Jordan manages the internal Partner Program for sponsorships and partnerships across the 9to5 network’s media brands including 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, Electrek.co, SpaceExplored and DroneDJ.com.
Apple released a new universal GarageBand iOS app ($4.99) today that brings iPhone and iPod touch support to the previously iPad only, scaled-down DAW. New in Version 1.1 is the ability to create custom chords for Smart instruments, and support for 6/8 and 3/4 time signatures.
If you’re unfamiliar with the iOS app, which is a mobile version of the GarageBand app that ships with Mac OS X, here’s the description from the press release:
“GarageBand features a collection of fun Touch Instruments that sound great and make it easy for beginners or experienced musicians to play and record keyboards, guitars, drums and basses in a wide variety of styles. Smart Instruments now allow you to choose from an extensive new library of custom chords so you can play and strum along with your favorite songs.”
Full press release after the break, if you’re interested.
According to a report fromSmartOffice, Samsung is requesting Apple provide them with the “source code for iPhone 4S firmware” as it attempts to ban the device in Australia. Not only that, they also want Apple to hand over the details of subsidy agreements with all Australian carriers.
Samsung counsel Cynthia Cochrane told the federal court that on top of the source code, they would also need details on the agreements in place with Vodafone, Telstra, and Optus. Specifically, Samsung wants to know the subsidies these carriers are currently paying Apple (a subsidy that is typically higher by $200 than the industry average). Cochrane explains:
“It goes to show that since the iPhone 3G was made available in Australia in July 2008, the impact on the market for every iPhone product has been significant, and has lead to a substantial increase … in market share by revenue. If subsidies are given for the iPhone 4S, there are less to go around for my client’s products.”
Despite these subsidies, carriers such as Sprint think the iPhone is “worth every penny”. When it comes to handing over source code, Apple reportedly denies the infringement claims and says Samsung agreed to license the three wireless 3G-related patents in question under FRAND agreements. Samsung thinks that agreement doesn’t cover Apple in Australia and claims Apple denied previous attempts to extend the license internationally. While the report claims Apple “said they will have to wait for advice before” handing it over, they also claimed a third-party license owned by Qualcomm (who helped develop the MDM6610 chip inside the 4S that allegedly infringes on wireless patents) automatically covers the company.
While we will have to wait to find out what comes of this, it’s worth noting Justice Annabelle Bennett, the same judge who handed out the injunction against Samsung’s Tab 10.1, will be handling the case. The proceedings will continue November 4 and a full hearing will follow.
Apple engineers are in the process of contacting iPhone 4S owners in order to determine the cause of alleged battery life issues. One iPhone owner told the Guardianthat Apple engineers “installed a monitoring program” on his iPhone to diagnose the source of the problem:
“I then got a call from a senior [Apple] engineer who said he had read my post and was ‘reaching out’ to users for data and admitted this was an issue (and that they aren’t close to finding a fix!) and asked lots of questions about my usage and then asked if he could install the file below and that he would call back the day after to retrieve the info. I extracted the file from my Mac after a sync and emailed it to him. He was incredibly helpful and apologetic in the typical Apple way!”
The unnamed iPhone user was apparently experiencing a “10% drop in standby every hour”, he turned off location services and Siri in an attempt to troubleshoot which new features exclusive to the iPhone 4S might be causing the battery loss to no avail. We first reported about users complaining about the iPhone 4S’s battery draining unexplainably fast a couple weeks ago. The issue seems to only be affecting a small number of users, although the Apple discussion boards are still full of people experiencing similar problems. If this account with an Apple engineer is to be believed, it looks like Apple is at least acknowledging the issue even if they “aren’t close to finding a fix”. We’ll keep you posted as we learn more.
In a move differing from many of their competitors, Bloomberg TV has decided to provide their 24-hour live broadcast in a new Bloomberg TV+ app. The company, which is supported by the world’s largest international news bureau network with 146 bureaus in 72 countries, announced Thursday that the live stream would be made available subscription-free to all iPad owners. This varies from other content providers on the iPad such as CNN who reserve their live stream for specific subscription holders. The app will support streaming in both landscape and portrait view and also include featured videos for the day’s biggest stories, exclusive interviews, and a selection of Bloomberg programming on demand. You will also have access to all content from the last 24 hours and content produced specifically for mobile.
