Top stories - page 972

I’ve been looking forward to the day that I could swap my MacBook for an iPad as a blogging tool. I can write nearly as fast on the tablet as I can on a real keyboard, and I also tend to take it everywhere, unlike the laptop. Until the last week, however, every blogging app I’ve downloaded for the iPad so far has been inadequate. The official WordPress client is just a disaster — I’ve literally never gotten it to work with Cult of Mac’s hosted account. BlogPress has broad compatibility but generates crummy posts that look like they were put together on a BlackBerry Pearl.

So it was with considerable excitement that I ponied up my $3 to download Blogsy, a new app that promises to be the MarsEdit of the iPad. Having used it for nearly a week, I’m extremely pleased. It has serious formatting capabilities, HTML and rich text modes, administration tools for your blogs, and built-in content import from Flickr, Picasa, YouTube and Google Images, not to mention a popover Web browser. Basically, it takes all of the multitasking inherent to blogging and turns it into a single app.

Special credit should be awarded for the app’s genius media layout mode, which involves tapping and holding on an image to convert it into a friendly alien mascot, then dragging the mascot to the exact location desired for the picture. Simple.

That’s the good news. Though I am blown away by the features and user interface of Blogsy, the software is still too unpolished to rely upon. Sometimes when I start it up, it claims my connection to the CoM home base is corrupted. Other times, it crashes while trying to save a draft, wiping out writing with no chance of recovery. It’s really not ready for heavy use yet. I look forward to its improvement, however. Once the bugs get worked out (and they add Tumblr support), Blogsy will become the platform of choice for on-the-go writers.

Until then, it’s a great novelty. I wrote this post in it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t post it, so I had to email it to myself to save the text.

Cult of Mac rated: [xrr rating=5/10]

Apple’s not happy with Amazon for calling their new app store for Android… well… “Amazon Appstore for Android.” In fact, they’re suing over it, claiming ownership over the term Android.

Amazon’s trying to get the suit tossed out, of course. First witness for the defense? It’ll be Apple CEO Steve Jobs himself.

What does Apple’s excess of $65.8 billion in cash reserves mean in real world terms? Well, for one thing, Steve Jobs could walk into any home in the United States, peel off a few bills from his fold of walking-around money and then, merely by fluttering those bills rhythmically and speaking in a soothing tone of voice, convince even the sternest ethicist, most rigidly defined vegan or opulently well-to-do moneybags to eat his wife and children.

Or, put a less prosaic way? Apple’s stock reserves are so great that if something happened and Apple stopped selling anything at all, the company could keep going until 2018 on its savings alone.

Put even less prosaically — we swear this time — Apple’s cash is worth half of Google’s entire enterprise value. Wow. [via GigaOM]

It looks like tomorrow will be the day the white iPhone will go on sale, and to prove it, you can already buy one in either 16GB or 32GB varieties… as long as your are one of les Belgiques, that is.

Yup, you can buy a white iPhone 4 now from at least one retailer, but only if you’re in the Benelux region. All of us without a genetic predilection towards marzipan, the collected works of Hergé and finishing off a day with a flagon of Geuze will just have to wait another twenty-four hours. Which is no big deal, considering we’ve already been waiting for an incredible ten months.

As a final, off-hand comment: anyone else the white iPhone 4 looks kind of fat in this pic?

Apple’s got an obsession with thinness perhaps best described as techno-anorexic. They’ll shave millimeters off a device until it seems ready to melt upon the tongue, a communion wafer of a gadget.

I wouldn’t be surprised, then, if the following rumor pans out: Apple is reportedly working with Sharp to create new poly=silicon LCD displays that will allow the sixth-generation iPhone to get even thinner.

Sony surprised visitors to the Consumer Electronics Show back in January when the company announced its intentions to take second place in the tablet market within a year, despite not having a tablet under its name. But at a media launch in Tokyo on Tuesday, the company announced two new devices that will be coming to take on the iPad this fall.

