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.
.
To get started, Apple now has a Best Practices KB page live. To access the user manuals online, use the following links:
The manuals are also available in-app from the ‘Help’ menu.
As for Cameras, you’ll want to check yourself here. Media Cards? Head over yonder.
Expand
Expanding
Close
.
Boy Genius is calling a radically new iPhone 5 to be announced in August and released a few weeks later.
We have heard it’s quite possible Apple will break tradition. According to our source, Apple may hold an event in the beginning or middle of August to announce the new iPhone, with availability to follow in the last week of August. We’re not sure if that means the iPod event will be moved up slightly, or if this will be an iPhone-specific event. Thisismynext reported earlier that the upcoming iPhone 5 would feature a new teardrop-shaped case design.
We’ll see. This counters much of what has been said so far and it would seem counterintuitive for Apple to ship an iPhone 5 before iOS 5 is released. There have been reports of Nexus S-like curved glass from Digitimes and ThisIsMyNext however.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Had you heard? Final Cut Pro X hit the virtual streets today ($299 App Store Link). Motion 5 ($49 Download link) and Compressor 4 ($49 Download Link)
Some users aren’t quite as happy as others. Those include first generation Mac Pro users with ATI video cards. Reader John writes:
BAD NEWS: I have a 2 year old, Mac Pro 2 x 2.8 Ghz Quad-Core Intel Xeon with 6 Gigs of memory and I can’t download FCP X from the app store because my Mac Pro isn’t good enough!
I have an ATI Radeon HD 2600. What about all those iMac editing stations when they cant upgrade either? Nice timing, right before the new Mac Pros to be released.I spoke to Apple, my Mac Pro from Early 2009 needs NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 Graphics Upgrade Kit for Mac Pro (early 2009) for $149 1-2 week wait.
You can find out if you are in good Graphics card shape here. You’ll want an OpenCL-capable graphics card with 256 MB of VRAM. Somehow Apple accepts Intel HD Graphics 3000 (or later), even though earlier GPUs are much quicker.
It is good however, to know that the App Store is blocking purchases before they are made. Chalk another one up for having an integrated App Store. As for system requirements, this is Apple: We’re fairly certain some new FCPX Mac Pro rigs are right around the corner. But, for now, you older Mac Pro users will need to drop $149 on this.
Another pro reader writes in:
Expand
Expanding
Close
As predicted last night by Mr. X, Today, Apple announced a new size of its Time Capsule, and it reduced its price on the 2TB version. The 2TB version, model no. MD032LL/A, costs $299, a $200 drop. The new 3TB version, model no. MD033LL/A, costs $499. Apple’s Time Capsule works as a wireless hard drive backup system. It doubles as a 802.11n WiFi base station with dual-band support.
The Airport Extreme part number was also updated, but without any significant differences from previous versions.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Apple today announced Final Cut Pro X, the entirely redesigned video editing application for video professionals and prosumers for $299 (App Store Link). Motion 5 ($49 Download link) and Compressor 4 ($49 Download Link) are also upgraded today.
Straight from the apple Press release:
Expand
Expanding
Close
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LffDQHp5E0]
Nokia introduced its MeegoOS-powered N9 today. Nokia, of course, dropped Meego earlier this year for Windows Phone 7 but decided to release this thing anyway. Truth be told, it does look nice, if not familiar…
The intro is a copy of Apple’s (See if you can pick the lines lifted from the video below) and the device looks like a two year old iPod Nano complete with “unibody design” and “curved glass”.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Or3wvF9ts0I]
Remember the above video from a Microsoft Phone 7 Mango demo in April? The then-current Apple browser (remember, that was pre-Nitro) didn’t fare so well against Android and Windows Mobile in a browser test that Microsoft set up. It registered a 2 frames per second vs. Microsoft’s Mobile IE score of 26. Apple was originally handicapped because the iPhone has more pixels to render: 640×960 vs. 480×800.
The Nitro update certainly helped out a bit bumping Apple’s score mildly.
However, running that same test on a iOS 5 iPhone 4 with the latest version of Safari is a totally different story….
Image via iFixit
CNET reports on a note by analyst Doug Freedman, at Gleacher & Company, who reports that an estimated 48% of Apple’s laptops will be from MacBook Airs:
“How big is this opportunity? In the 4-year lifespan of [Apple’s] iconic MacBook Air, units sold as a percentage of its total notebook supply was 8 percent in 2008, 9 percent in 2009, and 17 percent in 2010 to an estimated 48 percent in 2011,” he wrote.
New Intel Sandy Bridge processors for ultraportable laptops (chips can overclock or “turbo” to higher speeds) were also priced today:
Perhaps most importantly, these chips are based on Intel’s newish 32nm fab process that will take power efficiency to new heights. On the downside, they will use Intel’s slower chipset which doesn’t benefit from Nvidia’s 3xx series graphics.
We’re expecting new MacBook Airs within a month.
Expand
Expanding
Close
.
Steve Jobs’ favorite analytics company, Flurry, has some interesting numbers that put app usage above web usage.