This will definitely be a welcome addition to Bloomberg TV content on the iPad, as up until now pulling up flash-based video content on the Bloomberg site obviously provides you with the typical “This video is not encoded to playback on this device.” as seen in the image below.
Other added features include the ability to download videos for offline viewing, search the content library, schedule reminders for upcoming shows, and share via the usual social networks. You can even customize Bloomberg’s familiar scrolling ticker. Grab the free Bloomberg TV+ app from the App Store now, full release notes from iTunes below.
PBS has put out a press release today announcing the upcoming broadcast of “Steve Jobs — One Last Thing,” an hour-long documentary set to air November 2nd at 10 p.m. ET. The doc will include interviews with, among others, Ronald Wayne, Steve Wozniak, Walt Mossberg, as well as interviews with Jobs himself and a “never-before-broadcast interview from 1994” where Jobs says the following inspirational words:
“You tend to get told that the world is the way it is, but life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact; and that is that everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you … Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
The documentary will also include an interview with Robert Palladino, the professor who taught the calligraphy class at Reed College that famously inspired Jobs to include multiple typefaces and proportionally spaced fonts on the Mac. Full press release from PBS after the break.
Rupert Murdoch on Fox News talking about the iPad and Steve Jobs (2 minutes in)
Reuters points us to a section of Walter Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs’ bio detailing the relationship between Jobs and New Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch. News Corp. is behind the iPad-only publication, The Daily, which Jobs was originally supposed to introduce with Murdoch on stage prior to taking medical leave before the app’s February 2nd launch.
Isaacson writes about a conversation between the two men following New Corp.’s annual management retreat in June 2010 where Jobs tells Murdoch he’s “blowing it with Fox News” while calling it a “destructive force in our society”.
“The axis today is not liberal and conservative, the axis is constructive-destructive, and you’ve cast your lot with the destructive people. Fox has become an incredibly destructive force in our society. You can be better, and this is going to be your legacy if you’re not careful.”
During the conversation, Jobs apparently asked Murdoch to create a video reel consisting of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity shows, to which Murdoch agreed. Jobs later revealed to Isaacson plans to have a similar reel made by Jon Stewart’s Daily Show team, a show known for calling out Fox News frequently. Isaacson quotes Murdoch, prior to Steve’s passing, as saying, “I’d be happy to see it, but he hasn’t sent it to me”.
Jobs told Isaacson he believed Murdoch didn’t like the direction Fox News had gone saying, “Rupert’s a builder, not a tearer-downer, he said. I’ve had some meetings with James, and I think he agrees with me. I can just tell.” Although, Isaacson quotes Murdoch as shrugging off Jobs’ complaints saying “He’s got sort of a left-wing view on this”.
Apple accessory maker Twelve South has just launched their new BassJump 2 USB subwoofer for Apple’s MacBook lineup. If you’re not familiar, same as the original BassJump, the new model aims to blend the sound output between the subwoofer and your MacBook’s built-in speakers using Twelve South’s proprietary software. In other words, the BassJump 2 sub adds the mid- and low-frequencies, your MacBook speakers act as stereo tweeters, and the software attempts to create an ideal mix between the two.
According to the company’s press release, the proprietary software used in the new model includes rewritten code that provides “greater compatibility and eight more decibels” for “dramatically enhanced sound”. The software’s UI (below), which includes a retro VU meter and other basic preset controls, has been redesigned and now allows you to save your customized settings.
When it comes to the greater compatibility, the BassJump 2 includes support for iMac and Apple Thunderbolt display speakers, as well as other non-Apple headphone-connected and USB-powered speakers.
The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) has announced in a press release (via MacRumors) that ‘Bluetooth 4.0’ will now be branded as “Bluetooth Smart Ready” and “Bluetooth Smart” to create “awareness around compatibility for new devices” (such as the iPhone 4S) that support the standard.
