Sign seen in an electronics store in Surrey, Canada: Please Do Not Touch the iPod touch. Straight from the “People Unclear on the Concept” Department. Kafka would be proud.
Although one could argue that with Apple’s ongoing fetish for Shiny, Tiny objects, soon No One will be able to Touch the iPod Touch.
[via Ellen]
Crap! You just popped for a new MacBook Pro two weeks ago, and now Apple goes and releases the superfabulous iLife ’11, meaning you’ve gotta fork over another $49 for a copy (or $79 for the five-computer Family Pack), right?
Nope! Apple is letting recent Mac buyers upgrade from the previous version of iLife for $7, so long as they bought the Mac(s) on or after Oct. 1; same deal applies to anyone buying a Mac now or in the future without iLife ’11. Bummer: The $7 upgrade is only available online, so you’ll have to wait for it in the mail — or wince as you pay for a $49 copy from an Apple Store, if you’re in a hurry.
In just a few hours, Apple will announce a new version of OS X, and will almost certainly unveil new MacBook Airs and new versions of iLife/iWork. But we’re wondering if they won’t reveal one more thing: a social media network with the goal of creating millions of home-based Apple Genii at its core.
Here’s a juicy excerpt, already up on YouTube, from Apple’s conference call today where Steve Jobs dropped by and bashed Google repeatedly with an Apple-shaped hammer.
Steve Jobs made an unusual visit to Apple’s quarterly conference call today, sounding ebullient about Apple’s record sales figures for the fourth quarter of 2010, and boasted of Apple’s dominance over RIM, bashed Google and praised both the homogeny of iOS and the careful thinking that went into the design of the iPad compared to the “avalanche of tablets. Here’re the highlights, and some juicy quotes:
Apple announced a record $20.4 billion in revenue during the fiscal 2010 fourth quarter, and a profit of $4.31 billion, in a press release ahead of their quarterly financial conference call.
Sales of Macs increased a sizable 27 percent from the same quarter last year; 14.1 million ipPhones were sold, a whopping 91 percent increase from last year’s Q4.
“We are blown away to report over $20 billion in revenue and over $4 billion in after-tax earnings—both all-time records for Apple,” Steve Jobs said in Apple’s press release.
iPad sales topped out at just over four million, and iPod sales declined by 11 percent.
For new iPhoners, the idea of gulping down unlimited swathes of data is just a magical thing of the past, spoken of with hushed tones, in the days before fear of data overages gripped the iPhone universe.
Fear not though, new iPhoner — the tools exist to keep from accidentally punching through the monthly 3G data allotment. Readers who’ve been following our Essential App series (and who live in the States) have no doubt already equipped their iPhones with AT&T’s free myWireless app, which counts and bar graphs data usage; but there’s an even more precise and powerful weapon available: DataMan
It doesn’t do much — no fancy vocal wizardry, just adjusts the pitch of the user’s voice up or down — but Devil Voice looks like the first instance of a real-time voice-changing app, without the need to record a user’s voice first before playback — though it can, if desired.
The app is a dollar, and comes out just in time for Halloween; see our forthcoming Halloween Guide for examples on how to duct tape it and attached speakers into a Darth Vader mask and whatnot.
Potential and current (see what I did there) Chevrolet Volt owners will be pleased to hear that the mostly electric car’s iPhone app will finally be hitting the App Store at the end of October.
The app includes a ton of interesting controls and features: Charge the Volt immediately or schedule a charge time; check charge status and battery level; display expected range; and display various data tracked while driving like how many miles were electric-only, how many were gas. That’s on top flashy functions like being able to start the car from the app and mess with the door locks.
An OnStar spokesperson told us the Volt comes with five years of free OnStar service — other cars get six months free — and that the app will be free for the iPhone (and the Droid — sorry, Blackberry). Not impressed with (mostly) electric vehicles? OnStar will be making the app (sans Volt-specific functions) available for about a dozen or so additional OnStar-equipped cars in the near future.
Cast your mind back to June; remember reading about an app that used the iPhone’s GPS to bulls-eye the user’s location on any map imported into it? Well, the developer, Fog Technologies, is back with Expo Tec, an app that starts with the same basic principle, but narrows its focus to convention-like events and adds some features to help the user through his chaos-laden convention visit.
The developer says it’s pretty easy for event planners to create “event packs” through a web interface designed for the app, which then shunts the pack to users of the app. Besides a GPS-enabled event map, the app provides event schedules, instant event updates, detailed vendor info and general event info.
Expo Tec is $4, and boasts that it’s a “fist-in-the-industry” solution. Yeah, sure, it was probably supposed to read “first-in-the-industry,” but we like the fist version better; “we’re angry as hell (about getting lost) and we’re not going to take (poor convention info) anymore!” Or something.
