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iPhone 4 Display May Be Bend-Proof, But It May Also Be Easily Shatterable With A Drop

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On Monday, Apple made a big deal about exactly how tough the new iPhone 4 glass was, bending it almost thirty degrees on stage without a sliver of a crack webbing across the glass.

Pretty impressive! Too bad you can’t even drop an iPhone 4 from waist height onto the ground without it shattering, finds repair shop iFixYourI (who don’t have an iPhone 4, but do already have replacement parts).

Where’s the blame, according to iFixYourI? The bezel. Previous iPhones had counter-sunk glass flush with the bezel, while the iPhone 4’s glass actually extrudes a little bit, so the bezel can’t protect it.

iFixYourI says design flaw. Possibly, but as a commenter points out below, it’s worth noting that a hollow iPhone 4 (as we have here) is going to have glass more vulnerable to drops than one supported by an interior hardware architecture. Furthermore, Apple seems aware of just this vulnerability: their new cases seem almost sole-mindedly designed around eliminating the exact sort of shock impact being discussed here.

Either way? Whether your fingers exude butter or not, you’ll probably want one of Apple’s new iPhone 4 bumpers. Probably the pink one, too.

Video of the Day: Apple History Tour at BoxTone WWDC 2010 Party

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The Cult of Mac team had a rollicking good time at BoxTone’s iNSpired party, checking out the machines and chatting to devs.

There were about 20 Apple machines on show, from the Apple I to the iMac. The best part, they were working machines — something the organizers probably regretted with a room full of people intent on playing with them while downing beer and inhaling scrumptious mini-sandwiches.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBQJ7eLx1Jo

We start with Wendell Sander, Apple employee no. 16, who fires up his Apple I for a memory dump using an iPod.

Up To 114,000 AT&T iPad Customers’ Security Has Been Breached

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Up to 114,000 iPad owners have had their privacy breached thanks to a snafu on the part of AT&T that ultimately (but inadvertently) traded user convenience for security.

The vulnerability was discovered by researchers at Goatse security, who were able to write a script that harvested iPad 3G owners’ ICC-IDs (or integrated circuit card identifier, used to identify SIM cards to a network) and email addresses through the exploitation of a hole on AT&T’s website.

“Dudes Who Like Porn” Pwn iPad Ads at WWDC

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Steve Jobs says the iPad offers “freedom from porn.”

Some dudes say you can put that freedom where the sun don’t shine, Steve.

And to that end, these self-described “dudes” pwned iPad ads around Moscone center where WWDC 2010 is taking place this week.

You can see the video of their pornifying prank here.

They’ve sent a heartfelt (or maybe choose another organ) letter to Steve about it:

“You don’t want people looking at vaginas on a tablet device you named after a feminine hygiene product? Something smells fishy.”

Yuk, yuk. (Or maybe that’s just “yuck.”)

Can’t Wait for iPhone 4? Make a Paper One

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Cult of Mac reader Till Kresslein alerted us to this DIY paper version of the iPhone 4.
It’s a cute promo for a German Premium Reseller that gives the iPhone 4 desirous something to play with until the latest device is unleashed in Germany on June 24.

Just download, cut and paste.Till has already made one and assures us it looks pretty cool. For sure, it’ll look great beside your Steve Jobs paper doll.

Or wrap it around something, leave it in a bar, watch hilarity ensue.

Motorla’s S9-HD Bluetooth Music-Streaming Headset An Odd Combo Of Smooth And Awkward [Review]

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With Motorola behind one of the main challengers to the iPhone (at least, the current ones, anyway — the emerging iPhone 4, for now, seems fairly peerless), one doesn’t get much chance to observe the iPhone and the Motorola M in close proximity outside, perhaps, some smartphone cage match, or on the bedside table of two star-crossed lovers.

Hotel: Leave Your Laptop Behind, Use Our Mac mini

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httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VWZrQN9MMo

A hotel chain wants you to leave your laptop at home and use a Mac mini for in-room entertainment and work. Call us dirty minded, but it sounds mainly useful as a way to watch free porn on boring business trips.

Joie de Vivre is a chain of California boutique hotels testing a program called Joie Connect at the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento.

In addition to cable, you get a Mac mini in your room hooked up to a 42-inch LCD TV and a remote control.

You can check your email, watch Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and video on demand, plus check your hotel bill, Google for local attractions and check out from the comfort of your room.

iPhone 4: What Do You Guys Think?

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We’re 100% chugging the Kool-Aid on the iPhone 4 upgrade. What an amazing package:

  • The high-res screen looks astounding
  • The gyroscope may lead to a host of fun applications, like an air mouse for the upgraded AppleTV
  • 300 hours of standby battery life looks like a big kick in the teeth for Android.
  • The only misstep is no 64GB version.

We’ll be upgrading for sure, especially thanks to AT&T’s new upgrade plan.

What do you guys think?

iOS 4 Available June 21st, Free To All 3G, 3Gs and iPod Touch Users

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The new iPhone won’t be in people’s hands until June 24th, but existing iDevice owners who are looking forward to the incredible features of iOS 4 won’t have long to wait: it’ll be available for download to owners of the iPhone 3GS, 3G and iPod Touch on June 21st, just two weeks away.

