Seth Weintraub

The free app is the top downloaded in all markets tracked by Apple.

Twitter’s search function is great for finding out what is happening at this very moment. It’s so great that Google and Bing have added the results to their search results and, in the process, given Twitter its first revenue source (more $ are coming).

Today, Google announced that it would be searching across the whole Twitter archive.

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One day after launching the new MacBook Pro 15 and 17-inch laptops, Apple already has an upgrade to fix some graphics/video issues and other pesky bugs.  If you are unboxing one of these beauties this week, don’t forget to hit the software update.

Apple also released MobileMe backup version 3.2

Jobs isn’t the only one who rocks the mustache.  Ive from Macworld 1999

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Via Edible Apple

Apple today released the following statement:

Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad

Jeez they keep coming in!

Some in the Mac community have been worried that iPhone development has been taking away from development in MacOS 10.7.  This has largely been fueled by Daring Fireball’s post last week: 

A few months ago, I heard suggestions that Apple had tentative plans to release a developer beta of Mac OS X 10.7 at WWDC this June. That is no longer the case. Mac OS X 10.7 development continues, but with a reduced team and an unknown schedule. It

It is never fun when the lawyers get involved…

Apple’s iron-bound determination to keep Adobe Flash out of any iWhatever device is about to blow up in Apple’s face. Sources close to Adobe tell me that Adobe will be suing Apple within a few weeks.  It was bad enough when Apple said, in effect, that Adobe Flash wasn’t good enough to be allowed on the iPad. But the final straw was when Apple changed its iPhone SDK (software development kit) license so that developers may not submit programs to Apple that use cross-platform compilers.   Officially, Adobe’s not talking about such actions, but there’s no question that Adobe is ticked off big time at Apple.

The tech landscape is kinda funny right now.  Everyone is suing everyone it seems

We’re not sure why we’re the clearinghouse of Steve Jobs emails lately, but here’s yet another one.  Reader DJ writes into Steve Jobs asking why the 13-inch MacBook Pro updates didn’t have Core i5 and i7 processors that the bigger MacBook Pros recieved.  Jobs’ response is that faster graphics and 10 hour battery life are better than marginally better performance. 

If Steve keeps writing them, we’ll keep posting ’em!

A TUAW reader posts the following video stating that a new interface found in iPhone OS 4 allows for navigation that would be optimized for automobile use.

Our source says that information bundled into the application shows that Apple intends this new “iPod out” functionality to be used in automobiles using the iPod Accessory Protocol (IAP). Hints as to this use are found in strings within the application itself. These strings include IAPSimpleRemoteCarButtonNotification and IAPSimpleRemoteCarButtonTypeKey.

Also found were frameworks (kCTCallStatusChangeNotification) which would handle call routing. From the interface.

This might also be freaking awesome for the iPad as well.

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Today’s MacBook Pro update doesn’t just have faster processors, the 15 and 17-inch models also get the new NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor with 48 processing cores and up to 512MB of dedicated video memory.   Not only faster, the new GPUs are also up to 30% more efficient.

Perhaps most interestingly however, Apple is touting  automatic graphics switching which move the graphics load from the integrated Intel chip to the discrete NVIDIA when the load warrants.  That is a far cry from having to reboot logout in previous models.

Store is down..

AppleInsider reports that we’ll be seeing the following updates with a high end 512GB SSD option offered:

An Australian MacTalk Forums member called Mr. X quotes these Parts:

MC371LL/A – MBP 15.4/2.4/2x2GB/320/SD/GLSY-USA
MC372LL/A – MBP 15.4/2.53/2x2GB/500/SD/GLSY-USA
MC373LL/A – MBP 15.4/2.66/2x2GB/500/SD/GLSY-USA
MC374LL/A – MBP 13.3/2.4/2x2GB/250GB/SD-USA
MC375LL/A- MBP 13.3/2.66/2x2GB/320/SD-USA
MC024LL/A – MBP 17/2.53/2x2GB/500/HR-GLSY-USA

Unsurprisingly, these match up with Microcenter’s part numbers pretty well

We also might see some International iPad prices and pre-order details.

Remember when Apple was first showing off the iPad to journalists, one of the features they were showing off was ‘File Sharing’? You could flip a switch in the Settings and your iPad disk would show up on your Mac/PC’s desktop as a drive.  You could copy files from your desktop to iPad this way manually.

This would have been a great feature for carrying around important PDFs and other documents.  You could store important files on your iPad, not just ones that were going to be used in iWork.

The iPad SDKs also had the ability to share files through a disk mount on your computer.  With a little tweaking, you could still see that the setting was in the SDK.

I’m pretty sure Phil Schiller touched on the capability it at the iPad Event and it might have been on Apple’s website for a spell.  But when Apple finally released the iPad last week, no File Sharing Settings item and no desktop access to a share on the iPad.

Now all we get is this:

We told you last week how ContactPad was told by Apple that they could no longer use the -Pad suffix in their name.  It may sound a little nuts, but Apple’s policy is that they own the trademark on “Pad” and Steve Jobs is going to enforce it.  

