9to5 Staff

Following rumours last week that Apple may (or may not) be plotting an ARM takeover, we read yet more cafuffle from the processor and graphics industry, this time involving a move by Apple-part-owned company, Imagination, to take a shot at ARM.

What the story is:

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Israel has lifted its ban on the iPad while fresh speculation carried by the Jerusalem Post claims the ban may have been inspired to protect a local Israeli Apple distributor against gray market imports.

A week- and-a-half ago, the Israeli Communications Ministry announced that it was banning the import of iPads to Israel because the device

Apple seems set to make an even mightier push at the games market, hiring in Nintendo games expert, Matt Casamassina (pictured), of the IGN gaming site. Casamassina becomes Global Editorial Games Manager.

“Beginning early May, I will join Apple as global editorial games manager, App Store,” Casamassina said. “In a nutshell, I will be leading the charge for games on the App Store, so whether you browse through iTunes, iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, the games content you see will be handpicked and organized by me and my team. I couldn’t be happier,” he writes on his blog.

A well-known Nintendo expert, Casamassina added, “if there is one company that could entice me away from covering Mario and Zelda it’s the one owned by Steve Jobs.

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Following yesterday’s news about the Apple employee being fired over showing Woz the iPad 3G, we looked more into the ordeal and have discovered who the Apple employee actually was. The night of the incident at the Valley Fair Apple Store, a video showing an Apple employee showing of the 3G iPad to Woz and others hit the interwebs.

Up until now nobody saw the face of the employee but 9to5mac managed to secure a video shot from a different angle (thanks SolTran!). This angle clearly shows who the employee is (He’s the one saying “I work for Apple”), and you can clearly see he is holding an iPad 3G due to the black bar at the top. We’ve done some snooping around on Linkedin and determined the recently terminated engineer is AJ…nevermind.

Just like Woz, we truly feel horrible for AJ and wish him the best of luck in the future. It seems he has already landed a new job with Roxio doing Quality Assurance, which is fantastic.  A blown up shot of the iPad 3G below from that fateful night below…

We’ve reached out for comment but aren’t expecting too much.

A Mac developer who was worried about Rixstep’s warnings about OSX 10.7 having a Mac App Store and requiring applications being signed by Apple, wrote in to the big boss man himself for some clarification.

As per usual, Jobs was short and sweet debunking that rumor.

via MacStories.net

We really hate to hear this kind of thing.  Steve Wozniak, writing on Gizmodo (surprising given the timing in its own right!), reports that in the wake of the leaked iPhone mess, Apple has fired an engineer who showed Woz the 3G iPad the night of the release of the iPad.  Known only as ‘AJ’, the engineer wasn’t supposed to take the 3G iPad off of Cupertino’s campus until after midnight.

But I can tell you that the test engineer who showed me an iPad after midnight, for 2 minutes, during the iPad launch was indeed fired. I opted to spend 2 minutes with Numbers on this iPad, trying some stunts I’d seen on Apple’s website demo video. I was not told that it was a 3G model and I had no way to know that. I was told that this engineer had to wait until midnight to show it outside of Apple’s secure area. And I’m an Apple employee who he was showing it to. My guess is that he was allowed to take the iPad outside of the secure area but still not supposed to show it.

Woz didn’t realize that the Black bar on the top was an indicator that the iPad in question was a 3G model.  Woz also thought that, because he was an Apple employee, he wouldn’t get the engineer fired.  I mean, without Woz, none of us would be talking about Apple anything right now.

Woz describes the engineer as:

I never knew him before. He resembled myself and Steve Jobs when we were that age, and my younger son who programs for NASA. He’s a kind of person I would always enjoy talking with. A.J. said that he had an email allowing his team to use the iPad outside of secure areas on April 3 (after midnight, which A.J. waited for). I was surprised but he had an email. If I’d known it was a 3G model, which I didn’t, I probably would have saved his job by telling him he can’t show it. And he only showed it to me..

Ugh.

This might be a system error, or it could mean that iPhone 4 will have a landscape home screen option.  Thoughts?

Thanks Jamie R!

Update: Shocker…they’ve been pulled from Ebay. 

Well looky what we have here.  Someone has put up two semi-working iPod touches WITH cameras and a development version of the iPod OS on Ebay.  They are marked with ‘DVT-1’ and  ‘DVT-2’, ‘Apple Development Team’ and one is running some sort of ‘switchboard’ OS window.

Yes, we put our bid in but we have a feeling that Apple is going to be the ‘High bidder’ on this one.  Perhaps you’d like to pull a Gizmodo and contact the seller before Apple wakes up?

You’ll recall that prototype images of the iPod touch with video camera surfaced on the web before the September announcement where they were conspicuously camera-less.  Production problems were rumored and Steve Jobs later said it was impossible to get a camera in a device so thin.

Thanks Mime454!

Apple CEO Steve Jobs appears to have sent a new email which has been obtained by Dan Frommer.

The latest email shows his human side, with Silicon Alley Insider reader James dropping a line to Jobs having read the CEO

OK, Rixstep isn’t looking entirely credible at this point, is it?

Whispers emanating from Apple developers suggest the company will begin signing devs up to the Mac OS X 10.7 developer program by early autumn 2010. Updates at the end of the tale.
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Apple has quietly improved the MagSafe power adapter it ships with portable Macs, introducing the same kind of adapter design it has until now only made available with the MacBook Air and, more recently, with the unibody polycarbonte MacBooks.

Hidden in among its recent upgrades to its portable line-up, Apple quietly updated MagSafe tips for the 85 Watt adapters which come with the 15 and 17-inch MacBooks, and the 65 Watt versions for the 13-inch MacBook and MacBook Pro.

The new tip is aluminum and sits in parallel with the cable instead of at right-angles. More importantly, the aluminium extends to offer some protection to the point at which the cable joins the aluminium – that point has been prone to fraying in use. These things cost $79.

Product description:

The 85 Watt MagSafe Power Adapter features a magnetic DC connector that ensures your power cable will disconnect if it experiences undue strain and helps prevent fraying or weakening of the cables over time. In addition, the magnetic DC helps guide the plug into the system for a quick and secure connection.

When the connection is secure, an LED located at the head of the DC connector will light; an amber light lets you know that your portable is charging, while a green light tells you that you have a full charge. An AC cord is provided with the adapter for maximum cord length, while the AC wall adapter (also provided) gives users an even easier and more compact way to travel.

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YouTube is five today, and has taken a competing position with iTunes with the official introduction of the YouTube rental store in the US.

We know movie rentals began testing in January. Now the company has opened up for business proper, with movies like Reservoir Dogs and Bass Ackwards available for rent. The service claims over 500 movie-making partners in the venture.

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One area where Android phones have an advantage over Apple’s iPhone is in navigation.  Google includes their free Navigation program in Android but, for whatever reason, Apple doesn’t have built in navigation in Maps.  Recently, Mapquest has filled the free navigation app hole with their app but MacUser.UK has some better news for us:

Google confirmed at a London press conference that it plans to bring free satnav to other smartphone platforms, including the iPhone, although it wouldn