Top stories - page 994

Apple’s tiny new Apple TV packs one heck of a punch in a very small package — Netflix! Youtube! $0.99 TV shows! It’s dead easy to set up, absolutely tiny in size, and a pleasure to use. And it’s ridiculously priced at only $99.

On the other hand, iTunes’ movie selection still sucks; and the Apple TV won’t play nice with popular internet video formats like DivX or Avi.

Still, this pint-sized box is now based on iOS, and Apple may yet try to turn its “hobby” into a real business by adding apps that feature new content channels, communication tools and maybe even games. If so, this Apple TV may have a very good future. The hardware is certainly ready and it is based on the same technology as the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

If Apple opens up Apple TV to apps like it did eventually on the iPhone it could be unstoppable. Jailbreaking might just do that before Apple is ready to offer this feature.

Read the full review below so you can decide if this Apple TV is for you.

Paypal is about to release a new version of its iPhone app that will allow users to deposit checks simply by taking its picture.

It’s a killer idea and super convenient. Just take a picture of the front and back of a check with your iPhone’s camera, and it will be added to your PayPal account. The new version of the Paypal app will be released in the next day or so, PayPal’s Laura Chambers revealed on Wed. at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco.

Depositing checks by cell phone camera has been implemented by a couple of banks already. USAA Bank was the first to launch mobile depositing capability, followed by Chase. Citibank and Bank of America have similar systems in the works.

Via Techcrunch.

The video above is a first look at Sonos’ brand new app for the iPad, which makes for an awesome multi-room stereo system.

Paired with a couple of Sonos’ S5 players, the iPad app makes it easy to play music from your computer’s iTunes library, as well as a ton of online sources, including thousands of Internet radio stations and streaming services like Pandora and Last.fm.

Released last night, I’ve been playing with the app all morning and I’m delighted with it. I haven’t got this much kick out of audio gear for a long time. Sonos’ S5 speakers cost $400 each and sound great.

Thug Shotz is a new iPhone game where players “match the slime with the crime”  and “pick the crackhead” using real mug shots.

The app was first rejected by Apple on moral grounds, then approved. Thug Shotz ($0.99) is also available in a “Cell-ebrity” version ($1.99) where you can hook up the A-lister to the crime.

The shaudenfreude fest — in the same vein as controversial Busted! Real Mug shots app, but created by a different company called It’s Bailey Entertainment (IBE) — was first rejected by Apple on moral grounds, then approved. (Note: the screenshots are stock photos, but all photos in the game are real people.)

Cult of Mac talked to IBE Founder K. Patrick Whalen about how the app, which started as a lunch time diversion of “guess the perp,” made it into iTunes.

About two weeks ago, Steve Jobs told a college journalism student to “leave Apple alone.” That e-mail exchange left a bad taste in people’s mouths; it was pretty rude. But that hasn’t been my experience at all.

I also wrote to Jobs about the same time complaining about the problems I’ve had with my iPhone 4. But instead of being told to leave Apple alone, Steve got his people right on it.

I received a phone call from Steve’s Corporate Executive Relations (his A-Team of executive ninjas who get shit done), and a week later, I’ve got a new iPhone 4 after receiving extra special customer service.

I’ve had continual problems with the iPhone 4’s proximity sensor ever since I got my first iPhone 4 on launch day back in June. Cut a long story short, I’ve spent weeks dealing with Applecare and Genius Bar Geniuses, and three replacement handsets. It’s been a frustrating and irritating experience. Finally fed up, I sent the following email to Steve himself.

One of the biggest problems with physical media is that it breaks. As soon as your DVD gets a couple scratches it’s rendered un-usable and worthless. Copying a DVD with encryption isn’t as easy as it should be. The good news is that with this walkthrough Cult of Mac will show you how to do it.

Apple began shipping the new Apple TV this week and the new gadget isn’t in anyone’s hands yet as far as we know. So it came as a surprise when an iPhone developer, chpwn via Twitter, found a firmware update for it and posted a download link for it. The new firmware, “AppleTV2,1_4.1_8M89_Restore.ipsw,” a 242 MB download can be downloaded from Apple’s servers now.

Apple TV is running iOS, something people were only guessing about after it was announced, and now hackers are claiming that it can be jailbroken.

The Dev-Team has posted an entry on their blog stating that they had already successfully used SHAtter, an in development iOS 4.1 exploit, to jail break the new Apple TV firmware:

It’s looking like SHAtter is going to be the gift that keeps on giving.  Even though the new AppleTV isn’t yet in people’s homes, the firmware is available on Apple’s normal public distribution servers and SHAtter has been used to decrypt its keys!

The Apple TV being released this week isn’t setup to run third-party apps, but it is possible that an Apple TV Store could happen in the near future. Hypothetically that new store could allow content creators to sell their content directly to you via Apple TV. If this ever comes to pass I might be able to finally tell cable good-bye.

