Mark is an award-winning journalist who worked at 9to5Mac for over six years. He covers Apple and other topics related to the consumer technology industry.
Rockstar Games today announced that their lovely and *very kid friendly* Grand Theft Auto trilogy is finally makes its way to the Mac. The trilogy includes San Andreas (personal favorite), GTA III, and Vice City. This is what the company behind that game has to say:
“The Grand Theft Auto series has been one of the most highly demanded titles by the Mac community. The availability of this incredible franchise on the Mac underscores TransGaming’s role in transforming the overall Mac gaming market,” commented Vikas Gupta, President & CEO of TransGaming, in the press release. “These games will be widely available and will be a great catalyst to the increasing popularity of gaming on the Mac.”
The trilogy will be released in stores on November 22nd but you can already pre-order it at Amazon. It will make a great holiday gift for the folks who are “M for mature.”
Recent 4.x iOS updates haven’t been too fabulous for the iPhone 3G. First it was slow as a dog, then Apple started peeling back some of the cooler features like Gamecenter. We’re afraid another new feature is getting cut from the iPhone 3G. AirPlay is gone from iOS 4.2 GM.
Below is an iPhone 4 (bottom) and an iPhone 3G (top) showing AirPlay option on iPhone 4 but not on iPhone 3G
After speaking to multiple developers and users testing out the iOS 4.2 betas, we have determined that AirPlay did in fact work on the iPhone 3G at one point, meaning the AirPlay functionality was definitely removed from Apple’s two-year-old iPhone at its GM stage. The reason this is an issue is because Apple states, even on their own website, that AirPlay is supported on ALL iOS 4 devices.
Why did Apple remove AirPlay from the iPhone 3G? It is clearly able to work, it worked during the betas just fine. Is this another “it didn’t work well enough” story? Is Apple trying to get users to upgrade to their latest and greatest devices for arguably the coolest new feature in iOS 4.2? We have no idea. There will undoubtedly be a jailbreak that can re-enable it. On the other hand, this could simply be an issue in the GM seed. Like we speculated in an AirPrint article today, the AirPlay functionality may too return in iOS’s 4.2’s public release.
AirPlay will only stream music as well as audio from video at this time. The actual AirPlay functionality will presumably be activated in an imminent software update to the Apple TV. Note: This was fully tested by both our sources as well as on two of our own iPhone 3G units. Video after the break:
iPhoneHellas has on good authority that iOS 4.2 will not be coming tomorrow but instead will be launching Tuesday November 16th. The site is known to have solid sources with knowledge of iOS release dates so this November 16th date is probably the actual date. Then again, iOS 4.2 may very well still launch tomorrow. Oh, and where’s iTunes 10.1?
UPDATE: A German website now says references to November 12 have disappeared from carrier codes.
Daily Mail reports that one of the original Apple 1’s, sold out of Jobs’ parents’ garage in 1976, will go up for sale at Christie’s in London for a whopping 150k euros. That’s around $200K. Apple’s first shot at a computer comes with all the fixings: manuals, box etc. and even a nice letter from Jobs himself. Only 200 of these machines were produced with only a few surviving today. This model of Apple 1 is actually the higher-end model that included the read-write capability for an extra $75 at the time. The actual unit cost $666.66 back then and did they start selling them on Friday the 13th?
Interesting to note is that the Apple 1 came with 8K of RAM. The current Mac Pro can take in 64 GB RAM. Anyone interested in this piece of important Apple history can get it at Christie’s in London on November 23rd. Anyone interested? Photo of what’s included, including Jobs’s letter, after the break.
We have discovered that the launch of the second generation Apple TV is imminent in seven countries across the globe. When you navigate to one of the Apple Stores listed below and click on the Apple TV, you are taken to an error page. The same thing happened last night in Italy and Switzerland and this morning Italy and Switzerland’s online store’s began selling the new Apple TV.
We checked out all the Apple online stores to replicate what happened in Italy and Switzerland and sure enough Taiwan, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Portugal, The Netherlands and Belgium are all displaying the same error message. What does this mean? It means that Apple’s second-generation Apple TV will be launching in those countries very soon, probably tomorrow, and maybe some HD movie rentals in iTunes as well.
Apple is clearly trying to branch out the Apple TV quickly adding four new countries today and most likely eight new ones tomorrow. Let us know if we missed a country and/or when the new Apple TV starts popping up on your Apple online store. In terms of pricing, it should be around € 119,00 in the European countries and we aren’t to sure about the others.
Apple couldn’t get it together with Facebook for Ping functionality so Apple went to Twitter. Twitter has announced that Ping is now integrated into Twitter.com and this will put your Ping activity, song previews, and iTunes links right into your Twitter tweets. The setup process is simple. You just head into Ping on your iTunes store menu and click the Twitter banner up on top. Just sign into your Twitter account and you are good to go.
When you are all linked up anything you do on Ping, whether that be posting, liking, or reviewing it will be tweeted by you. Within the Twitter.com UI are now iTunes/Ping styles song previews and links which make it really easy for people to sample songs right in the browser. The feature is now available in all 23 countries where the iTunes Music Store is live.