Identified, for now, by the code names S1 and S2, the new Sony tablets will be powered by the latest Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system, and will both feature Wi-Fi and 3G/4G capabilities. The S1 will feature a 9.4-inch display and a Tegra 2 processor, with an “off-centre of gravity design.” It will also boast an IR port for controlling Sony’s line of Bravia televisions.

The S2 has two 5.5-inch displays with a foldable design; which can be used independently to display different functions, or together for browsing websites and other tasks.

Sony chose not to reveal any further details about either tablet, disclaiming that “design and specifications are subject to change without notice.” Both devices will be compatible with selected PlayStation games, and are scheduled for a worldwide launch this coming fall.

The S1 certainly looks like a pretty swanky tablet in the picture above, but I’m sure I like the foldable design that comes with the S2. Until we know more details about each device’s technical specifications, it’s hard to determine whether these Sony tablets will worthy adversaries for the iPad 2. However, I can’t imagine Sony would release them if they weren’t strong contenders.

[via AppleInsider]

It seems more and more likely that Wednesday will be the day the infamous white iPhone 4 is launched, finally putting an end to the rumors that have surrounded the device for the last 10 months since it was originally announced. There’s one more before the big day, however: it seems that only the 16GB model of the device will be available when it hits stores.

A UPS shipping invoice obtained by Boy Genius Report shows a shipment of 20 white iPhone 4 16GB units destined for one AT&T store, while there are no 32GB units to be seen. A separate report over the weekend claims that both models of the device were being shipped to Best Buy stores across the U.S., but inventory numbers for the 32GB device could not be confirmed.

If you’ve waited 10 months for a white iPhone 4, it seems you may be stuck with a 16GB model if you have no intention of waiting any longer.

It’s safe to assume the white iPhone 4 won’t be on the list of Apple’s best product launches.

No matter how harmless this whole iPhone tracking feature may be, some people still aren’t happy about it. While many of us have brushed it off and chosen to ignore what seems like something blown way out of proportion, others have decided to take things a little more seriously.

Now dubbed ‘Locationgate’, the issue has been the subject of class-action lawsuits and government investigations. But surely if users are really concerned about their iPhone tracking their every move, they can just turn location services off, right? Wrong.

The Wall Street Journal has revealed that even with location services disabled on the iPhone, the device continues to collect and store users’ location data with the help of cell towers and Wi-Fi hotspots. This isn’t a dirty little secret, however; this is well within the rights of every cell phone maker. But what’s interesting, is that Apple seems to lie about it.

The next revision of Apple’s MacBook Pro lineup will boast a brand new case design for the first time since the aluminum unibody models were introduced in 2008. The current lineup of MacBook Pros – which was recently refreshed earlier this year to introduce a Thunderbolt port, Intel’s Sandy Bridge processors, and new GPUs – will be the last revision before an all-new design.

A source for MacRumors has provided “reliable confirmation” that a redesign is currently in the works, however, there are currently no details on what the new MacBook Pro will look like:

Unfortunately, we have no specifics on what the next MacBook Pro might look like, though many have previously speculated that Apple will take cues from the MacBook Air line.

I’m sure previous speculation won’t be far off either. Apple’s latest MacBook Air has proven to be a huge success and at its unveiling back in October 2010, Steve Jobs hailed the device the “future of notebooks.”

My guess is that the next MacBook Pro will be at least thinner and lighter, with SSD storage and better battery life. If we’re really lucky we’ll get one of those Retina displays everyone’s talking about.

Boom. According to MIC Gadget, who aren’t about to start cutting off pinky fingers to testify the image’s veracity, the front panel on the right is for the next iPhone, featuring most notably a significantly (but not miraculously) thinner bezel.

It certainly looks legit enough. Rumors have had it that the next iPhone will largely be identical in hardware to the iPhone 4, but boast the new A5 chip, a larger screen real estate in the same form factor accomplished by narrowing the bezel, a modified antenna design and possibly a capacitive home button.

What do you think? Real or fake? Let us know in the comments.

In a typically terse email to a concerned iPhone customer, Apple CEO Steve Jobs thundered down some authoritative wisdom about the so-called iPhone LocationGate scandal: Apple isn’t tracking anyone, and if you think that Android isn’t tracking you, think again.