So much for the laughable idea, spouted just months ago by some, that the iPad is just an iFad. Today, heavy-hitter Research In Motion, maker of BlackBerry smartphones, unveiled the PlayBook, a 7″-screen tablet at its annual developer’s conference in San Francisco.

“RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry'” said RIM President Mike Lazardis in a press release today about the tablet.

There are a few Essential Apps that handle themselves so well on the iPhone they quickly eclipse the website they evolved from; apps that, once installed on the iPhone, completely replace their browser-based ancestors.

Essentials Yelp, The Weather Channel and Twitter clearly fall into this category. But Facebook’s app is different. It doesn’t just replace — it hooks.

Case maker Sena designs premium handcrafted cases for leather junkies, myself included. Their cases are all of superior quality and come in plenty of designs to choose from, which makes it a no-brainer choice if you are looking for something classy to protect your iDevice. The $69.99 Sarach Flip Leather is no exception.

What’s Good?: The case itself is a piece of art. As you would expect, a lot of thought has been put into the styling of the case.

Never letting a good opportunity go to waste, Scoopertino reveals that Steve Jobs’ recent incident at Japan’s Kansai International Airport was actually a field test of Apple’s newest product:

“iPod ninja fits into that sweet spot between the iPod touch and a small handgun,” says Apple spokesperson Ted Wetmore. “It gives you peace of mind. You can either enjoy your music on the device — or you can fling it at anyone who looks at you funny. With a little practice, you can take down a foe at 50 feet.”

However, there is a dark side to the new iPod. As iPod ninja sales boom, some blogs are already reporting a “death grip” problem even worse than the one that plagued iPhone 4. If you hold iPod ninja in a certain way, you may require immediate medical care.

“There is a learning curve,” admits Mr. Berry, “and Apple does recommend the use of a protective case.” [Scoopertino]

Credit card, photo ID and criminal background check required for purchase.  This could have the potential to be a real killer product….

[via iPhoneSavior]

CES won’t be around for another few months or so, but there’s already big iPhone news emerging from Las Vegas. Wahoo Fitness, start-up created with the purpose of transforming the iPhone into a serious fitness tool, is introducing their two big “Fisica” products at Interbike, the annual bicycle trade show taking place in the desert for the next few days.

The value of a dollar just keeps on climbing.

Though Apple CEO Steve Jobs is still paid only a buck a year for his Cupertino duties, the latest Forbes list of the top 400 wealthiest Americans pegs his worth at $6.1 billion… up a billion dollars from last year.

As usual, most of that wealth does not come from Apple, but rather Jobs’ position as the primary shareholder of the Walt Disney Corporation: his stocks there are valued at roughly $4.4 billion. That fact alone never ceases to amaze me. From a pure income and valuation perspective, Apple is basically Jobs’ hobby. None the less, Apple’s stock has continued to soar over the last year, closing at a record high of $287.55 per share just this Wednesday.

All in all, Jobs managed to claw his way up a spot in the rankings from last year, now coming in as the 42nd richest American and 136th richest man in the world. Rather embarrassingly, however, Jobs was overtaken by several ranks in this year’s list by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. Here’s hoping Steve smacks that sweaty, frog-eyed little upstart down the rankings a few dozen spots in the years to come.

Are you wondering how a company like Nokia can, on the one hand, claim that it is selling more smartphones every day than the iPhone, and yet be kicking its CEOout the door like a mangy dog? These pie charts ought to make everything crystal clear.

Advisory firm Canaccord Genuity told investors to buy, buy, buy Apple stock on Tuesday, targeting Apple’s price at $356 per share… and to give investors an idea on why they were so excited about Apple’s prospects, they accompanied their note with the following observation: even though Apple only sold 17 million handsets in the first half of 2010, Apple has pulled in 39% of the mobile sector’s profit.

Meanwhile, Nokia, Samsung and LG sold 400 million phones last year — over twenty times as many handsets as Apple sold iPhones — and yet their profit was dwarfed by Apple’s in the same period.

As Canaccord Genuity analyst T. Michael Walkley notes, “[W]where most handset OEMs struggle to post a profit or even 10% operating margins… we estimate Apple boasts roughly 50% gross margin and 30%+ operating margin for its iPhone products.”

No wonder the boards of companies like Nokia are lopping off their key executives’ heads and bowling them out the door.

Last week, Twitter announced a serious overhaul of their website. It might mean diddly to iPhone users though, who usually access Twitter through any one of a growing heap of mobile Twitter apps — all of which are equipped with a vastly superior set of features compared to Twitter’s site (at least, currently).

Now, I’ve always held that selecting a Twitter app is a highly subjective, personal process, kind of like picking out a bicycle saddle — you just sort of squish around on it for a few days and see if it feels right. Personally, I currently tend to favor HootSuite over any other Twitter app, even though I’ve installed, and sometimes use, half a dozen or so others. But one Twitter app has foisted itself to essential status: Twitter’s own official app. And it’s above the rest for one key reason, really.

iPhontography is a revolutionary new art form of images inspired by, shot with, and edited on the iPhone. A series of exhibits, the result of a presentation made in August at the Artistic Photographers of America meeting in San Francisco, will bring together artists and their work at some of Apple’s larger retail stores around the country and the world starting later this month.

