You know the drill – we’ll report back with any “abnormalities”.
iPhone SDK 3.2 beta 5 – Build: 10M2148 released
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Google's Nexus One phone announced on all four US carriers
Even though the Nexus One has had a slow start on Tmobile, you have to believe that the current flagship Android phone will have a little bit more success on AT&T...and Verizon… and now on Sprint. That’s right. You can now get a Google Nexus One on any of the four large US mobile networks. They now have to compete to offer better service and lower prices to consumers.
Apple?
Let’s just say we’re hoping for a summer surprise.
iPhone devs can now schedule releases/sales in iTunes Connect
Update: Apple has made it more official:
Amro Mousa last night found that developers can now schedule price changes and release dates directly from iTunesConnect. Until now, all releases and price changes had to be done manually. (Via @marcoarment)
Apple no longer endorses screen protectors for its products
Apple introduced an oleophobic screen with the iPhone 3GS that repels fingerprints and other minor oil stains. The iPad and next generation touch products will likely also carry this technology.
Apple updates iPhone Developer Application Loader ahead of iPad launch
Apple today updated its Application Loader application to version 1.3. Developers can download it here from iTunesConnect. Perhaps this will hasten the delivery of iPad apps?
Wired shows off iPad App at SXSW
Wired took some time to show off their iPad/ other tablet apps at SXSW this week. Here’s a video of that presentation. Non-Flash version.
They kind of lost us at “Adobe Air shown on a Dell”. Still…
iWork.com gets iPad/iPod/iPhone update, share button
The Loop is reporting that iWork.com last night received some social media updates. While the changes aren’t groundbreaking, you can now use a public URL to share docs with your friends on Twitter and Facebook. Apple also updated the iWork mobile website for better access on iPhones, iPod touches and presumably anyone with an updated mobile Webkit browser. Pasties below.
Share Your Documents on Websites and Social Networks
iWork.com makes it easy to share your document with large groups, websites, and social networks by creating a public link. Anyone with the public link can see your document in a clean, high resolution view without comments or document notes.
It’s easy to create a public link for a document you’ve shared on iWork.com. Just open your document and select Public in the Document Info pane. Click Show Public URL and copy the link so you can paste it in an email or post it on a website. iWork.com displays the number of views your publicly shared documents receive so you can easily track how often they are viewed.
If you decide to remove public access to your document, just turn off the public link in the Document Info pane.
Do More From Your iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch
Easily access your documents while on the go by using iWork.com’s redesigned Sign In and Shared Documents pages for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. The new interface is optimized for scrolling with your fingertips, and makes it easy to find your documents faster. You can see a high resolution view of your document right on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch and even download it to edit with Keynote, Pages, or Numbers on your iPad.
Visit www.iwork.com using Safari on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch to access and view your shared documents.
New Aussie ads show more expensive MacBook Pros/Airs and Mac Pros
Here’s Engadget’s thinking: Why would Apple advertise higher priced machines (pictured) if they weren’t about to upgrade their products soon with higher price points? It’s a stretch.
The MacBook Air is now A$400 more expensive, the MacBook Pros are A$300 more and A$900 more for the Pros. Ouchy.
Update: While these may be the older prices, they’ve also found pricing irregularities on Apple’s Australian and New Zealand Apple Store sites.
Adobe's Flash 10.1 on Palm Pre
So some dude walked over to the Palm table at GDC and picked up a Pre with Flash 10.1 on it. Naturally, he went to Hulu.
It didn’t work. I probably would have left right there, but he tried some other site with some games
iPad Keyboard dock moved back to 'late April'
Apple must have found that lost container ship full of iPad Keyboard docks because they’ve moved the ship date back to “Late April”. Last night, Apple said ‘May’.
Flash in the iPad
Two stories are getting some airtime today. One has NPR and the WSJ building special iPad versions of their websites without Flash (remember this was one of Steve Jobs requests last month when he visited the Journal?) The sites will be basically the same but the Flash bits will be replaced largely by HTML5 elements.
Some of you might be thinking: Why not just build websites without Flash? Why keep the Flash versions around at all?
The Motley Fool’s Eric Jhonsa responds that Flash isn’t going anywhere soon. Whether you hate Flash or you love it, there are some realities that will keep Flash developers around for years to come.
The biggest issue is Internet Explorer.
Internet Explorer still accounts for close to 60% of all Web browsing and it can’t properly render HTML5. Interestingly, Internet Explorer 9 was previewed today and it apparently is going to be able to do HTML5. But the IE crowd aren’t the “quick-to-update” types. In fact, 21% of Web users (Net Applications latest study) use 2001’s IE6. (2001 called and wants their browser
If given the option on NPR.com on your Mac, would you view the HTML5 iPad version or the Flash version?
