Iphone Updates

Listen up. The iTunes Store has just made it easier to find the perfect ringtones to assign to your favorite callers. After scouring the more than 500,000 currently available ringtones, iTunes editors have assembled a wide assortment of ringtone playlists. The genre-based playlists include such eminently “ringtoneable” tracks as “Answer the Phone” (Sugar Ray), “Pyscho” (Bernard Hermann), “My Funny Valentine” (Chet Baker), “Hung Up” (Madonna), “On the Road Again” (Willie Nelson), “Soul Man” (The Blues Brothers), and many others. Want help creating your new ringtones?

At 6:02 p.m. this Friday, November 9, iPhone goes on sale at more than 1,300 Apple, 02, and Carphone Warehouse retail and online stores, giving customers in the United Kingdom their first chance to get their hands on the revolutionary new product that combines three devices—a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod, and a breakthrough Internet device—into one. “Every Apple retail store will offer support for iPhone at the legendary Genius Bar,” said Ron Johnson, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail, and beginning Saturday morning, customers “can learn how to get the most out of their new iPhone by attending a free workshop or scheduling a personal training session through our popular One-to-One program.”

“If you own a Mac, you’ll want Leopard,” writes Eric Benderoff (chicagotribune.com). Running Leopard on both an iBook and a MacBook Pro, Benderoff learned first hand “why Apple’s new operating system upgrade, called Leopard, continues to make Mac computers the easiest and most enjoyable to use.” Citing Cover Flow, Spotlight, Spaces, and Stacks to illustrate his point, he concludes, “I can tell you this: for $129, Leopard breathes new life into an aging Mac.”

In a move seemingly to reduce the number of unlocked iPhones, AT&T has offered up some middle ground for those not wanting to get raped by international calling and data charges. There are two new plans, the top one tacks on $60 to your current bill and nets you 50MB of data per month, but that’s just the start of the benefits.

It works in 29 countries including Canada, Mexico, and then various other places throughout Eurasia. Here are the added benefits though, international voice and data roaming are enabled, and long distance dialing from the US are all the same price.

(more…)

Share This

And that’s on launch day alone! Speaking of over zealousness, in case you forgot, or don’t know, Carphone Warehouse is the retailer that is getting the iPhone to sell on O2’s behalf in the UK.

Furthermore, if you live in, on, or around one of those stores, on November 9th, you might want to not be there for the hours from 6pm-close. Actually, maybe before then, freakin campers, wow, I never thought I’d use that term outside of Halo speak.

(more…)

Share This

I think its pretty well suited too, I cant think of a single thing that was announced and sold this year that did near as well as the iPhone did. The article starts by stating most of the arguments you might pose against the iPhone winning such an award, all the downsides, of the iPhone basically.

Then they get to the real meat and potatoes, why it did win the award, and there are 5 very thought out reasons. First, “The iPhone is pretty,” and it really is, I actually kind of like the look of my Touch better, but the iPhone is pretty too.

(more…)

Share This

Like vanilla-flavored cheese I’m just plain stupid when it comes to programming, which is why I’m so impressed by TUAW’s Erica Sadun.  She’s come up with a really useful application designed to make file swapping and archiving simple; it sits on your Mac desktop and then grabs a copy of image files you send from your iPhone.

 

(more…)

Share This

Now its all just speculation right now, but its sounding more and more like the iPhone could cause other smartphones’ prices to go up. How? The more they try and be like the iPhone to more expensive the components become, namely the flash memory and multi-touch screen technology.

Flash memory is probably the most expensive part that other companies are looking to adopt, namely because there is such a shortage of the stuff. Another big issue that is trying to be replicated is the amazing visual appearance and ease of use of the iPhone due to some powerful graphics chips, which other handsets don’t have.

(more…)

Share This

I knew as soon as I saw the first jailbreakme.com story that someone was going to go to an Apple store and Jailbreak the display model. Sure enough it happened, and now here is a picture.

Sure, it could be fake, but I would venture to guess that since it would take longer to photoshop it than to navigate to jailbreakme.com and perform the jailbreak, that its probably real. Try telling a potential customer they can’t install 3rd party apps on it with a display model that has Installer and several other apps on it, that would be an interesting scene.

