Last year, Apple signed an exclusive agreement to use Liquidmetal — a high-strength metal that is light and can be processed like plastic — in their future products.
An ex Liquidmetal exec thought Apple would make iPhones out of it. A source speaking to MacTrast, though, says that Apple’s Liquidmetal investment won’t debut in the iOS line, but instead in March’s MacBook Pro refresh… which looks like a far more radical redesign than previously suspected.
If you think your iPhone pics are museum quality, you may have the chance to see them hanging up in an art exhibit.
The Orange County Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Ana, California is gearing up for an exhibit called “Pixels: The Art of iPhone Photography” from March 31 to April 30, 2011.
You have until February 27 to submit your best pics.
The next time you buy a couch, a car or a caffelatte, you can tell management what you think of the service with a stroke of your iPhone.
The Tello app lets you give a quick thumbs up or thumbs down and add comments on the fly as well as share your service woes or whoahs via Twitter and Facebook.
It runs on the iPhone, iPad and there’s a mobile version, too. Tello’s interface is clean, simple and has a database of 14 million businesses and if it can’t find your bodega, you can easily add it.
Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple is working on a “major revamp” of MobileMe, including a “locker” that will stream movies and TV shows to iPhones and iPads.
We’ve learned that Apple is going far beyond this. The company is looking to add a ton of ambitious cloud computing features to MobileMe — possibly in anticipation of a streaming-only iPhone.
Among the many services Apple is working on are:
According to our source, who asked to remain anonymous, Apple is working on a lot of streaming data services and location-aware technologies. It’s not clear when or how these features will be rolled out, but they appear to complement our report that Apple is working on a streaming-only iPhone.
“A ton of ideas were hatched on what they could do, and from what I heard, a lot of their ideas were shelved for a later date in order to focus on a few of them,” said our source.
Earlier today, when mulling over Amazon’s options in making their Kindle app comply with Apple’s new in-app purchase rules, I suggested that the simplest way for Amazon to preserve its existing business model without fleeing the App Store might be to pursue a good old fashioned lawsuit.
Amazon hasn’t filed one yet, but music subscription service Rhapsody is already threatening one, having already issued a statement saying “We will be colaborating with our market peers in determining an appropriate legal and business response to this latest development.”
The latest update to PwnageTool from the iPhone Dev-Team is now available to download, and version 4.2 brings with it untethered jailbreaking for devices running iOS 4.2.1 and fixes the recently discovered iBooks issue that prevents a user opening an iBookstore purchase on their jailbroken device.
PwnageTool uses the “feedface” untether developed by the Chronic Dev Team to allow for untethered jailbreaking in the latest release, and supports all 4.2.1 devices other than the iPod touch 2G. Another issue fixed in this version is the Wi-Fi problem that some users had with the second-generation AppleTV.
If you’ve already jailbroken your device and you’re desperate to gain access to your iBookstore purchases, don’t think you need to restore and jailbreak again with the latest version of PwnageTool. On their blog, the iPhone Dev-Team have stated that fixes for both the iBooks issue, and the Wi-Fi issue for AppleTV, will be available in an upcoming Cydia package that you’ll simply be able to download and install on your device.
Once again that’s iOS jailbreakers 1, Apple nil.
Even as a munchkin bolting around on my grandparent’s farm, weeds licking at my calves, my life had its own soundtrack. That the sound came from the single anemic speaker of a heavy, D-cell burdened cassette-radio that loved to lunch on my Queen’s Greatest Hits tape didn’t matter — there was music in the grass, floating through the dust, on my shoes. It was awesome.
Flash forward to our MP3-laden, music-streaming days of wonder where, unexpectedly, Philips’ powerful, Bluetooth-equipped Fidelio DS8550 triggered that same feeling in me — which is pretty impressive, considering my expectations have evolved far, far beyond tinny speakers and misbehaving machinery. In fact, Philips has stuffed so much sound and so many clever features into the DS8550, it’s become my go-to gadget in a way that maybe no other sound accessory has before.
Last week, one of the most interesting Mac programs to come out in years hit the App Store in Sparrow for Mac, an elegant and attractive e-mail client that looks and acts a lot like Twitter.
I loved it, comparing it to more full-featured clients like Postbox 2 by saying Sparrow was “the equivalent of skipping stones, not piloting a submarine.”
I decided to reach out to Sparrow for Mac team member Dom Leca and ask him a few questions about the origins, inspiration and future of the e-mail program that treats your Gmail as if it were Twitter.
A more efficient, less costly government sounds like a pretty good idea no matter where you sit on the political spectrum.
Whether devices like iPads – small, portable devices that allow lawmakers to read lengthy documents without printing them out – are a good way to do that has been open to debate.
Cult of Mac talked to a city council member in Ridgecrest, California who has been bringing his own device to work to speed things up.
