Seth Weintraub

From 9to5toys:

Today only, MacUpdate offers downloads of Yellow Mug Software’s EasyBatchPhoto 3 for Mac for $12. That’s $12 off and the lowest price we could find for this batch photo compression, resizing, and conversion software. Click here for more information.
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It looks like the report that Apple has a lock on Light Peak technology for a year was wrong.  Sony has gone ahead and announced their first Light Peak product in Europe and perhaps most interestingly, it contains an External GPU.  TIMN summerizes:

The vertically standing peripheral (pictured above) uses Intel’s Light Peak (yes, the same thing as Apple’s Thunderbolt) via a proprietary port and USB 3.0 socket to connect to the laptop. And not only does it provide an AMD Radeon HD 6650M with 1GB of VRAM, but also allows you to connect up to three additional displays via its HDMI and VGA ports.

One of the promises of Thunderbolt was External GPU video cards.  Imagine hooking your Thunderbolt-equipped, Sandy Bridge MacBook Air (with crappy integrated Intel GPU) to an external Thunderbolt GPU which drives a few 27-inch screens?

I like where this is going.

More shots below:
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXepNCs_iZo]

Almost forgot about this Meme until Jeffery Harrell used it to express his feelings about Final Cut Pro X.

“I used Final Cut Pro X for a while. And I formed some opinions about it. Oh, and since it’s been asked: I cut this with Premiere 5.5 on my laptop. Never used Premiere before, needed a project to learn on.”

We can all agree that FCP X is not a feature complete replacement for Final Cut Pro 7…yet.

via Doc

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If you have a Thunderbolt Mac, you’ve got an update waiting for you in Software Update.  We’ve done some rummaging around in the update files (thanks Pacifist!) and as you can see below, only 3 machines get update.  Nothing from the future just yet.
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We’re expecting Skype’s iPad client at any moment now, but old Skype collaborator and new foe Fring already has lept ahead with the ability to video conference between four people, right in the iPad 2 window, at the same time.

The 5.1.1.2 update also includes bugfixes, drag and drop navigation, Bluetooth support and connectivity improvements.

More shots below:
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We haven’t gotten official word on this but the Economic Times of India is reporting that Apple changed its return policy on Apps from minutes to 7 days.  We reported earlier this month that Taiwan gave both Apple and Google two weeks to comply withits consumer protection mandate.

An official said the lack of a return and refund mechanism violated the Consumer Protection Act. In an example of the problem the city government is trying to prevent, Yeh cited a case of software bought on Apple Store on Thursday that did not work, but left the buyer without recourse.

It appears that Apple has complied (Google, less so):
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In what is becoming a global trend, IDC found that Nokia uptake in Australia fell spectacularly from almost 50% in Q1 last year to less than 25% this year.

Its first quarter 2011 figures show that in just 12 months, Nokia has not only lost market dominance, its phone market share has halved: from 49.5 per cent in the first quarter of last year and 44.2 per cent in Q4, to just 24.6 per cent in the first quarter this year.

Perhaps even more scary for the people at Nokia, who are also jumping from their “burning platform”: Windows Phone 7 is actually dropping share year over year from the previous Windows Mobile.

Who is picking up the slack?
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From 9to5Toys.com (Feed) (Twitter)

Today only, Amazon offers the Toshiba Canvio Basics 320GB Portable hard drive for $34.99. That’s 30% off and the lowest price we could find. This 4.5 star drive has Internal Shock Sensor/Ramp Loading Technology and comes with a Toshiba 3-Year Limited Warranty.
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It sure seems like it.

A guy named Jordan from 97th Floor, a company that represents Adobe’s SEO interests, asked us to “fix/make a link to Adobe.com” in one of our posts.  The post had nothing to do with Adobe, but the terms “photo editing program” were desired link terms for Adobe which appears to be trying to juice its search engine rankings.

As far as I know, this is a no-no.  I think Bing and Google frown on this type of behavior. 

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The rest of the exchange is below:
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NBC joins the Fray with their own free iPad app. Before you get too excited there are no full Episodes though it says “at this time” which leaves a wide open possibility of full episodes in the future.  For now, hit up  Hulu or Netflix.

Full description below:
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The WSJ reports:

A computer hacker admitted Thursday to writing code that was used to breach AT&T Inc.’s servers last year and gather email addresses and other personal information of about 120,000 users of Apple Inc.’s iPad.

They then gave the list of names (The email addresses they accessed included those of corporate chiefs, U.S. government officials and Hollywood moguls) to a media outlet to prove how shoddy AT&T’s protection of user data was.

Daniel Spitler, 26 years old, a computer hacker from San Francisco, pleaded guilty to identity theft and conspiracy to gain unauthorized access to computers. He faces up to five years in prison on each count. Sentencing is set for Sept. 28.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M1wC0pS_No]

Nokia really tries to hide its secret project.
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iPhone 5 rumor overload?  Then you’ll probably want to skip over this little tidbit.

According to Digitimes, Apple’s next iPhone will have two LED flash bulbs.

