9to5 Staff

Amusing cartoon from Joy of Tech:

For those who want to automatically update their whereabouts using the iPhone’s GPS, there is now a utility that can run on an external server to log your movements.    Tyler Hall, a Yahoo programmer by day, has developed some code called Sosumi that pulls the Locate My iPhone information on a regular basis (5 minutes in this case) and can update a service like Yahoo’s Fire Eagle.  The code also allows you to send warnings and messages to the iPhone using the MobileMe commands.

While this is definitely cool and would be even cooler with an Apple sanctioned API, there are the obvious security issues.  In fact, this application’s existence means that one must only have your MobileMe username and password and some intermediate coding skills to track your iPhone’s (and your) position.  Though frankly, if you have that information, you can simply log into MobileMe and do repeated "Find My iPhones" until you find your beautiful stalkee.

What better way to do some recon missions on the suburban neighborhood than with your new iPhone 3GS attached to an RC Plane?

This is just the first baby steps. The next step will be flying the RC with it (using Qik as remote camera?). After that, use the iPhone as the brains and make your own drone army.  Yeah, we said it.

via Networkworld

Today, Fring (App Store Link) issued an update to its application that allows push notifications to be sent for incoming calls (as well as other IMs).  This means that you can now get alerted to Skype or SIP calls even when the application isn’t open, you are on a call or the iPhone/iPod touch is asleep.  Therefore, your iPod touch or Phone can act more like a true VoIP phone.  Fring itself is a solid IM/Voice client, though a little rough around the edges.

 Another nail in the telco’s coffin?  We can only hope.

SAI’s chart of the day is from Nielsen’s Q2 2009 Mobile Insights Survey.  They surveyed new iPhone owners to find out what they were upgrading from.  Looks like a lot of former RAZR owners are rocken new iPhones. 

Although they aren’t labelled, Nokia, LG, older iPhones and Blackberries were at around 9%.

Mr. Jobs has a pretty loyal following amongst Apple employees.  Why else would they work those long hours for mediocre pay?  Jordan Golson tapped Glassdoor, the salary and employer review site, to see just how much love Apple employees had for fearless leader.  They rate Apple and Jobs vs other technology industry companies and their leaders.

It turns out that Jobs gets 91% approval vs. 3% disapproval while AT&T’s (who currently are having union issues incidentally) Randall Stephenson gets 30% approval against 35% disapproval.  While Jobs leads CEOs in approval, Apple trails behind companies like Google and Adobe overall.

There just might be a correlation between customer satisfaction and employee approval.

What if Apple had baked some Facebook goodness into Snow Leopard? Would you have luv’d it more? 

The two companies spent a lot of time collaborating early on in Facebook’s development.   FastCompany talked with Facebook’s senior platform manager and former Apple employee Dave Morin on how Apple was resistant to using Facebook’s platform in their OS.  According to him, Apple didn’t think computers could do social.  Dave then made the jump to Facebook where he is trying to prove the opposite.

http://service.twistage.com/plugins/player.swf?v=a08db74f17004&p=fctv_social

 We’d add that Apple has added a lot of Facebook integration to iPhoto and we’ve heard things about upcoming Addressbook/iCal (birthdays) ties to Facebook as well.

Apple this morning posted a media alert, announcing they will release numbers for third fiscal quarter and second calendar quarter of 2009 via webcast.  These conference calls are often filled with little tidbits of information and many "we’ve got the most exciting products in our pipeline ever"-type statements that we all salivate over.

WHAT: Apple® FY 09 Third Quarter Results Conference Call

WHERE: Via conference call. The dial-in number for press is: (888) 490-2763 (toll-free) or (719) 457-2637

WHEN: Tuesday, July 21, 2009, 2:00 p.m. PDT/5:00 p.m. EDT

REBROADCAST: The conference call will be available as a continuous rebroadcast beginning Tuesday, July 21 at 5:00 p.m. PDT/8:00 p.m. EDT through Tuesday, August 4 at 5:00 p.m. PDT/8:00 p.m. EDT. The dial-in number for the rebroadcast is (888) 203-1112 (toll-free) or (719) 457-0820. Please enter confirmation code 2531481.

WEBCAST: Apple will provide live audio streaming of its FY 09 Third Quarter Results Conference Call using Apple’s industry-leading QuickTime® multimedia software. The live webcast will begin at 2:00 p.m. PDT on July 21, 2009 at http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/earningsq309/ and will also be available for replay for approximately two weeks thereafter. Viewers simply need a copy of QuickTime 6 or QuickTime 7 to listen to the conference call. QuickTime 7 is available from www.apple.com/quicktime.