A Taiwanese Mac rumor site with a sometimes-accurate history of predictions is now claiming that Cupertino is testing three radically different prototypes of the next iPhone.
The first prototype is allegedly a Blackberry-like iPhone 5, boasting a slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard for faster typing. Ostensibly, such a device would be aimed at business users and texters.
The second prototype? Just a spec bump, making the iPhone 5 the equivalent of the iPhone 3Gs to the iPhone 4’s iPhone 3G. The design would closely resemble the existing iPhone 4, merely upping battery capacity and the megapixels on the rear camera. Presumably, it would also upgrade the iPhone line to the rumored dual-core A5 CPU which will debut next month with the iPad 2.
Of the third prototype, nothing is known, but it may be the 4-inch iPhone 5 we posted about earlier today.
If you’ve ever seen a friend’s Android phone and marveled at just how big it was compared to your iPhone, Digitimes thinks you should start getting used to the bulk: they claim that Apple’s fifth-generation iPhone will pack a 4-inch display to directly compete with Android’s larger displays.
It’s a curious rumor. If true, it would make the iPhone 5 the same footprint as Samsung’s Galaxy S and Nexus S smartphones.
Picture from EQueue
Friends, Romans, Applefans, I come to bury hard drives, not to praise them. The evil that poor technologies do live after them, and our good files are oft interred with their ashes. So let it be with hard drives.
Look at your MacBook Pro. It’s beautiful, no? Bright screen, thin body, buttonless trackpad, carefully engineered ports, MagSafe power port… it’s a master-work. Except for one thing. It carries a vestigial organ that all-too-often reveals itself to be the ruptured appendix of computing: a hard drive.
Yes, for all of our wonderful computing progress (spaghetti ports to USB; mobile dual-core processors, DDR3 DRAM, insanely fast GPUs), the lowly hard drive continues to exist based off of approximately the same technology it was back in the 1970s. Spinning magnetic platters with read/write heads, saving our entire digital lives in the process.
And while they have many wonderful qualities (massive storage capacity, more so than anything but TAPE; extremely low cost), they also have a fatal flaw, which is that they break and they break hard. Platters get warped, spindles get loose, heads get misaligned, and suddenly your computer stops working and you lose the project you’ve been slaving over for the last few months (see my wife’s recent calamity for evidence and a little solace in the iPhone).
The iPad 2 isn’t the only new Apple product that is likely to hit stores in March. For weeks now, supplies of existing MacBook Pro models have been plummeting, and given Tim Cook’s obsession with supply, that indicates a refresh across the board.
So when can you expect the new MacBook Pros? Unknown, but according to Danish Blogger Kenneth Lund, the date he’s hearing in Denmark from Apple Resellers is March 1st.
Christy Pelland isn’t exactly a pinup, but you’d be forgiven for making that assumption viewing the pic above.
Pelland is a photographer by trade who specializes in retro-pinup portraits. And she loves her Macs.
Read on for more about her love affair with Apple, what makes Mac nerds sexy, her studio set-up, and yes, more pics.
UPDATE: The big question about a streaming-only iPhone is apps: How will users download apps? My source compared it to the second-generation Apple TV, which is a streaming-only device but includes 8GB of onboard memory (for the OS and buffering media). “I’m not 100% sure on the amount of memory available for the user,” he said. “I know there is some memory but it acts more like the memory on the AppleTV. There is some there, I’m just not sure how much.”
We have more detail on Apple’s iPhone nano, which according to Sunday’s Wall Street Journal is real and may be headed to market this year.
But what we have will blow your mind.
The recently released Greenpois0n jailbreak tool has been updated to release candidate 6 today, and this particular version will allow you to jailbreak your second-generation AppleTV and install the popular NitoTV software, adding a few great new features to your device.
The process is exactly the same as that used for release candidate 5, and just as before, this will provide an untethered jailbreak for all devices, meaning you won’t need to plug them in to your computer when you want to boot them.
Greenpois0n RC6 is available for both Mac and Windows, and you can download it now from here.
They’ve already got Nintendo running scared when it comes to the handheld gaming market, and now some new code in the latest iOS 4.3 Beta 3 firmware indicates that Apple may be planning on doing the same thing to Microsoft and Sony through the $99 AppleTV already in millions of users’ living rooms.
The latest beta of iOS 4.3 indicates that the current generation AppleTV may soon support online gaming, with several references to “ATVGames” and “ATVThunder” pointing towards a gaming controller, Game Center support, online multiplayer and even an AppleTV App Store.
The wistful tone and open-ended time frame of Steve Jobs’ email announcing another medical leave of absence from Apple has led many to fear the worst when it comes to the charismatic CEO’s health, but a new report suggests that Jobs’ health might actually be better than expected.
In fact, not only is Jobs still making appearances at Apple’s Cupertino campus, but he seemed upbeat, described as wearing a big smile and with a spring in his step.
