Iphone Updates

If you are one of the countless people that condemn the iPhone for its inability to emulate the Palm OS, then it may be time for you to take another look at Apple’s wonder device. StyleTap has announced that they plan to bring this capability to the iPhone in the near future, whats more the iPhone runs the Palm OS better than most Palm devices, so this is a very interesting feature to add to the long list of things that the iPhone already excels at.

You will be able to grab the software needed starting in July, when more information is released by StyleTap. When the information comes forward, they will also announce price points, how to get it, and how the software will be marketed. StyleTap also said that they will have members from their team attending WWDC. They will be available for interview, and hopefully a demo.

The question really though is how well does the device’s capacitive touch screen work for the resistive touch driven OS? After all, Palm’s OS was designed for a stylus. Though the smallest parts of the interface may be a little hard to use with your finger, the answer is surprisingly well. Check out the demo video to see the software in action.

[Via SlashPhone]

Filed under: Software, Cool tools, Productivity, Odds and ends

Macros can save you a lot of time performing repetitive functions on your Mac. While Automator and AppleScript provide a lot of power, some Mac users want an easier way to capture their keystrokes, mouse clicks and other actions. That’s where Keyboard Maestro comes in.

This $36 gem from Stairways Software has just been updated to version 3.1, and adds a profusion of new features. While there’s not enough space here to list them all, some of the highlights include:

• A clipboard history switcher
• An action to save a clipboard to a Named Clipboard
• Clipboard Filters
• Centering windows on the current screen
• Fractional second (i.e., .75) pauses
• Can add BBEdit Text Factories to the current clipboard

Stairways also fixed some known glitches from the 3.0 release. A 30-day free trial is available for download and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or better.

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Filed under: iPhone

TUAW reader Maaz sent in this link to a Forbes story about a possible solar-powered iPhone. We recently posted about Apple’s new Solar Energy patent so it’s not a big jump to start seeing articles speculating on how that new technology will be used and expressed in Apple’s product line.

I have nothing against solar power–the Sun is the source of most of the Earth’s human-usable energy but I’m not sure that the iPhone is a particularly good match to solar refueling.

As the Forbes article points out, the iPhone is small and is built to radiate light from a large part of its surface, not collect it. Unlike low-powered calculators, the iPhone is a pretty power-hungry device and is going to get hungrier if the (likely) move to 3G occurs. And what the Forbes article does not point out and should be highlighted is that for the most part, iPhones live in our pants, which isn’t a very sunny place (for most people).

So do the math. Small surface + pants-based existence means a Solar-powered iPhone is not very likely to debut.

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Filed under: Gaming, iPod Family, Interviews, iPhone

TUAW was lucky enough to spend a little time recently chatting with Anders Nilsson of Polarbit.com. Polarbit is an independent game developer based in Europe. They recently ported their mobile Raging Thunder racing game to the iPhone and released it as a free beta to the jailbreak community. (It’s hosted at the Big Boss repository.) Built around the iPhone’s accelerometer, Raging Thunder really expresses the fun, interactive potential of the iPhone as a gaming platform.

Read on past the jump for the full transcript of our interview.

Continue reading iPhone’s Raging Thunder: the Developer Interview

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Gaming on the iPhone is going to be huge, game developers just can not keep their hands off of the iPhone, and for good reason. The device has a ton of horsepower, and has already proven it is more than capable of playing games, as well as perform all sorts of other functions. This is a very complex game, and is very telling of the iPhone’s abilities.

For those of you that have not heard of it, BioShock is a first person shooter that was released last year for the PC and on the Xbox 360. If systems like that are required to play this thing, than the iPhone must have some serious untapped potential. The game has not been ported to any mobile at all, and it will be interesting to see how it interacts with the touch screen.

The iPhone will be receiving the real deal. It will get a full 3D, high resolution, memory hogging monster of a game, and that’s the way we like it. There will also be a 2D lower quality version released for devices that can not handle 3D graphics, which will be pretty much anything not an iPhone.

