Yesterday’s update to the iOS 4.3 includes a requirement that buyers must enter their passwords for each purchase in iTunes.
The move comes after parents and legislators squawked that kids were making too many accidental buys in “credit-card bait games” in part because passwords stayed active for a 15-minute grace period.
“We are proud to have industry-leading parental controls with iOS,” Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller told the Washington Post. “With iOS 4.3, in addition to a password being required to purchase an app on the App Store, a reentry of your password is now required when making an in-app purchase.”
What do you think about the new requirement?
And do you think it will stop these games targeting kids?
Here’s a random round-up of contests we’ve found offering the latest iPad as the prize.
Just about all are no-brainers that ask you to tweet or give your details in exchange for the chance to win, although some have age and geographical restrictions.
As predicted, iOS 4.3 has just dropped and is ready for download now onto supported hardware, running the gamut of third and fourth generation iOS devices from the iPhone 3GS to the iPad 2.
Changes in iOS 4.3 include faster web browsing thanks to the Nitro JavaScript engine, personal hotspot functionality for AT&T iPhones and iTunes home sharing, allowing users to stream their iTunes libraries directly to their device. Full details are available here.
If there was ever an Apple launch that seemed to favor the Greg Packers of this world, it’s that of the iPad 2. Uncharacteristically, Apple won’t be taking any orders for the device until the date it hits store shelves: March 11th.
It’s hard to say what this implies. By one way of thinking, it means Apple’s not confident it can supply iPad 2 pre-order demand; thought of another way, Apple may simply want to avoid the problem of customers getting their new products delivered several days early by FedEx.
Either way, though, it’s left most of us wondering just when Apple will allow customers to start ordering the iPad. It looks like now we know: MacAppsDaily is reporting that an Apple phone rep told them that online sales of the iPad 2 would begin at 12:01am PT on March 11th, with “free, fast shipping.” 9to5Mac has also confirmed that time as well.
Looks like a late night for me on Friday. Who else will be awake?
When the Apple Store came back online yesterday after the announcement of the iPad 2, customers were a bit shocked to find out that Apple is not taking any pre-orders for the device until March 11th, the same day the product hits store shelves. Apple has always had a great track record of taking pre-orders on products after they’ve been announced, so we’ve been wondering just why they’ve changed policy this time. Could it be that they’re afraid they’re not going to have enough initial stock to satisfy store orders as well as online orders?
Rumors were flying around the web days before the event that Apple has been facing supply constraints for the iPad 2 and that the product was facing the serious possibility of being delayed until April or May. When Steve Jobs took the stage yesterday, he went out of his way to adamantly state that the iPad 2 would be launching worldwide in March, and not April or May. Is the move to eliminate pre-orders an effort to increase the lines at stores and build even more hype around the excitement of the launch? That could possibly be the answer but I think it’s a bit unlikely.
Did you guys hear that the iPad 2 was announced today? Steve Jobs, in living legended status, even did the unveiling. Here’s everything that you need to know about what went down today at the Apple Keynote.
True to the rumors, Apple found quite a bit of things to update and tweak on the iPad:
They boosted up the processor considerably, switching from a 1GHz A4 processor to a 1GHz dual-core A5 processor. Along with the faster processor, Apple claims they’ve cranked up the graphics and are pumping out 9x the graphics performance, although there was no specification given on what they did to improve on the PowerVR SGX 535 graphics processor of the first unit.
The iPad 2 is here. It costs the same, but the latest version is thinner, comes in black or white and now rocks FaceTime, rear and front facing webcams plus a gyroscope for your gaming pleasure.
The hotter sibling of the original iPad starts shipping March 11th.
iMovie’s not the only iLife staple coming to iOS this month, though. Apple’s now announcing Garage Band for iOS.
Featuring touch instruments including grand piano, organs, and guitars, guitar amps and effects, 8-track recording and mixing, 250+ loops and compatibility with the Mac version, Garage Band for iOS turns your iPad into a musical instrument.
