Mark Gurman

According to Business Insider, Barack Obama will be heading down to the Silicon Valley area this afternoon to chat with some company executives. The plan is to speak with Google Marissa Mayer, but before that President Obama will be having a one-on-one meeting with Steve Jobs. Wonder what they’ll be talking about…

The Apple TV has gotten its first unofficial app: NitoTV. It’s a media player that does RSS feeds and weather too:

We’ve discovered that you can run both a FaceTime and an iChat video chat on your Mac at the same time. Full audio and video for both chats. Video:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLK8fODtCuY&w=640&h=385]

No word on when you will be able to do this yourself, with one click that is, but at least we know it’s possible to jailbreak an Apple TV.

Via P0sixninja:

Credits go to @nitoTV, @dhowett, and @westbaer for the awesome AppleTV loader
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During Apple’s 4th quarter conference call, Steve Jobs stepped in to field some questions and make a few points. His biggest? 7-inch tablets are “useless” and “dead on arrival” no doubt referring to the hundreds of Android tablets in the pipeline and specifically the Samsung Galaxy Tab which is slated to be released on all four US carriers next month.

Jobs said that the 7- inch size actually has half the surface area as an iPad and users won’t enjoy the experience in the same way.  It will also run Android.

Whatever the case, Apple clearly isn’t building a seven inch iPad, at least not in the near future.
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By the numbers:

• 3.89 million Macs (up 27% Y-o-Y)
• 9.09 million iPods (down 11%)
• 14.1 million iPhones (up 91%) almost double!  That is 156,000/day
• 4.19 million iPads (that’s a lot considering that earlier this year 5 million was forecasted for the full year, not just a quarter.

Apple’s revenue train keeps on chugging, yet somehow Wall St. was expecting more. Apple is hovering around 300, down 5% in after hours trading.

Apple is forecasting another blow out next quarter (first quarter of fiscal 2011) including revenue of $23 billion.

Apple’s press release:
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Woz’s wrist says it all. Thanks, Thomas.

Boy Genius Report claims that Apple’s CDMA/Verizon iPhone has just hit “AP” status which means the device is currently being field tested and is rocking final hardware. This is the final step before the final software gets loaded on the device and this is the step right before retail.

For comparison, this is the stage after the stage of Gizmodo’s iPhone 4 prototype. So, we’re clearly pretty close to that Verizon iPhone if BGR’s sources know what they’re talking about – they usually do. One important feature of this CDMA iPhone is a SIM card slot. BGR speculates that this Verizon iPhone will be the CDMA/GSM model. Or, the SIM card could be for international users.

BGR also states, that this iPhone 3,2 may not even be the CDMA iPhone, but just an improved iPhone 4 without the antenna issues. – This would be a major party buster though.

Boy Genius Report also claims that Apple’s 5th-generation iPhone is in EVT-mode and this is the development stage directly prior to the stage Gizmodo’s leak was in. This means Apple is currently testing the engineering aspects of the device and is almost ready to being testing final hardware. BGR does not discuss any features of Apple’s next-gen device.

The image above is not the Verizon or 5th-gen iPhone.

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Greenposi0n for Windows and Linux came out a few days ago, and now the Mac version is available for download too. Get going! At your own risk, of course.

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More details are coming in this morning regarding Apple’s next MacBook Air that is set to officially debut at Apple’s October 20th ‘Back to Mac’ event. First Engadget posted an image of a next-generation prototype MacBook Air. The most interesting thing about this prototype is that it’s a 13 incher. For a while now reports have claimed the next MacBook Air would feature an 11.6-inch display.  The measurments below seem to indicate that it might even be smaller than that. DO NOT SAY NETBOOK!

Thanks diddI14

Yesterday, CNET, claimed they are certain the device would be 11.6 inches which makes us all wonder why Engadget’s prototype is 13 inches. Well, some measurements taken of the Engadget device seem to indicate that the screen might not be 13.3 inches diagonally.  It might not even be 11.6 inches.

You can also see that the SSD controller up there is made by Toshiba and that port next to the MagSafe is as yet unidentifiable.  Perhaps we are looking at Apple’s first USB3 port?  OR a SIM Card Slot for 3G?  Which would you be more excited about?

