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Apple.com

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56

Tuaw

  • Pro Australian photogs have a go at the iPhone camera 6 September, 2010, 2:00 pm
    There's no question that photography with the iPhone is really catching on. Now, with iPhone 4, the camera quality is up, and people seem to be using it more and more for pictures they want to keep instead of casual snaps. A pro group of photographers, the ACMP (Australian Commercial and Media Photographers) ran a competition soliciting photos taken with an iPhone. The requirement was that the entrants use the Hipstamatic app to acquire the images, and that no further image manipulation could be applied. Hipstamatic emulates old styles of analog photography, along with classic lens emulations and different film characteristics. The app is US $1.99. The results are interesting and artistic. I've put a couple of the winners in a gallery, and I've provided a link so that you can see all the entries. The grand prize winner of the competition, Andrew Evans from Sydney, received an iPad. Thanks to Gavin Blue for letting us know about the contest. Gavin was also a winner. Gallery: ACMP Photo CompetitionPro Australian photogs have a go at the iPhone camera originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 06 Sep 2010 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • Why I'm not excited about the new Apple TV 3 September, 2010, 5:30 pm
    I'll admit it. I'll buy almost anything Apple makes. I was going to hold out on the iPad, but after reading more about it, I wound up in line the first day it was for sale. As they say, resistance is futile. That's not the case with the Apple TV. When Apple brings a product out, I expect a small revolution. Some exciting new concept, or new and unique feature. With the Apple TV, it's certainly lower in price, but instead of revolutionizing the idea of a set-top box, the new unit actually takes features away from the now discarded Apple TV 'classic'. First, there is the loss of actually owning a movie or a TV show. When the VCR first appeared in the 70s, the idea of owning a movie was quite unique. Before VHS or Betamax you went to a theater, paid your couple of dollars, or watched the oldies on TV loaded with commercials. Second, the Apple TV requires an HDMI connection -- its HDMI port means you need an HDMI hookup or nothing. I understand the reasons for going with that standard, but I'm still holding on to an older AV receiver, and my 'classic' Apple TV works just fine with that.Continue reading Why I'm not excited about the new Apple TVWhy I'm not excited about the new Apple TV originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • iTunes 101: Using the Album Art widget 3 September, 2010, 8:00 am
    Here's a cool new feature in iTunes 10 that we haven't mentioned yet: when listening to any song in your library, you can double click on the album art window in the lower left hand corner to detach it from the main window and see it full size. That's not new -- you could get a closer look at the art in previous versions of iTunes. But what is new is that when you mouse over that detached art, you now get full QuickTime-style controls for your tracks. You can then minimize the main window (using those weirdly-aligned buttons, of course), and then just control the music directly from that square widget (which can also be resized any way you want). Pretty neat, and somewhat hard to find if you don't usually zoom in to see your album art full size. This replicates some (not all) of the functionality provided by CoverSutra and a number of other "iTunes controllers," so it looks like Apple has (yet again) decided to make a popular function in third-party apps part of the official thing.iTunes 101: Using the Album Art widget originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • TUAW Review: Twitter for iPad 3 September, 2010, 7:00 am
    As soon as the official Twitter app for iPad (free) hit the App Store, you could tell that it was going to be a controversial app. Immediately, the twitterverse was filled with people either commenting on how much they loved the innovative and unique user interface, and others ranting about how much they despised the UI. One of our bloggers said that she enjoyed the new features of Twitter for iPad so much that she "wanted to have a cigarette after I was done, and I don't even smoke." On the other hand, TJ Luoma reported in his first look at the Twitter app that "... judging by most of the comments of people that I follow on Twitter, the initial reaction is definitely one of 'too busy' and 'over designed.' " Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I have been a fan of Twittelator for iPad ($4.99) since it appeared in the App Store, so I wasn't expecting that Twitter would make an impact on my tweeting. Wrong. After a few hours of using the free Twitter app on my iPad, I'm pretty well smitten with it. The rest of this post describes how the Twitter app works to let you do more tweeting and less fumbling around trying to figure out how to do something. Be sure to take a look at the gallery below for screenshots of Twitter for iPad in action. Gallery: Twitter for iPadContinue reading TUAW Review: Twitter for iPadTUAW Review: Twitter for iPad originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • Five dislikes plus five likes equals iTunes 10 2 September, 2010, 11:00 am
    Before I get rolling here, let me warn you -- I'm not a frequent user of iTunes. I don't spend all of my time purchasing new music, videos, and movies, nor do I obsess over creating playlists to share with my friends. However, I do use it often enough that after firing up iTunes 10 last night, I immediately found some things I wasn't fond of and some other items I quickly loved. Am I going to lose sleep over the things I don't like? Nope. But I hope that it gets TUAW readers thinking about what they like and dislike about the new iteration of iTunes. Dislikes: What's with the close / minimize / maximize buttons being vertical in the top "toolbar" of iTunes 10 (see example at right)? As I stated to my cohorts here at TUAW this morning, doesn't that fly in the face of 10 years of experience with OS X and even violate Apple's Human Interface Guidlines? Fortunately, there's relief. A tweet from @rudyrichter showed how to fix this -- pop into Terminal and type or paste in "defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1", press Return, relaunch iTunes and life is back to normal. I miss the colorful icons in the sidebar. There used to be color in the icons for Library, Store, and Shared Items. What happened to the color? It looks so ... drab over there now. If anyone can come up with a defaults command to bring the colors back, I'll give 'em a nickel. Hey, they also removed color icons in the preferences. I want my color back! Everything is so grey and boring. Perhaps that's Apple's way of saying "focus on the content we're trying to sell you, not the application." Continue reading Five dislikes plus five likes equals iTunes 10Five dislikes plus five likes equals iTunes 10 originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • TUAW TV Live: The Apple event aftershow with Steve and Mike 1 September, 2010, 2:55 pm
    Wow! We have a lot to talk about today on TUAW TV Live. There's so much to talk about that two of us are going to be chatting it up on the show this afternoon. Mike Rose is joining me to talk about the new iPods, the updates to iTunes, Ping, and that new Apple TV. As usual, you can join in on the discussion -- we'd love to see how you feel about the new product lineup for fall. Now it's time to get on with the show! To join in from your Mac or PC, just go to the next page by clicking the link at the bottom of this post, and you'll find a live stream viewer and a chat tool. The chat tool allows you to join in on the fun by asking questions or making comments. If you're driving somewhere and would like to watch TUAW TV Live while you're stuck in traffic, please don't -- keep your eyes on the road! However, if someone else is doing the driving, you can watch the show on your iPhone by downloading the free Ustream Viewing Application. iPad users haven't been forgotten, either, as you can tune in to TUAW TV Live on your iPad! That link will send you to a non-Flash page, although you won't have access to our chat tool.Continue reading TUAW TV Live: The Apple event aftershow with Steve and MikeTUAW TV Live: The Apple event aftershow with Steve and Mike originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 16:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • Game Center coming in iOS 4.1, Epic Games working on Project Sword 1 September, 2010, 1:00 pm
    Steve Jobs just showed off some screenshots and functionality for Game Center, which will be officially releasing with iOS 4.1 next week. The official app will provide social networking features for App Store games, including friends lists, achievements, "auto matching" (the rest of the world calls that matchmaking), challenges and a host of other cross-platform features for gamers on Apple's mobile platform. Jobs also invited a few gentlemen from Epic Games onstage to show off "Project Sword," a gorgeous title running in the Unreal Engine inside iOS. It's an action RPG title that's coming soon with full Game Center integration, and the demo featured practically instant multiplayer fighting from a third-person perspective, as well as first-person world exploration. Seriously, this thing looked great, but you don't have to take my word for it -- Epic has already uploaded the very same environment shown in the demo as a free app, so go download and check it out now. It does require an iPhone 3GS or better, but man that's a good looking game. Game Center is finally coming out with iOS 4.1, which Jobs said would be available next week. Looking forward to it!Game Center coming in iOS 4.1, Epic Games working on Project Sword originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 01 Sep 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • TUAW Review and Giveaway: A couple of products for green Apples 30 August, 2010, 1:00 pm
    Just about every time you turn around, there's another ad for a green product. Cleaners, cars, food products, you name it. Well, the trend was bound to make it to the Apple market, and we're happy to say that we have two products to tell you about. Even better, you have a chance to win one of these green products. The first item is the Agent18 EcoShield+ case for iPhone 4 (US$34.95). What's "green" about a case for the iPhone? Well, when it's totally made from recycled plastic (one recycled bottle in every case!), that's a pretty good start. I do have to wonder about the plastic cover / hanger and box insert that are used for packaging the EcoShield+ case. If you're going to make a green case, why not develop packaging that's not going to end up needed to be recycled? The EcoShield+ case (below) has some great points that are lacking on many other iPhone 4 cases. First, there is protection for all open ports. There's a sliding door for covering the headphone port as well as a swiveling cover for the Dock Connector. That cover is the second unique feature of the EcoShield+, as it also serves as a stand to prop up the iPhone in either portrait or landscape mode. Although the EcoShield+ isn't as stylish as some other cases we've reviewed, it offers good protection, has a nice soft touch feel, and the built-in stand is definitely a plus. This case isn't available for sale yet, but we're going to be giving one away to a TUAW reader. Check the rest of this post for details.Continue reading TUAW Review and Giveaway: A couple of products for green ApplesTUAW Review and Giveaway: A couple of products for green Apples originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • TUAW Tips: Designing covers for the iBookstore 30 August, 2010, 8:00 am
    For budding novelists, one of the most exciting things about Apple's iBookstore is the chance to self-publish their writing and have it potentially available to the 100 million people that own iOS 4 devices. A novel is a daunting task, and once the writing is done, the hard part is over ... kinda. There are still two things you need to do: get your book on the iBookstore and make sure it has a compelling cover. We've told you before how to go about self-publishing on the iBookstore, but one thing that many writers are left pondering is what to do about the cover for their novel. Cristina Lopo, owner of the London-based graphic design studio Loop Box, gave me some advice when we met at a book reading a few weeks ago. "The old saying is 'Don't judge a book by its cover,' but unfortunately, books are judged by their covers -- at least at first, and especially on the iBookstore. The cover is what is going to get people to click on your book to learn more about it when they are scrolling through a list of 25 books on a tiny iPhone screen." Click "Read More" for more tips on cover design for the iBookstore.Continue reading TUAW Tips: Designing covers for the iBookstoreTUAW Tips: Designing covers for the iBookstore originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
  • TUAW's Daily App: No, Human 30 August, 2010, 6:00 am
    No, Human is an intriguing little morsel of gameplay for both the iPhone and the iPad. The clever premise is that humans are planning to go out and explore the Universe, and the Universe, in turn, has decided that's not a good idea. So, you're actually playing against humans, lobbing fiery meteors out into space to destroy human-created objects like space stations and rockets. The gameplay is simple but fun, and the graphics are minimalistic but quite stylish. There are 50 levels to go through, and while they're pretty quick plays, there is a high score board element. The developer also promises that there are more levels on the way. (Knowing humans as I do, I'm guessing that they won't get the lesson.) All in all, No, Human is an inventive title that's worth the US$1.99 on the App Store. It's not really innovative in any specific way, but as a whole package, it's a pleasure to play through and figure out.TUAW's Daily App: No, Human originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Mon, 30 Aug 2010 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds. Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
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50

