Iphone Updates

To create Back from the Dead, a new album from Spinal Tap scheduled for release in June, music producer CJ Vanston tapped Logic Studio. In fact, he says “every piece of the album was made using Macs running Apple’s Logic.” PCs, the engineer adds, “aren’t allowed within 20 feet of me. There’s always a problem with them, whether its a virus, defragging the drive, or something. They just slow you down.”

Tim O’Reilly, one of the biggest author and publisher of technology books has written a book on Twitter, it is worth noting because Twitter is becoming a big way of communicating while on your iPhone and the Twitter iPhone apps have a great success with it. So go and check The Twitter Book.

Here is also an interview of Tim O’Reilly:

You need to a flashplayer enabled browser to view this YouTube video

Tags:iphone oreilly the twitter book tim oreilly twitter twitter bookiphone, oreilly, the twitter book, tim oreilly, twitter, twitter book

iTunes U now lets you sample some of the delightful content — David Hockney using Twitter to answer questions about his art, tours through the palace and gardens of Versailles, Patti Smith singing about the early life as an artist in Paris — available at three of the leading European museums: the Tate, Château de Versailles, and Fondation Cartier.

In his InfoWorld review, Tom Yager explains why he considers the new Mac Pro “the perfect workstation.” The new Nehalem-based Mac Pro “is impeccably built, extraordinarily configurable and expandable, owner-serviceable, quiet, green, friendly, fast, and custom-made for Snow Leopard.” The new systems, he says, “establish a new bar in the price/performance/watt trifecta.”

Critically-acclaimed newcomer Nicole Beharie joins an all-star cast of Academy Award–nominated (Alfre Woodward, Michael O’Keefe) and Emmy Award–winning (Charles S. Dutton, Xzibit) actors in a film about Dee Roberts (Beharie), an African American single mother accused of being a drug dealer. Together with an ACLU attorney (Tim Blake Nelson), Roberts struggles to prove her innocence. The film opens April 17.

If you can’t get to this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, you can at least enjoy trailers for a selection of the films that will be seen at the annual celebration of independent filmmaking. They includes the latest work from such directors as Atom Egoyan, Spike Lee, Carlos Cuaron, and other new and well-known filmmakers.

In his History of Jazz program, Dr. Gordon Vernick, Associate Professor of Music at Georgia State University looks at just one year in the rich history of this uniquely American musical genre. But Vernick sees 1959 as a “nexus point,” the year he “likes to think about as the most important year in jazz.” What occurred in 1959 to make it such a milestone for jazz music?

If you’re looking forward to the newest film in the X-Men series, you have only a week to wait. Opening on May 1, X-Men Origins: Wolverine — a prequel to the rest of the films in the series — focuses on Logan, the character, played by Hugh Jackman, who becomes Wolverine. On the Movie Trailers site, you’ll find an exclusive clip from the film, two trailers, and (coming soon) the Wolverine Weapons App.

Just nine months after the revolutionary App Store opened, Apple today announced, Connor Mulcahey, a thirteen year old from Weston, CT, downloaded the one billionth app. By downloading Bump, a free contact swapping app created by Bump Technologies, the teenager became the grand prize winner of Apple’s one billion app countdown contest and will receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro.

“We are extremely pleased to report the best non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings in our history,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, in announcing the company’s March quarter financial results. In its fiscal 2009 second quarter, Apple posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.33 per diluted share. Gross margin was 36.4 percent, up from 32.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Software, Odds and ends, Apple

Our weekly interactive podcast goes live on the air tonight at 10pm Eastern time over on the Talkshoe page, so if you’re around and ready to talk some Unofficial Apple Weblog news with us, please come by and join in. I’ll be hosting this evening, and Dave Caolo will be along for the ride with us, as well as a slew of other familiar names and voices from TUAW and our community. And we’ll be welcoming Alykhan “AJ” Jetha as our special guest for the evening — he’s the CEO of Marketcircle, makers of Daylite and Daylite Touch, business productivity management apps for the desktop and the iPhone. Our own Stephen Sande reviewed their products here on TUAW earlier this week.