Last month, President Obama almost smacked some goofus upside the head for insinuating he couldn’t get an iPad. “I’m the President of the United States. You think I’ve got a – you think I’ve got to go borrow somebody’s computer?” he said.

It was a perfect little moment of presidential sass, and the only way it could have been more perfect is if Obama had called his interlocutor a jive turkey before actually smashing him over the head with his iPad. However, questions abounded, including what flavor of iPad Obama favored: a first-gen model or the iPad 2?

Well, here’s your answer, courtesy of the White House’s Flickr account. The president owns an iPad 2 and what appears to be an unassuming gray polyurethane smart cover… a wise choice on the President’s part, given how prone to picking up Marmite and beer stains the leather covers are.

But one great, eternal question remains: does the president use the iPad 2 WiFi-only model, or the iPad 2 3G? Update: As a reader points out, it’s an iPad 2 3G!

[via TUAW]

Here’s the official caption:

Filmmaker Spike Lee uses his iPad to photograph President Barack Obama as he greets guests at the National Action Network’s Keepers of the Dream awards gala in New York, N.Y., April 6, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza).

But I know you guys can do better than that.

Keep it clean, play nice and make our drizzly San Francisco Monday.

Photo Via White House Flickr stream

High resolution artwork discovered in the latest build of Mac OS X Lion has generated rumors that Apple could be planning to bring a Retina display to the Mac. Preview 2 of Lion, which was released in late March, features icons in sizes up to 1024×1024, and a desktop background at a resolution of 3200×3200.

The new Lion wallpaper was discovered at the beginning of April by OSXDaily, and was noted for its ultra-high resolution which no Apple display has ever supported. The new icons – which are double the size of the current 512×512 Mac OS X icons – were discovered over the weekend by MacMagazine.com.br.

Considering there is currently no need for icons or wallpapers of this size, these discoveries would suggest Apple is working on bringing a better display to the Mac. MacRumors notes that Apple has built-in Support for HiDPI display modes in Lion:

Taking cues from iOS, Apple has reportedly built in support for what it calls “HiDPI display modes”. These HiDPI modes allow developers to supply 2x-enlarged images to support double-high resolution displays. Like the iPhone 4’s Retina Display, this means that user interface elements will remain the same size, but everything will be twice the resolution and therefore twice as detailed.

While a Retina display Mac would be pretty neat, I would much prefer one in my iPad first.

After 86 hours of downtime, the man behind Cydia has confirmed that the app is finally back online following an issue with Amazon’s EC2 cloud computing service. In a message posted to Twitter on Sunday night, Jay Freeman – better known as Saurik – wrote:

After 86 hours offline, Cydia is finally back! I’m eating some celebratory cake, and am looking forward to a night with >1.5 hours of sleep!

The downtime limited Cydia’s functionality for all users, and meant purchasing packages, using the Theme Centre, and managing Cydia accounts was near impossible.

Though some users may have had some success with accessing these services more recently, there were still intermittent periods of downtime as Amazon’s EC2 service slowly came back online.

All issues seem to have been completely ironed out now and Cydia is fully functioning for all. Hooray!

[via iPhone Download Blog]

Pictures taken by a source at Best Buy reveal that the retailer’s inventory database is currently listing an April 27th launch date for the elusive white iPhone 4. The device featured in the pictures is the GSM model – which supports the AT&T network – though it is expected that the CDMA model designed for Verizon will launch on the same day.

One report over the weekend claims that 16GB and 32GB models of the white iPhone 4 have already been shipped to Best Buy stores located throughout the U.S. – with around 10 16GB models on order for each store. Inventory numbers for the 32GB are currently unconfirmed.

The entire Internet is aflame, at least by. The standards of your average Saturday night, on word that Boy Genius Report has gotten ahold of a strange pre-production white iPhone 4 loaded up with admin and field-testing apps and running quite nicely on T-Mobile 3G. That’s quite newsworthy, as no shipping iPhone supports the obscure 1700 MHz AWS band that T-Mo rolls in the U.S.

