Top stories - page 971

Credit: David Sedlmayer, used under a Creative Commons license.

Today is the day that will bring us one step closer to the death of the cloud. That crucial new part of the internet that is gaining popularity due to the likes of Hulu, Netflix, MobileMe, DropBox, Crashplan, etc. is about to get another blow — AT&T on Monday started restricting the amount of data its millions of broadband customers are able to use in a month. Data is now restricted to as little as 150GB a month.

That isn’t good news — users should an uproar over the whole thing. It means that a large number of people using broadband in the U.S. will be severely limited in what they can do online. They might risk extra charges or even total loss of their broadband access. This comes as Apple is rumored to be on the verge of introducing a more Cloud-based model of computing for millions of customers.

A Colorado builder is incorporating iPads into new homes.

Apple’s magical device is used regulate all the electronic systems in the house — from lights, motorized blinds, entertainment systems (music, TV etc.) to baby monitors and closed-circuit cameras. The docks are built in but the iPads can be removed.

1. Follow Cult of Mac on Twitter (if you’re already a follower then you don’t need to unfollow and then refollow)
2. Tweet the following line once: “I want to win an awesome looking Thin Skin by @truepowerinc, so @cultofmac is making me retweet link this https://bit.ly/ifcLvH”
3. We’ll select 10 winners who gave us twitter shoutouts and Direct Message you for your details if you won (so you HAVE to follow CoM). Contest ends 10:00am PST Wednesday, May 4th.

What You’ll Win

Each winner gets their favorite color ThinSkin FREE. Yep, you get to choose the color you want.

Giveaway Details

This giveaway is void where prohibited and there is no purchase necessary to enter the giveaway.  Prizes will be shipped directly from ThinSkin.  Cult of Mac is not responsible for shipping/handling of the prize.  Please provide an accurate physical address if contacted that you are a winner.

A new Safari feature hidden within the latest Mac OS X Lion build is expected to compete with services like Instapaper and ReadItLater as a method of saving pages for later reading. The ‘Reading List’ feature appears to be partly based on HTML and javascript, and is likely synchronize bookmarks between Mac and iOS devices.

Discovered by MacRumors, Apple’s description of the feature is the following:

Reading List lets you collect webpages and links for you to read later. To add the current page to your Reading List, click Add Page. You can also Shift-click a link to quickly add it to the list. To hide and show Reading List, click the Reading List icon (eyeglasses) in the bookmarks bar.

The feature is currently inactive within the latest build of Lion, so those running the release won’t be able to try it out just yet, but as a massive Instapaper addict I can’t wait for Reading List to go live.

Hints of Apple’s upcoming cloud-based storage service – now dubbed iCloud following the company’s takeover of the iCloud.com domain – have been found within the third release of the Mac OS X Lion developer preview under the ‘Castle’ codename.

First discovered by Consomac.fr is a ‘Find My Mac’ feature thought to offer the same functionality as the ‘Find My iPhone’ feature built into MobileMe. What’s more interesting, however, are the strings that indicate users can upgrade from MobileMe to a service called ‘Castle.’

‘Castle’ is believed to be the codename for iCloud – the cloud-based storage service that Apple is currently developing. The service is expected to offer users a way of storing their music and other content in a digital locker, which they can then stream to internet connected devices such as the iPhone and iPad, and save storage space which would usually be taken up by storing content locally.

The service got its ‘iCloud’ name after Apple purchased the domain from a Swedish company called Xcerion, who offer a similar storage service. Xcerion received $4.5 million to rebrand the service and give up the iCloud.com domain.

Citing sources “familiar with the matter,” a new report suggests Apple will launch its new lineup of iMacs tomorrow, May 3rd, featuring Intel’s newest family of Sandy Bridge processors, and the company’s high-speed Thunderbolt port in place of the current Mini DisplayPort.

Apple has recently been taking steps to ensure a smooth roll-out of the new iMacs, according to the same sources, who apparently continue to provide accurate information when it comes to Apple’s plans, says the AppleInsider report. One confirmed that a “visual night” is scheduled for the early morning hours of May 3rd, “so it is highly likely that whatever new product that is going to be refreshed or introduced will be done on [that day].”

A “visual night” is when several Apple retail employees are called in to work throughout the evening and into the early hours of the morning to make changes to store layouts, often removing old products to make room for new ones.