Also tonight on the show, we’ll talk about all of the new iPhone hardware rumors floating around, and try to separate the wheat from the chaff there. There’s also rumors of an OS update that we’ll try shaking down, and the iPhone 3.0 beta has hit a new milestone, so we’ll look that over as well. iTunes prices are up, and sales are down, so we’ll try to figure out why. And since this is the eve of the release of Tweetie for Mac, we’ll talk about which clients we’ve used for Twitter on the desktop before and if Tweetie will be everything that everyone else is saying it is. Should be a lot of fun — tune in promptly at 10 Eastern to give us a listen.

To participate on TalkShoe, you can use the browser-only interface, or you can stick with the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client; however, for maximum fun, you should call in so we can hear your dulcet tones. For the web UI, just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. To call in on regular phone or VOIP lines (take advantange of your free cellphone weekend minutes if you like): dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. SIP or Gizmo users can connect directly to Talkshoe by following the instructions here. Talk with you then!

Recording support for the talkcast is provided by Call Recorder from ecamm networks.

TUAWTalkcast reminder: 10pm ET this evening with special guest Alykhan Jetha of Marketcircle originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“The App Store — stocked with 15,000 titles — is on tap to move its 1 billionth application any day now,” reports Jefferson Graham (usatoday.com). And it’s applications from relatively small developers, like Smule, that have created such entertaining apps as Ocarina (one of the best-selling apps on the App Store) and Leaf Trombone (a newcomer to the Store) that are leading the way.

In theaters on Earth Day 2010, Oceans invites us to journey beneath the waves to glimpse the wild and untamed world that few get to see. The Disneynature film tells the story of the perils and uncertain future the inhabitants of this world face while at the same time showing us the bright future that could occur if we’re willing to change the way we treat the world’s oceans.

Now you can enjoy the environmental friendly book from Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen on your iPhone. And save a few more trees in the process. The digital version of the New York Times Bestseller “is full of green living tips and each section is accessible through the table of contents.” If you’d like to see more app options for Earth Day, pay a visit to the Green Room.

Eager to hear new tracks from the Dave Matthews Band? Subscribe to the iTunes Pass for Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, and the hot single, Funny the Way It Is, will download immediately. The rest of the band’s eagerly anticipated eighth studio album will download as soon as it becomes available. And until the pass expires this September, you’ll receive bonus studio tracks, live tracks, and more.

“Since it opened 10 months ago,” reports Dow Jones’ Ben Charny (smartmoney.com), ”the App Store has been a runaway hit selling a host of software that turn the smartphone into everything from a carpenter’s level to a virtual change purse.” Showing “no sign of letting up,” the success of the App Store has made Apple “‘the platform of choice‘ in the consumer smartphone area,” according to Gartner analyst Mike McGuire.

The Mac is energy efficient by design, but you can help conserve even more energy by taking advantage of Energy Saver options. Using the Sleep pane, for example, you can set the Display to sleep after your Mac has been inactive for a specific amount of time. But don’t make your Mac wait to get some sleep. Find out how to team Energy Saver with Exposé to put your Mac to sleep immediately.

When Forrester Research released the results of its annual survey on customer satisfaction, says Jim Dalrymple (macworld.com), “Apple not only topped the list, it blew away the competition.” In fact, Apple “dominated in each category” that the survey assessed, “scoring 82 percent (Useful), 86 percent (Easy to Use), and 72 percent (Enjoyable).”

Next Wednesday, you can celebrate Earth Day 2009 by watching Earth, which opens on April 22. Narrated by James Earl Jones and directed by Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield, the team who produced the Academy Award–winning Planet Earth, the first film in the Disneynature series offers incredible cinematography as it follows three animal families over the course of a year. Enjoy.

Mountain Gorillas have fascinated us since the earliest days of the 20th century. And that was well before we knew that they were our closest genetic relative on Earth, sharing close to 99% of our DNA. Now, thanks to iTunes U and Open University, you can learn all about the Mountain Gorillas still surviving in the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park in Uganda.

You may have used Disk Utility to format, verify, repair, or partition disks on your Mac. But the Mac OS X Leopard utility also offers a great way to protect any sensitive or confidential data you’re sending to colleagues or clients. Encrypt a folder on your Mac as a .dmg file, and you can confidently email it or include it on an optical disc or thumb drive you overnight. Like to see how easy it is to create a .dmg in Disk Utility?