Chris Ostmo, developer of journalPad and journalPad Bible edition, found out this information the hard way.  After he got a notice from the App Store telling him that he had to change the names of his apps to get updated, he wrote a plea to Steve Jobs asking why Apple had made the change in App Store policy after letting so many people initially use the ‘Pad’ suffix in their names.  

You guessed it, he got a response from Steve Jobs.  This one said: “It’s just common sense not to use another company’s trademarks in your app name.”  We know Jobs doesn’t think changing an App’s name is a big deal.

What’s interesting is that the ContactPad people were referred to this page.  There is nothing about any ‘Pad’ trademark there.  Additionally, in the list of names that Apple views as trademarks, only ‘MacPad’ and ‘iPad’ are listed.  There is nothing about the generic/broader ‘Pad’ or the suffix -Pad in either page.

Can a trademark even be issued for such a broad term? (Bad news for Kotex, Always, and Stayfree)  If so, is Apple in the process of applying for the trademark for ‘Pad’?

Even if it can trademark a broad term like Pad, is Apple’s change of policy fair to developers who’ve invested time and money into marketing a name that Apple initially accepted but no longer deems appropriate?

In the end, it really doesn’t matter, because in Apple’s little App Store world, they don’t even need to pretend they have a trademark.  They’ve given themselves every legal right to pull an app for no reason at all. 

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Opera Mini was just approved for iPhone according to a press release on the company’s site. The app is free and making its way across Europe as we speak and should be available in the US store soon here.

Honestly, we weren’t sure if Apple was going to approve this one (it took three weeks).  Maybe Apple is throwing a bone to the original iPhone owners since they can’t upgrade to OS 4.

At the inaugural Atmosphere 2010 Cloud Computing conference today, Google introduced some interesting new features to Google Docs that not only make them more familiar to Microsoft Office users, but also take collaboration to whole new levels.

Check out the new features in the video below:

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Patently Apple today shows that Apple is thinking about putting covers over their products that might give the feeling of actual keyboards and/or gamepads.  This product category isn’t an entirely new idea.  4iThumbs has a similar $20 product which is has been on the market for a few months.  While we’ve tried 4iThumbs and liked the feeling, the idea of carrying cover around seems kind of unwieldy, at least on portable electronics.

Just Sayin’

The only question now:  Who is going to buy them?  I think they might be piecemealled off.

Palm Inc., creator of the Pre smartphone, put itself up for sale and is seeking bids for the company as early as this week, according to three people familiar with the situation.

Just guesses here: HTC (for the patents).  HTC already has made a lot of Palm Phones.  Motorola (for the OS) – they are getting screwed by HTC and Android.  

Nokia already has Symbian and Maemo OSes.   Microsoft got burned too badly with Danger.  Blackberry just bought an OS company.  Google has Android (but wouldn’t hurt to have some more patents)

Is Blackberry going to produce a tablet?  They did just buy QNX which does (see video below) that type of stuff.

Crackberry via Slashphone

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Update: EventBrite took their site down, likely indicating that Apple will not release any new products at the event.  

Update2: Their VP of Operations got back to us and tried to distance themselves from the “Please join Apple for an update on their latest hardware and software products.” statement.   They’d like this post to be removed.

We thought Apple had stopped doing smaller shows like NAB in 2007 where they released Final Cut Studio 2.  However, it appears (via MacSoda) that Apple might be attending NAB 2010 and may have some new products to announce:

“Please join Apple for an update on their latest hardware and software products. Lunch will be provided to all those attending.“

Date: Wednesday April 14th, 2010
Time: 11:30am – 12:30pm
Where: Renaissance Hotel, Las Vegas
2nd Floor “Rainbow” Conference Room

Please take a moment to RSVP above as space is limited.
If you have any questions, please email Jenny Neymark, Marketing Events Coordinator, or call 877.761.9770.

The speculation last year was that Apple will again be releasing a new version of its Final Cut Studio Software (3.5? 4?) and possibly some updates to some of its video production hardware.  It was last updated in July of 2009.  As Steve Jobs said, Final Cut Pro is alive and well.

Also, professionals like Mac Pros and Xserves.

We just called Renaissance Hotel to confirm. They said there is indeed an Apple event on Wednesday.  Audio file here.

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In a previous post, I’d wondered why Adobe didn’t spend their time building HTML5 Authoring tools rather than putting so much time/energy/money into their  Flash->iPhone Apps exporter tool for Flash CS5.  

As it turns out, Adobe does have some, albeit rudimentary, HTML5 Canvas exporting tools as demonstrated in the video above.   Taking a simple animation, which is the beginning, middle and end of most Flash banner ads that we love, is an export/paste operation.

Now that Microsoft and their market leading IE browser are supporting HTML5, it would seem like a better move for web designers to export old Flash animations into HTML5, rather than miss out on iProducts/ClicktoFlash users’ eyes.  Thanks Timo!