[Via The iPhone Blog]

Filed under: Reviews, Beta Beat

Adobe Dreamweaver, for better or for worse, is probably the most mature integrated development environment for website building for the Mac. Professionals might be supplied with Dreamweaver through their company’s site-license; beginners might get Dreamweaver on the recommendation of a friend.

Hard-core coders have their favorite text editors and IDEs. This review is not for them. To be clear, I use Coda and TextMate almost exclusively for web development. This review is for people who use Dreamweaver primarily as a WYSIWYG HTML editor (as much as that makes me cringe). But that’s what Dreamweaver does best.

The public beta of Dreamweaver CS4 dropped on Tuesday, and I’m going to show you what’s new and different about Dreamweaver CS4, and if it’s worth the upgrade.

Weavin’ your dreams, after the jump.

Continue reading TUAW Review: Dreamweaver CS4 beta

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Filed under: iPod Family, OS, iPhone

Did last night’s news of 10.5.3 boasting Google contact syncing with iPhone and iPod touch owners get you down? Well, LifeHacker hopes to lift your spirits as they tell you how to enable Google syncing in Address Book.app without ever syncing an iPhone or iPod touch.

The process requires you to edit some .plist files within Address Book.app. LifeHacker notes that the .plist entry only occurs when you sync some type of iPod first. So, you will need to do at least one sync for the entry to show up. Some of the comments seem to suggest that the .plist entry will change back to the original value once you sync an iPod a couple times. Even still, this is a cool hack.

[via LifeHacker]

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Filed under: OS, Software Update

After releasing all the updates today, Apple still wasn’t finish as they just released a Security Update, version 2008-003. In regular Apple wordiness the description reads “improves the security of OS X.”

Apple released 4 flavors of this update for different systems:

• Security Update 2008-003 (Intel)
• Security Update 2008-003 (PPC)
• Security Update 2008-003 Server (Universal)
• Security Update 2008-003 Server (PPC)

Here’s the full rundown on what’s included in this update. You can download this security update by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software update) or by clicking your system in the list above to download the installer package.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Update: as some people in the comments have noted, this Security Update is for those who have not upgraded to Mac OS X 10.5.3. If you have upgraded, you do not need to install this update.

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iSmite is the word…

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Tags:iphone ismite jobs keynote parody steveiphone, ismite, jobs, keynote, parody, steve

If there are any doubts about the legitimacy of the recently leaked 3G iPhone case specifications, they may finally be put to rest. Though the information is not exactly confirmed by anyone, but it is a pretty elaborate hoax to make your own 3G iPhone case mold. The mold design seems to fit the rumored case specifications, so this may just turn out to be the real thing.

As you can see, these mold plates fit the rumored specifications very nicely, and the sensor placement in the mold matches them as well. The mold is clearly form Griffin, who is considered to be very creditable, and the authority when it comes to accessories. The fact that it says Griffin, in itself gives this rumor a whole bunch more credibility.

While it is possible it is a hoax with a little clever Photo Shop work going on, it is a very good amount of work to go through. If the mold turns out to be real, and assuming they are using it now, we could see Griffin iPhone cases as soon as launch day for the new iPhone.

[Via Just Another Mobile Phone Blog]

You have to wonder at how much Apple stokes its rabid devoted fan base. It knows that everyone with an interest in the company, and the iPhone, is watching its every move. When it closes its flagship 5th Avenue Apple Store in New York City — a 24-hours-a-day store only previously closed at Leopard and iPhone launches — it leads to speculation that they’re filming a TV commercial for the 3G iPhone…

The headline gives away as much information as Hutchison is able to divulge at present — the fact they’ve signed a deal with Apple to bring the iPhone to these two territories…

In a very brief press release, 3 has announced that they will be bringing the iPhone to Hong Kong and Macau, two markets where as of now, the iPhone is not officially available. Of all the countries and territories that 3 has coverage in, Hong Kong and Macau are the only ones that 3 has been rewarded a contract to carry and sell the iPhone in.