We know Apple will have a lovely app review process for the Mac too and Apple has just started hiring the dudes and dudettes for the job. In order to get the job you have to be hardworking and ready to test some wonderful Mac applications. You also need to know how to use Mac OS X, which seems sort of obvious since its the Mac OS X App Store.
Apple Worldwide Developer Relations is seeking a software application specialist; someone who is meticulous, analytical, able to exercise objective analysis, and able to thrive in a fast-paced environment and has strong customer service skills.
Candidate needs to be able to organize and prioritize a heavy workload. The candidate must be hardworking, detail-oriented, and able to work quickly & efficiently. We˙re looking for a self-starter, a quick learner with excellent communication skills, who is able to work independently and as part of a team.
Experience with Mac OS X required.
Proficiency in written French, German or Japanese a plus.
We already know all about the iPhone 4’s amazing noise-cancellation system for phone calls with its double microphone setup and today a patent reveals that Apple may be taking noise-cancellation a step further. Since we are talking about headsets and so there is no confusion, this is not noise-cancellation for listening to music but is noise-cancellation so you sound crystal clear on the phone calls you make.
Patently Apple reports that Apple today published patents for two new headsets both with triple microphone action. Having two microphones on the iPhone 4 is already helpful, but three on a headset would be amazing and of course magical.
Patently Appledescribes the benefit of multiple microphones on mobile phones:
The Seattle Timesreports that iPad developer Ram Arumugam e-mailed Steve Jobs over his frustration of having his iPad application rejected. The app, Economy for iPad, was rejected due to Arumugam’s use of private API’s to fix a bug he encountered with the iPad OS’s keyboard controls. Two hours after receiving the developer’s e-mail, Steve Jobs gave him a call to discuss the app rejection.
A couple of hours after I sent the email, I was at a noisy soccer (for kids) arena when I heard my iPhone ring. The caller-id, the caller saying “Ram, this is Steve” and that he was calling from Apple did suggest that it could really be Steve Jobs. He confirmed it when I asked.
After speaking with Jobs Arumugam updated his iPad application to remove the private code, not allowed by Apple, and it was quickly accepted into the App Store. Now it’s the #1 selling financial iPad application. “Imagine what a [call] could do.”
This story proves how much of a hands-on CEO Steve Jobs really is. First, he actually replies to his customer’s e-mails (never ever mine though) and now he actually calls them back to take care of matters. Maybe Jobs was just caring through since Arumugam left Microsoft to create an iOS app development company.
Both Italy and Switzerland have had the first generation Apple TV for some time but last night they mysteriously disappeared from both of their online Apple Stores. This morning, the new Apple TV is now available in both countries.
The device ships in 24 hours in both countries and runs for € 119,00 in Italy and CHF 129.00 in Switzerland. We’ve been told that both Italy and Switzerland have gotten HD movie rentals in their iTunes stores meaning users will have some content to go with that $100 little black box.
Update: Readers have let us know that the second-generation Apple TV is now available in Spain and Austria as well. Mexico too!
If you migrate those from a 10.6.5 prerelease build (there seem to be many floating around torrent sites and file sharing sites – build 10H542 works; naturally I can’t link you to the files themselves, sorry!) to your machine you’re just one step away from having AirPrint working.
The final key thing is you have to remove and re-add your printer in the Print & Fax preferences pane. Once you do that (and share your printer in the Sharing preferences pane) it should show up on any iOS devices that support AirPrint.”
/usr is a hidden directory on your Macintosh HD (or whatever you call it) and you’ll need to access it via command line. If you’re not sure how to do this, hit up the instructions after the break. Be sureto backup the files you are replacing with this how to.Click here to download the files you need! Thanks, Chuck.
After talking to several users of iOS 4.2 GM and Mac OS X 10.6.5 (public release) it appears that AirPrint functionality does not work. The printing option is definitely still present on the iOS software but it doesn’t actually print what you are telling it to print. On the other hand, it appears that AirPrint is working for users with the iOS 4.2 GM whom have upgraded to Mac OS X 10.6.5 final from one of the betas.
Flickr user TalkaboutDesign has uploaded pictures to his account detailing that AirPrint is in fact working for him with Mac OS X 10.6.5. Because of this, we figure he upgraded from a beta and iOS 4.2 final will be required for AirPrint to actually work. After all, Steve Jobs said that AirPrint wasn’t removed from iOS 4.2 and he would not lie, right?
We’ve heard multiple reports from users that the golden master seed of iOS 4.2 still had a few bugs and because of this, we believe Apple has been fixing up iOS 4.2 the last couple days and has changed some algorithms related to AirPrint. So, hopefully Friday we’ll know the full story as to if AirPrint will work with iOS 4.2’s public release or not.
We knew Skyfire would be popular with its flash-video playing features but we’d never thought it would be this popular. First, the company behind Skyfire needed to actually pull the application from the App Store due to all the traffic hitting their servers. Now, Mobile Crunch is reporting that the app made over $1 million in revenue in its first week on the App Store.
The app costs users $2.99 a piece to download from the App Store and it looks like they sold over 300,000 copies. Wow.
