Apple updates Time Machine and Airport – Now working together!

9to5 Staff

Apple has now filled what was a gaping hole in their Time Machine backup ecosystem.  You can now use Airport connected HFS+ Formatted USB hard drives to backup your Leopard computers.  Apple had promised this feature long ago and then pulled the advertising for the "Airport Disk Time Machine Backups" and hasn’t able to deliver during the first two releases of Leopard.  This might have been more difficult than originally planned (though our Flux Capacitor has helped many). 

Apple has now released Airport and Time Machine updates that now allow you to see Airport connected USB drives and back up to them like Time Capsule drives.

It isn’t known whether Apple waited to sell a few Time Capsules before releasing this fix or the company genuinely didn’t have all of the pieces together.  Anyway.  Download and backup to your heart’s content. 

iPhone SDK torrent on the Internet

9to5 Staff

We don’t condone torrenting stuff or bypassing Apple’s $99-$199 charge for developing iPhone applications but thought it would be prudent to report that the iPhone SDK is now floating around the torrent sites.  The DMG file weighs in at 2.1 GB and is the real deal we can confirm.

If you actually are successful in developing an application with this, you will be forced to pay Apple the normal price before they publish the application on their site, one must assume.

Click for more

 

The SDK is only for Apple Leopard users running XCode.

 

MacBook Air gets discounted at Amazon $1744

9to5 Staff

Amazon discounted the MacBook Air to $1744 (after $50 rebate) today.  The MacBook Air has been in Amazon’s Best selling electronics page since its release (it currently is at #17) so the markdown is obviously not because of slow sales.  It is the lowest price we could find anywhere.

Amazon is also offering large discounts on the last generation Apple MacBooks ($919 after $75 rebate) and Macbook Pros ($1544 after $150 rebate).  Since the latest changes were fairly minimal (in fact the older model Prros have MORE L2 Cache 4Mb vs 3Mb), it might be a good time to pick up a very slightly outdated machine at a very significant discount.  Rebates end March 11.

In other Amazon news, Time Capsule in both $299 500Gb  and 1Tb $499 models is now shipping.

 

Amazon rocking iPhone and iPod Touch optimized site

9to5 Staff

Amazon has built an iPod/iPhone optimized site for the hordes of people who have been buying ipod touches on their site.  It isn’t overly functional but it works nicely.  The product scrolling is very cool as well.

You also have the ability to use the traditional browser experience to do your shopping inside the iPhone/iPod.

Amazon detects your browser type and adjusts the browser window accordingly.  They are also offering a generic mobile browser version of their site with considerably less functionality.

To get there, simply point your iPod/iPhone browser to http://www.amazon.com

 

iPhone bands?

9to5 Staff

The idea of a band based on iPhones and Gameboys has probably come up often with all of the latest musical instruments available on hacked iPhones.  We are huge fans of iAno and guitar.app.  Gizmodo found an interesting little "iBand".  While the idea is good, the implementation leaves more than a little bit to be desired.  If you want to see how far this technology can go – check out LEMUR – the League of Musical Urban Robots.  Urban :P