“Hong Kong and Macau, 29th May 2008 – Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited today announced that it has signed an agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Hong Kong and Macau later this year.” -Press Release

That is the whole press release. So there is quite a lack of details at the moment, but it has been assumed by some that this is the 3G iPhone. This would make sense, as there are 3G networks in both locations, and why bring the original iPhone “later this year”, when there will already be an upgrade that makes the device old news.

[Via SlashPhone]

The anticipation is quickly mounting as WWDC draws ever closer. Apple’s yesterday release of the latest firmware for the iPhone, 2.0 beta 6, revealed something interesting about the new iPhone. The icon was also found in the latest version of Leopard, 10.5.3, which was released to Mac owners yesterday. The icon looks very similar to the current iPhone.

Though it looks almost exactly the same as the current iPhone, there are some minor differences. Mainly the bezel, which is narrower and more squared than normal. The device also seems to be slightly taller than the current iPhone iteration. This is the only angle, so we could not see any other dimension comparisons.

It is important to note though, this could mean nothing. The device very well could be a bad rendering, which made its way into the software releases. This sounds to be the most likely explanation, as you would expect Apple to be releasing such an icon with the latest version of iTunes to drop after the release of the 3G iPhone.

[Via Wired]

Filed under: iTS

Over at MacGeneration, Christophe Laporte and his friends have discovered a nearly-live French iTunes Video Store. If you’d like to check it out yourself, search the store for “desperate” and click on Les Saisons TV.

France will join the UK and Germany with transatlantic video stores. Episode pricing falls between €1,99 and €2,49, which is pretty steep given the strength of the Euro. More details and pictures are here.

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Filed under: OS, Internet, Internet Tools, Software Update

If you have an iPhone synced with Address Book.app, then you’ve been able to sync your contacts with Yahoo for a while now, but something that has been missing is Google sync. Sure, you can always use Spanning Sync, but we all want something free and built-into the OS. Well, those dreams are now true according to a new Google blog post and the introduction of Mac OS X 10.5.3.

On the Mac you normally sync your iPhone with, you will see a new option when you open the “General” tab in Address Book preferences. When you check “Synchronize with Google” you can enter your Google credentials and syncing will proceed. Apple and Google did leave some people out, however, as this new feature works only on Macs that have an iPhone synced with iTunes.

Thanks, Nathan and Ryan!

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Filed under: Gaming, Software, Freeware, Developer, iPhone

The guys at Touch Arcade are at it again — this time, ZodTTD has ported temper, a TurboGrafx-16 emulator, to the iPhone, and as you can see above, this means something amazing: Bonk on the touchscreen. Sounds like the audio has a few little glitches, but seems like the controls and graphics are working as well as could be asked — even in the slower Landscape mode (with the controls overlaid on the graphics), he says it was pulling about 50FPS.

There’s even an emulator for the TurboGrafx-16 CD PC Engine, as long as you do a little tweaking (and nab the bios from somewhere that may or may not be legal — same for the ROMs). temper4iPhone is still in beta, and just like all of these other emulators and jailbreak apps, we have no clue at all whether we’ll ever get the chance to see them on the (rapidly approaching) App Store. Still, it’s awesome to see — we’ve definitely come a long way from the NES emulator way back when.

[Via MacBytes.com]

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Griffin has announced its latest in-car product allowing iPod and iPhone users to play music through their car stereo using an open FM radio frequency. Playback can be controlled from the dashboard or console which plugs into the cigarette lighter, RDS is used to display track information, SmartScan saves the best three available frequencies for easy recall, and SmartSound Plus technology delivers clear sound under real-world conditions…

Yet another update to the iPhone firmware 2.0 and the SDK have leaked out. The new firmware has been dubbed 5a308. This build was released today, along with a fresh build of the SDK. The new SDK is 1221.8MB, so it is a little bigger than the last release, which was the fifth such release. It is not known yet if this is the firmware beta that adds the rumored geo tagging features.

The firmware is fresh off the server, and the details about it are few. What we do know right now is that the new SDK requires developers to register an application ID, suggesting that they are tightening things up in anticipation of the launch, which is rumored to be soon. Application IDs are required for provisioning now, all previous provisioning is now longer valid.