The press release explains:
“The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) announced two new brand extensions to its globally recognized logo today in an effort to create consumer awareness around compatibility for new devices implementing Bluetooth v4.0 – the Bluetooth Smart Ready trademark and the Bluetooth Smart trademark. Bluetooth Smart Ready devices are phones, tablets, PCs and TVs that sit at the center of a consumer’s connected world and implement a Bluetooth v4.0 dual mode radio. Bluetooth Smart devices are sensor-type devices like heart-rate monitors or pedometers that run on button-cell batteries and were built to collect a specific piece of information. Bluetooth Smart devices include only a single-mode low energy Bluetooth v4.0 radio.”
So in other words, the “Bluetooth Smart Ready” trademark signifies a device such as the iPhone 4S, that is ready to interact with “Bluetooth Smart” peripherals such as a heart-rate monitor or smart watch. CMO of Bluetooth Special Interest Group Suke Jawanda explains further: Expand Expanding Close
In anticipation of Citrix Synergy 2011 in Barcelona, VMware has just pushed out a huge update to all of their mobile View clients, which are used to access a Windows virtual machine from your iPad and other mobile devices.
Other than a refined and slightly resdesinged UI, the name of the game for the iPad client update (version 1.2) is definitely iOS 5 support. That means you will now be able to use multitasking without losing your current session. Before today’s update, lack of the feature really took away from the experience of being able to use native iPad features/apps and your virtual machine’s apps simultaneously. Parallels ($79) has had much of this functionality for awhile now.
Also included as part of the iOS 5 support is AirPlay. While the previous client allowed you to hook up to a larger display via HDMI or VGA adapter, the updated View client has full AirPlay support allowing you to use the $99 Apple TV as a wireless go between. Another really nice addition that goes great with AirPlay support is a new full-screen keyboard and trackpad combo (image above). This will of course only be enabled when using an external display.
According to research firm Strategy Analytics (via Bloomberg), Google’s Android-based tablets gained market share in the iPad dominated tablet market during the third quarter, specifically led by new models from Samsung (presumably referring to the same Galaxy Tab family that is currently the focus of patent related litigation between Apple and Samsung).
The report claims Android was up from just 2.3 percent from the same three month period last year, to a 27 percent share of worldwide sales during the third quarter in 2011. The iPad’s market share during the same period reportedly fell from 96 percent to 67 percent. The research firm notes that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets currently account for 9 percent of the total tablet market.
There is also reason to believe Android’s growth on tablets will continue to grow into 2012, as the introduction of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (the first Android OS specifically designed for both phones and tablets) could help tablet adoption among Android smartphone users. Strategy Analytics believes that Amazon’s Kindle Fire will also drive Android tablet sales, estimating the company will sell more than 15 million units by 2013.
In contrast to this obvious good news for the Android tablet market, which the WSJ’s Walt Mossberg recently described as having “flopped” in an interview with Google mobile chief Andy Rubin, there are conflicting stats for Android tabs in the enterprise. Rubin’s answer? “There’s a little over 6 million Android tablets that we know about”, a figure which of course includes pre-Honeycomb devices but not the Nook and those that don’t use Google services. The recently released Good Technology Device Activations Report for Q3 2011 shows that when it comes to tablets in business, enterprise users are clearly choosing iPad over the alternatives, noting “iOS tablets represent over 96 percent of total tablet activations”. Their graphic (above) also speaks volumes. Expand Expanding Close
Yesterday we posted a story about the possibility of new features being implemented in a future update to Siri. However, if you don’t feel like waiting, today the guys over at Techland have put together some tips and tricks for getting the most out of Siri and accomplishing tasks that aren’t currently built-in.
While text message charges will of course apply, here are a few tips for updating Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ by redirecting them through SMS. You can head over to Techland for many more Siri related tips and tricks including searching with Bing and Yahoo!, dictation tips, and how to “teach Siri hard-to-pronounce names”.
As always, the guys over at IHS iSuppli have just published analysis of their iPhone 4S teardown showing a BOM of $188 for the 16GB and in the process revealing some previously undisclosed suppliers.
The $188 BOM is of course for the entry-level 16GB model, which would also inflate to $196 if factoring in an $8 manufacturing cost. BOM for the 32GB model comes in at $207 (again, before manufacturing), and $245 for the 64GB variant.
