Apparent dimensional drawings for both the fourth-generation iPod nano and second-generation iPod touch have appeared, suggesting the devices will have familiar measurements but with interesting new shapes and features, according to a report at iLounge.
With all eyes looking toward Apple’s “Big Event” scheduled for next Tuesday in San Francisco, rumors of what might be announced are sure to come fast and furious over the next several days.
Steve Jobs will host Tuesday’s “Let’s Rock” media event at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco
Apple PR is pulling out the stops to get media in SF next week, saying the announcement on the 9th is a “big deal.”
One East Coast journalist, who writes for a big news weekly, said Apple PR called and urged him to fly to San Francisco next week for the press event.
“Apple just told me it’s a big deal and I should try to be there,” said the journalist, who asked to remain anonymous.
The call is unusual for Apple’s PR department, which rarely gives clues to the import of its press events.
The event is scheduled for 10am, September 9th at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and is widely expected to showcase updates to the iPod product line, with some hoping for new Mac notebooks and even possible indications of a touch-screen Mac tablet.
Via Gizmodo
Apple has scheduled a “special event” for September 9th at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The event is presumably to announce long awaited, much-rumored updates to the iPod product line and, who knows what else?
Sources familiar with inventory management practices at large retailers such as Target in the US and Argos in the UK say all signs point to a refresh of Apple’s iPod line on the near horizon.
Handheld PDA scanners used by employees at Target show all current iPod models have changed inventory status from “Active” to “Discontinued,” and Argos outlets in the UK have recently taken receipt of new point-of-sale displays promoting “price cuts,” according to a report atAppleInsider.
Who’s ready for a $199 iPod Touch?
First generation iPod nano customers who have experienced their battery overheating should contact AppleCare for a replacement, the company said today, after scattered reports of some devices with battery problems that cause them to give off smoke or sparks.
Apple’s statement put the number of affected units at less than 0.001 percent of the devices, which were first released in September 2005. The problem units have been traced back to a single battery supplier. There have been no reports of serious injuries or property damage, and no reports of incidents for any other iPod nano model.
Via CNet
First generation units of Apple’s mini music player, iPod nano continue to pose a risk of catching fire while charging, according to these pictures provided by a reader at Consumerist over the weekend.
Apple agreed to replace the device.
Ministry of Industry, Trade and Economy officials in Japan are investigating similar reports of nanos overheating there.
The folks at ChannelFlip do a good service, if only to distract us from iPhone news and MobileMe angst.
Hey, remember Steven Smith, the obsessive Zune fan who went so far as to decorate his body with not one but three Zune tattoos? Well, the thrill is gone. On Wednesday, he announced that he was trying to get his Zune tattoos removed, claiming that Microsoft pulled back on a deal to bring him up to Redmond as an honored guest (a claim MS denies). Now, he’s moved onto the iPod way. First, he bought an iPod classic, then he swapped it out for a 16GB iPod touch. As he told iPhone Savior:
“It’s super thin and does some really neat stuff like tilting to go into cover flow,” Smith said. “I also like watching movies on it. I can go anywhere to get iPod accessories, that’s not the case with Zune stuff in Iowa.”
I am shocked — SHOCKED — to learn that Zune accessories are tough to find in Iowa. After all, they’re, um, also impossible to find in San Francisco. The writing was on the wall with Zune, long ago, of course. If not after it took nine months to sell the first million, then certainly after it took another year to sell the next million, even with multiple product lines available. But this is just insult to injury. When Zune Guy leaves, it’s time to kill the platform.
The WordPress app for iPhone has just gone live on the iTunes App Store. Here’s the direct link to the WordPress app.
The app allows WordPress blogs to be edited on the iPhone and iPod touch, online and off.
It supports blogs hosted at WordPress.com and self-installed blogs (2.5.1 or higher).
There’s all the features you’d expect for mobile blogging — but best of all, there’s an auto-recovery feature that recovers posts interrupted by phone calls. Let’s hope it works.
More details here on the iPhone WordPress site.
Via Gizmodo
The iPhone Dev Team released its Pwnage jailbreak tool for iPhone over the weekend. Despite the tool’s inability to unlock iPhones for use with unapproved phone carriers and decreased demand for “illegal” apps in the light of Apple’s own AppStore, enough curious parties overwhelmed Dev Team servers and forced mirror sites into service to satisfy iPhone’s teeming masses still yearning to break free.