Previous reports have already speculated that Apple was getting ready for the imminent launch of updated iMacs, and stock of the current generation all-in-one is slowly diminishing. The last time the iMac family was updated was some 9 months ago.

Credit cards at the ready!

As with any new Apple product, shortly after its release the white iPhone 4 received a customary teardown to see what’s inside. You’d be forgiven for thinking the internals for the white device are exactly the same as those featured within its black counterpart, but surely Apple changed something while it was delayed for all those months?

Well, the first teardowns for the new device reveal changes to both the proximity sensor and the rear-facing camera lens. One of the rumored issues which caused the white handset’s delay was light leakage into the camera; it seems Apple has rectified this issue with a more recessed camera lens.

As you can see in the comparison photo (top), the camera lens on the white device on the right is embedded much deeper into its surround, when compared to the lens featured on the black device on the left.

As for the proximity sensor, these are also different on each device, however, it’s currently unclear how the two components differ. Its obvious from recent images of the white iPhone 4 that Apple has modified the design of the proximity sensor externally: what was once tiny little holes above the device’s speaker is now a much more pronounced opening.

Former Vice President Al Gore’s new book, “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis,” is a $4.99 iOS app designed by Push Pop Press, a startup launched by two former Apple engineers. “This app,” according to Gore, “is a new kind of book that combines text and images, as well as video, interactive info-graphics and my own audio commentary.”

It’s also bullshit, according to Jason Baptiste.

Earlier this week, I was interviewed by a Russian TV crew about Apple. They were a bit surly and aggressive, not like polished, ingratiating TV people here in the U.S.

They kept asking strange questions about Steve Jobs, as is if he were a crooked oligarch. “Vy does Steve Joybs vant to be dictator? Vy does he vant to dominate ze vorld?”

To celebrate his third wedding anniversary, Sean Ohlenkamp of Toronto, Canada, placed a folder on his wife’s desktop.

When she clicked “Click Here,” she discovered a message written using folders nested within folders. See for yourself. It’s charming and clever:

How did she react?

“She liked it. Wasn’t too happy about me clearing all her icons off her desktop but she liked it. :) We enjoy doing things with or for each other instead of buying gifts.” Ohlenkamp wrote in the comments on YouTube.

Via TUAW, Neatorama, and Nerdcore

Although I’m a loyal Chrome man on the desktop, I tend not to care much for competing browsers on iOS… not because they don’t often do functionality better than Mobile Safari, because let’s face it, they often do. However, Mobile Safari’s privilege of being the default browser on iOS means there’s a lot of functionality you just can’t really do with an alternative browser.

It’s a pity, because if not for that, Terra for iPad would get a sensational recommendation: not only does it have an attractively minimal interface that supports tabbed browsing (as well as nifty full-screen functionality that quickly whisks the tabs out of the way when you want to be immersed), but also a very intuitive library of multitouch gestures. Best of all, it’s free. Give it a shot.

Apple has surpassed Microsoft in quarterly profits for the first time ever, bagging $760 million dollars more during the first calendar quarter of 2011. Microsoft announced today that its net profit for the past quarter – the company’s third fiscal quarter – is $5.23 billion. Last week, Apple reported profits of $5.99 billion over the same period, which is its second fiscal quarter of 2011.

Six months ago, Apple’s excellent performance in recent years was highlighted when the Cupertino company surpassed Microsoft in quarterly revenue for the first time in nearly 15 years. Despite this, Microsoft continued to hold Apple off when it came to profits, largely due to the high profit margins it achieves with its software business.

Apple’s latest accomplishment is now the third time the company has trumped Microsoft over the past year. In May of 2010, Apple first surpassed Microsoft in market capitalization, then went on to surpass Microsoft in quarterly revenue in October, and has now surpassed Microsoft in quarterly profits.

Apple’s market cap is now nearly $100 billion higher than Microsoft’s. It’s no wonder Apple has enough cash reserves to keep the company going until 2018, without selling another single product.

[via MacRumors]

A new patent discovered by Patently Apple reveals that Apple is working on its own fitness center application for the iPhone.

The patent titled “Systems and Methods for Accessing Personalized Fitness Services Using a Portable Electronic Device” was originally filed in October, 2009, and describes an app that can benefit its users by helping them with their diet; suggesting when they should go to the gym and what exercises they should do; and allowing them to compete with friends and be ranked on their performance.

