Iphone Updates

Filed under: Apple, Graphic Design

As reported elsewhere, Apple today won two Black Pencil awards from D&AD, a British organization (or “organisation,” I suppose) that promotes the very best of design around the world.

This year, the iPhone and aluminum iMac both took home the top award. The iPod touch received second prize (a Yellow Pencil), and the iPod nano and aluminum keyboard were each nominated. Apple has won six Black Pencils since 1999.

This year, six Black Pencils were awarded, though some years D&AD hand out zero (Graphic designers, for example, were a little miffed this year that none of their work was good enough). Sixty-four Yellow Pencils were handed out, among 143 total nominations.

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Thanks to a new plug-in filter set from Image Trends, photographers can now quickly and easily correct hemispheric fisheye lens distortion without leaving Aperture. Bullish on the new, Aperture 2.1 image editing SDK, Image Trends plans “to offer PearlyWhites and ShineOff Aperture plug-ins within the next 60 days with additional products to follow,” announced president and CEO Dan Sullivan.

Well another week of iPhone news has gone by. This week has been somewhat slow compared to what we usually see. Quit possibly because everyone is counting down the days to WWDC. That’s because we are hearing rumors that the 3G iPhone will not be the only thing Apple is going to awe us with at the event.

Of course, this is referring to the mystery device that is rumored to drop at WWDC. We heard rumors about the device, and then even a confirmation by Intel’s German unit, saying that the device will be powered by their new Atom processor. These comments were of course retracted, and dismissed by Intel as a example of a device that could be powered by Atom.

The iPhone will see some new distribution in a few more countries according to Orange. The new countries include Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets. It is expected that the new markets will get the device by years’ end.

WWDC is going to be the place to be this year. Unfortunately though, unless you have already been accepted, you are not going to get in. The event is now fully booked. Those wanting to see the action can log in to their Apple developer accounts to check out video clips from the event. Do not forget to follow our live coverage of the event at live.iphonebuzz.com.

3G iPhone rumors are slowly pouring in still. We have heard rumors that the 3G iPhone may come in up to three different color choices. This is not all, as we are also hearing rumors that the device will come with GPS, Mobile TV, and even video conferencing. This would be an amazing addition to the 3G iPhone, and with all that 3G action, will be welcomed with open arms.

An option for ‘iPhone Black’ showed up on AT&T’s website as an option for choosing your device. The option was found next to the normal iPhone option, which sparked a wave of rumors about the 3G iPhone launching soon. AT&T of course denied the rumors almost immediately, giving this response.

“The reference to “iPhone Black” was simply a temporary placeholder used over the weekend for a scheduled catalog update. It was meant to temporarily distinguish the various iPhone models-4GB, 8GB and 16GB-but was never reassigned. It should be corrected on the site by now.”  Brad Mays, PR for AT&T.

Filed under: Cool tools, WWDC

Developers and other WWDC attendees looking for a simple printout of the sessions and labs at the conference may be disappointed with the results when printing out Apple’s (very slick) Ajax calendars. You could save the pages to PDFs and have a calendar format, but for the purposes of a nice, list-format printout, I can’t find a printable version. It’s entirely possible I’m not looking hard enough, but at least one other person had the same problem … and was resourceful enough to come up with a solution. Johannes Fahrenkrug is making available a Ruby script that will make a PDF with a nicely formatted table of all the sessions and labs offered at WWDC.

You can grab the script at his blog and running it is a simple matter of unzipping and executing the wwdcpdf.rb file from Terminal (or wherever you like to do such things). The output is a simple table format with some classic Helvetica action. Those familiar with FPDF may be able to get more artistic with it, or simply build off of the existing code to output in other print or screen-friendly ways. Given that it’s based off of an XML file, you can even do some sorting and filtering with a little bit of Ruby magic. Johannes states that he’d be happy to see the script enhanced!

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Filed under: Software, Freeware

We’ve all been there: you have the Dock set to auto hide and you miss the Mail.app notification telling you there’s new mail. Well, don’t miss that presidential e-mail again with Mail Unread Menu. This little app sits in your menu bar awaiting your e-mail.