Another interesting thing is you must be running OSX 10.5.3, which was just released this morning. It is odd that Apple would cut off the still large amount of users running Tiger, or 10.4. The new updates release notes were uploaded to Apple’s site earlier, and can be viewed now. Apple also removed six demo applications from the SDK package.

[Via TUAW]

Safari and Leopard make it easy to browse multiple websites in the same browser window using tabs. This quick video tip demonstrates how you can manage your desktop more efficiently by using tabs to consolidate and rearrange all your open browser windows in one.

Filed under: Software, Productivity

Espy is an Address Book replacement that focusses on pictures rather than names. Basically it capitalizes on the fact that many folks remember faces a lot better than they remember names. The interface blends an iPhoto-like photo browser with Address Book contact info. Espy is compatible with the OS X Address Book and works with Mail.app, etc.

While the basic idea of organizing contacts by photo is not bad, I can’t help but observe that the hard part is going to be getting all the pictures. I try to keep photos of my contacts in the Address Book, but except for good friends this is often a challenge. It’s a bit of a catch-22 since the people whose names I’m more likely to forget (and so benefit from something like Espy) are also the people I’m less likely to have pictures of.

In any case, Espy is $24.95 and a demo is available.

[via Macworld]

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Filed under: Rumors, Deals, iPhone

According to Boy Genius Report, French iPhone carrier Orange may be offering current iPhone users a 3G iPhone for €30 €50 (thanks to kol and jaxx for pointing out my typo!) if they trade in their old iPhone, as well as “generous subsidies” for users who wish to upgrade and keep their current handset.

The news comes from reader tips to French tech site PCInpact, though Orange apparently has no official statement yet.

We can just add this to the number of other 3G iPhone rumors that have been swirling as of late.

[via CrunchGear]

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Filed under: iPhone

At the iPhone SDK event back in March one of the most curious announcements was the existence of the $100 million iFund. Famed silicon valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers established it to “fund innovators developing applications, services, and components for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch platform.” Now BusinessWeek is reporting the first two public iFund recipients: Whrrl and iControl.

Whrrl is a kind of location based social networking service that allows you to “discover places, movies, and events by seeing where your friends are going.” You can read (and leave) reviews of stores, restaurants, etc. Unfortunately, it’s limited to 17 metro areas but they say new cities are being added regularly.

iControl produces home monitoring and control products. So your iPhone would allow you to control home automation products (e.g. climate system, lighting, etc.) as well as monitor in home cameras and other security systems.

Kleiner Perkins reports receiving over 1700 applications for the iFund and in addition to these two has made an offer to another, as yet undisclosed, startup. They are “seriously considering another 10.”

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Available here, the iPhone 2 is not far away (9th of June?).

Tags:iphone iphone 2 sdkiphone, iphone 2, sdk

Tungle has released a new interface for the iPhone, allowing users to use this Microsoft Outlook plugin to co-ordinate meetings across a number of platforms including iCal, Google Calendar, Lotus Notes, BlackBerry, and now iPhone…

Kensington has launched its Battery Pack and Charger, a $70 device which will extend the life of the iPhone up to 100 hours of music playback, 21 hours of video, or six hours of talk time. Additionally, a Mini version ($50) offers 30 hours of music, six hours of video, and three hours of talk time…

Reports suggest that Apple has struck more deals with telecoms companies to bring the next iPhone to eight European countries…

According to analysis of containers arriving through US Customs since mid-March and destined for Apple, the 3G iPhone may already be in North America. Import Genius has looked at the descriptions of goods arriving, noting that Quanta — one of Apple’s long-standing manufacturing partners — has declared the contents of a number of containers as “electric computers”, a description neither they, Apple, nor any other company, has ever used before…

Here we go again guys, this time around a site called allabouthphones.nl has posted pictures of what they say is the 3G iPhone. Now, the device pictured does look very new. It is very thin, too much so to be a modified iPhone of the current type. The white color is one of the colors that have been rumored, so this device could actually be the real deal.