There are many number of ways of faking this — I still find it hard to believe that you wouldn’t take some serious pictures of the hardware in search of differences from the existing iPhone 4 if you actually had it in your hands — but the various software screens are fairly convincing, including a number of apps I’ve heard are used in testing, but that mere mortals like us never see.

On the one hand, it makes sense for Apple to expand it’s reach to as many standards as possible now, especially since AT&T will likely own T-Mobile unless anti-trust regulators hold up the acquisition. On the other hand, the intent of that deal is to convert all of T-Mo’s towers to LTE fairly rapidly. It’s interesting.

Have a look through the gallery and let us know what you think — I’m actually most skeptical of Apple Connect. Would Apple really copy pattern unlock from Android?

This is how much it costs in electricity to run my 13″ MacBook Pro per year, if it were continually left on: $11.20. My 32-inch flat screen TV? That’s a whopping $100/year, if left on; but when it’s off, it’ll only drain to the tune of about 75 cents per year (similarly, my MBP only drains about $2/year in sleep mode).

How do I know this? I’ve been (lame-pun alert) charging around, giddily testing everything in the house with Belkin’s Conserve Insight, a brilliant, $30 tool that measures the energy use of any gadget or appliance that plugs into a wall outlet  — and the results have been (oh, and again) electrifying enough for me to really change my habits.

I’m a reluctant iPad parent who gave my toddler my gadget to play with once. Ever since that one experience, it has become impossible to use it when she’s around without her wanting to monopolize it.

She’s a true addict. She even looks at me weirdly if I put it down somewhere within her vicinity without handing it over to her.

Well, crud. I knew the day was coming when my beloved 11-inch MacBook Air would become obsolete, but I hoped it wouldn’t be so soon. It appears those hopes are dashed: Apple will reportedly refresh the MacBook Air line in June, replacing the current Mini DisplayPort with their new 10Gbps bi-directional Thunderbolt I/O port.

Apple does a pretty good job at being an environmentally conscious company. It seems like towards the end of every keynote, Steve Jobs expounds on what Apple is doing to lower the carbon foot print of their products. To celebrate Earth Day the guys over at Geekaphone created a really great info graphic to show just how eco-friendly the iPhone is. Packed with neat little facts, like how the iPhone 4 reduced emissions by 18% where as the iPhone 3G increased emissions by 22%, the big graphic is worth a look for anyone who wants to grasp the picture of their cellphones impact on the environment.

A unique service offering to unlock any GSM iPhone, no jailbreaks required, has suddenly shut down, leaving many customers awaiting refunds. Increased scrutiny from Apple may very well be responsible… and curiously, even the providers of the service had no idea how it worked, or why it’s all stopped.

The program is a win-win for customers, like myself, that are interested in recycling electronics (an effort to save the Earth), upgrading to a new iPod, iPhone, Mac, or iPad, and saving some money at the same time.

To celebrate the Easter weekend, EA mobile has launched its ‘Sweet 99¢ Deals’ sale with up to 86% off some of its most recent and most successful titles – such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12, Fifa 2011, and Dead Space.

Here’s the full list of games included in the sale – all of which are now just 99¢:

iPhone/iPod touch

• Tiger Woods PGA Tour 12
• Dead Space
• Max & the Magic Marker
• NBA Jam
• Fight Night Champion
• Battlefield Bad Company 2
• Tetris
• Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
• The Sims 3
• The Sims 3 Ambition
• Scrabble
• Fifa 2011
• Madden NFL 11
• Monopoly
• Risk
• NCAA Football
• Need for Speed Shift
• The Game of Life

iPad

• Scrabble
• Dead Space
• Max & the Magic Marker
• Reckless Racing
• Risk
• Madden NFL 11

Samsung Electronics says it has filed lawsuits against Apple claiming patent infringement. The suit comes just one week after Apple sued Samsung, accusing the company of copying iOS products and packaging. Samsung filed its suits in South Korea, where the company is based, as well as in Japan and Germany. Samsung claims Apple infringed at least 5 of its patents.

“Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business,” said a Samsung spokesperson. Translation: “It’s on, bitches!”