This menu bar application can replace right-clicking on the Mail.app icon in the dock. You can check for new mail, compose a new message, and view the new messages broken down by mail boxes. This application did, however, seem a bit laggy in updating the unread mail count.

You can download Mail Unread Menu 3.1 for free (donations accepted) by visiting the developer’s website.

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Filed under: iPhone

In a short press release today, Orange announced it would bring the iPhone to “customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year.” The company offered no other details.

For some of these countries, it means that many carriers will be providing service for iPhone.

Thanks to everybody who sent this in!

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Klipsch has announced three new pairs of headphones in its Custom Series. The Custom-3, Custom-2, and Custom-1 models boast great comfort and sound, offering a personalised fit thanks to their Contour Ear Gels which ensure sound isolation, reduced ear fatigue, and high audio performance…

It seems that, if AT&T stores haven’t already run out of iPhones, they soon will. Reminiscent of the early days of iPhone sales, but for quite different reasons, it seems AT&T staff are being told to only allow customers to purchase one iPhone…

Just Mobile’s Xtand is a stylish aluminium stand for the iPhone with a look not unlike the stands Apple use on their newer all-in-one iMacs. It even has the circular hole at the back for feeding through cables and keeping them neat…

I’m sure this little application, requiring a jailbroken iPhone, will suit some that want to make their handset less efficient to use for the sake of going back in time a few decades…

Aliph has released an updated version of its Jawbone noise-cancelling Bluetooth headset, 50% smaller than the original and featuring “NoiseAssassin” technology which can separate speech from ambient noise, and Voice Activity Sensor to detect very accurately when the person is talking and capture the frequencies of his or her speech…

Mophie, fresh out of being awarded “Works with iPhone” status for its battery pack, has updated its Apple-friendly line of Radura hard cases, made from a polycarbonate material and allowing full access to controls and touchscreen…

The timing may be out, but Swisscom has announced that it has secured rights to bring the iPhone to Switzerland in the summer…

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\Jays, a Swedish designer and manufacturer of portable media accessories, has created a new stereo music adapter which enables any standard pair of headphones to be used with the iPhone’s recessed headphone jack. m-JAYS iPhone is a combined stereo handset / music adapter which can be used with any earphones, including the Jay’s range — d-JAYS, j-JAYS and premium q-JAYS…

We have seen some Windows Vista themes before, but they have traditionally been limited to Vista style icons and backgrounds. Vista Perfection is changing all that, with what is no doubt one of the most thorough themes that are available for the iPhone to date. Everything is Vista themed, and when I say everything, don’t kid yourself I mean everything.

The dock has been replaced with a windows style task bar. Since the iPhone does not support background processes, I have to assume those are dock icons to launch applications. There is even a Windows Vista sidebar on the screen, which appears to be part of the background image. The theme has over 90 icons available, and should theme most of the applications you have installed.

It does not stop there. The unlock screen, has been themed as the Windows Vista login screen. The WiFi icon, EDGE icon, and even the slide to unlock arrow have all been themed as well. The booting and shutdown screens are even themed. The theme will be available on Installer shortly, but for now you can get it here. Here is a shot of the iPhone booting with this theme installed.

[Via Just Another iPhone Blog]

Though Vodafone has already announced its plans to sell the iPhone in Australia (amongst other countries), Apple seems to be continuing its new non-exclusive strategy by announcing that Optus will also be selling the iPhone. An Apple spokesperson said the company is “excited to be working with SingTel, Globe and Optus to bring the iPhone to Australia later this year, and we can’t wait to get this revolutionary phone in the hands of even more people around the world.”…

According to the WIRED blog, Luigi Licciardi, a VP at Italia Mobile, the company will be selling a 3G iPhone next month…

According to the WIRED blog, Luigi Licciardi, a VP at Italia Mobile, the company will be selling a 3G iPhone next month…

I haven’t got round to installing the latest iPhone firmware yet, but reports suggest that it reveals more evidence for a 3G iPhone…

I haven’t got round to installing the latest iPhone firmware yet, but reports suggest that it reveals more evidence for a 3G iPhone…

Finally, the last supplies of legal iPhones have dried up in both the UK and US. Last week it seemed pretty clear that O2 had run out of iPhones despite their rather strange splash page, but the Apple Store was still selling both 8GB and 16GB models…

Filed under: Freeware, iTunes

Potion Factory brainiac Andy Kim has just unleashed a new free app on the world – I Love Stars.

