Seth Weintraub

FireCore has just announced an update to the Remote HD application for iOS devices on the App Store and a new application available through an Apple TV jailbreak extras menu. The two applications work together to allow you to stream video from your iPhone, video from iTunes, and video from YouTube and supported 3rd party apps to the original Apple TV. You need to install the AppleTV jailbreak we previously reported on and the Remote HD application for iOS costs $3.99. Oh, and audio streaming doesn’t work yet, just video.

Instructions from FireCore:

1. If you don’t already have Remote HD purchase it here [iTunes link].
2. Install Remote HD on your AppleTV through the Maintenance –> Install Extras menu.
3. Restart your AppleTV.
4. Connect to your AppleTV with Remote HD – the AppleTV will now be recognized in all AirPlay compatible applications.
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Here’s some interesting news from the periphery.  In Europe, where Microsoft was forced to institute a ‘browser ballot ‘upon the installation of Windows (giving Opera, Safari, Chrome, Firefox and IE equal billing), Firefox has just passed IE as the most popular browser on the continent.

That’s according to Statcounter who told Reuters “This appears to be happening because Google’s Chrome is stealing share from Internet Explorer while Firefox is mainly maintaining its existing share. We are probably seeing the impact of the agreement between European Commission competition authorities and Microsoft, to offer EU users a choice and menu of browsers from March last year.”

Given equal footing with other browsers, users just don’t pick IE (remember this ballot is only a year old and it will likely get much worse for Microsoft.

Full graph below:
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Logitech has a pretty solid little cross platform video chat application called Vid HD but unfortunately, their 1080P Cameras haven’t had reliable Mac drivers for HD video chatting both ways (Vid HD can use Apple’s built in cameras as well).

Today that changes.  Their HD Pro C910 USB camera ($80 at Amazon) now also works in HD for 10 megapixel stills or 1080P Video recording.  Most impressive is HD video conferencing with Vid HD, Skype, Google Talk and others. (iChat is hard set at SD).

Logitech webcam software for Mac is our newest webcam release, with support specifically for the HD Pro C910. Now you can create, capture and share in Full 1080p with your C910 and Mac-based computer (running 10.5 or higher). Record in 720p, 1080p and capture great 10 megapixel photos, and sharing your memories on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter is drag and drop simple.

The software includes Logitech Vid™ HD, the free, fast, and easy way to make video calls with your Logitech webcam. Now you can make 720p video calls from a Mac, and connect in HD to friends and family on a Mac, PC or TV with the Logitech Revue and TV Cam.

Vid HD is included with your Logitech webcam software, so that your webcam, microphone, and speakers will just work and be ready to make video calls.

You can download the new Video camera software here. The Vid HD for Mac software is here.
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Think Different?

Just like the Palm Pre was released days before the iPhone 3GS, HP/Palm is going to be announcing something big (a tablet) and something small (another webOS phone) in the days leading up to iPad 2.

Hopefully printer sales are strong this year…

In other non-Apple tablet news, the Blackberry PlayBook shows off its stuff, below…

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J89M9UewvGE&w=640&h=385]

Looks like a pretty good idea. Anyone tried this yet?
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Colleen Patterson this month moved over to Apple’s Press team from Arnold Schwarzenegger’s  where she was the Chief Deputy Communications Director for the governor.

Good thing too, because the Governator was replaced by Jerry Brown this week.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs would have worked with Patterson at his appearances with the former governor at two separate organ donation events earlier this year.

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The lastest browser market share report from NetApplications shows a pretty strong uptick for iOS for December.  The last report of the year pushed iOs toward 2% of all browser usage (remember back in the late 90s when Mac was at under 2%?).  Apple was up a third of a percentage point at almost 1.7%

Android did gain market share but not as dramatically as Apple.  Blackberry is indistinguishable from the baseline at .13%.

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Hardmac reports today some of Steve Jobs’ latest thoughts on BluRay.

He admitted that retrospectively he feels ashamed that Apple’s name is associated to Blu-ray, as he thinks that BD supporting associations look today more like Mafia than anything else.

Jobs famously called BluRay a ‘Bag of Hurt’ during a Q&A after a MacBook Event in 2008.

Concerning authoring on Blu-ray, it seems impossible to provide software supporting such format for consumer market. In addition to DRM, here it is the cost of licenses that slow down the entire process; one would have to start paying 3,000 USD to AACS, then 80,000 USD to Sony, 40,000 USD to Sonic, etc.

Hardmac also reports that the next version of Final Cut Pro will come in March or April 2011, which is what we’ve seen in Jobs emails.