The tool jailbreaks and unlocks older iPhones, and jailbreaks iPhone 3Gs and iPod Touches but “We only support the 2.0 firmwares,” according to the Dev Team’s blog.
An upskirt warning poster in a subway station outside Tokyo. Photo by Jeff Epp.
The iPhone 3G in Japan has a special feature unique to that country: The camera always makes a conspicuous “shutter” sound when a picture is taken, even when the phone is set to “silent” mode.
The loud shutter sound is supposed to deter voyeurs from taking sneaky pictures up women’s’ skirts — or down their tops.
In Japan, upskirt and downblouse shots have become increasingly popular with the advent of high-resolution camera phones.
As a result, all cell phones sold in Japan make a conspicuous shutter sound, or say the word “cheese” when a snap is taken, according to Nobuyuki Hayashi, a tech reporter based in Tokyo.
On almost all new cell phones, the camera shutter sound can not be muted, Hayashi says.
“Some manufacturers have even put louder shutter sound,” he reports.
The shutter on the first iPhone sold in Japan could be muted in silent mode; an anomaly that many wondered whether Apple would correct in the iPhone 3G, Hayashi says.
Apple did: The shutter sound cannot be turned off, even in silent mode, Hayashi says.
Software engineer Satoshi Nakajima, the lead architect of Microsoft’s Windows 95, picked up a Mac for the first time two years ago.
He was so impressed, he says he’ll never touch a PC again.
Satoshi loves Apple products so much, he started a company in April, Big Canvas, to develop for Apple’s iPhone platform full-time.
“We have chosen iPhone as the platform to release our first product (for) several reasons,” explains his company’s website. “We love Apple products… You need love to be creative.”
Based in Bellevue, WA — right next to Microsoft’s home turf of Redmond — Satoshi spent nearly 14 years at Microsoft, serving as the software architect of Windows 95 and 98. He also oversaw the development of Internet Explorer 3.0 and 4.0. While at Microsoft, he developed the third largest portfolio of intellectual property of any employee at the company, according to his bio.
Last week, Satoshi released his company’s first iPhone application, Photoshare, a free, social networking app for sharing pictures with the iPhone.
Photoshare is like Flickr for iPhone photographers. The downloadable Photoshare app allows users to upload pictures to Photoshare’s website, and then share those pictures publicly or privately — without any required registration or the need for a computer.
We spoke with Satoshi about the pleasures of writing software for the iPhone SDK and got some of his thoughts about Apple’s UI, its distribution model for iPhone apps and the future of handheld communications.
The interview continues after the jump.
UPDATED: See comment below.
The very last iPhone 3G at the Stonestown store in south San Francisco was just sold to a guy in a Microsoft shirt!
I’m currently at the Apple store in the Stonestown mall, posting from an in-store computer.
I came down to pick up an iPhone 3G, but the last phone was just sold to this guy in a Microsoft shirt. WTF!
The guy, who is very nice, asked me not to use his name in case he gets into trouble at work. He is a trainer for Microsoft Microsoft trainer who works for a third party company.
Staff here at the Apple store say they have no idea when — or even if — they will get new stock of the iPhone 3G.
The concierge is sending people upstairs to a new AT&T store that is apparently taking preorders. The concierge says there’s likely a 21 day wait however.
I phoned other nearby stores in Sand Francisco and Burlingame, but they are sold out also.
As Lonnie reports below, iPhones are available at only one in four stores, and Piper analyst Gene Munster thinks it will take Apple a month to restock.
Veiosoft plans to release software on July 28 that will unleash more of the computing power inside Apple’s wireless handhelds. The $7 program distributed through the AppStore will allow any Mac, Windows or Linux machine to recognize an iPhone or iPod Touch as a volume when the handheld is registered to the same network, allowing transfer of data files between machines with drag and drop ease.
Using Finder and Bonjour, DataCase makes upload applications and server configuration unnecessary to move files between computers or take important data with you on your handheld. Macs integrate seamlessly with your handheld using Apple Filing Protocol (AFP) connectivity, while Windows and Linux computers are supported through HTTP and FTP.
The program supports up to 16 different volumes on the iPhone or iPod Touch, each configurable with read/write/browse permissions. Those concerned about the security implications of makng data so portable should be pleased to know files can me made invisible and alerts set to require authentication before allowing a connection over the network.