GigaOM

  • iTunes in the Cloud and Why This Scares Me 7 September, 2010, 11:00 am
    Apple’s recent media event solidified what we all knew was coming: Rentals and non-local storage is the future of our digital content. Ask any teenager if they’d rather watch TV or YouTube and they’ll answer Google’s on-demand free service full of people doing stuff on video is their preferred entertainment. Give that teen an iPhone or iPad and YouTube is where they’ll go first. It’s appealing to have content that’s not stored locally streamed instantly and Apple/Google aren’t the only companies leading this initiative. GA_googleFillSlot("TheAppleBlog_Left_Middle_300x250"); Right now, most of the content you own is stored locally on our Macs or iOS devices. This content includes apps, books, videos, music and documents. The cutting edge techies have embraced Gmail, Google Docs and cloud services like DropBox and Box.net. The only thing keeping you from storing movies in the cloud and viewing those on your iPad is Internet speed. What if I told you the copy of Finding Nemo you bought from iTunes can be streamed instantly to any Apple device no matter where you were in the world — a café, driving down the interstate or in the London tube? It’s almost here. Our future is wireless at speeds that meet what we have in our homes. This may be a decade away and if carriers make wireless data truly unlimited this will be a reality, but it scares me for a few very obvious reasons that simply can’t be fixed by technology. Corporate Control of Our Data Control by a single entity is my main fear. Cloud storage isn’t democratized and it isn’t open. Currently, when you buy something, it’s stored, owned and managed by the company you purchased it from. Apple has maintained DRM in its iTunes Store since 2003. I’ve authorized files that I bought the day Apple’s store opened and they still play on any one of my Apple devices. If I lose that song, Apple can allow me to re-download it after some back and forth with its support team. My apps, movies, music and music videos are locked to its devices. The same goes with Amazon’s Kindle platform. Buying a book from Amazon’s Kindle Store means that file is locked to its software and hardware. If it ever abandons Kindle, your books are useless. There’s no reason for either of these companies to do this, but people who bought music from stores that are now defunct are in a bit of a pickle with the content. An example of a failed system is Microsoft’s PlaysForSure DRM. A number of music stores and MP3 players adopted this, but most of those stores and hardware companies have shifted directions or gone out of business. The hundreds you spent on music may be playable right now but no one can guarantee you’ll be able to in 10 years. Let’s simply alter my argument a bit and change the delivery of this content from DRMed files stored on your hard drive to music stored on the cloud operated by Napster or Real’s Rhapsody Store. If those services go away, the music you “own” is no longer playable…ever. Going all in on a service that is cloud based is risky business. The same goes for content stored on Google Docs, Flickr, MobileMe and YouTube. If you’re not keeping hard copies of your content uploaded to these services, you’re a fool. Hard drives are cheap. Store your content and don’t rely on these web services that have been around for less than a few years to store your content forever. Personally, I use Backupify.com to keep secondary backups of all my data from Gmail, Google Docs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and WordPress. I download copies from Backupify once a month to my hard drive. Remember when Amazon ironically pulled copies of 1984 from Kindle devices without warning? Cloud based companies can do this. They might give you a warning but no one can come into your house and take a book. Unless what you’re storing is illegal or your hard drives are compromised, the data in your home and on your computer is safe for years as long as you’re careful. Keeping a backup of your computers on an external drive at home and a duplicate at your office is good enough and I suggest anyone do that no matter how insignificant the data is. If you store photos, music and documents on your computer, back it up off-site — no exceptions. Apple is playing it safe with its new Apple TV. Allowing us to stream rented movies and TV shows is a good way to get us comfortable with streaming content. You can still buy the same content on your iOS and Mac devices and stream those to the Apple TV but, if you’re on a TV browsing iTunes, the only option is to rent the content. It won’t be like this forever. Soon, streaming will be offered as a more convenient and less expensive option for us. Apple and other companies will present products where you can hit play on anything you’ve ever purchased and it starts instantly as long as you have an Internet connection from your phone, tablet and computer. Invite a friend to borrow your copy of Braveheart and they can watch it as well. This convenience will not be without problems. In Apple We Trust Apple is on top right now. Its mobile devices are envied by every CE company, but this won’t be the reality forever. I own 300 iOS apps, 1,200 movies, 200 music videos and over 18,000 songs where over 5,000 of those songs were purchased in iTunes. I’ve invested thousands of dollars in Apple. Thanks to limited kindness of the music industry, my music is now DRM free in iTunes Plus format so it can be played on any other MP3 player, but the other content is stuck. When Apple’s devices aren’t the best and someone else takes over, I’ll be stuck to the Apple ecosystem. The same can be said for Mac software when you make the switch to Windows 7 (for whatever reason) but it’s a reality we all need to deal with. When you want to switch to a cooler and better mobile platform, will you be okay with giving up the thousands spent on DRMed content that can’t be played on the new device? If Apple remains the dominant leader for the next 20 years, can we trust it to be kind to its loyal fans who trust when we buy a movie stored exclusively on Apple’s cloud to always be playable and never be pulled, removed or changed? Will my copy of Braveheart always work no matter where I am or will I be greeted with an error when I’m in China with, “this movie is not licensed to be played in your region.” Where the hard copy stored on my iPad would play just fine no matter where I was? We’ll see. Apple is not a movie studio so its hands are tied when it comes to content and how that content plays just as much as any other company when it comes to music and movies. The White Album Argument Maybe I’m not seeing the big picture. There’s another side to this where if you ask anyone over the age of 50 how many times they’ve bought The Beatles’ White Album and they won’t be able to keep count. There was record, 8-track, tape, cassette and maybe even mini-disk. They probably also bought it in CD form the first, second and third time it was remastered. You may have bought this album eight times since it was first available in record stores. Perhaps that’s how it’s going to be when it comes to our digital music. Perhaps, you’ll buy the same content over and over again well into your old age because there would have been a few music services between 2000 and 2050. On my 70th birthday, I may lament to my grandkids that I spent thousands on music in iTunes and they’ll laugh because music is like $20 a song now and I shouldn’t be complaining that it cost 99 cents back then. Planning for the Future Whatever happens next, consumers are in control. We decide with our cold hard cash. We already voted that digital is the future since iTunes sales will pass the sales of physical CDs very soon, but if we go all-in on cloud content trusting in the corporations storing and delivering it, the world may shift immensely and when you take a vacation to the mountains with your family where there’s limited cell reception, the music, movies and important work documents will all be inaccessible stored in some server that’s unreachable and you’ll have to laugh because this was the future we all wanted that corporations gave us. Maybe I’m skeptical, but the best content is physical (bookshelf) with a digital version (non-DRM) and a backup of that digital copy off-site. If your house burns down, you’ll still have the book or CD digitally but the world we’re entering into is all digital with single corporations holding the DRM keys and now they want to store the content as well. It’s unclear what’s going to happen next. Let’s hope we know what we’re doing. Related GigaOM Pro Research: How to Manage Access to Digital Content
  • Best Desktop iTunes Controller: iTunes 7 September, 2010, 7:57 am
    There are many Mac applications which will sit on your desktop, displaying cover art and other information about your currently-playing song in iTunes, and give some controls such as play/pause, next, etc. But since the recent release of iTunes 10, one application does this far better than any other, and that’s iTunes itself. Apple must have realized just how many people use a third-party iTunes controller, because it has added the functionality directly into the latest version of its media application. The feature is built on top of what was just an album art viewer back in iTunes 9.2.1, adding Quicktime X-esque controls. Launching the Controller Getting the controller which is built into iTunes 10 running is simple enough; in the bottom left of the iTunes window is an icon which looks like a triangle inside a square. Click that to slide up the Now Playing pane, which shows the album art of any currently playing media. Now all you have to do is click the Now Playing pane once. A new pop-out window will appear: simply a square containing the album art you just clicked on. This window can be resized to as big as you like. It might not look anything special, but it’s a different story when you hover over this image while the song is playing. The name and artist of the song are displayed in the small title bar, and all the iTunes controls you could think of are shown near the bottom in the same way as when you watch a video in iTunes or QuickTime X. Why this is better than a third-party application For a start, using iTunes itself negates the need to run another application, which often takes up a space on your Dock, and uses considerably more CPU. Another reason I prefer to do it this way now is the fact that the pop-out window has standard window controls, so you can minimize or close the window as you would any other. All the dedicated controller applications I’ve seen require quitting the software to hide the album art. While some may argue that this method isn’t as feature-rich as it could be — other applications offer the ability to rate songs — I find that once I’ve started iTunes playing, I leave it be until I want to pause or skip a song. I don’t rate my songs, and I certainly don’t need to be able to turn shuffle on or off once I’ve started the music. There’s also no control over the window’s appearance other than its size, but again, that’s something that doesn’t concern me too much. The only niggle I have is that the window doesn’t like sitting in the very bottom corner of the desktop. When you click on it or when the song changes, it automatically floats up above the height of the Dock for some reason. Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, so post in the comments the application you favor to control your iTunes content consumption. Related GigaOM Pro Research: With Ping, Apple Builds a Social Network Inside a Walled Garden
  • TechUniversity Freebie: Publishing a Podcast 3 September, 2010, 3:00 pm
    Today we’ve got a full-length TechUniversity freebie for you! Embedded below is a 19 minute screencast on publishing a podcast with GarageBand and some other tools. We’ll walk you through how to export your podcast and get it published! If you enjoy this screencast, please check out all the other great screencasts at TechUniversity!
  • Apple Previews iOS 4.2, Still Syncs Like iPhone OS 1.0 3 September, 2010, 1:00 pm
    Reiterating much of the iOS presentation by Steve Jobs, a new web page adds a few details to what iOS 4.2 brings in November. As Steve Jobs said, “it’s all about iPad,” and that’s a shame because it should be about the cloud. iOS 4.2′s major features include multitasking, folders, wireless printing, and AirPlay, the latter a renaming and expansion of AirTunes to include video. Of course, multitasking requires apps written for iOS 4, and can have the same drawbacks as on other iOS devices: performance and battery life. Folders are fine, and the enhancements to Mail, a unified inbox, threads, and opening attachments in third-party apps, will be great. GA_googleFillSlot("TheAppleBlog_Left_Middle_300x250"); Minor improvements include Game Center, more language support for keyboards and dictionaries, accessibility enhancements, and improved security and remote management for enterprise. There’s also a welcome minor enhancement to Safari, allowing searching to “find and highlight specific words and phrases on large web pages.” So why do I feel underwhelmed? It’s because we now live in a world where millions of people have multiple iOS devices, and yet with few exceptions we still have to plug and unplug each device into a computer to synchronize data and programs. Subscribers to MobileMe can add, delete, and make changes to e-mail, contacts, bookmarks, calendars—but inexplicably not to do items—those changes populating to every device without even pressing a button, let alone using a cable. For everything else, you have to plug one device after another into a computer, sync them, then maybe sync some of them again to get all changes to all devices. Even worse, some actions, like deleting podcasts, music, and video, have to be undertaken on the computer, lest they reappear on devices. Outside of iTunes, an ever-increasing number of applications require synchronization themselves, each of which has to be done over a local wireless network one at time. While there have been alleged Magic 8-ball like e-mails from Steve Jobs promising wireless syncing  “someday,” some of us hoped that day would be in November. Are we really going to have to wait until the middle of 2011 before Apple addresses such a fundamental issue as modern synchronization of devices? If so, one wonders where Google and Android will be on that feature then. Related GigaOM Pro Research: Can Anyone Compete With the iPad?