Today, however, a new platform shift is taking place. In 2011, for the first time, smartphone and tablet shipments exceed those of desktop and notebook shipments (source: Mary Meeker, KPCB, see slide 7). This move means a new generation of consumers expects their smartphones and tablets to come with instant broadband connectively so they, too, can connect to the Internet.
Yeah but those devices have web browsers…
Our analysis shows that, for the first time ever, daily time spent in mobile apps surpasses desktop and mobile web consumption. This stat is even more remarkable if you consider that it took less than three years for native mobile apps to achieve this level of usage, driven primarily by the popularity of iOS and Android platforms. Let’s take a look at the numbers.
But what if one of those apps is a web browser like Opera? (via Business Insider.)
MacRumors is reporting that Apple is readying Black MacBook Airs in its next refresh.
We’ve received several anonymous tips claiming that at least some models of the next-generation MacBook Air will be be available with a black finish, different from the aluminum case used on the current MacBook Air and most of Apple’s other Macs. The most specific of the claims suggests that a black anodized aluminum case would be available on a top-end MacBook Air model, in much the same way as Apple once offered a high-end black MacBook on top of the standard white offerings.
Remember that when we first broke the news of a MacBook Air way back in 2007 (without Optical drives), we’d been told there was a black version. That information was later verified with the Ebay auction selling a prototype MacBook Air with a Black aluminum shell (pictured above, another shot below).
We’ve also received an anonymous tip with a similar Lion/Sandy Bridge/Thunderbolt/Next few weeks release information. That tip also said a $899 starting price point.
Update: A reliable source has told us that they haven’t seen any Black in the new MacBook Air materials
The News Corp.-owned New York Post started blocking iPad readers who use Safari today. Instead of showing content on the iPad, it gives a link to the NYPost App with the following statement:
Thanks for coming! NYPOST.com editorial content is now only accessible on the iPad through the New York Post App. If you are a current New York Post App subscriber, please visit the App Store and download the latest version to access NYPOST.com through the INDEX. If you are not a current New York Post App user and would like to subscribe, please download from theApp Store. Thank you.
Subscriptions run $6.99 per month, $39.99 for six months or $79.99 for the year, with no option for single-issue digital purchases. News Corp also launched The Daily magazine earlier this year, the first Tablet-only daily magazine.
If the NYPost wasn’t total garbage anyway, I’d be upset. Hopefully the backlash from this move discourages others from copying this game plan.
Interestingly, Skyfire and Opera Mini still work (below).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFFkK2SmPg4]
Another great one.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Originally planned for late July, the Brazilian Minister of Science and Technology, Aloizio Mercadante told Globo that iPad production would being in Brazil later this Fall at Foxconn’s new plant outside of São Paulo. Roughly machine translated:
“The handle access to the company, which would be used to drain the production plant in Jundiaí (SP), was not ready in time, due to construction delays.In addition, there is a shortage of skilled labor in the country.The company has hired 175 engineers, who had to send them to China where they are doing stage.The company, however, need more than 200 engineers to the sector, “said the minister.
One reason for the additional factories? A 40% reduction in consumer costs, according to the post. Not because the iPad is cheaper to make (though it could be) but the government won’t levy taxes on domestically produced products.
Nice work Sears. Here’s another winner.
Expand
Expanding
Close
TechCrunch continues their profiling of Facebook (once) secret projects with news that Zuckerberg and company plan a web-based alternative web store to Apple’s App Store for iOS devices.
Dubbed Project Spartan, the project is a framework for apps that would use social hooks and work inside of Facebook’s ecosystem.
As we understand it, Project Spartan is the codename for a new platform Facebook is on verge of launching. It’s entirely HTML5-based and the aim is to reach some 100 million users in a key place: mobile. More specifically, the initial target is both surprising and awesome: mobile Safari.
Yes, Facebook is about to launch a mobile platform aimed squarely at working on the iPhone (and iPad). But it won’t be distributed through the App Store as a native application, it will be entirely HTML5-based and work in Safari. Why? Because it’s the one area of the device that Facebook will be able to control (or mostly control).
Project Spartan will also be available on Android but according to TechCrunch, Facebook has Apple in its sights first.
As of right now, there are believed to be 80 or so outside developers working with Facebook on Project Spartan. These teams are working on apps for the platform that range from games to news-reading apps. Some of the names should be familiar: Zynga and Huffington Post (owned by our parent AOL), for example. The goal is to have these apps ready to roll in the next few weeks for a formal unveiling shortly thereafter.
‘Project Trojan’ sounds like a better name.
(above, Apple’s Back to School Ads go live –thx)
Last week we told you that Apple was going to unleash its Back to School sale today and would include a $100 gift card to the App Store. We’ve seen the artwork and the packages were supposed to be opened today to be displayed. That’s what the outside packaging said anyway.
Late last night, @chronic tweeted that there was going to be a slight delay in the unveiling. We’re not 100% sure if/why the delay happened. It could have been the abrupt departure of Apple Store Head Ron Johnson or some other issues with the rollout.
But that doesn’t mean that the event isn’t going to happen and that the $100 in credit that we called didn’t happen.
Macrumors posts the image (below) which shows the $100 gift card that we’d heard about. Apple Stores are rolling out the imagery now (so technically we weren’t off on rollout ;) and the $100 begins tomorrow and goes until September 20.