(more…)

Share This

In 3 days nearly 150k people navigated to jailbreakme.com and clicked the “Install AppSnapp” button. That means 144,000+ people have jailbroken their iPhones and iPod Touches.

In case you missed it, jailbreakme.com is the home of AppSnapp which is an installer that can be launched from that web site, on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Then it proceeds to activate, jailbreak, install installer.app, and then patch your iPhone or iPod Touch.

(more…)

Share This

I’ve just received this image by email from O2, notice the launch time 6.O2pm!

Tags:apple iphone O2apple, iphone, O2

In addition to naming it the Invention of the Year, Time also includes iPhone among its candidates for Gadget of the Year. iPhone, Time editors say, “changed the way we think about how mobile media devices should look, feel and perform. The design is exceptional inside and out: It’s got a slick glass-and–stainless steel case and an elegant touch screen loaded with eye candy.” Ready to cast your vote?

“Boy, this baby is beautiful,” Tim Gideon (pcmag.com) says of the iPod touch. “After reviewing the freshest crop of flash-based music and video players, Gideon concluded that with its “cool-looking glass display, a built-in Web browser, and the ability to buy music wirelessly” iPod touch was “the best of the bunch.”

“The new star of Apple’s iPod lineup steals more than looks from the iPhone,” reads the description of iPod touch in Time’s assessment of the Best Inventions of the Year. “It sports the same brilliant 3.5-in. (9 cm) wide-screen video display with touch controls, and built-in wi-fi lets you surf the Web, check e-mail and even buy and immediately download iTunes tracks on the fly.”

According to Time magazine, the iPhone is the Invention of the Year, and I guess it would be a best seller for the Christmas gift season…

Tags:apple invention iphone time yearapple, invention, iphone, time, year

Teachers at the Western Academy of Beijing have created a 1-to-1 learning program that’s second to none, letting students work at their own pace, collaborate with one another, or get assistance from a teacher—or the Help Desk—with absolute ease. Students from all over the world use iLife on their Mac notebooks to create multimedia projects. To share their work with friends and family back home, they use iWeb, creating online digital portfolios they can update as frequently as they’d like. And they study Chinese on the go with iPod, using digital flash cards and podcasts to augment traditional curricula.

Laying “the foundation for the next generation of personal computing,” Leopard “redefines what personal computing looks like,” according to Michael Gartenberg (computerworld.com). And Gartenberg offers a litany of Leopard features by which he’s impressed. “Cover Flow, a feature first used in iTunes, lets you browse files visually and then see a file’s contents without opening it.” He argues that “Apple’s IM client, iChat, runs rings around what’s available for other systems.” He’s always used his “e-mail in-box as a to-do list,” Gartenberg admits, “and Apple’s Mail client makes that really work.”

Using two dozen Mac minis to capture video from an equal number of video cameras mounted all around his 1,600-pound, ten-foot square Cube, Chicago-based video artist and sculptor Lincoln Schatz creates “generative portraits” of subjects who line up to spend an hour in the steel and plexiglass enclosure “surrounded by whatever objects they choose, doing whatever they feel represents them best.” When the shoots done, Schatz lets his Mac Pro server “harvest” the video he’s captured. The portraits that emerge result in an evolving montage of randomly selected non-linear images—some shot yesterday and some a year or more ago—that subvert the idea of “posing” for a likeness. Twenty-first century portraits anyone?

Calling it “awesome,” Digital Trends lavishes praise on the new iPod nano. “It’s thin, sexy, easy to use, holds plenty of music, videos and photos. The sound quality is impressive,” and the review concludes, “video quality is great, too.”

Apple didn’t invent the touchscreen,” explains Lev Grossman (Time), but “Apple knew what to do with it,” creating a “whole new kind of interface, a tactile one that gives users the illusion of actually physically manipulating data with their hands—flipping through album covers, clicking links, stretching and shrinking photographs with their fingers.” It’s implementation of touchscreen technology is one of the five reasons Grossman believes that iPhone “is the best thing invented this year.” What do you think are the other four?

