you can help out, please email us at news (AT) cultofmac.com. In return, we’ll send you some goodies in the mail.

UPDATE: In the comments below, reader @Qorax tried a Wind Mobile SIM in a brand new, unlocked iPhone 4 he purchased over the weekend. Unfortunately, the SIM card didn’t work at all: no voice or data. We would have predicted he would have at least got voice. iPhone users here in the U.S. who unlock their phones and use T-Mobile SIM cards get voice and data — but Edge only.

PS: @Qorax’s comment is worth reading to see how he beat the gigantic line for the iPhone 4 at his local Apple Store. Tricky!

It only makes sense that the company who brought us the first mouse would try to re-invent the way desktop computers are used. Apple is attempting to bring multi-touch to the masses with its new Magic Trackpad. While this might seem like just a trackpad, this could be a sneak peek on how Apple plans to implement iOS onto OS X. Regardless of their intentions, this is the most exciting input device since the Magic Mouse. Read the rest after the break.

Mothers possess skills varied and wide, and recent research shows Moms are particularly adept at using their iPhones.  The Huffington Post has developed a list of Top iPhone Apps for Moms, By Moms:

Never underestimate a mom with an iPhone.  Research from Greystripe [PDF] show that moms love iPhone apps, and are downloading apps in various categories from games to productivity.

While most mobile developers are men, a growing number of opportunistic women are venturing into app development to create apps catered to other women. And many of these women are part of a group called Moms with Apps, a collaborative group of family-friendly developers who share best practices on making and marketing mobile apps.

HuffPo’s list includes some nicely done iPhone and iPod touch apps that deal with emergency infant medical care, learning sign language, communicating with autistic children, and – helpful for Moms, Dads and chauffeurs of all kinds – roadtrip bingo.

Hope for iPhone 3G users running iOS4: after weeks of suffering under the radar, the Wall Street Journal blog Digits reports today that Apple is aware of the performance issues plaguing 3G users running the latest update:

Apple is investigating reports that the latest iPhone operating system causes problems for users of the iPhone 3G, after a series of complaints on Apple support forums and technology blogs. Apple is aware of the reports and is looking into the matter, a spokeswoman told Digits.

iOS4 performance on an iPhone 3G can be a painful experience – sluggish performance, poor battery life, many more reboots, along with vastly increased levels of user angst.  We’ve covered this issue before, as have many other websites, and Apple’s own support forums are buzzing on the topic.

We’ve received multiple reports from readers that their free iPhone 4 Bumper cases are already in the mail, despite initial delivery dates in August or September.

I just got an email from Apple saying my own free Bumper case is winging its way to San Francisco. It is due to be delivered August 3, according to the tracking data. Apple initially said the free case would be delivered in September.

Good work Apple: Underpromise and overdeliver.

Apple has released Safari 5.0.1, the latest version of its browser that adds support for the Safari Extensions Gallery and it includes a patch for the recently discovered Address Book bug.

According to Software Update on my Mac the update includes these new features:

Amid all the new product news on Tuesday Apple quietly shipped a driver update titled: Magic Trackpad and Multi-Touch Update 1.0. I discovered the 78.6MB update last night via Software Update on my Macbook Pro and promptly installed it.

I highly recommend this update for most recent Macbook and Macbook Pro notebooks since it adds support of the new $69 Multi-Touch Trackpad as well as adding gestures for inertial scrolling and three-finger dragging. The three-fingered gesture is my favorite since it allows me to quickly drag windows around.

A complete list of notebooks that support the new gestures can be found in this Apple support document https://support.apple.com/kb/ht4254.

Also Tuesday, Apple released updates for Windows that add support for the Magic Trackpad hardware. A 6.62MB update is available for 32-bit versions of Windows and another for the 64-bit versions of Windows is 3.98MB. It works with Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 as well as Macs running the operating system via Boot Camp.

Although Apple’s new 27-Inch LED Display is a wonderful addition to their product line-up, finally bringing the 27-inch iMac’s gorgeous 2560×1440 display to other Macs, it has come at a cost: Apple has discontinued the 24- and 30-inch display.

That’s disappointing: the 30-incher, in particular, is a gorgeous display, boasting a few more vertical pixels than the new 27-incher. The good news is that if you want Apple’s biggest display, you still have an opportunity to buy it: Apple will continue to sell the 24- and 30-inch Cinema Displays until their stock runs out.