Recent market rumors have indicated that Apple’s iPhone 5 is likely to come with a dual-LED flash with Taiwan-based LED packaging firms Everlight Electronics, Edison Opto and Lite-On Technology being pinpointed as potential suppliers. The rumors come amid market reports indicating that Apple reduced its orders for Lumileds high-power LED flash products from Philips recently and switched the orders for LED flashes to Taiwan makers.Edison, which is specialized in the production of high-power LEDs, has begun shipping its LED flash products to branded handset vendors and therefore has a high chance of winning dual-LED flash orders from Apple, the sources noted.

Recent “iPhone 5 cases” have had the flash on the other side of the case but theoretically those flashes could be dual flashes.  Or maybe LEDs on both sides?

image via BGR

As AT&T tries to swallow up the American wing of the German telekom, many have wondered whether Apple would allow T-Mobile to carry the iPhone.  Apple’s answer so far is a no*, but that hasn’t stopped T-Mobile customers from adopting iPhones.  In huge numbers.

In a meeting with T-Mobile spokespeople today ahead of the NYC Pepcom event, I received word that there are actively over a million Apple iPhones currently on T-Mobile’s network.  When asked for a breakdown, the spokesman said the majority were pre-iPhone 4 but that a significant amount of people had “taken the scissors” to their T-Mobile SIM cards.  T-Mobile doesn’t currently offer a Micro-SIM solution for Apple’s iPhone 4 so people who want to use the iPhone 4 must modify their SIMs into MicroSIMs.  Those using iPhone 4s also won’t receive T-Mobile’s 3G or 4G data speeds because of the radio differences between the networks.

*Apple started selling unlocked iPhone 4s in the US for the first time earlier this month.

When asked to elaborate further on Micro-SIMs, the spokesman told me they are in the works but there was no time frame for release.  Why not wait until the deal with AT&T is over to make MicroSIMs?  Perhaps we’ll have a little surprise come September.

When asked specifically about the possibility of a T-Mobile USA iPhone, T-Mobile said they have nothing to announce at this time.
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And the top 7 too.

Does anyone benefit from the App Store more than Apple? (thanks, since changed congrats iSplash!)
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AllThingsD reports on a study by BTIG Research which shows that customers at Verizon and AT&T are pretty skewed toward iPhone, even over Android (Blackberry and WP7 are rounding errors).  In fact, if the two biggest carriers in the US are so skewed toward toward iPhone, how is Android outselling iPhone?

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxGpoc5HRYc]

We initially passed on the Patently Apple find yesterday but a lot of crazy buzz has followed, including assertions that it could cause major problems for the smartphone industry.

Nilay Patel of TIMN breaks it down for those without a background in patent law.  (also here)
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[vodpod id=Video.11541831&w=425&h=350&fv=]

Tune in to find out what “Sugar Water” boy thinks about Steve Jobs 20 years ago.  The show airs at 9PM.
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We know Apple charges a premium on storage.  That’s why many people buy RAM and HDD/SSD storage for their Macs from third party retailers, saving lots of money.   With iOS devices, however, Apple is able to keep out third party upgrades because the devices are sealed shut.  That’s why a device with 16GB costs $100 less than a device with 32GB of RAM, which in turn costs $100 less than a device with 64GB of flash storage.  Apple buys Flash for less than anyone else on earth but mere mortals can get storage for a fraction of what Apple charges.

So here’s this Time Capsule thing.

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 $299 for 2TB.  To upgrade to a 3TB drive, you’ll need $200 more.  How absurd is this?  The difference between a 2TB and 3TB drive is like $40.

Not only is this beyond the call of the “Mac Tax” but it is crazy easy to get around.  For an extra $150 (Still $50 less than the 3TB model) you can buy a perfectly good 3TB USB Seagate or Western Digital hard drive from Amazon.  Then just plug it into the back of the 2TB model and you have 5TB of addressable space.    You’ve been able to use USB drives since 2008 as Time Machine backups or Network Attached Storage.

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Of course it is nice to have the drive in a convenient little package with only one plug, but for $200, only getting an extra TB seems a little absurd.  
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As noted by MacRumors, Apple Final Cut Pro support documents strongly recommend updating to Mac OS 10.6.8

Updating to Mac OS X v10.6.8 or later is strongly recommended when using Final Cut Pro X, Motion 5, or Compressor 4.

Yeah, Apple.  Yeah.  (Readers are reporting no issues with 10.6.7 btw)

According to his LinkedIn Profile, John Herbold has left the iCloud.  On his departure, he said:

I’ve been fortunate enough to define, ship and market a variety of products for one of the world’s most admired product companies. That opportunity was a great privilege.

Now I get to take that experience and apply it to the enormous challenge of materially improving youth health.

He is the third prominent Apple employee to leave the company in recent months (though much less so than the others), following MacOSX head Bertrand Serlet a few months ago and Stores leader Ron Johnson last week.

He was at Apple during the MobileMe rollout and managed to stay almost until the iCloud announcement this month.

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