  • Apple Doubles iPad Production, May Triple Soon 3 September, 2010, 11:01 am
    The Apple iPad recently became available to ship within 24 hours for the first time since it began production in April of this year. It looks like that might be due to a significant ramp up in production on the part of Apple’s manufacturing partners, not a dwindling of interest. GA_googleFillSlot("TheAppleBlog_Left_Middle_300x250"); According to Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty, the number of iPads being built every month recently went from 1 million to 2 million units per month. Not only that, but Apple has reportedly indicated to its suppliers that it would like to see that number increase further still, to 3 million per month. That additional million is targeted for Q4 2010, and is probably planned in anticipation of strong holiday sales. Early sales for the iPad have exceeded everyone’s estimates, including Apple’s own. Tim Cook said in July during the company’s Q3 conference call that increasing production capability to deal with the atypically strong early adopted numbers was a top priority for Cupertino. Clearly Apple is also bullish about its chances against emerging competitors, like the recently introduced Samsung Galaxy Tab, which recent rumors suggest may even exceed the iPad in terms of price. If true, its not a promising sign for the Android crop, admittedly. The numbers are good news for another group besides Apple itself: iOS developers. More devices on the market means more potential App Store customers. It also means we’ll hopefully see some of the fence-sitters who’ve yet to release true iPad or universal versions of their popular apps (looking at you, Facebook) finally do so. Apple may also be gearing up for the release of the iPad in other markets where it isn’t yet available, including the lucrative mainland Chinese one. This is the most likely scenario, since it’s hard to believe the holidays alone would account for a threefold increase in demand for a product that’s been on the market for half a year. Related GigaOM Pro Research: Can Anyone Compete With the iPad?
  • iTunes 10 Interface: Where Apple Went Wrong 3 September, 2010, 10:00 am
    Almost every year, Apple releases a new version of iTunes with some new feature. Last year it was Home Sharing. This year, it’s Ping. Apple also usually tweaks the UI, many times creating a backlash. This year Apple has outdone itself. Vertical Buttons I’ll start with the most obvious UI tweak: the close/minimize/maximize buttons. I understand why Apple made this change: it saves space. When you hit the maximize button in iTunes, you get the mini-player, which has vertical close/min/max buttons in order to save space. Apple used the same reasoning with the main iTunes window. There is a way you can disable it. Fire up Terminal and enter the following code: GA_googleFillSlot("TheAppleBlog_Left_Middle_300x250"); defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -boolean YES That will put the buttons back horizontally. You can change it back if you want to by changing the “YES” to a “NO”. I don’t mind this change that much. I usually use the keyboard shortcuts to close or minimize iTunes anyway, and the vertical buttons do save space (if only a little). Monochrome Sidebar This one really irks me: Apple completely did away with color in the icons in the sidebar. To show you why this was such a dumb idea, I’m going to quote from Apple’s own Human Interface Guidelines: Making each toolbar icon distinct helps the user associate it with its purpose and locate it quickly. Variations in shape, color, and image all help to differentiate one toolbar icon from another. Making all the sidebar icons monochrome makes it harder to identify them, especially since they’re all similar in size. Back in iTunes 9, you could easily tell where the iTunes Store was because its icon was green. In iTunes 10, you have to distinguish between the shapes, which is harder for us to do and takes more time. There are currently a couple of hacks available to address this. Show/Hide in the Sidebar Another change made to the sidebar is getting rid of the triangle buttons on the left of list headings. These have been replaced by “Show/Hide” buttons that only appear when you’re hovering over a list name. Album List View Album list view is basically list view, but with albums on the side. A version of this existed in iTunes 9, but Apple tweaked the functionality of it as well as added a new toolbar button for it. The New Icon The new iTunes icon isn’t bad, it’s just not terribly interesting. I think Apple should have used a color other than blue, because, as Josh pointed out, there’s already a surplus of blue icons in OS X (Finder, Mail, Safari, iChat, QuickTime, etc). Purple would’ve worked nicely. Apple chose to change the icon as the former “CD” icon has become less and less relevant in the age of digital downloads. But Apple could have taken it a step further. It could have changed the name as well, seeing as iTunes has long been for more than just music. My current favorite is “iMedia,” but that’s a little too broad; media can be images, as well. Also, “iMedia” doesn’t sound as good as “iTunes.” I think Apple will eventually change the name (and the icon to reflect that). If you’d like tou can change the icon yourself: Open your Applications folder in Finder and highlight iTunes. Right click on it and select “Show Package Contents”. Go to Content -> Resources and replace the iTunes.icns with a new one. There’s already some great replacement icons coming out, like this one from Mattias Ekstrom. Of course, you can also just use the old iTunes icon. Conclusion It seems to me like most of the changes in iTunes are changes for change’s sake; just to make it look newer. The only really new feature in iTunes is Ping, and that’s basically just a link in the sidebar. Do you love or hate iTunes 10? What other new names might work for it? Tell us in the comments. Related GigaOM Pro Research: With Ping, Apple Builds a Social Network Inside a Walled Garden
  • Ping: A Social Network Inside a Walled Garden 3 September, 2010, 9:00 am
    Whether by design or accident, Ping's lack of integration with other social networks, or even with the web itself, is now its most compelling feature — at least from a strategic perspective. It's essentially an e-commerce platform for music disguised as a social network.
  • iPod touch Is Close, But Still No Contract-Free iPhone 3 September, 2010, 8:04 am
    Apple found a way to cram a large number of iPhone 4 features in the new iPod touch: retina display, two cameras with FaceTime support, and the A4 chip. So it's just like a contract-free iPhone 4 without voice right? Wrong on at least three counts.
  • Quick Tip: Make iTunes 10 Window Controls Horizontal 2 September, 2010, 2:34 pm
    iTunes 10 was released yesterday and brought with it a few UI overhauls. The loss of color in the sidebar for one, along with the change of orientation of the window controls at the top of the window. There currently isn’t a way to bring back the colored icons in the sidebar, but there sure is a way to get the window controls back to their former positions. It’s simple enough, and requires just one line to be entered into Terminal. Quit iTunes, wait for it to close completely, then fire up Terminal, which can be found under Applications → Utilities. Either type or paste the following code into the Terminal window and hit Return: defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1 Now when you reopen iTunes, the ‘traffic light’ controls should be back along the top of the window, side-by-side. It does a lot for keeping the look of OS X consistent across applications. Of course, perhaps this is Apple’s way of telling us that in the next version of the Mac operating system, all the windows are going to be laid out like this. Should you ever want to restore iTunes 10′s default setting, and put the controls back down the side, enter this code into Terminal (again with iTunes closed): defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -0 Now we have a fix for the window controls, all we need is a setting to bring back the color in the sidebar. If you know a way, shout out in the comments!
  • Caught in the Wake of Apple’s Press Events 2 September, 2010, 1:00 pm
    After each Apple press event, there is a visible track of turbulence online, in the technology market and on Wall Street that some cannot help but get caught within. There is no denying that when Apple decides to head in a particular direction, it will lead. And all that is left for the rest of us to decide is whether or not we will follow or get out-of-the-way. When you continually take such wide strides in innovation, intentional or unintentional, there will always be casualties. In 2010 alone, Apple held no less than five major media events that in some way affected the way markets were defined and revenues were earned for a significant number of companies. Dead or Dying Already This year we have witnessed the fall of HP’s Slate that Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer introduced at CES, a massive shift in consumer purchasing behavior in the netbook market and media moguls struggle with the hard decision between propping up traditional print or adopting newer digital technologies. When it comes to development platforms, Steve was more than willing to speak out and share his thoughts on the subject, while evidence continues to mount that he was right about Adobe Flash on mobile devices. With just one of two new lenses, two consumer markets were affected: the digital snapshot camera and the handheld HD video recorder. I loved my Flip Mino HD video recorder (past tense). With HD video recording capabilities, on-device editing, and the ability to share instantly online, the justification for a separate Flip video recording device just did not make sense any more. September 2010 Media Event There is a reason the entire tech industry pauses a moment to see what Steve will say next at these major press events. Many are holding their breath to see if their bottom line will be affected in either a positive or a negative manner. Every time Steve talks, things change. And yesterday’s event was no different. In many ways, the latest media event from Apple will shake more things up than any previous media event yet this year. Multi-Room Entertainment Systems: AirPlay has some pretty big names backing it including Denon, Marantz, B&W, JBL and iHome. Simply having the ability to stream music simultaneously to multiple rooms could add some serious competition to products like the Sonos Music System, Bose SoundLink, Yamaha MusicCast and Klipsch LightSpeaker to name a few. Apple is potentially cannibalizing its own product by competing with the presently available AirTunes capability of the AirportExpress. Print Apps in App Store: So what will happen to the sale of printing apps now that Apple will support printing on the iPad? Until we see exactly how printing will work, it is hard to say at this point. But rest assured that consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for specialized printing abilities will be at a minimum. Currently there are more than a dozen apps for the iPad that can print. Many of these are currently priced anywhere from $4.99 to $9.99. These price points will likely drop, as will support for some of the apps simply because the market will shift in this category. HDR Apps in App Store: Just as the 5.0 MP camera that Apple introduced with the iPhone 4 has likely cut into the sales of casual point and shoot digital cameras, updating the on board camera app supplied with each iPhone will undoubtedly affect the sales of HDR Apps. This includes wonderful Apps like HDR Camera, TrueHDR and Pro HDR. I have tried these apps and I must say that the when the camera is held steady, the results are stunning. Roku and Boxee media Devices: While the new Apple TV is not revolutionary, the price point sure is. At the magical price point of just $99, it will be hard for any household with iPads, iPhones, iPods and iMacs to refuse. Especially when this device will make it easier than ever to view all of the memories captured, organized and edited with each of those iPads, iPhones, iPods and iMacs. If Apple would ever decide to make MobileMe free to Apple customers again, this one time cost would be easy to justify. Devices like Roku and Boxee now have some serious competition to contend with. Everyone wants to lead, but just how far out in front is Apple? Can any company, including Google, have as dramatic of an impact across the entire technology industry, each and every time they decide to have their CEO invite the media over for a chat? In fact, it may be a good idea to check with Steve before you make any sudden moves in the tech industry. So how has Apple affected your life in 2010?
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34