The best part? It’ll be free to everyone. No longer will iPod Touch owners have to pay for an OS update. “We’ve finally found a way to get these upgrades for free to our iPod touch customers, and we couldn’t be happier.”

I’m sure iPod Touch owners, long screwed by update fees, agree. I know I do.

[image via GDGT]

WWDC 2010: iPhone 4 On Sale on June 24th Starting At $199

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Jobs has just completed outlining all of the iPhone 4’s revolutionary new features. Now to reveal what it’ll cost your wallet.

Coming in black and white, the iPhone 4 will cost $199 for the 16GB models, the same price as the 3GS. $299 gets you the 32GB iPhone 4.

Already in a contract? AT&T is allowing anyone with a contract expiring this year to be immediately eligible for a new iPhone at the same $199 – $299 price, as long as they top up their contract for two years.

Predictably, the 3Gs is becoming the new sub-$100 model, and will cost $99.

The iPhone 4 will be available on June 24th, with pre-orders starting on June 15th. It will immediately ship in five countries: the US, France, Germany, the UK and Japan, with 24 more countries following in August, and 40 more countries following in September.

[image via GDGT]

iPhone 4 Gets 5MP Camera, LED Flash, 720P Video and More

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We all knew the iPhone was bound to get a better camera this year — it’s long flagged behind competing smartphone’s offerings — and so it has: Jobs has just announced the details of the iPhone 4’s new camera: 5MP, capable of 720p video recording.

Great news here is that Apple’s sticking to a sane five megapixels. Instead, they are trying to improve low-light photography on smartphones, which is typically abysmal, by getting more light to the sensor through back-illumination and an LED flash.

Additionally, the iPhone is getting HD video recording, with the new camera capable of 720p footage at 30 frames per second. To harness that power, Apple is also building building video editing software into the iPhone 4… with iMovie for iPhone!

iPhone 4 Gains A4 CPU, Three-Axis Gyroscope

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Confirming that Apple’s not just dabbling in the chip game, Steve Jobs has just confirmed that the iPhone 4 uses the Intrinsity-designed A4 CPU, just like in the iPad.

But that’s not where the hardware changes stop. Revealing the back of the device, Jobs shows that it is backed to the gills, and just like in the Gizmodo prototype, most of the iPhone 4’s internals are made up of battery.

The iPhone 4 will come with up to 32GB of storage, quadband HSDP / HSUPA with 7.2 MBps down and 5.8 Mbps up, dual mic noise suppression, 802.11n WiFi and GPS.

What kind of battery life are we talking? Seven hours on 3G, six on browsing through 3G, 10 on WiFi, 10 on Video, 40 on music and 300 hours standby.

The iPhone’s also about to get a lot more interactive with the addition of a three-axis gyroscope, which in combination with the accelerometer provides 6-axis motion sensing. Amazing! I can’t wait to see what app developers do with it.

WWDC 2010: iPhone 4 Has “Retina Display” With 4X Pixel Density Over iPhone 3GS

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The second big thing about the iPhone 4, according to Jobs, is the revolutionary new display.

They’re calling it the retina display, and it quadruples, as reported, the pixel density of the last iPhone. You now get an industry leading 326 pixels per inch in the iPhone 4. It’s a marked improvement on the display in the 3GS in both brightness and clarity.

“There has never been a display like this on a phone,” says Jobs. “People haven’t even dreamt of a display like this. It turns out there’s a limit around 300px per inch that the human eye can’t differentiate between the pixels — text looks like you’ve seen it in a fine printed book, unlike you’ve ever seen on an electronic display before.”

“Once you use a Retina Display,” Jobs confidently brags,”you just can’t go back.”

[image via GDGT]

WWDC 2010: Apple Shows Off The World’s Thinnest Smartphone, the iPhone 4

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And it’s here! Steve Jobs has just announced the latest iPhone, the biggest jump in core technology yet since the original: the iPhone 4. It’s the Gizmodo one.

“Some of you have already seen this,” he quips.

iPhone 4 will include over a hundred new features. Jobs claims it is extremely thin at just 9.3mm thick, 24% thinner than the 3GS, making it the thinnest smartphone on the planet.

Jobs claims it’s the most precise and beautiful thing Apple’s ever made, more akin to a beautiful old camera (?) than a smartphone of today. It’s a gorgeous amalgam stainless steel for strength and glass for optical quality and scratch resistance

The iPhone 4 has a micro-SIM on the side, with a camera and LED flash on the back. On the bottom, it boasts a microphone, a 30 pin connector, and a speaker. On the top, a headset, a second microphone and a sleep/wake button.

The biggest detail? There’s a stainless steel band that runs around the edge of the phone, which is integrated with the band system to give superior reception for BlueTooth, WiFi, GPS, 3G and all the other radio stuff.

Next up, the next “big thing” about the iPhone 4.

[images vias Ars[

Leaked Photos Reveal Magic Trackpad For Desktop Macs

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At today’s WWDC, the next iPhone might not be the only things we see: Engadget has photos of what looks to be an entirely new input device: a Magic Trackpad.