On that Toshiba Drive controller: The Toshiba T6UG1XBG SSD controller is a 43nm part, with a maximum rated read speed of 230MBps and write-to performance peaking at 180MBps.

Update: Here’s another rendering with a different set of maths:

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As if we needed anymore proof of imminent iWork and iLife refreshes, Best Buy is now marking both software suites as backordered on their online store. Both items are said to be backordered for 1-2 weeks and this fits nicely with Apple’s October 20th ‘Back to Mac’ event.

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When iOS 4.2 beta 2 for iPad was released we reported that tethering preferences were added to 3G iPads on certain carriers. This created speculation that Apple would be adding iPhone-like tethering to WiFi + 3G models of the iPad. Now that iPad 4.2 beta 3 has been released, we have discovered that Apple has removed the tethering settings. As you can see in the screenshot below, tethering options are no longer present under the ‘Cellular Data’ fields.

Apple removing these tethering preferences can mean a few things. The most realistic reasons include Apple deciding to scrap the feature or Apple removing the feature until iOS 4.2’s official launch in November. Another possibility is that the tethering settings from beta 2 were simply a code mixup with the iPhone and the feature is not planned for a future iPad software release. We still like to think tethering will see the light of day. Oh, and iPhone as a wireless modem for iPad please? Thanks, Anton.

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Update: Now we are hearing that particular iPods sold in the Middle East don’t work.  So many come in from abroad, however that it is tough to understand which do and which don’t.

Ever since the iPhone 4’s launch in the Middle East we have reported on several development regarding a FaceTime “ban.” The first indicator of such “ban” was an odd change on some of Apple’s Middle Eastern iPhone websites. Next DU, a Middle Eastern carrier, announced FaceTime would not be available in the Middle East and the reason “is out of their control.” After this Apple created a support document that shows which countries do not allow for FaceTime calling.

Now, iRamadah is reporting that FaceTime does in fact work in all over the Middle East with the 4th generation iPod touch. This is a major development in this saga as it firmly proves that this is a carrier restriction and not something to do with Apple or Middle Eastern governments banning FaceTime. This also raises more questions about the iPhone 4 FaceTime ban as FaceTime only works over WiFi no matter the device being used.

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According to the Los Angeles Times, Mark Zuckerberg visited Jobs’ house two weeks ago to discuss Ping over dinner. Apple and Facebook have been at it  since Facebook dropped their integration into Apple’s Ping at the early-September launch. Since then, Apple has apparently been trying to reach a deal with Facebook to bring back the slick Facebook integration originally built into Apple’s music-based social network.

They are two of Silicon Valley’s most famous founders: Jobs created the world’s must-have gadgets, Zuckerberg the world’s most popular social networking service. These days they are often mentioned in the same breath. Now apparently the two also recently broke bread.

Apparently Jobs invited Zuckerberg for dinner at his house to talk about Ping two weeks ago. That’s when a tipster spotted them on a stroll in Palo Alto.

Yeah, you read that right; Jobs and Zuckerberg went on a little nice stroll together. Oh, and  Marky-Mark is still richer.
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According to iLounge, major retailer Costco will stop selling Apple’s iPods due to their inability to sell the iPad.

Costco has already removed all the iPods from their website.

We’ve been told by some Retail folks that Apple Stores are low on their supplies of the iLife software suite. Apple is rumored to be updating the media-focused software suite and this is a yet another indicator that an iLife refresh will be announced at or around Apple’s October 20th Mac event.

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Apple has released their 4th preview of Xcode 4 to developers today. If you’re a developer go get it! If you’re not a developer, find someone who is.

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The popular media player, VLC, made its way to the iPad just a few weeks ago, and the company behind the application, Applidium, has just submitted a version for the iPhone. Here’s our exclusive hands-on of VLC Media Player for iPhone:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0k-ZAicEek&w=640&h=385]

Oh, and as you see in the video we had a really hard time playing a 720p video on an iPhone 4.

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For the first time, Apple has broken the $300 mark, putting its market cap at $275B.

Watch out Exxon ($329B)!
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