ZDNet

  • iOS 4.1 on iPhone 3G - better than 4.0 (but not as good as 3) 8 September, 2010, 1:06 am
    iOS 4.0 proved to be so disappointing, performance wise, on the iPhone 3G that many users downgraded to version 3. But at last week’s iPod event Steve Jobs gave iPhone 3G users hope, promising that iOS 4.1 (due this week) would address performance issues on the two-generation old iPhone.Lifehacker informally compared iOS 4.0 to the golden master version of iOS 4.1 on an iPhone 3G, here’s the video:The (admittedly unscientific) video demonstrates the results:Messages: iOS 4.1 Wins (By a Little)Maps: iOS 4.1 Wins (By a Lot)Photos: iOS 4.1 Wins (Just Barely)Safari: iOS 4.1 Wins (Just Barely)While iOS 4.1 marks a definite improvement over iOS 4.0 on the iPhone 3G, Lifehacker concluded that “we’re still not sure it’s a big enough improvement that 3G owners will want to ditch iOS 3.” It appears that iOS 4 was tailor made for the iPhone 4, and without much consideration for older handsets.iPhone 3x users are faced with a big decision: are the new features enough to justify slower performance?iPhone 3G owners: will you upgrade to 4.1?
  • iOS 4.1 coming this week; here's a feature list 7 September, 2010, 7:06 am
    At last week’s iPod event Apple chief Steve Jobs told the assembled media that he would release iOS 4.1 “next week.” Since most Americans took yesterday off to celebrate Labor Day, that leaves next for days for the big release – I’m guessing Friday.If you can’t wait that long, 9 to 5 Mac has posted a complete iOS 4.1 walkthrough which describes all of the features in the new release.HDR photography was the one new feature in iOS 4.1 that caught everyone completely off-guard because it was withheld from the three previous betas released to developers. Ironically, I wrote about Pro HDR last week, a $1.99 app that makes taking High Dynamic Range photos easy.Other new features in iOS 4.1 include:Bug Fixes (proximity, Bluetooth, iPhone 3G performance)Enhanced Bluetooth audio playbackGame CenterHD Video UploadingFaceTime in Phone FavoritesE-Mail Based FaceTimeLandscape Camera and FaceTime Call Controls$.99 TV Show Rentals in iTunesPing support in iTunesDisable Spell CheckFaceTime and Multiplayer/Game Center RestrictionsAT&T Carrier settings shift to version 8.0Over the air Nike + SubmissionsJump over to 9 to 5 Mac for the complete descriptions and screenshots.What 4.1 feature are you most looking forward to?
  • iOS 4.1 coming this week; here's a feature lis 7 September, 2010, 6:08 am
    At last week’s iPod event Apple chief Steve Jobs told the assembled media that he would release iOS 4.1 “next week.” Since most Americans took yesterday off to celebrate Labor Day, that leaves next for days for the big release – I’m guessing Friday.If you can’t wait that long, 9 to 5 Mac has posted a complete iOS 4.1 walkthrough which describes all of the features in the new release.HDR photography was the one new feature in iOS 4.1 that caught everyone completely off-guard because it was withheld from the three previous betas released to developers. Ironically, I wrote about Pro HDR last week, a $1.99 app that makes taking High Dynamic Range photos easy.Other new features in iOS 4.1 include:Bug Fixes (proximity, Bluetooth, iPhone 3G performance)Enhanced Bluetooth audio playbackGame CenterHD Video UploadingFaceTime in Phone FavoritesE-Mail Based FaceTimeLandscape Camera and FaceTime Call Controls$.99 TV Show Rentals in iTunesPing support in iTunesDisable Spell CheckFaceTime and Multiplayer/Game Center RestrictionsAT&T Carrier settings shift to version 8.0Over the air Nike + SubmissionsJump over to 9 to 5 Mac for the complete descriptions and screenshots.What 4.1 feature are you most looking forward to?
  • PowerPage Podcast Episode 143 3 September, 2010, 6:06 pm
    Episode 143 of the PowerPage Podcast is now available. You can either download it from the iTunes Store or directly (23.4 MB, MP3).Panel: Jason O’Grady and Rob ParkerTopics: We give our first impressions of the new iPods, Apple TV and iTunes 10 announced at Apple’s September 1 event and we play “What’s on your Mac.”Here’s what’s on our Macs this week:JasonWD My Passport Essential SE (750GB - $100, 1TB - $118 on Amazon) â Compact and high-capacity external USB hard drive, perfect for backups.Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset (The Rogue $99) â Hands down the best Bluetooth headset on the market. This version fixes three issues I’ve had with the presious Jawbones: it has an industry-standard microUSB port, an unbreakable earloop and better power and answer buttons.Otterbox cases for the iPhone (Commuter $34.95, Defender $49.95) â The best and most protective cases for the iPhone 4 available in a range of protection.Surf Watch ($9.99, App Store) â Notifies you via push notification when when and wave conditions for your favorite buoys match your ideal surf criteria.RobKeynote Goodies by Jumsoft (free) â A series of photos, stills, objects and templates for Keynote.Follow us on Twitter@jasonogrady@parkerdigitalSubscribe to the PowerPage Podcast in iTunes or add the Podcast RSS feed to your RSS client. Our theme music is generously provided by The Tragically Hip their new release “We Are The Same” is available on iTunes.
  • PowerPage Podcast Episode 143 (updated) 3 September, 2010, 8:06 am
    Episode 143 of the PowerPage Podcast is now available. You can either download it from the iTunes Store or directly (23.4 MB, MP3).Panel: Jason O’Grady and Rob ParkerTopics: We give our first impressions of the new iPods, Apple TV and iTunes 10 announced at Apple’s September 1 event and we play "What’s on your Mac."Here’s what’s on our Macs this week:JasonWD My Passport Essential SE (750GB - $100, 1TB - $118 on Amazon) â Compact and high-capacity external USB hard drive, perfect for backups.Jawbone Icon Bluetooth headset (The Rogue $99) â Hands down the best Bluetooth headset on the market. This version fixes three issues I’ve had with the presious Jawbones: it has an industry-standard microUSB port, an unbreakable earloop and better power and answer buttons.Otterbox cases for the iPhone (Commuter $34.95, Defender $49.95) â The best and most protective cases for the iPhone 4 available in a range of protection.Surf Watch ($9.99, App Store) â Notifies you via push notification when when and wave conditions for your favorite buoys match your ideal surf criteria.RobKeynote Goodies by Jumsoft (free) â A series of photos, stills, objects and templates for Keynote.Follow us on Twitter@jasonogrady@parkerdigitalSubscribe to the PowerPage Podcast in iTunes or add the Podcast RSS feed to your RSS client. Our theme music is generously provided by The Tragically Hip their new release “We Are The Same” is available on iTunes. Update: Broken Otterbox and Jumsoft links fixed.
  • Some Spam with your Ping? 3 September, 2010, 8:06 am
    Say what you will about the new social features that Apple baked into its venerable iTunes app, most would agree that it has a lot of potential.Ping’s suffering from some growing pains right now. For starters, there’s the FaceBook flap. On launch day it had FB integration, but Ping’s API access was blocked after Apple refused to agree to FaceBook’s “onerous terms.”Then theres Ping’s troubled “Invite Your Friends By Email” feature which hasn’t worked for me, ever (I tried it multiple times on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.)The invite feature must be working for some people, because I’m getting occasional invitations.The third — and most troubling — problem for Ping is the onslaught of Spam. The Guardian’s Josh Halliday notes that Ping has succumbed to spammers, “showing a curse of social media â even inside proprietorial walls.”If you launch iTunes and click on Ping in the left pane, or click on “Recent activity” under the Ping area in the right navigation, you’re greeted by a “wall” page of sorts that displays recent activity of people you follow. Look at mine:Because I follow Coldplay I see all of the comments that people make under the band’s posts. And the first one is Spam (URL obfuscated). If you click on “Show more comments” many more “free iPhone” links are in the comments.It looks like iTunes’ 160 million credit card holders “was a siren call to spammers” indeed. For now, start reporting those links and let’s hope that Apple nips this problem in the bud.
  • iTunes 10 bug: wacky Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in error (updated 2x) 2 September, 2010, 12:05 pm
    Like any self-respecting Machead, I rushed to download the iTunes 10 release last night so that I could play with its new social networking feature, Ping. I downloaded it directly from the iTunes Web site and skipped the the Software Update version.To my dismay I can’t launch the software and am getting this bizarre error message.“iTunes quit unexpectedly while using the Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in”“Reopen” doesn’t work (same error) and I’m left high and dry without my iTunes library.The bizarre thing is that I’ve never installed the “Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in” nor can I understand why iTunes 10 would need to access a WebCam plug-in.A little searching revealed that others are suffering from the same bug. This thread on the Apple Discussion boards has 32 replies and 3 pages (at press time). An Apple Employee (Roy B) is asking afflicted customers to email him their crash logs — which I did.Are you getting the same error?Update: iTunes 10 is now running for me in Safe Mode (no extensions). Hold down Command and Option when launching the app.Update2: Removing “Sonix SN9C201 WebCam.component” from HDD/Library/QuickTime folder allows iTunes 10 to launch and run normally for me. Some in the Apple thread have reported that removing ”DesktopVideoOut.component” from the same folder fixed the problem for them. The Sonix SN9C201 WebCam.component may have been installed by Skype (which I use regularly) but this hasn’t been confirmed.
  • iTunes 10 bug: wacky Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in error (updated) 2 September, 2010, 10:06 am
    Like any self-respecting Machead, I rushed to download the iTunes 10 release last night so that I could play with its new social networking feature, Ping. I downloaded it directly from the iTunes Web site and skipped the the Software Update version.To my dismay I can’t launch the software and am getting this bizarre error message.“iTunes quit unexpectedly while using the Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in”Re-open doesn’t work (same error) and I’m left high and dry without my iTunes library.The bizarre thing is that I’ve never installed the “Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in” nor can I understand why iTunes 10 would need to access a WebCam plug-in.A little searching revealed that others are suffering from the same bug. This thread on the Apple Discussion boards has 32 replies and 3 pages (at press time). An Apple Employee (Roy B) is asking afflicted customers to email him their crash logs — which I did.Are you getting the same error? I’ll update the story when there’s a resolution.Update: iTunes 10 is now running for me in Safe Mode (no extension). Simply hold down Command and Option when launching the app.
  • iTunes 10 bug: wacky Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in error 2 September, 2010, 9:06 am
    Like any self-respecting Machead, I rushed to download the iTunes 10 release last night so that I could play with its new social networking feature, Ping. I downloaded it directly from the iTunes Web site and skipped the the Software Update version.To my dismay I can’t launch the software and am getting this bizarre error message.“iTunes quit unexpectedly while using the Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in”Re-open doesn’t work (same error) and I’m left high and dry without my iTunes library.The bizarre thing is that I’ve never installed the “Sonix SN9C201 WebCam plug-in” nor can I understand why iTunes 10 would need to access a WebCam plug-in.A little searching revealed that others are suffering from the same bug. This thread on the Apple Discussion boards has 32 replies and 3 pages (at press time). An Apple Employee (Roy B) is asking afflicted customers to email him their crash logs — which I did.Are you getting the same error? I’ll update the story when there’s a resolution.
  • Report card: Apple's video stream (updated) 2 September, 2010, 9:06 am
    For the first time in a long time Apple yesterday streamed live video from its iPod announcement in San Francisco. Apple announced a new raft of iPods, a second-generation Apple TV and demo’d iOS 4.1 and 4.2 but an interesting rumor surfaced about the video stream itself.The rumor was that Apple decided to stream the event to test its new new data center in Maiden, North Carolina. The $1 billion data center is one of the largest ever built.Update: Twitter user @WildCowboy confirms that Akamai provided the video stream of yesterday’s event — not Apple.The video stream worked fine for me in Safari on my i7 MacBook Pro with decent performance and minimal artifacting and lag, but when I switched to my iPhone 4 (running on AT&T 3G, outside Philadelphia) things went immediately down hill. While I was able to watch video for about 1-2 minutes, the connection was choppy and the video would slip out of sync. Then the video dropped completely and I received this message (below)“Due to your current limited bandwidth connection this stream is audio only.”But even the audio-only stream frequently dropped and I had long gaps of silence punctuated by occassional blips of random audio. It picked up again when Thom Yorke was into his second song close to the end of the event.On the Mac I give Apple’s video stream a B+On the iPhone I give it a D-What about you? How would you grade Apple’s video stream?
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22

