Founder, Publisher and Editorial Director of the 9to5/Electrek/DroneDJ sites.
Seth Weintraub is an award-winning journalist and blogger who won back to back Neal Awards during his three plus years covering Apple and Google at IDG’s Computerworld from 2007–2010. Weintraub next covered all things Google for Fortune Magazine from 2010-2011 amassing a thick rolodex of Google contacts and love for Silicon Valley tech culture.
It turns out that his hobby 9to5Mac blog was always his favorite and in 2011 he went full time adding his Fortune Google followers to 9to5Google and adding the style and commerce component 9to5Toys gear and deals site. In 2013, Weintraub bought one of the Tesla’s first Model S EVs off the assembly line and so began his love affair with the Electric Vehicle and green energy which in 2014 turned into electrek.
In 2018, DroneDJ was born to cover the burgeoning world of drones and UAV’s led by China’s DJI.
From 1997-2007, Weintraub was a Global IT director and Web Developer for a number of companies with stints at multimedia and branding agencies in Paris, Los Angeles, New York, Sydney, Hong Kong, Madrid and London before becoming a publisher/blogger.
Seth received a bachelors degree in Industrial and Systems Engineering from the University of Southern California with a minor in Multimedia and Creative Technology in 1997. In 2004, he received a Masters from NYU’s Tisch School of the Art’s ITP program.
Hobbies: Weintraub is a licensed single engine private pilot, certified open water scuba diver and spent over a year traveling to 60 cities in 23 countries. Whatever free time exists is now guaranteed to his lovely wife and two amazing sons.
More at About.me. BI 2014 profile.
Tips: seth@9to5mac.com, or llsethj on Wickr/Skype or link at top of page.
Apple has set up a little history lesson/ timeline in their PR section of all of the iPods and iTunes versions they’ve put out. They even include hi-definition imagery. Yeah we saw this a week ago but today iz a slow newzday so here you go…
Our tips@9to5mac.com account has been blowing up this morning with people letting us know that their iPod touches are shipping. It appears we aren’t the only one getting word. Anyone else?
Remember, Amazon is selling those iPods, often without tax, and hooking us up with little kickbacks as well.
Nanos are getting prepped.
An interesting note on the Google ads leak this weekend. Apple is spending nearly a million dollars per month on its rival’s (phoneOS+) advertising platform to promote its products. Not nearly as much as others but still a significant amount.
AT&T Mobility, for instance, spent over $8 million.
One thing Apple can tell its prospective ad clients (including AT&T): Their ad spending probably won’t be leaked to the press.
I just threw my iPhone 4 away because this thing looks so excellent. Think Zune+Kin and then add AT&T as the launch network provider. I only wish they could have squared the edges a little more and made a less beautiful homescreen.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ROL2_czpW0&w=640&h=385]
In all seriousness, Microsoft is going to spend boatloads of money on Windows Phone 7 so expect ads like this from now until Christmas. The one area where this OS will be able to compete is in gaming with its XBox Live connection. We’ll see if that’s enough to bring people over.
Interesting breakdown over at Asymco. It appears that while it still over one third of all iOS devices sold, the iPod touch is trending down overall as the iPad is pulling in a bigger percentage and the iPhone continues to break into more markets with more carriers.
It always bothered me that Apple put iPod touch numbers in with other iPods when it clearly belongs in the same category as the iPhone. Hopefully Apple stops grouping the iPod touch in with devices that can clip on your shirt and only share a common name. It appears they are heading in that direction with the ‘230,000 iOS devices activated/day ‘ and ‘120 million overall’ tallies.
I disagree with the closing paragraph however:
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We knew something was up when Amazon dropped the price of Parallels Desktop 5 to $20 yesterday. It looks like a new version is now shipping to stores, though nothing has been announced from the company.
In the past, Parallels has given people who’ve purchased the previous version within the past two weeks of a new release a free upgrade, so it may or may not make sense to buy now for $20.
Interesting little button on lower right hand corner of the 4th generation iPod touch Passcode screen.
Is this another Photoshop error by Apple’s web artisans? Or maybe VoIP falls under the Emergency calling guidelines.
Here’s another Photoshop error (see the phone icon?)
http://www.viddler.com/simple/48cd94a/
When looking at the video above (@15 seconds – for Flashless), it seems that the iPod touch 4th generation screen doesn’t have the same wide angle viewing as the iPhone 4 next to it. This could just be our eyes playing tricks on us (or even the camera) but Apple isn’t clear in the iPod touch literature that the screen is indeed IPS.
Here’s a still. Compare the blacks and the whites at an angle:
Also, Apple could have the screen settings set differently in these display iPod touches.
Here’s the scary: In Apple’s all-consuming quest to become just a little bit thinner and keep the fat margins, did they not only sacrifice the still camera (.7Megapixel?!) but also skimp on the screen? Thanks reader Alex!
Screen specs for iPhone 4 and iPod Touch 4 below. Strange that they aren’t just carbon copies of each other.
From the Toys Section:
Amazon.com offers Parallels Desktop 5 for Mac for $39.99. A $20 mail-in rebate (included in the box) drops it to $19.99. With free shipping, that ties our June mention and is the lowest total price we’ve seen for this version of Parallels Desktop. (It’s a current price low by $14.) It enables users to run Windows on an Intel-based Mac without rebooting. Rebate expires September 30.