Have you gone Flick Sports Fishing? The Freeverse game — one of the all-time top 20 apps on the App Store — lets you virtually cast and reel in some really big fish using iPhone or iPod touch. You can play against friends and brag about your latest catch. And for a limited time, if you download Flick Fishing — or any other app on the App Store — you could reel in a really big catch in the Billion App Countdown Promotion.

Recommended for all those using Aperture 2, the Aperture 2.1.3 Update — available as a free download from the Aperture site or the Apple support site — improves overall stability and provides fixes for issues related to database integrity and compatibility with specific file types.

To create Back from the Dead, a new album from Spinal Tap scheduled for release in June, music producer CJ Vanston tapped Logic Studio. In fact, he says “every piece of the album was made using Macs running Apple’s Logic.” PCs, the engineer adds, “aren’t allowed within 20 feet of me. There’s always a problem with them, whether its a virus, defragging the drive, or something. They just slow you down.”

iTunes U now lets you sample some of the delightful content — David Hockney using Twitter to answer questions about his art, tours through the palace and gardens of Versailles, Patti Smith singing about the early life as an artist in Paris — available at three of the leading European museums: the Tate, Château de Versailles, and Fondation Cartier.

In his InfoWorld review, Tom Yager explains why he considers the new Mac Pro “the perfect workstation.” The new Nehalem-based Mac Pro “is impeccably built, extraordinarily configurable and expandable, owner-serviceable, quiet, green, friendly, fast, and custom-made for Snow Leopard.” The new systems, he says, “establish a new bar in the price/performance/watt trifecta.”

Critically-acclaimed newcomer Nicole Beharie joins an all-star cast of Academy Award–nominated (Alfre Woodward, Michael O’Keefe) and Emmy Award–winning (Charles S. Dutton, Xzibit) actors in a film about Dee Roberts (Beharie), an African American single mother accused of being a drug dealer. Together with an ACLU attorney (Tim Blake Nelson), Roberts struggles to prove her innocence. The film opens April 17.

Filed under: Humor, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone, App Store

TUAW regulars probably remember our post about a reader in Tokyo who strapped an iPhone to his hat and used Qik to livestream the Tokyo Marathon. Well, now we’re about to see an iPhone run the Boston Marathon.

It’s a very large iPhone with a developer inside! RunKeeper developer Jason Jacobs has battled plantar fascitis and a short training season (three weeks) to hopefully carry off this great marketing scheme on Marathon Monday. He’s wearing a lightweight iPhone suit made of black lycra with a rope frame. What’s on the screen of the iPhone? RunKeeper, of course!

The staff at Fitness Keeper worked with a team of students from Professor Dave Gerzof’s social media class at Emerson College to come up with a marketing strategy that would give their popular exercise tracking app an extra push in the App Store. On Monday, we’ll see how well an iPhone can run the Boston Marathon.

There’s more of the story as well as video at http://www.runkeeper.com/marathon. Good luck, Jason!

TUAWiPhone to run Boston Marathon originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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If you can’t get to this year’s Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, you can at least enjoy trailers for a selection of the films that will be seen at the annual celebration of independent filmmaking. They includes the latest work from such directors as Atom Egoyan, Spike Lee, Carlos Cuaron, and other new and well-known filmmakers.

In his History of Jazz program, Dr. Gordon Vernick, Associate Professor of Music at Georgia State University looks at just one year in the rich history of this uniquely American musical genre. But Vernick sees 1959 as a “nexus point,” the year he “likes to think about as the most important year in jazz.” What occurred in 1959 to make it such a milestone for jazz music?

If you’re looking forward to the newest film in the X-Men series, you have only a week to wait. Opening on May 1, X-Men Origins: Wolverine — a prequel to the rest of the films in the series — focuses on Logan, the character, played by Hugh Jackman, who becomes Wolverine. On the Movie Trailers site, you’ll find an exclusive clip from the film, two trailers, and (coming soon) the Wolverine Weapons App.