MacNn

  • iPod touch surpasses 42m units sold, 37% of iOS devices 6 September, 2010, 7:55 pm
    Apple's total iPod touch sales, including all generations, have been estimated to reach 42 million units, accounting for 37.7 percent of iOS devices. The estimate, provided by research firm Asymco, has been derived from the total number of iOS devices compared with iPhone and iPad sales. An April estimate suggested the Touch represented 41 percent of iOS devices. The drop has been attributed to the ongoing impact of iPad sales and the iPhone 4 launch.... IPod Touch - Peripherals - Hardware - Apple iPod - Shopping
  • Nike+ GPS gives Nike+iPod experience without adapters 6 September, 2010, 6:35 pm
    Nike in a Labor Day twist posted a special stand-alone version of its Nike+iPod app. Nike+ GPS ($2, App Store) uses an Apple device's built-in accelerometer and location finding, preferably an iPhone's GPS but also through iPod touch players, to track the pace and distance without needing the Nike+iPod shoe adapter. iPhone owners can get a visual map of the route tied into Google Maps.... Nike+ - Apple iPod - IPod Nano - Shopping - Consumer Electronics
  • Briefly: Amsterdam SuperMeet, Bento outs Project Manager 6 September, 2010, 6:00 pm
    FileMaker has announced the launch of a new template set for Bento designed to help users track personal projects and manage time. Bento 3 Project Manager features two templates, Project Dashboard and Time Sheets, which include a variety of forms for organizing different information. Through Bento, users can also link data with iCal tasks and events, further helping users to organize project timelines. The new templates are compatible with iPad and iPhone versions of Bento, allowing users to synchronize data between a computer and mobile device. Bento 3 Project Manag... Bento - Apple - IPhone - FileMaker - Project management
  • Review: ViewSonic NexTV 6 September, 2010, 4:10 pm
    The VMP75 NexTv is ViewSonic's latest foray into living rooms for what's quickly becoming a crowded field of media hubs. This network media player can serve up content from a variety of local and online sources and even has its own web browser. But is it a strong balance, or trying to do too much at once? And how does it stack up against an Apple TV? Our NexTV review hopes to provide an answer.... Apple - Protocols - HTTP - MacNN - IPhone
  • First Windows Phone 7 ad portrays OS as revolution leader 6 September, 2010, 12:15 pm
    Microsoft today posted its first ever ad for Windows Phone 7 (viewable below) in the first sign of the final run-up to launch. Shown before a Secret Cinema event in London to screen Lawrence of Arabia, the minute-long spot ties into the classic movie and images WP7 as leading a "revolution" in phones. The commercial itself reveals little and shows a generic WP7 device coming out of the desert heat.... Windows Mobile - Windows Phone 7 - Operating system - Microsoft Windows - Video
  • Samsung NX100 spotted in press shot 6 September, 2010, 11:45 am
    Samsung's previously alluded to NX100 camera has been confirmed by forum posts showing official press photos. The camera will be its smallest mirrorless interchangeable and slightly thinner than the Panasonic GF1 in return for being slightly wider. Also in sight at DPReview is a new 20-50mm f3.5-5.6 lens that would give it just 2.5X zoom, but a shorter footprint when the lens is attached.... Apple - IPhone - IPod Touch - Pets - Dogs
  • RIM may have bought DataViz, locked out non-BlackBerry apps 6 September, 2010, 11:00 am
    A leak suggests RIM may have quietly snapped up DataViz in a move that could shake up productivity apps on mobile devices. Multiple sources for CrackBerry say the BlackBerry maker acquired DataViz for $50 million. Although not publicly acknowledged by RIM, the LinkedIn profiles of multiple DataViz staff members have recently shown job switches to the Canadian company.... DataViz - BlackBerry - Handhelds - Smartphones - Apple
  • Nuu Mini-key transforms iPhone 4 into QWERTY slider 6 September, 2010, 10:15 am
    Young accessory maker Nuu at IFA showed a new iPhone 4 add-on that promises a fully integrated keyboard. The Mini-key melds a protective case for the Apple phone itself with a slide-out, tilting QWERTY keyboard to reassure those jumping from phones with physical keyboards. The design takes advantage of iOS 4's built-in support for keyboards, although whether it uses Bluetooth or the Dock Connector isn't known.... IPhone - Smartphone - Handhelds - Apple - QWERTY
  • Eminem producers win victory in iTunes royalty case 6 September, 2010, 9:35 am
    Eminem producers FBT Productions have scored a significant upset in a case against Universal Music involving iTunes royalties. A court of appeals has rejected an earlier court decision, which suggested that song and ringtone sales at iTunes could be treated in the same way as CD sales, generating only 12 percent in revenue for the music's creators. If carried through, the ruling will instead see Universal sublabel Aftermath pay FBT 50 percent of its related intake, under a contract provision that treats iTunes sales as reusing masters.... Universal Music Group - Record label - United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - Production company - United States courts of appeals
  • Orange, T-Mobile to share UK 2G networks 6 September, 2010, 9:05 am
    The newly united British divisions of Orange and T-Mobile today said they would switch on free roaming across each other's 2G networks on October 5. The optional service will let customers on either network use GSM voice and EDGE data should they be in an area where their regular service is weak or missing. It should improve T-Mobile's coverage in Northern and Western England and other parts of the UK.... Orange - Everything Everywhere - T-Mobile - United States - Counties
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12

Macrumors

  • Extended iTunes Store Song Samples Held Up Over Licensing Issues 7 September, 2010, 10:25 pm
    Just two days before Apple's media event last week, CNET reported that Apple was set to extend the length of song samples in the iTunes Store from 30 seconds to as much as 90 seconds, offering consumers g...
  • iPod Nano and Touch In Stores Tomorrow, Early Reviews 7 September, 2010, 9:45 pm
    We've heard that the new iPod nano and iPod Touch will be arriving in Apple retail stores tomorrow, and the first reviews are starting to filter in. The iPod nano is the most dramatically different device in Apple's lineup. ...
  • Apple Releases Safari 5.0.2 7 September, 2010, 9:12 pm
    Apple released a small software update for Safari bringing it up to version 5.0.2. The update contains "improvements to compatibility and security" and includes the following:- Fixes an issue that could prevent users from submitting...
  • Fourth-Generation iPod Shuffle Teardown Unsurprisingly Reveals Tiny Components 7 September, 2010, 4:26 pm
    Earlier today, we posted some photos of the new fourth-generation iPod shuffle, showing off the unboxing and some comparisons to other iPod models. Unsurprisingly, iFixit is close behind with a detailed teardown of the diminuti...
  • QuickBooks 2011 for Mac to Bring Multi-User Options, Time-Saving Features, Enhanced Customization 7 September, 2010, 4:03 pm
    Intuit today announced the forthcoming release of QuickBooks 2011 for Mac, the company's financial management software for small businesses. The new version, set to ship on September 27th, brings a numbe...
  • Apple Confirms Game Center Compatibility: Yes on 2nd-Generation iPod Touch, No on iPhone 3G 7 September, 2010, 2:08 pm
    Apple has confirmed on its Game Center overview page that the social gaming network will be available for the iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, and second-, third-, and fourth-generation iPod touch models when the feature debuts in iOS 4.1 later this wee...
  • 'Macworld Mobile' Coming to Mobile World Congress 2011 7 September, 2010, 12:14 pm
    The GSM Association today announced that it has partnered with IDG World Expo, organizers of Macworld Expo, to offer a new "Macworld Mobile" event as part of the Mobile World Congress 2011 to be held in Barcelona next February. The event wil...
  • Fourth-Generation iPod Shuffle Unboxing and Comparison Photos 7 September, 2010, 11:44 am
    iLounge has received a new fourth-generation iPod shuffle and posted a photo gallery documenting the unboxing as well as showing a comparison to the similar second-generation iPod shuffle and other iPod models. After mo...
  • Official AppShopper App Now Available 7 September, 2010, 9:47 am
    Our sister site AppShopper.com launched its official AppShopper app this morning. AppShopper is an app-tracking website that provides a running list of all the latest changes in the App Store. This includes finding new apps, updates and price chang...
  • iHome and Others to Offer AirPlay Peripherals 7 September, 2010, 6:09 am
    TUAW notes that iHome is the first company to officially announce an AirPlay-compatible product last week. Details are scarce, but iHome posted the above product photo described as "iHome AirPlay wireless speaker system with rechargeable bat...
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7