Of course it is not this simple. The device pictured could always be a shell or a new case, would explain why it is so thin. They never picture the device at an angle that would make it easy to tell what is up with this thing. Again, it seems that we are just going to have to wait until June 9th to see what Steve brings. Until then, these pictures will have to do.

[Via allaboutphones.nl]

Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

Back in January, we told you about MacHeads: The Movie, an upcoming documentary about Mac freaks fans from brothers Kobi and Ron Shely. It looks to do for Mac people what Trekkies did for obsessive Star Trek nerds.

Apparently the brothers Shely have finished the movie, and Gizmodo’s got a nice interview with Kobi Shely about the moviemaking process and the choice of subject. The filmmakers are planning to make the movie available through “community distribution”…and of course, they want to get it on iTunes.

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Filed under: Software

The beta period is over and Delicious Library 2.0 is officially ready to go (we took an early look at version 2 back in March). If you’re unfamiliar, Delicious Library is the beautiful personal media database (that’s the fancy way of saying “it keeps track of your stuff”) that’s as fun as it is useful. Use your Mac’s iSight camera to scan the UPC on a book, DVD, software, games, etc. and watch it appear on your “shelf.” From there, you can track who you’ve loaned it to, publish your library to the web and a whole lot more.

Version 2.0 includes more than 100 changes, including

• One-click web publishing
• Speedier graphics
• iTunes integration
• Three-click selling

There’s plenty more, of course, and you can read the rest here. Delicious Library 2.0 requires Mac OS 10.5 and a single license will cost you $40US.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

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Filed under: Retro Mac, Found Footage, Apple History

It’s not every day that you can buy a brand new computer that’s over 10 years old, but Alfred DiBlasi managed it: an eBay find of an original Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh, fresh in the box. In the 22-minute unboxing video (more than ample even by our standards) Al and his buddies remove the artifact from another era from its packaging and boot it for the first time. Zoom ahead to the 20:00 mark to watch the delightfully pretentious “Design Is Art” QuickTime intro movie (worth YouTubing on its own, if possible) and enjoy the Michael Hedges-esqe (possibly actually Michael Hedges) soundtrack.

While the TAM may have been a poor bargain when it was introduced in 1997 (2 GB hard drive and 32 MB of RAM in a machine costing $7,500?) it still wears a striking titanium gray silhouette, and we know that sleek, forward-looking design can command a premium price today. I hope Al gets all the enjoyment out of it that a decade-old computer can possibly provide.

Thanks Eric & Blake!

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If the all touch interface on the iPhone is not your style when it comes to games, then the iControlPad may just be for you. The peripheral enables your iPhone to be in a casing that allows for a PSP like feel. It adds physical buttons to the iPhone for the purpose of playing games. The iControlPad will be providing full SDK support, and also source code so developers can get their games to work with the unit.

The peripheral works by connecting to the iPhone’s dock. According to the designer, support for the iControlPad is already built in to most of the game emulators, and they are sending out more units to try to get more universal support. The device will have to get around one problem though, the SDK does not allow unprejudiced access to the dock connector.

The device as of now is in its prototype stage. They promise that the final version of the unit will be “much more sleek and fitting”. You can check out there website here, where they have a status blog and contact information.

AT&T is hiring some workers to take temporary positions at AT&T stores. The listing says from June 16th to August 16th, the temporary workers will have jobs. This is not unique to AT&T, surprisingly enough. Last year, in anticipation of the original iPhone, AT&T did the same thing, so that there would be no shortage of help to push the device out the door.

This time around they are doing the exact same thing. June 19th is a little bit of a delay of what we have heard, which is immediate launch of the device after the rumored WWDC announcement. Either way though, the device will be here soon. Another day, another leak from AT&T. They keep one tight secret keeping machine there don’t they?