Delivering enhanced storage performance and data protection, the Mac Pro RAID Card and Xserve RAID Card let you add a powerful hardware RAID engine with 256MB of cache and battery backup to your Mac Pro desktop or Xserve. The cards support a variety of RAID levels, allowing you to optimize your system for performance, capacity, or a combination of both. The cards, both priced at $999, are available today from the online Apple Store. (See Store for system requirements.)

Munir Kotadia is a man on a mission – a mission to berate iPod Touch and iPhone owners until they take his security concerns seriously.  In an article seemingly designed to drive the Mac faithful into a furious rage, Kotadia highlights the potential dangers of granting access to random strangers via “Unlock your iPhone” websites. 

 

(more…)

Share This

Attempts to change the venerable keyboard are usually met with failure – despite promising claims of productivity benefits, there’s often too great a pay-off for users used to the traditional QWERTY ‘board – but if anyone can encourage us to upgrade, perhaps it’s Apple.  Their latest patent describes a MultiTouch surface particularly suitable for a MacBook (or a Mac Tablet, maybe?) which, thanks to a lifting framework of key-edges that presses underneath, can be both a smooth touchpad or a delineated keyboard.

 

(more…)

Share This

Thanks to Telstra Apple could be launching their iPhone in the land down under. Although maybe not unless Apple launches a 3G version.

You see, Telstra is rolling out a huge 3G network which is scheduled to be completed by January, so they are eager to find a major release device to launch on it, a 3G iPhone would surely fit the bill. So, as if requiring a 3G version wasn’t enough of a roadblock, Telstra seems quite reluctant to take the financial screwing everyone else has to get the iPhone.

(more…)

Share This

While much of the iPod praise has been saved for its glossy cousins – either of the compact nano or the touchscreentastic Touch flavours – the iPod Classic is nonetheless making its own waves among consumers.  Unfortunately, many of these waves are down to an issue with the PMP’s latest firmware update, which has seen some users left with a Classic that refuses to play music and instead drives itself into a fiery state with constant hard-drive thrashing.

(more…)

Share This

Let’s start with Verizon, they have been gradually losing market share ever since the release of the iPhone, and now all of the sudden they are releasing some really cool phones? Furthermore they have been in talks with Google and have even dropped their complaint regarding the 700MHz spectrum becoming open.

Sure, they probably aren’t anticipating the mobile wireless world becoming open as in source, but such a move means they are at least willing to accept it, and move on. Add on to that the fact that they are dealing with Google to make use of their impending mobile OS which should allow for cheaper phones since that OS is open sourced.

(more…)

Share This

Ever wish you could have an iPhone that looked more like a Touch and had the 16GB capacity of the Touch? Yeah me too, well you might get your wish from Meizu quicker than you will from Apple.

Their new M8 MP3 Player/Phone originally looked exactly like the iPhone, had nearly the exact same OS, the same multi-touch screen, there was literally so much in common that in order to make a significant enough difference to stave off lawsuits. They had to up and make it look like the Touch instead, same phone/MP3 functionality, but now it looks like the Touch, which is ok since the Touch isn’t a phone.

(more…)

Share This

Back in July the BBC launched their TV download service, iPlayer, to a mixed chorus of excitement and – from the Mac (and Linux) contingent – sobbing; the software was, and in fact still is, compatible with Windows XP only.  In a recent interview Ashley Highfield, head of the corporation’s Future Media and Technology unit, revealed that a streaming version of the application would be available for Mac and Linux users by Christmas (just in time for the Queen’s Speach, I suppose); in fact, he claims it was always in the timeline, and the error in fact was not missing out the non-XP formats but failing to publicise the coming alternatives.

 

(more…)

Share This

AT&T’s site, YellowPages.com, has just been pimped for ease of use on your iPhone and iPod Touch, so should you need directory assistance, before paying those extremely bloated 411 charges, check YellowPages.com. I wonder if the other site, whitepages.com got the same treatment.

You can easily search by name, location, or category for what you are looking for. Furthermore, your search results include ratings, maps, and directions as well as the obvious phone number.