Just nine months after the revolutionary App Store opened, Apple today announced, Connor Mulcahey, a thirteen year old from Weston, CT, downloaded the one billionth app. By downloading Bump, a free contact swapping app created by Bump Technologies, the teenager became the grand prize winner of Apple’s one billion app countdown contest and will receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule, and a MacBook Pro.

Filed under: Software, Tips and tricks, Friday Favorite

What’s free, flexible, easy-to-use but powerful and can handle a wide variety of file types? Our good friend, TextEdit, an app that ships with every Mac. TextEdit is, of course, a simple text editing tool like Notepad or WordPad on Windows. But there’s a lot more to “simple text editing” that you might imagine, especially when TextEdit connects to services and other apps. I’m going to show you a few cool things you can do with TextEdit: create an inbox, use it as a development tool, or grab snippets of text on the go.

First, you should know that TextEdit defaults to the .rtf format. If you’re not familiar with it, RTF is “rich text” and, unlike the .txt files generated by something like NotePad, RTF includes formatting, like bold or italics or bullet lists. “Plain text” .txt files are pretty much just the basic ASCII characters and paragraph breaks. So what? Well, if you want things to look pretty, you’ll stick with .rtf, a format which is easy to share across platforms. Side note: did you know TextEdit will open Word documents? It isn’t perfect, but it works if you don’t have Word on your machine. The older .txt format is better for coding or when you don’t need or can’t have formatting.

To create an inbox, I suggest the simpler .txt format. What I used to do was set up Quicksilver to easily append to an inbox.txt file, and I used GeekTool to pin that .txt file to my desktop. You could also use LaunchBar to append, and I’m sure there’s a way to whip up an AppleScript, but I never bothered. Instead, when I ditched Quicksilver, I started keeping the text file in the Dock, and I just open it up to add items. All this is portable, indexed by Spotlight, and fully cross-platform compatible.

Next up: munging HTML with TextEdit, and grabbing snippets of text from any app and dropping them into a file.

Continue reading Friday Favorite: TextEdit

TUAWFriday Favorite: TextEdit originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: iPhone, App Store

The Finance section of the App Store does feature some heavy-hitters (Bloomberg, ATM Hunter) and some fairly weak beer too. A lot of these apps are unitaskers, particularly when it comes to stock quotes and charting. For a full-featured and free investment information portal, and a strong competitor to the Bloomberg iPhone app, you may want to try the newly-released AOL Daily Finance, powered by the dailyfinance.com site.

The first key feature to note is the free real-time equity quote service, provided from the BATS Exchange; major exchange (NYSE & Nasdaq) quotes are delayed, though. You can quote individual symbols or watch your entire portfolio with ease, whether you enter it on the device or link to your existing lineup under your AOL or AIM screenname; up to 25 separate portfolios can be managed. You can also view up-to-the-minute financial and market news from the AP and other sources.

The other standout feature of this app is its comprehensive charting support. Clicking the chart button on an equity page brings up a straightforward chart, but rotate your device into landscape mode and you’re in a Cover Flow-esque lineup of all the charts in your portfolio. Double-tap a chart to access a full suite of advanced comparison options (vs. markets, vs. peers, seasonality, showing events like earnings & splits, and custom symbol comparisons). Holding down a finger on a single-line chart enables a crosshair cursor that lets you see the specific data for any point on the chart. All the functions are intuitive and easy to use; the charts are cached so you can see most of your data even if your device is disconnected from WiFi or cell service.

If you’re of a mind to keep an eye on the markets while you’re on the move, you may find this app has the tools you’re looking for. Check out the gallery below for a few screenshots.

Editor’s Note: TUAW’s parent company Weblogs, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL.

TUAWAOL Daily Finance app raises the bar for iPhone investment tools originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Fri, 17 Apr 2009 08:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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According to developers who are beta testing the next generation of iPhone operating system software, there’s a built in feature called Jibbler that allows applications to take advantage of voice recognition technology. While it’s mainly speculation at present (why isn’t that a surprise), ArsTechnica came across references to classes and methods called VSSpeechSynthesizer, VSRecognitionSession, SBVoiceControlDisableHandlerActions, SBSensitiveJibblerEnabled, and SBVoiceControlSoundCompletion…

Filed under: Features, Troubleshooting, Ask TUAW

This time around in Ask TUAW we’ve got questions about online file syncing services, installing a faster drive for CD ripping, using a FreeNAS box for Time Machine backup, Twitter clients and more.