Many have felt the iPhone’s true innovation lies in portable computing and DataCase looks ready to begin delivering on that promise.
iBeer is a virtual pint for the iPhone and iPod Touch that is supposed to behave like a real pint of delicious bubbly beer, according to the developers.
Thanks to the iPhone’s accelerometers, it tips, pours and drains like a real pint. It even foams up when you shake the iPhone.
However, the $3 app is getting mixed reviews on the iTunes App Store. Some love it, but many say the fun lasts for about 30 seconds.
“For $3, I can get a real beer,” says one.
Here it is in action on YouTube:
There are still long lines and at least a 3 hour wait to buy the iPhone 2 — four days after the device first went on sale.
I went by the Apple Store near San Francisco’s Union Square on Monday evening. At about 7.30PM there was a long line of about 120 people stretching nearly the entire city block.
The concierge at the front door (pictured above talking to the cop) told me the wait was about 3 hours. The cop told the concierge to call if she needed any help later on. She just laughed. She was about to cut the line off — the store closes at 9PM.
She said the line had been like that all day — a work day for most San Franciscans. A coworker from Wired.com went to the store at lunchtime thinking they could walk right in and pick up a iPhone, and were flabbergasted to see there was still along line.
The problem is the activation procedure, which she said takes an average of 20 to 30 minutes for each customer — even existing AT&T subscribers. Unlike the first iPhone, no one is allowed to leave the store with an inactivated iPhone.
Earlier in the day, my wife went by another San Francisco Apple Store in the Stonestown shopping mall, where there was a line of about 25 or 30 people.
Anyone else seeing long lines?
Image via AppleInsider
Touch-screen desktops may not arrive in time for holiday shopping, but an Apple patent filed last year and published Thursday makes clear the company’s direction for UI development, according to AppleInsider.
Filed near the public debut of the iPhone last June, the patent “makes clear that Apple is devising methods to control its entire Mac operating system through multi-touch rather than a mouse and keyboard,” writes blogger Aidan Malley, who adds the patent is more evidence Apple is “developing a tablet-like device in between the iPhone and full Macs that would require more advanced multi-touch controls.”
Can’t you just see the ads now, with music from Tommy? See me, feel me…I get excitement…
I’ve been a gamer for a very long time. I distinctly remember my dad helping me to play one of the earliest Space Invader units by lifting me up (what with a diminutive version of your correspondent not being able to see the screen properly) and then pretty much instantly regretting it (what with me being rather heavier than he realized). I’ve devoured games on ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64s, BBC Micros, Amigas, PCs, Macs, and consoles from Atari, Nintendo, Sega, Microsoft and Sony. And although today’s gaming landscape is clearly significantly more conservative and homogenized than that of the 1980s or early 1990s, there are still many gems lurking amongst the dross.
It’s curious to see Apple again taking interest in games. Few will remember the disaster that was the Pippin, a joint production with Bandai that rightfully made #22 on a top 25 worst tech products of all-time list by PC World, and Macs have never really been at the forefront of gaming, with users typically forced to pick up two-year-old PC games at current PC-game prices.
With iPhone, there’s a feeling things might be different this time. Right from the start, Sega was extolling the virtues of the device, demoing a highly competent version of Super Monkey Ball, and reports suggest spec-wise that Apple’s hardware rivals Sony’s PSP and Nintendo’s DS, which are the only two mobile gaming platforms worth a damn. Also, Jobs claims a third of the first wave of applications on the AppStore will be games.
My concern is that the genius of Apple’s lack of physical controls for most applications (thereby enabling context-sensitive controls and keyboards) might be its undoing in the games world. Jailbroken iPhones offer emulators of classic consoles, but the lack of tactile controls renders them borderline unplayable, and although the iPhone’s accelerometer and touch-screen will force (some) developers to create unique and innovative products, there’s a real risk iPhone as a gaming platform will remain a seriously niche concern, by virtue of lacking a D-pad and other ‘standard’ controls.
Some might argue that iPhone’s unique controls can only be a good thing, using Nintendo’s Wii and DS consoles as ‘proof’. But while both of those devices have proved staggeringly popular, they offer alternatives to developers. Yes, you can wave the Wii remote around like a loony, or draw on the DS touchscreen, but more typical control methods are also catered for. And it’s pretty obvious that some developers try to shoehorn unwieldy control systems into games (a shocking number of DS games require hateful microphone-based controls at some point) on such consoles because they can. But with the iPhone, they will sometimes have to.