This little app does two things very well. First, it displays your iTunes rating (from zero to five stars) in the menu bar for the song that is currently playing, and second, I Love Stars lets you change the rating. All this is done without having to flip between programs. Just glance at the menu bar to see the current rating, or drag across the stars to change your rating.

While Alton Brown may frown upon tools that don’t perform a multitude of functions, this is one little app that any iTunes fan could love.

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Filed under: Tips and tricks, Odds and ends, Troubleshooting, Leopard, Books

Take Control Books, the digital delivery brainchild of long-time Mac authors Adam and Tonya Engst, has announced the publication of two new ebooks in their Take Control series.

Author Joe Kissell has written a 95-page tome titled Take Control of Apple Mail in Leopard that describes the 14 new features in the latest version of Apple Mail, details how to use its hidden power, and provides troubleshooting tips in case things don’t work just the way they should. Joe’s companion ebook, Take Control of Spam with Apple Mail, helps you to keep the wave of ED pharmaceutical ads in your inbox to a minimum.

The ebooks are $10 each and are downloaded immediately for your reading pleasure.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have authored two Take Control eBooks — not this particular pair, though.

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Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW

In this riveting episode of Ask TUAW we’re catching up a bit on the backlog, so we’ll be looking at a couple of problems generated by Microsoft products (Hotmail and Photo Story), charging an iPhone from a sleeping Mac, syncing personal data between two user accounts, using a Mac mini as a backup server, and more.

As always your suggestions are most welcome, and questions for next week should be left in the comments. When asking a question please include which machine you’re running and which version of OS X, as certain answers will vary between different Macs and Tiger vs. Leopard, etc. (we’ll assume you’re running Leopard if you don’t specify). And now, on to the questions!

Continue reading Ask TUAW: Microsoft compatibility problems, iPhone charging, Mail bouncing, syncing, and more

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X-OOM has announced the availability of its “Movies on iPod 2″ software, allowing iPod and iPhone users to watch films on the go. It’s able to encode video from a wide range of other formats including DVD, SVCD, VCO, DivX, AVI, WMV, MPEG, and FLV…

GizMac has announced two new colours for its Titan Clear iPhone cases, now available in cobalt blue and emerald green, both of which can exhibit other subtle tones depending upon the lighting conditions…

Gizmodo has published a cool video showing a prototype driving game called Raging Thunder, which makes the most of the iPhone’s accelerometer and graphical abilities. Despite the fact there are a few glitches at present the game looks very promising, not only for its own sake but for the possibility of getting other top-class games onto the platform

OtterBox is feeling charitable (not to anyone who hates pink gadget accessories, mind you) by launching a pink version of their Defender iPhone cases to raise money for the Avon Breast Cancer Crusade…

Mophie has received the coveted “Works With iPhone” badge for its Juice Pack Battery Extender, making it an official accessory for keeping your iPhone alive that bit longer. In fact, it boasts up to 8 hours additional talk time, 24 hours audio playback, 7 hours of video playback, and 6 hours of Internet playback, plus 250 hours of standby time…

Yesterday I reported that O2 had run out of stock of both the 8GB and 16GB models. It seems that’s not quite true. Either an iPhone-hating O2 employee was let loose on Photoshop and had too much fun typing “8GB…

It seems clear that O2′s recent iPhone price cut has done the trick of clearing out stock. Visit the O2 Store’s iPhone page and you’ll be greeted with a splash page that simply reads “8GB and 16GB iPhone: iPhone no longer available”…