The work is curated from art submitted to Pixels at an Exhibition, a website created to showcase images submitted by iPhone users from across the globe. Show curator Knox Bronson and other iPhone artists will attend each exhibit and present information about the Pixels project and talk about techniques and apps used to create the images on display.

The exhibits begin September 27 at the flagship Apple retail store in downtown San Francisco at One Stockton Street, with a reception from 6:00 – 8:00pm.

Additional exhibits are thus far scheduled for Chicago on October 21, and at the New York City Soho Apple store on October 29 – in conjunction with the PhotoPlus International Photography Expo and Conference. Plans for shows in Los Angeles and London are also said to be in the works.

The blog AutoSpies.com captured pictures at the Paris Motor Show of BMW’s new replacement for the old-and-busted rear-seat DVD screens: Apple iPad cradles that rotate, and support both portrait and landscape orientations. No, this isn’t just some concept. It’s the new hotness.

The cradle debuted on the new BMW X3, but will be available for all other model series starting in the Spring.

Popular open-source media player VLC is now available for iPad, thanks to developer Applidium.

Offered gratis, VLC faces some competition from other universal media-playing apps already available for the iPad including paid apps  OPlayer ($2.99) and CineXPlayer ($3.99).

VLC has long been my go-to app for video viewing (can’t remember the last time I even bothered to update Quicktime), nice to know it’s available now for the iPad, too.

Women’s activewear retailer Lole launched a new store design concept with 15 iPads they hope will connect customers and make the store more sticky.

The new concept store called Atelier Lole opened doors recently in one of Montreal’s main shopping drags, St. Denis Street. One of the main portions of the store is set aside for community, with tree stump stools and iPads on a low workbench opposite a wall featuring customer’s travelogue pics.

Described as kind of a “living Facebook,” through an app developed especially for the stores users can also “flip” through photos directly on the iPads located along the Atelier’s social wall.

Always faddish in their production of knock-offs and crap gadgets, the black market electronic shops of the Far East have lately been disgorging a surplus of cases that sandwich in a SIM slot and a cellular radio, thus allowing you to make phone calls on your jailbroken iPod Touch. They’re clever hacks, to be sure, but it appears that Cupertino itself has already thought of just that approach to transforming an iPod Touch into an iPhone… and if Apple can think of it, you can bet that they’ve patented it.

In fact, earlier this year, Apple filed a patent application for an “accessory transceiver” that would bring mobile calling and data to the iPod Touch. You know, just like the Peel 520. Or the tPhone. Or any of the other iTouch-to-iPhone cases we’ve written about since August.

Google Voice apps have had a chaotic history appearing in and then disappearing from the iTunes App Store. The “official” excuse was duplicity of iPhone features, but now it looks like Apple is putting all these excuses aside by allowing, Andrea Amann’s, GV Connect app into the App Store.

At least he was polite, but it’s obviously not customers for whom Steve Jobs has little regard — it’s journalists.

When Long Island University senior Chelsea Kate Isaacs, 22, emailed Jobs Thursday asking why Apple’s PR department wasn’t responding to her questions about about the use of iPads in academic settings, she claimed she wasn’t expecting a response, according to a report at Valleywag.

But she got one, several in fact, and in the end Jobs said, simply, “Please leave us alone.”

Ms. Isaacs should have emailed us about why Apple PR doesn’t respond to questions like hers; there’s a whole staff here with lots of experience in that area.

[Gawker]

Now that Apple has made iBooks available on all iOS devices users can read their purchased eBooks on a number of different devices. But what if you have a couple large RTF, DOC, TXT, or LIT files of your own that you want to view in iBooks you’re out of luck. In this tutorial we’re going to show you how to get digital and convert your documents into eBooks so that you can enjoy reading them on your iPad, iPhone or new iPod Touch.

Ever since Apple CEO Steve Jobs casually mentioned the idea that Apple’s new iPod nano could be used as a wristwatch, well, I’ve wanted one. And so have a lot of people. A nano wristwatch aftermarket has quickly emerged to satisfy demand. But what about Apple?

Cnet’s Gordon Haff wrote a blog post this morning called “Why Apple will do a real iWatch” in which he predicts that Apple will get into the wristwatch business.

I say they won’t, and I’ll tell you why. But first let’s look at Haff’s reasoning.

Dan Bishop of Kara Kustoms has finished work on his incredible series of machined iPhone 4 cases. Made with an anodized finish and available in a panoply of colors, not only will these cases ruggedly reinforce your glass-backed iPhone 4 and help it survive a shattering fall, but the unique design helps you keep your hands from coming in direct contact with the antenna without actually covering up the sides. Each case costs $39, and they are now available to order with free shipping anywhere in the states.