Looking at iPhone gaming demos to date, there’s already a split between games such as Super Monkey Ball using iPhone to fashion highly intuitive controls via tilting, and more traditional games being hamstrung, leading to having to ‘jolt’ your iPhone upwards to make a character jump. A quick glance around the web suggests I’m not alone in wishing iPhone catered for all, rather than those with an ‘accelerometer and tilting’ fetish. One Mac user created a mock-up of a PSX-style controller for iPhone, and the people over at icontrolpad.com (pictured right) have prototyped a device that almost turns iPhone into a PSP-style handheld console.
Unfortunately, any devices along these lines are likely to be limited to jailbroken iPhones—at least for the foreseeable. But here’s hoping Apple takes these ideas on board. For while I’m all for innovation and playing something new, it’d be a shame to restrict iPhone to certain types of games, simply by not giving developers access to a full range of controls, tactile or otherwise.
The iPhone 2.0 firmware update is available from Apple, according to both The Unofficial Apple Weblog and MacRumors. Though a check at the page devoted to the AppStore in Apple’s iPod Touch section indicates the firmware is “coming soon,” MacRumors found this link to the firmware in Apple’s xml files.
WARNING: before you go clicking on that link and downloading the firmware to your iPod Touch or your first gen iPhone, note that the firmware will wipe your device on install. Apple posted the following notice:
“Normally if you choose to update, the iPhone or iPod touch software is updated but your settings and media are not affected. If your device currently has a software version prior to 2.0 (1.x) and you are updating to software version 2.0 or later, all data on your device will be erased in order to perform install the new software. In this case, iTunes will offer to create a one-time media backup of your device depending on what content is on your device and what content is stored in the iTunes Library you are connected to. You should ensure that you have enough free space on your Mac or PC to accommodate a backup that matches the capacity of your iPhone or iPod touch (4 GB, 8 GB, 16 GB, or 32 GB) if you proceed with the this backup.”
We recommend you wait a few more hours for the “official release” of the 2.0 firmware. As “Auntie TUAW” noted, it’s not a good idea to go poking around on Apple’s servers to download random files for installs. Keep checking the Official Release link for updates.
Pete’s post yesterday, “Hello: Macs Are About to Get Interesting Again“, was pure Mortensen: articulate, insightful, well researched, and on the topic of Apple needing to change designs, dead wrong.
While the Macbook / Pro line as well as the MacPro’s are essentially indistinguishable from their predecessors, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s a design philosophy that has powered BMW and Mercedes for a good long while. To that end, other than adding bling to satisfy a generation of new money rappers, Rolex has never fundamentally changed the design of the Datejust, Daytona, or Day/Date (aka President) watches.
The point: A classic is a classic.
Watch a television program. The majority of the time they show someone working on a laptop, it’s a Macbook Pro. Sure, it might have a Pear or an Orange on the back, and sometimes a nasty sticker of some sorts, but it’s identifiably a MBPro.
When a product’s design is raised in the cultural consciousness to be synonymous with the artifact it’s portraying (eg MBPro = Laptop), it becomes the archetype for that artifact. It means that whenever a consumer goes laptop shopping, their mental image for a laptop is of a Apple Macbook Pro, and any other purchasing decision they make will be an explicit compromise from the archetype. This is not just a crazy theory of Leigh’s, Apple’s sales figures in the high-end laptop space prove this out.
Apple has attained this rarified place in the minds of consumers, with both the iPod and Macbook Pro lines. That is the very LAST time to fundamentally change a design.
More evidence of the primacy of digital downloads in the music distribution business: Rhapsody announced today it will offer DRM-free MP3 downloads in a $50 million effort to wrest market share from Apple’s iTunes, which earlier this year became the largest music retailer in the United States. As part of its marketing launch, the first 100,000 sign-ups to the store until July 4th get one album for free, according to Gizmodo.
Previously known for its subscription-based music streaming service, Rhapsody is partnering with Verizon Wireless to offer music downloads on mobile phones and will also be the music store back-end to MTV’s music Web sites and iLike, one of the most widely used music applications on the social networking site Facebook.