The Magic Trackpad is essentially a giant, Bluetooth-connected multitouch trackpad for Macs, and will not only support all of the functionality of a MacBook Pro touchpad or Magic Mouse, but apparently handwriting recognition to boot. If that’s the case, I imagine it could function pretty handily in Photoshop as well.

I’ll grab this in a heart beat if the price is reasonable. For most of my desktop work on my iMac, I find the Magic Mouse wanting compared to my MacBook Pro’s excellent trackpad, and it’s atrocious for gaming. With the Magic Trackpad, I could finally have the big trackpad I’ve always wanted for my desktop, transforming it when needed into a mousepad and supplementing it with an excellent third-party gaming mouse.

Gentlemen: Behold the iPad Suit

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An upscale Manhattan tailor has designed a $600 suit jacket with an iPad pocket.

Mohan’s custom tailors, founded in the 70s before men needed gadget pockets, said the somewhat gimmicky-looking iPad suit is the result of customer requests.

You don’t have to be very sartorially savvy to wonder how the jacket — pictured either flat or with the model holding it — could stand carrying a 1.5 pound device on one side without deforming the fabric or giving you a lopsided look. Mohan’s says it has “several dozen” appointments scheduled for fittings.

Advocacy Group: Foxconn Employee Died Of Exhaustion After 34 Hour Shift

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A new report by the Hong Kong based advocacy group SACOM (Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior) says that an eleventh employee has died at Foxconn.

Unlike the last ten deaths, though, the latest reported death wasn’t a suicide. Instead, 27 year old Foxconn employee Yan Li died on May 27th after a continuous 34 hour working shift. Allegedly, Yan —who worked night shifts at Foxconn from 200 — literally worked himself to death.

How To Perform a Manual Mac System Migration [MacRx]

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Manual Mac Migration

Since the days of Mac OS X 10.3 “Panther” Apple has provided a wonderful utility, Migration Assistant, to help move data between your old and new Macs. With this utility you can easily migrate your installed applications, system settings and user data from your old system to your new one.

On the whole Migration Assistant works very well, performs successfully more often than not, and has gotten better with every subsequent release of Mac OS X. However despite Apple’s best efforts there are times when Migration Assistant can’t or won’t work.

A Manual Mac System Migration is just a fancy term for copying things over. The key is knowing what needs to be moved and how to connect the two machines.

Bulk Supply Shortages May Indicate New HDMI Mac Mini Incoming

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We’ve been hearing tell of an HDMI-equipped Mac Mini for awhile now, with past reports indicating that prototype Mac Minis spotted by Apple employees had their DVI port replaced with HDMI, thanks to the inclusion of NVIDIA’s MPC89 CPU.

Now Apple Insider is reporting that they’ve heard from four different source who claim that Apple is having Mac Mini supply shortages… usually a “tell” for when a new model is approaching.

Five iPad Stands for the Office

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A faux marble stand in hardwood from Old Time Computers.
A faux marble stand in hardwood from Old Time Computers.

The iPad has already gone beyond kid-appeaser — a recent study reported that the most downloaded apps are for adults using the device at work.

So if you want to give the iPad a permanent place in your office, you might want something to prop it up with that doesn’t involve pencils and rubber bands.

While in some office environments, funky DIY stands (including a cat) might be conversation starters, in others, they just look, well, funky.

Here are our top five picks for iPad stands that deserve a place next to that sleek perpetual calendar and won’t look like some random piece of junk when your iPad is elsewhere.

1. Old Time Computers Marble finish stand. For that banker desk look, try this handcrafted stand in hardwood with a marble finish. It comes with a USB cable and audio jack,  available for $59.00 on Etsy. The same artisan has some terrific wooden stands in the same vein — including a combo iPad/iPhone dock charger —  as well as antique-looking external keyboards with a steampunk aesthetic.

Pwned iPad Porn Ad Removed

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Pwning the iPad with porn. @johannes-p-osterhoff
Pwning the iPad with porn. @johannes-p-osterhoff

Artist johannes-p-osterhoff pwned the squeaky clean iPad advert in a Berlin subway station by putting porn in right before the device launched in Germany.

The attention gained from his protest over the “porn-free device” crashed his server, so osterhoff (who prefers to go all lowercase) got back to us just now on how he did it, sending Cult of Mac exclusive photos of his guerilla art operation at the Rosenthaler Platz stop in Berlin’s subway.

A few of our especially astute readers thought the osterhoff’s Photoshop skills could use work, but as you can see in the above pic, his protest over the allegedly porn-free iPad was an old school cut-and-paste operation.

Does Steve Jobs Care About Global Poverty?

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One runs the biggest tech company in the world, the other is a global leader in fighting poverty.

This is a guest commentary by Shawn Ahmed, a anti-poverty campaigner. It was originally published here.

Last week, Apple surpassed Microsoft to become the world’s biggest tech company. As someone who used to spell Microsoft with a dollar sign, I can’t believe what I’m about to say: this is a bad thing for the world.