9to5 Staff

We generally try to avoid Apple’s patent applications.  They have little to do with what end up as final products and they are about as exciting as Apple’s lawsuits.  That isn’t to say there aren’t some interesting ones.

This one certainly falls into this category.  Apple’s recent application for biometric security on iPhones had the following image (Via Engadget):

Yep, that’s a jailbroken iPhone with the Installer.app and the SMBPrefs jailbroken app drawn by the patent artist.  Hilarious! Apple’s lawyers Kramer, Levin Naftalis & Frankel have broken the law – in accordance with Apple’s interpretation of the DMCA as it relates to Jailbreaking – and could be sued by themselves on behalf of Apple.

http://foxnews1.a.mms.mavenapps.net/mms/rt/1/site/foxnews1-foxnews-pub01-live/current/videolandingpage/fncLargePlayer/client/embedded/embedded.swf

via MDN

So this isn’t going to come as a big surprise, but "Lauren" (if that is her real name) didn’t really go into the Apple store…or Crispin Porter had a bunch of extras walking around during the filming. 

How do we know?  Notice at 0:13 when she walks into the store, there is a balding guy with jacket and striped shirt and camera walking by.  He is still walking by when she leaves the store filmed on the other camera.  That gave her less than a second in the store.  She said she walked in and looked around but how could this be?. 

We also know she is an actress so the rest isn’t a stretch.  What LA actress wants a hulking, cheap  17 inch HP Notebook over a small white MacBook?!

Not that you believed it before, right? 

Thanks to Fanboy for the find.

See stills below.

1. AT&T is selling refurbs for $99 (again) with activation and plan

2. O2 is giving away free iPhones with their low cost plans (not their expensive plans)

3. AT&T and Apple are now selling iPhones without contract (or second line) knowing that more will go Jailbroken this way.  (If you have $600-$700 to spend)

4. France is now selling them unlocked at department stores.

5. China Unicom might get offloaded a few million on May 17th, ahead of new model.

6. AT&T executives have the new models for testing and are so excited they can’t keep their mouths shut.

7. UK retailers are selling unlocked 3G iPhones.

8. WWDC, the traditional launching pad for new iPhones was announced yesterday.  It will be June 8-12th.

9. Remember all of those extra iPhone part numbers found in the 3.0 build?  Yeah, those can’t all be Tablets.

10. Steve Jobs is coming back at the end of June.  You don’t think he will be empty handed do you?

From the Toys section:

We have the TomTom One XLS Widescreen GPS with Text to speech for $129.99  (Discount is taken at checkout.).  That is 62% off of list.

All it takes now is a easy and painless approval process by Apple’s App Store people and we’ll all be enjoying our home cable wherever we are*.

*easy and painless is sarcasm, wherever we go means wherever there is Wifi as AT&T won’t allow video traffic over 3G.

We went to BestBuy (.com) and shopped around for a $699 HP 17-inch laptop, just like the one in that Microsoft Ad.  Here’s what we found:

Let’s break down what you get below:

AMD Turion™ X2 RM-72,  This isn’t going to be folding protein ladies and gentleman.

4GB DDR2 memory  Netbook speed RAM!  Now in a Notebook!

17" WXGA+ high-definition widescreen display With BrightView technology and 1440 x 900 resolution (Like the 2003 Powerbook!) Sony’s Vaio P pocket computer has higher resolution.

ATI RADEON HD 3200 graphics RS780M
Features up to 1918MB shared graphics memory.  Shared Graphics! 

G Wireless and 100Mb Ethernet.  That is so 2005!

Weighs 7.8 lbs. and measures just 1.7" thin That is almost double the thickness of Apples offering and a pound heavier.

Good battery life Of up to 2 hours and 30 minutes.  That isn’t good.

Microsoft Windows Vista Home Premium (Cringe)

Software package included
With HP MediaSmart, Microsoft Works, muvee Reveal, Cyberlink DVD Suite and more. 60-day trial of Microsoft Office 2007 Student and Teacher Edition and 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2009 also included.  Also 300 crapware applications installed for free!

The point?  The comparison isn’t a good one.

Nothing terribly significant except bugfixes.