When you load up the app, the first thing you see is an instrument browser. Tap one and it brings up the instrument to fill the display. Apple showed off the grand piano as an example: keys were tappable like a real piano, with a button for pedaling, and the accelerometer is used to measure the force with which your fingers are striking the display to determine dynamics and volume.
Each instrument is different, but uses a similar loyal approach. The drums and organs are simularly amazing. It’s breathtaking. On the organ, you can not only slide your note up along the keys, but also tweak the vibrato as you go. On the drums, you can get rim sounds if you hit the rim of the snare, or change the sound of the cymbal.
The music that is going to come out of the iPad thanks to Garage Band is going to defy belief. You don’t even need to know how to play: just load up the Smart Guitar and start strumming.
Recording is simple, toggled by a bright red button at the top of every display. To toggle tracks, you just hit the tracks button, allowing you to overlay multiple instruments, with support for up to 8 tracks. You can trim your recordings, shift them around, etc.
Once you’re done, you can email your song from right within GarageBand, or just send to your iTunes library.
GarageBand for iPad will be available on March 11th for $4.99 in the App Store.
The big news today for me is that Steve Jobs looks as healthy as ever. Yes he’s thin, but he looks good and his voice is strong. See for yourself. Watch the 30-second video below, taken from CNN’s live stream of this morning’s event.
This is NOT a man with six weeks to live. Long live Steve!
Noting that Apple has had an exceptional first year, Steve Jobs says that in 2011, Apple wants to build off the iPad’s success. Today they’re announcing the iPad 2.
So what’s new? Apple says, first of all, an all-new design. Not tweaked, brand spanking new and redesigned from the ground up.
First of all, as rumored, it’s faster. The iPad 2 will boast a dual-core A5 CPU running at 1.2GHZ.
Second, Apple has gone all out on the graphics, and are now offering up to 9x faster graphics performance.
At the same time, power efficiency remains the same, so you’ll get the same battery life.
All in all? Apple expects the iPad 2 to be the first dual core tablet to ship in volume.
Excited for the iPad 2 today? Don’t be too excited, says iLounge: a well-informed source says not to expect the next iPad to ship for a minimum of two weeks, and more likely four.
The issue? Inventory: Apple just doesn’t have enough iPads to go around yet. A four week delay in delivering the iPad would put the launch date of the second-gen tablet at the very beginning of April… almost a year to the date of the original iPad.
In other words, a delay in releasing the iPad 2 will conform to Apple’s historic iOS upgrade cycle. At the very least, though, we should all be able to pre-order an iPad 2 today. I know I’ll certainly be. Who’ll be there pre-ordering with me?
The second hacker charged outing an AT&T security breach that exposed over 120,000 iPad 3G customers’ personal data was released on bail yesterday.
Andrew Auernheimer, who left the New Jersey courthouse looking slightly disheveled but with signature beard intact after posting bail without commenting to the press, had been behind bars since mid-January.
He and Daniel Spitler, both in their mid-20s and members of the Goatse Security group, were each charged with a count of fraud and a count of conspiracy to access a computer without authorization.
They were charged seven months after vulnerability was discovered by researchers at Goatse security, who wrote 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 exploiting a hole on AT&T’s website.
Auernheimer also goes by the alias Weev. The last two entries in his LiveJournal on January 14 featured a portrait from a friend (or fan?) looking haunted on what appears to be a cross and a bit about his interest in Jyotish, orHindu astrology.
After reviewing his birth chart (“you may face a risk to your life and limbs during your 25th year”) he notes:
“It even knows the year of my peril. Just gotta make it through. Keep on truckin!”
Most of us have been taking it as a matter read that Apple CEO Steve Jobs would not be attending Wednesday’s iPad 2 event: he’s on a medical leave of absence, and Tim Cook has proven to be a reliable — if unexciting — stand-in for Jobs in the past.
Italian Apple site SetteB it defying conventional wisdom with a new report, though: they claim that Jobs will at least attend tomorrow’s iPad 2 event at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco, and depending on how he’s feeling, might even host.