As always, your suggestions are welcome. 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 Mac OS X (we’ll assume you’re running Leopard on an Intel Mac if you don’t specify). And now, on to the questions!

Continue reading Ask TUAW: Online file syncing, CD ripping, Time Machine to NAS, and more

TUAWAsk TUAW: Online file syncing, CD ripping, Time Machine to NAS, and more originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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“We are extremely pleased to report the best non-holiday quarter revenue and earnings in our history,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s CFO, in announcing the company’s March quarter financial results. In its fiscal 2009 second quarter, Apple posted revenue of $8.16 billion and a net quarterly profit of $1.21 billion, or $1.33 per diluted share. Gross margin was 36.4 percent, up from 32.9 percent in the year-ago quarter.

“The App Store — stocked with 15,000 titles — is on tap to move its 1 billionth application any day now,” reports Jefferson Graham (usatoday.com). And it’s applications from relatively small developers, like Smule, that have created such entertaining apps as Ocarina (one of the best-selling apps on the App Store) and Leaf Trombone (a newcomer to the Store) that are leading the way.

In theaters on Earth Day 2010, Oceans invites us to journey beneath the waves to glimpse the wild and untamed world that few get to see. The Disneynature film tells the story of the perils and uncertain future the inhabitants of this world face while at the same time showing us the bright future that could occur if we’re willing to change the way we treat the world’s oceans.

Now you can enjoy the environmental friendly book from Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen on your iPhone. And save a few more trees in the process. The digital version of the New York Times Bestseller “is full of green living tips and each section is accessible through the table of contents.” If you’d like to see more app options for Earth Day, pay a visit to the Green Room.

Now you can enjoy the environmental friendly book from Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen on your iPhone. And save a few more trees in the process. The digital version of the New York Times Bestseller “is full of green living tips and each section is accessible through the table of contents.” If you’d like to see more app options for Earth Day, pay a visit to the Green Room.

Filed under: Hardware, Internet Tools, iPhone

iPhone RFID: object-based media from timo on Vimeo.

Some things are really cool. Object-based RFID media for the the iPhone is one of them. The video above is a prototype demonstration of how this could potentially work. Basically, there’s a small “tag” inside a physical object that triggers an iPhone action when it’s in range via the attached RFID/NFC reader. In the demonstration it can be seen playing videos, launching podcasts, etc. Our favorite is that the phone begins playing home movies when moved within range of the little house.

This is full of potential. Could other actions be triggered, like send an email or open a web browser? What if, as the developers ask, the iPhone could send actions instead of perform them? Some really fun things could result.

Some bad as well. It seems like a marketer’s dream come true, and I have this nightmarish vision of walking through the mall as my iPhone has a freakout. But let’s look at the positive: Gaming, playing with toys and sharing media could get a whole lot more fun.

TUAWiPhone RFID prototype is very cool originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 12:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Hardware, Rumors, iPhone

Once again, the folks at DigiTimes have leaked information about a forthcoming Apple product. Citing “Industry sources in Taiwan,” they’ve published an alleged parts list for the next generation iPhone.

Standout items include the 3.2-megapixel CMOS image sensor from OmniVision, which seems in line with the rumored video features in iPhone OS 3.0. Also listed is NAND flash from Samsung and Toshiba and Mobile DDR DRAM from Samsung.

Most interesing is what missing from the list. Namely, the processor. So far, there are no solid rumors on what this could be, so it’s really anyone’s guess. We think it’s safe to say, however, that Apple will release new iPhones this summer. Those who purchased original phones two years ago will have their contracts expire in June, just around the time that iPhone OS 3.0 and WWDC will drop. Here’s to this summer!

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

[via theAppleBlog]

TUAWRumor: Upcoming iPhone parts list published originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Software

There’s an update in town, and it’s all about locking it down: the 12.1.7 update to Microsoft Office 2008 (available within the suite via the software update tool, or downloadable from Microsoft) closes two security holes present in multiple versions of Microsoft Excel and first acknowledged by the company in February. These vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to create a specially-configured Excel file that, when opened, would allow full control of the target machine.

