DigiTimes has revived speculation that Apple will release two new iPads this year, citing “industry sources in Taiwan” who claim we’ll see an iPad 3 complete with a Retina display in March, and a much improved iPad 4 with “killer applications” in October.
Despite all our 21st-century technical wizardry, one of the easiest and least expensive ways to get a very basic idea of physical health is through a metric that’s been used for a very long time: body weight.
The Withings WiFi Body Scale ($160) takes this concept to the next level in many ways, including allowing you access to all your data on a gorgeously designed iOS app. It also adds an even more important metric, body fat percentage, and goes a long way to erasing many of the pitfalls using a simple scale can lead to — and it does this all while remaining incredibly easy to use. In fact, it might be the most effective tool I’ve used to keep healthy.
What do we know about the iPad 3? It seems almost definite at this point that it will be slightly thicker than its predecessor, feature an A6 chip and a Retina Display when it is released in late March or April, but if iLounge‘s Jeremy Horwitz’s Twitter account is anything to go on, it might also be packing much better cameras.
I’m wearing a big shimmering wrap on my head with a jewel in the middle. There’s incense going, and I’m now ready to make these CES 2012 camera predictions: new pro DSLRs from Nikon and (possibly) Canon will reign supreme; it will be another good year for small mirrorless interchangeable-lens cameras, like the new Nikon 1; and in-point-and-shoots, I see more of the same blah.
I also see this year’s PMA show (Photo Marketing Association) being combined into CES, bringing with it imaging accessories galore — but that’s not a prediction — it’s on PMA’s website.
If you’re reading us from Asia, great news: the Asian continent’s own answer to Black Friday starts tomorrow, January 6th, and as rumored. Apple’s now having a Lunar New Year Sale to celebrate, offering discounts on most of their popular products in China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.
The discounts are basically similar to those U.S. Apple Store customers saw in November, with discounts of between 6-8% on iPads, 10% discounts on iPods, and between 5-10% off all MacBooks.
If you’re in one of the aforementioned countries and want to start the New Year right, get hopping: this sale will only continue for 24 hours.
Kanye West is not known for his modesty. He once appeared on a Rolling Stone cover portraying Jesus wearing a crown of thorns. In 2004, he stormed out of the American Music Awards after not winning Best New Artist, saying “I was definitely robbed… I was the best new artist of the year.” Even President Obama has called Kanye West a “jackass.”
With all that in mind… hey guys! Guess who just declared himself the next Steve Jobs?
I’d have put my house and children on Apple suing the Chinese toy manufacturer which produces the incredibly realistic Steve Jobs action figure we reported on earlier this week. And just as expected, it’s threatening to do just that.
In Icon has reportedly received a letter from Apple’s legal team which states it must stop producing and selling the 12-inch $99 figure — which sports Steve’s iconic black turtleneck, blue jeans and white sneakers — immediately, or face legal action. Unfortunately for In Icon, it has no intention of quitting.
There are many excellent and original ways to propose to your significant other. For example, I once proposed to a girlfriend on a tethered skydive by shouting into her ear at a dangerously low 1500 feet: “Will you marry me and should I pull this ripcord?” To this day, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more enthusiastically (some might even say hysterically) shrieked affirmation of love.
That’s one way to do it. Of course, a less dramatic (and some might argue, more romantic) way to do it, if your girlfriend is an iOS gamer, is to reach out to the developer of her favorite game and ask him to bake a wedding proposal into his app for you.
Despite a message posted to Twitter by Pod2g earlier this week, suggesting an untethered jailbreak for the iPhone 4S was less than a week away from public release, a new blog post detailing the iOS hacker’s process indicates the exploit could still be weeks away yet.
Pod2g has revealed that his new exploit requires a developer account to inject the necessary files to your device, and until he finds a way around this, the hack will not see a public release.
A large proportion of iPhone 4S adopters have been hit by an issue on the new device that randomly mutes their audio when they make a call. Their recipient appears to pickup — or the call goes to voicemail — but they do not hear anything.
If you’re one of these users and you’re hoping for a fix in Apple’s upcoming iOS 5.1 software update, then you may be disappointed. According to developers already testing the release, it does not address this particular issue.
The area where the fitness tech companies congregate at CES seems to get larger and louder every year — and based on the preview emails or stuff we’ve chatted about on the phone, fitness at CES 2012 looks like it’ll be bigger than ever.
Verizon has announced record-breaking results for its 2011 fourth quarter sales. The nation’s largest carrier sold 4.2 million iPhones during the holiday season, effectively doubling sales from the previous quarter.
The iPhone 4S was launched during Q4 of 2011, and holiday sales have surely helped Verizon rise to such impressive results.
Apple has finally tapped someone to run its suffering mobile ads division. Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has poached Adobe exec Todd Teresi to run iAds. Andy Miller stepped down from the mobile ad division last August.
Teresi is listed as the VP and GM of Media Solutions at Adobe. He has also served as the Senior Vice President of Yahoo before resigning in 2008. He has a history of working with interactive advertising.