You know what, Steve? As much as we don’t really feel like it’s an Apple event if you aren’t prancing onstage like some sort of crazed conductor to a music only you can hear, it’s seriously okay. You can just sit in the audience for a change. You’ve earned a bit of a rest, and the iPad 2 is going to be awesome even if you’re not the one to physically deliver it in your hands to the rest of the world.
Steve Jobs almost joined such Neo-Arthurian luminaries as Sir Elton Hercules John, Sir Robert of Hope and Dame Kylie Minogue, according to a former Labour Party politician, who says that the Apple CEO was almost offered a knighthood back in 2009 for his services to technology.
According to the former senior British MP, although the argument for Jobs’ knighthood was compelling, the Apple boss’ impolitic inscrutability ultimately cut him out of getting the war.
Although the suggestions for knighthood reached the final stages of approval, at the end of the day, Steve Jobs was irrefutably blocked by Downing Street because Jobs had once refused to attend an annual Labour conference, which would have been seen as a big political win for then-current Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Why was Jobs considered?
Apple has been the only major global company to create stunning consumer products because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced. No other CEO has consistently shown such a commitment.
If it hadn’t been blocked, Jobs still wouldn’t be the first American to be a British Knight, or even the first tech magnate: Bill Gates won in 2005. However, due to his lack of British citizenship, he still wouldn’t be allowed to go around, belligerently demanding strangers to refer to him as “Sir Steve,” a la Ben Kingsley.
In the past year, and especially in the past month, Apple has become associated with the many problems of Chinese manufacturing for two reasons.
First, a string of high-visibility suicides by employees of the Taiwanese contract manufacturing firm Foxconn were universally reported in the media as having occurred “at factories that make iPhones” and other such associations (even though those factories typically make products for many different companies).
And second, Apple’s “Supplier Responsibility” report generated enormous news coverage, and most of it overemphasizing Apple’s role and de-emphasizing the role of other parties.
Media aren’t the only ones associating Apple with Chinese factory problems.
Last night, Apple held secret meetings with Apple Store retail staff around the world, most likely to brief employees on what to expect when the iPad 2 debuts on Wednesday. But what actually happens at those meetings? Silenced by NDAs, the employees can’t say… but that didn’t stop one of our readers from peeking through the keyhole.
His account of what he saw of the secret meeting at London’s Convent Garden Apple Store, after the jump.
No one doubts that Apple will announce the iPad 2 on Wednesday. The only question is whether or not they’ll just announce it and start taking preorders, or if iPad 2s will immediately be available for sale, as with last week’s MacBook Pro refresh.
For people looking to buy themselves an iPad 2, good news: evidence is mounting that Apple will start selling iPad 2s this week, as Apple has halted production and ceased shipments of all first-generation iPads.
Despite Apple’s struggle with the white iPhone 4, a new iPad digitizer discovered by the iFixYouri iPhone repair shop suggests the company’s second-generation tablet may also be available in white. The part comes from Shenzhen City in China, where many of Apple’s products are assembled.
Closer inspection of the white digitizer above shows a small circular cutout along the top bezel, for what we expect to be the iPad 2’s front-facing camera, and it’s a perfect match for 9to5 Mac’s recently discovered iPad 2 screen protectors from Asia.
Just like all of Apple’s unreleased products, details and specifications regarding the second-generation iPad are under lock and key at Apple HQ until the device is announced on March 2nd, however, reports have suggested the upcoming device will be thinner, lighter, and faster.
I’ve had my 13-inch MacBook Air since they were first released and although I encountered video problems initially after the plethora of updates that Apple has released the video problems haven’t returned.
The updates included an EFI firmware update, a specific software update for the MacBook Air 2010 model, and the Mac OS X 10.6.5 software update. I even offered not one, but two suggested solutions to try.
These updates and suggested fixes worked for some, but unfortunately they didn’t work for everyone. People are still complaining on Apple Discussion Forums about problems they are encountering when connecting their MacBook Airs to external displays.