The report describes the 4S’s insides as including a “wealth of innovation”, in contrast to the device’s feature set which was received as an incremental upgrade by most. Among the suprises revealed during the teardown– NAND flash memory supplied by Hynix Semiconductor (a first for iPhone) and a “unique custom” wireless module from Avago Technologies Ltd. The device torn down by iSuppli carried the same sony Sensor as the device X-Rayed by Chipworks but they postulate that Omnivision may also provide an 8-megapixel sensor as well for some of the devices.
Senior director of teardown services for IHS, Andrew Rassweiler, explains: Expand Expanding Close
Talking at the AsiaD conference on Wednesday, Google mobile chief Andy Rubin took the stage with Walt Mossberg to talk Android. However, not so surprisingly, the topic of conversation quickly turned to their biggest competitor (viaAllThingsD).
When asked if Apple will “lose step” with the passing of Steve Jobs, he responded:
“I don’t think so…The DNA in the people walking the halls at Apple is a very powerful combination of the arts and computer science, and I don’t think that’s changed with Steve’s passing. That combination of creativity and computer science, it’s still there. Apple will certainly miss Steve’s leadership, but now it’s time for the other guys to step up.”
Rubin apparently isn’t as enthusiastic about Siri as everyone else. His view? “I don’t believe that your phone should be an assistant.” He continues:
“Your phone is a tool for communicating. You shouldn’t be communicating with the phone; you should be communicating with somebody on the other side of the phone… To some degree it is natural for you to talk to your phone…We’ll see how pervasive it gets.”
When Walt asks, “How come Android tablets have completely flopped in the market?” he answers:
“Well Walt, I wouldn’t say completely flopped….There’s a little over 6 million Android tablets that we know about…It’s a healthy start….anything, I would say, over a couple hundred thousand pays for itself…but it’s not thirty million.”
Not long into the interview Mossberg asked about competition, and while Rubin tries to avoid a direct answer, Walt presses him, “Maybe you need the translator”. His answer:
Since the release of the iPhone 4S, artificially intelligent Siri has amazed, surprised, and in some cases, disappointed when it comes to just how intelligent it is. While it seems to handle singing duets pretty well, many have pointed to issues with thick accents, lack of Maps and local service support in UK, and its ability to dial emergency services. Most of the time Siri understands what you’re saying, but if it doesn’t, it most often provides a simple response letting you know. However, when the guys over at Electricpig asked Siri to perform some tasks they knew it couldn’t, they came up with some interesting results:
As you can see in the image above, after asking Siri to “Make a voice memo”, it responded:
“I haven’t yet learned to take dictation, James. You’ll have to use the Voice Memos app for that.”
Obviously “yet” is the key word here. Could this be a hint at Apple’s plans to bring new features to Siri in future updates? Possibly incrementally through the cloud rather than waiting for a major iOS update? The guys also asked Siri a number of other similar questions from “Update my Facebook status” to “Send a tweet” and “Open in iTunes”. When they asked it to “Download an app”, Siri responded:
Regional carrier C Spire Wireless (previously known as Cellular South) has just announced (viaMacRumors) they will be the fourth U.S. carrier to offer the iPhone 4S beginning sometime in the “coming weeks”. This is a clear indication that Apple has plans to open up distribution to more smaller carriers in the future.
“C Spire Wireless announced today that it will launch iPhone 4S, the most amazing iPhone yet, in the U.S. in the coming weeks.
For further information or to register interest, please visit www.cspire.com/iphone. For more information on iPhone 4S, please visit www.apple.com/iphone.”
C Spire is currently the largest privately held carrier in the US, with somewhere in the neighbourhood of 900,000 customers throughout Mississippi, Florida, Memphis, Georgia, and Alabama calling their CDMA network home. The company doesn’t appear to have officially announced pricing plans, but judging by their current options, there won’t be a huge incentive to drop AT&T or Verizon. C Spire is the fourth carrier in the U.S to offer the iPhone after Sprint signed up with Apple to become the third to correspond with the launch of the 4S. Expand Expanding Close
With all the analyst rumors and reports of Steve Jobs working on yet to be released Apple products in the months prior to his death, until today we didn’t have many first hand accounts to support the theories. After learning over a million people wrote in to Apple to express their condolences, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son recalls a first hand account with CEO Tim Cook at the recent iPhone 4S launch where Cook apparently received a call from Jobs (via PCMag):
“I visited Apple for the announcement of the iPhone 4S. When I was having a meeting with Tim Cook, he said, ‘Oh Masa, sorry I have to quit our meeting.’ I said, ‘Where are you going?’ He said, ‘My boss is calling me.’ That was the day of the announcement of the iPhone 4S. He said that Steve is calling me because he wants to talk about their next product. And the next day, he died.”