In late 2010, after years of abstaining from entering the netbook market, Apple finally succeeded in transforming the MacBook Air from a disappointing promise of laptops to come into a machine that revolutionized ultraportables the same way the iPhone revolutionized smartphones and the iPad revolutionzed tablets. Not only was the MacBook Air as thin as a samurai sword and about as small as a 12-inch netbook, it had the performance of a beefier laptop thanks to the inclusion of a proper CPU, dedicated GPU and ubiquitous flash storage… all at a sub-$1000 price point.
Overnight, the MacBook Air finished what the iPad had started and almost completely killed off netbook demand once and for all. Now all of the gadget makers who had previously been counting on netbook sales to boost their bottom lines are trying to catch up with Apple. But as usual, they’re about a year late.
What does this mean for CES 2012? Expect to see ultrabooks, ultrabooks and more ultrabooks.
The Android Market saw staggering growth in 2011 and thanks to some tracking done by Distimo, we have a better look at how the numbers play out in comparison to Android’s top competitor Apple. According to Distimo, the Android Market has now reached over 400,000 apps, which is still 100K shy of Apple’s 500K+ active apps available according to 148apps metrics. While Android still trails in overall apps, it’s really the rate at which it’s growing that is impressive.
Even in the New Year, those iTV rumors just won’t quit. The latest word is that Jony Ive has been working on a 42- to 50-inch Apple television in his secret Cupertino design studio; probably the Siri-controlled Apple HDTV the whole industry has been quaking over for the last few months.
Apple is reportedly gearing up to bid for English Premier League streaming rights that would allow it to show live matches through its Apple TV and iOS devices. The Cupertino company hopes the content will boost sales of its set-top box and the iPad in the U.K.
What’s the point of robbing your local 7/11 and going to prison in exchange for a quick $200 when you can just drive uptown, pull a heist on the Apple Store, and walk out with every Apple device? At least, that’s the thinking of some thieves lately and Apple Store robberies have started to become more frequent over the past few years.
Early on the morning of January 3rd, six armed teenagers broke into the Apple Store at Scottsdale Quarter by shattering the front glass. The crew made quick work of the store and stole between $70,000 – $80,000 worth of merchandise. The burglary occurred before business hours and fortunately no one was harmed. Spotting the thieves as they were fleeing the scene, a local cab driver followed their vehicle down the street. Noticing the trailing cab, the thieves fired two shots at the cab, but both missed and the cab driver was uninjured.
Not much else to say. Hot on the heels of his iOS 5.0.1 jailbreak for A4 devices and lower, jailbreak hacker extraordinaire pod2g has now reportedly made progress jailbreaking the iPad 2 and iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0.1, and says that we could even expect a release next week. Hurrah!
See that iPhone 4 above? If you click here, you can see it in its full, remarkable glory on the website of its creator, HTML5 and CSS3 maestro Vasily Zubach.
Why is it so remarkable? Because in its original incarnation, it was accomplished entirely in Javascript and CSS. That’s right: there’s not a single image file in the whole shebang.
The biggest tech trade show in the U.S. is just a week away. And while Apple doesn’t officially take part in the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), its influence will be everywhere.
Take Ultrabooks, for example — the PC industry’s answer to the hyper-successful MacBook Air. Attempting to catch up, Apple’s rivals will be showcasing 30 to 50 new models at CES.
There’s also the iLounge pavilion, a section devoted to Apple-related products, which has grown huge this year. The iLounge has balooned from 4,000 square feet in 2008 to 85,000. We think there’ll be plenty to report on, so we’re blowing out CES 2012 in a big way. We’re sending six reporters to Las Vegas, bringing you all the news here on Cult of Mac.com and our sister blog, Cult of Android.com.
We expect a ton of new peripherals, apps and add-ons. There’s plenty more going on, from new smart TVs to smartphone-friendly cars. Here’s what to expect from the show:
Apple is planning a media event in New York this month, according to AllThingsD. While we shouldn’t expect to see the iPad 3 or a new Apple TV, AllThingsD’s usually-reliable sources have indicated the event will be “important,” but not “large-scale.”
Apple’s iCloud exec, Eddy Cue, is expected to show at the event in late Janurary. The last time Cue took the stage in New York was to help launch the iPad-only magazine by News Corp called The Daily.
This is it, people — this is the year your New Year’s resolution to get fit really takes hold. This year, you’re going to stick it, and we’re going to show you how.
Apple has not been known to look kindly upon toys made in the likeness of the company’s iconic, recently deceased founder, Steve Jobs.
Any guesses, then, as to how long it’ll take for them to pile on DiD Corp for this eerily accurate action figure of Steve? The 30 centimeter statue is available now for preorder at just $99.99 and will supposedly ship out in February, but if Apple hasn’t sent a strongly worded letter (and, failing that, some pipe-wielding muscle) to DiD Corp by then, preventing the sale of the device, well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.
More images below.
A bizarre official app from Apple called GameStore popped up in the App Store on New Year’s Eve, apparently by accident. The 99 cent app, which functionally does nothing, appears to be some sort of test app or prototype for a Newsstand-like games service that has yet to get off the ground.