Mike Daisey performing "The Agony & Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs"
Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, was moved to tears by a play about the working conditions of Apple’s factories in China.
Woz went to see “The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs” by Mike Daisey on Tuesday night at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. The one -man show, which describes the working conditions in the massive factories that make gadgets for Apple, Hewlett-Packard and others, made Wozniak cry.
“The shocking things that Mike said which brought me to tears were so because they came as a first-person story,” Wozniak said. “Mike was living the pain of what he was describing as he told it.”
The monologue describes Daisey’s trip to Shenzhen last year, where he met workers at Foxconn’s plant as young as 12 and 13, and heard tales of the long, repetitive work. As many as 17 workers have committed suicide at the Foxconn plant.
Wozniak also said: “I will never be the same after seeing that show.”
Curious about the changes in OS X Lion? Starting at noon PST or 3pm EST, our own Jose Guitierrez will be doing a live screencast of OS X Lion, in which he’ll field questions, demonstrate features and even test software suggested to him by Cult of Mac’s readers.
If you’d like to take part, see Lion in action and ask Jose some questions, the screencast is embedded above, or you can go to the Livestream directly by clicking here.
According to Jose, the show will last at least an hour, but will probably last until he’s fielded all questions. Why not join us and see Lion in all its glory on this slow Friday afternoon?
Head to a department store and instead of confessing the heartbreak of your breakouts or the consternation about those new wrinkles to an immaculate sales person, you can find that elusive elixir to solve your skin troubles using an iPad.
Clinique is rolling out an iPad “self-guided skin care diagnostic tool” at select counters in the US later this month.
Clinique, a dermatologist-created line owned by Estée Lauder, has always tried to project a “scientific” image, with sales women wearing white lab coats. I seem to remember a 1.0 analog diagnostic tool — a counter device that you could slide parameters for your skin type to suggest products (the result – you always needed more products.
This is the latest instance of companies putting iPads into customer hands – from menus to store playthings – they just might end up replacing a few sales people.
We do a lot of police blotter reading around here. (We’re old-school like that). So we’ve noticed a divide in cases involving iPhones and iPads that go missing and then get found with Apple’s Find my iPhone app.
Within a month of launching the service, police in San Jose used it tracked down a pair of thieves who broke into the house of an Apple employee. Busted. Arrested. Makes sense.
Ever since Apple purchased Lala back in 2009, it’s been assumed that iTunes was going to make a leap into the cloud with a streaming music on demand service pretty much any minute now.
According to a new report by the Financial Times, though, Apple’s just been messing with us: Apple has no intention of undermining the market for paid music downloads that it absolutely dominates.
Instead, Apple keeps its plans for the cloud and its Lala acquisition as a form of insurance. An ace up their sleeve, in case the likes of Spotify, Rhapsody or Last.fm looks posed to become an industry-shaking juggernaut, similar to the way Netflix is changing the home video market.
Now that you’ve read all those stories of the nice new features packed into Mac OS X Lion, I’m sure you’re dying to get your hands on the Developer Preview and try them out for yourself. Luckily for those of you not signed up to the Mac Developer Program, there are already a few websites out there that are selling access to the beta release.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite as easy as just downloading and installing the software onto your Mac – your system first needs to be authorized to use developer releases. This means signing up to the service at $99 per year – which is pretty costly just to play around with Developer Previews.
That’s where LEi Mobile comes in: all they ask for is a donation of at least $10 and in return they’ll authorize your Mac through their developer account and enable you to download and install the Lion preview on your system. But be quick – they’re already selling like hot cakes and won’t be around for too long.
We’ll keep hunting for other sites offering this service and update this story as frequently as necessary. If you know of another site offering this service, let us know in the comments!
Please note that installing developer previews on your Mac is very risky, and not recommended on your main system. The previews are previews for a reason and lots can go wrong with these builds. Cult of Mac is in no way associated with any of the websites selling Lion access, and we accept no responsibility for any damage to your system or data.
