Mark Gurman

Bloomberg reports that iPads sold by Apple in China come standard with two years of the AppleCare protection plan. This differs from the one year standard in all other countries Apple sells the iPad in. The reason iPads from China include two-year warranties is because the Chinese government classifies Apple’s tablet as a computer and computers in China are required by law to include two-year warranties.

We think this is quite interesting and it attests to the fact that many people are considering the iPad as either a laptop/netbook replacement or a secondary computer. The AppleCare protection program does not cover physical damage but covers many hardware and software issues that may occur.

In the United States the iPad comes with one year of warranty for repairs and 90 days of telephone support. You can extend both the repair warranty and phone support to two years for an additional $99.

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It is no secret that Apple’s latest line of MacBook Airs are shipping without Adobe’s Flash Player due to battery and performance concerns and Adobe’s CEO has shed light as to why these issues may occur. According to Engadget Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen announced at the Web 2.0 summit that Apple did not provide them with a pre-release MacBook Air for testing and because of this they didn’t have time to launch an optimized version of Flash Player.

According to the CEO “when we have access to hardware acceleration, we’ve proven that Flash has equal or better performance on every platform.” Now that Adobe has some testing units on-hand they are working on a new version of Flash Player for the MacBook Air that shouldn’t kill your battery or performance. In our personal testing of Flash on an 11-inch MacBook Air that results haven’t been too shabby.

Oh, and while they’re at it. Maybe Adobe should work something out with Apple for some sort of light flash on the iPad.

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Wow. We just ran through the top 200 songs list on iTunes and The Beatles are the artists behind 50 of them. Yes, 50. That’s 25% of the top 200 iTunes songs in a half day. Their top-ranking song on iTunes is Here Comes the Sun at #27 overall.

Apple’s insane Beatles marketing didn’t do too badly for Amazon either who has a new number one Box Set.

And check out the movers and shakers, below:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB6yuS9LNFc&w=640&h=385]

SlingPlayer has posted a full video walkthrough of their upcoming SlingPlayer Mobile for iPad application and it surely does not disappoint. The application has super-immpressive video quality and will be arriving soon for $29.99. There is an iPhone version currently available on the App Store for those wondering.

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The New York Observer reports that a 17 year-old New Yorker has been ordering white iPhone 4 parts directly from a contact at Foxconn and putting his own conversion kits together. He has been doing so well with this business that he has earned around $130,000 during the 6-months he has been selling the devices.

Things were riding pretty smoothly for the boy until he received a letter from a private investigator. The sender of the investigator is unknown but a betting man might say a fruity company from Cupertino, California. Even with the fear of jail-time and fines for selling “stolen goods” online, the boy is not throwing up the white flag and has obtained an attorney.

Good luck kiddo! (seriously)

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Twitter has just released an update to their iOS client and its brings support for the upcoming iOS 4.2 along with some other interesting features and enhancements. The iPad got inline media support, user interface improvements, along with an enhanced search feature.

iPhone:
* Improved display of shortened URLs
* Correctly load reserved Twitter.com paths, such as http://twitter.com/newtwitter
* Fix connection error caused by a device clock being set incorrectly
* Additional retina graphics
* Enable geotagging in your account with one tap

iPad:
* Inline media
* Manage saved searches
* UI improvements

Twitter for iPhone received a few important fixes including better short URL support, connection error fixes, easier geo-tagging setup and better Retina display support. The biggest new feature in the version 3.2 update may be the inclusion of push notifcations. You will now receive one of those classic Apple obtrusive alerts whenever you are @mentioned.

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Apple has just released a new iPhone 4 ad and it’s all about its battery life. According to the ad the magical iPhone 4 battery lets you play longer, download longer, and shoot longer:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU7s0EMaXp8&w=640&h=385]

Official upload from Apple is now above. Thanks to TiPb for the original upload.

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Firemint has just announced that their widely popular Flight Control for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch will be making its way to the Mac sometime later this month via the Steam platform. In case you are not familier with the popular game Firemint has a nice summary:

In Flight Control HD, you take on the role of an air traffic controller at an increasingly busy airport. Using your mouse or trackpad, you can select a plane and trace a path to the correct landing zone. As the airspace gets more and more busy, your challenge is to land all flights safely, without collisions!

Here’s the announcement regarding the Mac version of Flight Control HD:

The Steam version of Flight Control HD will feature a brand-new, exclusive map. The new “Stunt Flying” map will introduce an exciting new gameplay element, where you can score extra points for flying through a course of stunt cones before landing. This adds a new challenge to the much-loved and insanely addictive gameplay first made famous by the worldwide iPhone hit that has now been downloaded more than 3 million times. Flight Control HD for Steam will also feature Steam achievements and leaderboards, and will be available world-wide.

Firemint notes that a version for the upcoming Mac App Store will be available when the store launches in around 90 days from now. In the meantime, you can start practicing on your iPhone and iPod touch or iPad.