SlashDot

  • iPhone 3G Fix Via IOS 4.1 Coming Wednesday 7 September, 2010, 6:45 pm
    CWmike writes "Along with new functionality included with iOS 4.1 — ranging from 'high dynamic range' (HDR) photography that produces more detail in over- and under-exposed areas, to the launch of Apple's Game Center multi-player online network — CEO Steve Jobs promises that the update will fix some of the bugs in iOS 4.0 that users have been complaining about since that version's June 21 debut. Owners of older iPhones, especially 2008's iPhone 3G, are hoping that iOS 4.1 solves the slow-down problems many have experienced since they upgraded this summer. Jobs listed 'iPhone 3G performance bugs' last week when he ticked off the fixes to expect in iOS 4.1. According to Lifehacker.com, which got its hands on an unauthorized version of iOS 4.1, the update outperformed iOS 4.0 in informal tests, although the speed improvements were sometimes minor." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • Australia To Fight iPod Use By Pedestrians 6 September, 2010, 8:20 pm
    Kilrah_il writes "In recent years the number of people killed on roads in New South Wales, Australia has dropped, but strangely enough, the number of pedestrians killed has risen. Some think it's because of the use of iPods and other music players making people not attentive to road dangers (the so-called 'iPod Zombie Trance'). Based on this (unproven) assumption, the Pedestrian Council has started a campaign in an effort to educate the people, but apparently it isn't enough. Now, some are pushing for the government to enact laws to help eradicate the problem. 'The government is quite happy to legislate that people can lose two demerit points for having music up too loud in their cars, but is apparently unconcerned that listening devices now appear to have become lethal pieces of entertainment,' [Harold Scruby of the Pedestrian Council of Australia] said. 'They should legislate appropriate penalties for people acting so carelessly towards their own welfare and that of others. ... Manufacturers should be made to [warn] consumers of the risks they run.'" Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • Spammers Attack Apple's Ping Social Network 4 September, 2010, 6:29 am
    An anonymous reader writes "Scammers and spammers have deluged the new Ping musical social network, created by Apple and built into the new version of iTunes. Sophos researchers have found that Ping is being overrun by scams and spam messages. 'Apple seems to have anticipated a certain degree of malfeasance, as profile pictures that you upload will not appear until approved by Apple. They are likely filtering for other offensive content as well, so they probably have means in place they could use to stop the spam.' It's ironic that the most common scams on Ping right now revolve around Apple's own iPhone." The Sophos blog post adds that Apple is doing their best to clamp down on the spam, manually deleting many of the offending messages for now. Reader Tootech adds that Facebook integration was quickly disabled, possibly because of blocked API access. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • Flawed iTunes Stands Out Among Apple's Products 3 September, 2010, 9:05 am
    waderoush writes "On top of all the other features that it has crammed into iTunes, Apple this week added Ping, a Facebook-like social network for music discovery. It's all part of the company's plan to dominate the world of consumer media, but Xconomy argues that this time, Apple may have gone a bridge too far. iTunes, nearing its tenth birthday, started out merely as a program for ripping CDs, and has grown increasingly creaky and impenetrable as Apple has added more and more cruft, the article argues. The company won't have a stable base for its new media empire until it rebuilds iTunes from scratch — perhaps along the lines suggested by its other new product this week, the revamped Apple TV." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • Ping Could Be Apple's Social Networking Backdoor? 2 September, 2010, 7:37 am
    rsmiller510 writes "Could Apple's announcement about Ping, a music-based social network be Apple's social networking trojan horse? Facebook might want to be concerned." Of course it is. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • Apple Announces New iPods, iTunes 10, Social Network, AppleTV 1 September, 2010, 11:00 am
    Steve Jobs gave his iPod keynote this morning. He started with iOS 4.1 and Game Center which will be coming out next week. iOS 4.2 will add printing to the iPad and will be out in November. The new iPod Shuffle has buttons again, and costs $49. The new iPod Nano has a tiny multi-touch screen, and an FM radio, and starts at $149. The new (thinner) Touch has the iPhone 4 screen, an A4 chip, and FaceTime over WiFi, starting at $229 for 8GB. They all ship next week. iTunes 10 looks the same, but adds a social network called "Ping," which basically looks like Last.fm integrated, and should be out today. AppleTV is updating: 1/4th the size, no purchases — only rentals. 99 cents for TV rentals (ABC & Fox), Netflix on Demand built in, and for $99. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • New QuickTime Flaw Bypasses ASLR, DEP 30 August, 2010, 9:07 pm
    Trailrunner7 writes "A Spanish security researcher has discovered a new vulnerability in Apple's QuickTime software that can be used to bypass both ASLR and DEP on current versions of Windows and give an attacker control of a remote PC. The flaw apparently results from a parameter from an older version of QuickTime that was left in the code by mistake. It was discovered by Ruben Santamarta of Wintercore, who said the vulnerability can be exploited remotely via a malicious Web site. On a machine running Internet Explorer on Windows 7, Vista or XP with QuickTime 7.x or 6.x installed, the problem can be exploited by using a heap-spraying technique. In his explanation of the details of the vulnerability and the exploit for it, Santamarta said he believes the parameter at the heart of the problem simply was not cleared out of older versions of the QuickTime code. 'The QuickTime plugin is widely installed and exploitable through IE; ASLR and DEP are not effective in this case and we will likely see this in the wild,' said HD Moore, founder of the Metasploit Project." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • iPhone App In App Store Limbo Open Sourced 29 August, 2010, 10:33 pm
    recoiledsnake writes "The author of iPhone prototyping tool Briefs has decided to open source it after the App store submission has been in limbo for over three months. The app had got into trouble for what Apple believes is being able to run interpreted code, though the author denies it, saying all the compiling happens on the Mac. While Rob stays civil, his co-worker blasts Apple for not even rejecting the app. Three months is nothing compared to Google Voice for the iPhone though, which is still being studied further by Apple after more than a year." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • The iPad As a Shape-Recognition System 29 August, 2010, 7:42 am
    An anonymous reader writes with an interesting use for the iPad: "The guys over at the Volumique blog have a different idea as to how to tackle apps for Apple's devices. They aren't just thinking about a digital activity on such devices, they are experimenting with using physical objects through Apple's multi-touch screens. Imagine being able to buy the playing pieces for a board game, but then loading up an app on your iPad for the actual board. The pieces would be recognized when placed on the iPad's screen, it would even recognize which direction they were facing. This may sound like an impossible feat unless you use a much more expensive device like Microsoft Surface, but Bertrand Duplat and Etienne Mineur at Volumique already have it working." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
  • Paul Allen Files Patent Suit Against Apple, Google, Yahoo, Others 27 August, 2010, 2:05 pm
    mewshi_nya writes "A firm run by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen filed suit alleging 11 technology companies are violating patents developed at a Silicon Valley lab that Allen financed more than a decade ago. Named in the lawsuit: Apple, Google, AOL, eBay, Facebook, Netflix, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, Yahoo and Google's YouTube subsidiary. The suit doesn't name Microsoft, Amazon.com or other tech companies in Seattle where Allen is based, and it doesn't estimate a damage amount. The suit lists violations of four patents (PDF) for technology that appear to be key components of the operations of the companies — and that of e-commerce and Internet search companies in general." Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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6

Just Another IPhone Blog

  • OhLife: a great e-mail based journaling service 7 September, 2010, 11:50 am
    "it's bigger than you, and you are not me" OhLife isn’t specific to the iPhone, but it’s certainly a great, free way to keep a journal (or diary, if you’re macho enough to say that out loud) on most any device that can write an e-mail (oh, like an iPhone). A big thanks to Shawn Blanc for the heads-up. The idea behind OhLife is simple: every day at 8 PM you’ll receive an e-mail asking you about your day. You can respond with  one picture and as much text as you’d like, after which point your entry will show up on your account on OhLife.com. You can ignore as many days as you like, but I do suggest you keep the OhLife e-mails around so that you can add details to a specific date when you finally have the time. I’ve started to use this site instead of waiting on Momento’s long, long, long awaited update because it’s just so much easier to use a web app than an iPhone-specific one. I also dig how the service sends you a random entry along with every e-mail, so you can get sneak peeks at what you’ve written from right within your mail client. © Ragart for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: iphone diary, iphone journal Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • Recommended: 15 Great iPhone Dog Photos at Mashable 7 September, 2010, 10:46 am
    I’m a big (BIG!) dog lover.  So combine some stunning photos of man’s best friend and throw in the fact that they were all taken with iPhones, and you definitely had me at Hello. Mashable once again has a great set of iPhone photos featured – this time 15 incredible iPhone dog photographs.  I had several favorites among the set, but I think the pure joy on the dog’s face in this one makes it my overall Number 1.  Check out all the great shots here: http://bit.ly/akPO7k © PatrickJ for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: great iPhone photos Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • Epic Win for iPhone: sneak peek at the second update on Facebook 7 September, 2010, 10:41 am
    notice the new 'beaten' tab? I no longer use the Epic Win task manager ($2.99 – review here) , but I still find it hilarious and charming and really hope that it blossoms into a full-blown EPIC WIN. In the meantime, however, I’ll be keeping an eye out for Twitter announcements like this one, which tease upcoming features and post pictures of them on Facebook. © Ragart for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • Default Case customer service worth much more than $0.01 7 September, 2010, 10:31 am
    I’m still waiting on my triple order of $0.01 Default Cases for the iPhone 3GS, but here’s a link to an interesting story from Larry Greenberg in the meantime. He had spoken out about a few issues over Twitter and was promptly contacted by the CEO via telephone. Wow. I really hope the cases are as good as the support! © Ragart for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: iPhone Cases Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • Review: 1951 — World War One for iPhone 7 September, 2010, 6:50 am
    1951 — World War One is a top-down dogfight shooter set in an alternate history in which the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in 1914 failed due to a freak gun jam, preventing the onset of the Great War until 1951. Without the technological growth and global destabilization of two world wars, the world of 1951 still resembles that of the early 20th century. Biplanes rule the skies while rock and roll rules the ground. Adolf Hitler is just some guy. The game is played from a top-down perspective. You are flying a biplane high above Europe, trading bullets with increasing numbers of ever more vicious enemy pilots. Tilting the phone left and right turns your plane in tight circles, while your speed is controlled with a throttle slider along the left side of the screen. Also available are maneuvers like loops, Immelmanns, and special powers depending on your character class. (...)Read the rest of Review: 1951 — World War One for iPhone (629 words) © Ray for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: 1951 world war one, dogfighting games, iPhone app reviews, iPhone Games Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • iPhone Apps inspired these fingernails 6 September, 2010, 1:25 pm
    Having seen this pic on the BENM.AT blog today we had to repost the link. This Apple fangirl has expressed her love by choosing to paint an app on each nail. I agree that this is cute, but I can’t quite seem to identify all ten. Can you? Of course I recognize Facebook, Calendar, Maps, iPod, Calculator, Phone and Photos, but the other three? Via BENM.AT. © aliciabankhofer for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: apps, art, fangirl, fingernails, iPhone Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • Wi-Fi Sync 2.0 will feature 3G over-the-air sync [Jailbreak] 6 September, 2010, 12:09 pm
    Developer Greg Hughes recently tweeted about his 20,000th sale of the excellent wireless syncing app, which is pretty kickass, when you consider that it retails for $4.99 on the Cydia Store. There’s also more good news to report: not only is Wi-Fi Sync 2.0 development going well, but over-the-air syncing is coming with it, which means that you won’t even need to log the iPhone onto the same network as your iTunes computer to complete a sync. You can find out more about the coming update on Greg’s Tumblr page. I won’t get into all the details here, but I’m definitely looking forward to the beta in a few weeks! © Ragart for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: iphone sync, wi-fi sync Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • Apple Opens New Retail Store in Barcelona 6 September, 2010, 9:10 am
    We don’t usually cover news about new Apple store openings – but this newest one in Barcelona grabbed my attention today.  When I lived in the UK I traveled to Barcelona, Madrid, and to various Spanish cities for work quite frequently. Barcelona has always struck me as one of the most design-conscious, artistic, wildly creative cities I’ve ever seen.  From its restaurants and bars to Gaudi architecture, it was just bursting with creativity. So an Apple store seems a perfect fit.  The thing I love most about the store opening video is that Apple have been respectful to Catalan culture, and have all signs / posters in the store in the Catalan language, rather than just using Spanish.  Very nice move.  I agree with the journalist’s statement towards the end of the clip: Apple in Barcelona will be truly a love story. Via: RazorianFly © PatrickJ for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Apple Retail stores Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • Weathericon updated for iOS 4 [Jailbreak] 6 September, 2010, 9:00 am
    Weathericon –the MobileSubstrate extension that lets you paint over most any weather app’s icon with a live forecast — has been updated to work with iOS 4. Best of all, it’s still a free download on Cydia or Rock. I’ve got it set to paint over the excellent Weathereye app and show the temperature (with windchill) right within the icon. I used to like using a badge to convey the temperature more clearly, but I think the icon painting looks a heck of a lot cleaner. © Ragart for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: iphone weather, jailbreak extension Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
  • iPhone at Work – at Sterling Cooper 6 September, 2010, 8:37 am
    I’m a huge fan of AMC’s Mad Men series – so I’m glad to see one of their leading men knows how to choose the best smartphone. Via: parislemon © PatrickJ for Just Another iPhone Blog, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh
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2