[The iPhone Blog]

Filed under: Multimedia, Software

AtomicView bills itself as a super-efficient multimedia manager with an interface that “combines elegance and sobriety.” When I first loaded it up, I was frustrated enough with its almost total disregard for consistent UI design and controls to swear it off for a week. I’ve given it another run and moved its rank up to tolerable.

It does have enough pros to level out its cons, and we can call it a wash. I’m bothering to mention it here for two reasons: we’ve had some enthusiastic reports and some of you may find it useful as a middle-of-the-road solution between iPhoto and something more robust like Aperture or Bridge.

At 95 Euros (about $150), it doesn’t come in much cheaper than the $199 Aperture 2. But it does handle more file types and if your needs are a little broader than just photography, it’s a viable alternative. It lacks some of the sorting features common to other programs, but it allows for grouping, advanced boolean searching of metadata with smart folder capabilities and full screen navigation/preview with multi-monitor support. Here’s the thing about the boolean search, though: as far as I can tell, there’s no universal search. I can’t type “pants” and pull up every item that has “pants” in any of its metadata. I have to build a search one line at a time, looking through each field of each metadata type for my keyword.

Continue reading AtomicView: UI bomb

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Filed under: Odds and ends, Mac mini

TechEBlog has assembled an outstanding collection of Mac mini mods that convert the littlest Mac into everything from a tablet to a wee Mac Pro.

The micro-monster pictured here has an added USB port on the front, a slide-off hard disk cover, and a fresh power button. It measures 3.28″ wide by 7.8″ tall by 6.5″ deep. Adorable!

You can see a few more of our favorite mini mods here, here and here.

[Via Reddit]

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Filed under: Rumors, iPhone

An unusually-large shipment of 188 mysterious containers has arrived in North America from Apple’s manufacturing partners in China. The contents? “Electric computers,” a term that Apple has never before used on its customs declarations.

Additionally, 67 of the containers were destined for Canada, landing in Vancouver, BC.

These containers are not to be confused with Apple’s regular flotilla of shipping destined for the west coast. Typically, those containers are labeled as having “desktop computers” inside on their customs forms.

ImportGenius.com speculates that each container could contain up to 40,000 units of new iPhones.

Either that, or the UNIVAC I ordered finally arrived.

Thanks, Ryan!

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If you want to follow the 2 weeks of Tennis on your iPhone, Orange France gives you the answer:

Tags:garros iphone orange roland tennisgarros, iphone, orange, roland, tennis

Filed under: Video, Developer, Found Footage

Over at Theocacao Scott Stevenson has posted the video of his Introduction to Cocoa talk (entitled “Best of Both Worlds”) aimed at those who want to learn a bit about Apple’s preferred API for building OS X applications. The talk runs to over 90 minutes and includes “an introduction to Xcode, Interface Builder, Objective-C, Mac UI standards and more.”

For anyone who has ever wanted to figure out what those developers tools are all about this is definitely worth (the rather large) download (scroll down towards the bottom) though it seems that a lot of folks are have problems getting the whole file (myself included). There’s also a torrent available.

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Filed under: Accessories, Peripherals

For listeners of The Talk Show’s marathon keyboard episode, you might remember a brief mention of those templates you used to get with software that fit over the function keys of your old Apple Extended Keyboard.

If you still pine for those, Photojojo has a brand new set of keyboard overlays for Photoshop, Aperture, Final Cut Pro, and more for a vast array of recent Apple desktop and laptop keyboards.

They’re molded from rubber, washable, and fit your keyboard like a glove. Plus, they keep out the dust and crud that keyboards typically accumulate.

Laptop skins are $30, and desktop skins are $40. Fast shipping options are available, too.

Thanks, Amit!

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Filed under: Gaming, Software

Move over, Lara Croft — it’s time to go Postal!

The (in)famous Mac video game from Running With Scissors is coming to the big screen today, albeit a small number of big screens. Postal first gained notoriety in 1997 as a Mac-only 2D shooter, and is famed for being banned in Australia for a few minor reasons — things like using a cat as a gun silencer, gratuitous violence, and, in later versions, sexual themes and use of drugs and alcohol. Sounds like fun, eh?