Thoughts anyone? Can you really get a good 17-inch laptop for $699 with 4Gb of RAM and 250GB HD?  She really didn’t specify that it had to be good though.  Just 17-inches big.  Here’s what she got.

http://images.video.msn.com/flash/soapbox1_1.swf

I think I would have taken the MacBook for $999

<a href="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&showPlaylist=true&from=msnvideo" _fcksavedurl="http://video.msn.com/?mkt=en-US&playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:0bb6a07c-c829-4562-8375-49e6693810c7&showPlaylist=true&from=msnvideo" target="_new" title="Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion">Video: Laptop Hunters $1000 – Lauren Gets an HP Pavilion</a>

Will we see Jobs? 

more information

According to MobileToday, Apple is in the final stages of negotiations to sell their MacBooks subsidized through Orange (presumably in the UK) with a mobile broadband card.  More interestingly, they expect Apple to release a notebook (or netbook) with built in Mobile Broadbnd at some point this summer.

Currently, O2 is the exclusive carrier of Apple iPhone products in the UK, however Orange in France did have a subsidized MacBook fixed line deal previously.  The Boy Genius hinted that AT&T might offer an Apple Netbook subsidized by AT&T at some point this summer as well.

From MobileToday:

Orange will sell Apple laptops on its network from this summer, and will be the first company to subsidise Apple’s laptops with mobile broadband.

A deal is understood to be close to completion, with the details being finalised ahead of availability of the MacBook on Orange.

The operator has tested the laptops with its mobile broadband dongles and is understood to have made a volume commitment with Apple.

It is believed that senior Orange officials are hoping the laptop deal will be a stepping stone to the operator securing a distribution deal for future Apple laptops, which include built-in mobile broadband from an embedded Sim card.

AI found Apple unceremoniously selling 8GB kits for its newer model 15-inch Unibody MacBook Pros (not the older 2.5GHz model).  It is the same kit as they sell for the 17-inch unibody Macbooks and it is the same price.  $1200.  If you have to ask…

Not to worry though, hardcore RAM fiends, OWC has the same kit for a paltry $719. Amazon has it for just over $1000.

This RAM upgrade is also compatible with the "Early 2009" iMacs.

Apple looks to have fixed the overheating NVIDIA GPU issue in 17- inch unibody MacBook Pros today with a firmware update.

There is still no fix for the screen issues plaguing 30-inch external monitors using the Mini DisplayPort on all Unibody MacBooks after the problem emerged last year.

From the Toys section:

Amazon has Crucial 2GB 667 Mhz CT25664AC667 DDR2 200-Pin SODIMM Laptop Memory on sale for $19 with fee shipping.  This is the lowest price we’ve ever seen on this memory, let alone from a name brand like Crucial and a retailer like Amazon.  This memory can be used in Intel Mac Minis, iMac and most pre-Unibody MacBooks and MacBook Pros.  Check here for a compatibility list.  Double check that your system is compatible before buying.

It also works in many models of the popular ASUS EEE PCs.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepartim-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B000F7QRTG&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

The China Unicom story continues to unfold.  According to iPhonAsia (Via Apple2.0), China Unicom is promoting the following services along with the new iPhone:

• Wave-to-pay (Visa offers similar service in the United States, called Paywave, whereby cardholders can make purchases  by waving their Visa card in front of special point-of-sale cardreaders. In Japan, half of cell phone owners — about 50 million users — carry phones that have so-called near field communications capability built-in. )
• Mobile TV (CCTV has been heavily promoting this in China)
• Tethering (connecting a laptop to a cell phone’s wireless network)
• Video conferencing (start up the front facing camera rumors again?)

Check the screenshot below for details.

According to China Unicom’s website (translated by Google/iPhoneAsia)..

“Near-Field-Communication (NFC) swipe card handset a.k.a. “wave-to-pay,” offers convenience for those who use public transportation. It’s possible to use a handset swipe card to buy a ticket. This wave-to-pay has replaced the former public transportation IC card. Using the swipe card handset for shopping eliminates the needs to carrying cash. Using wave-to-pay also makes it easy to pay in the ferry terminal. Through the swipe card, the handset (phone) can purchase your passage and avoid the worry of lining up to purchase tickets. Not only does this technology eliminate the need to carry a public transportation IC card, you don’t even need a bankcard. All you need is the wave-to-pay handset (phone), to buy a ticket and do your shopping. One machine in the hand, opens access, and gives you control. Wave-to-pay makes life more convenient.”