Services are broken down into four categories: New Customers, Getting There, In the Gym, and Post Workout; which will help users find their nearest fitness center and motivate them to actively attend, encourage them to workout and suggest different exercises, and provide post-workout motivation and fitness tracking features.

It has been a long 10 months, but the long-awaited white-colored iPhone 4 is shipping and for sale today in the US and 28 other countries. Therefore, you would expect that people would be excited to get their hands on one of these babies, but that doesn’t seem to be the case for Apple Stores in the US.

The stores I checked in the Houston, Texas area didn’t have lines forming — like you would normally expect for a product launch. China on the other hand was a completely different story as long lines were reported there.

What a difference a letter makes: change “smuggle” to “snuggle” and the game about taking clandestine immigrants across the border becomes…a game about cuddly creatures escaping the wilderness for the comfort of a zoo, where they are provided plenty of food, shelter and “state of the art healthcare.”

The developers of  Smuggle Truck changed the name and graphics to Snuggle Truck to gain Apple approval for sale in iTunes.

After a ten month delay officially blamed on needing to put “more UV protection” into the mix (and unofficially blamed on light leaking onto the camera sensor), the mythical white iPhone 4 is here.

It’s available now on Apple’s official site in both AT&T and Verizon flavors, but be warned: there’s a 3-5 business day ship time, and that number’s probably only going to go up. If you want one today, go to a store.

The best comment on the white iPhone 4 I’ve seen today comes courtesy of Twitter’s AmyJane, who writes: “Got white iPhone email from Apple. Thought, “What kind of ass buys a new iPhone now?” Exactly 10s later I dropped and shattered my iPhone.”

Between last year’s arterial spray of unreleased Apple products leaking in Vietnam and the surplus of presciently iPad 2 cases popping up in Asia months before Apple unveiled the second-gen tablet, it’s been pretty clear for awhile that Foxconn needed to get its house in order. They had some pretty bad leaks, and given Apple’s notorious secrecy concerning future products, heads were bound to roll.

Now they have. Digitimes is reporting that three Foxconn employees have been arrested for leaking the iPad 2 design weeks (editor’s not: weeks? Try months) before apple’s official announcement.

While the vast majority of us gave up hope on the white iPhone 4 and just bought the black one instead, one analyst believes that the white device’s “mystique and scarcity value” could generate 1-1.5 million sales per quarter for Apple. Brian White, an analyst at Ticonderoga, believes the delay in the white iPhone’s release could drive sales.

Speaking to The San Jose Mercury News, White said:

The purchase of consumer electronic devices is not always a completely rational decision, and people buy Apple products for many different reasons, including status, aesthetics, functionality, quality and the ‘cool factor.’

In our view, this delay has created a certain mystique and scarcity value around the white iPhone 4 that we believe could drive incremental iPhone 4 purchases in the range of 1 million to 1.5 million units per quarter until the iPhone 5 potentially comes to market in September.

The white iPhone 4 finally went on sale today – 10 months after it was announced. Various manufacturing difficulties were blamed for its delay, and at times many speculated the device would never make it to market. A Cult of Mac poll yesterday revealed that only 12.41% of readers will buy the white iPhone, while 40.98% said they were now waiting for the next generation of the device.

[via MacLife]

Apple has reportedly purchased the iCloud.com domain for the new cloud-based storage service it is currently working on, paying $4.5 million to the previous owners who have now rebranded their service. Visitors to iCloud.com are currently redirected to the new service – now called CloudMe – but it is believed Apple will take over the domain when it’s ready.

The report comes from GigaOm, who cites a source familiar with the company:

My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn’t responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.

MacRumors also received some information on the iCloud rebranding last week, but were unable to obtain enough information at the time to link the change to an Apple takeover.

Apple’s upcoming cloud-based storage service – also dubbed a ‘music locker’ – will purportedly be a solution for storing music and other content online which can then be streamed to internet connected devices, such as the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad.

The most recent speculation has suggested that Apple is currently in the process of signing deals with all of the major music labels and getting the service ready for launch. An announcement is expected at WWDC in June.