The Postal flick follows the story line and general bad taste of the old Mac game. Controversial director and Razzie Award Nominee (twice) Uwe Boll somehow bribed and wheedled his way into showings at a whopping 12 theaters nationwide. Be sure to go see this film tonight if you’re a fan of Postal, since it will probably close at all 12 theaters today as well. Of course, that means it may be on DVD and in the iTunes Store next Tuesday.

Me? I think I’ll go see Indiana Jones instead.

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It has been an interesting week. This week has not been as fast paced for rumors as usual, as it seems that things have slowed down, as people are now waiting it silence for June 9th. Though the rumors are not much in volume, they more than make up for it in how interesting they are.

A freight of ocean containers arrived on shore this week. The containers are from Apple’s manufacturing partners across the seas. The containers were marked ‘electric computer’. Apple’s Macs are traditionally market with the customs label ‘desktop computer’. The rumor is these containers have over 1.7 million 3G iPhones in them. Since everyone else is guessing, I threw in mine as well. I think that ‘electric computer’ sounds a lot more like a Mac tablet than an iPhone, just me?

We all know that the 3G iPhone will be fast, thanks to the HSPA networks set up across the world. We don’t know how fast though. How does 42mbps down and 22mbps up sound? That would be how fast it would be if the device has HSPA+, the fastest revision of HSPA. If it does, it will be the first general market device ever that has the HSPA+ ability.

Location based services are compatible with the current iPhone, even with its lack of GPS. Cell site triangulation works relatively well. Geo tagging is a capability that more and more devices are getting. It tags images taken with the device with your current location for when you share them. The latest iPhone firmware was discovered to have this option.

We saw a beta version of WinPwn about a month back. The official version of utility was finally released recently though. The tool allows custom firmwares to be loaded onto the device. For example, you can build a firmware with the device pre unlocked, and loaded with your settings and favorite firmware. Somewhat similar to cooking custom ROMs for Windows Mobile.

We finish out the week in review with the rumor that the 3G iPhone launches at WWDC. We have all heard the rumors of it, and it is assumed that the device would surely launch then. Gizmodo says that they have sources that have 100% confirmed the June 9th launch.

Filed under: Hacks, Apple TV

If you have an Apple TV and are interested in some of the exciting things you can do by hacking it (e.g. adding additional video codec support like divx, etc.) but have been too chicken to try it yourself, you may be interested in the aTV Flash from Apple Core. Basically the aTV Flash is a patchstick — a USB flash drive preloaded with software to modify the Apple TV OS. You just plug it in to your Apple TV and it automatically hacks your Apple TV to add multiple codec support, SSH access, the Couch Surfer browser, and much more.

The aTV Flash is compatible with the current Apple TV Take Two and they offer free updates for a year. However, all this convenience will cost you — $59.95 to be precise. It’s also worth keeping in mind that all of this can be done for little or no cost if you want to get your hands dirty. But if the convenience of a plug and play option is worth it to you the aTV Flash may be worth checking out.

[via MacMerc]

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Filed under: Accessories, iPod Family, iPhone

The iTrip AutoPilot from Griffin is one of the first FM transmitter/chargers compatible with the iPhone. It features Griffin’s SmartScan to automatically find and save three FM stations with the least interference and supports RDS allowing compatible radios to display track information on the head unit. The control dongle includes a display showing the frequency it’s broadcasting, as well as three buttons that allow you to control playback. Personally I’ve never been a fan of FM transmitters, but at the very least this one looks slick!

The iTrip AutoPilot will sell for $99.99 and is listed as “Coming Soon.” In addition to the iPhone it is compatible with all iPods with a dock connector.

[via iPhone Alley]

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Filed under: Cult of Mac, Odds and ends

MacMinute was one of my favorite Mac news sites, so it was with some sadness that I saw that its founder, Stan Flack, died back in April. The site has been quiet for a while, and now Flack’s family has announced that they have decided to shut down the venerable Mac news site after serious efforts to keep it going fell through.