DJ Nitrogen has announced its new Ringtone Lab for the iPhone, which claims it’s possible to legally share ringtone creations with other users of the software. That’s because, instead of sharing the actual audio files, users create a “ringtone recipe” which contains the data that defines the ringtone – start, stop, fade, etc. Other users can only use ringtone data for the music tracks they already own…

Hands up who isn’t expecting Steve Jobs to announce the 3G iPhone at the WWDC in June? If you need a little more “evidence” (OK, rumour) to fuel that fire, how about a leaked email from AT&T which asks employees not to take holiday between 15th June and 12th July…

Orange has just pumped out a press release today detailing its plans to carry the iPhone. They will be providing the iPhone in such countries as the Dominican Republic, Austria, and Switzerland. They are also bringing the device to several African markets. The press release is brief, and lists only the countries that Orange will provide the iPhone in.

Orange today announced a new agreement with Apple to bring the iPhone to Orange customers in Austria, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland and Orange’s African markets later this year. -From Press Release

It seems to be the common consensus across the internet that they are talking about the 3G iPhone. Many of these markets already have iPhones being sold in them, so it is very likely that yes that is what they are talking about. The press release does not say explicitly 3G iPhone, new iPhone, or any other alias we know it by.

[Via SlashPhone]

She hadn’t released a new album in five years. But that spell ended dramatically when singer/songwriter Erykah Badu sat down in front of her MacBook and fired up GarageBand. The music surged. “I learned how to use GarageBand by trial and error,” Badu says. “It’s like somebody stuck a plug in the back of my neck and uploaded a program to learn how to use GarageBand. It was automatic. Everything on that Mac was automatic.”

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Humor, Odds and ends, Apple, iPhone

Obama and Lindsay Lohan are far from the only people rocking the iPhone lately — a new site called “Coolspotters” claims to track brands and the celebrities that use them, and the iPhone is pretty cool lately. 32 celebrities have been spotted — everyone from Mike Tyson to Heidi Klum to Rose McGowan (pictured, though that really could be anyone, couldn’t it?). In fact, the Apple iPhone is actually the most popular product on the site right now — one spot above something called the Omnipeace t-shirt (yes, but does it have a multitouch screen?), and two spots above the MacBook Air.

Because everyone knows you need a site to tell you that what you own is cool, right? Of course, they are cheating a little bit — I don’t think the fact that Steve Jobs is using something necessarily makes it cool. Otherwise, we’d all have seen celebs toting around Newtons.

Still, if seeing celebs use the same product you have is your thing, the iPhone’s got you covered there, too. Can’t say it influenced my purchase much, but good to see that the rich and famous are catching on to what’s been TUAW’s favorite tech-cessory for a while.

[via Kottke]

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Filed under: Desktops, Open Source

It’s a big day for the Psystar Open Computer — the quasi-Mac clone based on PC hardware and a cracked version of Mac OS X. ZDNet today published their comparison of the Open Computer with a Mac mini, and all three flavors of MacBook.

The results? The Open Computer fares pretty well against all of its Mac cousins. It scored nearly 147 with Xbench 1.3.

It beats the Mac mini, its closest price competitor, by nearly 50 percent. The Open Computer outperforms even a MacBook Pro (with a 2.4GHz Penryn processor) by 10 points. Not too shabby at all, if you can stand the sound of a jet airplane on your desk (Just kidding. Apparently the noise isn’t too bad).

ZDNet promises results using GeekBench soon. UPDATE: the GeekBench results are here, and the Open Computer still leads most of the Macs, but by a narrower margin. The MacBook Pro, though, edged out the Psystar 3327 to 3244.

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Like many small business owners, RealSimple’s Erin knew that “databases can simplify life and work, but until now, I’ve never been able to design them myself.” Until she began using Bento, that is. “Bento looks, feels and works like other Mac applications. Organizing your information into collections in Bento is much like organizing songs in iTunes,” she writes. It’s “just another reason to consider a Mac.”