If you’re the kind of person who believes that “luxury Range Rover” should be an oxymoron, you’re probably not going to like the latest vehicle unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.
Among the luxe touches that come standard with the Range Rover Autobiography Ultimate Edition are two iPads for the rear passenger seats.
This clearly isn’t designed for toting around the kiddies, what with the “superyacht-inspired teak loadspace floor,” “semi-aniline leather seating” and a rear console which features a machined aluminium laptop table and drinks chiller.
All of these tony touches, however, “suggest its suitability as a chauffeur vehicle.” Which is always good to know.
Range Rover did not yet release the sticker price for the model, which comes with a choice of LR-TDV8 or LR-V8 Supercharged engines.
Via Classic Driver
Readability is an excellent bit of Javascript that strips online content down to its barest and most readable elements, and was borrowed wholesale last year by Apple for the new Safari Reader option in Safari 5.
Late last month, it became even more excellent by relaunching itself as a reading platform in its own right. Launching aside a native iOS app powered by Marco Arment’s excellent Instapaper, Readability is now more than a snip of Javascript code but instead a monthly subscription service that pays 70% of its collected fees directly to the writers and publishers being read.
We reached out to Arc90’s Richard Ziade for a quick chat about what Readability’s new change in scope would mean not just for existing users, but for publishers of web content looking to get paid.
Thanks to the massive headache of Antennagate, Consumer Reports famously felt that it could not recommend the iPhone 4 to its readers… an approbation that, as we all know, tanked Apple stock, prompted Cupertino to dump unsold iPhones by the millions into an Arizona landfill and ultimately led to Apple’s enthusiastic embrace of Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 operating system.
I kid. As you know, none of that happened, and the iPhone 4 is the best selling iPhone yet. But I’m sure you’re wondering what Consumer Reports thinks of the Verizon iPhone 4, right?
Well, as it turns out, they like it, with Consumer Reports’ Mike Gikas claiming that “key technical differences” separates the Verizon iPhone from the AT&T iPhone.
Color me pretty shocked with this pronouncement, considering the fact that the Verizon iPhone suffers from many of the same attenuation issues as the AT&T iPhone. Charitably, the issue may simply be that Consumer Reports is willing to recommend the Verizon iPhone despite much of the same hardware design thanks to the strength of the Verizon network… but could it also be that, despite their principled stand on the matter earlier, after eight months Consumer Reports has decided that the so-called “death grip” isn’t really a big deal after all the page views have stopped flowing in?
What better way to bide your time waiting for that institutionally late Amtrak than loitering in an Apple Store? Such seems to be the thinking in Cupertino, as sources now indicate that Apple wants to open a brand new Apple Store right in the heard of New York City’s Grand Cental Terminal.
[polldaddy poll=”4525402″]
Congressman Markey just wrote a letter to the FTC, asking them to investigate apps where “Smurfs and snowflakes and zoos (act) as online ATMs pulling money from the pockets of unsuspecting parents.”
So: whose responsibility is it?
Apple, who approves the games in the store and takes a 30% cut from the sales — at least those sales where parents don’t complain and get a refund?
Parents, who aren’t vigilant enough about disabling in-app purchases — and checking every time the tot gets their hands on an iDevice to play to make sure that it is, in fact, disabled?
Game devs who created a mechanism for that has been described as “credit card bait?”
Let us know why you think Apple should or should not allow these apps in the comments.
A US congressman wrote to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting more information about possible consumer protection issues related to “in-app” purchases — such as kiddy game “Smurf’s Village” we’ve been talking about for months.
Spurred on by a Washington Post article (what, he doesn’t religiously read Cult of Mac?) Congressman Edward J. Markey, a senior member and former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee, fired off a few thoughts on the games that target young children.
An excerpt from Markey’s letter:
“I am disturbed by news that in-app purchases may be taking advantage of children’s lack of understanding when it comes to money and what it means to ‘buy’ an imaginary game piece on the Web. Companies shouldn’t be able to use Smurfs and snowflakes and zoos as online ATMs pulling money from the pockets of unsuspecting parents. The use of mobile apps will continue to escalate, which is why it is critical that more is done now to examine these practices. I will continue to closely monitor this issue and look forward to the FTC’s response.”
Apple CEO Steve Jobs used to talk a lot about changing the world. I don’t know about that, but he certainly has changed my clothes, and the “accessories” I carry.
I discovered a new brand of pants the other day at REI. They’re called Rebel from a company called Kuhl. Never mind that I’m too old to wear anything called “Rebel.” They’re awesome pants! A brilliant cross between jeans and karate pants, they’re comfortable as they are indestructible. I like them so much that I’m never buying jeans again, and will wear these pants all the time, unless someone makes me wear a suit.
What really sold me on Kuhl Rebels was their iPhone compatibility. No, I’m serious!