As if its frenetically gleeful yellow and purple icon wasn’t enough enticement to download, yesterday saw Yahoo make its free Yahoo Messenger app even more appealing with some beefy upgrades: backgrounding, voice calling and the biggie, video calling.
We tested it briefly and found the video calling works pretty well over wifi, even with a 3GS — though, obviously, the person on the other end won’t see a face unless the 3GS is turned around — with decent transmission of both voice and picture. But the app suffers from a few issues, which fellow Cultist David Martin will reveal in a full review later this week.
While voice and video calls will only work between users of the app, Yahoo also yesterday added the Skype-like ability to make voice calls (including international calls) to landlines or mobiles at low fees via a Yahoo Voice Phone Out account.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXkoIBDXwd8
Taking their iPhone Where No iDevice Has Gone Before, a father and son in Newburgh, NY recently took a weekend science project to new heights. Luke and Max Geissbuhler attached an HD Video Camera, iPhone and some styrofoam packing to a weather balloon, then launched their homemade satellite on a journey that lasted 72 minutes and climbed over 100,000 feet into the atmosphere!
Pogoplug has updated their free app over the weekend, and it now sports the ability to stream and play music in the background over either a wifi or 3G connection from a network-attached storage device running the Pogoplug engine — which currently means either a Pogoplug unit or one from Seagate.
The big advantage the Pogoplug app’s new function has over, say, the free Zumocast app (which debuted last month and does the same thing), is that the Pogoplug version doesn’t require a computer running from which to stream music. Downside? You’ll need to pop for a Pogoplug-equipped NAS unit, if you don’t already have one. The app also gains background photo uploading and fast app-switching.
Next, hopefully Pogoplug will improve the app’s movie-streaming capability, which sorely lacks the ability to convert videos on the fly to a streaming-freindly format, like Zumocast does.
Halloween is Big Business in historic Salem, Massachusetts. It’s now High Tech too. For the 29th Haunted Happenings Celebration, the annual festival of witches, ghosts, and fall in New England, the town has created a new Haunted Happenings App for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.
The app features info about the Festival Calendar of Events, local attractions and museums, restaurant and retail listings, and directions on how to get to Salem (tip: plan ahead and leave time). Users also have an opportunity to purchase tickets for some events and attractions directly from the app.
Let the Frightful Fun Commence! [via boston.com]
in case you missed it, last month saw the debut of Golf Vision Green Analyzer, an app that uses the iPhone’s accelerometer to calculate the perfect putting angle to sink a ball on the green; just measure the slope angle at the hole and at the ball by laying the iPhone on the ground, then set the green speed, and the app does its magic calculations and overlays the premium angle graphically over a still photo of your view to the hole.
Skeptical? That’s ok, the developers have just released a free version to try before considering the $5 full version. Unfortunately, the free version uses a generic photo to overlay the calculations on, and more importantly, only allows for slope measurements at one end, so results may not be as accurate as with the full version.
Who says old computers are worthless? The (former) Mac Museum of Franklin Park NJ, which we reported up for sale on eBay last week, has found a buyer. Closing price after 20 bids: $10,000!
The Museum’s models include the Lisa, Mac 128k, Plus, SE/30, Color Classic, Mac Portable, TAM, Newtons, etc., along with lots of posters, peripherals and paraphernalia. It’s a very respectable price for a longtime labor of love, hopefully the buyer will be able to fulfill curator Gil Poulsen’s goal of making the collection more publicly available.
In related news, Vintage Mac collectors worldwide are now updating their own inventory valuations…
Vintage Macs come and go, Vintage Mac Museums typically tend to Grow. One particularly impressive Museum is Moving On. The Mac Museum of Franklin Park, NJ has been put up for sale on eBay:
Due to the owner’s pending relocation, The Mac Museum of New Jersey is closing its doors, and this wonderful collection of vintage Macs and rare Apple products is being sold.
This famous collection and its curator have been featured on CNN, MacAddict magazine and The RetroMacCast podcast. The auction of consists of more 20 rare and distinguished Apple products, several books, manuals, installer floppy disks and CDs, along with nine framed posters, speciality items and more. Note: This collection will only be sold in its entirety as a complete collection. [eBay]
Models include the Lisa, Mac 128k, Plus, SE/30, Color Classic, Mac Portable, TAM, Newtons, etc., along with lots of posters, peripherals and paraphernalia. A trove of Mac lore indeed; if I had the room, and the money, I’d love to add this all to my own collection. How much is all this Mac history worth?
We’ll know on October 7, when the auction ends. Some lucky collector will take the prize – then need to pick it all up in a big truck themselves!