Finally, they say that not everyone is happy with the Xserve axing but they don’t know what comes next.  We’ve heard some things.
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SAI breaks down Piper Jaffay Apple follower Gene Munster’s predictions for 2011, complete with probabilities.  I’ve got to say, these are pretty conservative.  (I like Appleholic’s 2011 list much more).  Anyway, here we go…

– Verizon launch of the iPhone: Probability 95% (March qtr) (our est)

– Mac App Store: Probability 100% (Jan. 6 launch)

– iTunes cloud services: Probability 90%

– iPad geographic expansion: Probability 100%

– iPad subsidies from carriers: Probability 80%

– OS X Lion: Probability 100% (summer 2011)

And here’s when we can expect upgrades to the hardware:

– iPhone (March quarter). We are modeling for Apple to launch a CDMA version of the iPhone at Verizon in the March-11 quarter. The fifth generation iPhone will likely ship this summer with NFC capability.

– iPad (spring). We believe the second generation iPad will launch in spring 2011.

– Macs (uncertain). We have moderate confidence that Apple will release redesigned MacBook Pros in 1H11 and redesigned iMacs in 2H11.

– iPods (fall). As usual, we expect Apple to refresh its iPods in the fall.

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Intel just lifted the embargo on 29 new processors in the Sandy Bridge family, the ones that will likely be powering upcoming Macs in 2011. Among the highlights include the following:

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So they have this entrepreneur show and they did some nifty editing to show some Venture Capital Angels not liking the iPad. Fairly entertaining in light of the success the iPad has had.

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

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdxL2PWwI64&w=640&h=390]

Well done fellas.  Should be interesting to see if the trackpad works any better with OSX.

http://ht.cdn.turner.com/cnn/big/tech/2010/12/30/dnt.touchpads.installed.porn.wsil.ipad.qtref.mov

Haha

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZNxjBKI0fI&w=640&h=385]

Clear discontinued the iSpot personal 4G hotspot for iOS devices yesterday.  The iSpot was easily hacked to work like its more expensive counterpart with all computers and even had trouble with some iPads without hacking.

Clear recently dropped the price of the iSpot by 80% and will continue selling them until they sell out of retail inventory.

Sprint (who own 54% of Clear) is also about to announce a new Mifi device which may also account for the iSpot discontinuation (below).  One major drawback of the iSpot is that it only works in the few spots that have Clear 4G, it doesn’t drop down to 3G if you leave a 4G area.  The new device, which also uses Sprint’s 3G network, does.

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In rough rough beta form.  Something tells me Apple is going to do this a lot better.

http://asset.slashgear.tv/sgplayer.swf

If the leaked Skype mobile video help pages weren’t enough, Skype now has a full blown teaser page demonstrating a bunch of mobile video examples.  Enough! Give us the goods already.

via Razorian.

We’re like 99.9% sure we are going to see a Verizon iPhone here pretty soon but InformationWeek doesn’t seem to think it will be revealed at CES.

Verizon Wireless on Tuesday announced its lineup of speakers for its LTE news conference at next week’s CES show in Las Vegas and the news is likely to disappoint the hoards of journalists and stock analysts who have been predicting the firm will launch a version of Apple’s iPhone. Instead, Verizon said it will provide “a sneak peek of Android-based 4G LTE consumer devices” during the news conference, which will be Webcast live on Jan. 6.

Some other things to think about: Jobs doesn’t much like to let other people launch ‘his’ products.  It would seem more than a little strange to have Verizon CEO Seidenberg introduce Apple’s CDMA iPhone.  Also, the CDMA iPhone likely won’t be LTE 4G (at least at its current size/weight) and Verizon seems to be theming this CES as the year of 4G.
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(not it)

According to the the well-hooked-up Eldar Murtazin, editor of Russian language mobile-review.com the iPad 2 will have a regular old USB port.

Talked with colleague which working with some ODM vendors connected with Apple. He is research guy. According to his sources iPad2 will have usb port.

European regulators have been forcing manufacturers to unify on the Micro-USB so it wouldn’t be surprising to see Apple play along.  Oh, and Digitimes also thinks we’ll see some USB-age.
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Today, Apple is letting developers know that they are back to approving (and blocking) apps from the App Store after a week holiday hiatus.

Developers are now seeing graphs on how successful they were over the Christmas holidays with some reporting significant spikes to us privately.  Camera+ wasn’t shy about revealing their spike however (below).

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According to Macotacara, the new iPad cases that have been surfacing over the past few weeks indicate that the new iPad 2 could be shaped more angular, like the current iPod touch.  That is if these cases have any merit.  But if they do, bring it Apple!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTFYnLn_qNo&w=640&h=390]

Another app that allows you to take pictures with the volume buttons squeaked through the App Store approval gauntlet last night.  Quick Snap Camera Plus ($1.99) is available probably until Apple finds out.

You’ll recall last time Camera+ tried this, they got pulled right away.

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