It is also the first earnings call since Steve Jobs returned to duty so maybe we’ll be treated to a rare visit by the CEO.

Perth, on the Southwestern coast of Australia, is often called the remotest city in the world.  There isn’t much between Perth and most of Australia’s population on the East Coast and it is quite a swim to the next-nearest big cities in South Africa. 

Perth is a thriving, modern city of 1.6 million, however, and therefore needs one of those shiny Apple Stores.  Now, it appears, it will get one.  Apple is hiring Apple Store employees for work in "Perth-Australia in the 6000 postal code".  Central Perth.

Up until now, PRA Imaging and Team Digital have been servicing the Apple population.

Quoth the Bri’ish Roadie:

I’ll be honest with you folks, the only thing that mattered to me tonight was the presence of one Steve Jobs. I’m a confirmed Apple devotee and I really cannot imagine doing the job I do now (or even having got into this line of work) without my Macbook Pro (and all the Powerbooks that went before it). Creating these tools and putting them into the hands of folks like me was the vision of this man.

I spot Steve chatting with Dave Holmes outside the dressing room and suddenly feel like a star-struck teenager. In order to get the gall up to speak to the guy, I down a double espresso. The mixture of caffeine buzz and feeling like a cheesy little fanboy means that all I can manage to say to him is "Thank you so much". I realise that I’m quite simply making a tit of myself and so excuse myself as fast as I appeared.

With that, I suddenly have sympathy for every nervous and excitable kid that shakes hands with the band at a meet and greet.

As Macrumors notes, this is the first siting of Jobs outside the Cupertino office and assuming the roadie wasn’t having an LSD-induced hallucination, it would appear that Jobs is in "recognizable condition"…which is good news for us all.

Way to ease the liver back into the scene with something lite.

From the “Imitation is flattery” department yet more news from Microsoft HQ out there in Redmond…looks like the company – flushed with success (?) at it’s anti-Apple ads campaign now plans to open up its own chain of computer retail stores.

We know how Microsoft rolls, don’t we? Apple makes a desktop UI, Microsoft makes WIndows; Apple ships an iPod, Microsoft does a Zune; Apple opens a shop, and ‘me too’ Microsoft wants one of its own.

So, these new shops are going to be placed near Apple shops, according to Microsoft’s chief operating officer, Kevin Turner. Just goes to prove that innovation’s at the heart of the company… Turner shared the news at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference event this week. ‘Course, Microsoft’s only going to do this to boost its brand and enhance its marketing, it’ll still be selling crappy Windows, after all.

The company’s even hired in former Wal-Mart man, David Porter, who is now corporate vice president of retail stores. A Microsoft spokesperson told ZDNet, "As we progress on our retail strategy there will be scenarios where we have stores in proximity to Apple. We are on track to open stores in the fall timeframe".

Speaking of innovation, Microsoft also admitted Apple wanted its recent series of Apple-besmirching ‘Laptop Hunter’ ads pulled. On these ads, Turner said: “You know why I know they’re working? Because two weeks ago we got a call from the Apple legal department saying, hey – this is a true story – saying, "Hey, you need to stop running those ads, we lowered our prices.”

Apple, of course, lopped $100 off its computer prices, but that’s not enough for Microsoft, which – as the DOJ oversight over the company’s monopolistic business practices times out – now plans to keep running Apple down. “We’re just going to keep running them and running them and running them,” Turner admits.

So there it is – a huge company with the majority share of the world’s operating systems plans to directly and aggressively attack its smaller – but more innovative – competitor. 

As opposed to applying innovation or bringing any value to consumers.

In a move that can only be described as "for the love of everything decent and holy, why not in the US?!?!"…Apple is opening up the iPhone to be used on Orange and Tmobile in the UK according to MobileToday.co.uk.  The liberation is set for September  BUT will not include the iPhone 3GS (ok, that is a big BUT). 

Orange and Tmobile obviously carry the iPhone in other countries.  O2 is apparently furious with the news but what do you expect when you announce that you’ll be carrying the Palm Pre in countries throughout Europe?