[via RetroMacCast]
![Cherokee Nation language school students [photo: cherokee.org]](https://www.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/iPhone-Kids_LG179514361lg.jpg "Cherokee Language Now Available for iPhone and iPod touch")
Surviving for centuries and advancing across cultures, the Native American Cherokee language has gone digital and is now available for iPhone and iPod touch handhelds running iOS 4.1:
The Cherokee Nation has been working with the software developers at Apple, Inc. for several years to incorporate the tribe’s unique written language, called the Cherokee syllabary, into new technology offered by the software giant. Cherokee is the first Native language to be featured on Apple, Inc. devices, and one of about only 40 languages overall.
“People communicate differently today,” said Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith. “Including our language on the iPhone and iPod makes it accessible to more people, especially our youth. This is critical to the survival and growth of our language.”
[Cherokee Nation]
Email, text messaging and other apps now have access to the language as a native part of the operating system. The Cherokee Nation website contains instructions for how to use the Cherokee syllabary (and how to type on the ᏣᎳᎩ keyboard).
[via Times Record Online]
The new iPod nano’s diminutive size keeps inspiring geeks worldwide to a variety of hacks. News today from Japan of the iSpeck’s ability to fit nicely inside the display slot on an old Sega Dreamcast VMU.
The Sega buttons do not control the iPod (yet?) but it’s safe to say this case offers good drop protection, and the headphone cord coming out the side doesn’t look as dorky as with an iWatch.
More photos and videos of the making on the vendor’s original Japanese website. [via TUAW]
Apple’s Find My iPad feature strikes again, this time a cross-country escapade with a happy ending. It begins when Southwest traveler Curtis Cogdill left his iPad on the airplane when traveling from Sacramento, Calif., to Portland, Ore:
After some discussion as to whose fault it was, Cogdill used his iPod Touch and Apple’s Find My iPhone MobileMe app to locate the iPad. While the family was in Oregon, the iPad had taken a cross-country trip to Orlando, Fla.
“You could zoom all the way in,” Cogdill said. “You could tell it was sitting where an airplane would be sitting at the terminal.” [CNET]
But the story doesn’t end there. The wayward iPad soon took another journey. While tracking his iPad, Cogdill watched as his beloved iSlate left the airport and traveled to a nearby home.
Lost, then found, then stolen – what a day.
Fortunately the story has a happy ending. A Southwest supervisor, along with the police, recovered the iPad soon after the rightful owner contacted the airline. The family is happy with the outcome, and MobileMe likely has another lifetime subscriber.
[via CNET]
Like a time travel scenario where you meet your own grandfather as a child, enthusiasts working with the Einstein Newton Emulator project have ported the Prodigal PDA to the iPhone. The current implementation is only available as source code and runs a bit slow, but is an actual working version of NewtonOS complete with handwriting recognition and familiar input gestures.
Your choice of smartphone may tell more about you than you realize. Various sources are reporting on a Nielsen Mobile Insights survey about mobile phone usage; among other findings: iPhone users prefer chicken, while Android owners love ribs.
[coupons.com] examined its mobile coupon usage from the different platforms and came up with some staggering results. Did you know that women’s body wash coupons were routinely used by iPhone owners while men’s body wash was often purchased by Android owners?
If that doesn’t floor you, you should know that iPhone owners buy baby products 42 times more than Android users. Google OS users are more apt to use pain-relief coupons though, probably because of the headaches of using Android’s multimedia player. [intomobile]
According to the Wall Street Journal additional details from the survey reveal that a higher proportion of 18- to 24-year-olds use Androids than iPhones, BlackBerry users tend to use their phones more for business purposes than entertainment, and iPhone users tend to be more affluent and better educated.
I’m not sure whether this is more useful as flame-bait or marketing demographics, but it’s fun!
[via Digg]
Well that didn’t take long. Steve Jobs quipped that the new iPod nano would make a good wristwatch, and last week brought news of the first iPod nano watch band. Now several contenders are offering products for sale.
And the iWatch was born. And it was Good.
Provided you’re willing to look like a geek with a headphone cord dangling from your wrist when you listen to music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGmRKSds9OY
Proving a thing or two about making the most of what you have – unlike Microsoft – Amazon has come out with a cute ad poking fun at using the iPad in bright sunlight, and its premium price to boot.
I’m an iPad fan, but I will admit the little Never-Say-Die eReader does win on these fronts…
[via Digg]
Celebrating the release to manufacture of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft employees held a mock funeral Friday for the iPhone and Blackberry on their Redmond campus:
Employees dressed up in fancy dress and also modified cars to include Windows Phone branding. Aside from the crazy outfits the workers made fake hearses for giant BlackBerry and iPhone devices. Employees cheekily claimed they had buried the competition with Windows Phone 7. [Neowin]
Mourners and pallbearers were seen holding signs such as “Windows Phone 7 OS Platform buries the competition” and performed a funereal dance to Michael Jackson’s Thriller as part of the remembrances.
The latest iPhone Killer launches on October 11. Is it too early to call this another premature obituary?
[via AppleInsider]