What product could Jobs possibly have wanted to discuss? With the iPhone 4S being launched that day, it’s unlikely it was an iPhone 5. Perhaps an iPad 3? Could this also mean that Jobs was hopeful right until the end? One wouldn’t expect a man who knows he will pass the next day to continue working on a product. This could be a sign that Jobs passing was more of a surprise than much of the media will lead you to believe. However, it might also simply be a testament to just how passionate and dedicated Jobs was to changing the world through his work at Apple.
Live from Apple Q4 2011 earnings call, Tim Cook is answering questions from the press and just discussed, among other things, his thoughts on Siri, patents disputes, and the disaster in Thailand.
Of course Cook was asked to comment about Siri and did so using the words “amazing” and “incredible” calling it a “profound innovation” and saying, “over time…many, many people will use it in a substantial way”.
Talking on patent disputes, Cook of course wouldn’t discuss specific cases but did note:
“We spend a lot of time and money and resource on coming up with incredible innovation…we dont like it when someone else takes those”, he continued, “unfortunately we’ve been pushed into the court system as a remedy.”
When asked to talk about the potential unibody enclosure shortage we reported yesterday, he mentioned it’s being treated as a concern and that Apple is “currently investigating”. He also talked about the recent disaster in Thailand and its potential impact (quote viaThis is my next):
“It’s meaningless unless your tablet also includes sandpaper, so that the user can sand down their fingers to around one quarter of their present size,” – Steve Jobs on a potential 7-inch iPad from the Q4 2010 earnings call
After digesting that boulder-sized grain of salt, here’s the latest rumor out of Taiwan.
A report from UDN (viaUnwired View), claims manufacturers LG Display and AU Optronics have sent samples of 7.85-inch “iPad Mini” displays to Apple for approval. Apple has apparently already approved specifications for the device and the report claims it could ship as early as next year. Perhaps Apple execs don’t any longer share Jobs’ view that a 7-inch model would be “useless” or “dead on arrival”.
A rough translation of the report seems to mention the same resolution as iPad 2 but also notes 52% increased resolution “per unit area” for the smaller iPad variant. It also mentions “lower prices” and “emerging markets” as the motivating factor for Apple. We already know how Steve Jobs felt about the possibility a 7-inch iPad. After his sandpaper comment (above), Jobs continued:
“Apple has done extensive user testing on touch interfaces over many years, and we really understand this stuff. There are clear limits on how close you can physically place elements on a touchscreen before users cannot reliably tap, flick, or pinch them. This is one of the key reasons, we think, the 10-inch screen size is the minimum size required to create great tablet apps”
According to several news sources, the partial shutdown of key Apple manufacturer Catcher Technology due to environmental concernscould lead to supply constraints for the company’s MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lineups.
In an emergency announcement on Sunday night, Taiwan’s Catcher Technology (2474:TAI), one of the world’s biggest makers of metal casings for notebook PCs, said it had been ordered to close part of its plant in China’s Suzhou province by regulators, after local residents complained of bad odours generated by the plant.
If you’ve never heard of Catcher Technology, you’re probably more familiar with their work than you think. The unibody casing of Apple’s current MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lineups is perhaps the main reason Catcher is one of the world’s biggest makers of metal casings for computers. The company expects the shutdown to cut sales by a fifth in October and Catcher’s president Allen Horng had this to say at a press conference on Monday (viaWSJ):
Adobe just took the wraps off the iOS version of Adobe Reader, which admittedly doesn’t bring much functionality we don’t already have with third-party apps. Either way it’s a welcome addition to their iOS app lineup and could possibly have the potential to be more than just a reader down the road.