Describing their strategy as “Music Without Limits,” Rhapsody executives tacitly recognized the necessity of selling music that can be played on iPods, Apple’s industry-leading digital music player. Said company Vice President Neil Smith, “We’re no longer competing with the iPod, we’re embracing it.”
I had the great fortune to attend an early screening of WALL*E, Pixar’s latest feature film, on Tuesday night. And, like just about every Pixar movie ever, it’s absolutely phenomenal. As much as I love Apple, I have to admit that the output of Steve’s other company is a lot more consistently excellent. Even more wonderfully, WALL*E is filled with references to Apple. It’s a fun bonus in an already great film.
Lots of people have remarked that Apple Design Chief Jonathan Ive was involved in designing EVE, the sleek, white, glossy robot that WALL*E falls in love with. As much as she resembles an older iPod, however, the cleverest thing about EVE is that she appears to have no seams in her surface, though they appear when she lifts her arms. There’s even one scene (pictured) where WALL*E tries to find her hand while it’s in locked position, and he struggles to find the gaps — an obvious reference to the notoriously difficult-to-open iPod or iPhone.
But the Apple references run deeper. Every morning, WALL*E opens up a solar array in order to charge himself up for the workday to come. Hilariously, as soon as he reaches 100 percent power, the classic Mac booting chime goes off. And it’s definitely the older sound — it’s quite tinny. I’d bet they taped it off of a Quadra rather than a current Mac.
One last Apple reference: WALL*E’s favorite way to unwind is to watch an old VHS tape of the Barbra Streisand movie Hello Dolly (it’s OK; it is actually totally weird, if in a sweet way). But that tape then plays through a circa 2006 video iPod, which WALL*E then magnifies with an enormous lens into a projection screen.
WALL*E: Come for the love, stay for the Apple in-jokes. What could be better than that?
Pictures via About.com
Since I first got an iPod, way back when Discmen roamed the earth, my fondest wish has been that I could use it as a quasi-remote control for my stereo. I could point it at a set of speakers, scroll through my music library, press the center button, and — BOOM! — music would pour forth.
Besides a few experiments with an iTrip, however, this has been wishful thinking. Until, perhaps, the next few weeks. MacRumors claims that the Read Me file for a developer release of the imminent iTunes 7.7 will finally make this dream real (well, provided you have a computer hooked to your stereo):
Use iTunes 7.7 to sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G, and download applications from the iTunes Store exclusively designed for iPhone and iPod touch with software version 2.0 or later. Also use the new Remote application for iPhone or iPod touch to control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home — a free download from the App Store.
It’s pretty typical Apple to offer a few unannounced features on major operating system upgrades, but this one is incredibly welcome. Using the WiFi built into the iPhone and iPod Touch is a natural for this, and it’s much more convenient than using the (let’s face it) fairly inadequate Apple Remote. I just hope it will work with Front Row and AppleTV…
Photo by Das Kaninchen
In the blizzard of numbers being tossed around concerning the much-anticipated debut of iPhone 3G, the most significant one could be the price of the phone itself. As Pacific Crest consumer electronics analyst Andy Hargreaves notes, sales of both Apple’s iPod and Sony’s PS2 gamestation saw exponential gains in the wake of being offered below $200.
Aidan Malley reports for AppleInsider on the explosive growth anticipated for new phone sales in the coming year. “The relationship [between price and sales] is shockingly consistent,” Hargreaves says. “At average prices above $200, Apple never sold more than [6 million] units in a rolling four-quarter period. At prices below $200, Apple never sold fewer than [8 million].”
Should Apple fulfill even industry analysts’ most modest sales expectations, savvy decision-making in the company’s sourcing and supply-chain business units could translate into much higher margins on the 3G models than those seen with the original iPhone, all of which adds up to very good news for Apple investors and shareholders.
Steve Jobs saw fit to ballyhoo the price reduction for the iPhone 3G when he announced it at WWDC earlier this month, calling his newest release “twice as fast at half the price.” On the surface of it, $199 for the 8GB and $299 for the 16GB versions seems a grand gesture from the company that charged the phone’s earliest adopters $599 for the 8GB model.
It wasn’t long before plenty of people had figured out that, when the true costs of not only buying the phone but putting it into service with AT&T were factored in, the 3G model is actually a bit more expensive than iPhones purchased after the initial price reduction to $399 for the 8GB model last September.