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Québec City got their first Apple store the other day and its grand-opening is like nothing we’ve seen before:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7aV2LxL8iA&w=640&h=385]

A huge thanks to 9to5mac reader Louis-Philippe for shooting this video over to us.

Apple’s long-going mini-battle with iPhone copycat, Meizu, has taken an interesting turn today. Apparently another Chinese company, Herron Network Information Co., has sued Apple along with the Chinese Patent Bureau over patents the company calls “invalid.” According to MeizuMe:

Apple filed a patent covering three products. When the Patent Bureau saw that Apple did not specify what product the patent was for, they helped Apple register the patent for their mobile phone. However, a Shanghai company took the Patent Bureau to the courts about this. Apparently, acting for someone else like the Patent Bureau did is against Chinese law.

Apple apparently was very vague about their iPhone-related patents in China simply patenting a rectangular shaped device with round edges, a vertical oriented screened-device, and a device with a round button under its display. Herron Network Information Co. claims this patent is way to broad to be considered a patent and feels that it is hurting their own company along with others. They also claim that companies like HTC and LG released devices with vertical screens, rectangular-shaped designs, round edges, and round buttons under the screen.

Herron Network Information Co. may have a good case if they could prove other companies are certainly being hurt in China by Apple’s broad patents and the part about the Patent Bureau sliding Apple through is just wow. Let us know in the comments what you think about this and how you think this will all end in China. If you’re interesting you can watch the full court hearing here in Chinese. Oh, and according to the live blog Apple arrived to court fashionably late. Also, the guy who I think is Apple’s lawyer looks a little like Bob Mansfield.

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TUAW reports that according to a purported e-mail from Steve Jobs the next version of Keynote will include a sort of AirPlay functionality. Specifically, users of Keynote ’11 will be able to create a presentation and stream it to the big screen via an Apple TV. This functionality will apparently also work from an iOS device (iPad, iPhone, iPod touch) to an Apple TV. This function will come in handy for many people as it could help alleviate the need of setting up projectors and annoying things along those lines.

Question:

Will the new Apple TV accept keynote presentation via iOS device or a Mac? If it will, I will go buy two at an apple store tonight.

Steve’s answer:

It’s all coming soon. Stay tuned.

AirPlay being a major feature in the upcoming iWork ’11 may also be the reason for the productivity-suite’s apparent delay. AirPlay functionaility is not even at full-force at the time of this writing and only works for audio/music streaming. Full AirPlay functionality should be coming as early as next week along with the long-awaited iOS 4.2 update which brings multitasking and many new features to the iPad.

There have been multiple reports in regards to the upcoming iWork ’11 update including the software being a Mac App Store exclusive and some hints about release dates. It would also make sense for Apple to update iWork for 64-bit compatibility but that still hasn’t happened for their iLife suite. Oh, and iWork.com has been in beta since January 2009. Screenshot of the mail exchange is after the break:

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When Apple and Twitter announced Ping Twitter integration many users quickly noticed the length of the tweeted URL’s from Ping. Some even speculated that Apple would adopt their iTun.es URL to replace long URL’s like this: http://c.itunes.apple.com/us/event/id95145001T1T21?i=401082566. Well today it looks like Apple finally realized that URL length was not cutting it for users so they turned to Twitter’s t.co URL shortener.

As you can see in the image above my tweet from yesterday featured the very long URL and my tweet from today utilized the t.co URL shortener. Both of those tweets were screenshotted in Tweetie for Mac and we are yet to see that change on Twitter.com. It is present though on mobile clients such as Twitter for iPhone and iPad. Hopefully Apple and Twitter keep this change as it is much more efficient for both users and the timelines they read through daily.

Although there are still quite a few fake white iPhone 4s on eBay there appears to be less than usual and that is because Apple is working to have them all removed. We have found an e-mail sent to an eBay seller of a black-to-white iPhone 4 conversion unit. Quite frankly, all the “white iPhone 4s” you see on eBay are black-to-white iPhone 4 conversion units as the white iPhone 4 doesn’t exist.

Dear, [Redacted]
You recently listed the following listing:

[Redacted listing name and number]

Your listing has been removed.

Your item was removed because of a request we received from Apple, Inc., a member of our Verified Rights Owner Program (VeRO), asking us to remove the item for:

– Item(s) is a counterfeit product which infringes the trademark owner’s rights.

For more information on why your item was removed, you should:
– Contact Apple, Inc. directly at apple@gibney.com with your questions or concerns.
– Wait 7 days for Apple, Inc. to reply to you. Although most VeRO participants are willing to respond to polite email, please know that they aren’t obligated to reply.
– If after 7 days you haven’t received a response from Apple, Inc., please contact us by simply replying to this email.

The rights owner or an agent authorized to act on behalf of the rights owner, Apple, Inc., notified eBay that this listing violates intellectual property rights. When eBay receives a report of this type of violation, we remove the listing to comply with the law.

It’s against the law to sell fake, counterfeit, or pirated products.

Your listing was removed because the item in your listing was reported by the rights owner as a fake or counterfeit through eBay’s VeRO Program. Due to this report, please do not attempt to relist, advertise, or offer this item for sale on any eBay site or service around the world.