Apple is poised to open the iPhone 3G to Orange and T-Mobile in a bid to boost sales.  The move is set for as early as September and will end Apple’s two year exclusive deal with O2.  Crucially, the manufacturer will continue to give O2 exclusivity for the new, faster 3GS version, but will grant distribution of the older 3G handset to another network.  Orange and T-Mobile are known to have already begun pitching for the handset. T-Mobile’s call centres have also started telling customers it may stock the iPhone.  Both networks sell the iPhone in several other countries.  The addition of a new network selling the iPhone will break O2’s UK exclusivity on the coveted handset, and will offer a challenge to O2’s prices and tariffs.  Sources said O2 has been furious with the news and is concerned potential rivals will undercut its prices on the older model.

We wonder if Tmobile in the US would like to carry the iPhone 3G or if US consumers would appreciate a choice?

If you are feeling lucky, head over to Software Update and update your iTunes to 8.2.1.  Unless, of course, you have a Palm Pre and want to sync with iTunes ever again.  Reports indicate that this update breaks Pre syncing, at least for now.  With all of the Apple break-updates lately, we are less excited about slamming the "update now" button everytime it comes up (like we usually do).

Every time we think AT&T are the biggest douchebags on the planet, we get a reminder that someone, somewhere is worse off.  Trading Markets is reporting that iPhones designed to stay in the country are now rolling off the assembly line in Shenzen, China.  They’ve been neutered of their ability to use Wifi.

Two production lines in the Foxconn Shenzhen plant are producing 90-coded mobile phones, device that looks like iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS, said one source. The mysterious products might be the very model designed for Chinese users, according to another source, noting that the massively-produced device has no Wi-Fi functions, just like the A1324 model, the Chinese version of 3G iPhone being sent to the China Telecommunication Technology Labs (CTTL) for a test.

This sort of correlates to an earlier Commercial Times report saying that special iPhones for China were being manufactured.

iPhones sold in Egypt and a few other Middle Eastern nations have their GPS disabled by software only.  Locals are able to circumvent the GPS unlock by jailbreaking.  By physically removing the Wifi, China is insuring that iPhones won’t be able to use Wifi via a hack, nor will their users be able to fully enjoy all the powers of the iPhone.

According to Digitimes, Apple is continuing to shift its MacBook manufacturing away from Foxconn (Hon Hai) and to Quanta Computer.  It isn’t certain what is causing Apple to move but things like manufacturing costs, quality and workplace conditions could all be factors.

Apple and Sony will reportedly shift some notebook OEM orders from Foxconn Electronics (Hon Hai Precision Industry) to Quanta Computer in 2010, according to sources at component makers.  Apple already shifted some orders from Foxconn in June meaning the OEM’s share of Apple’s notebook shipments in 2010 is expected to drop from 20% to only around 10%, the sources noted.  However, despite losing orders from Apple and Sony, Foxconn has reportedly formed partnerships with Dell and Asustek Computer, as well as landing orders from Hewlett-Packard (HP) for 2010, the sources added.

We don’t remember exactly when this happened (was it in the prior version of SL?) but it looks like System Profiler/Power has every little bit of information you ever wanted to know about your battery including how many charges you’ve put on it.

Another big one at 748MB. Some updates like new version of Safari below…

You’ll get the newest version of Safari: 4.0.3 (6531.4)

Quicktime has a new interface:

We’ll let you know of any new changes as soon as we get around to installing. Anyone notice anything exciting?

** It looks like this update disables tethering.

Some details of Apple’s new North Carolina data center were revealed today by the Charlotte Observer.  According to the paper, the purpose of the site is primarily to support iTunes and App Stores.  That means that Apple is looking at taking over some of the services provided by firms like Akamai to stream media and apps to Apple devices.  Interestingly, Apple at one time owned a significant portion of Akamai.

Apple is expected to support its iTunes and iPhone stores from the Maiden site, which will be its only operation on the East Coast.

The paper also mentioned some other interesting facts:

The data center will use about 20 megawatts annually – enough to power 16,000 homes.

At $1 billion, it is the largest private investment in North Carolina, Secretary of Commerce Keith Crisco said at the Monday night announcement.

North Carolina provided incentives of $46 million. Apple will bring an estimated $10 million in extra tax revenue over the 10 years for Maiden and Catawba County. That does not include revenue on water sales to Hickory or about $200,000 a year to Maiden as a tax on power sales.

…the site that won over Apple. That parcel was a winner because it has access to large amounts of power and water and both primary and backup supplies of each.

Apple issued a brief press release today indicating that, on its one year anniversary, the App Store has reached the following milestones: 1.5 billion apps distributed, 65,000 app catalog, and 100,000 developers.

“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”

Also of note, Apple has crossed the 40 million mark in total iPhone/iPod touch sales.