Flack founded MacMinute back in 2001 not long after selling his original Mac news site MacCentral to Macworld in 1999. It is with respect that we at TUAW note the passing of this pioneer of the Mac web and add our condolences to many others out there among the community of Mac centered sites.

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So here is the deal, a mysterious shipment from Apple’s factory partners has made its way to North American shores. Since the middle of March, there have been 188 containers of a product with a name that Apple has never before used when importing their devices. All devices must have a name, when they come through customs. For example, when Apple imports Macs they call them, ‘Desktop Computers’, on the customs label.

Customs records though, revealed that the prior mentioned shipments are market ‘electric computers’. This is a very vague name, I mean all computers are electric, or need electricity at least. The thing is, ‘electric’ could be referring to the iPhone’s screen. The capacitive screen needs a small electric charge from your finger, or capacitance, to function. This is a speculation on my part though.

It is assumed that the crates collectively could contain as much as 1,760,000 iPhones. It is assumed these are the 3G iPhone, though we can not be sure. The current iPhone supply has dwindled to near nothing, and Apple is in dire need of some more units. It is hard to imaging, that in light of the fact we will see the 3G iPhone soon, that Apple would import that many iPhones just to have them deprecated by the new device.

Another interesting point in the rumor is that Canada has received a few shipments of this mystery device as well. Rogers has said that they will be getting the iPhone this year, but did not specify what model. Considering that Rogers runs an HSPA network up in Canada, the 3G iPhone seems a logical choice for them.

No one knows for certain what is in those crates except Apple, and the its factory partners. This and any article you have read is a best guess. While we are entertaining ideas, I would like to present a new one. The possibility, that this could be the long rumored tablet Mac. We have seen rumors of this device being a WWDC show stopper.

To me, this device would seem much more like a computer than an iPhone, and electric, you bet. Unfortunately for us we will have to wait until June 9th to see what this all means.

[Via Import Genius]

Filed under: OS, Freeware, Open Source

We first noted the open-source virtualization application VirtualBox way back in 2007, and since then this open-source competitor to VMware Fusion and Parallels has come a long way. Most importantly, perhaps, the project was acquired by Sun Microsystems and has now become Sun xVM VirtualBox with a great deal more support.

The application is free for personal use and is available for a wide variety of x86 platforms including OS X on Intel Macs. The feature set is extensive and includes a lot of the features of its commercial counterparts. That said, it lacks many of the niceties of those programs, including any kind of 3D graphics support. Nonetheless, it’s hard to argue with free and is probably worth checking out if your virtualized Windows requirements are modest.

Sun xVM VirtualBox is a free download from Sun.

Thanks, Dean!

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Filed under: Mac 101

Many switchers to Mac OS X have the same question: “how can I customize my application toolbars?” While this is fairly straightforward in Windows, Mac OS X makes it much easier. Just open the customization menu by right-clicking (if you have a one-button mouse you can control + click) on the toolbar, then select “Customize…”

When you do this, you are presented with a dialog box that “rolls down” to display all of the items that you can add. Just drag the ones you want to the toolbar. If you find you don’t want a certain toolbar item, just open the customize panel again and drag the item off the menu bar.

For more tips and tricks like these, visit the Mac 101 section on TUAW.

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Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Apple

Forrester Research has mined its vast knowledge resources, and produced a report suggesting that Apple’s products in 2013 will be nothing but household clutter.

Apparently Apple is out of ideas, so Forrester decided to take on the task itself, coming up with an envelope-pushing list of electronics that includes such marvels as:

• digital picture frames
• clock radios
• universal remote controls

Wow. That’s research money well spent, if you ask me. Take note Apple employees, these are the ideas you’re going to have to top in your next product development meeting.

[Via AlleyInsider.]

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Belongs to the 17-in MacBook Pro, proclaims Ryan Faas (computerworld.com). “The brightness and color brilliance is out of this world,” he says. What’s more, the system “delivers all of the processing power, RAM options and storage capacity of an iMac — along with approximately the same screen real estate,” making it “a desktop replacement in virtually every sense of the word.”