What Apple is apparently doing is quite interesting. They are proving that they don’t want anyone to get their hands-on the seemingly never to be released white iPhone 4 even if they are what they consider counterfeits. What also is interesting is that Apple is claiming the sellers of these “white iPhone 4s” to be infringing Apple’s trademarks. We think some will care that Apple still considers the white iPhone 4 as a product of theirs.

Apple today updated the backend of their iPad iTunes application to add Ping support. Ping support was added to the iPhone right around the iOS 4.1 launch so this means we’re close to the iOS 4.2 launch. The full Ping experience is present as a tab on the iPad iTunes app and it includes your feed, who you follow, who follows you, a look at your profile, and even a section dedicated to concerts.

The concerts section shows you local concerts, who is on tour, which concerts you say you are attending, and even links to purchase tickets at ticketmaster.com. For those wondering, we don’t see Twitter integration.

Update: Ping for iPad automatically connects to your twitter account and automatically tweets every time you like or post something:

Check out the full gallery after the break:

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Among the other changes in yesterday’s release of iTunes 10.1, Apple has added a new feature that video-taking Apple TV owners will surely appreciate. Up until yesterday’s update iPhoto users could only stream their photos via Home Sharing but now they can stream videos in their iPhoto library. Simply head to the share menu on the iTunes menu bar, then click share photos, and check the box you see in the image above.

Update: Several readers have pointed out that this does not work for them. This is because the Apple TV is need of a software update to support Video AirPlay as well as this reported function. It should work as soon as Apple gets around to updating their “hobby” and this will probably happen closer to iOS 4.2’s public release. Also, the reported iPhoto video feature is an exclusive to the second generation Apple TV.

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AT&T today informed customers of Apple’s iPad WiFI + 3G that they can now manage their devices account and data plans on any computer with an internet connection and a web browser. New users of the iPad 3G are given brand-new accounts in which they can manage their iPad’s data plan on a month-to-month basis. Prior to today’s change, iPad 3G users would need to manage their iPads data right on the iPad via the ‘cellular data’ settings pane.

Now, users can manage their data by heading to www.att.com/ipad and clicking on the “add data now” section on the middle of the page on the right side. AT&T notes that you can now also use this website to setup and manage new iPad 3G devices you purchase. This will come in handy if you want to make quick changes to your iPad data account anywhere you are. You are no longer limited to using your iPad to make these changes.

This sadly will also come in handy if you happen to lose your iPad 3G for any reason. You will now be able to easily cancel your 3G service until you find it or get a new unit. AT&T announcement is after the break:

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Apple today released their fifth preview of their upcoming Xcode 4 to developers. This fifth preview includes a solid amount of new features, enhancements and fixes but nothing major to note. Here’s a summarized list of the most notable features and enhancements:

This preview introduces new features and enhancements for tabs, editor panes, and alerts. These features are designed to scale the single window interface of Xcode 4 to more effectively use available screen real estate, from the 11” MacBook Air, up to Macs equipped with multiple monitors. Please experiment with these new features to see how Xcode 4 can speed up your daily development tasks.

You can view the entire set of release notes after the break:

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Silicon Alley Insider reports that former Apple Senior Vice President of iPhone Hardware is now working for Cisco. His job is described as working on “chips for switches.” Mark Papermaster was reportedly fired from his job after some conflict with Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Only time will tell if Apple and Cisco go at it over Papermaster just like Apple and IBM went to war over Papermaster’s acquisition.

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Apple has just released iTunes 10.1 which is required to update your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch to iOS 4.2.  They also advertise the ability to “Use AirPlay to instantly and wirelessly stream videos from iTunes to the all-new Apple TV”.  We’re assuming that is from a Computer running iTunes at the moment, though we’re not yet able to do so.  Perhaps an AppleTV update is coming shortly.

Anyone else able to Airplay Video to the AppleTV?

For those of you that had the beta installed: Software Update doesn’t find any updates, but iTunes can be downloaded here: http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Also we get a new way to turn Ping off (and on)

iTunes 10 left and 10.1 right

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YbmK3Zu0Os&w=640&h=385]

Windows has released a new commercial showcasing Windows 7’s blu-ray movie playing capabilities and the Mac’s lack of. As you’ll see in the interesting ad above the PC gets the Mac to watch Avatar, in blu-ray, on the PC’s wonderful display.

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Okay. We know this is not exactly Mac-related but we haven’t seen these official shots of the Jolibook anywhere else. In case you aren’t familiar, the Jolibook is the notebook created by the folks behind the Jolicloud OS. Jolicloud is a very light weight, cloud-based operating system that can put multiple systems into constant sync. It’s social based and works with apps. It wouldn’t be wrong to say this is sort of like iOS for a computer with a keyboard and trackpad. The lids of the Jolibooks look sort of cool and are very colorful/playful. Oh and if you’re wondering the OS does work on the MacBook Air and that’s pretty sweet. Pic of the lid after the break:

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