The update package also bundles up all the previous patches to Office 2008, which lends it heft (it weighs in at over 150 MB) but simplifies matters if you’re a few revs behind. Note that there is no 12.1.6 update in the sequence; the previous patch level was 12.1.5.

If you haven’t made the leap to Office 2008 yet (perhaps you’re on a PPC Mac; perhaps you feel that you get better interoperability with Office 2003 users on Windows; perhaps you have to have Visual Basic support for macros), Microsoft is giving you the chance to consider moving up with a full-featured 30-day demo of Office 2008, now available for download in the USA. The package includes all the Office apps and can be upgraded to a paid license in the field without purchasing a boxed copy and reinstalling. Upgrades from previous editions of Office start at $240… of course, there are some less expensive alternatives out there.

[h/t Ars Technica]

TUAWMicrosoft Office rolls up to 12.1.7, trial edition downloadable originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Qype Radar, which launched as a native iPhone application late last year, has had an overhaul and is now back as version two. Various features include direct linking of the app to the user’s Qype account, the ability to write reviews of locations and venues in real time, batch upload photos, and saving of draft reviews, as well as the ability to get all relevant info about a place in one go. There’s also an API available which means other developers should be able to create interesting add-on functionality for it. Available now. Existing users can simply upgrade the app via the iTunes Store. Qype Radar

Eager to hear new tracks from the Dave Matthews Band? Subscribe to the iTunes Pass for Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, and the hot single, Funny the Way It Is, will download immediately. The rest of the band’s eagerly anticipated eighth studio album will download as soon as it becomes available. And until the pass expires this September, you’ll receive bonus studio tracks, live tracks, and more.

Filed under: Apple Corporate, Retail, Odds and ends, Apple

My current city of Chicago isn’t really suffering for Apple Stores — the one on Michigan Avenue kind of makes up for any other missed areas around here, as it’s the nicest and biggest one I’ve seen (but then again, I haven’t been to the ones in New York near Mr. Rose). But it’s good to hear that we’re going to be getting another store, this one a little bit outside the Loop, on the city’s northside. State Street and the theater area, you might think, would be a little more fitting for the next big retail center, but no: apparently the burgeoning retail area between a gutted Cabrini Green and Lincoln Park is the place to be. Coincidentally, I used to work as a manager at the North Halsted Borders there — served cafe sandwiches to John Malkovitch and found a book for Kurtwood “Clarence Boddicker” Smith, both visiting from Steppenwolf down the street.

But perhaps I’m getting too personal — just color me excited to have a new Apple Store even closer to where I live now (near Clark and Diversey). The new store is set to open on the empty lot that used to be taken up by a gas station between North and Clybourn (right across from the Red Line stop) and would have about 15,000 square feet in the “long-term location.” No word from Crain’s yet, though, over when the store would open or even when ground might be broken. Still, all of the development guys seem happy — they’ll probably get in there as fast as they can.

TUAWNew Apple Store at North and Clybourne in Chicago originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Filed under: Apple, SDK

But you knew this, right? Fire up your downloaders, another update from Apple means the digging has already begun for a) new features or updates, b) hints for a new iPhone.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in! I’d like to note that we broke this via our Twitter feed several hours ago. Even if you don’t “do” the Twitter dance, it’s a good way to catch breaking news.

TUAWNew iPhone OS 3.0 beta hits the dev center originally appeared on The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) on Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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British Telecom has announced a new deal with the Starbucks chain of coffee houses in the UK which will see around 650 new wireless hotspots spring up over the coming months. Not only does this directly benefit BT’s 4.6 million…

“Since it opened 10 months ago,” reports Dow Jones’ Ben Charny (smartmoney.com), ”the App Store has been a runaway hit selling a host of software that turn the smartphone into everything from a carpenter’s level to a virtual change purse.” Showing “no sign of letting up,” the success of the App Store has made Apple “‘the platform of choice‘ in the consumer smartphone area,” according to Gartner analyst Mike McGuire.