Thanks Andre!

Yesterday was no fluke. China Unicom, with its 150 million subscribers (much more than AT&T), has confirmed that it will be selling the Apple iPhone beginning on May 17th, 2009 to China’s 1.3+ billion potential customers. 

With a likely iPhone 3.0 coming out this summer and 3G roll outs just being tested in 55 Chinese cities, it isn’t clear how many of these devices will get swooped up right away and how many customers will wait (for the models their compatriots are building!).

China Unicom confirmed Wednesday that it would start to sell Apple’s iPhone in China on May 17.

China Unicom will see both chances and challenges if introducing iPhone to China, according to Gui Kai, an analyst from Guosen Securities.

By introducing iPhone, it will attract more clients, expand its market share and improve its business performance in a short term.

However, it might also have to give away large revenue share.

Wan Jinjin, an analyst from UBS Securities, said earlier in a report that China Unicom might have to shoulder a heavy burden, since iPhone is likely to be highly subsidized. Besides, it could limit the business expansion by setting a threshold of average revenue per user (ARPU) for its iPhone users.

According to Yi Difei, a China Unicom official in charge of news release, the company will start trial operation of commercial 3G business in 55 cities across the country on the same day. The concrete time for official operation depends on results of the trial operation.

Users need not to worry about shortage of terminals, since there are plenty of WCDMA phones on the market at present.

An insider from China Unicom said that all the WCDMA phones sold in China have been tested before and are qualified to be used for 3G services.

Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise.  You want this camera.  The Canon EOS Rebel T1i which was rumored for awhile, leaked by CNet yesterday and revealed this morning by Canon contains $1500 50D‘s sensor and 5D-Mark-II-like 1080p video capture (only 20 frames per second with mono sound – boo!) yet only retails for $899.  It also comes in the smaller Rebel casing so you can fit it in your purse European carry-all. 

Official press release
Reviews: Gizmodo, Engadget, CNet, DPReview

You can keep hitting refresh on Amazon’s page until they get stock.

http://www.cnet.com/av/video/flv/universalPlayer/universalSmall.swf

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thepartim-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=B001XURPQI&md=10FE9736YVPPT7A0FBG2&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr

As the video-on-demand industry continues to mature, more and more "mashups" are being drawn out.  Today’s is a big one.  In an upcoming update, Tivo will now incorporate Blockbuster’s online video store into its players.  With a fairly substantial base of hardware installations, this is a big win for Blockbuster who has been behind the curve with competitors like Netflix, Amazon and Apple innovating at a much faster clip. 

Speaking of Apple, Blockbuster laid this one out there:

"You will see us in a large number of other devices going forward," said Kevin Lewis, senior vice president of digital entertainment at Blockbuster, who added that the company also plans to makes its system available to Apple Inc’s products. "We need to be in the normal places that consumers want to watch movies," he said.

Although a AppleTV with Blockbuster would be great for consumers, this would seem to be a direct competitor to Apple’s movie/video sales business and wouldn’t really seem to be a good idea for Apple on the surface.   It is thought that Apple subsidizes the cost of the AppleTV somewhat with video sales.

Blockbuster might just be implying that there is a web interface to the Blockbuster service just like Amazon and Netflix have.

Dan Moren at Macworld reports on an interesting development in the Jailbreaking wars. Installer.app now has a desktop application that lets you install those nasty jailbroken apps directly from the desktop…without ‘jailbreaking’ your precious iPhone.  The application looks like iTunes and works almost as easily.  If we weren’t rocking the 3.0 firmware, we’d be testing this right now.  Anyone out there want to be the guinea pigs?

Update: a few brave souls in the comments have tried.  If you are using a Unibody MacBook, you’ll need a USB hub.  Overall, it looks like it isn’t really  working that well yet.  Reccomendation: wait and see.