A crash report received by iOS developer FutureTap reveals that Apple is currently field testing the next major release of its iOS firmware using third-party applications from the App Store. In a message posted to Twitter, FutureTap discloses a crash log from a device running iOS 5.0:

Just received the first iOS 5.0 crash report. MKUserLocationBreadCrumb sounds interesting.

FutureTap followed up the message with a screenshot (above) of the crash log, highlighting the “MKUserLocationBreadCrumb” API. MKUserLocation is part of the iOS MapKit Framework, which is used to find your device’s current location; while the “BreadCrumb” element is said to indicate a new tracking feature.

It’s possible the new feature has something to do with the new mapping technology that Apple revealed it was working on in a press release yesterday, however, this isn’t expected to appear as a finished product for another couple of years.

While there’s nothing major here, this crash report reveals – unsurprisingly – that Apple is readying its iOS 5 firmware for its announcement at WWDC in June. We will probably see its release alongside the fifth-generation iPhone – expected this fall.

[via AppleInsider]

Trying to answer the perilous question why they were storing cell phone tower data to begin with in their response to the iPhone tracking furor earlier today, Apple has disclosed a future product: a crowd-sourced database, using iPhone users as a way to determine arterial congestion… of the traffic variety, not circulatory.

Apple is certainly rather talkative today; as well as confirming the release of the white iPhone 4 tomorrow, it has also issued a press release announcing that the iPad 2 will launch in another 12 countries this week.

Tomorrow, April 28th, the second-generation tablet will hit Japan; while Hong Kong, India, Israel, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey and UAE will get the device on Friday, April 28th. China will also get the device on May 6th.

Customers can purchase the device at Apple retails stores from 9 a.m. local time, select Apple authorized resellers, and from Apple’s online store beginning at 1 a.m.

Meanwhile, I’m still waiting for the iPad 2 I ordered in the U.K. on April 1st. What gives?

Apple has today issued a press release and finally confirmed the launch date of the white iPhone 4. It will be available beginning tomorrow, April 28th, from Apple’s online store, its retail stores, AT&T and Verizon stores, and select Apple authorized resellers.

It was also be available from various carriers in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Macau, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, and the U.K.

Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president – who confirmed in a tweet that the device would launch this spring – said in the press release:

The white iPhone 4 has finally arrived and it’s beautiful. We appreciate everyone who has waited patiently while we’ve worked to get every detail right.

The device launches 10 months after it was first announced, with various manufacturing issues rumored to be the cause of the delay. Apple’s official statement will finally spell the end of white iPhone 4 rumors. Oh, Lord, what a wonderful day.

Crucial has just launched its new M4 lineup of 2.5-inch solid-state drives, which are the successors to the RealSSD C300 range, and boast faster read and write speeds. The M4 uses 25nm technology NAND flash created by its parent company Micron, and is available in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB models.

Crucial claim the new M4 SSDs reach read speeds of up to 415MBps – a 17% increase over its predecessor – while write speeds are up 20% with speeds of up to 260MBps.

As with all SSDs, however, this technology doesn’t come cheap. The 64GB M4 will cost you $130, which rises to $250 for the 128GB, $500 for the 256GB and $1000 for the 512GB. All can be purchased directly from Crucial and include a three-year warranty.

While the M4s are pretty pricey, solid-state drives are a great way of improving the speed of your Mac. Traditional hard drives are famous for being the bottleneck in modern-day Macs, and since the release of the incredibly nippy second-generation MacBook Air, many users have realized the difference an SSD can make and have adopted the new technology. Recent tests have proven that MacBook Pros equipped with SSD drives are significantly faster than those with traditional HDDs.

[via Macworld]

A new report from Nikkei Shimbun – the Japanese newspaper behind the iPhone 6 LCD rumors – claims the iPad 2 will finally launch in Japan on Thursday, April 28th. The second-generation tablet was delayed for over a month due to the earthquake and tsunami that recently devastated vast parts of the country.

Apple announced that it would be delaying the launch of the iPad 2 in Japan in the middle of March – stating its teams were focusing on recovering from the recent disaster – and the company is yet to release an update on the delay.

The iPad 2 was scheduled to launch in Japan on March 25th – the same day it hit 25 other countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Mexico, Norway and the U.K.

If Nikkei’s claims are accurate, the iPad 2 will launch in Japan just a day after the white iPhone 4 is released worldwide; a busy week for Apple, it seems.

[via MacRumors]