Hands up who isn’t expecting Steve Jobs to announce the 3G iPhone at the WWDC in June? If you need a little more “evidence” (OK, rumour) to fuel that fire, how about a leaked email from AT&T which asks employees not to take holiday between 15th June and 12th July…

Here at iPhonic we really love our surveys. Yep, we love nothing better than coming up with questions, wading through your responses, chuckling at your witty replies (well, sometimes) and generally finding out what you really think. So here’s a really good survey that has sent our excitement levels soaring. We have teamed up with Visual Networking experts Cisco to undertake some research into how you engage with online video.

Nothing spectacular has been updated in Apple’s fifth iPhone SDK beta, released today. It’s a bug-fixing exercise, with support for the latest iPhone OS. No doubt you have plenty of broadband bandwidth to download all these updates. iPhone Developer page

Here at iPhonic we really love our surveys. Yep, we love nothing better than coming up with questions, wading through your responses, chuckling at your witty replies (well, sometimes) and generally finding out what you really think. So here’s a really good survey that has sent our excitement levels soaring. We have teamed up with Visual Networking experts Cisco to undertake some research into how you engage with online video.

In what has to be one of the most obscure iPhone-related rumours yet, Apple Insider has published a snippet of a job advertisement from Research In Motion (makers of the BlackBerry): “As part of a newly-created team, you’ll influence the development and design of BlackBerry software. This is a very confidential brand new team and a senior position within RIM so I can’t provide too many details. I guess you can figure out what it might be about though.”…

Orange has just announced that they will provide the iPhone is new countries such as: Austria, Belgium, Egypt, Jordan, Poland, Portugal, Dominican Republic, Romania, Slovakia, Switzerland. Vodafone has announced back on the 6th of May that they will deliver the iPhone in those countries: South Africa, Australia, Egypt, Greece, Italy, India, New Zealand, Portugal, Turkey and Czech Republic.

Apparently we’re going to see some competition in several countries around the iPhone, let’s see if it makes the price going down…

Tags:australia belgium iphone italy orange Switzerland vodafoneaustralia, belgium, iphone, italy, orange, Switzerland, vodafone

Analysts from Citi have declared that 9th June, the opening day of the Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference 2008, will be when the 3G iPhone is announced — during Steve Jobs’ Keynote address. It’s not a groundbreaking piece of analysis,…

Speculation over a 3G iPhone coming to new countries in Europe continues with rumours published on a Belgian blog that three carriers could get a 3G iPhone in Belgium in June. Proximus, Mobistar and BASE could all sell a 3G iPhone, thanks to a similar law in Belgium to that of France meaning that mobile phones can’t be tied to an exclusive carrier.

Over 200,000 developers have signed up for the iPhone SDK beta so far, according to Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer. That’s just over a month after the 100,000 download milestone was reached…

Klipsch has announced three new pairs of headphones in its Custom Series. The Custom-3, Custom-2, and Custom-1 models boast great comfort and sound, offering a personalised fit thanks to their Contour Ear Gels which ensure sound isolation, reduced ear fatigue, and high audio performance…

It seems that, if AT&T stores haven’t already run out of iPhones, they soon will. Reminiscent of the early days of iPhone sales, but for quite different reasons, it seems AT&T staff are being told to only allow customers to purchase one iPhone…

It seems Intel would like to shy away from comments made by their German manager yesterday. We saw yesterday a rumor originating from a German language source, that said that Intel had confirmed that a higher resolution iPhone like device would be powered by their new Atom processor. According to Intel however, these were general remarks, about what their new processor “might” power.

Intel says that the whole mess stemmed from a poor German to English translation of the article, posted in a German language version of ZDNet. It is interesting though, that the original article we saw posted yesterday from the source, is different than the one that has been posted now.

“Intel knows nothing over future products of other manufacturers and can therefore over it also nothing say,” -Mike Cato, Intel Spokesman

Hopefully the quote sounded a lot better in German than the translated version shown here. It is an interesting story, as other sources attending the same event, that heard the German Intel manager speak, did not say he said anything about the iPhone. Others, say they did though. It is a messy rumor, and the only way we are going to know for sure is when WWDC rolls around.

[Via Apple2.0 Fortune Blog]