LATimesBlog

  • Inflight Internet provider Row 44 raises $37 million for international expansion 7 September, 2010, 2:55 pm
    Row 44 Inc., which provides broadband Internet connection for airline passengers, will announce Wednesday that it has raised $37 million from investors, enabling the company to offer the service on international flights. With the funds, Row 44 plans to expand its coverage area to other regions of the world by leasing more satellite transponders. The company, whose only customer is Southwest Airlines, hopes to persuade international carriers to outfit their planes with Row 44 equipment that gives passengers Wi-Fi connection while flying. The Westlake Village firm, named after the last row on a DC-10 commercial jet, uses a network of telecommunications satellites belonging to Hughes Network Systems. By tapping into Hughes' network, Row 44 has the potential capability to provide worldwide Internet access. Row 44 says it has a leg up on some of its rivals, whose service is available only over areas where there are ground-based antennas and cannot provide coverage for flights across an ocean. Among airlines, demand is surging for Wi-Fi connection. Nearly all of the major U.S. carriers now have the service. In January, Row 44 landed a contract with Dallas-based Southwest to provide Wi-Fi on the airline’s fleet of more than 540 planes. Row 44 is slated to have the entire fleet wired by 2013. The funding will help with "our aggressive network build-out, enabling us to support airline customers across the globe,” Row 44 Chief Executive John Guidon said in a statement. --W.J. Hennigan Photo credit: Lawrence K. Ho / Los Angeles Times
  • Apple event: A litany of fail? 6 September, 2010, 1:18 pm
      Love, in digital times, means never having to say you're sorry. All you have to do is fix it in the next release. That seemed to be the approach Apple took last week during its new products showcase, where most of the announcements were revamps of its existing lineup. Some of the new features were clearly new, such as a touch screen on the iPod nano and the Game Center for multi-player games on iPhone and iPod Touch. But a handful of changes could be viewed as a mea culpa of getting it wrong in the earlier iterations. Four potentially fall into the latter category. They are: Apple TV -- Introduced four years ago, Apple TV "has never been a huge hit," admitted Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs during his presentation in San Francisco. Its price tag, $229, was "too expensive," Jobs said. So the latest version of Apple TV is $99. In addition, it's rental only. That meant no more bulky hard drive storing purchased content. iPod Shuffle -- In its last version, the Shuffle shrank to the size of a thin USB stick. But it had no navigation buttons, which Jobs admitted "people clearly miss." The new Shuffle reverts back to the old design, a square lapel pin the size of a postage stamp with a big control button. iPod Nano -- Apple took out the video camera on the nano, and put it on the larger iPod Touch. The problem with the nano's camera was that the device was so small (hence, nano) and the lens was placed in such a way that people's fingers often ended up covering a portion of the image. Oops. iOS 4.1 -- The first new feature that Jobs highlighted for Apple's latest mobile operating system? Bug fixes. "Proximity sensor bugs, Bluetooth bugs, iPhone 3G performance bugs, all the bugs that we get mails on," Jobs said. "We think we've nailed a lot of them. And we think you're going to be pretty happy with it." 'Nuff said. Can we please move on now? -- Alex Pham
  • Appeals court says UMG too shady on royalties 3 September, 2010, 5:16 pm
    It's bad enough for the major record companies that CD sales are plummeting. Now, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is threatening to make digital downloads less profitable too. A three-judge panel sided with F.B.T. Productions Friday in its dispute with Universal Music Group over Eminem's recordings for UMG's Aftermath label, ruling that F.B.T. was entitled to significantly higher royalties for downloadable tracks and albums sold through Apple's iTunes Store. The panel sent the case back to District Court to determine how much UMG will have to pay in damages. UMG said it would appeal the ruling to the full 9th Circuit, and that the case wouldn't have broader implications because it hinged on the unique provisions of a single contract. Nevertheless, the victory for F.B.T. (if it stands) could embolden other hitmakers to seek higher royalties for digital downloads -- something many artists have demanded but few have obtained. F.B.T., a team of producers that discovered and wrote songs for Eminem, sued Universal in 2006, accusing the company's Aftermath label of failing to pay sufficient royalties for the titles sold through iTunes. Its attorneys contended that the 99-cent downloads weren't "records sold ... through normal retail channels," which would carry a royalty of 12% to 20%. Instead, they argued that the sales stemmed from licensing deals that Aftermath struck on Eminem's behalf, on which the royalties should have been 50% of the net receipts. A District Court jury agreed with Universal that iTunes sales were just like CD sales, and the judge awarded Universal more than $2.4 million in legal fees. But the appeals panel held ... ... that the District Court should have granted F.B.T.'s claims without a trial because its contracts with Aftermath put the iTunes "unambiguously" in the licensing category. For consumers, iTunes is simply the digital equivalent of the CD racks at BestBuy or Amoeba Records. The major labels have treated it that way, too. But Richard Busch, an attorney for F.B.T., said the difference is that there is an incremental cost to each CD that record companies sell to retailers like BestBuy. There are no such costs when labels license a recording to Apple so that it can distribute copies from its servers. The royalties on physical sales were lower than on licensing deals because the costs were higher. How big a financial blow the ruling could be to UMG is hard to tell. The company struck a deal directly with Eminem a few years after signing with F.B.T., and the two sides disagree over which of Eminem's recordings for Aftermath are covered by the contracts with F.B.T. The ruling's reach isn't clear, either. Two people familiar with the matter said that, unlike the F.B.T. deals, most artists' contracts with the major labels specify that downloads receive the same royalties as physical sales. Still, Fred Goldring, a music industry strategist and former music lawyer, said the major record companies have been clinging to contract provisions from the world of physical products that don't make much sense in the digital world. "At some point, it's going to be 90% digital and 10% physical, and that argument goes away," he said. The major record companies have "done a lot of good for a lot of artists ... getting them to be much bigger than they would ever be on their own," Goldring added. But the change in technology is making it harder for them to dictate terms to artists. Simply put, Goldring said, they're no longer "the gatekeepers between artists and their audience." -- Jon Healey Credit: Frederick M. Brown / Getty Images Healey writes editorials for The Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division.
  • NASA goes into the eye of Hurricane Earl 2 September, 2010, 5:19 pm
    While the tendency for most people is to run from a hurricane, the folks at NASA don’t appear to share that sentiment. NASA sent a robotic plane into the eye of Hurricane Earl, which is moving toward the East Coast. The unmanned spy plane, called the Global Hawk, took photos both outside and inside the hurricane. The plane also collected data from several of its remote-sensing instruments, such as radar, and transmitted it back to NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in the Mojave Desert, where the plane took off Thursday morning. The Global Hawk is one of three aircraft being used by NASA in its Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes experiment. GRIP is a NASA Earth science field experiment that runs from Aug. 15 to Sept. 30 to better understand how tropical storms form and develop into hurricanes. The Global Hawk is typically used in Iraq and Afghanistan for reconnaissance to find insurgents and weapons depots. It takes off and lands without the need of a pilot's hand. Instead, NASA pilots simply design a flight path on a computer and sent it on its way. Built by Northrop Grumman Corp. in its manufacturing facilities in Palmdale, the Global Hawk flies high above the clouds at 60,000 feet -- almost twice as high as commercial airliners. The plane has a flight range of 11,000 nautical miles, or half the circumference of Earth. -- W.J. Hennigan Photo credit: NASA/NOAA
  • Will Ping ding Bing? Apple's music network name rings a bell 2 September, 2010, 4:31 pm
    Ping. Hmm, that sounds familiar. Isn't there another online service with a similar name? Also offered by a huge technology company? That was started in the mid-1970s? Ding ding ding! The Ping-Bing coincidence is surely one of those happenstances of this fast-changing and multifarious world -- one in which many things occur at once and unrelated events often appear connected. But isn't it tempting to think that at some point, in some Apple meeting during which Steve Jobs and company were choosing the name for their new social music service, some smart fellow brought up the major similarity between the working favorite name, Ping, and blood rival Microsoft's upstart search engine, Bing? And that, at that moment, Jobs paused to think, smiled, and said, "All the better!" (Apple declined to comment for this post; Microsoft has not yet responded to a request.) As far as names go, you can't get any closer to Bing than Ping.  For starters, "bing" and "ping" are both onomatopoetic words for short little chime sounds.  And the letters P and B are very close, both phonetically and orthographically. B is just a P with an extra curl on the bottom. And the B and P sounds are the English language's only two "bilabial plosives": speech sounds that use both lips and are created by stopping the airflow when you're speaking. (The M sound is bilabial but you don't have to stop the airflow -- try making the sounds and you'll hear/feel the difference). Even Microsoft likes the similarity of the word "ping": It looks like the Bing team was actually planning a feature called "Bing & Ping," which would help Bing users send search results to friends. Not clear whether Bing will be going forward with this. Whether the naming similarity matters will depend on which service succeeds -- and which fails.  Bing has increased its share of the search market more than 50% since last year. But it's had trouble stealing share from Google, which commands close to 65% of the market to Bing's 13.6%, according to Nielsen's July numbers. Meanwhile, Ping is an upstart in the supersaturated social networking space, and it remains to be seen whether its rather baldly commercial aims will make it a strong Facebook competitor. As far as which one is a better name? Well, Ping has several connotations that match with its underlying service. First, the musicality of the word itself, and second, the sense of connecting over a network that comes from the word's other, more technical meaning. Doesn't seem like "Bing" has much to do with searching, but I could be wrong. Still, if Ping manages to become bigger than Bing, it will be a memorable zinger in the long battle between Apple and Microsoft. -- David SarnoImage: A mash-up of the Bing and Ping logos. Credit: David Sarno / Los Angeles Times
  • HP outbids Dell to pay $2.4 billion for 3Par 2 September, 2010, 2:18 pm