Sprint has finally officially announced their ZTE Peel case which brings 3G to the iPod touch. The device will launch on November 14th for $79 and it’ll cost you 29 bucks a month for Sprint’s service. Just imagine 3G FaeeTime on the road with this thing.
We should be getting a review unit and the full press release is after the break:
According to Business Week, BlackBerry’s iPad-competitor, PlayBook, will cost less than $500, making it priced very aggressively against the iPad. Ever since the PlayBook’s introduction in late September it has been dubbed a potential iPad killer. The tablet features a 1 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and has two cameras (front and back). The device features a high-resolution 7 inch screen making it DOA since it apparently won’t include an accessory to shrink its user’s fingers.
Still, BlackBerry’s Playbook is an enticing offering with its fantastic technical specifications, dual cameras, portability, great operating system, and of course the token BlackBerry e-mail client and enterprise integration. RIM’s CEO, Jim Balsillie reportedly said:
“The product will be very competitively priced,” and when asked whether it will be about $500, Balsillie said “no, it will be under that.”
Apple’s iPad starts at $499 for the base model that includes WiFi and 16 GB of flash-based storage. When RIM’s CEO was asked if his tablet would be under $500 he could very well mean $499 or something in the $399 to $479 range. If RIM placed their entry PlayBook into the market at $399 that would surely give the iPad a run for its money. Only time will tell how well the BlackBerry PlayBook does but we think many will agree the PlayBook could make a nice dent into the tablet market with a sub-$500 pricing point.
Apple has let their iOS developers know via iTunes Connect that iTunes Connect will in fact be closed December 23-28. Apple’s App Store app managment service will become available again on December 29th. This does not affect app consumers in anyway but will not allow developers to make changes to or submit any new apps during that time frame.
iTunes Connect will be temporarily unavailable from Thursday, December 23 through Tuesday, December 28 for the winter holidays. iTunes Connect access will be back online for use on December 29. If you choose to set an available date for your app to go live during the scheduled holiday shutdown, your app will not go live on the App Store until iTunes Connect resumes for business on December 29. Please plan your releases accordingly.
Apple notes that developers should be sure to plan their releases accordingly and we recommend that you developers shouldn’t try anything funny on December 22nd or something like that.
It’s not as electric or musical as Apple’s latest iPad TV ads but Verizon has released their very first commercial to let the world know they got the iPad. The ad basically shows off Verizon’s MiFi as well as their reliable network in both the home and on the middle of some mountain next to a beach. The Next Web via MacStories.
Apple is ramping up their beta releases of 10.6.5 and they have released build 10H574 today, only two days after build 10H571. This new build won’t add any thing notable but Apple would like developers to focus on the following:
– 3D Graphics
– Printing
– QuickTime
– Time Machine
– USB Devices
Apple also states the developers running beta builds of Mac OS X 10.6.6 will first need to downgrade to Mac OS X 10.6.0-10.6.4 prior to installing the latest 10.6.5 build.
Otterbox’s Impact Series case for iPhone 4 is a fantastic and versatile case offering. It is not as strong as the Defender Series case but it does the job much better than many iPhone 4 cases. The case itself is made from relativity tough silicon yet is still slim. Although it’s slim it’s built well enough to protect your iPhone 4 from drops, nicks, knocks, and scratches.
The side volume buttons are completely covered, there is a hole for the silent/ringer switch, there is an opening for both the iPhone 4 camera and LED flash, as well as an opening for the ear piece. There is an opening on the back of the case so that shiny Apple logo is always in prime view and the home button is completely covered…
Apple recently provided developers with the golden master seed of iOS 4.2 and this means that the public release is imminent. Apple is yet to announce the world-wide launch date of their updated operating system for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch but according to Inside-Handy.de the launch may be this Tuesday, November 9. Apparently the German website made contact with some Deutsche Telekom representatives who informed them of the November 9th release date.
German blog, iFun, is now offering a conflicting report of the November 9th iOS 4.2 release date, saying the update OS may actually be launching Friday, November 12th. They have discovered that Apple will be pushing out some carrier updates on November 12th. Based on this, they figure there is a chance iOS 4.2 may be released the same day. You can see this for yourself by clicking this link or looking at the screenshot directly below: Expand Expanding Close
Apple has just released Mac OS X 10.6.6 for Mac OS X developers. Yep, 10.6.6. – 10.6.5 is not even out yet for the public. Apple says there are no known issues in the 10.6.6. release but developers should focus on this:
– Contains developer support for fetching and renewing App Store receipts. See “Validating App Store Receipts” for more details.
Remember that girl, Jammie Thomas, who stole 24 songs back in 2006? Well according to CNET she finally she’s on the hook for $62,500 per song and that comes out to a $1.5M settlement. Capitol records was the main plaintiff in the case and they, along with the rest of the Recording Industry Association of America, had this to say:
We are again thankful to the jury for its service in this matter and that they recognized the severity of the defendant’s misconduct,” the RIAA said in a statement. “Now with three jury decisions behind us along with a clear affirmation of Ms. Thomas-Rasset’s willful liability, it is our hope that she finally accepts responsibility for her actions.
As Apple says, “Don’t steal music.”
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