Remember, Lion is free with any Mac purchased now and there are already significant educational discounts for Apple products.
From 9to5toys.com:
AT&T Wireless offers the refurbished, 1st-generation Apple iPad 64GB Wi-Fi + 3G Tablet for $429. With free shipping, that’s $66 under our mention from two weeks ago and the lowest total price we’ve ever seen. (It’s also $110 under the lowest total price we could find for a refurb unit today and $130 under the best we could find for a new one.) Sales tax is added where applicable. This 0.5″-thick tablet weighs 1.6 lbs. and features an Apple A4 1GHz processor, 9.7″ 1024×768 LCD LED-backlit display, 802.11a/n wireless, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, up to 9 hours of battery life, and more. A 90-day AT&T warranty applies.
Note: iPad orders require the purchase of an AT&T DataConnect Personal Data Plan. Plans are active for 30 days and automatically renew every 30 days. (A 30-day plan costs $14.99 and can be cancelled at any time.) This item is not eligible for returns or exchanges.
You can almost taste the sarcasm in the press statement from Apple:
“Ron is excited about this opportunity and we hope it goes well for him,” a spokesperson said. “We’ve got a great retail team in place and are actively recruiting for his replacement.”
JCPenny also released a statement with some interesting information:
As a demonstration of his confidence in J. C. Penney’s long-term potential, Mr. Johnson requested and has committed to make a personal investment of $50 million in the Company through the purchase, at fair market value, of 7 1/2-year warrants on 7.257 million shares ofJ. C. Penney Company stock. The warrants cannot be sold or hedged for the first six years of their term and have a strike price of $29.92, the closing price of the stock on the business day prior to Mr. Johnson’s commitment to purchase the warrants.
As JCP is up 12% on the hiring news, Johnson just made $6M on his first day. Not bad, but he’s still just went from the second biggest company in the world where he’d pull in double digit million dollar bonuses to a $7B company that sells unremarkable clothes.
Expand
Expanding
Close
This first post WWDC 1GB update ships with no known issues with focus areas centered on AirPort, Graphics Drivers, Mac App Store, Networking, QuickTime and VPN. The delta update weighs in at 454MB.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/21514274 w=670&h=377]
(Check out 45 secs in)
Here’s an unconventional use of the iPad: Time Magazine profiles Condition ONE, an app to provide a new form of storytelling.
it combines “the power of the still image, the narrative of films and the emotional engagement of tactile experiences to create a new language that is so immersive, it will shake viewers out of their numbness to traditional media and provide them a powerful emotional experience. Instead of opening a window to glimpse another world, we are attempting to bring the viewer into that world as an active participant.”
Condition ONE, under development for the Apple iPad and other tablets, uses a custom camera system developed by Dennis that “fuses the ethics, method and aesthetics of photojournalism with the tradition of cinematic filmmaking with virtual reality,” he says. “The entire human field of view is captured on these camera systems, and the stories are edited specifically for the tablet application to create a truly immersive experience.”
Expand
Expanding
Close
If you are an iOS 5 developer (or play one on TV), you may be interested in jailbreaking your iOS 5 devices (iPad 2s need not apply) so that you can build Notification widgets or something. The good news is that you have two different options. One is from @iH8sn0w who has released the snowbreeze 2.8b1 jailbreak for tethered iOS devices.
That follows the Dev team, which released redsn0w 0.9.8b1 for Mac (Windows) on Friday.
Both jailbreaks are “extremely beta”, but can be used to exploit notifications and other iOS 5 technologies.
Expand
Expanding
Close
As part of our reveal of FindMyMac last week, we detailed the browser-only mode that Lion can boot into as a security precaution
…Interestingly, when Find My Mac is enabled, Apple lets “Guest” users use Safari and nothing else on the machine. That is a trick to help the Mac figure out where it is (IP address) and let you connect to it.
Macrumors expands on this by saying that the Safari-only mode could be used in Kiosk-only mode.
This browser-only mode is reminiscent of Google’s lightweight Chrome OS which is designed to offer the user a web-only based operating system.
Apple’s motivations for offering such a browser-only mode differs from Google’s. Google is partnering with manufacturers in order to build Chrome OS only laptops that offer cheap browser-only machines. Apple’s not likely to be going that route with Mac OS X Lion but is instead offering a nice sandboxed mode so Lion can easily act as a secure and anonymous web kiosk.
It isn’t likely that Apple is positioning Safari-only as a competitor to Google’s ChromeOS (Apple’s hardware starts at more than double of where Chrome is priced). But for both of the above reasons, it makes sense to include a browser-only mode.
Expand
Expanding
Close
For those wondering when Apple’s in-house apps will go 64-bit, we have some good news and some bad news. In Lion, the developer release of iTunes 10.5 is 64-Bit (finally). The developer version of iPhoto with Photostreaming to the iCloud however, is still 32-Bit, at least currently.
Someone made an iPad with $1.2 million worth of diamonds attached to it. Worst part? It is an iPad 1. D’oh.
Shot of the back below.
Expand
Expanding
Close