This comes from the Top: 27-inch iMacs are now officially fixed
Earlier this morning Frode Ersfjord sent Steve Jobs this message:
“When is Apple going to start consistently producing iMac displays without; yellow tinge, grey bars and horrible backlight bleeds?
I’m sick of calling Apple Care. I don’t need perfect, just halfway decent.”
Today, he got this response from Apple CEO Steve Jobs:
This problem is behind us.
–Sent from my iPhone
This seems to indicate that the 27-inch iMac issue is officially over, and Apple has confidently ruled out further iMac issues.
Not that Apple didn’t already cryptically acknowledge that there were some issues and they’d been fixed.
In case you are wondering, El Jobso still rocks a 3.1.2 iPhone.
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This problem is behind us.
Sent from my iPhone
On Mar 16, 2010, at 7:23 AM, Frode Ersfjord <>
wrote:
When is Apple going to start consistently producing iMac displays
without; yellow tinge, grey bars and horrible backlight bleeds?
I’m sick of calling Apple Care. I don’t need perfect, just halfway
decent.
Frode
via Mac Forums
Fake Steve Jobs (Dan Lyons) to write 'iCON' TV comedy
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmfP6aXNSis&w=700&h=400]
(NSFW Fake Steve accepting Crunchies award in 2008)
If you aren’t familiar with Fake Steve by now, go familiarize yourself. Dan Lyons created the often hilarious and sometimes thoughtful persona while writing his comedic take on the options backdating issues following Steve Jobs a few years ago. Eventually, that writing made it to a book called Options.
The continued success of the blog, however, has drawn interest from the television community and Lyons has just signed a deal to bring his knowledge of the Valley tech and humor to a half-hour TV show. The show will be co-written by Larry Charles of Seinfeld, Entourage, and Curb Your Enthusiasm.
EPIX just signed on Emmy winning writer Larry Charles (
Survey finds 40% of Blackberry owners want to switch to iPhone
Sillicon Valley-based Crowd Science released results from its survey of 1,140 respondents today revealing some interesting findings. Almost 40% of Blackberry users surveyed said they would “prefer Apple’s iPhone for their next smartphone purchase,” aka when their contract is up, they are most likely heading to an Apple Store.
The big question left unanswered is: If these Blackberry users want iPhones so bad, why wouldn’t they just jump ship? We’re not pointing any fingers, but…AT&T is the one area which is considered a weakness in the iPhone ecosystem. Also, for better or worse, some people prefer physical keyboards and may not feel comfortable making the switch to virtual. And finally, there are still a lot of corporate networks out there that support Blackberry but don’t support iPhone. This could prevent a Blackberry user from making the switch.
We’ve got some other interesting tidbits from the survey results below:
- Brand loyalty for Android and iPhone are about the same at around 90%
- Only 9% of iPhone owners said they’d swap right now for a Nexus One, compared to 32% of RIM owners
- Following the launch of the Nexus One, 91% of iPhone users were aware of the phone, while 75% of Blackberry users were aware of it
- 32% of iPhone owners use their phone only for personal use, whereas 28% of Android users, and 16% of Blackberry users do the same
- Only 1% of iPhone owners use their phone only for business use, whereas 0% of Android users, and 7% of Blackberry users do the same
- 44% of respondents owned a ‘dumbphone’, 17% owned iPhones, 15% carried Blackberrys, and 3% used Android devices.
You can view the PDF of the survey results here.
Apple files for more projector patents
Remember that Digitimes report that said Apple was going to be putting together some kind of projector device in 2010? Well, if Apple were to do something like that, they’d probably want to patent it like crazy, right?
Patently Apple today looks at a another projector patent from Apple that states that a projector could not only be put into an iPhone or MacBook, but also in an Airport Express type of device. This product would act as a router and wireless hub and can get get projector video feeds from the devices over a network.
Previous Apple projector patents included the following verbiage:
“display 204 may include a movable display or a projecting system for providing a display of content on a surface remote from communications device 200 (e.g., a video projector).”
There is something to be said for marketing…
PayPal iPhone app adds 'Bump to Send Money' feature
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suCe4-SWsHo&w=700&h=400]
PayPal updated their iPhone app earlier today with a bunch of new features, but by far the biggest addition was a ‘Bump to Send Money’ feature. You may recognize ‘Bump’, as it was the billionth app downloaded from the App Store back in April of 2009.
But the combination of the two apps might just be a game-changer.
The new feature allows users to simply enter their payment information and bump to pay. Pretty cool right? Below you’ll find two screen shots of the new feature as well as some UBER corny videos the PayPal team threw together.