(more…)

Share This

Not really, but you can paint it all black and add the older, multi-colored Apple logo in place of the home button, which would bring you a lot closer. It kind of looks cool, too bad you can’t draw in Notes on your iPhone like you could on the Newton.

That rainbow Apple logo was decommissioned somewhere around 1998 which was a good long while ago. Back then, it probably would have taken a lot longer to accumulate a couple hundred emails, but this guy definitely needs to check his, 3 digits is ridiculous.

(more…)

Share This

According to Apple, the rate plans for the iPhone with T-Mobile in Germany will start from 49 Euros. It’s not cheap, but it’s not too much as well. Anyway, to be legal with your iPhone in Germany, you will have to pay this price monthly… The equivalent in Dollars is $70.

Tags:apple germany iphone t mobileapple, germany, iphone, t mobile

2 Million copies of the new operating system from Apple have been sold in the first weekend!

Congrats Steve.

Tags:apple leopard mac osxapple, leopard, mac, osx

After a “swift and easy” installation, Mark Kellner (Washington Times) found Mac OS X Leopard “something any Mac user will want to have.” “Offering better integration of e-mail with syndicated Internet news updates, a new backup feature likely to decrease the impact of hardware failures, and snazzy display features by the bushel, the $129 Apple Mac OS X Leopard upgrade is more than a reasonable purchase.”

In his in-depth review of Time Machine, Ryan Faas (computerworld.com) does some déjà-vuing of his own, conjuring up an early iMac commercial to illustrate how simple it is for customers to use Time Machine to back up the data on their Macs. Calling it “one of the most compelling new features added to Mac OS X in years,” he praises Apple engineers for creating “a backup technology that requires little or no configuration, performs backups automatically and invisibly, and makes restoring files from those backups as simple and intuitive as humanly possible.”

Troy Dreier (laptopmag.com) gives Leopard 4.5 stars (out of five). Praising Time Machine, he predicts that “Leopard will be remembered as the OS that debuted Time Machine, the backup tool that changes everything.” Equally positive about Cover Flow, Quick Look, Spaces, Mail, Boot Camp, and iChat, Dreier concludes that “Leopard is worth the price for Time Machine alone, but the sheer variety of improvements and innovation inside this OS give you much more than your money’s worth.”

Calling Leopard the “apple of my eye,” Dwight Sliverman (Houston Chronicle) tells us that as he’s played with the newest version of Mac OS X, “I’m constantly being surprised by smart, useful and convenient touches. It is a pleasure to use.” For example, he calls Spaces his “favorite Leopard feature, because it instantly multiplies your desktop real estate. Those who use portable computers will particularly appreciate it. On my MacBook it’s a godsend.”

Mac computers, according to Gregg Keizer (computerworld.com), “are the most reliable and its support the most dependable of the five top [computer] vendors. In fact, Keizer reports that in its annual report on reliability, Rescuecom, “a national chain of computer service shops,” found that Apple “blew away the competition this year by posting a score of 51% higher than next-best Lenovo.” The score, explains David Milman, CEO of Rescuecom, “takes into account not just the quality and reliability of the equipment but also the quality of service.”

“The mobile to end all mobiles pipped all the other top-name entries to earn the planet’s biggest gadget accolade,” according to the editors at Stuff. “The touchscreen device redefined how humans interact with their phones as well as offering almost every feature no self-respecting mobile should be without,” they conclude. And iPhone wasn’t the only honoree. “Sporting video playback and a scroll wheel,” iPod nano made the “Cool List” for 2007 gadgets. And Stuff readers voted iPod “the greatest gadget ever.” Cool.

Since releasing Mac OS X Leopard on Friday, Apple sold (or delivered, in the case of maintenance agreements) more than 2 million copies of the sixth major release of Mac OS X, far outpacing the first weekend sales of Mac OS X Tiger, which was previously the most successful OS release in Apple’s history. “Early indications are that Leopard will be a huge hit with customers,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Leopard’s innovative features are getting great reviews and making more people than ever think about switching to the Mac.”