The app allows you to read and share PDFs from your email, the web, or any other third-party app that supports “Open In”– pretty straight forward. Everything seems to work as advertised, although for some reason it just doesn’t feel as smooth as iBooks when zooming in and out.
It does however build in all the features you’d hope for including the ability to open encrypted PDFs, (supports up to AES256 encryption and LiveCycle Rights Management), the ability to search text, place bookmarks, and print using AirPrint. A nice addition is the single page mode allows you to tap the edge of a page to switch to the next, but the good old continuous scrolling will probably feel more at home on the iPad.
The iPad version looks a little more fine-tuned than the UI on the iPhone. Perhaps even fine-tuned enough to give iBooks a run for its money as your PDF viewer of choice.
ZDNet just published a story claiming Apple’s percentage of revenue has “been on the decline for years”. The story claims that percentage is currently 2.2 percent of sales which seems pretty low compared to other technology players (especially when Apple is so innovative).
But this isn’t factoring in how items such as a reported $200 million investment in Siri technology, a new CEO, and investments in the company’s 175-acre Spaceship campus contribute to overall growth…
Thanks to commenter Glenn who points out this perfect quote from Steve Jobs:
“Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it.” — Steve Jobs, Fortune, Nov. 9, 1998
Apple has invited select industry members and others that were close to Steve Jobs to a private memorial set for October 16, according to WSJ.
“Apple Inc. has invited some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names to a memorial service for Steve Jobs Sunday, Oct. 16, according to a copy of the invitation and several invitees.”
The memorial service will be held at Stanford University campus on Sunday evening. Invitees were asked to reply to Jobs’s wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, through her charity organization Emerson Collective.
This follows a private funeral held for family and friends of Jobs last week, and will be followed by a celebration of Steve’s life and accomplishments for employees at Apple headquarters in Cupertino on October 19. Expand Expanding Close
Update: Hard Candy CEO Tim Hickman reached out on 9to5Mac to talk about the experience. His full comment after the break.
Ever wonder exactly what iPhone case manufacturers go through prior to an next-gen iPhone unveiling? When it comes to Tim Hickman and his company Hard Candy Cases, the process consisted of spending more than $50,000 to create cases based on a rumored iPhone 5 design that never came to fruition. He even started taking pre-orders on his site.
Based on tipsters in China who sent Hickman 3D models claiming to be that of the, at that point, yet to be unveiled next-gen iPhone and sporting a widened Home button and tapered design, the company got to work. Unfortunately, when October 4th rolled around, that design was nowhere to be seen. Bloombergreports:
“After three separate manufacturing partners in China sent him detailed 3D models of an iPhone with a widened, pill-shaped “home” button and a slightly tapered back, Hickman decided to roll the dice. He paid $50,000 to make steel moldings to mass-produce cases for the new design and, on the morning of Apple’s announcement, began taking orders on his website. The gamble backfired…Hickman suddenly owned $50,000 worth of paperweights.”
Hickman is hoping his $50,000 investment will pay off with the design being incorporated into a future iPhone saying, “The data we got came from somewhere.” It’s not surprising that Hard Candy took the risk, however, as the company won big with the September 2010 iPod touch, with their cases hitting the shelf the same week of release thanks to leaked designs. Expand Expanding Close
We told you a couple weeks back about Apple’s Reuse and Recycle program offering up to $200 in exchange for your iPhone 4. We also reported that the devices were going for even more on eBay and Gazelle. However, with today’s release of the iPhone 4S, it looks like those numbers are quickly starting to decrease.
Gazelle has dropped their estimate down from approximately $250 to less than $200 for a mint 32GB model on AT&T (approximately $170 for Verizon), and NextWorth is still offering up $215 ($162 on Verizon) for the same model in perfect condition, but any cracks or bad scratches will leave you with around $115. Apple’s program still provides a $200 estimate for the same model (estimate courtesy of PowerON), but we expect that price to follow suit with the other services shortly. Of course the 16GB model is going for a lot less, approximately $170 on Gazelle (AT&T), $135 on Verizon (even less on NextWorth). Expand Expanding Close