You can download the updated app here (U.S. store).
Delays hit iPad accessories, more shortages to come?
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Over the past few days, Apple has altered some of the shipping times on their branded iPad accessories. First we noticed the iPad case making a slight shift from April 3rd to Mid-April. Today we notice Apple has delayed the iPad Keyboard Dock. The product was originally set to ship to customers in late-April but now the Apple store has placed the shipping time for sometime in May.
That doesn’t bode well for those outside the US that wanted to get their hands on this with their iPad order nor anyone in the US who hasn’t pre-ordered the product yet. We can speculate about why it is delayed, but it is most likely just brisk sales rather than a product issue they are trying to fix.
Perhaps even worse then those accessory delays is the iPad Camera Kit’s current situation. The kit which allows you to connect an SD card or digital cameras to your iPad is not even on Apple’s online store. The iPad’s lack of a standard USB port or an SD card slot built-in is a potential negative for prospective buyers, and this kit was supposed to resolve the issue.
With Apple’s intense secrecy and rigid quality controls, delivering items on time and on spec has been an issue lately. This is clear through the faulty iMac saga, the iPad’s slight delay, and now these in-house accessories.
Dell Mini 5's (Streak) to be headache for the next iPod touch?
Dell’s new Android-based Mini 5 (Streak) details were leaked to Engadget last week and seem to have some of the features desired on future iPod touch devices. Specifically: cameras, a better screen both in size and resolution and 3G data. These look like they could be very popular devices if priced low — which Dell is known for. Apple usually updates its iPod lines in August September.
Imagine if they sell the device with a similar data plan as the iPad except with Google Voice with Gizmo5 VoIP. And maybe even tethering for a nominal cost? That’d be tempting to a few people (present company included).
Will these things give Apple’s iPod touch platform a run for its money? In either case, it may motivate Apple to update the functionality of its mobile devices.
Their content deal with Amazon (below) also appears to be a pretty tempting proposition.
OK, it is low brow, but this Steve Jobs vs. Eric Schmidt stuff is getting a little bit entertaining.
http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1441569481/code/cnbcplayershare
iPad orders graphs reveal heavy initial demand, 160,000 orders over the weekend
After an initial rush, iPad orders are tapering off to a still strong clip if numbers calculated by Investor Village’s AAPL Sanity board are to be believed. Member Deagol has graphed the buying patterns over the weekend.
The numbers were calculated using Apple’s normal online sales numbers and extrapolating the extra sales as iPad sales (below).
What are people buying? According to Fortune, almost 70% of people polled are buying Wifi-only but the 16,32, and 64 Flash size is pretty evenly distributed. These are the numbers breakouts:
Apple comings and goings: RJ Pittman, Dan Dobberpuhl, Richard DeVaul… and Kobayashi?
Apple lost former PA Semi CEO Dan Dobberpuhl in the middle of last year, according to CNET. Dobberpuhl is a significant loss because he’s seen as one of the smarter people in the processor industry. That being said, Apple did get its silicon, the A4, out the door, so it isn’t certain what effect, if any, his departure will have.
Dobberpuhl isn’t alone. Other key PA Semi team members have left Apple, including one of PA Semi’s leading members, Mark Hayter…[Dobberpuhl] was the CEO at PA Semi and leader of the team, and one of the guys that was driving the whole thing…those guys are start-up kind of people, and within the structure of Apple, they may [have been] chafing.”
Chafing. Ouch.
On the hiring side, Apple picked up former Google product Manager RJ Pittman according to TechCrunch. It isn’t clear what Pittman will be doing at Apple (nor may it ever be) but TechCrunch speculates that it may have something to do with Apple’s streaming music aquisition, Lala. So much for that “Gentleman’s agreement” not to hire people from each other.
Speaking of picking up competitors’ people, Apple hired Kiyoshi Kobayashi (no relation to the Kobayashi below), a six-year Nokia vet as Senior Manager, Product Marketing. Kobayashi will be doing the same kind of work at Apple, but will also be watched closely in the Apple cafeteria.
Oh, and there is this Richard DeVaul (pictured) character doing secret wearable technology stuff for Jonny Ive.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgqbCq_sxmo&w=640&h=505]
Apple-Google rivalry detailed
The New York Times has a four page report on the deterioration of the Google-Apple relationship and specifically the relationship of their leadership. It was recently reported that Steve Jobs hates Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. The article is a great read with a lot of details on the recent spats between the companies.
Many of those meetings turned confrontational, according to people familiar with the discussions, with Mr. Jobs often accusing Google of stealing iPhone features. Google executives said that Android