    Computer maker Dell Inc. withdrew Thursday from the three-week bidding war over tiny data-storage company 3Par Inc., which quickly accepted the offer of $33 a share from Dell rival Hewlett-Packard Co. HP's final bid -- which values the Fremont, Calif., company at $2.4 billion -- came early Thursday. Dell wasted little time responding: An hour later, it threw in the towel.With barely $200 million in annual sales, losses in each of its three years as a public company and a stock price stuck below $10 a share, 3Par seemed an unlikely prize. But each bidder saw its operations as a way to help provide less-expensive data storage and to build up the cloud computing business, which gives customers software, data storage and other services over the Internet.3Par also has $104 million in cash and short-term investments, which will fall into HP's balance sheet. For HP, the premium was apparently worth it.  The company has endured falling prices for personal computers -- though it remains the world's leading PC manufacturer -- and was looking to branch out in a technology world that increasingly relies on fast, Internet-based services. "It looks like an extremely expensive acquisition," said Aaron Rakers, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus & Co.  "But at the end of that day, neither HP nor Dell had products in this category, and it fits."3Par's revenue grew slightly, to $203 million, in the most recent four-quarter period, but that barely registers on HP's bottom line: The computer giant takes in close to $30 billion a quarter.  Still, the move was seen as a way for HP to use its marketing muscle to boost sales for the small company, which builds server-level computers that can host the huge amounts of data and heavy-duty online services that power big Internet companies. Dell, also looking to jump into that market, will have to keep looking. “We took a measured approach throughout the process and have decided to end these discussions,” said Dave Johnson, Dell's senior vice president for corporate strategy.Shares of 3Par rose 80 cents, or 2.5%, to $32.88. HP shares rose 47 cents to $39.68, and Dell shares were up 24 cents, or 2% to $12.36. -- David Sarno
  • Apple TV makes some set-top box makers jump 1 September, 2010, 6:03 pm
    Perhaps feeling the heat from the much-hyped Apple TV launch, some of the leaders in the TV set-top box field did not take the news lying down on their couches. Shortly after Apple's morning announcement, Boxee and Roku, two companies that provide systems for bringing Web content to the living room, both released statements saying they fill separate niches from Apple's. Sony held a gathering of its own Wednesday to announce a media-streaming service called Qriocity. The program, which at first will only be available in Europe this fall, lets owners of Sony TVs and gadgets access music and video rentals. Apple also announced a video rental store, where TV episodes cost 99 cents each. Amazon.com, which is reportedly in talks with movie studios to offer a subscription service, boasts a section of 99-cent TV episodes on top of its Video On Demand store. Customers get unlimited access to stream those purchases from Amazon's website or download a copy-protected version to some devices, whereas an iTunes rental expires 48 hours after you start watching it. Roku makes a box, like Apple's, that connects to a TV and interfaces with the Internet. Also like the new Apple TV, Roku supports Netflix subscriptions, a popular service with set-top box owners. So when Forrester analyst James McQuivey describes the Apple TV as "a slightly smarter Roku, that has a significantly better marketing push behind it," as he told the Associated Press, Roku may have cause for concern. The company wasted no time trying to get its message out. "Roku is completely confident that our strategy of offering more features and lower cost than competitors continues to be the right plan," Roku spokesman Brian Jaquet wrote in an unsolicited e-mail. At $99, the new Apple TV is cheaper than previous iterations. But Roku offers a version of its hardware for $60. While Boxee provides free versions of its software that can be installed on the previous Apple TV boxes and on computers, its Boxee Box hardware won't be competing in a price war. The device made a splash at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, but delays and new entrants have slowed the hype machine. Now the $200 box appears to be on track for a November launch. "We all watched the Apple announcement," Boxee Chief Avner Ronen wrote in a blog post shortly after Apple's news conference. "We walked away feeling strongly confident about the space it left for Boxee to compete. We have a different view of what users want in their living rooms." Boxee lets users access full-screen videos from a variety of free, ad-supported sources, including networks' websites and Hulu -- despite best attempts by the latter to block it. With Boxee, you can also download apps to access streaming content and hook into social networking features. Google TV will also create a similar window to the Web in living rooms. On stage, Apple Chief Steve Jobs made what some thought were thinly veiled criticisms of Google's software, saying consumers want neither computers connected to their TV, nor "amateur hour" — perhaps referring to the home videos on YouTube. Unlike others in the Web-TV-software space, Google did not acknowledge Apple's product announcement. — Mark Miliantwitter.com/markmilian  Photo: Apple CEO Steve Jobs holds the new, smaller Apple TV device at an Apple Special Event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
  • Sony unveils three digital book readers for the holidays 1 September, 2010, 5:56 pm
    Sony, which introduced one of the first digital book readers of the current generation in 2006, on Wednesday announced a fresh lineup of three new devices that incorporate touch screens, sleeker design and a higher-contrast grayscale E Ink screen. The three models are upgrades of Sony's current trio of products -- Pocket ($179), Touch ($229) and Daily Edition ($299). Here's what's new: At 5.4 ounces, the new Pocket Edition device is 44% to 51% lighter than competing devices. The size of the screen remains 5 inches, measured diagonally, but it now incorporates a new type of touch technology. Instead of adding a touch screen layer on top of the E Ink screen, Sony has embedded infrared technology around the edges of the screen to track the position of the finger. The response time is also faster, in contrast with rival devices that have sometimes lagged close to a second or more. The E Ink screen, which used to look like a wet newspaper, now features a crisper white background, called Pearl. The Daily Edition, available in November, now incorporates Wi-Fi in addition to 3G for basic Web browsing. The devices now feature 10 foreign language dictionaries, including French, Spanish, German, Italian and Dutch. Sony is hoping that the new features and slick designs will help differentiate its Readers against a backdrop of intense competition, from lower-priced E Ink readers such as Amazon's Kindle ($139 to $189) and Barnes & Noble's Nook ($149 to $199) to high-priced alternatives such as Apple's iPad ($499 to $829). That said, the market for digital book readers continues to grow rapidly, allowing most parties to increase sales. "Every time another company announces a new device, our sales go up," said Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading business, based in San Diego. Our sister blog, Jacket Copy, has a take on the new Sony devices. -- Alex Pham Twitter: @AlexPham  Photo: Sony Touch Edition Reader. Credit: Sony Corp.
  • Live blog: Apple's musical unveiling event in San Francisco 1 September, 2010, 7:00 am
    Apple Inc. will showcase a new set of products and services Wednesday starting at 10 a.m. Pacific time.  The products are likely to be music-related, given the company's invitation to the event (pictured). There also has been speculation that  Apple will announce a new Apple TV set-top box, possibly for as little as $99. The device may be aimed at lower-cost movie and TV-show rentals, a feature that would mark Apple's entry into the burgeoning online rental business. Our story on the rumors surrounding the new products is here: "Rumors swirl as Apple gets set to release new products." We'll begin blogging the event live a little before 10, so be sure to check back.  Apple is also offering a live webcast of the event (see info here) -- but it's only available via Apple devices. -- David Sarno Image: Apple Inc.
  • New Digg CEO, take note: How social media companies respond to irate users 31 August, 2010, 6:08 pm
    Days after launching a major revision to its social-news website, Digg has appointed Matt Williams, a former Amazon.com manager, as its new chief executive. And man, does he have some work ahead of him. The overhaul of Digg, which shifts the focus from a page edited by the masses to a personalized news feed, has angered some of its most loyal users. Many Diggers have been very vocal about staging an exodus to rival news site Reddit. Of course, these types of rumblings seem to happen just about any time a large site has its formula tinkered with. Twitter saw backlash recently when it released a feature called Retweet. A loud group that included the service's creator, Jack Dorsey, criticized Retweet for not letting users add a short note to those messages. The small music website TheSixtyOne heard angry chants when it unleashed a simpler version of the service. And such revolts make up practically a bimonthly tradition for Facebook. So how should social media website owners, who find the cries are loudest on their own pages, deal with the attacks? The Times talked to some of those administrators and looked to examples from the past for clues as to how Williams might want to handle the indignation he's inherited. Twitter has millions of passionate and observant users who will notice every time a new button is added or a new "promoted" thing shows up on the site. The San Francisco company provides guidelines for businesses using its social network, and when prompted for Twitter's own philosophy, a spokeswoman highlighted a line from that Best Practices page: "Listen regularly for comments about your company, brand and products -- and be prepared to address concerns, offer customer service or thank people for praise," she quoted. In other words, don't ignore the negativity. Facebook, with 500 million active members, knows push-back perhaps better than anyone. Sometimes the Palo Alto, Calif., developers lose (see: Beacon). Sometimes they win (News Feed). But judging by Facebook's reactions in the past, these issues are usually handled as such: The company lets things stew for a bit and eventually finds either a mountain or a molehill. Molehills disappear rather quickly. Mountains normally get addressed through company blog posts, often by Chief Mark Zuckerberg. Those messages have offered an excuse, some reasoning or an unusual alternative. (To ease privacy concerns, Facebook said users could vote on a sort of Bill of Rights. Few opted to participate, and so the program mostly fell by the wayside.) Beacon, a veritable Everest, resulted in a $9.5-million settlement. Reddit may have benefited the most from Digg users' revolt this week, but the small company has had to deal with tantrums of its own in the past. Though, compared with Digg's, "We've never had anything quite like that," Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian said in an interview with The Times. But Ohanian seems to think Digg is scaling its mountain reasonably well. "It's important to remember that you're still running the site, and you're responsible for doing what's best for it," said Ohanian, who is no longer involved in Reddit's daily operations. "It's impossible to please everyone. And it's important to be wary of the silent majority, who will never let you know how they feel." Digg's response aligns with Ohanian's advice and that of Facebook. Founder Kevin Rose, who was filling in as interim CEO until Tuesday, wrote a blog postaddressing many complaints and offering fixes in the future. A Digg spokeswoman declined to comment for this story. While Rose maintains a great deal of influence at Digg, those decisions may ultimately fall on the shoulders of the new chief. "Introducing change is never easy, and bringing something as radically different as Digg version 4 was bound to generate a strong reaction," Rose wrote in a statementannouncing the hiring of Williams. "We are absolutely listening and really value everyone's feedback as we take Digg in new directions." So Williams will have plenty to mull over as he reshapes the fast-changing company. Rose offered some thoughts in an interview with AllThingsD about Williams' new role: "It's a pain in the ass and something I would never wish on my worst enemy." Have fun, Matt! -- Mark Miliantwitter.com/markmilian  Photo: From left to right, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian, StumbleUpon founder Garrett Camp, Digg founder Kevin Rose. Credit: Tony Pierce / Los Angeles Times
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