As Mr. Jobs promised, iOS 4.1 brings many speed improvements to the older iPhone 3G, illustrated by Lifehacker:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q0jVRwHy00&w=640&h=385]
While UI responsiveness improved dramatically, there was also improvement in specific apps with Maps showing the most improvement.
Is it enough to upgrade from iPhone OS 3?
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Apple has opened a Trailer Showtimes site today that uses browser location settings both on desktop and mobile devices to deliver showtimes. You’ll be prompted to let the browser access your GPS information, whether that is your geo-located IP or your device’s dedicated GPS.
This one is for the Google h8rs:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouof1OzhL8k&w=640&h=385]
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Plex.app has been a fantastic media center option for Macs for a few years and as of last week, also on iOS devices.
Interestingly, Plex today announced a huge deal with LG which will have the Plex software built into future LG HDTV displays, free of charge (except LG obviously has to cover the cost of additional hardware). At some point in the future, Plex will be ported to Windows (how about that!) as well.
That is an interesting option vs. Apple and GoogleTV’s especially with the Plex iOS client running around and Plex’s ability to do 1080P, Flash and non-H.264 format videos.
Great news for Elan, Cayce and the guys at Plex!
Press release below:
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Those new colorless iTunes icons sure do rub some people the wrong way. Not to worry, there is a ‘fix’ out there. You simply download a new iTunes.rsrc file and shut down iTunes and replace it with the one you’ve just downloaded. When you restart, its like you’ve never updated (except Ping is still there).
We haven’t tried this (we are in the ‘who cares’ camp) so use at your own risk. via OPM
PS. Bonus tip from the comments: If you want the normal stoplight buttons back, Close your iTunes, open Terminal and paste in this “defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1”, hit enter. Boom. Open you iTunes. Fixed.
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The payWall St. Journal is reporting that T-Mobile’s exclusivity contract in Gemany is ending and O2 and Vodafone are picking up the iPhone for the holiday season.
Must be nice…
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In case you needed a reminder of what is ‘coming soon’ all the way in Novemeber
Favorite part is that he’s talking to the wrong side of the iPhone. Yeah buddy!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDVVidO8AR4&w=675&h=405]
Even if you are commenting on an ODB song, you can’t use profanity…
http://s.wsj.net/media/swf/microPlayer.swf
If you jumped into Ping as soon as it was available, like we did, you were able to connect to your friends with Facebook. That capability soon disappeared, making everyone wonder what happened. AllthingsD got the story:
[Facebook] essentially denied Apple’s Ping access to application programming interfaces that would allow it to search for an iTunes user’s friends on Facebook who also had signed up for Ping.
Normally, this API access is open and does not require permission.
That is, unless some entity wants to access it a lot. In that case, Facebook requires an agreement for reasons primarily centered on protection of Facebook user data and, of course, infrastructure impact.
With 160 million iTunes users, that could mean a possibility of a lot of impact.
Sources said Apple (AAPL) and Facebook conducted negotiations about an agreement, but could not come to terms.
So did Zuck rain a world of hurt down on Jobs?
Apple seeded another release of Leopard version 10H535 today. This one continues to focus on 3D Graphics, iCal, Mail, QuickTime,Time Machine, USB Devices and still gets foiled by VMWare.
Here’s Steve Jobs chatting about how he and Woz (his “partner in crime” from yesterdays event) used to illegally manipulate the phone networks for their own gain. “If we hadn’t made Blue Boxes, there’d be no Apple.”–Jobs
That’s something to think about next time the subject of jailbreaking comes up.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFURM8O-oYI&w=640&h=385]
Woz’s version (below), as you’d expect, is a little more colorful.
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Ars Technica got an Apple spokesperson to relay the bad news to those Apple hobbiests that, until last week, plucked down $229 for the former AppleTV:
We confirmed with an Apple spokesperson that the maximum HD resolution of the Apple TV is 720p, consistent with recent rumors. Additionally, there will be no software update to bring the new features to older Apple TVs. Older Apple TVs will continue to work as they have been working up to this point, and they will continue to be able to purchase movies and TV shows even though the new Apple TV is rental-only.
Good news? The Boxee community is likely to continue to update their fantastic (but often slow) offering. Better yet, now you don’t have to feel guilty about hacking your AppleTV now that Apple has abandoned it. (via Giz)
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I know, I know. Flash on mobile devices isn’t what it is on desktops, which frankly isn’t that great either (as I try to write this on a Macbook Pro with memory and processor all but consumed by a Hulu video).
That being said, the Skyfire browser, which was submitted to the app store today, teases us with the ability to watch shows like the Daily Show and the Colbert Report for free using Apple-approved HTTP streaming. The Skyfire browser can only do Flash video, not interactive games, ads and such.
Skyfire is a proxy browser like Opera Mini (which made it through the App Store gauntlet) so it isn’t an automatic fail.
Skyfire’s famed cloud-computing technology translates Flash video on the fly from millions of web sites into HTML5 formats, and supports iOS devices via Apple’s HTTP live streaming standard. Skyfire also avoids the concerns raised in Steve Jobs’ recent essay regarding Flash on mobile devices. By optimizing Flash for iPhones and network conditions in the Cloud, Skyfire improves performance and maximizes battery life while playing video.
Thoughts?
Press release follows:
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Amazon is promoting Apple’s new iOS products on its homepage this morning so we thought we’d give them a shout-out. They’ve got all of Apple’s new products today, which certainly still isn’t the case with the Kindle-competing iPad. However, if you live outside of Washington or New York, you’ll also save a few more bucks on taxes and what not. Shipping is free.
